Twenty Seven
Monday 11th November
“I take it this daft idea to attack Nassau has been abandoned?” Jesamiah asked as he ate breakfast. Technically it was luncheon as it was well past noon, but no one had been awake before midday to cook or eat. Except for Jesamiah himself. He had been up and about since before dawn.
Teach only grunted an answer as he chewed, not about to admit that his lungs felt as if they had been set on fire.
“And Hampton Roads? Are we still to blockade there?”
Again a grunt. When he did finally speak, Teach’s voice sounded as though it had been rubbed with gravel. “What have thee done with Hands? Buried him?”
Jesamiah finished his coffee, wiped crabmeat from his moustache. He was becoming a little bored with crab, fish, and pelican. A fine piece of beefsteak would go down well. Or roasted lamb with potatoes. Or pork with crisp crackling. Finch was a curmudgeonly old basket, but he could cook, and Jesamiah was missing his steward. And his crew. And his ship. And his wife.
He nodded towards a stand of trees. “Yesterday evening I ordered Gibbens and Caesar to hold him down while I sawed his leg off. It was not a job I enjoyed, especially as your surgical equipment is blunt and rusty. I stayed with him all night. By some miracle he is still alive. I suggest you send him to Bath Town. He can receive proper medical attention there. Or a decent Christian burial.”
Another non-committal grunt.
“If he survives, Hands will turn evidence against you, you know that, don’t you, Teach?”
Blackbeard sniffed, tossed his picked-clean meat bones to the fire. He would have to send the men to look for more wood soon. “Nay, ‘e won’t. Even if ’n he do, they as ‘ave t’catch me first.”
Leaning forward, Jesamiah rested his elbows on his knees and linked his fingers, rubbed his thumb over where the T of Tiola’s name was starting to show through the tar – how he missed her. Had enough of being without her. “So what are we going to do? Sit here and wait for our beards to turn grey?” When he received no response, continued; “The
Adventure
is past her prime. What if I could get us two decent sloops? We could cruise across to the African coast. Commandeer a new flagship for you. Something even better than your
Queen Anne’s Revenge
? There’s plenty of slavers just right for the picking over there.”
Teach croaked contempt. “As I recall, thee were none too ‘appy when I suggested getting us as such afore.”
Jesamiah scratched at his beard growth. “Well, I’ve been thinking on it since then. As it happens I know where a sloop is moored. Rightfully, she’s mine. All I have to do, in theory, is walk in and claim her. Complete with crew. For the second, well, I think I can find something suitable at Hampton Roads.”
Teach snorted through his nose, not wanting to admit that Jesamiah had the upper hand. He was annoyed with Vane; the unreliable sot had let him down. Together they would have been invincible. He had no intention of forming a lasting partnership with Acorne, he was too squeamish and anyway, Teach did not like him. Not that he liked Vane, but at least Vane did not pull disapproving faces when someone got shot. Nor did he trust Acorne. Not an inch.
Jesamiah linked his hands behind his head, stretched, feeling the pleasure of easing stiff muscles. His shoulder barely hurt now. He certainly seemed to heal fast these days – did Tiola have something to do with it? Probably. He was tired, it had been a long night nursing Hands. He doubted the man would be alive by the time a pilot took him up to Bath Town. He hated amputating limbs. One of the worst tasks a captain had to do if there was no surgeon aboard. There again, maybe Hands had no wish to live, with only one leg what was there for him? Another reason why Jesamiah had not slept, he had spent a good part of the night wondering what he would do if he lost a limb. Maudlin thoughts that befitted this bleak place that was the Ocracoke. He had to get away from here! “I had a vague idea about retrieving my sloop when I discovered
Sea Witch
had gone. I intend to go after her, and I have a suspicion they may’ve taken her across to Africa. No one steals my ship and gets away with it. But I can’t get her back on me own, savvy?”
Teach rubbed at his chin, thoughtfully.
“I intend t’shoot thee when I be ready to, Acorne.”
Leaning back on one elbow, Jesamiah stretched his legs out on the warm sand, batted a fly away from his eyes. He tipped his hat over his face, lay down, his hands clasped over his chest. He needed to sleep. “Not if I shoot you first, but I’ll not be doing that ‘til you’ve helped me get my ship back.”
“If I send thee off t’get these sloops, how canst I trust thee t’come back?”
From beneath his hat, Jesamiah said, “Oh I will be back. Cross m’heart an’ spit in yer eye, I promise you, I will be back.” He sounded convincing, but then, Jesamiah’s easy-come lies always did.
Twenty Eight
From the seclusion of the trees Charles watched Jesamiah climb into the gig, the men of Blackbeard’s crew chosen to take him and the unconscious Israel Hands to shore near Pilot Point were sullen and resentful. Their mood would change if Jesamiah treated them to a drink in the tavern there. Whether they would return to Teach was another matter.
Charles was pleased Jesamiah had gone, for this was the place where land became sea and sea became land. The Ocracoke. It was here that he should have found the peace he craved by fulfilling his appointed duty.
Twice he had drawn his pistol, had aimed. Twice he had not found the courage and had uncocked the hammer. Yet again he had failed.
Is this my hell
? he wondered.
Forever condemned to fail in my duty? To not have the guts to pull a trigger
?
Twenty Nine
Wednesday 13th November – Virginia
“No. I am sorry, Alicia. The last tobacco crop was not sold, consequently there is not much money, and no one will take that tobacco as barter. It is not acceptable quality. I do not even know if I will be able to purchase what we need for next year’s crop.” Samuel Trent appeared stressed and harassed. He had known la Sorenta was in a run-down state, but had not realised until he had studied the ledger books quite how bad it was. Phillipe Mereno had barely done a thing since old Halyard Calpin had died. The manager he had put in Calpin’s place had been next to useless. It was not surprising all the money had gone; Mereno had been living on the accrued capital from the sale of his wife’s Bahamas sugar plantation and had set nothing aside for the running of his own. La Sorenta was close to bankruptcy and here was Alicia demanding three hundred pounds to spend on a new wardrobe for the approaching Christmas season of balls and celebrations!
“No,” he repeated, “I cannot give you what is not there to give.” Alicia stood inside the office utterly stunned. It had been Charles Mereno’s office, then Phillipe’s, although he had rarely used it; and now Trent had marched in as bold as you please to claim it. For a full two minutes she said not a word, and then erupted into a demon fury. She swept the ledger books from the shelf above the desk, tipped papers to the floor and stamped on them. Was about to tear a chart from the wall when Samuel launched to his feet and stopped her. It had taken him three days to fashion that estate plan, he was not about to see it ripped up.
His action infuriated Alicia even more. “Let go of me! How dare you? You have no right to be here, no right to tell me what I can or cannot do. You have no right to anything. No right!”
He released her arms, stepped away. “I have every right, Mrs Mereno. Jesamiah…”
She stamped her foot and screamed. “Jesamiah? Jesamiah! I hate Jesamiah, I loathe him! This is all his fault. Everything is his fault.”
Samuel Trent was a placid young man who had no experience of women. Rather than keeping quiet and letting her rant, he attempted to point out the truth, that it was her husband who had been at fault. He was assaulted by another ear-piercing scream.
“If you do not like the way I am trying to save this plantation from ruin, lady,” he finally yelled back, “I am not forcing you to stay. No one, least of all myself, would wish to keep you here against your will. Take your personal possessions and go.” He surprised himself at his forthrightness, was almost on the verge of apologising when Alicia cut in.
“Very well. I have no intention of remaining where I am not welcome. I will leave in the morning.” With a swirl of petticoats she left the room. Samuel sighed, started picking up one or two papers, dropped them again and conscientiously went after her.
“Mrs Mereno, Alicia, I can probably give you enough tobacco worth about fifty pounds sterling.” To him it seemed a lot of money: a naval sea captain’s annual pay.
She swung around and threw the first thing to hand at him. A flower vase. He ducked and it smashed against the wall behind him.
“I could not even buy an undergarment for fifty pounds!” She exaggerated of course, but in a temper she was not prepared to be reasonable. She stalked away, leaving Samuel bewildered. He did not understand women at all.
She spent the evening fitting as many clothes as she could into trunks, securing her jewellery into a casket and ensuring the entire seventy-two piece silver dinner service was packed carefully into layers of straw in wooden crates. There was nothing Samuel could do to dissuade her. Nor could he, the next morning, do much to stop her loading her baggage on to the estate’s sloop, the
Jane
, especially when she stated she was only borrowing it.
“But where will you go? Alicia please; be reasonable. What will I tell Jesamiah when he returns?”
Her answer shocked Samuel, but made the crew of the
Sea Witch
, most of them lounging beside the river fishing, a few aboard completing the routine daily tasks, laugh out loud. Samuel had heard Jesamiah use the word, a particularly descriptive blasphemy, but had been totally unaware that a woman would know it, let alone utter it. Nor did he believe Rue when told it was Alicia who had taught it to Jesamiah in the first place.
Standing on the jetty, Samuel watched the current of the Rappahannock take the
Jane
and Alicia away. He felt a sense of failure; perhaps he was not as good at running an estate as he had thought? He had certainly handled that contretemps badly.
“I am going to Williamsburg,” Alicia had announced yesterday, “to open a brothel.”
Yesterday, Samuel had not believed her. Today, watching her sail away, he was not so sure. “I did not do very well there, did I, Rue?” he confessed. “But there appears to be no money to spend on non-essential things like dresses, ribbons, lace and finery.”
Rue chortled and slapped Samuel’s shoulder. “One thing you must learn about women,
mon ami
, there must always be money to spend on the essentials such as dresses, ribbons, lace and finery! To keep a woman ‘appy it is the luxuries of life you cut down on –
le petit
things, like food and bills!”
Mr Janson eventually came up with a logical suggestion.
“Why not see that lawyer fellow in Williamsburg? Mebbe he knows where there’s some more money? Someone’s ‘as t’see ‘im at some time anyways t’sort out the legal muddle ‘bout this place, don’t they? No reason why you can’t be makin’ a start, is there?”
It was a good suggestion, but Alicia had taken the estate’s only sloop and Samuel had not the gall to beg a passage aboard any Urbanna ship. The whole town would be wanting to know why, and he was not prepared to admit failure in public – not yet.
Rue let him stew on the problem for half the day, then relented. The crew was getting bored sitting around. A short voyage down to Hampton Roads would be something to pass the time. Providing they temporarily changed
Sea Witch
’s name and again issued her with suitable papers, registering her as the official property of la Sorenta. No one was particularly keen on being mistakenly arrested for piracy.
Thirty
Saturday 16th November
Rumour had already reached Williamsburg and the ears of Governor Spotswood that Blackbeard was anchored in the Ocracoke inlet. Less than a day’s sail away. Too near for comfort, and too near to be tolerated.
Of Acorne there had been no word – nor had there been any message from him. General opinion among the Governor’s entrusted ‘pirate committee’ was that he had returned to piracy and would be seen no more. Spotswood and Lieutenant Maynard were visibly disappointed. Their judgement had plainly been well out of kilter.
Their meeting on the afternoon of the fourteenth day of November was held in secret – ostensibly, the four men had met to play cards: Captain Ellis Brand of the
Lyme
, Captain George Gordon, Maynard and Spotswood. Anyone peeping through the window of the Governor’s private parlour on the first floor would have wondered why there were no cards on the table, only a chart of the North Carolina coast spread across the flat surface.
Spotswood chewed the end of his pipe. It had remained unlit this past fifteen minutes. “So,” he said at last, “do we admit Secretary Knight and listen to what he has to say? Or do I send him away; grant him audience on the morrow?”
“I believe we should at least hear him out, Sir. He has been reliable in the past and may have more pertinent rumour.”
“As reluctant as I am to admit it,” Brand replied, “I agree with Captain Gordon. I have no liking for Knight and I am aware, as are you, it is probable that he has been extremely selective in what information he has passed to us. He is a weasel of a man if you ask me. His only interest is in feathering his own nest. But it could be possible that Blackbeard has at last outstayed his welcome in Bath Town. It was a bad business that with his wife, poor lass. There’s many folk would now gladly see the back of the rogue whatever the truth of the matter. If so, then aye, let us hear what Master Knight has to say.”
When he entered, Tobias Knight was gushing and obsequious, his speech liberally patterned with reverent ‘my lord’, ‘your honour’ and ‘my dear sir’. When Spotswood remarked that to date Bath Town had appeared to have openly welcomed the pirate Blackbeard, Knight had a ready and plausible answer.
“What could we do, Governor? He held us to ransom. If we had not co-operated with his vile and devilish wishes he would have turned his cannon on us! Look how he treated Charleston. We have only just recovered from the Indian troubles. Surely you do not expect us to blithely let our homes be burnt down, our women raped, our men enslaved?”
“No, I do not,” Spotswood answered formidably, “but neither do I expect you to ask him to dine at your tables and offer him a daughter of the town in marriage! I expect you to fight back, damn it!” Clenching his fist, the Governor struck the desk he was sitting at.
“Fight? With what?” Knight was indignant with his answer. “We have hardly any militia, and the few we do have carry arms that saw better days fifty years ago! We are not Virginia, Sir – we do not have the King’s patronage. We do not have excessive crops, rich plantations and chests of gold to spend on elaborate palaces or for fighting pirates who outnumber us three to one!”
“He has a point, Governor,” Maynard commented.
“We beg aid from Virginia to destroy Blackbeard before he re-enters the Pamlico. We do not want him back in Bath Town.”
Conceding to the sense of that, the discussion moved on to what could be done. Knight confirmed that Blackbeard was lazing at Pilot Point with several other pirate ruffians. He had no idea of their plans of course, but given the proximity to Virginia, it did not take much of a leap of imagination to guess.
“We need to take steps,” Spotswood decided, “some secret, some public. Let it be known I am to offer a handsome reward – £100 to the person who can capture or kill Blackbeard, £59 for his officers and £25 a head for his crew. Dead or alive, I will accept either.”
“I think a two-pronged attack on Pilot Point,” Captain Brand added, spreading out another chart marking the Ocracoke and the North Carolina coastline of the Pamlico estuary. “Gordon here to take the
Pearl
and attack by sea – pen these buggers where they are. I will lead my men along here,” he indicated the coastal route, “land and attack from the rear. The pirates will have nowhere to go.”
“But are not some of those waters rather shallow?” Maynard asked dubiously.
“Our cannon can fire quite adequately from deeper water,” Brand assured him, “those scumbags will probably surrender as soon as they catch sight of us. Everyone knows pirates are a cowardly lot when cornered.”
It was a good plan – to be kept secret lest word reach the pirates. Tobias Knight was given the task of returning to Governor Eden with a request that he was to muster the North Carolina militia and bring them downriver to partake in the final demise of Blackbeard.
Spotswood himself escorted Knight to the main stairs, watched him descend and go out through the front door. He returned to his office, shaking his head. “Alas, Gentlemen, I fear most of that little performance was charade. Eden has allowed Blackbeard to get out of hand and now has no idea how to curb him. But he will not fight. Oh no, he wants us to do his dirty work in case we fail. That way he can claim innocence of the whole affair.”
Captain Ellis Brand grinned. “But we will not fail, will we, Sir?”
They at last played several rounds of cards. Only Maynard, being dealt four bad hands in a row, had his doubts. The plan would not work. Down to his boots he knew it would not.