Pirate Latitudes: A Novel (23 page)

Lady Sarah screamed.

Hunter found an ax and hacked at the waving tentacle. Sickening green blood gushed in his face. The suckers brushed against his cheek, tearing his skin. The tentacle backed off, then snaked forward again, wrapping like a glowing green hose around his leg, throwing him to the deck. He was dragged along the floor toward the window. He buried the ax into the decking to hold himself fast; the ax pulled free, and then Lady Sarah screamed again as Hunter was torn through the already broken glass of the window and outside, over the stern of the ship.

For a moment, he rode in the air, swung back and forth by the tentacle that held his leg, like a doll in the hands of a child. Then he was slammed against the stern of
El Trinidad
; he gripped the railing of the aft cabin, and held on with one painful arm. With the other he used the ax to hack at the tentacle, which finally released him.

He was free, for a moment, and very close to the creature, which churned in the waters below him. He was astounded by its size. It seemed to be eating his ship, holding fast to the stern with its many tentacles. The very air glowed with the greenish light the thing gave off.

Directly beneath him, he saw one huge eye, five feet across, larger than a table. The eye did not blink; it had no expression; the black pupil, surrounded by glowing green flesh, seemed to survey Hunter dispassionately. Further astern, the body of the creature was shaped like a spade with two flat flukes. But it was the tentacles that captured his attention.

Another snaked toward him; he saw suckers the size of dinner plates, rimmed with horns. They tore at his flesh, and he twisted to avoid them, still clinging precariously to the aft cabin railing.

Above him, the seamen were firing down on the animal. Enders shouted, “Hold your fire! It’s the Captain!”

And then, in a single swipe, one of the fat tentacles knocked Hunter free of the railing, and he fell into the water, right on top of the animal.

For a moment, he churned and spun in the green glowing water, and then he gained his footing. He was actually standing on the creature! It was slippery and slimy, like standing on a sac of water. The skin of the animal — he felt it whenever he fell to his hands and knees — was gritty and cold. The flesh of the creature pulsed and shifted beneath him.

Hunter crawled forward, splashing in the water, until he came to the eye. Seen so close, the eye was huge, a vast hole in the glowing greenness.

Hunter did not hesitate; he swung his ax, burying it in the curved globe of the eye. The ax bounced off the dome; he swung again, and yet again. Finally the metal cut deep. A gush of clear water spurted upward like a geyser. The flesh around the eye seemed to contract.

And then suddenly the sea turned a milky white, and his footing was lost as the creature sank away, and he was drifting free in the ocean, shouting for help. A rope was thrown to him, and he grabbed it, just as the monster surfaced again. The impact flung him into the air, above the cloudy white water. He crashed back again, landing on the saclike skin of the monster.

Now Enders and the Moor leapt overboard, with lances in hand. They plunged their lances deep into the body of the creature. Columns of greenish blood shot into the air. There was an explosive rush of water — and the animal was gone. It slipped away, down into the depths of the ocean.

Hunter, Enders, and the Moor struggled in the churning water.

“Thanks,” Hunter gasped.

“Don’t thank me,” Enders said, nodding to the Moor. “The black bastard pushed me.”

Bassa, tongueless, grinned.

High above them, they saw
El Trinidad
begin to turn, and tack back to retrieve them.

“You know,” Enders said, as the three men treaded water, “when we return to Royal, no one will believe this.”

Then lines were thrown down to them, and they were hauled, dripping and coughing and exhausted, onto the deck.

Part VI

Port Royal

Chapter 34

I
N THE EARLY afternoon hours of October 20, 1665, the Spanish galleon
El Trinidad
reached the east channel to Port Royal, outside the scrubby outcropping of South Cay, and Captain Hunter gave orders to drop anchor.

They were two miles from Port Royal itself, and Hunter and his crew stood at the railing of the ship, looking across the channel toward the town. The port was quiet; their arrival had not yet been sighted, but they knew that within moments there would be gunshots and that extraordinary frenzy of celebration that always accompanied the arrival of an enemy prize. The celebration, they knew, often lasted two days or more.

Yet the hours passed, and there was no celebration. On the contrary, the town seemed to grow quieter with each passing minute. There were no gunshots, no bonfires, no shouts of greeting across the still waters.

Enders frowned. “Has the Don attacked?”

Hunter shook his head. “Impossible.” Port Royal was the strongest English settlement in the New World. The Spanish might attack St. Kitts, or one of the other outposts. But not Port Royal.

“Something’s amiss, sure enough.”

“We’ll soon know,” Hunter said, for as they watched, a longboat put out from Fort Charles, under whose guns they were now anchored.

The longboat tied up alongside
El Trinidad
, and a captain of the king’s militia stepped aboard. Hunter knew him; he was Emerson, a rising young officer. Emerson was tense; he spoke too loudly as he said, “Who is the avowed captain of this vessel?”

“I am,” Hunter said, coming forward. He smiled. “How are you, Peter?”

Emerson stood stiffly. He gave no sign of recognition. “Identify yourself, sir, if you please.”

“Peter, you know full well who I am. What does it mean—”

“Identify yourself, sir, on pain of penalty.”

Hunter frowned. “What charade is this?”

Emerson, at rigid attention, said: “Are you Charles Hunter, a citizen of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and late of His Majesty’s Colony in Jamaica?”

Hunter said, “I am.” He noticed that despite the cool evening breeze, Emerson was sweating.

“Identify your vessel if you please.”

“She is the Spanish galleon known as
El Trinidad
.”

“A Spanish vessel?”

Hunter grew impatient. “She is, plain as your nose.”

“Then,” Emerson said, taking a breath, “it is my sworn duty, Charles Hunter, to place you under arrest on a charge of piracy—”

“Piracy!”

“—and so, too, all your crew. You will please accompany me in the longboat.”

Hunter was astounded. “By whose order?”

“By the order of Mr. Robert Hacklett, Acting Governor of Jamaica.”

“But Sir James—”

“Even as we speak, Sir James is dying,” Emerson said. “Now please come with me.”

Benumbed, moving in a kind of trance, Hunter went over the side, into the longboat. The soldiers rowed ashore. Hunter looked back at the receding silhouette of his ship. He knew that his crew was as stunned as he.

He turned to Emerson. “What the devil is happening?”

Emerson was more relaxed, now that he was in the longboat. “There have been many changes,” he said. “A fortnight past, Sir James took ill with the fever—”

“What fever?”

“I tell you what I know,” Emerson said. “He has been confined to bed, in the Governor’s Mansion, these many days. In his absence, Mr. Hacklett has assumed direction of the colony. He is assisted by Commander Scott.”

“Is he?”

Hunter knew he was reacting slowly. He could not believe that the outcome of his many adventures, these past six weeks, was to be clapped in jail — and no doubt hanged — as a common pirate.

“Yes,” Emerson said. “Mr. Hacklett has been stern with the town. Many are already in jail, or hanged. Pitts was hanged last week—”

“Pitts!”

“—and Morely only yesterday. And there is a standing warrant for your arrest.”

A thousand arguments sprang to Hunter’s mind, and a thousand questions. But he said nothing. Emerson was a functionary, a man charged with carrying out the orders of his commander, the foppish dandy Scott. Emerson would do his duty as he was ordered.

“Which jail shall I be sent to?”

“The Marshallsea.”

Hunter laughed at the ludicrousness of it. “I know the jailer of the Marshallsea.”

“Not anymore, you don’t. There is a new man. Hacklett’s man.”

“I see. “

Hunter said nothing further. He listened to the stroke of the oars in the water, and he watched Fort Charles loom closer.

Once inside the fort, he was impressed by the readiness and alertness of the troops. In the past, one could find a dozen drunken lookouts on the battlements of Fort Charles, singing dirty songs. This evening there were none, and the men were neatly dressed in full uniform.

Hunter was marched by a company of armed and alert soldiers into the town, through Lime Street, now unusually quiet, and then north along York Street, past darkened taverns, which normally glowed warmly at this hour. The silence in the town, the desertion of the muddy streets, was striking.

Marshallsea, the men’s prison, was located at the end of York Street. It was a large stone building with fifty cells on two floors. The interior stank of urine and feces; rats scuttled through the rushes on the floor; the men in the cells stared at Hunter with hollow eyes as he was marched, by torchlight, to a cell and locked inside.

He looked around his cell. There was nothing inside; no bed, no cot, just straw on the floor, and a high window with bars. Through the window he could see a cloud drifting across the face of a waning moon.

As the door clanged closed behind him, he turned to look at Emerson. “When shall I be tried for piracy?”

“Tomorrow,” Emerson said, and then turned away.

.   .   .

THE TRIAL OF
Charles Hunter took place on October 21, 1665, a Saturday. Ordinarily, the Justice House did not meet on a Saturday, but nevertheless Hunter was tried on that day. The earthquake-damaged structure was largely empty as Hunter was ushered in, alone, without the rest of his crew, to face a high tribunal of seven men sitting at a wooden table. The tribunal was presided over by Robert Hacklett himself, as Acting Governor of the Jamaica Colony.

He was made to stand before the tribunal while the charge was read to him.

“Raise your right hand.”

He did.

“You, Charles Hunter, you and every one of your company, by the authority of our Sovereign Lord, Charles, King of Great Britain, are indicted as follows.”

There was a pause. Hunter scanned the faces: Hacklett, glowering down at him, with the faintest trace of a smug smile; Lewisham, Judge of the Admiralty, evidently ill at ease; Commander Scott, picking his teeth with a gold toothpick; the merchants Foster and Poorman, averting their eyes from Hunter’s glance; Lieutenant Dodson, a rich officer in the militia, tugging at his uniform; James Phips, a merchant captain. Hunter knew them all, and he recognized how uneasy they were.

“Forasmuch as in open contempt of the laws of your country and the sovereign alliances of your king, you have wickedly united and articled together for the annoyance and disturbance of the subjects and properties of His Most Christian Majesty Philip of Spain upon the land and seas. And have, in conformity to the most evil and mischievous intentions, been to the Spanish settlement upon the island of Matanceros for the purpose of plundering and burning and robbing such ships and vessels as then happened in your way.

“And further ye stand charged with the unlawful opposition upon a Spanish vessel in the straits south of Matanceros, and the sinking of same, with the loss of all lives and properties aboard the ship.

“And lastly, that in the acting and compassing of all this, you were all and every one of you in wicked combination to exert, and actually did, in your several stations, use your utmost endeavors to distress and assault the said Spanish ships and dominions and murder the subjects of Spain. How plead you, Charles Hunter?”

There was a brief pause. “Not guilty,” Hunter said.

For Hunter, the trial was already a travesty. The Act of Parliament 1612 specified that the court must be composed of men who had no interest, directly or indirectly, in the particulars of the case being tried. And yet every man on the tribunal stood to gain from Hunter’s conviction and the subsequent confiscation of his ship and her treasure.

What confused him was the detailed nature of the indictment. No one could know what had occurred during the Matanceros raid except himself and his men. And yet the indictment had included his successful defense against the Spanish warship. Where had the court gotten its information? He could only assume that one of the crew had talked, probably under torture, the night before.

The court accepted his plea without the slightest reaction. Hacklett leaned forward. “Mr. Hunter,” he said, in a calm voice, “this tribunal recognizes the high standing you hold within the Jamaica Colony. We do not wish in this proceeding to stand upon hollow ceremony, which may not see justice served. Will you speak now in defense of your indictment?”

This was a surprise. Hunter paused a moment before answering. Hacklett was breaking the rules of judicial procedure. It must be to his advantage to do so. Nevertheless, the opportunity seemed too good to ignore.

“If it may please the distinguished members of this fair court,” Hunter said, with no trace of irony, “I shall endeavor to do so.”

The heads of the men on the tribunal nodded thoughtfully, carefully, reasonably.

Hunter looked from one to the next, before he began to speak.

“Gentlemen, no one among you is more thoroughly informed than I, of the sacred treaty lately signed between His Majesty King Charles and the Spanish Court. Never should I break the newly forged ties between our nations without provocation. Yet such provocation occurred, and in abundance. My vessel, the
Cassandra
, was set upon by a Spanish ship of the line, and all my men captured without warrant. Further, two were murdered by the captain of that vessel, one Cazalla. Finally, the same Cazalla intercepted an English merchantman bearing, among other cargoes unknown to me, the Lady Sarah Almont, niece of the Governor of this Colony.

“This Spaniard, Cazalla, an officer of King Philip, destroyed the English merchantman
Entrepid
, killing all those aboard in a bloodthirsty violent act. Among those dispatched was a favorite of His Majesty Charles, one Captain Warner. I am certain His Majesty mourns the loss of this gentleman very much.”

Hunter paused. The tribunal did not know this information and it was plain they were not pleased to hear of it.

King Charles took a very personal view of life; his normal good temper might be destroyed if one of his friends was injured or even insulted — let alone killed.

“For these several provocations,” Hunter said, “we attacked in reprisal the Spanish fortress at Matanceros, restoring Her Ladyship to safety, and taking as plunder what trifling reparations we deemed reasonable and proper. This is not piracy in the first instance, gentlemen. This is honorable revenge for heinous misdeeds upon the high seas, and such is the substance and nature of my conduct.”

He paused and looked at the faces of the tribunal. They stared back at him impassively; they all knew the truth, he realized.

“Lady Sarah Almont can bear witness to this testimony, as can every man aboard my ship, if such be called. There is no truth in the indictment as charged, for there can be no piracy except in the absence of due provocation, and there was indeed most strenuous provocation.”

He finished, and looked at the faces. They were bland now, blank and unreadable. He felt chilled.

Hacklett leaned over the table toward him. “Have you any further to speak in your reply to the indictment, Mr. Charles Hunter?”

“Nothing further,” Hunter said. “I have spoken all I have to say.”

“And most creditably, too, if I may take the liberty to say,” Hacklett commented. There were nods and murmurs of assent from the other six men. “But the truth of your speech is another question, which we must all now consider. Be so good as to inform this court under what business your vessel sailed in the first instance.”

“The cutting of logwood,” Hunter said.

“You had letters of marque?”

“I did, from Sir James Almont himself.”

“And where are these documents?”

“They were lost with the
Cassandra
,” Hunter said, “but I have no doubt Sir James will confirm that he drew them up.”

“Sir James,” Hacklett said, “is in great distress of illness, and cannot confirm nor deny any matter at hand before this court. Nonetheless, I feel we can take you at your word that these papers were issued.”

Hunter bowed slightly.

“Now then,” Hacklett said. “Where were you captured by the Spanish warship? In what waters?”

Hunter instantly sensed the dilemma he faced and hesitated before answering, knowing that the hesitation would damage his credibility. He decided to tell the truth — almost.