PIRATE: Privateer (28 page)

‘She came to Petit Goâve, looking for you. She had heard that the
Morvaut
was taken, and wanted to find out what had happened to you.’

‘And you told her?’

‘Not everything. I helped her find a boat, a smuggler, who would take her to Jamaica. She thought that was where you were most likely to be found.’

Hector had stopped rowing. He stared at her. ‘When was that?’

‘About three months ago. Maybe more.’

He began to row again, his expression thoughtful. Unexpectedly, he said, ‘Why did you decide to come away with us?’

‘I’ve been asking myself the same question,’ she replied. Then, feeling ashamed of the way she had been treating the young man, she added, ‘It was a decision on the spur
of the moment. But I have been feeling vulnerable for some time.’

He looked at her questioningly. ‘Vulnerable? That doesn’t sound like the person they call the Tigress?’

She grimaced on hearing her nickname. ‘Captain de Graff was becoming a hazard. His constant attention was wearing me down. I needed breathing space.’

‘Then you shouldn’t have sailed with him,’ he said flatly.

She shook her head. ‘The Governor of Petit Goâve made sure that I went to Providencia. De Graff needs me to help locate the place where we found the Spanish salvage when we were on
the
Morvaut
.’

‘And how did the Governor persuade you?’

‘You remember my brother Yannick?’

Hector nodded.

‘I shot and killed the man who knifed him. I could have been tried for murder. The Governor agreed to delay my trial.’

Hector smiled thinly. ‘Then we have that much in common. I went in search of de Graff only because the Governor of Jamaica postponed my trial for piracy if I did so. The Spaniards are keen
to have me hung for that incident when you and your brothers robbed the
San Gil
. I was an accomplice, you may remember.’

He lapsed into silence. Anne-Marie felt a pang of remorse. ‘I’m sorry if you are in trouble for that reason. I hope you will set it against my help when you and your friends escaped
from the
Morvaut
.’

Jacques, sitting beside her, uttered a bark of frustration. ‘Will you two please stop discussing the past! Hector, if you don’t pay attention to your rowing, that launch will catch
up with us and then de Graff can carry out whatever punishment he thinks we deserve.’

H
AGGARD AND FROWZY
, the crew of the
Sainte Rose
had seldom seen their captain so angry. De Graff came storming through the camp early in the
morning, roaring that he wanted the frigate to be under way within the hour. Rapier in hand, he slashed through the cords of hammocks so their occupants crashed to the ground. Then he kicked them
savagely until they rose to their feet. One slow-witted sailor groaned, rolled over on his face, and went back to sleep. The sword point prodded two inches into his backside.

‘What’s eating him?’ asked a carpenter’s mate. His guts were rumbling with a mix of rum and cheap brandy, three flagons of it from what he remembered of the night
before.

‘His Breton woman’s run off,’ said his colleague. ‘The lookout reported she’s on a skiff and heading out to sea.’

‘Let’s hope that bastard brother of hers has gone with her,’ muttered the first man. His comment ended with a quick gasp of discomfort and a gush of yellow-green vomit as he
threw up.

The longboat sent in pursuit of the fugitives was recalled. It was obvious that it could not catch the runaways before a small brig picked them up. It was the same vessel that had attempted to
send in a fireship two days earlier. The
Sainte Rose
’s petty officers had caught their captain’s evil humour. They were bawling orders, cuffing and cajoling the bleary men to get
on board the frigate and prepare to weigh anchor. Unwisely the master gunner asked for permission to send the longboat to retrieve the cannon from the shore battery. De Graff snarled that the guns
could stay where they were. The frigate would return and pick them up later.

The longboat picked up a towline and began hauling round the frigate’s bow so her sails could catch the last of the land breeze. A lucky fluke of the wind and the
Sainte Rose
overtook the longboat and would have sailed away without stopping if the coxswain had not grabbed a dangling rope and taken a turn around athwart. With a clatter of spilled oars and a slew of oaths
the longboat crew scrambled up the side of the frigate. De Graff raged at them, shouting that the longboat was a hindrance and they should hoist it on board at once.

The frigate’s crew went about their tasks, heads down, not daring to catch the eye of their fuming commander. De Graff had somehow found time to dress in his usual immaculate costume
– dark blue coat lined with silk and edged with gold braid, white breeches and stockings, and tall bucket-top boots. He took up his position on the poop deck, scowling as he surveyed the
crew’s frenzied activity, his lips clamped together under the extravagant blond moustache, with his rage subsiding to a cold, vicious anger.

‘Excuse me, captain,’ said a diffident voice. It was the first mate, a regular officer from the Navy. ‘This man has something to say that may be important.’

De Graff wheeled round and glowered down at the sailor. A small scrawny man wearing a red cap, his ingratiating smile showed a mouthful of bad teeth. ‘What do you have to tell me?’
the captain demanded.

‘The men in that skiff, Your Excellency. I know them,’ said the sailor.

‘How?’ rasped de Graff.

‘I was with the prize crew you put aboard the pinnace we captured some months back. They were on that boat.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘I’ve been with the gun battery these past few days. Two of those fellows were on the fireship, and again in the skiff this morning. I got a good look at them.’

His words struck deep. De Graff could recall every detail of the capture of the pinnace. It was the first time he had laid eyes on Anne-Marie. He could still picture how attractive she had
looked. He even remembered the name of the young man who had come aboard the frigate with her to be interviewed – Lynch, Hector Lynch, that was it. Half Irish, or so he claimed. There had
been something unlikely and all too slick about the way Lynch and his companions escaped the next night, vanishing into the darkness from the pinnace. De Graff’s suspicions came flooding
back. Anne-Marie Kergonan had claimed to know nothing about that escape. Now she was running off with the same man. The filibustier gritted his teeth with fury. The Breton woman had played him for
a fool. He felt duped and, just as bad, he knew that he was jealous. He had always told himself that jealousy was an emotion reserved for weak people who could not control their emotions. To admit
to himself that he was prey to jealousy made him even more ill-tempered.

The first mate was trying to be tactful, humouring him. ‘We should catch that brig before nightfall. There’s no chance that she can outsail us.’

De Graff treated him to a look of pure contempt. When it came to dealing with Anne-Marie Kergonan or Hector Lynch, nothing was a foregone conclusion.

*

‘H
OW LONG BEFORE
the frigate has us within cannon range?’ Hector asked Bartaboa aboard the
Speedy Return
.

‘Normally, five or six hours. But she’s not fully rigged and can’t carry all her canvas.’ The sailing master had been observing the
Sainte Rose
for the past three
hours as the frigate chased after the pink.

‘Can you stay clear of her until nightfall?’ Hector said.

‘Certainly.’

‘I’m counting on you to do so. We change course as soon as it is dark, as if to throw her off our track.’

Bartaboa hesitated. ‘There’s nearly a full moon. I doubt that we’ll escape de Graff that easily. He could see our manoeuvre.’

‘I hope so,’ said Hector, and before the sailing master could say anything more, he hurried down the companionway to the chart locker in the stern cabin.

He selected a map of the Caribbean. It was a match of the one that he had discussed with Lord Inchiquin, but faded and stained with much use. The
Speedy Return
had no chart table so he
cleared a space on one of the bunks and laid out the map. Taking a pair of dividers, he walked them across the parchment, measuring the distance between Providencia and the graveyard of the Vipers.
If the wind held, the pink should reach the reefs by noon the following day.

He laid aside the dividers, found a clean sheet of paper and a pencil, and sat down. For a long while he sat motionless, eyes closed, seeing pictures in his head. Then he began to draw. First he
marked a small circle off-centre. To the left of the circle and close to it, he added a few faint lines. He reviewed the result, was not satisfied, and corrected what he had drawn. After several
false starts he became more confident. The pencil strokes were more certain. They extended farther and farther across the page. Gradually a random pattern of wavering lines emerged. He shaded in
some of the empty spaces. Other areas he left plain, or inserted a question mark. With a ruler he marked several straight lines radiating from the first small circle he had drawn. Finally he went
to the cabin door and called for Dan.

When the Miskito appeared, he showed him the sheet of paper. ‘Do you recognize this?’

Dan needed only one quick look. ‘That’s where we fished the galleon,’ he replied.

‘Have I left anything out?’ asked Hector.

The Miskito picked up the sketch and inspected it for several seconds. ‘Not that I can think of. But I only know the area around the wreck itself.’

‘The rest is what I remember from when I rowed out with Jezreel looking for more wrecks,’ Hector told him.

‘You seem to have identified some channels,’ said the Miskito.

‘I intend to take the
Speedy Return
through them.’

‘And hope that de Graff tries to follow you?’

‘Exactly.’

Dan handed back the sketch. ‘The Vipers earned their nickname. Let’s hope their fangs can snag another victim.’

‘I’ll need you at the masthead,’ Hector told him. ‘You’ll have a copy of this drawing. When we try to run the reef, you con us through. I’ll stay by the
helm.’

As always, Dan was unruffled. ‘You’d better explain your plan to the rest of the crew. I doubt if they can imagine anyone piloting his way through the Vipers without putting his ship
on the reefs.’

*

A
LL THAT DAY
the chase had gone on, the gap between the two ships steadily diminishing. The sun was already slipping below the horizon when an
anxious-looking Bartaboa came to Hector with an apology: ‘I didn’t make enough allowance that the frigate is newly breamed. She’s gaining an extra knot from that clean
hull.’

‘Keep us far enough ahead so our change of course looks credible,’ Hector told him. There was half an hour of daylight left. ‘If de Graff thinks he’s about to catch us,
it will make him all the more eager. He’ll want to cripple and board so as to get his hands on us. He’s not interested in sinking the
Speedy Return
.’

As he spoke there was an orange-yellow flash in the gathering gloom. De Graff’s gunners had tried a ranging shot. No one saw where it landed. The minutes crawled past and the night came
on. The outline of the chasing frigate became increasingly difficult to see against the darkening surface of the sea. There was no more cannon fire.

Hector waited until he was satisfied that the
Speedy Return
was almost invisible. ‘East by north,’ he said to the helmsman quietly. The crew of the pink adjusted the set of
the sails, and when their ship had settled on her new track, he summoned them aft. They were little more than dark shadows as they clustered on the aft deck.

‘We wait until dawn,’ he told them. ‘Until then there is nothing to be done except keep a good lookout. By morning we will be close upon the reefs, where I intend to lure the
frigate to her destruction.’

‘On to the Vipers?’ asked a sceptical voice he recognized as Bartaboa.

‘Yes. There are channels that we can slip through. Narrow but passable.’

‘Let’s hope de Graff doesn’t know about them too.’ This time it was the parson, Simeon Watson, who spoke from the darkness. There was a low murmuring as the plan was
translated for the other sailors. Hector became aware of someone standing apart from the others, close to the windward rail. It was Anne-Marie Kergonan. She had been listening to his plan. He
wondered what she was thinking of his makeshift crew and their chances of success. For a moment he considered asking her about de Graff. She might know whether the filibustier was familiar with the
reefs and what he was likely to do. Then he rejected the idea for fear that she would answer that de Graff was well acquainted with the Vipers and had sailed the
Sainte Rose
across them
safely. If so, his plan was worthless and he was leading his men into another debacle. But he no longer had a choice: he had committed his ship and his men. He alone would be responsible for what
happened next morning.