The Gun Ketch (36 page)

"But we didn't capture a single pirate, they all escaped us," Lewrie sighed. "And to track down the goods' original owners, to find the ships mentioned ... even if we had captured a few, they could say they bought them half a world away as used. Got 'em as gifts! How does one track down 'Cock Robin' off the good ship
Barnacle
outa New York? All that's left of her is anonymous bosun's stores, nails and a pocket watch, if she was pirated. Probably sunk, and seaman 'Cock Robin' murdered and gone down with her! Now were we to find goodies from old
Barnacle
aboard the pirate schooner, and ashore,
and
aboard
Guineaman,
we have your
prima facie
case to lay."

Lewrie leaned back in his chair and gazed through half-shut eyelids at the overhead beams as Ballard could be heard shuffling his stacks of papers over again, between sips of his vile coffee.

"That might not do it, even then," Lewrie muttered. "Say someone aboard
Guineaman,
one of the mates, had a packet of used goods in his sea chest. The pirates could have rifled the chest when they took
Guineaman
... if they ever did ... and it could have ended up ashore or in a pirate's sea-bag when they went shares of their spoils, so..."

"There is a fine box of Manton pistols, with an inscription on the case as belonging to a Captain Henry Beard, sir, that were found aboard the schooner, in her master's cabins," Ballard informed him. "The inscription tells us Beard was master of the
Matilda.
Then, we have several hundred pounds of chain and ankle bands and wrist locks ashore. The sort of restraints used to arrange slaves into coffies, sir. Rusty, abandoned for some time I'd say. But they bear Liverpool markings, with the name
Matilda
scratched into them on the bands. There was something ..." He urgently riffled through his papers.

"A Liverpool ship?" Lewrie asked, tipping his chair forward to take more interest. "Damme, a British vessel?"

"Ah!" Ballard said. "An especially fine spyglass with a brass plaque bearing the name Nathaniel Marriyat. Presented to him by his family upon becoming first mate of ... the
Matilda!
And, damme!"

It was rare for Ballard to swear.

"That was found aboard
Guineaman,
in the ready-use rack by the compass binnacle and the traverse board, sir!" Ballard almost shouted with joy. "Three items from the same vessel, linking together. This
Matilda
must, from this scant evidence, be a Liverpool slaver. Rusty as the chains and fetters are, she must have been taken at least one year ago. The pistols,
and
the chains, that proves the pirates were here at Walker's Cay before this incident. The spyglass proves that
Guineaman
had met them
before
yesterday. Wait! Wait, I...! Yes!" Ballard giggled, losing all his soberness as he sorted more papers. "Boxed set of navigational instruments. Brass ruler, dividers, compass ... and a sextant!
Guineaman's
second mate had them! But they were engraved originally as the missing Captain Beard's, sir! When we questioned
Guineaman's
crew, he claimed he'd bought 'em in Liverpool, a year or more past!"

"Matilda,"
Lewrie pondered.
"Matilda.
Now where have I heard that name? Seems I have... damme, I'm sure I have."

"A Liverpool 'black-birder' could sell a cargo of slaves here in the Bahamas, sir. Do the Middle Passage, Dahomey to Nassau, with the demand for slaves increasing here, now that..."

"Wait, Arthur! Ssshh!" Alan demanded, raising a hand. "Let me think."

It was recent; he was certain of that much. Since arriving in the Bahamas? He tried to remember ships which might have lain nearby
Alacrity
at anchor. Portsmouth—no. On the voyage out? Again, no. Slavers stank to high heaven. They crammed three or four hundred men and women into hard wooden racks, forced them to lie back-to-belly as tight as cordwood and fettered for months. Fed them in those racks, half the time, if the weather was bad. Puking sick, incontinent from rotten hog-swill victuals, they fouled their own sleeping spaces and had to lie in excrement like beasts. One remembered slavers close by!

Slavers were fast ships, frigate-built, or like a "razeed" 3rd Rate, cut down to two decks from three. Were they slow, the rates of mortality cut their profits to nothing. The faster the ship, the more slaves arrived alive for sale, though twenty-five percent attrition was the norm for even the most considerate and "gentle" captains.

Where had he seen such a fine, frigate-built ship, a vessel aseaman would envy, foul as that line of work was? In the Caicos, in some harbour... Nassau Harbour... Cat Island...

"Christ!" Lewrie gasped. He got to his feet and crossed over to the chart-space to grope through his bookshelves. "Cony, fetch a light!"

William Pitt hissed at him from the dark. He had been sleeping like a tawny, orange-colored plum-duff on the high outboard shelf by the chart table between the chronometer and the sextant case. And did not like his naps interrupted.

"Oh, bugger y'rself!" Lewrie griped. "Ah, thankee, Cony!"

He found the gold-lettered spine of the book he was seeking,
Les Liaisons Dangereuses,
and flipped through it to see if his memory was correct.

"Eureka, Arthur! Bloody hell! Read that dedication!"

"My God," Arthur Ballard said with a bemused expression when he had completed it. "How the devil did you come by this, sir?"

"Bought it used for six shillings," Lewrie crowed. "Look at the date. March of 1785. It's accounted so bawdy there was an Order In Council to ban its publication in England, but some printer... a
Liverpool
printer, note... ran up a few hundred on speculation, 'stead of the usual subscription.
Matilda
was at short-stays, ready for a new slaving voyage, with Nathaniel Marriyat just promoted first mate into her. Time enough for your chains to rust?"

"But
where
did you get it, sir?"

"At Finney's on Bay Street, Arthur!"

"Aha!"

"At bloody 'Calico Jack' Finney's, not two months' past, damn his eyes! Arthur, they pissed in the font! They did the unspeakable! They took a
British
ship! A ship we can ask about among the slaver captains who frequent Nassau, among the slave dealers who dealt with her in the past. We can document one of the victims, show that goods off her were aboard
Guineaman,
the schooner, and piled with other loot ashore long enough ago to confirm
when
they took her. There'll be a brace or two of 'black-birders' in port soon with the first slaves of the summer. They'll have seen
Matilda
in Africa, they'll know of her people, and whether she went missing. And this book proves that Jack Finney has bought pirated goods. We've
got
the bastard! Even if he doesn't do a hemp hornpipe on the gallows, he's finished in these islands... or I'm a Turk in a turban!"

HERCVLES

"Licent tonantis profuga condaris sinu, petet undecumque temet haec dextra et feret."

"Though you run and hide in the Thunderer's bosom, everwhence shall this hand seek you and hale you forth."

Hercules Furens

1010-1012

—Seneca

"But he's as guilty as home-brewed sin, sir," Commander Benjamin Rodgers blurted out.
"Matilda,
all our evidence... no one's seen her for over a year. Due here about July of '85, and..."

"That's as may be, Commander Rodgers," Commodore Garvey shot back, pacing angrily behind his desk. "The court said he is not!"

"But she was pirated, sir," Lewrie ventured to interject. "I find the idea that her people sold off their most prized possessions ludicrous. Why would Captain Beard pawn his navigation instruments just before embarking on a voyage? Why would this Nathaniel Marriyat pawn his brand-new spyglass and his books?"

"Gambling debts," Garvey dismissed with a savage chop of his hand. "To raise money for buying blacks of his own for sale in the West Indies. We don't know, and we will never know.
Matilda
could have gone down in a storm. It
happens,
don't ya know, Lewrie. The few items of your flimsy evidence were accounted for by documents of sale, and your case confounded."

"Forgeries, sir!" Rodgers exclaimed. "They had over a month to concoct what was wanting."

"I warned you when you laid this before me, your supposition was weak. I did everything in my power to dissuade you from pursuing this fantasy," Garvey sneered. "The prosecutor..."

"Was a brainless arse, sir," Rodgers retorted. "He didn't like it. He was afraid of prosecuting a powerful man, so he did his least, and that, badly!"

"He told you beforehand it wouldn't hold water, and it didn't. Finney was absolved faster than any court I've ever seen," Garvey said. "Listen to the mob out there, sirs. Listen, you fools! Now Finney's being chaired through the streets like a sitting member of Parliament on his hustings, and King's Justice has been made amockery. The Navy has been made to look stupid, sire, the Bahamas Squadron, and me with it! Our new governor Lord Dun-more is
most
exercised over this. Bade me over to ask me what sort of idiots I had under my command, and were there any
more
of 'em out there, running roughshod! What could you have been thinking, Rodgers? There're untold tens of thousands owing Finney now. You shot
Guineaman
to rags, wounded some of her people, put her on a shoal... you deliberately torched every stick of goods on Walker's Cay, and sank everything that wouldn't burn in the bay! He'll demand recompense, and even should the Crown uphold you, I expect it'll take the entire budget for governing these islands for the next year, sir! The next year entire!"

"She fired into me first, sir, and if pirates
really
held her as Finney and Captain Malone claim, then nothing is owed, sir. God damme, sir, I salved her afterwards, didn't I? Set her..."

"You'll not blaspheme in my presence, Commander Rodgers, do you hear me, you simple dullard?" Garvey bellowed. "You could have put a guard over the cache of goods..."

"We could not carry it off, sir, and there was too much drink to guard," Lewrie said. "We'd have had to torch that, or tip it into the harbour, anyway, or we'd have lost the crew left behind as guards."

"You do not interrupt me, Lewrie! You do so at your peril! I hold you responsible for this. You're just as culpable, and liable in this affair, as Rodgers!"

"He was following my orders, sir," Rodgers stated. "Finney's agent Runyon
told
you it was private property, saved for later sale in the off-season, yet you persisted!"

"It was not
marked
as his property, sir," Lewrie rebutted. "We did bring off the coins, plate and all, and those items we could identify as Finney's. The rest could have been pirate booty, so we..."

"So you set fire to it, with fiendish, childish delight, just to see it burn, you pyromaniac! You hen-headed simpleton!"

"Sir, we..." Lewrie attempted.

"Both of you! Going off at half-cock quick as a brace of two-shilling muskets! Wasn't one band of pirates enough for you, eh, Lewrie? Did you get a taste for acclaim and glory? Had to go out to win more, hey? And you, Rodgers. You
were
sure to be made post your next commission. What need had you to gild your laurels with this ... this act of complete lunacy? Envy Lewrie his crowd of backslappers? Feel left out or ignored, did you, you vaunting coxcomb? Ha? Did you?"

"Sir, I did my duty as best I saw it," Rodgers growled deep in his chest, with his chin tucked back hard against his neck-stock. "I saved a Spanish merchantman and gave chase to the pirates who had taken her. I tracked them down to Walker's Cay and I engaged them. I saw no pirates fleeing
Guineaman,
and I was fired upon by her, so I opened fire into her, aye, sir. I discovered evidence which led me to believe that the goods on the island were booty, and this Finney neck-deep in the support of criminals, sir. I..."

"What pirates, Rodgers?" Garvey roared. "You let 'em escape! You did not arrest one person who
should
have been in the dock! You had no captives to interrogate to determine whether it was booty or not! And out of spite, out of frustration that you'd been bested, you saw what you wanted to see, learned only what you wished to hear, abused the master, mates and crew of
Guineaman,
brought scandal upon their good names, invented a circumstantial fairy tale, then laid a case against one of Nassau's most illustrious merchants, just so you had something to show for your swaggering antics!"

"Sir, I take deep, grievous exception to your characterization of my actions, sir," Rodgers said, almost strangling.

"You failed, sir! Hear me? You failed! Failed to capture a single pirate.
Failed!"
Garvey almost howled. "You could have left a guard over the goods, brought
Guineaman
back here, and discovered the truth quietly. Finney and the other merchants would be cheering
you
for saving his ship and his goods, but no! You demean honest men in a court of law, and..."

"Honest men," Lewrie muttered with scorn.

"What? Did you speak, sir?" Garvey ranted, turning on him. "A court says he's honest. A court just said he's completely innocent! He was shrewd enough to import extra and cache it until the price was high enough. Know who's cheering Finney, Lewrie? The same people he will skin when they buy his off-season imports. They call him knacky to be the only one with their fancy goods they cannot do without, and will pay his prices gladly. If he undercuts the other Bay Streeters, yet cheats
them,
that's just the nuts to them, the fools!"