Captain in Calico. George Fraser MacDonald

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СКАЧАТЬ – not to-morrow, or the day after, but now, and take my chance of finding your brig.’ He paused deliberately. ‘So choose. A pardon or a rope.’

      Rackham stared at him and suddenly exploded in an exclamation of impatience.

      ‘There’s no way it can be done,’ he protested. ‘Ye cannot have me go back and tell them you’ve agreed to grant them pardons and they can keep their silver, and then cheat them at the last. Your own credit would be dead for ever, with honest men as well as rogues. And if I was to be the betrayer, and gave you the ship’s position now, and ye took them and the treasure, what use would your pardon be to me? It would be a death warrant, for when it was known I’d sold them they’d have a knife in my back before I could wink.’

      Rogers was contemptuous. ‘It would not be known. What I propose would be among the three of us.’ He gestured to include Master Dickey. ‘Well?’

      Rackham considered him through narrowed lids. ‘What becomes of my crew?’

      ‘Unless they are extremely rash, no harm at all. Provided, that is, that the plan I have in mind is carried through precisely as I shall direct.’ Rogers rose, a lean, commanding figure. ‘That will depend on you as much as on any.’ He moved round the table, halting face to face with Rackham. ‘Can you hesitate?’ He laughed shortly. ‘If so, you are a greater fool than I take you for, or else you carry scruples to an odd length. Farther than I should carry them myself. For I’d not hang for the sake of a pack of brigands.’

      He knew, of course, that there could be only one answer for Rackham, or for anyone in the same position. The pirate hooked his thumbs into his belt and considered the Governor. ‘Let me hear,’ he said.

      It was tantamount to an acceptance, and Rogers propounded his plan as a commander issues instructions.

      ‘It will be very simple. You will return to these men of yours in the town. Tell them my terms were unconditional surrender of themselves and the treasure; tell them that when you refused I would have tortured and hanged you and taken the Kingston by force. But you escaped, and now nothing remains but to fly to sea. This should satisfy them. Now, listen. You and your men in town will then return to the Kingston this evening, so giving me the day in which to make my preparations, for which I’ll need the exact position at which the brig is to take you aboard. I take it you came ashore in a small boat, and the Kingston is to stand inshore to take you off.’ Without pausing for a reply he swept on. ‘When she does, I shall be ready for her. I shall have a cutting-out force at hand – a ship and longboats. It will be so strong that there can be no question of resistance on your part. If perchance there are some hotheads ready to fight you will dissuade them. But I doubt there will be. Then you will surrender, and the terms will be a pardon for those who lay down their arms. In the circumstances your crew should be too relieved to fret over the loss of their plunder.’

      He had been pacing up and down as he spoke. Now he stopped and went back to his seat. ‘Of course, it will not do for you to leave here to-night as easily as you came. You will escape, and, as I say, take back to your friends a tale of a bloody-minded Governor who would have hanged you and swore to hunt them down. You may think that such a tale will be at variance with the offer of pardon that I shall make you when the Kingston is at my mercy to-night. On the contrary it will be seen then that I serve the King’s interests by such an offer, since it assures me of the treasure, a ship, and a hundred excellent seamen. They may think me an infernally clever fellow to have found them out, but I enjoy some such reputation already. Certainly they will not suspect you.’

      His calm confidence left Rackham in no doubt that he could carry out exactly what he had promised. Yet because the pirate had more of principle than was usual in his kind, he hesitated.

      ‘It’s dirty,’ he said bluntly, and Rogers was almost amused.

      ‘Pitch defiles those who touch it, but its mark is less permanent than that left by a rope round the neck. That is your choice, and, on my soul, if you can pause over it I swear you’re over-nice for your trade.’

      Frowning, Rackham considered; then he shrugged. ‘It seems there is no choice. I’ll do as you say.’

      Rogers nodded to Dickey to take up his pen.

      ‘Since we are agreed,’ he said, ‘where is your ship?’

      ‘Five miles out. She comes in at midnight. There are four of us ashore. Our boat is beached in a cove a mile west of the town, and we meet the Kingston a mile offshore, due north.’ Master Dickey’s pen flew over the paper. ‘We carry thirty guns.’ He paused. ‘What else?’

      Rogers had been nodding at each point mentioned. ‘Where will you hide to-night?’ he asked, adding: ‘There must be a hue and cry when you break away from here: it were best if we knew where the patrols must not look for you.’

      ‘We’ll be at the Lady of Holland,’ said Rackham, and Rogers inwardly approved the choice. It lay on the west of the town, in an unsavoury neighbourhood, convenient to the cove Rackham had mentioned. A few more questions he asked and glanced at the clock.

      ‘Then the sooner we set about it the better,’ he said. He looked at Rackham. ‘Let me remind you that it will not be to your interest at all to attempt to cross me in this. You walk on a tight-rope, Master Rackham; slip, and I’ll see you swing by it.’

      With that he turned to Master Dickey. ‘There is a guard beyond the window who must be removed. Bid the sergeant bring him round into the house. Wait; not yet a moment. First slip the bar from the shutters so that Master Rackham may have free passage.’

      Dickey obeyed, like a man in a trance. This night’s work was proving too much for him. Life as he knew it was not like this, with no decent interval between thought and action. It was inconceivable that such a hare-brained scheme, so hastily considered, should be put so abruptly into operation; he had yet to learn that in the Indies prompt decision was not so much a virtue as a necessity, and that to pause for second thoughts was to delay too long.

      He removed the bar from the shutters and laid it down. Rogers nodded towards the door. ‘Call him now. Perhaps it might be best,’ he added to Rackham, ‘if you upset my secretary’s table as you pass,’ and the pirate nodded. Dickey was past being shocked: it was all of a piece with the rest and his only concern, he told himself morbidly, was to do as he was told.

      He went to the door and called the sergeant, and as the soldier presented himself Rogers issued his orders.

      ‘This man to the guard-room, sergeant.’ He indicated Rackham. ‘Bring your sentry from the garden to make an escort with the others. I’ll take no chances with this gentleman: he is Calico Jack Rackham, the notorious pirate, so look to him closely.’

      The sergeant’s eyes bulged at Rackham, and then he was bawling orders in the passage. There was a clatter of running feet and then a voice shouted outside the house. They heard a musket-butt grate on the gravel, followed by the sound of the sentry doubling round in answer to the summons.

      The sergeant advanced purposefully on Rackham and was within a few feet of him before the pirate moved: Dickey would not have believed that a man of such size could be so nimble. Two quick strides he took before vaulting over Dickey’s table, and then the shutters were flung back and he was away. With a bellow of anger and surprise the sergeant lumbered forward.

      ‘Stop, you! Stop, thief!’ He ploughed across to the window. ‘You, there, sentry! Damn you, where are you? After him!’ He flung one gaitered leg across the sill and tumbled over on to the verandah. ‘Shoot, СКАЧАТЬ