The Noble Pirates (31 page)

“Sabrina,” Howel said, making a circle in the sand with his forefinger, “this business of me death on Prince Island… You said it was an ambush, was it?” I nodded, and he continued, “Whatever incident it is that leads to me death, ‘twill follow me. Even if I never set foot on that cursed island, the cause of it will most likely persist, and I will face it elsewhere. Certainly few pirates ever survive for very long, as it is, but… Perhaps I could extend me time here on earth by changing certain things in me life.”

“Yes,” I said. “You have to try, at the very least.”

“La Buse and that vile Cocklyn,” he said. “Perhaps they are the reasons for the ambush, then.”

Oh, thank God. He was seeing the light. I said carefully, “I don’t know for sure, but they most definitely aren’t any good for you.”

Howel grinned at me. “You’ve been aching to say as much, haven’t you? I know it. I won’t torment either one of us for much longer.”

He stood and held his hand out to me, which I took. As he helped me up in one easy motion, he wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me against him. I suddenly blurted, “Nothing ever happened, you know… between me and Edward England.”

Howel pulled away just enough to look me in the face. “Ah, that,” he replied, a tinge of pink coloring his cheeks as he looked down, his long lashes veiling the shame in his blue eyes. “As you said, lass. ‘Tis none of me business.” He smiled at me then, pulling me back into him. He pressed his lips to my ear and whispered, “I’d go mad without you. Have I told you that?”

“Yes,” I said softly. “But please feel free to keep telling me.” He laughed and kissed my forehead, and for some inexplicable reason, I wanted to cry.

Howel was true to his word. Not a few days later, he finally reached the end of his rope. The three pirates were aboard Cocklyn’s ship when one of Howel’s crew was caught “stealing” by Cocklyn’s quartermaster. The young man had broken open a chest, thinking he could help himself to its contents. I had been splicing rope with a bone fid, a tool used to open up strands of rope, when the young man was caught. Splicing rope was one of the mind-numbing tasks I often did as a ship’s boy, and I was jarred from my sleepy daze when Cocklyn’s quartermaster seized the young pirate and cursed him for a thief.

“You think you can just take what you want, do you, you little shit?” the quartermaster roared, lifting the young man clear off his feet and flinging him against the bulwark. “I’ll teach you.”

The pirate captains had been standing together several yards away, recently emerged from drinking together in the cabin, and they turned to see what the racket was about. When Howel saw Cocklyn’s quartermaster pull his cutlass free and swing it at the young man, he rushed forward in anger to intervene. “Stop, you cur!” Howel cried, stepping between the quartermaster and his victim.

I clapped my hands to my mouth to muffle my cry as Cocklyn’s quartermaster swung his cutlass again, either unaware or unperturbed by the fact that Howel had gotten in the way. The blade slashed through Howel’s sleeve and sliced his hand before Cocklyn shouted at his quartermaster to stop.

Everyone seemed to freeze as Howel clasped his bleeding hand to his chest, grimacing. His eyes flashed with rage at Cocklyn and his quartermaster. “Though this man has offended, I alone have the right to punish a number of my crew,” Howel growled, trying to stanch the bleeding with the tail of his shirt.

Cocklyn looked around anxiously. “Where is the surgeon, for God’s sake?”

“No need,” Howel replied, looking fiercely from Cocklyn to Levasseur. “I have been meaning to address you, and this provides me a most fitting opportunity.” Howel exchanged glances with Sam, who was sitting beside me, before saying, “It has come to my attention that there are some who would have me deposed as commodore.”

Cocklyn blinked rapidly, nervously. “What is this ye say? Davies, I know not – “

Howel continued, his voice calm. “It has come to my attention, furthermore, that this plot was inspired by none other than yourself, Thomas Cocklyn.” He smiled ironically. “Me comrade, me brother-at-arms.”

Levasseur flashed an enraged look at Cocklyn before stepping forward, the tail of his coat flapping in the wind. “Davies, let us not be brash. Certainly what you have heard is a lie!”

Howel wrapped his injured hand in the kerchief that had been about his neck. “I appreciate your efforts at keeping the peace, La Buse,” he replied. “But me sources are utterly reliable. Cocklyn and I have been at odds from the very beginning, and that we should part is inevitable. I find by strengthening you I have put a rod in your hands to whip meself. Regardless, I am still able to deal with you both. Since we met in love, let us part in love, for I find that three in a trade can never agree.”

Much to my relief, the partnership was dissolved amicably, or as amicably as possible. But even though Cocklyn and Levasseur went on their separate ways, the foul aftertaste of their impact on Howel and his crew lingered. There was a nefarious element that remained long after they left, a corruption they had caused, and it tainted the atmosphere aboard the
King James
. While Howel maintained order among his one-hundred fifty men, a savagery hovered just beneath the surface of that order, bubbling defiantly.

As Howel’s crew became larger, and as Howel himself became more infamous, I feared it was inevitable that the savagery would break free and take over. And I feared it was that very savagery that would lead to Howel Davis’ ultimate undoing.

I was going to give myself ulcers worrying about that man.

Chapter Thirty-Four

  We sailed down through the Gulf of Guinea, along the Ghana coast, and met with a large Dutch ship Howel was intent on capturing. From a distance, it looked innocuous enough, like a merchantman that would easily surrender. When the
King James
found itself on the receiving end of a crippling broad-side, Howel realized he’d been wrong.

  I was standing on the opposite side of the deck when it happened. I felt the cannonballs hit the
King James
, my entire body vibrating with each impact. The pirate ship rocked with one explosion after another, and chunks of ship, as well as razor-sharp splinters of wood, flew through the air. I heard petrified shrieks as I was thrown back, my head hitting the hard iron of a cannon’s cascabel with a painful thud. I opened my eyes to see that part of the ship had been blown away. I blinked the grit from my eyes and looked up into the rigging, catching sight of a torn, nearly limbless body as it dangled from shredded sails and tangled rope.

My thoughts raced frantically to Howel. Where was he? I stood and tried to run, but slipped on the blood that coated the deck. I looked at my slick, red palms in horror, then heard Howel issuing frantic orders to return fire, his voice emanating from somewhere above me. He was okay. I looked at the now ominous-looking Dutch ship, appearing in the distance as the smoke dissipated, and realized with a jolt that she meant to fight, and that could only mean one thing: she was very well-armed. I rushed forward to help man the guns, knowing full well that the
King James
would need all its hands for this fight.

The Dutch ship was the
Marquis del Campo
, an East Indiaman with thirty guns, ten more than the
King James
. It was the early afternoon, and though it was a sunny day, the air was thick and hazy with smoke as the ships engaged, each trying to fire crippling broad-sides while avoiding those of the enemy. The great guns were fired at the Dutch ship’s hull, rigging, and sails. A leak had sprung on the
King James
, and I went below to help man the pumps, my ears ringing from the blasts. I was too busy to be frightened, too focused on single, frantic actions to worry that we would all die.

But that we would all die was not unlikely. I watched as a man’s arm was ripped off by great shot, as another man’s skull was crushed by a falling spar, as two men were badly burned by fire from a gun vent. I witnessed Walter Kennedy threaten some frightened, injured members of the crew with a brandished pistol to keep them at their posts. Howel Davis rushed about the deck issuing orders and helping to repair badly damaged rigging. The sweat poured down his face, drenching his shirt. The thought that we were finished must have crossed even Howel’s mind as he watched his men die, watched the waves fill the bottom of his ship, but his face showed no signs of fear or doubt, only fierce concentration.

I am convinced that we survived those long thirty-two hours of fighting by Howel’s sheer will alone. Somehow, watching their brave leader tirelessly command and work alongside his crew emboldened the men of the
King James
, despite their injuries and damaged ship. At nine the next morning, the
Marquis del Campo
struck its colors, finally surrendering their valiant fight.

The pirates, utterly worn from the battle, were more relieved than triumphant. After the pirates boarded the Dutch ship and took its crew prisoner, I saw Howel Davis exhale and his shoulders slump forward, as though a great weight had been lifted from them. He smiled feebly at me and Walter Kennedy as he sat down, his hands on his knees, his matted hair hanging into his eyes. “I thought we was done for,” he admitted quietly. Then he looked at me. “Are you well, Sabrina?”

“Oh, yes,” I replied, smiling with a confidence I didn’t feel. “Just a couple scrapes and bruises.” Actually, my head was killing me. I was going to have a huge lump. Not to mention the psychological scarring I’d suffered from seeing men die in horrific ways. I was going to be in therapy for the rest of my life, if I ever got back to 2011.

On the upside, of course, I was alive, and had all my limbs. Unlike several of the crew.

Howel grinned at me. “You look like hell.”

I grinned back, happy to see him being his old self again. “You don’t look so hot yourself, babe,” I said, my voice laden with affection.

Howel decided to take the Dutch ship for himself since it was clearly a worthy vessel. Moreover, The
King James
was in bad shape, what with the leak and damaged rigging. He transferred everything to the Dutch ship and named her the
Royal Rover.
Including the arms that were brought from the
King James
, the
Royal Rover
had thirty-two cannons and twenty-seven swivel guns.

That, my friends, made it a
serious
pirate ship.

I was glad to see Howel in such good spirits, swaggering confidently, jesting playfully with his crew. But inwardly I was terrified. It was May of 1719, just a month short of the day Howel was supposed to die, and we were but a few days’ sail from Prince Island. I tried to bring it up with him a few times, but was met with silence and unresponsiveness from him. He did not want to talk about it, did not want to think about it.

“I ain’t going without a fight,” he often said in response to my anxious entreaties, smiling and winking at me, as though being playful would put me at ease.

But I was not so easily mollified. While I managed to keep myself from haranguing Howel about it every moment we were together, I was becoming increasingly panicked. I slept less, ate less, found myself constantly tense and jumping at every sound. Howel’s pirate career was bound to end badly, even if it didn’t end the way
Rovers of the Sea
said it would. In my nightmares, I saw the text of the book as it laid out the fates of the pirates I knew – Charles Vane, Jack Rackam, Edward England – its black letters so stark and formal against the white pages: …
hanged in Jamaica…hung from a gibbet… a beggar and a drunk…
And there were the pirates I didn’t know, such as Stede Bonnet and Blackbeard, whose fates were not any better:
…hanged at White Point… his head cut off and hung from the bow of his ship…

The nightmares often ended with the words bleeding a dark red, the blood streaming from the pages and staining my hands like the blood of the dead pirates on the deck of the
King James
. I would often find myself crying out in my sleep, startling myself awake.

Even if I were able to prevent Howel’s being ambushed and shot on Prince Island, how would I prevent the even more horrific death that awaited him at the hands of the law? For I knew of no pirate who had successfully evaded the law for long.

There was only one solution. I had to find my black pirate, and then I had to convince Howel to go back to the future with me.

With a battered
King James
trailing in its wake, the
Royal Rover
sailed to the trading post at Anomabu, off the Ghana coast. Anchored there were three slave-ships, the
Princess
, the
Hink
, and the
Morrico
. Howel had the
Royal Rover
fire three of its cannons and raise the black flag, and as easily as that, the slave-ships were his. Very few brave souls would have resisted Howel’s tough band of pirates that crowded the two fully-armed ships, let alone three slavers whose crews had been beaten down by their captains and the harsh shores of Africa. The fort fired a single, poorly aimed shot at the pirates, and as the cannonball plopped harmlessly into the sea a good distance from its target, the three slave-ships quickly lowered their flags in surrender.