Hunt for White Gold

Chapter Thirty-Four





The guard’s charges were quiet. The cells were for the condemned, and the condemned of the colonies had nothing left to sign to gain their freedom. They were always quiet.

It had been hours since Coxon had quit the cells but would be at least another two before the man was relieved. He sat at his table, his cheese and beer long gone, and smoked his third pipe of the evening, all from Devlin’s tobacco. It was smoother than the Bermuda sweepings he could normally afford.

‘Hey!’ Hugh Harris hung his arms through his cell and whistled. ‘If there ain’t no belly timber for us, lobster, how’s about some tobacco? Just a bowl or two for me and Lawson here, eh?’

‘Quiet, filth,’ the guard leant back on his chair. ‘Bad enough I’m in here with you, I don’t have to hear you an’ all.’

‘Aye,’ Hugh snapped back. ‘Reckon it’s probably only a magistrate’s mistake that you ain’t in here too, mate. What happened? Too scared to hang?’

‘Not stupid that’s all, filth.’ He grinned through his pipe over his shoulder to Hugh.

‘Aye, you are. All lobsters are. That’s why you’re lobsters. Can’t tie knots.’

‘Least I ain’t the one waiting to hang. Now quiet down, filth.’ But in truth he enjoyed the exchange and the baiting.

Adam Cowrie was now at his bars, a face not yet twenty, younger even than the lobster. ‘Why would they hang us? We’re taking the pardon ain’t we?’ Despite the warmth of their prison his voice had a chill, a cold breath.

The guard looked at the boy. He knew the look behind the eyes and remembered it on himself more than once. He raised his voice wickedly for them all. ‘Oh, your cap’n be taking the pardon, sonny. Ain’t no use in the rest of you. I reckon “Old Rusty Guts” is up to about twenty of you hanged already. And they had taken the pardon. How do you favour he feels about them’s just arrived all covered in blood?’

‘Reckon he fears us,’ Harris laughed.

Dandon’s voice whispered from his door. ‘Did you say you were not stupid, soldier?’

‘Aye, ponce. I ain’t as stupid as you lot anyways.’

‘Comprenez-vous le francais?’ Dandon asked.

The soldier swung his head to Dandon, the pipe hanging off his lip.

‘J’ai pensé autant,’ Dandon said, ‘I thought as much.’ He shouted in French across the gaol to Devlin in his cell. ‘So, Patrick,’ he winked at the soldier and then aimed his voice over him. ‘Does all go well? Are we ahead yet?’

Devlin came to his door. ‘All goes well enough, my friend,’ he yelled back, even affording a Brittany accent.

‘What occurred above?’

‘It is here, Dandon. In Rogers’ chambers. The Chinese gun.’

‘Ho,’ Dandon clucked scornfully. ‘Then all we need to do is walk out of here, carry it out from under the governor’s nose and swim with it upon our backs to Charles Town.’ Dandon waved a hand to the direction of the stairs. ‘After you, Captain.’

The soldier looked back and forth between them, unsure whether this exchange meant trouble or not. Being unable to follow the conversation afforded him some consternation. Devlin, unused to Dandon’s sarcasm, shot him a dark look back across the room.

‘I got us here. The Shadow is coming. Bill is to look for the Talefan. He may even be here by now.’

‘And then? I see tomorrow as uncertain for us even though Howell will do well with our gold and Coxon with the rest of it.’ He kicked his feet as cockroaches as large as eggs scuttled across his shoes.

‘Do you not trust me, Dandon? I thought you wanted the game, as I recall, back in that tavern in Charles Town?’

‘I prefer it when the cards are more in my favour, Captain.’ He slunk back into his cell.

Devlin spoke in English for all to hear, ‘I did what I had to do. To save our six lives.’

He resumed his French for Dandon, no longer visible to him, recounting how he had bargained with Howell to save any further whittling of both crews. That Howell could take their gold to bring them into Providence. Howell to be his own captain. Have his own ship and theirs. But warned that the Shadow was behind them over the horizon and would not take kindly to any other course if Howell did not comply.

Coxon would at least not find all the gold but just enough to appease Rogers. Howell had his anchor cable and buoys hung ‘apeake’, straight down and tight to the hull, with the gold beneath the Mumvil’s keel.

Dandon reappeared, his French now coarse and bitter. ‘And just what of the Shadow, Patrick? Two warships stand off without. A garrison of soldiers is here within and us all lost as much as Peter Sam.’ The others looked up at the sound of the quartermaster’s name.

The soldier had heard enough. He sprung up, his musket at his hip and pointing into Dandon’s cell. ‘That’ll do! No more dago talk, the lot of you, so help me!’

Dandon lifted his palms apologetically. Devlin carried on, in English. ‘Trust Black Bill like you do me, lads, and Coxon to give us a hand. He’s to take one of the ships out on patrol. He told me himself. Bill will see the Delicia’s petticoats long before they see him. He has his orders, long agreed.’

He thought back to the last time he had shaken hands with Bill, aboard the Shadow, climbing down into the boat to row to the Talefan. Bill had confessed to him how he and Peter Sam had almost changed course a year ago at The Island. Almost left Devlin and the others to their fate. The words almost whispered themselves off his lips but he held them in: But you came back, Bill. And you would again.

‘Don’t fret, lads. This is an English cell with fine Englishmen to look after us. What more could an Irishman want?’

The soldier listened and took in carefully the words of the pirate who ignored the loaded musket just yards from him. ‘That’s better,’ he said, and returned to his seat and waited for the end of his watch.


John Coxon had paused. Just for a moment he queried the reason and sense of removing the Milford to trawl the coast, but in passing the Delicia at rest two miles west from Dick’s Point, blocking the entrance to the harbour, watchful and serene, his resolve became certain. He thought on the Shadow. Her three hundred tons would keep her out of the harbour and her broadside was no threat to the twenty eighteen-pounders per side boasted by the Delicia.

Coxon sent one boat to the Delicia, a sail-cloth packet accompanying her, informing Captain Gale, now commanding Rogers’ guardship, of the need to test the eyes of his starbolins that watch for sight of the pirate.

A cable length away, south of Delicia’s lee, Coxon rowed the six hundred feet to the Milford. Urgently, on arrival, almost before the whistle had stopped piping him aboard, he began poring over his map of Providence and the islands. He began to imagine what he would do, where he would creep ashore in the middle of the night.

The soundings gave limited service to a large ship. It was too dangerous to come in from the south. The only landable shore lay on the west coast but between it and Nassau was nothing but almost sixteen miles of jungle and swamp with a massive lake in its centre.

He placed a finger on the map. He was alone and took conference only with his own intelligence and the spectre of Devlin plotting over his shoulder.

So, a ship could anchor west at Goulding Cay and row in but the jungle would make a heavy passage. His heart beat faster as he ran his divider along the points and cays of the north shore.

There were beaches aplenty north and enough low ground for a landing party to march perhaps four or five miles to come in behind the town. He poured a draught of Madeira sack. He would point his bow west and follow the shore, at least two miles out to be certain of missing the reefs and beds, making sure to sound all the way. His pencil scraped in his shaking fingers.

He would patrol past Goulding’s Cay and Northwest Point, and maybe find them there or carry on further north to North Cay and then back again. And again, and again, until they came.

He swallowed his wine and twirled his divider over the map, stepping along the shore, adding the distance and already picturing the best sail to set.

Thirty-two miles would bring him to North Cay. It would have to be four knots at night for safety and the lowest profile. He snapped open his watch: it was after eleven already. By six bells, seven o’clock in the morning, he would have made his first pass of North Cay. He clapped the watch shut.

At worst, thought Coxon, he was overreacting to the presence of his old servant. The land was protected by a hundred soldiers and twice as many militia. The island had lost the Rose and the Shark but the Milford and Delicia, both fifth rates, could hold fast. At best he was providing much needed extra duty for the idlers his Milfords had inevitably become over the past months.

He stepped briskly out onto the night-deck, almost into the back of Sailing Master Halesworth, and began snapping orders to his lieutenants who, fresh from their cots, were still pulling on their coats and patting down their hair.

Whistles blew and brails shook free from cleats and pins – the deck alive, a street-market of shouts and tramping feet. Coxon walked up to the quarterdeck and waited for the capstan’s bars below to wind them away and free.

There was no harm in a little patrol. Perhaps it would prove a waste of time but perhaps not. It would be just enough exercise to shake the land from his coat anyways. But Devlin had arrived. Again on a smaller ship, as before. He and that doctor, and the Shadow nowhere in sight. All as before. As on The Island where Devlin had trumped him before. Never again.

The Milford sighed reluctantly as she lurched out of a dream and more shouts came from the fore, but Coxon was now looking out over the stern back to the dim light of the round fort sitting above the town, north of the harbour.

He was sailing away. Away from Devlin and the gold that he had still not settled on. He was leaving the governor of New Providence, Eleuthera, Harbour Island and Abaco alone with the pirate Devlin. But with one hundred soldiers, two hundred militia and two warships with two hundred and fifty men.

Nevertheless, alone with the pirate Devlin.

He sipped the coffee that his valet, Oscar Hodge, passed into his hand. He had missed something, he was sure of it. Something in Devlin’s grin as always told him so. But he could not just sit and wait for the other shoe to drop. The Shadow would be somewhere. He stared on at the old Spanish tower as it withdrew slowly, until the light from her windows merged into one brilliant red, sparkling jewelled eye watching him leave.


Woodes Rogers leant back in his chair. ‘I am intrigued, Mister Williams. Go on with your proposal.’ Despite the hour Rogers had not retired for the evening, his hours of sleep engaged instead with the letters from merchants who were reporting an increase in Spanish and French activity around the islands – dangerous reports and uncomfortable reading now that the new war was spreading and any admiral worth his salt could see Providence as a watch-tower for Florida and the supply route to the Mediterranean. The only good news from his own island was that the pineapple they had brought with them was prospering. Conversely, the new populace was wilting with the humours of the fever. This Palgrave Williams had offered a welcome distraction when Rogers’ secretary had brought the stranger into his office.

Palgrave swallowed hard, relieved that he had made it thus far without being removed. ‘As I said, sir, I can put up papers of ownership that will confirm that the gun belongs to me, but in light of my past endeavours I am willing to forego that ownership, which as you see by the receipt I have furnished, is worth a substantial sum, if you will allow me to retrieve the letters that are inside.’

Rogers peered dubiously at the receipt from Heston’s auction house. ‘This could all be forged of course. You are infamous in the colonies for being one of Bellamy’s commanders. Suppose this is all some trick that is not apparent to me now, but for which I will suffer later? And what is Blackbeard’s interest in all of this?’

Palgrave stepped forward nervously. ‘No trick, Your Worship.’ He drew from his satchel a square folded packet. ‘I have here a letter signed by Captain Teach himself in which he swears to give himself up to the council in Charles Town, to where he will sail immediately if I afford him the letters forthwith.’ He flopped the packet down before Rogers who unfolded it carefully.

‘And you are to remain here? Once these letters are passed over?’

Palgrave confirmed that he was to take the Act of Grace and willingly put himself to the mercy of Rogers’ governorship.

‘And what do I stand … what does the Crown stand to gain from allowing such an odd transaction?’

Palgrave’s eyes had wandered to the Chinese gun lying innocently beneath the sacks and discarded articles in the darkest corner of the room. ‘You, sir, stand to gain an ornamental object of great historical value. An object that Heston’s sold to me for fourteen hundred pounds that I will sign over to you. You gain the fact that myself, who has eluded the best of the King’s men, chose to surrender to your grace above all others. And that the scourge of Blackbeard will come to an end also, as that paper testifies, for the same reason: your great stature among these islands.’

Rogers hummed thoughtfully over the hand of Blackbeard on the paper before him. ‘These “letters” that you prize have some value to yourself and Teach that I am not to be a party to?’

‘They are letters of property from my father, he who was Attorney-General for the Rhode Island Plantation. I bargained with Teach that they would be his if he gave me passage to your protection. Teach too has seen that there is no long future to be had in piracy. He wishes to take the pardon as well as I.’

‘And Teach? Can he not surrender to me directly?’ Rogers began to bloom under the thought of having Devlin, Teach and Williams all take the Act of Grace in one day. His image of the mass of raised eyebrows in Whitehall caused his crooked jaw to drool.

‘Teach fears that not all his men will take kindly to … surrender. He does not wish to bring any untoward danger to the island, especially as it has such a history with his men. He also has his … wives to consider. Better to take care of them on the mainland.’

‘Ah yes,’ Rogers had just come to that very line. ‘Pity. I should like to have laid eyes on the man.’

He stood, the receipt for the gun and Blackbeard’s affidavit in his hands. ‘Your offer is a sound one, Mister Williams.’ He strode around his desk and to the broken windows to look out over the slumbering town. ‘Sound but not strictly fair.’

Palgrave followed Rogers’ back. ‘Sir?’ he asked tentatively.

‘My own thoughts are that I already have this gun as part of my lawful and appointed estate. And your letters within it. I also have you, Williams, within my jurisdiction, without the need for bargaining, for a hanging awaits those who do not voluntarily take the Act of Grace.’ He turned from the window and looked at the Chinese gun, wiping his jaw with his lace cuff as he meandered to his desk. ‘It seems the only thing I do not have is Teach. And if he truly wishes to “settle down” as you say, I’m sure I will have even him soon enough.’ Rogers plucked up a small bell from the desk, dropping the papers as he did so.

The bell rang, tolling for Palgrave Williams. Rogers sat and waited for the guards to come, emoting a determined speech. ‘I have sailed the world several times, Mister Williams, captured treasure galleons, sacked the city of Guayaquil. Had my jaw shot out, and part of my foot, in battle. Seen my younger brother killed before me in the same. I am here for a reason, Mister Williams. And I do not bargain with pirates.’

The door flew open and with a wave of Rogers’ hand Palgrave was clasped hard between two boulders of men. ‘Take him down with the others to the cells. He can sign in the morning with Devlin. And send four men to the harbour. This man had a boat waiting for him.’

Palgrave looked at the soldiers holding him. Such a long time coming but one day expected. This was the day. He appealed with a logic that would have stayed most men’s hands.

‘But, Your Worship, if I do not return Teach will know! He will come!’

Rogers was unmoved. ‘Then he will come. It is known that he no longer commands four hundred men. Nor his French Guineaman bastardised with cannon. I think we can manage if Teach’s feelings are hurt.’

The door closed, smothering Palgrave’s protesting cries. Rogers flicked idly at the promise from Blackbeard and at Heston’s receipt as the cries echoed away. It would be quite a feather in his cap for Devlin and Palgrave Williams to sign the act. The others could hang whilst Coxon was on his wild goose chase hunting for Devlin’s frigate.

He dabbed away the spittle from his chin and rose to take a more curious look at the Chinese cannon in the corner. The red eye of the dragon seemed to be beckoning him closer. A bell in the square below rang out twelve times and the hollow bawl of the Charley announced that all was well. For an hour past at least.

Rogers surveyed the heap of nonsense piled around the gun, weighing the effort against the hour with a yawn. He settled for the morning to closer study the clay seal for there was time enough yet. The day had been long and there was the prospect of Devlin, Palgrave, and maybe even Blackbeard on the morrow. Aye, a long day well ended. All was very much well.