Hunt for White Gold

Chapter Thirty-Six





Despite what governments and navies hoped was true and represented to their courts, pirates were not the simple opportunists and lucky misanthropes that chanced upon poorly-defended cities and ships at slumber. Apart from gold and whatever pleasures a town offered, the pirates craved and prized one thing above all else to secure their future:

Intelligence.

It was not how many guns and men you had that was important but to know how many guns and men your enemy had. That would favour the odds to a successful ‘surprisal’ at sea or a deadly raid upon a shore.

Days, even weeks, would be spent journeying onto land under cover of night, mapping fortifications, calculating the numbers and watches of soldiers, often kidnapping the odd local fisherman or two and ‘questioning’ them most thoroughly as to the strengths and weaknesses of their target, until piece by piece a plan became history and the pirates moved on to the next target along the coast, leaving whole countries to lick their wounds.

Time and again the governors of the Americas would question Whitehall as to how, with the vast numbers of patrols, the pirates avoided capture, eluded the largest floating contingent of men ever seen, and managed almost to strangle trade between the North American coast and the motherland; and how the pirates, on the other hand, appeared to suffer no difficulty in finding the merchants, regardless of what latitude they took.

The answer lay in the bottom of the boat paddling its way back to the Shadow that night, still paddling even though they were now more than a mile away from their study of the Delicia. Oars out of the thole pins of the boat for silent running and the salt-raker at their feet gagged with his own nether-hose to muffle his cries.

The jolly-boat bumped home, the rope was belayed, and the pirates dragged their haul up the ladder to Black Bill waiting by the entry port. They presented the salt-raker as if he were the governor himself, and the terrified man’s eyes weaved all about the deck, widening at each dark face that leered back at him. Bill ignored him, pushed him behind for the others to drag him below for preparations, and asked the two kidnappers of what they had seen.


Time enough wasted, Bill decided as he stood over the map of Providence across the table, a soothing pipe steadying his thoughts. It was past one now, four and some hours before dawn, and the night was all he had if the Shadow were to remain as her name declared. No lanterns had been lit and dead-lights to the windows shielded Bill’s lamp. They lay silent and dark three miles south of the Delica’s starbolin watch.

The reconnaissance had provided much vital intelligence. The jolly-boat, its oars paddling in perfect time with the lap of the tide against the Delica’s hull, had sallied leisurely past the frigate barely a spit away. The Delica’s lanterns around her masts and stern ensured the watch enough night-blindness to see nothing but the blanket of darkness wrapped around the gunwale.

The salt-raker, a foot to his throat in the bottom of the boat, had looked up at the giant wall of the freeboard towering above the little boat. Around her closed ports as they drifted beneath seeped out a faint trim of amber light from her lanterns within, and the occasional hacking cough or powerful snore made her appear as a sleeping giant. It would only take one man to open a port for a breath of air or to sneak a pipe and they would be seen but the pirates showed no sign of such worry as they idled past and gathered all they needed to know.

The captured salt-raker confirmed that Devlin’s Talefan was in the harbour, as much tinder as ship, and that the pirate Devlin had been paraded in the square that very afternoon and was now in the fort’s basement gaol along with five of his men.

The jolly-boat had witnessed Coxon’s Milford sail west and away. If anything were to be done, it had best be now, while the Delicia was alone. The Delicia, two miles from the harbour to the south, had forty guns. Guns the Shadow did not want to see.


Bill listened to Dan Teague report that the Delicia would have one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty men. They were out-gunned and out-manned. Bill shrugged at this. Had that ever mattered before? Besides, it was not the ship that they wanted.

A little ‘woolding’ had measured the salt-raker’s conviction of his new companions’ intentions. Woolding was a favoured pirate torture. The term coined from the act of winding rope around masts and yards to bind them. The hemp rope twisted over his eyes and knotted tighter and tighter to his skull had given the salt-raker bright recollections of a garrison of one hundred men, plus local militia of another two hundred odd ex-pirates and new settlers. The other ships had sailed weeks ago. Only the Milford under Captain Coxon and the Delicia under Captain Gale remained.

Bill breathed deep on his pipe. He penned a cross where the Delicia lay, two miles west of Dick’s Point and almost as close as she could get without scraping the shoals. He inked the path of the Milford, left two hours ago now according to the men of the jolly-boat, and he estimated her almost at Cay Point. Far west. Out of harm’s way. He slipped his divider across the map from their own point and past the Delicia to the harbour.

Dan Teague watched him scribbling at the edge of the map but had long given up trying to fathom the depths of the numbers that meant so much to Devlin and Bill. He simply waited for his orders. Eventually Bill’s head lifted.

‘Why, Dan, do you suppose the Milford and Coxon have sailed off west at such an hour?’

Dan shook his head and waited to be enlightened as he knew he would be.

‘See, I’m picturing,’ Bill’s voice rose as his eyes turned misty and he feigned mystical knowledge, ‘a conversing with our captain and Coxon. A converse that led Coxon to believe that the Shadow was on her way. Now,’ he tapped his divider on the map, drawing Dan’s eye, ‘if you looks at the soundings around the island, and terrible they are too, we all know that the Shadow can’t sail straight into the harbour. But around the north shore she gets deeper and we could land there.’ Dan looked at the wavering lines and numbers that indicated more than shoals. Bill blew smoke over the island like a fog. ‘And like Coxon I would have noticed that the west of the island is nothing but jungle and this great lake right in the middle. Take two days to get across to Nassau from the west. Cap’n Coxon, just as I myself, would see that our girl would have to come in from the north to rescue Devlin. She’s no other choice. The Delicia guards the harbour from assault from the south.’ He dropped the divider with satisfaction and ran his eyes over the map.

Dan looked up, his brow creased. ‘But we’ve come in from the south, Bill.’

‘Aye,’ Bill seemed pleased with Dan’s summation. ‘For the moment.’

Dan looked back, still waiting for the order, understanding nothing Bill had said. Bill gripped his shoulder. ‘Nassau is on the north-east corner. Why lay a town there, Dan?’

Dully, Dan just stared back. Sometime an order would come. He just had to stand on his patience.


Bill slapped his back. ‘The harbour is too narrow and shallow for anything but little’uns! And what makes the harbour so shallow and narrow, Dan?’ He did not wait for a reply. ‘Hog Island, Dan!’ He tapped the sliver of land that sat off of Nassau. ‘We can make there! Come in from the east. Harbour behind her and use her like a stepping-stone! Boat around her! I’ll be damned if some Spaniard hasn’t thought of that before! Sail nor’east away of the Delicia protecting the south and old Coxon gallivanting around the north!’

Dan chewed his tongue and seemed to understand. Bill handed him Devlin’s letter.

‘The note Devlin left us on Dead Man with them Talefans is short enough,’ he handed it to Dan from his waistcoat. ‘Make what you want of it.’

Dan unfolded the paper that had been handed to them at landing on the island among the Exumas. They had expected to find their brethren there. Instead they found only the fifteen men who had welcomed them like old friends, running into the surf to drag in the longboat, and had now signed on willingly. The week on the island had obviously brought on some fine bonding and speculation on the sweet trade. Devlin had a glamour about him after all. But the note was not so welcoming.



We are to make for Providence. Now under king’s government. Take these men and give a Louis to each.



Peter Sam is held until I can return to Charles Town.



I intend to surrender to King’s Act in order to get aboard Providence. I will need you to get me out again. Look for the Talefan to shore. Make your way into Nassau. Any way that is best suited to the day you find me. Woodes Rogers is governor. I aims to be as close to him as I can, for Peter Sam’s freedom lies within the fort where he resides.



You will be expected, as Coxon is also on Providence.



Note only this and plan accordingly:



Peter Sam will be lost if I do not return.



Our gold is in jeopardy now Providence is lost.



Coxon will be looking for the Shadow.



Valentim Mendes waits for me in Charles Town.



Blackbeard is also against.



May the Lord and Saints preserve you, friend Bill.



D.




Dan folded the paper and passed it back, hoping an order would be given in return. When none came he edged towards an opinion.

‘I make, Bill, that we would not be welcome in Providence no more.’

‘Perfect, Dan,’ Bill slapped him hard and rolled up his map. ‘Pirates are not welcome in Providence and Coxon is out looking for us and our girl.’

Dan opened his mouth to speak but could find nothing to say. Bill tapped his finger to his head. ‘You have to think like the captain, Dan. I’m starting to get the measure of it myself. Come, we’ve little time to us,’ and he pulled Dan out of the cabin with him to summon the men, a fresh drama itching over his skin and coursing through him. The notion of it drew him up like a rope as he barked his orders and men cheered back at him.

In all his years pirating the round, chance had never occasioned Bill to take a whole island before.