Book One: A Poor Man

at the Gate Series

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Chapter Three

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Beef, beer, biscuit and water were all running short by the time they reached the Trinidad, a week of calms having extended their voyage beyond Smith’s expectation; gin, however, seemed still to be in good supply – they had hardly seen Blaine on deck since evading the frigate and on those few occasions he had seemed unsteady on his feet, as if he were losing his sea legs.

The month of near idleness had led to any number of second thoughts among the crew, to doubts about the wisdom of penetrating the Caribbean – they knew that Britain was losing the war, that the American rebels and, more importantly, their French allies were winning on land and that the French, Spanish and Dutch were in loose alliance at sea. For the first time in a century the oceans were not an English domain; it would not last, that was for sure, the navy would organise itself and restore the proper order of things very soon, but, for the while, the enemy might be found anywhere. Of course, that was why privateering was profitable at that moment – many more French and Spanish merchantmen were at sea than would be the case if the navy was snapping them up whenever they showed their noses outside of their harbours; even so, the possibility of escorts and patrols had to be borne in mind – they might be about to stir up a hornet’s nest. In the Mediterranean, for example, the Spanish had to keep a very careful eye on the Barbary pirates whilst watching what the Austrian Empire might be doing in the Italian states; Atlantic waters gave the Spanish another set of problems, the English particularly, the net effect being that they could not devote a great deal of attention to the activities of one little privateer. In the Caribbean they might have nothing better to do than protect their traders...

They closed the coast of a bright afternoon – dawn would have been better but their precise position posed a slight problem – Smith had no navigation at all and Captain Blaine had some difficulties taking a sextant reading with his hands shaking so. It had been thought better to hold well away from where the shore should have been in the hours of darkness.

They spotted eight separate sail of merchantmen making for the port, all unconcerned and pottering quietly along, one man and a dog on watch – evidently sure that no English ships would be about and that the few small pirates remaining would be holding a safe distance from the naval base.

Two brigs and a schooner were of a hundred tons or more, would be profitable captures – Admiralty Court fees in England ate up the value of smaller prizes to such an extent that they were more bother than they were worth. Each surrendered to a single shot across the bows, surprised and indignant to discover a corsair in their own back yard, but certainly not about to argue with loaded guns pointing very directly at them. Star turned her head northwards, towards Antigua, shepherding her chicks in front of her – rations demanded a port sooner rather than later and the manpower for prize-crews was not there.

“Five quid a share, at least, Tom, when we get them to court. The lads will be better for a good piss-up in English Harbour, cheaper there than in Poole.”

Tom nodded, not entirely sure why that should be the case but unwilling to argue about anything so unimportant to him.

Dawn off Martinique brought them a bright, clear, sunny morning, the mountains of the volcanic island fresh-washed and black to their west, a large merchantman to their east, hove-to and waiting full daylight to close the coast and signal for the pilot cutter. Blaine was called immediately, staggered bleary-eyed on deck and peered about him in puzzlement until Smith nudged him in the right direction.

“French West Indiaman,” Blaine announced. “Far too big for us to handle, except we get lucky. Load all.”

Three minutes to cross the stern of the big ship, four times their size, two-decked, her rails at least ten feet higher than Star’s, taken unawares for expecting no trouble within sight almost of a great naval base. First stirrings of surprise turned to panic as the three prizes conformed to Star, seemingly a whole squadron of privateers, or, much worse, pirates.

Star fired her broadside, high on the roll, skimming across the poop and spreading a few splinters and a great deal of roaring. A few screams arose from unlucky crewmen, drowned by the howling of shocked passengers, rudely awakened by cannonballs about their ears. Initial panic turned rapidly into whole-hearted chaos as Star thumped alongside and her boarders scrambled awkwardly over the bulwarks, Tom leading them in a charge towards the wheel where a sole, uniformed, officer was waving a sword. Just in time Tom saw he was offering it, hilt first, in token of surrender.

“We do not fight! Do not kill us! There are passengers.”

Tom took the sword, a heavy but well-balanced working hanger, he noticed – that was not going back to its owner.

“Everybody on deck, quickly! By the mainmast, for the crew, passengers here. Now!”

The French officer sprinted, shouting, slapping and kicking at his men when they did not move fast enough, galloping below and bursting cabin doors open, bellowing the sleepy into a run. He had all of the passengers in a huddle at the stern, part-clothed or in nightshirts, within two minutes, before the privateersmen could get at them in their cabins. There were half a dozen of wives and daughters amongst them and the Frenchman knew of the reputation, commonly well-earned, of corsairs.

Tom was concerned only to get the ship under way, well out to sea before any investigation of their single broadside took place – just possibly the French in the harbour might think there had been a thunder clap in the mountains, a common enough event, and one they might ignore. He ordered the French crew to make sail and they ran enthusiastically to their duty, hoping that if they showed useful they might not have their throats cut as an inconvenience to their captors; in the Caribbean the difference between pirate and privateer was often very small indeed and they worked more efficiently than at any time since leaving Bordeaux, to the mordant amusement of their captain.

“They work harder for you than for me, young man,” he observed. “Perhaps six pistols are a good idea!”

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English Harbour had its own Admiralty Court and prize-agents only too anxious to oblige. The three Spaniards, laden with the produce of the Main, were welcome and sold easily, local merchants having a market on the island for the foodstuffs and contacts in London who would happily dispose of the cocoa and hides and mahogany that made up the bulk of their cargoes. The eight hundred tonner from Europe was fallen on with delight, the merchants bidding each other up, all having customers who had hardly seen any goods from England in more than two years. Wines, brandy, silks and satins, porcelain, made furniture, clocks and mirrors for the genteel; shovels, prongs, axes and hoes, cast-iron cooking pots and thick earthenware for the plantations – all went to auction and were snapped up at vastly inflated prices.

The first share-out was sufficient for a very thorough celebration.

Tom had never been on the spree before, for lack of friends at home, was not at all sure of the procedure; Luke, who evidently knew all about enjoying himself, took him in hand, leading Tom and Dick and John uphill from the waterfront, on the grounds that the drinking houses nearest the quay were no better than rough shebeens.

“Pox-holes, mate – wash yer cock before you goes in there, because it’ll be too bloody late afterwards!”

Dick and John laughed uproariously; Tom didn’t understand.

They went inside a better looking hotel, cleaner and brighter than the dockside haunts, and the barman, knowing they were from Star, and rich, temporarily, made them welcome with something he called ‘rumbullion’, a long drink based on rum but with lime juice and guava and sugar and water added. The drink went down well and the four were joined at table by a group of young ladies who seemed inclined, to Tom’s eyes, to be surprisingly friendly to men they had not been introduced to; the girls were of various colours from a deep cream to a rich brown, something wholly new to Tom, who had previously not really been aware of the existence of black people, Dorset not being the most cosmopolitan of counties. Whatever their colour, they were jolly girls, laughing and joking and drinking with them and quite rapidly pairing off, one apiece, the extra couple finding other company at another table.

Tom found himself talking in the friendliest fashion to a tall, well-built young lady who said she very much enjoyed big men and would like to see his muscles, inviting him along to an upstairs room for the purpose. To his surprise, and eventual pleasure, she seemed to want to show him her muscles as well, for she stripped all of her clothes off as soon as they were alone together, and then helped him remove his before gripping him in an unexpected manner. He soon discovered what he was supposed to do, however, and decided that it was really quite a good idea. His young lady, Sally by name, was touched and pleased to discover that she was his first, and threw herself into the task of teaching him, if not all that he needed to know then at least a very thorough introduction. Four days later she led him back to the Star, penniless, very, very tired and with a headache and a singularly foolish grin on his face, handed him over to Smith with instructions to make sure he got a good sleep and the message that he should be sure to come back again after his next cruise.

“He a good boy, that one, Mr Captain – you be sure to look after he, now!”

Smith took Tom’s arm, not sure he could stand on his own, and thanked her gravely before pointing Tom in the direction of his hammock, which he slung for him, certain that he would be unable to manage the task unaided.

Tom woke up eventually and sat quietly trying to remember all that had happened in the last few days; he thought he might have forgotten some of the finer details, but most of it was still clear. He checked his drawstring purse thoughtfully, discovered it to be completely empty – twenty pounds from this share-out and all that remained of the first, all gone. His father had always said he was doing well if he cleared a pound a week from the boat, so he had blown half a year’s money in four days; good days, mind you, he wasn’t complaining, but too expensive – what was the point to risking his neck for four days of fun and then having to go out and do the same again, time after time, with no more than memories to show for it? They were pretty good memories, no arguing with that, but it still made no sense to carry on like that – he didn’t want to be buried with a smile on his face before he was twenty. He thought that the rumbullion had been good stuff, he wouldn’t mind a swig of that now, to clear his head and set him up for the day; then he remembered Blaine and thought perhaps there were better ways of starting, and ending, his days.

He walked out on deck, looked about him at the stores being brought on board by labourers from the chandlers, decided there was work to do; he made his way to the galley and begged fresh, shore-bought bread from the cook, breakfasted on that and a couple of bananas bought from the previous day’s market, and then went down to the powder magazine and gunner’s shop, started to set them in some sort of order.

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Opinion in English Harbour was that the Star was under-manned for her work – she really needed at least another score of boarders and prize-crew. Smith agreed, and was able to persuade Blaine to his view, but being a privateer they thought they should have the agreement of the hands before increasing their numbers and reducing the value of each share. They spoke to the men in small groups rather than having a formal meeting, found that a few had been in the Sugar Islands before and could suggest a useful way of doing things.

“There be few enough of English seamen dockside here,” John Murray said, “acos of there ain’t no berth for them on local coastal boats if they deserts, them all being owned by local families what crews ‘em theyselves, and no work on shore. So, either they goes onto a ship for America, or the navy gets they, and the war being what it is, there ain’t many ships for America now, and no bugger in his right mind deserts a merchantman to be caught by the navy. What there is though, and in plenty, is freemen, mostly ‘alf and ‘alf, like, what ‘ad a black lady for mum and a white bloke for dad; they ain’t got no land nor no trade so there ain’t nothing for them except get took by the navy, which is what ‘appens to most of they in the end – they gets ‘ungry and volunteers or gets drunk and meets the press gang, one or t’other. So it be easy enough, Captain, to find a couple of dozen young men what would join us for five guineas cash in hand and a promise of ‘alf a share, especially if you was to give ‘em Bible oath that you’d pay ‘em off in Antigua in a twelvemonth at most, not dump ‘em on shore in England or New York or some place.”

The word was circulated and Star was besieged – there had to be a hundred at least of young men of various colours unable to find anything other than occasional casual labour and not seeing five guineas in cash from one year’s end to the next. Many of them brought their own cutlasses along in token of their willingness to fight. All were ragged, none seemed over-fed; they lined up quietly and hopefully, trying to catch an officer’s eye, wanting to seem keen and enthusiastic, not daring to create a stir and be labelled ‘troublemaker’.

“How do we choose?” Smith asked.

Blaine shrugged and wandered off to his cabin, to his bottle.

In the end they simply selected the biggest – it seemed obviously fair and liable to cause least trouble among those rejected – they knew there was a reason for the choice made, that it was not whim or favouritism. They took twenty-four, having found that many hammocks tucked away in the purser’s stores – not that they had a purser, as such, the cook doubling for one. Small boys hanging around the dock – there were always dozens of them scrounging for the odd penny or crust – were sent to find mothers and sisters to collect the men’s down payment of five guineas – it might have been a little too trusting to have sent them off, coins in hand, with instructions to return first thing in the morning, though most of them would have turned up, they thought.

Tom was called to audience with Blaine and Smith later in the day.

“We need a petty officer, as it were, Andrews,” Blaine announced. “These new boarders will have to be kept under control somehow. They ain’t seamen, and we haven’t got the wherewithal to train them – no men, no time – so they can’t be watched – best they should be held together, as waisters, like marines, you might say. You to lead them, showing them how to handle their cutlasses properly the while.”

Blaine broke off, poured himself a water-glass of gin, almost making eye-contact with Tom as he raised it to his lips.

“Thing is, you see, Andrews, what we have in mind, is for these people to lead, as it were, to be in the front of any boardings, our original boarders to back them up, following on behind, you might say.”

“So, if there should be any dying, they can do it, sir?”

Smith winced at such deplorable lack of tact – there was no need to say such things aloud, he believed.

“Quite, Andrews. No need to waste seamen, after all, we haven’t got so many to spare.”

Tom shrugged – they were volunteers, freemen, had begged, in fact, for the opportunity.

“And you want me to lead them sir, to be your petty officer?”

“Yes, Andrews, exactly. Four shares?”

It was more than fair – the going rate for a leading hand was three shares, he had been told.

“Thank you, sir. When do we sail?”

They left harbour on an afternoon’s tide, very publicly in view and heading ostentatiously south down the island chain; with darkness, they turned their head easterly to gain sea room and then commenced a series of tacks to take them northabout, eventually to cruise the coast of Cuba. There was always the chance of information leaking from Antigua – literally dozens of island boats made port every week, tiny droghers carrying a few tons of sugar or copra or sweet potatoes from who-knew-where and returning unchecked and unnoticed to English or Dutch or Danish or French or Spanish harbours as trade and whim took them – they could not be controlled and they talked, often casually, without malice or payment, and the word of sailings spread quite randomly throughout the whole Caribbean. It was better, Blaine thought, in one of his rare moments of clarity, to act with a little caution.

Unfortunately, despite their care, the waters about Cuba were empty – in the first week they saw nothing bigger than a fishing boat, but the boats saw them; ships big enough to be prized simply evaporated from their view. At the end of eight barren weeks there was no alternative, they turned their head for Martinique and the islands south – despite the obvious risks – they had to earn eating money. The ninth week saw them north of the island and cutting off an eighty ton schooner, very heavily laden and struggling to claw off the lee shore where they had trapped her at dawn.

“Over-burdened,” Smith commented, “poorly sailed as well, very amateur, do you see, Tom, tacking a couple of minutes too early – he could have delayed until he was half a cable closer to the point there. If he had just shaved it he could have gained a cable on us because we need deeper water than him. Repeat that and he might gain enough on us to cross our bows and escape. But he won’t unless he learns his trade very quickly indeed.”

They soon decided that the schooner was thinly manned as well – strain their eyes as they might they could see no more than three men handling the sails and a fourth at the tiller. They closed inexorably, at half a cable called for her surrender; she responded with a single musket shot.

“Silly bugger! Chaser! Warning shot, if you please.”

Blaine had retired to his cabin, uninterested in a tiny capture without the prospect of a fight.

The six pounder fired and put its ball through the schooner’s mainsail which, boomed hard over, ripped itself to shreds in seconds. Star drew alongside the wallowing coaster and Tom led his boarders unhurriedly over the rail – three men were not going to fight two dozen, he believed. Two men were trying to bundle up the mainsail, raised their hands instantly and stepped back to the rail obediently. Tom sheathed his hanger – much more elegant than a cutlass he felt, he was proud of his stolen sword – and walked quietly to the stern, putting a hand out for any weapons they had to surrender. They looked like father and son he thought and then jumped and ducked just in time as the younger slashed overhand at him with the knife he had been holding behind his back; the blade scored his left cheek from eye socket almost to his mouth instead of burying itself in his throat as had been intended. He swore, staggered back as the young man stumbled, dragged out the hanger and lunged forward, straight into his chest, withdrawing and taking a roundhouse swing at the older man as he, possibly equally surprised, started forward. There was a great fountain of blood as the old man’s head flopped onto his shoulder, attached only by a rag of skin.

“Over them!”

The boarders obeyed the shout of the youth at their head, a tall man of eighteen or so, standing more than six feet, wiry in build and very fast on his feet, a quick intelligence showing on his tanned face. He had claimed that his grandfather was Carib, his father a captain in the army, his mother a free lady with a small farm of her own; his name was Joseph, he had offered no surname.

The two bodies splashed over the side, followed by the two captives – there had been no distinction made in the order and they probably felt better safe than sorry. The blood spread in seconds, followed by sharks inside a minute; if mistake it was, there was no opportunity to remedy it. The boarders started a quick search of the small boat while Joseph ripped a length of cotton from Tom’s shirt and held it to his cheek to stop the bleeding before dipping a bucket over the side.

“Hold still, Master Tom.”

Joseph did not bother to warn him that it would hurt, he thought that that was fairly obvious. He washed the wound thoroughly, then bound a brine-soaked pad across it.

“Leave that a few days, Master Tom, don’t let no flies or dirt get to it and maybe it don’t rot.”

Tom said nothing – with bandages across one eye and under his chin to hold the compress it would have been hard to speak anyway.

They both knew that wounds could become gangrenous, often did in the Tropics, perhaps one in five catching the black rot, fewer at sea than on land for some reason; the only treatment for the rot was amputation at the first sniff of corruption, well back from the site of the wound – it was not a practical cure in the case of a head wound.

The boarders came crowding back, shaking their heads.

“Nothing boss, nobody else, but they’s two cabins and both got plenty of blood on the deck.”

Tom followed them below, glad to be moving – it hurt less to be doing something. He glanced at the stains, spoke thickly to Joseph.

“Three, would you say?”

They nodded and suggested that the four hands had killed the owner and two others in a mutiny the day before, an act of piracy for which they might have been hanged by the authorities of any country – hence the foolish act of the boy with the knife, acting in desperation with nothing to lose.

Tom agreed, but hardly cared – his face hurt.

They put four seamen aboard the schooner and sent her back to Antigua – she was too slow, too heavily laden to remain in consort. They found another pair of island boats, sixty ton yawls, just big enough to bother with, fees being lower in the Antiguan Court, the next day and a larger brig on the third; the brig was only part-loaded, told them that she was on route to a plantation wharf at the north of the island, well clear of the harbour at St Pierre, where she was contracted to pick up a cargo of about eighty tons of sugar. There was no battery in the vicinity, no troops at all within a day’s march, the captain and owner of the brig assured them, and if they were to offer him the return of his vessel - his sole livelihood, he was a poor man – he would lead them in, all unsuspecting, to pick up the cargo themselves. The plantation slaves would act as longshoremen, they were used to the task – forty strong young men who could load his hold in two hours.

Blaine agreed immediately, intimating to Smith that when they sailed it might well be possible to take the slaves with them as well – there had been very few traders from Africa in the last year of war, the French having control of the Slave Coast, and a fit youngster could fetch two hundred guineas at the block in English Harbour.

Smith passed the word, observed the avaricious grins spread through the crew.

“Make the shore in late morning, sir?” Smith enquired. “Load before dark and lose ourselves at sea in the night, just in case there should be watchful eyes.”

They spent the night hove-to, all four vessels in close company, formed a rough line behind the brig and closed the wharf in bright daylight, innocently open, sailing together for fear of the privateer recently active in local waters.

A small river came down off the mountains to form the bay and make a break in the coral; over many years it had built a rich, flat coastal plain a couple of miles long and extending inland up to half of a mile, six or seven hundred acres of fertile sugar land, the lower slopes behind good for food crops for the people – sweet potato mounds covering wide gardens, pumpkin patches and okra and beans as well. The plantation house, bigger than a typical English farmhouse but not a true mansion, Tom thought, was sat back behind and looking over all, a little cooler, able to benefit from any onshore breezes, probably sheltered by the hillsides from the worst of any tropical storms; the slave cabins were nearly a quarter of a mile distant from the big house, well separated. There was a wooden wharf and jetty extending a few yards out, beyond the shallows, and a pair of warehouses directly behind, open-sided sheds for the sugar boilers beside them. It looked a prosperous, well-run place. The brig tied up to the jetty, knowing from past experience that there was water enough for her; Star bellied up alongside her, decks empty, port-lids closed and hopefully hidden from casual view. The master of the brig started to uncover his hatches, everything as normal, while overseer and plantation owner strolled out along the wharf.

Tom’s face was sore and he had a bruised headache; John Murray was taking his boarders onshore this morning, having volunteered, with a little nudging from Smith.

The two men from the shore boarded the brig and were met by a welcoming party of the boarders, pistols shoved in their faces; they surrendered instantly, having very little choice in the matter, were tied and dumped below decks for the while. The boarders swarmed onto the jetty, the freemen heading for the warehouses and the working party of slaves, hustling them into instant activity. The crewmen from port and starboard watches spread out, half a dozen led by the Coles brothers making for the big house.

It took just the predicted two hours to empty the warehouses, the brig’s hold quite full and a few sacks packed onto the pair of yawls to finish off the take. The slaves were marshalled in the open yard in front of the godowns, were rapidly sorted into two groups – older men, children, pregnant and old women to one side; the young, fit and healthy to the other, thirty-five men and twenty women.

Quick inspection showed that two of the women were still nursing babies and they were sent back, rejected as unfit for sale; the rest were pushed aboard the Star, hustled below decks in two groups under armed guard. Tom was surprised to see the freemen taking their part in the process – he had thought they might have felt a degree of sympathy for the slaves; tentative enquiry of Joseph gave the exact opposite – the gulf between the servile and the free was so great that there could be no fellow-feeling at all, they were immeasurably superior to the ‘African monkeys’. Tom shrugged, it was not up to him to judge, he felt.

“Tom, pull the lads back aboard, we can cast off as soon as everybody’s back.”

Tom waved an acknowledgement to Smith, walked down the jetty, beckoned to the crewmen he could see. The half dozen led by the Coles had not returned, must still be at the plantation house; he reported as much to Smith.

“Dirty bastards! Making real pigs of themselves, you can bet, Tom!”

Tom looked his ignorance.

“The family, Tom – the wife and any daughters will be there. No way of stopping it happening. Who’s here? John! Go and shout to the Coles to get back here, will you.”

Murray trotted slowly to the house, called from a distance, not wanting to go inside, keeping his hands clean by not seeing what had happened.

The six appeared, slowly, stretching and grinning.

They ran to the jetty, jumped the railing of the brig and crossed to the Star. The Coles brothers walked straight up to Smith, dropped a heavy bag on the deck.

“Bloke ‘ad got a bit of a safe in there, Jack. I reckon ‘e’d got a thou’ in gold there – didn’t count it, though, just put it all in the bag, like, so’s to be fair.”

“Right, thanks, Joby – that was the right thing to do, we’ll count it now, out in sight where everybody can see. Is that what took you so long, putting this in the bag?”

Smith grinned, knowing that all six wanted the chance to brag, to swagger, to boast – to clear their minds of any feelings of guilt by making a parade of their acts.

“Nah – ‘e’d got ‘is missus there, as well, and a girl, just about big enough, she was, old enough to learn what it’s all about. I ‘ad both of ‘em twice, didn’t I, Jarge?”