Pirate Latitudes

Chapter 12

BY TORCHLIGHT, HUNTER supervised the loading of his ship long into the night.

Wharfage fees in Port Royal were high; an ordinary merchant vessel could not afford to dock for more than a few hours to load or unload a cargo, but Hunter’s little sloop Cassandra spent fully twelve hours drawn up to the pilings, and Hunter was not charged a penny. On the contrary, Cyrus Pitkin, who owned the dock, expressed delight at offering Hunter the space, and, to further encourage the captain to take up the generous offer, provided him with five free casks of water.

Hunter was polite in his acceptance. He knew that Pitkin was not being truly magnanimous; he would expect some gift on the Cassandra’s return, and he would get it.

Similarly, he accepted a barrel of salt pork from Mr. Oates, a farmer on the island. And he accepted a keg of powder from Mr. Renfrew, the gunsmith. It was all done with elaborate courtesy, and a sharp eye to value received and expected.

In between these courtly exchanges, Hunter questioned each member of his crew, and he had Mr. Enders examine them for disease, to be sure they were sound of body, before they were allowed to board. Hunter also checked all the provisions, opening each barrel of pork and water, sniffing the contents, then plunging his hand to the bottom, to be certain it was filled all the way down. He tasted each cask of water; and he satisfied himself that the stores of hard biscuit were fresh and without weevils.

On a long ocean voyage, it was not possible for the captain to make such examinations himself. An ocean voyage called for literally tons of food and water for the passengers; and much of the meat was taken on live, squawking and mooing.

But privateers traveled differently. Their small boats were crammed with men, and provisioning was slight. A privateer did not expect to eat well on a voyage; sometimes, in fact, no food at all was taken on, and the vessel set out with the expectation of obtaining provisions by raiding another ship or a town.

Nor were the privateers heavily armed. The Cassandra, a sloop of seventy feet, carried four sakers, swivel-mounted guns positioned fore and aft. These were its only armament, and they were hardly suited against even a fifth- or sixth-rate warship. Instead, the privateers relied on speed and maneuverability — and a shallow draft — to elude their more dangerous opponents. They could sail closer to the wind than a larger warship, and they could make for shoal harbors and channels where a bigger ship could not continue pursuit.

In the Caribbean Sea, where they were hardly ever out of sight of some island with its protective ring of shoal coral reefs, they felt safe enough.

Hunter worked at the loading of his ship until nearly dawn. From time to time, whenever curious onlookers gathered, he was careful to send them away. Port Royal was thick with spies; Spanish settlements paid well for advance news of an intended raid. And in any case, Hunter did not want people to see the unusual supplies he was laying in — all the rope, the grappling hooks, and the strange bottles the Jew had provided in cases.

The Jew’s cases, in fact, were stored in an oilskin sac, and placed belowdecks, out of view of the seamen themselves. It was, as Hunter explained to Don Diego, “our little secret.”

As dawn was breaking, Mr. Enders, still energetic, still bouncing with his lilting walk, came over and said, “Beg pardon, Captain, but there’s a one-legged beggar’s been lingering by the warehouse for the better part of the night.”

Hunter peered at the building, still dark in the early-morning light. The docks were not a profitable place to beg. “You know him?”

“No, Captain.”

Hunter frowned. Under other circumstances, he could send the man to the governor and request that the beggar be clapped in Marshallsea jail for a few weeks. But the hour was late; the governor was still sleeping and would not be pleased at a disturbance. “Bassa.”

The huge form of the Moor materialized at his side.

“You see the beggar with the wooden leg?”

Bassa nodded.

“Kill him.”

Bassa walked away. Hunter turned to Enders, who sighed. “It’s best, I think, Captain.” He repeated the old proverb. “Better a voyage begin in blood than end in blood.”

“I fear we may have plenty of both,” Hunter said, and turned back to his work.

When the Cassandra set sail a half hour later, with Lazue forward to watch for the shoals of Pelican Point in the dim morning light, Hunter looked back once at the docks and the port. The town slept peacefully. The lamplighters were extinguishing the torches at the dock. A few well-wishers were turning away, having said their good-byes.

Then, floating facedown in the water, he saw the body of the one-legged beggar. In the tide, the body rocked back and forth, the wooden leg knocking softly against a piling.

It was, he thought, either a good omen or a bad one. He could not be certain which.