The Guardship

Chapter 31

GEORGE WILENSON was still a good mile from Williamsburg, riding south, when he began to sense that something was wrong.

He had spent the day, a satisfying day, inspecting the family’s small plantation on the York River near Queen’s Lake. He had found the plantation in good order, with the young plants put in during the last rain and the mill fully repaired and running. It was good to get away from the tense atmosphere at the Wilkenson plantation. To feel like the master of his lands and his people. It was good to get away from his father.

He pulled his horse to a stop, cocked his ear to the south. He could hear bells ringing, clearly, if faintly, a mile or so away. The bells in the city.

He frowned and looked in the direction of the sound. Along the horizon, just above the tree line, he could see a long smudge of smoke, tinted pale red as the sun moved toward the west. Something was burning, something big. Perhaps all of Williams-burg was aflame. But no, the smoke looked farther away than that, farther south. Perhaps the bells were ringing to call people to help extinguish the blaze.

He put his spurs to his horse’s flank and continued on. The smoky haze was in the general direction of the Wilkenson plantation, and that caused him some vague worry, but not a great deal. The chance that it was his own home that was on fire was slight, and there were enough people on the plantation that they should be able to deal with any such disaster before it got out of control.

It was twenty minutes later that he saw the first of the terrified citizens streaming north out of the city.

At first it was just a few men who passed him on horseback, riding rather swiftly, and he did not immediately make the connection between them and the ringing bells and the smoke. And while it was odd that they did not stop and exchange a word with him, or even acknowledge his existence, and that there were more riders on the road than one generally saw, still George did not see any cause for concern.

It was when he saw the people following in their wake, common people with wagons piled with possessions, pulled by their pathetic animals, that he realized something was very wrong indeed. Something more than just a plantation on fire. Williamsburg was being abandoned.

“I say…” Wilkenson reined his chestnut around and fell in beside a farmer who was leading an old plow horse north along the road. The horse in turn was pulling a dray piled with the farmer’s family and a few possessions. From the look of his worldly goods George could not imagine why he had gone to the effort to save them.

“What is this about? Where is everyone going?”

“Anywhere. Away. The devil’s in Williamsburg. Tidewater’s under attack. Burning all the plantations along the James.”

“What? Who? Who is burning the plantations?”

“Don’t know. I heard a rumor it’s the Dutch again, but it don’t really matter, does it?”

To a certain extent the man was right, though George had an idea that it was not the Dutch. In fact, he had a good idea of who it really was, and that idea gave him a sour feeling in his stomach. He had heard it from the master of the Wilkenson Brothers. Pirates. Inhuman, savage. A force beyond the pale of human conduct.

He wheeled his horse around again and continued south, riding hard, pounding past the ever-growing stream of people fleeing the capital city.

He came at last to the great pile of earth and material that would soon be the governor’s palace and continued on into the heart of Williamsburg. It was absolute chaos, from what he could see, with horses and wagons crowding the street and people rushing out of their houses with armfuls of possessions, piling them on whatever vehicle they had and then hurrying in for more.

He could hear loud, angry shouting, screaming, children crying, the thud of dozens of horses rushing in every direction and the drunken cursing of those of the lower sort who were finding their refuge in a bottle.

He pulled to a stop beside the jailhouse. Sheriff Witsen was rounding up those men who would stand with him. Five, thus far.

“Sheriff, Sheriff!” Wilkenson leapt down from his horse and hurried over to him. “Sheriff, what the devil is going on?”

“It’s them goddamned pirates, damn their black souls. Good Lord,” Witsen turned to one of his volunteers, “that gun is from the last age, it will blow you to hell should you fire it. Go to the armory and fetch another.”

Witsen turned back to George Wilkenson. “They come ashore around noon, just north of Hog Island. Went for the Finch place first. I reckon it was the first one they seen. Most of the family got away, slaves too, but when they were done having their fun they burned it. Moved on to the Nelson plantation and done for that, too. Last I heard, which was about half an hour ago, they was at the Page plantation.”

The two men were silent for a moment as the noise and the confusion swirled around them. There was no need to say what both were thinking. The Page house was just up the road from the Wilkensons’.

“What of the militia?” Wilkenson asked.

“Called them out, but most of them are too worried about getting their own families safe to turn out. I have a man trying to round them up, but I ain’t too hopeful.”

The pirates were descending on his home, and there was no defense that the colony could offer. George felt as if he were standing there on the green completely naked.

And then another thought occurred to him and he felt himself flush with anger. “But where is the guardship? Where is the great Marlowe and his little precious band? This would seem to be his purview.”

“The guardship went down this morning, and they fought it out, him and the pirate, for an hour or so. Don’t know what happened, but the guardship is anchored up by Jamestown now. Just sitting there.”

“Well, why doesn’t someone order them to go and fight these brigands?”

“I suggested the same to the governor. Governor said Marlowe’s beyond taking orders from anyone.”

“Indeed. Well, we should have expected this. Marlowe is as much a pirate as any of those bastards. No doubt he will be sacking the countryside himself by week’s end.”

“I’ve no doubt, if there’s anything left to sack. But see here, your father has requisitioned a deal of supplies from the militia-powder, shot, small arms. Guess he thought this might happen. I reckon he’s set up for some kind of defense. Once we get some men together here we’ll get down to your plantation, and maybe we can hold them off there, or drive ’em back into the river.”

“I hope you are right,” Wilkenson said as he swung himself up into his saddle. “I shall go to our plantation directly and see what can be done.”

It was like riding into battle, trotting down the familiar rolling road from Williamsburg to the Wilkenson plantation. The sun was just below the trees in the west and the southern sky was blotted out by a great cloud of smoke, rising in columns from several locations and tinted red and pink and yellow.

The farthest dark column was the Finch plantation. Wilkenson could tell by the location of the smoke. The next was

the Nelsons’. A third he was not so certain of; it might have been the grist mill that was on that road. It did not look as if the Page house was burning, and that most likely meant the pirates had not made it to the Wilkenson plantation. Not yet.

The logic of that did little to relieve the absolute panic that George felt as he hurried toward his home. He was terrified to think of the danger that his family might be facing, with the marauders closing in on them. He was even more terrified of the danger that he himself was in, though he would not acknowledge that.

The acrid smell of the fires became more pronounced as George covered the last half mile to the Wilkenson plantation. He charged down the long road that led to the house, hunched over the neck of his horse, cowering from what, he did not know.

The road was dark, lost in the long shadows of the trees that lined the way. He nearly missed seeing a group of the Wilkensons’ slaves, field hands, standing beside a big oak one hundred feet from the house. They each held a cloth with a few things tied in a bundle. They looked very frightened.

He pulled his horse to a stop. “What are you doing here?”

An old man stepped forward. “We afraid to stay in them slave quarters, on account of them pirates, but Master Wilkenson, he say we got to stay on the plantation.”

George Wilkenson regarded the pathetic people huddled beneath the tree. He wondered what he should do with them.

His first thought was to arm the Negro men so they could participate in the defense of the plantation, but the idea of an armed slave frightened him even more than the idea of a marauding pirate. There would be nothing to stop the slaves from killing all of the white people in the house and throwing in with the pirates. If they thought about it they would realize that they were better off doing just that.

“You know where the Queen’s Lake plantation is? You know how to get there?”

“Yes, Master George.”

“Good. I want you to lead all these people there. When you get there tell the overseer what is happening here. You should

be safe, and we’ll send for you when this is over.”

“Yes, Master. But, Master Jacob-that is…your father-says-”

“Never mind that, just go. And remember, I’ll be looking for you soon. If you have any thought of running, I will see you all hunted down and punished, depend upon it!”

George found himself shouting the warning at the slaves’ backs as the relieved people streamed past him and hurried up the road. He rode a planter’s pace the last hundred yards to the house and swung down from the saddle. He looped the reins over the hitching rail-the stable boy was already a quarter mile down the road with the others-and climbed the steps to the front door two at a time.

The scene that greeted him inside the door was much like that he had encountered under the oak, but the faces were white, the clothes were fine, and the few possessions were worth more than the accumulated wealth of every Negro in Virginia. George’s mother and his two sisters, his aunt and uncle who had unhappily chosen that month to visit from Maryland, and his maternal grandparents were there in the wide foyer. They were all dressed to travel. They all looked like trapped and frightened animals. He could sense their near panic, and it brought him near to the brink of panic as well.

“What is going on here?” George asked. “Where is Father? Why are you all still here?”

“Your father is in the library,” Mrs. Wilkenson said. She drew herself more erect, trying not to look angry or afraid. “He has ordered us to remain, as he thinks we are in no danger.”

“No danger…?” George stared, incredulous, at his mother. She could never openly defy her husband, just as George could not defy the man, and that was why they had come to the threshold of fleeing and stopped.

It was no use arguing with her. He turned and raced down the hall to the study.

Jacob Wilkenson was sitting in the winged chair, a book open in his lap. He looked up as George burst into the room.

“Have you forgotten about knocking?” Jacob demanded.

“What in all creation are you doing, sitting here as if you had not a care in the world? Did you not see the smoke? You cannot be ignorant of the brigands that are laying waste to the countryside.”

“I am aware of them, and I shall tell them in no uncertain terms that this is not to be tolerated. This was not our agreement. There shall be some penalties, count on it.”

“Penalties? What are you talking about?”

“This…this brigand, as you style him, is Captain Jean-Pierre LeRois. He works for me. It is the little arrangement which I have mentioned. Matthew and I set it up with that fellow Ripley, who captains our river sloop.”

George stared, shook his head. “I do not understand.”

Jacob sighed and closed the book on his lap. “I have arranged through Ripley to purchase what this man has to sell. The profit will be tremendous. How do you think we are able to survive with the loss of our year’s crop?”

“‘This man’? Surely you do not mean this brigand who has taken the Wilkenson Brothers?”

“Of course I do. And here’s more news. I spoke with Ripley just this morning, and what do you think? He says that Marlowe is in fact a bastard named Malachias Barrett. A former pirate! A pirate! I knew there was something queer about him, and there it is! Oh, we shall have a merry time with his reputation now!”

It was coming too fast for George, like a heavy rain that the earth cannot absorb. “You have struck a deal with the pirate who has just taken the Wilkenson Brothers?”

“And now I shall have him engage the guardship and blow her to hell. The Brothers is better armed than the Plymouth Prize, LeRois’s crew is bigger. He’ll do as I say. That’s why I have allowed him to keep the vessel. That and the fact that I have every expectation of the underwriter paying us for the loss.”

“But…the man is a pirate, for God’s sake! Did you not just condemn Marlowe for being a pirate? What are we, that we will put such men in our employ?”

“Goddamn it, George, how are you even able to stand with no backbone at all?” Jacob rose, paced the room. “That is the beauty of the whole thing, do you not see? We send this one pirate up against the other. Marlowe is killed and his memory is blackened by what he has done, what he was. Like plowing the earth with salt. We destroy the man, we destroy his name, his reputation, everything, wiped away. There can be no more complete revenge for your brother’s murder.”

“And the entire thing hinges on this brigand doing as you wish?”

“He does as I tell him. Ripley informed the man of who is in charge of this affair, I made quite certain of that. Marlowe is killed, and then it is on with our business.”

“Our business? Your business, sir, not mine. I do not intend to traffic with a pirate.”

“Oh, and aren’t you the righteous one? These…people…will rob whether we buy from them or not, to the greater good of those thieves in Savannah or Charleston. If it is going to happen regardless, then it may as well be us who realizes the profit.”

“You are mad. You have no control over this animal.”

“Of course I do! He works for me.”

It was incredible. George Wilkenson shook his head slowly in disbelief. “The sheriff said you had requisitioned supplies from the militia, for some kind of defense?”

“Oh, yes, that.” Jacob gave a little wave of the hand. “Yes, that was for the guardship.”

“For the guardship? For the use of the guardship?”

“No, you fool, to use against the guardship. I had Ripley bring it out to LeRois so that he might have the stores necessary to blow that bastard Marlowe to hell. And as I hear it, that’s just what he did. I told you, he does as I say.”

“You…you mean to tell me you gave the militia’s stores to that pirate?”

“He is not a pirate, goddamn your eyes! He is a privateer.

He works for me!” Jacob Wilkenson stopped pacing, turned on George. His hands were shaking. There were beads of sweat on his forehead. The old man was not as sure of himself as he was acting.

“It’s my ship they have, I let them keep it!” Jacob continued. He stepped quickly across the room and stared out the window at the distant fields. “I got them their ship, their damned powder and small arms, and they know that perfectly well. They do as I say, damn you, they do as I order!”

George did not know what to say. The old man had lost all connection with reality. “Father, I think we had best go,” he said softly.

“Don’t you talk to me in that patronizing tone, you cowardly little sniveling bastard!” Jacob Wilkenson whirled around and glared at his son. “If you had been considerate enough to be killed in Matthew’s place, this would not have happened! Matthew was able to help me keep these people in line, but not you, oh no. I knew you would not soil your lily-white hands with such business! You would think it beneath you!”

“Oh, I have soiled my lily-white hands, so much so that I cannot bear to think on it. But no, I would not have had truck with your illegal and utterly immoral business, not that you ever thought to ask me. Believe me, I am ashamed of what I have done, and even more so of what you and Matthew have done. And I think you are about to reap the crop you have sown.”

“Get out! Get out, you sanctimonious coward! Go stand in the hall with the women and the old men!” Jacob screamed, but George’s eyes were drawn past his father to the field through the window. A great column of smoke was suddenly visible at the edge of the frame. The glow of a great fire lit the trees that separated the Wilkenson plantation from the Page home three miles away.

“What?” Jacob asked, and turned around to see what George was staring at.

The pirates were pouring into the field by the river, dozens of them, hundreds for all George could tell. They must have

taken the road that led along the banks of the James from the Page place to theirs. They were half a mile away at the bottom of the field and closing on the house like a pack of wolves. Even over that distance he could hear their howling and screaming.

The two Wilkensons stared silent for a moment at the coming threat, the wave of death sweeping up from the river.

George swallowed hard, fought the terror down. “Come, we have to go,” he said. Surprised by the tone of authority in his voice, despite the fear.

“No,” his father said, as if pleading for permission, “no, I must stay and explain to these men-”

“Father, we must go.”

“No!” Jacob whirled around, red-faced, remembering who he was. “No! I did not build all this by letting bastards like that LeRois tell me what is what! These men do not tell me what to do, no man tells me what to do, I tell them! Do you hear me? I tell them!”

Incredible. Jacob Wilkenson’s pride. His pride was the source of his strength, and his pride would not let him leave, because leaving would be as much as admitting he had done a stupid and horrible thing. Jacob Wilkenson would die before he did that, he would go down insisting that he was right.

George realized all of that, and he also realized that his father would let his family die as well before even tacitly admitting to a mistake.

“We’ll be leaving now, Father,” George said.

His eyes moved to the window again. Long shadows tugged at the pirates’ feet as they charged up the hill. He saw blades glinting in those rays of sun that found their way through the trees. He saw heads bound in cloth, crossed belts holding weapons that slapped against bare chests as the men ran, cocked hats, torn coats, bearded, dirty, blood-streaked faces, grinning faces.

“Yes, yes, good, you go, you goddamned coward, you go and take all those cowards with you, and when this is over

don’t come back!” Jacob screamed, but George was already out of the room when he finished.

He ran down the hall to the front door. “All of you, come along, hurry!” he ordered, throwing open the door and gesturing with his arm, and the frightened people in the foyer shuffled out the door.

“What about your father? Where is your father?” his mother asked as he half pushed her out the door.

“He will not come, and there is nothing I can do,” George said, and his mother made no reply. She would not be surprised. No one knew better than his mother the kind of idiocy of which Jacob Wilkenson was capable.

They hurried down the steps and across the circular drive, and George realized that he did not know what he would do next. The old people could hardly walk. They certainly could not make it to Williamsburg on foot, and there was only his horse nearby.

“Damn it, damn it…” George looked around. The shouting and hooting of the pirates seemed to be right on top of him, but they were still on the other side of the house. “All of you, hurry off into those trees,” he said, pointing toward a stand of oaks near the end of the drive, fifty yards from the house. “I shall go for a wagon of some sort.”

The others were too frightened to protest, for which George was thankful, for he knew it would take only the mildest of arguments for him to change his mind. They hurried off in their awkward, shuffling way, and he turned and rushed around the house toward the stables.

The pirates were swarming over the porch of the house, smashing in windows and kicking in the back door. George paused for a second to watch the destruction, then turned and ran.

He was breathing hard, and his chest ached and burned, when he finally swung open one of the big doors of the dimly lit, whitewashed stable and squeezed through.

The only transportation there was an old dray, pushed toward the back. The family coach was in the coach house,

but the horses were there in the stable and he did not care to try to bring them all together under the eyes of the pirates. Rather, he selected one of the draft horses, a great beast of Flemish descent, and led it over to the dray.

He could hear the primal, terrifying sound of the hordes tearing through his home, the shouting and howling punctuated with breaking glass and shattering wood. He did not want to think of what was happening there as he fumbled with the unfamiliar harness of the dray. The horse shifted nervously.

George fitted the bit in the big animal’s mouth, slipped the bridle over its head. The slow, intricate work of fitting the horse in the tack had given George’s fear the chance to gather again. He was near panic as he stepped across the straw-covered floor and peered out of the door.

There were only a few of the brigands still outside, those who had paused to swill from their bottles before plunging in through a smashed door or window. He could see more of them in the house. They were absolutely frenzied, ripping curtains down, slashing with swords at anything that could be destroyed. He had heard that sharks behaved that way when feeding, but he had never imagined human beings capable of such. He wondered if his father was still alive. Wondered, but did not care.

The Wilkensons had done this to themselves, to the colony. He sucked in a long breath.

His first duty was to get his family safely away. His next was to make some effort to save the tidewater. He knew what that would entail, and the very thought of it made him sick even through the fear.

Slowly, quietly, he pushed the stable doors open and stepped back into the shadows. No one had noticed, but they would not miss the dray rumbling past. He raced back into the stable and climbed up onto the rough seat. He picked up the reins, took another long breath, held it, and then exhaled, yelling “Hey, yah!” and flicking the reins against the horse’s neck.

The big horse, already nervous from the noise and from George’s unfamiliar hands, burst into a gallop, barely in con

trol. They charged out of the stable-horse, dray, and driver-with stalls, tack, tools, and doors flying past, and raced down the beaten road toward the front of the house. George could hear nothing but the thunder of the heavy hooves, the creaking dray, moving faster than it was ever intended to move, and he was suddenly afraid that the horse would not stop when he needed it to.

Then through the rumble and the pounding he heard a surprised exclamation. A pistol fired and the ball buzzed past. George hunched forward and flicked the reins again, but the horse was running as fast as it could.

They whipped around the front of the house and down the drive. The stand of oaks was a blur as the cart bucked and shook on the dirt road. George pulled back on the reins, shouting, “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” and to his infinite relief the horse slowed and then stopped. It shook its head, whinnied, and shifted nervously on its huge hooves, but it stayed essentially still.

George leapt down from the seat. “Come along, come along, come along!” he shouted, waving his arms at his family huddled in the trees.

His sisters were first, bursting like partridges from the underbrush and leaping onto the filthy cart. Next came his mother, helping her mother and father along, and behind them the aunt and uncle.

“Oh, for the love of God, do hurry,” George said. He looked back at the house. A dozen or so of the brigands had left the building and were racing down the road toward the dray.

The thought of dying for the amusement of pirates made George flush with anger even as his stomach convulsed with fear. He stepped forward, scooped his grandmother up in his arms, deposited her on top of his sisters in the back of the wagon. He did the same with his grandfather, helped his mother up, pushed his aunt and uncle in after.

The pirates were twenty yards away, no more. One of them stopped and leveled a pistol and fired. The muzzle flash was brilliant in the fading light.

The ball whizzed by overhead, and just as George was thanking God for sparing his life the horse shrieked in fear and bucked, nearly toppling the cart and spilling the passengers. The animal came down on its four feet and bolted, and George flung himself at the open bed. He grabbed hold of the side rail and pulled himself in as the dray flew down the road. He climbed forward, stepping on someone, he did not know who, and crawled into the seat.

The reins were still lying there, and George took them up, though he did not think the horse would respond to any command from God or man. He could see a streak of blood where the pirate’s bullet had grazed its flank.

The crazed beast was charging down the road, quite out of control, but at least it was running in the right direction, away from the house, so George gave it its head. He could hear the shouting and the gunfire at his back, growing farther away as they left the big house behind. He kept his eyes on the road. He hunched over, tensed, bracing for the tear of a bullet through his back. He did not turn around.