The Guardship

It was secluded and had on either side good sheltered harbors. It was perfect for ships prowling between the Capes, awaiting a rich prize. It was a popular spot among the pirate tribes.

And there were a lot of them. King William’s War had ended two years before, and all of the major powers of Europe had returned to their usual uneasy peace. During that war, like any war, those of a piratical bent were employed as privateers, plundering enemy ships under their monarch’s letter of marque. It was perfectly legal, even patriotic, to do so.

But with the signing of peace in Casco the privateers did not always quit their lucrative trade. Many of them just carried on raiding merchant ships. But now it was called piracy, and

ships of any nationality were game. And those that looked to capture the rich tobacco ships outbound from Virginia and Maryland, and the richer merchantmen coming from England with English goods, all congregated at Smith Island.

Allair knew that, which was why he had so carefully avoided the place. Bickerstaff and Marlowe knew that as well, and that was why they were there.

It took them two hours to work their way up the hilly interior of the island, moving slowly, watching for signals from King James and seeking cover lest there be a lookout watching that side of the island. By the time they approached the far ridges that looked down into the harbor, the sun was setting at their backs. Anyone looking in their direction would be looking right into its rays, effectively hiding them from view.

“Not so many as I would have thought,” Marlowe said to Bickerstaff. They were lying on their bellies amid tall grass and a small stand of oak, looking down at the harbor three hundred yards away. There was only one ship at anchor there, her topmast and topgallants glowing orange in the evening light.

She was a big one, several hundred tons by Marlowe’s guess, and pierced for twenty great guns. There was no flag flying from her ensign staff, but neither man needed a flag to tell them what she was.

She might have been a man-of-war, for all her arms and men, but a man-of-war would not have her yards all askew and her deck piled with rubbish and her sails hanging like laundry hastily taken in before the rain. Marlowe and Bickerstaff knew pirates, and everything about her indicated that such she was.

Most of the beach was in shadow, but not so dark that they could not see the activity there. There were one hundred men at least, fully occupied. Some were ferrying stores and loot and guns from the anchored ship and piling them on the sand. Others were stacking up wood for the great bonfire around which they would later roast their dinner and perform their drunken rituals.

“I believe they are going to careen her,” Marlowe said.

“It would appear so. Observe, not half her great guns are still aboard.”

“I see. That’s good. I can’t imagine they’ll bother erecting batteries on shore. I doubt they know that I am now in command of the guardship.”

“And when they discover it, I doubt they’ll be greatly concerned.”

“I’ll grant you that,” Marlowe said.

“In any event, it appears that they will be here for some time. A week at least, I should think, before they voyage again.”

“And when they do voyage again,” said Marlowe, “it will be, for most of them, that great and final voyage, the one we all must take.”

“Why, Marlowe, you are becoming positively poetic. Now let me suggest you leave off before you further embarrass yourself.”

Marlowe smiled, his face nearly lost in the deep shadows. “Quite,” he said, and suddenly he felt another presence, a person directly behind him. He rolled over, grabbed for a pistol. King James was crouching there. They had not heard him approach.

“There is a lookout about one hundred yard that way,” King James pointed north, “and another on that far ridge. But they both drunk.”

“Very good.” Marlowe paused for a moment, waiting for his heartbeat to return to normal. “Now let us talk some strategy and then quit this place.”

When at last the Plymouth Prize was put under way, Marlowe could only thank the Lord that they did not have to take her out on the open sea.

He and Bickerstaff had returned the day after their scouting foray to find that Lieutenant Rakestraw had made a great effort and had pushed the men to do likewise. The lower shrouds were set up for a full due, though gently, so as not to further wound the rotten masts, and blacked down afresh. The ship was scrubbed fore and aft, and what spare sails she carried were

bent on, at least those that were not in even worse shape than the first. There was no spare cordage to replace the running gear, but much of it at least had been turned end for end.

“I reckon that’s about all we can do, sir, with what we got aboard,” Rakestraw reported, standing beside his new captain on the quarterdeck as the banks of the James River slipped by. “I don’t care to say so, sir, and I fain would make an excuse, but she does need careening something fierce.”

His clothing, Marlowe noticed, was neater than it had been before. He was wearing a new jacket and cocked hat. He seemed to be standing straighter.

“Don’t be afraid to say so, Lieutenant. You are quite right in that, and we shall heave her down just as soon as we are able. Allair’s mistake was that he made demands without giving anything in return. Soon we shall prove to the colony that they cannot do without us, and then we shall have whatever we require.”

“Yes, sir,” he said. “But please, sir, what are we doing?”

“In due time, Lieutenant, in due time.” Marlowe did not need to have word of his plans reaching the lower deck. It would do the men below no good to spend the next two days in mortal fear.

Marlowe knew about mortal fear. He knew the fear that the pirates could engender, and knew better than most how legitimate that fear was. He had seen mouths stuffed full of burning oakum, living men carved up with broken bottles, women raped to death.

But it was not the drunken rascals on Smith Island who had done that. It was another man, at another time, and he put it out of his mind. He might fear that man, but that man was not the one he would be facing.

And that was fortunate. He realized how fortunate it was that very morning as he watched the Plymouth Prizes, the men upon whom he would rely during the upcoming, bloody fight, struggling just to raise the anchor from the bottom. It took some twenty-three minutes just to rig the capstan with messenger, bars and swifter, the men wandering around, staring as if

they were seeing the Plymouth Prize for the first time. It was beyond belief.

At length, and with much trouble and much broken gear, they won the anchor and made the Plymouth Prize move from that spot on the James River where she had become such a fixture.

The pumps had not stopped once from that minute, nor did they the entire time they were under way.

And for all of the thirty hours it took them to close with Smith Island, Marlowe could think of only one thing: I am taking this ruin of a ship, and these men, against a band of brigands who outnumbered us two to one. A band to whom killing is as much a part of life as is sloth and complaining to the men of the Plymouth Prize.

Chapter 9

GEORGE WILKENSON stood in the shadow of Mrs. Sullivan’s ordinary, half hidden around the edge of the building, trying to look as if he were not hiding. But in fact he was. He was keeping a close eye on Elizabeth Tinling as she and Lucy wound their way through the Market Day booths on the far side of Duke of Gloucester Street.

It was a perfect spring day, with random white clouds sailing across the blue sky and a cooling breeze blowing off the bay, blowing away the heat and the stink and the flies. The weather seemed to affect everyone who had business in Williamsburg. The joviality, smiles, laughter, and general bonhomie all served to make Wilkenson that much more miserable.

He had been shadowing them for the past hour, since they left the house and walked down the crowded street to do their marketing. This type of skulking was not at all to his liking. He was, after all, one of the most powerful