THE GUN KETCH

Alacrity swung away from the schooner, almost showing her her stem, but kept on turning, crossing the eye of the wind and heeling over with the wind on the starboard side, pointing sou'west.

The schooner's captain took the opportunity to run south, and steer wide of the threatening bars and shoals.

Then Alacrity wore, falling off the wind in a small circle to race back across that narrow channel on her best point of sail with a bone of foam in her teeth, and her larboard battery ready once more.

There would be no escape.

'As you bear… fire!' Fowles cried.

The schooner was smothered in spray as even the two-pounder boat-guns got into the act from fo'c's'le and quarter-deck at a bare two-cables' range. She staggered under the impact of solid round-shot, and swung up toward the wind as if to cut across Alacrity's stern.

'Shoals ahead, one cable!'

'Helm down, Mister Ballard. Beat sou'west and keep ahead of her. And be ready to haul your wind should she duck back towards the shoals on the east side of the channel.'

'She's in-irons!' a lookout called as most of the crew and the officers were busy with the maneuver and the reloading. 'They're all aback! Takin' t'the boats, sir!'

The schooner was being abandoned. One small launch was being led around from astern, another was already filled with men and was being rowed east towards the shoals, the oars worked like hummingbirds' wings.

'Wear about to the sou'east!' Lewrie demanded. 'Get the guns on them before they escape!'

But before they could fire more than two broadsides, they had to turn once more to keep off the shoals themselves, and their route was almost blocked by the abandoned schooner, listing and drifting towards the shoals. The boats with their two-foot draft got over the shoals and bars, and into deeper water off Grand Cay.

'Cease fire!' Lewrie shouted, fuming. Once more, pirates had outsmarted him and escaped him. 'Mister Ballard, secure the people from Quarters. Send Mister Odrado, with my cox'n Cony, over to take charge of the schooner before she takes the ground. Mister Harkin, we'll fetch-to! I'll see to this, Arthur. You carry on.'

'Very well, sir.'

'Helm alee, lay us close-hauled on the larboard tack, Mister Neill. Stations for stays, Mister Harkin! Fo'c's'le captain, we'll leave the jibs on larboard tack! Brace-tenders, prepare to back the main tops'l! Ready about? Helm alee!'

Alacrity rounded up as if she would cross the wind's eye, but stalled in-irons, her gaff sails trying to drive her forward on the starboard tack, but her backed jibs counteracting their force like brakes, so she cocked up into the wind and came to a halt, slowly drifting north on the current and making a tiny leeway.

'A neat morning's work, sir,' Fellows congratulated, swiping his thinning ginger hair and looking more like a harried clerk. 'The schooner took. Whippet with her foe aground in the north channel, and another pirate band with their business stopped.'

'Ummph!' Lewrie commented.

'Damme, the way we handled her, sir, sweet an' fleet as some pleasure yacht! My word, sir… 'twas hellish fun, that.'

'They got away, though,' Lewrie glowered.

'Can't have it all, sir,' Fellows chuckled.

'Why the devil not, Mister Fellows? Just why the devil not?'

Chapter 9

'It's a regular treasure-trove ashore, sir,' Lieutenant Ballard reported to Lewrie and Rodgers. 'Arms and powder, of course; money and plate. But there's heaps of cargo, covered with sailcloth and palmettos. A ship's chandlery and fancy-goods shop in one. An ocean of drink, too, sirs. Fancy wines, brandies, rums… I've put a guard over that so the hands don't get at it'

'Yet who shall guard the guardians?' Rodgers mused. 'Loot, from a dozen ships, more like,' Lewrie commented. 'And that ship out yonder, that Guineaman, bung-full to her deckheads with general cargo, too,' Rodgers grinned, a very happy man. 'No manifest, goods from Cuba, from New York an' Baltimore an' Charleston aboard, goods from Europe… yet, gentlemen, yet… no recent voyages in her log t'any o' those places! Like Lewrie here says, it's loot, bought from the pirates that took it.'

'Well, sir…' Ballard pouted, 'there's a civilian merchant ashore in charge of the cache, a Mister Runyon, who claims the goods are warehoused here, that they're held until the prices go up in the winter when…'

'Aye, just like this Captain Malone of Guineaman claims that he was taken by buccaneers!' Rodgers hooted in derision. 'Oh, he's wily, he is! Yet when I demanded he produce the pirates who sailed her out an' fired into a King's Ship, he cannot. Swears they went over the side an' escaped in a ship's boat, an' he an' his crew got free too late t'save her from groundin' on the shoals. Not from where I was watchin', they didn't! And do you know who Guineaman belongs to, eh? A Bay Street merchant name o' John Finney. 'Calico Jack' Finney, as he's better known in these parts.'

'Finney!' Lewrie exclaimed, startled out of his skin, but glad the next moment. 'Merciful God, that's wondrous! I mean, I've met the man. Thought he wasn't straight, from the very first Heard he was cherry-merry with cut-throats and such. And that pirate band I did for was led by a friend of his. A so-called former friend! Why, he must be in league with 'em!'

'Well, o' course he's in league with 'em!' Rodgers chortled. 'Always has been, always will be, far's I know! Ran an 'all-nations' an' a buttock-shop for 'em, got rich off their trade, made loans for 'em, traded mis for that since he set foot in Nassau. He…'

'Excuse me, Commander Rodgers,' Ballard said with a cough. 'I did learn that this Runyon fellow ashore is one of Finney's agents!'

'Well, there you are, then,' Rodgers exulted triumphantly. 'We have proof positive against him, even if our pirates did escape us.'

'Well, sir, this Runyon claims, as I said a moment ago, that the goods are cached here secretly, without having to pay duties or bonded-warehouse fees in Nassau, until hurricane season ends and the shipping trade across the Atlantic or down from America ceases until spring. Then they're loaded aboard his ships and sold at the peak of their scarcity, when their value is highest. All over, sir.'

'He just came out an' admitted it?' Rodgers said, going bug-eyed. 'Well, damme, the fellow's just convicted himself, an' his master with him! That's confession o' smugglin'!'

'Not exactly, sir,' Ballard objected. 'In a court of law, he could make it sound a plausible defense. If pirates discovered his secret cache, they would be tempted to raid it. He might even try to prove that a consortium of other Bay Street members put them up to it, to eliminate the competition! Then, should the duties be paid at Nassau when he declares them…'

'Ah, rot!' Rodgers snorted. 'Now here's the way I see this was done, sirs. Finney does nought of the dirty work, see? But his old mates pirate inbound ships, and some passin' near enough. They have to have a method of profitin', and Finney's their middle man, their shore agent if you will. They'll keep the money, jewels and plate, but the dry goods and such, the foodstuffs… Finney's agents meet 'em in just such a hidey-hole as this 'un. There's a deal o' lonely cays in the Bahamas with decent harbours, safe from pry in' eyes. A swap is made. Give 'em a quarter o' what it's worth-half-crown to the pound, perhaps less. They keep what takes their fancy, vessels they deem faster and better armed, and play the upright tradin' men in public, anywhere they please, between voyages.'

'And they scuttle the poor ships far out at sea, along with theircrews and passengers,' Lewrie stuck in. 'Once they've had fun with some of them. Damn their blood.'

'Or resell some o' the ships down in the West Indies or over in America for even more profit, aye,' Rodgers grimaced. 'A European oak-built ship'd be worth two Yankee ships made o' then-poor excuse for ship wood. Might even create new documents for 'em to ease the sales. But aye, it's wholesale murder For the victims. Then, here's the part where Finney makes his money back. He ships the pirated goods to New Providence, Eleuthera, Great