The Buccaneers (14 page)

“The sailor?” I asked. “I thought he was dead.”

“No, the parrot!” laughed Dasher. “He was drunk as a lord.”

“And then what?” I asked.

“Word got round that there was a fellow who knew all about Kidd's treasure.”

“How?” I said.

“Well, I let it out myself. In every inn from Eastbourne round to Romney, I told the keeper that a handsome lad, a dashing cove up by Alkham, knew exactly where it was. And they beat a path to my door, John. Squires and lords and ne'er-do-wells, they came running for a shot at that gold. We put an outfit together and hired that brig you found in the harbor, and we sailed her all the way from Bristol. Clear across the sea.”

There was a shiver in his voice as he talked of that; I could imagine the fear he'd felt to be in a world of water.

“True enough, the parrot knew where the treasure was. I tied him to a string, and he whirred round my head. Then off he went like a shot, flitting through the jungle, squawking like a fishwife, up to the breast of this hill.”

Just as he said it, we came out of the jungle, onto a flat shoulder of land with little dunes in an arc on its far side. Stars shone above us, and the pale lines of surf were laid out like bones on the black of the eastern sea. Then Dasher stopped, and as I came up beside him he put out an arm and stopped me too.

We stood at the edge of a deep, cavernous pit. Nearly fifty feet from top to bottom, bordered by the heaps of dirt I'd thought were dunes, it smelled of the earth and of moldering wood. And it reeked of gunpowder.

“This is where the parrot came,” said Dasher. “He started hopping about, yelling, ‘Three fathoms down! Three fathoms more!’ We started digging, and nine feet deep we came to a platform of coconut logs. The bloody parrot, we thought; he can't count. But we hauled the logs out and
kept on going, and we found another platform three feet farther, and a third at fifteen feet. Below it was nothing but dirt for yard after yard, and wasn't I ready to strangle that parrot? But we kept shoveling like madmen, and just where he'd said—six fathoms deep—we found it, John. The treasure. Lord almighty, the treasure! We broke open the first layer and we swam in the guineas and jewels. We drowned ourselves in the treasure, John. Only when we came out, Bartholomew Grace was standing right where you are now.”

Dasher shook himself. The night breeze purred through the jungle canopy, and I heard the hushed pulsing of the surf.

“He'd been on the island all the time, with that black ship of his anchored on the eastern shore, and you can't see that from here. He was scratching for treasure along the beaches, just sticking a shovel in wherever he pleased; he'd been at it for years, I think, off and on.”

So Horn had been right. I cursed myself for siding with Abbey instead.

“I was down in the hole,” said Dasher, pointing at the pit. “Grace was up here, and oh, he cut a fine figure in his gold and his feathers, the wind at the tails of his coat. And that face of his glaring down—I thought it was Death himself standing above me.”

We sat at the edge of the pit, our backs to the jungle. I kept looking behind me, to the left and the right, but Dasher kept his head down, staring into that hole.

“He killed us all, John. Every man on the ship, every man in the pit. You poke about in that dirt there, you'll find their bodies fast enough. There's not more than a scraping
on top of them. John, it was awful. I don't like to think of the things he did.”

“But he spared you,” I said.

“Well, I joined up with them, John. I told you that. ‘Hold on!’ I said. ‘I'm Dashing Tommy Dusker.’ Oh, I talked a blue streak, and they saved me in the end, because I joined up with them.”

“I would never do that,” I said.

“Better a pirate than a corpse—my mother's own words. And I thought I'd be rid of them soon enough, until we got down to the harbor and I saw what they'd done to the watch on the ship. Men nailed to their posts, the sharks in a frenzy. ‘You're in a fix now,’ I told myself. ‘You've come out of the pan and into the fire, you have.’ “

Dasher kicked his heels at the edge of the pit. “That very day we set to work carrying the treasure down, and there was no one carried it faster than Tommy Dusker. I'm strong as an ox, you know that.”

I nodded; he was easy to please.

“There were forty kegs of powder buried here, and cases of arms, but I only carried the treasure. Every trip I made, I stopped at the barrel and had a drink, dropping in a little something for myself: a pocketful of jewels, a few doubloons, those blasted Froggy coins. I filled that barrel until there was just enough room for the ladle. Then off we went to bring the ship round, and what do we see but the
Dragon
standing off the harbor.”

He grinned and shook his hair. “You came after me, didn't you, John? You heard the stories, and thought you'd throw in your lot with Dasher again. Oh, all of London must be abuzz about me now.”

That was all he'd ever wanted, to be famous for his deeds. I hadn't the heart to tell him that he'd been the farthest thing from my mind. With my silence I let him believe what he wanted.

“So where is she?” he asked. “Where's the
Dragon
now?”

I shrugged.

“You don't know?”

“No,” I said. I told him how I'd come to be on the island, starting with my dory ride and ending with my last sight of the
Dragon
sailing round the point.

“No matter,” said Dasher when I'd finished. “She won't have gone far, and we'll see her at daybreak. Grace will clear off on the evening tide, and we can slip in and get my barrel. It's not as much as it might have been, but still it's a fortune, John. A handsome little fortune.”

“Bartholomew Grace will take it,” I said.

“He won't,” said Dasher. “It's just a leaky old barrel to him.”

His confidence raised my spirits slightly, and we sat to wait for dawn. It came swiftly, as it always does in the tropics, and we watched the sun rise from an endless ocean. The tide was low and rising, and I saw every reef and rock and cay painted white with surf. But the
Dragon
wasn't there.

To the south, the harbor was open below us. The
Apostle
and the brig lay side by side, and the buccaneers’ boats were like little toys rowing to and fro. But we didn't watch for long; we went down the northern face of our hill, and crossed the island to the western shore.

We came to a huge, flat sandy beach, and the bright blue of the Caribbean sea. A mile off, or a little more, was the
humped island of Luis Peña Cay. And above its trees, thin as sticks, poked the masts of the
Dragon.
They were slanted far to the side, and the topsail yard made them look like a fallen cross.

“Good Lord,” said Dasher. “They've gone aground. They've wrecked themselves out there.”

T
hey're not wrecked,” I said. “They've careened the ship.” But in my heart I feared he was right. Either way it made little difference, for we couldn't hope to reach the cay without a boat. No matter how I looked at it, we were stranded on the island.

“We'll have to wait,” said Dasher.

“Can you go back and get a boat?” I asked.

“From Bartholomew Grace? Not a chance!”

“Why not?” said I. “You told me you've joined them.”

“Well, it was just a temporary join,” he said. “A bit of paste is all, not a mortise and tenon. If I showed my face at the pirate camp, they'd slice me up like a carrot.”

“Then what do we do?” I asked.

“We wait, like I said.” And with that, Dasher sat on the sand, his back against a coconut palm. “The tide's flooding now. When it turns to the ebb, Bartholomew Grace will weigh anchor for Kingston.”

“Why Kingston?” I wondered.

“Oh, he's got a plan,” said Dasher. “He's got a lunatic scheme. He's going to stuff our brig with all the powder that he found, with the grenades and the bombs and all, and
he's going to set it off in the middle of the English fleet. He's going to blow them all to kingdom come.”

My head reeled at the thought. I remembered the ships in their tight columns and rows, and I saw a fire raging through them, leaping from mast to mast, from ship to ship. Each one was full of powder; each would explode in turn, spreading the flames farther and farther.

The fragile treaty that England had with France wouldn't last for very long. With her Indies fleet destroyed, England would be weakened everywhere. The peace was so tenuous that Grace might even break it by himself.

“He could start another war like that,” I said.

“Why, that's just what he wants,” said Dasher. “When a country's fighting, it doesn't bother much with buccaneers.”

I prodded his shoulder. “Get up,” I said.

Dasher tipped back his head. “Where are we going?”

“Back to the harbor.” I pulled on the strap of his wineskin. “We have to sink that brig.”

“Not I. No, thank you, John.” He lowered his head to stare again across the sand, at the groundswell breaking in a steady heave of gold-stained water. “I'll stay here, I think. If what you say is right, and the
Dragons
just careened, she'll float up on the tide and we can signal to her then.”

“The
Apostle
will be out,” I said.

“But she won't. John, you don't think things through, that's your trouble. You're too quick to act, and you always were. Grace can't go out when the tide's on the flood.”

He was right. I'd seen the way the current made a gate of the harbor entrance. It wouldn't open for Grace until the
tide had peaked and was falling again. By then the
Dragon
would be floating.

Or would she?

“What if they careen the
Dragon
on the other side?” I said. “What if she really is wrecked?”

Dasher shrugged. “You pays your money you takes your choice,” he said in his cavalier-way. “Maybe Grace gets out. Maybe he doesn't.”

“Then he won't,” I said. “I'll stop him myself if I have to.”

“Which you will,” said Dasher.

“All the glory will be mine,” I added—rather slyly, I thought.

“And the bloodshed too, I should think.”

Dasher wriggled down into the sand. One by one, he took the pistols from his belt and bandolier, and arranged them in rows on the beach. He opened his coat, then closed his eyes and settled back on his elbows.

“You won't help me?” I said.

“Why should I? What has England ever done for me? Tell me that,” he said. “All she's done is bleed me dry from the taxes and the tariffs. She's made me a smuggler and a highwayman and a pirate too, just to make an honest living. And some fine day she'll haul me off to Scraggem Fair and put a noose round my neck.” He twisted his head violently, and gurgled in his throat. “The crowds will come that day, all the Mrs. Hickenbothoms and the Mr. Thingamabobs, and they'll cheer for me then, right enough. ‘There he goes,’ they'll say. ‘The cove that stole Kidd's treasure.’ Then the trapdoor will open, and they'll watch me come down with the hempen fever, and it will be
the grandest hanging they've ever seen.
That's
how I'm going to die.”

It was the strangest ambition I'd ever heard, though it wasn't the first time he'd told it to me. Poor Dasher wanted only to be famous, as much a rogue as Dick Turpin.

“You know what I'm going to do when I get home?” he asked. “I'm going to take all my silver and gold and buy myself a lordship. And a cauliflower for my head. Then I'll ride in from the highway and sit in the House of Lords with my coat and my guns, and make laws that are fair. ‘You were caught smuggling tea, were you, lad? Well, good for you. What's that you say: pay duty? Why no, my fine fellow. You were only
doing
your duty.’ What a pistol I'll be. What a swashbuckler!”

It was clear that he wouldn't help me. So I turned away and walked up the beach toward the narrow spit that I would cross to reach the harbor. The sand was hot and white and it squeaked below my boots; on my right the surf curled up and hammered at the beach.

I'd gone a dozen yards when Dasher shouted, “Wait!” When I looked back, he was up on his feet, stuffing his guns into place. He ran toward me, staggering as he slipped in the sand. A gun fell loose; he stooped and took it up. And he hurried along beside me.

“Do you think there's really glory in it?” he asked.

“I doubt it,” I said.

“Surely there is. It's the sort of thing they write ballads about, isn't it? ‘The English fleet he did save from the heat.’ “

He stood breathing hard, his hair and his side-whiskers
bright in the sun, a strange grin set crooked on his face. I could see that, for once, he wasn't thinking of himself. He was frightened—for me. That thought scared me more than anything else.

“Let's go,” he said.

We walked side by side up the beach, his big coat flapping at his legs. We made one shadow on the sand, like a two-headed eagle. Then we slipped through the gap and crouched in the undergrowth at the edge of the harbor.

The buccaneers still labored with the treasure. Their boats shuttled back and forth, from shore to ship, carrying treasure onto the schooner and powder onto the brig. The crucified corpse stood his never-ending trick at the wheel, but the dead watchmen were gone from the yard and the capstan. The sharks circled lazily as the brig swung with the currents on the tether of her mooring line. She was deeper in the water by a foot or more, a floating bomb full of powder. But the mooring line stretched stiff one moment and hung loose the next as the tide boiled into the harbor. I knew I couldn't get out there; I could never get aboard her.

The
Apostle
lay behind the brig, anchored fore and aft. The black hull was hidden from our view, and all the masts and yards seemed to belong to one enormous vessel.

In four hours, or a little more, the tide would be full. It would turn to the ebb, and Grace would sail his ships out toward Kingston. I saw no way to stop him, short of chaining the brig to the shore. And then I laughed, for the answer
came to me right away, and it was so simple that I should have seen it sooner.