Pistoleer: Pirates Read online

  Daniel was staring at the lead boat trying to get a head count. Now he stared at the bows instead. Two men were uncovering, "A cannon. Shit, they're using a light cannon as a bow chaser." He spun the wheel around the last reef head and felt the wind fill the sail, and had to spin the wheel back so the Swift would not turn too far. That put the lead boat directly behind them, but in this wind the Swift would easily out-sail them.

  "Danny, no, change course, quickly. They want us to run so they can target our rudder. Don't you see, that was their 'fool' plan all along. Change course, head straight out instead, but at enough of an angle towards them to keep them from having a clear shot at our rudder." He then yelled the same thing to the crew who were now hauling at the sheets as the angle of the wind changed in the one sail that was already hoisted.

  To the crew he added. "As soon as both sails are up and set, load the cannons. All of them." Meanwhile Robert ran over to the gunnels to load the swivel gun. With the Swift's course now more towards the three boats than away from them, the distances were closing fast. The swivel gun was fast to load because it was a breach loader, and they always kept pre-loaded breaches in a watertight chest beneath the gun.

  He looked up just as the closest boat crested a wave. The men around the boat's cannon were backing away from it, while reaching forward with a long torch. "Everyone get down!" he yelled over and over. The boat's gunner was about to fire it.

  Since the gunner could no longer target the rudder, the next obvious target was the wheel. They had loaded their gun with a cannon ball expecting to hit the rudder. The cannon blew smoke, then they heard the blast, and the a ball whistled by so close to Daniel that if they had fired grape instead of the ball, Daniel would have been shredded. Instead they killed some fish.

  "Grape!" Robert yelled to his own crew. "Load with grape, and aim low. If you don't hit oarsmen, then at least we will poke holes in their boats." It was a redundant order. On their journey from England to Morocco, Daniel had trained these men well in these small Dutch cannons, and Daniel had been trained by the best gunners in the Dutch Navy. They didn't need to be told the obvious. It was too difficult to hit moving targets with cannon balls even at this close range. What was needed was the blunderbuss effect.

  Robert called out, "The only way they can aim their bow chaser is with their rudder, so yell out if you see them bringing their bow to bear on us." With the Swift now moving at least half again faster than the smaller boats, they were changing course so as to swing in behind her so they could again target her rudder. Their extra men were not even aiming muskets, because their hands held grappling hooks and coiled lines.

  "Gunners stay by your cannons and get ready to fire!" Robert yelled to the crew. "The rest of you prepare to tack. Gunners, as your cannons bear, let them have it, but aim low." It took the rest of the crew a moment to unlash the sheets, and then he signaled to Daniel to begin the tack. The bow turned slowly at first, but then more quickly. Their two starboard six pounders fired, one at a time, as the bow came about.

  Three of the crew quit the sheets and leaped to man the port oars to help the bow cross the wind, while the port gunners ran to help the starboard gunners reload their cannons. One of the shots had hit the second boat, and it was now out of the fight. It was dealing with wounded men, broken oars, and a splintered clinker plank at the waterline. That boat had still to make its shot at the Swift because Daniel had kept the rudder hidden from their aim. Their cannon was a four pounder or less, and since the ball from it would have done little against the solid pine hull of a ship, they had been waiting for a better shot.

  The lead boat was now very close to the Swift, close enough for the men aboard to be swinging their grappling hooks ready to loose them. The men of the three boats outnumbered the Swifts crew almost four to one, so Robert could not allow a boarding. Before any hooks could be thrown, Robert fired the swivel gun and sent ten pistol balls slamming into the lead boat. It took him less than a minute to exchange the discharged breach for his other, loaded one, but by that time the Swift was beyond the lead boat, and the disabled second boat, and was coming onto the third boat, and coming on fast.

  As he watched, the third boat almost tipped over from the force of two loads of grape hitting its gunnels at almost the same time. When it righted itself it began to sink almost immediately. The weight of its cannon was dragging the bow down. With a ton of canon in the bow, once it sank it would continue to the bottom and there would be no hull left floating for these men to hold on to. That crew knew all this, and now they were ignoring the Swift and madly kicking and thumping at the wooden seats trying to create flotsam. Flotsam that could save lives once they were tipped into the sea.

  "Should we break off Rob?" Daniel asked. "I think they've had enough." It was an understatement. The first boat was the only one still sailing. The second was being kept afloat by the men bailing with everything that could hold water. The third was sliding bow first under the waves.

  The gunners popped their heads above the gunnels to watch the three boats as the Swift continued to pull away from them. They had heard the question about breaking off, and now they turned towards the captain to hear the answer. Robert saw this and called his answer out to all, "I say that we can't leave any of those boats afloat. We left men on Salt Island. We left men on Coop Island. Those boatmen were pirates, plain as day. If we leave them a boat, then we risk our own men. They may have friends close by with other boats, or even a ship. We need enough time to get well clear of here and pick up our own men."

  "Are ye asking for a vote, Robert?" one of the gunners called out, and then to the others, "Sinking their boats in this deep channel will cost most of them their lives. Will it be murder, or self defense?"

  "Pirates is as pirates does,” Daniel called out, "so their lives are forfeit in any court. If you want to take a vote, then you must vote like you was a judge, a hanging judge. My only question is, do they make their living as pirates?"

  Another gunner called out, "They had cannons mounted in their bows. Even if the men weren't pirates, the boats were. I say we sink the boats but try not to do more harm to the men."

  "You mean like drown them?" came a reply with a guffaw.

  "Aye or nay?" Robert asked. "Do they make their living as pirates?" According to custom those yelling 'aye' raised their hands for ease of counting. There were more than a dozen.

  "Turn her back, Danny,” a gunner called out, "and then stand off while we sink them."

  By the time the Swift had turned and crept up to the two remaining boats, the first boat had gone to help the men still in the water from the sunken one. The second boat was winning their bailing race now that they had plugged the sprung planks with cloth. Robert hailed them while pointing at the next island to the west. "You have five minutes to find some flotsam and start swimming to yon island. Then we will sink your boats."

  The pleading calls of the pirates began immediately.

  "We didn't know you was English else we wouldn'ta."

  "These is shark waters."

  "We've got wives and children."

  "Take pity."

  "Let us drift closer to the island first."

  "Tow us to shore and then take our boats."

  "We need more time."

  "What about the wounded? They will attract the barracudas."

  The crew of the Swift were lined up along the gunnels waiting to witness the boats being sunk. Robert called to them, "Men, it was your judgement to sink them, so any leniency must come from you."

  Again it was a gunner who replied. "Tow them closer to that island to the west so they can swim for it. The cannon are worth something. We can sink the boats after we take the cannon aboard the Swift." There was a flurry of ayes, so that is what they did.

  Of course they expected trickery from pirates, so before they came close enough to throw a tow line, Robert ordered the pirates to douse the barrels of their cannons with sea water. Otherwise, once the boats were under tow, they would have
an open shot at the Swift's rudder. Once that was done he ordered them to throw their oars into the sea, and then drifted the ship's dinghy close enough to the boats for them to throw their weapons into. If they had been left with oars and weapons, they most surely would have tried to escape with their boats once in the shallow water closer to the island.

  The pirates easily made the swim to the island, and then watched as the Swift stole their cannons and sank their boats. They called out no thanks for the sparing of their lives. The Swift was rewarded in kind by the addition of dozens of pistols and cutlasses to their weapons store, as well as two serviceable four pounder cannons and a dozen cannon balls. Since there were no longer cannons aboard the boats to drag the hulls to the bottom, they loaded them up with stones from the Swift's ballast, and then chopped holes in clinker planks.

  It took the Swift until almost sunset to first pick up the two watchers from Salt Island, and then anchor in the bay at Coop Island. They brought sad news to the men they had left on Coop, for not only was this their last night in this wondrous paradise island, but now they knew that there were snakes in this paradise. Daniel was heart sick. He had thought he was finished with the quest his clan had set for him, but instead he must keep searching for a safer island for his clan to settle upon.

  The next morning they crossed the straights to the large island of TerTholen to report the pirates. They anchored at the end of a long, well sheltered bay and were told by some fishermen that the village was called Road Town and that the closest thing it had to a sheriff was the richest of the Dutch sugar planters, who was the local agent of the West Indische Company.

  It was this planter who crushed whatever hopes Daniel still had of settling in these paradise islands, by telling them how only last year a Spanish fleet had attacked TerTholen in force. They had been searching for privateers or settlers that aided privateers, and the planter was sure that they would come back every year so long as the privateers continued to hunt Spanish treasure ships from these islands. The planter had already written numerous times to the Dutch admiralty and to his governors in the West Indische Company asking for protection, not just from the Spanish, but from the privateers. He had not yet had any response.

  "The solution is to base a Dutch squadron of ships here on TerTholen Island,” the planter told them. "These islands are halfway between the Dutch colonies in Brazil and the Dutch colonies of New Amsterdam. The Company has already built transshipment warehouses on this island and a few basic forts to protect them. The Dutch fleet will come, and then these islands will blossom with crops and farmers, rather than cutlasses and pirates."

  "Speaking of cutlasses and pirates,” Robert asked the planter, "what would you trade us for the two small cannons that we captured during our brush with pirates? We have their pistols and blades, too."

  "I am a sugar planter,” the Dutchman replied, "so is this a trick question? I suppose you meant to ask the difference in price between a barrel of sugar and a barrel of molasses?" It took another hour to bargain the amount of molasses in trade.

  Afterwards, Robert shared his own misgivings with Daniel. "The Spanish have no choice but to protect their treasure ships, even if it takes their entire navy. If the Dutch place a squadron in TerTholen, then the Spanish will send more ships, and then the Dutch will send more, and then the Spanish, until every island around here is an armed camp making ready for war. I hate to say it Danny, but these Virgins have snakes up their purses. Until the privateers are moved on, your clan would never be safe here, especially with the Swift looking so much like a Barbary pirate ship."

  Daniel said nothing. What was there to say other than to grumble about pirates. He could not even ask for more time in these islands to do more exploring, for they had already been too long away from Saint Kitts. They had a load of Pilgrim passengers waiting for them on Kitts, passengers who had paid to be taken to the Plymouth settlement in Massachusetts. Robert took the silence as confirmation that they must sail to Kitts, and called to the crew to prepare to weigh anchor.

  * * * * *

  "We expected you back three days ago!" Edward, the leader of the Pilgrim passengers exclaimed as he shook first Robert's hand and then Daniels. Edward was the only Pilgrim on the dock to meet them at the village of Middle on Saint Kitts. Most of the crew filed down the gang plank to the dock, and then pushed the Swift away from the dock so that the watch left on her could row her out and anchor her.

  "Well we found a paradise island for Daniel's clan to settle, but with one flaw,” Robert told Edward while signaling the crew that yes they could spend some coin in the alehouse at the foot of the dock. "Pirates. Do you think your folk could be ready to sail north by tomorrow or the next day?"

  "Of course, but first you must come and talk to a captain I have met." Edward said this with a nervous grin. "Perhaps after you speak with him you will want to leave us here for another week."

  "And how did you meet this captain, then?" Daniel asked while looking longingly after the crew as they skipped along in a tight knot towards the alehouse.

  "Why at the dockside alehouse. He drinks one ale there every afternoon about this time,” Edward replied.

  "Well why didn't you say so?" Daniel took Edward by the arm and almost lifted him in the direction of the alehouse.

  "But I did say,” defended Edward as he took a double quick step forward so he would not fall. "I did say."

  Robert followed them wondering about any captain who drank but one ale at the same time every afternoon at the alehouse at the foot of the dock. He could picture the man already. A down in his luck sailor trying to talk his way aboard a ship, any ship. It was like that with sailors in strange ports. If they came off one ship and found another before the first had left port, then the new captain could ask his old captain for a vouchsafe. Finding a new berth was easy enough if you had a vouchsafe.

  However, if a sailor's old ship had left port before he found a new berth, then finding that new berth became a whole lot more difficult. It was doubtful that the man that Edward was taking them to meet would be a captain, or even a mate. He would have told that story to gain respectability and perhaps a free drink from a landlubber like Edward.

  The man in question was in the alehouse, and Edward introduced him as Captain Tom Weston, a Brownist Separatist from Bristol, England. Robert Blake was introduced as the captain, and Daniel Vanderus as the owner of the galliot 'Swift Daniel'.

  "In truth,” Daniel hurried to say, "I defer all decisions to Cap'n Blake, as should any first mate."

  Weston replied in kind, "And I am not Captain Weston, not anymore, and not for a long time. Now I usually serve as a pilot to other captains. I'll come to the point, shall I? I am in search of a berth back to England and I am willing to work my way. In truth I must work my way, because I no longer have the means to pay my passage. I was robbed, you see, and then put ashore by the last ship I signed on to."

  "Robbed of what, and how?" Daniel asked immediately to make sure his questions were heard before Edward's condolences. Edward obviously liked this shifty character, most likely because he was another Brownist like Edward.

  "I was robbed of my wages for a month of piloting by the captain of my last ship. He set me ashore on the other side of this island to arrange for permission to anchor, but as soon as my feet were on the beach, the dinghy left me there, and so did the ship."

  "The other side of the island you say?" Robert took a gulp of the pot of ale that had just been plonked in front of him by the ugliest ale wench he had ever set eyes on. "Was this captain perhaps a privateer?"

  Weston did not answer for a moment while he sized these men up. Edward was a Brownist and therefore a believer. There was more to Robert than a middle aged captain, much more. The man Daniel had pretty blue eyes but there was steel behind them, and he carried the fanciest yet most vicious looking pistol he had ever seen. A double barreled dragon that was likely worth this alehouse and then some. These were both dangerous men, possibly privateers themsel
ves. He decided that he must tell the truth or say nothing.

  "Edward has told me that you are searching for a special island on which to start a colony. Yes my last captain was a privateer, and he was also searching for a special island where he could hide from the Spanish fleet. I showed him a few and then he set me ashore instead of paying me what he had promised. I suppose I should be thankful that he didn't just throw me overboard."

  "Why?" Daniel interrupted. "Were you lying about how well you knew these islands?"

  "I know every island between here and Massachusetts,” Weston claimed in a rising temper. "I've been sailing through them since 1630. And I remember that year well, because that was the last time I saw Bristol. I left a pregnant wife there and I have not seen her since. I came here to get rich so I could give my family a better life, and here it is a decade later and I have yet to earn my passage back."

  Weston calmed himself for a moment and then said in a softer tone, "Take me with you, and I will show you the best of the islands." It sounded more like a plea than an offer.

  With a slow eye, Daniel signaled Robert to keep quiet, and listen in judgement. "So tell me, what do you think of the Virgin Islands?" he asked of Weston.

  "There are some jewels there that would be a paradise for a small colony,” Weston replied, "if it weren't for the Spanish Squadron in Puerto Rico. The Virgins was where my privateer hailed from, and the Spanish Squadron was why he was seeking a better island. Nay, someday the Virgins will make some colonists very happy, but not yet. Not until every privateer has moved on, so therefore, not until the treasure ships take a different route to Spain."

  Daniel exchanged glances with Robert at how close Weston's words matched their own thoughts. Daniel said, "The ship is owned by my clan but the crew is Robert's. The crew have a say in who joins them mid passage. You must petition a crew's court to join the ship. We can do that now if you wish. There are enough of the crew in this alehouse to form a moot."