Captain in Calico. George Fraser MacDonald
business is with Governor Rogers.’
‘Governor Rogers?’ Master Dickey pushed back the bed clothes and stepped out on to the floor, keeping the bed be- tween himself and his mysterious visitor. ‘And what the devil d’ye mean by creeping aboot my window, then? Guards!’ he shouted again. It seemed that the intruder must be a lunatic.
The heavy tramp of feet and the sound of voices in the passage outside his door heralded the arrival of sentries. Knuckles rapped on the panels.
‘Private Nicholas, sir. Is aught the matter?’
‘Come in!’ called Dickey sharply, and the door opened. ‘Light the candle on my side table, sharp, now! There’s a mad man in here and I have a pistol pointin’ at him.’
‘Christ!’ exclaimed the startled soldier. Dickey, his eyes still straining against the dark at the dim figure beyond the bed, heard the sentry stumble against the table as he fumbled for the candle.
There was a rasp of flint, and then a yellow spear of flame as the sentry lit the candle. By the candle’s faint light the dark shape on which Dickey’s pistol was trained came to life as a big man in white shirt and breeches, with a kerchief bound sailor-fashion round his head, who stood calmly surveying the little lawyer and the gaping sentry. In the doorway the light twinkled on the brass buttons of a guard sergeant, and behind him Dickey saw the startled faces of two other soldiers.
The intruder’s face, aquiline and brown as a gypsy’s, wore an expression of mild amusement. ‘You’re a game little bantam,’ he remarked to Dickey. ‘Governor Rogers should sleep easy of nights.’
‘Haud your tongue!’ snapped Tobias. ‘Sergeant, when ye’ve done gawping d’ye think ye might tak’ this thief o’ the night under arrest? Bestir yourself, man!’
Hastily the sergeant strode forward and grasped the intruder by the arm. The guards stationed themselves one at each side of the prisoner. With a sigh of relief Master Dickey laid aside his pistol.
‘A fine watch ye keep, sergeant,’ he observed acidly. ‘Hauf the hoose might have been murdered in their beds, and where were you wi’ your sentries?’
The sergeant glowered at the prisoner. ‘Come on, you,’ he began, but Master Dickey cut him short.
‘Wait, wait, wait. Sentry, get another light till we see what manner of bird we’ve caught.’ He came round the end of the bed and confronted the prisoner. ‘You, now. Who are ye and what are ye after?’
The big man smiled down at him. He was a fine-looking fellow, Dickey admitted, a grand body of a man with those mighty shoulders and that narrow waist. ‘You’ll grin on the other side of your face, my buckie,’ the lawyer added sharply. ‘What d’ye mean, keekin’ in my door at this hour o’ the nicht?’
‘I told you,’ replied the prisoner mildly. ‘I want to see Governor Rogers. Why else would I be here?’
‘Tae rob and murder, like enough,’ snapped Master Dickey. ‘For why did ye no’ come in the light o’ day like an honest man?’
‘I’ll talk to Governor Rogers,’ said the other.
Master Dickey stared and shook his head. ‘The man’s plainly demented,’ he observed. ‘Here, you, sergeant, tak’ him tae the guard-house. Ye’ll see the Governor, my lad, have nae fear o’ that. And ye’ll no’ be so glib then, I’m thinking.’
The sergeant tightened his grip on the prisoner’s arm, but without apparent effort the big man brushed it away.
‘I’ll see the Governor,’ he said quietly. ‘What I have to say won’t wait. I’ve no wish to spend the night in some stinking prison, either. Now, sir,’ he addressed Dickey, ‘you seem to be a man of some sense; you may be sure Governor Rogers will want to see me, even if he has to leave his bed for it. Will you summon him, or shall I shout for him?’
In spite of the man’s cool insolence, Dickey found himself impressed. There might be something in what he said. In these troubled times the Governor had dealings with some queer cattle, and the lawyer had been in New Providence long enough to learn not to judge folk by their appearance. Then too, the fellow had given no trouble; he had not the look of a petty thief, nor was he armed. Master Dickey frowned and pondered and made his decision.
‘Call the Governor, sergeant, if ye please.’
The prisoner inclined his head. ‘I’m obliged to you, sir.’
Master Dickey’s judgement in summoning the Governor proved to be sound. A less active official than Woodes Rogers might have consigned the mysterious visitor to the lock-up for the night and Master Dickey to perdition for ever, but the Governor of the Bahamas was a man who had learned in a hard school the value of prompt investigation. When roused from sleep and informed that a sea-faring man wished to see him on a matter of importance, Rogers said nothing beyond a command that the anonymous intruder should be conducted to the study.
Presently he descended to the hall, wearing a light silk robe over his sleeping clothes, and heard the full tale of Master Dickey’s adventure from the lawyer himself. The little Scot was not at his best; he had discovered in returning his pistol to its drawer that it had not been loaded and, in consequence, his report was less calm and ordered than it should have been. Rogers received it without comment and passed on into the long panelled study where the prisoner awaited him.
Dismissing the guard with instructions that sentries be posted in the passage and outside the window, Rogers seated himself behind the long polished table which served him for a desk. Master Dickey took his place unobtrusively at his own smaller table by the window while the Governor considered the tall seaman who stood before him.
Woodes Rogers at this time was slightly past his prime, although still young to have reached the eminence to which his talents had raised him. Discoverer, circumnavigator, sea-fighter and administrator, to his fellow-countrymen in that second decade of the eighteenth century he was comparable with Drake and Raleigh, and not least because of his privateering exploits in the South Sea against the old enemy, Spain. These, incidentally, had made him immensely rich.
Tall, spare and active in spite of the greying hair at his temples, he had the air of one completely masterful and self-possessed. The light from the slender candles threw into relief his prominent nose and high cheek-bones; in spite of an expression which was naturally severe and the puckered scars where a Spanish musket-ball had shattered his jaw he was not unhandsome. His mouth was large and generous and his grey eyes startlingly bright against his weather-beaten skin. They ranged briefly now over the tall figure before him.
‘Your name?’
The big man shifted his weight on to his other foot and said easily: ‘John Rackham.’
Woodes Rogers’ eyes opened a little wider and then he pushed the candlebranch away very deliberately and repeated the name.
‘John Rackham. Also known as Calico Jack.’
The big man smiled faintly and nodded. ‘So they call me,’ he said, with a touch of pride in his voice.
Master Dickey was conscious of a certain coolness on his spine which was not caused by the night air. Of course he knew the name, as he knew the names of ‘Blackbeard’ Ned Teach and Stede Bonnet and every other freebooter of note in the Caribbean waters. But it was one thing to know the name and quite another to be sitting within a few paces of the man himself and to recall that only a few moments earlier he had been trying conclusions with him in a darkened room with an unloaded pistol.
This Rackham, he recalled, had been one of the pirate brotherhood at New Providence in those fateful days when Woodes Rogers had brought his ships to the island and sent in his proclamation demanding their surrender with the promise of Royal pardon for all who complied. And Rackham had been quartermaster