had just left.
‘Save your breath, Ben.’ Rackham pointed and his lieutenant groaned. The King’s ship was gliding across the fire-gleaming water, cutting off the Kingston’s escape, while the three long-boats were closing in.
‘That’s the Unicorn,’ said Rackham. ‘She can blow us out of the water whenever she’s a mind to.’
‘We can fight her, cap’n!’ Ben, having seen one chance slip away, sought desperately to seize another. ‘Them flares won’t last for ever. See, they’re burning down now! If we can hold her off till they go out we can make open sea yet!’
‘With those to man the ship and fight her too?’ Rackham gestured towards the disordered huddle of men in the waist.
‘What odds? It’s Execution Dock if we’re taken. There’s still a chance, for Christ’s sake!’
‘If you can—’ Rackham was beginning, when he was cut short. The voice that had hailed the Kingston a few moments before was raised again from the leading longboat, now within pistol shot of the Kingston’s side.
‘In the King’s name! Lay down your arms!’
In the silence that followed Rackham could hear Bennett’s muffled voice forward exhorting the gunners. The fool would be letting fly in a moment.
‘Go forrard,’ he snapped. ‘Take command of the guns. Fire when I give the order, but not before.’
To his relief, Ben obeyed. With the lieutenant in charge, he could be sure that no shot would be fired from the Kingston unless he wished it.
‘Do you surrender? We have you at our mercy.’ The commander of the longboats was hailing again.
Every face on the Kingston’s deck was turned aft. Rackham walked over to the rail and shouted: ‘Keep your distance! You’re under our guns. Come closer and we’ll blow you to Florida!’
To his surprise his words brought a ragged cheer from the pirates in the waist. He noticed uneasily that one or two of the hardier spirits were passing arms among their fellows, and some, already armed; were crouching in the shelter of the rail. They might fight after all. And the flares on the rafts were beginning to burn lower. On the other hand, the Unicorn was standing in to point-blank range.
‘You may trust in His Majesty’s mercy,’ shouted the voice from the longboat again. ‘Governor Woodes Rogers has pledged his word that no harm will come to those who prove themselves loyal by immediate surrender.’
‘No harm?’ Rackham was echoing the thoughts of his crew. ‘What does that mean?’
‘Pardon,’ was the reply. ‘Pardon, on surrender of your ship and yourselves. If you resist, you can expect no mercy.’
‘Pardon.’ The word was on every tongue. ‘The King’s pardon!’ Gone were the expressions of fear and anger. Their voices were eager now. Rackham turned to meet the surge of men who flocked towards the poop. Leaning on the rail he looked down on them.
‘What shall it be?’ he shouted. ‘Will you fight or surrender to the King?’
With one voice they answered him, their swarthy faces upturned. ‘Pardon! We’ll take the pardon! Tell him we’ll take the pardon!’ Their shouts rose in a deafening clamour.
He raised both hands, and the noise subsided. Even as it was dying away and he was preparing to say ‘So be it,’ a thought occurred to him. He waited until the last murmur had faded. Then he glanced at the shrouds, where the men aloft were already descending, at the main hatchway, where others were crowding up to the deck. Then when every eye was on him, and everyone was silent, he hooked his thumbs into his belt, and looked down at them.
‘You cowardly scum,’ he said, and turned away. He felt that it was a touch of which Governor Woodes Rogers would approve.
On the following morning, less than twelve hours after their capture, the Kingston pirates were admitted to the Royal pardon. It was an impressive ceremony enacted with considerable solemnity on the broad square of the Fort, and New Providence turned out in force to see it. Along one side of the parade awnings had been erected for the most consequential spectators: the planters, merchants, and gentlefolk and their women who constituted the pick of the island’s society, and before them, in a canopied chair, sat the Governor, magnificent in lilac taffeta and plumed castor, with Master Dickey at his elbow.
Marshalled in front of the Governor, with Rackham at their head and a hollow square of garrison infantry about them, stood the filibusters of the Kingston, none the better for a night in the Fort’s wet stone cells. Blinking in the dazzling sunlight they listened as Master Dickey addressed them in the name of the most high and mighty prince, George, of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, King, and catalogued their misdeeds as form demanded. Elsewhere round the parade ground the area was packed with a throng of townsfolk, intent on the show.
To Rackham the formalities were interminable. He wanted to sign his name and swear his oath and be away to the Sampson house to make his peace with Kate. But he must wait and listen, while the long paragraphs dragged on, watching the well-to-do standing respectfully attentive beneath their awnings while the common folk shuffled and exchanged whispers with their neighbours.
A figure in the ranks of the planters behind the Governor’s chair caught Rackham’s eye, and he recognised Penner, the former Army officer turned pirate whom he had not seen since his last sojourn in Providence two years ago. It was with a shock of surprise that he identified the bluff, red face and corpulent frame in that company of respectable respected, until he realised that Penner, too, must be a pardoned man; was probably by now a citizen of worth and standing in Providence. It was a heartening thought, and he smiled slowly as Penner inclined his head and half-lifted a hand in token of recognition.
Master Dickey’s voice claimed his attention again. The formalities over, the name of King George having been suitably glorified, and that of Governor Rogers likewise praised in its degree, the secretary rolled up his document and presented another, which Woodes Rogers again approved, and Dickey proceeded:
‘… whereas these several misguided subjects of our Sovereign Lord, having erred from the ways of duty, yet having repented them of their sins, shall, under this solemn oath and contract, be admitted to said Majesty’s most gracious and Royal pardon, and to them shall be restored said Majesty’s protection, that they may move again in, and be restored to, the proper ways of duty and love to their rightful and most merciful Sovereign.’
Woodes Rogers doffed his castor, an example which every male in the square followed, and prepared to administer the oath. It was a simple document, in contrast to those which had gone before, calling for complete repentance in those who took it, enjoining them to be temperate and truthful, and demanding from them the solemn promise that they would forsake for ever the practice of piracy on the high seas. Finally, it gave assurance that any who broke the oath would be promptly hanged.
‘John Rackham, hold up your right hand,’ commanded Master Dickey. ‘Do you so swear?’
Rackham waited a fraction of a second, savouring the last moment before he should be a free man. ‘I do,’ he said.
‘Benjamin Thorne, do you so swear?’
He was a free man now – as free as Rogers, as Penner, as the King!
‘Isaac Nelson, do you so swear?’
Free. And not only a free man but an honest one – his past forgotten, himself absolved by the most regal authority in the world.
One by one the pirates filed forward to sign, or make their marks upon, the heavily sealed document on the Governor’s table.
Rackham, in his impatience, scrawled his signature without a glance at the