A Pirate of the Caribbees

by Harry Collingwood

The admiral must have beheld my face growing ever longer as I worked my way through this precious list to the end of it, for when I had finished it, and looked up at him blankly, he laughed aloud, as he exclaimed—

“Why, boy, what is the matter with you? Your face is as long as a fiddle!”

“Oh, sir,” I exclaimed, in accents of despair, “you surely will not allow those—those—dockyard people to completely ruin the poor little hooker by making all these alterations and additions to her? She is a new vessel, sir—I understood from the mate of her that this was her first voyage. She is as sound and strong as wood and iron can make her, and any attempt to further strengthen her can only result in the destruction of her sailing powers. Then, as to those high bulwarks, sir, what will be the use of them? They will not afford us an atom of protection, while they will make her sag away to leeward like a barge! And this new gang of rigging—”

The admiral again burst out laughing. “There, there,” he said soothingly, as he held up his hand to stop me, “don’t distress yourself any further, Mr Courtenay; I’ll go aboard her myself this afternoon, and see how much of this she really requires before signing the order. Meanwhile, go aboard yourself and draw up a list of such alterations and additions as you may think needful, and hand it to me when I come down to have a look round.”

I did so, and the upshot of it all was that I eventually wheedled the admiral into consenting that the schooner should remain absolutely untouched above the deck, the only alterations made in her consisting in an extension of the cabin and forecastle accommodation, the enlargement of the magazine, and the substitution of iron ballast for the stones which the Frenchmen had considered good enough to keep the little hooker on her feet. I had some difficulty in gaining my patron’s consent to the retention of the low, light bulwarks with which the craft was fitted, the admiral being strongly of opinion that they ought to be high enough and stout enough to shelter us from musketry fire. Moreover, I think he considered that we looked altogether too rakish and piratical as we then were; but I represented to him that under certain conditions this might be advantageous rather than otherwise, and in the end the kind-hearted old fellow indulgently let me have my way. The result of this was that within a fortnight of our arrival we were at sea again, with the little ship—rechristened by the name of the Tern—smelling outrageously of fresh paint, to the unmitigated disgust of the thirty-six stout fellows who were quartered in her forecastle. Young Lindsay, with many apologies to Captain Harrison, elected to unite his fortunes with mine, rather than turn over to the Minerva; and I was also given another lad—a very quiet, lady-like young fellow named Christie—to bear us both company and do duty as master. Black Peter, also came to the conclusion that there would be more scope for his talents aboard the schooner than in the frigate, and without asking anybody’s leave, installed himself, unceremoniously and as a matter of course, in the position of cabin servant.

We weighed about five o’clock in the evening, with the last of the sea breeze,—a very smart, handsome privateer schooner named the Coquette being in company,—and just managed to sneak through the narrow channel between Gun and Rackum Cays, when the wind dropped dead, and left us in the East Channel in the midst of a glassy calm, rolling our rails under to the furious swell that came sweeping along past Plum Point. The Coquette was within biscuit-toss of us, and she too was rolling and tumbling about to such an extent that I every minute expected to see her roll her sticks away. This lasted for close upon two hours, during which the sun went down in a blaze of splendour and lavish magnificence of colour such as I have never beheld outside the limits of the West Indian waters. Then, just as the burning glories of the west were fading into sober grey, while Hesperus beamed softly out with momentarily increasing effulgence in the darkening blue of the eastern sky, a gentle breeze came stealing to us off the land, to which both schooners, with a mutual challenge to each other, gladly trimmed their canvas, and away we both went, hugging the Palisades closely, for the sake of the smoother water, until Plum Point was passed, when we gradually drew away from each other, the Coquette shaping a course for Morant Point, while I edged away for the island of Martinique, having formed the opinion that some of the more knowing of the enemy’s homeward-bound merchant skippers might endeavour to slip out of the Caribbean between the islands of Martinique and Dominica, in the hope of thereby eluding our cruisers and privateers, most of which chose the neighbourhood of the Windward Passages for their cruising-ground. By the end of the second dog-watch the breeze had freshened so much that it became necessary to hand our royal and topgallant sail; and soon afterwards the wind hauled gradually round until it became the true trade wind, piping up to the strength of half a gale, and compelling us to haul down a single reef in our big mainsail and two reefs in our topsail, under which the little beauty lay down and thrashed through it with all the life and go of a thorough-bred racer. The Coquette was still in sight, some eight miles away to windward, and, famous as she was for her speed, I had the supreme delight of observing that we had head-reached upon her to the extent of quite two miles. And now we began to discover the great advantage of having exchanged our stone ballast for iron, the schooner being not only much stiffer under her canvas, but also more lively than before. It was grand sailing weather, the breeze, although strong, being perfectly steady, while the sea was long and regular, allowing the little hooker plenty of time to rise to each as it came rushing down upon her with hissing crest all agleam with sparkling sea-fire. And it was exhilarating to stand right away aft, close by the weather taffrail, and watch the little beauty as she tore along with breathless speed through the dusky night. The sky was clear as a bell, save for a few detached fleeces of trade-cloud that came swooping along at frequent intervals athwart the stars, so that there was plenty of light to see by; and it was as intoxicating as wine to merely stand abaft there, as I did, feeling the strong rush of the wind past me, and drinking in its invigorating freshness and coolness, as the deck heaved and plunged beneath my feet, and the bending masts swayed and reeled to and fro, the trucks sweeping long arcs among the dancing stars, and the wind piping high and shrill through the rigging, as the schooner leaped and plunged irresistibly forward, with a storm of spray flashing in over her weather cat-head and blowing aft as far as the mainmast at every buoyant upward leap of her to meet the sea, while a whole Niagara of hissing foam—with an under-stratum of whirling clouds of lambent green sea-fire—went swirling past the lee rail at a speed that made one giddy to look at. Five bells in the first watch saw us fairly abreast at Morant Point, and then, as the night was clear and the breeze steady, I went below and turned in.

Nothing of any importance occurred during the next few days, and, carrying on upon the schooner to the last stitch that she could stagger under, we arrived off the northern extremity of the island of Martinique exactly at midnight on the fifth night after leaving Port Royal. I considered that we had now reached our cruising-ground, and that there was consequently no need for any further hurry. We therefore shortened sail to double-reefed mainsail, fore staysail, and jib,—furling all our square canvas,—and leisurely passed through the channel between Martinique and Dominica until we were some sixty miles to windward of both islands, when we headed the little hooker to the northward and ratched as far as the latitude of Antigua, then heaving about and returning over the same ground again.

The first two days of our cruising proved utterly barren of results, but the time was by no means wasted, for, having sedulously exercised the crew in the working of the guns and in cutlass drill every day during our passage across from Port Royal, I now rigged up a floating target and gave them a little firing practice, taking care to have a man on the royal yard to give us timely notice of the appearance of any sail that perchance might be frightened away by the sound of firing; and I was soon gratified at the discovery that I numbered among my crew several very fairly clever marksmen.

It was within a few minutes of sunset, on the evening of the third day of our cruise, that, being again off the northern extremity of Martinique, and heading to the southward, the lookout aloft reported the upper canvas of what looked like a large ship standing out close-hauled between that island and Dominica. I immediately got the ship’s telescope and went aloft with it, being just in good time to catch a glimpse of the royals and heads of the topgallant sails of a ship steering a course that would carry her some six miles to the northward of us. Having made as sure as I could of her bearing, distance, and course, I descended to the deck, and gave orders to wear ship, after executing which manoeuvre we hauled down all our canvas and lay in wait for the approaching craft, the schooner, although under bare poles, head-reaching at the rate of about two miles per hour. I estimated that the distance of the stranger from us was then some twenty-five miles, and if she was making a speed of eight knots—which was a fairly liberal allowance—it would afford us ample time to drift fairly athwart her hawse; and this I hoped to do undiscovered, as I believed that, from the cut of her canvas, she was a merchantman belonging to one or another of our enemies, and I was most anxious that she should not take fright and bear up for either of the islands, involving us in a long stern-chase, with possibly a cutting-out job at the end of it if she should succeed in reaching the refuge of a harbour.

The evening was fine, with a moderate breeze from about east-north-east, and not very much sea running. The swell, however, was high enough to hide us for at least half the time, and although the stars soon beamed forth brilliantly, while a thin silver sickle of moon hung high aloft, the conditions generally seemed fairly promising for success. Of course I gave the most stringent orders that no lights whatever should be permitted to show aboard the schooner, and I was careful to remain on deck myself to see that these orders were rigorously observed. The canvas of the stranger seemed to grow upon the horizon very slowly, and the time of waiting for her approach appeared long; but at length, by four bells in the first watch, she had drawn up to within about three miles of us, and I gave the word to see all clear for sheeting home and hoisting away at a moment’s notice; for the time had now arrived when, if anything like a proper lookout was being kept on board her, we might be discovered at any instant. But minute after minute passed, and she still came steadily on, heeling slightly to the steady trade wind, and bowing solemnly over the undulating swell, with a curl of white foam under her bluff bows that made her appear to be travelling at about three times her actual speed. We had by this time fore-reached athwart her fore-foot, and were edging along at a pace that promised to place us about half a mile to windward of her by the time that she would be crossing our stern, and now I kept the night-glass immovably bearing upon her, watching for the sudden yaw that should indicate the discovery of a possible enemy in her path. I had by this time made up my mind that she was a Spaniard, and the mere fact of her adventuring, herself thus alone, instead of availing herself of a convoy, was to me sufficient assurance that she went heavily armed and manned. It also suggested the possibility that she might be carrying an exceptionally-rich freight, it sometimes happening that the skipper of such a ship, especially if he chanced to be a man of daring and courage, preferred to take his chance of making the voyage alone rather than risk being cut off from the convoy by the swarm of privateers and picaroons that hovered upon its skirts almost from the moment of its sailing to that of its arrival.