Devil's Ballast Read online

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  Anne Bonny was eighteen when she ran away from her violent husband, James, into the arms of pirate captain Calico Jack Rackham. Now she’s ensconced aboard Jack’s ship Ranger, passing as a cabin boy and playing her ruthless part in a crew that is raining down mayhem and murder on the ships of the Caribbean.

  But James Bonny is willing to pay to get his ‘property’ back. And pirate-hunter Captain Barnet is happy to take his money. The Ranger’s a fast ship: Anne might just be able to outrun Barnet. But can she outrun the consequences of her relationship with Calico Jack?

  Devil’s Ballast is action-packed yet nuanced, culturally relevant and sharp as a cutlass. Based on the true story of Anne Bonny, this new novel by the remarkable Meg Caddy brings to life one of history’s most fascinating anti-heroines

  This book is dedicated to my cousin (and feminist icon) Jessica.

  (Sorry, Dad, you were in the running right up until the fake shark attack.)

  CONTENTS

  COVER PAGE

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  TITLE PAGE

  1 BONNY

  2 BARNET

  3 BONNY

  4 BONNY

  5 BONNY

  6 BARNET

  7 BONNY

  8 BONNY

  9 BONNY

  10 BARNET

  11 BONNY

  12 BARNET

  13 BONNY

  14 BONNY

  15 BARNET

  16 BONNY

  17 BARNET

  18 BONNY

  19 BONNY

  20 BARNET

  21 BONNY

  22 BARNET

  23 BONNY

  24 BARNET

  25 BONNY

  26 BONNY

  27 BONNY

  28 BONNY

  29 BONNY

  30 BONNY

  31 BARNET

  32 BONNY

  33 BONNY

  34 BONNY

  35 BONNY

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  INTRODUCTION TO SAMPLE CHAPTER

  EXTRACT FROM WAER

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  1

  BONNY

  I counted fifteen dead men working the deck of the Kingston.

  Well, they weren’t dead yet, but the day was young and I had a full belt of shot.

  I’d spent all day in the rigging, watching the other ship. She was a merchant vessel, fat with spice and silks, and though she had guns they wouldn’t do her much good. Her crew didn’t have our experience. Our hunger. The best the Kingston could do was run.

  And our ship, the Ranger, was about to outrun her.

  Men jostled and shoved around me, selecting hatchets and swords for the boarding party. I kept my head down, kept to the middle of the crowd. If the captain found me out it would all be over and I’d be picking oakum for a month. Dobbin, one of the other young hands, passed me an axe. If he knew I wasn’t supposed to be there, he didn’t comment.

  Our sails clapped out and the breeze gathered behind them. We crested on a wave; spray danced across the deck. It was a warm day but the wind was up and the water was cold. I shifted my weight to stay upright. Just a few months before, the lurch of the ship had been enough to send me flying but I was a quick study and my balance had always been fair. Keeping my feet would be harder when we were fighting across the decks of the smaller ship, but I was ready.

  The Kingston had been travelling at an easy pace. Now she gathered speed, and my heart skittered and rattled in my chest, beating out a gleeful chant of too late, too late. The Ranger was old and barnacle-studded, but she was fast. Isaac was a good helmsman and we were skilled hunters. Soon we would be hard on the Kingston’s stern. For any other ship we might have used the guns more, to cripple and capture. But the captain wanted this one for his own and he didn’t want any damage done to her. If we used the guns, they’d be loaded with sangrenel and we’d be aiming to cut the crew to shreds with shrapnel. Strictly speaking, I should have been below, helping the gunners load up.

  I glanced that way—towards the companionway.

  No. I was not content to stay below in the sweat and swelter.

  I jumped as two bony hands clapped down on my shoulders. Old Dad the carpenter leaned forward. His beard scratched my ear.

  ‘If the captain sees you here he’s going to turn blue, Andrew Bonny,’ he said.

  ‘So?’ I asked, bracing myself to be sent below.

  ‘So.’ I could hear the grin in his voice. ‘Don’t let him see you. At least, not until the prize is won. And try not to get killed.’

  I snorted and shrugged his dark hands off my shoulders. ‘Good luck keeping pace with me, old man.’ I turned away from him and kept my eyes ahead as we drew closer to the Kingston.

  ‘Avast!’

  I snapped around. Calico Jack was striding out across the deck towards us. His motley coat swirled about his knees and not for the first time, the sight of him made me catch my breath.

  ‘Avast!’ he said again as he joined us. ‘Stop!’ I stood behind Richard Corner but kept my eyes trained on the captain.

  ‘Why?’ One of the lads, Harwood, blurted out the question we all had in mind.

  ‘Port Royal.’ Calico’s voice was tight. ‘It’s too close. We’ll be in plain sight as soon as we’re around the point. We won’t be able to catch the Kingston in time.’

  The whole crew lurched with disappointment; silence stretched us thin. The balance of power on a ship was a fragile thing and, for a sick, wild, exciting moment, I thought they might mutiny. I saw it in their scowls, in the way their hands tightened on their weapons. And then, suddenly, the moment was gone. The tension slackened like a loose knot and the crew dispersed. Disappointment washed through me too—not at the lapsed mutiny, but the loss of the prize. I’d joined the crew with the expectation of loot and plunder, not a pursuit that fizzled out before a single shot was fired.

  The Kingston crept away from us as the riggers started to bring in our sail. Isaac, on the helm, prepared to turn us away.

  The crew accepted Calico’s word.

  I knew I should accept Calico’s word.

  ‘We’re not that close to shore.’

  Every head turned in my direction. I heard a disgusted noise that probably came from Isaac. Calico searched the crew and found me. His eyes narrowed.

  I rushed on before he could reply. ‘And we’re fast enough that by the time someone comes to help the Kingston, we’ll be away. Look at them, captain. They’re easy pickings.’

  ‘Are you questioning me Bonny?’ Calico said.

  ‘When did we last take a prize? When did we last finish a hunt?’

  The crew parted for our captain. He grabbed me by the arm and hauled me towards the companionway. ‘Don’t push me,’ he growled in my ear.

  ‘Someone has to.’ I wrenched my arm away and stood nose-to-nose with him. Out of the corner of my eye I could see other crewmen. They were going about their business but some lingered around us, trying to hear the conversation. I wasn’t best loved on the Ranger and some of them obviously hoped Calico was going to give me a bollocking. ‘Captain.’ I lowered my voice. ‘Calico.’

  ‘Don’t. I weighed this decision before I made it. We don’t know which ships are anchored in Port Royal. They could be upon us. And the port guns…’

  ‘If we come in sight of the Port and there’s a ship ready for us, we’ll blast it to high heaven and then run. We’ve done it before. They won’t be ready and we will.’

  ‘You think it helps either of us if you call me out in front of the men?’

  ‘Didn’t you feel the tension, Jack? These men follow you because they believe you’re braver than their last captain. They trust you to lead them
into a charge and out again—with a prize.’

  If it had been quieter, if we had been on land or out of sight, I would have kissed him then and he wouldn’t have needed much more convincing.

  I leaned back and shoved my hands in my pockets. ‘You’re not a coward, Jack.’ I knew that would rile him. ‘We won’t have another chance like this for weeks. Now is the time. The winds are good, and God favours men of resolve.’ I grinned and rounded my voice. ‘He has given us the authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall injure…’

  ‘Enough.’ He tried not to smile but I saw the tug of his lips. ‘You talk more than anyone else I know.’

  His blue eyes tracked over my shoulder, towards the Kingston. He raised his voice. ‘You’ll be picking oakum for a month, Bonny. Run your mouth at me like that again and I’ll turn you over the side myself.’

  ‘Aye, captain.’ I tried to look humbled but I didn’t have much experience in that.

  ‘Loose the sails!’ He shouldered past me and I turned and whooped. The crew scattered, reclaiming their weapons. Men moved through the rigging. And Calico was so busy pulling the crew together he didn’t even notice me slipping back into the boarding party.

  The Kingston tried to run. Her sails were still white and new and she glided out ahead of us for a short while. We surged after her, ragged and relentless. They had guns, but nothing mounted at the stern: they wouldn’t have a chance to fire until we were alongside them. We just had to get over and spill some blood before they managed to ready their shot.

  We drew along her starboard side just as we rounded the point. Our grappling hooks latched onto their railing and gunwale, splintering the wood. The merchants shouted and cursed, waving the odd weapon unconvincingly. They fired a gun but we were still at an angle and the shot cleared our bow by a few bare inches—then before they could fire again they had to wad and prime and reload, and wait for the right roll of the wave. We stole the time from between their teeth and flung ourselves onto their decks. Calico was the first one over.

  If his resolve had been weak before, it was fixed now. He shot a man in the chest as I was scrabbling onto the railing of the Ranger. I stood there for a bare second. A wave surged under us and the ships knocked together, flinging a merchant between the vessels. I steadied myself and lept across, one foot on the gunwale of the Kingston and then both feet on the deck. Not enough space to swing the hatchet. The crew pressed forward, shouting and roaring. A merchant dropped to the ground with his hands in the air, begging. He was kicked to the deck and rolled away.

  ‘Surrender!’ Calico bellowed. His voice cracked across the deck and barely carried above our jubilant howls. ‘Surrender and you will not be harmed!’

  I strung my hatchet across my back, grabbed the black cloth I had fastened to my belt and ran to the rigging. Someone came at me. I ducked. Old Dad grabbed the man around the chest and hauled him down, stabbing him in the gut.

  ‘What’re you doing?’ he shouted as I grabbed a ratline and hauled myself into the rigging.

  There were others up there but I knew I was faster than them. More men, probably the gunners, spilled up onto the deck from the belly of the Kingston. I counted maybe twenty merchants now.

  As I climbed, the ropes rough under my hands, the wind replaced the acrid smell of smoke and powder. I was good at climbing, always had been, and though the tight bandages about my chest made it harder to breathe and the ship swayed, the mast swaying with it, I didn’t slow. Someone started to climb towards me. An unarmed boy. I pulled out the gun from my left hip and pointed it at his face. I was a good shot. If he came any closer I wouldn’t hesitate to fire.

  ‘Climb down!’ I shouted.

  He was skinny and freckled, probably about my age, and smart enough to move away from me. Others followed him. My arms were straining and my hands were slippery with sweat by the time I reached the fork between the mast and the maingallant. I propped myself there, my fingers fumbling with the knots that secured the Kingston’s flag. It twisted and curled and fluttered into the ocean. Lost forever.

  I secured our own flag. A black field; a skull above two crossed cutlasses. It snapped out in the wind. Beneath the sound of the waves and the wind, I heard a ragged cheer from our own crew. I grinned, breathless, and leaned against the mast. From where I perched I could see crow’s nests and sails jutting out over the ridge of land. Then we rounded the point and Port Royal came into view. Everyone there would see our flag and know who we were.

  Calico would be furious. Didn’t matter. I wanted everyone to know. We were the crew of the Ranger. We were Calico Jack’s people.

  I wanted the whole damned ocean to be afraid.

  2

  BARNET

  Jonathan Barnet stood on the jetty, supervising the loading of the Albion. He had selected this crew with care. They were hard men with a hard purpose. Men of God. Men of war. Some were new to his decks, and he watched them with particular interest. If they did not meet his standards during this voyage they would be put ashore without pay at the next port. There might be a flogging or two; it would stiffen the spines of the men remaining.

  The Flemish hand Martin Read ambled past carrying a duffel. Barnet suspected Read would feel the lash on his broad shoulders before long. The man was quiet, but insolence lurked within.

  ‘Step lively, Read,’ Barnet said.

  Read turned. His dark eyes were hooded, almost lazy. They flicked to a point behind Barnet, then back to his face.

  ‘You have a visitor, sir,’ he said. He went on his way.

  ‘What?’ Barnet demanded, turning to the stranger behind him.

  The man was tall and angular. He might have been handsome on a good day but his shirt was sweat-stained and his unshaven face sported dark bruises. His breath reeked—Barnet found himself leaning back. He was used to the stink of men at sea, but a man on land had no excuse.

  ‘Captain Jonathan Barnet? My name is James Bonny.’

  ‘I am a busy man, Mister Bonny. What do you want?’ If the man was looking for a job, he would find himself disappointed.

  ‘I have come about the Kingston…’

  Amusement prickled Barnet. ‘You have come to commission me? I would have thought that several hundred pounds beyond you.’

  ‘I’m representing a third party.’ There was an edge to his smile. Barnet had adjudged him a drunkard, but now he reassessed. A merchant who had lost cargo on the Kingston?

  ‘Speak, then.’

  ‘I know the pirates who took her.’

  ‘John Rackham and his men, yes.’ Impatience flickered through Barnet’s voice. ‘Is that all you have to tell me?’

  ‘I know them.’ James Bonny leaned forward and ran his tongue across his lips. ‘Calico Jack stole something from me. Something he still has in his possession.’

  ‘So this is a commission.’

  ‘This is ammunition.’ Bonny drew a breath. ‘You spoke before of Rackham’s men. But it is not just men he keeps on that hell-bound ship.’

  Barnet looked at him sharply. ‘Yes?’

  ‘When Calico Jack last departed Nassau he took a woman with him.’ Hatred twisted Bonny’s words, made his face ugly. ‘Now she lives and works as one of his crew.’

  ‘A woman pirate?’ Fascination crawled in Barnet’s chest.

  James Bonny must have realised he had hooked his fish. He took half a step forward and dropped his voice. ‘A woman. A pirate. A Delilah. Sent by the very Devil. I am sure she dresses as a man to deceive the rest of the crew.’

  ‘How are you sure?’

  Bonny’s lip curled. ‘Because she left dressed as a man, in the clothes she stole from me,’ he said. ‘The woman is my wife.’

  ‘And you are going to pay me to retrieve her?’

  ‘Think of it rather as an incentive on top of what you will already be making. Word on the docks is that the merchants are going to commission you to recapture the Kingston.’ Bonny handed over a full p
urse. Barnet checked the contents: more than the ragged man should have been able to afford. ‘My wife’s father is concerned for her welfare. As am I, naturally.’ Sarcasm laced his tone. ‘If you have the opportunity, we hope you will bring her back to my care rather than putting her in front of the law. If that is not possible, her capture and arrest will suffice. Mister Cormac and his connections will take it from there.’

  ‘And if the merchants fail to offer me a commission?’

  Bonny shrugged. ‘I’m a gambling man. Call this my wager. And a gesture of good faith. My father-in-law is a wealthy man. There is more to come if you deliver his daughter to us.’

  ‘You want her alive?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  Barnet scanned the other man’s face. The capture of a female pirate would elevate him even above Robert Maynard, who had made his name slaying the notorious Blackbeard.

  And while all pirates were, of course, an affront to God, a female pirate was a particular abomination.

  ‘I will consider it,’ he said, pocketing the purse. Bonny met his gaze and grinned. They both knew he had already decided.

  3

  BONNY

  Calico, predictably, looked like God’s rebuke to murder when I came back to the deck of the Kingston. The merchants were over the side in jolly-boats, starting their journey back to port. No ships were after us yet; it would take them time to supply and weigh anchor. Even then, we had a good wind and would soon be just two among the hundreds of ships tacking about the coast of Jamaica. We had already switched the skull-and-cutlasses to another flag. There was a variety to choose from, trophies of ships Calico and his men had taken in the past. They were useful when we wanted to be discreet. Old Dad had Noah Harwood over the side, taking out the wooden panel that sported the escutcheon. We’d flown our flag, but now it was time to slip quietly away from Port Royal before the merchants rallied and sent hunters after us.

  Our crew set about moving the cargo and organising supplies. A skeleton crew could run Ranger while the rest worked the Kingston. She would be our flagship, our pride. The thought made my heart swell. This was the beginning of our fleet. So even as Calico stalked past and grabbed my scruff, I was grinning like a drunk.