Chapter 51
Caribbean Sea
“Read it aloud, Anne,” Jack said, urging her on.
Anne stared at the paper in her hand, then out at the crew—sweaty and exhausted after a week of pillaging.
They’d taken a merchant ship called the Neptune, led by Captain Spenlow.
No gold or silver, but they’d snatched some modest goods and fifty rolls of tobacco—their biggest haul yet.
They’d found the newspaper buried in a trunk a week after they’d hauled it aboard.
Anne, Mary, and only a handful of others could read it.
But now, the parchment billowing in the east-west breeze as they made for the risky path north of Jamaica, Anne wished someone else—anyone else—could deliver this news.
“Go on,” Howell shouted. “Get it over with!”
Mary—which everyone had started calling her once the shock wore off—gave Anne an encouraging nod.
God Almighty. What a scene that reveal had been.
No one spoke for a full minute after Mary shared her truth with the crew.
Mary never disclosed that Thomas was the father.
All wide eyes were fixed on Mary or the deck, but Anne watched Thomas.
The vein in his neck ticked. If Anne had stood nearer, she might have stomped on his foot to urge him to make himself known rather than letting Mary endure this alone.
“Well then,” Corner had said, guiding the mood to humor. “A woman who bested Captain Rackham with a blade? I say we keep her.”
“We’re short enough hands,” said Featherstone.
“But consider our luck—”
Earl cut Howell off from whatever the drunkard was going to say. “There’s no one else I’d rather sail with,” he said with a smile of admiration.
Jack led the crew in a vote to keep Mary on. She wore the occasional dress now, which Anne was more than willing to lend her. Mary looked radiant as she worked the lines with a newfound lightness, her identity no longer a hindrance to her mannerisms or choice of clothing.
Anne blinked, staring down at the damning ink in her hands. This, too, would be a scene—one less easy to overcome.
At last, she read the legal proclamation: “By his Excellency Woodes Rogers, Governor of New Providence. Whereas: John Rackham, George Featherstone, John Howell, etc. and two women, by name, Anne Bonny and Mary Read, did on the 22nd of August last combine together to enter on board, take, steal and run away with a certain sloop called the William, mounted with four great guns and two swivel ones, also ammunition, sails, rigging, anchor, cables, and a canoe, owned by and belonging to Captain John Ham, and with the said sloop did proceed to commit robbery and piracy. Wherefore these are to publish and make known to all persons whatsoever, that the said John Rackham and his said company are hereby proclaimed Pirates and Enemies to the Crown of Great Britain, and are to be so treated and deemed by all his majesty’s subjects.
Given at Nassau, this 5th of September, 1720. ”
Silence. The Revenge rose, then fell, before anyone dared to speak.
“I suppose we should have expected something like this,” Corner muttered.
“It’s signed by the governor,” Anne confirmed, handing Jack the broadsheet. He passed it around for all to scrutinize.
“What does this mean?” Earl said.
“It means we’re doomed,” Thomas said, kicking an empty cask they’d been using to play backgammon. “The governor hunts us down, some of us listed out! I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
Mary took the paper from Corner. “It lists my real name.” Her dark hair fell in front of her face as she read. “How did the governor know I was a woman?”
Anne stood beside her and looked at her own name blazing in plain sight. “You always said people in Nassau talk.”
Mary rubbed her temple. “So few people knew. I thought they were friends.”
“Friends can be bought,” Howell said, taking a swig of his flask, the sun reflecting off the metal.
Anne glanced at Jack, who removed his tricorn and tore a hand through his sun-bleached brown hair. What were they to do? What did it mean? Even Jack, with an illustrious history in this pirating business, had never had a target of this size on his back.
“Jack?” she asked, drawing near. The glint of fear she saw in his pupils shifted to something brazen, almost joyful.
“This is just what we want—their attention. People are watching, listening. We have to strike hard,” he said. “Show them they can’t scare us.”
“Captain,” said Fenwick.
Jack ignored him. “This is the Revenge! We can’t quit, and we can’t show our faces ashore. Not yet. We must—”
“Captain,” Fenwick said, this time with more force. “There’s a canoe off the port side.” He tossed the spyglass to Jack, who peered through it.
“So there is,” he said. “Corner, ready the crew to board.”
“That’s our next prize? A common canoe?” Mary said. She leveled a look at Thomas. Anne imagined that Mary must be thinking of Thomas’s abandoned fishing boat—his sole possession. Sometimes Anne thought she could still smell the stink of those nets.
Thomas did not catch Mary’s eye. According to Mary, he’d kept his distance since her reveal.
Mary said it was complicated and that it was up to Thomas to decide when to come forward to the others.
He “had a reputation to mind.” That reasoning left a sour taste on Anne’s tongue.
Why would Thomas remain silent? Even his lovely whistling had stopped.
Why wouldn’t he be proud to be with a woman like Mary?
Jack, in contrast, made his affection for Anne clear.
After a week of late-night battles and drunken promises, she’d convinced him to let her remain aboard.
To not dump her with “relatives” in Cuba.
She took her victories where she could.
“We’ll pass on nothing,” Jack said as Corner gave directions to the others. He turned to Mary. “Isn’t that what you’ve been telling me all along? Go for all the prizes?”
Anne crossed her arms. What kind of people were they robbing?
Her stomach squirmed, seeing how Jack and Mary looked at each other with distrust. Mary took the spyglass and looked for herself. Her mouth hung open.
“Two men. But also a woman.” Mary turned, eyes blazing.
“We have two of those, too,” Jack said. “What’s your point?”
“We can’t board! Did you see the parasol? It’s a grand lady, out for—well, I don’t know what—but she’ll carry little of value. She’ll be nothing but trouble.”
“Bring the boarding pikes,” Corner said.
“Captain’s orders,” Featherstone growled. “We just took on Spenlow’s double-masted schooner last week without a single shot fired. Show some respect.”
Mary glanced over her shoulder, as if to say, Are you seeing this? Anne shrugged. Perhaps Mary had slid down a few rungs in some crew members’ regard, as her friend kept insisting. They gripped their weapons and followed, tugging at the cords holding their own rowboat.
“He’s a fool,” Mary whispered as they lowered the vessel into the water. “This overconfidence could be the end of us.”
Anne stared at the swells and touched the pistol at her side. Mary didn’t trust Jack—she made that known. But Mary also didn’t know him the way Anne did.
Staring at the back of Jack’s tricorn while he shouted directives at the crew as they loaded into the ship’s rowboat, she wondered at all the ways in which she knew him. And all the ways she maybe didn’t.
“Varmints! Thieves!” the woman screeched as they brought her onto the Revenge. She flung herself to the left, then the right, until Corner set her in a chair taken from the captain’s quarters.
“I’m sorry, miss,” Corner said, removing his cap. “We mean you no harm.”
“Murderers! Rovers!” she continued, clutching her bonnet to her tight ringlets as everyone faced her on the main deck.
Jack pushed his quartermaster aside. “What other valuables do you have? Where do you keep your gems? Hand them over, and we’ll be on our way.”
“Let me go!” the woman sobbed. “Return me to my companions. I have nothing. Nothing for you scoundrels. And I’ll not unhand my virtue.” At this, she began to wail.
Earl covered his ears and Thomas flushed with shame.
“I think she’s going to faint,” Howell said.
Anne stood shoulder to shoulder with Mary, taking in the horrible display. Jack turned around, scanning the provisions the crew had brought aboard. His golden-brown eyes landed on her and Mary, and he bade them to come closer.
Anne went to move, but Mary held out her arm. “Not sure that’s a good idea, Captain,” Mary said, keeping her voice low and holding her ground.
“Try,” Corner said, bidding them to come to the front of the throng. “For all our sakes.”
Inching forward, they planted themselves in front of the distressed woman.
“What’s your name?” Anne asked.
Hearing a female voice, the captive wiped away her tears. Her green eyes grew to the size of moons as she took in Anne, then Mary beside her. “You? Why, you’re women!”
Anne nodded and Mary huffed.
“My name is Dorothy. These pirates, they snatched you, too? We have to return to shore. They—”
“I’m afraid we can’t do that, Dorothy.”
Dorothy’s black curls jostled, waiting for them to say more. When no explanations came, the woman blanched. “You’re … with these mongrels?”
Mary snapped her attention to Jack. “Captain, a word?” She turned on her heel and stepped aside. Jack joined her, his arms crossed and jaw set. Anne couldn’t make out their conversation, but their tone suggested that it was an argument.
Anne bit her cheek and returned to Dorothy. “No one here will violate you,” she said, straining to hit a note of comfort. “We aren’t those kind of pirates. But you must turn over all else of value you have.”
Tears streamed down the woman’s face and her lip curled with revulsion.
Anne paused to consider Dorothy, her silk dress and slippers, a well-bred woman like the one Anne herself had been brought up to be.
That was what Mam wanted—for herself and also for her daughter.
Was this not the dream Anne had cast away?
The boom knocked against the sail, and Anne held that moment in her mind: the terrified woman in front of her—the kind of woman Anne should have been—staring in horror at the woman Anne had become.
But she wouldn’t trade places. Not for a second.
“We found a few valuables and provisions among her effects,” Thomas said, nudging his toe at the lace parasol. “A necklace. Some fishing gear and tackle.” He tapped his fingers against his leg. “Can we let her go and be done with this?”
Jack had his back to them and took a moment to respond. “Aye,” he said.
“Her dress?” Howell asked. “Fine silk, I’d wager.”
Dorothy screamed, and Anne shot daggers at Howell. “She keeps the damn dress.”
Everyone agreed. After a dramatic departure, Corner saw Dorothy to her canoe as the others picked up anchor to make due haste. Anne watched as Dorothy and her two male companions paddled like the Devil toward the beach of Ocho Rios.
She couldn’t shake Dorothy’s disgust.
Mary appeared at Anne’s side, her countenance shadowed.
“What did you tell Jack?”
“That we needed to kill her.”
Her blood chilled. Anne spun with disbelief, her mouth agape. “Kill her? An innocent, unarmed woman?”
Mary paled, but she did not take back her words.
“Rackham put us in an impossible position. He’s taking terrible risks, and we’re too close to Jamaica for mistakes.
” She closed her eyes. “When was the last time he held a vote about our strategy? He was careless with capturing the Neptune and bringing Captain Spenlow aboard as a captive for days. And why? Because Rackham had to play with his food? So a handful of sailors could defect and join us? Because Rackham couldn’t decide if he wanted Spenlow’s schooner to form a flotilla, only to set Spenlow and the Neptune loose?
Spenlow saw us, Anne, and so did Dorothy.
” She leaned forward on her elbows as the canoe grew to a speck on the horizon.
“This high-and-mighty damsel in distress with a tale of woe knows where we are, what we are—and now, who we are. We’re the only ship in the Caribbean with two pirate women aboard. ”