I felt a tinge of guilt as I looked away from the water and focused on the land ahead. The captain had taught me how to use fixed points of land to determine a position on the water. It was easier with a compass, but I knew if I could find the right landmarks, that we could return in better conditions and recover the chests. We had sounded the entrance to the bay on previous trips and, with the water only around ten feet where the boat went down, we could dive on the site. I struggled to line up any features that would be memorable.
My eyes went first to the headland on the left, and I was able to line up two small islands that I knew. I scanned the coast to the right looking for another landmark. A tall palm leaning toward the water caught my eye, and I searched the landscape behind it for anything that I could use to line it up and mark the position. I noticed a small mound behind the tree with a scrub oak and committed them to memory.
I’m not sure if Rhames knew what I was doing, as he said nothing, but there was something about the look on his face that gave me the impression that he approved. With our mates lost, at least for now, the four boats stayed close, surfing the waves as we approached shore. The distance that had taken hours to row we now covered in minutes, and the waves settled as we moved behind one of the larger islands near the headland. I pointed toward an island, and Rhames corrected his stroke to change our course toward the small beach.
It was a relief to be back on land, but we were in dire trouble. We huddled on the beach, shivering. There was no fresh water, and we would be forced to forgo a fire to remain unseen. I looked around the island for anything that might be able to provide shelter from the coming storm.
5
The rain pounding on the hull woke me, and I wondered if it was daylight yet. At least the overturned boat kept us dry and, with the eight of us huddled underneath it was warm, but I couldn’t see outside. The wind howled and rain sheeted inside as I raised an edge of the boat and looked out of our makeshift shelter. My stomach growled and my mouth was dry. The last thing I wanted to do was to leave the shelter, but we needed water badly.
I elbowed the man next to me and received a grunt and a jab back in return. “Swift. Get up. We need to get water.”
“Boy. What do you want from me? I’m tired, lemme sleep.”
I would not relent and pushed back, moving out of the way before he could reciprocate. “Now,” I demanded, pushing my authority as far as I dared. He rose and hit his head on the bottom of the boat, but helped me lift the edge enough so that we could crawl into the cold and wet night. It was a good blow; the line of clouds we had seen earlier was surely upon us. I looked around for anything that would contain rainwater, but found little. There was water in the boats, but it was dirty and mixed with saltwater. We needed fresh, clean water.
“Dig a hole,” I called to Swift over the wind.
I didn’t wait for an answer, but went straight to a small palm tree nearby and started pulling the broad leaves off. The palm was more like a bush than the large coconut palms that towered overhead, and the leaves were wide and solid. I took a handful and set them down next to the hole that Swift was digging and went back for more. When I returned, he had excavated a three foot by three foot hole about a foot deep in the sand. I started to line the bottom with the palm leaves, overlapping them to prevent leakage. Swift caught on and started another hole a few feet away. My hole was just about finished and the water was already about an inch deep in the bottom. I kneeled down and, with cupped hands, lifted water from the hole and drank. Swift came up alongside and did the same. We drank greedily, the fresh rainwater soothing our dry throats, and he gave me a reassuring nod.
Finally sated, I looked at the sea in the direction of our island and noticed the fires. Despite the rain, the Navy was burning our shelters, probably out of frustration; the weather keeping them from following. Swift saw it too and nodded at me. As uncomfortable as we were, the storm was protecting us from the hangman’s noose.
Fifteen minutes later, we crawled back under the boat and shivered in the darkness, but at least we would have water. I was too wet and cold to sleep anymore, so I waited out the hours before dawn planning our next action. They would surely come after us in the morning. These kinds of storms lasted several hours, not days. The wind might blow, but it wouldn’t stop them—not with pirates to hang and treasure to recover. We would need an early start and a long row to reach the homestead by nightfall, so I waited for the first sign of dawn and woke the men.
“Get up. We’ve got to move.” I waited a minute for them to gather their wits. “They’ve burned the island and now they’re after us.” They started moving quickly, knowing the consequences if we were caught. We flipped the boat we had used for shelter and pushed it to the edge of the water alongside the other boats. I pointed out the wells we had dug and they ran over and started drinking. We had no vessels to take water with us, so I implored them to drink their fill as I scanned the horizon for any pursuit. Fires were still burning on the island, and I could see the longboats rowing for the frigate. They would be aboard and under sail in minutes. If I had to guess, they would move into the mouth of the harbor and dispatch the boats from there, rather than have them cross the sound as we had.
“Hurry up. Drink and let’s go.” I grabbed several of the men and started tipping the other boats over to remove the water that accumulated overnight. The rain had stopped, but the wind stayed strong. I could only hope the tide would be our ally, as each man drank again, then we pushed the boats off the beach.
The wind remained from the north and at our backs. This time, with a favorable wind and a slack tide, we were able to cover the water that had taken us hours yesterday in less than half that. We faced the island where we had camped as we rowed. I looked over my shoulder, fixed on an island ahead to correct course, but when I faced backwards, as is the normal position to row, I lined up the landmarks I had committed to memory yesterday marking where the boat had sunk and further etched them in my mind. The water was too dark to see the bottom as we passed the spot, and I said a silent prayer for the men we had lost. My focus turned to the maze of small islands ahead of us. I tapped Rhames on the shoulder, pointed to the small cay I was aiming for, and he adjusted his pull to change our course. Another half hour of hard rowing and we pulled behind the small island, which screened us from our pursuers.
Through a small opening in the brush we could see that the frigate was now anchored outside of the Boca Grande pass, in the mouth of the channel. The large vessel could go no farther without the time-consuming practice of dropping a lead every few feet. Longboats were dropping from its side, and we could see men climbing down the cargo netting to the boats. Several were already fully manned, waiting in the water. I looked around at the men as they looked at me and could see the indecision on their faces.
We had no time to waste. The Navy boats were bigger, and manned by six to eight men each. With that many oars in the water they could easily catch us. We would have to rely on stealth to escape the faster boats.
6
I was counting on my knowledge of the area to lose the Navy boats. In the months we had holed up here, I had been in the marshy backcountry many times, foraging for oysters and netting fish between the narrow shoals. We had no chance of outrunning the larger, better-manned boats that followed; our best chance was to ditch the boats and head inland, but then the treasure would weigh us down.