But it would not be found out. Both men knew that it would not. The pirates were unlikely to tell, nor was anyone likely to believe them. And Marlowe would see that they were locked down in a dark hold before the division of loot began.
The Plymouth Prizes, who in the next hour would make more money than they had in their entire lives up until that moment, were even less likely to tell. What Marlowe was doing for them was only just, after their ill usage by the navy, and must be kept secret. At least that was how they would see it.
Rakestraw, with his new musket tucked under his arm, hurried off to order the prisoners ferried out to the Plymouth Prize and to oversee the dividing up of the booty.
“Yonder comes the Northumberland,” said Bickerstaff, stepping up beside Marlowe and nodding toward the harbor. The little sloop was standing into the bay under mainsail, jib, and topsail, the canvas white in the morning sun. They stood there for a moment, watching the small ship sail into the harbor on the quartering breeze.
“Excellent,” Marlowe said at last. “Now, I need you to-”
“Marlowe, pray, what is Lieutenant Rakestraw about?”
He turned and looked in the direction that Bickerstaff was looking. Rakestraw had all of the specie and gold and silver plate piled up on a couple of chests, and an impressive pile it was. He was counting it out into numerous small piles and placing them like chess pieces on the second chest.
“Well,” Marlowe said, “he is counting out the specie, you see. Just getting a fair accounting of it for the inventory.”
“Indeed? It looks very much to me as if he was dividing it up like plunder. In order that each man might be called up to receive a share.”
“Oh, well, I had a notion that the men, lacking as they are in the most basic things, might at least get a shift of clothing out of all this, and perhaps decent weapons to aid in future fighting.”
Bickerstaff turned, looked him in the eye. Marlowe wondered why he was unwilling to simply tell Bickerstaff the truth, that he was indeed giving each man a share of the take. Be
cause Bickerstaff would disapprove, deeply disapprove, and he would make it worse by keeping his disapproval to himself. He would think that it smacked of a life that Marlowe had forsworn.
“See here,” Marlowe said, “I know that this is not quite in line with the rules of the admiralty, but look at these poor bastards. They’re in rags, and the navy has done nothing to better their lot. You think if I ask Nicholson for new clothing for these men he’d do anything but laugh? They fought well. The least I can do is give them some reward.”
“They deserve decent clothing, I’ll grant you that-” Bickerstaff said, and Marlowe cut him off before he could continue.
“Exactly. Now I need you to go out to the pirate ship and begin an inventory of what is aboard. See if you can discover her original name, owners, what have you. If there is not aboard as far as records, I suppose she can be considered our prize. Perhaps we shall name her the Plymouth Prize Prize, eh?”
Bickerstaff did not laugh, did not even smile. “Very well, then, I shall be off.” He called out for the boat crew.
It took only an hour to purge from the men the last vestige of despondency that Allair had built up in his four years of command. That was the hour that it took to call each man up and put in his hands a little pile of gold and silver, then to draw numbers and allow each man a choice of weapon and a shift of clothing. Just as Marlowe had done so many, many times before. It made him a bit uneasy for just that reason.
Soon the beach was littered with discarded rags and the men were prancing around in their new garments, sashes tied around waists, pistols and cutlasses thrust in place. They were a happy tribe, a band of brothers ready for more fighting and more booty. And they would not be disappointed.
Marlowe viewed with some satisfaction the scene on the beach. In less than a week he had turned these men around, fought a desperate battle, captured a band of vicious pirates, and in the next hour would greatly increase his own worth. Once word got back to Williamsburg he would be the great
hero of the age, his star rising fast in the firmament of the Virginia aristocracy. He would be a gentleman of note, and Elizabeth Tinling, for one, would be impressed. And he had only just begun.
“Mr. Rakestraw,” he called. The lieutenant picked up his new musket and hurried over. “I fear we are most vulnerable here, spread out over the beach. If another of these pirates were to sail in, we should be undone. I want to get as much of this prize cargo to safety as soon as we can.”
He looked out at the Plymouth Prize, pretending to consider his options. “The Prize will need a jury mainmast before she sails. Here’s what we shall do. Let us load as much as we can aboard the Northumberland, just to get it out of here, and the rest can go on the guardship once she’s ready.”
Then, with Rakestraw in tow, he went through the piles of booty, indicating what among them should be loaded aboard the Northumberland. There were three trunks of ladies’ clothes, and he found among them a gold cross on a tiny gold chain, as thin as a spider’s web. The cross itself had a diamond in the center, and a delicate swirling pattern was etched in the gold, so fine that one might miss it. It was a beautiful piece, and he tucked it in his coat pocket. “Put these trunks of ladies’ things aboard the Plymouth Prize,” he instructed, “and the rest of this aboard the sloop.”
It was only natural, of course, that the most valuable things should be sent off first, and it was those things that the men set to loading aboard the sloop. Neither Lieutenant Rakestraw nor any of the officers or men was in a mood to question Marlowe’s decision or his motives. Not after what he had done for them.
And King James did not object, did not even raise an eyebrow, when Marlowe told him to carry the cargo of pirate treasure to his little-used warehouse in Jamestown and unload it there, placing it in a discreet corner with barrels of tobacco piled in front of it. “Yes, sir” was all he said, and twenty minutes later the Northumberland was standing out of the harbor, carrying Marlowe’s part of the take.
It would take him a month, perhaps more, to convert those sundry things to hard money, but they would, in the end, greatly augment his already considerable wealth. He knew who those merchants were, in Charleston and Savannah, as well as any buccaneer.
He had to smile as he watched his little sloop pass from sight around the headland.
What a great frolic, he thought, thieving from the most notorious thieves on earth! Why did I not think of this years ago?
Bickerstaff stood on the quarterdeck of the captured pirate ship and watched the Northumberland standing clear of the harbor. Forward, and in the cabin below, he could hear the half-dozen men he had brought with him searching the ship with great gusto, looking for anything worth carrying off.
The pirate ship has been taken, he thought, but there are pirates aboard her still.
He was worried. Worried about Marlowe. Did Marlowe actually think he had kept his pillaging a secret? he wondered. Did he think that he, Bickerstaff, was not aware of the great piles of stolen goods that had been loaded aboard the sloop, bound away, no doubt, for the smaller warehouse in Jamestown?
In his six-year association with Marlowe, Bickerstaff had been careful to avoid doing anything that went contrary to his moral grain, difficult as that was in the circumstances. He had stayed with Marlowe at first because he had no choice, and then because he had become curious, and at last because he had come to like the man.