Despite all the delicious food stacked around her, the girl is thin and pale. She is allowed to sell the fruit and the figs, the nuts and the cakes, but not to eat them.

  ‘I’m looking for Agnes Orr,’ I say boldly as I put the lemon back.

  ‘You are, are you?’ she says, as she wraps up a piece of bacon.

  ‘Do you know her?’ I ask.

  ‘Know her?’ the girl laughs. ‘Of course I know her.’

  ‘Why do you laugh?’ I ask, my heart lifting.

  ‘Oh nothing,’ she says. ‘It’s just that she always wants her daily delivery by three. And you should hear the fuss she makes if she doesn’t get it.’

  ‘But it is already well past three,’ I point out.

  She turns and looks at a large clock that hangs above.

  ‘Glory be, so it is,’ she says. ‘Well, I’ll be in for it again.’

  A small boy sidles into the shop. He snatches an orange and makes off with it.

  ‘Hey!’ the girl shouts.

  I am after the boy before he even noticed I was there. He may think he is quick but my time on the sea has made me nimble, and his twists and turns, his ducks and dives, are nothing compared to mine. I have him by the time we reach the next corner.

  ‘Let go,’ he yells, as I twist his arm.

  ‘Give me back the orange!’ I say.

  He drops the fruit and it rolls into a puddle.

  ‘Don’t hand me in,’ he whispers. ‘It was for my ma. She isn’t well. I’ve only left her to sell the horse in the market.’

  Closer up, he looks much younger. His arm feels like a couple of bones in a sack. I let him go.

  ‘Don’t come back,’ I tell him. ‘If anyone else had caught you, you’d be in the clinker.’

  A huge delivery of bread has just arrived and the shop girl is staring at it as if she wished she could make it disappear just by looking.

  ‘I could do the delivery to Agnes Orr for you if you wanted,’ I tell her as I hand her back the orange.

  The girl shakes her head.

  ‘I don’t know you from Adam,’ she says.

  ‘I’m Agnes’ brother,’ I tell her. ‘Been at sea for the last few years.’

  The girl looks at me and then shakes her head.

  ‘I do see a likeness. You should have told me that in the first place.’

  The door opens and a whole gaggle of ladies crowd in and start picking up the fruit and squeezing it. The shop girl sighs and brings out a sealed box from beneath the counter. An address has been written on a piece of paper and attached to the top.

  ‘It’s just along a bit. You can’t miss it. A nice place. Flowers outside.’

  I find the house and knock twice. A maid takes the box from my hands.

  ‘Better late than never,’ she says.

  ‘Is Agnes in?’ I ask. ‘I mean, would I be able to see her?’

  ‘Who is it?’ calls a voice from inside.

  ‘Just the delivery boy, ma’am,’ the maid answers.

  ‘Ma’am?’ I must have made a mistake. I’m about to make my excuses and run when a figure appears in the hallway. It is so dark that it takes me a moment to work out that it is a young woman.

  ‘Silas!’ the woman says. ‘Silas? Is that you?’

  Agnes holds me so hard that if I were a piece of crockery I would crack.

  ‘It is you!’ she says. ‘My dear, dear sweet boy.’

  I am waiting for someone to tell her to get back downstairs but that doesn’t happen.

  ‘I’ll bring some tea, ma’am,’ the maid tells Agnes. ‘And cake.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Agnes says.

  Agnes, my sister, is not a housemaid anymore. She leads me into a comfortable sitting room and bids me sit down near an old lady.

  ‘This is my soon-to-be mother-in-law,’ she explains, introducing us. ‘I am engaged to be married.’

  She tells me how shortly after I ran away, she met a weaver at the market. They fell in love and he invited her to move in with his family and work with them. Money is a little tight but business is good.

  My plan comes to me as she speaks. By the time she has finished telling me her story, I have the perfect solution.

  ‘And what of you?’ she asks. ‘I heard you left the plantation. When I heard no news, I thought the worst.’

  My story is long. I don’t know where to start, and I have no time left.

  ‘I am well,’ I say. ‘Very well in fact. And I can’t tell you how glad I am that you are well too. But I must go.’

  ‘You’ve only just arrived.’

  I hand her the deeds to the mill and a couple of the silver coins.

  ‘This is for you,’ I say.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘A present. From me and our Great-uncle Cuthbert Douglas.’

  She frowns.

  ‘Who?’

  30. AT A GALLOP

  Even though I run all the way, I reach Greyfriar’s Port just after the clock strikes five. I am too late. The barge is not there.

  I sit down at the quayside with my head in my hands. What should I do now? Where should I go? How am I to catch my ship? A dozen men in a very light craft could row after them but by the time I could organise it, the tide would be against us.

  I sob my heart out without caring who sees. I am marooned. All over again, I am lost. And then I hear the clatter of hooves and look up to see a face I recognise. It is the boy who stole the orange from the grocery shop, riding on the back of a beautiful black mare.

  ‘Hey,’ I call out.

  He starts when he sees me and then looks around suspiciously. But there are no magistrates or shop owners.

  ‘Nobody bought her?’ I ask.

  He shakes his head. And then I have an idea.

  ‘I have a proposition,’ I tell him. ‘A way you can make an honest penny.’

  As soon as he agrees, I clamber up behind him. And then we’re off, riding, fast, much faster than the river’s current, over the bridge and along the main bridle path. We overtake everyone in our way, streak past Dumbarton on the far bank, and reach Greenock in just over an hour.

  I climb down and hand the boy my last pieces of silver.

  ‘Take them. You can buy your mother a whole basket of oranges,’ I tell him. ‘And I won’t need them where I’m going.’

  I pull off my boots, tie the laces together and throw them around my neck. Then I grab a plank to keep me afloat, and step into the water.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he asks.

  ‘Jamaica.’

  Black Johnnie is standing on the deck, staring back along the ship’s wake when I creep up behind him.

  ‘Lost something?’ I ask.

  He spins round and even though I am soaking wet and exhausted from kicking in the cold current from the quay to the ship, he almost hugs all the breath out of me.

  ‘I had lost a little bit of my heart,’ he says. ‘But it appears that it has now returned. How on earth did you get here?’

  I tell him about the boy and his horse and how we rode all the way to Greenock.

  ‘And your sister?’ he asks.

  ‘She is well,’ I reply. ‘Very well, in fact.’

  We stand on the deck of the Curby Dodger and watch as the sea widens out and the land shrinks. Soon all that is left of Scotland are a few distant pricks of light.

  31. AN UNEXPECTED RE-ACQUAINTANCE

  Our plan is to head due south towards the Azores Islands. If we catch the Gulf Stream it will carry us all the way to the Windward Islands in no time. We have the advantage, the captain tells me. From there, Jamaica is only a couple of days’ sail, as long as the wind is behind us.

  Once we have left Europe, the sea is so full of life that every morning the decks are covered in stranded flying fish that have landed there in the night. The crew are the happiest I’ve ever seen them, with good weather, easy sailing, Dunlop’s gold pieces in their pockets, and the promise of more to come. Black Johnnie is also cheerful.

  ‘Someone stole my stash from McGregor,’ he says. ‘That’s good. That’s very good. But who? And how? And where could it be now?’

  It is nearly night when we reach the coast of Jamaica. The Blue Mountains, their slopes covered in dense green jungle, rise up into the distance. I can smell the familiar bitter scent of the coffee plantations above the sharp tang of the sea. Black Johnnie decides to head around to the north side of the island and so we drop anchor in a small, sheltered cove. Although it would be hard to spot the Curby Dodger from the open seas, we are clearly visible from the shore.

  ‘We are only a few miles from Port Antonio,’ Black Johnnie tells us, ‘and the British garrison. I will row to the harbour and do some investigating. Once we know where Isabella’s plantation is, we can make our delivery, claim our rewards and you’ll be lying on the beach of your dreams by the coming of the spring tide.’

  He raises a fist and shakes it in the air. I glance round at the men’s faces. In the light of the moon I can see what they are thinking: white sand beneath their toes and a quart of rum by their side, a heavy purse in their pocket and a girl to wash their shirts and rub their backs. With the reward they are promised they could give up this life if they wished, and settle down on dry land. They would be freed from the possibility of enslavement or danger, poverty or sickness. No wonder they follow Black Johnnie so faithfully. Like me, they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. And yet, it must be said, a pyrate’s life is unlike any other.

  We watch the captain paddle off alone in the rowboat. He is wearing his disguise again and looks less like a pyrate captain and more like a tramp.

  That night I am on watch. I admit I might have closed my eyes for a moment or two and so I didn’t hear a single noise, not a splash of an oar or the glide of a hull on still water. The first thing I feel is the cold slash of steel pressed down on my neck and the poke of a knee in my belly.

  ‘Move an inch and you die,’ a girl’s voice whispers in my ear.

  I open my mouth to protest. The blade presses harder.

  ‘You heard me,’ the voice insists.

  Not again, I tell myself. But I stay very, very still.

  Somewhere on the island, a bell tolls. A cloud has covered the moon and there is barely any light to see by. I can just about make out that my captor wears a mask woven from banana leaves. All I can see is the dull glimmer of a pair of eyes.

  ‘What is your cargo?’ the voice whispers.

  ‘We don’t have any,’ I reply.

  ‘You have nothing?’ the voice asks incredulously. ‘So what have you come here for?’

  As I try to formulate an answer, a movement catches my eye. My captor has not come alone. There are at least two dozen others ransacking the ship. While the crew sleeps on, one of them tips a sack of porridge oats over the side. Another slashes the ropes and then runs a knife through the mainsail methodically, as far as he can reach, ripping it almost in two. A third comes out of the captain’s cabin with a velvet bag held above his head.

  ‘Look what I found,’ he squeals and starts to hop up and down.

  I know the bag. It belongs to the captain and is full of small change. It is practically worthless. And then it strikes me that all of the mask-wearers are small. Their voices are high-pitched and their movements nimble. Children. There isn’t, I’d guess, a single one older than me.

  ‘You lied,’ says my captor. ‘Say your prayers. Or prepare to die!’

  As the knife is drawn back to my ear to give good leverage, I tilt my head.

  ‘Silas?’ my captor’s tone has changed completely. ‘Is it really you?’ She lowers the knife and lifts her mask.

  ‘Catherine?’ I whisper.

  She examines my face as I examine hers. Her skin is tanned and her hair has been bleached by the sun, but the determined jut of her chin is unmistakeable. It is Catherine, my companion from the long first journey to Jamaica.

  In the moment or two that it has taken for the two of us to recognise each other, the captain returns from Port Antonio.

  ‘What on earth?’ he shouts. ‘Men wake up!’

  One by one, the crew of the Curby Dodger tumble out on deck.

  ‘Look what they have done to the sails,’ the captain says. ‘Grab hold of them!’

  Billy the Fiddle has two of them by the hair. Black Johnnie dives after the boy with the small bag but he leaps over the side before the captain can stop him. Catherine jumps to her feet and holds her knife out in front of her, but she doesn’t see the pyrate with the scar across his lip come creeping up behind her until the very last moment. And then she turns and screams and tries to get away. As he grabs her by the ankle, she turns around and bites him on the arm.

  ‘Wait!’ I yell, but my voice is not loud enough to cut through cries of pain and the shouts of fury. ‘Stop!’ I shout. But no one does.

  And so I run to the captain and pull his musket from his belt, hold it up in the air and fire. The blast deafens me. As the swirl of smoke disperses, I can see that everyone is staring at me.

  ‘Stop!’ I say. ‘Everyone, stop, before someone gets hurt. They’re only children!’

  It takes a moment before the pyrates take in what I have said. And then they pull the masks from the intruders’ faces. Black, white, yellow, the children are all races and range in age from about six to twelve.

  ‘She bit me!’ says the pyrate who has Catherine.

  ‘You were hurting me!’ she cries back.

  They all start to argue about who hurt who when the captain raises his hand.

  ‘But look what you did,’ he says.

  Everyone stops and takes a look at the state of the Curby Dodger. What is left of her sails flaps forlornly in the wind, while the severed ropes, the halyard and leach line, the boltrope and the painter lie in useless coils on the deck. Apart from the cost, it would take a week or more to fix her up again. And we all know we don’t have that amount of time.

  In the west I suddenly notice an orange glow in the air. A vessel is approaching around the headland. Like cockroaches when a light hits them, the children, including Catherine, scuttle over the sides and are gone.

  ‘Quiet,’ orders the captain. We are all silent as a huge British warship appears in the distance brought, I now suspect, by my firing of the gun. Everyone is looking at Black Johnnie. But what can we do? We can’t outrun them, not with our ship in this state. What choices does he have? And so he sighs, rubs his brow and then says the unthinkable.

  ‘Grab your worldly goods and make for the shore,’ he commands. ‘And the last man off, open the scuppers.’

  32. THE WINDING PATH

  There is no time to be shocked. I hurry below deck to my bunk, grab William Dunlop’s handkerchief from the captain’s cabin, a few clothes, my slingshot and pebbles and the silver-buckled shoes that the captain bought for me in Martinique, then rush back on deck. With so many belongings, there isn’t enough space in the rowboat for us all and so some volunteer to swim, while the rest of us take an oar and prepare to row ashore.

  It is one thing to open the scuppers to let in enough water to mop the decks, but quite another to open them and leave them open. Billy the Fiddle does the honours. As we wait for him to finish we sit in the bob of the rowboat and listen to the awful sound of water rushing into the hull. At first it is just a sigh, a low hiss like the escape of air through a hole. But then the sea seems to know it has our boat and the sigh turns into a rumble and the rumble into a roar, as gallons of water pour into the hold.

  ‘Row fast, now,’ whispers Bill as he climbs in to the dinghy beside us. ‘Or she will bring us down with her.’

  It only takes about five minutes for our ship to sink. By that time we are all standing on the shore with our hats in our hands.

  ‘Goodbye, my good lady,’ whispers Black Johnnie.

  Her bow goes down first, the bowsprit spearing its way towards the murky sand of the ocean’s bottom. The rigging tangles and snags as anything loose comes sliding down the decks before it is all sucked under and then, with a single bang of her tiller and the snapping of a mast, the Curby Dodger disappears, leaving nothing on the surface but a swirl of flat water and a short end of fraying rope.

  From the cover of the trees along the shoreline we watch the British warship as it approaches along the coast towards us. It sails so close that we can see the faces of the sailors manning the cannons, and the captain who eyes the shore with his telescope. And then, as silently as it came, the ship glides around the tip of the bay and is gone.

  ‘Think they will be back?’ Billy the Fiddle asks out loud. No one replies. It doesn’t seem to matter now.

  There is nothing, as I have said before, as hopeless as a pyrate without a ship. Dry land feels too hard, too still, too rigid underfoot. Even sleep is impossible to men and boys so used to being rocked by the lull of the ocean. And so there is more than one man who wipes a tear from his eye at the scuppering of a ship that we had all once thought of as just a tub. She had survived a volcano’s eruption and navigated icebergs and monumental storms. She was never beautiful or fast like the Tenacity, but we had loved her and hadn’t realised it. And now she is gone.

  ‘Do not despair,’ says Black Johnnie, ‘we are still to recover my own beautiful ship. Every man here shall have a place on her, should he wish it.’

  He turns and surveys the jungle behind us.

  ‘We had better get a move on,’ he says. ‘We have a delivery to make.’ He turns and eyes the crew and makes a hasty decision. ‘I found out that our reward can be found at a plantation is just on the other side of this mountain,’ he tells us. ‘But we can’t all go. The rest of you can head to Kingston in shifts in the rowboat and wait for us. We shouldn’t be more than a couple of days.’

  Everyone agrees it is a reasonable plan.

  We make camp there for the rest of the night, then head out in the morning. The mountainside is steep and the jungle is thick.

  ‘Silas,’ the captain asks, ‘do you still have that compass I gave you?’

  Of course I don’t. I left it with most of my other belongings on the Tenacity in Martinique. But I don’t want to let the captain down.

 

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