“Give me that back,” I said to Blaney.

“Why should I give it to you?”

“Now come on, Blaney . . .” I started. Then we heard something, a shout from outside, “Sail ho!”

It wasn’t as though our feud was forgotten, just placed to one side for a moment. Blaney pointed his dagger and said, “Wait there,” as he left the room to see what was going on.

The open door framed a scene of sudden panic outside but as the ship lurched it slammed shut. I looked from the door to Captain Pritchard, groaning in pain. I’d never wanted to be a pirate. I was a sheep-farmer from Bristol. A man in search of adventure, it’s true, but by fair means not foul. I wasn’t a criminal, an outlaw. I’d never wanted to be party to the torture of innocent men.

“Untie me,” said the captain, his voice dry and pained. “I can help you. I can guarantee you a pardon.”

“If you tell me about the ring.”

Captain Pritchard was moving his head slowly from side to side as though to shake away the pain. “The ring, what ring . . . ?” he was saying, confused, trying to work out why on earth this young deck-hand should be asking him about such an irrelevance.

“A mysterious man I consider my enemy wore a ring just like yours. I need to know its significance.”

He gathered himself. His voice was parched but measured. “Its significance is great power, my friend, great power that can be used to help you.”

“What if that great power was being used against me?”

“That can be arranged as well.”

“I feel it already has been used against me.”

“Set me free and I can use my influence to find out for you. Whatever wrong has been done to you, I can see it put right.”

“It involves the woman I love. Some powerful men.”

“There are powerful men and powerful men. I swear on the Bible, boy, that whatever ails you can be solved. Whatever wrong has been done to you can be put right.”

Already my fingers were fiddling with his knots but just as the ropes came away and slithered to the cabin floor, the door burst open. Standing in the doorway was Captain Dolzell. His eyes were wild. His sword was drawn. Behind him was a great commotion on the ship. Men who moments before had been ready to board the Amazon Galley, as organized a fighting unit as we could be, were suddenly in disarray.

Captain Dolzell said one word, but it was enough.

“Privateers.”

NINETEEN

“Sir?” I said.

Thankfully, Dolzell was too preoccupied with developments to wonder what I was doing standing behind Captain Pritchard’s chair. “Privateers are coming,” he cried.

In terror I looked from Dolzell to where I’d just untied Captain Pritchard’s hands.

Pritchard revived. Though he had the presence of mind to keep his hands behind his back, he couldn’t resist taunting Dolzell, “It’s Edward Thatch, come to our rescue. You’d better run, Captain. Unlike you, Edward Thatch is a privateer loyal to the Crown, and when I tell him what has taken place here . . .”

In two long strides, Dolzell darted forward and thrust the point of his sword into Pritchard’s belly. Pritchard tautened in his seat, impaled on the blade. His head shot back and upside-down eyes fixed on mine for a second before his body went limp and he slumped in the chair.

“You’ll tell your friend nothing,” snarled Dolzell as he removed his blade.

Pritchard’s hands fell to hang limply by his sides.

“His hands are untied,” Dolzell’s accusing eyes went from Pritchard to me.

“Your blade, sir, it sliced the rope,” I said, which seemed to satisfy him. He turned and ran from the cabin. At the same time the Emperor shook—I later found out that Thatch’s ship had hit us side-on. There were some who said the captain had been rushing towards the fight and that the impact of the privateers’ ship had knocked him off the deck, over the gunwale and into the water. There are others who said that the captain, with images of Execution Dock in his mind, had plunged off the side in order to escape capture.

From the Navigation Room I took a cutlass and a pistol that I thrust into my belt, then dashed out of the cabin and onto the deck.

What I found was a ship at war. The privateers had boarded from the starboard, while on the port side the crew of the Amazon Galley had taken their opportunity to fight back. We were hopelessly outnumbered and even as I ran into the fray with my sword swinging I could see that the battle was lost. Sluicing across the deck was what looked like a river of blood. Everywhere I could see lay men I had been serving with either dead or draped over the gunwales, their bodies lined with bleeding slashes. Others were fighting on. There was the roar of musket and pistol, the day torn apart by the constant ring of steel, the agonized screams of the dying, the warrior yells of the attacking buccaneers.

Even so, I found myself strangely on the outside of the battle. Cowardice has never been a problem with me, but I am not sure I exchanged more than two sword strokes with one of the enemy, before it seemed the battle was over. Many of our men were dead. The rest began to drop to their knees and let their swords fall to the deck, hoping, no doubt, for the clemency of our invaders. Some still fought on, including the first mate, Trafford, and by his side a man I didn’t know, Melling, I think his name was. As I watched, two of the attacking buccaneers came at Melling, at once swinging their swords with such force that no amount of fighting skills could stop them and he was driven back to the rail, slashes and cuts opening up in his face, then screaming as they both stabbed into him.

Blaney was there, I saw. Also, not far away, was the captain of the privateers’ ship, a man I would come to know as Edward Thatch, and who in years later the world would know as Blackbeard. He was just as the legend would know him though his beard was not so long back then: tall and thin, with thick, dark hair. He had been in the fray; his clothes were splattered with blood and it dripped from the blade of his sword. He and one of his men had advanced up the deck and I found myself standing with two of my ship-mates, Trafford and Blaney.

Blaney. It would have to be him.

The battle was over. I saw Blaney look from me to Trafford then to Thatch. A plan formed and in the next instance he’d called to Captain Thatch, “Sir, shall I finish them for you?” and swept his sword around to point at me and Trafford. For me he reserved an especially evil grin.

We both stared at him in absolute disbelief. How could he do this?

“Why, you scurvy bilge-sucking bastard!” yelled Trafford, outraged at the treachery. He leapt towards Blaney, jabbing his cutlass more in hope than expectation, unless his expectation was to die, for that’s exactly what happened.

Blaney stepped easily to one side and at the same time whipped his sword in an underhand slash across Trafford’s chest. The first mate’s shirt split and blood drenched his front. He grunted in pain and surprise but that didn’t stop him launching a second yet, sadly for him, even wilder attack. Blaney punished him for it, slashing again with the cutlass, landing blow after blow, catching Trafford again and again across the face and chest, even after Trafford had dropped his own blade, fallen to his knees and, with a wretched whimper and blood bubbling at his lips, pitched forward to the deck and lay still.

The rest of the deck had fallen silent; each man left alive was looking over to where Blaney and I stood between the invaders and the entrance to the captain’s cabin. It felt as though we were the only men alive.