Chapter Three

 

 

 

May 15, 1698

St. Mary’s Island

Madagascar

 

 

Captain Kidd stood on the deck of the Adventure Galley. The hot, African sun warmed his leathered, tanned face, and he braced himself against the ship’s railing. He had been drinking rum and was angry.

The voyage had been a very unlucky one. There was no booty to speak of. Two years of chasing pirates around the world and really not much to show for it.

“I knew we sailed from England under an unlucky star,” Kidd muttered to himself.

His nemesis, the pirate Captain Robert Culliford, had eluded him for months around the Indian Ocean. Kidd harbored an old grudge against Culliford, who stolen his ship while he was ashore in Antigua years before. Now, in a twist of fate, Kidd had by chance found Culliford’s ship moored off St. Mary’s Island weeks earlier.

The Adventure Galley however, had recently captured a Moorish vessel, the Quedeh Merchant. It was commanded by the French, so it was technically legal. However, the owner was not French and was making big waves about the theft of his ship and cargo. He was a powerful Arab businessman. Kidd didn’t know it, but his luck was turning from bad to worse.

The Quedeh Merchant was a huge vessel and was loaded with expensive fabrics and other goods. The East India Tea Company was being pressured severely to return it. The booty was tainted. Kidd had no chance to know he was being branded a pirate not only in London but throughout the world. His benefactors had betrayed him to save their own skins and disowned knowledge of his mission.

Kidd in no way could return the ship and prize money now. It was too late. The crew would not allow it. They had waited too long.

Too long indeed.

Opposite him were one hundred of his men. He had just ordered them to attack Culliford now that Kidd’s other prize ships had made the harbor of St. Mary’s Island off the Madagascar coast and he had more men and firepower. Kidd hoped to claim a real pirate prize once and for all.

Culliford, however, had been holed up on St. Mary’s with him for months and was no fool. He had been working Kidd’s crew through surrogates when they went ashore to enjoy the pleasurable native company.

The island was a pirate paradise. Beautiful beaches flanked by palm trees and exotic wildlife made it an idyllic scene. In addition, the natives were very friendly. A man could take a temporary wife for as little as a silk shawl or a nail. The island was square in the middle of the East India shipping lanes and had a natural protected harbor, and they had plenty of rum.

Most of the crew refused Kidd’s order and decided to turn pirate and join Culliford. During his entire voyage, Kidd had used the force of his personality to keep the crew in line and to keep them honest. This time he could not do it. They had been two years without pay. They wanted off Kidd’s pirate hunting mission and onto Culliford’s hedonistic voyage wherever they may end up. Most pirates chose the short, exciting life of a buccaneer over the long toils of an honest day’s work.

“We would rather fire ten guns into you!” they shouted at Kidd.

His dream of returning to London in glory and treasure was dashed.

“We have had a parley, and we’ve decided to align ourselves with Captain Culliford. You, my dear Captain Kidd, are hereby ordered to leave the ship with your loyal crew and go ashore. You should consider yourself lucky to leave with your life!” announced his old first mate.

The mutineers left his ship to join Culliford’s band of thieves and reveled in the rum and sex onshore. Many of them married several temporary wives and lost themselves on the beach in debauchery. Worst of all, they looted all of Kidd’s ships, taking weapons, rigging, food, water, and anything else of value. They loaded the loot onto the Mocha Frigate and sailed away with Captain Culliford.

Kidd was left with the Moorish prize ship, the four-hundred-ton Quedeh Merchant, and a twenty-man, loyal crew to sail back to London with the little treasure he had left. He poached whatever rigging and sails he could from the Adventure Galley and constructed more sails from sackcloth taken from the cargo. His sails became a multicolored rigging made of quilts. The Adventure Galley was ordered burned, as she had become riddled with worms.

If attacked, he had enough men to man only two or three of the thirty plus guns. He renamed his new ship the Adventure Prize.

 

June 11, 2017

 

 

The acrid, black smoke billowed through the office doorway like an angel of death, covering everything on the 101st floor in its path. In seconds he could not see his hand in front of him and fell to the floor to try to continue breathing. He could hear his colleagues shrieking and begging for help, but he could not offer any. The red hot air burned his lungs as they ingested the poisonous fumes. The outside windows shattered, sending thousands of deadly shards of glass raining down around him. I’m going to die, he thought. The building foundation began to shudder violently; he could feel the tower swaying. He drowned in horror as he felt the floor disappear below his feet. He screamed.

Connor awoke sweating and holding tightly to the sheet matted into a ball. He was drenched and had been screaming again. He could almost still hear it echoing off the walls. He looked around the room in the blackness.

What hotel am I in now? he asked himself. In the pitch black, his eyes adjusted, and he could make out the desk across the hotel room. Slowly his memory returned, and he was aware of his surroundings.

Ah, Bahamas. I’m in Nassau.

He sat up in the bed and swung his feet over the side and reached for the water on the nightstand to quench his thirst. He had drunk too much again. Clumsily Connor made his way to the bathroom to relieve himself.

The nightmares were almost every night in the beginning but now began to lessen somewhat. His therapist had helped with that. God how he missed Emily, even though it had been over ten years since here death. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that Babe,” he muttered out loud to no one.

He tried to focus. He tried to think of the business at hand.

Aunt Clara informed him through the letter written forty years ago that he was descended from Aaron Burr through her side of the family. Connor smiled at himself as he thought of the twinkle in her eye and the obvious secrets she kept her entire life. She had been the trustee of an offshore entity that he found out included a good deal of money and other documents safeguarded in the Bahamas. The most interesting of them all, however, was Burr’s personal journal. Clara had selected Connor from all of her other family members to be the one to continue on as trustee upon his forty-fifth birthday. She always did take a special interest in me, he thought.

Connor took a flight to the Bahamas the next day after the attorney had called, and he arrived via taxi at the prominent law firm in downtown Nassau. It was an unusually cloudy day, as the next tropical storm was passing south of the islands on its way to extinction in Mexico. He was disappointed. He had expected tropical bliss.

The overweight tourists off the cruise ships were massing in front of the shops on Bay Street, clogging the thoroughfare for the locals. They were buying T-shirts, rum, and various trinkets.

I guess it pays the bills, he decided.

He was lead into an ornately decorated board room with ancient, dark, wooden pilasters lining the walls. There was a long board room table with coffee and tea laid out pleasantly. Elegantly bound books adorned the bookshelves.

An older Englishman arrived seconds later and introduced himself. He then formally passed the trustee duties on to Connor and put himself at Connor’s service. “Our fees are taken care of by the trust,” he said matter-of-factly. He then laid an old, ornate, wooden box in front of Connor, opened the ancient padlock with a shiny, brass key, and left the room.

Connor opened it.

The journal was fascinating; Connor was not sure the last time it had been held. Did Clara ever read it? If so she never let on.

The manuscript told of Burr’s time as vice president, the duel with Hamilton, and most importantly the time he spent out west trying to start another country. Connor read for more than four hours that day. He then spent another two days speaking with the attorneys and understanding his duties as trustee. That was a month ago.

Connor climbed back in bed and shut his eyes. As usual, however, the alcohol from the night before would keep him awake. His head was throbbing like a jackhammer. It would be another long night.

 

 

 

March 2, 1699

Atlantic Ocean

 

Kidd awoke before sunrise; actually he really never went to sleep. He lay in his berth on the near deserted ship, listening as always to the sounds the vessel made. These sounds told him many things. The health of the ship, the mood of his crew, and the temper of the sea were all told to him in a brief instant by listening. He rose in the blackness of his cabin.

The days had passed one after the other and now ran together in a haze of time. He had taken on more crew members at Annobon, in the Gulf of Guinea, but still was dreadfully short of men to run the huge ship. It was a miracle they had gotten this far. They were nearing the Caribbean Sea.

The ocean was fairly calm, but there was a west wind blowing. The Adventure Prize was making about five knots. The crew, or rather what was left of his crew, was exhausted. They had been making their way for almost four months now across the Atlantic from St. Mary’s Island, only twenty plus men and boys to sail this monster of a ship. It was an almost impossible task, but Captain Kidd had always asked the impossible. One man had died of exhaustion. They were getting almost no sleep, rotating ten men every six hours. Only the will to survive kept them going. Their dreams of riches and booty had been long dashed.

This morning, however, Kidd felt something. Something was going to happen today. Something good was going to happen. He made his way to the deck.

The sun was breaking over the horizon as he approached the perch of the night watchman scanning the ocean with a spyglass. “Good mornin to ya,” said Kidd. The exhausted man could barely mumble something in return. Official manners had gone out the window, yet the crew had bonded and worked together as well as possible.

Kidd fumbled in his pockets for his pipe and tobacco. He would start the day with a smoke.

“Sail!” shouted the watchman.

Kidd jerked his head around to where the man was pointing and saw several white specks in the distance. “Raise whatever sails we have left,” he shouted. “We’ll try and run from them.”

Naval engagements during the seventeenth century typically moved in slow motion until the bitter end. Ships targeted by pirates or opposing navies could try to outrun their antagonist for days, depending on the wind. This tactic was used if they felt their enemy had superior firepower. Once the target was within range, however, the endgame was quick and violent. The loser was either sunk or boarded and taken as a prize. The fate of the crew rested with the captain of the victorious ship.

Kidd didn’t have the crew to engage one ship much less several. His only hope was to outrun them. Perhaps I will never see Sarah and my daughter again.

“There are three ships and they’re not moving, Captain,” responded his first mate. “They’re in trouble. The sails are not being tended to. I see no one on board.”

This changed the situation altogether.

Kidd stared at the vessels lying dormant on the horizon; his greed got the best of him. He had to make a decision.

“We will board them,” he said with determination.