"We're fighting a war to protect Nassau in which our most effective weapon is the fear that we can instill in our enemies." "Everything is dependent upon that gold, and right now it is sitting in a fort with no guns and full of holes." "You couldn't figure out how to repair the fort, so you lured me into capturing a ship full of slaves to do the job." "I wonder if you can help me locate an old friend of mine." "His name is Charles Vane." "I am to set sail for the West Indies, the one element I lack is someone who understands Nassau." "If you agree to be that person, your sentence will be commuted and the charges against you released." "Crew of the Walrus, surrender, and I am authorized to offer you full, unqualified pardons." "We're not fighting and we're not surrendering, so what are we doing?" "We're going that way." "That's a ship killer." "Captain." "He's closed the gap." "All hands to quarters." "Come on, lads." "Rouse yourselves." "Quickly!" "I've got starboard watch below, caulking the gunports." "The pumps are keeping up with the water-line, but given what's ahead of us," "I don't imagine that'll last long." "Heave, lads!" "He'll be withdrawing soon." "He'll drive us into the storm, but he'll want no part of it himself." "Captain, perhaps we could take the topgallants in now." "If we enter that storm under full sail, it may become impossible to take the canvas in." "If we take at least some of them now..." "If he sees us slow, if we show him the least sign of weakness, it'll only encourage him to press on and finish the job." "But we'll get men into the tops." "Soon as he turns, we'll shorten sail immediately." "Aye, Captain." "I want crew aloft!" "Quick as you can!" "Taking and stowing all that sail will be a challenge." "You'll see to leading the men in the rig when the time comes, yes?" "Yeah." "I'll pull all hands from below." "We'll need all the strength we can muster." "We should have taken the pardons." "Sign our name, swear to whomever or whatever the fuck one swears to on the occasion, accept the pardons, then go straight back to the account." "What the fuck could they do to us they weren't gonna do anyway?" "I don't imagine Hornigold's offer still stands, if that's what you're asking." "No, I don't imagine it does either, but a few hours ago when the offer did stand, perhaps that should have been a conversation..." "Accept the pardons with full intent not to honor it rather than face what we now face." "The men, I understand." "Flint had them exactly where he needed them..." "Angry, resentful, afraid." "I understand why they would rather do battle with that storm than even consider surrendering to Hornigold." "But he had me there too." "He had me there." "And that is not supposed to happen." "May I help you?" "The governor requests your presence on the quarterdeck." "You should dress." "You'll have to pardon me." "I've never had a proper chambermaid before." "Is that how they address all their employers?" "Governor Rogers is my employer." "You are a convict in need of someone to keep your things clean, your movement restricted, and your door shut." "As such, you're the first daughter of privilege" "I have been able to serve while speaking my mind openly." "I would have thought my story is well told by now, but I come from no privilege." "Don't you?" "My understanding is that your father built a criminal enterprise and you inherited it." "The only difference between you and the ladies I have served in the past is..." "Their families had better lawyers." "Let's not keep the governor waiting." "The HMS Milford." "150 soldiers, 60 guns." "My lead naval escort." "Uh, behind her, the HMS Rose. 48 guns." "The HMS Shark, 30 guns, the Willing Mind. 20 guns." "She's carrying two thirds of the farming implements and most of our foodstuffs." "The Buck. 18 guns." "The amount of energy it took to persuade my investors to fund this, it's hard to properly convey." "This fleet, every ship at sea, every man contracted, every penny lent." "I am personally answerable for all of it." "I'm impressed." "Though somehow I don't imagine that that's what this exercise is intended to accomplish." "The Gloucestershire." "I wasn't entirely sure I needed her, but seeing as it was someone else's money," "I figured it couldn't hurt." "She's the one I can do without." "The moment I believe you are no longer necessary to this endeavor, you go on that ship, that ship turns back for London, and soon thereafter, you swing over Wapping." "Except that you can't actually do any of those things." "No?" "Why?" "'Cause you don't know that Samuel Wayne has never once paid for a drink." "Because you don't know that the Boyd brothers can't be in the presence of anyone from Captain Moulton's crew." "'Cause you don't know which of the street merchants is in the pocket of the brothel madam." "You don't know." "You don't know..." "You don't know." "But I do." "To slay Nassau, you must know her." "And amidst all those ships and all these men and all that money," "I am the only one who can introduce you." "Provided you tell me the truth." "So let us assume those are now the rules of the game." "I need to know everything you know of Nassau." "If you withhold, if you manipulate, if you lie..." "You die." "Shall we begin?" "500 pieces." "Yes." "You want to withdraw 500 pieces of eight from your share." "That's correct." "You were just here two days ago." "Yes." "To withdraw 500 pieces." "It was dispersed, was it not?" "Yes." "But you're back for more." "Yes." "What in God's name did you spend 500 pieces on in two days' time?" "Oh, I lost it." "Lost it?" "As in through a wager?" "No. "Lost it" as in I had it in a sack and I put it down, and when I came back to pick it up, it weren't where I put it." "Lost." "Would you like me to..." "Thank you." "The crew has entrusted the captain and I to watch over the prize gold and to protect it in all our interests, yeah?" "Now, as your quartermaster and as your friend," "I feel duty bound to suggest that you reconsider withdrawing sums this large without a better plan for keeping it once it's withdrawn, yeah?" "Yes." "Good." "Now, is there a lesser amount you might want to begin with for today?" "Well, 500 pieces." "500 pieces." "Why not?" "I need a new sack as well." "Obviously." "Yeah." "Yes?" "Mr. Featherstone, may we have the room for a moment, please?" "These are identical." "350 pieces on both sides, yet one I can fit in the palm of my hand, and the other is currently occupying the entirety of the vault beneath your fort." "Which of the two would you rather have in your possession the day Spain or England arrives and sets its eyes on conquering that fort?" "Yeah." "I have that." "So I suppose what we ought to do is ensure that the fort is not conquerable, which, as good fortune would have it, is what I'm doing." "You cannot truly believe that is possible." "You know as well as I do that so long as that gold is sitting in the belly of that fort, we are doubly exposed." "Losing the fort guarantees the loss of the gold." "Excuse me." "What are you suggesting?" "That we exchange it." "As much of it as possible." "Find partners and trade coin for commodities far easier to move and to protect." "If Nassau falls, we will have something to set aside to ensure our futures." ""Our"?" "Who?" "Mine." "And Anne's." "Lovely." "Good old Jack gets buried beneath a pile of rubble while you two begin a well-funded life of leisure." "I didn't say that." "It's bad enough the only time I get to see her is when she comes here to relay something that you're displeased with." "Now we're just accepting that if forced to choose between a long future with you and a short one with me..." "There's no chance she'll even consider the latter." "Of course she will choose you." "The fort is going to fall." "Tomorrow." "Next week." "Someday." "And I do not believe for a moment that you are stupid enough to let yourself be buried beneath it when it does." "It will pain her to leave me behind..." "What we have shared these past few months, it will be very hard." "But you..." "Without you, there is no her." "I am here in part to secure my own future." "I will not apologize for that." "But that is not why I'm asking you to cooperate with me." "I am asking because though I know we have our differences," "I know there is one thing we share." "We both love her." "Let us make sure her future at least is secure." "Heave!" "Stand ready!" "Ah!" "You don't need to be doing this." "I can finish it." "I'm useless to 'em up top." "Gotta do my part somehow." "You shouldn't talk that way, you know." "We got our share of useless fucks on this crew." "You ain't one." "This is the second time in the last few months" "I'm facing certain death." "And you are again offering moral support." "Does that mean we're married?" "Don't." "Fuckin' hell." "What part of "let us take care of you" did you not understand?" "If it wasn't for you, we'd all be planted at the bottom of the Charles Town bay." "We got a debt for that." "It ain't right not to let us pay it." "All the shit we been through the last few months, do you wanna know what the most terrifying part of all of it's been?" ""We'll take care of you."" "I get it." "Do you?" "'Course I do." "Look at me." "I know what it's like to be afraid of being the one ain't strong enough to stick." "But it don't work that way, yeah?" "And even if it did, it wouldn't work like that for you." "Captain!" "We're standing by!" "The rig won't hold!" "We must break the sails before we lose the mast!" "Take down the course and the topgallants now!" "Now!" "Now!" "Now!" "Billy!" "Get those topgallants up!" "Rogelio, is the halyard running free?" "!" "It's stuck!" "It's bound up by the mast!" "It's not coming down!" "At first, when my father left, I only watched." "My guardian, a slave belonging to my father, ran the operation in his stead." "Eventually, I felt it was time I stepped in." "How old were you at this point?" "I was 17." "How does one persuade an island full of thieves and murderers to respect the authority of a 17-year-old girl?" "I identified the one they were most afraid of and I threw him off the island." "What was his name?" "His name was Edward Teach." "You're getting all of this, yes?" "Um..." "Please." "Continue." "He sailed at the head of a pirate fleet with a man named Benjamin Hornigold." "I conspired with Hornigold, offered him control of Fort Nassau to turn against Teach." "Eventually, I isolated him from all of his former allies until it was just him and his protégé, a young captain he had groomed in his image, trained as a peerless fighter." "Had they stayed together, they might have resisted me." "But the protégé turned?" "Yes." "And once he'd sided with me," "Teach had no choice but to withdraw." "After that, my credibility with crews on the beach was in good order." "And the protégé, what was his name?" "His name was Charles Vane." "Leave us, please." "Now." "I need very specific answers to the following questions." "Ask me what you want to ask me." "Charles Vane sided with you?" "Yes." "Betrayed his mentor, betrayed Edward Teach for you?" "Yes." "You were..." "I was fucking him." "Where are you going?" "To inform the captain of the Gloucestershire he's about to head home." "Plus one passenger." "You never asked me." "I needed to ask?" "I never lied." "I was fully prepared to set foot on that island and say his name, say that the universal pardon had an exception, put my credibility at risk based solely on your counsel, and it was all to settle a personal feud" "with a former lover?" "Why did you bring me here?" "You know these men's names, you know the things they have done." "But I know them." "I know Flint is dangerous, but he can be reasoned with." "I know Rackham is devious, but all he cares about is his legacy." "And because I have history with Charles Vane," "I know him most of all." "I'm all too aware what he is capable of destroying when he sets his mind on it." "I underestimated him and I lost my father." "The Lord Governor Ashe underestimated him, and Charles Town burned." "What is it you would like to have him take from you?" "Why, in God's name, would I trust you?" "Nassau is my father's house." "It is my birthright, and I am obligated to see it set right, to see its monsters driven out." "You don't have to trust me because we have mutual self-interest." "And that makes for better partners." "Captain." "I understand why you are here, and I understand why this troubles you." "But they do not understand." "In the interest of getting this done as quickly as possible, perhaps it would be better if all our roles were more clearly defined." "To avoid unnecessary and uncomfortable confusion." "A man puts a dead thing in the ground, he expects it to stay there." "Sometimes it comes back." "I harbored such resentment in that moment all those years ago when you turned your back on me..." "Though I sailed countless leagues with you, fought countless battles with you, taught countless lessons to you..." "And you did it all for a girl." "Good to see you, old friend." "For years, I've laid my head down at night, and no matter where I was, there was an odor would arrive at my nose..." "Brine and hides and pitch and shit." "The perfume of this place." "Across eight years and as many wives and..." "So many distractions." "Oh, then I meet wife number nine." "And to my surprise, I stop thinking about Nassau." "The smell goes away." "For almost three weeks." "And then news comes across my door that there are no more Guthries in Nassau." "One dead, the other in chains." "It seemed a sign it was time I returned." "They're both dead." "Really?" "I heard that the spectacle of Eleanor Guthrie's trial could go on for months." "They are both dead." "Mm." "What happened between she and I, our role in forcing you out of this place, it's in the past." "So if you returned looking to gloat about how it turned out or looking for some sort of apology from me, then you can go fuck yourself." "Forced me out?" "Is that the story you've been telling yourself all this time?" "That's how I remember it." "All I remember..." "A young man's poor judgment which forced me to choose between killing him and walking away and letting him live." "Not quite the same thing." "If you think I've been sitting around, waiting for an apology all this time," "I don't know what to tell you." "Then why are you here?" "Whose is that?" "What?" "Man-of-war out there." "I assume that's the ship Flint used to sack Charles Town." "It's here and he isn't." "I'm just asking whose it is." "Ours." "So don't get any fuckin' ideas." "Who's "ours"?" "I have partners." "In a compact toward the common defense of this place." "Provide a stipend to the crews on the beach, in exchange for their agreement to follow our lead in battle, should the need arise to defend the island." "Mm." "Smells differently than I remember." "Maybe it's changed, or maybe I've just been misremembering it all this time." "Let's go." "Where?" "I'd like to meet these partners of yours." "Get up there!" "Slack off the truss lashing!" "Get it moving!" "Cut it loose if you have to!" "Keep her steady!" "Hold fast, men." "Knockdown!" "Whoa!" "Bub!" "Captain!" "Captain!" "With that topgallant loose, it'll drive us into the sea!" "We must reduce the windage, or we'll sink." "Give me another block!" "Give me another block!" "Look out!" "Gah!" "Aah!" "Aah!" "Oh, my fucking leg!" "Pull 'em out!" "Get out!" "Come on." "Here, here, take my hand." "Help!" "Help!" "Hey!" "Help!" "Help!" "Help!" "Help!" "Help!" "God...!" "They say the worst of it don't last long." "What the water does to you once it's got you." "It makes you cold, makes you scared." "It shows you things." "Bad things." "But then it warms you." "It settles you." "It shows you the places you've been." "Like the people you've loved." "They're all there waiting for you." "It doesn't sound so bad." "Fuck." "Come on." "Fuck..." "Oh, fuck." "Hey!" "Wait!" "Take my..." "God..." "God, come on!" "Come on, come on, please!" "Ah, God!" "No." "Fuck!" "Aah!" "Fuck!" "Fuck!" "Fuck!" "Found that." "At the inn by the bar." "Oh, I know." "Mr. Warren misplaced it yesterday." "No, that one we found in the privy yesterday." "This is the new one he was dispersed today." "Are you certain?" "Just how fucking stupid, exactly, are your men?" "It's hard to say." "Ah, to a momentous return." "A man of your ability and experience will be a most welcome addition to our ranks." "Jack." "Rackham." "That's my name." "You were the scrawny one..." "Who was trying so desperately to join Charles' first crew." "Flint I can understand, but this is your third partner?" "Jack took the Urca de Lima prize." "Transported it, secured it." "He's been employing it to provide for Nassau's defense." "Nassau, as I'm sure you recall, lacks the will to form an identity." "It is and always has been fragments of an idea, and without identity..." "An organized defense?" "Near impossible." "The stipends..." "Create an obligation to follow one command in the event of a threat to the island." "Captain Flint, as the island's most able naval tactician, would command our forces on the water, and Charles would captain the militia to defend the land." "Why?" "Beg your pardon?" "Why are you so determined to defend Nassau?" "Because Henry Avery set his camp here and said, "This is a place for free men."" "And because you sailed from here and made this place feared." "Because Henry Jennings and Benjamin Hornigold and Sam Bellamy gave Nassau life." "And you think your name belongs on that list." "Yes, I understand." "Captain Teach?" "We hear you're taking on new men." "We'd like to join you." "If you please." "When I was a young man in this place, it was a settled notion that in order to join a crew of any repute, one had to prove his worth." "Two men, evenly matched, bare fists, the only measure of difference between them being the measure of their will." "Now all a man need do is say "please."" "You want us to fight each other for this?" "I had such hopes for this place when I heard the Guthries had gone." "Thought it had a chance to return to what it once was, return to that state." "But now I see there's no hope of that anymore." "You have taken away the one thing that made Nassau what it was." "You have given her prosperity." "Strife is good." "Strife makes a man strong." "For if a man is capable of confronting death daily, functioning in the face of it, there's no telling what else that man can do, and a man whose limits cannot be known is a very hard man to defeat in battle." "Now I look around me and I see crews filled with men who've only ever won a prize through surrender." "I see captains who ought to have been deposed months ago keep their office because their men are comfortable." "I see decay everywhere." "Now, I returned to go on the account as I know it." "I returned because in this place" "I believed I could find the men necessary to do so and, in particular, one man that I thought worthy of standing alongside me at the head of a terrible fleet." "I wonder if he's still here." "Now, listen." "I am committed to defending the gold, the fort, this place, to preserving it for an age." "I owe that to my partners." "I owe it to myself." "I cannot imagine failure." "But I cannot deny the potential for it either." "You will organize the exchanges..." "Gold for things of equal value, yet small and light." "Mr. Featherstone and I will facilitate moving the gold from the treasury in secret to the site of each location." "You will keep it quiet." "Only as many men as it takes to secure the transactions." "I don't like how any of this looks, our scurrying about, stashing things away in dark places like fucking rodents preparing for the winter." "And most critically," "I do not want my partners," "Captains Flint or Vane, to hear about it." "If either of them catches wind of this, shit, I don't know." "Just keep your mouth shut about it." "What did you say to him?" "Tell me the truth." "What did you say to make him change his mind?" "You and I spoke of what will likely happen the day England returns to this place." "We spoke of how I must stay." "Must find a way to enter into their world, and I believe you would want to enter it with me." "I believe that in this moment you cannot fathom leaving me." "But if we are honest with each other," "I think we both know..." "Stop." "Sooner or later, the day is going to come when, no matter our feelings, the world will demand that you and I..." "We'll be heading into the wind!" "Things'll get rougher!" "Captain!" "There's nothing more to be done." "We should heave to, ride it out below." "Hornigold knows our last position." "They'll be patrolling downwind." "The storm'll blow us right to him." "Head up now..." "Close as you can." "Captain, this is mad!" "Billy, make it so." "You two, man the starboard braces." "You heard, man the braces!" "Hold it." "Hold it." "Got to close the hatch." "Close the hatch!" "Where's the captain?" "Not that I anticipate it will alter your behavior in any way, but you should know I do not approve of this." "I know what I'm doing." "Like most of London, I read your memoir." "Marveled at your privateering exploits." "It was quite a story." "But I hear things." "Certain details of your grand voyage, rash decisions and the terrible injuries that followed, the scars of which are..." "Left out of the pages of your account." "But perhaps harder to erase elsewhere." "Were you so confident then as you are now?" "Captain Hornigold." "Welcome aboard." "Mr. Dufresne." "I have news to relay, sir, but first, I'm sorry," "I must address a rumor I've heard since my arrival here, a rumor most troubling about a fugitive that you've made a part of your endeavor." "Jesus." "I would introduce you, but, uh, from what I understand, you're quite familiar with one another." "Respectfully, that woman is not to be trusted." "I know, but perhaps I don't need to trust her." "And, by way of context," "I don't much trust you either." "Let's assume you'll each be a check on the other, and I'll count myself fortunate." "What news, Captain?" "I engaged Captain Flint as promised." "When he and his crew declined my offer of pardons," "I pressed my advantage and drove him, already battered, into a tempest." "When it subsided, I patrolled the area extensively and recovered several pieces of fresh debris." "Debris?" "What kind of debris?" "The definitive kind." "Captain Flint is dead." "We're not moving." "Where are we?" "The storm drove us east into the Sargasso Sea." "We are becalmed." "Stores?" "Most of the fresh water was lost in the flooding in the storm." "The food that could be salvaged, we have a few days." "Maybe a week." "How far to the nearest coast?" "At our current speed?" "About three times that." "Unless the wind returns soon..." "We won't survive this."