PIRATE: Privateer by Tim Severin Read Free Book Online Page B

seize the
Morvaut
?’
    ‘The moment you entered into a contract with Monsieur Lynch, the vessel effectively became his instrument and available for hostilities.’
    ‘Fishing for wrecks is not a hostile act.’
    De Graff smiled grimly. ‘The profits could be used to assist the enemy. For that reason I am also confiscating Monsieur Lynch’s salvage.’
    Belatedly Hector noticed Yannick Kergonan smirking up at him from the main deck. On the deck beside him were the two knapsacks in which Jacques had stored their silver from the galleon. Hector
guessed that the Breton had told the petty officer where to look for the knapsacks when he visited the pinnace.
    Laurens de Graff was speaking again. ‘Mademoiselle, I must ask you also to hand over your proceeds from the wreck.’
    ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Anne-Marie snapped back at him.
    De Graff sighed. ‘Your charter contract clearly states that half the salvage goes to you and your brothers as owners of the vessel. That half, too, must be relinquished.’
    ‘It belongs to us, French subjects.’
    De Graff’s voice hardened. ‘As captain of this vessel I am within my rights to confiscate all goods found on a suspect vessel.’
    Anne-Marie Kergonan exploded with rage. ‘That is pure piracy.’
    Hands on hips, she stormed at de Graff with the violence of a fishwife. He was a crook, a cheat, and nothing better than a sea robber, and she would expose his villainy to Governor de Cussy the
moment she reached Petit Goâve.
    The filibustier was unmoved. ‘Mademoiselle, please return to your vessel. I shall send a petty officer and some sailors as prize crew. The
Sainte Rose
will escort her to Petit
Goâve. Monsieur Lynch will rejoin his comrades on your pinnace and they will be put in irons for the journey.’
    ‘And my brothers, what are they to do?’ Anne-Marie demanded, her face suffused with anger.
    De Graff shrugged. ‘Naturally I must replace the prize crew I’m sending with you, so I will retain them on the
Sainte Rose
. I believe they will find themselves among former
comrades.’
    *
    H ECTOR SAT QUIETLY in the tender as it returned to the pinnace. Anne-Marie was still seething with rage. She was even angrier after they were back aboard
the
Morvaut
and a gloating French sailor emerged from the main hatch. He held up for them to see the heavy sacks in which Yannick had hidden the Kergonans’ share of the salvage in the
bilge.
    ‘My stupid oaf of a brother,’ she raged. ‘If he’d kept his mouth shut, de Graff wouldn’t have known about our haul.’ She stormed off to the cabin, making it
clear that even though
Morvaut
was in the hands of a prize crew, the cabin was her territory.
    The tender made one final trip to the
Sainte Rose
, carrying away the Kergonans’ share of booty and returning with four sets of leg irons and lengths of chain. These were used to
shackle Hector and his comrades together at the ankle, while the free end of the chain was padlocked to a ring bolt on the foredeck.
    ‘What are you looking so smug about, Jacques?’ growled Jezreel as the ex-galérien tore off a strip of his shirt and wrapped it around his ankle under the leg iron to prevent
it chafing.
    ‘That padlock – typical government rubbish made by the cheapest contractor. Give me a spike and I could open it in less than a minute.’
    ‘All in good time,’ said Hector quietly. He was watching the prize crew tie off the tender to
Morvaut
’s stern. He counted five of them in addition to the petty officer
in charge.
    ‘Much more treatment like this, and I’ll lose patience. Then someone will get hurt,’ Jezreel said. He was rubbing a bruise on his shoulder where one of the prize crew had
struck him with a musket butt when he moved too slowly.
    ‘Just hold on for a while,’ said Hector. Already he was beginning to wonder if there might be some way of escape.
    The distant shrill of a bosun’s whistle came across the water. The
Sainte Rose
was getting