Blood Diamond: A Pirate Devlin Novel

by Mark Keating

  Devlin and Dandon glanced at each other with the quick eyes of those used to conspiracy, which more innocent men barely notice and often mistake when they do – until they find a knife in their back. Timms went on. ‘The most important matter is to get you through tomorrow, as this John Coxon, and get you back in here with justice seen to be done. Our real purpose must be kept secret.’

  ‘And on that,’ Devlin pointed at him and took a step closer, his voice low. ‘One of yours finds me in Maracaibo in June. A letter dated January offers me two thousand pounds and a pardon for us all if I come to bow before your fat prince and accept his even fatter father’s marque. The pardon for pirates expired two years ago, yet I am fine enough to be granted an extension?’ Timms stepped back as Devlin advanced. ‘And the full enmity of the Navy should I refuse. I noted that.’

  Dandon belched and excused himself. ‘For they have been so successful at finding you so far, Patrick.’

  ‘Aye.’ Devlin’s eye was still on Timms. ‘What goes on? Why am I here? I am constantly wondering what is so bloody special about me?’

  ‘That is for discussion between yourself and His Highness. I only know that you being in Newgate – although I am sure it is where you belong – will be to the detriment of your country.’

  Devlin showed Timms his back. ‘Not my country. Not even my world.’ He shouldered past Dandon. They shared the look again. Dandon took the hint and plucked his cuffs as he spoke.

  ‘I wondered at the time that it must have taken some great powers and resources to search the pirate round. And not with mind to destroy, but to invite us to some ball or such. Most impressive.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Timms took out his watch. Now almost eight. ‘There are many powers here. Do not flatter yourselves that this was merely some ploy to entrap a brigand and his fleas. This is to the highest order and, I stress, must not be public.’

  Devlin turned. ‘But I am to stay here? And return tomorrow? How then am I supposed to attend this dance of yours?’

  Timms, fearing his own lateness, tidied himself to leave, for the prince would be half drunk by now.

  ‘Not a difficulty I am sure. You will spend a week in the wards – I don’t see how to avoid that without drawing speculation – and on Sunday be shifted to the execution corridor. We will remove you then. Come Mister Dandon, sir, time to go before we are kept here like as not.’ He moved to the door to summon Langley. Devlin and Dandon both pondered Timms’s complacent mention of ‘removal’.

  ‘And just how will you remove me?’

  ‘Hmm?’ Timms seemed mentally to have already left the room. ‘Oh, we will swap you with some other fellow who is also due, with promise to fund his widow and children or some such. It has been done before you know.’

  He called for Langley before nodding his last words. ‘Then we smuggle you out of the tunnel. No need to make a scene in the sessions house. No need for the prince to intercede. We will make the best of your bad lot that has cost us time we can ill afford.’ The door was opened.

  Devlin edged close again, sure he had misheard. ‘Tunnel? What bloody tunnel?’

  Dandon smiled and checked his fingernails again. Timms smiled blithely at some agreement lost on the other two.

  ‘There is a tunnel that links to Sepulchre’s church across the way there. It is most fortuitous that you were gaoled in Newgate for that matter. I believe some merchant bequeathed its construction. The warden comes down the tunnel on Sunday night and whispers some maudlin horrors through the keyholes of the cells. Must be ghastly.’

  Langley turned to the door.

  ‘One moment, Turnkey.’ Devlin pulled the door shut again, his voice lowered to a whisper. ‘Tell your prince, Timms, that we will repeat our appointment tomorrow. At two.’

  ‘Captain, the prince will not attend here. His acknowledgement of you would be out of the question.’

  But Devlin was no longer speaking to him. ‘Back to the ship, Dandon. Tell where I am. Tell what to do. Tonight. I’ve had enough of this shit.’

  Dandon took Devlin’s arm. ‘I wish I had come in sooner, Captain, and known of this. I would not have paid a guinea for a quartern of wine which I did drink before I saw you.’ He shook his captain’s hand. For luck. For sport yet to come.

  Timms looked from one pirate to the other. ‘Back to the ship?’ His voice quivered. ‘You were ordered to sail into Falmouth. To come by coach to London. To come alone . . .’ He pushed them both back into the centre of the cell, away from the door. ‘By God! Do not tell me that you have brought a pirate ship into London, sir!’ He swallowed, something awful in his throat. ‘You cannot, nay must not, contemplate anything that will draw attention! You must wait for me to confer with His Highness. You must stand tomorrow and await until Sunday, I beg of you. This will all go to error if you do not.’

  Devlin gave Timms his coldest look. ‘Go to your prince, pup. I’m sure if all this matters so much he would not be pleased to wait another week for whatever task he beckons me with.’ He shoved Timms to the door, where Dandon already stood. ‘Go. It grieves me that the first words out of your mouth were not to tell a gaoled pirate that a tunnel was near.’

  Timms shook himself free. ‘You were ordered by His Highness not to bring any of your men to endanger this city, nor endanger such a crucial affair of state!’

  Devlin dismissed him into the care of Thomas Langley just as the candle in his cell winked out behind him. ‘Not my Highness. Not my city. Not my state. You trusted a pirate. Well done.’

  He bid Langley lock him back in and slammed the door on them all, unconcerned by the snuffing out of his candle. Devlin planned that London would burn again soon enough to light his way.

  Thomas Langley led a despondent Timms and a grinning Dandon back to the street of Bailey. Timms suffered in an effervescent panic but Dandon’s face was glowing like a boy at his first fair.

  ‘He is mad. One cannot break out of Newgate gaol and most certainly when His Highness requires the utmost of—’ Dandon hushed him.

  ‘Mister Timms,’ he offered an effacing smile. ‘I may have underestimated your prince’s ability to identify those of the world who can help him. I may not be the most worthy advocate of any such person myself but would I be wrong in the assumption that said prince is a gambling man, a sporting man?’

  Timms tweaked his neck and pulled at his cravat with a finger.

  ‘Then he would probably be most gratified in his choice of a man to undertake a dangerous and perilous adventure who would not willingly sit on his arse and wait to be gotten out of danger when he could fight, wrangle, deceive and conspire with friend and cohort, to effect his escape from the worst that any enemy in the world could conceive. Why, it would not surprise me that an intellect such as the prince must possess did not contrive these events just so, to test the mettle of the pirate Devlin.’ He tapped his nose. ‘What wisdom the prince must conceal beneath his wig! How fortunate that my captain finds himself in Newgate with a tunnel beneath the gaol. It is a test beyond the fathoming of common men.’

  Timms looked into Dandon’s red-rimmed eyes and detected the thrill of danger that hovered just above the love of wine. He bowed to a power he had avoided all his life since dodging around the prefects at Eton. This was not his world.

  ‘I’m sure the prince will be most excited by the prospect,’ he replied. ‘As long as all is kept . . . quiet. We do not wish to end in the broadsheets of Paternoster on the morrow.’

  Timms looked over to the church, and then back to the empty space where Dandon had been.

  Open-mouthed he walked up the street, looking left and right for the yellow-clad figure that was by his side and had now been swallowed up by the night.

  Defeated, he pulled up his collar and hurried on his way to Snow Hill and back to the real city, back to his prince.

  This was not an evening to be abroad.

  Chapter Six

  All you that in the condemned hole do lie,

  Prepare you, for tomorrow
you shall die.

  Watch all and pray: the hour is drawing near

  That you before the Almighty must appear.

  Examine well yourselves, in time repent,

  That you may not to eternal flames be sent.

  And when St Sepulchre’s Bell in the morning tolls

  The Lord above have mercy on your souls.

  The bellman of St Sepulchre’s poem.

  Sunday midnight in the tunnel connecting the gaol to the church.

  Paid for in testament from 1605. Ended in 1744.

  The last two lines to be whispered through the keyholes of the cells.

  Ten o’clock. The Shadow, with her sidelights glinting like a chandelier in a bagnio house, was mostly asleep for the night. Only two men on her deck passed for a watch; pirates never followed the naval convention of the larbolins and starbolins. The bell in the belfry just below the quarterdeck was kept solely for Devlin in his perversity to maintain a watch at sea for his reckoning and traverse. But to the pirates the bell was anathema – a memory of the life of an indentured man of the sea. An alarm to tell him when to eat, when to sleep, when to work or, so help him, be flogged for ignoring it. The bell and the trickle of the sand. Not their life. The first rule of the pirate captain when wooing men to the trade: Take away that which they hate, and men will follow.

  The Shadow herself was a small light-frigate, ably suited to the narrow channels of the Mediterranean but too weak for a ship-of-the-line and thus classed according to the Fighting Instructions of 1653 as a fifth-rater.

  French by birth, she had been commissioned in 1715 by the late governor of the small Verdes island of Sao Nicolau, Valentim Mendes, and she began her pirate life two years later when Devlin plucked her from the pocket of said Valentim, and the Sombra became the Shadow.

  Nine nine-pounders stood on the weatherdeck, the final three beneath the quarterdeck and part of the Great Cabin. Two more were on the quarterdeck and one at the fo’c’sle. Two more were set to chase in the bow – a distinction of a Mediterranean ship where the low winds hindered turning to broadside. Her final complement was two more niners at the stern waiting to poke out of the Great Cabin, and two breechloading half-pound swivels along the quarterdeck rail; but the pirates had added yokes to mount more when called upon.

  A fine ship, chipped here and there, with new strakes over old where she had been holed once or twice, some furniture missing along her rails and gunwales where misguided fools had attempted to defend themselves with shot and grape. And to be fair, although the Atlantic treated her narrow beam unkindly she was still here, and the pirates, whose normal way had been to trade up or even down when a ship became worn or in need of repair, had kept her well and careened and caulked her fresh every summer. They painted that which needed painting and took from others whatever fresh sail or rigging she had need of.

  Perhaps if she had not been so young when they had found her, perhaps if she had known other crews and seas years before, she would not have sat so well for so long. Aye, perhaps.

  Peter Sam and Hugh Harris sat at the long table on the only two chairs in the cabin. The sparse cabin. The Great Cabin. On any ship it was the sanctum sanctorum of officers, but on a pirate it belonged to the ship, to the crew one and all.

  It was a dry room to make plans, to drink, cooler than below deck or warmer than on the open one. And sparse indeed. Away over the side with the vain bulkheads and lockers, the oddments and baubles of naval crews. It had taken Devlin’s hardiest insisting that the doors to the coach and cabin should be saved; for the captain, for all his democracy, had won the concession that he could sleep in the cabin if he so wished. And to Devlin, in some childish fancy, it had been the only place he had known all his life that sported a door that was his to close. Now two pirates, two near-empty bottles between them, sat at the table and checked their guns.

  Peter Sam replaced the pyrite flint on the Sibley maple and brass blunderbuss that had no right being on the Dutch merchant he had rescued it from. He loaded it with swan shot over grain and rammed cartridge paper on top to prevent the deadly charge from slipping out, then slid the fearsome weapon back into its holster upon the table. ‘I’m done,’ he announced to Hugh.

  ‘Just that little hog’s leg?’ Hugh smirked. Peter Sam said nothing and went about loading his gargoussier, his belly box of cartridges, the small hardened leather pouch and a wooden insert in the base with ten holes for the prepared shot wrapped in paper: five for the blunderbuss, five for the Bohemian cavalry pistol with the belt hanger he had favoured of late.

  Hugh lifted his pistols in the air with glee. ‘Me? I’m ready as I ever was!’ He admired his weapons with a loving look to each. Once he had worn Post-Captain John Coxon’s matched pair but that devil had taken them back on New Providence two years past when Devlin and he met up with Devlin’s former master. Now, he would have almost paid for the handsome turnover Doleps he brandished.

  Each pistol had two barrels, one atop the other, with a frizzen and pan for each and one lock to fire. Two shots for every normal man’s one. Hugh had further specialised them by loading one barrel with ball, the other with partridge shot, depending on the damage and distance required for the unfortunate standing in front of him.

  ‘Pity ain’t the word when I walks out tonight!’ he crowed, the pistols above his head. The door to the cabin clicked open behind them and instinctively Hugh flashed a pistol to the body coming through, the pistol’s swift cocking and the two staring barrels freezing the face of Bill Vernon. Hugh laughed and lowered his weapon.

  Black Bill cursed, his voice still calm, and came to the table and looked down at the mass of knives and guns. They would take no cutlasses to the streets. Better a knife for close quarters, and easier to prise free information when you had a steel fist at someone’s throat.

  ‘You still planning on going out, Peter Sam?’

  ‘Aye. Soon enough.’ He stood to fetch another bottle from the rack in the coach, the personal cabin space where a captain could keep his effects. ‘After a time.’ He stared in challenge back at Bill as he pulled the cork, the amber light from the swaying lantern moving him through shadow and back again, adding to his grave look.

  Hugh giggled nervously between the two large men, himself a scrawny fellow with long hair and a dirty aspect, unkempt even for a pirate. He had been born for the life and after years of starving on merchant ships could never put meat on his bones, but he was a natural killer and a loyal soul to have behind you. A look from Bill and he went back to tamping and tending his guns.

  ‘If you must be for going ashore, Peter Sam, I suggest you take someone who can help find the captain.’ Bill cocked his head to the door and Dandon swanned in, breathless and red from his row out to the ship.

  ‘Salutations, Peter!’ Dandon swept off his hat. ‘I have word from Patrick.’ He spied the bottle in Peter’s hands and stepped forward uninvited. ‘And I thirst like a desert.’

  Peter held the bottle to his chest. ‘What word?’ Peter had little time for Dandon, in his opinion a failed drunken coxcomb who hid behind Devlin’s coat and purse. Dandon took no share from the pirate’s accounts for he took no share in the gaining of it. He held no position on the ship other than Devlin’s association and a loose inkling of medicine that the others admired in their stupor. But the yellow-coated fool carried no arms. It would be unfair ever to kill him but he would have none of Peter’s wine.

  Dandon pulled back his hand when the bottle did not come and looked to Bill for security. ‘I have come from Newgate gaol, gentlemen, where our gallant captain is now dwelling.’ Dandon cast around the room for another drink. With a grin Hugh offered his own green bottle up. He at least liked Dandon.

  Dandon tipped a bow and wiped the mouth with a filthy cuff. ‘Thank you, sir!’

  Peter Sam growled behind him. ‘He is in gaol? Speak man!’

  Dandon paused with the bottle to his lips. ‘It has taken me almost two hours to get back here, Peter. Two dry hours. And as w
e will leave immediately allow me some ability to slake my thirst, if you please.’

  Too smart. Too smart for his own good. ‘Talk, damn you! Leave for where?’

  Dandon looked surprised. ‘Why, for Newgate, naturally.’

  The others shared a look. The whole world knew of Newgate and criminals could reel off the names and ins and outs of prisons as other men could the fields and factors of their trades. Dandon noted the look. ‘Aye. Newgate. I met him there for he murdered a man this morning.’ Dandon finally drank.

  Hugh laughed. Bill rummaged for his pipe. Peter Sam’s red beard lifted as he looked upward. He walked back to the table, put down the bottle and picked up the holstered hand-cannon. ‘To it then. It is a trap as I feared,’ he glowered at Bill. ‘As I ever said it were.’

  ‘No,’ Dandon corrected. ‘Not a trap. An accident I assure you, Peter. I have met with the prince’s man and all is in order. It is the captain who has made a mess of things.’

  Peter shouldered the leather holster. Built for a saddle, it fitted his back fine, the gun slung behind his massive hide. ‘His fault or no I’ll not stand by while he waits.’

  Dandon emptied his bottle. ‘My sentiments exactly, Peter. He has already rearranged his agenda with the prince for tomorrow. I hope you have all eaten, Gentlemen, for it will be a long night.’ He reached for Peter’s discarded wine. ‘He needs our hand.’

  ‘Hold,’ Bill stopped loading his pipe. ‘You intend to break him free? From Newgate? Is it not wiser to buy him out? He must have a price.’

  ‘You’re getting old, Bill.’ Peter hung his pistol to his belt and a pair of knife sheaths vanished around his waist. ‘Stay and help Dog-Leg wash the pots.’ He picked up his long coat and belly-box. ‘Hugh. Up now.’ Hugh scrambled for his pistols and a bag of grenadoes at his feet.

  ‘Dandon,’ Peter slapped Dandon’s chest. ‘Tell me where this gaol be.’

  Dandon turned to Bill. ‘Peter is accurate to a degree, Bill. The captain has asked for this matter to be settled tonight. He was most insistent. I gather time is an issue to the prince. Also, bargaining would bring unwarranted attention and as yet his gaolers know not his real name. He called himself Captain John Coxon, no less.’ He drank quickly as they laughed at the name familiar to them all.