by Mark Keating
Peter Sam felt obliged to express that they were already running late in the year: they should be on their way to the
Newfoundland coast by now to avoid the summer heat which bred disease. Black Bill shouted home that if they were not to 'trade up' - fix themselves to a new ship - then they needed to careen and smoke out the vermin before the season changed. Bill always courted the worst of looks from Toombs.
'All of this we know, gentlemen. But am I sailing with women here? Careen! Smoke the hold! Pitiful swabs. I'm talking of giving the Portos the vapours here! Enough coin for us to suckle for the whole summer in Trepassey! Vane has done it, why not I?'
'Aye.' John Watson, the cooper, sucked on his pipe. 'The scheme's good enough, but how's it to be done, patroon? We don't look like no English coffee boys.'
Toombs laughed and slapped the table. 'That frigate wasn't a total waste, lads. Did we not grab us sackfuls of proper seaman's slops?'
Dog-Leg silently produced a bowl of Italian grapes and each grabbed a handful.
'And are we not flying an English pennant now, sir?' He took a hold of Devlin. 'Sow the seed, Pat! What we be doing?'
Devlin came to the edge of the table, map under his arm. He pushed away the litter of mugs and spread the Mercator chart over the table, dragging the mugs back again to fasten down each corner.
'Pay attention, boys, to the hydrographica tabula.' He sang the words, and enjoyed his audience.
'Bill?' The black eyes looked dolefully upon him. 'I'll need you to get me seven knots at least, against the wind as we are. We'll have a northwest tack for two hours, then a northeast for one, then back again. That way we should stay away from the coast but still keep to this course.' He pointed on the map with a divider to a course he had mapped.
'Beating upwind as we are and as weatherly as the Lucy is, the sails are up to you. Close-hauled and no pinching, if you please. I wants and needs no more than seven knots, but I needs them. That should bring us here' - he stabbed with the divider a few points north of St Nicholas - 'by this time in two days, where we can sail downwind and around her eastern cape into Preguica harbour.'
All looked down at the small clump of islands scattered off the coast of Africa like dice on a table.
'The Islands of the Blest', the Portuguese had named them. Almost in the middle of the scattering sat their destination: Sao Nicolau. St Nicholas.
Long and thin, Sao Nicolau was pinched almost in the very middle to less than six miles across, its mountain ranges skirted by small colonies of towns, each one full of winding streets and alleyways lined with a colourful collection of terracotta- roofed dwellings.
The capital, Ribeira Brava, nestled below the watch of Monte Cordo, the largest mountain on the island, but the governor had made his home south of Preguica, at a far quieter locale on the south coast, which suited the pirates' needs.
'You're sure you know where we be starting from, then, Patrick?' Peter Sam asked quietly.
'The latitude I took this morning by God Himself don't lie. But we'll take another at noon today before we leave and I'll show you, Peter.'
'You can show me!' Bill bellowed.
'All are welcome, lads.' Devlin smiled as everyone looked upon him with different eyes. 'But there's one thing I have to insist on, boys. That is, if you're not going to shoot me in two days' time when we don't make it else.'
'What be that now, Patrick?' Toombs asked.
In answer, Devlin reached beneath the table and slammed down the old sand-timer that Dog-Leg had found for him.
'I'll need that turned every half-hour. With a bell rung to tell me it's changed, and to tell Bill to change tack.' The officers straightened at the sight of the glass.
'Without it, I can't check myself, and Bill can't change tack. He can check speed, but I need to check time and distance. I'll make my own traverse board.'
'I can keep time,' Toombs offered.
'Not good enough, Captain,' Devlin asserted himself. 'From noon today we're turning this glass.' He looked at Peter Sam. 'I'll not press you to keep a watch. Give me four men, preferably sailors, one of whom will be Sam Fletcher, and I'll sail you within half an hour of St Nicholas.'
All were silent. Toombs cracked the silence with a laugh and a back-slap to Devlin.
'By God, sir! That's a threat! You shall have it! Peter, find him his men. King's own each!' He popped a cork as if from nowhere, and drained a draught of wine. 'Through the night, I take it, an' all, sir?'
'Through the night.'
'Four men? Almost two days on a watch? By God, sir, the navy missed you!'
'They never even saw me, Captain. I'll need your men to keep with me through the night, Bill.'
Bill looked at Devlin like the dog to the hare. 'Don't expect any of 'em to listen to your bells, man. Just shout at 'em to change sails.'
'I'll do that.'
'Would you be wanting for anything else, Patrick?' Toombs asked in a low voice. A slow circle of respectful eyes fell upon him.
'The noonday sun, Captain.'
An hour later, the sun already searing, Devlin stood on the quarterdeck with Toombs, Black Bill and Peter Sam. The starboard-bow anchor was coming up and men hung over the yardarms like pegs on a washline, waiting for orders.
Below stood four men, including Sam Fletcher, arguing about where the half-hour glass should be tied. Fletcher was a deserter the crew had picked up in Providence before Devlin came aboard, and he still wore the calico and wool uniform. Devlin did not care for him, but he hoped he still had enough of the whistle piped into him to keep watch, and he had promised each man a twist of tobacco if they worked through this. Toombs agreed to the tobacco, in his own interests, naturally.
'What time do you have there, Captain?' Devlin asked, the backstaff's sighting to his eye. The instrument itself was longer than a musketoon, the sun was to his back and he prayed for a shadow to fall in the horizon vane to qualify his stance upon the deck as the last crank of the capstan dragging up the anchor rang in his ears.
'That's eleven fifty-six as I believe it to be.'
'That's good enough.' He kissed the backstaff, its numbers gladdening his heart, her wooden degrees his psalms as Coxon had taught him. 'Latitude as it was. Set that watch for noon and give it to me.'
Toombs passed the watch, receiving the backstaff in return.
'I will check it according to the sands, Captain.' His calm countenance broke and he yelled below, 'Fletcher, turn that glass, man!'
And it began.
Devlin approached the deck and yelled forward, 'Keep those sheets out of the wind now, lads! Make sail! Mister Vernon?'
'Aye, sir?' Black Bill heard himself say.
'Chip log, if you please, Bill. Any sail you have to give me seven knots.'
'Aye, aye, Patrick,' and he was away, down the waist of the ship, pushing men out of his path, yelling his strange calls.
'Mister Phillips!' Devlin's eyes caught the bosun staring up at him from below.
'Aye, Pat?'
'Lifts and braces, if you please, Little John. Follow Bill!'
'Aye, sir!' and away he ran.
Devlin turned to face Toombs's querying look, and Peter Sam's dark face.
'Don't be so keen to yell out orders on my ship, Patrick.' Toombs raised his chin. 'These are my men.'
The rattling and luffing of the sails filled the air. A fury of shouts and hauling followed from the fore, and the jib was backed until the Lucy slowly began to drift. Peter, at the helm, swung the wheel hard to larboard and the terrible lurch one never got used to pitched the horizon round. The Lucy heeled up, showing three more of her starboard staves, the shadows of the masts falling aft, sweeping across the deck.
Toombs stood back to watch his sails fill. For the next quarter-hour the narrow deck was a dance of activity. Lanyards were secured, halyards tied, and all the while the Lucy grabbed the wind. Her bow plunged and rose, playfully spraying anyone fore with a light, warm rain.
Beneath her keel a pair of
marlins kept chase through the azure sea, and the 'porkers' that had been circling them for days returned to the depths, sated only by Alastair Lewis's corpulence.
Black Bill ascended to the taffrail aft of the ship with the drogue, the wooden board that would carry the log. One of his mates held the heavy reel of rope that would pay out behind the Lucy. Without a word between them, the drogue was tossed to the sea.
The progress seemed fast as the spray hit their faces from all sides, but that was only the joy of the Lucy letting go under courses and topsails after sitting as she had been for two long days.
A fraction under thirty seconds later and the tiny sand-timer held in Bill's hand emptied. He closed his fist on the line.
'Six knots, Patrick!' Bill shouted over his shoulder. The triangle of Devlin, Toombs and Peter Sam stood at different points on the quarterdeck. Devlin separated himself by walking down the steps, yelling as he came.
'Get your linen out, lads. I want seven before the first bell!' He landed next to Sam Fletcher, and put his hand to his shoulder. 'Ring that bell every turn, Sam. Like you used to. I'll bring you a drink each time.'
'Aye, Patrick.'
From inside his shirt, Devlin pulled out Lewis's log with pencil attached by pitched string. He wrote down the time and the latitude and walked back into the cabin. Laying the watch down on the table, he looked at the world spread out on the map before him. It seemed smaller than before; he could almost see the Lucy on its face, tearing across the paper. Above his head, the rudder beams yawned across the overhead, signifying Peter setting the wheel. He watched the compass swing to NNW and marked the bearing alongside the latitude. Toombs danced into the room.
'We're on our way, Pat. And you are now on the sweet account for a share and a half, my man.' He grabbed his bottle and drank to their health. 'Every man's on deck or aloft. 'Tis a grand sight.' He slapped the bottle into Devlin's hand.
Then, with a firmer voice, 'I need this one to come off for the good, Patrick. You get me to that island, else you'll find there's a reason why sharks follow my ship, sir.' He winked, and removed himself, barking insults to anyone in his eye as he strode out.
Alone, Devlin drank a mouthful of the sweet red wine.
He glanced over to the piles of papers at the side of the table. Scribbled notes and small coastal maps showing reefs and soundings gathered from raided ships. Some were tied closed with ribbon; others peered out from oilskin wallets.
Devlin reached for a pile and spread it before him. Their detail and sizes differed, as did their language and age, but Devlin paid little attention. He looked up. He was still alone.
Reaching down into his boot, he pulled out the parchment that Philippe Ducos had bequeathed him. For the first time, despite the nights it kept him awake, against his leg like a manacle, he creased it apart and placed his ace amongst the deck.
It showed the map of a long, small island, marked with deadly soundings and jungle all over, indicated by childlike smatterings of trees. Near the centre of the island, drawn in red ink, sat a crude image of a small fort.
In the bottom-right corner sat a fleur-de-lys compass rose; a swift hand had penned a full latitude and longitude trailing along the relevant point.
The longitude was presumably French, an easy calculation from the English. Even without checking, Devlin could see the island being lapped by cool waves south of Cuba. North of the Cayman Islands.
Taking up Lewis's log, he pencilled the figures into its white pages. A bulky shadow fell across his hand as he wrote. He slid his eyes up to see the figure of Peter Sam in the doorway, his arms stretching across the frame, staring straight at him, straight at the table.
Toombs was at the fo'c'sle, looking out to the horizon with a leisurely eye when the shot and the jeers came winging aft from the cabin. He whipped round and ran across the deck to join the crowd already heaving under the lintel. Toombs barged and cursed his way through, his elbows scuffing skulls, his hat some way behind him on the deck.
Breathless, hardly able to see, having come so quickly from the bright deck into the half-light of the cabin, he could just make out Devlin on the floor, sitting with a bloodied mouth, a shattered window behind him. To his right stood Peter Sam, a smoking pistol in his hand, reversed like a club, being held back by Black Bill.
'What in hell is going on here?' Toombs yelled.
'Ask him!' Peter Sam wrestled in Bill's grip. 'The little shite's too clever for his own good!'
'Patrick?' Toombs walked up to the table where the papers lay strewn about. 'Why are shots being fired in my cabin?'
Devlin stood, wiping the blood from his mouth. 'He fired, Captain, not I.' Devlin's voice was calm, his eyes narrowed.
'He's the one with all the lip,' Peter Sam spat.
'Aye, and a swollen lip at that,' Toombs noted to all. 'But for why, Peter?'
Bill's grip loosened and Peter shrugged himself free. 'I caught him studying the maps. I asked him what he was about. He comes back with: "Peter, you'd have to be able to read to understand!'" Laughter broke out in the gathering. Peter yelled above it, 'I've enough of his damned mouth, Captain! He's up to no good among us!'
'He's the navigator, Peter! He's the one to study the waggoner, is he not? Behold yourself, man.' He turned to Devlin. 'Put these papers away. And hold your tongue!'
'Aye, Cap'n.' Devlin began squaring the charts, hiding his own map amongst them.
Black Bill begged his captain's ear, whispering of articles, of rules and discipline, and 'sport'.
'That's a sure fact, Bill, sure enough. Quartermaster?' Toombs looked back to Peter.
Peter Sam's head was lowered. He scowled upwards at Devlin as he quoted. 'Article Eight. No striking one another on board. Every man's quarrels to be ended on shore. At sword and pistol.'
'Then that shall be done,' Toombs declared. 'As soon as our current business is attended to, lads, one of you shall have first blood.'
Peter Sam quipped, 'I already have first blood!' He licked Devlin's blood off the cap of his pistol to the approving agreement of the crowd. 'And I'll see you on shore!' He wiped the rest off with an open palm and rubbed it across his bald head, his face grinning like a skull. Behind them all, diligent and dogged, their heads turning to the sound, Sam Fletcher rang his bell and turned his glass.
* * *
Chapter Three
Prepare to repel boarders!' Thorn yelled the order from the quarterdeck. It carried halfway down the waist of the ship, sparking Mister Carey and Mister Laney, his young midshipmen, to repeat the order to their respective parties, just as loudly but unfortunately just as unsure of its implication.
The freeboards of the two ships began to scrape together. A teeth-rattling row of wood grating endlessly, deafeningly accompanied by the unholy noise of the spars and rigging clasping one another, pulling, wrenching, to snap each other free from the shackles of the mast.
The last of the cannon smoke had passed. Now faces could be seen. Fearful and red-rimmed eyes. Monstrous, barbaric expressions, caused more by the smoke and the clamour than by justification and enmity.
Thorn had fought battles on paper and blackboard. Over lamb and mustard, port and rum. In barracks, in taverns, amongst serving maids and landlords. He had passed pepper pots amid knives and explained how poundage of guns, range and elevation won conflicts. Straight at 'em, he would say, take the wind from their sails, close-hauled, and on the uproll. 'Fire!'
The pirates, however, had not been privy to Thorn's luncheons that stretched into dusk.
They threw their iron crow's feet spikes from the rigging, the raw metal slicing the bare feet of Thorn's crew like cheese wire. Their clay pots, flaming rag-stuffed crock bottles, exploded on the decks, filling the waist of the Noble with yellow clouds of sulphur, and showering glass and nails into the faces of his officers.
And all the while, as the ships clashed and clawed at each other, the balls whistled down from the spars and the shrouds. A hail of shot flew from invisible placements
, echoed by laughter and howls, and the hot rain left more men on their backs than were standing at the bulwarks, ramming their pikes wildly at the body-filled rigging of the pirate brigantine.
Devlin stood by the Great Cabin. He had pilfered one of Coxon's swords and any easily hidden silver he could find. At the first exploding 'stinkpot', he had run his necktie through a swab bucket, tied it across his lower face, covering his nose and mouth like a footpad.
He grabbed a manrope as the two worlds collided and the ship rocked and the cannons rolled around the deck. He stared up at the marines hanging from the rigging like bats. Blood dripping like the last of the wine. They had still been biting the paper from their cartridges when the lead spun them from their perches.
Devlin watched Thorn leap down the steps from the quarterdeck. His black hair hung damp with sweat under his tricorne. The long sideburns that covered almost half his face and that he cultivated to age him years beyond his twenty looked false and foolish. Now he looked like a schoolboy lost on the wrong side of the Thames.
The noise finally broke him. A noise from the time of the Caesars. Then, ages past, it was the sound of ten thousand spears rattling in formation against a legion's shields. Here and now it was the thumping of a hundred cutlasses against the brigantine's gunwales, again and again and again.
Thorn stared wildly around him. Looking for something. Something unknown. Something he never found. His eyes fell on Devlin, taking a second to recognise him through the necktie wrapped round his face. Then he leaped through the cabin door and bolted it behind him.
It was a fine story. Toombs had been there for the end of it. Under a million stars, spilled like grains of salt across an ebony table, Devlin stood with Toombs at the fo'c'sle.
They smoked contentedly, leaning back beneath the moonless sky, watching the sails glow in the faintest of light from the stars on the water and listening to the weary strains of the jibs above them.
Both men were unable to sleep. The bell had kept ringing, the sails kept changing with Devlin's tack, still maintaining seven knots upon his traverse board, so Toombs and Devlin had found themselves drinking punch and smoking through the night.