by Mark Keating
'For now, John.' Devlin spoke with charming reverence.
'Keep her away, boys!' Anderson yelled from the quarterdeck to the bosun's gangs, making best work of quartering the errant sails. 'Mister Dawson! Very well thus and no higher!'
Dawson's affirmation was lost amid the double-shotted blast from Howard's guns hammering along the deck.
Anderson checked the flight of the balls, glimpsed the surface of the sea tremble as they shot free, then jumped the steps to the main deck. Skidding a foot on water or blood, he shouted back to Granger to angle the pair of quarterdeck guns.
'Aim to the deck!' He almost jumped at the startling hiss of steam that erupted behind him as the sponges rammed home.
The men around him were glowing with torrents of sweat, their faces black, hair melting down their necks, but paused to cheer as they heard at least half of their broadside hit home.
He slapped the back of the nearest man without looking at his face, his eyes seeking Davison. He spied him at the foremast, trying to tidy the mess of clew lines and sheets that were hanging amid the disarray. Anderson moved past the mainmast as he barked to Davison to man the fo'c'sle niners and aim for the deck.
He glanced up briefly to the peculiarly peaceful blue sky above the mainsail, now flecked with the blood of the marines; then his vision flashed red, then black, and something deafening rushed upon him.
His mind floated awake. A lock of his wet hair lay in his mouth, the rush of all the sea filling his senses. Slowly the sound lifted, and he felt the wet deck beneath his cheek, smelled cordite and oakum.
The world started up again. Past his head feet were running.
Around him, the snapping of ropes whipped through the air.
He had been thrown to the starboard bow and lay in the scuppers beneath the netting. He turned over, up on one elbow, unsure whether he could stand.
The mainmast lay across the starboard bulwark. Fallen drunkenly, as the Campeche tree of its birth fifteen years ago.
Anderson was mesmerised by its size, gigantic in its latent power. He stared wide-eyed at the expanse of sky that the mast's absence had revealed above the deck - serene, vibrant blue - then he watched, frozen, as the ton of sail, spars and yards toppled it over the side with a noise like a surfacing whale, its snaking ropes grabbing men as it went down.
Most danced free; one cried out, his face sliced like beef from a slashing clew line. Another heard his back crack as it slammed into the breech of a starboard gun and his screams fell over the gunwale with him, swaddled in rope.
Only a third of the mast remained, tall as a man through the deck, insides crisp and fresh against its dark, worn skin.
The ship rolled with her trauma, the leeway enough to pull the larboard guns out of the port holes on their tackles as the crew grabbed for handholds.
Anderson stood with tremendous effort. Without thought he pulled his service pistol, then just as quickly tucked it back into his belt as he looked over the gunwale at the disaster.
The mast was boiling in the sea. He found young amusement in spying a few blue fish of excellent size floundering in her ropes and sails, then in horror at an arm doing the very same, still wearing its shirt sleeve.
He turned and yelled to as many men as he could see, 'Firemen to starboard! Cut her free - she's dragging us round!' and ten men with axes appeared from nowhere, barging Anderson back without a word. He carried on his backward path to the larboard guns and called for Howard and Dawson.
'Where away, Mister Dawson?' A powdery fog from the expired mast stifled his voice. Dawson merely pointed from the quarterdeck to the ship, now two hundred yards from the larboard bow, away from their guns. That would change in moments as the Starling turned, as if it were by her own design to lose her mast to heave her to bear.
'Mister Howard, fire as she bears.' Then he shouted upwards to the fo'c'sle, 'Mister Davison? Fire when ready.'
Davison tugged his hat. He had two nine-pounders right on the Shadow's starboard bow and six men crowded with him to fire them. The trucks squealed as the men dragged them to the best degree to rake the deck with their loaded bags of grape. The linstock raised and Davison stood back as the guns fired in two heartbeats.
'Down!' Peter Sam hollered as the puff of smoke clouded from the Starling's fo'c'sle. 'All hands! Down!' and he threw himself to the quarterdeck.
Eighteen pounds of pistol shot hailed hot across the deck. Two hundred spitting balls of lead sang off the cannon and whistled over the bodies of the pirates. Wood split from every corner of the deck, creating a world of dust, angrily firing splinters fore and aft. Cleats flew off the gunwale. Sheets were severed, springing away with glee, seeking to whip out any peering eyes.
The deadly rain stopped. Robert Hartley rolled over from where he had flung himself on his precious bags of powder, and immediately tossed a couple to Black Bill, who crawled fore to his guns.
Peter Sam checked over the gunwale. The empty space amidships of his enemy brought a coldness to his heart. He had seen the end now. The toppling of the mast would bring the men opposing him to their knees.
His pleasure ended at the firing of the next broadside towards them. Double-shotted. The starboard quarter exploded outwards and fell into the sea and the Shadow rolled in pain, toppling men over. Devlin would be picking oak out of his food for weeks if he ever returned to his cabin alive. Still the Shadow held. Holed above the waterline, her iron- walled bulkheads shook and shrugged off the barrage, the spent iron balls rolling, steaming along the lower deck.
'Good one, Mister Howard,' Anderson chimed. 'Next one the same, if you please. We'll have her yet.'
'Mister Anderson' - Dawson appeared by his side at the guns - 'we are stalled, sir! We have fore course and mizzen sails but no reach to draw! We are in a barrel, sir!' Dawson proffered the words with finality of his duty. He had made the sails. He had stolen the reach. With the wind behind him he could fly still. Now all he could do was turn.
Anderson nodded, understood. But the pirate had been holed for sure. The Starling had lost sail, momentum, but the pirates were still outgunned. The Starling could stand, hold fast, win the day by sheer firepower.
He turned to the helmsman. 'Hard to starboard, man!' he yelled aft. 'Bring all guns upon her!'
'Aye, aye, sir!' the cry came back. He placed all his weight against the wheel, then fell to the deck as it spun wildly away from him.
All turned to the sight of the wheel running free. The helmsman gathered himself back, then pulled it round in his hands, frowning. 'She don't answer, sir! The rudder chain's gone!'
Anderson tried to recall any shots to their stem or quarter that might have caused such an occurrence, but found his memory wanting. He opened his mouth to speak but could find no words, his silence broken by the next round of shot from the dark ship beyond.
The pirates sent them their own grape, from all their guns. It strafed the deck from a deadly angle, cutting through the capstan and mizzen like a thousand blades, whipping past their heads and thudding in to at least six of Howard's quarter- bill. Their duty was done.
Anderson rose from his crouch. The gun-crew cowered below the bulwark until slapped up by Howard and his Indian cohorts, and paid no mind to the dead men around them as they reloaded, exhausted, slipping in their own sweat.
Anderson sped to the quarterdeck, shouting to Granger to fire his guns, not caring if they faced open sea or not. He flung himself up the stair. The helmsman repeated that the wheel did not answer. Anderson jigged past him to the taffrail to look over the stern to the rudder chain.
His hands gripped the rail in an engulfing terror as he looked down to the two strange boats, empty, the open Great Cabin windows, the yellow coat hanging off a wedged sword and the rudder chain cut away.
He spun round. The words whispered from him, barely heard even by Granger, who stood only feet away with his gun-crew.
'Prepare to repel boarders
The cabin doors burst apart, thrown outwards by the
roaring throats of the pirates. They poured out like rats, innumerable, hundreds of them surely by the blast of pistols and the swinging of axes. Swords still strung in their belts, they hacked at any head that dared try to scrape a cutlass free.
Anderson leaped to the rail of the quarterdeck. 'Pikemen! To arms! Repel boarders!' He yanked his pistol free and fired down into the first waistcoat he saw.
The gun-crews at the foremast dived for the pikes standing round it. They turned to parry any blow and then stared into the barrels of the musketoons from the six pirates, firing from the waist, cutting them down in a moment, then swinging the butts into the skulls of any man near them, the smoke still trailing from the barrels. They moved fore, screaming, pulling blades and pistols.
Pistols from every nation, engraved for sons, bequeathed by fathers, grabbed from dead men, now hanging from their necks on silken ribbons, firing steadily into any body to the left and right of them.
Thomas Howard pulled his own pistol as two grenadoes bowled past him into the sailors around the foremast, the fuses sparking merrily and exploding bloodily into the huddle of men. He raised his armed fist with a cry, aiming to the crowd piling out of the cabin, only to have his arm stayed by the grasping reach of Dandon suddenly appearing at his side.
It took a moment for Howard to filter the face from the horde of others, the gold grin and moustache finally sinking in.
'Mister Dandon! Behind me, sir!' He tugged Dandon with his free arm, only to feel his movement cut.
'No, Mister Howard,' Dandon snapped, pulling him down, his French voice gone. 'Behind me is best, I venture you'll find.' And he brought the boy within his folded arms just as an axe was raised above both their skulls. The bloodshot eyes of the axeman looked once to Dandon, no longer seeing the boy; then he continued his sweep across the nose of one of the Indians and moved on, whirling madly.
Dandon shrunk below the bulwark, between the guns, with a struggling Howard in his grip. He pulled the boy's head to his chest, away from the carnage, and felt Howard's body go limp and shiver in his arms. He had none of the right words. All his world was wrong, he knew. He whispered as gently as his sordid tongue could.
'Good boy. Brave boy.' Then Dandon held his head high, making sure that every damned soul knew who he was as the blood flew around him.
Anderson drew his sword, and jumped over the rail to land behind the mizzen, the clump of his boots upon the deck drawing two wild faces to turn towards him.
He sprang forward, hacking at the two that singled him out. They wheeled away from his swings, once, twice, then picked up their hanging guns and fired together into his midriff.
He fell back to the mast in his own footsteps, slumped down the wood and stared to the spread of blood across his belly. His eyes drifted down to the tiny form of a translucent spider clambering upon him. He brushed at it weakly. He continued to brush at the spindly creature after the axe slammed into his forehead from an upwards swing and the bodies whirled away, pulling their swords, forgetting him at once.
The weight of the hatchet pulled Anderson's head to his chest, his wound spreading a soup of blood upon his lap, the spider, its path ill-chosen, drowning in the waterfall.
Peter Sam and Bill stood together on the quarterdeck, sharing a spyglass between them. They felt their blood rise as they watched the wave move through the waist of the ship until the madness reached the fo'c'sle, where Davison made a single swift effort to swing a swivel gun from the rails, only to be crushed by the onslaught that filled the deck. They watched the axes and cutlasses beat down again and again.
Their own crew crammed along the Shadow's bulwark, craning for the sight of gore.
Then a new roar came over the sea. A victorious howl of raised cutlasses and pistol shot as the last of the Starling's crew laid down and the Shadow's brethren rallied to the cry and the howl echoed back.
Nine marines had died. Nine men had fallen with the yards, broken. Thirteen had been wounded by cannon and timber. Forty-nine others bowed or died to twenty-two pirates.
Dandon stood up, holding tight the shoulder of Thomas Howard. He threw his hat into the air and crowed once with the shouts of the others, then looked down at the terrified, mottled face.
'Oh, it'll be a fine day yet, Mister Howard.' He tugged the boy's chin. 'It was the "old game", just like you said it would be.' Then, quieter, 'You just didn't know the rules, lad, that's all.'
* * *
Chapter Nineteen
Do not feel too bad, John.' Devlin slapped Coxon's back.
'You had no way of knowing that Dandon there was my very own fidus Achates.'
Coxon sniffed scornfully. 'Did you steal all my books as well, Patrick?'
Two hours had passed. The amber sun had begun to spread across the horizon. The pirates sang their bordello chords as they removed the trucks from the Starling's guns and rammed nails into their touch-holes. Everything that could be swallowed, fired or rigged had been ferried across to the Shadow, Bill's pencil and paper marking it all. The remnants of the Starling's crew were now employed to haul their wares over the boards at the fo'c'sle to the Shadow's deck, their heads lowered, the songs of the pirates in their ears.
Peter Sam stepped onto the island from out of the surf, relieved now from the fire and the fury of the afternoon and preparing for the cool of night. He cast an eye to John Coxon, nothing more than a glance to his bloodied forearm, then strode to Devlin, almost with menace. He wrapped his huge right fist round Devlin's fighting arm and pumped it heartily.
'Cap'n,' he said, as if that was all that needed to be said in summary after weeks of separation. Then he looked beyond to the fat black chest standing on the beach. 'That be it, then?'
'Aye,' Devlin sighed. 'That be it. And ours.'
Peter Sam moved on towards the chest. 'Teague.' He nodded to Dan and likewise to Hugh Harris, who tugged a straggling forelock in response. He stopped in front of Gregory and Davies, who struggled to look into the cracked, powerful face of the quartermaster, with his leather rags that might for all their ruddiness be fashioned from human flesh. 'These men be dead, Cap'n?' he barked behind him, his hand already on his cutlass.
'Not for now, Peter. Let them be,' Devlin called back and walked to Coxon. 'John,' he said, 'we needs to talk now.' He gave no choice, taking Coxon's arm away with him. 'You have been mighty quiet this last act, John. This island was an Eden when the sun came up, I shouldn't wonder. Now it reeks of death. What say you on the matter?'
Coxon looked ahead as they walked, his voice flat. 'I have given it no thought,' he said. 'What has happened has been because of you. That is all I know. All I need to know.'
'Oh, it could have ended different now, let's be fair. I could be swinging in the breeze now, and you would have held the rope, and for truth I would not have blamed you.' He stopped them both and checked for earshot from his men, before drawing Coxon closer. 'But think on this,' he hissed. 'Those men of yours made you prisoner too. They came to take that there chest, not to protect it. On orders. And you were not part of their plan. Would you think that you were going back to England with them, or would you be of a mind to think otherwise?'
Coxon paused, looked to his wounded ship. 'I have thought not of their duty.'
'What of your duty? What would you do now for your precious board?'
He looked pitifully to Devlin and spoke like a bishop, 'I don't do it for them, pirate. There'll be a day when you'll know that.'
Devlin swung Coxon back to stroll across their sunken path. 'I will grant you back your ship and you will know that I spared you by my own grace. For it is only fair that someone as noble as yourself tells the court of what happened here, and I am only sorry that I will not see their faces boil as you tell them.' He waved a righteous hand. 'No need to thank me, John, I will hear no word of it. You may be on your way.'
Coxon's heels dug in and Devlin was pulled back a step. 'You will hear this word, Patrick.' He brought his face close. 'Mark me' - the corners of his mouth wer
e white with hate - 'wherever I am in this world, when I hear tidings of your capture, I will make them wait and make you rot until I am there to watch you hang. You may lay to that!'
'You're welcome, John.' Devlin led him along again.
Coxon shouted now, for all to hear. 'Mark me! A year at best. That's all you've got! They are coming! There are acts penned every day for you all! For all your kind!'
'A year you say?' Devlin dropped Coxon's arm and joined his brethren. 'Couple of hours ago I thought I was dead. I have increased my span better than I had hoped!'
He left Coxon to the shore, contemplating the longboat and the anxious forms of Gregory and Davies. Devlin joined his men, hovering and leering around the chest like flies.
'Sate yourselves with a pocketful of coin, lads. Louis's face never looked so grand.' He trawled his right hand through the bitter smell of the coin, the music of it widening the pupils of all eyes upon it.
'What now, Cap'n?' Peter Sam asked.
Devlin dragged his hand reluctantly free. 'We shall take the ladies back to Providence. The good Navy Board fellows will return to their ship. Tell England and their suckling allies of what has happened to their coffers.'
'Would we not be killing them all, then?' Hugh Harris voiced a frozen regret.
'No, lads. I'm of a mind that they will be most surprised to lay eyes on Coxon at all.' He looked back to the man beside the boat. 'Besides, I owes him at least for feeding me all these years.' Then, quietly now, 'My own father only fed me well the night before he sold me.' And he turned to the chest, burying his thoughts in the depths of the gold.
'Shadow fares well, Cap'n,' Peter Sam proudly remarked. 'Will Magnes has laid oakum and wood to all her holes.' He went on to reel off the goods hoisted from the Starlings hold and the small counts of wounded and dead.