by Mark Keating
'We should leave now,' Devlin sighed. 'Leave the Lucy to her grave. And several more besides. Of which, Hugh, did you do as I made request?'
'Aye, Cap'n.' Hugh cocked a wink and clicked his tongue. 'All be prepared. Though our colours be rare now.'
Devlin smiled. He moved back to Coxon and took his bloodied hand.
'It was fair good to see you again, John,' he said. 'We will take you back to your ship now if you can bear to be borne away with us.'
'I do not lie, Patrick.' Coxon's voice was soft now, as sable. 'They are coming. There are scores of ships already in the islands. The colonies, the Americas, are the future. Whitehall talks of nothing else but sea rats and Jacobites. This age is at an end.'
Devlin lowered his eyes. 'That be as it may. And no doubt you will all be of one mind to forget that you taught every man his trade and reaped the benefit when it suited. But today I bested all of you. These men follow me and not because I own them. Be gone now, John, before I change my mind to you.'
May fell into June. The barque Bellone crept into the bay of the uncharted island, the crew still singing, laughing, of the nights spent ashore along the colonial coast.
Now they had returned to refresh the sentries and relieve the vavasour, Capitaine Bessette, from his laborious days of rest and solitude.
As the captain had anticipated after so many lazy days of flies and sun, a watch had not checked their passage. They approached the island unheralded. Unwatched.
His displeasure growing with every sweep of the oars from the gig, the captain followed the uneasy murmurs of his company as they ruminated on the spectre of the brigantine, still fresh, nestling amongst the eggshell coral.
Their rumblings grew as they stepped over the mosaic of footsteps that littered the path from the beach and still no guard greeted them.
They pulled their cutlasses at the eerie sight of the open gate of the stockade and the murder of crows that preened themselves along the walls, upon the watchtower, cawing at the approach of the strangers.
The captain stepped over the threshold, bolstered by the pressure of urgent curiosity behind him. He stepped aside, transfixed, and let the others filter through to share his shuddering dismay.
Despite the crowd of them, each one stood alone. Each one made his own peace and judgement at the sight before him. The crows cawed as they tore and scraped at the hanging flesh.
Someone had set ten poles ripped from the stockade walls into the ground beyond the gate. Sitting, straining forward as if still alive, bound by their fraying wrists, the black desiccated forms of what had once been their countrymen were fixed to each stake.
The tallest of the sitting corpses, still apparelled in a fine blue waistcoat and breeches, hung skeletal and eyeless beneath a black flag.
The grim design, now seared into their coldest memories, would slouch back, even years from this place, whenever the stench of decay or the gleeful writhing of maggots forced them to recall the grinning skull set in the ring of a compass rose, above the cross of a pair of pistols.
* * *
Epilogue
Proclamation of a King
George R
Whereas we have received Information, that several Persons, Subjects of Great Britain, have since the twenty-fourth day of June, in the year of our Lord 1715, committed diverse Pyracies and Robberies upon the High Seas, in the West Indies, or adjoining to our Plantations, which hath and may Occasion great Damage to the Merchants of Great Britain, and others trading into those Parts; and tho' we have appointed such a force as we judge sufficient for suppressing the said Pyrates, yet the more effectually to put an End to the same, we have thought fit, by and with the advice of our Privy Council, to Issue this our Royal Proclamation; and we do hereby promise, and declare, that in Case any of the said Pyrates, shall on or before the fifth of September, in the year of our Lord 1718, surrender him or themselves, to one of our Principal Secretaries of State in Great Britain or Ireland, or to any governor or Deputy Governor of any of our Plantations beyond the Seas; every such Pyrate and Pyrates so surrendering him, or themselves, as aforesaid, shall have our gracious Pardon, of and for such, his or their Pyracy, or Pyracies, by him or them committed before the fifth of January next ensuing.
And we do hereby strictly charge and command all our Admirals,
Captains, and other Officers at Sea, and all our Governors and Commanders of any Forts, Castles, or other Places in our Plantations, and all our other Officers, Civil and Military, to seize and take such of the Pyrates, who shall refuse or neglect to surrender themselves accordingly.
Given at our Court, at Hampton Court, the fifth Day of September 1717, in the fourth Year of our Reign. God save the king.
The Proclamation of Pardon sailed to Providence in a single unrated ship. Both ship and royal-sealed covenant were seized by the pirates that ruled therein and the captain and crew of the English ship were never heard of again.
In response, the Court and the Privy Council scratched beneath their wigs as to what manner of men scorned pardon and mocked their laws so.
In their attempt to fathom the depths of depravity and lawlessness that dirtied the waters of the Americas and sullied the reputation of the nation throughout the world, they turned to a man whom they held to be a privateer faithful to the king.
He had sailed the world several times over. He had journeyed with William Dampier, was an authority on the unknown lands to the south, and courted fame through the astounding story of the marooned Alexander Selkirk, whom he had found and rescued.
He had raided treasure ships and sent countless enemies to the dark bed of the sea. A pirate in all but name, if it were not for the brown oilskin that contained his letters of marque.
Woodes Rogers took the commission to become governor of the Island of Providence. He bowed before the Privy Council and apologised for the yellowing leer that rose up from one side of his face, a permanent legacy from the musket ball that had carried away a portion of his cheek and jaw.
He would take the proclamation back to Providence and, he gave promise with another bow, this time it would not be taken so lightly.
John Coxon had never been fond of Bristol. He stood by the entrance port of the Milford, the thirty-gun frigate he now captained under order of Woodes Rogers himself, taking the notion, frowned upon by his officers, of inspecting all the putrid souls tramping onto his deck.
Now it was early April, almost a year since he had limped away from the pallor the Shadow had cast upon him, and a painful winter past of his aching forearm from the pistol wound. The white scar marked upon him forever, from the pirate who sent him home to the shame and silence from Whitehall at the tale of Guinneys and the gold.
He had spent a Monday morning before the board with no gold to deliver, a broken ship and a butcher's bill of dead men. He had nodded to every damning recrimination and had not expected his sword to be handed back to him. But the Piracy Act was now in force and the Proclamation of September had failed. The Privy Council now estimated an approximate force of three thousand pirates operating in the Bahama Islands alone, and enough was enough.
Coxon was given the option to go back, his experience invaluable despite his failures. He had at least returned alive and, with a badge of loyalty for his efforts permanently star- shaped on his forearm, there had been no further mention of Jacobites and Stuarts.
Only once, as he sat before the table in Whitehall, did Coxon's eyes shift to the window to watch London trundle by as the Earl of Berkeley asked, with a cough, whether Captain Guinneys had shown any contradiction to Coxon's own particular orders.
Coxon looked back to the stern faces, scratched a hand through his hair, and declared that to the extent of his knowledge and recollection, Captain Guinneys had died at the pirate Devlin's hands in the execution of his duty to the letter of his orders as given.
But Bristol had too many hostelries for his favour, and the reek of stale ale mingled unpleasantly with the odour of death from the rolling s
lavers unloading their bales of cotton and loaves of sugar. Spars almost touched within the crammed harbour, the perpetual cries of gulls almost deafening, even amongst the throng of decks and bustling urgency of loading and endless hammering.
By the gangway he watched the passage of the men weaving their way aboard, every man tugging his forelock to him and ducking away as swiftly as he could. He appraised them all, noting the good ones amid the bad, and separating them mentally in an instant. Only one dragged himself through the port and dared to speak to him, a filthy red tricorne clamped to his skull.
'Ah, Captain.' He grinned, the effect of which was unsettling, as the smile snaked up almost painfully over a sunken, scarred left jaw. "Tis a pleasure to be aboard such a fine vessel on such an auspicious occasion, commanded by such a man of the sea as yourself.'
Coxon sniffed at the dredge of a vagrant that stood pale before him. 'How came you by that jaw, sailor?' he asked directly.
'Well now, that would be in service to our good Queen Anne, no doubt on one of those fine mornings I would have shared with your good self some time ago. A world away it seems to me now, but it has never left me with a fear of the shot, Captain, if that be what troubles you.'
'Get below, man. And as for your jaw, you have that in common with Commodore Rogers himself. You are in good company.'
'Aye, Cap'n, fair sailing to us all back to the Caribbee.' The man tipped the cock of his burgundy tricorne to Coxon and sifted past.
'You have been to the islands before, then, sailor?' Coxon was now talking to the back of what had once been a fine brown twill coat. The coat turned round.
'Aye, Cap'n. Once or twice, to be sure.' He winked, then moved again to the companionway aft.
Coxon bellowed then, galled by the wink, stopping the sail hands in the yards above, their sail needles frozen in mid- stitch.
'You will remove that gentleman's hat, sailor!' he snarled, and the sailor turned, the burgundy hat now humbly in his hands, and bowed meekly.
Coxon's voice boomed again, 'It be straw or Monmouth wool for the hands on this deck, sir! You will stow that headpiece till I deem you worthy to go ashore!'
'Aye, Cap'n.' He promptly tugged his coarse blond hair, his evil smile thankfully gone. 'Beg your pardon, Cap'n.' The sailor bowed again as he turned, folding his hat into an outer pocket, then carried on his path.
As soon as he was below, he placed the dark red hat tightly back upon his head. He took in the cold faces of his companions staring at him in the gloom, and swung his canvas bag to land somewhere amongst the tables.
'Morning, lads!' He beamed. 'I be Seth Toombs and pleased I be to meet you! Ain't it a fine day to be heading to Providence, now?'
And as he slapped the backs of his new crewmates, he almost forgot the dull throb that had haunted his jaw since the night Valentim Mendes had put a bullet through it.
He was sailing back. Back to the islands and his world. Home to seek the man who had stolen his ship and his crew and had left him for dead.
Back as happily as the dog, joyfully, to lap at his vomit.
* * *
Author's Note
Most of what you have just read (or are about to read if you have flicked to the back of the book) is true. Let me repeat that first part: most of what you have just read is true.
The story takes place in what history refers to as the twilight years of the Golden Age of Piracy, the first quarter of the eighteenth century. The great wars between the powers of Europe, the same wars that kick-started the Golden Age, have ended. With peace (albeit limited) comes the grabbing and stealing by the victors of the islands of the Antilles and whatever pieces of America they can lay their hands on.
Spurred on by the weakening of Spain's dominance of the Americas, a tide of immigrants from Scotland, Ireland and France begin to descend upon the New World in their thousands, instead of the dribble over the last fifty years of convicts, gentry and hopeful pilgrims. It was this explosion in immigration to the New World, and the trade it brought, that made it a haven for the pirates who came into being at the end of the wars.
Although pirates have existed wherever man has sailed, and still very much do exist, it is this period of Caribbean piracy that epitomises the pirate to the modern world. These sea-rovers are the inspiration for Patrick Devlin and his men.
This is not the place to elaborate on the history of piracy but I hope the unfamiliar reader has been intrigued to learn more. For those who are familiar, there are plenty of references dotted throughout the story that will generate knowing nods and hint at things to come. It is to you I am cocking a wink across the pages.
It was never my intention to write a manual of seamanship. Ultimately this is an adventure story and I wanted the sailing aspects of it to be as accessible as possible and not alienate readers. You can toss the book across the room for other reasons but hopefully not because you couldn't follow the action. However, for the authenticity police, it would make me feel better to highlight a couple of things before the letters come in.
The ships: at the time of the story the majority of ships were still helmed by whipstaff for the larger vessels and tiller for the smaller. The ship's wheel had been around for about ten years but was not in widespread use. The Lucy has both, of course, but it was for easing the image into the reader's mind that I gave both the Shadow and the Starling a classic wheel. Also, unlike modern sailing ships' wheels, which act in the same way as a car's steering, in the Age of Sail when the wheel went left, the ship went right, and when the cry 'Hard to larboard' rang out, it was an instruction to the helm to push the wheel to larboard (port) and thus the ship to starboard. Confusing, isn't it? Thus, for clarity, when our heroes yell out, 'Hard to larboard,' the ship will go left. Trust me. I won't even mention that most of the steering was managed by the sails, I promise.
Other than those indiscretions, most of what transpires is true, as I promised at the start of this note. I have been faithful to the weapons, the methods and the spirit of these men as I interpret them to be.
Once, it was believed to be a fanciful notion of the pirate biographers of the eighteenth century that these supposedly raging, drunken misanthropes had codes of honour and conduct with which they policed their democratic crews, until evidence began to surface that confirmed it. Even buried treasure, one of the most romantic pirate myths, is slowly being uncovered, thanks to deforestation, oil testing and holiday landscaping of the coastlines of Central and South America.
Devlin's gold is not buried, however. The gold deposit outlined in the story is fictional, but there is much circumstantial evidence throughout history to suppose that governments did hide great gold caches throughout the Americas to fund their various armies. The legends of these troves inspire treasure hunters to this day.
On that note, as I am sure you are wondering just how rich Patrick Devlin and his men now are, I can average it out that they sail away with the modern equivalent of eight hundred thousand pounds and change. But they won't stop there. Again, you have to trust me on that.
Mark Keating, May 2009
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
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