Cross of Fire

by Mark Keating

  ‘Captain,’ he said. ‘Who is this man to be beaten so?’

  Dandon looked around Kennedy to the pale swordsman. His escape had just begun. He tasted rum already rinsing away his blood.

  Coxon scowled.

  ‘You remember our lieutenant’s dream, Manvell? This thing is the measure of his nightmares. A friend to the pirate Devlin. Hold onto this one and Devlin will follow.’

  Dandon piped up. ‘Are you sure you should wish that on this fellow, Captain?’

  Coxon nodded to Kennedy again who wiped his mouth and the smirk off Dandon’s.

  Back and across, back and across, and the priest had to catch the chair from falling.

  Coxon took a step towards, let Dandon take a breath.

  ‘Where is he? Or would you rather I allow Walter a go on the priest?’

  Manvell had heard enough.

  ‘Captain! I insist to protest!’

  Coxon, hands still behind his back, watched Dandon leer through his bloodied lip then turned and put his shoulder against Manvell’s and spoke quietly to the wall.

  ‘Manvell, do not think that any of this is an art that I wish to employ. Or that I hold any familiarity with this fellow above my orders or position. But it is imperative—’ he felt Manvell’s shoulder shift and he pushed into it harder, ‘—imperative, sir, that no division is shown before these types!’

  ‘We condone torture, Captain?’

  ‘Mister Manvell. You should think more on what I have achieved for my orders. For our orders. Ogle and Herdman are still waiting on word for Roberts. Fattening themselves and buying dresses for their mistresses. Where are we? Where shall we be tomorrow? Everything I have done has brought only the pirate towards, furthering our cause and orders. We will be back in Portsmouth with Roberts and Devlin while Ogle is scratching for crumbs. How would your father-in-law measure you then?’

  He paused to gauge the weight of his words and saw only uncertainty.

  ‘You may disapprove, but none of this is against the grain. You should consider yourself fortunate that your career has thus far been so spared.’ He turned back to the priest.

  ‘Father. If you are so concerned about the fate of this man then give up what you know and I’ll release him.’

  Dandon spat blood.

  ‘Don’t. I’ll be his prisoner anyways.’

  Coxon came closer, gave the priest his finest captain’s voice.

  ‘So you know something? You are Portuguese, no? The diocese here is French. How many are you? Why are you with this man?’

  The priest brushed down his dusty robes.

  ‘There are five of us,’ he raised his head proudly. ‘We are on a path of God, Captain.’

  ‘Of God?’ Coxon said. ‘And what has that to do with pirates?’

  Dandon rolled his head. ‘Perhaps we wish to redeem ourselves, John. Like Walter here.’

  Coxon was beside him, stared down at his bloodied face and pushed Kennedy back.

  ‘Your redemption will come at the end of a rope. You have all assigned to it.’

  ‘And what have you assigned to, John?’

  ‘Do not use my name, pirate.’

  ‘In vain, John?’

  Coxon stepped back. The priest, Manvell and Kennedy all points of a triangle at him.

  ‘Manvell,’ he ordered. ‘The pirate will come with us to the ship. Leave the priest. We’ll get no answers here. And the pirate will have friends about.’

  Dandon showed no concern.

  ‘Have you not considered, John, that Devlin may have abandoned me long ago? That I am here on Bourbon under the charity of the church and the scrapings of my past associations? That I have no idea where Devlin may be? How I may be grateful that you at least will feed to save me from begging?’

  ‘You seem fat enough to me, Dandon. And I know Devlin’s loyalty. And you need to know some accuracies.’

  Dandon cocked his head and Coxon saw then how aged he seemed since The Island and at the same time wondered about his own face. He gave what he had, just enough to let Dandon consider that he knew more.

  ‘The Virgin of the Cape. Taken by the pirate Levasseur. Sought by Roberts and Devlin. Millions in gold. I came here after seeing John Leadstone. I know all of it.’ He watched Dandon’s face, saw the right questions.

  ‘So why do you need me if you know it?’

  ‘I have considered that I do not know where Devlin is to be. If I leave the priest, then Devlin will discover you gone when he returns, and I will not need to hunt. He will come. Come to find you.’ Coxon looked to the ceiling as if confirmation lay above. ‘I am sure of it.’

  ‘Perhaps you overestimate Patrick’s concern for my well-being, John.’

  Coxon unbolted the door, let Kennedy clear their way.

  ‘No, pirate. I know as well as you how much he values his associations.’ He gave a complicit look, as men share when caught out foolishly in a storm, strangers wet together on the road.

  ‘We are all lonely, Dandon. I’m sure Devlin is of the same mind once he knows that we are together.’ He put his hand out for Dandon to join him willingly.

  ‘What would he do without you?’

  Chapter Twenty

  A Bohemian left-locked pistol lay on the table in the great cabin of the Shadow. Smart pyrite flint was held in the lock with a fold of leather and screwed down tight. A ball of lead set in the octagonal barrel, partridge grain on top. A strip of cartridge paper rammed to hold the shot. Beside the pistol a box of ready-made loads to hang on the belt or across the back of the man who had spent his breakfast making up the box.

  He ate his eggs and bread and between bites made up his loads. He took a couple of inches of paper, rolled it into a tube, and wrapped it around the ball; the paper’s base end twisted tight.

  Taking another ball and a powder flask, ball on his palm, he poured the powder until it covered; best estimate for a quick load. Then, with his measuring ball removed, he tapped his hand of powder into the paper tube as careful as a country-house cook who could spare no flour.

  Once filled he twisted the other end and his cartridge was made. With one he could measure the others and before his plate was done he had twelve in the wood inserts of his hardened leather box.

  He had tools that could pour and measure for him but then his hands would not be blackened and smell, and the sounds would not be as sweet, the concentration of making not as soothing.

  The intricacies and pattern, the one-two-three of it, formed a catechism to recall when the fury came. The loading was good. It had method and ritual that base men do not understand. If you failed it would not be for want of preparation or ability. It would just be your time.

  If he fancied he would have the carpenter make him a dowel to measure his loads but as a pirate his gun often changed month to month and its bore just as much. But not this one. Not this one. He had kept this gun as much as he had kept the brown bucket-topped boots taken from a dying Frenchman years gone.

  In battle he could bite the paper – the ball with it and held in his mouth pour the powder and save a pinch of it for the frizzen pan. Then spit the ball down the barrel where the breech tapered to hold it, the paper rammed to sit and trap the shot. That was a fighting shot. But a luxurious charge for the first shot: partridge grain and mutton tallow with beeswax on top to keep the shot in all day and proofed against sea-water and running feet.

  If successful against a man the wax and paper when fired could just as likely set the cloth of the receiver on fire. He would fall to his back with a shot to his belly and try to pat out the flames as his blood sizzled.

  He had fixed a belt hanger to the wood, as he had seen gentlemen carry their pistols, but he prized its left lock over all. In the Marine Royale he had seen officers with left-locked pistols. The advantage seemed slight but enough, and on deck fights he had seen its worth.

  Any gentleman carried his sword for his right hand, the pistol for his left. With a right-locked pistol – the common designation – the gun
would sit near the sword in the belt, the lock facing out, to prevent snagging in the clothes or digging into the side all day. The right hand to go for it; the sword delayed. A clumsy circumstance. Or if set on the right for the left hand the wrist of the gun would have to be reversed before it could be cocked and fired, for the lock again could be hampered if set against the body.

  Devlin had a left-locked pistol for his left hand.

  Twice he had wrong-footed an officer by pulling his sword first when he spied they wore their pistol on their left. As expected, his opponent gallantly pulled sword also, before Devlin took out his pistol and shot them down while they tried to contort themselves to grab their own or just watched and waited. Either way Devlin gave them the shot and moved on.

  The hanger negated much of this. Officers, over time, came to hang the pistol on the belt, or holstered, but merchants and noblemen still preferred the bolstering of sword and pistol around the waist. And as for pirates, the pistols were their most prized possessions. Slings of ribbons or linen tied around brassed finger-guards or hoops screwed into the butt for leather lanyards. All to fire once and, instead of being dropped to the deck, kept about you, hung from belt or neck, the metal cap on the bottom of the gun more than decoration as you clubbed your way along a deck. Those beautiful fish and maiden’s faces crafted there were purely to shatter skulls.

  Patrick Devlin stood and hung the pistol to his low slung belt. He took an antler-hilted hanger from the wall and fed it through his simple looped frog, no scabbard. The plain knuckle bow was unobtrusive and could still break a jaw.

  He listened to the running of feet from the deck above, the echoing cry of ‘Deck there! Land, Land!’ coming from the other world amid the tops. He went back to the table, to the map where a cobweb of rhumb lines had caught a string of islands like so many flies. He had marked a cross south-west of one of the larger islands. Five days at seven knots, and calculated for his reckoning for when they had only dragged five.

  He reached the door before the knock and stepped out onto the deck and chided John Lawson back to his sails. Devlin did not need to be told anything. Yesterday flying insects had begun to appear crawling along the gunwales and, at his windows, one moth as big as his hand fluttered him awake. Gulls rested on the Shadow’s arms like rooks on a scarecrow’s. Dew had appeared on the wood and ropes at dawn.

  For a moment, the map still in his eye, he looked over the gunwales left and right as if the shores of Zanzibar and Sumatra were inches away, the actual world no more than the lines on the parchment. No sailor ever considered the world to be flat as a table. At sea he can feel the world turning beneath him, and him part of it, rolling with it, not sitting on it like everyone else and waiting for its storms to come towards. At sea you rode to them. Your world could change in an hour, and there, there off Devlin’s starboard bow, were the white breaking waters and the small black pyramid on the horizon that promised a substantial island, and that his world could – would – change in an hour. An hour not to his design. It was the Earth allowing.

  He pictured The Buzzard, Levasseur, alone with his treasure, his scant crew having already up and left with their share and him waiting to be rescued wearing a suit of gold. Or him gone too, some of his fortune buried and that would be the end of it or Roberts getting there first. Either circumstance would not be to the good.

  This island had been well-chosen. Levasseur had used Bourbon as his base, and the treasure ship had been taken at Bourbon. From Bourbon’s St Denis a direct course north would find it. A rule along the map from one to the other and the longitude only four minutes different, and since the longitude of Bourbon was known and the latitude between the islands mapped, Devlin stood on his sliver of wood in the Indian Ocean and knew exactly where he was. He could hold a hand across the deck and point to England. John Leadstone, Old Cracker, could look out of a window east across thousands of miles and see him now. To get back to Dandon they would only have to head south and keep to it. Aye, The Buzzard had chosen well. He could plot between Bourbon and this island drunk and with only the Southern cross. Had none thought of this before except the French pirate?

  Devlin took the three-draw telescope from the becket by the binnacle and checked once that the man aloft with the greater view was doing the same to look for wood and sail before approaching. The island lay under an hour away. Soon it would be close enough to see any ships against her green.

  Slow now. An orderly ship. Their greater number below deck, sail shortened and the guns set in the tops covered with blankets and sailcloth as if put there for drying. He let down the scope. They were alone on the sea. Peter Sam walked up from the main to him.

  ‘This be it?’ he said.

  Devlin said nothing, which was enough. Peter Sam followed his study of the sea. ‘So what are we to do?’

  ‘Get rich, Peter.’

  ‘We were rich.’

  ‘Then richer. And for the last time.’ Devlin became solemn then. ‘How are the lads? How do they settle for going against a pirate?’

  Peter Sam breathed deep. ‘A French pirate. Who gives a damn for that? But this one sailed with Hornigold and Cap’n England, Howell Davis and Taylor. Longer pirate than you, Cap’n.’ Peter Sam did not have to hold his tongue with Devlin and Devlin expected the same.

  ‘I was with Davis when he turned. When you were in Charles Town.’

  Peter Sam’s turn to say nothing, which was enough.

  ‘Ready a boat,’ Devlin said. ‘Bags to fetch water. Sack for fruit and a cradle for meat. A hunting party to shore. Me, you, Hugh Harris and the priest.’

  ‘A hunting party?’

  ‘Reason to be armed. Should we come across rogues that’s our reason for being there. Too many numbers would cause a start.’

  ‘I’ll load for a fight,’ Peter Sam affirmed and went down. Devlin went back to surveying the black pyramid now splitting into green peaks and an emerald skirt as they arrowed towards. He saw the shadow of the priest grow over the wood.

  ‘O’Neill,’ he said before the man could speak. ‘You best get changed. You’ll be coming ashore.’

  The priest rested on the gunwale beside him. None had told him to wait to be invited to climb to the quarterdeck. ‘Why should I disguise myself when I am coming with an honest request?’

  Devlin kept to the island. ‘And what request is that?’

  ‘I want only the cross. I wish the man no harm.’

  ‘Do you think he will just give it up? And do you think I am only coming to ferry you to your cross? I’m here for his gold.’

  ‘It is not his gold. It is not your gold.’

  ‘And is it the King of Porto’s gold is it? Did his hand cut it from the earth?’

  ‘It is beyond my interest, Captain. I want only the cross of wood within the cross.’

  ‘Then why set it in gold?’

  O’Neill stretched to watch a pod of dolphin boiling the water chasing fish.

  ‘It is for the peasants. They admire gold. I would settle for the wood.’

  ‘I could get my carpenter to cut something if you wish?’

  O’Neill ignored the flippancy. ‘If you want you could let me alone to petition Levasseur for the cross. If you think it beyond your interest?’

  Devlin could see a beach now, no ship.

  ‘A seven foot cross of gold? What part of that would not hold my interest?’

  ‘Its heart. I would judge you do not care for that.’

  ‘Judge now is it, priest? Your station has improved since we met.’ He went back to his study. ‘Go to Peter Sam. He’ll get you clothes to come ashore.’ He anticipated the holy response. ‘They’ll be suitably humble.’ He turned his back to the priest, his mind pretending interest in the helm, O’Neill’s company ended and he waited to hear the sandals descend.

  Devlin did not know the name of the man at the helm. So many men over the years. So many dead. His long-standers were Peter Sam, John Lawson, Robert Hartley, Hugh Harris, Dan Teague. Will Magnes had st
ayed in Madagascar; the Dutch were gone, all paid off with two thousand pounds in their account as agreed. This man was a black Spaniard from Tortuga. The Shadow had Porto blacks as well, smart slaves that had been taught to sail and work in the trades. In the merchants they were still slaves. As pirates they earned like the rest, although most pirates paid them less, but at least paid, and at least allowed them the option to progress.

  It had shocked assizes all over the colonies and in England that they found themselves having to hang black pirate quartermasters and first mates. Now almost a third of pirate crews could be black, their rise coming exactly as the rise in the trade of flesh since the end of the war, when Europe was granted that which had once been exclusively Spanish. The reluctance of people to be slaves over pirates baffled only the minds of the richest. Devlin had found it to be a consequence of the New World. The blacks were destined to become pirates. In their homeland they would have been slaves for honour, for debt, for war. In the New World they were mere chattel.

  And Devlin knew something of that.

  He had lived in a world where everything rotten or cheap or badly done was preceded by the word ‘Irish’. Even on his ship the salted meat was ‘Irish horse’, the ragged oakum or hanging sheets ‘Irish pennants’. He had signed on his blacks exactly as any other man, and anyone who objected was always free to make their case to him on land, by pistol or sword, as they chose. And that was always the end of the matter.

  He nodded to the man and then returned his concentration to the sea. The island now stretched out before them, and another, smaller island surfaced at their head, white ribbons of water all around.

  Devlin went to the taffrail, leant back on the wood to take in the expanse of sail and sky above and see as much of the island as he could. Wide canvas and blue skies, a sight to warm cold nights when old bones came.

  He saw John Lawson swinging the lead from the chains to sound, but judging from the breaking waters the Shadow’s three hundred and fifty tons was at her limit. Anchor here and row in, as surely Levasseur had done. And again the question: