by Mark Keating
Then there was the task to come. An adventure to free Peter Sam, a return to the Caribbean, to the heart of the world, rather than hiding like rats in the still heat and fat of Madagascar. Devlin had a chance to redeem himself in the eyes of the man who had come to save him on The Island. A settling of debts. An adventure.
But others sought payments of debts too. Debts that a captain’s servant did not have to face a year ago. The Porto governor, Valentim, was out for revenge, and rightly so. Coxon too, represented a score unresolved and was sitting in Providence awaiting him with a man-of-war. Then there was Ignatius, a black-suited spider picking at the carcasses of flies such as Devlin and Blackbeard, as the world closed in around them.
He needed a plan. He had to seek some advantage over them all. If his clock was winding down and the key was lost he would have to fashion a new one.
What had Dandon said about Ignatius? He is like all the well-born and wealthy, believing ignorance to be the common man’s contribution to the world.
‘He knows our history,’ he had also said. ‘But he does not know us.’
Devlin stared out over the stern to the still horizon and drank slowly from his cup. Then grimaced at the liquid as though it were poison and tossed it into the sea. Drink would not help. His head had to be as strong as his limbs.
The morning would bring them to Dead Man’s Chest. Then on to Providence, the north and danger. There was blood in his future.
The light wind whispered through the shrouds, purring to him, the laughter from the cabin below assuring him of nothing. He stroked his neck as a chill came upon it.
He went for his pipe to spend ten minutes lost in the Brazilian tobacco. His face flashed in the dark from the three strikes from his tinder box. Devlin had spent his last peaceful day in the world, of this he was sure, and his peace would end with the final draw of his pipe.
From the morrow, it would be the beginning of the end.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Dead Man
Somewhere, some would say nowhere, between Exuma and Crooked Island, amongst the three-hundred mile string of pearls that spanned north from the Caicos, lay a nine-acre cay of sand and trees almost invisible to spyglass until it came up and bit your keel.
Favoured by fishermen and their dories as a place to rest a night during extended cruises, it boasted a long wooden smoke-house yards from the beach and nothing more.
The hut itself told no-one who built it, and even the descendants of the Indians and the old French filibusters and buccaneers with all their shuddering tales could not spin a yarn long enough to reach the origins of the empty hut.
For the pirates it was an ample landing to careen a small vessel far from curious eyes and, to them, the name was enough to justify their presence.
Dead Man’s Chest.
But Devlin did not come to careen. He brought in all fifteen Talefans in both boats, along with five of his own men, and landed on the green and yellow smudge that appeared along the centre fold of a page in his waggoner.
The men of the Talefan did not welcome the plan of waiting on the island for Bill and the Shadow to float by. But neither were they too willing to sail into Providence on a pirate ship after such recent changes in government.
They would take their chances with the firkin of small-beer and the barrel of beef and sauerkraut, all afforded them from Charles Town, and wait for the Shadow. A peaceful few days of fishing and eyelids closed.
John Watson issued two firearms to them, the ‘snaps’ removed until Devlin’s men were away. The guns were muskets, not for hunting, unless they felt good enough to target sea-birds; more for chance encounters with birds of darker plumage.
He also left a belly-box of cartridges, a powder flask for fire, and sailcloth and bamboo for tents should the ghosts of the smoke-house not allow them to stay beneath their roof.
Devlin gave each a single Louis for their time aboard and his signature for another from Black Bill in the instruction they were to give to him.
They would not wait long, he swore. Devlin, when the course was plotted on the day Peter Sam had gone from them, shook hands across the chart with Bill to meet on the desolate spit of land, the first arrival to wait for the other.
Here, however, Bill would not find Devlin but fifteen men he had never met holding Devlin’s signature.
This place, this desert in the ocean, was to have been a fond reunion for them all. They were to consort here, drinking to their brotherhood, before sailing on to Providence to gather up more of their gold from Sarah’s chambers that she guarded far better than she had her maidenhead.
Instead, Bill would read the cold words of his captain and ruminate on their implication, stroking his beard and tightening his fist around his hanger as he gleant the fate of them all should he fail. He would fold and pocket the parchment carefully. In it Devlin marked him as a friend and Black Bill Vernon had never before counted a man as such. He would keep that note, keep it for the rest of his days and show anyone who disbelieved that he had once known the pirate Devlin and that he had signed his name as a friend. Aye, that would be worth a glass or two. More so if the letter’s prophetic tone came to pass.
The day began well enough. Three hands spent the dawn, whilst Talefan was at anchor, sitting out an hour or two in the jolly-boat, fishing for albacore and relishing the cool of the morning as well as the time alone and away from the redolence of below-deck.
Proudly they sang themselves back aboard with their seven silver rewards. The skeleton crew awoke to the aroma of eggs, rice and the glorious fish, their flavours made finer still by the boiling black coffee and sweet rum that rinsed the bones from their teeth. Before noon, before Devlin would take his latitude, the fifteen remaining crew were assigned their quarters for the day.
Eight men were on gun duty, should any play commence. The larboard four cannons were loaded with chain for heading north with the trade winds behind, the larboard would be the lee and where Devlin would place a ship to receive a shattering and steal her wind.
The starboard sakers were fed partridge shot, bags of small grape that would scythe across the deck and make men tough as oak howl like newborns.
Talefan ran for the most under topsails and courses. Her beauty came, like a butterfly unfolding for the first time, in the running of her lateen fore and aft staysails when she could sail head into the wind and turn on a pebble beneath her keel.
From any Christian shore such a sight could warm the heart of the most land-locked old soul and provoke the lament, as he watched the gliding white swan with her gleaming triangular sails running from fore to aft, that it was now too late for your old frame to go to sea.
With such a short crew the sails were tied loose, brailed to be dropped from the deck. It would take two men two minutes to get a fighting sail underway; fine for a calm Caribbean sea but disastrous in anything heavier.
Devlin, who had worked on fishing sloops around Brittany, sailed with the Marine Royale out of St Malo and spent years under John Coxon’s able gaze, knew a good ship when he felt one. For all the Shadow’s power and miles of rigging she ploughed through the water like a lame ox compared to the ballet that the Talefan performed.
She would be the one that back-boned his rambling seadog tales beside the fire-sides of old age, that much he was sure of. It was always the little ship that stayed.
He was wrenched from his daydreaming by the sudden bellow of the straw-hatted pirate sixty feet up the main-mast.
‘Sailho! Sail-ho!’ Then, without a prompt, ‘Two points off larboard beam!’
All heads turned to the sea across the gunwale between the shrouds. Two leagues away to larboard, bearing east-northeast, appeared the white sails and boiling foam of a sloop powering along, quartering large.
Dandon appeared from out of the small arched door of the cabin. He stretched from slumber and slapped the salt off his hat, looked first at the crowd of arched necks by the bulwark then instinctively up and behind to the quarterdeck wher
e Devlin, in a billowing white shirt, held out his spyglass like a musket aimed straight for the strange sail.
He was silent and rigid in that odd pose of study. Dandon stepped up to the deck, quietly, so as not to disturb his captain in his surmise of the small ship bearing on a course to meet their own. He waited until the telescope was lowered.
‘What is it, Patrick?’ he asked.
‘A sloop. Ten minions. Two more than us any rate.’
The Talefan was reaching, the wind to her starboard quarter, flying along under staysails, heading north-northwest on a direct bearing to the stranger. Devlin had only minutes to ponder how the next hour was to play out.
He looked at the stanchion beside him along the rail. There was a breech-loading falconet for a swivel, but it was the only thing they had if it came to a close.
‘Then we should hold up?’ Dandon queried. ‘Let her pass?’
‘She’s a trader. We could close for news.’ His voice was curt. His mood sullen. He turned to John Watson at the tiller. ‘What make you, John? She’s coming right for our bow.’
Watson pulled out his pipe and stared one-eyed into the bowl as if to scry an answer from the leaf within. The quarterdeck had filled with more bodies all wishing to hear the order spoken, their minds already set.
Watson looked out to the ship. ‘No colours, Cap’n. Then neither have we.’
There was nothing unusual in that. Most ships apart from men-of-war sailed silent until one closed for news or bartering. ‘If she’s laden she’s moving fast. Probably has no more men than we.’
Devlin grew warm with the press of bodies around him waiting for the word. The decision was no longer his: the fate of a pirate captain was to be bolder than his men, and love was earned with blood.
But Devlin had a destination – a destination that would need a healthy crew and ship. Then again, if it were a trader, she would most likely buckle at the first shot and the sight of their grinning flag.
The faces of his men said the rest of it. They had been almost two months without a ‘vapour’. Like Greek warriors without a battle. Bottled up hornets scratching at their glass tomb. They sweated on his quarterdeck like gasping drunks and waited for their captain. He swept his rakish grin at them all.
Then a hoarse declaration from above plucked all responsibility from his shoulders.
‘Red flag! Blood from her bow! Blood from her bow!’
All heads swung to the sloop. Hurriedly hung from the bowsprit, the barefooted soul who pulled it still inching his way back to the deck, fluttered the square red flag. The flag of no quarter. No mercy. And, to underline the intention, a single salvo of powder from the first starboard minion wafted on the wind.
Devlin gripped the rail, looked to the ship, an uncommon blood rising over his judgement.
‘Dandon. Fetch me my hat, my coat. And a bottle.’
Dandon moved to comply as a roar broke and feet beat to their stations without another word. Devlin called after them, pushing them forward.
‘This one’s for Peter Sam, boys! We’re plucking a crow before we get to Providence! Show the King the blood on our linen!’
The uneasy feeling that had prickled on the back of his neck was wiped away as the cheer echoed back. The sea seemed faster, coursing along, keeping pace with the blood thumping in his veins. The deck was empty again save for John Watson, the cooper turned quartermaster. Devlin slapped his shoulder.
‘Fill a hawser coil with shot, John. Canisters on deck. Take a man to bring up a tub from the scuttle. Linstocks are yours. Don’t let me down now, John.’
Watson tapped his forehead and chuckled away down the steps. Devlin was riled at the arrogance of the red flag. If it were a pirate or a chancing privateer he would soon know the error of his ways. He too had a flag, darker than the blood to be.
‘Fletcher!’ he yelled fore to the skinny navy deserter. ‘Take it to the bowsprit, Sam! Show them who we are! Open the weapons! Six men in the rigging with musket! Riddle their deck and send them to quarters! They’ll be sorry their fathers met their mothers, by God!’
The coat and hat of a despondent Dandon appeared.
‘This is folly, Patrick. There is the gold to consider and the letters that will save Peter. You should think on.’
Devlin shrugged on his twill coat and planted his tricorne. ‘There are men’s hearts to consider, Dandon. You can aspire to be my conscience but I am theirs. If I am to carry these men into Providence, better they be lean than tallow fat. I can spare an hour.’
‘Only an hour?’ Dandon passed Devlin the bottle after sloshing a swig himself. He made a distance from his captain watching the closing of the other ship. He disliked carrying any weapon save for the tongue in his head. This was a day in August. A year and more since he had tucked a pistol in his belt. He begrudged the weight upon his body and his soul.
‘The tribulations I endure for drink,’ he sighed and trudged to the weapons locker by the coop.
‘Dandon!’ Devlin called and Dandon looked back. Devlin was recalling the conversation in Ignatius’s study when Dandon’s past had almost come into the light. ‘Just what is your real name, mon frère?’
Dandon fingered his moustache and showed his gold capped teeth. ‘I will graciously let you know in an hour, mon Capitaine.’
Devlin grinned and tossed back the bottle.
Chapter Twenty-three
Howell Davis passed the glass to Seth Toombs across the quarterdeck. ‘A brig,’ he noted to his captain. ‘Rigged square and lateen. Fast as rain if she wants. Eight guns. I count about a dozen men. We be across her bows in half a glass.’
Seth took the spyglass and whisked it along the sleek brig.
‘Five hundred yards for blank range,’ Toombs pointed out the limit of their guns. ‘She’s still coming. Even after we showed our colours. Bold bastard. She should be furled by now.’
‘Maybe she thinks she can outrun us,’ Howell offered.
‘She could try. If she gets ahead we’ll cross her stern. Rake her arse. Larboard guns with double shot. We’ll cross her at two-hundred yards.’
‘Mind, Seth, we’ve only the muskets we were to sell to the Spanish. No pistols at all other than Finch’s two. And one cutlass to two men.’
‘Howell,’ Toombs blinked at the ignorance of his new mate. ‘We take this merchant sot and have the makings of a convoy. A consort. Tender. Men. That’s what it’s about. Trust in me. Every man has his own gully to put to a throat. We’ve axes too and pikes and pins aplenty. That’s the way of it!’ He elbowed Howell merrily before the coldness of his eye was drawn to the black square off the bowsprit aside them.
He raised the spyglass to the black ensign at the bow. Perhaps he had been hasty in his action. Perhaps this was a brother. A consort to a larger brethren. A path to follow rather than lead, or turn tiller against and sail on.
He gave study to the black flag and felt his heartbeat slow. Through the mist of the glass he saw the skull above the crossed pistols and recognised the handiwork of the widow on Providence, plain and morose. A blank soul of a death’s head set in a crude compass rose with two bony pistols beneath.
Even without the glass, Howell Davis could see the black cloth.
‘She’s a pirate!’ he yelled. All the crew turned to his voice, then to the brig and each other.
Sighting through the glass, Seth agreed. Although he had never travelled so himself, and knew no good fortune to come of it, there was something to be said in joining up for a short time with a fellow pirate. He almost snapped the scope in the frustration that the first damn ship that crossed his bow would be a pirate, of all the hundreds that streamed these waters as prolific as the cod in his old Newfoundland home.
‘Don’t reckon on his flag,’ was all he could vent himself to say but already he had resigned to simply hailing the ship and drinking well into the night with a fellow captain if it had not been for the young Porto sailor fairly bouncing out of his skin to grab Toombs’s attention.
He shrugged the grasping hand aside to study the ship more. The young man pressed on with his scant but highly effective English.
‘Devlin!’ he cried to Seth’s ear from a few feet below. Toombs lowered the scope and swivelled to the young Porto, now crossing his arms and using his fingers as pistols. Sucking in his cheeks for a comical skull rendition.
‘Devlin!’ he repeated, stabbing to the flag across the waves. ‘Devlin’s Sombra, Capitao. Si.’
Toombs looked hard into the young dark face. ‘You sure, Porto? That be Devlin’s flag?’
The youth again repeated his skull-face, rolling his eyes upward with his crossed pistol fingers. Holding the pose until Seth slapped him out of it.
‘Well, that changes the whole party somewhat …’ he trailed off, bringing the scope up again to spy along the deck of the opposing ship. ‘Changes it quite a bit I dare say.’
Howell Davis looked to the rising and diving brig, now a pirate champion in his eyes.
‘Ain’t it wrong Seth, to go against one of our own?’ Howell queried, unsure of the rules, only sure of his own ambition and the clarity of his destiny when he held a pistol to Captain Finch’s face.
Toombs glared round to his new quartermaster. ‘Is it wrong, Howell, to have this done for me?’ He accentuated his snarl and his white wound. ‘To pay for a woman all me life?’ He struck a hand out to the bucking brig.
‘Be that consort or the man himself, he took my face as sure as eggs is eggs and my crew along with it! That ain’t no brother, Howell, that’s a cow’s son who ain’t got no brother along the coast. And don’t forget the tale of the gold that should have been mine – and now yours, I ain’t forgot. That ship is the key to the lock and we’ve lucked upon it with all the luck that I sang about!’ He spun away from Howell Davis and leered to the lads below.