Cross of Fire (22 page)

Thomas Howard had joined him silently and had ignored the jump of his senior officer at his voice.

‘You were asleep when we entered the Agulhas current. That is where one leaves the Atlantic. One can see the hemispheres meet as the water becomes . . .
this
.’

He enjoyed the sight with Manvell, envious that this was not his first time but warmed to share another’s.

‘The hue of it!’ Manvell gasped. ‘How so, such a sea?’

Howard looked out over the miles. Here and there a large shape on the water like black oil. Reefs and shoals seeking keels.

‘I am told it is a higher salinity and an abundance of smaller life such as the whales consume. It is a warm current coming towards us. It will be slow here . . . but to look at it shouldn’t that be the way? Our
Standard
with her dirty legs sullies it, do you not think? A brown scar across it.’

‘Men being here sullies it.’

‘Aye,’ Howard agreed. ‘That too. The pirates worst of all.’

Manvell moved away from the blinding panorama over the sea and studied Howard. Had he brought up the pirates for further discussion?

It had been weeks since their captain had taken them back up the coast instead of on to the Comoros and their official path. Back to Leone to chase phantoms of his past. Coxon and the pirate, Kennedy, had gone ashore alone and Kennedy had come back with bloodied hands. At dinner that evening Coxon had eaten heartily while Manvell could only see his meat swimming in the blood from Kennedy’s fists as Coxon updated their orders, not requiring consent. The sail back and into the Indian had been long and even with Manvell and Howard sleeping just feet apart they had discussed nothing outside the workings of their watches and designations of their quarter-bills. Howard’s nightmares grew more frequent and Manvell found them almost necessary for himself to fall asleep to, so used to them he had become.

Manvell shook the thought of pirates away and pointed to one of the men with the black eyes. ‘Why do they wear those?’

Howard followed his hand. ‘Ah. Yes. You may have noticed, sir, that the water and the deck is very much like staring at the sun. Ashes and grease. Keeps the glare down and prevents burning. I wish I could do it.’

‘They look mean to be sure.’

‘They look like pirates.’

The word again. Manvell took a breath.

‘What say you on this Devlin business, Mister Howard? You are close to the captain.’

Howard looked straight ahead. ‘Is that a question from the
Standard
, sir?’

‘No, Thomas. Just from me.’

‘In that case, sir, I see no diversion or concern. We are on course to meet with captains Ogle and Herdman as per orders. The pirate Devlin is part of the order to go after Roberts. The captain has gained intelligence on Devlin. Once we meet with Ogle and Herdman I’m sure we will compare and adjust.’

‘To go after Roberts? That is the greater order is it not? Would you not agree?’

Howard stopped looking forward.

‘The captain will do what is best, sir. I know that because I am alive to say it.’ He tapped his hat and Manvell saw the hot flush on his face. ‘Will you excuse me, sir?’

‘I meant no offence, Thomas. The captain has not told me what occurred at Leone. I only saw that man, that pirate Kennedy stained with blood.’

‘Will you excuse me, sir?’ Howard repeated, his youth suddenly gone.

‘You may go, Mister Howard. I am to the quarterdeck to await the
Standard
,
’ Manvell used the regulation term for the captain, as Howard had done to him. ‘But I hope you will assist me at dinner when I ask the
Standard
directly what happened and what he intends.’

Howard dipped his chin.

‘I will follow my orders and adhere to my duty, sir.’

‘I expect no less, Lieutenant. I just want to know if the next time the
Standard
goes ashore will he bring one of us . . . or the pirate again? Do you not think it strange that the man has no duties, eats with the cook, is separate from all of us except the captain?’

Howard spoke low for prying ears. ‘Pirates have a way of wooing men’s ears. It is best to keep him away.’

‘Even from us? Can we be wooed?’

Howard touched his hat again and backed away.

‘I think something is wooing you even now, sir.’ Howard span away, fore to the fo’c’sle.

Manvell watched him leave then walked along the skid beams to the quarterdeck. Two of his next four hours would be spent with the captain. Then later, at dinner, or supper as his inn-keeper father preferred it, ask Coxon what he had learnt at Leone. Howard had been primed a little to expect a difficult conversation. Perhaps a word to the doctor or the master. If the table all had an interest Coxon could not refuse without discord.

He looked at the intensity of the colourful new world that he had awoken into. It seemed impossible that night could ever come to extinguish such light and his impatience to be at dinner would not help its snuffing.

From the quarterdeck companion-way he paused and looked back over the deck at the black eyes. Maybe it was easy to woo these men who already resembled pirates. If the captain could raise huzzahs out of them with talk of treasure and prizes why not one of their own?

He stepped up and greeted Master Jenkins and the timoneer. Below them at the belfry the cord was pulled and the bell rang eight times, the glass turned on the final tang and a hand held the bell to cut the peal dead. The day begun. Manvell took out his log and called for the backstaff. He would forget about dinner for now. His concentration went to the small inked numbers and the lines of the earth. No room in his equations for the mundane.

He saw the top of Coxon’s hat come from beneath the quarterdeck and bark to some slackens and his heart raced.

He fixed to his charts, his head down to yesterday’s position. He would wait until dinner, when he had the company of others. Keep his conversation ordered, aware as any that a captain’s instincts and consciousness of his ship were mystical powers.

He prepared the backstaff, the Davis quadrant, held it in front of his face looking for faults, and used its frame to hide the body coming up the stair. He convinced himself that it was nothing to do with doubt and all to do with that own instinct nurturing inside of him for the future, for the time when he commanded his own ship.

He felt the body and the shadow fall over his chart.

‘Mister Manvell?’ Coxon beamed with the day.

‘Yes, Captain?’ Manvell showed too many teeth.

‘We are entering into pirate waters. The clouds on our starboard horizon are Madagascar.’

‘And we have the Comoros a day afore our bows. Although the four islands—’ the backstaff almost slipped from his sweaty hands and he danced with it ‘—will be new to me.’

Coxon patted his back. ‘To your readings Manvell. Between thirty-six and thirty-eight degrees will gain us the highest westerly.’ He turned and walked to the taffrail. ‘And Manvell?’

‘Yes, Captain?’

‘There is something I need to talk to you about over dinner, or supper as your father and mine would prefer. Make sure no officer is absent.’

Manvell dropped the backstaff with a clang impossible for an instrument of wood. He had thought of his father, the word “supper”, and Coxon had heard his thoughts. He momentarily dreaded that Coxon might also have kenned his other notions and was slyly letting him know. For the powers of captains were ever mysterious.

‘Of course, Captain.’ He scrambled the wood up into his arms and made his way to the chains for his reading.

Chapter Sixteen

A thin supper on the
Standard
. Suffolk cheese and biscuit for the crew – the cheese harder than the biscuit – and a pease and rice stew. Victualling would be done at Anjouan where the
Swallow
and
Weymouth
waited. The stores were not low, the victualling was just a precaution against the unknown should Anjouan prove troublesome and they had to head west to Mozambique’s forts. Three hours were allotted to feed the messes of the
Standard
, four men to each mess, the officers not dining until done.

It was seven o’clock before Coxon’s table was prepared. The Suffolk cheese could keep for months, skimmed of all its cream, and the officers shaved it rather than sliced it onto their tack. They had meat at least, braised in gravy, and suet pudding and actually the leftovers from the crew’s lunch. Tomorrow’s salt beef was already steeping to make it edible.

The same hands at table as every night, like the hand-clapping chorus of a nursery rhyme.

The doctor, the master, the captain and his boys,

Sitting all together like Christmas toys.

Except that Manvell and Howard were hardly boys. Howard, at twenty-one, was in his seventh year, Manvell the same length of service but older. If he did not make captain or master and commander in four years his commission would be languishing, a warrant officer to a ship yet to be built, or the merchant service for him if it went for the worst, and that might all depend if his wife Alice had a successful birth.

It was impossible for him to tell how he would accept another still-birth. Sure in his love for Alice, unsure of his faith in himself and God, and what lesson he was to take from His plan for him. And there was Alice’s father, the duke.

With Manvell at sea for months on end, his letters were only written on the wind. Polite questions of health, affirmations of constancy, no reply expected for months. What words were spoken in his absence, what sighs about the man who could only father loose children that fell from perfect aristocratic wombs?

‘Your thoughts are not with us, Mister Manvell?’ Coxon angled his voice from the side of his mouth that was not masticating on hide.

Manvell put down his cutlery.

‘No, Captain. My apologies, sir. However,’ he caught Howard’s glare from across the table and turned away from it like a blinkered horse.

‘I am, I assure the
Standard
, concentrating on our mission at hand and considering your word this afternoon to address us, Captain.’

Coxon succeeded in swallowing the wood in his mouth. ‘Quite so, Lieutenant. I’m well aware that there may be some concern about our task. Particularly in light of Kennedy’s involvement.’

‘Not at all, Captain,’ Manvell said. ‘We are behind the
Standard,
one and all.’

‘I am glad to hear it. Especially as events now lead me to adapt our orders.’

The table stopped eating. Master Jenkins leant an ear forward; he was the furthest from Coxon and may have misheard, he hoped.

‘Change our orders, Captain?’

‘
Adapt
, Mister Jenkins. I thought it prudent to wait until we were at least in the right sea to announce.’