Cross of Fire (29 page)

Devlin’s cutlass prised Peter Sam away.

‘I trusted that you were privy first-hand. What if Roberts has been here?’ He put the blade back to his belt. ‘What am I left with, priest?’

‘The Flaming Cross is here, Captain. On my oath! All the treasure here . . . somewhere.’

‘And how do you know?’

O’Neill pushed himself from the tree, wiped his face with his new white cuff.

‘I can
feel
it, Captain.’ He gave Devlin a fearless look. ‘As can you,’ he said. ‘Can you not?’

Devlin turned away, looked over the blue and saw yet more peaked islands where men could hide. Beyond their present the horizon displayed a line of grey from east to west.

Bad weather behind them or in their future, the sun’s heels clipped as it sank westerly into ominous cloud.

‘Night in two hours. We’ll camp down by the last waterfall. No fire on the beach. There may be eyes about. We’ll make a plan tomorrow.’

‘What about the ship?’ Peter Sam asked.

‘John Lawson has the ship,’ Devlin had already begun to walk. ‘Fire a musket at sundown and sunrise. I gave him to come if he does not hear.’

Devlin’s back vanished through the trees leaving O’Neill with pirates. Pirates that were not captains.

O’Neill understood his measure in their world, lowered his head and softened his body to be subjected to their pushes and shoves down the trail they had cut for him.

Night coming. The party seeing only jungle green not gold. But at least no objecting enemy. No life at all other than the small and giant reptiles and the winged and now the darker, shriller bats over their heads.

John Lawson on the
Shadow
lit his lanterns, waited for the musket shot that eventually came and signalled that all was well and that his captain had made camp, with rum his pillow as the planets wakened to glare down and laugh at the folly and greed that they had seen for thousands of years.

On the morrow then. On an unnamed island, a thousand miles from any named shore. Try to sleep with treasure promised; England’s schoolboys dreamt of the same with wooden swords beside their beds.

Sleep on treasure to come, a waterfall and the paradise sonnets of birds lilting in your ears. But sleep with an eye open.

Here be pirates.

Chapter Twenty-Two

It was the bosun’s chair to bring Dandon aboard, unable, tied as he was, to amble up the ladder to the entry port. At least they had made his passage easier by tying his hands to the front.

Thomas Howard watched the body swing over the deck and his face paled as he recognised the faded yellow justacorps and the gold-filled mouth. He turned his back as Dandon looked about, curious not apprehensive, and Coxon watched the young man gulp and steady himself against a rail.

Dandon was led to the hold, and there were strained necks and whispers as the crew wondered on their prisoner. Curses too, for this must surely mean that some deed had occurred on Bourbon that would put pay to any dalliance or victualling ashore.

Down and down again, dimmer with each stair, the stench from the sand and gravel ballast rising like a fish market, the palatable farmyard reek of the manger rolling from the fore. Coxon at the van of the party, Dandon following, then Manvell and lastly Kennedy, grinning all the way.

‘Such a pretty boat,’ Dandon said. ‘A real huckleberry, John!’

Coxon took him by the cord at his wrists; he half-dragged him to the manger away from the weighted and damp curtain that led to the magazine – Coxon best sure that pirates should be kept far from it.

He pulled the cord through a fairlead in the overhead, Dandon’s arms were painfully lifted above him.

‘Fetch manacles, Manvell,’ Coxon said as he whipped off Dandon’s hat and slung it away into the dark.

‘Captain?’ Manvell ducked forward. ‘Can we not take the man on his honour?’

Dandon preened at the lieutenant. ‘Quite right,’ he sang. ‘What he said, John.’

‘Are you suggesting parole for pirates, Lieutenant?’

‘No, sir,’ he said. ‘I apologise. His manner and cloth had made me forget.’ Manvell went back and Kennedy filled his place.

Dandon tested the cord and the forte of the metal ring sunk into the oak above. Solid. He was not going anywhere under his own strength but still he seemed indifferent. Besides, more than once he had coerced the strength of others, Dandon being able to bend wills easier than iron. If Coxon knew him better it would be his mouth he would bind.

‘A twin-decker, eh, John? You have done well.’

‘How do you think she’ll shine against the
Shadow
?’ Coxon swung away without waiting for a retort. Manvell had returned, the dreadful rattle of chain trying to leap from his arms, and Coxon took the black irons.

‘The men will be concerned about none to go ashore.’ Coxon kept his voice just for Manvell. ‘Go above, to both watches and assure them that we sail to Île de France for one day’s easing and victualling. That will calm well enough.’

‘Île de France? There is nothing there, Captain.’

‘It will suffice for water and hunting. We’ll leave as soon as able. Before night. Carry on, Mister Manvell.’

Manvell looked over to Dandon and down to Kennedy’s sneer.

‘Would you not wish my assistance further here, Captain?’

‘I “wish” you to carry on, Mister Manvell.’

Manvell tapped his forelock and backed away to the stair. Coxon came back to Dandon. He fed the chain of the manacles through his hands like a rosary; let the sound and sight of the iron sink in.

He shackled Dandon’s wrists over the cord so his hands still hung. Dandon tensed at the weight of the irons and shifted the ache now growing in his back and arms. Coxon let the leg-irons drop. Leave them for now. Show some compassion. Have something to punish further.

‘I do not relish this,’ he said. ‘But I do not need another pirate walking around on my ship.’

Kennedy saluted from the bulkhead.

‘Could you relish it less by lowering my hands some, John?’ Dandon shook the shackles.

‘Of course,’ Coxon stepped back. ‘But comfort is a reward. Perhaps the simplest reward. But earned nonetheless. And, of course, comfort comes with wine. For gentlemen.’

Kennedy giggled, pulled a gully-blade and slapped it in his palm.

Dandon cocked his head. ‘Why this imbecile with? What have you done to deserve him so, Captain John?’

Kennedy was unsure what the word meant but had come to learn that most things spoken about him were impugning.

‘Enough of that, dog!’ he wagged his knife. ‘Manners now!’

Coxon sat on a barrel and ignored Kennedy’s words. He watched Dandon sweating now; the humidity of the air outside boiling the customary stifled air of the lower decks and searing Dandon’s coat to his back. The removal of his hat only reminded how cool he would be without the coat also. Too late for the coat now, his hands being tied. He would have to be cut from it or talk and have his hands freed. All these things would count, Coxon knew. Count for information garnered. Men can proudly, willingly, take beatings beyond measure and never talk but sometimes a hole in a stocking rubbing against a heel for a few miles could break Hercules. He did not need to sweat and shout while Dandon’s back ached, while his coat grew heavier, while his sweat pooled around his clothes, while his throat parched.

Coxon ordered Kennedy to fetch him a cup of wine and waited until he had loped away to answer Dandon’s query.

‘I am surprised you ask about Kennedy, pirate. I would have thought Devlin would have mentioned him.’

Dandon shifted his back to ease his shoulders.

‘Why so? Who is he?’

Coxon feigned surprise. ‘Your captain never told of his reason for fleeing London?’ He gave Dandon a few moments to sift his memory.

‘There was a murder, I recall. Devlin ran from. To save himself from incrimination.’

‘He lived with a chain-maker. A man named Kennedy. And his son. A man who had generously taken him in. Found dead across his table with a knife in his chest. A man murdered and Patrick Devlin running for his life.’

‘And
this
Kennedy?’

‘His son. His son out for revenge. His son who will swear on a tomb of Bibles that Patrick Devlin is his father’s killer.’

Dandon heard Kennedy’s feet slapping back down the stair.

‘I would not believe that, John.’

‘But would you not think it possible? How holy has Devlin been since last?’

Dandon watched Kennedy reappear, pass Coxon his tin cup of wine and retire back to lounging against the bulkhead.

He tried to judge how he himself had been, the young assistant in Mobile, and how Devlin must have been a decade ago, before the pirate Devlin. Before the Bloody Pirate Devlin.

Devlin had been a killer the entire time of his association with Dandon. That came with his chosen path, and although Dandon had seen no enjoyment in it, the act had come strikingly natural to his friend.

He had an aptitude for it.

But Dandon had never thought about the time before Devlin had cast his lot.

Coxon watched his thoughts.

‘Walter would have been about sixteen at the time. Imagine the impression made on such an age? Your father killed afore you.’ He downed his cup, head back, let it waste down his chin and slammed it to the barrel with a gasp. ‘That’s good relief so it is!’ He wiped his lips. ‘It’ll be a warm evening to come I’ll say.’

Dandon looked at the tin cup. He could feel its cool touch, could taste the wine. He opened his mouth to speak but Coxon jumped on his tongue.

‘I only wish to know where Devlin has gone, pirate. Whether he has joined with Roberts or not. I would not see that as any great betrayal . . . if I were he. And he would expect me to establish that. Even without you, I’m sure. Have I not come this far? Would Devlin measure me less?’

Dandon hid his face against his hanging arms and Kennedy chuckled, resumed playing with his blade. Dandon tensed once again at his bonds, then hung and murmured into his sleeve.

Coxon leant in.

‘Your pardon? What did you say there?’

‘A
map
!’ Dandon spat. ‘A
map
! I will need a bloody map, will I not?
Damn you
!’

‘Mister Manvell?’ Thomas Howard almost ran into Manvell at the quarterdeck rail, Manvell returning from telling the watch at mess of the ship sailing before nightfall.

‘What is it, Thomas?’ He kept moving. ‘I have to speak to Mister Jenkins. We are leaving this place, apparently.’

Howard stayed to him. ‘That in part answers some of my question, but—’

Manvell cut him short, loath to answer the other parts of Howard’s enquiry; the subject not needing quadrant or rule to reckon.

‘Can this not wait for supper, Thomas? I have a whole ship to muster, as have you now.’