The Pirate Devlin (2 page)

  More words, pleading words, came babbling from him. At some hushed sound Devlin stopped and listened hard as the soft accent repeated itself.

  Devlin's hands clamped against the Frenchman's shoulders. Their eyes locked as he grabbed the Frenchman's shirt, pulling him up, Sam Fletcher flung aside.

  The Frenchman met his stare and almost smiled as he knew that this one at least understood his promise. Philippe Ducos nodded desperately to the serious, dark face and swore to God.

  Fletcher watched, perplexed, at the two almost embracing in some confidence. His simple grasp of humanity had noted that an oath of some kind had passed between the two, and all Fletcher knew of oaths was that the very next words from the desk would be '… and that will be half a guinea.'

  But the babbling Frog was still going on, and Peter had asked for the jacket, and Peter had asked for the death, and that bloody Frog was still going on and on and Patrick was listening to it, for Christ's sake. Enough.

  Fletcher stood back just far enough to pull his pistol clear and fire into the side of the Frenchman's skull, all three of them reeling from the shock of fire and blood, but only the Frenchman falling.

  The crows took to the air again, laughing over the wicked court of men, as the explosion ripped away Ducos s final pleas.

  Fletcher spat at the trembling corpse, the Frenchman still lisping some pointless utterance.

  Devlin could taste the bitter blood of the man on his lips from the spatter. Fletcher laughed as the Irishman wiped the blood away with the dead man's linen.

  He started to pull off the jacket, still maniacally chuckling at Devlin's bloodied face. Devlin cursed him as he knelt down and started to pull at the Frenchman's brown leather boots. The boots were old, probably the man's father's before him, but they were good.

  'What you doing, Pat?'

  'This Frog might have feet as big as mine, for a change. My shoes have had it. These'll do.'

  'Aye. Perhaps the stench will be better and all. What was all that Frog-talk he was jawing about? You get any of that, Pat?' Fletcher had freed the coat from the limp body and then fingered through the scant effects, not listening for an answer and missing entirely the slow movement Devlin had made to lay his hand to his pistol butt. He touched it, brushed the lock with his palm, then went back to hauling off the boots.

  'No. Just thought I might try. Seemed like he had something to say.'

  'Aye, well, teaches him for being a Frog, don't it? I'm having the tobacco tin. Peter said we could takes what we wants.' Then he added, 'But don't tell him, mate. You know what he's like. He'll have it himself and leave me the thimble.' Fletcher carried up the tunic and skipped away, burying the tin in his waistcoat.

  Sitting down, Devlin had put one boot on, and indeed they were as if made for him, despite the dampness of the blood that his stocking was soaking up.

  Pulling the other over his calf, he inched his eyes around the circle of trees. Fletcher had gone. He was alone with the dead.

  He felt into the leather. Sure enough, there was a folded parchment inside, just as Philippe Ducos had said there would be. Devlin allowed one finger to brush the paper, then pulled the rest of the boot on. He made a throwing motion, as if tossing a small pebble he had found inside. The only one to watch the act was the dead Philippe Ducos.

  Devlin stood and looked down at the Frenchman, who had sat huddled below deck with them for the past week. His shy separation from the crew had mirrored Devlin's own first days aboard. He thought of old man Kennedy, long dead now, telling him when he had first escaped to London from a foaming-mouthed magistrate in Ireland, never to give away too much about yourself, not for pride's sake: 'But for lest someone finds a reason to hang you for it, Patrick.'

  There had never been a reason to tell his new companions that he spoke French like a
corsaire,
after the murder of Kennedy had put him to his feet again and to the forts and coasts of Brittany to barely survive as a fisherman. Forced to learn from his coarse fellows, who laughed at his clumsy Irish vowels, then donning the Marine Roy ale tunic himself for a short time, before the protective wing of Captain Coxon had swept over him.

  Devlin absently checked the flint in his pistol, screwing it tighter, as he turned to take the long walk back to the shore.

  Philippe Ducos lay dead, his blood already matting hard on the grass and being inspected by tropical ants. Mosquitoes flew in and out of the crack in his head like escaping dreams.

  The book that was his short military life had closed with the snap of a pistol from a man who could not write his own name.

  The last of the crew of a French sloop that had delivered a fortune of the king's own gold to a secret island in the Caribbean now grew cold in the afternoon heat. The location of the gold remained nestled roughly in the boots that were now calmly striding away. The only sound in the small glade was from the busily curious insects gathering on the fallen Frenchman.

Chapter One

  Stepping from the damp closeness of the jungle to the blinding brightness of the beach took a moment of adjustment. Devlin shielded his eyes from the glare of the sand. He had been given no order other than to assure the death of the Frenchman, so he took the time to ponder the significance of the parchment hidden in the dead man's boots.

  He moved down to a rocky vantage along the edge of the jungle, every step reminding him of the folded secret rubbing against his calf.

  He sat on the volcanic outcrop and squinted out to sea. They had landed on the east of the island, which had provided them the best sounding, and now, as Devlin stared out, he could just make out the coast of Africa herself, stretching like a line of black ink drawn across the horizon, an enormous blanket of thunderous dark clouds threatening to swallow her. The archipelago the Frenchman had led them to was more than thirty leagues distant, yet as far as Devlin's gaze panned, his view was the dark shore of an enormous other world. He had never walked upon the land of nightmarish beasts and black backs that shouldered the wealth of the New World, but had seen the remnants of men who had found disease Africa's only promise. Still, what point a sailor, if home were all he craved?

  In the offing, the
Lucy
sat. A black-and-white two-mast brigantine. Square-rigged on the foremast, gaff-rigged on the main, with a full set of jibs and staysails for speed and agility. A young ship, fourteen years out of Chatham, although most of her spars and yards had been cannibalised from older souls. She had the extravagance of both capstan over windlass and wheel over tiller, and a quarterdeck that made every sloop of war look twice upon her.

  Eighty feet long with only eight six-pounders, she was a baby compared to the French and English frigates that Devlin was used to, but she could move as swiftly as running your finger across a map.

  Stern and bow, the pirates' stanchion mounted three pairs of swivel guns along the rails. These half-pound falconets, loaded with grape, could devastate an opposing crew, peppering the shrouds and decks, pulling at flesh like fish hooks. Two further six-pounders, one placed as a chaser, the other aft, peeped out of the
Lucy's
hull through crudely cut ports, but by far the pirates' most deadly weapons were the men themselves.

  Fully armed, weapons kept immaculately clean and dry through wax and tallow strip, each man was formidable with a musket; even Devlin, a poacher in his youth, an old matchlock his bedside companion, was denied a musket until he came up to their standard.

  In a 'surprisal' at sea, groups of them stood in the rigging, firing off rounds, as casually as shelling nuts, down into the prize, and every shot killed or maimed. Two shots could splice a sheet. Four could bring down a yard. Six men aloft were worth more than one twelve-pounder, and each man could fire three to the gun's pitiful one, his only pause to wipe the stinging powder from his red-rimmed eyes.

  The
Lucy.
Overmanned fit to bursting. The sheer numbers of men sealed most of their victories, with a merchant often shy to defend his trade against a comparative army of drunken, cursing maniacs bearing down upon him.

  To make room amongst the cramped decks, any spare bit of wood that was not necessary to float went overboard. Bulkheads were ripped out, cabins, doors and tables removed. Men slept on the open deck or close together below, often 'matelot' style, sharing hammocks and blankets and eating meals in the open air upon rugs and sailcloth. Such closeness mocked the fourteen inches allotted to a sailor upon a king's ship, and it was for the good of all that you got on with the man you slept, ate and fought beside. Ever since the old Tortuga buccaneers, this notion of brotherhood had marked the pirates' success. The 'Brethren of the Coast' both in name and most certainly in number.

  Out of Devlin's long waistcoat came a muslin bag of tobacco. He placed it on the rock, first checking for dampness. Taking his clay pipe from his pocket, he blew out any lint and filled it with the Virginian blend introduced to a drop of port some months before.

  Lifting his head to check for eyes upon him, aware that his mates could appear at any moment, Devlin pulled out the possession most prized before Philippe Ducos's gift.

  A small, narrow tube. Hardly four inches long. Silver. A laughing devil engraved on the top. At the slip of a thumbnail, the devil could be prised up to reveal a dozen narrow pinewood sticks coated in an awful-smelling substance.

  Inside the lid, a roughened glassy surface sparked the wood into life, and before Devlin had shaken out the flame and tossed the wood to the sea, the silver tube was back in his pocket. The tube was a gift from his former master from the
Noble,
John Coxon. At the time, Captain Coxon was dying of dysentery in Cape Coast Castle and was unaware of making the 'gift'.

  He sucked on his pipe, drawing it into life, avoiding the urge to study the paper that Ducos's fate had given him. From the Frenchman's final, desperate outburst he had only gathered the promise of a map to a king's fortune, guarded and hidden. A fortune in gold, stored as a stronghold for the French forces in the Antilles.

  Until he looked at the paper he would not know what hand it would deal him. But his worst fate would be to be found studying a map taken from a dead prisoner for some unknown personal gain. In his contemplation, his eyes had carried back out to sea. He noticed, reflective, amused, that his exhalations of smoke matched the crashing of the afternoon surf.

  'Did you not think that you should declare those boots to your quartermaster, then, Patrick?' He turned with a start to see Peter Sam standing by his side. The others were following across the white sand, William Magnes carrying a lifeless goat across his shoulders.

  Devlin cursed himself. He had not heard a distant shot to explain for the goat, and coming across the sand the party should have sounded like carts on cobblestones to his poacher's ears.

  Peter Sam, one eye closed against the glare of the sun, spied Devlin's new footwear. 'Pretty nice boots that Frenchman had, eh? Did you not want to share them?'

  Devlin's composure returned as five pairs of envious and greedy eyes, including Fletcher's, were turned to his boots.

  'Now be fair, Peter: we'd look pretty foolish wearing a boot between us.'

  All, apart from the fiery quartermaster, cackled in agreement, Fletcher, in his ignorance, the loudest.

  'Get that meat to the boat!' Peter Sam growled with his Bristol drawl through his red beard, glaring at them all as they grumbled past him. He turned back to Devlin.

  He had disliked Devlin from the moment they had relieved him from his duty aboard the
Noble.
Although clearly a servant, he had been unwilling to join his pirate rescuers who had so easily mauled the English sixth-rate. Now, Devlin sat before him, grinning behind his pipe, perched on a rock, blood speckled on his linen shirt, the boots in question similarly dappled.

  'Suppose I want those boots for myself, Patrick? And what else did you gets from that Frog?'

  'If you go back there' - Devlin indicated to the jungle with his pipe - 'you'll find a thimble, a flint and a broken pipe.' With a flourish he pulled out the handkerchief, also covered in blood. 'But you're welcome to this if you want, Peter.'

  Peter Sam leaned towards Devlin's face. 'I wouldn't mind trying those boots, Patrick.'

  Devlin dropped off the rock, his face levelled to Peter Sam's, and he passed a look up and down the brute. Unlike most of the crew, who wore the finest linen and waistcoats, albeit tallow- and pitch-stained, motley as harlequins, Peter Sam wore goat-leather breeches and a leather jerkin. Gracing his chest was a deadly bandoleer of cartouche boxes and generations of pistols holstered with leather straps. He was the image of an old-time
'boucanier.

  'I took these boots off a dead man. You'll have to do the same.' Devlin brushed past and walked to the boat, Peter Sum's eyes at his back.

  The row back to the
Lucy
was a quiet one. Thomas Deakins, the young lad whom Peter Sam had led away into the jungle, and never strayed far from, now wore Philippe Ducos's blue tunic.