Absolute Honour (9 page)

At last they were ready. ‘Gentlemen, I am an officer of the King. Will you follow me?’

‘Huzzah,’ came the cry, strong enough despite their gaol pallor.

Jack took the stairs two at a time and, as he emerged into the light, he bellowed, ‘For England!’

At first all he saw was chaos. Men fought everywhere, in every way; some locked together like old comrades well met,
beating at backs with pommels; others stood far apart, sword tips circling like flies in a sunbeam.

And then, drawn by the roars, the bodies, the red hair and blood, Jack saw his friend. He’d been isolated just before the
Robuste’s
poop deck, the numbers fighting there testifying it was the heart of the French defence. Three men dodged before him and
there must have been more, for bodies lay at his feet. In that brief moment, he could see the Irishman’s left-handed skill
with his sabre. The enemy were finding it hard to attack. He was steering one opponent into another, always to his own right,
guarded side, making their blows awkward. And yet, as he watched, he saw what Red Hugh, preoccupied, could not: a fourth man,
emerging from the aft cabin, a belaying pin raised above that wild red hair.

Jack’s attack had emerged onto the quarterdeck at the forecastle stair; he knew he was too far away to get there in time.
Unless …

The fight before him suddenly parted, like the sea before Moses. In a moment, there was passage forward. Half running, half
sliding – for the deck was slick with blood – he got as far as he could before the club reached the height from which Jack
knew it would descend. His sword went into his left hand, his right pulling the tomahawk from his belt. There was no time
to think. He could only do what Até had taught him to do during the long winter in the forest: brace, breathe, look and throw.

The blade took the man on the shoulder. He reeled away, lost again to the swirl of battle.

Jack noted then what his Irish comrade must already have seen: the
Robuste’s
resistance centred on that poop deck, where the white flag of the Bourbon flew. It was where the French had gathered in numbers
– and where those numbers were telling against what remained of the
Sweet Eliza’s
boarding party. ‘With me,’ called Jack, his sword lifted high. The
Constantine
’s crew followed him with a shout.

By the time Jack had cut his way there, Red Hugh’s opponents were down to two. ‘Heh,’ yelled Jack, stepping in, his own blade
circling to lift one of theirs. The man was surprised, stepping back to trip over the body of another with a tomahawk stuck
in his shoulder. Taking advantage, Red Hugh feinted high, cut low and slid the sabre blade across his man’s chest. With a
shriek he too fell backwards, joined the one who’d fallen before Jack, both kicking frantically to drive themselves into the
shelter of the poop cabin.

‘Jack!’ The Irishman’s smile was wide and wild, his beard redder for the blood that had streamed down his face from a cut
to his crown. ‘And where did you find these boyos?’

Suddenly, the numbers were even and the French were giving way under the onslaught.

‘Recruited ’em down below,’ gasped Jack. ‘Can you use ’em?’

‘I can, lad, and that now. For if we take this,’ he tapped his bloodied sabre on the poop deck, ‘we take the ship.’

Jack looked. Twin stairs led to the deck above. ‘Shall we?’ He gestured with his sword to the left.

Red Hugh waved to the right. ‘Last to their colour buys the first beer in Bristol?’

‘Agreed.’

Each turned. But Jack’s delay in bending to retrieve his tomahawk meant that men from the
Constantine,
their blood up, preceded him. Two died attempting the stair but two more forced their way up and Jack followed. He saw the
flagpole immediately through a swirl of bodies, the colour flapping. A glance right told him that the Irishman had chosen
the more congested route. There was a way open to Jack, carved by the men before him. He would be first to the pole! If he
could just get past the man who guarded it.

That man was dressed more gaudily than his crew, in a bright blue coat studded with silver decorations, a red silk
neckerchief at his throat and a tricorn upon his head. As he moved closer, Jack recognized him. It was the man he’d talked
with before the battle – and he had since donned the uniform of a captain.

Jack brought his sabre guard up to his lips in a swift salute.
‘Bonjour, mon capitaine.’

The man’s eyes fixed on Jack.
‘Ah, le soldat! Que désirezvous?’

It didn’t seem right to be speaking the enemy’s language. ‘Your ship, if you wouldn’t mind. I’ll trade you a piece of salt
cod for it.’

The Frenchman’s English obviously wasn’t too impoverished.
‘Merde,’
he said, reaching into his belt. He was cocking the pistol when Jack attacked, striking down hard, hitting the weapon’s barrel,
knocking the gun from his hand. The Frenchman’s sabre then struck at Jack’s left side. Parrying hard as he moved right, he
drove the captain’s blade against the bulwark, pinned it there, his other hand raising the retrieved tomahawk. The moment
he did, he felt the man’s grip on his sword slacken.

He could speak French again now.
‘C’est finis, monsieur.’

The Frenchman sighed.
‘Oui, c’est finis.’
He pulled his sword slowly back, threat no longer in it or in him. Reversing it, he held the grip out.
‘C’est finis,’
he said again, mournfully.

Jack pushed the tomahawk into his belt, took the proffered sword. Then he used it to slash at the ropes of the white flag
of France. It plunged down, to the cries of those still defending the deck, to the joy of those who had stormed it. The fighting
carried on in pockets for a moment, then even that, too, died. Men who had lately been trying to kill each other were suddenly
standing still, weapons lowering to the floor.

Jack reversed the sword again, offered it back.
‘Monsieur?’

The Captain reached forward, stumbling slightly. Grasping the hilt brought their faces close together. ‘Atchoo,’ he sneezed,
as he had during their earlier conversation.

‘Santé,’
said Jack, wiping the droplets from his face.

Hands were on him and cloth was being pulled over him. What kind? Of his many nightmares, the worst was of being sewn into
a canvas coffin.

He tried to lift his hands to hold it off, but they would not move. Then something hard was pressed to his mouth; liquid spilled
out. Beer, he thought, joyfully – until he tasted it. Water! Foul stuff! He never drank water. Fish fucked in it.
He
fucked in it, or had anyway, in Newport. He let it dribble out of his mouth.

‘You see, sir, he rejects it. Another sign that I am correct.’

Whose voice was that? Who was he addressing? Who else was there?

‘Let me up!’ Jack demanded, flapping at the hands on the cloth.

‘He stirs.’ A different voice came, one he recognized. It belonged to a friend.

Jack’s eyelids fluttered open. Men peered down at him. He knew them all. But the only one he could name was Red Hugh McClune.

‘And you’ll observe, there’s no yellow in his eyes. So it’s never Yellow Jack.’

‘And since when did you qualify as a surgeon, sir?’

That was it. The first man who’d spoken was the ship’s surgeon.

‘I am not one,’ Red Hugh smiled. ‘But did my father not die before I was born? In my country, any so orphaned are compensated
with a special gift for the cure of all fevers. Means I can recognize the grippe when I see it.’

Jack wasn’t certain he’d heard correctly. He’d been slightly deaf in his left ear ever since a French bullet had grazed it.
But the third man looking down had heard well enough.

‘Superstition!’ roared Captain Link. ‘You ask us to be ruled by … peasant fancies?’

The Irishman spoke softly. ‘Sir, you put an insult upon my country once before. I only let it pass because our needs pressed.
Now I warn you—’

‘And I warn you!’ Link’s jowls shaded a deeper purple as his voice rose. ‘I command here. I will not be threatened. And the
crew will not support you in this. They fear the contagion as much as we do. They held their meeting and agreed: all sick
from the
Eliza
and the prize to be put ashore in the Azores. There’s a hospital on Corvo.’

‘A plague pit, you mean, where every illness flourishes. Of a hundred men who enter those places with one disease, ninety
die of something else entirely.’

The surgeon waved at the bunk. ‘If this is not Yellow Jack, sir, then it is camp or gaol fever and we must be rid of him.’

Camp fever!
Though he had only partially followed the conversation so far, this was a term Jack understood. He had seen camp fever at
Quebec – hundreds of men in their tents, sweating, crying out, talking to the ghosts they were soon to join. Jack shivered,
suddenly as cold as he’d been over-heated before. ‘Bla … bla … blanket,’ he stuttered.

Red Hugh tucked one to his chin. ‘I tell you, yer man has the grippe, serious enough but never typhus. I’ve been in both camps
and gaols and know
that
contagion when I see it.
Those who have passed their crisis on the
Robuste,
and from the
Constantine,
are all recovering well.’

‘Aye, with over a third of both crews dead. I will not let it spread to mine.’

‘Your men are sick, Captain, whether they are showing it yet or no. Jack here is just the first of many.’

Of course. Jack remembered now, before the illness struck him, the skeletal English prisoners he’d led up from the hold, near
half of them now on the ocean floor, alongside the Captain of the
Robuste
and a good measure of his crew. It had transpired that they’d only tried to capture the
Sweet Eliza
to offload their dying. But even had they won, death would not be so cozened, it seemed.

‘And that’s why we will put him ashore.’

‘Will you not consider an alternative?’ the Irishman said.

‘Which is?’

‘Sail for Lisbon. ’Tis a fair city, not a plague island, where proper treatment can be had. Offload your sick into quarantine
and let the prize agents there handle the
Robuste.’

Link growled. ‘I told you, McClune, I am taking my prize to Bristol.’

‘Do not the regulations state that prizes should be dealt with at the nearest port?’

‘Damn your regulations, sir!’ Link glared. ‘The
Robuste’s
too valuable. I’ve been cheated by those jackals in Lisbon once before and will not be again.’

That’s right, Jack thought. They had a prize that had taken at least three other ships. Its holds were crammed. If it was
not a treasure ship, it was laden and rich enough.

Link continued, ‘So to Bristol we will return. The sick who recover will follow on as best they may – from Corvo.’

Red Hugh sighed, shaking his head. ‘I can see, Captain, that you are trying to claim back that Lieutenant’s share you so grudgingly
gave my young friend here. But as his representative, I cannot allow that to happen. And since I
rather thought this might be the way of it I have taken precautions. These are only the first of them.’

The Irishman had stepped away from the table. Jack had to look hard and then again to be sure. But it was true – pistols had
appeared in the man’s hands. He waved them. ‘You will be good enough to vacate this cabin.’

No sound came for a long moment, Link’s colour darkening still further. ‘You mutiny, sir?’

‘I do not. This is not your ship but the
Robuste,
which you would not have taken without yer man lying there. So I think he is entitled to rest in the Captain’s cabin.’

Link was apoplectic. ‘But I am the law aboard either ship.’

‘Silent enim leges inter arma.
I think that’s it. Cannot recall who that is. If our young friend here wasn’t delirious, he’d be able to tell us, being the
more recent classical scholar.’ He waved a muzzle to the door. ‘Now, gentlemen, if you please.’

The surgeon retreated smartly, Link slower and snarling. ‘By God, I’ll muster the men and have you out of here in moments.’

‘You are at liberty to try. But you might want to point something out to them.’ Jack watched Red Hugh lean away, heard a muzzle
clink on other metal. ‘As I said, pistols are just the first of my precautions. And since your men have seen the effect of
my little friends here,’ the tapping came again, ‘you could find them a wee bit reluctant to back ye.’

Any rejoinder Link might have made was cut off by the slamming of the door. Jack could hear his now muffled threats, his heavy
tread on the stair, his shouted orders. ‘Beer,’ he whispered.

‘Sorry, lad, it’s water for you and plenty of it.’ He lifted a ladle and Jack’s head; reluctantly, he drank. ‘We had a rainfall
last night so at least this is fresh.’

‘Will he …’ Jack muttered. ‘Are we …’

‘Safe? Hardly. But I think my dissuaders here might have their effect. And Link’s not loved. He’ll fume and rage and
attempt to starve us out – then he’ll sail both ships for Bristol and try to have me hanged when we arrive.’

Hotter than he’d ever been, the sweat gushing from him, Jack yet shook with cold. ‘Am I going to die?’ he whispered.

The Irishman smiled. ‘Did you not hear me say how I have the power of the Cure?’ He reached for his hat and waved it above
Jack. ‘Did you never notice the mistletoe? It’s not mere decoration. Makes a fine tea. And then … let me see.’ He searched
in the hat band then produced what looked like a hazelnut. ‘Now, we’ll just have to see if we can find a spider for this.’

‘A spider?’ Jack shook his head. ‘Of course – spider needs a house.’ He giggled as his eyelids slowly closed, the Latin Red
Hugh had quoted accompanying his drift back into the fog. The Irishman had been right – Jack did indeed know it.

‘Cicero,’ he muttered. ‘Laws are silent in time of war.’

‘How fare ye, Lieutenant Absolute?’

‘Well, sir,’ Jack replied. ‘Well, indeed.’

It was an exaggeration. Since that day the week before – eight days into his fever – when what Red Hugh had termed his ‘crisis’
had passed, Jack had felt a little better with each dawn. Full health was yet some weeks off, but the fever had finally broken,
even if he could do little more than sit in a chair and watch the
Robuste
power through the seas. It was a fine sight, all sails that flew filled with the wind that had driven them up from Portugal
and which showed no sign of abating.