Blood Diamond: A Pirate Devlin Novel (21 page)

‘And for her crew?’ Dandon asked. ‘What for them?’

Devlin walked away, his eyes keen all along the ship over the way, watching the black shapes for any sudden action. ‘I’ll leave that to them.’

Dandon noted then that Devlin had sent Englishmen to a French ship. He had not requested a French speaker, had not gone himself or sent Dandon, who could speak the better French of the two. No, he had sent Hugh Harris and Dan Teague, the bloodiest of them all, and now Devlin was ordering the lowering of the second boat from its home between the masts. A chill came over Dandon that had nothing to do with the flick of the wind at his face.

He sprinted to Devlin, stood with Peter Sam in close debate. ‘Patrick!’ he very nearly yelled the name. ‘I will go across with the boat. I will mediate between our different souls. With Hugh and Dan, these fishermen may have short prospects.’ He swallowed at Peter Sam’s scowl. ‘Unless that is you wish them to have short prospects?’

Devlin put his arm across Dandon’s shoulders. ‘What are you thinking of me, Dandon?’ He walked them away from the boat swinging over their heads. ‘You think me a monster now, is it?’ His voice was laden with charm.

‘No, my friend, not a monster. Colossus perhaps. I thought I may help with any misunderstandings, Patrick, that is all.’

Devlin nodded toward the far ship. ‘They will know the game. If I send English pirates they will not attempt to reason. No point in arguing with a man who does not understand you. And Hugh knows enough French curses to let them know how he feels. I intend to bring the men over to us. Let their master know that we mean them no harm.’

Dandon was relieved. So fifteen men would join them for a spell, their only loss to be their ship to Devlin’s cause. But what of after?

‘And when you return from your task, Captain? What then for them?’

Devlin slapped Dandon’s back. ‘I shouldn’t worry. You and I may be dead ourselves by then,
mon frère
!’

Dandon’s body leaned away in surprise. ‘I am coming with to Paris? This is a danger I did not account for, Patrick. It should be considered judiciously. Particularly by myself.’

Devlin reeled him back in. ‘I don’t think I could succeed without you.’ Then he pushed Dandon away, laughing. ‘I think that will always be the way I’ll have it.’

A boat came across. Just six men, the captain of the
Junot
observed. Six to share news. He had no concern with his stout fourteen men behind him. A rope from below, belayed by pin and closer now, looking down into the boat, just ragged fishermen, no swords or even knives, and bringing a bundled up black cloth with them, a gift perhaps.

Hugh Harris and Dan Teague scampered up the Jacob’s ladder flung down to them. They swung over the gunwale as they had done dozens of times before on dozens of ships: all smiles and empty hands, just the black cloth thrown to the deck where it rolled out as the others clambered up behind.

The cloth spread. A white grinning skull rolled free, two crossed pistols beneath, and the J
unot
’s
crew
stared down riveted to it, missing the pistols being pulled from behind the backs of their guests.

Hugh Harris grinned like the death’s head at his feet. ‘Hold now, lads!’ he warned. ‘You be pirated!
Forban
! Drop any steel to the flag for your forgiveness!’ The rest of his words were English swearing, his pistols bolstering his skinny frame against the big Frenchmen.

Dan Teague echoed him. No violence, Devlin had said. These men should report nothing against them except the taking of their little ship. But this stepping on a foreign deck was a pirate’s breakfast. There had to be some sport or why get up at all?

Pistol followed pistol and pistols were rare for the common. If these pirates carried them it would be right to assume they had taken them from resisting gentlemen. So raise your hands and smile and bow.

‘Stand easy now,’ Hugh snarled, and they used their pistols as shepherds use their crooks and waved their sheep to one quarter where a dozen pistols could cover every head.

‘Hugh?’ Dan asked. ‘Is this all we’re to do?’ Dan Teague was of the old standers with Hugh. From before Devlin, when Seth Toombs had been their captain. But unlike Hugh, who had been scraped from London walls, Dan was a Norfolk man and broad and big. He could have tilled as much as sailed and lived a quiet life arm-wrestling on a Saturday night in any inn five miles from where he was born. But the Spanish war had bought him for a shilling and he had been taught to furl and pull, splice and haul, where he would have hoed and picked all his life. He had fired a musketoon into a Spaniard and had liked the sound and the red again and again. He had split a Frenchman’s skull with a mallet and seen his pink brains. Then the navy had signed papers with those they had paid him to kill and no-one had thanked him for his talent. He had come into a world of iron and hoped to live in a world of gold as his queen had promised. It was inevitable that he would meet Hugh, meet Peter Sam, meet others betrayed the same. Pirates do not write invites. The world draws them together. And on this deck, men shivering before him, two stolen pistols in his fists drawing their eyes, this was indeed his breakfast; and the only fear was that one dawn, somewhere, his head would become a stranger to his neck.

But there was Devlin. And though he fed them with blood when he needed it of them, he went a different way when he would.

‘Hugh? Is this all we’re to do?’ he repeated, itching to cock his pistols.

‘Aye,’ he said, a lament in his voice. ‘Cap’n’s orders. We don’t rob ’em.’ He smiled at the fat captain, who grinned back nervously. ‘You’d think one of ’em would have a go,’ he sighed to Dan.

Hugh understood that this adventure needed a softer touch, that their presence in these waters should go without incident but still . . . Maybe Paris would give them blood.

‘How you weigh her, Bill? What’s her burthen?’

Bill pulled his fingers through his beard, and looked at the ship with calculating eyes. ‘Reckon she be sixty feet stern to stem. Seventeen feet beam to beam at a guess. That’d make her ninety-two tons thereabouts, Cap’n.’

Deane’s
Doctrine of Naval Architecture
still remained the bible of the day for sizing up a ship and the waters she could travel. Not for the weight of the ship herself, but to judge her size by the burden she could carry. View a ship and multiply her length by her breadth and then by half her breadth again and divide the lot by ninety-four. Simple enough, but Devlin was still impressed by the old mariner’s quick thinking. Numbers had always been Bill’s world. Devlin could navigate well, taught by his master John Coxon long ago, but Bill’s skill was near magical. He had no love of numbers, he just needed them to survive. Even so, Devlin remembered him winking proudly at him when he had told his captain that forty-eight tons of rope would stretch thirty miles and that the
Shadow
had seventeen tons that would stretch ten.

‘Good,’ Devlin said. ‘That’ll do. She’s not too big to make the river. I’ll need you Bill, to take the
Shadow
while I’m gone. Keep away from these lanes. Make to sail for the Verdes, then come back here in four days and find me.’

‘Four days?’

‘To Paris and back here again.’

‘Would anyone be wise to know how you aims to devil this rock so easily from this frog duke’s pockets, Cap’n?’

Devlin shook his head. ‘Best not. A light heart lives long,’ he slapped Bill’s back. ‘That’s Shakespeare, Bill!’ he grinned.

Chapter Sixteen

Friday

Letter from René Duguay-Trouin

to Joseph Jean Baptiste Fleuriau d’Armenonville

Secrétaire d’État de la Marine

Rue Royale. Paris.

August 1720.

Secretary, herein accept my most obedient salute and salvation.

It has come to my understanding that the ship Vendeen, Captain Jean Minot master, has come across a large vessel of some twenty-four and more guns these two days past, west of Calais. I do not believe this vessel to be allied. It is reported directly to myself that the vessel displayed the flag of plague and merchant rank. However, I respectfully note that, having had its descript confirmed, this vessel relates pertinently to a known pirate and enemy of France since the year 1717 and I encourage the secretary to confirm this also through the same record.

A pirate would be unwise to reach further than Calais or Dunkerque, so ably defended, but may have some desire to hinder transport in La Manche.

As Brest is of a distance to lie within the circuit of this pirate’s intent it is my resigned object to investigate this ship personally. Please accept this letter as Your Obedient Chef d’Escardre’s design to report La Françoise, 24, and La Patient, 18, to patrol for this vessel known to records and captained by a former Irish patriot of the Royale known as Patrick Devlin, who served His Majesty in the great Spanish war before desertion to the English.

I hope that along with myself The Secretary considers this as the action of a traitor to the crown and The Secretary will appreciate my urgency to apprehend this villain without hesitation. I will therefore accept this mission without the need for reply of consent.

Your Obedient Servant.

René Duguay-Tourin.

Chef d’Escardre Marine Du Roi.

Citadel Calais.

‘How is it that you speak French, Captain?’ Albany slouched against the gunwale of the tartane. They all wore simpler clothes, loose petticoat breeches and undyed wool coats and caps that thus still retained some of the water-resistant lanolin of the original fleece. But Albany kept his London sword at his side.

Devlin turned to him from where he crouched beneath the sail, gauging the weather helm for Peter Sam at the tiller to keep a straight course into Le Havre.

‘I was once a fisherman of these waters. Before all this. I learnt roughly but learnt enough.’ He stood and joined Albany who gave him space. ‘I was in their navy for a time and learnt quicker there.’

‘
Their
navy? When?’

‘When you were shivering in your bed when the war echoed all around you.’

‘In the war? You were in the French navy against your country?’

Devlin smirked. ‘Not my country. War’s a great place for hungry men, Albany. Flags are just for wiping gravy off your chin. I was on English ships as well. Although they took me as an Irishman so I shined their shoes.’

Albany said no more, gave Devlin room and contemplated the enormous mouth of the river at their bow.

Le Havre, the shallow face of the Seine and the river into the heart of France, far wider at its mouth than the Thames. Thousands of ships traversed it daily; the
Junot
was just a small single mast amongst the throng and who would pay attention to the delicate ship with but five honest fishermen aboard?

Only Peter Sam, for strength if need be, Hugh Harris for incredible blood when it comes, Dandon for his French, Devlin for all, and Albany because Walpole willed it.

Dandon weaved his way beam to beam, ridiculous in his new clothes, and grabbed Devlin for anchorage. ‘Little ships, Patrick, do not suit my legs I fear. I may have to rethink your choice of myself.’

‘Too late, patroon. You’ll do better in Paris.’ He brushed him off and forced himself to speak to Albany again, for he still had questions to ask.

The tartane was a coastal ship, used by men who returned to their homes at night. This dictated that there was no berthing, just a low cabin below aft and a boat trailing behind for her catch. Men would have to be mates around such a small table and Devlin willed Albany no quarter.

The size of the ship was not lost even on Albany. His own head tonight would lay on deck or he would be cramped below with the spare canvas and cordage. ‘Will not the families of the men we have supplanted miss them, Captain?’ he queried as Devlin came on.

Devlin shrugged. ‘They may. May not. It’s not unlikely for fishermen to sail to St Malo for the night. And when I fished I had no family to return to. A small matter anyways to what troubles me.’

Intrigue turned Albany’s face. ‘And what is that, dear Captain?’