Blood Diamond: A Pirate Devlin Novel (8 page)

Perhaps if she had not been so young when they had found her, perhaps if she had known other crews and seas years before, she would not have sat so well for so long. Aye, perhaps.

Peter Sam and Hugh Harris sat at the long table on the only two chairs in the cabin. The sparse cabin. The Great Cabin. On any ship it was the
sanctum sanctorum
of officers, but on a pirate it belonged to the ship, to the crew one and all.

It was a dry room to make plans, to drink, cooler than below deck or warmer than on the open one. And sparse indeed. Away over the side with the vain bulkheads and lockers, the oddments and baubles of naval crews. It had taken Devlin’s hardiest insisting that the doors to the coach and cabin should be saved; for the captain, for all his democracy, had won the concession that he could sleep in the cabin if he so wished. And to Devlin, in some childish fancy, it had been the only place he had known all his life that sported a door that was his to close. Now two pirates, two near-empty bottles between them, sat at the table and checked their guns.

Peter Sam replaced the pyrite flint on the Sibley maple and brass blunderbuss that had no right being on the Dutch merchant he had rescued it from. He loaded it with swan shot over grain and rammed cartridge paper on top to prevent the deadly charge from slipping out, then slid the fearsome weapon back into its holster upon the table. ‘I’m done,’ he announced to Hugh.

‘Just that little hog’s leg?’ Hugh smirked. Peter Sam said nothing and went about loading his
gargoussier
, his belly box of cartridges, the small hardened leather pouch and a wooden insert in the base with ten holes for the prepared shot wrapped in paper: five for the blunderbuss, five for the Bohemian cavalry pistol with the belt hanger he had favoured of late.

Hugh lifted his pistols in the air with glee. ‘Me? I’m ready as I ever was!’ He admired his weapons with a loving look to each. Once he had worn Post-Captain John Coxon’s matched pair but that devil had taken them back on New Providence two years past when Devlin and he met up with Devlin’s former master. Now, he would have almost paid for the handsome turnover Doleps he brandished.

Each pistol had two barrels, one atop the other, with a frizzen and pan for each and one lock to fire. Two shots for every normal man’s one. Hugh had further specialised them by loading one barrel with ball, the other with partridge shot, depending on the damage and distance required for the unfortunate standing in front of him.

‘Pity ain’t the word when I walks out tonight!’ he crowed, the pistols above his head. The door to the cabin clicked open behind them and instinctively Hugh flashed a pistol to the body coming through, the pistol’s swift cocking and the two staring barrels freezing the face of Bill Vernon. Hugh laughed and lowered his weapon.

Black Bill cursed, his voice still calm, and came to the table and looked down at the mass of knives and guns. They would take no cutlasses to the streets. Better a knife for close quarters, and easier to prise free information when you had a steel fist at someone’s throat.

‘You still planning on going out, Peter Sam?’

‘Aye. Soon enough.’ He stood to fetch another bottle from the rack in the coach, the personal cabin space where a captain could keep his effects. ‘After a time.’ He stared in challenge back at Bill as he pulled the cork, the amber light from the swaying lantern moving him through shadow and back again, adding to his grave look.

Hugh giggled nervously between the two large men, himself a scrawny fellow with long hair and a dirty aspect, unkempt even for a pirate. He had been born for the life and after years of starving on merchant ships could never put meat on his bones, but he was a natural killer and a loyal soul to have behind you. A look from Bill and he went back to tamping and tending his guns.

‘If you must be for going ashore, Peter Sam, I suggest you take someone who can help find the captain.’ Bill cocked his head to the door and Dandon swanned in, breathless and red from his row out to the ship.

‘Salutations, Peter!’ Dandon swept off his hat. ‘I have word from Patrick.’ He spied the bottle in Peter’s hands and stepped forward uninvited. ‘And I thirst like a desert.’

Peter held the bottle to his chest. ‘What word?’ Peter had little time for Dandon, in his opinion a failed drunken coxcomb who hid behind Devlin’s coat and purse. Dandon took no share from the pirate’s accounts for he took no share in the gaining of it. He held no position on the ship other than Devlin’s association and a loose inkling of medicine that the others admired in their stupor. But the yellow-coated fool carried no arms. It would be unfair ever to kill him but he would have none of Peter’s wine.

Dandon pulled back his hand when the bottle did not come and looked to Bill for security. ‘I have come from Newgate gaol, gentlemen, where our gallant captain is now dwelling.’ Dandon cast around the room for another drink. With a grin Hugh offered his own green bottle up. He at least liked Dandon.

Dandon tipped a bow and wiped the mouth with a filthy cuff. ‘Thank you, sir!’

Peter Sam growled behind him. ‘He is in gaol? Speak man!’

Dandon paused with the bottle to his lips. ‘It has taken me almost two hours to get back here, Peter. Two
dry
hours. And as we will leave immediately allow me some ability to slake my thirst, if you please.’

Too smart. Too smart for his own good. ‘Talk, damn you! Leave for where?’

Dandon looked surprised. ‘Why, for Newgate, naturally.’

The others shared a look. The whole world knew of Newgate and criminals could reel off the names and ins and outs of prisons as other men could the fields and factors of their trades. Dandon noted the look. ‘Aye. Newgate. I met him there for he murdered a man this morning.’ Dandon finally drank.

Hugh laughed. Bill rummaged for his pipe. Peter Sam’s red beard lifted as he looked upward. He walked back to the table, put down the bottle and picked up the holstered hand-cannon. ‘To it then. It is a trap as I feared,’ he glowered at Bill. ‘As I ever said it were.’

‘No,’ Dandon corrected. ‘Not a trap. An accident I assure you, Peter. I have met with the prince’s man and all is in order. It is the captain who has made a mess of things.’

Peter shouldered the leather holster. Built for a saddle, it fitted his back fine, the gun slung behind his massive hide. ‘His fault or no I’ll not stand by while he waits.’

Dandon emptied his bottle. ‘My sentiments exactly, Peter. He has already rearranged his agenda with the prince for tomorrow. I hope you have all eaten, Gentlemen, for it will be a long night.’ He reached for Peter’s discarded wine. ‘He needs our hand.’

‘Hold,’ Bill stopped loading his pipe. ‘You intend to break him free? From Newgate? Is it not wiser to buy him out? He must have a price.’

‘You’re getting old, Bill.’ Peter hung his pistol to his belt and a pair of knife sheaths vanished around his waist. ‘Stay and help Dog-Leg wash the pots.’ He picked up his long coat and belly-box. ‘Hugh. Up now.’ Hugh scrambled for his pistols and a bag of grenadoes at his feet.

‘Dandon,’ Peter slapped Dandon’s chest. ‘Tell me where this gaol be.’

Dandon turned to Bill. ‘Peter is accurate to a degree, Bill. The captain has asked for this matter to be settled tonight. He was most insistent. I gather time is an issue to the prince. Also, bargaining would bring unwarranted attention and as yet his gaolers know not his real name. He called himself Captain John Coxon, no less.’ He drank quickly as they laughed at the name familiar to them all.

‘The man has something about him to be sure, even in his current straits.’ He watched the weapons being buried about the two men. ‘But a frontal assault would also be an errant choice. We must be prudent.’ Hugh and Peter glared at him.

‘First we need to know more about this fortress. I suspect that there would be one amongst us who is familiar with this gaol? The crew are abroad in the inns I take it, Bill?’

‘Aye. Gaming and whoring for the most. The Dog and Duck stairs and the Plough. Three days drunk for the lot of ’em.’

Peter Sam pulled Dandon’s shoulder. ‘But you’ve seen him! You know where he lies!’

Dandon winced under the bruising grip. ‘And I’m sure Morgan knew where Portobelo lay, Peter, but a map or two no doubt assisted.’ He tugged himself free. Peter Sam’s dark look returned.

‘Am I to be sure that you don’t just want more of us to follow you into this gaol, Dandon? Where maybe you’ve taken a pretty coin or two to betray us all, perhaps? Are you sure there is not a squadron of men waiting for us at the inn? How would that sound to your mind, jackal?’

Dandon went back to his bottle. ‘It is this suspicious mind, Peter, that keeps you lonely in your old age. Come and see for yourself.’

‘Oh, I will, popinjay, I will. But mark that you’ll be the first to fall if I smell a trap!’ He stared into Dandon’s face. ‘The first to fall!’ he spat. Dandon reeled away.

‘If you can smell anything above you own maleficence, I would be most surprised.’

Peter’s hand went for some steel at his belt, Black Bill seeing it in time. ‘Enough, Peter! Away with you both! Is this what the captain would want whilst he sits and waits for you! Fight over a shawl in your own time! To the boat, to the inn and find one of us who knows Newgate!’

Peter Sam glared. Hugh went for the door, taking his sniggering to the deck. Dandon brushed the creases from his coat and followed.

Bill’s pipe glowed, his voice peaceful again. ‘Go easy, Peter. And bring the captain home.’

Peter Sam adjusted his baldric beneath the long coat and checked the apostles of powder strung across his chest. He strode out without a word.

Adam Cowrie was their man. He was in the Plough with at least a dozen of the others who all became humble when Peter Sam ducked under the door.

The Plough’s regular patrons had all kept to their own corners when the young men in fine but tattered waistcoats and hats had bowled in hours before and slammed their gold onto the counter. The eye of the barkeep held none of their looks and he kept his attention on the coins and the pouring of drinks.

The old salts of the inn knew well the sort of young men who carried more than a gully blade, and who rattled with coin and steel, and so they stayed less rowdy than usual.

They knew most pirates were young, most as little as twenty-six when they finally hanged. They were youths who willingly leapt away, while their spirit still remained, from the lash and drudgery of the merchant or slaver that their father had sold them into.

Why work hard for shillings when you could live easy for gold? The worst of it was just an aversion to choking. And that fear had never filled anyone’s belly.

Adam Cowrie, twenty-three himself, had been with Devlin on Providence when they had escaped from the fort’s old Spanish gaol, two years ago now.

He was not a bold one, not a Hugh Harris or a Dan Teague, the finest cut-throats Devlin had. Cowrie, with still enough of the bible worked into him, needed to be madly drunk when a boarding came, so he shrunk more than the others when Peter Sam loomed over their small round table, peculiar in a coat, so used were they to his powerful bare arms.

‘So you knows Newgate, Cowrie?’

Cowrie whispered over his drink. ‘Aye, I knows it. Knows it too well I fears.’ He opened his palm to show the round scar where he had been burnt in the hand for stealing a pair of clogs.

Dandon appeared behind Peter’s back, pencil and paper in hand. He made himself room at the table. ‘Tell me about your time there, Adam.’

The notion of escape did not cause any horrific reaction from Adam Cowrie. He had been there in December 1715 when Charles Radcliffe, one of the principals of the Northumberland Jacobites, simply walked out of the door after a party with the departing guests. Eight others had done the same in May. Their escapes made the broadsheets, the whole of London being mad for Jacobite blood, but others, dozens of others, had gone out of Newgate without any hue and cry. At Dandon’s request, Cowrie described that which he knew.

The gaol was divided up into three distinct parts: the Master side, for debtors that could pay, and the Common side for those who could not. The third part, the Press Yard, was for criminals of state and those others who could pay whatever price the benevolent owner believed you could afford. There one could enjoy its open air and have the freedom to walk within the Yard’s grey enclosure, handsomely paved with Purbeck stone.

The Master’s Side and the Common Side were each again divided up into three separate wards, although the Master’s Side had several apartments still in the old gateway itself, again – as long as the price was right, of course.

These wards were all on the ground floor, Cowrie informed Dandon. If Devlin was in the hold near the lodge, he was in the right-hand side, south corner. Cowrie took the paper and sketched the ground floor, loosely shading in the location of the hold. Dandon looked up at Peter Sam and nodded once. The boy knew what he was talking about, for that had been the very corner he had visited.

‘Would they have moved him by now, Adam?’ Dandon asked.

‘The doors inside are all locked after nine. If he was in the hold then, he’s staying there. As a felon anyways he’d be in the Common Side with the poor souls that can’t pay. His garnish would just be for a bed and drink. He’s in one or the other for sure. But,’ his voice became solemnly slow, ‘if he can’t pay as a felon he’s in hell for sure. You see, the Common Side is divvied up for those wretches. Five more wards. Worse than graves.’ Adam crossed himself for probably the first time since his youth.