Authors: Mark Keating
He kicked Aarland's legs from under him and pushed him down the mast to sit awkwardly upon the deck. Aarland choked as the paper went down. Devlin poured more brandy down his throat, then passed the paper and brandy to Hugh.
'Finish it, Hugh,' he said to the pirate. 'Make him eat them all.' He looked to Aarland, making sure he heard his words. 'Else stick a dagger in his ear and keep pushing till he dies.' From somewhere the dagger was already in Hugh's right hand.
'Aye, Cap'n.' Hugh knelt down to Aarland and went merrily to his task.
Devlin turned to the Dutch crew. 'I'll make this short,' he said, his hands on his broad belt. 'If you can understand me, I invite you to join us.' He looked at the blue eyes before him not knowing if they could read his intentions. 'I have only four rules.' He held up four fingers. 'Eat well, drink well, fight well and swear to leave me when you have a thousand pounds to your own account.' He cocked his head back to the naked, retching Aarland. 'Or stay and go home with this paper-eating dog who gave you up like a hand of cards.' He paused. There was little movement from the huddled crew.
Then one stood up. Tall and white-haired. Young and broad- shouldered. Devlin guessed that he had some sway in the crew, for as he rose four others followed after him, each one in bold contrast to the skinny, liver-wrecked crew he had inherited. The remainder of the crew sunk their heads into their chests, forlorn but loyal. Devlin pointed to the
Shadow.
'Go ahead. Make yourself known by any name that you will. A doubloon greets your signing hand.' He bowed and motioned to his ship. A few men but honestly taken. It would do.
An hour later and the
Ter Meer
was a memory to drink to. It was testimony to the fear the brotherhood could create that at the end only Hugh and Devlin remained on the ship, surrounded by almost eighty men and masters, who did nothing to oppose the will of two men.
They hardly glanced when the body of their captain slumped awkwardly sideways, tied as he was, unconscious and drooling.
They watched with half-lifted eyes as the boots tramped like giants past them, not one of them daring to look up. There was the solemn moment when the planks and hooks scraped off the gunwale at the fo'c'sle and the shadow of the frigate began to pass along the deck, its masts shrinking away across the boards like the fingers of a withdrawing hand.
No one could remember hearing the sounds of a ship underway, the shouts, the chains, the reeving of ropes through blocks accompanied by the heaving calls of sailors.
They were only awakened from their numbness by the flapping of their broken sails and yards and the dryness of their throats. Still sitting, talking in hushed voices, below the protection of the bulwarks, they tended to their captain, trying vainly to salvage some of the smeared notes that littered the deck. It was a considerable time before the bosun pulled himself up and raised his head above the side.
The ocean was calm, as blue as the sky, empty, save for what appeared to be a white tablecloth floating slowly towards the hull. The bosun stood, safe now in their loneliness, and trained his eyes upon it. Obligingly, the ocean pulled the cloth tight. The sailor turned away, his eyes welling with anger or shame, and he brushed past his sailing master, who stepped up to the bulwark to see for himself the fallen flag of the red, the white and the blue that danced along beside them.
The remnants of a boiled fowl lay pitifully across a silver platter in the
Shadows
Great Cabin, surrounded by several green bottles in varying states of emptiness. Devlin had kept the luxury of the cabin that occupied the rear of the upper deck, so he and Peter Sam sat pleasantly enough in the room, ruminating on plans afoot.
Miles behind them, strewn across the ocean, were all the useless officers' quarters and bulkheads from the upper deck. Torn from place to afford more space. More space for men. More space to cut out gun ports. More space to fight.
The two pirates sat smoking upon the window lockers, staring over the sea through the open slanting stern windows. The once-secret map lay stretched out, its corners weighted down with pistols upon the table.
Peter Sam spoke through a blue cloud of smoke. 'If those peaks be accurate on that paper, there'll be no landing on the north side: that'll be sheer cliffs all the way round.'
'Aye. The only landable shore is the windward one, which would not be our wisest.' Devlin sighed.
The windward shore would not be hospitable to either ship. One could come in too fast and run aground on some hidden reef and, should any hostile action occur, the
Shadow,
for all her bluff lines, would be against the wind like a boot in mud. The
Lucy
would fare better with her fore-and-aft rigging, and Devlin suggested such to Peter Sam.
'Proposition sure enough. Still risky getting her in.'
The two men stood, walked to the table and looked down at their future. The island stretched out like a miniature Cuba, probably no more than five miles across by three wide, but the simple diagram was littered with peaks and troughs; both men envisioned the black volcanic rock rising straight out of the bright blue sea, forbidding any landing from almost all sides. Only the southern side, the windward one, provided any sort of beach.
'We could sit the
Shadow
two miles west' - Devlin placed his finger offshore - 'boat the men across to the
Lucy
and sail her into the beach.'
'Aye. The problem I have' - Peter Sam picked up Devlin's hand and placed his finger on the west coast - 'is that if I were a small garrison I would have a lookout on either coast. I could see a ship from maybe twenty or thirty miles approaching me. You're clever, Devlin. But you can't make a ship invisible.'
'I can try.' He took his hand away and reached for a bottle. Peter Sam smiled his rare grin. Devlin had grown on him sure enough.
The men had voted Devlin captain unanimously, the day after leaving the Verdes. Peter Sam had no wish to be captain, and Devlin had a glamour about him without a doubt. He could navigate, he had a humour, and somehow his plans worked with no loss of life. Their lives at least.
Toombs's plans had been desperate of late and the purse had been growing thin. With ease, Devlin had turned calamity into prospect. The wine stores of the
Shadow
had granted the men a heady passage, and Valentim Mendes's own personal fortune, luckily kept in the captain's cabin, had added almost a thousand doubloons to their coffers.
Peter Sam still harboured one shred of misgiving: the abiding thought that if Devlin had brought the map to everyone's attention before Sao Nicolau, Seth might have forsaken his drunken plan. And Thomas Deakins would still be alive and not with his bones strewn amongst the dragon and marmulan trees of some godforsaken island spat out from Africa.
Peter Sam had accepted, when they had broken bread and bottlenecks together, that Devlin feared a choking if he had revealed the map to them too soon. He believed him when he said he had planned to enlighten them as soon as Toombs's plan had come to fruition.
All that was fair. All that was understandable. But a ship was a small place to hide a secret. And Thomas Deakins would still be alive.
'We'll need more men,' Peter Sam said. 'Providence is where we'll find them. We can divvy up and all.' He left no room for disagreement. 'It's required.'
'Fair enough,' Devlin agreed. 'I take it we could careen the Lucy there. She drags so.'
'Aye. And the men need a few days of raping and loosing.'
'Coin is weighing me down too.' Devlin smiled rakishly. 'After which we'll plot a course.' He looked down at the paper. 'Of which there are but two. Either north around Cuba or through the Windward Passage of Hispaniola.'
'If this gold is still sitting there. With only this little fort protecting it.'
'Its strength is in its weakness. To secure it would be obvious.'
'Ha!' Peter Sam chinked a bottle against Devlin's. 'I hope the French aren't half as bold as you, Captain!'
'
Fortes fortuna adiuvat
, mate.' He smirked to his confused quartermaster. 'Fortune helps the brave. Trust me.'
'Quot homines, tot sententiae
: so many men, so many opinions,' Coxon attested. He took his coffee in a gulp.
'I am merely suggesting, Captain' - Guinneys' voice was almost seductive - 'that perhaps we should sail to Providence and attempt to catch the pirates napping.'
The two men stood around Coxon's table, in his cabin, flanked by Lieutenants Scott and Anderson. The polished surface of the table was obscured by charts and Coxon's scribbled calculations. Edward Talton of the Honourable East India Trading Company did not attend, and apart from a few breathers on deck had mostly chosen to spend his days scratching a complaining quill across sheets of paper, which nobody had raised objection to.
They had passed the Azores yesterday forenoon, ahead of schedule, and Coxon was now discussing his plans for their second stage. He would listen to suggestions, even adapt good ones to his own plan, but he would not waver from the course in his resolute mind. He picked up his log from where it lay across the map's face.
'We are here, gentlemen. Bearing west-so' west.' He pointed west of the Azores following a pencilled line from Portsmouth, the white cuff of his shirt covering the string of islands of the Caribbean to the west. 'The pirate vessel is approximately ten days ahead of us if, I hasten to add, they sleep at night and anchor until noon before sailing. If their captain-'
'Your man Devlin,' Guinneys felt obliged to remind the assembly.
'Indeed. If their captain is sailing to the Bahamas, from the Verdes, he is currently on a west-by-north bearing.' Coxon drew a fingernail across a second line that ended at the neat little island of Providence. 'Even if we gave him the generosity of two days to careen, he would still be a week ahead of us.' He looked charitably to Guinneys. 'There is no point in chasing him. We should continue on to this French island and either find him there or long gone.'
'Is it not possible, Captain,' Anderson theorised, 'that they may, from Providence, take the Windward Passage also, cutting through the islands? We could meet them if they chose that route.'
Coxon sank more coffee, then carried on. 'When you were a schoolboy at Eton, Mister Anderson, and you walked back to your rooms, did you not avoid the main corridors in the hope of not bumping into some of the prefects, else they razed you?'
'Everyone tries to avoid the older lads, sir.' The corners of Anderson's mouth twitched.
'So you took the quieter route, did you not?' Coxon tossed down a letter from his coat.
Guinneys picked up the proclamation, written in the elaborate hand of Whitehall. It had come as part of Coxon's orders. The letter was dated 15 September 1716.
Complaint Having been made to His Majesty, by great Numbers of Merchants, Masters of Ships and others, as well as by several Governors of His Majesty's Islands & Plantations in the Wst Indies, that the Pyrates are grown so numerous, that they infest not only the Seas near Jamaica, but even those of the North Continent of America; and that, unless some effectual Means be used, the whole Trade from Great Britain to those Parts, will not be only obstructed, but in imminent Danger of being lost: His Majesty has, upon mature Delieration in Council, been pleased, in the first Place, to order a proper force to be employ'd for the suppressing of the said Pyrates, which Force to be employed, is as follows.
There on the paper was a list of rates, fourteen ships in total, sailing from all points from New York to Barbados. Some names -
Pearl, Squirrel, Adventure
and
Scarborough -
Guinneys knew; the others not. But only two out of the fourteen were sloops; the rest were fifth- and sixth-rate frigates.
'Impressive.' He nodded.
'Those ships are there now.' Coxon began to feel himself perspire. 'All over the Caribbean. If I were a pirate wishing to avoid patrols and trying to get amid the Caymans, I would travel around Cuba's shore rather than risk sailing through the Windward Passage.' Coxon sat down, compelled by exhaustion. His head was light. Sometimes before lunch the nausea and the sweat that he had carried with him from Africa still resurfaced to remind him how close he had come to death.
He was the only man sitting and was dwarfed by the young, stiff men. For a moment he could not raise his eyes above their silken waistcoats. Uncomfortably they exchanged lowered looks before Guinneys spoke.
'I concur, Captain.' He pulled out a chair and sat, his knee touching Coxon's. 'If I were also a brigand, I would go west from Providence to the Caymans rather than sail south past this lot. We will gain ground on them as a result.'
'Maintain the sail, William.' Coxon mopped his brow. 'Pork pie for lunch, don't you know.'