Authors: Mark Keating
He would address Guinneys on the island. Informally. Off the ship. Implication now would cause a confusion of loyalties. He needed all behind him to secure the gold. There was one pirate ship. There might be another.
And why not just suppose that Devlin is with the pirates, not as their leader, but a conspirator. Once he reaches the island, he immediately joins the French troops - he can speak French; he would be convincing. A battle occurs. The pirates are beaten. The ship remains, too drunk to sail, more likely than not, and Devlin and the brave troops savour their victory. He and Guinneys would walk into the stockade; Guinneys would be forced to admit that Devlin had learned honour and decency from his master, that he had ideals he was not born to possess but had demonstrated them nonetheless. Virtue by proxy.
He planted his hat firmly in place. And if Devlin had turned to the damned, then his death would be just as redeeming. The island would settle all.
There is a moment, a fleeting moment, that occurs rarely for some, consistently for others, when rowing from a ship. It is a sense of limbo, of being not in one place or another.
You watch the ship from the confines of the longboat, the enormity of her stretching above your head. There are not enough bones in your neck to glance to the top of the mainmast. And then you glance over your shoulder to your destination, small, dwarfed by the sea and sky.
A few minutes later and your ship is smaller now, rising and falling almost urgently. You can no longer hear the wind strumming the shrouds, the flap of the courses against their buntlines, the lazy yawn of the oak all around. And then, just as you notice the absence of these sounds, you see the ship is nothing more than a large painting at the end of a great hall. You turn to the land behind. It seems no larger, only brighter.
And
there
is the moment.
At some point on your journey, the land gets no closer, the ship gets no smaller. You hang in a world that only exists on the sea. It goes on and on.
Nothing gets smaller. Nothing gets larger.
John Coxon was experiencing the moment profoundly. Too profoundly. He began to contemplate staying at this point. Here, he had responsibility for the eight others, and coxswain, in the longboat with him. Nothing else beyond the sides of the boat. Back there, to the
Starling,
was England. Duty. Taxes. Orders. A hundred mouths to feed and water. And forward there, a whole new world of different responsibilities again, as well as bringing all the old ones along for the tour.
But stay here, with just these few stoic souls to worry about, a canvas sack at your feet with two paltry days' worth of food and water. Two days just sitting here. I can hear no one from the ship. I can hear no one from the land. They can ask nothing of me. I would have all the peace of the dead, whilst still holding all the potential of the living. Belonging to neither, mocking them both.
'Are you feeling unwell, Captain?' Lieutenant Scott snatched him from his disembodied thoughts.
'Certainly not, Mister Scott.' Coxon sat up, shielding his eyes from the glare of the afternoon sun. The moment had passed. The island crawled towards them, the longboat slamming through the breakers at each pass of the oars.
Coxon sat at the bow facing Guinneys and Scott, both wearing their boatcloaks, despite the warmth of the day, and both with two pistols and a cutlass apiece.
Behind them, two marines tried to keep pace with the four sailors at the oars, and the coxswain sat with the double honour of maintaining the tiller and keeping the weapons dry beneath the sheets.
They had set off from the starboard side of the
Starling,
away from the eyes of the
Lucy,
as far to the eastern side of the beach as they could, scudding over the pink coral reefs. The
Starling
lay anchored now, with furled sails, hammocks stowed along the bulwark netting, her larboard guns still not run out.
The scant wind came so'west yet, even so, the
Starlings
prow ducked and rose against her anchor. To bring her closer would be the end of Mister Howard's and Mister Anderson's command. Her ship-rigged courses would be fatal against the windward shore, her staysails turning her like a herd of cattle, whilst the pirate brigantine would spin like a coin on a table with her jibs and lateen-rigged mainmast and spanker.
'Look, Captain,' Scott sang out, a grey-gloved hand pointing to the shore over Coxon's shoulder, 'a jolly-boat. The pirates, I'll be damned.'
True enough, as they closed the last thirty yards, Coxon followed Scott's hand to the small boat dragged up on the beach.
The boat was not secured - no land anchor, no proper beaching - suggesting some urgency or an imminent return.
Moments later, coral replaced by silver sand, Guinneys leaped over the gunwale into the warm, soft spume, his Cordova leather riding boots shrugging off the water as he sprinted for the jolly-boat.
Traditionally Coxon would be carried the few yards through the water, still seated on the bench he rode in on, and the rest of the planks would be brought ashore to wedge under the longboat's sides to hold her to the sands. He forsook the honour, soaking his stockings and shoes in the champagnelike effervescence, the hem of his black silk coat dipping in and out of the water as he ran to join Guinneys.
'Empty, sir.' Guinneys sounded disappointed. He glanced up at the brigantine, surprisingly close; he could almost make out the grimy faces peering over her fo'c'sle.
'What were you expecting, William? The gold in the boat?' Coxon joined him in the study of the pirate ship, seeing the men on board ducking away at his stare, like cockroaches away from a lamp. Just his presence had brought fear into them - or, if not fear, then a reminder. A reminder of the discipline. The orders. The bell. The red bag that held the cat with nine tails. Eat when told. Sleep little and sleep sober. Go hungry on my command. And now you had gone too far. Now you would choke for your freedom. Tyburn or Wapping will be the last place for you, my lads.
'She could hit us from here, Captain. Why don't she try?' Guinneys looked warily at the four six-pounders coming from the cutaways on the leeward side facing them.
'We are all friends, William. I may even affect a wave. She holds that
pavillon-blanc
rag: thus we are allies. Neither of us has signalled. If she tries to ply us, the game will be up and the
Starling
will grind her to sawdust. Come. Let's see what goes on at the fort.'
He dragged Guinneys by the arm, wheeling him away. An hour at best, and he could dispense with the pleasant regard. Secure the island. Gain back lost pride. Although Guinneys may well be innocent, Talton's broken pen had written the guilt of someone, of some presence in the small cabin other than of death.
An hour, then. Leave the coxswain at the boat, a pistol for a companion.
The eight of them, armed and justified, strode gallantly up the sandy path, the sound of the surf fading behind, and all noticed silently the army of footsteps that had gone before them.
Landri Fauche had adapted to his situation. He bowed when he presented the pirates with muskets from the barracks, no pistols, and helped Devlin reload the nine-pounder with grape. They all joined the women and the two sleeping guards in the mess. Devlin sat on the edge of a table, Bessette's sword in his hand tapping a rhythm on the floor, his head lowered.
An English ship. By appointment or by chance, it mattered little. No
Shadow.
No Peter Sam. Think. A chest of gold that weighs as much as three men. Perhaps a mile and a half to the shore. A short-handed crew on the
Lucy.
The navy about to make a show.
A party would come to shore first. Probably no more than ten, a fair assumption based on the size of a longboat.
A fleeting image of cannon fire and the clash of cutlasses through the saltpetre smoke of muskets filled his vision, but the spectacle, inspiring as it was, ended in his own inevitable death. He slid from the table and looked for a drink to ease his mind.
'Which one of these is good to drink, Dandon?'
Dandon wore again his elegant, frayed justaucorps and tricorne. He sighed despondently. 'Any of them now, Captain. Who knows? We may be fortunate enough to still be asleep when they hang us.'
Annie chirped up, 'So what are we to do, then? I think our part's been enough, don't you?' All the ladies now adopted the same defiant pose, their hands on their hips, their heads cocked to a sneer.
'I ask no more of you, Annie. You have what monies you were promised. My only regret is that it may not be with us that you are escorted back to Providence.'
'Which is to our own detriment, ladies.' Dandon bowed. 'Now that we are all members of the
demi-monde.'
'So we're to go down to this English ship, are we? That's it, then?' Annie snapped, her chin jutting to the pair of them.
'I can ask only one thing,' Devlin beseeched, his mind clutching at straws. 'Tell anyone you may see that all is well here. You have done your duty to the barracks and are returning to your ship.'
Annie rasped some kind of agreement through her lips, before swaying her way into the sunlight, the others following like ducklings.
Dandon trotted with them to open the gate. 'I have known most of you ladies, quite intimately, for quite some time.' He sounded almost apologetic for his company. 'And you know that I am not a brave man. I would be most grateful if you could find a good word to say about me to any official who may ask as to my nature.'
'You could come with us, Dandon. You owe that pirate nothing.'
'Ah,
Deus misereatur.
If I felt that I could leave such a fortune for one man to carry to his grave…' He opened the gate, grabbing a look at the jungle outside and the empty path beyond. 'And if you do return to Providence, be sure to tell Mrs Haggins to keep my eminent position open for me.'
'It'll be the first words I say, Dandelion old mate.' Annie grinned, and waved as they departed.
'Goodbye, sweet ladies.' He shut and barred the gate; for why, he was not sure. It seemed the thing to do.
He returned to find Landri and Devlin conversing politely on the situation. Landri confirmed there was no other shore on the island, not without traversing through several miles of thick jungle to reach a sheer drop straight to jagged rocks. The path ran from the east coast lookout to the west coast, with a break to reach the shore and that was all.
'No underground stores? Hidden landings?'
'
Non
, monsieur. If you wish I will gladly accept your parole. If you are willing to surrender?'
'It may come to that indeed.' Devlin turned away. He had dressed himself with a soldier's cutlass to partner Bessette's elegant scallop-guarded hanger, and now he drew it to have both in his hands as he paced the room. Dandon, a sword alien to him, stood by the door, a shoulder and an eye facing the gate of the stockade, leaning on the barrel of a musket.
'Think, Dandon.' Devlin gritted his teeth. 'What do we know? We have the gold. We have four men alive here' - he nodded to the Frenchman - 'including yourself, Monsieur Fauche. They will wake soon
'I can alleviate that distraction, Captain,' Dandon volunteered.
'Get to it. One less problem.'
Dandon gently leaned his musket to the wall and dashed to fetch his ethereal spirits. Devlin continued, now only talking to a bemused Landri.
'He could have lied. Your comrade. The bell
was
for a ship. My ship. There's no English ship at all.' He stopped pacing. 'Were you expecting a ship?'
Landri nodded in affirmation. 'But not until June, monsieur.'
'Then there's hope. It could be the
Shadow.
I need to lay eyes on that ship.' He resumed his anxious pacing.
'We'll know soon enough, Captain.' Dandon came back into the room, a small brown bottle in one hand, a large green carafe in the other, from which he took a draught. 'If the ladies are at the beach, our own mates will come and get us and all will be well.'
Devlin's mind twisted options over and over. The grand ones, the foolish ones, the bold ones. Disguise, deception, bluff, and all for a chest of gold that, for its damnable weight, might as well have been shining from the moon. A ship. If not the
Shadow,
then where was she? Where was Peter Sam? How far off? If at all.
He slashed the cutlass deep into the edge of a table with an alarming fury.
'I'm still here, you
bastards!'
He snapped the cutlass free again, dragging the protesting table a few inches. His eyes closed for a moment. Landri and Dandon shared a glance.
Sam Fletcher appeared before Devlin's lidded eyes. No other choice. If Fletcher and Hugh Harris were willing, if they were still able to follow through, if the
Shadow
was nearby…