Authors: Mark Keating
In the same thought they ran for the command of the higher quarterdeck as the helm lurched the ship beneath their feet and the
Starling
became alive again, bucking up out of her slumber like a slapped horse.
The deck was clear as they ran. Above their heads the men were bracing the yards round, some leaning off the larboard gunwale, their feet glowing white with tension, their arms as tight as the ropes they hauled on.
Marines were taking their dread climb to the wooden platform of the mainmast fighting top. Muskets slung, they climbed gingerly, getting heavier with each leg up, dismissing the lubber hole around the mast. For speed they had to climb outwards, over the shrouds, almost over the sea, before the relief of clambering to the safety of the platform and the eerie sensation of being able to hear every voice at once, from the deck far below, clear as a bell.
Davison and Granger hit the quarterdeck running, joining Mister Dawson and the helmsman.
'Bringing her about, Mister Davison.' Dawson nodded. He had two decades on the young faces, two decades whilst they had been wet-nursing. All he could do was his duty. It would not be his fault if he died this day.
Below deck, in the cockpit afore the manger, Surgeon Wood scattered a burlap bag of sawdust around his table. He unrolled his canvas bag of knives and probes and called for water as he watched his lantern swing and the rattle of bottles chinked all around him.
Dandon stepped cautiously out of the Great Cabin and peered into the half-light. The outer coach had gone, the partitions removed to reveal the clean embrasure of the last two of the twelve-pounders. He moved past the companion- way that led to the quarterdeck and touched the capstan for luck.
The ports were still closed and the guns strained against their tackles as the turn was almost complete. There was a calm about the ship, a rare silence, broken only by the rattling of the swaying lanterns.
Nine nine-foot guns either side. Dandon stood where the first four guns patiently stayed beneath the dark of the quarterdeck. Men stood on the larboard side, most with a strange tool as tall as themselves in their hands, waiting. The others were swiftly brushing shot clean of any debris or imperfections in the surface, making sure that their first shots were as fine as they could be.
Thomas Howard saw Dandon and placed down by guns six and seven the serge canisters of powder he was holding, and joined him by the capstan.
'You should not be here, Doctor. It won't be safe.' He placed a small hand upon Dandon's arm. 'You should go back with the women.'
Dandon ignored him gently. 'Tell me, Lieutenant,' he enquired, 'why are the men only on the one side?'
'That is the side we are bringing to bear on the ship.' He pitied the ignorance of the land-locked. 'You have seen the ship? The pirate ship?'
'Briefly. From the windows. A terrible sight. Then we began this strange turn. Are we in danger of a deadly occurrence?'
'Not at all. We outgun her by any count. This is how it will play.' He proudly walked Dandon into the light of the open deck, like a boy showing his toys to a visiting cousin.
'They will play the old game and so will we. These guns will fire on her hull. We will fire two to her one without a doubt and more iron to bear.'
'Is that the true happening of the circumstance?' Dandon was genuinely curious.
'Aye, she has nine-pounders to our twelves and they are but drunken pirates. No match for honed men.' He carried Dandon along the row of guns. 'See, in a few moments we will run out the guns, on order, and the linstocks will be lit, the quoins lifting the guns to fire below the waterline. Our aim will be to sink the beast.'
'And what will be the pirates' aim?'
'Oh, they will play their book, which is always to go for the rigging, disable the sail, for they will want the ship, you see?'
'Will they?'
'Of course. They will wish to board. They are pirates naturally'
'Naturally.'
'Most likely it will take three rounds and they'll be off. Do not worry.'
'I will not worry if I can be near you, Mister Howard. I do not carry arms myself, and I would fear for the poor women.'
Howard smiled. 'It will not come to small arms, Mister Dandon. Three rounds, I swear. See how I have only brought up powder for such. Think of it! That's twenty-seven shots! Over three hundred pounds of iron! I could sink a forest with such a barrage!'
'How is it you know so much about the ways of the pirates, Mister Howard, may I enquire? How they will fight and such?'
'From accounts of course. It is well known, sir.'
Dandon hummed thoughtfully as he looked to the sails high above, still at a tight right-angle. 'But surely such accounts come only from failed attempts? Pardon my ignorance on such matters, Lieutenant Howard, but it would occur to me that no one reports on the successful pirate methods, if I can be so bold.' He smiled softly. 'At least not from this world.'
'Hah!' Howard slapped Dandon's arm. 'Be off, sir. Back to the women. I will protect you if it comes to it, I swear.'
Dandon bowed just as a yell from Granger above begged Howard's attendance. The boy excused himself and scurried away. Dandon wheeled his way back to the cabin. He took off his coat as he entered the room and slung it on the back of the captain's chair.
'Make sure all those windows are open, my girls. Take them out if you have to.' He picked up a decanter of golden ambience. 'We are playing the "old game", apparently.'
Chapter Eighteen
At the Hour of Our Death, Amen…
Letter from Thomas Howard to his father, the Hon. Rev. John Howard
May 1717 Dearest Father,
I know this letter will arrive the same instance beside my previous correspondence but I hope you will permit such indulgence. You are aware I have not returned from the foreign factories, but currently upon the Caribbee waters hunting a pyrate no less. We are commanded by a Captain John Coxon, an old salt it seems, for he drills us every day and has me reading Seller's book of instruction every evening and makes every soul wear a hat Sundays.
Today has been most delightful I am to be Acting Lieutenant whilst Captain Coxon and Lieutenants guinneys and Scott are embarking upon a most exciting mission to apprehend the pyrate Devlin upon the island of the Trench which we have landed towards. William Guinneys as you will recall has been Captain for the two years I have been in service. Captain Coxon commands for this endeavour bowing to his more common experience and mature nature no doubt.
I feel Captain Coxon favours me to the good as he has taken the time to talk to me privately and by my name.
I will ask you to remember the name of Mister Edward Talton in
your prayers, Father, as his life was extinguished today. He was purser to the Company's interest on board our ship but I fear the crossing of latitudes may have done for him as Mother feared it may of me.
Please inform Mother that I am well and hearty and keep my head on a swivel at all times. I do not swim, and I have eaten no fruit save apples as she instructed.
If I see the pyrate Devlin I shall not catch his eye and I will pray for his immortal soul. This day will, with ad hope and good fortune, end with my permanent commission as Lieutenant Thomas Howard.
I hope you are well, Father, and I anticipate a return to home by mid-August.
Most Gracious Lord save and preserve us.
Your obedient son,
Thomas Howard.
Acting Lieutenant His Majesty's ship Starting.
Captain John Coxon.
On the beach, Hugh Harris looked to the bloody arm of Coxon and the sorrowful faces of Gregory and Davies and cocked his head to Devlin.
'Now, Cap'n,' he scolded, 'can we not leave you for the sixtieth of an hour without you getting yourself into some scrape?'
"Tis good to see you, Hugh.' Devlin passed the spare sword to Dan Teague with a nod and a wink. 'And you, Sam Morwell.' He shook the skinny, flaccid hand and passed on to Sam Fletcher. 'Thank you, Sam. You did well.'
'Pleasure, Cap'n. Though sorrowful for the
Lucy.'
He passed Devlin the left-locked pistol that he favoured, which he had kept dry and loaded.
Devlin sheathed the weapon in his belt with gratitude. He gripped Sam's shoulder and shook the bones of him. 'Aye. We'll drink to the
Lucy.
Have no thought otherwise.'
'What of these swabs?' Hugh waved a pistol to Gregory and Davies.
'Pay them no mind,' Devlin said. 'They have no teeth and have harmed me none.'
Dan Teague stepped toward Coxon, seeing his bloodied sleeve and drawn lips of seething hate.
'And what of this dog? Stockings an' all? What of him?'
Devlin set out a welcoming arm. 'This, my brothers, be Captain John Coxon, though don't call him John, for it makes him bleed so.'
Dan Teague nodded with recognition, 'John Coxon?' He eyed Coxon up and down. 'Good pirate name, sir,' referring to the famous buccaneer. 'You should be proud to bear it.'
Coxon showed no feeling. He had spied the sorrowful sight of his London duelling pistols nestling in the belt of the pirate called Harris. He squeezed his wounded arm to punish himself and remained silent and hate-filled.
'Glad you came back all,' Devlin breathed relief. 'Although it may be a short victory.'
'We was all of a mind to come back, Cap'n.' Hugh grinned. 'The less time I spends in a boat, the better.' He cast an eye to the slowly moving
Starling.
'Besides, something goes on there.'
Devlin and Coxon turned to the sea. Both had seen the ship begin her slow turn, without knowing why. They watched the three boats still languishing, struggling to rejoin her as the sails fell. Now the
Starling's
bow faced out to sea, and she began to move, painfully close-hauled against the so'west breath of wind. They watched the sails flap back as she lay in irons, then continued to heel over, trying to grab the slightest reach.
A heart-wrenching sail. The helm pushed hard over, almost half her starboard strakes dipping in the waves, yards braced to breaking. And then a Dutchman wailed as he saw the reason from his six-foot vantage.
'Kapitein!' Eduard Decker pointed east to the black ship slowly creeping into view in front of the yellow and black frigate.
'Shadow, ja?'
The pirates scattered, each straining to get a glimpse of the black ship through the cloud of greenish smoke from the boiling cauldrons; they howled and fired pistol shot into the air in jubilation, causing Davies and Gregory to flinch and crouch, offering nervous smiles in compliance.
Coxon studied his arm, flexed his fingers, looked to his ship, and thought of the boys who commanded her.
'Well done, Mister Howard.' Davison congratulated Howard on the task he had been given. With pencil and paper the boy had drafted the black flag, for permanence; its colours now marked for the log.
The pirate ship paraded her colours from the backstay; the flag wafted through the trail of smoke, the skull appearing to laugh as the wind buffeted the grave cloth. High above, atop the mainmast of the
Shadow,
there was the red flag grabbed taut by the so'west wind. Long before any man in the field of play was born, before any man alive on the earth that day, it had chilled sailors to the marrow.
No mercy. No quarter.
'Mister Davison!' Dawson's voice grated through pinched, impatient lips. 'We have the range, sir, and that sound above us is the luffing of our sails in irons. Our head is in the wind.'
Davison looked up to the cracking sails, the deck still leaning to starboard. It would be too many moments before a beam reach could give them some momentum.
'What might you suggest, Mister Dawson?' he stammered.
Dawson commented that, in similar events, the tackles would be released and all cannon and all hands moved to starboard, to literally weight the ship round on her keel. At other times, dropping a stern quarter anchor at full sail would indubitably bring her about. Some, he pointed out, even held to firing the aft guns to gain momentum, but he did not hold with that personally.
'And for my ears and concerns, what do
you
suggest, Mister Dawson?' snapped Davison.
Dawson looked over the rail to the pirates. He could make out black shapes crowding the decks and shrouds.
'Run out the guns. At the very least a broadside may bring us round a little. They have the reach; they are coming across. Two minutes more and they will have the range and our port bow to their starboard guns.' He wiped his suddenly feverish brow. 'That is what I suggest. Good luck, sir.'