by Mark Keating
The pirates upheld this tradition, valuing their arms as their most prized possessions. Twenty men with muskets was worth more than a six-pound cannon.
At fifty yards the musket’s value would fall off, its usefulness almost as great as a thrown stone; but when ships collided in a brawl, bruising against each other like cattle through a gate, fifty yards is the end of the earth. At fifty yards you could see the red eyes of the faces you shot into, hear the curses and squeals as men instinctively patted their wound and looked at the blood on their palm.
The Shadow had at least sixty men that suited, and had the added lot of knowing how to triple their ‘sticks’ threat by double-shotting or loading with swan-shot over ball and scraping faces from bone like a carpenter’s plane.
Half an hour after the first cannon spoke, Trouin was appreciating the skill his foe possessed to this end. They fired fast, these pirates, and he even elbowed his officers to stand up and admire their ferocity rather than duck the hail of shots from the opposing rigging and the gunwale nettings. He admired them as much as the beauty of a pheasant’s futile escape before his gun or the struggle of the fish upon his hook before it gives up on the bank. Noble but pointless.
His two ships flanked the Shadow, providing a blazing rencontre that punched back and forth. The fire-fight was watched from miles away by curious ships who could make out nothing but a dark cloud of snapping cracks and flashes on the horizon. They were as far removed from the drama as if looking at a painting on a wall.
The swell of the Atlantic and the pace of the pirates’ musket fire slowed their cannon’s report. Hard to run home a gun when thirty men are plucking your gun-grew like feathers off dead game. Not all good shots mind, the yawl of the decks put paid to that, but try to get your job done with eighty or ninety whistling balls a minute chipping the wood around you and ringing off your iron.
Half an hour of sharing shot and ball. The men aloft wearing black masks for faces, their eyes raw with powder. The deck littered with splinters. The last of the Shadow’s elegant furniture had been whittled away from her rails, white wood visible under split oak and a heaving of lungs under the dust and smoke.
The weaker of the ships, La Patiente on their larboard, began to heel away. A cheer erupted on the Shadow as the bow began to slowly turn. They were running. They were running from the black flag. Now Bill only had to worry about the twenty-four gunner, the stronger ship off their starboard. The time had arrived to hurl caltrops from the rigging, crows feet of iron spikes to cut the bare feet of the gun-crews. Time for grenadoes to be flung from the deck, clay pots filled with shrapnel and brimstone. And time, too, to play them a tune to welcome them to St Peter. The drum and the fiddle or fife worth ten thousand men when your enemy heard that you deemed their efforts limp enough that you could jig while they sweated and fell. He ordered it now, musicians being as favoured on a pirate as any other man.
‘Bill!’ A shout at his back turned him from the heeling ship. ‘She’s raising fights!’ Bill pushed through the crowd amidships to see for himself, wiping the sweat and smut from his eyes.
Behind the gunwale, rigged long in advance, now hauling up from the yards, La Françoise on their starboard was bringing up fighting-cloths – great blankets designed to shelter the men working at the guns. They stretched like tents over their heads, tight from the gunwale, closing at the masts. It was now impossible for the men in the rigging to mark their quarry. Their skill was nullified; they were reduced to punching holes in cloth and trusting to their luck. The grenadoes and caltrops would just roll down, to fall into the thrashing white waves between the vessels. The gulls, oblivious to the madness of men, hovered and snatched up the fish swept to the surface between the closing wood, dodging the flying lead and iron with a wheel of their wings before flying away, grateful for the folly that fed them, their screeches mocking them all.
Something cold went through Bill. The smooth running of the arming cloths, readily prepared, as if this was how they had wanted it to play, as if they had expected the pirates’ close quarters. This was no panicked captain’s final order hastily rigged: the arming cloths rolled up as calmly as Roman blinds and Bill imagined the gun-crews working on the nine-pounders beneath their cover.
Another shout of victory from his weary men above as the marines opposite began to descend.
What now?
He shouted at his own gunner crews to stop gawking and load. Were they not beam to beam? Shatter their cannon in their faces.
Behind the arming cloths the descending French marines passed their muskets to the sailors who would mount the quarter and fo’c’sle decks, there to hinder the pirates at the swivel guns which the Shadow relied upon when it came to scraping wood.
The marines picked up the crossbows which Trouin had prepared for the moment when they saw La Patiente turn and the moment when La Françoise’s captain raised his arming cloths. The music on the Shadow fell as the cloths came up. Bill, watching them rise, did not press his men to play on.
‘And wet the arming cloths,’ Trouin insisted. ‘The final thing you will wish is to set fire to your own ship.’
One bucket of oil for the marines to dip their bolts.
‘The pirates will manage at least one more broadside. Then,’ Trouin commanded, ‘the quarrels, the bolts for your bows, to have a tow of oakum. Light and fire them into the sails. The crossbow at thirty yards or less is perfect. It does not need the skill of a bow and windage affects it less. If you can hit a barn you can hit a mainsail. It will not be spectacular – unless you are very lucky – but the impact will dishearten them, I assure you, and if the flaming arrows find some target, and if they have powder around . . .’
The arrows flew, lit by linstock match, La Françoise’s deck loosely sanded to cover any accidents and to snuff any grenadoe that made it through from the pirates.
In the Shadow’s rigging, the marksmen stilled at the dozen bolts of fire streaking towards them. Instinctively they ducked amidst their ropes and yards and followed the smoking trails as they stabbed at the canvas or twisted through the ropes and span off wood to sail to the deck.
Bill watched them thud to the oak head first to stand like candles about him. Robert Hartley clutched his bags of powder to him like a scared child as the bolts fell about, the flames already licking at sheets and lanyards.
Bill barked for his guns to fire at the higher ship. His cannon could lay only at the wood below her guns but holes were holes and wood as good as iron at splitting bone.
He left the gun-crew at his back to deal their cards to the other ship and their broadside rocked the Shadow closer to La Françoise; then, on the uproll, his own row of starboard cannon punched them back again, hammer blow after hammer blow, sending the Shadow’s men to a crouch; their arms shielding their faces as French splinters showered back at them.
Bill slapped his ears and opened his mouth to try and shift the clogging in his head that two broadsides had created. The swivel guns’ report cleared his hearing and he looked up at the good men at the upper rails who paid no mind to the rest of the world and went about reloading their falconets. He dodged to larboard to see the other assault, stamping on flaming bolts with a curse as he ran.
La Patiente had finished her turn, her guns fully raised to his canvas. She had sucked up the Shadow’s barrage painfully: good black holes gaped where gilded blue and yellow had decorated her quarter but now she had enough distance to eat the pirate’s masts and sails.
Bill looked above. The sails were already scorched and were now catching with playful flame, burning like paper, fizzing as salt and wet cloth met the flame; and then the French bowmen fired their second strike and he watched the slow course of rockets flapping into the canvas again and again, like black fingernails scratching down their grey faces.
The same effect came again: those arrows that did not stick spiralled to the deck, to eat at his wood and rope or sniff the dribbling powder. He felt time left alive was narrowing to a knife point.
Then he saw it.
Between the stern of La Patiente and his Shadow’s bow was the Atlantic, the door of an ocean. A horizon. The oncoming assault cleared his mind and his decision.
La Françoise fired and the Shadow’s weatherboard snapped like gingerbread. Three guns flew from their shackles and men rolled up against the flying iron and wood, yet, without respite, once the noise fell away, they dragged themselves back to their places, as purposeful as ants, back to their guns, coughing through the dust. But Bill had seen his window. The dash of a cornered rat to the kitchen door ajar, mindless of the foot poised to slam the door against its skull.
‘Then,’ Trouin roughly sketched his earlier prediction in his mind, ‘the weaker Patiente will turn away, leaving the pirate an escape. He will take it or wait to die as both of us give him fire and deny him a chance to board. One ship too far away, one too strong. He will run for he has no land or ally but the sea. There is nothing for him to surrender to, or for, but death. It has been ever his only motive. And that is how you split his loyal crew, split his forces, for some will wish surrender, some will wish to run. The best will wish death.’ He had thrown down his pen. ‘And we win. And we bring him into Brest and glory. And then we hang them all.’
Black Bill took the opportunity that the ships had given him to make for the Atlantic. He had mapped his course to the Verdes but now, with two warships shaving his wake, he would have to cut. No time for maps, just run and trust.
Against fatter ships with Atlantic beams and keels, the slavers and caravels, the Shadow was like a shark and preyed on them just so, but against these Mediterranean frigates with the same bluff lines the Shadow’s speed counted for naught.
Only an eye on Île d’Ouessant would guide him, and the heeling of the ship as she heaved to windward, the helm pushed right over.
He could not spare a man aloft who did not hold a gun, their cracking of muskets and the echoes back a constant refrain of the attack wearing them down. Damn Devlin for holding to a frigate. Pirates survived with smaller ships. Their doom had always been to trade up: to lose the safety of the shallows. Their arrogance bought them only a noose or shipwreck. He would have words with Devlin if they survived.
The Shadow had two stern guns on the lower deck, nine-pounders, but the two French ships kept their bows angled away. Two falconets swivelled on the taffrail, single-pounders, and at least these could strafe both enemy vessels, and immediately the pirates set to almost melting them with shot. But still the ships came on.
The sea was white between the three ships, close enough to throw insults now, but Trouin had no wish to close and board. Not while the pirates still had courage.
‘Shorten sail,’ Trouin ordered from La Patiente’s quarterdeck. ‘To larboard.’ He held his hand out for a speaking trumpet and gave back the spyglass in return. No need for that now.
From over the water, Cassard on La Françoise watched the gallants begin to haul and the yards turn and mirror the action, according to his orders.
Events move quickly on a ship. For every seemingly endless hour of nothing but rolling waves it can take barely minutes for the rug to be pulled from under you and your semblance of control dashed. A slipped rope, a moving reef, a misheard order, a clumsy lamp and all can become panic. Death leaps aboard your bow.
From the sight of the petrels above, the black-and-red ship arrowed ahead and the two others at her stern began to turn outwards and away, their wakes in the water like a flower opening, their guns effortlessly turning to bear on the fleeing ship’s quarters.
The pirate’s marksmen stopped their firing and looked down to Bill at the helm. Those in the tops at the foremast saw too late that which Bill could not. Ribbons of white water before their bow and the Celtic wind behind them pushing them forward like a giant’s palm.
They cried below but already Bill could feel the judder through the helm in his fists as the white water became their water and the keel began to shiver on the rocks that only Trouin knew of.
Events move fast on a ship.
The Shadow lurched and screamed. Men were thrown to the deck and limbs and heads smashed against cannon and wood. Bill held fast, could feel the hidden rocks biting beneath his feet, the eerie sensation of the rocks travelling from fore to aft and the deck rippling. The earth was reminding him that she only ever let them exist out of kindness.
The sails above cracked and billowed, the tiller ropes buckled at the lack of strain and Bill let go the helm before it took his arms and the wheel spun in relief as the stern began to heel round. The Shadow sailed no further. The bosun and his mates hurried to furl the sails that could drag them further into the grinder.
Bill turned to the ship’s guns set to them, his men gathering at his back. The French ships had stalled as much as the Shadow, but deliberately. He walked to the taffrail, the sea quiet, no more gunplay, only the cruel laughter of the birds circling above.
Trouin raised his speaking trumpet.
‘Capitaine Enemy, of the Shadow! I petition for your surrender. I am Commodore Duguay-Trouin of the Marine Royale. Your lives will be spared if you desist and lay down your arms.’
The good English words hurt more. Bill lowered his head. He had been taken by one who had not chanced upon them but knew who they were. How much more did they know? Was Devlin dead even now?
It seemed the trumpet had read his mind.
‘Captain Devlin! I offer only mercy. Lower your flag and I will accompany a boat for your surrender.’
So they did not know, and Bill felt better, but not those around him. Dan Teague squeezed his shoulder.
‘No surrender, Bill. We don’t lower our flag, do we? Let them come I say!’
Bill pushed the hand away and looked up at the black flag still grinning in the breeze. ‘You heard him call for the captain. That means he knows less than us. What good us to Devlin and Peter Sam if we are dead and our girl blown to pieces.’
Dan thought on. Bill faced them all. The bloodied, the ragged, the drunk. The beaten. The never beaten. Not under Devlin.
‘I’ve lost this day. But I’ll not let you die for my wrong.’ He moved through them, pulling their eyes to his back. ‘They haven’t got him. We can get him and Peter Sam back by living, lads. If we don’t talk they can’t win.’
‘But the flag, Bill!’ Dan Teague spoke for them all. ‘That’s us!’
Bill wiped his face. ‘Put the pistols to the lockers. Don’t let them take them from you. I’ll be the one to take it down.’
Trouin watched the flag fall. He passed on the trumpet and ordered the linstocks to be doused. ‘Pull in the boats,’ he said demurely. ‘I am going across.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
‘Any trouble?’ Devlin’s greeting to Peter Sam came from the stone steps that descended from the street to the water. The dory rocked unsteadily as Peter Sam held a hand to his captain; Dandon was left to his own luck.
‘No trouble, Cap’n,’ Peter Sam replied, but their eyes were on the languishing form of Albany Holmes at the stern of the boat. ‘We slept for the most. It’s warm down here.’ They had rowed to the steps that morning in the Junot’s dory, the palpable stench of fish polished into her wood. The tartane was left moored with dozens of others beneath the shadow of Pont Notre Dame.
‘Hey now, Captain!’ Albany waved. ‘How goes your day? Sold your cakes I see.’ Devlin and Dandon had ditched their empty trays in the first alley they had run through.
Devlin did not answer. His confidences were for Peter Sam only and Peter bent his head to listen.
Peter Sam did not spend much of his time with his captain. He did not play cards well or enjoy wine as much, and as for books, which Devlin and Dandon shared like bread, to Peter they were only fit for ripping cartridge paper from. And, without shame to remember it, he had tried to kill Devlin more than once when they first met.
But Patrick Devlin had sailed across the world to find him when he had even thought himself dead.
He would liste
n intently to every syllable that ever fell from his captain’s mouth until the trumpets of Judgement Day blew, and Sam would be standing at Devlin’s shoulder when they did.
Albany at least could find some talk in Dandon. ‘Went the day well, sir?’
Dandon looked at him kindly. ‘Well enough. We are still alive at least. I hope we did not cause you too much concern, Albany.’
‘Not at all. Your other companion, the filthier one, has absconded somewhere. No doubt for drink. I found this bald fool,’ he jerked his head toward Peter Sam, ‘rather dull for company.’
Dandon watched Peter Sam’s ears burn red, the dory too small for much privacy. ‘He has his uses, Albany. And when I figure out yours I’ll let you know. Besides, you should be grateful that our Peter Sam does not find you to his own . . . taste.’
Albany seemed to rejoice in this revelation. ‘Is that so? Well, they say you can never tell, eh?’ And Dandon winked in his wickedness.
Devlin turned to them both. ‘Hugh has gone to the inn. That wouldn’t be a bad plan for some supper and wine anyways. We should reward ourselves something at least.’
‘Agreed,’ Dandon pulled off his woollen cap. ‘As long as I don’t have to wear that any more.’
Devlin tugged his own cap from his head. ‘What say you, lads? What do you reckon four men can do with a Paris evening?’
Albany curled a lip at the prospect of what pirates might consider entertainment. ‘I’m sure we will do well,’ he flapped a limp hand at Peter Sam. ‘And I’m sure we could find a Molly house to distract this ape.’
The small boat rocked with Peter’s clamber to get at the grinning head of Albany, with Devlin dragged across the boat as he held on to him.
