Cross of Fire

by Mark Keating

  ‘My gratitude, General,’ Coxon praised, and led the others to their chairs. Howard heard his name in the introductions as he sat and closer now he could see the bracelets of shells and charms about Phipps’s wrists and neck as the fat man nodded his greetings. Phipps had long embraced some of the cultures and traditions passed onto him by his native concubine. Coxon had seen her, and Phipps’s brood of mulatto children on his last visit. In fact she had cared for Coxon in his illness. He had never even learnt her name.

  ‘And who is this fellow?’ Phipps grimaced at the dishevelled scrawn of Walter Kennedy. ‘Not an officer I hope? I should have to write back to Whitehall if he is so.’

  ‘No, General,’ Coxon said. ‘May I introduce Walter Kennedy. A captain late of the pirate Roberts now attached to our mission.’

  ‘A pirate!’ Phipps went scarlet and rolled himself against his chair; almost managing to stand. ‘A damned pirate! Are you mad, sir? You bring a sea-dog to my castle!’

  Phipps had suffered badly over the last two years by those pirates who had left the Americas. Davis, Cocklyn, La Buse and now Roberts had ridden the coast and harangued and raided the forts and ships with impunity. Coxon reminded him why they were there.

  ‘General, we are set to capture pirates. Your troubles are what brings us, as requested by yourself – as ordered.’ He removed his hat to the table; the humidity was simply too great. ‘I designed to bring a sailor with me who has knowledge of both the pirates and the Indian sea. Kennedy is my choice.’

  Phipps scoffed. ‘Bah! Knowledge! What knowledge can scrap provide? Nonsense, sir!’

  Coxon stroked his lip to hide his thin smile. He stood and crossed the room, his attention drawn deliberately to a curious wooden box standing on one of the commodes beneath the windows. Phipps’s neck craned to spy the object of Coxon’s interest.

  ‘Ah, my Fruit of the Sea! A gift from the ambassador of Maputo.’

  Coxon had recognised the cabinet’s origins; he would make a criterion of it for Phipps, in Kennedy’s cause.

  The box was made from a Coco de Mer, the rare seed of a fabled tree. It sat on silver lion’s paws, and in its erect position could cause embarrassment to even the bawdiest of men for its shape resembled the shape and size of an ample woman’s lower half, front and back. This one had silver repoussé mountings framing the doors which opened out of the buttocks. Princes loved them.

  ‘What do you know of this, General?’ Coxon asked.

  ‘Ah, it is a mystery of the East,’ he sang. ‘Some espouse that its tree grows beneath the sea for the seed is oft seen rising from beneath,’ he leant forward and winked at young Howard. ‘And has risen many a sailor’s ardour at the sight of it, lighting up dreams of mermaids.’

  He turned back to Coxon. ‘It has many legends. Of Eden, of the Roc bird. No-one knows the truth of it or where it comes from.’ He widened his eyes to all of them. ‘I can tell you it is worth a tidy sum.’

  Coxon opened one of the blue velvet-lined doors and shut it as loud as he could to raise his voice to Kennedy. ‘And you, Walter?’ he called. ‘What do you know of this thing?’

  Kennedy dragged himself to his feet and loped to the object. He stroked it almost tenderly and certainly inappropriately to the witnesses’ eyes.

  ‘To be sure, gentlemen, it comes from only two islands. The tree that is. The seeds sink when the tide drags them and don’t make for good eating ’cept for years later. Tide and time takes them out to sea. When the husk rots she comes to the surface. That’s why the sailors think the tree lives under the waves.’

  Coxon looked at Phipps, who was fuming. ‘And where does it come from? In your “knowledge”?’

  ‘Those islands have no name. We careen and take land turtles. You keep in the fours,’ he dipped his head respectfully to Phipps. ‘That’s the latitude, Your Majesty. East-nor’east from the Comoros, that’s the perfume islands off Africa. The air smells of vanilla and Creole whores. The sands are the colour of pearls. I don’t know the degrees without tools.’

  Coxon softly pushed him away.

  ‘Thank you, Walter. Take some bread.’

  Kennedy went the long way back to the table, avoiding Phipps’s glare.

  ‘I think I have my man, General, for a good run to the Amirantes. Unless you can suggest better.’ He came back. ‘Now, what do you have to tell me about the Swallow and the Weymouth. That’s what I’m here for. I’ll forego my bread. I am not a bird to eat crumbs.’

  Howard put his face down to hide his smirk. General Phipps appeared relieved that the time to be polite had passed.

  ‘Very well, Captain.’

  ‘Post-Captain, General Governor. If you please.’ Coxon took his seat.

  Phipps winced. ‘My apologies . . . Post-Captain. Captain Chaloner Ogle and Captain Mungo Herdman are more than a month gone. I have copies of their logs for you as per my instruction. It is believed that the pirate Roberts will make for Madagascar. He is down to just the one ship.’

  Kennedy pricked his ears and Coxon snapped to the sight.

  ‘What is it, Walter?’

  Kennedy took a knife and produced first a flinch and then relief from Phipps as he sawed at the bread.

  ‘Not much, Captain. But I would be thinking that would be Thomas Anstis has left Roberts now. As I did. He was always threatening.’ He went at the butter.

  ‘Why are men leaving him, Walter?’

  Kennedy shrugged and stuffed the bread into his mouth and sputtered through it.

  ‘Roberts gives you a ship. Your own men. We were immortal under him. Took dozens of ships just with drums.’ He swallowed and something of the pirate’s pride came back to him as he remembered and as the cold stone of the Marshalsea faded far away.

  ‘Your kind never reached us. Gave us wide passage, Captain. I never saw an English flag for two years.’

  Coxon looked away. ‘I was in the Americas, Walter. Why would you leave him?’

  ‘He wouldn’t go for British. Just the old. The French and Spanish and the fat boys. Just the merchants and the slavers.’ He looked across the table to Phipps. ‘You might have given him a medal in years gone.’ He slouched in his seat until Coxon pulled him up with his frown.

  ‘Anyways, me and Anstis wanted more. I ran in the night. Reckon he’s done the same.’

  A door creaked. A stumbling scrivener, dragging his left foot, approached from behind Phipps. He asked no entrance or exit as he dumped some ribboned paper at Coxon and pulled himself away.

  Phipps plucked his long fingernails through a tender hide of boar and pulled and sucked on it as he spoke.

  ‘Your further orders, Post-Captain. You are to meet at the Îles de Comorre,’ he delighted in his French accent over Kennedy’s Irish vowels. ‘All is within the papers. The captains will wait until the eighth of August. Then they will hunt for Roberts without you.’

  Coxon slipped off the ribbon and ran his thumb through the papers as he kept questioning. ‘Did the captains not mention Devlin?’

  Phipps licked his thumb then further drew it in and sucked on it, the image of a blushing cherub with his plump cheeks and curled wig.

  ‘Hmm? Who now?’

  ‘The pirate Devlin. I’ve been recalled to hunt him. He is in these waters, it is believed.’ He corrected himself. ‘May be here.’

  Phipps rolled his head.

  ‘I heard no mention of him,’ then he clicked his fingers and gulped some air which made Thomas Howard think of a whale he had seen do the same.

  ‘Wait now. I think we did have some discussion of him. The name is sound.’

  Coxon sat up and Phipps leaned back and picked his teeth with his littlest fingernail like a hook. ‘He is the one, is he not, that was your man? Is that the length of it? “Post-Captain”? The servant who licked you? I recall myself and Captain Ogle had some amusing discourse about it over supper now that you say it.’

  Walter Kennedy covered his mouth and his leg shook against the table. A choking from his throat on
the bread sticking. Thomas Howard looked over to Coxon concentrating on the paper in his lap. Coxon put the ribbon clumsily back around his papers.

  Phipps leant forward with a grunt.

  ‘Am I not right informed that you lost your ship to pirates, “Post-Captain”? Does your Lieutenant not know this? I hope I have not overstepped my mark as “Governor General” with my voice. He does know that your man joined them and is now their captain?’

  Coxon squared his papers and his hat and finally lifted his head. Thomas Howard spoke quicker.

  ‘General Phipps. I fought with Post-Captain Coxon against this man Devlin. I am here because of it. I volunteered to join him. I would expect nothing less than your full devotion as befits your station to respect the trust that your king and first minister has put in his ability. And their faith that His Majesty’s Governor General will respond accordingly to our mission.’

  Thomas Howard’s jaw trembled as Phipps glowered at him. He wanted to exhale but kept his head stiff as if a leather stock were around his neck.

  Coxon breathed out for him. ‘Thank you for the logs, General. If your information is lacking I will follow my orders to meet with Captain Ogle and Captain Herdman.’

  He scraped back his chair and the others followed without order.

  ‘Wait, wait, Post-Captain,’ Phipps raised a finger. ‘I neglected to tell you of the most interesting fact.’

  Coxon raised his chin and Phipps’s lips slid into a sneer.

  ‘You know of the English novels of Defoe? I credit he is up to at least the third or fourth about his Robinson Crusoe chap.’

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘It transpires that the man who was the inspiration for those stories travels with Captain Herdman. You know the name?’

  ‘I do,’ Coxon said. ‘Selkirk. A Scotsman.’

  ‘Aye, that be it,’ Phipps wagged his finger. ‘That be him.’

  ‘What interest?’ Coxon’s face went rigid.

  ‘You may have much to talk about when you meet.’ Phipps sat back in his seat.

  ‘As one failure to another.’

  Coxon afforded a smile beneath his hat.

  ‘You are aware, General, that I am set to hunt pirates that have hounded your shores and your Royal African ships? That such is my purpose?’

  ‘It is your duty, sir,’ Phipps warbled, pleased with his words that he was sure had stung.

  Coxon dipped his hat and backed to the chapel.

  ‘Have you not given any thought as to what might happen to your good self should we fail? If only one of us cared not enough to douse you as you burned?’

  He span on his heel and pushed his men into the chapel, even winking at Walter Kennedy. Damn him for a pirate but he had played his part when a wig had mocked him. What to make of Ogle and Herdman when he met them? Were they of the same cloth as Phipps? Had they laughed over his past? He pulled Kennedy’s shoulder as they walked up the centre of the church, the cross staring down at them as on a bride and groom, Howard afore them as if their priest.

  ‘Tell me, Walter. Where would you go as pirates to find out the word?’

  ‘I don’t get your meaning, Captain?’

  ‘Yes you do. Where are the hidden forts? Where do you speak to each other?’

  Kennedy rubbed his chin. ‘Madagascar to be sure. Anywhere on Madagascar.’

  ‘But they’ll shut up at a naval ship. The Swallow would already try there. Where else?’

  Kennedy stroked his sweating neck next; felt the rope already rasping. This was why he was here, yet if he could delay the end, belay the meeting of Roberts or Devlin until he had made his escape, that would do.

  ‘That would be Old Cracker’s place. Back up the coast. Back up to Sierra Leone, Captain. If any on the account comes to Africa they stops there.’

  Howard stepped between them.

  ‘Returning up the coast, Captain, would add another week. Our orders are to meet up with the Swallow and Weymouth. We have only until August eighth.’

  ‘And it is still June, Thomas,’ Coxon said. ‘Even with the trade winds against it will only take a week from us.’

  ‘And a week to get back here again and three weeks to reach Ogle. That is fine shaving, sir. With respect, you speak of the coast as if it is a walk to market.’

  Coxon slapped Howard’s shoulder.

  ‘That’s the mark of it, lad!’ Then his jocose manner dropped as suddenly as it had appeared.

  ‘We know Roberts is around since Biafra but what of Devlin? If a pirate wants to survive he needs to know what is afore his bows and reaching for his stern. Devlin would do that.’ He tapped Kennedy again. ‘This “Old Cracker”? It is the first pirate place you would come to?’

  ‘The most English one, Captain.’

  ‘Then we will go.’ He already began to leave.

  Howard protested. ‘But we will lose weeks, sir!’

  Coxon stopped. ‘I can feel him, Mister Howard. I know the signs. We must walk in his shoes. Devlin has kept alive for so long because he questions everything. He would not sail without having some idea where Roberts is if he wishes to join up. And if he doesn’t . . . well, he would still get as much information as he could. He would question everything.’ He walked on, up the church, his heels near sparking the black stone floor in haste. Howard and Kennedy trotted behind.

  ‘How would you know that, sir?’ Howard asked to his back.

  ‘Because I told him to. When all of this was younger.’

  They squinted at the bleaching sunlight as they left the chapel and said no more until their return to the boat. Thomas Howard kept his eyes to his shoes during the trawl back. He would obey his captain always but the tenacity of Coxon to want to chase Devlin, and Devlin only, itched uncomfortably. The greater order was to meet with the Swallow and Weymouth, now confirmed waiting for them in the Comoros, east of Africa.

  His education of the Cape was limited to his trade jaunts with the late Captain William Guinneys. It took only one bad day to set you back a week or more. All the seas seemed to meet at its point and now they were to head back along the compass they had already sailed chasing whispers and ghosts. Further delay. Devlin was not here at all and they had real orders to follow. He would wait until the word was given to Manvell back aboard. Give his voice if Manvell objected. He watched Coxon tut and twist his head back and forth between the castle and the ship as they were rowed away. Captains should not be anxious or tut at waves.

  Faith, Thomas, he thought. In twenty years you may gain such instinct. Or else it is only madness and you are already lost.

  The bell of the castle tolled noon. Coxon pulled out his watch and called for Howard to do the same.

  ‘Set for noon, Thomas. The castle is as close to Greenwich as we will get; that is why it is here. Set the clock on the ship as soon as. We may have good longitude for a day or so.’

  Howard turned the crown of his watch. Was it really noon in London as well as in this tropical hell? They seemed in another world. The earth could not be so big and yet so small that two clocks told the same time in such differing climates.

  Perhaps this was how Coxon was so confident that the pirate could be found. In the vastness it was the detail that mattered. Set your watch so, your rule and compass to match, the stars against the astrolabe and there Devlin will be, hiding behind a barrel somewhere as sure as the Pole Star.

  He closed the case, replaced it in his pocket and looked up at Coxon’s pleased face upon him.

  Faith, Thomas, he repeated to himself. Or else it is only madness and you are already lost.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Thomas Howard had not had the dream for many a year but he accepted that it was no coincidence. He was a boy again, a young man, aboard the frigate Starling and surrounded by smoke and hot gore. He could see the pistol in his fist, shaking at the sight of a hundred pirates with mouths as big as their heads, their yellow jaws down to their chests and howling like demons as they burst from the cabin. They tore through
the paper sailors until they came just for him, towered over the boy that he was.

  The boy grew smaller under their foetid breath and they blotted out the blue sky above where the mainmast had been. They raised their axes with a roar that went on and on like wind through a cave. His plea for mercy came out as a mew from a neck-slit calf. He had words but they were just sounds as if his jaw were broken and his mouth were filled with blood.

  He knew he was asleep and this was but his treacherous sleeping mouth trying to speak and only mocking him in doing so. It was the sound of torment. He waited for the axes to fall.

  If he awoke before this point, as he had done many times, he was convinced that he had died, and it would take moments of patting down his body and gasping like a banked fish before relief would come and he looked about at the dark comfort of his screened world behind a simple door on the lower deck aft. The snores of a whole ship and her protests against the sea echoing all around and lullabying him back to sleep.

  But sometimes in the dream, as now, a yellow sleeve came out of the beasts and pulled him close. Arms enfolded him and brought his face to a damp and smoke-reeking waistcoat of yellow damask. A scent never forgotten.

  He could hear music far away and knew it was from the pirate ship across that had broken them but it was soothing, as was the voice and gold-toothed smile that looked down at him and brushed his hair from his eyes and spoke to him with a voice tinged with gold.

  ‘Good boy,’ the smile said. ‘Brave boy.’ And the axes did not fall.

  Howard sprang awake to a hand on his chest and a lantern before his face. It took a moment for his shaken brain to jigsaw the features, half-lit in the amber light, back to the real world and not the other.

  Lieutenant Manvell knelt beside his cot and was rousing him awake. He was in his nightshirt and his hair fell long about his shoulders.

  ‘Quiet now, Mister Howard,’ hushed Manvell, his teeth glinting in the light like those in the dream. ‘You’ll wake the mess to breakfast.’

  ‘I am sorry, sir,’ Howard wiped his sweating chest. ‘I was dreaming.’