Cross of Fire

by Mark Keating

  With Manvell acknowledged they went back to their sewing, cleaning and painting. His eyes at last adjusted, Manvell took off his hat and then the blue of the sky hit him. He took a breath and even that was sweet. The sky was a colour he had never seen. The barest blue, going on forever, irenic and dissolving into nothingness. He leant over the gunwale off a rope and looked fore, his eye falling to the water as the ship rolled.

  The sea did not boil and cream as they ploughed her, the wash parted like fresh snow and the waters shone as clear as looking up a street, only it was shoals of fish hurrying along and not passers-by. He settled down and whispered to his pregnant wife thousands of miles away.

  ‘Oh, Alice! To see it!’

  ‘It is hard to believe it is of the same earth.’

  Thomas Howard had joined him silently and had ignored the jump of his senior officer at his voice.

  ‘You were asleep when we entered the Agulhas current. That is where one leaves the Atlantic. One can see the hemispheres meet as the water becomes . . . this.’

  He enjoyed the sight with Manvell, envious that this was not his first time but warmed to share another’s.

  ‘The hue of it!’ Manvell gasped. ‘How so, such a sea?’

  Howard looked out over the miles. Here and there a large shape on the water like black oil. Reefs and shoals seeking keels.

  ‘I am told it is a higher salinity and an abundance of smaller life such as the whales consume. It is a warm current coming towards us. It will be slow here . . . but to look at it shouldn’t that be the way? Our Standard with her dirty legs sullies it, do you not think? A brown scar across it.’

  ‘Men being here sullies it.’

  ‘Aye,’ Howard agreed. ‘That too. The pirates worst of all.’

  Manvell moved away from the blinding panorama over the sea and studied Howard. Had he brought up the pirates for further discussion?

  It had been weeks since their captain had taken them back up the coast instead of on to the Comoros and their official path. Back to Leone to chase phantoms of his past. Coxon and the pirate, Kennedy, had gone ashore alone and Kennedy had come back with bloodied hands. At dinner that evening Coxon had eaten heartily while Manvell could only see his meat swimming in the blood from Kennedy’s fists as Coxon updated their orders, not requiring consent. The sail back and into the Indian had been long and even with Manvell and Howard sleeping just feet apart they had discussed nothing outside the workings of their watches and designations of their quarter-bills. Howard’s nightmares grew more frequent and Manvell found them almost necessary for himself to fall asleep to, so used to them he had become.

  Manvell shook the thought of pirates away and pointed to one of the men with the black eyes. ‘Why do they wear those?’

  Howard followed his hand. ‘Ah. Yes. You may have noticed, sir, that the water and the deck is very much like staring at the sun. Ashes and grease. Keeps the glare down and prevents burning. I wish I could do it.’

  ‘They look mean to be sure.’

  ‘They look like pirates.’

  The word again. Manvell took a breath.

  ‘What say you on this Devlin business, Mister Howard? You are close to the captain.’

  Howard looked straight ahead. ‘Is that a question from the Standard, sir?’

  ‘No, Thomas. Just from me.’

  ‘In that case, sir, I see no diversion or concern. We are on course to meet with captains Ogle and Herdman as per orders. The pirate Devlin is part of the order to go after Roberts. The captain has gained intelligence on Devlin. Once we meet with Ogle and Herdman I’m sure we will compare and adjust.’

  ‘To go after Roberts? That is the greater order is it not? Would you not agree?’

  Howard stopped looking forward.

  ‘The captain will do what is best, sir. I know that because I am alive to say it.’ He tapped his hat and Manvell saw the hot flush on his face. ‘Will you excuse me, sir?’

  ‘I meant no offence, Thomas. The captain has not told me what occurred at Leone. I only saw that man, that pirate Kennedy stained with blood.’

  ‘Will you excuse me, sir?’ Howard repeated, his youth suddenly gone.

  ‘You may go, Mister Howard. I am to the quarterdeck to await the Standard,’ Manvell used the regulation term for the captain, as Howard had done to him. ‘But I hope you will assist me at dinner when I ask the Standard directly what happened and what he intends.’

  Howard dipped his chin.

  ‘I will follow my orders and adhere to my duty, sir.’

  ‘I expect no less, Lieutenant. I just want to know if the next time the Standard goes ashore will he bring one of us . . . or the pirate again? Do you not think it strange that the man has no duties, eats with the cook, is separate from all of us except the captain?’

  Howard spoke low for prying ears. ‘Pirates have a way of wooing men’s ears. It is best to keep him away.’

  ‘Even from us? Can we be wooed?’

  Howard touched his hat again and backed away.

  ‘I think something is wooing you even now, sir.’ Howard span away, fore to the fo’c’sle.

  Manvell watched him leave then walked along the skid beams to the quarterdeck. Two of his next four hours would be spent with the captain. Then later, at dinner, or supper as his inn-keeper father preferred it, ask Coxon what he had learnt at Leone. Howard had been primed a little to expect a difficult conversation. Perhaps a word to the doctor or the master. If the table all had an interest Coxon could not refuse without discord.

  He looked at the intensity of the colourful new world that he had awoken into. It seemed impossible that night could ever come to extinguish such light and his impatience to be at dinner would not help its snuffing.

  From the quarterdeck companion-way he paused and looked back over the deck at the black eyes. Maybe it was easy to woo these men who already resembled pirates. If the captain could raise huzzahs out of them with talk of treasure and prizes why not one of their own?

  He stepped up and greeted Master Jenkins and the timoneer. Below them at the belfry the cord was pulled and the bell rang eight times, the glass turned on the final tang and a hand held the bell to cut the peal dead. The day begun. Manvell took out his log and called for the backstaff. He would forget about dinner for now. His concentration went to the small inked numbers and the lines of the earth. No room in his equations for the mundane.

  He saw the top of Coxon’s hat come from beneath the quarterdeck and bark to some slackens and his heart raced.

  He fixed to his charts, his head down to yesterday’s position. He would wait until dinner, when he had the company of others. Keep his conversation ordered, aware as any that a captain’s instincts and consciousness of his ship were mystical powers.

  He prepared the backstaff, the Davis quadrant, held it in front of his face looking for faults, and used its frame to hide the body coming up the stair. He convinced himself that it was nothing to do with doubt and all to do with that own instinct nurturing inside of him for the future, for the time when he commanded his own ship.

  He felt the body and the shadow fall over his chart.

  ‘Mister Manvell?’ Coxon beamed with the day.

  ‘Yes, Captain?’ Manvell showed too many teeth.

  ‘We are entering into pirate waters. The clouds on our starboard horizon are Madagascar.’

  ‘And we have the Comoros a day afore our bows. Although the four islands—’ the backstaff almost slipped from his sweaty hands and he danced with it ‘—will be new to me.’

  Coxon patted his back. ‘To your readings Manvell. Between thirty-six and thirty-eight degrees will gain us the highest westerly.’ He turned and walked to the taffrail. ‘And Manvell?’

  ‘Yes, Captain?’

  ‘There is something I need to talk to you about over dinner, or supper as your father and mine would prefer. Make sure no officer is absent.’

  Manvell dropped the backstaff with a clang impossible for an instrument of wood. He had
thought of his father, the word “supper”, and Coxon had heard his thoughts. He momentarily dreaded that Coxon might also have kenned his other notions and was slyly letting him know. For the powers of captains were ever mysterious.

  ‘Of course, Captain.’ He scrambled the wood up into his arms and made his way to the chains for his reading.

  Chapter Sixteen

  A thin supper on the Standard. Suffolk cheese and biscuit for the crew – the cheese harder than the biscuit – and a pease and rice stew. Victualling would be done at Anjouan where the Swallow and Weymouth waited. The stores were not low, the victualling was just a precaution against the unknown should Anjouan prove troublesome and they had to head west to Mozambique’s forts. Three hours were allotted to feed the messes of the Standard, four men to each mess, the officers not dining until done.

  It was seven o’clock before Coxon’s table was prepared. The Suffolk cheese could keep for months, skimmed of all its cream, and the officers shaved it rather than sliced it onto their tack. They had meat at least, braised in gravy, and suet pudding and actually the leftovers from the crew’s lunch. Tomorrow’s salt beef was already steeping to make it edible.

  The same hands at table as every night, like the hand-clapping chorus of a nursery rhyme.

  The doctor, the master, the captain and his boys,

  Sitting all together like Christmas toys.

  Except that Manvell and Howard were hardly boys. Howard, at twenty-one, was in his seventh year, Manvell the same length of service but older. If he did not make captain or master and commander in four years his commission would be languishing, a warrant officer to a ship yet to be built, or the merchant service for him if it went for the worst, and that might all depend if his wife Alice had a successful birth.

  It was impossible for him to tell how he would accept another still-birth. Sure in his love for Alice, unsure of his faith in himself and God, and what lesson he was to take from His plan for him. And there was Alice’s father, the duke.

  With Manvell at sea for months on end, his letters were only written on the wind. Polite questions of health, affirmations of constancy, no reply expected for months. What words were spoken in his absence, what sighs about the man who could only father loose children that fell from perfect aristocratic wombs?

  ‘Your thoughts are not with us, Mister Manvell?’ Coxon angled his voice from the side of his mouth that was not masticating on hide.

  Manvell put down his cutlery.

  ‘No, Captain. My apologies, sir. However,’ he caught Howard’s glare from across the table and turned away from it like a blinkered horse.

  ‘I am, I assure the Standard, concentrating on our mission at hand and considering your word this afternoon to address us, Captain.’

  Coxon succeeded in swallowing the wood in his mouth. ‘Quite so, Lieutenant. I’m well aware that there may be some concern about our task. Particularly in light of Kennedy’s involvement.’

  ‘Not at all, Captain,’ Manvell said. ‘We are behind the Standard, one and all.’

  ‘I am glad to hear it. Especially as events now lead me to adapt our orders.’

  The table stopped eating. Master Jenkins leant an ear forward; he was the furthest from Coxon and may have misheard, he hoped.

  ‘Change our orders, Captain?’

  ‘Adapt, Mister Jenkins. I thought it prudent to wait until we were at least in the right sea to announce.’

  Howard trapped Manvell’s eye this time. Manvell was unable to read the young man’s face but sure that the next question should be his.

  ‘Adapt in what way, Captain?’

  Coxon carried on eating and waved his fork for the rest to follow.

  ‘A minor addendum that is all. My intelligence serves for us not to attend to captains Ogle and Herdman.’

  ‘Not to attend? On what intelligence, Captain?’ Manvell asked.

  Coxon chewed, brushed his hair forward, separating the strands with a thumbnail. Habit now.

  ‘I know it has been difficult for you to approve, Mister Manvell, but Walter Kennedy has shown himself invaluable. I think the difference between our success and the Swallow’s and Weymouth’s failure will be their arrogance to not consider the value of base men.’

  ‘So what has your “pirate” told, Captain?’

  Manvell felt Howard’s glare. Doctor Howe’s red face almost burst.

  ‘Manvell!’ The doctor poured himself some port to mellow his shock; neglecting in his horror to first fill Howard’s glass to his left. ‘Respect, sir!’

  Coxon raised his arm across Howe.

  ‘No, no, Doctor. My First is correct. His concern is for the Standard. I would expect no less.’ He leant to Manvell’s side of the table.

  ‘My intelligence, Mister Manvell, is gained from my interrogation of the slave trader, Leadstone, at Leone. Thanks to the man’s trust of his old pirate bonds in Walter Kennedy he has informed us that the pirate Devlin is after the treasure taken in April from the Portuguese viceroy.’

  Howard spoke for the first time. ‘The Virgin of the Cape? She was taken by pirates in April.’ He looked around the table to the blank faces. ‘The treasure on her was in millions.’

  ‘The very same,’ Coxon rapped the table. ‘Which is why I have delayed so long in telling. It would fly around the ship in moments. I want the men to be inspired but not before the chase is within reach.’

  ‘Within reach?’ Manvell asked.

  ‘Devlin and Roberts are coursing after the treasure. Possibly together. Which is why we shall adjust our orders as given, as is our duty when intelligence demands. Leadstone tells that one of the pirates that captured the bounty has run into the Amirantes with his lot. Over a million, as mister Howard states learnedly. What say you to that, Mister Manvell?’

  Manvell took a slow drink of port.

  ‘My instinct would be to question intelligence gathered from sources distrustful by their criminal natures, Captain. I also do not see how this changes our alliance with the Swallow and the Weymouth. From your declaration I have gathered that we are going after two pirate vessels. Roberts and Devlin. Would not the extra ships be of use?’

  Coxon took the port from Howe’s place and passed it left to Manvell.

  ‘It is time that unbalances us on that level, Mister Manvell. Kennedy says that the pirate Levasseur – along with dozens of others – operates out of Bourbon island, off Madagascar’s east coast. Part of the Mascarenes.’

  Doctor Howe belched through the French pirate name.

  ‘Leva-what now?’

  Coxon ignored the interruption. ‘That is where we’re heading. To Bourbon. To fish for where Devlin may have gone. Time taken to meet with the Swallow will be wasteful. I’m more conscious of our orders to apprehend, and with a treasure to boot I would not like to consider the talk of us in England if we let such opportunity pass. Would you not agree, Mister Howard?’

  Coxon attempted to nail the young man to his flag, Howard his oldest ally. Howard’s face had still not revealed anything to Manvell except a disagreement with the suet.

  ‘I understand our orders are to hunt pirates. I don’t see how that’s changed, sir.’

  Manvell remained calm. ‘But to hunt them with the assistance of two other men-of-war and report to Captain Ogle. Has that not changed?’

  ‘Manvell,’ Coxon shook his head. ‘The Standard is acting on information unknown to anyone else. Know you that every packet contains the scripture, “as the captain does see fit”. We are heading sooner to conflict. I should hope that it is not the prospect of assault that concerns you?’

  Manvell felt the eyes of the table upon him, the eyes of the duke staring across the waves from his drawing room and judging his daughter’s choice of husband.

  ‘No, sir. And I’m sure the men will be uplifted by the word of true treasure as their goal. But this morning you bade me course for the Comoros and—’

  ‘And tomorrow we will shape for Bourbon using Cape Sebastian.’ Coxon raised hi
s glass. ‘I can do it myself if you wish?’

  Manvell removed his hands to below the table to hide their trembling. ‘I only voice concern, Captain, that as your First I should like to be better informed of my task and duty if I am to perform ably.’ This posturing was hard for Manvell. He had served three captains, most of whom had been happy with his manner and impressed with his ability despite his stock. He hoped that his unease was only born from his lack of experience of the boldness of men like Coxon and not of a want of clashing with pirates. ‘And I have never been in service when orders were changed.’

  ‘In war it is commonplace,’ Coxon said.

  ‘But we are not in war.’ Manvell regretted the words as they came, wished to pull them back in as they fell upon the table. It seemed almost his habit now.

  Coxon eyed him over his glass as he drank and placed it back to the table slowly. ‘What would you call it, Lieutenant, if not war? What you must remember is that I have seen pirates up close. I have seen his ship. No match for the Standard and her guns. And when I announce to the men that there is treasure to be had they will grow wings to push us on. I am sorry to hear that your service has only been dull up to now, Mister Manvell. But you claim that your father taught you how to use a sword so I doubt that is your issue.’

  ‘I have no issue, sir,’ and he meant it. ‘But I would like to hear it confirmed that it is Devlin that is our target now. That Roberts is not of your concern – my apologies – of the Standard’s concern.’

  The bowls cooled and good humour vanished. Coxon seemed to puff at a pipe that was not there and scratched his hair forward again.

  ‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘If that is how we shall have it. We are after Devlin and a million pounds of prize. I see no harm in admitting it. Why not? We have good men, a fine ship and, once at Bourbon, I’m sure we will have the key. Together – a crew such as this – we could pickpocket our hangman.’