Cross of Fire

by Mark Keating

  Manvell saluted his glass. ‘So be it,’ he said. ‘I am convinced. Then tomorrow at him.’ And again he failed to read anything from Howard’s stoic face. ‘But we will need to supply.’

  Howard spoke finally.

  ‘Bourbon is a trading island, Mister Manvell. No purser’s credits but we could give sailcloth and cordage for what we need.’ He smiled at Coxon, the first time Manvell had seen his face shift.

  Coxon returned the smile briefly then ruminated on his glass tilting with the sea.

  He had not told any of them of his meeting in the Boston colony in January. A square of paper sitting in his coat, burning into him. Hidden even from the Board that gave him his orders. Manvell was a good man but Coxon could see his faith wilting. Even Howard only indulged him. How far could he push before he would have to reveal his only true order? Two black-coated men had come to him in January to call him back. Paper kept in the safety of his command. Paper even he had been forbidden to read. The seal to be broken by those who would judge his success or failure.

  Devlin their only order. For their shame and their folly in having trusted a pirate. No plays or ballads for Devlin. Not even a noose.

  End him. Once and for all. Ignore all else.

  Doctor Howe broke his sombre mood. ‘Forgive me, gentlemen. I heard something about “hangmen”? What are we about now?’

  Chapter Seventeen

  There exist islands that have no names, or at least no official names. That comes when a country decrees to colonise and lands a flagged possession stone, builds a fort, establishes a trade route, and claims it as their own. Until such time the island might have many titles, depending on the map the mariner uses.

  Devlin used a new Mortier which gave no such names for the tiny outlines the priest had pointed to with his fingernail. But O’Neill repeated the titles for the cluster of islands that he had overheard The Buzzard use.

  ‘The last island of the Amirantes,’ O’Neill said proudly. ‘The largest one. Fifty to sixty miles all round.’

  Devlin bent to the map. ‘It has no name?’

  ‘Does it matter? Levasseur scoffed at Taylor for going to Panama. His, he said, was devoid of man but as fruitful as Eden. That is the island where The Buzzard has gone. That is where he has taken the cross.’

  ‘The treasure,’ Devlin corrected.

  Dandon joined them and looked down at the island.

  ‘Do you know this place, Patrick?’

  Devlin dragged his fingernail over the string of islands.

  ‘These are the islands that the Portos called “The Three Brothers and The Seven Sisters”. Wild places. No-one wants them.’

  ‘A good place to hide,’ Dandon said.

  Devlin concentrated on the chart. ‘From Cape St Sebastien,’ he covered the tip of Madagascar with the first fingers of his left hand where the rhumb-lines passed and twisted his wrist to match the line that stretched away and ended at de Roque Pires.

  ‘Sixty-five degrees north north-east.’ He walked the rhumb line with his first knuckle as a gauge. ‘Seven hundred miles. Six days if we’re lucky and sail all night.’

  ‘And no sign of Roberts,’ Dandon reminded. ‘He may have already found a guide and beaten us to it.’

  Devlin slammed the book closed.

  ‘That’s the craic of it! The Buzzard took the ship at Bourbon. He’s taken his Victory and run five degrees south of the equator. West he hits Zanzibar, east, Sumatra. He could trade between them for a thousand years and Europe would never know.’

  Dandon watched Devlin’s confidence shine yet could not help but break it.

  ‘It has been three months since Levasseur took the treasure. Would he not have perhaps melted this cross? Parted this island by now?’

  Devlin’s manner darkened.

  ‘Do you not remember a chest that we could not move for its weight in gold? Sometimes a feast is a curse. How would you melt a seven-foot cross of gold?’

  Dandon looked out a window to the night.

  ‘I would – I suppose – need some lead cast to melt it. Tools to pour it into more manageable moulds . . .’ He faltered. ‘I do not know.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Devlin said and O’Neill seemed pleased beside him as Devlin went on.

  ‘He’s the richest man under heaven. And he’ll need help to rid himself of it.’

  ‘Our help,’ Dandon suggested.

  ‘But not yours, my friend.’

  Dandon straightened from his usual slouch.

  ‘Not mine? And what am I to do?’

  Devlin patted his shoulder.

  ‘This road may be bloody. I need Peter Sam and Hugh. I need the true beside me.’

  He read Dandon’s sallow eyes and hoped in return Dandon could see his reasoning. Devlin had lost Bill Vernon last year, and others before whom he had known since his first days as pirate. Peter Sam indestructible, Hugh Harris as novel as rat and cockroach at survival, but Devlin had learnt how death discriminated. He had stood in the guts of Sam Fletcher, who had shot men in their faces and only asked that Devlin did not tell his mother about him, as he tried to push back his insides. Others had been just as bloody and broken, their lives snuffed by powder, tipped to the sea or left on beaches where they deserved to be, to be sure. But Dandon did not carry a weapon, and they were going against pirates.

  ‘We’ll drop you with the priests and the Santa Rosa at Bourbon.’

  Bourbon was east of Madagascar. The Buzzard, Taylor and England had made it one of their pirate bases as had hundreds of others over the decades. Dandon would be safe there, the priests would be safe there, all safe for Devlin’s return with a hold full of gold. None dead. Dandon saw no argument in Devlin’s eyes.

  ‘But I will come with you, Captain,’ O’Neill insisted.

  Devlin looked the priest up and down.

  ‘You’d better. You carried that cross once. I’m not hauling it for you. Can you fight, priest?’

  ‘Am I priest first or Irish?’

  Devlin grinned and elbowed him aside.

  ‘That’ll do, Father.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Extract from the journal of Renaud Rennefort, first governor of Bourbon, 1665.

  The Isle is situated between twenty-one and twenty-two degrees of south latitude; is of a round figure and sixty leagues in circumference. The sick who were landed there recovered in a very short time from the purity of the air and the excellence of its refreshments.

  The turtle doves, the wood pigeons and parroquets, were so far from being alarmed at the sight of man that they flew about him as to suffer to be taken without any exertion. Cattle and goats were seen in great numbers. Hogs also were in great plenty, and fed on the land turtles, which were seen crawling about in every quarter. The sea turtles visited the shore during the evening and were easily taken.

  The land animals were inexhaustible, as well as the fish which were found in pools or inhabited the beautiful rivers that flowed through the island. Almost all the trees wept benzoin and other precious gums. The soil is so rich as to be made capable of producing two harvests in the year, and the water, which is excellent, does not nourish any venomous and mischievous animal. Ambergris, coral and the most beautiful shells in the world are found upon the coast.

  One half of this island was formerly consumed by fire which has left very dreadful proofs of its violence. The anchorage is not good off any part of the island, nor are hurricanes infrequent. When they arise, trees are torn up by their roots, houses are blown away, and, if the ships are not driven on shore, they are sunk by its fury.

  It cannot be seen from Madagascar and in truth it was part of the Mascarenhas Archipelago, as, of course, discovered by the Portuguese and a sister to the Île de France; but to Christopher Manvell it seemed conceivable that the island’s peaks could be seen from India.

  Bourbon. Named after the royal house. For one year it had not held a French governor and although the pirates had enjoyed a peaceful relationship with the old one the absence o
f any law suited better.

  Manvell stood at the fo’c’sle as the bowsprit bobbed up and down over the green mountains that stretched out of the sea. Cloud shrouded the whole of the island, the wet heat already in the air over the ship and the rise of smoke from her volcanoes created an emblem of places imagined only by sailors – a remnant of the earth before time. A place to be avoided. All the promise of new worlds, all the dangers of the savage tropics. Every sight reminded them how far they had come, how foreign they were. Even the sea was different. Yet the sound of the ship ploughing through it remained reassuringly the same, and the sight of the brigs and sloops curving around the coast was the same, if less reassuring.

  The pirates, Manvell thought. Wherever God has thought an island in this ocean there be pirates and crows.

  They advanced on St Denis, the main town, from the north, the wind to larboard. There was no port, nor any port on the island. The other three French settlements, St Paul, St Mary and St Susanna lay also in the island’s north. The mountains and volcanoes kept the south secret. If there were towns there the French were not interested. If the French were to make the island a success it would be the north shores that the ships would divert to.

  No port, just beach and shore, so the Standard anchored near a league distant amongst the dozens of others whose crews rubbed their chins and counted the bodies in the rigging and measured the worth of the twin gundecks. A naval ship, a bold captain flying his Union Jack from the ensign and mainmast. A visitor only.

  He had better be.

  Coxon, Manvell, Kennedy and two marines were quickly to the shore, Kennedy blabbing all the way. The names that he knew. The faces best not met.

  ‘Captain England, naturally. He always favoured these waters. Sorely miss Captain England, I do. Davis and I never agreed on him, and Roberts never agreed on anybody!’ He laughed, alone, then sheepishly turned his face to the beach.

  Coxon called from his seat afore the coxswain.

  ‘What is the best place to pay a visit, Walter?’

  Manvell cut across the pirate’s answer.

  ‘Would we not introduce ourselves to the governor first, Captain?’

  ‘There is no governor at present,’ Coxon said. ‘We’re on our own, Manvell. No office to protect us.’

  Another chip at Manvell’s valour. His concern for propriety had come across as hiding behind duty or perhaps Coxon pricked at him for other purpose. The captain did not strike Manvell as the bullish or petty type. Another purpose then; just not perceptible. Manvell thought of questioning direct, imagined it in his head. Demanding. Accusing.

  He looked at Coxon’s old silk coat; green across the shoulders and in the creases where the black had faded. Cuffs, wax-stained and balding. The thick black belt cracked and limp. The aged grey shirt and steinkerk, the hat bleached with salt.

  He passed down at his own suit, a suit befitting the son-in-law of the Duke of Beaufort. Aye, Coxon had another purpose. He did not see the Kent publican’s son. He saw the clothes and manners and privilege of marriage and commission. The burden to prove worthy to stand on Coxon’s quarterdeck was not weighed in ink or patronage. Manvell settled to watching them break to the shore, the oars brought up, Kennedy giggling again as he leapt from the boat to heave her in with the marines.

  Manvell stood with the spume bubbling over his shoe buckles. Dark volcanic sand, the beach surrounded by vibrant cliffs, their majesty hundreds of feet straight up in the air and so resplendent they might have risen only yesterday. Palm trees seemed to shoo them back with their fronds, and in the distance, wild mountains pierced the clouds. Just green. Just never-ending green rolling on and on. Except at the ground. Except at head height. Black rocks, ash, the gritty sand underfoot; a paradise not quite finished.

  ‘The town is up aways,’ Kennedy waved them to him as merry as if he were at a horsefair. The sailors dragged themselves out of the sea.

  ‘Manvell,’ Coxon said. ‘This could get lively.’ He looked down at the sword on Manvell’s hip.

  ‘Can you use that against anyone other than your father, or did he teach you with a wooden one?’ He did not wait for a reply and sharpened his pace away from Manvell and the marines who had heard their captain’s disdain for his lieutenant.

  A winding jungle path, a dust track and the squawks and whistles of the birds colourfully stark against the green like shards of stained glass. Kennedy was the only one suitably attired, shoeless and coat free. The others drowned in sweat but it was necessary to show superiority. No uniform for the officers, but the cloth of a gentleman and the chink of weapons and coin might be worth more than a scarfed head and slops.

  ‘It is like Providence again,’ Coxon said to Manvell as they came onto the edge of town. ‘For all their talk of freedom pirates always strive for the same wherever they go. Not one has tried to improve the world.’

  They strolled through the dirt and grass that made up the thoroughfare. Stucco buildings, some three stories high, built purposely as if to create and let fester dark alleyways. Blanket awnings at every wall covered baskets of fish and fruit where homes had become stores.

  A rush of people, no-one paying them any mind, a sadness on the faces Manvell thought, the women especially. Naked children in doorways stared at their passing, their eyes questioning and their smutty chins wet with juice.

  The pace went slower as the road climbed, always the way in any Catholic place. All roads led up towards the church, and dutifully Kennedy beckoned them away to a slope between two plastered walls that came out on a canal path. Manvell saw a watermill on the side of a house, a wooden bridge. The French were trying to work here. But above them the mountains. You can’t break mountains. Their smallest chagrin will crush your civilisation. A shrug and your mills and workshops are gone, washed away like an ant’s nest.

  Another quarter, more timber and plaster dwellings, almost to scale like an artist’s maquette of a town, a village for dwarves. Manvell sure now that he could never make it back to the shore alone, lost as he was.

  A square of buildings appeared, a small stream running through it, red and muddy. Kennedy pointed to a two-level building, the largest they had seen.

  Coxon approved.

  ‘Such grandeur would be the tavern,’ he said. He posted the marines where they stood and he and Manvell walked on.

  Manvell could hear music now and women’s drunken screeching.

  ‘What is our course here, Captain?’

  Coxon did not hesitate.

  ‘Kennedy will see if there is anyone worth speaking to. We’ll throw some coin about. An anker of brandy for information on Devlin’s whereabouts.’

  ‘Or Roberts?’

  ‘Either will suffice.’

  ‘What if Devlin is in there?’

  ‘He’s not,’ he said, and nothing more.

  The door was flimsy and crashed open but the room was used to it and few heads turned. Manvell had not spent much time in taverns. His father’s inn was a country coach house. Food, beds, travellers. Coxon’s confidence in striding amongst the tables and benches hinted that he had seen such debauchery before.

  The stench of roasting fat, the boucan kitchen, tobacco and stale beer mixed the colour and taste of the hanging air and Manvell coughed, put back the door and put out the day. The shutters were closed, the room vague by lamplight and candles. Coxon and Kennedy already stood at a crowded table. Manvell weaved through the raucousness and kept to Coxon’s back.

  Kennedy whispered into ears, slapped backs and cocked his thumb to Coxon who stared down all the eyes studying him without a word.

  Kennedy had deftly become separate from them. In seconds he was no longer Coxon’s prisoner. Manvell was unsure exactly what he was, but sure that word of the naval men was spreading around the room and surer that Coxon would have to do something to stop their mission ending here and now.

  Coxon had read his mind.

  ‘Two jugs here!’ he grabbed the arm of a Creole girl with a jug on her hip. ‘
The best you have. And a hen and wine as soon as you can for this table.’ He put a guinea in her palm, making sure that the table saw the gold.

  He pulled a stool, flapped aside his coat to sit, revealed his sword and pistol.

  ‘Is there not a local drink of some sort of mead? Would you fellows prefer?’ There was no preference given, a couple of salutes was all, and Coxon shuffled his stool closer to the table and did not waste time.

  ‘I’m looking for word on the pirate Devlin. Any word.’ The table shared lowered looks.

  ‘I don’t expect it without cost. I reward information. With brandy and gold. And I’m not saying that any of you gentlemen know anything. Just pass the word that I’m paying for any word on Devlin. Any word that I don’t already know.’

  ‘And what do you know?’ A young face, too young to be halfway across the world.

  The rum came – came with a lascivious look and one mug for Coxon. The others filled their blackjacks and listened hard over the row all around them.

  ‘I know that Taylor and Levasseur took the Virgin of the Cape in April off these shores. Taylor has gone to Panama, Levasseur is in these waters. Roberts and Devlin are seeking Levasseur, hunting his treasure. I’m after Devlin.’ He took a drink. ‘For nothing more than that we have scores to settle. I hold no interest in any other man of fortune.’

  The oldest of them, the blackest of them, with hands and face as gnarled as bark sucked at his rum through a bamboo straw.

  ‘And what does Cap’n Kennedy have to say of this? Him of Cap’n Roberts’s lot. Helping the king?’

  Kennedy put his hand on Coxon’s shoulder.

  ‘The good Captain Coxon here comes and gets me out of a hanging to have my revenge.’

  ‘What revenge?’ Another voice.

  ‘Against Devlin,’ he borrowed Coxon’s mug for a drag as Coxon shifted from under Kennedy’s hand.