Cross of Fire

by Mark Keating

  Where was his ship? Where The Buzzard? Where the gold?

  More green, more islands splitting from the main as if just born, narrow channels between, and the first thoughts of barren hope began to cloud the scene of fruitful paradise. This was no desert spit of land; this could be London for its size, its peaks as large as his Ireland home.

  O’Neill had told where Levasseur was heading; that had been only overheard, was not a promise or declaration. Suppose Levasseur had changed his plans, suppose O’Neill had misheard or, worse, was simply a lunatic priest on a holy crusade – and God Himself knew there was enough of those. Peter Sam cracked Devlin’s glazed look.

  ‘If this is the island his ship’s not here. If he’s on the other side, that’ll be the lee shore. He be grounded there if he’s for staying.’

  ‘Anchor windward at the stern,’ Devlin ordered. Windward to keep their head out to the sea. He had expected to find Levasseur’s Victory doing the same. If The Buzzard had anchored on the lee shore it could have been with the intent to beach and careen but it would have to be bedded anchors and capstan heaving to get off again and all his boats to warp him out to sea. Why all that when there was a perfect bay to windward?

  Devlin scanned the land. Beaches, black monoliths and individual trees could be discerned now. A jungle climb lay in their future.

  ‘We’ll go ashore and take that peak,’ he aimed his arm out and Peter Sam followed. ‘Scout from there.’

  ‘Aye,’ Peter Sam could already feel the ache in his legs. ‘Maybe some savages will cut us down before we make it.’

  ‘Or we meet Levasseur and his men.’ Devlin slapped him away. ‘Think of the gold, Peter Sam! Ain’t this why we came to sea? Or do you still fancy Newfoundland for the summer?’

  Peter Sam lumbered away, the only way he ever walked.

  ‘Aye, Patrick. Ever for the gold.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Quieter now as they rowed through the soft, crystal water, as the ship faded behind them, and only in withdrawal did it become apparent how full of noise was the daily deck. In the jolly-boat, in these serene waters, with just the sounds of oars as gentle as the patting of butter, the cries of curious sea-birds and the crashing of surf, an unbeckoned tranquillity descended upon the visitors as they tensed themselves for any movement in the trees.

  They weaved through a sandbar, sometimes rowing back on themselves to gain the angle, all eyes to the white beach. Then feet in the water, their splashes and grunts perhaps the first brutish sounds ever broken on the shore. They dragged the boat up reverently as if walking into a church, every slightest noise echoing back to them.

  Muskets were shouldered along with the poles of the cradle – not a ruse: hunting for meat would be a real thing. Canvas bags there were for fresh water, a cask in the boat to fill. O’Neill would not carry arms so he carried more of the rest. Devlin complimented him on his new pirate look. Without the robes his black beard and cropped hair gave him a Spanish manner and the pirates laughed at his new-found aspect. His blushing curses traipsed away from them up the beach.

  ‘You know where you’re going, O’Neill?’ Devlin called.

  The priest stopped.

  ‘No!’ he yelled back. ‘Away from you, I know!’

  Devlin looked to Peter Sam then back to the priest.

  ‘You sure you don’t know it now?’

  ‘Well I assume we are for getting off the beach, are we not?’ He continued to the first break in the trees where the palms went straight out from the forest instead of straight up.

  Peter Sam and Devlin squinted at each other and followed on, Hugh Harris giggling in the rear.

  Two hours of sweat and climbing and slapping at insects and Hugh had gasped enough.

  ‘This must be good for me liver!’ he cried. ‘It hurts too much to be anything I might enjoy!’

  Devlin said nothing but kept up with O’Neill at the front, his cutlass sweeping their path. They had passed through ravines and crossed waterfalls, testing the water as they went. Black parrots and colourful sparrows landed fearless on them as they pulled along, the birds yet to learn to flee from trespassers. The air was wet, yet there was so little of it, every step proved hard – yet none complained.

  The rock turned to shingle and slate and Devlin instinctively walked with care. Then the blue sky became clear above the jungle and a single strike of cutlass cut naked the last green and cast it aside like a curtain drawn – and the sea yawned beneath them.

  Another beach. White horses of water crashing for a mile all around. The others saw the same as he.

  An empty shore. No ship. Nothing.

  ‘O’Neill,’ Devlin squared to the priest. ‘Where is he? Where’s The Buzzard?’

  No ship, no man.

  A long astonishment from O’Neill as he looked at the barren shore.

  ‘What month is this?’

  ‘July,’ Devlin said. ‘What matter?’

  ‘So it has been three months since he took the ship.’

  ‘What difference?’ Devlin said. ‘You said he was run to here?’

  O’Neill scratched his head. ‘But he did! I heard it. He would have to be here. He said he knew this place!’

  Devlin lifted his blade.

  ‘But he’s not here.’

  No ship on the windward shore. No ship grounded on the lee.

  ‘Where is he, priest?’

  ‘But he must be here! The cross must! It brought me to you! Brought me here! He has buried it, that’s all!’

  ‘That’s all?’

  Devlin looked to Peter Sam and then O’Neill was fast against a tree, his breath slammed from him. Hugh Harris pulled one of his Dutch over-and-under pistols and gleefully clicked it into life against the priest’s cheek.

  ‘That’s all?’ Devlin said again. ‘Are you a madman who has brought my starving crew on a chase for a piece of wood?’

  ‘You said yourself—’ O’Neill stammered under Peter’s weighty forearm against his chest. ‘Roberts is after the same. You had the same word. The same! You were coming here anyway, you just needed to know where. Have I not provided so? The Lord’s word!’

  Devlin’s cutlass prised Peter Sam away.

  ‘I trusted that you were privy first-hand. What if Roberts has been here?’ He put the blade back to his belt. ‘What am I left with, priest?’

  ‘The Flaming Cross is here, Captain. On my oath! All the treasure here . . . somewhere.’

  ‘And how do you know?’

  O’Neill pushed himself from the tree, wiped his face with his new white cuff.

  ‘I can feel it, Captain.’ He gave Devlin a fearless look. ‘As can you,’ he said. ‘Can you not?’

  Devlin turned away, looked over the blue and saw yet more peaked islands where men could hide. Beyond their present the horizon displayed a line of grey from east to west.

  Bad weather behind them or in their future, the sun’s heels clipped as it sank westerly into ominous cloud.

  ‘Night in two hours. We’ll camp down by the last waterfall. No fire on the beach. There may be eyes about. We’ll make a plan tomorrow.’

  ‘What about the ship?’ Peter Sam asked.

  ‘John Lawson has the ship,’ Devlin had already begun to walk. ‘Fire a musket at sundown and sunrise. I gave him to come if he does not hear.’

  Devlin’s back vanished through the trees leaving O’Neill with pirates. Pirates that were not captains.

  O’Neill understood his measure in their world, lowered his head and softened his body to be subjected to their pushes and shoves down the trail they had cut for him.

  Night coming. The party seeing only jungle green not gold. But at least no objecting enemy. No life at all other than the small and giant reptiles and the winged and now the darker, shriller bats over their heads.

  John Lawson on the Shadow lit his lanterns, waited for the musket shot that eventually came and signalled that all was well and that his captain had made camp, with rum his pillow as the pl
anets wakened to glare down and laugh at the folly and greed that they had seen for thousands of years.

  On the morrow then. On an unnamed island, a thousand miles from any named shore. Try to sleep with treasure promised; England’s schoolboys dreamt of the same with wooden swords beside their beds.

  Sleep on treasure to come, a waterfall and the paradise sonnets of birds lilting in your ears. But sleep with an eye open.

  Here be pirates.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  It was the bosun’s chair to bring Dandon aboard, unable, tied as he was, to amble up the ladder to the entry port. At least they had made his passage easier by tying his hands to the front.

  Thomas Howard watched the body swing over the deck and his face paled as he recognised the faded yellow justacorps and the gold-filled mouth. He turned his back as Dandon looked about, curious not apprehensive, and Coxon watched the young man gulp and steady himself against a rail.

  Dandon was led to the hold, and there were strained necks and whispers as the crew wondered on their prisoner. Curses too, for this must surely mean that some deed had occurred on Bourbon that would put pay to any dalliance or victualling ashore.

  Down and down again, dimmer with each stair, the stench from the sand and gravel ballast rising like a fish market, the palatable farmyard reek of the manger rolling from the fore. Coxon at the van of the party, Dandon following, then Manvell and lastly Kennedy, grinning all the way.

  ‘Such a pretty boat,’ Dandon said. ‘A real huckleberry, John!’

  Coxon took him by the cord at his wrists; he half-dragged him to the manger away from the weighted and damp curtain that led to the magazine – Coxon best sure that pirates should be kept far from it.

  He pulled the cord through a fairlead in the overhead, Dandon’s arms were painfully lifted above him.

  ‘Fetch manacles, Manvell,’ Coxon said as he whipped off Dandon’s hat and slung it away into the dark.

  ‘Captain?’ Manvell ducked forward. ‘Can we not take the man on his honour?’

  Dandon preened at the lieutenant. ‘Quite right,’ he sang. ‘What he said, John.’

  ‘Are you suggesting parole for pirates, Lieutenant?’

  ‘No, sir,’ he said. ‘I apologise. His manner and cloth had made me forget.’ Manvell went back and Kennedy filled his place.

  Dandon tested the cord and the forte of the metal ring sunk into the oak above. Solid. He was not going anywhere under his own strength but still he seemed indifferent. Besides, more than once he had coerced the strength of others, Dandon being able to bend wills easier than iron. If Coxon knew him better it would be his mouth he would bind.

  ‘A twin-decker, eh, John? You have done well.’

  ‘How do you think she’ll shine against the Shadow?’ Coxon swung away without waiting for a retort. Manvell had returned, the dreadful rattle of chain trying to leap from his arms, and Coxon took the black irons.

  ‘The men will be concerned about none to go ashore.’ Coxon kept his voice just for Manvell. ‘Go above, to both watches and assure them that we sail to Île de France for one day’s easing and victualling. That will calm well enough.’

  ‘Île de France? There is nothing there, Captain.’

  ‘It will suffice for water and hunting. We’ll leave as soon as able. Before night. Carry on, Mister Manvell.’

  Manvell looked over to Dandon and down to Kennedy’s sneer.

  ‘Would you not wish my assistance further here, Captain?’

  ‘I “wish” you to carry on, Mister Manvell.’

  Manvell tapped his forelock and backed away to the stair. Coxon came back to Dandon. He fed the chain of the manacles through his hands like a rosary; let the sound and sight of the iron sink in.

  He shackled Dandon’s wrists over the cord so his hands still hung. Dandon tensed at the weight of the irons and shifted the ache now growing in his back and arms. Coxon let the leg-irons drop. Leave them for now. Show some compassion. Have something to punish further.

  ‘I do not relish this,’ he said. ‘But I do not need another pirate walking around on my ship.’

  Kennedy saluted from the bulkhead.

  ‘Could you relish it less by lowering my hands some, John?’ Dandon shook the shackles.

  ‘Of course,’ Coxon stepped back. ‘But comfort is a reward. Perhaps the simplest reward. But earned nonetheless. And, of course, comfort comes with wine. For gentlemen.’

  Kennedy giggled, pulled a gully-blade and slapped it in his palm.

  Dandon cocked his head. ‘Why this imbecile with? What have you done to deserve him so, Captain John?’

  Kennedy was unsure what the word meant but had come to learn that most things spoken about him were impugning.

  ‘Enough of that, dog!’ he wagged his knife. ‘Manners now!’

  Coxon sat on a barrel and ignored Kennedy’s words. He watched Dandon sweating now; the humidity of the air outside boiling the customary stifled air of the lower decks and searing Dandon’s coat to his back. The removal of his hat only reminded how cool he would be without the coat also. Too late for the coat now, his hands being tied. He would have to be cut from it or talk and have his hands freed. All these things would count, Coxon knew. Count for information garnered. Men can proudly, willingly, take beatings beyond measure and never talk but sometimes a hole in a stocking rubbing against a heel for a few miles could break Hercules. He did not need to sweat and shout while Dandon’s back ached, while his coat grew heavier, while his sweat pooled around his clothes, while his throat parched.

  Coxon ordered Kennedy to fetch him a cup of wine and waited until he had loped away to answer Dandon’s query.

  ‘I am surprised you ask about Kennedy, pirate. I would have thought Devlin would have mentioned him.’

  Dandon shifted his back to ease his shoulders.

  ‘Why so? Who is he?’

  Coxon feigned surprise. ‘Your captain never told of his reason for fleeing London?’ He gave Dandon a few moments to sift his memory.

  ‘There was a murder, I recall. Devlin ran from. To save himself from incrimination.’

  ‘He lived with a chain-maker. A man named Kennedy. And his son. A man who had generously taken him in. Found dead across his table with a knife in his chest. A man murdered and Patrick Devlin running for his life.’

  ‘And this Kennedy?’

  ‘His son. His son out for revenge. His son who will swear on a tomb of Bibles that Patrick Devlin is his father’s killer.’

  Dandon heard Kennedy’s feet slapping back down the stair.

  ‘I would not believe that, John.’

  ‘But would you not think it possible? How holy has Devlin been since last?’

  Dandon watched Kennedy reappear, pass Coxon his tin cup of wine and retire back to lounging against the bulkhead.

  He tried to judge how he himself had been, the young assistant in Mobile, and how Devlin must have been a decade ago, before the pirate Devlin. Before the Bloody Pirate Devlin.

  Devlin had been a killer the entire time of his association with Dandon. That came with his chosen path, and although Dandon had seen no enjoyment in it, the act had come strikingly natural to his friend.

  He had an aptitude for it.

  But Dandon had never thought about the time before Devlin had cast his lot.

  Coxon watched his thoughts.

  ‘Walter would have been about sixteen at the time. Imagine the impression made on such an age? Your father killed afore you.’ He downed his cup, head back, let it waste down his chin and slammed it to the barrel with a gasp. ‘That’s good relief so it is!’ He wiped his lips. ‘It’ll be a warm evening to come I’ll say.’

  Dandon looked at the tin cup. He could feel its cool touch, could taste the wine. He opened his mouth to speak but Coxon jumped on his tongue.

  ‘I only wish to know where Devlin has gone, pirate. Whether he has joined with Roberts or not. I would not see that as any great betrayal . . . if I were he. And he would expect me to establis
h that. Even without you, I’m sure. Have I not come this far? Would Devlin measure me less?’

  Dandon hid his face against his hanging arms and Kennedy chuckled, resumed playing with his blade. Dandon tensed once again at his bonds, then hung and murmured into his sleeve.

  Coxon leant in.

  ‘Your pardon? What did you say there?’

  ‘A map!’ Dandon spat. ‘A map! I will need a bloody map, will I not? Damn you!’

  ‘Mister Manvell?’ Thomas Howard almost ran into Manvell at the quarterdeck rail, Manvell returning from telling the watch at mess of the ship sailing before nightfall.

  ‘What is it, Thomas?’ He kept moving. ‘I have to speak to Mister Jenkins. We are leaving this place, apparently.’

  Howard stayed to him. ‘That in part answers some of my question, but—’

  Manvell cut him short, loath to answer the other parts of Howard’s enquiry; the subject not needing quadrant or rule to reckon.

  ‘Can this not wait for supper, Thomas? I have a whole ship to muster, as have you now.’

  ‘That man,’ Howard checked his collar for other ears. ‘That man who came aboard,’ his voice dropped, ‘he is the man of my dreams.’

  Manvell was unable to fully choke back his amusement at Howard’s choice of phrase, his laugh confounding, under the odd circumstances, even as he made it.

  ‘I’m sorry, Thomas, Mister Howard. Forgive me. Yes. The man is, how you say . . . the man you used to know. The pirate. Of old, as it were.’

  ‘But why is he here? On board?’

  ‘We are after Devlin are we not? This man is one of his. The captain has some great plan envisioned no doubt.’ Manvell made to move but the anxiety on Howard’s face held him.

  ‘Are you all right, Thomas?’ He put a hand on Howard’s shoulder.

  ‘Yes, sir. I just never thought . . . thought to see him again. I signed to be with Coxon. I suppose I did not think what that might entail.’

  ‘But this man saved you? That is a good memory, no?’

  Howard looked back along the ship as if trying to see down through the deck to the man in yellow.