Cross of Fire

by Mark Keating

Chasers: None.

  Swivels: 2 x ½ pound quarterdeck. 2 x ½ pound fo’c’sle.

  Complement: 160 (105)

  Commissioned Officers: Capt. 1. Lt. 1 (2)

  Warrant Sea Officers: Mr 1. Bts. 1. Gnr 1. Ctr. 1. Sgn. 1. Prs. 1.

  The Shadow 26 (38)

  Fifth rate. French. 1715.

  Burthern: 400 tonnes.

  Length: 100 ft. Beam: 26ft.

  Weatherdeck: 18 x 9 pounders.

  Quarterdeck: 4 x 9 pounders.

  Fo’c’sle: 2 x 9 pounders.

  Chasers: 2 x 9 pounders bow. 2 x 9 pounders stern.

  Swivels: 2 x ½ pound quarterdeck. 2 x ½ pound fo’c’sle. 2 x ½ pound larboard qtr. 2 x ½ pound starboard qtr. 2 x ½ pound tops.

  Complement:

  Pirates.

  There was a halo around the moon the night before and sun dogs had appeared with the rising dawn. Devlin did not see the signs but they were recounted to him in the hushed tones of omens, as sailors give them in their profundity.

  ‘Bad weather,’ Peter Sam joined him at the rail as noon came, the sun gone into the sheet of grey when it should have been sighting their mainmast.

  ‘That’s sea dog’s wisdom for you,’ Devlin said. ‘The only old salt I know wouldn’t shake on my eggs this morning. Sign enough for me.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ Peter Sam scratched his beard, ‘I puts gunpowder on mine.’

  ‘Heathen.’ A hearty slap to the big man’s back.

  Devlin left him for the stair where John Lawson, the bosun, waited at the foot.

  ‘Set deadlights to the cabin,’ Devlin ordered, and Lawson fumbled for his pencil and book as Devlin carried on.

  ‘Storm sheets and stop sails. We’ll brail them loose. Fighting sail, bald-headed. Bring one boat in, leave the others trailing.’ He moved on without waiting for a word back, swept to Hartley, the gunner, a drunk of great endurance and miraculously still alive, the oldest of them now that Will Magnes had stayed on at Madagascar. That was three years gone. Hartley was ancient at more than fifty. He craved rum and lime, lambswool and sponges and wood nails for his baize curtain to protect the sanctum of his magazine. He had no care for English powder, only Porto and Frog. You did not have to sift it from swindler’s practice and he could range his nine-pounders as good as twelves with it. He had been a warrant officer in two wars, assigned to a ship when she was built. Devlin had asked once how he had become a pirate.

  ‘I was drunk,’ he said as if that were all.

  ‘Sight for masts,’ Devlin said and then Hartley answered a question from someone else.

  ‘Six barrels of white, thirty-nine sacks, eighteen coils and garlands of balls ready, Cap’n. Been making grape for weeks.’ He reeled below, Devlin usually only ever got to see the top of the man’s head.

  ‘Cap’n!’ A cry from the fo’c’sle, urgent for a pirate and Devlin dashed, and heads looked up to follow.

  A hand over the bow at the bowsprit. Devlin ducked under the jibs and needed no other word.

  It was an actual curtain, on the horizon and up to heaven. It had folds, it mushroomed where the sun should be and it meant hard work in the hours when Indian rugs should be laid and punch and hens set out.

  Somewhere out there fishermen had pulled into their islands, took their drying catch into their huts with their families and dug up their buried food. This was the time. It meant no fishing but it would be good water to drink and it was how their fathers had taught them. Only their fathers had not seen the giant wooden ships that did not fish and dared the wind. Their washed up bodies had made their pigs fat for generations. The sea gods were always giving and there was no sin in taking those who did not respect.

  Devlin held out his hand, his fingers apart and over the dark fore. He counted as Peter Sam came up.

  ‘A storm then,’ Peter Sam said. ‘What’s she doing?’

  Devlin took down his hand.

  ‘About sixty times faster than us and just as wide. She’s cutting right across us. “Tufan”, the Indians call them. “Typhon” if you want Greek. Fucking big storm in English.’

  ‘We should have stayed on the island, Pat.’

  Devlin looked up at the big man.

  ‘Well, fuck you now, Peter Sam.’

  Peter looked about.

  ‘White horses. Half-sail?’

  ‘Already done. Storm set.’

  ‘Turn back?’

  ‘Take half a day in these swells. We’ll slow and watch her pass.’

  Peter Sam studied the pulsating cloud. The water beneath sat smooth as glass as the rain flattened the waves. ‘There’s no lightning.’

  ‘She’s warning us. If we time well, keep slow, she’ll go afore us.’ He looked up. ‘We’ll get wet is all. Dandon can wait another day or two. We got nothing to hurry for.’

  A shout from the larboard quarter. Devlin’s second time to run.

  ‘Sail, sail!’ and already the quarter was full and Peter Sam had to elbow heads away, his captain in front of him.

  Devlin put his hand behind and a spyglass slapped into his palm.

  He had not set a man aloft. Men took that post willingly on a pirate for he would have first choice of pistols if they met a prize. The heat had whittled down the volunteers and so he had lost the scope of perhaps twelve miles all around. At the gunwale they had maybe five. Devlin had kept the bell as his only discipline. A mistake now, he knew.

  This was how pirates fell, how Blackbeard fell and the fall of all the rebels from Providence. They traded up to larger ships, left their hidden inlets and shallow waters. And then the navy came creeping over the horizon, their crews not drunk. But not Roberts. Devlin had heard he kept to English order, to articles of conduct fit for Protestants, tea his only drink. As the war-ship rode the glass Devlin’s only curse was for his own culpability, his own failure. The spyglass was his punishment, silently bringing closer to him his ineptitude.

  A twin-decker, a chessboard of gunports, a British flag. Her captain would have set a man above; the bow turning even now to meet their stern. He took down the glass. Kept it. One error corrected. Lesson learned. He had neglected to keep his tools at hand. How pirates fall.

  ‘She’s on us,’ he said to the heads over his shoulders. ‘But she’s a porker like her king. We’ll outrun. Our girl was cut sleek.’

  ‘Two gun-decks,’ Peter Sam said. ‘If she catches she’ll grind us.’

  Devlin climbed a gun to the shrouds and faced the expectant deck.

  ‘Lawson! She thinks we’ll scare at her rag! We’ll show her our black and the red. No quarter! Fighting sail!’ He jumped and walked. Took his quarterdeck.

  ‘Officers to me. Bring my coat.’

  Coxon heard the patter of rain on the scope at his eye before it tapped his hat. The glass eye misted and the ship in his sights became a fog; an artist’s smudge only alluding to a ship in the background of a greater subject, three thumbnail strokes through the pigment indicating the masts.

  He lowered the sharkskin tube and looked up to the grey. No rain now, just the shaking of the sails. Wales, Howard and Jenkins stood behind him. Waited behind him.

  ‘Cut their stern, Mister Jenkins. Keep at it.’ He looked toward the storm at their starboard.

  ‘They should make east momentarily to avoid. Be prepared. They are running at four knots to our five. We will be in range in an hour and a half—’ he felt the wind ‘—if we do not lose too much abaft. The wind is across him and behind us. He will struggle. The favour is ours. He would lose us else.’

  Jenkins scribbled into his book. ‘And they will be in range?’

  ‘She has nine-pounders. She’ll be lucky at three thousand yards. Battle at six hundred. No match for our twelves.’

  ‘But we only have six-pounders on the upper?’

  ‘For closing. Keep in three thousand yards and our long-guns will decimate.’

  ‘How do you know this, Captain? The size of their guns and all?’

  Coxon still did not turn f
rom the ploughing ship. ‘Mister Howard?’

  Howard looked at the question marks on Jenkins’ page.

  ‘That is the Shadow, Mister Jenkins. See her red and black freeboard? Her high prow and short bowsprit? Closer and you will perceive she is clinker-built for hull strength. She has iron in her bulkheads also. That is Devlin’s ship. I drew her myself four years ago.’

  Jenkins closed his book from Howard’s eyes. ‘And he would have the same ship?’

  Coxon’s front blocked the Shadow now.

  ‘He took her to the Thames last year, Jenkins. Raped the king. He has pride in that which he did not earn. It is his error. The pirates fail when they give up their sloops. Watch now.’

  He stood aside for Jenkins and the others to see what he knew was to come. No need to see for himself, he was already away to his cabin, to his charts and log. The third time he would write the name. The last time he would write the name.

  The square of red jigged up on the mainmast over, the larger black at the backstay, the skull in the crude compass rose, the crossed bone pistols beneath.

  ‘Devlin!’ Howard declared. ‘That is the poison I sketched when I was a boy.’

  Jenkins and Wales ran to their work and Thomas Howard kept his eye on the black.

  He lowered his voice so only the sea could hear, could carry it to the pirate on its holy ether.

  ‘No boy now, pirate.’

  For an hour the wind played its orchestrals through the Shadow’s rigging, the cordage sighing, the usual complaining cacophony of the ship now aggrandised and increasing like a racing heart. Men’s fists paled with the strain of the ropes or their grip on wood as they watched the bow of the man-of-war jumping water to gain their stern.

  The fo’c’sle was no longer a place to stand as each nose of the bow sent a waterfall over and down her step to slip rivulets to the scuppers. They had unsheathed the guns but kept the tampions and the vents’ aprons in her holes. Waiting for the time when it came to open gunports.

  Devlin’s arms were across his table, hands resting at the edge and assessing the Mortier, a swinging lantern above as the deadlight shutters blocked the day save for a hole for an eye or a musket. Peter Sam stood in front of him, his role to give the Devil’s view of the world.

  ‘No John’s Company flag,’ he said. ‘No East-Indiaman. English. He’s still on us. Like hands on a watch. We be the minutes and he the hour creeping behind. But that will change. Our head’s already whipped in the wind. We’ll be in irons soon enough.’

  Devlin scratched a cross on the paper for himself, for the Shadow. He did not look up.

  ‘You mean the sails in irons, Peter. Not us?’

  He scratched another cross for the bastard ship, angled his hinged-rule between and drew the line.

  Peter Sam grunted.

  ‘I say roll the guns. He might run at that, even without the range.’

  Devlin walked the rule for the next hour, another line as his mug of rum crashed to the floor.

  ‘Save our powder.’ His concentration was still on the page, reading the fathoms, looking for reefs. He scratched another cross for the storm. ‘We’ll need it.’

  Devlin raised up.

  ‘I reckon she has twelve-pounders broadside judging by her burthern. Maybe sixes or eights above them by that reckoning. We need to keep her angled away and at three thousand yards to stay out of her long-guns.’

  ‘And can we?’

  Devlin threw down his pencil. Peter Sam saw the converging crosses and lines.

  ‘No,’ Devlin said. ‘We need to get rid of those twelve-pounders. Whatever she has above should match us.’

  ‘Shall we write her a note asking to play fair?’ Peter Sam paced the floor, his hands gripping his cutlass and pistol, his bare arms flexed, aching to draw.

  ‘You ever play “hand-in-cap”, Peter?’

  Peter stopped. His neck was red.

  ‘No riddles, Devlin. I don’t canter like Dandon.’

  Devlin gave Peter his rakish grin and plucked his pencil from its roll along the yawing deck.

  ‘We need a neutral to give us the odds for an unfair play. Forfeit or fight.’ He tapped the pencil at the storm on the paper. Peter Sam watched the innocent pat of the pencil.

  ‘You want to go into the storm?’

  ‘Her long-guns are maybe five feet above the waterline. In there she’ll have to keep them ports closed, ’less she wants to drown. Even the odds. She’ll be as blind as us and she has royals and top-gallants she won’t be able to use. We could break her down to two-knots and our smaller girl will fare better.’

  Peter Sam appeared to chew on his red beard as he looked at the paper that he never had understood. But Devlin had pulled cards out of boots and sleeves before. But intentionally aiming at an Indian storm was a different madness.

  ‘Can we make it before they’re on us?’

  ‘We’ll warm them all the way.’

  ‘Might tear us apart. We’ll be fighting a ship and the gods.’

  ‘So will they. Rather that than a king’s ship take us to Execution Dock. That’s how I’ll have it, Peter. And you the same. I know that much.’ He threw the pencil, filled his hand with a bottle.

  ‘Besides, who’d have sand enough to follow?’

  Peter’s greater fist took the bottle before it hit Devlin’s mouth.

  ‘Aye.’ He drank high, gave it back. ‘Can’t be another mad as you.’

  Abel Wales sped into the great cabin, his words as urgent as his feet.

  ‘She’s making for the storm, Cap’n!’

  Thomas Howard came after him, a Monmouth cap over his red hair. Coxon lifted his head from the study of the chart weighted on the table. He placed a pewter mug over the lines he had made.

  ‘Head two-points sou’ sou’-east. Aim at her. Forget the stern. He has the wind on his beam. We will quarter large, Mister Wales, and gain.’

  Wales ran from the room and Coxon smiled at Thomas, went to fetch his cloak.

  ‘Mister Howard,’ his voice chimed. ‘Your larboard gun-crews, if you please. Chain-shot and bar. Lower your trucks for their masts.’

  ‘The twelves?’

  Coxon turned from buttoning his cloak that covered his chest and shoulders. ‘Of course.’

  ‘I have inexperienced midshipmen. Another officer would help.’

  Coxon studied the intent on the young man’s face. ‘You mean Manvell?’

  ‘He would be of great use to me, Captain.’

  Coxon took up his tricorne, pointed it at Howard’s wool. ‘It would serve you better to wear your own. The water runs through the cocks away your shoulders. And no, Manvell will not be of much use. He has never fought before. We have experienced gunners who will suffice much better. The midshipmen can handle the upper.’

  ‘I’m sure Manvell would work under parole, Captain.’

  ‘I do have work for him, Thomas. And you to give it him.’

  The whole room jarred, every glass and ceramic object jerking in spasm as the wind objected to the turning of the wheel outside. Coxon ignored Howard’s reach for furniture to steady himself against the new camber of the boards.

  ‘Take five idlers and rags, clothes if you have to, and all the sacks we have. Tell Manvell’s marine I will let Manvell assist.’

  ‘Assist in what, Captain?’

  ‘I want them to soak all the rags in the whale oil and stuff the sacks until they drip. I have proportioned an hour to the task. I will need thirty-worth.’

  ‘What for?’

  Coxon did not seem to hear. Howard corrected himself that he had not addressed the Standard appropriately.

  ‘For why, Captain?’

  Coxon moved as if to pass through him and Howard stepped aside.

  ‘That is not how orders are accepted, Mister Howard. Questioning steals time and sinks ships. Find my steward and fix deadlights to the cabin and wardroom. I am to the quarterdeck. Meet me there when done. Manvell will be under your quarter-bill.’ He strode from
the room.

  Howard watched the black cloak sweep away, made to follow, then a stylus rolling against the pewter mug with a chime turned him to the table.

  A disobedient hand picked up the mug set in the Indian Ocean. He cocked his head to correct the aspect of the lines and crosses triangulated on the paper.

  Howard had plotted similar lines and bearings in his classes as a boy. Not the dull rigidity of the rhumb lines and mathematics of the art that the master preached but the ones in the pages at the back of his book. The secret folds where he planned his bold future actions.

  Points converged, Coxon had drawn simple bows and sterns ramming together, and Howard’s eyes widened at the point where they met, at the very eye of the storm, marked and as wide as his own.

  Manvell sat on his cot and rubbed his free wrists where the irons had marked them. Ridiculously he thought of Dandon over himself. Empathy for another.

  ‘So, he is mad,’ he said. Sorry for them all.

  Howard was on his knees before him in the cramped cabin removing the chains. The narrow room seemed to hang in space, rolling on a gimbal like the binnacle. With the vented door closed it became no longer part of the ship. It was a hempen and canvas box for whispers and dreams, as Howard had dreamt, as they had both dreamt of pirates, the lantern dancing their shadows around its walls in a mad jig.

  ‘No,’ Howard stood, dropped the chains, kicked them to a corner. ‘Not mad. He has let you go. He has readied the ship.’

  ‘To fly into a hurricane! After his damned pirate! And he wants his officers to make scarecrows!’

  Howard plucked his shirt cuffs.

  ‘To be fair he wishes you to fill the sacks. I will charge the long-guns. And he has let me speak to you at least.’

  Manvell joined him in standing, put a hand to his shoulder.

  ‘Then we shall speak, Thomas, in the moments he has spared us. Our position is both privilege and duty, you know this? Our privilege is to look after the men around us. Souls not able to speak for themselves. How goes the ship?’

  ‘All willing. He brings them a fight. And gold at the end of it.’

  ‘And how do we get out of Typhon’s fury? Buy our passage? We will only be giving coin to Charon.’