Cross of Fire

by Mark Keating

  ‘You may ask the gentlemen if it be wise to delay me, sirs. I’m sure such detail has been granted them.’ He scraped the blade an inch, sure the glint in his eye reflected.

  They looked to the masks, something given, and stepped aside. Manvell pushed back his blade with a snap. A perfect sound. He made for the door, a sharp voice like a slap stayed his hand.

  ‘It would take a captain to bring us Devlin, Lieutenant. Out of war this is how commissions can be sanctioned. Great destinies can be made for those who know the pirate’s face. Great destinies.’

  Manvell opened the door, flushed the room with light. He had words to reply but they choked in his throat as he saw Thomas Howard a step from the door, waiting to enter.

  Howard’s face glowed, his joy at seeing Manvell at the place where he had expected the end of his season. Manvell closed the door, marked across the floor the count of his steps to kill them both.

  ‘So you will inspire the boy with your lusts when the man refuses? Loyalty to his captain his coin? Is this our navy now? The pocketbooks of companies?’

  The masks did not move. Took turns to speak.

  ‘No. Not companies. Prime ministers. Kingdoms backed by companies.’ They pressed forward. ‘And he is hardly a boy.’

  They came on, but mindful of the sword’s length that might still appear.

  ‘You would let Roberts and Devlin to their work? Let them stop a third of your country’s trade? The African work almost halved. Is this not as noble as war? Is half-pay your ambition? Your captaincy papers will be signed on the morrow. Your wife proud. The duke’s credit restored.’

  Manvell listened, his head lowered. The masks noted the hesitation their barter had coaxed forth.

  ‘The pirates have plays now. Ballads. Where are yours? Where are Coxon’s? Who will remember him now?’

  Manvell lifted his head.

  ‘I will remember him.’

  ‘And you will honour him. Why would you not? Or would you rather let Howard to the task?’

  Manvell stepped closer. ‘Captains Ogle and Herdman? I would join with them? And what are they promised?’

  ‘Knighthoods. Would that suit? They will be the first men ever honoured for the extinction of pirates. Think how that would ring around the world.’

  ‘And am I only here because I have seen the man’s face? Howard and I? Is that our worth?’

  The masks dipped respectfully. ‘That has worth. That gives you purpose.’

  ‘Written orders,’ Manvell demanded. ‘No blank vellum.’

  The masks bowed.

  ‘There is only one small discretion . . . Captain Manvell.’

  Manvell posed indifference.

  ‘It has come to us that Devlin is now a privateer. Under the Portuguese. That must be handled . . . delicately. Do you understand?’

  Manvell pulled the door open, flushing the room with light again as the masks retreated.

  ‘My blade is ever “delicate”, gentlemen. I will see my wife now. Howard will be my First. Your letters will find me with the duke. Good day, gentlemen.’

  He slammed the door behind him and began along the corridor, taking Howard’s arm. Thomas Howard slapped himself free.

  ‘I have an appointment, sir!’

  ‘You are with me, Thomas. We were sent here together apparently. And apparently we are set together also.’

  He walked on, let Howard find his step with him as he took the piece of wax from his waistcoat, examined it minutely as he strode. The figure of a bull, a sea-serpent’s tail. He would enquire upon it.

  ‘Accompany me to my wife, Thomas. We will receive our orders there.’ He put the smooth token away.

  ‘We go back amongst pirates.’

  Author’s Note

  The story of Olivier Levasseur is one of the greatest tales of pirate lore. It is also probably one of the most fictitious.

  For those who don’t know the legend (I mean the one after this story) the myth is that at his execution Levasseur rips from around his neck a small metal tube and yells to the crowd something along the lines of: ‘My treasure! To those who can find it!’ at which point he tosses the capsule into the baying horde.

  Inside is a cryptogram, a code of Enigma style proportions which has baffled treasure hunters ever since.

  And it’s all nonsense.

  Well, mostly nonsense.

  In between writing the other books in this series I was constantly researching this one as I always wanted to tell it, and others actually asked me if was I planning to do so because it is a pirate fan favourite, so in many ways it has been the book I have spent the most time on and the more research I did the less satisfied I became on any of the ‘truths’ attached to Levasseur.

  The Portuguese treasure ship was real but if we start from Charles Johnson’s account(1) the pirates are Taylor, Condent, England and La Bouche. I reduced it just to Taylor and Levasseur for simplicity. In Johnson’s work a letter from a Captain Mackra names a pirate called Oliver(sic) de La Bouche and Johnson only refers to the pirate as La Bouche throughout. Also the story has different accounts from different sources but we will stick to Johnson’s for ease of understanding.

  Johnson makes no mention of a pirate called Olivier Levasseur and it seems supposition to presume that the pirate that Johnson calls Oliver La Bouche is Olivier Levasseur. More confusion is that if we take for fact that Olivier Levasseur is nicknamed ‘The Buzzard’ or ‘The Hawk’ and is referred to elsewhere (outside of Johnson) as such why does Johnson not mention this fabulous nickname? This could be because Johnson’s work concentrates on British and colonial pirates but the supposition that Johnson’s La Bouche is Levasseur is probably Johnson’s atypical error in mistaking La Buse as La Bouche, or they are two entirely different pirates; especially as in his introduction Johnson says that La Bouche was eventually ‘castaway’ when at the time of Johnson’s writing La Buse would have been happily retired.

  The largest French account of the story lists the the same pirates except that they name Captain England ‘La Buze(sic)’ and make no word on a French pirate at all, and another French account only mentions a French ‘Corsair’ and no others. Yet when Olivier Levasseur is executed almost ten years later he is called Olivier Levasseur ‘La Buze(sic)’. All very confusing.

  Johnson mentions that the ship contained three to four million in diamonds as the most significant treasure and no mention of a huge gold cross encrusted with jewels.

  And there’s the rub.

  The Flaming Cross of Goa may be purely apocryphal; certainly there doesn’t seem to be any reference to it outside the legend or outside the 20th century and unfortunately most Portuguese records of the period were destroyed in the devastating Lisbon earthquake of 1755. Flaming crosses do exist and certainly a great deal of treasure would have left India for Portugal but obviously as the treasure has never been found it is all just legend and perhaps better for it. I am happy to take the legend of the cross and place it in the story as I felt that the cross had a certain metaphorical use in Devlin’s fourth tale.

  The Levasseur that I use is as accurate as I found it to be but it is his connection with the treasure for which he is famous that I wish to elaborate on.

  Firstly we have to imagine the circumstances for French pirates at the time of the story. Like their British counterparts the French forbans were offered amnesty if they turned themselves in and were allowed to ‘buy’ their way into comfortable positions and even settle down with land and homes, if they were – ahem – able to afford it. But added to this was the fact that the great René Duguay Trouin was sent out to the Indian Ocean to hunt them down. That was certainly a more persuasive argument and French piracy on the African and Indian seas all but disappeared. Levasseur certainly seems to have taken this opportunity to retire and is known to have been the captain of a pilot for merchants entering the ports of Madagascar. The mystery is that although Levasseur would have bought his amnesty to become French once again he doesn’t appear to ha
ve done so with millions of pounds worth of gold and jewels, but then again why would he? Pirate remember.

  And so we come to Levasseur’s buried treasure and the tantalising cryptogram thrown to the crowd. If you don’t know the story look it up, I’m just going to settle a few myths on it.

  Throwing his secret into the crowd at his hanging.

  An Olivier Levasseur was executed as a pirate on July 17th (not the 7th as is often reported) 1730 on Reunion (Bourbon) island. The letters of the governor at the time record this but there is no account of such dramatic an event as the prisoner declaring his treasure for those who are smart enough to find it and flinging a code to the crowd.* I think that would have deserved a couple of words. Any mention otherwise outside the records of Governor Pierre Benoit Dumas is just as apocryphal as the gold cross and again purely seems to exist in the early 20th century.

  What is the most confusing thing about Levasseur is the vast amount of non-information about him. Even his grave which many people cite as evidence is a fiction. The cemetery in St Paul, Reunion, was not created until 1788. Only the swinging sign next to the grave attributes it to Olivier Levasseur, La Buse, and since when did authorities bury pirates? The tradition on the islands was to dispose of them at sea. This grave has the trappings of a tourist creation (especially as you are encouraged to put coins on it for luck). There is a pirate cemetery, on St Marie, but this is for those that died naturally and were buried by their own kind.

  Putting on my detective hat for a moment I (and others) conclude two circumstantial possibilities. The cryptogram that appeared in the 20th century is either a hoax, as it is not mentioned by the governor who hanged Levasseur or any eyewitness account or it is a confusion with a genuine series of cryptograms by a French naval officer, and bit of a pirate himself, called Bernadin Nageon de L’Estang.

  L’Estang died forty-five years after Levasseur, on Mauritius (Île de France) and left in his will to his two nephews and his brother several cryptograms indicating caves where he had buried (or had known to be buried) treasure from English and Spanish ships, scattered throughout the islands.**

  L’Estang’s story is mostly forgotten as it doesn’t have the glamour of the pirate attached to it and at least two of the treasures, mostly consisting of goblets and coins have been found.*** Nothing is as romantic as undiscovered treasure from a pirate treasure map so Levasseur’s story rings louder. I find that having two stories involving codes and treasure within fifty years of each other too much of a coincidence and perhaps the two stories have converged with the distinct plausibility that the cryptogram supposedly attributed to Levasseur is actually one of L’Estang’s.

  Either way there would certainly be a case to suggest that somewhere in the Seychelles or the islands of Madagascar there is a considerable pirate treasure waiting to be found, and waiting for nearly three hundred years. Certainly there have been, and still are, several treasure hunters who are convinced that there is, as are the Seychelles’ governments themselves. The islands have a Treasure Act due to the enormous pirate activity in their history. This act states that any treasure found is subject to a fifty-percent levy unless the period of three hundred years has passed since its ‘burial’. I believe that the hunters out there now know where the treasure is (you might be able to piece the most likely location together yourself from some of the clues I have put in the book) and they are just waiting for the period to pass. That happens in 2021. Wait and see.

  It is a modern cynicism that people scoff that pirates even buried treasure despite the fact that two of the most infamous pirates, Kidd and Blackbeard both claimed to have done so. They believe it belongs to Treasure Island and Hollywood, yet they seem willing to accept that after the Romans left Britain many people buried their gold and silver in fear of being robbed without Roman rule as we read from time to time when it’s dug up by some boy with a trowel and a magnet. I have a standard argument for this pirate scoffing:

  ‘Do you carry all your money around with you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where do you keep it?’

  ‘In a bank.’

  ‘And if you couldn’t keep it in a bank? Would you carry it in your car? What if you had an accident? Would you keep it in your house? What if you didn’t have a house?’ (You see where I’m going with this.) By the end of the questioning I have them in the garden with a spade and a torch.

  The irony is that it is the very real treasure of the islands themselves that might mean that the haul of Levasseur and many pirates will never be found. Almost every desolate area where pirates might have buried their booty in the islands is now protected by worldwide treaty and I don’t mean protected by signs I mean by full-on machine-gun-armed sea and air patrols. The only Shell in the Seychelles is the . . . er . . . shells, and for the sake of all our children we should make sure it stays so. The survival of the Earth will depend on her undamaged lungs. But please, if this is your first hearing of Olivier Levasseur, Oliver La Bouche, La Buse, La Buze, or the other half-dozen assortment of names attached to the man, check out the story for yourself and if it doesn’t stir something of the child in you and make you consider, just for a moment, of jacking it all in and buying a shovel and a connecting flight then you should check your pulse.

  The pirate Walter Kennedy finally makes an appearance in this book, although he is hinted at in all the other books. A highly unpleasant character, even for a pirate, and I have changed history in order for him to have an equally unpleasant end, but I hope someone will appreciate that I did plot and time this adventure so that when Coxon reveals that he has arranged for someone else to be hung in his place it was on the actual date. Thank you. I do find a certain sadness in his final fate and something that often sums up the very heart of being a pirate. A young man who had seen half the world and had participated in the sacking of forts and towns from one side of the ocean to the other and sailed with some of the greatest pirates of the age ends up being hanged a few streets from where he was raised.

  And so to Devlin. Over the course of the books I hope you have noticed that Patrick Devlin has been getting darker. He’s still the same crow and even if crows don’t moult, this one has, and his rougher plume is growing out. What becomes of that is down to him and, hopefully, his loyal partners. But we’re moving into 1722 now and I’ve made mention of the Great Pirate Roberts (we don’t say Black Bart in the 1700s) so that might indicate where we are going.

  I’ve killed John Coxon and I hope that is one of the marks of a Devlin tale. When you open it you’re never sure who’ll still be alive when you close it. But I’ll promise you this:

  ‘Them that die’ll be the lucky ones.’

  (1) ‘A General History of the Robberies & Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates’ 1724.

  *There are also issues that condemned men would usually have their hands tied (though not necessarily behind their backs) and in the islands it was customary to do so with a 2lb weight tied around the wrists. Not easy to pull off a necklace and throw something into the crowd, but, granted, not impossible.

  **It is also possible of course that L’Estang got hold of Levasseur’s cryptogram thus further clouding the issue.

  ***Not all treasure found gets declared. Almost every noble or well-to-do family in the islands has a rumour about how they got their money and there are a few stories of ambassadors and governors suddenly quitting their posts and returning to their countries with suspiciously good fortunes.

  Mark Keating, November 2012.

  About the Author

  Mark Keating was born in North London and has spent most of his life working around the South East selling everything from comic-books to champagne. He now lives in Pembrokeshire with his wife and sons and is currently looking at the sea.

  Also by Mark Keating and published by Hodder & Stoughton

  THE PIRATE DEVLIN

  HUNT FOR WHITE GOLD

  BLOOD DIAMOND

  g, Cross of Fire