Cross of Fire (13 page)

Hodge, pitifully amusing in that he had a disorder of the nerves which caused one or the other of his eyes to be half-closed and always made him appear deep in thought. Coxon never sure, he told them, when Hodge was silent, whether the man was having some grand epiphany or passing wind.

He studied them over his glass as they roared. He had them now.

‘Drink up, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘for I will hold to the rule that officers shall only drink in company. And I will hold you to the tradition that you will be expected to bring your own wine tomorrow.’

‘No strap in our beds, sir?’ This from Doctor James Howe, corpulent and scarlet. Coxon had already surmised that he was not long for the world. Every breath was nearly a gulp, every bite of food scooped and swallowed was barely chewed. The man obviously accepted that indigestion was now the natural state.

‘As I say, Doctor Howe, no drink without company.’ He watched the man drain his glass and reach for the carafe, a belch held back through puffed out cheeks.

‘But no less for that I assure you, Doctor.’ Coxon smiled.

Each man stifled his amusement with napkin or glass, with the doctor the last to laugh and just polite enough not to query what the joke was, and still managing to pass the port to Coxon on his left after pouring for young Thomas Howard at his right.

Coxon’s glass was as full as he intended and he sailed the carafe on to Lieutenant Manvell, who topped up and offered the toast: Monday, so the glasses raised to their ships at sea. The table repeated with a rap to the wood, no glasses clinked for that would cause the death of a sailor, and no standing – for the beams overhead and several dead soldiers of wine might cause unfortunate injuries. Even the sovereign had to deign to permit his captains to sit when saluting his health as per the tradition. Coxon, not privileged to ever have been in a king’s presence, wondered if such a right was ever asserted and voiced this to test what company his table had kept before he came. But this sitting was not wide enough. There was Howe, a sot of a doctor, no doubt only aware of the blue and the black draught that settled most problems or at least stopped men coming back for seconds. Thomas Howard, no dissatisfaction there, but Coxon knew his own weakness for sentiment. Judge him by his actions. He had thought Devlin as loyal as a dog once but carried a star-shaped scar on his forearm from when the pup had bit the hand that fed him.

Sailing-Master Richard Jenkins. Quiet, another one in his fifties creaking towards pension like Howe. God, how will I fight with these men? He looks like his hair is that of a horse stuck on with glue of the same. No captain for the dozen marines, only a sergeant, so no seat for him here.

Manvell then. Feign a giddy openness due to the Oporto you have only sipped. Coxon put down his glass.

‘I should like to know how you entered the service, Mister Manvell.’

Manvell cleared his throat as he dabbed at the corners of his mouth. ‘Well, sir, I must admit it is not the most honourable of appointments.’

‘Explain.’ The humour fallen from Coxon. He sat back with his hands entwined across his waistcoat and stretched his feet beneath the table until they touched Manvell’s. He felt Manvell’s pull away as he hemmed again.

‘My stock is not the greatest, Captain. My father is a Deal publican, but a tremendous man with a sword. I have fenced by his instruction since I was seven. I know not where or why he acquired such a habit and I thought it ordinary for all boys. Fortunately, due to my father’s humble nature, I have not boasted of this aptitude, which I’m sure has led me to be a modest and healthy sort.’

‘No shame in being an honest publican’s son, Mister Manvell. I myself am a parson’s second. Had one pair of trousers until I was twelve and the queen gave me another. Go on. When did your service begin?’

‘I am afraid I am a bit of a late bloomer, sir. Not that I should wish for the
Standard
to consider me less for it.’

Coxon shook his head and Manvell gave up his journey like a confession.

At eighteen he had fallen into a romance with the Duke of Beaufort’s daughter. This was not to the duke’s pleasure and the prospect of his dearest and his lineage living with a tavern-keeper’s son was beyond the pale.

Coxon winked to all the table: ‘
Both, Dove-like, roved forth beyond the pale to planted Myrtle-walk
.’

Manvell saluted with his glass and carried on.

He had fortunately relieved the duke of this embarrassment by providing him with another scandal to remove it completely. Foot followed foot and Alice, seventeen, tripped and fell pregnant, which surprised everyone except the birds on the bough who witnessed the act beneath their tree.

At first the duke considered a duel until he considered better the advice given that young Manvell could peel the skin off an apple while it was still in your pocket with any strip of steel you gave him.

So marriage then, and a commission for Manvell so that he might at least have some future.

‘Unfortunately our daughter was not born, sir, but, as is the way, the Lord is apt to plan these things to bring love closer. I am in two families now. The duke has mellowed to me, and I am blessed to say that Alice is expecting again. Although I am considerably nervous on my part as twins do fairly run in the duke’s family. I’m sure I believe we will be successful this time.’

The table was quiet, forks were laid down.

It is difficult to commiserate and congratulate in the same voice even though all men share at least some of the same paths. The only relief is the hope that the path when you meet it will be just that. A path. A short tread through the dark, and not a road.

Coxon kenned Manvell shy of what he had said: the man had come to terms with his loss and now did not want to embarrass others. Coxon locked only two words away for when the time came to measure him.

Manvell had said ‘daughter’ not ‘child’. There was a terrible shared day there. And he had said the name ‘Alice’ to strangers as if they all recalled her. As if anyone could not know her. Coxon had only ever spoken of his first ship in the same voice. He almost felt envy at the tone of it.

‘Then we will make the duke proud of his son-in-law,’ he said. ‘And your father will have your portrait above the hearth of his tavern.’

The bell outside rang once and Coxon glanced at the clock. Eight-and-a-half hours since they had set sail. The Lizard and even Brest at their stern. Lonely water now to the Verdes. Eleven days he planned to Cape Coast Castle, the trade winds at their back. Worthless to consider the pirate before then. But Manvell had not forgotten the noon address.

‘Captain?’

Coxon sniffed himself out of his thoughts. ‘Yes, Mister Manvell?’

‘This pirate, this . . . Devlin, you mentioned, whom we are to chastise. You indicated that you knew him.’

Coxon played his fingers on his full belly. ‘Has Mister Howard not told you of our experiences together?’

Manvell explained that Howard had only come into company the day before and that he was confident that neither of them trucked in gossip.

‘Very well,’ Coxon said. ‘For some years this man was my steward.’ Elaboration on those years was not tasteful to Coxon and his embarrassment well known. But they needed to know about the pirate.

‘I would like to say that he is a drunken, misanthrope idiot. But that would give you the impression that all you will have to do is walk into a tavern and lift his head up from a table.’ He watched them all shift in their seats, study him judiciously. The tradition of Aesop was his duty.

‘What I can tell you will be meaningless against what he
may
show you. And if you give him the opportunity to “show” you . . . it will be too late.’

Howe scoffed into his glass. ‘You make him terrible, Captain! I’ll wager he doesn’t even wear shoes!’

‘He will be wearing
your
shoes if you continue to appraise him so, Doctor. Make no mistake, Devlin is intelligent and bold. He has not survived so long by mere luck and nor is he a great warrior. If he were in this room now you would not see a remarkable man,’ he pointed to the door, to the deck. ‘You would see one of
them
. The men we trust to follow us, who rely on our instruction to bring them home. And I guarantee that a similar discourse is flowing below. Only
they
will show a little more respect, some of them even awe. And you may live longer if you gain the same.’

Manvell was intrigued.

‘You sound as if you admire him, sir.’

Coxon leant on the arm of his chair, pitched forward so that Manvell could see nothing else but his face and taste the meal on his breath.

‘And so I should. If I did not admire a man who has bested me twice, that would make me a fool who any boot-wipe can lick. And I take pride in the knowledge, gentlemen, that the one time I was not there to break him he triumphed over the royal houses and governments of
two
countries, sirs!’ Coxon fell back. He had said too much. He looked at his glass. Wine proved always the culprit. Devlin’s grin piercing him was always the spur. He blurted an apology.

‘But I can say no more on that, gentlemen. Forgive me. But, yes, the part of me that knew him would be foolish to not admire.’

Thomas Howard had been conspicuously quiet. He cut his meat silently and sipped his wine as Coxon had spoken. He had seen pirates fight. Seen the boarding axes fly with blood, seen the cannon fire two to their one, and the green veil of smoke that heralded their coming from their cauldrons on deck. He shared a glance with Coxon who now sank in his seat.

Doctor Howe smirked.

‘
Admire,
sir? You sound positively proud!’

Coxon tapped his glass on the table.

‘And should I not? I taught him everything he knows. Shame and praise me.’

Silence around the table and the sound of music, an agreeable Cheshire voice and a fiddle, from far below, gentle as whale song. Something about lasses and fairs as always. Coxon picked up the decanter with a chime, poured for Howe and himself then passed it on.

‘Shame and praise me. I am the fox and he is the crow.’ He raised his glass to the table. ‘And we are both equally hated.’

Devlin entered the cabin and threw his coat onto a chair; the relief of his men’s acceptance was as heavy as the twill. Dandon watched him from the locker seat, an amber bottle between his legs. He watched him limp to the rope beckets that held back the wine from falling when the deck pitched. Neither of them had sought a light first. Just the liquid. Drinking in the dark and alone was what counted for privacy on a pirate.

Dandon watched him pour a fist’s worth of wine. He knew Devlin had seen him. He would wait to be acknowledged and listened to the wine rush and bubble into the mug.

For four years now Dandon had known Patrick Devlin. They had both been near thirty then – old for pirates at even that age. Devlin had once saved Dandon from a drunken Blackbeard’s rage on Providence island, where Dandon had fancied himself a barber-surgeon. In truth he had joined Devlin’s rag-tag crew for the drink and the joy of it and, besides, he had nothing better to do.

It took little more than that to become an enemy of mankind.

But Dandon, in yellow wide-brimmed hat and justacorps, asides from the scraping off of arms and thighs what did not belong and cauterising that which he could and offering laudanum when he could not, was not fully of the crew.

He took no part in boardings and no share and only asked that someone bring him back any powders, draughts or chest of medicines that might aid them. He was Patrick Devlin’s friend, and counted himself rare to be it. Rare to be anything alive around Devlin for long.

Devlin did not even know Dandon’s real name – one of the ways of the pirate. Sign the articles and be baptised anew. Your name belonged to the old. You were on the account now and born again. The purpose was two-fold: Protect your family and your old crimes, or the past that tied you to a king’s ship and the regular.

Dandon’s name came from ‘Dandelion’, a mockery of his bright yellow coat and hat worn when he had first arrived on Providence and dreamt of operating a saltern and selling gout pills to fat rich men and romancing their soon-to-be widows. He had ended up a pox-doctor in Mrs Haggins’s brothel, and then Devlin had entered his world.