Cross of Fire (30 page)

‘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.

‘I can’t think what I would say to him. He’s a pirate. The world’s enemy. A fiend.’

‘Then don’t say anything. Forget him. Do your duty. You were just a boy. He probably does not remember.’

‘But I remember,’ Howard said.

Manvell did not understand. Howard tried to share the jumble of contradictions that had become his reason.

‘If I remember and do not say anything what does that mean?’

Manvell’s feet scraped again to leave and seek Sailing-Master Jenkins but he twisted back for one more consoling word.

‘I’m sure there is a philosophy scratched by a Frenchy somewhere which will go along those same lines, Mister Howard, and I would suggest to you that you do not concern yourself with guilt or compassion. As to what it means if you say nothing, may I offer that it simply means you are a
man
, sir.
That
is what it means. Welcome to our pasture. It is pleasant enough when it do not rain.’

He spun away, pleased with his wisdom, leaving Thomas Howard again staring down onto the deck and his thoughts travelling through to the hold like a spirit.

Howard had work to do. Manvell had appeared with orders. From behind he heard Master Jenkins arguing all the points of the compass why he could not be underway before the night and dictating sails to the bosun with the same breath. Soon Manvell would come back and give him orders; soon Coxon might reappear and soon Thomas Howard would have to concentrate on how to hold his face at dinner when word of the Dandelion pirate went around the table.

He stared at the black mouth of the companion stair vanishing away, down into darkness. Coxon was down there, Kennedy was down there. Kennedy who had returned from questioning Old Cracker with scarlet fists. Kennedy was now below with Coxon and Dandon – Dandon, the pirate of his nightmares, and how confident could Howard be that he was awake now?

The earth could not be this small. Not small enough for Coxon to point his arm and find all that he needed, no more complicated than the pocket of a schoolboy or as limiting as his schoolyard.

This was not faith, not the faith he had put in Coxon, unless it is the faith of a man who jumps from a ship to the sea with the assurance that another will inevitably come soon enough.

Howard was used to the orderly world. As a midshipman he had his books to follow, to learn from.

‘
Read this and do as is done.
’

He would do well because the books would tell him what to do. There was no emotion behind their covers. Just learn them and
do as is done
.

But there had been one book of instruction that had broken its ranks. The thirty-one page book had been as precise and didactic as the others but he had turned a page to find a flower pressed into its pages. Faded and powdery as a moth’s wings but had been bright yellow once.

Before Thomas Howard had gone to sea another boy had read the dull pages and copied with chalk and slate the signals to chase; and then one day, one bright day, perhaps even his first, he plucked a flower from a Portsmouth road or his mother gave it to him from her breast – but one day he had put a flower in a book and changed the ordered world.

And it had been a Dandelion.

Dandelion. Not a flower at all.

He stared down the dark companion stair, longing for someone or something to break him from his distraction.

He jumped as a scream of pain came from the black below.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Dandon had laughed at first.

‘Go to hell,’ he said and laughed harder. Kennedy cracked him across the jaw, silencing the derision but helpless to strike the pride off the pirate’s face. Kennedy shook his hand with the pain of glancing his knuckles off Dandon’s gold-capped teeth and Dandon laughed again. Kennedy raised a fist.

‘
Enough
!’ Coxon pulled him away.

That was then.

Coxon had brought him to the wardroom and placed a goblet of wine at the hands still wearing their iron bracelets. Dandon drank fast, before the charts landed in front of him. He rattled the cup on the table for more.

Coxon ignored the request and spread the Indian Ocean before him. He tapped the map.

‘Where?’ he said.

And Dandon, his wine empowering him, gave his first ‘Go to hell!’ and brushed the map from the table.

‘It is the drink I waned for!’ he said. ‘Now I am willed to silence. Unless you have more wine, John?’

All that was then. All before.

Coxon had turned his back.

‘So be it,’ he thought.

‘Elicitation’ Coxon had called it. Let a pirate go to a pirate. The scream had come later.

The wardroom had lanterns. It had candles and tallow lighters, oil, match and tinderbox. Coxon listened to Kennedy giggle again as he went searching the room for toys.

Coxon went to the partitions of glass and hinged frame that went across the beam of the ship, the door from the room.

‘I will be back shortly. I have a course to set. Do you wish to tell anything now? To aid me?’

Dandon leant in his seat.

‘Go very merrily to hell, John Coxon. And shame on you, sir.’

Coxon opened the door and called for a marine to stand guard. He set the man to his post inside the room as Kennedy came back to the table; Coxon left with his eyes down and turned away from the scene. He retired to his cabin, listened for a moment to the sounds of feet scuffling on the overhead and went to his desk for paper and ink.

Coxon heard the scream. The writing hand went to his sweating brow, then the sounds of the ship returned, covered like a tarpaulin, and the hand went back to the paper. He had little time. Manvell would be the one to take the note to shore, Manvell the one who disapproved the most, so remove him for an hour and hope that the pirate gave up what he had.

He dusted the ink and folded and sealed the paper, the gentleness of this act belying the act below, belying its consequences.

He went to his door and ordered the marine outside to bring him the lieutenant and Coxon went to wait by his stern windows and watched Bourbon becoming night.

Perhaps he could tell Manvell of the other letter, the other orders. Manvell was a good man and growing better all the time while his own character was being shamed. Manvell would understand then, understand that Coxon was not raving, not obsessive and tyrannical, and that although these were the characteristics of admirals who survived the war, to these young officers such action was unwarranted now. But they should know that he was not making orders.

He was following them.

The coach door knocked upon and opened with Coxon’s call. Manvell swept off his hat.

Coxon studied Manvell’s reflection in the diamond panes, as he had done on the first day. Manvell had changed. His eyebrows appeared less surprised and his manner had lost its edge of clumsiness. Coxon pointed to the letter on the table.

‘Take that to the cathedral, Manvell, if you please. Best to the same priest, if best you can.’

Manvell picked up the letter and blanched at the name across it. ‘Captain?’

Coxon lifted his chin for the question.

‘This is to “Devlin.” The pirate?’

‘Do you know another?’

‘May I ask . . . for why, sir?’

‘You may,’ Coxon stepped away from his stern. ‘I wish to tell him that I have his man. Confirm to him that it is I – by my hand – rather than rely on a babbling Porto priest.’

‘To what purpose?’

Coxon thought on that. If only he could impress on Manvell the image in his own mind of Devlin’s fury when he opened the packet to read his and Dandon’s names and the history inside the simple message, Coxon indeed would; but he had no brush to paint it with.

‘He will come for us,’ said Coxon simply. ‘And then we will seek each other. His treasure will mean far less. Trust me.’

Manvell put the letter inside his coat.

‘Aye, sir. We will be ready to sail on my return.’ He snapped his heels, replaced his hat. Coxon raised a finger.

‘Mister Manvell, did you hear a disturbance from below? Could you discern from the quarterdeck?’

‘I did not, sir.’

‘And Mister Howard? Did . . . Thomas . . . voice any concern?’

Manvell delayed just enough to indicate that he did not wish to speak for Thomas Howard.

‘He was stood at the rail above the companion. A better position than I.’

Coxon understood. He should have summoned musicians to cover Kennedy’s work. That would be the way in the future if the pirate did not talk. Manvell stepped to his task and Coxon returned to his darkening panorama.

Full dark soon. Somewhere Devlin sailed, under the same stars. If Dandon remained closed then Devlin would know him gone when he returned to Bourbon to collect and know further that he had Walter Kennedy to assist, and know the nature of that wretch. He had written it all under calculation that the pirate in his democracy would share his knowledge with his crew. They would all know why Kennedy had come. An accusation in ink. That might have some use.

A rap at the door – for thinking of the Devil has an effect – and Kennedy shuffled into the room, his hands blackened.

‘Captain,’ he wiped his hands through his hair. ‘He wishes to speak to you now, so he does.’

When he returned to the wardroom it seemed a smaller figure that was slumped in the chair before Coxon. It was clearly still Dandon, still the once-smart linen and tailored breeches. But now the body was as exhausted and worn as its tattered raiments.

Coxon remarked on nothing. He dismissed the marine, paler now than the ruddy fellow he had been when placed there. He returned the map to the table and stabbed his finger amid the whales and Spanish galleons. He pointed inside the Indian Ocean as if there had been no gap since he first asked and nothing terrible had blighted his ship.

‘Where?’ he said.