Cross of Fire (37 page)

He was in the mouth of the cave. He spat out the salt, eyed the opening beyond. The tide rolled over his head – a warning – and he went under again. Just ten more strokes and he would turn back; the silence and adventure were seductive but he knew he was chancing his life against the tide.

It was even darker now, a twilight; the softness of the water was gone and his arms had to work harder. He came up again and the the ceiling was not so close. Something had opened up.

The cave yawned, but an edge of panic twitched in Devlin’s chest. It was that taut instinct that keeps men alive, and although he turned and dived his legs did not move and suddenly something travelled with him.

A weight pulled him back and he kicked against a heavy mass. Even under the water he knew its sense. He ducked his chin to look back and could not help but gulp and lose the air in his lungs as O’Neill’s shattered face rushed up to his.

Its eyes were peeled in surprise, the gaping mouth widened by shot and split to the ear; but it was still O’Neill, and the priest’s dead hands flailed over Devlin’s arms.

He struggled, wrestled with the corpse’s weight, his breath frothing and bubbling in O’Neill’s hideous face. They rolled together, the body playing with him, the head flung back as if in laughter.

He elbowed aside the grotesque leer and the corpse spun like a drunk shoved down a hill. Several of its loosened teeth span away leaving trails of blood and the body was buffeted back with the tide towards the cave.

Devlin gasped upwards and had to push against the roof which now descended fast, pressing down on his head like the sod on his grave. He regained his arms and legs, steeled himself and aimed for the sunlight.

They watched him from the beach. The tide and the cave had won and Devlin crawled round the rocks to splutter and gasp next to his men on the shore.

‘She comes in quick don’t she?’ Peter Sam hauled him up. ‘Reckon she won’t tide ’til the night now. We’re done for today.’ He saw Devlin’s pale face. ‘What were you about?’

Devlin held the big man’s arm then bent over and sucked the good air. The cave had been hot. His chest heaved. Then he remembered his men judging him always and he stood up straight. Stood tall.

‘Needed to see . . .’ he had no breath. ‘. . . We need more men. Send the boats . . . go in tomorrow.’

Peter Sam moved to hide him from the men. They could not see him weakened.

He saw Devlin’s hands shaking. ‘What happened, Patrick?’

‘O’Neill,’ Devlin said. ‘Dead.’ He bent again to gasp hard. ‘Shot.’

Peter Sam slapped Devlin’s back to shake free the water.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Some fighting, then.’ He lowered his voice and spoke to Devlin’s neck. ‘Now stand well,’ he pulled him level, ‘Captain.’

Devlin nodded, shook his hair like a dog and faced his men.

‘The cave opens up,’ he said to their expectant faces. ‘I saw O’Neill dead.’ He pulled off his shirt, ignored the old wound of last year that clawed at his back from his exertions and the salt.

‘We’re going in killing. And getting our gold.’

And the roar and pistol fire set the crows back into the air.

Always crows, Devlin thought. He watched their slow wings drag themselves from the branches. Always crows. Since the first time. Since The Island. Since the archipelago when he had set his path. They had been there then, when a dying French marine gave up his boots and the map held within.

Always a murder of crows. The world was their cemetery. Impartial. They will eat both sides alike and laugh. The birds landed calmly again, preened at him and seemed to await his word.

‘We’ll go in,’ he said. ‘Kill. Get our gold. Then back to Bourbon and Dandon. Buy the earth with our riches.’

He picked up his belt, his weapons. And his men.

The Buzzard sat on his throne. He had heard the shouts and gunfire echo up from the pool like someone else’s dream. He had reloaded and thought on the other four pistols from his dead. He had powder for them also. He rocked back and forth with the cross against his shoulder.

His gold. His fortune.

And he had grapeshot. He had held with the pirate tradition of taking at least one cannon to shore, should it become necessary on a strange island to build a redoubt.

He tapped the six-pounder beside his throne like a favoured dog.

‘Tomorrow,’ he said to the walls. ‘Tomorrow they will come. And warmly they will come to their end.
Et vivement ils viendront a leur fin
.’

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The Dutch had abandoned the island of Maurice in 1712 after almost seventy years of occupation. They had built a stone fort with a garrison of fifty and settled forty families at the north-west harbour, which they called ‘The Camp’.

They cultivated tobacco, and not unsuccessfully. It went so well that the governor decided they should now be permitted to trade not just with their homeland but with any nation and company they pleased. The Dutch India Company thought otherwise and the colonists were swiftly retired to the Cape of Good Hope.

The second epoch began when the French ship,
Chasseur
, arrived in 1715 and formally possessed the island in the traditional manner. A boulder brought with them, a possession stone, scratched with the date and the Bourbon flag. The Dutch had only burned their colours into a tree. Presumably the tree could no longer be seen.

Île de France was born.

The French had held Bourbon for as long as the Dutch had held Maurice and now they had the sister island and planned to colonise it just as fruitfully.

But not yet.

It would be September 1721 when they returned in force. For now, for Coxon’s men in July the same year, the island was as desolate as ever. Some pirates, some Maroons and some bold families from Bourbon had all settled in the island’s south-east harbour, and so the
Standard
moored in the north.

Volcanic and as verdure-covered as Bourbon, the enormous island seemed just as inhospitable to those English hearts that had run from the labour of the fields. But the hearts yearned to see those fields roll again, and again hear village bells toll before their knuckles finally knotted. Still, it was a shore; still, they could make some English mark upon it.

Coxon stood beside Howard as the anchors fell. Howard was a man now but a few inches below his captain and Coxon had known him as a boy and so to him Howard still held that aspect.

‘You will escort a bill to shore, Thomas. I want you to see if you can find some example of that Dronte bird. Perhaps we shall rediscover it, eh?’

Howard smiled but said nothing. Coxon ignored the silence.

‘Gather any sort of eggs you can. Birds and reptiles. We will present them as a gift when we return.’

‘I shall get some baskets, Captain.’ He tapped his forehead and wheeled away. Coxon flushed at the young man’s brusqueness then dismissed it as anxiety and looked toward the island.

He had noticed Howard’s change of humour since the pirate had come among them, but no matter; that was not a captain’s worry. He had no doubt of Howard’s discipline or his loyalty and that was all that mattered. The young man could sort his own soul if he had enough pieces to do so. And he would have to if his career were to progress and be a true career and not just the biding of time. Or one of shame and humiliation. Coxon moved away from the gunwale, hearing and approving the excitement of his men and their coarse banter.

Manvell watched him from the quarterdeck. He knew Coxon to be a common man like himself but Manvell had the mantle of assumed nobility. The man had no wife, no family to raise him and promote him. He had earned everything himself. But what ‘all’? His cloth was old, his shoes worn. He had no wig and his black and grey smooth hair was tied with a bow that might have been found as a marker in a bible. The crew could see it. They laughed with him, a man of the sea like themselves. He had promised them gold.

Manvell looked over to the volcanic pyramids of the island. They could almost be man-made and just swallowed up by millennia and the dense green forests. One of them looked as if it had a carved obelisk of a woman stood atop it, watching him back. Others had flat tables that could hold hidden villages and the giant extinct creatures of this world and any other.

They were small men coming to see the ancient races of creation, the pages of Genesis unfolding before them.

Manvell tapped down the steps to catch Thomas Howard before he went below.

‘Mister Howard,’ he called, ‘a word, if you please.’

Howard stopped. ‘I am on orders, Mister Manvell.’

Manvell pretended not to hear.

‘I spoke with the pirate this morning. Your pirate.’

‘He is not
my
pirate, sir.’ Howard carried on. Manvell fell into step with him.

‘I meant no offence, Thomas. An article of speech.’ He plucked Howard’s sleeve. ‘He spoke of you.’

Howard stopped again. ‘What did he say?’

Manvell checked the bustling ship for ears about them. ‘He may have “suggested” that you and he have had words. Against the
Standard
’s orders. That you . . . aided him, somewhat.’

‘I gave him some bread and water. Is that not what one does for prisoners?’

Manvell carried them both on.

‘It is the Christian thing, Thomas. Understand that I am not reproaching. More. I am approving.’

‘You will not report me?’

Manvell took a breath. They were over the companion. The boats were away and the deck no longer such a narrow beam without them. Manvell whispered now.

‘If I do not report you, Thomas, I would have no choice but to consider myself a conspirator. Alongside you. Would I not?’

‘I do not understand, sir?’

Manvell patted his back.

‘Go to your duty. We will talk more on the island.’

Howard took the stair. He looked up to Manvell framed against the bare poles and the blue expanse of sky.

‘We are all ashore?’

Manvell leaned over the hole.

‘Only those of us not privy to torture it seems, Mister Howard.’

‘You talk riddles, sir. The pirate is not my friend. You understand? He is a fool to himself. If he would but talk and offer his parole—’

‘And would you talk, Thomas? To the enemy? How would you judge yourself then?’

‘We are not the enemy.’

‘That depends on one’s perspective, Thomas, does it not?’ He tapped his forehead and grinned as Howard ducked his head below.

Manvell turned on his heel to Coxon glowering at him past the main hatch twenty-feet fore, his hands clasped behind him. Manvell over-extended his grin and salute and went back to the quarterdeck, the indignant stare boring into his back.

An hour. Every watch would take its turn ashore. Five hours given for the task of hunting, gathering water, fruit. Of building spirit. Manvell and Howard in white shirts and straw hats leading the perspiring midshipmen.

Doctor Howe and Sailing-Master Jenkins remained on the
Standard
with a short-handed crew. Jenkins was too earnest in his sails and setting the men to repair to waste time ashore; Howe was too earnest about the claret in the wardroom, and the tropics were not friendly to already-peeling skin. He had yet to find a soap that agreed with sea-air. Every day felt just a variance on sandpaper. He took off his hose and eased his swollen feet on Thomas Howard’s chair.