Cross of Fire (39 page)

Manvell straightened.

‘Or beaten senseless.’

Coxon pretended confusion.

‘Do you suggest something inappropriate, Mister Manvell?’

‘No, Captain. I do not
suggest
.’

‘You are not entitled to opinion, Lieutenant. Unless it be granted you.’ Coxon stood close. ‘The pirate took advantage. Kennedy came to my assistance. They fought. The confines of the hold afforded him his injuries.’

Manvell took off his straw hat, feeling himself foolish in his shore clothes.

‘Then I would like it noted in the log that I think this man has been beaten unjustly.’

‘This
man
?’ Coxon looked between the table and Manvell. ‘This is a
pirate
, Lieutenant. We have been around this conversation before. This pirate holds vital information concerning the purpose of our mission!’

‘Our mission, Captain – respectfully – was to join Captain Ogle and hunt for Roberts and Devlin together. It was not some glory lust for gold!’

‘The gold has no part of it. That is for our men. Would you have me tell them that you wish to deny them so? I have acted on more pertinent intelligence which has moved us from our orders.’

‘Yet you need more? And this
man
has it all!’

‘I believe you were with me on Bourbon, Lieutenant? Was I not questioning pirates? Found Devlin’s closest ally? Whom – I should add – Ogle would not know from a horse’s arse, sir! There is reason in sending me to this sea!’

Manvell took a step back from Coxon’s reddened face. He had not said anything that he regretted and he would pause before he did. His mouth opened, then a croak from the table made them both still and stare.

‘
Thomas
?’ Dandon coughed. ‘Mister Howard?’ He tried to lift a hand.

Howard was shaking. He clenched his fists and tensed the sensation away. He was drawn forward by the voice and the pained eye. Kennedy started also but Manvell froze him with a glare.

Howard was beside the table. He held the weightless hand. He saw that Dandon’s cheek lay in a pool of sweat and saliva. He had nothing to wipe it away save his own sleeve and he carefully lifted Dandon’s head to do so.

‘You are hurt, Mister Dandon, sir. You should rest.’

‘. . . 
Hurt but am not slain
.’ Dandon almost smiled. He closed his eyes and Howard softly put the head back to the table. He smiled then.

‘Good boy. Brave boy,’ he mumbled and dropped his hand from Howard’s.

Coxon and Manvell stood silent as Howard withdrew.

‘He’s out again, Captain,’ he said, and fell in between them both.

They watched Dandon’s back rise and fall. Manvell broke the silence.

‘What now, Captain?’

Coxon put a hand on Howard’s shoulder.

‘He will need to be restrained again when he wakes. He has forced it on himself with his attempted escape.’

Manvell felt his stomach twist. The time had passed for him to regret his words.

‘I wish to comment in the log, Captain. The treatment of this prisoner is not fitting to my station as the
Standard
’s First. As entreated to me.’

Coxon took his hand from Howard’s shoulder.

‘We should discuss over supper.’

He thought on his papers. The orders over all others. The
Standard
’s logs just tinder, Manvell’s words worthless. Back in England Manvell might become privileged; once Devlin was done, once the king’s honour had been restored. He would understand everything then.

‘But he shall be restrained again,’ he said.

The bell rang above them. The ship was at last back to order.

‘To supper, gentlemen. You can explain to me, Christopher, your sympathy over pirates who attack your captain.’ Coxon walked away. ‘Change your dress. Thomas, you will tell me of your specimens.’

‘With respect, Captain,’ Howard said, ‘I should like to attend to the pirate and secure him. As is fitting.’

Coxon stopped. He did not turn to Howard.

‘Granted,’ he said. ‘I will deliver you some pork pie. Kennedy will assist.’ He ducked away through the dark.

Manvell tugged Howard’s shirt, pulled him to his face.

‘Good show,’ he said. ‘I will mention at supper. With the others. Have no fear, Thomas.’

Howard pulled his sleeve free.

‘I don’t, sir.’ He threw his straw hat to a corner. ‘It is a Christian thing. As you said. Do not count me with your conspiracies. If you please.’

Coxon ordered from the stair. ‘Manvell! Come!’

Manvell leant into Howard’s face. He looked once at Kennedy near the manger who retreated from earshot.

‘He is mad you know. He endangers us all with this pirate. We have broken our orders.’

Howard looked back to the table.

‘No,’ he said. ‘The difference is that he does not wait for orders and papers. That is how the pirates win. Too many simply wait. He is going for the throat. I have seen their axes and guns. He is becoming them.’

‘
Manvell
!’ Coxon bellowed.

Howard pushed Manvell to the dark.

‘I know what I’m doing, sir. Do
yours
.’

Manvell took his hand, not offered.

‘Come find me later,’ he said.

Howard dropped the hand.

‘You are the First, sir. Do as your position.
Please
.’

He went to the table, and Manvell could find no more words.

He followed his captain.

Chapter Thirty

The night now. Coxon was dressed for a dinner he had no appetite for. The pirate had not spoken. He had Kennedy wrap his own fists with soaked cloth and beat at him in his chains, so that his hanging arms punished him as much as the bludgeoning hands.

Kennedy smashed against his liver, at his sides, at his groin. And still nothing came from the pirate except sweat. Not even the lies that Coxon had expected. Only when Kennedy himself folded over exhausted did the pirate speak, as Coxon asked his question once more.

‘Where is he, Dandon?’

The pirate spat. It strung from his lip and he shook it free like a dog.

‘Where he has always been, John,’ he flashed his gold caps. ‘In your dreams.’

Coxon paled. He stared at the pirate as if he had discovered witchcraft in the world.

‘Take him down,’ he said to Kennedy. ‘He’s dying.’

‘I know a priest, John,’ Dandon said. ‘I know where you can find him for my end.’ He passed out with the grin still on his face.

Coxon looked in the mirror, an old speckled glass he had carried with him for more than twenty years. It had aged with him. Almost black in places, warped and opaque, it reflected well. He lowered his eyes from himself.

He had starved the pirate and he did not talk. He had beaten and tortured him and he did not talk. He looked again at the mirror and let it reflect on the marvel of friendship he did not know. The emptiness of the room figured behind him. It held the absence of portrait frames he had bought and filled in his life, mementoes of intimacy.

There were only tools and maps and the books where he lived the lives of other men.

He gleaned the bright brown leather of the Cervantes volume Devlin had given him the last time they met. He turned to it, half-expecting it to not belong in the real world and vanish with the mirror.

He walked to the shelf and his hand was almost upon it when a knock on the door came and broke him from his reverie. He knew that knock by now.

‘Come, Christopher.’

Manvell ducked his way in. Bright in a blue riding coat. In all the time they had been at sea Manvell’s wardrobe, Coxon noted, had still not rotated.

‘What is it?’ Coxon asked as he tidied his waistcoat. ‘A private conversation not fit for mess?’

It was approaching nine o’clock but the sky was still golden in the stern windows. They had been underway for two hours. Without a word from the pirate they were heading north-west, coursing for the Comoros for now. Coursing to meet Ogle and Herdman. The ship had become sullen that the gold was slipping away like the hue of the sky.

‘No, sir, I mean . . .
John
,’ Manvell dipped his head. ‘I just wondered when I might make my entry into the log regarding the
Standard
’s
treatment of the prisoner?’

Coxon sighed and lost interest in his threadbare waistcoat’s loose buttons.

‘If he talks would you still call him the “prisoner” or would he be the pirate then?’

‘Would that matter?’

‘No. No, I suppose not.’

Coxon picked up his hat from the table, thought on the letters that would exonerate him from all of this. If he could but share them Manvell would not stand so indignant and Howard would not look at him so ashamed. He had become an agent for men in black cloth but he now understood why. They operated so to protect. To protect those beneath them, even if it was just from themselves.

No matter. He still had tricks to press young men.

‘Christopher, I have decided that the pirate will not talk. Questioning him further will not serve. We need to consider other avenues to find Devlin.’

‘Perhaps the
Standard
would consider the return to our original orders?’ Manvell hoped. ‘Ogle and Herdman. And hunt for Roberts – and Devlin. Is that not why we are shaping for the Comoros?’

‘In part.’ Coxon spied Manvell’s deerskin slippers and looked down at his own cracked, wooden-soled shoes. He should have married a duke’s daughter; he should have attended more balls. Then he remembered that Manvell was only a publican’s son and forgot his envy. He had done well, that was all.

‘In “part”, sir?’ Manvell’s hopes fell.

Coxon was still gazing at his own pinchbeck-buckled shoes with the sloping heels.

‘It would be unfair to the men to join up and share their gold with other crews. I still intend to capture Devlin on our own. We more than outgun him. And your sword must be worth ten.’

‘How would we achieve such?’

Coxon looked surprised at his First’s ignorance.

‘The letter of course, Christopher. The one you left with the priest. Its purpose was to let Devlin know we had his man and Kennedy. To let his men know that their captain had murdered Kennedy’s father and that the poor boy wants revenge. And as Kennedy became a pirate because of it Devlin would have to accord with that. Accord to the codes they live by that pass for their honour. I had hoped that it might set their minds to doubting their captain. He might leave his man, captured, but not refuse to meet Kennedy.’