The Devil's Fire (5 page)

Thatcher dabbed at his wet forehead with a grimy handkerchief, the initials E.B.T barely discernable within the filth. When his father had given it to him, the handkerchief had been white as snow, the embroidered letters shiny and gold; a parting gift to a son who had dutifully followed in his father's footsteps without quarrel. Smiles were rarely shared between them, but Douglas knew that his choice of career had not displeased his father. It was two years since last they spoke, their words polite yet brief, as always. The man had not looked well, having contracted a fierce malady from one of his patients. It was now Thatcher's eighth month aboard the pirate ship named
Harbinger
, and he was certain he would never see his father again.

Thatcher had become a surgeon in order to attend hardworking young men on accident-prone merchant vessels. A cruel twist of fate had forced him into helping murderous thieves who preyed upon innocent sailors. A collapsing yardarm had killed
Harbinger
's previous surgeon during a severe storm. The pirates went several months without medical aid, and when they captured the British merchantman,
Jasmine
, finding a new surgeon was their first order of business.

Edward Livingston had pried a young man’s fingernails off one by one with a pair of pliers until at last he divulged the identity of the ship’s surgeon. After losing three nails, the unfortunate young man aimed a gnarled bloody finger at Thatcher and kept the remaining seven.

Looking back, Thatcher often wondered if the boy blamed himself, or if he had simply banished the incident from memory and moved on with his life. He hoped for the latter. He bore no ill will against the boy. How many fingernails would Thatcher have yielded before giving in? He doubted that he would have made it past the first.

Jasmine's captain, a stern man named Harrow, did nothing to halt Thatcher's abduction. Thatcher and Harrow had exchanged nothing more than brief courtesies during the voyage, and Harrow probably saw no reason to stick his neck out for a man he hardly knew. Doing so would have meant his death.

It wasn't long after Thatcher's conscription that
Harbinger
happened upon another unlucky vessel. Thatcher could only watch in sickened fascination as the band of youthful American sailors were too easily recruited into this dreadful cult, as though their entire lives had escalated toward that moment.

The youngest and most promising was Nathan Adams, a bright-eyed lad with boyish good looks and a perpetual grin. He brought several of his fellows along with him, easily peer-pressuring them into joining the Devil's ranks. They all snickered and prodded each other like little boys who knew they were up to no good. "What would father think?" one of them had said, nudging his brother with his elbow and winking merrily.

The pirates took an instant liking to young Nathan, even Thatcher, who generally avoided socializing whenever possible. Nathan had been the first to step forward when the pirates called for volunteers. "This lad was a pirate long before he ever met one," Captain Griffith had said, slapping a beaming Nathan on the back.

Livingston kills with weapons
, Thatcher mused,
Griffith kills with kindness.
The latter was far more deadly. How many promising young men had sealed their fates while trying to impress this man?

Thatcher saw his younger self in Nathan, albeit a far more dashing variation, and despite his aversion to the boy's self-appointed vocation, he exchanged cordial words with him as often as possible. While in Nathan's company, he offered subtle quips of disapproval towards piracy, hoping to plant the seeds of distrust. The boy would chuckle and nod, though he never seemed truly cognizant of the surgeon's sincerity.

Thatcher would cut short his blather whenever Nathan's best friend Gregory Norrington was near; Gregory was known for repeating anything he heard. Nathan and Gregory's camaraderie was beyond Thatcher's capacity for understanding, as they were polar opposites in morals and wisdom. Gregory had a knack for opening his mouth and saying exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time, while Nathan always knew exactly what or what not to say. Nathan had the uncanny ability to adapt to whatever company he found himself in.

Thatcher had not been gifted with such talent. He was finding it increasingly difficult to mask his contempt. His destiny was no longer in his grasp. His fate belonged to a malicious people he dared not offend. It wasn't that he was frightened of death; he longed for it. He was terrified of tortures he would be forced to endure before death finally claimed him. These devils had recruited him under threat of such torments, and now he realized that he had accorded to the wrong bargain. At the time he had thought only of forestalling pain.
Do whatever they ask, and they won't hurt you. You wanted a life at sea, well this will have to suffice. Just do whatever they ask.

The pirates had not tortured him. They welcomed him and fed him, and some of them even thanked him when he fixed their injuries. But he was suffering nonetheless. A slow torture, far worse than any he could have imagined, was etching away at his mind and soul, bit by bit.

Lately he found himself contemplating the afterlife, which was very unlike him. One day he became obsessed with finding a Bible, frantically scouring the hold until he was exhausted. He had never bothered with religion, despite years of churchgoing. Even at a very young age he shared his father's passion for human anatomy, and he spent most days in church with a medical book in his lap, pretending to read scripture.

There was no Bible to be found. If God existed, he had turned his gaze from
Harbinger
long ago. He had more important things to busy himself with than men who had willingly chosen a life of corruption and murder. These were no longer his children. They belonged to another.

Thatcher was gradually losing much of his physique as well. The extreme temperatures that seemed evident only to him burdened his cumbersome figure. He was convinced that he had oozed thirty pounds of fat through his sweat glands alone. He had also lost much of his appetite in favor of an unquenchable thirst. The pirates worried that he would drink all their water and rum. Several of the less cordial pirates liked to gossip about his smell, loudly enough for him to hear. Thatcher was not aware of any stench, but enough pirates had commented on it that he had no choice but to take their word for it. He concluded that people had simply been polite to him his entire life. As far as most pirates were concerned, the civilities of standard society were a joke.

Their diatribes reminded him daily that he was not one of them, and he was thankful for that. It would have been so easy to forget who he was, like slipping into a deep sleep, but their malice jarred him into consciousness, a constant reminder that he was not one of them.

Around their fires they drank and they sang and they cursed both God and Satan, accepting neither. They stalked swarmed over their victims' decks like oversized bees with a ravenous lust for cargo rather than honey. Rarely did Thatcher see them return without blood on their hands.

He felt more sympathy for the poor girl in the captain's cabin than he would ever reveal to Griffith, Livingston, or any of the crew. She hadn't the slightest inkling of the arduous journey she was about to undertake. She would cling to hope for as long as possible, against all odds, and in the end the only hope to remain would be that of a quick, merciful death.

Thatcher cursed his sympathy. He should have let her die. He should have refused to help her, suffering Griffith's wrath in order to spare the soul of yet another innocent victim. It had been a second chance. A third would be too much to ask for.

He was a slave to his cowardice. He could not spare her torture, no more than he could end his own pitiful existence. He had not saved her; he merely prolonged her torture.

He cursed life and its inane desire to persist, despite all the terrors of living. He knew that none of it would matter in the end, but his phobia of pain was far more dictatorial than his grasp of logic.

He was tired of life.

He was tired of choices.

He was tired of being hot.

Nathan Adams scaled the rigging to the dizzying summit of the main topsail. One misstep would have sent him plummeting to the main deck below. If he was lucky, he might find himself tangled in the ratlines. Thoughts such as these coursed invigorating chills through his body. He craned his neck and looked to the overcast sky above. He felt close enough to reach up and draw in the clouds with a few swishes of his fingers.

A sharp wind tugged at his shirt and breeches, reminding him of his precarious perch. He made the mistake of looking down. The world spiraled beneath him. Swirling blue waters stretched for endless leagues in every direction, and the ship seemed a faraway blot in the midst of it all. For that fleeting moment he understood how small the ship was in comparison to the rest of the world. He squeezed his eyes shut and did not open them again until both nausea and enlightenment had subsided.

When his senses returned he opted to distract himself with the task at hand: inspecting the yards for weaknesses, and the main topsail for tears. His muscles were tense and his heart was racing, but a few deep and controlled breaths calmed his nerves and ceased the trembling in his hands.

He worked at a leisurely pace, not wanting to finish his duties too swiftly. The crew's labor had slowed considerably in the two days that had passed since the plunder of
Lady Katherine
. Tomorrow would bring the beginnings of a tedium that wouldn't end until
Harbinger
reached her destination. The majority of Nathan's time would be spent playing cards with his American brethren. Others were generally more than happy to join in on a game, particularly when Nathan's best friend, Gregory, was on hand. Gregory had yet to win a single game, but he boasted as though he was a force to be reckoned with. The pirates obliged Gregory's swagger, welcoming him to games with mock trepidation.

They weren't allowed to play for money while on the ship, as money was too often the pretext for deadly quarrels. Griffith and Livingston believed that every man should leave the ship with no more or less than any other. What a man did with his wages once he set foot in port was his own business.

Nathan had been born into wealth, though he dared not relinquish that potentially controversial fact. When he arrived on
Harbinger
he was very well spoken, but he had since altered his vernacular to blend with the crew.

He never knew his mother; she died giving birth to him. His father owned an immensely successful ship manufacturing company and partook of the trading business. He was an overbearing man who wanted for Nathan the best possible education, no matter the cost. A professional tutor was hired to live at the house, and Nathan was forced into his studies while his father was ever away on business.

Whenever his father came home, and those times were few and far between, Nathan would reiterate his aspiration to serve aboard a merchant ship. His father was adamantly opposed to the idea, warning of the dangers Nathan would find there. "I won't lose a son," he insisted, "to a falling yardarm, or worse still. . . pirates."

"I should be so lucky," was Nathan's internal reply. He had been fascinated with pirates all of his life. They led injudicious lives that were a mockery of his father's strict ideals, as well as a burden on his pocketbook, due to their weekly raids of his merchant ships.

In the late days of March, Nathan took leave of his father, escaping the mansion that had become his prison. A bout of pure impulse hurtled him across town, straight for the docks, and he signed on to a merchant ship named
Getty
, where he made fast friends with Gregory and several others. The ship departed from New York and, after a week at sea, was intercepted by a sleek brigantine.

When first Nathan glimpsed
Harbinger
's black flag with its skewered heart, he struggled to keep a perverse grin from betraying his true joy. He couldn’t believe his good fortune. The sight of the pirates sweeping aboard with their cutlasses only heightened his ecstasy. He didn't think to be frightened.

He was seized not by the pirates, but by his desire to be one of them. He signed what they called their "Articles of Regulation" as soon as the papers were presented to him. Several of his friends followed suit, including Gregory, who had long since latched onto him and would follow him to the grave.

Captain Griffith was delighted with their enthusiasm.

Nathan's excitement did not subside. It was his sixth month of pirating and he had yet to see the Caribbean. Since his recruitment, the ship had not strayed from the profitable trade winds of the North Atlantic. Livingston had tallied a vote that unanimously favored
Harbinger
's return to the West Indies, and the ship was presently headed in that direction.

Nathan swelled with anticipation for the legendary brothels of New Providence, which the older pirates never stopped going on about, and they weren’t shy in surrendering details. At twenty years of age he was eager to conclude his virginity. The sooner he arrived in the Caribbean the better. He was a good-looking young man, and his various duties had toned his muscles. By all rights he should have romanced his share of women by now, but he hadn't seen land in as much time as he'd spent on the pirate ship, and before that he had spent most of his life bottled up in a mansion. There was only one woman aboard
Harbinger
and that was one more than most pirate ships tolerated, and she was presently tied to the mainmast.

When Nathan finished mending the topsail, he started the long climb down the ratlines. He reached the bottom and hopped onto the main deck. He cautiously approached the mainmast, hoping for a closer look at the captive. Ropes were fastened around her ankles and wrists, allowing her only a few feet of leeway. She was sprawled on her side and her great mess of hair was matted against the deck, as though each lock had become permanently fixed within the seams of the planking. He circled her until he could see her face, which was bright red from sunburn. Her eyes were open but staring at nothing in particular. She had thrown up all over herself, with chunks of half-digested food stuck to her chin and her head resting in what had spilled onto the deck.