Cross of Fire (11 page)

‘Good. Good. Although I prefer Waghenaer’s projection.’

Lucas Waghenaer, the Dutch cartographer who gave the seaman the term, ‘Waggoner’ for his collection of charts.

‘Far before your time but good sense to rely on the work of a Dutchman when this was all their land before us and who most surely copied his works from the Portos’. Their very language infects the negro’s tongue.’ He finished his coffee. ‘I think by the Waggoner you be twenty miles out. Your correction should be to compare both before making your decision, as you compare your compasses. What one man can do wrong another man can do wrong also. Where the lines meet is your cocked hat to throw your ship into.’

‘Indeed, sir. That would be my course also but the cup was not so deep for me to divine any further.’

Coxon was satisfied. This man would do. His reach extended his grasp.

‘And suppose I had used your Port glass to time, we would be still at Cape Vert no doubt?’

Manvell raised his glass. ‘Mine has become colder, Captain. You would have drained it in one.’

Coxon slapped the man’s shoulder, spilling Manvell’s coffee on the map, and he laughed and surprised himself at the noise that he had not indulged in for years as if it had come from some other corner of the room.

Manvell would do. Find out more about him at supper. But the man could course on the fly; Coxon’s coffee and eye upon him was as noisome a distraction as cannon and storm. He
would
do, and Coxon went grim as he remembered the last time he had taken to a young man so. He clasped one hand into the other behind his back.

‘Away with your Bibles and Testaments, Mister Manvell. Ten minutes to noon beside me on the quarterdeck.’

Manvell took up his hat, gathered his instruments crudely like scrumped apples in his arms.

‘Very good, sir.’ He left by the correct door, unsure of the laugh, even more unsure of the dour look of unpleasant recollection on Coxon’s face.

Ten minutes before noon and the ship’s company assembled. Tarpaulins secured over the hatches gave comfortable seating for some but they stood with the rest when the bosun piped Coxon from his coach to the quarterdeck rail, his five footsteps up the stair echoing all over the ship as eighty-five men waited on his first words.

He looked over them squinting at him with the sun at his shoulder. Young men for the most with shorn hair to stop the spread of lice. Three or four with their badge of service in their long hair or pigtails. Eighty-five men and officers. The pirates the same if not more as was their way. And what of the ship?

The
Standard
had been under Royal African Company service for over a year. The men had probably had a fortnight’s leave and cashed their pay ticket in Portsmouth at a money lender; the Admiralty in London too far and costly for their full payoff.

They would have lost forty-percent on the deal but as long as there were no wives waiting that was sweet enough. But this would not be a Royal African commission to come. This was navy work, and the embitterment of being paid a quarter of what the Company had waged them looked back at Coxon.

‘Gentlemen!’ he began stiffly. ‘My name, if you did not hear of it, is Post-Captain John Coxon.’

He tried to show an attitude of war in his assured eyes and lined face; he hoped it carried across the deck.

‘You are all now king’s men again. The
Standard
is no longer a ship buoyant by the grace of the Royal African Company. She floats alone – proudly – and by your arms and by your loyalty.’ He paused, looked to the fo’c’sle over their heads as if for inspiration, then down at them again like Mark Antony upon the crowd.

‘You may all have heard that we are to sail to Cape Coast Castle. Heard that Africa at this time of year is a disease for Englishmen. And you may all have concerned yourselves that you are being paid too little to risk the bite of a fly or a drop of water that may bring you to a stitch through your nose and a coffin in a sail that you made.’

A rumble arose now and he freed himself from the lectern of the rail and the company of his officers to address the deck from the stair. He hoped they noticed the poor cut of his breeches and the dull pinchbeck buckles on his shoes that they shared.

‘But I will give you more than just a post-run and the opportunity to fill fat General Phipps’s plates and keep merry his sots of clerks and lobsters.’

Manvell leaned into Thomas Howard’s ear from behind Coxon’s back. ‘
Friends, Romans, countrymen
 
.
. . Lobsters. Sots. Very good.’

Thomas hid his smirk with his hand.

Coxon picked out the largest men, held their eyes one by one.

‘I am a fighting man. I have been summoned from honest retirement for a single purpose. Chosen by “Turnip” himself for sword and cannon.’

He could almost feel the blinks of eyes fanning him at the use of the national insult for the monarch that paid their wages and his.

‘We are to Cape Castle to be sure. That is but a fortnight of your hard work. From there we are a-hunting. Hunting for bounty. Bounty and prizes. Easier than when you were at war and waiting months for your share. This will come to your pockets as soon as we empty theirs. Legal as a judge!’ He slapped the rail.

‘We are after
pirates
, my boys! Their holds will be your holds. Their riches your riches. That I swear!’

A circle of looks from the officers around the quarterdeck, only Thomas Howard straight-backed and confident; privileged before them in the knowledge of his captain’s words.

Coxon came down two steps, the men at the fo’c’sle gaining higher ground to see him, those closest to him beaming now as their captain came into handshake’s reach.

‘Weeks I spent from America to England. Weeks, and more weeks, choosing my ship as to the king’s instruction. Pick wisely, John, he told me. Pick well the ship and crew you will take. Which of the ninety-fours will you choose?’ He pointed aft to the first-rates bobbing in the offing.

‘No, says I. No, Your Majesty. I want speed and experienced men. I want men who warrant reward! I hear good things about the
Standard
do I not? She is young. Her crew is able. I have been through all the rates and I choose her!’

A roar from the deck. A nod and a wink from those with pigtails who now definitely recalled to their fellows they had heard the name Coxon before, had served with him in the Spanish war – and who would doubt them?

The first of the guns from Portsmouth harbour signalled noon; instinctively the officers went to their pocket watches.

Coxon went back to the rail, the rail above the belfry and the hour glass, the rail of
him
.

‘The pirate Devlin, lads!
Him
we are after! A belly-full of gold for all!’

Across the harbour every ship sent a waft of cannon marking noon, marking Coxon’s words, even the ninety-fours respectfully punctuating his speech as if ordered like fireworks, as if planned, their resonance more empowering than cloak and ermine cape.

‘Pirate hunting! And that’s the best trade for honest men! I came back to be rich!’

He did not say the name Roberts. He glanced back to his officers. No eye showed they knew different. Perhaps they held steady afore their men. Query them all at dinner. Wine better than a Bible for swearing allegiance.

The
Standard
fired its own signal, the glass turned with the ringing of the bell and the bosun yelled for the sail. Noon. The powder salute for those about to sail. Their day beginning, the capstan drawing up the anchor like the ticking of a giant watch and before the fluke met the cathead the
Standard
began to drift impatiently.

Those of the ninety-fours raised their spyglasses to the little fifth-rate dropping her sails like the white faces of a winning hand of cards.

She began to move, a child’s paper boat on a stream under a wind that barely lifted their hair from their collars. To their five hundred tons Portsmouth’s shallow draft would need escort and towing, for giants lumbering to war.

Let the little pup go to her adventures, escort her slavers, carry her shaky clerks who had drunk the last of their employer’s gin at their final post. When war burned, as it should, as it will, they would saunter out. When Admirals wrote the word they would come.

Do not begrudge the fifth-rate her duty to service the factories and forts of the slaver. Even the greatest houses need cleaners and servants.

Yet still, they watched her enviously.

She was going somewhere.

She had orders beyond holy-stoning the deck and drilling marines to stop men deserting.

A fifth-rate two-decker heading out of the mouth and catching the wind like a fisherman’s yacht.

The captains studied her like the boys they once were when they first made the promise to themselves, once they realised they were born on an island and had stared out to the horizon at the ships rolling by.

Where is she going? What shall she do? With what shall she return?

‘To Cape Castle!’ Coxon’s voice boomed. ‘Then to the pirate! George has requested you to empty pirates’ pockets! I have known him, this pirate Devlin. He knows and fears me, my boys! He cleaned the blood of Spaniards from my coat and shined my brass. He fears me and he shall fear you!’

A huzzah. Coxon had not expected one. His head dipped to hide the blush at his collar. ‘I am to make my plan!’

He came down his triumphant steps once more; happily shook some of the hands that were offered to him, admiring the gall of the men to do so, and disappeared back to his cabin leaving the quarterdeck to Manvell and the others.

Manvell checked his compass, could see the Verdes on its face, the bearing burned into him, then passed it to the sailing master, Richard Jenkins, with the order to set them out of Portsmouth. He gave the deck to Thomas Howard, his last words as he stepped down the stair for every officer and gentleman on the deck.

‘Supper will be interesting, gentlemen. Pirates indeed.
What dreams may come.
’

Chapter Seven

A world away, more than a thousand miles and two weeks’ sail from Coxon’s speech, Patrick Devlin faced his own men from his own quarterdeck. And, just as far, a different breed looked up to their captain before the same noon sun that blinded Coxon’s earnest men – men only a bad spin from being on Devlin’s side of the line.

The pirate’s, the rover’s life, was a coin to be tossed for most common seamen. Most, at their trials, would plead they had been forced into it. They had been plied with heady drink and cajoled into the black flag’s service and bided their time until a good ship freed them again. They swore on the Bible and priests’ robes that the Good Lord had finally saved them from the wicked and – may the saints preserve them – they were now back within the realm of the righteous.

But, like the judges that hanged them, the pirates knew these men well. Fish in a barrel.

The sailor was the most-needed man on the earth. Without him the world failed to turn but to pay him his worth would cripple the enterprises that relied on his back. It is always labour that suffers and the sailor accepted his lot for the promise of steady work.