Cross of Fire (6 page)

Coxon had obviously become the font of all knowledge where pirates were concerned and some of that had to be conceded. He had found Walter Kennedy, after all.

‘Something, My Lord. My first inclination when I returned was to try and gain some leverage over the pirate Devlin – other than using myself – to which end I withdrew from my memory some members of his past from our time spent together.’ He put his hand back to bring Kennedy to their attention.

‘May I present Walter again? This time as one of Roberts’s former captains. Former acquaintance of the pirate Devlin. A young man who left Providence under the wing of the late pirate Howell Davis who, after his death, was supplanted in power by Roberts.’

The men in the white wigs exchanged looks, studied the young man. Chetwynd put down his pen.

‘He is known to Devlin
and
Roberts?’

‘That he is, sir. He has been gaoled. I have had him removed under my property. In exchange for a sentence other than the noose he is willing to aid me in the capture of Devlin. We will draw him out, sir. We may draw out Roberts as well.’

Kennedy knew nothing else to do except tug his hair down in salute to the table.

Chetwynd leaned back.

‘How “draw” him out? What does that mean?’

Coxon thought carefully. So much of this was private to him. So much of this could be perceived as madness and that would be the end of it. Softly now. He had the papers previously conferred on him to back him up. One of the masks he had met probably sat before him now. Testing him.

‘Walter, and myself – now that we have discussed it – believe that it was Patrick Devlin that murdered Walter’s father. Before he was the pirate. Before he was with me. When he ran from his criminal life in Ireland. They all lived together here in London. The father was killed one night and Devlin ran. Devlin told me this story also – naturally not implicating himself – which is how I knew of Walter. Before I came here to attend Your Lordships I reviewed some recent records to see if I could discover any member of Devlin’s crew who may have been facing trial or death. A piece to play that I could use against him like a lodestone. Draw him out, as I say. Fortunately I came across the name Walter Kennedy . . . and here we are.’

Sir Charles raised himself in his chair.

‘And where are we?’

The air in the room almost crackled as Walter Kennedy found some nerve that came from his old life. A low growl.

‘He killed my father. I know pirates. He’d have to face me to settle that. If his crew know their captain wants for a backbone he won’t be a captain no more. Mark me on that, Your Honours. And if it’s Roberts you wants then I’m your man. I betrayed him and he’d swim to find me. I reckon some of that might be worth more than just a rope about me neck, sirs.’ He tapped his forehead again and took a step back. The faces on the paintings seemed to look down on him with more disdain now the names of pirates soiled their brush-strokes.

Coxon could have done no better. He brushed his hat as he waited for the table to speak.

Sir Charles looked to his colleagues. ‘Well . . . I suppose that shapes as a plan of sorts, gentlemen.’ He scratched at the paper with his quill before continuing.

‘Captain Coxon, our information is that since the pirates are no longer welcome in the Caribbean they seem intent on turning Madagascar and her islands into a new Bahamas. Do you concur?’

‘It would be my first drag, My Lord.’

‘
Dra
g? Is that what we are calling such actions now?’

‘No, My Lord. I mean that the best place to find sea-scum is in the netting when you fish. I intend to fish for pirates. My bait will be myself. And Kennedy here.’

Sir Charles sniffed deeply.

‘As you may, Captain. Viscount Chetwynd? Orders if you please for our . . . “fisherman”.’

Chetwynd opened a folded sail-cloth packet, pulled his head back to read the blurry script and summarised as best he could.

The pirate Roberts had become England’s new priority. Along with the other pirates who had found the Caribbean too warm for them he had made for Africa, his black flag first being seen off Senegal according to French reports. Now he targeted Royal African ships and was costing tens of thousands in trade. Two warships had been sent to intercept him, were out there now, sweeping the Bight of Biafra. If they should have no luck in his capture then at least Roberts would know that the navy was more intent on protecting the African trade than in its lacklustre performance around the Caribbean, where the pirates had almost ruled.

Coxon’s orders were to sail to the Cape Coast Castle, the Royal African Company’s slave fort on the Guinea coast. Both warships, the
Swallow
and the
Weymouth
, had ported there. Any word the ships had of Roberts would now be with General Phipps, the castle’s governor. Coxon was to take any information and act accordingly then meet up with the
Swallow
and
Weymouth
, join forces with captains Ogle and Herdman. Full warrant.

On the arm of his chair, as Chetwynd went on, Coxon had found his thumbnail irresistibly drawn to an imperfection in the wood. He raked at the splinter trying to smooth it back down. Perhaps a decade of this filing would solve the problem. The act served no further purpose, as did Chetwynd’s wind, and he looked up.

‘Pardon me, My Lords,’ he twisted his hat on his lap, fingered the trim to distract him from the irresistible chasm in the arm of the chair. Chetwynd paused.

‘Yes, John?’

‘Well, I am confused, My Lords; yes, that I am.’

Chetwynd smiled. The first smile of the room.

‘How so, John?’

‘Well, I have traversed thousands of miles, requested in particular so I was to believe, to hunt down the man who has caused grave embarrassment to His Majesty’s ministers and that of our allies. Yet – sitting here – I am chasing the wake of other men after this . . . this
Roberts
that you all hold in such high regard.’ He stopped, took in their unmoved expressions.

‘Devlin is who I am here for, am I not?’

Sir Charles folded back his ledger, the scriveners’ pens hovered in the air above their pages.

‘If you would be patient, Captain, you would understand more.’

Coxon scratched his hair again, combed and spliced his fringe with his thumbnail. Chetwynd put down the orders and went for a more personal approach.

‘The secondary part of your orders, John, is that after you establish from General Phipps the current circumstances of the
Swallow
and the
Weymouth
you are to proceed down the coast. If Roberts is aware that there are three men-of-war on his tail he may run for Madagascar and the Amirantes. We shall corner him there, and if not him then we will certainly bag some game.’

‘And what of Devlin, sir? What about the notion that it was him to be most removed?’

Sir Charles tapped the table to draw Coxon’s eye.

‘That has not changed, Captain. You will hunt for him as much as you will join the hunt for Roberts. I’m sure you will invest as much time in engaging for news at our forts and from passing ships as you will spend drilling your men. You should also think on the opportunity that you have of ingratiating yourself back among the African Company’s good books.’

A small dig at Coxon’s ribs from the Sea Lord. Four years ago Coxon was to escort a blackbirder of the Royal African Company to America from Cape Castle. While victualling he had become ill, indisposed with dysentery, the ‘vacuums’ as the sailors put it, the curse of the white man in Africa. He had sent his ship home rather than sail to the Americas without him. His ship. His ship that in peacetime might as well have been the property of the companies that profited from the peace that men like Coxon had given them.

Without a war the Navy kept afloat by loaning out their men and their ships to the royal-warranted companies. Coxon’s blackbirder waited expensive weeks for a new escort. His own ship was taken and burnt by pirates. His own man, Devlin, now one of them. That was how it began. Coxon’s first taste of shame.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘A hunt it is. From where do I sail? What ship have you for me?’

Chetwynd picked up the packet and held out the orders for Coxon to stand and take. The appointment was settled. All the detail therein for an evening’s study. Coxon obliged swiftly, remembering to click his heels as he tucked the packet under his arm and placed his hat back on his grey hair.

‘My Lords,’ he bowed and turned, Kennedy ducking out before him.

Sir Charles’s voice lilted from behind.

‘And John?’

Coxon paused. ‘Yes, My Lord?’

‘Welcome back, John.’ His tone carried the inflection of a man meeting a trouserless friend in the street and enquiring if he is well. ‘Good luck.’

Coxon dipped his brow. ‘Yes, My Lord.’

He took back his old sword, carried it rather than try to attach it back to its frog, his hands trembling too violently to attempt it.

The first step had been taken on a journey that would end in blood.

Blood at last.

Chapter Four

Old Cracker was calmer now, seated in his shack with Devlin and Peter Sam. His girl gone, he poured his own rum into his blackjack leather mug. His stock had run off and the night would be a sleepless one with pistols primed to prop up eyelids lest revenge be in the minds of the negroes.

However, for now, his company as dark in humour if not in skin, Cracker would have to come up with a fair old tale to live even to see the night. Peter Sam was especially distrustful of every word that any man said.

Peter Sam, a terror in brown goat-leather jerkin and breeches, a scowl for even when his captain spoke to him. Six foot and more and broad as a door, his grizzled red beard hid both snarl and smirk. Old Cracker felt easier looking away and to the calmer aspect of the man who had broken his shin with lead. Cracker searched for charity in that face.

Ten years Devlin had been at sea. If he stood still the whole world continued to move. His shoulder-length black hair tied in a bow showed some sun bleaching at the sides. Cracker put him at no more than thirty-five, his face still ready to slope into an Irish grin at any time but his eyes slipping from confidence to guilt almost each time he spoke, and every breath of wind and creak of wood in the shack made the eyes snap hard as flint, every inch of him constantly ready. Cracker saw he didn’t have the drunken sheen of a pirate but instead, with his voice and clean-shaven manners, something of the naval officer about him.

‘You said rich, Cracker,’ Devlin said. ‘Mind that you and I may have different measures of that.’

‘Aye, Cap’n. Reckon so. I knows all about you and your gold. Four years now ain’t it? The French island and the gold. Four years and I suppose that’s all gone and dust now ain’t it, Cap’n?’

‘I do just fine, Cracker. Now tell me why I saved your hide.’

Cracker watched the flint eyes fall, then they were gone, back to intelligent and warm. The desire to keep that look on the pirate’s face was deeply encouraging.

‘Well, Cap’n, what I say will make that island look like beggar’s pockets, so it will. If you’ve come this far, I’d dare say you heard of Captain Roberts?’