Hunt for White Gold

Chapter Eleven





The Talefan lay becalmed somewhere north of the 8th parallel just before noon. Devlin would await the zenith of the sun to take his latitude. By his own reckoning, after passing St Helena three days ago he would spy the island of Ascension by tomorrow’s noon.

This close to the equator, the minutes of the degrees stretched as the Earth spread her waist. A globe was perfectly round, the world not quite so. Sometimes line of sight replaced Davis quadrant and demi-cross. Only the stepping stones of small volcanic islands that God in His wisdom had dropped in the sea could certify the location of the fragile ship of wood.

She was as vulnerable as an infant amongst the majesty of the sea which laughed at the foolishness of the twigs that dared cast themselves upon her surface. The sea reminded them with every catspaw lick that she could crush them like eggshells if she had a mind to.

The man aloft seventy feet on the mainmast, a patch of white linen tied over his head to shield him from the evil of the sun, was solidly sure he could see the curve of the earth itself.

And nothing else.

It seemed as if the sea had engulfed all the land. Claimed it back. Perhaps there had never been any land, and the only souls alive belonged to the voices echoing from the deck way below his bare feet. They might be the last voices he would hear all his life.

He swung around the mast that rolled with the buck of the sea to look abaft over the endless waves. South, somewhere in their past, the Shadow was heaving along with one of his brothers hanging by a manrope off its main mast. He strained to glimpse the white fleck on the horizon that would tell him Shadow was still behind the Talefan.

Devlin and Black Bill shared between them a spiritual chain of invisible lines and finite equations so that, alone every night with their dabs of ink and pencil scrapes, they still nodded to each other silently across the leagues.

The topman’s privacy was interrupted by a round of cackling from the deck below. He adjusted his hold and looked down, twisting his head away from the hot wind to try and decipher the jovial noises beneath the sails.

Devlin rang his sword off a fairlead hanging around the mast, silencing the laughter. He cut through the air as if it was the throat of a giant bearing upon him, admiring the gleam from the blade.

His simple shirt, the cuffs tucked into his wrists, was open to his chest and his ebony-hilted poniard stuck behind a sash around his waist.

‘Come, Dandon,’ he let the sword, carried by its own beautiful weight, fall back through the air in front of him. ‘I promise I will not cause any offence or affront.’

Dandon stood by the mizzen, similarly attired in white linen, resting on the pommel of a sword as if it were a cane. ‘Oh, I am sure my captain, that it is only my honour that will take a beating, by your honour, naturellement.’ He bowed elegantly.

Devlin turned to the crowd languishing in the shade of sailcloth tent raised above the fo’c’sle. The crew reposed like Bedouin gipsies complete with dates and pombe, a grain and fruit spirit favoured by Africans – and also pirates.

‘What say you, lads? Is it not time this popinjay learnt something of the ways of the sword?’

‘Aye Cap’n,’ some chorused, though most just chuckled into their cups.

Hugh Harris chirped, ‘I think I’ve carried the harlequin through enough, Cap’n!’

Devlin walked forward. ‘Then it’s settled, Dandon. En garde, mon ami.’

Dandon lifted the sword as if holding a snake. ‘Some code of combatants surely, my picaroon commander? Perhaps there is some anthology on the matter I could study a fortiori.’

‘I don’t know your meaning, Dandon, therefore I shall ignore it. Now raise your blade.’ Devlin’s stance grew wider. He began to step forward with his left shoulder facing, his sword hanging low like a faithful dog by his side.

A hollow laugh rose from the fo’c’sle as Dandon bent his back and brought up his sword like a poker. The weight surprised him and the tip began to sink back down as a pain grew in his forearm.

Devlin turned without looking at his friend and paced away again.

‘First, my man, your choice of weapon: a good hanger. A fair face-cutter, but no bone-breaker. A good short cutlass can make a periagua canoe from a single tree and won’t get caught in the rigging as you hack your way along a deck.’

Dandon looked at his hanger. For the first time he noticed the etched wolf issuing out of the guard and running up the blade.

Devlin had spun again, faster now. ‘That’s a horse blade you have there, which I favour myself, and it’s a gentleman’s sword even if he does not know how to use it,’ he bowed and continued. ‘Your movements must be small on deck. Lest you find your blade snagged on a sheet before you strike.’ He had reached the larboard shrouds and played the point of his sword along them like a harp. He faced Dandon again.

‘When you board, once you get past the pikes, go for an officer.’

Dandon nodded intently, his blade trembling.

‘The officer would have been trained to fight whilst still at school. He’ll be holding his sword in one hand even after his pistol shot. That’s the officer to go for. Thus you go at him so …’

Devlin rushed at Dandon with a double grip on his sword, raising it and swinging at Dandon’s face like a scythe.

Dandon leapt away, slamming his back against the mizzen. He dropped his hanger rattling to the deck, raising his hands in defence.

Devlin pulled his swing before the edge sliced Dandon’s fingers and buckled over in joyous convulsion, his laughter drawing sympathetic howls from the tent.

‘Aye,’ Devlin raised himself. ‘I reckon that is what he’ll do and all, eh, lads!’

He winked at Dandon and put his left palm out to him. ‘Come mate,’ he brought his cheek close to Dandon’s. ‘That’ll do for today, eh?’

‘Aye, Patrick,’ Dandon, tremulous of voice, welcomed the sudden end. ‘That’ll do for the New Year I feel, Captain.’

Devlin relished the laughs and slaps he witnessed beneath the tent. The weeks of sail had been easy but long and bland.

There were the young silks below, Albany and George, that complained every day. He would let them off at Ascension.

There were some of the hands of the Talefan’s original crew who were uncomfortable to be pirates, but at only thirty men he needed them all.

And the food store had dwindled to rice, durum, peas, garlic, onions and a hogshead of pork more vegetable than flesh. The wine and rum was all gone which just left beer, casks of brandy, the punch, and the pombe.

It was barely enough for even a small house of priests let alone the pirates’ thirst.

The entertainment today and the luncheon beneath the tent had been a godsend. And the mark of a good captain. He would have an hour of swordplay for them all. He would parry with them until his sweat swabbed the deck. Such folly was needed today for there would be no time to spare to celebrate the crossing of the equator soon to come.

He raised his sword and they crowed back, the tent billowing with raised mugs and cheers.

Devlin recalled a day in St Malo. He was back again in Brittany for a moment. René Duguay-Trouin paraded through the streets, promoted from pirate to admiral of the Marine Royale. Women pulled open their chemises baring their breasts and calling the young man’s name like cats in heat. Devlin watched from the steps of the guildhall smoking Brazilian tobacco through a terracotta pipe. He had wanted to be that man instead of stinking of fish and living on bread mashed with onions and cod bones. Devlin was running from England for fear of a choking and running from Ireland for fear of the same.

He ran no more. He thought of Peter Sam. Be he in America or back in Madagascar Devlin had covered both badger holes but still the loss of his quartermaster had riled the crew.

They were the Shadow. Now they were the Talefan, the weak Talefan sailing into Charles Town. But he was strong. This was all it took. This is what they loved. Soon they would reach the Dutch and Spanish trade routes to South America. A slaver would rise up from the horizon and good victuals would come.

Keep them hot. Keep them up. It would take but one sail to sate their appetites. And it would come. He looked to the sky and the orb that marked the passage of his day.

He sent Dandon away to find a drink and called for John Watson, the cooper, who had become a temporary quartermaster based on his popularity and sober head.

Watson was an old hand from Seth Toombs’s lot, a great teller of rumbustious tales and a fine musician of pipe who had slotted in tidily as a rough quartermaster.

Devlin called for the backstaff and Watson brought it aft. Together they walked to the quarterdeck where Devlin took a moment to assess their lot under the guise of the magic of the latitude he was to perform.

Watson, in his refined Kent ictus that somewhat mystified his origins, relayed the stores. The need for fresh meat was paramount. The brig had no manger but they could find space for a couple of hogs and they had a coop to fill afore the mainmast. It was a fortnight still to reach Charles Town.

‘We could do some hunting at Ascension,’ Devlin suggested. ‘Leave those fops there.’ He checked the compass in the binnacle, reset the sighting vane to the five degrees he estimated from yesterday and raised the backstaff, a good English one of brass scales, oak handles and vanes belonging to his new ship. He put his back to the sun just as Albany Holmes, one of the gentlemen carried aboard in Madagascar ascended to the deck, shielding his eyes with his shirt sleeves.

‘Speak of the devil …’ Watson nudged Devlin and stood away to inspect the tiller.

Albany, without invitation, stepped closer. ‘Captain Devlin,’ his salutation issued forth as if passing Devlin in Piccadilly.

Devlin looked up, pulling out his watch at the same time. ‘Aye, Albany, how may I be of service to you this day?’

Albany gave another brief nod. ‘I have been in consultation with my fellow, George, this morning, Captain. There is a matter which I feel we have been avoiding these past weeks.’ He looked up to the spanker above them as he spoke, avoiding Devlin’s eye.

‘What matter is that, Albany?’ Devlin took a small pleasure in the familiarity as he loosened the wooden screws of the backstaff’s shadow vane.

‘The matter of your intentions towards George and myself, Captain Devlin.’ He met Devlin’s querying look.

‘Besides a brief conversation the first morning we have not addressed our …’ he hesitated over the word, withdrawing whatever it was completely, and simply waited for Devlin to pick his own.

‘Future?’ Devlin playfully proposed.

Albany jumped on the word. ‘I am more concerned with our ransom. We are heading to the Americas for such purpose I presume. All of our belongings have been stolen. I should like to know, sir, what I may be worth to you. That is all.’ He looked around the narrow beam of the ship disdainfully, the more so now it was a pirate vessel.

Devlin looked at the watch nestling in his palm – George’s watch in fact. He would indulge Albany. After all, he could play a fair guitar on a Sunday when he had a mind to.

‘You are of the mind we are heading to Charles Town to ransom you?’ He spoke loud enough to provoke a cough from Watson aft leaning on the tiller.

Albany was indignant. ‘Well, why else, sir? Are we not your prize?’

Devlin sallied to the rail swinging the backstaff idly. He called across the deck, ‘Hoy, Fletcher!’

Sam Fletcher jumped from the tent on the fo’c’sle. ‘Aye, Cap’n?’ he answered, his hand cupped to his mouth.

‘Tell me Sam, how might you hazard a latitude, if you cared to?’

Sam swayed along the gangway scratching his chin. ‘Well, Cap’n. Without your proper skill and mechanicals. Roughly like,’ he had reached the hatch and stood upon it in his bare feet rather than the hot deck. ‘I reckon I holds out my arm thus,’ he stuck out his left arm to the horizon aft of the ship. ‘Then I points my other to the sun. When she be at her highest, mind,’ he squinted at the sudden glare as his eye followed his salute.

‘And then what, Sam?’ Devlin called back.

‘I scales the angle betwixt, Cap’n. And there I may be.’

‘And what do you make it now, Sam Fletcher?’

Sam’s lips counted visibly as he inclined his head to the gap between his arms. Albany watched, bemused.

‘Reckon it to be about just over ten, Cap’n?’

Devlin had already begun his own reading, his left hand moving the shadow vane slowly, ‘Back to your drink, Sam. Good man.’

Sam tapped his forehead with a thumb and skipped back to his mug. Devlin turned to Albany, slamming the backstaff to his chest.

‘I make it ten forty-two or thereabouts. What make you, Albany?’

Albany cradled the backstaff awkwardly as Devlin walked away, down to the deck. His final words to the gentleman were spat over his shoulder.

‘Just what are you worth to me? That man can’t even read and is worth more. You’re lucky I feed you, you dog!’

Albany heard Devlin’s boots stomping about the cabin beneath the deck. He listened to Watson’s mocking laugh, bit his lip and turned to the stair. Dandon saluted him from across the way with a leather mug and then their joint laughter followed him down the companionway to the gloom and George’s expectant face.

‘What did he say, Albany old boy?’ George looked up from his hammock just in time to catch the backstaff in his lap as Albany tossed it to him.