Hunt for White Gold

Chapter Twenty





The Talefan caught the trade winds. A week coursing east-southeast on a broad reach; sailing fairer than a ship has a right to. Devlin stood on the larboard gunwale, hanging off the shrouds and watching the streaking grey dolphins effortlessly match the Talefan’s nine knots and even take the time to leap from the water, stitching the ocean as they plunged again and again.

Devlin glanced aft to the man at the tiller who waved as his captain stuck out his right arm across the deck, pointing west. The helmsman heaved on his iron staff and the gunwale began to rise beneath Devlin’s boots. The aproned larboard guns rolled back one turn of their trucks, squealing with delight.

The hull heeled away from the grey streaks. The spars started to creak and labour with the turn and Devlin watched the sun sweeping to the stern, then hanging behind them. The helmsman steadied his tiller when the binnacle by his right knee read ‘W.S.W.’

Devlin swung off the gunwale and looked over the bow, watching the bowsprit rise and fall before the horizon, now scattered with islands, glowing almost white.

For three days and nights they had sailed to keep the Bahamas far to starboard, passing almost two hundred miles east from New Providence, shouldering Abaco, Eleuthera and at dawn, Cat Island. The Talefan ploughed steadily south, invisible to all patrols but the petrels, the albacore and dolphin. To sail from Charles Town straight to New Providence was risky. The northern waters were full of hunters. It was best to keep Providence over the western horizon, then run down to the 24th parallel and turn back, as they did now, to reach the shallows, the white waters where the men-of-war could not go.

Come up through the cays, through the soundings by the threes – perfect for the Talefan’s keel. It meant many miles added to their journey but a safer course. And besides, Devlin had one more stop to make before the game could begin.

Dandon stepped up to his friend and captain on the flush deck of the fo’c’sle, observing him in thought or calculation as he stared at the hazy protrusions in the distance. The ship leant to leeward in her course, the stays protesting, and Dandon weaved in his walk as the deck angled against him. He swung himself beneath the halyards and steadied himself on Devlin’s shoulder.

‘Are you sure this is a wise course, Patrick?’ he asked through the light rain thrown up by the dipping bow.

‘I can show you again, Dandon,’ Devlin made a triangle with the sweep of his hand. ‘Once we reach Dead Man it’ll be shallow all the way north back up to Providence. We’ll mark up along the Exumas. Be able to pluck the fish up from the jolly-boat. And no warship can find us. Lay to that.’

‘Oh that I grant, Captain. It is the other course I was after referring to. Dead Man itself.’

Devlin looked ahead, contemplative again. The warm soft wind plucked at his black hair, unhindered by bow or bag.

‘We have fifteen men from this ship who do not belong. I don’t want them coming into Providence with us. We have enemies enough.’

‘But to leave them there? And us down to fifteen souls then ourselves? That leaves us awful weak, Patrick.’

‘The Shadow will pick them up. Bill was to make for Dead Man and meet us there.’

Dandon looked suddenly healthy and pink. ‘To join up with? Oh, grand joy, mon capitaine aventurier! Praise be!’

‘No,’ Devlin looked out again. ‘We will have no time to wait for the Shadow. I’ve given enough time to divert on this course and keep our hides out of sight. Besides …’ He turned to look along the deck. Beneath the bulwarks men dozed or carved their own fancies into the wood, or played cards on Indian rugs stretched across the hatch.

‘It’s been almost two months without a sniff for our lads. These Talefan men have not signed. They’re not us. Not one of us. I couldn’t trust them to stand.’

He looked up at a couple of Talefans languishing barefoot in the rigging, grabbing some breeze and shade from the fore topsails.

‘And what of us?’ Dandon drawled, and waved an arm towards the six-pounders on deck, always loaded and ready, and now corked with tompions to prevent the sea slipping into their mouths. ‘Am I to be privy to some greater plan other than sailing into a naval fleet with only fifteen men and these eight pea-shooters?’

Devlin slapped his friend’s arm and called for a fiddle to the deck behind him. ‘Now you’re thinking true, old friend! That’s the tale of it! Fifteen men and eight little ladies against the whole of Providence! We haven’t a hope in any of it!’ He checked himself. ‘Make it two fiddles!’ he demanded. ‘And lively now, Hugh!’

Hugh Harris sprang up from the aft companionway, already plucking on his fiddle. He was joined a moment later by Sam Fletcher’s wailing scrape. A guitar appeared uninvited and, where men a moment before were lolling and masticating idly, a Saturday night in Boston now jigged upon the deck scattered with rugs and bottles.

‘They call me hanging Johnnie,



Away, boys, away!



They call me hanging Johnnie,



Hang, boys, hang.



They say I hang for money,



Away, boys, away!



But saying so is funny;



Hang, boys, hang.



I’d hang the highway robber,



Away, boys, away!



I’d hang the burglar jobber;



Hang, boys, hang.



I’d hang a noted liar,



Away, boys, away!



I’d hang a bloated friar;



Hang, boys, hang.



Come hang, come haul together,



Away, boys, away!



Come hang for finer weather,



Hang, boys, hang.’





The petrels wheeled high above the little two-mast ship, cocking their heads to look upon the tiny dancing figures and screeching against the strange sounds that beset their fragile ears. Soon a whole cloud of birds circled and joined the dance, joined the song that for an hour of the glass was the only sound in the whole empty world.