Hunt for White Gold

Chapter Twenty-three





Howell Davis passed the glass to Seth Toombs across the quarterdeck. ‘A brig,’ he noted to his captain. ‘Rigged square and lateen. Fast as rain if she wants. Eight guns. I count about a dozen men. We be across her bows in half a glass.’

Seth took the spyglass and whisked it along the sleek brig.

‘Five hundred yards for blank range,’ Toombs pointed out the limit of their guns. ‘She’s still coming. Even after we showed our colours. Bold bastard. She should be furled by now.’

‘Maybe she thinks she can outrun us,’ Howell offered.

‘She could try. If she gets ahead we’ll cross her stern. Rake her arse. Larboard guns with double shot. We’ll cross her at two-hundred yards.’

‘Mind, Seth, we’ve only the muskets we were to sell to the Spanish. No pistols at all other than Finch’s two. And one cutlass to two men.’

‘Howell,’ Toombs blinked at the ignorance of his new mate. ‘We take this merchant sot and have the makings of a convoy. A consort. Tender. Men. That’s what it’s about. Trust in me. Every man has his own gully to put to a throat. We’ve axes too and pikes and pins aplenty. That’s the way of it!’ He elbowed Howell merrily before the coldness of his eye was drawn to the black square off the bowsprit aside them.

He raised the spyglass to the black ensign at the bow. Perhaps he had been hasty in his action. Perhaps this was a brother. A consort to a larger brethren. A path to follow rather than lead, or turn tiller against and sail on.

He gave study to the black flag and felt his heartbeat slow. Through the mist of the glass he saw the skull above the crossed pistols and recognised the handiwork of the widow on Providence, plain and morose. A blank soul of a death’s head set in a crude compass rose with two bony pistols beneath.

Even without the glass, Howell Davis could see the black cloth.

‘She’s a pirate!’ he yelled. All the crew turned to his voice, then to the brig and each other.

Sighting through the glass, Seth agreed. Although he had never travelled so himself, and knew no good fortune to come of it, there was something to be said in joining up for a short time with a fellow pirate. He almost snapped the scope in the frustration that the first damn ship that crossed his bow would be a pirate, of all the hundreds that streamed these waters as prolific as the cod in his old Newfoundland home.

‘Don’t reckon on his flag,’ was all he could vent himself to say but already he had resigned to simply hailing the ship and drinking well into the night with a fellow captain if it had not been for the young Porto sailor fairly bouncing out of his skin to grab Toombs’s attention.

‘What be ailing you, Porto? Be gone, man! Capitao busy. Can’t you see me vexation, Dago? Leave me be.’

He shrugged the grasping hand aside to study the ship more. The young man pressed on with his scant but highly effective English.

‘Devlin!’ he cried to Seth’s ear from a few feet below. Toombs lowered the scope and swivelled to the young Porto, now crossing his arms and using his fingers as pistols. Sucking in his cheeks for a comical skull rendition.

‘Devlin!’ he repeated, stabbing to the flag across the waves. ‘Devlin’s Sombra, Capitao. Si.’

Toombs looked hard into the young dark face. ‘You sure, Porto? That be Devlin’s flag?’

The youth again repeated his skull-face, rolling his eyes upward with his crossed pistol fingers. Holding the pose until Seth slapped him out of it.

‘Well, that changes the whole party somewhat …’ he trailed off, bringing the scope up again to spy along the deck of the opposing ship. ‘Changes it quite a bit I dare say.’

Howell Davis looked to the rising and diving brig, now a pirate champion in his eyes.

‘Ain’t it wrong Seth, to go against one of our own?’ Howell queried, unsure of the rules, only sure of his own ambition and the clarity of his destiny when he held a pistol to Captain Finch’s face.

Toombs glared round to his new quartermaster. ‘Is it wrong, Howell, to have this done for me?’ He accentuated his snarl and his white wound. ‘To pay for a woman all me life?’ He struck a hand out to the bucking brig.

‘Be that consort or the man himself, he took my face as sure as eggs is eggs and my crew along with it! That ain’t no brother, Howell, that’s a cow’s son who ain’t got no brother along the coast. And don’t forget the tale of the gold that should have been mine – and now yours, I ain’t forgot. That ship is the key to the lock and we’ve lucked upon it with all the luck that I sang about!’ He spun away from Howell Davis and leered to the lads below.

‘The luck I been telling has come to you, my boys! Miles of salt and we comes across the man who scarred your lucky captain! And took a king’s fortune from the French that should have been mine!’

He pulled his pistol, Finch’s pistol, and fired overboard. ‘Your gold now, lads! As it should have been by rights, for you’re all mine now and shares in me luck likes I promised!’

They cheered, rapped each other’s chests. Most of them had sailed with Toombs from England and had slept with the tale in their ears, but now it was true. For there was the pirate traitor himself. The gold within their round-shot’s range. Seth had spoken true. His was the luck.

Seth leapt down from the quarterdeck and kicked the nearest gun to him. ‘Load that and three with bar. The rest double-shotted. Never mind the larboard, I aims not to need it. Six men aloft with musket. Thirty rounds apiece and I’ll be counting them as they fly, mind. Any man still carrying will answer for it!’

He ran to the hatch between the masts, centre of the ship, all eyes upon him, the hatch raising him inches above them all.

‘Somebody make me some fireworks! Bottles and jars! Anything that will crack and burn, boys!’ He slapped the remaining jolly-boat between the masts. ‘Get this away over the side or it’ll cut you to ribbons else when the shot flies!’

He slung his empty pistol to the young Porto. ‘Load it. And keep it coming. I’ll not ask again.’ Then, loud as he could, deafening the bowing Porto, ‘And bring me a cutlass, boy! I’m a-cleaving to glory!’

He held out his arms to all, twisting on his heels as the ship roared and roared to his twirling form, now almost a jig, with Howell looking on between the bulging chest of Seth Toombs and the black flag ever closing yonder.