Fire (19 page)

Perhaps it was the ringing in his ears that prevented it the first time. But Coke heard in a moment what the other two already had.

‘Thunder?' said the younger.

‘No,' said Blood, standing straight. ‘Cannon.' He waved with the candle at the door. ‘There's our ship and many others in the Vlie channel. Go and see if for some reason they have chosen to practise their gunnery at night.' The boy nodded, unbolted the door and stepped out. Blood turned back, bringing the flame near again. ‘Now, where were we?'

Through the open door, the noise of cannon fire came, more
of it and louder. There were shouts now too, and the sound of running feet. ‘Father!' The younger Blood ran back in. ‘ 'Tis the English. They're raiding the fleet.'

‘What? Probably just one of their damned frigates.' Blood hesitated, then put down the candlestick and unhooked the lantern. ‘No, I'd better see. Come.' He looked back. ‘Pleasure delayed only, Captain Coke.'

They went out, slamming the door. He heard a key turn, and the growing noises of attack beyond. Then something nearer. A scratching. ‘Cap'n,' came the familiar voice.

‘Dickon!' He twisted around to the sound. At the window, high up and barred, fingers waved. ‘Dickon! Try the door, did they leave the key in it?'

A moment and then his ward was at the front. ‘N-no. Shall I smash it in?'

In the flickering light, Coke could see that the room was small with stone walls and a thick oak door. It would take even a strong man time to knock that down. And he suspected he did not have long. ‘Are we close to the van der Woudes'?'

‘Aye, it's just down –'

‘Find the Menheer. Bring him. He may be able to stop this. Fast now.'

‘Aye.'

He heard the boy step away. ‘Dickon?' he shouted. The footsteps returned. ‘Have you your knife?'

‘Aye, Cap'n.'

‘Drop it through the window.' A moment later the knife clattered down. ‘Now go.'

He rose and looked at the knife. He did not see how he could
cut himself free with his wrists so bound. As he wondered, he heard the sound outside change. The cannons had ceased, and a different weapon commenced. ‘Muskets,' he breathed. These did not come in the ordered volleys he had heard on battlefields across England. There was a crack, a crack-crack, more shots, singly and in pairs. There was only one reason for firing muskets. Men were landing to raid. Other men were resisting them.

He knew suddenly, clearly, what this would mean. Captain Blood could not risk being taken here. He would flee. But he would not leave his enemy behind.

Coke's eyes were drawn to flickering light. Ever since his burning he'd kept away from flame. Now, with no choice, he went to it.

He burnt himself the first time he placed his hands there and knocked the candlestick as he jerked away. But it tottered, righted and, after an agonising moment, the yellow cone again streamed high. Taking more care, he pushed his hands closer, slowly. He cried out as his skin heated; then, turning very slightly, his pain diminished as the flame settled on the rope. It took a while, and his hurt only grew. He stifled it, biting his lip until the blood ran, humming tunes – and finally, only by concentrating entirely on Sarah: remembering every detail of her face, of her body; remembering her belly kick when last he'd placed his hand upon it. Kicked by his son.

The tarry rope was raising lots of smoke before he felt it give. He pushed out against the bonds, grunting with the strain of it. Slowly, slowly, he felt the strands part and dissolve. Breaking his hands free, he tucked both wrists under his arms until the agony abated.

The musketry, which had multiplied along with cries and wailing, was growing louder, getting nearer. In moments he heard English shouts in the distance as well as Dutch, and the running of feet. Then, under those, a more measured tread. ‘I tell you no, boy,' said Captain Blood. ‘You will fetch our sacks and bring them here. Swiftly now.'

As the key turned in the lock, Coke snatched up Dickon's knife, then slumped back into the chair.

The opened door admitted more shouts, more screams, more explosions. ‘I am sorry our acquaintance must be so brief, Captain Coke,' Blood said, entering, then closing the door. ‘Sorrier still that I will not hear more of what you would be telling me. Know my enemy is a dictum I have long lived by. And with what we have planned –'

He tipped his head back to the sound of combat. ‘But that's your lads coming fast and in force and I must be gone.'

He put down the lamp, extinguished in his journey. Only the candle now lit the room, and just the part around the table – the two men in a small circle of light. Blood reached to his belt, to the pistol there. Even without the gunpowder, Coke would not have staked much on himself in his weakened state, against a man as powerful as Blood. Unless he evened the odds.

Leaning forward, Coke blew out the candle.

There was an oath, a spark, an explosion. Flame shot from the muzzle, the ball preceding it, smashing into the chair – that Coke was no longer in. He moaned loudly anyway, then rolled to place his back against the wall beneath the window. ‘Captain?' came Blood's voice. ‘Are you hurt?'

Coke inhaled softly. Beyond the room, the noise of combat
continued, drawing nearer. Within it he could only hear the Irishman's harsher breaths – and then the sound, always distinctive, of a sword clearing a sheath. ‘Captain,' Blood called again, then said, ‘Shite!' as he banged into the table. Two swishes followed, a rapier slashed back and forth through the air.

He kept his breathing steady still as he heard the Irishman shuffle forward.

‘Coke,' whispered Blood. ‘Let's be reasonable here. You must be wounded. I'll fetch you a physician. You've trumped me, and I respect a bold enemy.' The man shuffled closer. ‘What's say we call a truce, eh?'

He was right before him. So Coke lifted the candlestick he'd picked up and threw it into the far corner of the room. With a cry, Blood swung about, slashing before him. And Coke, putting all on the hazard, threw himself up and stabbed right where a man's waist might be.

His blade entered flesh; which part he could not know. It left flesh too, as the man leapt forward with a shriek. Coke did not pursue – a good choice as he felt the wind of a sword cut in the air before his face. He moved swiftly left, found the back wall, slid down it. And listened with satisfaction to the swift breaths of the other man.

‘By God, I've not been stabbed in twenty years,' Blood gasped. ‘I doubt it's mortal, Captain. But now we both bleed, cannot we say we're even and call that truce?'

‘What makes you think I am bleeding?' said Coke, moving again as he spoke.

There was a roar, a rush, as Blood leapt to where he'd last heard sound. He crashed there, his breathing ever more laboured.
By God, I might even have the fellow, thought Coke. He came onto his knees and changed his grip on the knife. Now he could stab down.

Perhaps he would have if the door had not burst open at that moment. If Blood's son had not been standing there, screaming ‘The English!', and if Blood, instead of using the little light to hunt down his enemy, used it instead to stagger to the door and through it.

Coke put back his arm to throw, then didn't. Partly because he suddenly thought it better to retain his weapon against his enemy's possible return. Mainly because he saw where the Irishman clutched himself and the sight weakened him for just the moment of decision.

For it appeared that he had stabbed Captain Blood in his arse.

Admiral Robert Holmes was as fierce as his reputation – and as much a man of mode. He stood now in the great cabin of his flagship, the
Tyger,
in his famous gold suit, his hair falling in styled waves to his shoulder, his beard and moustaches waxed and pointed to a fine brush's tip. ‘It is an astonishing story,' he boomed, stepping forward to refill their three mugs – for Wilbert Bohun, who'd found Coke and Dickon in the town, stood beside him. ‘No wonder that Ayscue made that promise to you. You are a bold dog indeed. And I speak as a wolfhound mesself. Huzzah!'

While Holmes drank deep, Coke sipped his sack. He'd grown unused to liquor in his time with the sober Dutch, and he'd been forced already to pledge the king, damn the Hogens and drink two down. He also wanted to be clear that he had achieved his desire – and that the admiral would be sober enough to remember
it. Indeed, he had told little enough, leaving the full conspiracy behind his pressing murky, speaking more of the fireship attack and its consequences.

‘Don't blame your son for going after his monkey, though,' Holmes now shouted, as if his audience was the length of a ship away rather than three paces across a cabin. ‘Why, I'd venture over scores of burning decks to save my Achilles, would I not, dear heart?' His Irish brogue deepened as he addressed this last to the boy and the baboon, the latter of whom bared his teeth and chittered at him before turning back to the competition Dickon had engineered over a tray of fruit. ‘So I am delighted to reaffirm Ayscue's promise to ye. When the chance arises, you will be returned forthwith to your native shore.'

The chance arising was what concerned Coke. ‘Do you have a thought when that might be, Admiral? My need is –'

‘As soon as possible, I say, and mean it,' Holmes cried, moving to slap a huge hand on Coke's shoulder. ‘But you can hardly expect a fellow to dispatch a warship to take you back there on the instant. Pardon I, but there's the little matter of the Hogens to defeat first, eh?' He slapped him again and turned to pick up his hat, gloves and a map case. ‘Which matter I must attend to now, with the other admirals aboard the
Charles.
We've stung 'em at Vlie and by burning Brandaris. Kicked 'em in their purses, which they hate.' He beamed. ‘I hear they are already calling it “Sir Robert Holmes' Bonfire”. But there's no doubt they'll be coming after us.' He strode to the door. ‘When I return, you'll join me for supper and more tales, sir. Though,' he looked Coke over, from his bare feet to his torn shirt, ‘I shall require you to dress. Dear heart, have you something close to the captain's size?'

‘It will be my honour to find him something, sir,' Bohun replied, bowing.

Holmes swept out. The two men drank off the rest of their sack more slowly, then Bohun beckoned. ‘Come. We gentleman volunteers have a nook for'ard, and there's a dead man's hammock for ye, if you like. Dead man's clothes too, for he was of your build. But what of your boy?'

Coke looked back. Dickon was engaged in a tug of war with Achilles over a banana. ‘Away, lad,' he called.

‘Aye, aye, Cap'n.' Surrendering the prize, Dickon skipped from the cabin.

‘I warrant that he will spend most of his time aloft, and sleep beneath my hammock when he needs to,' Coke continued, following.

When they reached the deck, he and Bohun leaned on the rail, watching Holmes' cutter make its way over to Admiral Monck's flagship, the
Royal Charles.
Even with the wind, they could hear the Irishman damning the rowers for their indolence.

‘A rare diamond, he,' said Coke.

‘Aye, but one who will honour his promise to you when he can. He seems all bluster, but he has a mind like a clock, forever ticking. He'll remember what you told him about this Irish fellow – what, Blood? Perhaps send the news with ye – for cutters go back to England with dispatches, ships of the line need repairs. He'll see you home soon enough. Would I could join you.' He gestured aft. ‘Those clothes?'

‘Could you give me a moment?'

‘Of course. Just ask for Bohun's billet.' He smiled. ‘But you'll probably nose it by the rum.'

As the officer headed aft, and Dickon climbed up into the rigging, Coke moved to the other taffrail. Now he was facing away from the lowlands of Holland. Beyond sight, but there was England. ‘Home soon, Sarah,' he murmured into the wind. ‘Home soon.'