Blood Diamond: A Pirate Devlin Novel Read Free Page A

the dead-weight between them and dove into the quarrelsome fray of Wapping, leaving the bloodied body of their fellow dying alone against the cold stone.
    He weakly raised his fingers to their backs, grasping forlornly as his friends walked away.
    London had after all changed very little.

Chapter Two

    Three days earlier, before dawn, the Shadow had sailed up the Thames and settled at Deptford, the East Country dock near the Dog and Duck plying stairs. Most of the stairs were named after the mariners’ public houses that lined the river, but the Shadow ’s crew preferred dipping into the Plough alongside the dock itself for its darker air and less visited signage.
    She had not come in under her own escutcheon. The peace of February had made friends of many nations but pirate ships were still unwelcome at any port that claimed to be civilised.
    Instead she was warped in by her crew as the Dutch ship, Ter Meer , although a scrimption of consultation at the Navy Board in Whitehall would have revealed that the Ter Meer had been a fluyt and not a 24-gun frigate: the crew had spent a time boarding over her gunports and stowing her cannon to clip their bird’s wings for prying eyes.
    As a Dutch ship would make no claim to the Victualler or the West or East India Houses she was paid scant attention. Indeed, such was the mass of trade conducted that any vessel which did not shout for its wares was welcome to be ignored. Let her rest awhile. Let her men fill their boots as long as they stayed out of the city and demanded no attention of her officers and statutes.
    The planned moonless night of her arrival saw two men row the narrow distance to the Dog and Duck stairs, without lamp, without voice and avoiding the welcoming glow from the inn. They walked north, safe in a pair from the nightwalkers and gangs that prowled north and south of the river after dark, and where only lame and aged watchmen and drunken Charleys patrolled the snaking alleys that made up the veins of the metropolis.
    One of the pair, the one in the yellow coat and hat, eventually shook hands and departed, leaving his companion to find lodgings at Limehouse while he made his way to the City to announce their arrival and find his own bed.
    The ship arrived in the dark and in disguise; the mooring lay far from the churn of commerce. The midnight walk and the splitting of partnership all revealed aspects of suspicion and distrust. Distrust that perhaps a trap was being sprung despite the royal seal that had brought them to England under promise and protection.
    But pirates lived longer by caution than trust. The black corpse swaying in the gibbet at Graves Point as they had entered the Thames attested quietly enough to this.
     
    Two days on, Monday now, and the gentleman in yellow had spent the morning at Shudall’s, the tailor’s, a short stroll from where he had chosen to lay his head at the White Lion in Wych Street.
    He had paid Mr Shudall in gold for a new dandelion-yellow silk justacorps, to be collected Friday, and although Mr Shudall had at first frowned at the weary and dissolute look of the young man, yet he had beamed like the sun at the fat bag of coin and gladly proffered directions to Mrs White’s Chocolate House as requested. For Dandon was of the colonies; he had never known London.
    Only a few hours before Dandon, still in his old frayed coat, had taken a seat at White’s and a handful of cards at Lanterloo, the pirate Devlin’s head had been stoved in by Mr Jonathan Wild and he dragged off to spend the day in Newgate gaol. He had thus missed his appointment with the Prince of Wales.
    The afternoon went on. The game of Loo also. Dandon won a little, lost a little, enjoyed steaming coffee and gave a private smirk at the porcelain gleaming on every table and at the ignorance of the gentlemen sipping from the bone-white cups.
    At six Dandon checked his watch against the long-case Harrison in White’s rooms and ventured a concerned glance out to