‘I can’t take any more, shipmate.’

Lots of bundles stand out against the sand. The bonfire is lit. The bonfire gives a spectral glow to swarthy faces darkened by the sun and salt spray.

Mark has lost the line of his look. His shirt beats against his chest in the wind. He is aware of the conversation, but thinks about something else. About the words he can hear. About gestures. About Anne’s smell. He still can’t go back to that moment. He doesn’t even want to imagine it. He doesn’t want to imagine what those lips, that kiss, are like. Perhaps it’s better to listen to the voices around the fire, to change the subject, vision, horizon. There are more things to life than Anne. Things to worry about.

‘Were Blackbeard still alive, he would tell us a different story!’

Blackbeard. The magic word. The dark legend. The pride of those who sailed with him. He was dead, but still alive. Mark had never set eyes on him, but he knew all about the legend. The fire in his beard, the fierce look, his agonizing death over in the Carolinas. The Carolinas. Back to Anne. It’s not good. He should do away with that train of thought. John Davies and Brown carry on talking.

‘I’ve heard it said Calico’s preparing a new crew.’ Mark takes his eyes off the sparks.

‘Oh, really?’ he asks.

‘That’s what I heard. But I can’t say if it’s certain. You need to have eagle eyes in these parts. In times like these, there’s no way of knowing what the next trick’ll be.’

‘In them old days, the folks from the navy were a little bit more ingenious,’ Brown laughs, his white teeth impaled on the light of a flame.

‘They were indeed! Ever since that wretch Rogers turned up, there’s been no peace. I’d like to string him up, I would!’ There’s no stopping John when Rogers is brought into the conversation. He obviously is not enjoying the situation.

‘When that soft-hearted Maynard came here, Teach, Blackbeard, swore to show them no mercy, and we ought to do the same with this one here.’

‘Aye, that’s right, but we have to be more careful. Don’t forget that Teach died, old man. Maynard, lily-livered as he may seem, had a fine ship and a large bevy of men concealed below deck, all armed to the teeth, waiting for a boarding they knew we would fight tooth and nail to resist.’

Any old excuse will do to talk about Teach. Mark listens because he likes these stories, even the ones he’s heard a thousand times. The others swear out loud as they recall his feats and misadventures, they clap and laugh whenever the story requires.

‘I got real close to Blackbeard,’ there’s no mistaking the voice that’s sidled alongside him.

‘Did you now?’ Mark turns around to look Anne in the face, even though he finds it nigh impossible to sustain her fiery gaze.

‘During the blockade of Charleston. I lived in the city back then,’ Mark doesn’t know what to say. ‘Folks are right to say those were the hardest days in our history. Nothing came in or went out by sea, there were shots and fires breaking out, attacks all the time, assaults, death and rape.’

‘Were you afraid?’ Mark finally brings himself to say something.

‘No. That’s what made me understand. I was never afraid. I’d lived it all before. I’d gone through it all in the four walls of my home, that prison with its golden bars. I realized what it meant as a result of those savage acts. That’s what made me see it all more clearly.’

‘See what?’

‘That, whatever happened, however many lives I had to mow down along the way, I had to be free,’ Anne stares at him.

‘Free, in what sense?’

‘That’s enough for now. Perhaps another time. But let me tell you I don’t like sharing my secrets. Men turn our stories into mysteries of their own.’

‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

‘I imagined as much.’

‘It’s a good night for telling stories, why don’t you tell me yours now?’

‘Another day perhaps. Or else never,’ and she slips away as the other voices continue and Mark takes a while to hear them again, all his senses are in confusion. Anne has no idea how well he understands her. He was a prisoner as well. Not once, but often, in an invisible cage.

‘I blame the King, I shit on his existence!’ Brown laughs again. ‘All that stuff about an armistice. In the end, what they want is for us to lap up the biscuit and wash it down with salt water. You don’t know what I’d give to extract his intestines like the dirty dog he is!’

The others’ words, as they argue, penetrate his thoughts. The King. His own cage. One of them. A king. What for? To make war. To give orders and silence mouths. To send people off to die. He can understand Brown. If you’re going to die, do it your own way. Brown escaped, he got his freedom, but he still remembers the stories of all those who stayed behind. The words of his father discussing hell on earth. Only his father didn’t really know what hell was, that was something invented by monks and priests. At least, that’s what Brown said when he was under the influence, and Mark thought more and more about big changes in life. How much better one was away from the King, as far away as possible. Here, no one had been slung in jail for shitting on the King. He knows what it is to fight for a king and want to see him dead. Though, of course, he wasn’t really fighting for the King, like all the others. He realized that now. It was an excuse that was generally accepted. They were fighting for themselves. For life itself. Their own, and nobody else’s. That’s what Anne meant. And yet it was in that life-or-death struggle that he’d lost himself for what he hoped was the first and last time.

The first time he saw Fleming, he’d just joined the regiment. The cavalry regiment. The pay was better there. He was searching for a better place to be after too many fights in the mud and mist. He was good with a sword and sabre, and no one could beat him in hand-to-hand combat, but there was more money in the cavalry, and the workload was lighter. He’d even received a medal. There wasn’t much chance of a promotion, they went to people who came from the right family. Which wasn’t his case. So he decided to try his luck on horseback.

Fleming was already in the cavalry. He offered him his hand:

‘Welcome, my friend.’

‘Mark Read.’

‘John Fleming.’

The memory of that day is mixed with the scent of horses. There’s none of that at sea. The hands, however, are the same.

‘Let’s go and see your horse,’ he says with a smile, something strange in the midst of warfare. Perhaps that was what caught his attention.

There are lots of new faces in the barracks. Mark Read is shy and keeps to himself. To start with, there are jokes, pranks, attempts… but they quickly learn to respect him. When it comes to battle, Mark Read is the most disciplined man there is. The nimblest, he’s as strong as an ox. No one is capable of getting up as early as he does. He never closes his eyes when he’s on watch. He can endure the cold and the rain like nobody else.

‘You’re made of a different mettle,’ says a colleague. He has no idea how right he is.

Mark quickly learns how to control his horse. He has the most amazing ability to learn.

But the most surprising thing about Mark Read is seeing him in battle. Skilful with his sword, the horse in front, never a moment’s hesitation. On the ground, lying on his back, in the mud. He forces a way through with the intensity of a thunderstorm, he knows when to attack and when to hold back. Sometimes he looks like wickerwork, others like the hardwood of an oak tree.

‘Come on, up you get,’ he offers Fleming a hand, while brandishing his sword with the others. From all around come the sounds of clashing metal.

‘You saved my life again, Read,’ he says.

They drop back until reaching the campaign tents, the place where the soldiers gather when the battle’s over in that grey war in which no one knows who’s winning, all you can do is keep an eye out during the fighting and move forwards between bodies to meet the one bearing down on top of you.

‘Wait! You’re wounded!’ there’s blood on Read’s trouser leg.

‘No. Not to worry, it’s someone else’s,’ that happens quite a lot. Blood without an owner gets smothered all over your clothes. Wounds leave a mark whenever they’re inflicted. But that’s not the case today. Even if Read can recall the brushes of swords against his skin. ‘I’m fine, don’t worry,’ he tries to calm Fleming down.

Fleming carries on staring at him in distrust.

‘Do you think, if I had a wound oozing blood, I wouldn’t notice? The cold can dampen your senses, but not that much,’ laughs Read.

Fleming joins him.

‘I suppose you’re right.’

‘I’m going to wash if I can find some water. You check how many losses we’ve sustained.’

He can still see Fleming turning around and waving goodbye. His thoughts confused in all that multitude. So many people about, or what’s left of them. He places his hand on his trousers and can feel the blood. He turns to find a secluded spot where he can check what’s happened. In war, not everything is blood.

At night, in the barracks, the conversations follow their course. He prefers to chat with Fleming. He has a certain happiness, a certain innocence, that Mark has lost. His innocence is something else.

‘I’m fighting for my country,’ remarks Fleming one day.

‘Your country? What do you owe your country?’

‘I owe it… who I am,’ Fleming replies.

‘If who you are means going hungry and getting covered in mud… then I suppose I owe it the same.’

‘What do you mean? It’s not right for someone in the cavalry to come out with such ideas.’

‘I’m just saying the only thing that keeps me here is the wretched salary we get paid, and the chance to do something for myself.’

‘I’m surprised you can be such a good soldier, with ideas like that.’

‘There’s no greater incentive to fight than holding on to your own life and freedom.’

‘That’s the whole point. Our country is our way of life, our freedom as a people.’

‘You couldn’t be more wrong. Our way of life does not exist. All we do is defend the welfare of the rich. Of the King and his bedfellows. I know that very well. But I don’t mind because, fighting like this, I’m also defending my right to decide, to move about, to form part of something.’

‘I don’t think we’re going to reach an agreement,’ if there was something you could say about Fleming, it was that he didn’t brook an argument. ‘But I won’t let it affect our friendship.’

‘Too right.’

Mark falls silent, wondering whether ‘friendship’ is a suitable word, given the circumstances.