THREE NEW FLAGS had been hung. A thin rope had been tied between two stanchions and the unfurling was the cause of much merriment. Roughly cut from sheets and painted with black and red ink, they formed rough and ready American flags: fifteen horizontal stripes, and the blue square with fifteen white stars. But there were additions. New, eye-catching additions.
The first flag had crude images of the King, the Agent, Elizabeth Shortland and farm animals in each of the stars; the second depicted black men hanging from gibbets; the third had a new verse for ‘Yankee Doodle’ written in the longer white lines.
‘I’m enjoyin’ your handiwork tonight, Mr Cobb,’ said Lane, gazing up at the colours. ‘I knew you could paint pretty much most things, but these are somethin’ else.’ He laughed as he read the words; it was a shrill, discomforting sound.
‘Ol’ Miss Shortland, she’s a witch,
Of that we can be certain.
She casts her spell, goes straight to Hell,
Goes home and fucks the surgeon.’
He laughed again then clapped himself. ‘Bravo!’ he said. ‘We must sing that out loud when we see the Agent next. You wrote the words, too?’
Cobb, spreadeagled on his hammock, an empty bottle on his chest, nodded. ‘Wrote the words, drew the pictures.’ He pulled his stovepipe over his eyes. ‘They’re not as useful as the dollars I used to print. But so much more fun.’
As each sailor read the rhyme, they toasted Cobb. Their spirits were raised; they weren’t ready to sleep.
‘Tell us the trial story, Mr Cobb,’ called one.
‘Too tired, too drunk. And you’ve heard it before. Know every word,’ Cobb replied.
‘The crew of Imperious only came in last month. They ain’t heard one word. Not a single word. They know nothin’. Tell ’em.’
Horace Cobb lay still for a moment, then peered from under his hat to check the status of his drink. Finding it empty, he offered it to Lane, who swiftly found a full bottle to replace it. Cobb leaned towards an oil lamp that was hanging on a stanchion, touching the tobacco to the flame. He inhaled sharply as the leaves caught then blew a cloud of smoke into the thick, swirling curtain that fell from just beneath the ceiling.
‘All right, so this is the old days. We’d been operating out of Queens for three years. Had a good business there, just the three of us. My two brothers and me. We did documents and we did ’em all day and all night. There wasn’t nothing we couldn’t do. Certificates, divorce papers, travel documents – we could make ’em all. If you wanted some paperwork to prove you were a magician from Paris, we could do it. If you wanted to be a lawyer from Pennsylvania, that was no problem at all. What you did with them papers once you got ’em was your lookout. But there was this one customer, name of Smith, got himself a new set of papers to show he owned this piece of land. Well, he got himself into a fight with some Irish and was about to explain to them nice gentlemen where he got his documents when he found he had his throat cut from here to here.’ Cobb drew the bottle across his neck to cheers from his audience. ‘And then, just to make sure …’ He reversed the action, to even louder cheers.
‘What happened next, Mr Cobb? Come on, tell us.’
Those who were near a stanchion began a slow tapping like a drumroll, others banged pipes against lamps.
‘Me and my brothers stood trial, o’ course we did.’
The noise and speed of the drumming increased.
‘But it turned out – and praise be to Almighty God for His ways are mysterious! – that the judge’s recent divorce was less than entirely legitimate. Some of his documents weren’t so very legal.’
The percussion was reaching a crescendo now.
Cobb sat bolt upright, waving the cigarillo in one hand, the bottle in the other. ‘And so, gentlemen!’
The drumming stopped abruptly. Cobb looked around at the keen, expectant faces, nodding at them all. ‘And so His Honour declared me not guilty!’ Wild cheering greeted this news and, in the neighbouring mess, two fiddles began a reel.
Edwin Lane, lying across the aisle from Cobb, raised his bottle in salute.
‘It’s a good story,’ he said.
Cobb smiled. ‘It is, isn’t it?’ he said, and relit his cigarillo.
Lane leaned forward, then nodded towards the second flag. ‘You’re showin’ what we need to do, I think.’
‘The hanging pictures?’ Cobb looked surprised. ‘You think we should go hang the men of Four?’ He laughed, a staccato burst that dropped ash on to his pillow. ‘You been drinkin’ too long, Mr Lane. They’re just cartoons.’
‘Maybe,’ said Lane, acknowledging the rebuke. ‘But I got me some money to pay my favourite turnkey. I got a trip planned. The blackjacks are jumpin’ too high for my likin’.’
Cobb was intrigued. ‘You think they need … cutting down a little?’
‘Somethin’ like that, Mr Cobb,’ said Lane. ‘Somethin’ like that.’