Free Martyr by Rory Clements Page B

Mr. Cooper, you were with Sir Francis—or Captain-General Drake as then was—on his venture to the Magellan Strait and through to the Pacific Ocean?
    Yes, sir.
    And so you knew Thomas Doughty and his brother, John?
    Yes, sir. For myself, sir, I did not like Thomas Doughty. He thought he was the Captain-General’s equal, yet he was not, by no means. He and the other gentlemen aboard the Pelican were nothing but idlers. They had no respect for the men belowdecks and we had none for them. They lorded it over us, taking our plunder, then tried to bribe us to betray the Captain-General. The Doughtys were like wasps in a nest, whispering together. Before entering the Plate River in South America, I refused an order from Thomas Doughty to climb the rigging to spy out the coast. It wasn’t his place to give me such an order when the Ship’s Master and the Captain-General were both aboard. Mr. Drake would never have given me such an order, because he knew about my foot and the problems I would have in climbing. But Thomas and John were pigs. They must have known that I could not climb, but when I refused Thomas Doughtys order, John Doughty took a length of cable and started whipping my head, sir.
    I’m very sorry to hear that, Mr. Cooper.
    He was laughing, sir, as if it were a jest.
    Finally, as we now know, Drake had had enough of being undermined by Thomas Doughty. He put him on trial before a jury of forty men at Port St. Julian, some hundred miles north of the Magellan Strait, and sentenced him to death.
    We called it Blood Island, Mr. Shakespeare. It was where the Portuguese sea captain Magellan had put down a mutiny and hanged a man some sixty years ago or more, before he went through the strait that now bears his name. I am not a superstitious man, but there were some believed that place was haunted. We did find the gibbet where Magellan hanged a mutineer, with black bones and shreds of old clothing beneath it still.
    And the execution of Thomas Doughty?
    That was strange. I seen men go to their deaths before, but never so well as Mr. Doughty. His death was the making of him. He chose the axe rather than the rope, which was his right, and Drake gave him two days to prepare himself. In those last days, he made peace with Drake, and they did dine together in Drake’s tent.
    And where was the brother, John Doughty?
    John held himself apart, went down to the rocks at the water’s edge and sat there. He wasn’t laughing then . When the execution was taking place, the Captain-General made the whole fleet’s company assemble to witness it, and John Doughty was brought forcibly to watch. His arms were held on either side as the axe fell on his brother’s head. John Doughty didn’t blink, sir. I was watching him to see what he would do or say, but he did nothing and so I knew …
    You knew what, Mr. Cooper?
    I knew that one day he would seek revenge.
    Thank you, Mr. Cooper. You have been a great help. But before you go, Shakespeare said, I believe you are no longer on speaking terms with Sir Francis Drake. Is that right?
    Boltfoot grunted. There’s many as won’t talk to Drake now. For he is a rich man from the spoils we took from Spanish ships, especially the Cacafuego off the coast of Peru. It had twenty-six tons of silver, eighty pounds of gold, and thirteen chests full of coins—it took six days to unload it. And do I look a rich man? Yet we braved the same storms and endured the same scurvy. He is a great man, a fair man at sea, but on land Drake is something else. I will say no more on the matter, if it please you, sir. But take this, Mr. Shakespeare. He held out a piece of aged wood, shaped like a small tankard, which he removed from his pocket. I did pull down Magellan’s black and rotted gibbet and carved out many such cups on the long way home for my shipmates, as remembrances. I tell you this, though, I did never give one to John Doughty.
    Five years later, Shakespeare had the cup still, though he never drank