Badge of Glory (1982) (21 page)

Colour-Sergeant M’Crystal watched Blackwood’s expression and wondered. Quintin had told him some of it, but there was more to come by the look of things.

In the next boat, Corporal Jones, wedged against Frazier the expert marksman, watched the second lieutenant who was aft with Major Fynmore. He grinned to himself. Cocky young buck. He had seen Second Lieutenant Blackwood, cool as you please, talking with the black girl in her makeshift cabin. Bloody good luck to him.

Private Ackland sat hunched over his pack and weapons, his lips pursed in a silent whistle as he stared unseeingly towards the shore. He was one of six brothers, all of whom worked on the land. Like a lot of farm labourers, he was a bit slower than those who lived by their wits. It had taken the Corps and several sergeants to sharpen him up. How his brothers had laughed at him when he had enlisted. It had happened almost by accident on market day in Tavistock. A recruiting party had been returning to camp, weary after a fruitless day trying to obtain volunteers for the Colours. The sergeant in charge had paused in front of Ackland and had said, ‘Join us, lad. You’ll not regret it.’

Ackland was a simple soul and his eyes pricked with pride as he thought of the day Captain Blackwood had just stood there and looked at him. A whole screaming mob lusting for blood, and he had spoken to him as if they were doing rounds between decks.
Sound the Advance
. If only his stupid brothers could have seen
that.

The Rocke twins sat side by side, like peas in a pod, as they watched Private Doak trying to conceal a bottle of rum in his folded blanket. Nearby Private Bulford eased his cross-belt and watched the girl being helped into the other boat. Try as he might, he could not help thinking about his father. Shut up in jail for the rest of his natural life, they said. Some said he was lucky not have hanged for killing a man in a brawl. Bulford looked at the clear blue sky and felt the comforting jostle of his companions around him and was grateful. Lucky? To be shut up like a beast? Not for him.

Patterson thumped into the boat and fanned his thin face with his hat.

‘
Exhausting
, Captain Blackwood!’

But Blackwood was looking at the princess.

She said suddenly, ‘It is you.’

Her English was fractured but clear. In the reflected glare she looked graceful despite the all-enveloping robe, with the grace of a puma.

He said, ‘We are taking you to your father.’

She spat out the words, ‘
The King.
’

Blackwood retorted sharply, ‘Just sit down and behave yourself.’ He could feel the eyes and grins around him.

She sat down at once and folded her hands in her lap, her eyes turned to the shore.

Blackwood nodded to the bowman. ‘Cast off.’

He tried to fix the picture of the chart in his mind. The river with the sharp bend like a dog’s hind leg. But instead he kept looking at the girl on the thwart, now so aloof and demure, a princess. It was hard to think of her as the nude savage in that filthy cabin.

The midshipman by the tiller waited for the other boats to form into line and then directed the cutter astern of the leading one with the White Ensign curling from the stern-post.

Patterson touched his arm. ‘Join me, Captain.’

Blackwood half turned and sat, seeing the eyes dropping or looking away as the crowded occupants pretended they had noticed nothing.

Patterson said quietly, ‘Sir Geoffrey explained things to you?’

Their eyes met.

‘Yes.’

‘Good. I spoke to your admiral. If it can be done, then it will be up to you.’ He hesitated. ‘
If.
’

Blackwood felt the pressure of the princess’s hip against his side as the cutter rolled in the first inshore swell.

What would his father have done? His grandfather would
have made the best of it, he decided. Even in his last year alive at Hawks Hill his faded eyes could still twinkle as he had retold stories of the women he had met and ‘served’, as he always put it.

He shook himself angrily. He must be mad to let his dreams run riot. He looked at the green barrier which tilted across the bows like a curtain, and then astern towards the horizon. There, far away, was the tell-tale smudge of smoke. Monkey’s pet hate. She was too late now.

When he looked again he saw the gleam of trapped water around the nearest headland and knew it was the entrance to the river. Zwide’s kingdom, which lay across the slave trails like a treacherous snare. He glanced at the girl’s hands in her lap, but they were relaxed, and he could feel no tension in her hip against his side.

He saw Lieutenant Ashley-Chute climb up in the leading boat and raise his speaking trumpet. How deformed he looked as he stood framed against the lush green slope at his back.

‘
Take station!
’ His voice sounded hollow in the trumpet.

Obedient to the order the boats changed formation until they were in two matching lines, which once inside the river would move out to opposite banks.

Blackwood waited until the midshipman by the tiller had increased the stroke to bring the cutter to the head of the starboard line, directly abeam of Netten’s big launch.

It was all too casual, too easy. He could feel the warning ringing in his mind like a bell.

He stood up and looked along the boat. ‘Ready, lads.’

It was all he said, and in the next boat astern he saw M’Crystal gesturing to his own party. He did not need telling, any more than when he had taken charge when Lascelles had lost his grip. Here and there a musket moved across a gunwale, or a man shaded his eyes to watch the land as it opened up to swallow them.

Blackwood looked at the midshipman. He was a popular youth and aged about sixteen. He looked as ifhe was enjoying all this enormously. Like a boy in a toy-shop.

‘Mr Ward.’ He saw the midshipman start. ‘Leave the tiller to the cox’n and come here.’ He waited for the midshipman to join him and then lowered his voice. ‘If we come under fire I want you to take hold of the princess and
put her
on the bottom boards, right?’

The youth nodded jerkily. ‘I – I think so, sir.’

‘Good. I’m placing you in charge of her safety.’ He forced a grin. ‘Not every day we mix with royalty.’

Smithett muttered, ‘I wish that bloomin’ gunboat was ’ere.’

Blackwood glanced over at Fynmore. He was sitting bolt upright as if he was riding down The Mall in a carriage.

He saw Harry look towards him, his quick wave as if to reassure him he would be all right.

He touched the girl’s shoulder and waited for her eyes to lift towards him.

‘Your father. The
King
. When will he come?’

She did not even blink. ‘He will come.’

Blackwood saw her nostrils dilate, like someone watching a terrible ritual. Seeing them all killed perhaps?

He turned to Patterson. ‘Are we in danger yet?’

Patterson shrugged. ‘Little is known about this place. Zwide is well protected on two flanks by the river. There is a ridge on the right, very soon now. Once past there we should be better placed.’

‘Did you tell Major Fynmore about it?’ Somehow he already knew the answer.

Patterson gave his shy smile. ‘I did. He said it was best to leave such matters to professionals.’

‘He would.’

No wonder they had given him a separate boat, he thought bitterly.

Patterson was watching him, reading his thoughts.

‘Which is why I chose to accompany
you
, Captain.’

‘Thank you for that.’

Midshipman Ward called, ‘They’ve put up the white flag, sir!’

Blackwood bit his lip as he watched Netten’s launch thrusting ahead under its two flags. It was so quiet, the boats had no substance, no reality.

He ran his finger round his collar. His skin felt like fire.

The bowman stood up and pointed excitedly. ‘
Here they come!
’

Harry Blackwood plucked his clothes away from his body which was running with sweat. Protected from any sort of breeze by the river banks and rising slopes of thick vegetation, the inside of the launch was like a furnace. He could feel Lieutenant Ashley-Chute moving behind him, speaking with the coxswain as he directed the slow procession of boats. There were ten in all, and when he looked across at the cutter which led the other line he gave his half-brother a quick wave without really knowing why.

Perhaps because of Fynmore, he thought. He had heard him speaking with the commander and had realized they were talking about Philip.

Netten had said something about Mdlaka and the admiral’s reaction to the report on what had happened.

‘Captain Blackwood as good as told Sir James he thought our methods were out-of-date. The admiral actually
listened
to him to all accounts. Any other time he’d have exploded!’

Fynmore had replied, ‘That young chap is too damned intolerant with authority in my book. Needs taking down.’

They had changed the subject at that point.

Harry thought about England. It would be his birthday soon. He had always hated having it so close to Christmas. As a child he had loved opening his presents, but as he grew older some people seemed to think one gift would suit for both celebrations. He had thought a good deal about Hawks Hill and what would happen there. He enjoyed going to London but, like his childhood presents, he wanted to hoard those visits for something special.

He had always been a bit in awe of the old house where he had been born. It had been built originally as a fortified Tudor farmhouse with a moat all around it. Down over the years the house had spread and been added to until it stood as it did today, a great rambling cavern of rooms, hallways and little doors which led to the roof or down to the depths of the cellars. As a boy Harry had pretended the latter were dungeons and had almost frightened himself to death when he had become locked in a cupboard there.

Now the moat had all but gone, with just one strip preserved for the benefit of visiting swans and geese.

Hawks Hill had been bought from one of the previous owners by his great-grandfather, Major-General Samuel Blackwood, who, if his portraits were to be believed, was always employed in one war or another. He had served with Wolfe at Quebec, and had fought his way right through the American Revolution, after which he had retired from the army to settle in Hampshire.

It was strange to think that he had been the last soldier in the Blackwood family, and Harry had often wondered what had made his grandfather begin the new tradition with the Regiment of the Sea.

He heard Lieutenant Ashley-Chute say, ‘The first bend is about half a mile ahead, sir.’

Netten grunted and raised his telescope to examine the nearest bank. The current was quite strong and the oarsmen were showing the strain.

Harry Blackwood dabbed his face yet again. The handkerchief was little more than a wet rag. He longed for the cool of the evening or the chance of a swim. He grimaced. It was doubtful if it was safe to paddle here, let alone swim.

He shaded his eyes to look at the cutter, at the girl in the green robe who was sitting with, yet somehow quite apart from his brother.

It was really strange, he thought, that his half-brother never seemed to understand women or that he was attractive to them. He had seen that attraction several times with a
mixture of amusement and envy. Philip had a stiffness about him, a hint of experience far greater than his years, and yet he was totally unaware of it.

Harry had never met a black girl before, let alone one like the Princess Nandi. Even as he had tried to talk with her on
Audacious
’s orlop he had felt an urge to touch her, to make her want him.

He thought suddenly of the cellar where he had accidentally locked himself in a cupboard. His dungeon. When he was sixteen he had enticed one of the housemaids down there with him. She had been older than he, a friendly, buxom girl with a ready giggle.

By the light of a candle he had told her she was his prisoner, that she would be put to the rack and torture if she did not submit.

Her response had been astounding and immediate.

She had taken his hands and pulled them to her bosom, her eyes shut as she had murmured, ‘
I submit
, Master Harry. Take me.’

Afterwards, full of frightened excitement and guilt, he had tortured himself by remembering every breathless, tantalizing moment of their embraces. Things which he had never known and now would never forget.

Her tongue in his mouth, their skin chilled in the cellar’s dampness rising to passionate heat as they had come together while she had instructed and guided him until they were both completely spent.

He dragged at his runic again. He was feeling it now in this heat.

Fynmore snapped, ‘
There!
They’ve sighted something!’

Netten raised his hand to silence the chatter in the boat.

‘About time.’

Harry Blackwood peered between his two superiors and saw a boat coming from around a bend in the river.

It was not a crude dug-out canoe, but another long-boat, larger if anything than this launch. The oarsmen were black, but in the stern he could see two, maybe three white faces.

Netten exclaimed angrily, ‘Dammit, they’ve dropped a stream-anchor!’

Harry watched as the other boat’s oars rose and halted like frayed wings while the current surged around the hull as if it was going astern.

Netten twisted round. ‘Signal the boats to anchor!’ He gestured towards the boat directly abeam, and after a moment’s hesitation the cutter began to pull towards them.

Fynmore shifted on the thwart and asked, ‘What do you intend to do?’

Netten was watching the anchored long-boat. ‘Patterson will speak with them. He’ll probably know the white men. Slavers perhaps, but it’ll not be like dealing with bloody savages.’

Harry was only eighteen but he recognized alarm when he heard it.

The cutter closed to within a few yards and Patterson called, ‘The king is not with them. One of those men is called Lessard. The last time we met was in Senegal.’ There was nothing mild about him now.