In the King's Name (23 page)

He held his breath and steadied the glass. He was not mistaken. Some of the trees merged with the ship: loose branches which were lashed to her yards and shrouds. A simple camouflage, but enough to confuse even the most experienced lookout aboard a passing man-of-war, or the brigantine
Peterel
, which Tyacke had sent to offer support if required.

He held out the telescope to Squire.

“We were right.”

He heard him adjusting the glass but held the image in his mind: the crude but effective disguise, some fronds and loose fragments in the water alongside drifting slowly clear, or already snared by her anchor cable.

She was preparing to get under way. To escape.

She was a big schooner, three-masted, unusual in these waters, and she looked almost cumbersome in this confined anchorage. But once out on the ocean and under full sail, she would soon show her paces.

Adam peered at the compass and saw Tozer give him an assertive nod. Very calm. Julyan would be proud of him.

Squire said, “She's moored from aft, too. Not enough room to swing!”

Adam took the telescope, still warm from Squire's grip.
No more time
. The big schooner's stem and foremast loomed into view. There were men hurrying about her deck, and the anchor cable was already bar-taut, and possibly moving. Someone running across the forecastle slithered to a halt, peering toward
Delfim
, which would be fully visible by now. A flash of light, and another: telescopes being trained, but little else.

Tozer muttered, “They know this ship, right enough.”

Adam turned as a seaman shouted, “What th' hell! Stop him!”

Pecco ignored the muskets as he ran to the side and yelled, “No! Stop, Luis!” and something in Portuguese.

One of
Delfim's
crew had broken free and was waving his arms and shouting, until a sailor leaped from behind the capstan, belaying pin swinging like a club, and brought him down.

Pecco stood looking at the man sprawling by his feet. “You were
wrong!
”

Adam trained his telescope on the other schooner once more. There were men already aloft on the yards and others manning the braces, as if nothing untoward had happened. But the main deck was not cleared for sea. Even as he watched he saw naked bodies, Africans, scrambling up from holds and hatchways, some driven by whips and blows, others clinging to one another with terror.

Squire exclaimed, “Slaves! The bastard! What better cover?” Then, “Their anchor's hove short, sir!” He glanced bitterly at the compass. “Those scum know we can't open fire with all those poor devils as targets!”

Adam looked at the sails, and the vessel anchored across the gleam of open water beyond the last islet. And once able to make full sail …

He said, “Clear lower deck!” and saw Jago watching him. Waiting, as if he knew. “Run up the Colours!”

He moved closer to the wheel even as a call shrilled from below
Delfim's
deck, as if she were indeed a King's ship.

“She's up-anchored, sir!”

Adam had already seen the big schooner's topsails come alive, a long masthead pendant reaching out like a lance.

There was a bang, and the deck quivered under his feet.

“Do we fight ‘em, sir?”

Adam glanced at Pecco. “Stand by! We're going to board them, right now!”

More shots, and he saw that the slaver's topmen had been joined by others with muskets. He felt a few of the balls hitting the deck, jagged splinters lifting like quills as seamen and marines ducked for cover.

He knew the gunner's mate was crouching by the forward carronade, never taking his eyes from him, even as someone cried out and fell nearby, and remained there motionless.

Adam shouted, “Full elevation, Christie! Knock out all the quoins!” and saw him nod, teeth bared in concentration. Without the wedge-shaped quoins beneath their breeches, the stocky twelve-pounders should rake the rigging and yards, leaving the hostages untouched.

The first carronade responded instantly, bringing down most of the remaining branches and foliage, and blasting away some of the shrouds. Three bodies fell to the deck below, or into the water alongside.

Pecco, face desperate, was hauling down the Portuguese flag, flinching as the second carronade fired and ripped into the big schooner's topsails. Between shots they could hear the shouts and screams of the slaves who had been herded between forecastle and mainmast, then they were silent. Shock or disbelief, and perhaps the sight of the White Ensign and whatever it might mean to them.

Adam felt a shot hammer into the planking near him, but he did not move. Nothing else mattered now.

“Wheel hard a-starboard! Stand to, lads!”

It seemed to take an age, but he knew it was only seconds before the bows began to respond, until
Delfim's
bowsprit and jib-boom were swinging toward and across the slaver's taut canvas.

More shots, but haphazard, or perhaps they were firing on the slaves.

Squire yelled, “Ready, lads! Grapnels forrard!”

Adam gestured to Tozer, who had been joined by two more seamen at the wheel. “Helm a-lee!” He reached out and seized a stay, bracing himself for the collision.

But it was more of an embrace: a splintering crash as the jib-boom and bowsprit drove through the other ship's shrouds like a giant lance, and the final, shuddering impact as the bows of both locked together. Vague figures had become the enemy. Yelling and screaming, some falling into the sea between the hulls, escaping one fate for another as some of the released slaves began to shout, even cheer.

Adam heard Lieutenant Sinclair's voice even above the noise, breathless after running with his men to the point of impact.

“Royal Marines, stand to!
Ready to fire!
”

Adam drew his sword and shouted, “Boarders away!” as he jumped onto a broken grating and across a huge tangle of canvas. He felt someone reach out and prevent him falling. He did not turn to look but knew it was Jago, knew his cutlass, and the smell of the last “wet” on his breath.

He stared up and behind him at a line of Royal Marines, heads and shoulders and trained muskets. Some had even found time to don their scarlet tunics, although most were hatless. Seamen were swarming up to join him, cutlasses and boarding pikes dispelling any doubt or argument.

There was another deafening shot and an instant response of shouts and cries from slaves and captors alike.

He heard Squire's powerful voice, and Tozer's; he must have just left the wheel.

Squire climbed over a shattered spar and stood by him, breathing heavily. “That was the ship's master. Killed himself, the bastard!”

He was trying to sheathe his sword, but there was blood on the blade and it refused to budge.

A few scattered shots followed, and then, as if to some invisible signal, weapons were clattering across the deck and some of the slaver's crew were running toward them as if to seek protection from the advancing line of scarlet and blue. With Squire beside him and Jago at his back, Adam made his way toward the poop.

At the foot of the mizzen mast Jago shouted, “A moment, Cap'n!” His voice seemed very loud, as if all movement had stopped.

Adam handed his sword to a grinning seaman and thrust his arms into the sleeves of his coat, which Jago must have had slung over his shoulder despite the chaos surrounding them.

A few more weapons fell, and someone nearby was murmuring, maybe praying, in Portuguese. A man who might have been the schooner's second-in-command was offering the hilt of his sword and gesticulating toward his captain's corpse, sprawled near the big double wheel, a pistol still gripped in his hand. He had no face.

Adam looked away as someone grasped his arm. He saw Jago's sudden, defensive movement, then he lowered his cutlass and said, “Lucky it was
you
, my son!”

It was a young African boy, naked but for a ragged shirt, staring up at Adam or his uniform with wide eyes. There were bloody welts on his arms where he had been chained or beaten. Adam felt the heavy silence around him as he reached down to clasp the boy's shoulder. Like Trusty, the one without a tongue.

In the unreal stillness they all heard the distant cry from one of Squire's hand-picked lookouts, who must have watched the boarding and its aftermath from aloft, unable to help or take part.

Squire lifted his stained blade and signalled toward the overlapping masts. “He's sighted the
Peterel
, sir.”

They were no longer alone.

Adam heard a groan, and saw the surgeon bandaging a marine's bloody head. He had not known that Murray had followed him aboard. The marine, a corporal, saw his captain watching and tried to grin. Then he died.

Adam heard the two hulls creaking together, and the clatter of untended tackle. It was over.
So many times
. He steeled himself.

“What's the bill?”

Squire regarded him steadily. “Five, sir.” He saw Murray hold up his free hand. “Six.” He gave their names, knowing his captain would be seeing each face.

Adam stared up at the shot-holes in the topsails overhead, the dark stains left by canister. He said, “They did well. Tell Lieutenant Sinclair,” and stopped as Squire shook his head.

“He's dead, sir. They just told me.”

Adam walked to the side, and looked down at the swirling arrowhead of water with its litter of branches, and one corpse caught among them.

Squire glanced over at the crowd of captives, separated by a thin line of marines. Then he asked quietly, “When
Peterel
is within signalling distance—”

He felt Adam's hand close on his arm. There was blood on it. “Make to
Peterel
…” Adam hesitated. Strain or emotion? This was not the time.
“Welcome. Mission successful. We will proceed when ready. Together.”

Squire had found a slate somewhere and was deliberately repeating the signal. But Adam was gazing at a body covered by canvas, a pair of polished boots protruding, gleaming in the sunlight. The cost of freedom.

He reached out to stop Squire but he had gone, and the blood remained.

H
ARRY
D
RUMMOND CLIMBED
through
Onward
‘s main hatchway and paused to clear his mind. Most of the routine work had been completed during the forenoon watch, and with a heavy meal under his belt a doze in the mess would have been welcome. But as bosun he needed to be seen and heard, as he had learned the hard way.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stifled a yawn. Too much grog. But it was Tilley, the sailmaker's, birthday—as good an excuse as any.

He glanced up at the shrouds and stays, the neatly furled sails gleaming in the sun, unmoving, like the flags and masthead pendant. As for the ship herself, she could have been aground.

He looked aft, but the quarterdeck appeared to be empty. Not for long. Vincent, temporarily in command, never seemed to rest from his extra duties. Maybe he did not know how. Was he still brooding about how nearly he had been given command? Dead men's shoes …

Close by at her own anchorage was the new frigate
Zealous
, her captain's first command. Young, too, from what Drummond had heard. That would be lying heavily on Vincent's mind.

He shook himself, tasting the grog again.

He saw a seaman standing by an upturned boat, which had been propped over some old canvas to protect the deck. It was the gig, and Drummond had been thinking about Luke Jago and wondering how he was faring aboard the little schooner as one of the captain's prize crew. A hard man to know, unless he let the barriers fall. But Drummond had not forgotten that when he had been appointed, replacing the bosun who had been killed, Jago had been the first to befriend him. They never discussed it, but there it was.

He saw the same seaman now cleaning a brush, and found himself smiling. The old Jack's yardstick:
if it moves, salute it! If it doesn't, paint it!

He heard voices: one of the gun captains giving instructions to some of the new hands, making sweeping gestures and ducking beside an eighteen-pounder. He was probably describing the clash with
Nautilus
. Hardly a battle.
If he had been at Trafalgar
… Drummond shaded his eyes and looked over at the flagship. His own ship,
Mars
, had been in the thick of the action, her decks smeared with blood, the enemy sometimes broadside to broadside. Even their captain had fallen, beheaded by a French ball.

He was suddenly angry, and could not contain it. He shouted, “Winning, are we?” But he was immediately ashamed of himself.

He turned as a shadow fell across the deck. It was Maddock, the gunner, and he was smiling. “We were all like that when we were young. So long ago I can hardly remember!”

Drummond saw the familiar felt slippers tucked in Maddock's belt. He was on his way to the magazine. Nobody would bother him there. Strangers and visitors to their small mess hardly ever realised Maddock was so hard of hearing. He had even made a short and witty speech today to mark the sailmaker's birthday, and got through it without interruption.

He said now, “I just met the first lieutenant, Harry. I think he wants to see you when you're free.”

Drummond laughed, his moment of temper forgotten. “That means
now!
”

Maddock yawned too; it must be contagious. “He's in the cabin, getting a bit of peace. While he still can.”

Drummond knew there were only two possible reasons. With Squire, Sinclair of the Royal Marines, and Murray, the surgeon, all away in
Delfim
, the wardroom would be a place to avoid. Julyan, the master, was ashore dealing with some new navigational aids, and Vicary, the purser, was dull to say the least. That left Lieutenant Monteith. That was reason enough.

A marine strode toward them and clicked his heels together. “Beg pardon, sir, but the first lieutenant …”