Relentless Pursuit (11 page)

Varlo had drawn his sword, and set against the brigantine's seamen looked completely out of place in his spray-dappled blue coat. He had somehow managed to retain his hat through the crossing.

His voice was quite unemotional and steady. As if on parade. Or, Rist thought, facing a firing squad. He would be the same in either situation.

“In the King's name!”

The remainder of the boarding party had climbed aboard, peering around, weapons ready. Something they knew and understood from hard experience. A false move now and there would be blood. Rist strode forward.
But not our blood.
He stared through the shrouds and saw
Unrivalled
for the first time since they had shoved off.

He had never thought of a ship as being beautiful before. As a trained seaman you saw her in so many different guises. And she was there.
Waiting.

He turned as Varlo finished his little speech about the right to stop and search, and the fact that
Albatroz
's master should be well aware of the said agreement.

Rist examined the master. Broad and heavy without being over-weight, all muscle: a man who could and would know how to use it. About his own age, he thought, but it was hard to tell, the face was so weathered and tanned by sun and sea that he could have been anything. But Rist was certain of one thing: this man was as English as he was. He had a hard but vaguely familiar accent, like Loveday,
Unrivalled
's cooper. Loveday was a Londoner, and had been a Thames waterman in the Limehouse district for several years before he had volunteered or been pressed by some over-eager lieutenant. As a waterman, he would have had the precious protection.

Varlo said sharply, “Post guards!” He pointed to one of several swivel guns. “Put a man there!”

The master said, “This is a Portuguese vessel, Lieutenant. We have no part in smuggling or unlawful trading.” He shrugged. “You can see my papers.”

Rist watched carefully. Very sure of himself. But he must have known
Unrivalled
was the ship which had been in Funchal, and been ready for this. So why had he tried to run? In the end they would have caught him, blown this vessel out of the water had he fired a single shot. With slaves you had a chance, given time.

But to fire on a King's ship was another matter. Piracy. A hanging matter, and briskly done.

His own thought came back at him.
Given time.

Varlo was calling to a boatswain's mate, gesturing at him as if he were a new recruit. The vessel would be searched.

Rist glanced at the brigantine's powerful master. He was speaking with another man, probably his mate. Like one of those prizefighters you saw in more doubtful harbours around the Mediterranean, squat, bald and neckless, with bare arms as thick as a youngster's legs. Turkish, maybe. The man looked over at him now; you could almost feel his eyes. Like metal. Merciless.

Varlo strode over to him. “Now we shall see, eh?” He snatched out his handkerchief and dabbed his mouth. He sounded out of breath.

Rist jerked his head towards the two figures by the wheel.

“What about the master, sir?”

Varlo had to drag his mind back. “Him? Name's Cousens. English. This is all he can do, I suppose. It will be up to the captain . . .” He broke off as two seamen emerged from a hatchway and one called, “Nothin' down there, sir!”

Varlo dabbed his mouth again. “Must be something. He was running away.” He stared around at the silent, staring figures. “I can't simply take his word for it!”

Rist waited. That same uncertainty.
But never an admission.

He was suddenly angry. Of course this vessel was a slaver. The fresh paint and tarred-down rigging meant nothing. She was empty, probably on passage to one of the countless islets which stretched along the Atlantic shoreline where larger ships waited to bargain and to complete their business for the most valuable cargo in the world.

He had seen it and been a part of it. Shut his eyes and ears to the inhuman treatment, as men, women and sometimes children had been dragged aboard and packed into darkened holds where the conditions had been too foul to believe.
And I did it.

He tried to contain his anger.
Leave it to Lieutenant Varlo. You'll get no praise or recognition for doing his work for him. Nor would he recognise it if you did.

Someone else reported, “Empty, sir.”

Lawson, the jolly-boat's coxswain, touched his arm. “Reckon the Cap'n'll be spittin' fire by now!” He was enjoying it.

Then he murmured, “Watch out for squalls!”

It was
Albatroz
's master, very confident, even pushing a levelled musket aside as he walked over to join the small group by the main hatch.

“I have work to do, money to earn so that my men can be paid!” He did not attempt to conceal his contempt. “We stopped for you because you fired on my ship. But my employers will take this to a higher authority than your quarterdeck!”

Varlo snapped, “How
dare
you speak to me in this fashion . . .” He looked down as Rist plucked his sleeve. As if he had been struck.

Rist said calmly, “You had a lively passage, Cap'n. We were hard put to catch you!” He was still gripping Varlo's coat, and was more conscious of that than his own self-control.

“So you can speak too, eh?” Beyond, the bald, neckless mate gave a grimace, probably intended as a grin.

Rist smiled. “I've been at sea all my life.” He felt Varlo staring at him, doubtless unable to accept that his subordinate was daring to interfere. “One thing I was taught, on pain o' death. Never light fires in a bad seaway. There's nothin' that can't wait 'til you're snug at anchor,
right?
”

He turned aside and added evenly, “Pitch, sir. I could smell it when we came on board. My mind didn't grapple it, that's all.”

Varlo said,
“Tell me.”

Rist beckoned to the boatswain's mate. “Selby, take two hands down the main hold.” He raised one hand. “An' yes, I know you've already searched it.”

Selby glared at his companion and said, “Saw the pitch boiler, sir. Coolin', so I thought best to leave it be.”

Rist touched the hilt of his hanger and allowed the coat to fall open so that it shone dully in the late sunlight.

“Tip it out. The rest of you, stand fast where you are!” To Lawson he added, “Be ready with the signal.” At any second he expected Varlo to shout him down, even put him under arrest for insubordination, although he doubted if the others would obey any such order.

It was no longer mere routine.
The sailor's lot with nothing at the end of it.

Rist looked at the brigantine's master and said almost softly, “If you try any tricks,
Captain Cousens,
I promise you'll get it first!”

It took another ten minutes. It felt like an hour or more. Across the glittering strip of water
Unrivalled
had changed tack again, almost bows-on to the smaller vessel, as if poised to draw even closer in case of a delay, or some trick which might still give
Albatroz
time to prolong what Adam Bolitho probably now believed was a calculated error on his part.

Rist saw Varlo take a pace away as Selby came on deck, with what appeared to be a wad of tarred rags grasped in a pair of tongs. Varlo said nothing and nobody moved, so that the sea and shipboard noises intruded like some wild fanfare.

Rist said,
“On the deck!”

The metal was so clogged with partly set pitch that it could have been anything. Rist's hanger was quite steady in his hand, although he barely recalled drawing it.

“Easy,
Mister
Cousens. I'd not want to spit you here an' now, but in God's sight I will if needs be!”

Selby shook out some more pieces of metal, iron manacles. Rist stared at them.
For that first horrific voyage.

It was Varlo who broke the silence.

“Very well, Lawson. Make the signal to
Unrivalled.
”

Rist took a long, hard breath. A close run thing.

Freetown, the largest natural harbour on the African continent, was always teeming with vessels of every kind, and a nightmare even for any experienced master making his first approach. Some of the larger merchantmen, loading or discharging cargo, were surrounded by lighters and local traders, while stately Arab dhows and smaller coastal craft wended amongst the busy moorings with apparent disregard or any respect for the right of way.

Slightly apart from the merchant shipping, the frigate lay at her cable, her black and buff reflection almost perfect on the barely moving water. Awnings were in position, white and bar-taut in the relentless glare, windsails too, to bring even slight relief to the close confines of the lower decks. She mounted a fine figurehead, a fierce-looking kestrel with widely spread wings, head slightly turned as if about to take to the air.

She was in fact His Britannic Majesty's frigate
Kestrel
of
38
guns, although any trained eye would quickly notice several of her ports were empty, without even the customary wooden “quakers” to give the impression that she was fully armed. There were some men working aloft on the braced yards and neatly furled sails, their bodies deeply tanned, while others did what they could to find patches of shade beneath awnings or the tight pattern of rigging. A White Ensign at the taffrail was barely moving, a masthead pendant occasionally lifted and licked out like a whip to make a lie of the oppressive heat. All her boats were in the water alongside, to ensure that the seams remained tightly sealed, and a Royal Marine sentry paced along each gangway, undaunted it seemed by his full scarlet uniform, his sole occupation to watch out for thieves. It was not unknown for swimmers to pick upon a moored longboat, cut its painter and remove it without anyone seeing or raising the alarm. A replacement was hard to get, and the marine would not hesitate to use his musket if it was attempted during his tour of duty.

Apart from Lion Mountain, there was little to distinguish the shore from any of the other anchorages on the Windward Coast. Huddled white dwellings and some native huts by the water, with the unending backdrop of green scrub and forest which seemed to be waiting to reclaim its territory from the intruders. And the whole panorama appeared to be moving in a heat haze, dust too; you could feel it between your teeth, everywhere, even out here, in a King's ship.

To some of the newer hands it was still something of an adventure. Strange tongues, and the noise and bustle of harbour life, something completely alien to men from villages and farms in England.

For others, the endless patrols were hated above all else. The monotony of handling salt-hardened canvas in blazing heat, again and again throughout each watch to contain the light tropical airs, and the periods of windless calm when men would turn on each other at the slightest provocation, with the inevitable aftermath of punishment. And always the fear of fever, something never far from a sailor's thoughts along this unending coastline.

A few could see beyond the discomfort and monotony. One was
Kestrel
's captain.

Standing now in his stern cabin, his body partially in shadow, he watched the haphazard pattern of harbour traffic with professional interest. Captain James Tyacke was used to it, even though his return to the anti-slavery patrols had been a fresh beginning. He touched the hot timbers. And in a new ship.

Although classed as a fifth-rate,
Kestrel
had been prepared for her new role. A third of her heavier armament had been removed, to allow for more stores space and the extended sea passages she would be required to take. She carried a full complement, however, enough for excursions ashore when needed, and for prize-crews should they run down a slaver when the chance offered itself.

Tyacke was an old hand at it. He had gained his first command, a little brig, when he had been pitting his wits against the slavers. He touched the mutilated side of his face, burned away like wax, with only the eye undamaged. A miracle, they had said at Haslar. That had been after the great battle at Aboukir Bay, Nelson's resounding victory over the French fleet, which had destroyed Napoleon's planned conquest of Egypt and beyond. The Battle of the Nile, it was called now, although most people had probably forgotten it, he thought. He could even do that without bitterness now, something he had once believed impossible. He touched his skin again. The legacy. It had earned him the nickname,
“the devil with half a face,”
among the slavers.

It had been very different then. England had been at war, and the anti-slavery patrols had taken second place to everything else. Slavers had been active then, war or not, and justice had been swift, when you could catch them.

Now, with the coming of peace, there were pious demands from the old enemies for stricter controls not only of slavery but also the administering of justice.
Irrefutable proof of every crime.
The word of a captain and his officers was no longer enough. So it took longer and it cost more money. They never learned.