The Scent of Betrayal (7 page)

The use of the name raised two emotions. The first was a fond memory, but the other was a feeling of slight betrayal, as though by minding his own business Pollock had been callous.

‘Rest assured, James, that he doesn’t come into it at all.’

‘He should, if he was right.’

‘About colonists?’

‘No, Harry. About the reactions of the Spaniards. If they’re thinking of coming into the war on the side of France, New Orleans would be a bad destination.’

Harry shrugged. ‘I don’t see we have to worry about that, brother. There’s no news come to any of the islands of such a event.’

‘Would it come here first?’

‘It would certainly get to the Caribbean before it reached the Gulf of Mexico.’

James frowned. ‘He did say we wouldn’t be welcome even in peacetime.’

‘I doubt they’d throw us a celebratory ball. But they won’t dare interfere with a British ship, James. There’s no country in the world more careful of her maritime rights than Britannia. There is one way to guarantee a war with King George. Infringe them! The War of Jenkins’s Ear was begun for that very reason and a race that remembers Drake will remember that. Besides, we’ll only be touching at the mouth of the delta. We can drop our passengers and head straight back out into the Gulf. As long as they see we’re not going to hang around in their bailiwick, they will be happy.’

‘Well, that’s fine,’ said James gaily. ‘Since the only problem left is to persuade our passengers.’

Harry glared at him. ‘I’ll try persuasion first, James. But if the sods don’t agree, I’ll damn well tell them.’

‘That’s the spirit, Harry. Quiet diplomacy. But just as a precaution I should sound out Lampin and Couvruer first.’

That was a piece of advice Harry was happy to take, though implementing it without causing suspicion proved to be difficult. Examining the problem objectively, he could see that James was right. It wasn’t malice that was keeping them from a collective agreement, but pure indecision. They’d been through a lot in the last few years, turfed out of St Domingue by the slave revolt, then out of Guadeloupe by the arrival of Victor Hugues. As a group they’d come to rely on their late Captain to decide everything for them. Now they must do so for themselves, and the method of leaving St Croix had done little for their self-confidence. His talk with the two Frenchmen was of necessity brief. But he secured what he needed, a definite agreement that Pender’s assessment of the situation was correct: that animosity and fear were growing, with violence not far below their surface calm.

For a man who’d set out to persuade rather than dictate, Harry showed scant patience. Faced with a sea of surly faces, and being a person who preferred to command rather than plead, his voice soon lost the tone designed to gently nudge them in the right
direction. Instead, made worse by his less than perfect French, he became harsh, practically accusing them of ingratitude, especially in the matter of their treasure.

‘Do you think I’d touch a sou of your money?’ he growled. ‘I wouldn’t. Every coin that’s in there now will be with you when you go ashore, you have my word.’

Faced with his angry glare, several heads dropped. Harry sensing the opportunity, and guessing that they liked to be led, told them he was going to the Mississippi delta; that he would put them ashore there; and if any of the party didn’t like it, they certainly had the means to proceed to the destination of their choice.

THE HURRICANE
, so early in the season, caught out more ships’ Captains than Harry Ludlow. There would be a heavy toll to pay all over the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico when it finally blew itself out. Not that the men lashed to the wheel of the
Bucephalas
had any thoughts to spare for the plight of others: all their attention was concentrated on keeping their own ship before the wind. The two scraps of heavy storm canvas on the topsail yards, secured by extra braces, all that they had to maintain steerage-way, stood between them and disaster. That and the Captain’s ability to read the flukes in the wind and weather. The tempest screamed through the rigging at a steady ninety knots, but the mountainous waves, with their cable deep troughs, called for constant vigilance, since the full fury of the hurricane eased in the valleys they created, only to return with renewed intensity as the ship crested each rise.

Running before the storm at least kept the spume out of their eyes, though their entire world was water.
Bucephalas
shipped great quantities amidships as the ragged top of each wave broke under her counter, so much that it appeared impossible that the ship should float. But it did, groaning as each deluge was sloughed overboard, rising with an effort and a rending sound that seemed almost human. Not all the sea water went over the side. Despite every precaution, a great quantity found its way through both the planking and the hatches, turning each companionway into a temporary torrent forceful enough to carry anyone who’d not taken a firm grip all the way to the bilges. Down below, under those very same hatches, the men on the pumps slaved to send the flood
back into the sea. Too much water in the well and
Bucephalas
would lack the buoyancy to keep afloat. If that happened no amount of seamanship would save her.

Harry Ludlow, who’d been on deck for the last eighteen hours, had the central position at the wheel, body lashed to the spokes and feet jammed into the looped ropes he’d stapled to the deck. Pender stood to his right and a giant bearded Frenchman, Brissot, to his left. Even with a full complement of his own Harry wondered if they could have ridden out the storm. The extra hands provided by his French passengers had not only provided assistance at the wheel, they had allowed him a continuous relay of reasonably fresh men on the pumps. Reasonable because no one could rest properly in a situation where the slightest easing of concentration would see a man thrown right across the lower deck, slammed into the side with a force that flesh and blood couldn’t withstand. The cockpit, once more a temporary sick bay, was already overflowing with sailors who’d fallen victim to the storm. James Ludlow, battered and bruised himself, sought to ease the pain of deep cuts and broken bones, his main aid being liberal quantities of undiluted rum.

Not that Harry had any communication with those below decks. He’d issued them their orders hours before; pump hard, then pump even harder. It had been an age since anyone dared to venture up from below. To come onto this deck was to invite certain death. Not even the man ropes rigged all over would have allowed anyone to keep their feet. What human grip could withstand the pounding of such a sea? To the trio conning the ship no world existed outside the confines of that little patch of disturbed water. Even at the crest of a wave the spume whipped to the tops from the rear cut off all view of the surrounding sea. Above their heads the black clouds seemed to bear down on them, pushing their puny human frames into the waterlogged planking. They were all alone in this nightmare world, where the slightest error would see
Bucephalas
broach to and founder, before a wind that would push her under within a matter of seconds, a furious drowning
that would leave no trace of the ship or the men who’d sailed her.

The odd word could be exchanged with those beside him at the bottom of each trough, where the howling decreased just enough for a man to be heard by a close neighbour. There was little to say, barring the odd message of reassurance. Repetitive they might be, nevertheless Harry gave them constantly, since the least hint of despair in either man could produce a lapse in effort. Brissot, whose English was extremely limited, nodded every time Harry spoke, even if he barely understood what was being shouted into his well-wrapped ear.

‘Bring her head round to larboard again.’

‘How we doing, Capt’n?’ gasped Pender, through salt-encrusted lips.

‘I reckon the gale has eased just a fraction,’ Harry shouted, as he fought to turn the wheel. The party on the relieving tackles below, seeing what they were trying to do, would take some of the strain on the ropes that led to the rudder, helping to bring the ship round onto the course their Captain desired. Care had to be exercised, so that the instruction to belay as the bows began to rise was readily obeyed, ensuring that the control of the ship lay with those who could see the bowsprit and feel the weight of pressure this hurricane was exerting on the hull and the masts.

‘I dunno how you can tell that, your honour. But I’m minded to believe you out of hope alone.’

‘Stand by!’ screamed Harry for the hundredth time, his head back, eyes fixed firmly on the twin scraps of storm canvas. High enough to be above wave height they’d never lost the force of the wind, which gave him valuable steerage-way, putting sufficient speed on
Bucephalas
to ensure that as she breasted the next enormous cap, the slight forward motion of the ship, added to the pressure of the wind coming in abaft her larboard beam, would, by forcing her head round, carry her over into the next patch of relative safety. The flash of forked lightning, followed immediately by the deafening crack of thunder, made all three men
duck involuntarily. But, even half-crouched, they strained as one to turn the ship’s head once more. Then as she rose they let the wheel slip slowly through their fingers as
Bucephalas
was forced to pay off on to her original course.

‘Listen hard the next time we crest,’ shouted Harry, patting his ear as he turned to repeat the message to the Frenchman. Brissot nodded, to say he understood. More of a sailor than Pender, he’d noticed the slight drop in the tempest’s angry note, the first sign that they might, at last, be steering into calmer waters. Not that he could be sure. He knew as well as Harry how deceptive a hurricane could be, that seeming diminution merely the prelude to a startling increase in wind power, the precursor of the tempest’s maximum strength, a wall of air blowing so hard that no seamanship, however cunning, no wooden vessel, however sound, could hope to survive. Harry held his breath as they crested the next wave, every nerve stretched to breaking point lest the wind had increased. The relief that this wasn’t so was compounded when he turned to look at Pender. Not much of his servant’s face showed, but those dark lively eyes were creased like a man smiling, evidence that he too had noticed how things had eased.

‘Are we safe now, your honour?’ he croaked, as
Bucephalas
spilt over the highest point of the wave, shipping tons of water, before careering like a dropped stone down into the well of the trough.

‘Not safe, Pender. But the danger has eased for the moment. If we’re lucky then we’re on the edge of the hurricane.’ He had to stop so that they could deal with the next rise of the bowsprit, but he continued as soon as they returned to the relative quiet. ‘Either that or we’re close to the eye, which means that we’ll have a short period of total calm then be forced to face the storm all over again.’

‘And I thought thieving had risks,’ Pender yelled, his eyes screwed up with effort as he hauled once more on the wheel.

It was Harry’s turn to grin under his soaked muffler, which
brought instant pain as the rough wool rubbed against skin made raw by friction and hardened salt. Pender didn’t often refer to his previous life as a thief, certainly never when others were around. A man who could pick even the most complex lock in seconds, he was nicknamed ‘Pious’ for the time he spent, so occupied, on his knees. Having come into Harry’s service by accident, he’d proved so much of an asset to him and brother James that life without him now seemed unthinkable. Just as unthinkable as that Pender should behave like any normal servant, and fail to tell both brothers, in no uncertain terms, when he thought they’d over-stepped the mark. Barred by the exigencies of the task at hand from his desire to pat his servant on the shoulder, Harry turned to look at Brissot. The idea of putting him on the wheel instead of one of his own men had paid off. With one of their own number responsible for conning the ship, the rest of the Ariadnes had worked with a greater will. The giant Frenchman’s sea-soaked beard, straggling over his chest, made him look more vulnerable than usual. But it also exposed the smile that told Harry that he too thought they were out of the woods.

The storm died away as suddenly as it had arrived, leaving an ocean full of heaving waves which, without the wind, had
Bucephalas
wallowing in the most uncomfortable manner. Men who’d survived the tempest now succumbed to the ship’s motion, retching over stomachs that had long been empty. In such a sea the galley fire stayed unlit, which meant that the succour which might have been provided by hot food or Willerby’s potions was unavailable. But after hours of this, as the sky cleared to bring forth a welcome burst of warm sunlight, the motion began to ease. Harry, finally convinced that the worst had passed, allowed himself to be unlashed from the wheel.

His hands, which had held on to the spokes for so many hours, seemed permanently set in the gripping position. Any attempt to move them provoked an agonising response. His eyes were like two drops of watered blood in his chalk-white face. Stiff from his
ordeal, he had to be helped below. His cabin was a shambles of sodden clothes and broken furniture. James, Pender, and Brissot slept where they lay, impervious to the water that still lapped around their recumbent frames. Harry croaked his last instructions as he was helped to lie down, orders to be awakened at the first hint of danger from whatever source. Then, still wrapped in his oilskins, he fell into a deep sleep, grunting and groaning as in his tortured dreams he recalled every moment of the ordeal he’d so recently survived.

The same tub of fresh water had to be used for the entire crew, since sailing in the Tropics precluded extravagance in that area. But brackish as it was it served to wash the salt from their clothes and bodies. The water in the scuttlebutt, meant for drinking, was splashed liberally over eyes, noses, and ears, allowing all to return to something approaching their normal state. The pleasure of survival had some effect, keeping previous tensions below the surface for all of that day and most of the next. But soon they rose again, with the French passengers returning to the surly behaviour that had so characterised the voyage. No amount of smiles, or of spoken reassurance would convince them that every member of the English crew, particularly their captain, wasn’t scheming to cheat them; that the course they’d set, supposedly for New Orleans, wasn’t some kind of trick. James remarked on it, after observing a particularly sour exchange of looks between the two nationalities.

‘I tried to thank all of them,’ growled Harry, ‘for the help they rendered during the storm. Most refused to meet my eye and Brissot, who’d smiled at me like an old friend not 48 hours previously, just grunted. I could very easily have left St Croix without them and their damned chest.’

‘Perhaps another one of your lectures is required,’ said James.

‘I did not lecture them,’ Harry replied, guiltily.

‘You most certainly did, brother. Still, we’ll soon be shot of them, won’t we?’

‘Damn it, I hope you’re right. But I can’t even be sure of our true position. If one of them comes and demands another look at the chart, it will be all bluff. I wouldn’t be able to tell them, truthfully, where in hell’s name we are.’

The hurricane had not only thrown him off course, it had thrown his chronometers from their bulkhead, damaging them. Without these timepieces, one set to Greenwich and the other to local noon, he was unsure of his exact location.
Bucephalas
could be just off the mouth of the Mississippi or two hundred miles to the south, west, or east. All he knew was this: he was heading north towards a certain landfall. And that once he touched he would be able to reset his chronometers and shape a true course for his destination.

‘Still, it would be wise to speak with them again, Harry,’ said James.

‘And not just them,’ added Pender, in a doom-laden tone.

The unwelcome thought had barely registered in Harry’s mind when the cry from the masthead came clear. ‘Ship, your honour.’

‘Where away?’ he replied, automatically reaching for a telescope.

‘Twelve points off the starboard bow. Merchantman, for sure.’

Harry was halfway to the cap before the lookout finished the sentence, the fatigue of his recent ordeal dropping away as the excitement of a potential chase coursed through his veins. He fairly raced the path of the upper shrouds.

‘Something odd about her, your honour,’ the man said as Harry focused his telescope. ‘For a start she’s mighty low in the water, specially by the head. Her sails are set, but they don’t appear to be drawin’ much.’

‘I have her,’ Harry said as the ship leapt into view.

He swept the glass fore and aft, taking in the lowered bows and the correspondingly elevated stern, before concentrating on the deserted quarterdeck. A merchant vessel, built like an old-fashioned caravel, with the high poop and forecastle denoting her
build, either Spanish or Portuguese. Then he took in the sails, alternately drawing and slacking as the wind caught them. There was nothing there that hinted at a ship in danger, more a suit of unstained canvas that would carry a vessel along comfortably in a steady breeze. With no hand on the rudder the ship was drifting before the wind. He raised his glass to the masthead, there to check for the flags that might warn of disease aboard, but the ship carried no pennant of any kind. Harry called for an increase in sail, then made his way back to the deck to take over the wheel.