Corsair

TWENTY-TWO

‘SIDI HASEM says that his group are already dangerously far out of their own territory. They were on a tribal raid and must withdraw before the Labdessah learn they are here,’ Hector informed his friends after he had rejoined them and told them of Ibrahim’s murder.

‘Can they help us rejoin the coffle?’ asked Bourdon. He was looking hopefully at the Tooaricks’ camels.

Hector shook his head.

‘We’ll never catch up. The caravan’s three days ahead of us. Old Abdullah won’t know what has happened, and the merchants certainly won’t turn back. They will presume that we were all killed by the Tooarick. That will make them travel away from us even faster, to save their own skins.’

‘So what do you suggest?’

‘Sidi Hasem is the denim, the leader of the raid,’ Hector answered. ‘He offered to carry us back to the Wadelim camp.’

‘And what do we do when we get there?’

‘He knows about the great river where the foreign men come with their ships. Every year the Wadelim send someone to a native market near the river to trade ostrich feathers and tree gum for blue cloth. This man could bring us there if we gave him a suitable present. Hasem didn’t mention the price or whom he had in mind as our guide, but I suspect he means he himself would take us if we gave him one of our muskets.’

‘Sounds like a bargain to me.’ Bourdon had experienced more than enough of the desert.

‘Saying that, Hasem and his men are carrying only enough water for themselves. With four more men, double-mounted on the camels, he warns it will not be comfortable as we have to travel fast.’

‘Can’t be much worse than what we’ve endured on the galleys,’ Bourdon declared confidently.

He was much less complacent six hours later when the Wadelim made a brief halt to roast strips of dried meat over a tiny campfire made from pellets of camel dung. The Frenchman lay on the ground, complaining bitterly that a camel’s bony rump had worn holes in the skin of his thighs and buttocks. The Wadelim had ridden at a fast trot, and Hector and his companions had clung on as best they could, using makeshift stirrups the desert people had fashioned for them from strips of cloth. But it had been an agonising experience, splay-legged, jolted on the camel’s spine and rattled against the wood and leather backrest of the Tooarick saddle.

‘Ask them what we will do when the water runs out,’ Bourdon asked with a groan. Hector relayed the answer with a mischievous grin. ‘Sidi Hasem says that when we are really thirsty, we drink camel’s urine.’

Fortunately the water ration held up long enough for the party to reach the Wadelim camp three painful days later. As they rode to the cluster of skin and wool tents hidden in a fold in the ground, Hasem warned Hector and his companions not to be seen staring at the flocks of long-legged goats grazing among the rocks and scrub nearby. The Wadelim believed that strangers brought the evil eye.

‘We don’t have to stay for long,’ Hector reassured Karp when the clan’s children ran away screaming from poor Karp with his ravaged face. They were convinced that he was a yenun, one of the grotesque evil spirits who emerged from the desert in human form to harm them.

‘Something has been puzzling me ever since we ambushed the Labdessah,’ Hector continued. ‘I never heard your gun go off, even though you were close by. And afterwards you did not need to reload. You never fired a shot at the camel rider, even though he was a mortal enemy. Yet when we hunted the ostrich, you hit your mark every time.’

Karp looked back at him. His face was strained.

Hector went on, ‘You have no need to worry, Karp. I also remembered the time we trapped Chabrillan, the man who had caused you so much pain and grief. You attacked him under the city wall and nearly strangled him. Yet afterwards you cried. Was it because you were ashamed of your violence?’

Karp nodded. Now his expression was one of release. It was as though he was being relieved of a burden.

‘You don’t believe in violence, do you? It is part of your religion, something that you believe in profoundly. That is what you preached in Kandia when you joined Chabrillan’s men when they fought the Turks. That is why you suffered all that time on the galley, and you never tried to expose the Chevalier. You did not want revenge. You believe in peace and forgiveness.’

Tears had filled Karp’s eyes.

Hector felt a surge of admiration. ‘Karp,’ he said, ‘you are a good man. It is my duty to tell the others that we cannot expect you to help us if we must fight our way to get clear of Moulay Ismail. But as long as I lead our little band, you will continue to be one of us.’

Sidi Hasem was so eager to earn his payment of a musket that the travellers stayed only long enough for him to assemble a consignment of trade goods. Then he led them southward, at a more sedate pace this time and with one man to a camel. They crossed a dreary flat countryside where the sun had baked the reddish brown soil as hard as marble. At night they camped under the sky or they stayed with other small groups of nomads friendly to the Wadelim who greeted them with bowls of zrig, camel milk mixed with water. Gradually the countryside became less austere. There were low hills and the occasional dry riverbed where, by digging in the gravel, they found a seep of water for their camels. Later they came across small wells. The shafts were dug so deep that they had to climb down wooden ladders to clear away a surface layer of blown dust and camel dung before they could fill their leather buckets. Finally they began to arrive at settlements, no more than a dozen or so mud huts which marked the outer fringes of the desert. Instead of zrig, they were given bowls of porridge made from millet. They had reached the land of cultivators. There, at a village known to Hasem, they left behind their camels and rode forward on donkeys, always heading towards the great river which now had a name. The local people called it the Wadnil.

The countryside continued to grow more luxuriant. They began to pass fields of grain guarded by old men and small boys who chased away flocks of thieving birds. There was pasture and woodland and herds of cattle. The people changed too. They were many more, living in village after village of round straw-thatched huts, and their appearance was very different from the sinewy, olive-skinned desert people. They were taller, loose-limbed and wore their wiry hair piled up on the top of their head in the shape of a pointed cap. Instead of flowing loose robes, the common folk dressed in no more than a small loincloth, and their women went bare-breasted, often with a baby slung on their back – a sight Hector had never seen before. As the travellers came closer to the river, more and more of the people they encountered were a deep midnight black, and their skins glistened for they loved to wash, then oil their bodies.

On the twentieth day of their journey their guide claimed his payment. ‘Tomorrow,’ he told them, ‘we reach the market where I will sell the ostrich feathers and gum. You continue south, and by mid afternoon you will arrive on the banks of the river you have been seeking. But you must hurry. The local people say that soon the Wadnil will shrink within its banks. Then the river traffic ceases. They also tell me that there is a foreign ship anchored, even now, in the river.’

‘That’s good news,’ said Hector. ‘I had thought we would have to go down to the coast to find a foreign ship.’

‘The local people also tell me that there are powerful merchants who resent the presence of this vessel. They see it as a trespasser, a danger to their trade. I think you know who I mean.’

‘Are you talking about traders from Moulay Ismail’s kingdom?’

‘Yes. To them this territory is their own. They come here to take away the elephants’ teeth, the gold, the slaves. They are like jealous hunters who believe that all the animals in a forest belong to them.’

‘It’s strange to think of merchants as hunters.’

Hasem frowned. ‘The merchants, as you call them, bully the people into handing over their possessions, and if they resist, they hurt them. If they want them as slaves, they simply seize them and carry them away. I am told that is what their lord Moulay Ismail does to them. So they do it to others.’

Suddenly Hector felt despondent. After so many days’ travel he had thought that he had heard the last of Moulay. Now, it seemed, the Emperor’s malign influence extended even to the banks of the great river.

The Tooarick was watching him closely. ‘There is more to tell you.’

‘What is that?’

‘The ship anchored in the river is a small vessel and has been in the same place for nearly two weeks. My informants don’t know why it does not leave, because soon the falling river level will trap the vessel. No one comes ashore seeking to trade. It just stays there. Perhaps you can join the ship. I think that is good news.’

‘And there is bad news as well?’

‘The local people also say that the traders from the north have heard about the ship. They are sending some people to drive it away, or maybe to capture it and seize its cargo. My advice is that you hurry. Try to reach the ship before they do.’

The following morning, after thanking Sidi Hasem and leaving him with Karp’s musket and most of their remaining stock of gunpowder, Hector and his three companions set out on foot. The road towards the river was well trodden, and they found themselves walking between thick, green plantations of palm trees and banana plants. The air was hot and oppressive so they were amazed at the costume of a local chieftain who was proceeding to the river ahead of them. The man was wearing what looked like a nightshirt of thick, stiff, striped cotton laced at the neck and extending to his ankles. He had a heavy felt cap, and his voluminous robe was hung with dozens of pieces of red coral, clusters of small seashells, amulets and charms which clattered and jangled with each step. The costume was so stifling and cumbersome that the chieftain was obliged to march along very slowly, accompanied by his squad of sword-bearing bodyguards. Hector decided it would be prudent to turn aside and use a footpath through the trees which after a little distance brought him and his companions out on a bluff overlooking the river itself.

The Wadnil was more than a quarter of a mile wide, its turbid brown flood moving steadily towards their right. On its surface floated large branches and the occasional fallen tree, its great bulk circling slowly in the current. It was obvious that the river level was already dropping. Mud banks were beginning to show in the centre of the river, and nearer at hand the shoreline was a broad expanse of rich, black mud, already cracking in the sun. A few canoes were drawn up on the bank, stranded by the receding water.

Lying at anchor in the middle of the river was a small ship. To Hector’s eye she was not much larger than the fishing boats he had known in his childhood. She had a single mast, from which flew a plain red flag, and a neglected air. A ship’s boat was attached by a rope to her stern. Her deck appeared deserted.

‘What do you make of her?’ he asked Dan.

The Miskito squinted against the glare of the sunlight. ‘She looks like the trading sloops that come to the Miskito Coast. At a guess I’d say she has a crew of no more than half a dozen. They must have had hard work getting her up here against the current.’ He dropped his gaze towards the riverbank below them. ‘Look who’s here!’ he said softly. ‘We should keep out of sight.’

The chieftain and his bodyguard had reached the landing place where the road came to the riverbank. With him was a Moor who wore a faded red burnous. He was the same man who had been spokesman for the coffle.

‘I wonder where the others are?’ Hector said.

‘There, about thirty paces farther along the foreshore,’ said Dan who had the sharpest eyes. ‘You see that big, grey tree trunk lying stranded? Men are crouched behind it. They’ve got muskets with them. I’d say that they’re the rest of the merchants from the caravan.’

There were shouts from below them. The group standing on the landing place was calling and waving towards the anchored boat. The chief was trying to attract the attention of whoever was on board.

‘The landing place is in easy range of the hidden guns,’ said Dan. ‘Whoever comes ashore from that boat, the minute they set foot on land, they’ll be shot down. The Moors can then use the ship’s boat to row out and capture the vessel.’

Hector glanced up and down the shoreline. ‘We must warn whoever is on the ship. This may be our only chance of getting downriver.’

‘We could fire a musket,’ suggested Bourdon. ‘That would warn them.’

‘No. It would also alert the Moors. They would not treat us kindly for interfering. Besides, if the crew of the vessel know they are in danger, they will raise anchor and sail away.’

‘Then what are we to do?’

‘We must get out to the vessel ourselves. Dan, what are our chances of using one of those canoes to reach the ship?’ Hector pointed to the canoes drawn up on the bank.

The Miskito looked at the craft, then said, ‘They’re dugouts, hollowed from a single log. Even the smallest will be too heavy to be shifted by the four of us. We’ll have to think of something else, and quickly. Someone on the boat is getting ready to come ashore.’

A figure had appeared on the deck of the anchored vessel. He was hauling in the ship’s boat. A second man was getting ready to assist him. In a few moments they would be starting out for the shore.

‘We’ll have to risk the musketeers,’ Hector said. ‘They are on the far side of the landing place from us, and may not be good shots. We wait until the ship’s boat is halfway across, then we leave our hiding place and run down to the shoreline. We’ll have the slope in our favour so we should be able to move fast, and we’ll have the element of surprise to help us. We should have covered most of the distance before the Moors even notice us. So we keep silent, just run like the devil.’

‘And what then?’ asked Bourdon.

‘We run right into the water, heading for the boat. We get to the boat before it’s in range of the musketeers, scramble aboard, and have the crew take us out to the ship.’

‘You’ve forgotten one thing,’ said Jacques quietly. ‘Neither Karp nor I can swim well. This time we don’t have empty barrels to float us.’

‘I hadn’t forgotten,’ said Hector. ‘If you look closely, you will see that the foreshore slopes very gently. Almost certainly it stays shallow for a long way out, far enough for you to wade out to the rowboat. It’s our only chance. We must reach the boat before it falls into the trap.’

He looked around at his companions. ‘No point in keeping your muskets now. Get rid of them. Strip off any clothing that may hinder you as you run. When I give the word, make a dash for it. As you run, spread out. That will make us a harder target for the musketeers. If anyone trips and falls, he must look after himself as best he can. The musketeers are bound to get off at least one shot, probably two. Any more will depend on how quickly they reload.’

He laid his own musket on the ground and unbuckled the belt that held his powder horn and stock of bullets. He removed his heavy sandals. Young Ibrahim had made them and he had planned to keep them as a memento of the young man. But running in bare feet was more important now. He pulled over his head the long loose shirt that he had worn in the desert. Now he was wearing only a pair of loose cotton drawers. The others followed his example, and when they were ready, he waved them forward. They crouched on the edge of the bluff, watching the ship’s boat moving closer. There were two men in her. They were rowing steadily, taking a slanting course to counteract the pull of the river current. They were nearly halfway to the shore.

‘Get ready!’ said Hector quietly. ‘See you aboard . . . let’s go!’

He stood up and launched himself over the edge of the bank. The face of the bluff fell away in a steep slope, part sand, part gravel. The surface was loose and crumbly, and he felt his bare feet slipping and slithering. He plunged onward, concentrating on keeping his balance. It was impossible to control his speed. The angle of the slope made him set one foot after the other just to keep himself upright. He could hear the sound of his companions as they too pelted down the hill. Belatedly he realised that he should have told them to swerve a little from side to side as they ran, to put the musketeers off their mark. But there was no sound of a shot. As yet they had not been seen.

He was almost at the bottom of the slope when he heard the shouts. Hector took another dozen strides before the explosion of the first musket shot. A moment later, there came the sound of a volley. He thought there was the sound of a musket ball whizzing past, but his breath was coming in great gasps so he could not be sure. He glanced around to see if anyone had been hit. To his shock he realised that he was the slowest runner of the four. Dan was several yards ahead of him to his left, and Bourdon was close behind him. Karp was level with him, a little distance away and running steadily.

Now they were on the level ground of the shoreline itself. The hardened mud of the beach was beneath the soles of his feet. It was easier to run without the fear of tripping or losing balance. The baked river mud stretched out before him, and he found himself wondering at the regular surface of plate-like cracks. He ran on.

He glanced to his left towards the rowing boat. The two men in it had heard the shots, and turned to see what was happening. They were resting on their oars. The boat had come to a standstill. In a few moments the current would catch it and it would begin to drift downstream. Hector hoped that the current would not take it out of reach.

His legs were tiring now and he could feel the air harsh in his throat. He forced himself to concentrate on taking steady strides. Soon he would be at the water’s edge, and then in the shallows.

Without warning his right foot broke through the crusted mud. In a shocking plunge his right leg dropped straight down into the slime beneath. It was as if he had stepped into thin air. He was thrown forward and sideways and slammed face down, the breath knocked out of him. As he fell, he felt an agonising pain in his ankle. He twisted to one side, desperately trying to free his leg, grimacing at the fierce, lancing pain, and he remembered what the coffle’s blind guide had said: a camel was uninjured when its foot broke through a crusted salt pan, but a horse would break its leg.

He looked up to see what had happened to his companions. Both Dan and Bourdon had turned back. They had seen him collapse. Now, to his mingled dismay and relief, they were hurrying towards him.

‘Here, let me get you back on your feet,’ offered Dan. He bent down and seized him by an arm. A moment later the Frenchman was on his other side, and had grasped him around the waist. Together they began to tug him clear. ‘Leave me,’ Hector gasped. His leg was buried up to mid thigh. ‘Run for yourselves. I’ll be able to manage.’

They ignored him.

‘Here, put an arm over my shoulder,’ Dan ordered. Working with Jacques, he wrenched Hector bodily upward. The trapped leg came out of the mud like a rotten tooth from its socket.

Several more muskets shots. Hector was amazed that no one had been hit. He tried to put his right foot on the ground, and gasped in agony. He almost fell again. Together his two friends began to carry him towards the water’s edge, Hector’s right leg trailing uselessly behind him.

‘I said, leave me! I’ll manage.’ He spoke through clenched teeth.

Again they ignored him.

‘Leave me, please!’ he insisted fiercely. ‘Three of us together make an easy target.’

Now he became aware of Karp. The Bulgar also had abandoned his headlong dash for the river, and had come to join them. He was hovering nearby, anxious to assist. Another musket shot rang out. It could not be long before one of them was struck down.

‘Karp! Run on,’ Hector pleaded. ‘Get to the boat. There’s nothing you can do.’

To his astonishment, Karp raised his hand in some sort of salute. Then he turned and began to run. But he did not run towards the shore. He ran directly towards the red-robed Moor still waiting at the landing place. As he ran he let out a great raw screech and began to flail his arms. He was like a madman, half-naked and howling with rage. There was a single musket shot, then a brief lull in the firing as the hidden musketeers decided what they should do.

In that pause Dan and Bourdon reached the shallows, with Hector hanging between them. The rowing boat was forty yards away, still motionless. As Hector felt the splash of water, he turned his head to see what was happening to Karp. The Bulgar was less than twenty paces from the man in the red burnous. Several of the other Moors had jumped up from behind the tree trunk and were running forward. The chieftain’s bodyguards had panicked at the terrifying sight. They were fleeing. Karp screeched again, a long piercing howl which could be heard clearly, and bounded forward like a wild beast. The remaining musketeers had gathered their wits and took him as their target. There came a ragged volley. Karp was impossible to miss. Several musket balls must have struck him for he sank down on one knee.

As Bourdon and Dan lifted Hector farther into the river, the boldest of the Moors ran forward, sword in hand. Hector had a last glimpse of Karp as the scimitar swung up in the air and came slicing down towards the Bulgar’s head.

Hector turned back towards the rowing boat. It was much closer. The two oarsmen were blacks. ‘Help us!’ Hector shouted.

His companions dragged him to where the water was up to their chests. Bourdon the non-swimmer could go no farther.

There was a peculiar whirring noise, closely matched by a gunshot. Hector realised that he was hearing the sound of a musket ball skipping off the water. The musketeers had turned their attention back to the fugitives now they had dealt with Karp. The range was too great for accuracy, but they were taking random shots, hoping to make a lucky hit. For a moment Hector felt like ducking out of sight beneath the surface of the river, but he knew it was futile. The gunmen would simply wait until he reappeared, then shoot. It was better to try to swim out of range. But he could not abandon Bourdon. Despite the excruciating pain in his leg, he and Dan would have to pull the Frenchman along with them as they swam.

Hector clenched his teeth. Every time he moved his injured leg, he felt a stab of pain from his ankle. Bourdon was reluctant to move out of his depth. ‘Come on, Jacques,’ Hector snapped angrily. ‘Dan and I will hold you up. Trust us.’ The Frenchman took a deep breath and floundered forward. He had the clumsy movements of a man who had never learned to swim properly. Hector reached out to hold his head out of water, and he was aware that Dan was supporting Jacques on the other side.

They made little progress. Bourdon was too frightened to relax. His frantic struggles only hindered them. Another musket ball struck the water just beside them – Hector saw the splash – and then went whirring onward.

Suddenly he felt Bourdon begin to sink. For a second he thought that the Frenchman had been hit. Then he knew that Dan had let go. Dan was swimming away.

Hector felt a brief surge of anger and disappointment. He had never expected Dan to abandon them. Then he looked up and saw that Dan was swimming strongly out into the river. He was heading towards the ship’s boat. It had stopped. One rower had dropped his oar in fright. The other rower was shouting at him.

Dan reached the rowboat. He gripped the gunwale and in one smooth wriggling movement had hauled himself aboard. He pushed the frightened oarsman aside and took his place. He barked an order at the man beside him, and began to spin the little craft. The musket fire from the beach had slackened. Hector wondered if perhaps the Moors were running out of powder and bullets. He concentrated on keeping Bourdon’s head above water until Dan had brought the little rowing boat close enough for him to grab on. He let go of Bourdon, who seized the boat so desperately that he nearly capsized it. With Hector pushing from below and Dan hauling him up, they hoisted Jacques into the boat, and a moment later the Frenchman was flopping on the floor boards like a landed fish. Then Hector pulled himself aboard.

The boat was over-loaded and sluggish in the water. Looking back towards the shore, Hector thought he could make out Karp’s body lying on the strand. There was the puff of smoke from a musket, but the bullet flew wide. A group of Moors was clustering around one of the dugout canoes. With the help of some blacks, they were beginning to shift it down the beach. Dan had been right. The dugout was an awkward burden, and they were making slow progress. There was still time to reach the anchored vessel.

Bourdon had recovered from his fright. He began to search for something to help the oarsmen. There was a wooden paddle lying half hidden in the bottom of the boat. The Frenchman tugged out the paddle and began to take great scoops at the water. The speed of the little boat increased. They were almost out of musket range.

Moments later they had reached the anchored vessel. Her side was low enough for them to scramble aboard without difficulty. On deck there were the usual heaps of rope, some sacks, wooden buckets. But no sign of life.

A musket shot, and this time the musket ball slapped into the side of the ship. The Moors had succeeded in launching their dugout, and it was now being paddled out from the beach. There was a single marksman in the bow. He had fired the shot. There must have been a dozen men in the leading dugout, and a second canoe was being launched.

Dan sprang into action. He ran forward to the bow, and began to throw off the coils of the anchor line. But the knots had jammed. He turned towards one of the two black men who had come aboard with them, and mimed a cutting gesture. The negro understood him at once. He groped under a piece of sacking. A moment later he produced a long-bladed knife and running up to the bows began to saw through the anchor line. The first strands sprang up as they were severed. The river current was so strong that the anchor line was taut as an iron bar. Half a dozen more strokes of the blade, and the anchor cable parted. Hector felt the vessel fall back as the current took hold of her.

‘Come on,’ Dan was standing at the foot of the mast beckoning. He had a rope in his hand. ‘Here haul on this! Jacques, you help him.’ Hector limped over and took the rope. Dan and the two blacks had begun to unfasten the bands which held the sail along the boom. Then he and Bourdon heaved on their rope and the upper spar rose, the sail opening beneath it. The blacks and Dan joined them and added their weight. There was no one at the helm so the boat was spinning slowly in the current. The riverbank was sliding past and above their heads the sail flapped three or four times. The gap between the vessel and the pursuing dugout was widening. ‘Almost there now,’ called Dan. ‘Make fast!’

The vessel began to gather pace. Looking aft, Hector saw the paddlers in the dugout had given up the chase. They were turning back to shore.

‘THERE WAS MUCH sickness on the ship,’ said a deep, husky voice. Hector swung round in surprise. The speaker was one of the blacks who had rescued them. The man noted his astonishment. ‘My name is Benjamin. I speak French and Portuguese also as I work with the foreign ships on the coast. When you ran down the hill, I thought you are runaway slaves so I wanted to help. I too was a slave once. Now I have been given my freedom. The foreign sailors call me a Laptot.’

‘We were slaves too, at one time.’

Now it was Benjamin’s turn to be taken aback. ‘Your dark-skinned friend here was a slave, that I understand. But I have never met white slaves before.’

‘We have reason to be grateful to you. Thank you for picking us up.’

Benjamin regarded him hopefully. ‘You are a ship’s captain?’

‘No. The most I’ve ever been is a captain’s secretary, or a galley slave. I’ve never been in charge of any ship.’

‘This ship needs a captain. The old one is dead, and so are the first and second mates. All died from the sickness. That is why we were anchored. We did not know what to do. Maybe it is your turn to help us.’

Benjamin went on to explain that he and his companion, another Laptot, had been hired when the sloop called at the Residence of St Louis, the French trading station at the river mouth. The two of them had helped bring the vessel upriver until, two weeks into their journey, a fever had broken out aboard. The hard-driving captain had refused to turn back. He insisted on proceeding until finally the crew were so short-handed that they had been forced to anchor and wait for the sickness to abate. But the fever had raged all the more fiercely. One by one the foreign crew had died until only the two Laptots were left alive. Unable to handle the vessel by themselves, they had been marooned.

‘What about the cargo?’ Hector asked.

‘We have touched nothing,’ Benjamin answered. ‘I will show you.’

Hector hobbled behind him as the Laptot led the way to a hatch, opened it, and disappeared below. As Hector’s eyes got accustomed to the gloom in the hold, he had a vivid recollection of the interior of the ship in which he had been carried away by Hakim Reis. But what he saw now was different. Along each side of the hull were built rows of shelves as if in a trading post. On them were stacked what looked like trade goods. There were bundles of chintz cloth, axe heads, knives, and iron agricultural tools, trays of brass medals. But many of the shelves were bare. They also seemed unnecessarily wide and the gap between them was barely eighteen inches.

‘Our captain had planned to go far upriver where there had been a native war. He was sure he would fill the shelves. He had already laid in stocks of food and water for the captives.’

Hector realised that he was looking at the interior of a slave ship. The wooden shelves were where the slaves would lie during the long passage to the Americas.

‘Where did the captain keep his papers?’

Benjamin showed him into a small cabin in the stern of the vessel. A quick search of the dead captain’s documents revealed that the vessel was the L’Arc-de-Ciel from La Rochelle. There were maps and charts of the west coast of Africa, of the mid-Atlantic, and the Caribees. There was no doubt that L’Arc-de-Ciel was a slaver.

Benjamin and Hector returned on deck. It was growing dark. Soon there would be the short tropical dusk, then nightfall. ‘Should we anchor for the night?’ Hector asked Dan. The Miskito seemed confident in his ship handling.

Dan shook his head. ‘Our remaining anchor is not heavy enough to hold us in this current. With a little moonlight we should be able to avoid the mudbanks. We had best keep going.’

Hector turned to the Laptot. ‘How far to the mouth of the river? When we get to St Louis, we can put you and your companion ashore. But we cannot visit the place there ourselves. One of us,’ he nodded towards Bourdon, ‘is a rowing slave who has run away. His former masters were French and would seize him.’

Benjamin looked doubtful. ‘What will happen to the ship?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Hector. ‘My friends and I are hoping to go to the Americas.’

Bourdon spoke up. ‘Then why don’t we try to sail this boat all the way?’

Hector looked at Dan. ‘Is that possible?’

Dan thought for a long time before replying. ‘It could be,’ he said cautiously. ‘We’ll need good weather. And our greatest difficulty is that we are so few aboard. Jacques, Hector and myself – that’s not enough to manage the ship.’

‘Then take us with you,’ said Benjamin suddenly. Hector blinked in surprise. Benjamin spoke urgently to his companion in their own language, then turned back to face the others.

‘If we return to St Louis, the governor will want to know what has happened to the ship. We will be accused of failing in our duty to the captain, or even of killing him and the foreign crew. We may be hung and certainly we will lose our freedom and be sold again as slaves.’

‘Can’t you go ashore somewhere else, not at the Residence?’

Again Benjamin shook his head. ‘We are Laptots. We were brought to St Louis as slaves, and our own homelands are far away. The local people would not accept us. Besides, without us you will never cross the bar.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘There are many sandbanks and mud shoals where the river runs into the sea. Ships can come in and out when the river is in flood, but now it is almost too late. This is the season when the sea breaks heavily on the bar, and it is very dangerous. It needs local knowledge to find a way through the obstacles and a travado to help us.’

‘A travado?’

‘A great gale of wind from the north-east, from the desert. The wind blows opposite to the sea, and drives back the waves. Also the ship is pressed forward and crosses the bar quickly.’

‘Then we must all hope for a travado.’

Benjamin appeared to hesitate, then asked, ‘Once we are out to sea, who will show us the way, who will navigate the ship? You said you were not a ship’s captain, but now you are sounding like one.’

Hector found himself saying nervously, ‘I’ve never navigated a ship before. But I think I can learn.’

WITH THE RIVER CURRENT sweeping her along, L’Arc-de-Ciel took less than a week to reach the bar at St Louis. Hector spent much of the time studying the dead captain’s sea charts and trying to understand his navigation instruments. The main item was a mystifying device as long as his arm and carefully stored in a cherrywood box. Its open frame supported two wooden arcs engraved with degrees of angle. Three small vanes were attached to each of the arcs, and he found he could slide the vanes back and forth. One of them was fitted with a lens. Puzzled, he took the instrument on deck and tried to use it. But it defied logic. He held the instrument up to his eye and tried looking through the lens. Then he slid the vanes to different positions. The angles they recorded made no sense. He turned the device around, and tried looking through it the other way. Still nothing worked. Bourdon strolled over to see what he was doing, and commented that he had seen an architect using something similar when he had visited the building work at Versailles. ‘It’s for measuring angles,’ he commented. ‘I know that already,’ snapped Hector, increasingly frustrated. ‘If I could use it to find the angle of the sun or of the north star, then it would be better than the astrolabe I learned to use among the Turks. There’s a book of tables among the captain’s possessions which gives the height of the sun or the star at different locations at different times of the year. With that knowledge I might even be able to take us to the Caribees.’

The Frenchman tactfully withdrew, leaving Hector to wrestle with his problem. Unexpectedly Benjamin provided the solution. He had seen the captain of a visiting ship use a similar gadget. Benjamin had thought the captain was touched in the head, for he had held the instrument to his eye in broad daylight and when facing out to the open sea. There was nothing on the horizon to look at. ‘You must be wrong, I’m sure he was measuring the angle of the sun,’ Hector growled. He was really irritated now.

‘No,’ the Laptot insisted. ‘He was looking out to sea. The sun was behind him.’

To save his dignity, Hector waited until Benjamin had walked away before, still doubtful, he turned his back to the sun, peered through the lens, and fiddled with the vanes. By chance he saw the shadow of a vane pass into vision and across a graded arc. He lifted the instrument until it was level with the horizon and adjusted the vanes again. He placed the vane’s shadow steadily on the arc, then brought the instrument down and took the reading. It was in the range of numbers in the captain’s book of tables. He had discovered how to bring the ship to her destination.

They stopped only once on the river voyage, a brief halt at a friendly village to take fresh supplies and top up their water barrels. Then they dropped downriver until they began to feel the rise and fall of the tide, and Benjamin warned that the Residence of St Louis lay just ahead. ‘We must stay close to the left-hand shore. The guns of the Residence do not reach that far. A few ships will be anchored in the roadstead, maybe a man of war also, but we can slip past them if the wind favours us.’ He pointed to the north. A small dark cloud could be seen, far in the distance. ‘I think we are lucky with the weather.’

As the day wore on, banks of thick, dark cloud formed on the horizon and began to coalesce into a solid black mass. From the underbelly of the clouds flickered distant flashes of lightning. Along the river there was an atmosphere of foreboding. The breeze dropped away and was replaced by an oppressive calm. The air seemed to thicken and become slightly opaque. It was difficult to breathe. The sloop glided on, her sails slack, carried only by the current. Hector listened carefully. There was a faint roaring sound far away. ‘What’s that noise?’ he asked Benjamin. ‘That’s the sound of the waves breaking on the bar. Let us hope that the travado reaches us before we are in the overfalls, and that the ship survives the wind.’

Half an hour later the storm broke. There was a tremendous thunderclap and a great gust of wind swept across the river, driving spray from the surface. The squall struck the sloop like a fist. With a loud clap of canvas, the mainsail bellied out, and the sloop heeled over. Hector heard the groan of the stays under the sudden strain. L’Arc-de-Ciel surged forward as Dan and Benjamin struggled to control her helm.

A peal of thunder close at hand, and suddenly the horizon was blotted out by torrential rain which reduced visibility to a few paces. Hector’s clothes were saturated in an instant. He remembered the long parched days in the desert and tilted back his head in sheer delight. He opened his mouth and let the rain pour in. When he swallowed, he could taste the faint grains of dust which the travado had brought from the interior. Benjamin appeared at his side, gripping him by the elbow. ‘Go help Dan at the helm,’ he shouted. ‘I will show which way to steer.’

When Hector reached the wheel, Benjamin was already standing in the bow, peering into the murk. He raised his arm and pointed away to starboard. Obediently they steered to his instructions. Now the rain was hissing down, ochre rain on a brown river, and it was impossible to tell where the air and water met. More thunder, a massive growl which seemed to shake the sloop. A tremendous crack of lightning split the gloom.

Moments later the sloop was bucking and lurching as she was caught in the overfalls. Out of the murk raced a continuous onslaught of breaking waves. A lightning flash close at hand lit their foaming crests and turned them blinding white. L’Arc-de-Ciel surged on, the wind driving her forward. Benjamin gestured again, urgently this time, and Dan and Hector spun the wheel to bring the ship on her new course. There was no pattern to the waves breaking on the bar. They came from different directions, now smashing into her bow so she was tossed backwards, now heaving up along her sides so that she slewed sideways.

They never glimpsed St Louis. For two hours they battled with the overfalls, trusting to Benjamin’s directions, ploughing onward until they were sure that the turbulence was easing. Then the little ship ceased her wild gyrations and, though she still pitched and rolled uncomfortably, there was no mistaking that she was sailing on smoother water.

By nightfall the rain had ceased. The sky was still overcast so it was impossible to tell when the sun set, but the wind had eased to a moderate breeze and the air felt washed and clean. Benjamin came back from his lookout in the bow, and announced that they had cleared the bar and passed through the anchorage as well. They were in open water. Hector went down to the cabin and brought up the ship’s compass and set it down beside the helm. ‘Steer west,’ he said to Dan. ‘Tomorrow I will check the charts and set course for the Americas.’ He looked up at the sky. As swiftly as it had arrived, the travado had swept onward and out to sea. The first stars were showing through rents in the clouds. He thought he recognised the constellation of Orion. Now he would use its stars to find his way across the ocean. He gave a slight shiver of apprehension. There was so much to learn, and it was so easy to make mistakes. He thought back to Ibrahim, his corpse lying on the sand and the crusted blood of the wounds where the Labdessah had speared him to death, because he had followed Hector’s plan to ambush the Tooarick. And he recalled his last glimpse of Karp, the glint of the scimitar as it descended in a killing stroke. Poor mutilated Karp had believed in peace and forgiveness to the end, refusing to resort to violence even as he found a way to save his friends. Despondently Hector wondered if Dan and Jacques had been wise to place their trust in him. Too often he seemed to bring death and suffering upon his comrades.

His sense of gloom deepened as he allowed himself to recall his final meeting with Elizabeth, only to find that the details of that heart-rending encounter were already blurred. It seemed that the ordeal of the long trek across the desert had not only separated him from her physically, but was part of a great void that was growing wider and wider. In a moment of unhappy clarity he knew that, although he might return one day to trace what had happened to his mother, he would never see or hear from Elizabeth again.

Then he heard someone singing under his breath. It was Bourdon somewhere in the shadows. Hector could not distinguish the words of the song but it sounded like a Paris street ballad. Clearly Jacques was in good spirits and looking forward to reaching the Americas. At the helm there was a slight movement as Dan adjusted the wheel to hold the little sloop on her westward course. The Miskito appeared untroubled by the violent and sudden changes of fortune of recent days. Hector found himself taking comfort from his friend’s composure. ‘What’s it like there, out in the Caribees?’ he asked quietly. There followed such a long silence that Hector thought Dan had not heard his question. Then the Miskito’s voice answered, ‘There are places more beautiful than anything you could dream, sea as clear as glass, sand so fine and white that it looks and feels like flour, wreaths of mist hanging over jungle-covered hills.’ There was another long pause. ‘The people who live there are no different from those we have already known. Some are honest. Others are rogues and cheats. A number are men who have known hardship and are seeking a fresh beginning. They are like ourselves. When you have brought us across the ocean and I have visited my people, maybe we should try to join them.’