In the King`s Name

10 BLADE TO BLADE

LIEUTENANT JAMES SQUIRE stifled a curse as he stubbed his foot against an iron ringbolt. By the time they all became used to the commandeered schooner the whole affair would be over. He tugged down his hat to shade his eyes from the reflected glare and examined her critically. She was about eighty feet in length and twenty at her beam.

He stifled a yawn, and it was not even the forenoon watch. They had cast off at an hour most landsmen would still consider the dead of night. Even the sounds had seemed louder: squealing blocks and muffled oaths as they edged away from other, sleeping vessels and hoisted the big gaff-headed mainsail. It had taken time, as all but a handful of Delfim’s original crew were ashore, under lock and key. Culprits or hostages, their fate would be decided later.

He tried not to look at the schooner’s master, standing beside Bolitho and an armed seaman.

Another footstep interrupted his thoughts. This time it was Murray, the surgeon. They had all been too busy to speak much, but Squire had asked him about Claire Dundas. Murray had evaded the question, saying only in good hands or a very brave young woman. In other words, nothing.

It was one of the seamen who had described the moment when Pecco had been identified as the man who had gone to the mission and raped her like a wild beast. Bolitho had not mentioned it. He was embarking on a chance operation which might prove either dangerous or complete folly.

Squire unslung the telescope from his shoulder and trained it toward the coast, in the far distance an uneven panorama of green and brown, with the hint of misty grey further inland that might have been a mountain ridge. And to starboard, the endless ocean.

He saw some of Onward‘s seamen resetting staysail and jib. Christie, a senior gunner’s mate, shouted, “Move yer bloody selves! Gawd ‘elp us if we runs into some real sailors!”

It was oddly reassuring to hear them laugh.

He looked at the compass beneath the sails’ shadow. One of Pecco’s men was at the spokes, and Bolitho and Tozer, master’s mate, were comparing notes. He thought again about the mission, the girl struggling in his arms, her shock and incredulity when he had wrapped his coat around her. She must have been expecting another assault.

Jago appeared in an open hatchway, grinning and hitting a metal basin with a ladle. “Up spirits, lads!” An even wider grin. “Stand fast, the ‘Oly Ghost!”

The age-old signal for a rum issue, but it could still bring some smiles.

Squire saw some of them lift their tots like salutes as Bolitho walked past them. But what was he thinking? Did he fear failure or personal loss, or death? And what of his lovely young wife?

“I need you in the chart space, James.” His tanned face relaxed into a smile. “Or should I say … Jamie?”

Later, Squire was still remembering it with a mixture of embarrassment and pride. No wonder men would follow their captain to the gates of hell. So would I.

Luke Jago leaned against the bulwark, chatting idly to the gunner’s mate crouched beside one of the Delfim’s stocky twelve-pounders. She mounted eight of them, all carronades, four on either side. In these waters every vessel needed some kind of protection if the worst happened, and it was certainly possible. Jago was past being surprised by anything.

Christie glanced up at him quizzically. “Load ‘em with canister, the cap’n says. Close action, d’ you reckon?”

Jago swore and slapped an insect crawling across his bare arm. “Catch bloody fever more like, Ted!”

Christie looked toward one of the main hatch covers. “I went below with Mr. Squire. She’s bigger than she looks. Mixed cargo, passengers mebbee-or slaves.” He lowered his voice. “What d’ you think, Luke?”

Jago watched the schooner’s master, Pecco, being taken forward under arms. “I’d trust a rat from the bilges more ‘n that scumbag.” He touched the hilt of his heavy cutlass. “One sign o’ treachery, an’ ‘e gets it first! Then the sharks can ‘ave ‘im!”

Christie grinned. “Glad you’re on our side!” Then he murmured, “Heads up!”

It was Lieutenant Sinclair, who, with twenty of Onward‘s Royal Marines, had been ferried aboard at nightfall. He looked like a stranger in a grubby shirt, without his scarlet coat and smart crossbelt. But somehow he was still a Royal Marine. He seemed preoccupied in making sure that his men were as comfortable as they could be below deck, and they obviously respected him. Jago shook his head. As an officer.

Sinclair glanced at the nearest twelve-pounder and said casually, “If we get that close, I’ll be relying on our bayonets!” He sounded almost unconcerned.

Not much of a choice, matey, Jago thought sourly.

Sinclair was saying, “We’ll be tipping some of the cargo over the side soon. Give us a bit more freeboard. We’ll need it when we move closer inshore.” He strode away. Smartly.

“Not a bad fellow,” Christie said, and paused.

They chorused together: “For a lobster!”

A voice, or perhaps a touch on his outthrust arm, and Adam Bolitho was instantly awake. He did not recall the moment he had fallen asleep.

So many times, so many different ships … faces … demands.

It seemed completely dark, then he realised that the only lantern was close-shuttered, and what light remained was partly hidden by the figure bending over him. It was Murray, his hawkish face in shadow.

He said only, “Squire said to call you, sir.”

Adam cleared his throat. It was painfully dry. “Thank you, Doc. All quiet?”

It was something to say, to give himself time while the shipboard sounds and movements brought him back to reality and purpose. The chair in which he had fallen asleep was as hard as iron. But sleep was necessary for him, and for those who might have to depend on his ability when the time came. Today.

Murray said, “No trouble, sir. But trust would be something else again.”

Adam’s eyes flicked around the box-like cabin, the chart space where Pecco, the schooner’s master, lived his solitary life. Adam had examined the available charts, and the crude map Pecco had drawn for him. Like a flaw in the coastline, with a protective scattering of tiny islets that might spell disaster for any larger vessel or complete stranger. He had discussed his final plans with Squire and Tozer, the master’s mate.

Pecco insisted he knew nothing about any slavers, only that he had heard it was a regular and safe rendezvous for several of them. He had offered the information as if bargaining for his own security, but would be doomed anyway if the slavers or those who controlled them ever learned of it.

Adam said, “I have no choice. But trust has to play its part, I’m afraid.”

Murray straightened up and reached for his familiar satchel. “I’ll be ready, Captain.” He moved away, out of the lantern light, and halted. “Seventy-odd years ago my grandfathers trusted in loyalty and obedience, at Culloden.”

The door creaked open and Jago peered in at them.

“Standin’ by.” He glanced at the uniform coat which was hanging from the deckhead. “Not this time, eh, Cap’n?”

Adam faced him. They might have been alone together, the marines squatting outside the cabin invisible. “Don’t you ever change, Luke!” He picked up his sword, and added curtly, “Be ready with the flag.”

He felt his way to the ladder and opened the hatch. The sky was still black, so that the tall spread of canvas stood out like wings against a sprinkling of pale stars. There was no moon. The compass light was tiny, but by its faint light Adam saw the faces turn toward him as he appeared on deck.

All the previous day, from the moment they had cleared the approaches to Freetown, they had sighted no other vessel, large or small. Somewhere far astern was a brigantine named Peterel, but Captain Tyacke had made sure no other ship would leave harbour in an attempt to overtake this schooner, to divert it or warn others of their intention.

Within the hour the dawn would show another empty sea, and a stretch of coast unknown except to the few who had braved it, some of them to their cost.

Squire called hoarsely, “Sou’ west by south, sir! Steady she goes!”

But it sounded like a question.

Adam plucked the shirt away from his skin; it felt clammy, almost cold. “Bring our prisoner on deck.”

He walked a few paces to the side and stared toward a mass of land darker than the darkness: one of the islets he had checked and checked again with the master’s mate breathing down his neck. They had no option. A straightforward and safe approach would be seen immediately by any vessel anchored there. Even Delfim’s master seemed uncertain.

He looked along the deck, faintly visible now in the first paleness of the coming day. A few dark shapes were standing or sitting in readiness to shorten sail, to alter course, and, if so ordered, to fight.

“All carronades loaded, sir. Canister.” That was Christie, gunner’s mate, one of the shadows.

He heard Squire clear his throat as he stood beside the compass box. Keeping his distance, or unwilling to distract him? He looked toward the land again, and thought he could see it lying like an unbroken barrier beyond the fin-shaped jib.

“I am here, Captain.”

“Are you ready?”

Pecco moved closer to the compass and tapped it with his knuckles. Adam thought he saw one of the nearby seamen reach out as if to prevent him.

Pecco said, “I gave my word, Captain. Will you give yours?”

“Any aid you give will be made clear in my report.”

Pecco breathed out slowly. “Then I must take the helm, Captain. I have the feel of her.”

Adam could sense both Squire and Tozer watching him. Their lives, too, were at stake. He saw Pecco look up at the canvas, still taut despite the nearness of land, and heard him say quietly, “I had no part in the killings at the mission.” He might have shrugged. “And the woman … Maybe I had a few drinks too many. At least she is alive.”

He eased the wheel to starboard and leaned forward to watch the compass. “South south-west.” He lifted his eyes briefly from the compass and seemed to grimace. “Not an easy passage!”

The canvas reacted very slightly until the schooner was back on course. The sound was not loud enough to muffle a metallic click as the armed seaman cocked his musket.

“Deep ten!” The call came from forward as one of Onward‘s best leadsmen took his first sounding. He barely raised his voice, but in the tense silence it was as if he had shouted.

Pecco muttered, “You take no chances, Captain.”

Adam gazed up at the masthead beyond the tattered Portuguese flag, and saw the first hint of blue. It was unnerving, with the sky almost hidden by the land as it crept out of the dimness like a groping arm. Or a trap.

“If the wind holds, Captain, we might need to shorten sail. We must alter course very soon now. We will sight a wreck to larboard.” Pecco even sounded as if he were smiling. “If some fool has not removed it!”

“By the mark, seven!”

Adam remembered other times, in other ships, when he had seen the vessel’s own shadow passing over the seabed. Not merely a warning but a threat. He could sense the others moving closer, even Murray, watching and recalling his own retort about loyalty and Culloden.

“By the mark, five!”

The leadsman was wasting no time. Skilled enough to make an underhand swing with his lead-and-line, he was feeling his way. Thirty feet beneath the keel. And the next cry …

“And now, Captain …” The wheel was turning steadily to larboard, as if they were steering headlong toward solid ground.

Adam tried to see the chart in his mind, and remember the sketches made by the man who was at the wheel beside him. He had nothing more to lose but his life. He swung round as the wheel began to turn faster. Pecco was using all his strength. There was a glint of light from the compass box, then, like a curtain being dragged aside, the sun was upon them.

Pecco shouted, “Now!” and Tozer joined him, adding his weight and experience as the spokes were dragged in the opposite direction. There in the sun, between mainland and islet, was the shining curve of the channel. The tall sails hardly appeared to shift; a square-rigger would have been hard aground by now.

Adam heard Jago urging more hands to trim the staysail and jib, and as they ran to obey some fell headlong over yet another unfamiliar obstacle.

Pecco steadied the wheel and looked up at the flag. “Never easy!” Then his eyes met Adam’s. “I know what you thought … It was in my heart.” He watched Tozer take over the wheel, and added simply, “Remember that, when the time comes.”

Adam trained his telescope on the widening stretch of water directly ahead. He did not recall having picked it up, and was disconcerted by the surprising heat of the metal and the dryness of his throat.

Pecco was clinging to a backstay, his face devoid of expression. Neither guilt nor triumph.

And there, fine on the larboard bow, was the wreck: it must have caught fire before running aground in the shallows. It lay like a blackened carcass, the timbers like charred ribs. Nobody spoke or moved as they glided past, and when the leadsman called from the forecastle it seemed an intrusion.

“An’ deep ten!”

They were through, undetected, and ahead was the sheltered inlet. It needed skill and strong nerves, but there always had to be a “first time.” Adam raised the telescope again and saw the nearest beach leap into focus in the lens, some ragged undergrowth almost to the water’s edge in places, elsewhere pebbles, washed white by sun and salt. His grip tightened. Two canoes pulled well clear of the water. Furrows in the sand where they had been dragged ashore. Recently.

“Seen them afore, Cap’n.” It was Jago, powerful arms crossed, but fingers still close to the cutlass.

The canoes were typical of those used to ferry wretched captives from stream or beach to the ship destined to carry them into slavery. Adam could never understand how so many survived. Slavers were known to sail from this coastline to destinations as far away as Cuba and Brazil. It was inhuman beyond belief.

Pecco said suddenly, “Another two miles. Maybe less.” He spread his hands. “There may be nothing to discover.”

Jago murmured, “Then pray, you bastard!”

Squire strode aft. “I have two good lookouts aloft, and both boats ready for lowering. There’s not much else-”

Adam’s expression silenced him. “If I should fall …” he said.

Squire said only, “Then I’ll be lying there beside you.”

They both looked in the direction of the forecastle as the leadsman completed another sounding.

“By the mark-” It was as far as he got.

The explosion was more like an echo than gunfire, and for a few seconds Adam was reminded of the early fog-warnings, the maroons he used to hear as a child in Cornwall. Local fishermen always claimed they did more harm than good.

Squire exclaimed, “So much for trust!” and was reaching for his pistol even as Adam stepped between him and Pecco, who was cupping his hands around his eyes and shaking his head in protest.

“No, no! Not us, Captain! Lookouts in the hills!” He gestured wildly. “If a trap was intended they would have been waiting in the channel!” Now his eyes were fixed on the barrel of Squire’s pistol. “I tell the truth!”

Adam said slowly, “Another ship. My guess is she’s Captain Tyacke’s brigantine.” A few more seconds while he groped for the name. “The Peterel.”

Squire uncocked his pistol and thrust it into his belt. He said, not looking at Pecco, “Your lucky day!”

Pecco said, “I have done all I can!” He pushed past two seamen and vomited in the scuppers.

Adam swallowed and looked away, forcing himself to concentrate on the strip of headland, which was tilting toward a widening expanse of water beyond the jib. “Warn all hands below.”

Jago said, “Done, Cap’n.” Aside to the gunner’s mate, he added softly, “Now or never, eh, Ted?”

After the slow and torturous passage past-and sometimes among-the offshore islets, their arrival was startling in its suddenness. From Delfim’s deck the anchorage was a lagoon as large as an enclosed lake, but from the yards and upper shrouds the keen-eyed lookouts could see the final outcroppings of land, and beyond, like a blue-grey barrier, the great ocean.

Once lying here, a ship would be invisible to any passing patrol or casual trader. In the strengthening sunlight the water seemed calm and unmoving, but the sails were taut and straining, and the tattered Portuguese flag was streaming.

Adam moved a few paces away from the wheel and trained his telescope across and ahead of their course. Individual faces stood out, gazing at the islets or beyond at the green mass of the mainland. One frowning in concentration or apprehension, another with lips pursed in a silent whistle. Men he had grown to know and understand. Who trusted him, because they had no choice.

And the doubts, which always remained in close company, the ambush when you least expected it. Like his own if I should fall. Who else would these men look to?

He thought again of his uncle, Sir Richard Bolitho, his last words on that fateful day. We always knew. His coxswain, John Allday, had heard him, and James Tyacke had written it in the flagship’s log immediately after the action. We always knew.

He wiped his smarting eye with the back of his hand and focused again, and for a moment imagined his mind was too strained to concentrate. A ship was almost broadside-on, filling and overlapping the field of view, stark against a backdrop of trees and a narrow strip of beach.

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.