The Sword And The Dagger
Page 21
CHAPTER NINETEEN
During the course of years of contact with the west, the black crew of the Ghost had become more familiar with the English language. Bongo could now talk fluent English and was a most valued member of the crew; he spent all his spare time teaching his numbered crew friends. It was his ability to communicate with the African people that were saved from the slave ships that really made a difference.
Bongo was a BaKongo tribesman from the inland region of the Congo delta and had worked in a slave factory at the port of Soyo, learning some English language there. He became more valuable because of his ability to learn languages. This had come about as he was from the royal family of his tribe, and had been attacked by warring factions of the Kings of Dahomy and enslaved. This provided him with his first opportunity to encounter different languages.
The more slaves a tribe had the wealthier they became. Bongo was eventually purchased by the captain of the Ghost when it was the Pacific Star with ten other black slaves as crew after the Pacific Star’s crew went missing in Soyo on a night out, never to be seen again. Buying slaves was relatively easy: the Star had put into Soyo by necessity after being damaged by a bad storm and the captain had traded some weapons he carried with the slave factory to acquire his crew.
The Ghost put into Soyo, accompanied by twenty-two other pirate ships that made up the fleet in mid-October. The Ghost was known by the slavers, as saved slaves had returned with stories of the Ghost and its quest; this was not well received by the powers at hand but Fial's fleet manpower numbered nearly three thousand seamen with frigates and galleons that could easily lay the town to waste. Fial made it clear through Bongo that any problems or non-cooperation would be meet with dire consequences. Only a small contingent of sailors went ashore at any one time leaving the ships well manned for attack.
Fial informed the Portuguese members of the colony who had turned the area to Christianity many years before of his intention to base his fleet in Viana do Castelo, Portugal to plunder the French merchant shipping as far up as the English Channel. This produced mixed reactions as the French were putting Portugal under attack along a big inland border front and the port’s operations and power were the deciding factors that would make it difficult for Napoleon to take Portugal. Those with homeland factors at heart applauded the idea but those with fingers in the slavery pie were not so quick to condone the pirate fleet. Politics prevailed as the price by the British on Fial's head had been dropped and the alliance with the British was a powerful factor in proceedings with the Portuguese; England and Portugal had been allies for a long time.
Fial's fleet was restocked without incidence, Fial using gold and silver recovered from the Valencia to pay for the exchange. Fial was able to inspect the slave trade chain first hand, visiting the slave factory where Bongo had once worked. The scale of the operation and the conditions in which people were processed shocked the most hardened fighting seamen in Fial’s fleet. Dealing in booty of gold, silver precious gems and weapons they condoned; no one approved of the sights they encountered. The slave trade had gone on for many centuries in the area and local people were oblivious to the process even after being converted to Christianity.
Fial inspected at close quarters a slave carrying ship and was distressed to find it was built in the British port of Plymouth. People were chained in rows on two decks with barely room to move and no toilet facilities. It was carrying up to six hundred slaves; the stench of death was embedded in the ship’s timber.
Fial had not seen a slaver in one piece as they had always been wrecked on the shoreline prior to his previous inspections. The scale of things became apparent to Fial with nearly ten thousand slaves being processed in the factory. This was only part of the organisation’s dealing in slaves and a large extent of the problem seemed to be with Africa's own people. These things made a strong influence on Fial, changing the concept of his vision. As he walked the streets with members of his crew he became angry as deals were offered to acquire the English-speaking Africans. Two were taken at gunpoint at the dock. Fial refused to part with them stating they were valued members of his crew and also friends.
Fial ordered a bombardment of the city fortifications and the Castela. A ninety gun man of war captured from the Spanish by a British dissident opened up on the coastline, destroying the guard towers and wall footings above the harbour’s river tip fortification. Before the fleet's three first class ships of the line with over one hundred cannon each could position themselves to attack, the two members of Fial’s crew were found and hastily returned. Fial McMurrin, a simple farmer's lad from Bantry Bay, Ireland and a born leader, had become a major force in anyone's reckoning.
Fial was furious and demanded an audience with the Portuguese consulate. He vowed he would free all who sailed from the port as slaves and sink any ship with allegiance to the French or Spanish. Fial had tolerated the presence of two Corsican frigates in Soyo port that had been ousted by the French for acts against the state and were now involved in slave escorts to the Americas. He demanded they be barred from the port immediately so that the Ghost could sink them.
An audience was arranged with the Corsican captains, Fial finding they had a quest and wished to join his fleet. Their quest was the defeat of Napoleon who had taken their land and killed their families; when they retaliated they were declared pirates and a price put on their head. The Ricard brothers from Corsica were known to Fial as valued captains of the French navy and survivors of many French gunboat battles, one being the battle of Trafalgar.
Pierre Ricard, captain of the Mercury, an eighty cannon French frigate, and his younger brother Didier Ricard, captain of the sixty-five gun captured British frigate the Invincible, became the twenty-third and twenty-fourth members of Fial's fleet. One week after they had dropped anchor in Soyo the fleet set sail for Viana do Castelo, Portugal. A twenty-fifth ship sailed with them at the head of the fleet: the Portuguese man of war Evelyn, given to the Portuguese ruling House of Braganza by King George the third as a token of goodwill between the rulers of the countries. She had fled the port of Lisbon with a member of the House of Braganza aboard and with Fial's fleet in tow was going to return to Lisbon pick up further members of the House of Braganza and make a break for Brazil, a powerful, safe colony of Portugal in the South Americas. Moves were afoot to place a British army in Portugal under the command of Arthur Wellesley in 1808 to counter the French invasion of its ally and the British were attempting to convince the Portuguese royalty to flee to England until it was safe for their return.
The Ricard brothers had a young, African cabin boy who played a banjo, a common instrument in Africa. Fial disapproved of his treatment amongst the crew of the Mercury captained by Pierre Ricard. He was given to Fial with his instrument with information that his name was Berry. Cameron, in charge of lower deck on the Ghost, did not know where to house the young lad; Fial suggested to chuck him in with Bongo. In an error of the written word his name became Chuck Berry; he became synonymous with beating out a strange rhythm on his banjo to the rocking and rolling of the ship’s passage across the waves. Fial seemed to think what the lad was doing may amount to something one day should it be fostered through time.