A Perilous Alliance

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  ‘I don’t think Mr Bones likes him much,’ I said. ‘The first mate. When we came on board, we saw Garnett kick a boy down a companionway and Mr Bones saw as well. He said the lad was his nephew and he remonstrated with Garnett.’

  We stopped talking then, alerted by the sound of bolts being drawn back and by a savoury smell. The door opened and pat on the mention of his name, Bones came in, accompanied by his nephew, each of them carrying a tray. Bones’ tray held earthenware beakers and jugs respectively of wine and water, while his nephew was carrying food on his; a tureen of stew, some bread, spoons and wooden platters.

  Bones kicked the door shut behind him and the trays were put down on the tops of two barrels, since there were no tables. Bones ignored the rest of us but looked at Kate.

  ‘This is a bad business, my wench. You’ve been cozened and led into a trap and I’m not the only one that thinks so. Nothing we can do about it, yet it’s on my mind and I’ll admit I think it’s wrong. But you’ll have to make the best of it.’ His eyes now moved to take all of us in. ‘Best eat your food. Vittles are good on the Lucille. You’ll likely fetch higher prices if you look fit and your buyers’ll treat you the better for it.’

  ‘How many men are there on this ship?’ Brockley asked. ‘There’s you two and the captain and we’ve seen a couple more. That’s five. How many others?’

  Bones looked surprised. ‘Fourteen all told. Have you got some notion of escaping? Forget it. Two men and four women? You’d have no chance.’

  ‘Captain Garnett,’ said Brockley, ‘apparently doesn’t pay his men as well as some of you would like but still keeps you all in order by some unknown means. What is it?’

  ‘Now how would you know that?’

  ‘Captain Garnett told me,’ said Kate, in a small defiant voice. ‘He told me himself, back when …’

  Her voice died on a sob. Bones studied her, out of thoughtful, light-coloured eyes, and once more shifted his gaze to the rest of us, as though in appraisal while his nephew began to ladle stew into bowls.

  ‘It’s true enough,’ he said slowly. ‘We all reckon he gets good prices from that rats’ nest on Lundy – Barbary pirates they are – and he says that that side of his business is separate from his ordinary cargoes and passengers, and he don’t expect us to work at it as part of earning our ordinary wages. It’s special, and we get a share of the profits. It all sounds mighty convincing but there’s a powerful lot of risk and it goes against the grain with some of us and there’s been a lot of talk about our shares not being all they should be. Except maybe with Myers and Yellow-Eyes, otherwise known as Leo. They’re a wicked pair, as bad as he is, and we reckon he keeps them sweet by paying them better from the proceeds of his slave sales than he pays us.’

  ‘It sounds as though some of you aren’t that loyal to Garnett,’ observed Brockley. ‘But don’t you actually know what he gets for his sales to the gentlemen from Barbary?’

  ‘We know what the captain says he gets,’ said Bones. ‘There are rules we all understand. Cap’n says he divides the slave proceeds into twenty shares. That’s one for each man, including himself, and six over – two extra for me as first mate, and the rest for Garnett as captain. Only thing is, we’re never sure what the whole sum is. Yes, he tells us, but we wonder sometimes if he tells the truth. There’s a man aboard who says he’s sure he doesn’t – a fellow called Magnus Clay who’s been a slave in his time, but escaped and got home to England. He knows something about the rates for slave sales. Are you asking who loves Garnett and who doesn’t? That’s no secret but it makes no difference to you. Leo and Myers like his company and there’s about four others don’t mind him. The rest of us aren’t so affectionate but we don’t have much choice. What of it?’

  ‘Seven or so on each side, then,’ said Brockley persistently. ‘Just what do you mean when you say you don’t have much choice? Is that to do with whatever he meant when he told Kate that he had methods of keeping hold of his crew?’

  ‘Yes. He’s got something on all of us,’ said Bones with a shrug. ‘We leave him; he’ll set the authorities on to us – without coming out of the shadows himself. There’s two wanted ashore for highway robbery, and one for coining – that’s Magnus – and Leo’s wanted for murder.’

  He grinned in a rueful fashion. ‘I don’t know exactly what he has on the rest but it’s something. I got mixed up with him after I knifed someone in a brawl and I wanted to get out of the country. It was a fight over a girl,’ he explained. ‘They’re more tolerant of things like that in France, so it’s said. Only I can’t speak French and I’ve been a seaman all my life anyway. I just took a berth on a ship, any old ship would do, I thought, as long as she was sailing straight away. The Lucille was ready to sail and she was going foreign. So I picked her.’ He snorted, as if in exasperation with himself.

  I exchanged a quick glance with Brockley. Here, surely, was a potential ally.

  ‘Garnett got it out of me, why I was so eager,’ Mr Bones told us. ‘I always did talk too much though I reckon there’s no harm in talking to you. What can you do if there’s naught we can do ourselves? We start anything and lose the fight, and if he don’t hang us himself, he’ll see us strung up by the lawmen on shore. There’s no doing much against Garnett. Which is a pity.’ His nephew, who was now filling glasses and offering a choice of water or wine, muttered: ‘Yes, it is!’ quite passionately at this point.

  Joseph, emerging from his usual silence, said: ‘How did you come to be here, lad? Did you knife someone, too?’

  ‘No, he’s my brother’s son and he was left an orphan before I had my brawl,’ said Bones. ‘I took him on, and when I ran for it, I brought him with me because I didn’t want to leave him alone. He was a few years younger then, but Garnett said he could use him. And so he does; works him all day and half the night, if you take my meaning. Don’t he, Jacky boy?’

  ‘I hate him,’ said Jacky simply.

  Kate was staring at the two of them in horror. ‘What … what do you mean? Does he … I mean, is he …?’

  ‘He’s not fussy who shares his bunk. Male or female, either’ll do,’ said Jacky. Kate looked sick.

  ‘Don’t upset yourself, my wench,’ said Bones. ‘He’s all over Jacky at the moment, and when he’s like that, he likely won’t bother any of you ladies. You should be glad. Well, I’m weary enough of being no more than a prisoner in Garnett’s hands and not even decently paid for my work, and seeing my own flesh and blood used as a catamite. But I tell you, there’s too much fear on this ship – fear of the power the captain has over us, and fear of Myers and Leo as well. They’re like his bodyguards. Since I’ve been aboard, Garnett has killed two men with the cat. Deliberately. He just carried on until they died.’

  I shuddered.

  ‘Money,’ said Joseph thoughtfully. ‘Don’t they say: money talks?’

  We all looked at him and I picked up what was in his mind. ‘I’d reward anyone who helped us out of this mess,’ I said. ‘And reward him well. And keep his secret, whatever it may be. Tell me, if you think the captain isn’t paying his crew proper shares, what does he do with the money he gets for … his business?’

  ‘He wouldn’t want to leave his money ashore, though as far as I know there ain’t no price on his head yetawhile, cunning fellow that he is. We mostly deliver passengers safely to where they want to go, so as yet, his reputation hasn’t come to harm. A group like you is a lucky chance for him. All the same, he don’t care to put his money in the hands of bankers. He keeps it in a strongbox bolted to his cabin floor,’ said Bones. ‘With a massive great padlock on it. We daren’t tamper with that. Wish we could. If some of the men could see what they’ve been cheated of, well, that might annoy them. But before they’d got worked up enough to do anything about it, I fancy he’d have seen any damage to the padlock and there’d be the devil to pay.’

  ‘Are you saying,’ I asked him disbelievingly, ‘that in a shipload of villains, nobody knows how to pick a lock?’ />
  ‘I daresay several could,’ said Bones. ‘But it’s too dangerous. I told you, he knows too much about some of us and …’

  ‘You mean no one’s ever had the guts to jump ship?’ enquired Joseph.

  Bones was wearing a coarse linen shirt under a sleeveless woollen jerkin. He held out his left hand and rolled up the shirtsleeve. On the back of his wrist was a brand, vivid red against the weather-browned skin. ‘My initials, AB for Alfred Bones,’ he said. ‘Our revered captain did that when he decided that I was useful and he wanted to keep me. If I went ashore and didn’t come back, he’d hire a messenger and send word anonymously to the local constable that one Alfred Bones, wanted for killing a man in a knife-fight, had been seen in the district, and there would be a description of me, including mention of this brand. Any conscientious constable would want to get his hands on me, and send me back to the authorities in the place where the killing took place. I’d be in peril for life. Garnett has a full set of brands in the shape of the alphabet. That’s part of how he holds us.’

  ‘You could tell a pretty tale yourself. About him,’ Brockley pointed out.

  ‘Who’s to believe the word of a man wanted for a grave offence, with the loss of a hand, or death from a rope, awaiting him? Garnett has actually carried his threat out twice to my knowledge.’

  ‘I still think the brand is a poor way of exerting control,’ snorted Brockley. ‘Sailors have all sorts of marks on them, rope burns and scars, all manner of things. When I was in the army, years ago, there was a fellow who’d been a sailor, voyaging all over the place and he had his wife’s name – Mary – printed on to his right arm in some way. He’d come across some wild tribe or other that did it by cutting the skin and rubbing pigment into it. It sounded awful and he said he wouldn’t do it again, but there it was, anyway.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Bones. ‘But the truth is I think Garnett likes doing it. He enjoys it best when his victims scream. I didn’t but to this day I don’t know how I stopped myself.’

  ‘Ugh!’ I said.

  Sybil asked: ‘Were the two men who did run away, actually arrested?’

  ‘Who knows? Maybe not, but they still carry their brands and it’s true enough that someday, somewhere, someone may recognize them by that, someone that knows that a man with that brand is wanted for murder or coining or what you will. No one wants to take the chance. One day, maybe, he’ll go too far and the spark will explode but not yet.’

  ‘Are we making straight for Lundy?’ I asked. ‘Or putting in anywhere for provisions? If so, will Garnett go ashore then?’

  ‘We’d go straight there if the wind was right,’ said Bones, ‘but as it is, we’ll be doing a snail crawl along the Channel. We’ll put in at the Isle of Wight for fresh meat, I expect. Some of the crew will go ashore, to do that and just for the break, and Garnett will certainly step on to the Isle to find some amusement for himself. He likes a fresh playmate now and then,’ said Bones disgustedly. ‘One he can just leave behind after a night or two.’

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘Because I can pick a lock and I’ll be only too glad to pick this one.’

  But Bones would have none of it. ‘Too dangerous, by half,’ he said. ‘The captain locks his cabin; you’d have to open that as well. What if someone came on us?’

  ‘We’d have to pick our moment,’ Brockley said. ‘While the captain’s ashore and everyone else is occupied in some way. But it’s worth trying, surely!’

  I said: ‘Would anyone ever go into the captain’s cabin while he was ashore?’

  Bones thought not, which meant that once inside with the door closed behind us we should be safe enough, but it was still no use. ‘Something goes wrong, you’d be put in irons and Garnett might have me flogged. He’d hold me responsible, as his deputy. You’d do better to make up your minds to a new life. It might not be so bad, you know. You could find yourselves in good households, in a warm climate.’

  ‘Or horrible households in a sweltering climate,’ said Brockley, but Bones was adamant.

  ‘It’s far too dangerous, even though I don’t like the slave trade and no more do some of the men. Take Magnus Clay …’

  ‘Magnus is a strange name,’ said Sybil irrelevantly.

  ‘Named after a Norwegian grandfather, I think,’ said Bones. ‘Like I said, he’s wanted for coining. Things got too hot for him in England and he tried to get away to Ireland but the ship he was on was attacked by the Lundy gang and he was taken to the Mediterranean and forced to be a sailor on a cosairs’ ship. He’s a small man, too small to make a rower, but nippy and spry for going up the rigging. He got away one day when the ship was anchored off Naples. He saw an English ship anchored nearby. Most sailors can’t swim – won’t learn. They’d sooner drown quick after a disaster than swim around for hours and then drown after all. But Magnus wasn’t a sailor before, and he can swim right enough. He took a split-second chance and dived off the rigging. Got to the English ship and got taken aboard and found himself, poor devil …’

  ‘On the Lucille? A bad choice, like the one you made. I see,’ said Brockley, and added: ‘Does she often go foreign?’

  ‘Yes, often enough. Depends where the cargo’s going. But we don’t deliver slaves direct to North Africa; not good economics since they’d have to be fed. Now, a cargo of timber or leather or ironware don’t eat much. And why bother, when there’s a pack of scoundrels on Lundy, ready to pay well for a good catch? When Magnus came aboard his ship, he found that Cap’n Garnett had heard of him. Knew of his past the minute Magnus told his name and out come the branding irons. Magnus hates the slave trade but he’s as scared of Garnett as the rest of us. Though not so scared that he hasn’t told us what he knows about the prices slaves can fetch.’

  We were silent, digesting this. Bones regarded us with regret. ‘Magnus and me and one or two others would slip you ashore gladly but the captain always leaves someone he trusts to guard our shoreboats and make sure no one who shouldn’t sneaks down the gangplank when we’re quayside. Then someone would suffer for being careless about locking your door. No, my friends. You’d best just give in to fate.’

  He said no more. He and Jacky gathered up our used cups and dishes, and took them away. The bolts crashed home behind them. ‘So that’s that,’ said Brockley glumly.

  Sybil said hopelessly: ‘What has happened to Ambrosia? I’ll never see her again or even hear of her!’

  ‘I’ll never see my home!’ said Kate.

  They wept. Dale and I were lost in the silence of despair. In my mind, I saw the face of little Harry and heard him asking Tessie when his mother would come home. But his mother never would come home. We would never meet again unless, somehow …

  ‘Sybil,’ I said, ‘if we ever do get out of this, we’ll go straight in search of Ambrosia. I promise. I understand you now.’

  She held out a hand to me and I took it and sat down beside her, and we stayed like that, taking what comfort we could from the warmth of our clasped palms.

  And the voyage went on.

  NINETEEN

  Hidden Treasure

  Our situation was wretched. Why, oh why hadn’t Walsingham sent us help? If he had acted quickly enough, this would never have happened. I recalled, with bitterness, how both Sir Robert Dudley and Ambrose Billington had told me that I wasn’t a slave. Now, it appeared that slavery was to be my doom after all. And not just mine.

  There were small, embarrassing miseries on top of the obvious ones. We had no means of washing, either ourselves or our linen. ‘We shall soon start to smell,’ said Sybil miserably. ‘And we’d better not put clean things on too often. We don’t know how long we’ll be imprisoned here. I thank heaven I’m not due for a course for two weeks yet, and I know Dale doesn’t have them any more. I don’t know about Ursula.’

  ‘Not for over two weeks,’ I said. ‘We needn’t worry about that for the moment, at least!’

  We had buckets in which to relieve ourselves or be sick in, and seasickness did afflict
Joseph for a while. With creakings and lurchings, the Lucille thrust her nose this way and that across the Channel, against a strengthening wind and, judging by the motion, the sea was rough.

  The first bitter day drew on towards nightfall. Leo brought us our evening food, accompanied by another crewman, a most unprepossessing fellow, crude of feature. On his left cheekbone was a wen with a great tuft of dusty-coloured hair growing from it. He looked at us contemptuously and clearly saw us as nothing but animated cargo.

  After they had gone, Joseph remarked: ‘Even if we could get at that there strongbox and what we found started a mutiny, it wouldn’t necessarily save us. Now, would it? This gang of criminals would hang their captain or shove him overboard, and then sail on to Lundy and sell us just the same.’

  ‘They might, or they might not,’ said Brockley. ‘They aren’t all so happy with the slave trade, it seems. If only we could get out of this cabin! If we could, then I’d say we must take the chance even if it’s not a good one. We must try. What have we to lose? While we’re anchored at the Isle of Wight and a lot of the crew go ashore as well as the captain, that would be the time to try something. If only we could just get out of this place! I don’t know how we can stop them from bolting us in.’

  Various schemes were discussed. If we could manage to overpower whoever brought us food that day, we might escape that way – except that once we were out, someone still aboard would very likely see us and raise the alarm, and we didn’t know how to find Garnett’s cabin, anyway. Could we take whoever brought the meal hostage in some way, or …?

  Nothing seemed feasible. Nothing seemed remotely realistic. We argued among ourselves, growing angry because we were desperate.

  The shadows deepened in the cabin. My resourceful Brockley brought out his tinderbox and a couple of lanterns and lit them. We sat about, gazing at each other’s unhappy faces. The yellow light seemed to show up every line and hollow, and every pair of eyes seemed sunk into a pit. The wind wailed.