by Wilbur Smith
You like to live dangerously? " St. John smiled the question.
Oh, no. " Clinton shook his head. "I am in no danger.
In my experience, slavers are all cowards."
Mungo St. John's smile disappeared, extinguished instantly, and his expression was coldly murderous, but his fingers never broke the rhythm of cut and ripple, and the cards flowed under his fingers as Clinton went on evenly, "I was led to believe that so-called Louisiana gentlemen had some exalted code of honour, he shrugged. "I suggest, sir, that you are a living contradiction of that notion."
Every listener was stunned. Not one of them could doubt what they were hearing; the accusation of slave dealing. To an Englishman, there could be no worse insult.
The last English duels had been fought in 1840 when Lord Cardigan shot Captain Tuckett, and in 1843 when Munro shot his brother-in-law Colonel Fawcett. In consequence of these encounters, the Queen had made her desire for reform known, and the articles of war were amended in the following year, making duelling. an offence. Of course, gentlemen still went abroad, mostly to France, to settle affairs of honour with pistol or sword.
But this was Cape Colony, one of the jewels of the Empire and the Naval Captain was one of Her Majesty's commissioned officers. The evening had proved diverting beyond any expectations, and now there was the promise of blood and violent death charging the gaming-room. Gentlemen, " an urgent persuasive voice interrupted them. The Admiral's flag-captain had come through from the whist room at the Admiral's orders. "There has been some misunderstanding."
But neither of the two men as much as glanced in his direction. I don't think there has been any misunderstanding at all, Mungo St. John said coldly, his gaze still locked with Clinton's. "Captain Codrington's insults cannot possibly be misinterpreted. "Mr. St. John, may I remind you that you are on British soil, subject to Her Majesty's laws. " The flag-captain was becoming desperate. Oh, Mr. St. John sets little store by laws. He sails his slave ship, fully equipped, into a British harbour. " Clinton stared at the American with cold blue eyes. He would have gone on, but St. John interrupted him harshly, speaking to the flag-captain but addressing the words to Clinton Codrington. "I would not dream of abusing Her Majesty's hospitality. In any event I will sail with the tide before noon this day, and in four days I shall be far beyond Her Majesty's territory, in latitude 31" 38" south. There is a wide river mouth there, between tall bluffs of stone, a good landing and a wide beach. It is unmistakable. " St. John stood up. He had recovered his urbane air, and now he adjusted the ruffles of his shirt front and gave the lovely widow his arm. He paused for a moment to look down at Clinton. -, Who knows but that you and I may meet again, when we must certainly discuss the question of honour once more. Until then I give you good morrow, sir."
He turned away and the spectators fell back ahead of him and seemed to form a guard of honour as St. John and his lady sauntered casually from the room.
The flag-captain flung one furious glare at Clinton. The Admiral wishes to speak with you, sir, and then he hurried after the departing couple, followed them down the curve of the staircase and caught up with them at the double doors of carved teak. Mr. St. John, Admiral Kemp asked me to convey his compliments He sets no store by the rash accusations of one of his junior captains. If he did, he would be obliged to send a party aboard your ship. "None of us would like that, St. John nodded. "Nor the consequences. "Indeed, the flag-captain assured him. "Nevertheless the Admiral feels that, in the circumstances, you should take advantage of the next fair wind and tide to proceed on your passage. "Please return my compliments to the Admiral, and convey my assurance that I will clear the Bay before noon."
At that moment the widow's coach came up, and St. John nodded distantly to the flag-captain and handed the lady up the steps.
From the deck of Black Joke they watched the clipper raise her anchor, her master skilfully backing and filling his topsails to run up on her cable, and break the anchor flukes out of the mud and sand of the bottom of the bay.
As soon as it was free, he piled on his canvas, sail after sail bursting out in quick successive explosions of brilliant white, and Huron tore eagerly out of Table Bay on the south-east wind.
She would be out of sight beyond the lighthouse. at Mouille Point for almost four hours before Black Joke was ready to follow her out of the bay. The Admiralty powder barge was alongside, and all the elaborate precautions for taking on explosives were in force. The red swallow-tail warning flag at the masthead, the boiler fires in the engine room extinguished, the crew barefooted, the decks kept wet with a constant stream from the hoses to prevent a chance spark, and each powder barrel carefully inspected for leakage as it came aboard.
While the engineer refired his boilers the last members of the Ballantyne expedition came aboard. Once again, Zouga's letters of introduction had proved invaluable, and together with his persuasive manner had provided him with the most valuable addition so far to his expedition.
Old Tom Harkness had warned him during the long night discussion, "Don't try to cross the Chimanimani Mountains without a force of trained men. Beyond the narrow coastal belt there is only one law and it is promulgated from the muzzle of a gun."
On the strength of the letters, the commander of the Cape Town garrison had allowed Zouga to ask for volunteers from his regiment of Hottentot Infantry. "They are the only natives of Africa who understand the working of a firearm, Harkness had told him. "They are the devil with drink and women, but they can fight and march, and most of them are hardened to fever and famine. Pick them carefully and watch them every moment, night as well as day."
Zouga's request for volunteers had been most enthusiastically received.
By reputation the Hottentots could scent plunder or a willing lady from fifty miles, and the pay and rations that Zouga offered were almost thrice that of the British army. They had volunteered to a man and Zouga's difficulty had been in selecting ten of them.
Zouga had taken an instant liking to these wiry little men, with their almost oriental features, slanted eyes and high cheekbones. Despite appearances, they were more African than almost any other breed. They were the original inhabitants that the first navigators had found on the beach at Table Bay, and they had taken readily to the white min's ways, and more than readily to his vices.
Zouga had solved his problem by making one selection only. This was a man with an ageless face, it might have been forty years or -eighty, for the skin was the colour and texture of a papyrus parchment, each wrinkle seemed to have been eroded into it by wind and driven dust, but the little peppercorns of hair that covered his skull were untinged with silver.
I taught Captain Harris to hunt elephant, he boasted. Where was that?
" Zouga demanded, for Cornwallis Harris was one of the most famous of the old African hunters. His book The Wild Sports of Africa was the great classic of the African chase.
I took him to the Cashan mountains. " Harris's expedition to the Cashan mountains, which the Boers now called Magaliesberg, was in 1829, thirty-one years previously. That would make the little Hottentot somewhere between fifty and sixty years old, if he were telling the truth. Harris did not mention your name, he said. "I have read his account carefully."
Jan Bloom, that was my name then. " Zouga nodded.
Bloom had been one of Harris's most intrepid hunterretainers. Why is your name Jan Cheroot now? " Zouga asked and the dark eyes had twinkled with pixie merriment. Sometimes a man gets tired of a name, like he does of a woman, and for his health or his life he changes both The long military-issue Enfield rifle was as tall as Jan Cheroot, but it seemed an extension of his wizened little body. Pick nine other men. The best, Zouga told him, and Sergeant Cheroot brought them aboard while the gunboat was working up a head of steam in her boilers.
Each man carried his Enfield over his shoulder, his worldly possessions in the haversack on his back and fifty rounds in the pouches on his belt It needed only the "Rogue's March" to welcome them, Zouga thou
ght wryly, as he watched them come in through the entry port, each one bestowing upon him a beatific grin and a salute so vigorous that it nearly swung the donor off his feet.
Sergeant Cheroot lined them up at the rail. Their original scarlet uniform jackets had suffered strange mutations to ten different shades, ranging from sunfaded pink to dusty puce, and each peppercorn head wore its brimless infantry cap cocked at a different angle from all the others. Thin shanks were bound up with grubby puttees, and brown bare feet slapped the oak planking of the deck in unison as Cheroot brought them to attention, Enfields at the slope and happy grins on each puckish face.
Very well, Sergeant. " Zouga acknowledged the salute. Now let's have the packs open, and the bottles over the side."
The grins wilted, and they exchanged crestfallen glances, the Major had looked so young and gullible. You hear the Major, julie klomp dam skaape. " Gleefully Jan Cheroot likened them to "a herd of stupid sheepin the kitchen Dutch of the Cape, and as he turned back to Zoup there was for the first time a gleam of respect in the dark eyes.
There are two passages from which a ship may choose when sailing the southeastern coast of Africa. The master may stay outside the 100-fathom line which marks the edge of the continental shelf, for here the opposing forces of the Mozambique current and the prevailing winds can generate a sea which seamen call with awe the "100 year wave', a wave over 200 foot from crest to through, which will overwhelm even the sturdiest vessel as though it were a drifting autumn leaf. The alternative and only slightly less hazardous passage lies close inshore, in the shallows where the rocky reefs await a careless navigator.
For the sake of speed Clinton Codrington chose the inshore passage, so that always the land was in sight as they bustled northwards. Day after day the shimmering white beaches and dark rocky headlands unreeled ahead of Black joke's bows, sometimes almost lost in the smoky blue sea-fret, and at other times brutally clear under the African sun.
Clinton kept steam in his boilers and the single bronze screw spinning under his counter with every sail set and trained around to glean the smallest puff of the wind, as he drove Black joke on to the rendezvous that Mungo St. John had set. His haste was symptom of a compulsion that Robyn Ballantyne only began fully to understand during those days and nights that they drove east and north, for Clinton Codrington sought her company constantly and she spent many hours of each day with him, or all of it that could be spared from the management of the vessel, beginning with the assembly of the ship's company for morning prayers.
Most naval captains went through the motions of divine service once a week, but Captain Codrington held prayers every morning and it did not take Robyn long to realize that his faith and sense of Christian duty was, if anything, greater than her own. He did not seem to experience the terrible doubts and temptations to which she was always such a prey, and if it had not been unchristian to do so she would have felt envy for his sense and secure faith. I wanted to go into the church, like my father and my elder brother, Ralph, before me, he told her. Why did you noWThe Almighty led me into the path He had chosen for me, Clinton said simply, and it did not seem pretentious when he said it. "I know now He meant me to be a shepherd for His flock, here in this land, and he pointed at the silver beaches and blue mountains. "I did not realize it at the time, but His ways are wonderful. This is the work He has chosen for me."
Suddenly she realized how deep was his commitment to the war he was waging against the trade, it was almost a personal crusade. His whole being directed at its destruction, for he truly believed that he was the instrument of God's will.
Yet, like many deeply religious men, he kept his belief closely guarded, never flaunting it in sanctimonious posturing or biblical quotation. The only time he spoke of his God was during the daily prayers and when he was alone with her on his quarterdeck. Quite naturally, he assumed that her belief matched, if not outstripped, his own. She did nothing to disillusion him, for she enjoyed his patent admiration, his deference to the fact that she had been appointed as a missionary, and when she was truthful to herself, which was more and more often these days, she liked the way he looked, the sound of his voice, and even the smell of him. It was a man's smell, like tanned leather or the pelt of an otter she had once had as a pet at Kings Lynn.
He was good to be near, a man, as the pale missionary initiates and medical students she had known, had not been men. He was the Christian warrior. She found a comfort in his presence, not like the wicked excitement of Mungo St. John, but something deeper and more satisfying. She looked upon him as her champion, as though the deadly assignation to which he was hurrying was on her behalf, to wipe out the knowledge of sin and to atone for her disgrace.
On the third day they passed the settlement on the shore of Algoa Bay, where the 5,000 British settlers brought out by Governor Somerset forty years before in 1820 had landed and still eked a hard existence from the unforgiving African earth. "The white flecks of painted walls looked pitifully insignificant in that wilderness of water and sky and land, and at last Robyn started to come to some small understanding of the vastness of this continent and how puny were the scratches that man had made upon it. For the first time she felt a small cold dread at her own temerity that had brought her so far, so young and so inexperienced, to venture she was not sure what. She hugged her shawl about her shoulders and shivered in the cutting wind that poured in off the green sea. The Africa she had dreamed of so often seemed harsh and unwelcoming now.
As Black joke closed swiftly with the rendezvous that St. John had appointed, Clinton Codrington became quieter, and was more often alone in his cabin. He understood clearly the ordeal that faced him. Zouga Ballantyne had discussed it with him on almost every occasion that presented itself. Zouga was unwavering in his opposition to the meeting. You have chosen a formidable opponent, sir, he told Clinton bluntly. "And I mean no offence when I say I doubt you are a match for him with either pistol or sword, but he'll choose pistols, you can wager on that. "He challenged, " Clinton said quietly. "My weapon is the naval cutlass. We will fight with those. "I cannot support you there. " Zouga shook his head. "If there was a challenge, and I could make a case against that, but if there was one, it came from you, sir. If you fight, it will be with pistols."
Day after day he tried to persuade Clinton to miss the rendezvous. Damn it, man. Nobody fights duels any more, especially against a man who can split the cheroot in your mouth with either hand, at twenty paces. " Or again, There was no challenge, Captain Codrington, I was there, and I would stake my honour on it. " At another time, "You will lose your commission, sir. You have Admiral Kemp's direct order to avoid the meeting, and it is obvious that Kemp is waiting for an opportunity to haul you before a court martial. " Then again, "By God, sir, you will serve no one, least of all yourself, by being shot to death on some deserted and Godforsaken of breakers, in the deep, where the shoal water turned from pale green to blue.
Clinton Codrington examined her carefully through his telescope, then without a word passed the instrument to Zouga.
While he in turn glassed the big clipper, Clinton asked softly, "Will you act for me? " Zouga lowered the glass with surprise. I expected one of your own officers. "I could not ask them. " Clinton shook his head. "Slogger Kemp would mark their service records if he ever heard of it. "You do not have the same qualms about my career, Zouga pointed out. You are on extended absence from your regiment, and you have not been expressly ordered, as I and my officers have been."
Zouga thought quickly, duelling was not so seriously considered in the army as it was in the Royal Navy, in fact the army manuals still maintained no express prohibitions, and a chance to meet with St. John was also a last chance to avert this ridiculous affair that so seriously threatened the continuance of his expedition.
I accept, then, " Zouga said shortly. I am extremely grateful to you, sir, said Clinton as shortly. Let us hope you are as grateful after the business is over, Zouga told him drily. "I had best go across to Huron
right away. It will be dark in an hour."
Tippoo caught the line as it was thrown from the gunboat's whaler, and held it while Zouga gathered his cloak and jumped the gap of surging green water to the boarding ladder, clambering up before the next swell could soak his boots.
Mungo St. John waited for him at the foot of the mainmast. He held himself unsmiling and aloof, until Zouga hurried to him and offered his right hand, then he relaxed and returned the smile.
ISODamn it, Mungo, cannot we make an end to this nonsense? "Certainly, Zouga, Mungo St. John agreed. "An apology from your man would settle it. "The man is a fool, Zouga shook his head. "Why take the risk? "I don't consider there is any risk, but let me remind you he called me a coward. "There is no chance then? " The two of them had become good friends during the weeks they had spent together and Zouga felt he could press further. I admit the fellow is a prig, but if you kill him, you'll make it damned awkward for me, don't you know? " Mungo St. John threw back his head and laughed delightedly. "You and I could work together, do you know that, Zouga? You are a pragmatist, like I am. I make a prophecy, you'll go a long way in this world. "Not very far, if you kill the man who is taking me."
And Mungo St. John chuckled again and clapped a friendly hand upon his shoulder. I'm sorry, my friend. Not this time, and Zouga sighed with resignation. You have choice of weapons."
Pistols, said Mungo St. John. Of course, Zouga nodded. "Dawn tomorrow on the beach there. " He pointed to the land with his chin. "Will that suit you? "Admirably. Tippoo here will act for me. "Does he understand the conventions? " Zouga asked doubtfully, as he glanced at the half-naked figure that waited near at hand. He understands enough to blow Codrington's head off at the shoulders if he levels his pistol a moment before the signal. " Mungo St. John flashed that cruel white smile. "And that's all he needs to know, as far as I am concerned."
Robyn Ballantyne slept not a minute during the night and it still lacked two hours of dawn when she bathed and dressed. On an impulse she chose her old moleskin breeches and man's woollen jacket. There would be the need to disembark through the surf from the ship's boat and skirts would hamper her, added to which the morning was damp and chill and her jacket was of good thick Scottish tweed.