‘Masthead there! Anything happening in the harbour?’
‘Deck there!’ came the reply. ‘There be a proper cluster of boats all round where that Peregrine were moored, sir. Pulling stuff from the water, and towing busted timbers to the shore, for the most part. That big bugger be setting up her masts, of course. But that be all.’
‘A jolly boat is approaching from the schooner, sir,’ reported Preston.
‘I shall return to my quarters,’ said Clay. ‘Have our visitor shown below when he arrives, if you please.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
Back in his cabin, Clay took his place behind his desk once more. He removed all the documents and books from its surface, and locked them in a drawer. Then he sat back, uncomfortably hot in his coat now that the frigate was no longer moving.
‘Shall you be wanting to offer this Frenchie a glass, or shall I have a pot of coffee fetched up from the galley, sir?’ asked Harte.
‘Too damned hot for coffee,’ said Clay. ‘And I shall certainly not be extending him any hospitality until I am a deal clearer as to why he is here.’ Through the open skylight came the hail and reply as the schooner’s boat arrived alongside. There was a long pause, and then the sound of approaching footsteps outside his door, followed by the expected knock.
‘Come in,’ said Clay. Midshipman Russell entered, accompanied by a short, deeply tanned young man. The red hair that Clay had noticed earlier was accompanied by a full ginger moustache set above a smile of flashing white teeth. Close to, his visitor’s clothes seemed expensive. The grey coat was beautifully tailored and lined with satin, and his pale yellow britches were accompanied by a waistcoat of yellow calico and a cream silk neckcloth. One of his thumbs was hooked into his pocket; he extended the other hand towards Clay.
‘This is Monsieur Boisgard, owner of the schooner Étoile D'espoir, sir,’ reported the young officer.
‘Thank you, Mr Russell,’ said Clay. ‘Will you wait outside, please.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
The French visitor remained standing with his hand extended, and Clay rose to his feet and grasped it.
‘Welcome aboard, monsieur,’ he said. ‘Will you take a seat.’
‘Thank you, Captain,’ said Boisgard. He pulled his coat tails apart and settled himself on the chair. Then he pulled out a small silver box from his coat pocket. ‘Would it inconvenience you if I took a little snuff?’
‘Please do so,’ said Clay, ‘after which you can provide me with an explanation for your presence here.’
Boisgard smiled his thanks, flipped open the box, revealing a tiny rural scene painted in enamel on the surface, and transferred a generous pinch of brown powder onto the top of his hand. With his other hand, he snapped the box closed, returned it to his pocket, and after a brief rummage, reappeared with a large handkerchief. Then with a deft bob of his head, the Frenchman loudly inhaled the snuff. A pause followed while he looked past Clay for a moment, his dusty nose aloft and his eyes blinking. Then he released a gargantuan sneeze into the handkerchief, and blew his nose loudly.
‘My thanks, Captain,’ he resumed. ‘A dreadful habit, I confess, but one I am quite unable to stop. And may I congratulate you on your attack last night? A bold move, full of the dash we have come to expect from the English navy.’
‘It is kind of you to say so,’ said Clay. ‘But surely you did not come out from Pointe-à-Pitre just to offer me compliments, monsieur?’
‘No, I had other reasons for my visit,’ said Boisgard. ‘The garrison are recovering bodies from the harbour as we speak. Many are beyond recognition, as might be expected after such an explosion, but others are not. If we were to find any from your crew, we would be happy to return them to you, to deal with according to your customs.’
‘Thank you, that is kind,’ said Clay, watching his visitor carefully.
The young man crossed his legs and brushed some particles of snuff from his britches. ‘We had no idea that such a fine vessel as yours was so close at hand,’ he commented.
‘Surprise is often important in warfare,’ said Clay.
‘So I understand,’ said his visitor. ‘Well, you achieved it in a most admirable fashion last night.’
‘I am certain that we are both busy men,’ said Clay. ‘I do not want to be impolite, but may I ask again? Why are you here, monsieur?’
‘I am a close friend of the governor of Guadeloupe, who asked me to call on you.’
‘I see,’ said Clay. ‘Do you have any credentials to confirm that?’
‘No, Captain,’ said Boisgard. ‘My visit is made in a more private capacity, if you follow me.’ Clay didn’t, but there was something in his visitor’s manner that intrigued him.
‘I think I may understand,’ he said. ‘Harte, would you serve the Madeira.’ Once both men had drinks, Clay continued. ‘What may I do for his excellency?’
‘He wishes to understand if you are to stay long in these waters, Captain?’ said Boisgard.
‘And why would he think to ask such an impertinent question, monsieur?’
‘Because we have grown accustomed to the presence of Captain Camelford and his Daring,’ said Boisgard. ‘Will he be returning soon, Captain?’
‘Surely the governor must know that I am not at liberty to discuss such matters with you,’ said Clay. ‘Our nations are at war, after all, monsieur.’
‘Regrettably they are at present, although I understand from the captain of the Centaure that negotiations have begun between our governments, and are progressing at a satisfactory pace.’
‘The Centaure, sir?’ queried Clay. ‘Would that be the handsome seventy-four currently setting up her masts?’
‘Seventy-four? I believe I heard tell of eighty guns, although I am sure you understand these matters better than I,’ said Boisgard.
‘Eighty guns, of course,’ said Clay. ‘She will be one of Monsieur Sané’s magnificent creations, I don’t doubt. Harte, some more Madeira for my guest, if you please.’
The Frenchman accepted a refill from the steward, and then regarded Clay over the top of his glass. ‘In Captain Camelford’s absence, am I to understand that your ship will be blockading Guadeloupe, Captain?’
‘Things can change quickly during a war, but let us assume that is correct,’ replied Clay.
‘And did you and Captain Camelford have the opportunity to discuss the situation here, before his departure?’
‘We spoke of many things.’
‘That is excellent to hear,’ said the Frenchman, looking at his host in an expectant way.
‘Where exactly is all this leading, monsieur?’ asked Clay. ‘Can you not speak with a little more candour?’
‘Candour can be difficult, with a person one has only just met,’ said Boisgard.
‘Monsieur, I slept very little last night, and I have much to occupy my time,’ said Clay. ‘It is you who wanted to see me. I understood you to say that you spoke on behalf of the governor. What is it he wants to say to me?’
Boisgard looked at Clay for a moment, and then put his glass down. ‘His excellency would like to know, in light of the events of last night, if his agreement with Captain Camelford remains in place.’
Behind his calm, steel-grey eyes, Clay’s mind was a whirl. An agreement? With the French? What treachery was this? But beneath his simple outrage, he was also busily searching his memory. Almost immediately another battered trading schooner came to mind, similar to the one that had brought this strange, dapper little man across.
‘He did indeed speak of an arrangement that might prove advantageous to me,’ said Clay, pressing his fingers into a steeple. ‘If I was to permit the odd vessel to pass, such as the Saint Christopher.’
‘Ah, monsieur, for a moment I thought I was dealing with a zealot!’ The Frenchman let out a sigh of relief, and then wagged a finger towards Clay. ‘You seemed very angry for a moment there. I could see it, in your eyes.’
‘Sorry to have alarmed you,’ laughed Clay. ‘But C
aptain Camelford was not able to give me the particulars of how the agreement worked, exactly.’
‘Oh, as for that, it is simplicity itself!’ exclaimed Boisgard. ‘You and I agree the odd day when you will choose to inspect another portion of Guadeloupe’s extensive coastline. In your absence, a trading schooner or two come and go from Pointe-à-Pitre, and a deposit is made with a representative of your choosing in Antigua.’
‘Of course,’ said Clay, smiling at his guest as everything fell into place. ‘These vessels take French sugar out, I collect?’
‘Naturally, and return with some of the necessities we lack in Guadeloupe.’ The Frenchman tapped the pocket of his coat. ‘Snuff, for example.’
‘How elegant an enterprise,’ enthused Clay. ‘Might I be in the presence of its architect?’
Boisgard bowed low in his chair. ‘So, I can inform the governor that the arrangement can continue?’
Clay gave his guest a beaming smile. ‘No, you most certainly cannot,’ he said.
‘No!’ repeated the Frenchman. ‘But I understood you to say …’
‘Harte, would you pass the word for Mr Russell, and ask the marine sentry outside my door to step this way.’
‘What are you doing!’ said his guest, rising from his chair.
‘Pray remain seated, monsieur,’ barked Clay. ‘Mr Russell, my compliments to Mr Taylor, and he is to send an armed party to take possession of the Étoile D'espoir.’
‘But this is an outrage!’ exclaimed Boisgard. ‘I came under a flag of truce!’
‘Is your vessel a national ship of France, monsieur?’ asked Clay.
‘No, Captain, it is a private vessel …’
‘And are you an officer of the French state?’
‘I am a simple planter and ship owner,’ said Boisgard. ‘But I come on behalf of the governor.’
‘Without a letter or any credentials to confirm your position,’ said Clay. ‘You have no right under the rules of war to the protection of a flag of truce. Why, you are little more than a smuggler and a blockade runner! From your own mouth you are guilty of corrupting one king’s officer, and of attempting the same on another here today. A scrap of white cloth will not deflect me from my duty. Furthermore, I suspect your ship to be sheltering at least one Royal Navy deserter.’
*****
Without her captain on board, and menaced by the Griffin’s huge eighteen-pounders, the Étoile D'espoir put up no resistance to the boarding party that swarmed onto her deck from the frigate’s longboat. Taylor’s sullen deserter was apprehended and taken across to the frigate, the captured schooner was sent off to Antigua with a prize crew, and the Griffin resumed her patient watch on Pointe-à-Pitre. Each of her sweeps across the bay ended with gunfire from the battery, while inside the port, the upper masts and yards of the Centaure rose steadily into the Caribbean sky, like so many huge black crucifixes, as the warship prepared for sea.
Meanwhile the routine of the frigate continued. The morning’s sail drill had been completed before the schooner had come out, and after she left, the afternoon was devoted to gunnery practice. Watch followed watch, through the day, until the sun disappeared behind Guadeloupe’s smouldering volcano, and the waters of the bay turned to silver in the fading light. Enjoying the balmy evening on the frigate’s lee gangway was a group of off-duty sailors, sitting taking their ease.
‘Plum duff tonight, lads,’ commented Evans as he sniffed the air. ‘Bleeding lovely!’ A waft of heat from the galley chimney had brought the smell of cooking streaming across the forecastle.
The air temperature was still uncomfortably warm, and most of the group had burns that throbbed hot beneath the dressings that covered them. In spite of this, the prospect of eating steaming suet pudding in the tropics didn’t seem to distress any of the hungry sailors.
‘Them feckers on Hog Island are done burning powder for the night,’ said O’Malley, who was standing at the rail watching the battery. ‘Maybe’s they’re after having their own scoff.’
‘I ain’t sure as we should be vexing them, sailing so close at each pass,’ commented Mudge. ‘That big ship over yonder be fully rigged now. It’ll be hell to pay when she comes out.’
‘It be a touch late for that, Larcum,’ commented Trevan. ‘Pipe taking that schooner will have them in a proper fury, coming after us slipping into Pointy Point, as easy as kiss my hand.’
‘Easy as kiss my arse, you mean!’ exclaimed O’Malley. ‘You and O’Brien was sat in the fecking boat, while we was all getting braised. ’Twas like a foretaste of hell! Christ only knows when my whiskers will come back.’ There were mutters of agreement at this.
‘Good to be alive, mind,’ said Sedgwick, his face shiny with goose fat and strangely altered with both eyebrows gone. ‘And all thanks to Larcum here.’ He leant towards Mudge, and slapped his shoulder.
‘I doesn’t want no fuss,’ mumbled the sailor.
‘Not sure as Midshipman Russell will agree,’ commented the coxswain, ‘Good Grunter, is Rusty, who ain’t the sort to take credit as is due to another. He reckons last night’s work might make the news sheets. Fancy that!’
‘Fancy,’ repeated Mudge quietly, looking out to sea.
‘Come along there, mate,’ urged Evans. ‘No call for turning shy! We was done for, afore you found that bleeding bolt hole for us to scarper through.’
‘Every barky has the same, to let the carpenter come at the ship’s side,’ explained the reluctant hero. ‘Wings, they calls ’em. There ain’t no call for carrying on about it.’
‘Wings, eh? I suppose that must be right,’ said the Londoner. He scratched idly at his shirt and then paused to sniff the cloth. ‘Bloody hell! I stink like a chimney sweep.’
‘Did I hear tell of some turncoat they found on board that there schooner?’ asked Trevan.
‘Aye, one of our jacks as had taken up with the Frogs,’ confirmed Sedgwick.
‘What became of him?’ asked Mudge.
‘Pipe’s keeping him close,’ said the coxswain. ‘He didn’t send him into Antigua with the prize. Instead the Lobsters have him, down in the lock-up.’
‘Ugly looking fecker,’ said O’Malley. ‘Big lad, so he was, with an old scar running across his gob.’ The Irishman ran his finger over one side of his face. Mudge watched the track it followed, his face expressionless.
‘Be it a match for Powell’s?’ asked Trevan, indicating where the heavily scarred boatswain’s mate stood on the far side of the forecastle, chatting to a fellow petty officer.
‘No,’ conceded the Irishman, ‘Powell’s is proper nasty, but ’tis a fecking beauty, all the same.’
‘My Pa used to say how there weren’t no call to fear blokes with scars,’ said Evans. ‘It’s the bleeder what scarred them you needs to be alive to.’
At that moment four bells rang out from the belfry close by them.
‘Scoff at last!’ exclaimed O’Malley, and the sailors rose to their feet, stretched like cats, and joined the mass of hungry sailors all heading towards the lower deck.
In the midst of the swirling movement, Sedgwick found himself alongside Mudge, by accident or design. He leant over and whispered in his ear. ‘You keep your secrets close, mate. There ain’t none here as will grass on you, but be warned. There be plenty of shrewder heads on board than Big Sam. The next time you be asked about last night, I should have a decent yarn to hand, if I were you.’
*****
Their steaming bowls of plum duff seemed to have had little detrimental effect on the crew of the Griffin later that night. Nor did the stifling atmosphere on the lower deck, warm as a cattle shed, with only a trickle of air filtering down from the world above. Most of the crew had taken part in the previous night’s attack on Pointe-à-Pitre, and all had endured a sleepless night full of alarms and tension. As a result, even those with painful burns had little difficulty in sleeping. They lay in packed rows of hammocks, a carpet of humanity suspended between the planking below and the deck above, swaying as on
e to the gentle motion of the ship. But in the heart of the snoring, breathing mass lay a figure who remained awake. The dark eyes set either side of his hooked nose stared beyond the oak a foot above him, into another hot, tropical night, many months before.
It was not the first time that he had relived the events of the mutiny. In the aftermath, images had crowded his dreams constantly, but some of the immediate horror had then faded with time. Yet tonight, he had only to close his eyes and he was back there again. Swept along in the midst of that drunken throng as they poured aft. He saw again the marine sentry before the cabin door, desperately fumbling for his bayonet. The soldier had been stabbed a dozen times and then trampled in the relentless crush. The door burst open, and officers leapt up from a table strewn with half-empty plates and splattered with wine. There was the look of anger on Daniels’s face, turning first to disbelief and then terror as the first clumsy cutlass blow struck home. Then his struggling, blood-sodden body had been manhandled across to the open stern window and pitched out. He could almost hear the captain’s pitiful cries in the dark, slowly retreating as the Peregrine sailed on.
Mudge turned over in his hammock with a groan as he thought of what had followed. That night he had felt fear as he had never known it before. John Graves had been remorseless, revelling in the power that he held. He had sat in triumph on the capstan, like a king upon his throne, declaring judgement on the battered and bleeding as they were dragged before him. He had listened to their sobbing pleas for mercy before ordering each one to be tossed over the side once there was no more sport to be had from them. When the red dawn finally came, none but mutineers remained. The sloop was far out into the Caribbean, still followed by the sleek fins of sharks and the squabbling of seabirds.
When the terror Mudge had felt that night faded, shame had quietly filled the void. Why had he not intervened to stop the slaughter? Many of the crew had looked up to him, yet he had done nothing with what power he had. Nothing to check the murderous violence as it had moved from the guilty to the innocent. As soon as he could, he had run from the events of that night, but somehow, they had now followed him. The mutineer who had recognised him on the brig in mid-Atlantic. The shrewd guesses of Sedgwick, and the knowledge he was probably not alone in suspecting. Suddenly the sailors on either side seemed to press a little closer. The deck above his head began to push down, like the lid of a coffin. All seemed to have gone wrong, after that fateful day when he had felt drawn to the companionship of four sailors, taking their ease in the warm sunshine before a tavern.
Larcum Mudge (Alexander Clay Series Book 8) Page 14