‘You’d better get on with looking for that leak then, hadn’t you?’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
Killigrew followed him out and ascended to the poop deck where Parsons stood yawning besides Ågård at the helm. He glanced up at the tops of the masts. Fentiman and the sailmaker had done a fair job of jury-rigging the damaged upper spars, sails and rigging, but if they had five feet of water in the well then the benefit of the upper sails would be counteracted by the drag of the hull. Boulton and Evans had stripped off their shirts and were working steadily at the bilge pump. The recaptives lay quietly on the deck while Strachan moved amongst them, treating their sores. Trying to atone for earlier misdeeds, mused Killigrew.
The sand in the half-hour glass by the ship’s bell ran out and one of the seamen turned it over before ringing the bell four times to signify the beginning of the second dog watch. With the help of two seamen Killigrew measured the barque’s speed with the log-ship and -line. Then he crossed to the log-board and wrote ‘2’ under the column marked ‘K’. ‘How’s her head?’ he asked. There was no reply. ‘Mr Parsons?’
The midshipman blinked. ‘Wha—?’
‘How’s her head, Mr Parsons?’ persisted Killigrew. Parsons glanced at the compass in the binnacle. ‘East by north, sir.’
Killigrew made the appropriate entry on the log-board, followed by a note of the wind direction, and then turned to Parsons. ‘You’re asleep on your feet, lad.’
‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. It won’t happen again.’
‘It will if you don’t get some rest. You’ve been on duty non-stop since the start of the forenoon watch. Go down to the day room and get your head down.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Parsons went below.
Just under two knots, mused Killigrew. The loss of speed would be partly due to the fact the wind had dropped off again, but also because they were wallowing with five feet of water in the bilges. He glanced to where the two men still worked at the bilge pump. At this rate it would take them more than a week to get back to Sierra Leone; and if things were as bad as Fentiman had implied, they would be lucky to stay afloat that long. If Killigrew had known about the leak before they had parted from the Tisiphone, he would have asked Standish to tow them into Freetown.
‘Something wrong, sir?’ asked Dando.
Killigrew forced himself to smile and took out another cheroot. ‘I was just wondering… I don’t suppose you noticed if there were any women amongst the crewmen from this ship who went on board the Tisiphone?’
‘Women? No, sir. Leastways, if there was, they were the ugliest women I ever clapped eyes on. Why d’you ask?’
‘Just wondering.’ He glanced at his fob watch. ‘Time to change tack,’ he decided.
Ågård nodded. ‘Stand by to go about!’ he boomed, prompting some of the recaptives on deck to raise their heads. ‘Haul of all!’
The seamen scurried about the decks, cursing the recaptives who got in their way.
‘Hard a-lee,’ ordered Killigrew.
Ågård span the helm to starboard. ‘Helm’s a-lee.’
As the barque’s bow came around into the wind the sails sagged back against the masts. The barque began to lose way and the bow swung to starboard. The hands hauled on ropes to adjust the sails, bringing them around to catch the wind from the other side. The mainsail filled with wind once more as the head continued to come around to starboard.
‘Ease the helm,’ Killigrew told Ågård, who span the wheel to bring the rudder amidships.
At last the barque came around far enough for the wind to fill the sails from the port tack, and they gathered way once more. The hands adjusted the trim of the sails accordingly.
Ågård was not used to handling the barque and the bows came around too far. ‘Meet her,’ said Killigrew. Ågård span the wheel to compensate. ‘Handsomely does it… helm amidships. Luff and touch her.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Ågård steered the barque as close to the wind as he could without letting it spill from the sails. ‘How’s her head?’
‘East by south, sir.’
‘Keep her so,’ Killigrew told Ågård, and turned to Dando. ‘Be a good chap and run along to the galley to see if you can find some tea, would you? Make some for everyone who wants it.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Dando turned away and was about to go below when a thought occurred to him and he turned back. ‘Does that include the darkies, sir?’
‘Negroes, Mr Dando, and if you can find enough tea for all of them don’t let me stop you. Actually, it’s about time they had a bite to eat and something to drink, and it seems to me you just volunteered. No more than half a pint of water each. We’ve only got enough to last us a week.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
Killigrew entered the master’s day room and lit an oil lamp to update the log: even a prize ship had to keep a log. When he had finished he glanced around the cabin. There was not much to reveal the personality of the previous occupant. The only personal touches seemed to be a couple of rather bad watercolours depicting maritime scenes. He found himself wondering if the master had bought them under the mistaken impression they had any artistic merit whatsoever or if he had painted them himself. There was no evidence of any artist’s materials in the day room so he had to assume that the former was the case.
There was a knock on the door. ‘Come in.’
The door opened and Dando entered bearing two mugs.
‘Your tea, sir. I brought some for Mr Parsons too, in case he wanted a cup. Is he in the cabin?’
Killigrew frowned. ‘That’s a good question.’ He had told Parsons to sleep in the day room, but there was no sign of him. Of course, if Parsons had changed his mind and decided to chat to Onyema, there was no harm in that, but then why was there no sound of voices coming from the cabin? It occurred to him that Parsons and Onyema might have found another way to pass the time, and the thought did not shock him too much: after all, the lad had to learn sooner or later, and somehow Killigrew suspected that Onyema would be as good a teacher as any. But the deathly hush from the cabin did not suggest the sport of Venus was in play.
He stood up, crossed to the door, and tapped on it gently. ‘Parsons?’ When a few seconds had passed without any reply, he tapped again. ‘Onyema?’
Still no reply. Killigrew exchanged glances with Dando and opened the door.
The light of an oil lamp illuminated the scene with its guttering yellow flame. Parson’s coat was tossed carelessly on the floor while Parsons himself lay on the bed, staring up at the deck head. His pantaloons were around his ankles. There were no marks on him, nothing to suggest a struggle, just the gaping wound in his throat and the blood-soaked bedclothes.
‘Sweet Jesus!’ gasped Dando.
Killigrew backed out of the cabin and turned and ran out on deck, Dando hard on his heels. ‘Turn out the hands,’ he snapped, reloading the empty barrel of his pepperbox with a fresh cartridge and ball. ‘We’ve got a murderess on board.’
Chapter 2
Floating Coffin
‘Evans! McFee!’ Killigrew waved across two of the sailors who had pistols thrust in their belts. ‘Look lively, you two. Go down to the slave deck and stand guard over the prisoners. No one goes near them, do you understand? Shoot if you have to.’
‘Aye, aye, sir!’ The two sailors drew their pistols and cutlasses and dashed below.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Strachan.
‘It seems I owe you an apology, Mr Strachan.’
‘About the captain’s belly-warmer? I told you she was mad.’
‘Not mad, Mr Strachan. Just very, very cunning. She’s one of them.’
‘What?’
‘One of the slavers, damn it! I was a fool not to see it. She cooked up that yarn about you trying to molest her to sow dissension amongst us. She’s been biding her time, waiting for us to drop our guard so she could free her friends.’
Killigrew wondered how he could have been so stupid: the only black on board who
spoke English; the absence of any signs of cruelty on her body; the shift in the master’s closet that fitted her so perfectly…
He cast his eyes over the deck, mentally mustering the men under his command: Dando and the sailmaker standing by for orders, Quartermaster Ågård at the helm, Boulton and Galton at the bilge pump, O’Connor moving amongst the slaves with a cask of water, and the other two men working at the bilge pump.
‘’Vast pumping, there,’ he told them. ‘Check your pistols. Where are Fentiman, Ivey and Lidstone?’ Then he remembered: they had gone below to look for the leak. ‘We’ll have to search the ship, deck by deck. Boulton and Galton, you two stay on deck with Mr Ågård. Sails, you take Dando and O’Connor and start at the bows. Strachan and I will start from the stern and we’ll work our way for’ard until—’
He broke off as a scuffle sounded below. They heard a thump, and then the report of a pistol followed by a man’s scream, cut off short.
The sailmaker crossed to the main hatch. ‘Dick? Johnny?’ he called down. ‘Are you boys all right down there?’ When there was no reply, his expression became grim. ‘Looks like they’ve got themselves a couple of pistols now, sir.’
‘Everyone up on the poop deck, chop-chop!’ ordered Killigrew.
‘What about the recaptives?’ asked Strachan, gesturing at the bodies strewn across the deck.
‘We’ll just have to leave them, that’s all…’
Two shots rang out. Killigrew felt something scorch his cheek. A moment later Galton was on his knees clutching his stomach. Killigrew whirled in the direction from which the shots had come from in time to see the slavers rush out of the accommodation hatch behind the mainmast, only a few yards away. He fired his pepperbox twice. Boulton, Dando and O’Connor also fired their single-shot pistols. Three of the slavers went down, falling amongst the recaptives on deck who scrambled to get out of the way, crying out in panic and confusion.
Killigrew fired again, and then the surviving slavers were retreating back down the hatch. He shot one more in the back before they were all out of sight, then grabbed Galton by one arm, hoisted him to his feet and helped him up the companion ladder to the poop deck after the others.
Boulton, Dando and O’Connor quickly reloaded their pistols and crouched at the rail at the leading edge of the poop, from where they could cover the rest of the barque’s decks and hatches. Killigrew reloaded his pepperbox while Strachan crouched over Galton. A dark, thick stain was already spreading over the front of the seaman’s shirt. Strachan tore the cloth apart to reveal the wound in his stomach.
‘He’s been gut-shot,’ he said, while Galton groaned in agony.
Killigrew nodded, understanding that the seaman’s chances of survival were slim. ‘Do what you can.’
‘What do we do now, sir?’ asked the sailmaker. ‘We can’t stay up here for ever…’ Apart from the fact that the recaptives needed to be looked after, the seamen could not trim the sails from the poop deck. Nor was there any food or water up there.
‘It’s worse than that,’ said Killigrew. ‘The ship’s sinking.’
Strachan looked up sharply. ‘What?’ he spluttered in panic.
‘Slowly,’ Killigrew hastened to reassure him. ‘But sinking nonetheless. That’s why Fentiman went below with Ivey and Lidstone: they were searching for the leak.’
‘I suppose the slavers got them, then, sir,’ said Boulton.
‘Maybe. I didn’t hear anything.’
‘Surely the slavers are in the same boat as we are,’ said Strachan. ‘No pun intended. We may be trapped up here, but they daren’t show their faces on deck. If the ship’s sinking, they’ll drown first.’
‘If the water in the hold gets that deep, then we’ll be foundering and we’ll soon drown with them.’
‘Can’t we talk to them?’
Killigrew grinned and jerked a thumb towards the hatches. ‘You can try it if you like…’
‘There’s someone moving down there!’ hissed Boulton.
‘Hold your fire,’ ordered Killigrew, and glanced over the rail. ‘It’s one of the recaptives. Let him up.’
‘Him’ was a ‘her’. Koumba crept up the companion ladder and found herself face to face with the multiple muzzles of Killigrew’s pepperbox. Her eyes widened, showing white against the blackness of her face in the twilight. He grabbed her by the arm and dragged her on to the poop deck. She gasped but did not cry out. ‘What is happening?’ she asked him in Portuguese. ‘The slavers – you let them escape.’
Killigrew grimaced. ‘Not on purpose, I assure you.’
She jerked her head to where four of the slavers shot earlier lay on deck. ‘Two of them are not dead.’
Strachan had finished tending to Galton’s wound as best he could. ‘I should go to them—’
‘You stay where you are, mister,’ snapped Killigrew. ‘It’s them or us now. I can’t have you getting shot trying to give them medical attention.’
Strachan looked relieved and did not try to argue.
‘We have to do something, sir,’ said Ågård.
Killigrew nodded. ‘Someone has to go down there and deal with the slavers.’
‘Are you mad?’ asked Strachan. ‘They’ve had plenty of time to reload their pistols. Whoever goes down will be shot the moment he appears at the top of the ladder.’
‘That’s why I’m not going down the ladder.’ Killigrew crossed to the taffrail at the stern of the poop deck and glanced down.
Strachan stared at him. ‘You’re going to go down there alone?’
‘I’d like one volunteer to come with me.’
Everyone spoke at once. Killigrew waved them to silence. ‘Just one of you. Mr Dando, I think.’ He turned to the sailmaker and handed him a boat hook. ‘Get ready to pass this down to me.’ He took off his coat and hung it from a belaying pin.
‘For God’s sake, man!’ protested Strachan. ‘There’s at least eight of them. Not to mention the bitch that slit poor Parsons’s throat. Just two of you, against eight of them?’
The sailmaker laid a hand on Strachan’s arm. ‘Mr Killigrew knows what he’s doing.’
‘So do I. He’s committing suicide.’
‘We’re wasting time,’ said Killigrew. He took a coil of rope from a belaying pin and handed it to Dando. ‘The longer we leave it, the more time we give them to cook up a plan.’ He crossed to the skylight in the middle of the poop deck and raised it. ‘We’ll go in through one of the stern ports,’ he explained. ‘The password is “whisky”. Anyone comes up through those hatches without calling that out first, you can blow his head off. Just make sure you don’t hit any of those poor negroes. If we’re not back in half an hour, you’ll know we’re dead.’
‘Then what do we do?’ asked Strachan.
Killigrew clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You’ll be in command then, so that’s your problem.’ He jumped down into the master’s day cabin before Strachan could protest and landed lightly on the balls of his feet. Dando followed him.
‘Belay one end of that rope to that beam,’ ordered Killigrew, as he crossed to the window and opened it. Dando made the rope fast and Killigrew dropped the other end out of the window and into the barque’s wake.
‘Want me to go first, sir?’ offered Dando.
‘Toss you for it,’ said Killigrew. ‘Heads I go first, tails you do.’ He tossed. ‘Heads it is.’ Killigrew slipped his double-headed coin back into his pocket. Taking a knife from a sheath strapped to his ankle he clenched it between his teeth and climbed out through the window, feeling like one of his piratical forebears.
He glanced up and saw the sailmaker at the taffrail above him. The sailmaker lowered one end of the boat hook towards him, but Killigrew shook his head and shinned down the rope. There was a stern port on either side of the rudder. The barque was so low in the water there was barely a foot of freeboard between the water and the sills of the ports. Within an hour water would be pouring through those ports if they did not get pumping again.
The port on the starboard side of the rudder was open, blackness behind it, and—
There was a blinding white flash from the port and a loud report filled Killigrew’s ears. Something burned his shoulder and he almost lost his grip in shock. He slipped down the rope until his feet splashed into the water. Gripping the rope in one hand, he took the dirk from between his teeth and flung it through the open hatch. The action made him spin on the rope. As he swung back to face the port, he saw one of the slavers topple out to splash into the barque’s wake.
The sharks at once closed in. Killigrew quickly shinned up the rope until he was out of the water. A feeding frenzy erupted below him as the sharks tore at the slaver’s body, quickly falling astern.
No more shots came from the stern port, but it was only a matter of time before more of the slavers came to investigate. Killigrew had to move quickly if he did not want to be dangling helplessly when they arrived; next time he might not be so lucky. The overhang from the stern prevented him from reaching the port. He glanced up to where the sailmaker stood at the taffrail with concern on his face.
‘Drop it!’ hissed Killigrew.
The sailmaker looked puzzled. Killigrew held up one hand, and gestured. Sails remembered the boat hook he was holding. He held it out over the taffrail vertical, and allowed it to fall, straight down, just to one side of Killigrew. The mate snatched it out of the air, near the blunt end. The hook twisted down towards the water and a shark’s head emerged, snapping at it. Killigrew jerked it clear, swung it at the stern port and hooked it over the sill. He pulled himself in towards the port and scrambled through.
He was in the after hold on the orlop deck, standing in several inches of water. Footsteps sounded outside and the door began to open. ‘Eduardo?’ called a voice, and the door opened as one of the slavers entered. He paused on the threshold and squinted into the gloom. ‘Are you all right? What happened? What were you shooting at?’
‘Me,’ said Killigrew, and hit him on the head with the blunt end of the boat hook. The slaver slumped to the deck.
Killigrew of the Royal Navy Page 3