Da Silva sighed ostentatiously and did as he was bidden. Killigrew stepped up to the desk and glanced into the drawer. There were papers in there, weighed down by a pistol.
‘You think I was going for my gun? Ah, now you are just being foolish, Senhor Killigrew. I don’t need a gun to protect me from you.’ He smiled broadly. ‘I have the law to do that for me. You know as well as I do what happens now. You take this ship into Freetown as a prize. But there is no physical evidence that we were ever engaged in the slave trade, so the court lets us go. I keep telling you that you are wasting both your time and mine.’
Killigrew knew da Silva was speaking the truth, and the truth hurt so much he wanted to smash the slaver’s smug face into pulp.
‘And in a few weeks’ time I am back at sea aboard this very ship, and you are cruising for slavers in your ship. What will you do if our paths cross once more, I wonder? Force us to go through this whole charade again? There must be some way we can break this ridiculous vicious circle we find ourselves in.’
‘Oh, I can think of a way,’ said Killigrew.
‘And what is that, pray tell?’
The sound of the shot was deafeningly loud in the close confines of the cabin. The window behind da Silva shattered, leaving a large, jagged hole in one of the panes, with the slaver’s blood and brains spattered around it.
Chapter 7
Breaking the Circle
Three chandeliers hung from the ceiling of the ballroom: a main one in the centre flanked by two slightly smaller ones. The thousands of beautifully crafted pieces of crystal caught the light of the candles and cast it into a thousand coruscating rainbows. Huge gilt-framed oil paintings adorned the walls, depicting scenes of naval battles, and rich drapes of red velvet hung across the windows. All of this magnificent opulence paled into insignificance, however, once contrasted with the gathering.
There were perhaps two hundred people in the ballroom, with a fairly even split between men and women and a broad range of ages from sixteen to eighty, with debutantes, midshipmen and sons of financiers at one end of the scale to dowagers, financiers’ fathers and admirals at the other. Ornately uniformed footmen stood at the doorways while waiters moved amongst the guests with trays of drinks. The women wore magnificent full-skirted dresses of silk and velvet and fluttered fans, while the men were clad in full-dress naval uniform or civilian evening wear: black trousers or pantaloons, white waistcoats and cravats, and tail-coats. In the middle of the floor dancers moved about with slow and sedate steps, going through the intricate patterns of a quadrille to the strains of a full orchestra. A heady odour pervaded the room, a cocktail of scent, pomade and sweat.
The hostess, Lady Grafton, stood close to the door where she could greet her guests. A nod of acknowledgement was neither more nor less than etiquette demanded for Killigrew, but after excusing herself from the guests she was talking to she came across to greet him in person. She was in her late twenties, a handsome, Junoesque woman. ‘I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure, sir…’
‘Killigrew, your ladyship. Christopher Killigrew, lately of Her Majesty’s paddle-sloop Tisiphone.’
‘Ah, yes. Admiral Killigrew’s grandson. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.’
She offered him a gloved hand and Killigrew took the tips of her fingers lightly in his, bowing low with practised elegance. She received his bow with a curtsey. ‘The honour is all mine, ma’am.’
‘I understand you are recently returned from the Tropics, sir?’
‘Yes, ma’am. The West Africa Squadron.’
‘And you are in good health?’
‘Never felt better, ma’am.’
‘I’m so pleased to hear it. You must excuse me, I have other guests to greet. I do hope we shall have a chance to get to know one another better.’
‘Indeed, ma’am.’ As he watched her move on, he decided that a worse fate could befall a man than to find himself in her bed. Nor would it do his career any harm, provided the lady’s husband did not actually catch him there.
He helped himself to a champagne flute from a passing footman and surveyed the gathering, looking for someone he recognised. He was used to such gatherings, having attended balls and levees at various governors’ mansions and suchlike in the far-flung outposts of the Empire, and he usually felt at ease. But now he was strangely uncomfortable. He had only been back in England for a few days and he was still adjusting to shore life, where the threat of an encounter with slavers at any moment did not provide that added frisson of constant excitement. This isn’t real, he found himself thinking, and then caught himself. It is real – it’s just a very different reality from the one off the Guinea Coast.
It was not a question of which he preferred – he was equally at home in both – but after two years at sea he was due for a rest. He told himself to relax and enjoy the evening. But not too much: there was work to be done. The Tisiphone had gone to Woolwich to have her boilers replaced, and the crew had been paid off. Killigrew was on half-pay until he could find himself a berth on a new ship, and for that he needed the interest of an influential patron. He was in no hurry to do so, but he did not want to spend the rest of his life ashore.
‘Hullo, Killigrew. Out of rig?’
Killigrew was not dressed in uniform. He had been in uniform for two years now and, keen to wear something different for a change, had used some of the money from being paid off to purchase himself some new evening clothes: black trousers, white waistcoat and a mulberry tail-coat, the muslin cravat at his throat knotted with careless elegance.
He turned and saw Tremaine standing there, now dressed in the uniform of a lieutenant. Both he and Killigrew had undergone the examination shortly after they had arrived back in England. Tremaine had stayed on board the Tisiphone as far as Woolwich, where he had been examined by Standish, newly promoted to post-captain (by God, there was no justice) and two other captains on board a ship of the line. Bearing in mind his own strained relations with Standish, Killigrew had thought it prudent to leave the Tisiphone at Portsmouth, and had undergone his own examination on a ship anchored in Spithead.
‘How did your examination go?’ Tremaine asked him coyly, obviously wondering if the fact that he was in civilian clothes meant he had failed.
‘Not bad,’ said Killigrew. ‘You’ll never guess who was on my panel.’
‘Who?’
‘Captain Crichton.’
‘Good God! Not “Nose-Biter” Crichton?’
Killigrew was of above average height, but Crichton had towered above him when he had leaned over him to address his questions during the examination. Killigrew’s examination for midshipman had been a simple enough affair: he had been made to write out the Lord’s Prayer from memory before the doctor had told him to take off his clothes and jump over a chair, after the completion of which task he had been given a glass of sherry to congratulate him on being in the navy. But the examination for lieutenant was a much more serious business.
‘You are the officer of the watch, sir,’ Crichton had said. ‘It is blowing fresh, and you are under double-reefed topsails and t’gallants. Mark that! The captain comes on deck and asks how the wind is. You make the proper response. He then puts his hand into his pocket and produces a small leather case. Mark that! He opens it and presents you with a cigar. Now, sir – quick – which end would you put into your mouth? Quick! Which end?’
‘The twisted end of an Havana, sir, and either end if a cheroot,’ Killigrew had replied without hesitation.
‘Right, by gad, sir! You have presence of mind. I have no further questions to ask.’
‘Did you pass?’ Tremaine asked him now.
‘With flying colours, apparently.’
‘Why, that’s capital!’ Tremaine pumped him vigorously by the hand. ‘Not that I ever doubted you would, of course.’ He lowered his voice and raised his glass to his lips: ‘So come on, Killigrew. See anything you fancy?’ he asked before sipping.
Killigrew smiled. ‘
I’ve not yet looked.’
Tremaine grinned. ‘Miss Spencer’s here tonight.’
‘Oh, Lor’!’ groaned Killigrew. He had already encountered Miss Spencer at a dinner-dance a couple of nights earlier, and found her to be a tedious, simpering ninny, an increasingly common breed these days.
‘Don’t you like her? She’s very pretty. And her father owns half the cotton mills in Lancashire.’
‘What would I want with cotton mills?’
‘It’s not the mills, it’s the income that comes with them.’
‘If I wanted a good income I’d’ve gone into trade myself, as you well know. God knows, Uncle William is always pressing me to swallow the anchor and become managing director of his company. Anyway, I’m not here to find a prospective wife. It’s a posting I’m interested in. There are a lot of influential people here tonight, ’Stace, so make sure you’re on your best behaviour if you don’t want to swallow the anchor prematurely.’
Tremaine adopted a tone of injured innocence. ‘Don’t I always? I’ve got my eye on Mrs Fairbody.’
Killigrew arched an eyebrow. ‘A married woman?’
‘A widow. Still young, mark you, and deuced pretty. Her husband died of the Bengal flux a year ago. She’s only just out of mourning. But her father’s as rich as Croesus, so the suitors are going to be queuing up. Fortunately I’ve already arranged to have the fifth waltz with her.’
‘How very enterprising of you. And does she fit her name?’
‘See for yourself.’ Tremaine nodded to where a blonde woman wearing a pink silk ball gown was surrounded by admiring beaux, like a first-rate ship of the line at anchor with tenders, gigs and bumboats swarming round her. ‘A lovely creature. I must congratulate you: your taste is impeccable. Good luck to you.’
‘Would you like me to introduce you?’ Tremaine said, clearly out of politeness and terrified that Killigrew would say yes.
‘No, thanks. I wouldn’t want to cramp your style. You know what they say: two’s company, three’s a crowd.’ And seventeen is a positive mob. ‘Have you seen Old Charlie?’
‘Rear-Admiral Napier? I think he’s by the fireplace in the library saloon with all the other old bores.’
‘Old fogies they may be, ’Stace, but they’re also very influential.’
Killigrew took his leave of Tremaine and made his way to the library saloon. There were no ladies present, just the older men – senior naval officers, financiers and politicians – seated in armchairs around the fireplace smoking fat cigars and drinking brandy or whisky while pontificating.
Sir Joshua Pengelly – a short, stocky, bow-legged man and the owner of a successful shipping company – was holding forth. ‘Palm oil!’ he declared. ‘That’s the thing. It’s one of the biggest crops on the African coast. If we can persuade the tribes to stop warring with each other and selling their captives as slaves, and instead to devote their energies to the production of palm oil, why, then we’ll have the whole problem of slavery licked. And it’s a sound investment, too. These days everything’s steam powered, and engines need lubrication. You mark my words, if you’ve got some spare money and any sense at all, you’ll put it all into palm oil.’
‘It’s a nice idea,’ said the host of the evening as he stood with his back to the fire, his hands clasped behind his broad backside, inadvertently lifting the tails of his coat into a tuft like the plumage of some strange but dowdy bird. ‘But you’re ignoring the basic laws of economics. Demand creates supply. If you want to end the slave trade, you have to cut off the demand, and that means abolishing slavery in Brazil, Cuba and the United States. A task which is quite beyond the powers of our government.’
As a young man, Sir George Grafton had made his fortune in the China Trade, shipping opium from the Honourable East India Company’s estates into the Celestial Kingdom in exchange for tea. It had not been easy. The Chinese, ignorant heathens that they were, seemed to object to having opium smuggled into their country, and the British government in London was slow to understand what was obvious to every trader in Canton: the Chinese needed a sound drubbing to show them who was in charge. So Grafton had left the China side of his business in the competent hands of his junior partner and retired to Britain, where he had bought himself a safe seat in Scotland in a by-election. He had never visited the constituency – it was a dismal, dreary place, by all accounts – but that had not mattered, since all the landowners wealthy enough to possess a vote there lived in London, so it was in that great city he had had his campaigning done for him.
Once safely ensconced on the government backbenches, he had been perfectly placed to lobby for what Britain’s trade needed: war with China. The Celestials were a backward people, having spent the last two hundred years living in peace and creating great works of art: they were no match for the steamers and shell-guns of the British Expeditionary Force. After much slaughter, the Chinese had been forced to sign the Treaty of Nanking, opening five ports to Western trade and ceding Hong Kong to the British.
After that Mr George Grafton esquire had become Sir George by dint of his generous contributions to the coffers of the Whig party, and the mercantile shipping company Grafton, Bannatyne & Co, had gone from strength to strength, winning lucrative government contracts to run prison hulks and convict ships to transport thieves, Irish rebels, Chartists, trade unionists and other such undesirables to the penal colonies in Australia.
Sir George Grafton was one of the Whigs’ ‘nautical’ members of parliament, although his only qualification to speak on naval matters was the fact that he had most of his money invested in merchant shipping. But with the Whigs in power it was necessary for Killigrew to cultivate the patronage of men like Grafton, no matter how offensive he found their politics.
‘Only because Palmerston takes such a high-handed attitude,’ said Sir Joshua. ‘It’s all very well being right all the time, but sometimes it helps not to be so self-righteous about it. It doesn’t win friends. It’s not that there aren’t plenty of people in those countries who are as opposed to slavery as Wilberforce ever was. But every time they try to speak out, the vested interests just wrap themselves up in their flags and say that the anti-slavers are grovelling to us British.’
‘Quite right too,’ said Grafton. ‘So they should. Damned foreigners.’
‘Yes, but perhaps they don’t quite see it that way.’ Pengelly glanced up, saw Killigrew, and at once rose to his feet. ‘Why, it’s young Christopher, isn’t it? Oh ho, but not quite so young any more, eh? Glad you could make it, Kit. Forgive me if I don’t get up, my damned gout’s giving me blue murder these days. Sir George, may I present Mr Christopher Killigrew?’
‘Sir George.’ Killigrew acknowledged the MP with a cautious nod.
Grafton nodded absently without even glancing at him.
‘Pull up a chair,’ said Pengelly. ‘Get yourself a drink.’ He waved across a footman, and indicated Killigrew.
‘Whisky, please,’ said Killigrew. The footman nodded and hurried off.
‘You know Sir Charles, of course,’ continued Pengelly.
‘Bless my soul, of course I know Kit Killigrew,’ said Rear-Admiral Sir Charles Napier, KCB, GCTS, KMT, KSG, KRE, MP. He was sixtyish, a portly man with a double chin and scraggly grey bushy sideburns. He was in full dress uniform, decorated with the Order of the Bath, the Grand Cross of St George of Russia, and the insignia of the Second Class of the Order of the Red Eagle of Prussia. This brave display was in sharp contrast to the thick dusting of snuff on his tail-coat.
He looked like a genial, harmless old buffer, which was exactly what he was: a genial, harmless old buffer who had once taken on three French ships of the line in nothing more than a gun-brig, delaying them long enough for the rest of the English fleet to catch them; a genial, harmless old buffer who had fought as a sailor of fortune in the service of Queen Maria of Portugal against the usurper Dom Miguel, defeating his navy at sea and then – fancying himself an amateur general – giving his army a sound drubbin
g by land; and a genial, harmless old buffer who less than seven years earlier had exceeded his orders in dictating his own terms to the Viceroy of Egypt.
‘Killigrew was one of the snotties on board the Dreadful during the Syria campaign; and a damned useful aide-de-camp ashore. Blew up the magazine at Acre, so he did; and when I landed with my men the next day, we found Killigrew here sitting amidst the smoking ruins with the Dreadful’s schoolmaster and a couple of others, taking tea as coolly as if they were on the lawn at the Naval Academy! Good to see you, Killigrew. Still only a mate?’
‘Recently promoted to lieutenant, sir.’
‘Why, congratulations! Splendid stuff! Not before time either, I might add.’ As the footman returned with Killigrew’s whisky, Napier ordered another round of drinks to celebrate. ‘Got yourself a posting yet?’ he asked at last.
‘Not yet, sir.’
‘Well, we’ll have to see what we can do,’ Napier said with a wink which was meant to be encouraging.
Killigrew smiled, although he did not welcome the thought of Napier’s patronage as much as he felt he ought to. Despite his respect and admiration for the rear-admiral, Killigrew knew that Napier was not popular at the Admiralty, partly because of his eccentric ideas on abolishing the flogging of seamen and encouraging the building of steam vessels, but mostly because of his tendency to air them at every available opportunity.
‘Kit’s just back from the West Africa Squadron,’ said Napier. ‘He can tell us all about how to suppress the slave trade from the sharp end. Can’t you eh?’
Killigrew smiled tightly and glanced down into his glass. ‘One tries to do one’s duty.’
‘If you want my opinion, the West Africa Squadron is no more than a waste of men and money,’ said Grafton. ‘I intend to bring a private members’ bill to the House of Commons to have the squadron disbanded.’
‘Abolish the West Africa Squadron?’ spluttered Napier. ‘My dear sir, if you abolish the West Africa Squadron, who will suppress the slave trade? Surely you do not suggest that we leave it to the French or the Americans?’
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