What had warned him this time? Fate? Or was it part of the legend he had heard sailors talk of?
He made himself lift the glass to his eye again.
He saw the splintered timbers and torn sails, some corpses sprawled where they had fallen. But the third gun was still thrust through its port, manned or not he could not tell. A big gun. Perhaps a thirty-two pounder. Even Athena did not carry such massive weapons.
Pointer was still by the rail, waiting. Perhaps he thought he had not heard him. He said, ”Their flag still flies, sir.”
He turned as his first lieutenant appeared through the companion hatch.
”We’re holding it, sir! She’ll live to fight again!” He stared around at the silent gun crews.
Pointer asked sharply, ”What is the bill?”
Ellis spread his hands. ”We lost one killed, sir.” He looked at, and through, Adam as if he did not see him. ”Mr. Bellamy, sir.”
The only midshipman, who had never wanted to leave this ship.
Adam shouted, ”Broadside!”
It seemed louder than before, and the smoke less eager to clear. He gripped his hands behind his back to contain the anger and emotion. He stared at the other vessel, the poop clawed away as if by some giant.
”Their flag is down now, Roger.” Jago was beside him although he had not seen him move. ”Prepare to board. But have the guns loaded and be ready. If he attempts to trick us or resists us this time he will drown in his own sea of blood!”
Jago followed him to the main deck where the boatswain’s party were once again preparing to sway out and lower boats for boarding.
He knew he had to stay close to the captain. They had shared and done far worse, but he could not recall seeing him so moved. He thought suddenly of the girl in the portrait and wondered what she would feel if she saw her man like this.
”Boats alongside, sir!”
Pointer was gazing at the starboard side gun crews. But for
Bolitho’s instinct, second sight, or whatever it was, Lotus and most of these men would be dead.
And he was going across in one of the boats. Again, as if something or somebody was driving him.
He realized that Bolitho had paused with his leg over the side, and was looking up at him.
Take care, sir!”
Adam shaded his eyes. ”You will need a prize crew, Roger. They might listen to us in future!”
”Cast off! Bear off forrard!” The boats were moving away from the side, some of the seamen peering at their ship, looking for the hole where cannon had smashed through the hull, and had killed one of their own. Others gripped their cutlasses and boarding axes and stared ahead at the unexpected enemy, ready to fight and kill if any one opposed them.
The sailing master murmured, ”Close thing, sir.”
Pointer pulled his mind together. ”We were ready for that scum.” He beckoned to a boatswain’s mate, still hearing the inner voice. But I was not.
Both boats were pulling strongly so that within minutes the drifting barque seemed to tower over them like a cliff. Adam crouched beside Jago and the boat’s coxswain, his sword pinned between his legs. Two of the seamen were armed with muskets which they held trained on the barque, ready for a last show of force. He found time to think it strange not to have Royal Marines in either boat, but Lotus’s men were experienced in this sort of work. Over the months since the anti-slavery laws had grudgingly been accepted, they must have stopped and boarded many suspected slavers, some without result, and others which had been allowed to go free because of slackness in the wording of some regulations. Adam had heard of a case where a ship had been seized with only one slave still on board. Enough evidence, any sane person might have thought. But the Act stated any vessel carrying slaves, in the plural, so the vessel was released without charge. That clause, at least, had now been changed.
He peered across at the other boat. Lotus’s second lieutenant, Jack Grimes, was in charge. He was an old hand at the work, who had come up the hard way to gain his commission, from the lower deck. As some one had once said of such promotions,
if he was good there was none better. And if not, then watch out!
Faces had appeared on the barque’s forecastle and above the creak of oars and the sluice of water he could hear some one screaming.
Jago loosened his blade and muttered, ”Ere we go, lads!”
”Grapnels!”
The boat surged alongside, the oars vanishing as if by magic. Hands snatched up weapons. Todd, the boatswain’s mate in charge, yelled, ”Ready, sir?”
Adam felt Jago’s hand on his arm. ”I’ll get no thanks from Sir Graham if I lets you get killed first, Cap’n!” He thrust past him and flung himself up into the fore chains before any one could stop him. The second boat was already grappling the main chains, and Adam managed to see Lieutenant Grimes, hanger in one hand as he shouted something to the men close behind him.
He did not recall climbing up and over the side. One shot was fired, and somewhere a man cried out in anguish. But suddenly the barque’s broad deck was theirs .. . Individual seamen ran to their allotted tasks as if they knew the ship like their own. One was already at a swivel gun and training it aft toward the poop and the blood-spattered aftermath of Lotus’s second broadside, others were rounding up some of the barque’s people, and weapons clattered on the deck or were pitched over the side. Lotus’s men were in no mood for argument, and those who had reached the poop and had found the powerful guns half buried by the false superstructure needed no words of command to keep them fully alert, and ready to hack down any opposition. Had Lotus not played trick-for-trick and been ready to open fire, their little sloop would now be lying fathoms deep.
Seven of the barque’s company had been killed in the broadsides; several others had been badly cut and wounded by flying splinters. Lieutenant Grimes made the first discovery. With one of his men he brought the barque’s master to Adam from his hiding place in a spirit store in the poop.
He said harshly, ”We must mount a guard there, sir. Enough grog stored to float the flagship!” He pushed the ship’s master forward. ”His name’s Cousens, sir. English, God help us!”
Adam said, ”We have already met, Mister Cousens, have we not?” Even the brig’s name, Albatroz, was ice-clear in his mind. Like a storm passing: the madness of the attack, each second expecting the jarring agony of musket ball or the blade of a cutlass, then this. A sudden calm which was almost worse.
A year ago, Unrivalled had put a boarding party aboard a suspected slaver. No slaves were found, but his men had discovered chains and manacles slyly hidden in a cask of boiling pitch. Evidence enough, his boarding party had believed.
But once delivered in harbour to face charges, the brig’s master, this same man, must have laughed at them, and had walked free.
Cousens looked him up and down. ”You look as if you’ve fallen on hard times, Captain. An’ once again, you’ll find nothing.”
The calmness remained, although something deep inside him wanted to cut this man down, here and now.
He said, ”You intended that we should reach Havana ahead of you. So that we might be ”detained” long enough for you to land your cargo.”
”I don’t have to say anything until .. .”
He gasped as Jago seized his arm and twisted it behind his back.
”Sir, when you speak to a King’s officer, you scum!”
Todd, the boatswain’s mate, was hurrying aft, his face split in a great grin despite the blood and corpses around him.
”Captain, sir! Found the cargo!” Somewhere along the way he had had his two front teeth knocked out. The grin made it worse. ”Can’t get right into it, sir, more locks and bolts than a Chatham whorehouse, but it’s gold right enough, tons of it!”
Grimes scowled. ”Something else we’ll have to mount a guard on.”
Cousens exclaimed, ”Not my fault! I was under orders!”
Adam turned away and watched the Lotus slowly coming about,
her gun ports closed, and from this bearing only the spreading tear in her main topsail to mark what had happened.
And the midshipman, I don’t want to leave this ship, had been killed.
It gave him time. But there was never enough when you needed it so badly.
He said, Tut this man in irons, and prepare to get the ship under way. We will ask Lotus for some more hands. We are going to need them.”
Grimes turned his back on the man called Cousens.
”The steering is undamaged, sir. But what do you intend?”
Adam glanced at the carving on the poop, the barque’s name in gilt lettering. Villa de Bilbao. It, too, was splashed with blood.
”We shall return to English Harbour. I think we have evidence enough. Sir Graham’s message to the captain-general will have to wait a while longer.”
Grimes paused to listen to one of his men, and said, ”She’s a slaver right enough, sir. All the usual fittings, no covers on the hatches, just bars to keep the poor devils penned up for the journey, the last for some of them, no doubt!”
”And the gold?”
Grimes studied him guardedly, not yet sure of the bridge that might exist between them. Then he said bluntly, ”Payment for the last few cargoes, I’d wager,” and seemed surprised when Adam grasped his arm and said, ”I am certain of it!”
Cousens tried to thrust past Jago, shouting, ”What about me, damn your eyes!”
Adam looked along the littered and scarred deck, at Lotus’s men leaning on their weapons, another bandaging the arm of one of the barque’s sailors, and turned toward Cousens again, remembering the terrified faces he had seen in a slaver’s hold, women too, some no older than Elizabeth. They all ended up as pieces of gold.
”You, Cousens, will be put ashore and hanged. You fired on a King’s ship, one authorized by law to stop and search any suspected vessel, as well you know. Those who pay you will not save you.”
He felt sick, furious with himself for caring so much. They had captured a prize which, given time, would reveal names and places.
If Cousens lived or died the trade would still go on. But just this once they had made their mark.
He walked over to watch Lotus’s jolly boat pulling across the water toward the Villa de Bilbao.
He realized that he was still gripping the old sword in his hand, but could hardly remember drawing it. Another minute and Cousens would not have had to wait for the rope. He tried again to shake it off, the narrow margin of life and death.
He watched the jolly boat pulling closer.
Help was on its way. Very carefully, he sheathed the sword which had served other Bolithos. Not a moment too soon.
12
Catherine
Vice-Admiral Sir Graham Bethune paused under a low archway and gazed up at the house.
This is the one?” He saw Tolan nod, but felt compelled to insist, ”You’re certain?”
It was a warm evening, humid, and Bethune was feeling it. He was wearing a boat cloak to cover his gold-laced uniform and held his hat concealed beneath it. He was breathing heavily. Perhaps they were in for a storm; but he knew he was already missing the regular rides and walks across the park in London.
”It’s damned quiet.” Again, Tolan said nothing, and Bethune knew he had been snapping at him and every one else since news of the arrival of the sloop Lotus and her impressive prize had been carried to him. Even the boat’s crew which had brought him ashore had felt the rough edge of his tongue.
And now he was here, and all his original confidence had deserted him. It could have been the first time. It might never have happened at all, except in his mind.
The narrow street was deserted. Everybody, it seemed, was still down at the harbour, watching the activity, sightseers in their small craft being held back or chased away by the guard boats
He thought of Adam Bolitho, remembering his face when he had lost his temper, forgetting that the flag lieutenant and the secretary were still within earshot. And Tolan.
It had blown over, but Bethune still wondered if the air between them would clear.
And Bolitho had acted correctly. As Nelson had often proclaimed, the written order should never be a substitute for a captain’s initiative. And he was right.
He calmed himself with effort and unfastened his cloak.
He looked up at the steps and beyond, at the clouds drifting past Monk’s Hill and the lookout station which had first sighted the ill-matched vessels making their approach. That must have been ten hours ago. Things had moved very quickly after that. He relaxed a little and said, ”I’m not to be disturbed. By anybody.” He relented slightly. ”Good work, Tolan.”
He reached the top of the steps and saw her waiting for him, as he knew she would be. Exactly as he always saw her in his thoughts, composed, beautiful, unreachable. She was dressed in dark green, her neck and shoulders bare and browned by the sun, her dark hair loose and quite still in the heavy air.
She said, ”I received your message. You should not have come. Antigua is like a village. No secrets.”
He glanced at the telescope in its tripod and across the placid water of English Harbour. There were still crowds of small craft moving around the barque, and boats alongside her, tackles busily hoisting and lowering equipment and stores.
A great capture, was how the commodore had described it. The whole of the Caribbean probably knew about it by now.
She hesitated, then held out her hand. ”But you are welcome, Graham.” She watched him bow his head to kiss her fingers. ”What’s done is done.”
He said, ”The barque is the Villa de Bilbao, first registered in Vigo.” She noticed, too, that he did not release her hand.
”I know.” She saw him start. ”I was there, a year or so ago, when she was completed.”
She withdrew her hand and walked to the end of the balcony. ”I was there.” She shrugged. ”And several places in Spain, when I was helping Lord Sillitoe with some business matters. I speak Spanish well, you see.”
She swung round suddenly, her back to the water, her eyes flashing. ”Why am I telling you, of all people? You know it already! Everywhere we have been, there have always been questions, and suspicions. Spain, Jamaica, even here in Antigua!”
”And what about Cuba .. . Havana?”
She turned again, slowly, as if the defiance and anger had drained her.
”I heard about the slaver, and the attack on one of your ships.”
She shrugged once more, and Bethune felt it like a pain.
She continued in the same unemotional tone, ”I shall return to England soon. But you know that too, I suppose?”
He stood beside her and caught the scent of jasmine. ”Captain Adam Bolitho is with me. He knows you are close by, Catherine.”
She hesitated, and said, ”Kate.”
He said, ”You see the little sloop, the LotusT
”I watched her come into the anchorage. Just as I saw her leave, nine, ten days ago. I forget.”
He pointed across the balustrade. ”My first ship was very like her. A sloop-of war they were called in those days. She was named Sparrow.”
He felt her nod, her voice husky as she murmured, ”Richard’s first command. He often spoke of her.”
He said, ”This is not like the ”back stairs” at the Admiralty, Kate.”
She did not turn or look at him. ”Or the park, by the dead trees where foolish young men fought one another, and often died because of a woman.”
”You’ve not forgotten.”
”Did you think I would?” Then she did face him, sharply. ”But I’m not young any more, not just a girl who wanted to love and be loved! An affair is that what they call it? Something those deprived of affection would never understand. Like that night when I was nearly killed, when he was the only one who helped and protected me, did any one really care ‘
”I did, Kate, and well you know it. I cursed myself a million times for letting you go alone to your house.”
He watched her, surprised that she was suddenly calm again; or so she appeared. Only her breathing betrayed her.
”What are you saying to me, Graham. You are bored with your personal life as it is? Your wife and children, two, isn’t it, no longer engage all your attention and energy?” She reached up and touched his mouth with her fingers. ”No, hear me. The darling of the nation, they called me. The beloved of England’s hero. It soon changed when Richard was killed. You saw the cartoons? The clever cruelty of the news sheets?”
He gripped her hand, and when she tried to pull it away held it more tightly.
”I want you, Kate. I have never stopped wanting you since that very first meeting.”
He felt her fingers relax. ”I remember.”
They faced the harbour again, side by side. Then he said, ”I shall be leaving the navy soon. Vice-admiral is more than I ever expected to attain.” He laughed hollowly. ”But Our Nel rose no higher, so I am satisfied. I may be offered a post elsewhere, perhaps with the East India Company my aide’s father seems to think it might suit.”
He turned away from the sea, toward her. ”But I want it with you.”
She moved to the telescope and touched it uncertainly, her composure shaken.
”I thought you wanted me as something else. There was no hint in your letters I had no real idea.”
Bethune smiled. ”So you did read them.”
She looked away, one hand playing with her hair. ”And destroyed them.”
He said, after a silence, ”Your friend, Sillitoe. He may well be in serious trouble.”
Her hand moved, dismissively.
”I know about the company he deals with in London. He has made no secret of it. He was the Prince Regent’s Inspector-General, as you well know.” She added sharply, ”As was my late husband, you were no doubt about to remind me.”
”It goes far deeper than that.” Something seemed to move him. He gripped her shoulders and held her directly in front of him, feeling the surprise, the irritation. ”I want you to stay here until you leave for England. No matter what is suggested, remain here. I will take care of things.” At any second she would break away, or scream at him. He could feel the warm skin under his fingers, like silk. Once again he had ruined it. Like the stupid midshipman he had just described.
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