by Killigrew of the Royal Navy (Killigrew RN) (retail) (epub)
There were lights on at the back of the house, in the kitchen downstairs and on the landing above. Enough light filtered out to enable Killigrew to navigate his way across the lawn to the rear of the house. There were bars on the ground-floor windows and the only door led into the kitchen where Killigrew could see the cook making cocoa, but a stout iron drainpipe leading up to the guttering at the eaves provided easy access to a landing window on the first floor; easy, at least, for a vigorous young man who had spent a goodly part of his teenage years skylarking about the rigging of a man-o’-war. He stood on the stone window ledge and held on to the drainpipe with one hand to steady himself while with his other he took a clasp knife from his pocket and opened the blade. He eased it into the gap between the sash windows and slid the catch open. Then he pushed the sash up, slipped through and stepped lightly on to the landing.
The first floor was silent, the only sounds from below the gentle murmur of voices: Eulalia and her father, although what they were saying was none of his business even if he could have made out the words, which he was too much of a gentleman to try to do. A peculiar sort of gentleman, he reflected, who breaks into a lady’s bedchamber at night. The gas lights were low, but bright enough for him to find his way.
Six doors led off the landing. The first he tried was a bedroom, well furnished but obviously unoccupied. The next room was distinctly feminine without being girlishly so; since Eulalia lived alone with her father, it had to be her room.
He took off his hat as he entered. There were no pictures of the late lamented Mr Fairbody, which did not surprise Killigrew: whatever her feelings had been towards him, she was not the type who would spend the rest of her days pining for a departed husband. In fact there were no pictures at all, only a sampler above the bed: ‘The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God – James i,20’. The needlework looked recent, but somehow Killigrew did not think that Eulalia had stitched it: she was not the kind of woman who could find pleasure in menial, repetitive tasks.
He put down his hat on the dresser, lit the oil lamp on the bedside table and sat down. He did not have long to wait. There were footsteps on the stairs, and then: ‘Goodnight, Papa.’
‘Goodnight, my dear.’ A door opened and closed across the corridor while Killigrew watched the doorknob turn. He rose to his feet as the door opened and Eulalia came in. She had closed the door behind her and was halfway across the room before she saw him standing there. She froze in shock.
‘Get out of here before I scream,’ she said at last.
‘If you were going to scream, you would already have done so.’
She snatched one of the pillows off the bed and threw it at his head. ‘God damn you, Kit Killigrew. Infuriatingly right as ever.’
He pulled the pillow down from his face. ‘Sorry. And sorry for breaking in here, but I had to talk to you and there was no other way.’
She put her hands on her hips. ‘Did you kill that child?’
‘No.’
‘Then why did you plead guilty?’
‘It’s a long story.’
She indicated a carriage clock on the mantelpiece. ‘You have one minute to convince me.’
‘I’m going to join the crew of a slaving vessel so I can find out who’s financing their voyages and where the slaves are coming from. I’m too well known amongst the slavers as an officer of the Royal Navy, so the only way to do it is to pretend that I’ve been disgraced and am after a petty revenge by working for those men I previously tried to catch. When Rear- Admiral Napier and I saw a child knocked down outside the United Service Club, it seemed like a perfect opportunity, so I confessed to the accident.’
‘And you really expect me to believe that?’
‘Frankly, no. But it is the truth. How am I doing for time?’
‘You’ve still got about half a minute. And a long way to go before you convince me.’
‘Remember a couple of weeks ago, when you gave me a ride back to the Army and Navy, and I asked you if you’d think any the less of me if I were accused of some terrible crime, and found guilty and shunned by Society? If you would believe in my innocence when everyone else was convinced of my guilt?’
‘So this is what all that was about?’ He nodded. ‘Look me in the eye and tell me you were in no way responsible for the death of that child.’
‘I was in no way responsible for the death of that child.’
She took two quick steps to where he stood and embraced him, burying her face in his shoulder. ‘Oh, Kit! I knew you could never have done such a thing. But when you pleaded guilty I thought… to tell the truth I didn’t know what to think.’
He held her close. ‘It’s all right. I understand. I’m sorry I couldn’t warn you before, but Sir Charles told me I was not to tell anyone. He thinks that the financier may be a member of the British Establishment.’
She stiffened, and then broke away to stare at him. ‘Someone we know, perhaps?’
‘Perhaps. But we need proof before we can make any accusations.’
‘Won’t it be dangerous?’
‘Only a little bit.’
She turned away. ‘You’re trying to stop me from worrying about you. Of course it will be dangerous. For the love of God, Kit! If the slavers find out you’re a spy, they’ll kill you!’
‘They can try.’
‘It’s too dangerous, Kit. What if something happens to you? I couldn’t bear to think that I might never see you again.’
‘I thought you weren’t in a hurry to get remarried? There are plenty of other men out there. Eustace Tremaine, perhaps?’
She turned back to him and seized him by the lapels. ‘I don’t want Eustace Tremaine,’ she said fiercely. ‘I want—’
She broke off, and he tried to save her the embarrassment of having to finish the sentence by kissing her. It was a wasted effort, however, for the way she kissed him back finished the sentence more eloquently than words might have done. The next thing he knew she was trying to pull off his coat without breaking off the kiss while he fumbled with the fastenings at the back of her gown. So great was his passion that it required reserves of willpower he had not previously known he possessed to break off and back away. ‘Slow down!’ he protested.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’
‘No. My head says no, but the rest of me says yes, yes.’ She blushed at her own passion, and lowered her eyes demurely. ‘Do not misunderstand me, Kit. I loved my husband as a dutiful wife ought to. The feelings I have for you are stronger, but I’m not sure they’re feelings of love. I… I think I’m… I’m weak, Kit. You’ll have to help me be strong.’
He shook his head. ‘You don’t need me for that. You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever known, Eulalia, and you’re intelligent enough to realise that if there’s something you want to do which will be to no one else’s detriment, there’s no reason on earth why you shouldn’t.’
She considered his argument for a moment, and then turned away from him. For a moment he feared she was going to tell him to leave at once and never return.
‘Help me take off this gown, Kit.’
* * *
She bit him in the shoulder at the end. If she had been trying to stop herself from crying out it did not entirely have the desired effect, for he yelped in surprise and pain; she bit deep. She always had. But he did not mind. Nothing can ever be this perfect again, he told himself. I wish I could die right now.
The two of them subsided on the mattress and lay entangled in one another’s limbs, gasping for breath like two shipwrecked sailors washed up on a sun-kissed beach.
After a few moments Killigrew became aware of a knocking sound on the door. ‘Eulalia?’ called Sir Joshua. ‘Are you all right?’
Flustered, she raised a hand to her chest, visibly trying to catch her breath. ‘What? Yes, I’m fine, Papa. I was… I must have been having a bad dream.’
‘I told you not to have the Stilton so late at night.�
� His shuffling footsteps sounded on the landing and a moment later his bedroom door closed.
Killigrew and Eulalia stifled giggles, and then she looked up at him with wonderment in her eyes. ‘That was… strange. I felt so scared and yet… I never wanted it to stop. Oh, Kit! Why did it have to stop?’
‘Sorry. I’m only human.’
Smiling, she reached up and touched him on the cheek. ‘You’re a god, Kit. A perfect Greek god. An Adonis.’
‘That’ll be my mother’s nose.’
‘Is… is it always like that, between men and women?’
‘I’ve never known it quite like that,’ he admitted, and frowned.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I don’t believe that matches are made in heaven, that two people are meant for each other. Life doesn’t work like that. People just drift through life… sometimes they connect, more often they don’t…’
‘I think we connected just now.’
‘That’s what I’m thinking. I know you’re not in any hurry to get married…’
‘Yes. On the other hand, it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.’
‘I can’t afford to marry you yet. But when I’m a postcaptain…’
‘How long will that take?’
‘It depends. If I can pull off this mission to expose the slavers…’
Her face fell. ‘I love you, Kit. The truth is I loved you before tonight. In fact I think I’ve loved you since we were children. I don’t want to lose you.’
‘Promise you’ll wait for me, and I’ll promise to come back alive.’ He took off the small medal he wore around his neck and put it around hers.
‘What’s this?’
‘A St Christopher.’
‘I thought only Catholics wore saints’ medallions.’
‘And Greek Orthodox Christians.’
‘You’re not Greek Orthodox, are you?’
‘No, but my mother was. She gave it to my father, and he left it to me. St Christopher is one of the patron saints of sailors.’
‘Hadn’t you better keep it? You’re the one who’s going to sea.’
He shook his head. ‘I want you to have it, as a symbol of our engagement. May I consider us engaged, or would that be presumptuous of me?’
‘You’d better,’ she said gruffly, and then kissed him and grinned impishly. ‘Must you go? I’ll be so afraid for you. Haven’t you already done more than your fair share towards suppressing the slave trade?’
‘How much is a fair share?’ He shrugged. ‘Believe me, I’d much rather stay here in London with you. But I have no choice. My pleading guilty to the killing of that poor child may have been a ruse, but the trial was real enough.’
‘You can pay the fine, can’t you? I shall gladly lend you the money if you cannot.’
‘There’s more to it than that. I have to restore my reputation in the eyes of Society. My honour.’
‘Pooh to Society. Your honour’s intact in my eyes. Isn’t that all that matters?’
He shook his head. ‘If we’re to be married I’ll need a good steady income, and for that I’ll need the good opinion of the navy.’
‘Haven’t you already got that?’
He grimaced. ‘Not for much longer.’
* * *
HMS Icarus was a small frigate anchored in Greenwich Reach; these days larger ships could only navigate so far up the Thames with difficulty, if at all. Deptford had only been chosen as a venue because it was traditional to hold courts-martial on board ship and the town was convenient for London; Killigrew had no doubt it was the admirals’ convenience that they had in mind rather than his own.
On the appointed day he presented himself in full dress uniform at the wharf where a jolly boat waited to row him out to the ship. The seamen on deck stared at him impassively as he made his obeisance to the quarter-deck. He recognised the faces of a few hands from the Tisiphone, men who would usually have grinned and knuckled their heads to him; these men now just stared as impassively as their new shipmates. Killigrew had told himself that he did not care what other men would think of him when he was disgraced, so long as he knew in his own heart that he was blameless; but seeing the condemnation in that lack of expression on their faces, he realised he had been wrong.
The court-martial was held in the Icarus’s great cabin before a panel of no less than nine admirals, including a straight-faced Napier. Killigrew presented himself before them, tucked his cocked hat under one arm and bowed first to the president of the court, Vice-Admiral Richardson – a smooth, white-haired, sharp-faced man – and then to the rest of the panel. The judge advocate recited the court’s authority to assemble and then explained the circumstances which had led to its being convened. The rest of the trial was mercifully brief. Even if Killigrew had been of a mind to contest the accusation, the facts of the matter were clear: he was charged with conduct unbecoming the character of a commissioned officer of Her Majesty’s Navy; he had been found guilty by a civilian court of manslaughter through drunkenness and wilful negligence.
‘Lieutenant Killigrew, have you anything to say in your defence?’ asked Richardson.
Killigrew hesitated. Even though this was all part of the plan he had hatched with Napier, the court was real enough and its decision would be binding. He could not merely declare his innocence at a later date, even with Napier to back him up; in the eyes of the Admiralty, he would have to do something pretty extraordinary to redeem himself. It would not be enough just to spend a voyage on board a slaver: he would have to come up with some hard evidence to prove that the enterprise had been worth while. But he hesitated only briefly, for he had thought this through countless times in the preceding days, and he grinned inwardly, knowing that the need to pull off a spectacular success would only be an added encouragement to him, as if he needed any in his fight against the slave trade. He stood up, his back as straight as a propeller-shaft, and looked Vice-Admiral Richardson in the eye.
‘No, sir.’
‘Very well. In which case I see no need for this court to adjourn to consider its verdict; the facts speak for themselves.’ He glanced at the other members of the panel to make sure that they were in agreement, and saw only nodding heads. ‘Lieutenant Christopher Iguatios Killigrew, it is the solemn duty of this court to find you guilty of a most gross breach of conduct. Your behaviour proves you to be wholly unfit to hold either your current rank or any other rank within Her Majesty’s Navy. Therefore you are hereby stripped of your rank and commission and dismissed the Service…’
Even though it was all part of the plan and entirely expected, it was like being kicked in the chest by a mule. He had lost his home, his friends and now his career. The only thing left for him to lose was his life. Indeed, the navy was more than a career to him, it was his life. If he failed in his mission now, then he might as well end it all.
He was stripped of his lieutenant’s epaulette and rowed back to the wharf. He went back to the White Horse Cellar Coaching Inn and took off the uniform he was no longer entitled to wear. He folded it carefully and put it in his chest, wondering when he would be allowed to wear it again. If ever.
Chapter 10
The Madge Howlett
He stood in the shadows beneath the eaves of a tavern near Liverpool docks and waited. The sound of raucous singing accompanied by an accordion came from another tavern further along the waterfront. He could not make out the words, but he knew the tune and did not doubt that they were singing one of the lewder versions of that classic sea shanty, ‘’Twas on the Good Ship Venus’. The sound of an accordion seemed strangely archaic: for some reason it always made him think of how the navy must have been in the days of his father’s youth, when Napoleon’s fleets threatened the shores of Britain.
It contrasted with the sound of an hydraulic crane lifting bales of cotton fabric on to a clipper in the harsh glare of limelight, for time was money and the sooner the cotton cloth produced in the mills of Lancashire could be returned across the Atlant
ic to the country from which the raw cotton had come, the sooner the credit could be transferred to the British banks, and whichever company delivered its goods first could corner the market while it waited for the others to catch up.
American cotton, produced by slave labour. Perhaps da Silva had been right: it was easy for the British to be holier than thou about the slave trade, but they still profited from it indirectly. And at least one Englishman – one very important and well-respected man – still profited from it directly. And that man was as responsible for the slaves thrown over the side of the São João as da Silva himself had been.
I don’t know who you are, Killigrew thought to himself, but I’m going to find out. And when I do, there’s going to be a reckoning.
The door to one of the taverns opened, spilling firelight across the cobbles with a hubbub of voices, and a man stood framed in the doorway, so tall he had to stoop to accommodate the tall, rather old-fashioned stovepipe hat he wore. Killigrew could only see the man’s silhouette, but he had spent so much time studying him through a telescope over the past two days it was enough to recognise him by.
As the man walked away from the tavern, two heavily-built shadows detached themselves from a pile of bales of cotton stacked on the quayside and quickly moved to block his path. ‘Can I help you gentlemen?’ asked the man in an American accent.
‘We were wondering if you could spare us the price of a drink,’ one of the shadows asked gruffly.
‘Sorry. The First Epistle of Paul and Apostle to Timothy: “For love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”’
‘We asked for money, not a sermon. Give us some or we’ll break your head open.’
The American took a step forward, when anyone else would have backed away in fear. As he did so a light from a window fell across him, revealing a face which, though weather-beaten, was otherwise wholly unremarkable, except that he was smiling in a situation which offered him nothing to smile about. The smile crinkled the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, but there was no humour in those eyes: they were like hard chips of flint and managed to make even his smile seem menacing.