‘Aye aye, sir.’
Pluto shivered and lurched in the water as a heavier gust hit her.
‘And jump to it, lad, if you don’t want to find us gone when you come back!’
Matthieson ran down the ladder to the lower deck, shouting orders to his waiting party as he went.
*
For the tenth time, Pike inspected the barometer in his cabin. Still falling. He went back on deck.
‘How are we doing, Mr Reilly?’
The piles of skins on the beach were reduced almost to zero. One of the holds was already battened down.
Reilly said, ‘Another fifteen minutes, sir.’
‘Still three hours to low water.’ Pike thought about it. ‘We’ll leave directly the cargo’s aboard.’
‘Sir.’ Reilly looked dubious. It was a risk and both men knew it.
‘I’m not waiting in this weather,’ Pike said. ‘There’s a full gale coming. If it backs to the east – and it will, Mr Reilly, it will – we’ll likely get a storm surge coming in here. I don’t want us ending up on the beach, mister!’
It could easily happen, Pike thought, anxiety eating him as he watched another in the seemingly endless succession of deliveries come alongside. The sooner he was at sea, the better.
‘If the wind backs offshore before we leave, the boats will have to tow us out.’
Towing the ship out into the teeth of a mounting gale and then recovering both boats and crew would be a hellish job but there was no help for it. The weather governed all.
‘Best get on with it, Mr Reilly!’
The mate nodded and bunched his fists. He glared over the rail at the men struggling in the boat below them. ‘Get on with it, you lazy bastards! What you doin’, goin’ to sleep down there?’
The loaded hoist rose swinging into the air and was brought inboard.
*
Owen watched from Pluto’s poop deck as Matthieson’s two boats disappeared into the entrance. The wind was still from the land yet the seas were rising: proof that somewhere over the horizon the wind had in fact gone round, as he had feared, and would shortly be blowing from the east, turning all this coastline into a lee shore.
Had he been wise to send the boarding party in, with the weather deteriorating? He could have put sea room under his keel and waited a few miles off the coast for Centaur to come out. But Hagwood had been right, his best chance of taking her was now, with her hatches open. Centaur had the look of a swift ship. Even heavily laden she might slip away from him if the weather got worse, as it showed every sign of doing. He didn’t want to risk it. Of course Pike was planning to take his cargo to London – why go to all this trouble otherwise?
He remembered the contemptuous way in which Pike had looked him up and down when he had challenged him that day on the wharf.
You’re talking nonsense, man. I’d laugh if it wasn’t so stupid.
The memory stiffened his already prominent jaw. I’ll take you in, Silas Pike. Confiscate your cargo and your ship, by God. Then we’ll see who’s laughing.
Pluto lurched beneath his feet as a heavier gust rattled the rigging. Owen clung to the rail, shielding his eyes from the spray, and surveyed the now empty shoreline.
Get on with it, Matthieson. Get on with it.
*
Back at Sydney Cove, the dawn came dark and sullen out of the eastern horizon.
Even at so early an hour, Ira Thornton was already in his office above his warehouse on the waterfront. His men would not be at work for another hour and the office was quiet apart from the voice of the shaven-headed man who faced him on the other side of the desk. Thornton sat unmoving, pale eyes expressionless, until he had heard enough, then abruptly raised his hand. The gesture cut the man off in mid-flow.
‘Enough,’ Thornton said. ‘I hear what tha’s tellin’ me.’
The whore would have to be punished, of course – people must never be allowed to forget what it meant to cross Ira Thornton – but for the moment he had more important things on his mind.
Alone after Jed Smales had gone, he walked to the window and stood, hands clasped beneath his coat tails, staring out at the grey, white-flecked water. The Tremains again, he thought. They always seemed to be getting in his way. Not much longer, though, if yon stuck-up East India captain did his job.
*
The beach was empty. The sound of hammering echoed off the cliffs as Centaur’s crew battened down the last hatches. Lashed by Reilly’s tongue, men raced up the shrouds to unfurl the sails ready for departure. Cash at his side, Pike was in his cabin taking a final look at the barometer when there was a sudden clanging of the ship’s bell and the thud of rushing feet on the deck overhead.
‘All hands on deck!’
Both men bolted out of the cabin and burst onto the quarterdeck. Reilly was standing at the port rail. Pike went to his side. ‘What is it, Mr Reilly?’
In answer, the mate gestured at the entrance of the cove where two longboats full of men had come into view and begun to bear down on them.
Pike focused his telescope on the nearer boat. There were a dozen men aboard her, all armed. A young officer in a blue jacket sat in the stern sheets facing Centaur as the oarsmen drove the boat through the smooth water. Pike recognised him at once.
‘It’s that god-rotting patrol ship.’ Reilly’s voice was spiky with alarm.
Pike spun to Cash. ‘Get ashore, on the double!’
Cash was startled. ‘Why? Who are they?’
Pike said grimly, ‘That’s Pluto come a-calling, unless I’m very much mistaken. Come to see what we’re up to.’
‘But who knows about this place?’
‘That’s not important! What matters is getting you out of here. Take your cutter and run her up between the rocks. Quick as you can. She’ll be out of sight, there. Stay with her and whatever you do don’t interfere.’
Cash stared at him, stiff-necked, disliking being ordered about. ‘If there’s going to be trouble, I’d do better to stay here and give a hand.’
Pike ran exasperated hands through his hair. ‘Will you do what I tell you? Those boats can’t see you if you go ashore now. Another ten minutes and it’ll be too late.’
‘This is as much my fight as yours.’
‘Those boats are from Pluto. If they suspect we’re headed for England, they may try and seize this vessel. I shall make a run for it. Once I’m clear, they’ll never catch me. I’ll not let them take me into an Indian port, by God!’
‘Surely I can help you get away? If it comes to a fight?’
‘It had better not come to a fight, Mr Tremain! You have to stay in the colony. If they know you’re involved, they’ll make trouble for you here, serious trouble. You’ll find yourself in irons before you know it.’ The hard jaw thrust at him. ‘Now, will you please do what I say?’
Pike was right. Cash capitulated. ‘I’m going. God speed, Captain.’
Pike’s mind was on other things than God, at that moment. ‘Will you get ashore? And get that boat of yours out of sight!’ He turned away to Reilly. ‘Make way there!’ He pulled the mate to one side as sailors came swarming down the rigging and ran to take up their action stations.
‘Prepare port broadside!’ Pike told Reilly. ‘Load with grape! Send the starboard gun crews below for arms. Cutlasses to each man!’
Reilly’s bellow sent the men scurrying. The bosun took a party racing below for weapons. The port gun crews flung themselves at the cannon, dragging them out of their ports, loading them, thrusting them back again. The loaded muzzles grinned down at the two boats, now not more than a cable’s distance from Centaur’s port side as she lay parallel to the beach.
Pike snatched up a voice trumpet and put it to his mouth. ‘Far enough, Mr Matthieson!’
The blue-coated figure raised his arm in acknowledgment. He said something to his crew. The oar strokes ceased; the two boats drifted to a stop.
‘Permission to come aboard, Centaur?’ Matthieson’s answering hail
echoed faintly across the water separating them.
‘If you come alone.’
‘East India Company’s rules permit us to board you, Captain.’
Pike bared brown teeth in a savage grin and lifted the hailer again. ‘I don’t give a damn about your rules, mister. You try to lay a party aboard my ship, I’ll blow you out of the water!’
There was silence for a second as the two boats drifted a little closer. Much nearer and the gun crews would not be able to depress the cannon muzzles sufficiently to bring them to bear. Maybe Matthieson was counting on that.
‘Musket, Mr Reilly,’ Pike snapped.
The mate thrust the loaded weapon into his hand.
He raised it to his shoulder and aimed it in the general direction of Matthieson’s longboat.
‘Last warning, mister! Next time I fire!’
‘Permission to come aboard alone?’ Matthieson was not easily put off.
Pike looked over his shoulder. The cutter had vanished behind the rocks.
‘Alone, yes. Any of your crew makes a move to follow, I’ll sink you!’
Pike met the ensign at the top of the boarding ladder. ‘What can I do for you, Mr Matthieson?’
‘May I see your ship’s orders, Captain?’
‘You may not.’
The ensign was absurdly young but stood his ground well enough. ‘East India Company rules give me the right …’
‘I’ve already said your rules mean nothing to me.’
‘Where are you headed, Captain?’
‘That’s my business!’
‘If you won’t reveal your destination, I have the right to assume you intend taking this vessel to England, Mr Pike.’
‘Assume what you like, Mr Matthieson.’
The ensign stood as stiff as starch at the head of the ladder. ‘I must warn you, Captain, such an action would be illegal in terms of the Company’s monopoly.’
Pike shook his head. ‘Lad, I’m showing you no papers, and there’s an end to it.’
An errant gust raised thin spirals of misty spray from the surface of the sea and set Centaur’s rigging thrumming. Pike shot a glance at the racing cloud cover brushing the tops of the cliffs. ‘I have a ship to get to sea before this weather gets any worse so I’ll thank you to leave me to get on with it.’
‘I must warn you, Captain.’ Matthieson stood his ground, very formal at the top of the ladder. ‘I report to my captain you have refused to name your destination, he’ll arrest you.’
A grin cracked Pike’s hard face. ‘Chance is a great thing, Mr Matthieson.’
‘By force, if needs be.’
Pike narrowed his eyes. ‘You try to sink me, mister, you’ll have a fight on your hands.’
‘Twenty guns, Captain,’ Matthieson said. ‘And sea room. You have no chance.’
‘I’ll worry about that,’ Pike said. He was big and hard enough to tear the ensign apart with one hand. He showed him his teeth. ‘I’m giving you a choice.’
The ensign stared at him suspiciously. ‘What choice is that?’
‘I am putting to sea, Mr Matthieson,’ Pike said. ‘If I allow you and your crew to keep your arms, I want your word you’ll not try to impede me in any way as I leave.’
‘I shall return to my ship, Captain. What Captain Owen chooses to do when I get there is up to him.’
‘That’s just what I can’t let you do, you see.’
‘And how do you propose to stop me?’
Pike had a primed pistol in his belt. He took it out, cocked it and presented it to Matthieson’s chin.
‘Like this.’
Matthieson took one step back, hand going to the pommel of the short fighting sword he carried at his side. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’
‘I’ll not harm you, Mr Matthieson. Not you or your crew. I’ve no wish to hang. But I’ll put you ashore without arms or oars if you don’t give me your word not to interfere.’
‘And if I refuse?’
‘I have too much force at my command for you to stop me, Mr Matthieson.’
‘Pluto –’
‘Never mind Pluto! I can and will put you and your men on the beach, without oars and without guns, unless I have your word you’ll not try to interfere!’
Maybe I should do it anyway, he thought. No, it’ll be smarter to let him leave – after we’ve gone. That way Pluto will have to stop and pick him up.
Matthieson said, ‘If I’m not back on board before you leave this inlet, Pluto will fire on you as soon as you come out, Captain.’
He was probably right but Pike would not think about that. ‘How did you learn of this place, Mr Matthieson?’
‘I have no idea.’ Stiffly.
Pike nodded. Wouldn’t say if he could. Perhaps it was luck? But that was impossible. There had to be a reason. Pike put the thought to one side. Time enough to sort that out later.
He had only one chance that he could see, and a precious thin one, at that. He lowered the pistol, his finger still curled around the trigger. ‘Well, Mr Matthieson, what’s it to be?’
*
Pike stood on the quarterdeck as the anchor came up. With sails backed, the prow paid off until it pointed towards the bend in the cliffs that led to the mouth of the inlet. The wind was abeam, still blowing off the land. That meant Centaur could get out without difficulty but it also meant Pluto would still be out there, waiting for her. Their only chance was that Owen would be confused when Centaur appeared in place of the two boats he was expecting. Whether his confusion would last long enough to give Pike the chance he needed depended on the man, the wind and luck.
The sails drew taut and the hull began to cut a quiet line through the water. Pike did not bother to look at Pluto’s boats drawn up on the beach. He trusted Matthieson to keep his word and the dozen or so crew members presented no risk to him or his ship. What mattered now was Pluto. Pluto and the weather.
He watched the sails, feeling the wind. It was fluky, changing its strength from second to second, yet it still blew from the same direction. Another thirty minutes and they’d be clear. God and Captain Owen willing.
Would Pluto use her guns?
She might, if Owen realised he could stop Centaur no other way. But would he use his broadsides if he believed that Matthieson and his men were on board?
Pike glanced again at the press of sail. The tops’ls were reefed but when they came to the entrance Centaur would need all the sail she could carry. Men were strung out along the yards, waiting for the order.
‘Prepare starboard guns‚’ he snapped.
Reilly relayed the order and the men ran, bare feet thudding.
The mate looked at him. ‘You think Pluto will fire on us?’
Pike shook his head. ‘I’m trying to cover every possibility, that’s all.’
Centaur reached the turn in the inlet. The cliffs leaned inwards until they seemed almost to touch the yards.
‘What’s the time, Mr Reilly?’
‘Lacks two hours to low water, sorr!’
Gough Tremain had told him there was depth enough except, perhaps, for an hour either side of low water at spring tides. Pike would have accepted the assurance from few men but Gough Tremain was different. There were no spring tides to worry about and with two hours to play with there should be depth enough.
‘Follow the inlet around, lad,’ he said to the helmsman. Obediently, the seaman began to pay off the wheel. The bow came round.
‘Set tops’ls,’ Pike said.
‘Set tops’ls,’ Reilly bellowed.
The tiny figures along the yards moved with frantic haste. The sails opened like petals before the wind. Men came swinging and sliding down the rigging and ran to haul the halyards home. Centaur picked up speed.
Rocks showed black fangs through the froth of the surging waves. Bursts of spray exploded about them. Pike wiped his face with the back of a huge hand while he leant forward, eyes on the passage. Gough Tremain, he thought, you’d better be right.
‘Dow
n the middle, lad,’ he told the helmsman. ‘Straight as a musket barrel!’
The sea had picked up a lot while they were inside. Grey rollers showed their teeth in the entrance, exploding with a roar that overwhelmed other sound. There was still no sign of Pluto.
Pike could feel the hull beginning to lift beneath his feet as Centaur approached the entrance. The stark walls of black rock fell back. The wind held steady astern. All sails set and drawing, Centaur burst out of the inlet, her forefoot smiting the breakers and sending bursts of spray as high as the mastheads. The wind chanted in the rigging as she broke free from the shelter of the land.
Two miles offshore, Pluto lay directly in her path, gun ports open, full broadside run out, hull athwart the wind.
*
Cash and his crew lay among the rocks at the head of the inlet and watched Matthieson and the men from Pluto waiting by their boats as Centaur drew away down the inlet.
They made no attempt to search the area. Why should they? It would have occurred to none of them that there might be anyone else there. Thank God, Cash thought. Pike had been right. It wouldn’t do for him to be found here.
Centaur disappeared around the bend. At once Pluto’s men ran their boats down the beach and began to row away down the inlet. Cash waited until they, too, had passed out of sight behind the cliff, then stood. The men from Pelican stood around him.
A red-headed seaman of about twenty wiped his nose with the back of his hand and spat. ‘Think she’ll get away if yon patrol ship’s waiting out there for ’er?’
‘I don’t know,’ Cash said. ‘I’ll tell you this much, though, if anyone can get her clear, it’ll be Silas Pike.’
‘Think we’ll ’ear if there’s trouble?’
‘Hear the guns, you mean? I dare say we would, yes. Hopefully there won’t be anything to hear.’
They waited while the wind moaned fitfully overhead and a fine mizzle of rain fell from the sag-bellied clouds.
‘Nuffin,’ the red-headed man said. ‘She’s got clear.’
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