The Scent of Betrayal

by David Donachie

  What he didn’t realise, as they went ashore to find accommodation in Tortola, was that in Nathan Caufield he’d lost his main interlocutor with his passengers. James, who might have taken his place, having a limited love of shipboard life, went ashore with them. Initially Harry welcomed this as an opportunity to get on closer terms with his Frenchmen, the main object finding a way of ridding himself of them. There was nothing personal in this, just the need to regain his freedom of action. Since their Captain had been killed he’d maintained limited contact: they’d stayed in the main aboard their own ship, while he was on Bucephalas, so they were very nearly strangers. The only two men he’d dealt with on St Croix, Lampin and Couvruer, spoke some English and were pleasant enough. It was to them he’d imparted Pollock’s glowing account of Louisiana life. Lampin was of medium height, balding, with a lively expression, bright blue eyes, and an almost permanent smile. Couvruer was taller and darker, with deep brown eyes that rarely left Harry’s face, clear evidence that he listened intently to what was said.

  Asking them to come to his cabin, Harry quickly discovered that there was still no consensus at all amongst the group about where they should go next: Europe, Quebec or Louisiana. And thanks to Pender, he was soon made aware that his own crew were less than enamoured of the Frenchmen’s presence aboard ship. It was impossible, in a vessel the size of Bucephalas, to keep the two groups apart, and since he didn’t call upon his passengers to undertake any tasks to do with running the ship, they were quickly labelled as idle loafers. Added to that, since most of his men had at one time in their lives served on men-of-war, and had fought the French as the enemy, they were ill disposed to suddenly accept them as friends and equals. This didn’t apply to all the crew, of course, but it only took a few, aiming well-rehearsed insults, to infuse both parties with a mutual antipathy, that, unchecked, could lead to violence.

  Nothing demonstrated this more than the second meeting Harry had with Lampin and Couvruer. No doubt suspected of being too soft on the Rosbifs, they were accompanied by two other men, neither of whom deigned to give his name. They were a surly pair who insisted on the conversation’s being carried out in French. Their first demand was that their brass-bound chest be transferred from Harry’s cabin to the section of the berthing deck where they messed. This Harry flatly refused to do. In vain, he tried to point out that a chest known to be full of gold and silver coins in plain view of his crew would do nothing to ease the tension. Privateers’ ships were not manned by people of a saintly disposition. Quite the reverse. Harry had recruited them to fight, and if necessary kill, and while the selection had been careful, leaving out sodomites and hard bargains, they were as greedy as any other crew, quite possibly more so. Clearly Lampin and Couvruer, just by their expressions, agreed, but could do nothing in the face of their fellow-countrymen’s intransigence. They clearly didn’t trust the Ludlow brothers with their wealth, or, it seemed, their future. The meeting, when it broke up, left him in a foul mood.

  ‘It’s damned galling,’ said Harry. ‘If we hadn’t take care of them they’d be rotting at the end of a gallows’ rope in English Harbour.’

  ‘I don’t see why you don’t just sling them ashore here, your honour,’ said Pender. ‘Let’s face it, they’ve got the means to survive.’

  ‘I started to suggest that very thing, but then I was reminded of my own undertaking. I’m hoist upon a promise I made to see them to their destination. The one thing they’re adamant about is that they don’t want to stay in the Caribbean.’ He noticed Pender frown. ‘It seemed a simple thing to do, since they were underwriting the repairs to Bucephalas.’

  ‘Well, I’ve said it more’n once, Capt’n. If’n you don’t get them off the barky quick, one of ’em might get a knife in the guts.’

  ‘It doesn’t help,’ Harry snapped, ‘to have you adopting that attitude.’

  Pender grinned, not in the least bit cowed by Harry’s outburst. He might be termed a servant, but both the Ludlow brothers, and Pender himself, knew he was more than that. To Harry, especially, he was a friend and confidant, as well as a man who could on occasion act as his master’s conscience.

  ‘I don’t care one way or the other, Capt’n. But I don’t want to see you in the post of judge and jury over one of our crew. Specially since, if one man gets hurt, others are bound to follow. An’ there ain’t no good pretending it won’t go that way. Them Frogs is no better than our lot.’

  ‘Do you think I should put them to work?’

  ‘That’d just make things worse. The baiting will get louder the more they see of each other. At least half the day the Crapauds are out of sight.’

  ‘I’ll have to talk to the crew,’ said Harry wearily.

  ‘In the main they don’t need it, your honour. It’s only the odd one that hates them Frenchmen enough to bait them. And you could talk to them till your face turns blue an’ it wouldn’t make an ounce of difference.’

  ‘Then, damn it, I’ll lock them up.’

  ‘Which will upset the rest of the crew. No, Capt’n, the only way is to get them ashore as soon as you can.’

  James, accompanying some stores that the Caufields had gathered, was quizzed for his opinion.

  ‘And, brother,’ said Harry, gravely, ‘if Pender says it’s that bad it cannot be anything less than serious.’

  ‘Then I suggest you get them to make up their minds, Harry.’

  ‘Easier said than achieved. If I try to give them advice it’s likely to rebound on me. Apart from Lampin and Couvruer I doubt any of them trust us at all.’

  ‘That cannot be the case with thirty men. Most of them will be sheep, with two sets of views vying for their support. And even if they are sheep they’re not necessarily without the wit to see that it will be them who suffer if matters come to a head.’

  ‘You’re suggesting that I talk to them directly?’

  James nodded. ‘Give them the options, Harry. Point out that the more time they spend aboard Bucephalas the more likely it is that one of them will end up as a victim. Then list the different distances between their various choices.’

  ‘You think they’ll plump for New Orleans?’

  ‘I can’t say that with certainty. But if you put it the right way then I think you’ll get the result you want.’

  ‘I have no interest in the result, James,’ said Harry.

  ‘That is not true. Unless you harbour a deep desire to satisfy the reservations of Oliver Pollock regarding French colonists.’

  The use of the name raised two emotions. The first was a fond memory, but the other was a feeling of slight betrayal, as though by minding his own business Pollock had been callous.

  ‘Rest assured, James, that he doesn’t come into it at all.’

  ‘He should, if he was right.’

  ‘About colonists?’

  ‘No, Harry. About the reactions of the Spaniards. If they’re thinking of coming into the war on the side of France, New Orleans would be a bad destination.’

  Harry shrugged. ‘I don’t see we have to worry about that, brother. There’s no news come to any of the islands of such a event.’

  ‘Would it come here first?’

  ‘It would certainly get to the Caribbean before it reached the Gulf of Mexico.’

  James frowned. ‘He did say we wouldn’t be welcome even in peacetime.’

  ‘I doubt they’d throw us a celebratory ball. But they won’t dare interfere with a British ship, James. There’s no country in the world more careful of her maritime rights than Britannia. There is one way to guarantee a war with King George. Infringe them! The War of Jenkins’s Ear was begun for that very reason and a race that remembers Drake will remember that. Besides, we’ll only be touching at the mouth of the delta. We can drop our passengers and head straight back out into the Gulf. As long as they see we’re not going to hang around in their bailiwick, they will be happy.’

  ‘Well, that’s fine,’ said James gaily. ‘Since the only problem left is to persuade our
passengers.’

  Harry glared at him. ‘I’ll try persuasion first, James. But if the sods don’t agree, I’ll damn well tell them.’

  ‘That’s the spirit, Harry. Quiet diplomacy. But just as a precaution I should sound out Lampin and Couvruer first.’

  That was a piece of advice Harry was happy to take, though implementing it without causing suspicion proved to be difficult. Examining the problem objectively, he could see that James was right. It wasn’t malice that was keeping them from a collective agreement, but pure indecision. They’d been through a lot in the last few years, turfed out of St Domingue by the slave revolt, then out of Guadeloupe by the arrival of Victor Hugues. As a group they’d come to rely on their late Captain to decide everything for them. Now they must do so for themselves, and the method of leaving St Croix had done little for their self-confidence. His talk with the two Frenchmen was of necessity brief. But he secured what he needed, a definite agreement that Pender’s assessment of the situation was correct: that animosity and fear were growing, with violence not far below their surface calm.

  For a man who’d set out to persuade rather than dictate, Harry showed scant patience. Faced with a sea of surly faces, and being a person who preferred to command rather than plead, his voice soon lost the tone designed to gently nudge them in the right direction. Instead, made worse by his less than perfect French, he became harsh, practically accusing them of ingratitude, especially in the matter of their treasure.

  ‘Do you think I’d touch a sou of your money?’ he growled. ‘I wouldn’t. Every coin that’s in there now will be with you when you go ashore, you have my word.’

  Faced with his angry glare, several heads dropped. Harry sensing the opportunity, and guessing that they liked to be led, told them he was going to the Mississippi delta; that he would put them ashore there; and if any of the party didn’t like it, they certainly had the means to proceed to the destination of their choice.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE HURRICANE, so early in the season, caught out more ships’ Captains than Harry Ludlow. There would be a heavy toll to pay all over the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico when it finally blew itself out. Not that the men lashed to the wheel of the Bucephalas had any thoughts to spare for the plight of others: all their attention was concentrated on keeping their own ship before the wind. The two scraps of heavy storm canvas on the topsail yards, secured by extra braces, all that they had to maintain steerage-way, stood between them and disaster. That and the Captain’s ability to read the flukes in the wind and weather. The tempest screamed through the rigging at a steady ninety knots, but the mountainous waves, with their cable deep troughs, called for constant vigilance, since the full fury of the hurricane eased in the valleys they created, only to return with renewed intensity as the ship crested each rise.

  Running before the storm at least kept the spume out of their eyes, though their entire world was water. Bucephalas shipped great quantities amidships as the ragged top of each wave broke under her counter, so much that it appeared impossible that the ship should float. But it did, groaning as each deluge was sloughed overboard, rising with an effort and a rending sound that seemed almost human. Not all the sea water went over the side. Despite every precaution, a great quantity found its way through both the planking and the hatches, turning each companionway into a temporary torrent forceful enough to carry anyone who’d not taken a firm grip all the way to the bilges. Down below, under those very same hatches, the men on the pumps slaved to send the flood back into the sea. Too much water in the well and Bucephalas would lack the buoyancy to keep afloat. If that happened no amount of seamanship would save her.

  Harry Ludlow, who’d been on deck for the last eighteen hours, had the central position at the wheel, body lashed to the spokes and feet jammed into the looped ropes he’d stapled to the deck. Pender stood to his right and a giant bearded Frenchman, Brissot, to his left. Even with a full complement of his own Harry wondered if they could have ridden out the storm. The extra hands provided by his French passengers had not only provided assistance at the wheel, they had allowed him a continuous relay of reasonably fresh men on the pumps. Reasonable because no one could rest properly in a situation where the slightest easing of concentration would see a man thrown right across the lower deck, slammed into the side with a force that flesh and blood couldn’t withstand. The cockpit, once more a temporary sick bay, was already overflowing with sailors who’d fallen victim to the storm. James Ludlow, battered and bruised himself, sought to ease the pain of deep cuts and broken bones, his main aid being liberal quantities of undiluted rum.

  Not that Harry had any communication with those below decks. He’d issued them their orders hours before; pump hard, then pump even harder. It had been an age since anyone dared to venture up from below. To come onto this deck was to invite certain death. Not even the man ropes rigged all over would have allowed anyone to keep their feet. What human grip could withstand the pounding of such a sea? To the trio conning the ship no world existed outside the confines of that little patch of disturbed water. Even at the crest of a wave the spume whipped to the tops from the rear cut off all view of the surrounding sea. Above their heads the black clouds seemed to bear down on them, pushing their puny human frames into the waterlogged planking. They were all alone in this nightmare world, where the slightest error would see Bucephalas broach to and founder, before a wind that would push her under within a matter of seconds, a furious drowning that would leave no trace of the ship or the men who’d sailed her.

  The odd word could be exchanged with those beside him at the bottom of each trough, where the howling decreased just enough for a man to be heard by a close neighbour. There was little to say, barring the odd message of reassurance. Repetitive they might be, nevertheless Harry gave them constantly, since the least hint of despair in either man could produce a lapse in effort. Brissot, whose English was extremely limited, nodded every time Harry spoke, even if he barely understood what was being shouted into his well-wrapped ear.

  ‘Bring her head round to larboard again.’

  ‘How we doing, Capt’n?’ gasped Pender, through salt-encrusted lips.

  ‘I reckon the gale has eased just a fraction,’ Harry shouted, as he fought to turn the wheel. The party on the relieving tackles below, seeing what they were trying to do, would take some of the strain on the ropes that led to the rudder, helping to bring the ship round onto the course their Captain desired. Care had to be exercised, so that the instruction to belay as the bows began to rise was readily obeyed, ensuring that the control of the ship lay with those who could see the bowsprit and feel the weight of pressure this hurricane was exerting on the hull and the masts.

  ‘I dunno how you can tell that, your honour. But I’m minded to believe you out of hope alone.’

  ‘Stand by!’ screamed Harry for the hundredth time, his head back, eyes fixed firmly on the twin scraps of storm canvas. High enough to be above wave height they’d never lost the force of the wind, which gave him valuable steerage-way, putting sufficient speed on Bucephalas to ensure that as she breasted the next enormous cap, the slight forward motion of the ship, added to the pressure of the wind coming in abaft her larboard beam, would, by forcing her head round, carry her over into the next patch of relative safety. The flash of forked lightning, followed immediately by the deafening crack of thunder, made all three men duck involuntarily. But, even half-crouched, they strained as one to turn the ship’s head once more. Then as she rose they let the wheel slip slowly through their fingers as Bucephalas was forced to pay off on to her original course.

  ‘Listen hard the next time we crest,’ shouted Harry, patting his ear as he turned to repeat the message to the Frenchman. Brissot nodded, to say he understood. More of a sailor than Pender, he’d noticed the slight drop in the tempest’s angry note, the first sign that they might, at last, be steering into calmer waters. Not that he could be sure. He knew as well as Harry how deceptive a hurricane could be, that seeming
diminution merely the prelude to a startling increase in wind power, the precursor of the tempest’s maximum strength, a wall of air blowing so hard that no seamanship, however cunning, no wooden vessel, however sound, could hope to survive. Harry held his breath as they crested the next wave, every nerve stretched to breaking point lest the wind had increased. The relief that this wasn’t so was compounded when he turned to look at Pender. Not much of his servant’s face showed, but those dark lively eyes were creased like a man smiling, evidence that he too had noticed how things had eased.

  ‘Are we safe now, your honour?’ he croaked, as Bucephalas spilt over the highest point of the wave, shipping tons of water, before careering like a dropped stone down into the well of the trough.

  ‘Not safe, Pender. But the danger has eased for the moment. If we’re lucky then we’re on the edge of the hurricane.’ He had to stop so that they could deal with the next rise of the bowsprit, but he continued as soon as they returned to the relative quiet. ‘Either that or we’re close to the eye, which means that we’ll have a short period of total calm then be forced to face the storm all over again.’