Harry knew he was close to the delta area long before he sighted land. The discoloured water, faint at first, became darker by the hour. This was a clear indication that he was approaching the mighty watercourse that ran from the Gulf of Mexico right into the heartland of the American continent. Some of the mud he was observing had travelled from the headwaters of half a dozen huge rivers, all of which joined with the Mississippi at various stages on its 2,500 mile journey to the ocean. The thought of such a natural wonder clearly affected his imagination, though his evident enthusiasm produced little reaction in James.
‘It only requires a minimal canal network to have a river system that would run all the way from Canada to the Gulf,’ said Harry, seeking to draw his brother’s attention to the map in his hand.
‘And what advantage would that produce?’ asked James, who barely spared a glance. He was occupied with his pad, drawing a copy of the embroidery that they’d found on the linen sheets aboard the Gauchos. The portrait case, now containing three pictures instead of one, lay beside the desk, on top of the two chests of clothes that Pender had fetched aboard.
‘Rivers are the best way of shipping trade goods out of the interior. Such a network would open up a vast area of virgin land to development. Don’t you remember what Pollock said?’
James stifled a slight yawn. ‘Indeed I do.’
‘I have the distinct impression that this doesn’t interest you, brother.’
‘What doesn’t interest me?’
Harry waved a hand towards the northern horizon. ‘The American continent. The sheer size of the thing. The vast area of wilderness that lies beyond the Cumberland Gap and the Appalachian mountains. Fort Pitt and Ticonderoga, the Great Lakes; a land teeming with wild game and Indian tribes.’
‘You are right there, brother. These names which you trip so glibly mean nothing to me. Besides, I prefer teeming civilization.’
‘So the great forests and plains, mountains and rivers hold no fascination for you?’
James laid aside his pad. ‘None whatever. The thought of an endless wilderness, full only of savages and animals, has no attraction at all. At least none to compare with the glories of Italy. Grandeur is all very well. But some of the most tedious paintings I have ever seen are those in which such vistas dominate.’
He picked up the portrait case, undid the catch, and tipped out the three paintings, taking one and holding it up for Harry to see. It was Captain Rodrigo in all his imperial splendour.
‘Let this be part of your artistic education.’
That brought forth a groan from Harry, and another less than pleasant memory of St Croix. His brother’s nautical ineptitude never ceased to amaze him. He could not fathom why the retention of even the most basic fact of wind, weather, or sail seemed to slip in one ear and out of the other. Forgetting James’s tendency to overstate his ignorance, Harry had made a rather waspish remark on the subject. James responded by setting up his easel and inviting Harry to learn to paint. Never one to duck a challenge, and with little to do once the ship had been handed over to the repairers, Harry set to with a will. He’d listened with tremendous concentration as James gave him a lesson in the basics; the divisions of the human frame, preliminary sketching, light and shade, and how to mix and apply paints. It was, by the very nature of the subject and the pupil, a crash course. The resulting display of temper from Harry Ludlow, as James turned the tables on him, had amused the whole crew. And nothing hurt Harry more than the gentle way his brother would say, when he encountered some technical difficulty, ‘But Harry, I explained that to you, in great detail, only yesterday.’
If James heard the groan he ignored it, and aimed his pen at the casement windows and dark blue drapes of what had been the Gauchos. ‘The task of a landscape is the same as that of background, to set a dimension to something of more interest.’
He picked up the second portrait, the one they’d found in the case, this time indicating the white mansion and the dark chair in which the subject sat.
‘That house, being white, sets off the darkness of the dress and the deep brown of the furniture. Likewise the source of light playing on the heavy carving helps to concentrate the eye. Do you understand, Harry, on its own, a ship’s wake, the blue sea, the snow-capped mountain or an endless plain is of little appreciable value.’
‘Well, at least it makes the thing interesting,’ said Harry, grabbing the small portrait. ‘Look at this, it’s as dull as ditchwater.’
‘I rather like it.’
‘In God’s name, why?’
James took it from Harry and looked at it closely. ‘It’s by the same artist as the one of Rodrigo. But in this the man executing it cared for his subject.’
‘How can you tell?’
‘The brushwork is similar, and the way he approaches various parts of the anatomy. But instead of throwing his brush around as he did for that foolish painting of the Captain, he’s taken care to try and see into the mind of his subject, rather than provide mere surface arrogance.’
‘And this one?’ asked Harry, picking up a corner to show the mantilla-crowned face.
‘Very different.’
Harry looked closely at two of the pictures, but unable to say what the difference was, or that he preferred the one James termed arrogant, he took the subject back to where it had begun.
‘So America and noble savages do not inspire you?’
‘Noble savages, Harry?’ replied James, with an arch tone. ‘I fear that the estimable Benjamin West, along with John Singleton Copley, have quite exhausted that oeuvre.’
‘These things of which I speak are not merely on canvas, brother. They are real.’
James put down the small painting and picked up his pad with a dispirited air. ‘They will be, Harry. Some fool will be seduced by them and seek to record them with the brush.’
Harry opened his mouth, about to deliver a sharp retort, but a sudden tap on the cabin door halted him. Dreaver poked his head round the jamb. ‘Lookout’s spotted a small raft in the water, Capt’n.’
‘A raft,’ Harry said, sharply, giving Dreaver the same look he’d aimed at James. The sailor stuttered the next words.
‘S—says it’s a raft for certain, but there’s s—something odd about it.’
‘I’ll be up on deck shortly.’
‘If we don’t put our helm down, your honour, we’ll have to come about.’
‘Very well. Steer a course for the raft.’ Dreaver’s head disappeared and Harry turned back to James. ‘Do you wish to view this, brother?’
‘Thank you, no.’
As soon as Harry saw it through the telescope he sent for him. James came on deck to be greeted by a grim expression that was not confined to Harry. The whole crew looked troubled. James took the proffered telescope and trained at the spot to which Harry was pointing.
‘You will need to look closely, brother.’
James did as he was asked, his eyes screwed up in concentration.
‘Is that a body lashed to the timbers?’
‘It is,’ Harry replied sadly. ‘And if you look further afield, you will see some casks in the water.’
‘I’ve got them!’ James exclaimed. ‘Six of them, on edge. They seem to be tied to the raft.’
‘They are payed out to leeward. You are witnessing two of the worst punishments ever invented by a sick nautical mind. They combine hope with futility. Unless, in either case, a rescuer happens to come across the victim, it always ends in death, and with the right conditions that can take days.’
‘Are these such conditions?’
‘I doubt it, brother. If you look at the way those casks are rocking on the swell, the bodies that were attached have gone.’
‘Bodies!’ James replied, struggling to keep his tone and expression calm.
‘In the foreground you have the raft. Tie a man to that above salt water, especially in a warm climate, and you have a very refined form of hell. All he can see, if the sun isn’t burning his eyes,
is the sky, and the birds circling that will, when he dies, take them out.’
‘What about the casks?’
‘With those you take the victim and lash him, seated, to a near-empty barrel. I say near empty because a certain amount of ballast is put in the bottom to act as a counterweight to his bulk and ensure that it doesn’t tip on its end.’ As Harry explained his men moved forward to listen. They’d all seen this particular form of pirate punishment done as a joke. But none, including their Captain, had ever seen it for real.
‘Some humorous souls even provide the victim with a piece of driftwood as an oar, to give him the illusion that survival is possible. They have not done so in this case, but that raft represented salvation, except that with the run of the tide there was probably no way that anyone, hands tied, could reach it.’
Bucephalas was very near the raft now. Close to they could see the remains. The skin was blackened by the relentless sun, the eyes, as Harry had said, picked out by birds. The victim had no hands, and the blood that stained the planking was close in colour to the burgundy velvet of the garment he wore.
‘The coat, Harry?’ said James.
‘Captain Rodrigo, I think,’ Harry replied.
They lifted their gaze to the row of casks. All were empty, with ropes lashed to them that Harry informed him had once held feet.
‘Have you ever tried to sit on a greasy pole at the village fair, James? It is easy compared to a barrel in the sea. But because you’re tied to it, when you fall sideways you must try to get upright again, otherwise you will drown. That’s where the ballast comes in, to prolong the agony and add to the spectacle for those watching. That is, until the victim becomes too tired. Then the ballast works against him. And once he’s under water, it is designed to keep him there.’
‘There’s no way that the victim could have pulled his own legs out, is there, Capt’n?’ asked Pender, standing by with a boathook. ‘I was just wondering if’n there might some poor soul in the water.’
‘You’re a sailor. Called upon to tie a knot that would keep a man secure, could you do it?’
‘Then how come they ain’t there now?’ asked one of the crew.
‘They’ve been pulled out bodily by a shark, I should think.’ The crew shuddered at this information. ‘Let’s hope the poor sod had already drowned by the time it happened.’
The voice from the tops distracted them just at the point when Pender got his boathook under the rim of the cask.
‘I think we might be close to land, your honour, but I can’t be sure. There’s birds an’ the like, too many to be scudding round a ship, but nothing solid for ’em to set on.’
Harry cast his gaze over the side again, deliberately avoiding looking at the blood-stained platform as Pender hauled it close. The dark brown, impenetrable soup that ran down the ship’s side told him more than his lookout’s eye could observe.
‘As soon as you can, cut those casks loose,’ he said.
They got a line around one of the timbers and hauled the raft onto the deck, cutting the ropes that streamed out from one side as they did so. Harry, on his way to take over the wheel, ordered Pender to cover it over.
‘It’s that cove in the picture right enough, Capt’n,’ said Pender, on his knees beside the body. ‘His shirt’s torn and there are a rate of wounds on his chest. It’s as though he’s been tortured. Looks as though his tongue has been sliced out.’
Harry deliberately didn’t look. He walked back to the wheel and then informed James that they were, if his reckoning was correct, approaching the south-eastern passage into the Mississippi, guarded by the island of Balize.
‘That is if it is still there,’ he added.
‘Is this island another mystery, brother?’
‘No. But I heard that the whole thing was washed away by a hurricane in ’68, including the lighthouse the French built to indicate the river mouth. But the silt, plus the detritus from the Mississippi, recreated the island. I suspect they’ve rebuilt the fort, since it provides the best protection for the whole delta, but we’re obviously still without the lighthouse.’
‘Shall we land there?’
‘No. There is little that will be of any use to us. It will suffice to offload our passengers at Fort Balize. They can hitch a ride in the next merchantman going upriver. Break out a British flag to let them know that we are neutrals. I’ll shorten sail so that they can send out a boat if they feel the need to question us.’
CHAPTER TEN
THEY SAILED on in a light breeze that hardly ruffled the canvas on the yards, eyes straining forward to catch the first glimpse of the low-lying banks that lay at the eastern side of the delta. Waves were breaking over the confused mass of sand bars and islands to larboard. It was the wide gap, the exit channel, intermittently marked with buoys, that first alerted them to its presence. But there was no sign of any building, and little of the vegetation that had come into view earlier, lining the shore of the archipelago of islands to the west. Harry guessed that any buildings would be to the north of the island, at the very mouth of the Mississippi. He spent his time studying the chart he had, constantly looking over the side for some evidence that the channel he was following was the correct one.
‘It is at times like these, brother, that you pray for up-to-date soundings. The sands shift alarmingly round here. This chart was printed by Jefferson in ’94 and could well be useless.’
‘Sail ho, Captain Ludlow, directly to larboard. Two, three, five.’
Harry swung his telescope round swiftly, his eye immediately catching sight of the row of single square sails, set nearly fore and aft, high on the mast of a line of ships. The vessels, close to the low, heavily overgrown, western shore appeared to be making good speed through the water, even if they had neither the wind nor enough aloft to justify it. Without any certain knowledge of their numbers, there had to be pirates operating in this part of the Gulf. Unsure if they represented any danger, he was just about to order the ship to go about and clear for action when the flag at the mainmast on the leading vessel, hitherto an indistinct blue, swam into focus as it turned into the wind. He couldn’t see the coat of arms on the pale cream background. But the two blue bars, top and bottom, readily identified the whole.
‘Spanish!’ he said, dropping the telescope to take in the faint outline of the leader’s hull. With it now out in a patch of open water, he was momentarily perplexed by the series of white flashes along its side. Then, when two others had pulled out from behind the sandbars, he recognised them for what they were, the spume from oars being dipped rhythmically in and out of the blue water.
‘Good God, James, it appears we are in the presence of a fleet of galleys.’
‘Galleys? Have we found Atlantis?’
‘These are close to the kind of ship a Barbary pirate would use, small, manoeuvrable, and exceedingly handy in a close encounter, with guns set to fire fore and aft. They’re the very devil to handle in any kind of sea. The Americans manned something similar during the war against us. They used them in the inshore waters.’
Harry watched as the line of ships edged its way through the sandbanks that lined the Louisiana shore. The topsails weren’t so much drawing as acting like a lateen staysail, set to keep each vessel’s head steady. For the area in which they were operating, they were perfect. With all those oars and a shallow draught they were capable of working inshore without the need for a breeze. Even a lee shore presented no problem in light airs. Likewise, given the strong currents of the Mississippi in spate, they were ideally suited for making their way up such a formidable river.
‘I’ve got sight of what I reckon to be the fort now, Capt’n,’ said Pender, who had another telescope aimed over the bowsprit. ‘If’n it can be called that. My cousin’s cowshed stands higher. There’s a boat puttin’ off, armed cutter, and the cove climbing into the thwarts has a bit of braid on his shoulder.’
With the galleys a long way off, Harry turned his attention to the approaching cutter a
nd the island behind. From the deck of Bucephalas they could barely see the rampart that formed the walls of the fort, it being nothing more than a low wooden palisade. This seemed to be the only part of the island that could truly be said to exist above sea level. Indeed, to call Balize an island at all was a serious misnomer. Harry had the distinct impression that if any kind of swell got up, those inside the fort would soon see it lashing against the walls, threatening by its action to sweep the sand from beneath their feeble human construction.
Inside the palisade, its roof just showing above the spikes, stood a single long building which obviously provided the entire accommodation for the garrison, little enough shelter from the near-Tropical heat and the ferocious storms that blew up frequently in this part of the world. He dropped his telescope and the face of the braided officer swam into Harry’s focus. Dark-skinned and moustached, he had a doleful countenance which befitted his surroundings. Harry took in the oarsmen, noting that they too were of a dark complexion, before raising his glass to re-examine the fort. As a posting it stood close to being a nightmare, especially with the knowledge that it had already, in recent times, been swept away. With no way of foreseeing what the weather would produce, the garrison would have little time to evacuate the island and find a safer shore. His mind turned to the tempest they’d so recently survived. They must dread such an event, since in a hurricane they’d have nowhere to run to. The whole delta was low lying and prone to flooding. Harry could only surmise that any officer assigned to such a duty was, along with his men, serving out some kind of punishment.
‘Head for the channel marked ahead. If we don’t make it, we’ll heave to when he comes close.’
The Scent of Betrayal Page 9