The Guineaman

  ‘As for you Kite, Captain Makepeace said of you that you were an unusual young man, gifted as a surgeon and capable, he thought, of many things. Yet you remain a dilemma. You have made no effort to even promulgate the fact that you were a surgeon. I find that strange, unless you have reasons for concealing the fact…’

  Kite leaned forward to speak, but Mulgrave simply raised a hand and he remained silent.

  ‘Whatever the reason for you singular conduct in this matter, I have observed you to be the man of principle that Makepeace said you were. I have known Captain Makepeace a long time. Although given to bouts of drunkenness, in which he is in no wise unique, he is an able sea-officer and was, when in command of a letter-of-marque in the last war, a successful privateer-commander. As a slaver he is astute, taking good care of his charges and is a man who makes his own luck. I therefore value his opinion and have decided not wait unduly long before prosecuting my own private affairs in order to verify his judgement. In short, Mr Kite, beyond what you have already shown of yourself, I am taking you on trust.’

  Kite murmured his thanks, though he was apprehensive now, certain that whatever Mulgrave was about to propose, would disturb the tranquillity of his present life.

  ‘In six months or so, I intend to return to England. War seems certain and my departure would be sooner, but matters cannot simply be dropped like a stone. In the mean time, having seen you Wentworth, in possession of my affairs here, both as my successor and my agent, it is my intention to take passage for Carolina and afterwards Philadelphia and New York. Since I shall personally have relinquished my interest in all my ships and vessels in the Antilles in your favour Wentworth, and I am moreover prejudiced against placing my person at risk at so uncertain a time, I am unwilling to sail in any vessel other than one in which I have a perfect confidence.’ Mulgrave turned to Kite. ‘I am therefore resolved to purchase an armed schooner in your name Mr Kite, and placing the vessel at least under your management if you do not feel competent to take the command, to request that you have her ready for sea by the end of January. Once purchased she will become not merely your property, but your domicile. Other details we will discuss in the coming days and I shall devote sufficient time to concert matters with each of you.’ Mulgrave paused, allowing his words to sink in. Wentworth, overjoyed at his new-found wealth and already contemplating the means by which he could announce it to Antigua in general and Miss Cunningham in particular, had emerged from behind his hands, a look of stupefaction on his broad face that belied the industry of his mind.

  Kite’s shift in fortunes were less spectacular, though more profound. That the schooner would become his own was clear and, Kite divined, somehow congruous with the way in which Mulgrave conducted his affairs. Like Dorothea, Kite found himself bound to Mulgrave in a fashion akin in some small way, to that of moral servitude. Of course, Kite could destroy that trust at his own whim, perhaps with little economic effect, but he half-guessed that in this way Mulgrave subtly secured the bonds that bound to him those people he selected as beneficiaries.

  When Kite returned to Puella that night, he was both elated and disturbed by the news that Mulgrave had given him. He had known that his idyllic existence would not go on for ever, but he fretted over Puella’s fate, as he fretted over that of his father and sister in the distant lakes and fells of Cumbria. He was not a natural nomad, not drawn to the existence that Makepeace and others accepted as a means to a distant and uncertain end. Moreover, fate was moving him again, and this movement was inexorably towards England, where he was still regarded as a murderer.

  Puella was fast asleep, replete from their earlier love-making, but Kite was too stimulated by the events of the evening to lie quietly beside her. He retired to the adjacent room and, finding his long neglected journal, he lit a candle, and found pen and ink. Opening the book he regarded the single sheet of paper that lay inside. It was a half-completed letter to his sister, Helen, and was dated some weeks earlier.

  As for me, I am Well, he read, as I Hope you and Father both are. You will Learn from this that I am in the West Indies, where Talk of War with all its Uncertainties, Prompts me to Write. I should like you to Write to me at the Address of Mulgrave & Co, St John’s, Antigua, telling me the State of your Health, together with that of our Father’s. I will…

  But he had never finished the unsatisfactory letter, unsure what to say, or whether the recipient would welcome it. With a sigh, he now lifted it up and held it in the candle-flame. The paper curled then flared up, finally falling as black ash. Blowing the charred remnant onto the floor he took up his pen, dipped it in the ink-well and held it poised over his journal.

  ‘Kite…’ Puella stood in the doorway. She was naked and the candle-light fell upon the familiar curves of her beautiful brown body.

  ‘I think I soon have pickaninny.’

  Chapter Nine

  The Departure

  In the weeks that followed, Wentworth reminded Kite of the contented peasant in the fairy tale who, through his own endeavours and with a little help from some magic entity, succeeds in winning the king’s daughter and half the kingdom. Not that Wentworth had yet won any fair hand in wedlock, but his prospects were set fair, for he had gained not half, but almost the entire kingdom. Mulgrave’s extraction of capital nevertheless left Wentworth in command of a substantial sum, despite the fact that the older man intended to retain an interest in the business. As for the business itself, this was to pass into Wentworth’s control, Mulgrave relinquishing it with a single remark that the new owner would do well if he did not succumb to drink. Within days of Mulgrave’s announcement, Kite had abandoned his desk and his indoor existence to resume his intimacy with ships. Mulgrave sent to him a seafaring man named Da Silva, a man of Portuguese blood who had served in British West Indiamen as an able seaman, as a gunner to Captain Makepeace aboard the privateer Firedrake, and as boatswain aboard a slaver. In his last ship, the Guineaman, Da Silva had voyaged between the Bight of Benin and Cuba, from Ngola and Ouidah to Brazil, and from Guinea to Jamaica and the Carolinas. There was little he did not know about the mariner’s art.

  It was Mulgrave’s suggestion that Kite assumed the title and dignity of ‘Captain’, while he appointed Da Silva to the post of sailing master. Such an expedient would compensate for Kite’s lack of experience, while not detracting from the advantages to be had from Da Silva’s expertise. Da Silva accepted this arrangement with apparent contentment, unsurprisingly proving another person whose life Mulgrave had influenced. He had been paid off the slaver with nothing, the master and owner having cheated the crew and disappeared. On hearing of this infamy, Mulgrave had taken up the entire abandoned crew, and found berths for them in other vessels. It was a small enough kindness, perhaps due more to preserving the people of St John’s from the rapacity of two score of distressed and desperate men, but, being the man he was, it obligated Da Silva. Kite took an instant liking for the man, who was twice his age and half his height, yet possessed shoulders of an extraordinary width, a powerful chest and strong arms. Da Silva’s legs were bent with rickets and his teeth were broken and caried, but his aquiline face bore a pair of fierce mustachios, which twitched when he smiled and his eyes sparkled with a relentless cheerfulness. Gold rings in his ears and an habitual bandana gave De Silva a piratical air.

  Word soon went round St John’s that this oddly assorted pair were in search of a ship, but Da Silva turned up on the second morning of their acquaintance with a pair of mules, a skin of wine and the idea that they should proceed to Willoughby, where he knew of a smart schooner with a reputation for speed and which mounted a dozen guns.

  Such a diversion pleased Kite. It seemed in tune with the increasing tempo of life in Antigua, for confirmation of the long expected outbreak of war with France reached the West Indies at this time. The news sharpened Mulgrave’s desire to begone and, for the first time he betrayed a side of his character in contrast with his hitherto calm exterior. In traces of an irascible impateince,
Kite saw signs of a man who might have been provoked to fight a duel, and might well have shot an opponent in cold blood. The thought reminded him of the accusations laid against himself; the past seemed to increasingly penetrate his consciousness as the nearness of his own departure approached.

  A day or so later Kite found himself registered at the Custom House as the owner in full, of all sixty-four parts of the Cuban-built armed schooner Cacafuego. On Da Silva translating the meaning from Spanish, Kite renamed her Spitfire. As he took possession of the vessel and they prepared to move her round to St John’s, he recalled Wentworth’s remark about the folly of owning a ship outright. Well, Mulgrave would underwrite the running of the vessel, Kite consoled himself, so his ownership was little more than a technicality.

  Of more legal consequence was the document he had requested Mulgrave to have drawn up to free Puella as soon as he arrived back at St John’s with the Spitfire. Freedom was conferred upon Puella a week before Kite and Da Silva considered the Spitfire would be finally ready for departure. Kite asked Dorothea to explain the meaning of freedom and to make clear to Puella, that it would leave her to chose her future life. On the day appointed, Puella was dressed in a new English gown of pale blue silk. To this Dorothea added a broad-brimmed feathered hat which swept about Puella’s features in a captivating aureola, throwing her striking features into sharp and distinguished relief.

  Holding herself with that natural elegance that had first attracted Kite’s eye, Kite led her from Mulgrave’s carriage that had brought the two black women into town. Passing through the counting house, Kite and Puella ascended the steps into Mulgrave’s gloomy office where Mulgrave and his attorney, a Mr Garvey, along with Wentworth, had the document drawn up for the principals’ and the witnesses’ signatures.

  Dorothea had secretly coached Puella, so that when Garvey pointed to the place she should make her mark, Puella wrote in a sure, round hand, Puella Kite-Mulgrave. Kite could scarce hide his astonishment, both at Puella’s ability to write, and to the grand name she had taken. Mulgrave’s calm acceptance of the news was clear evidence that he had connived at it. Signed by Kite and Puella, witnessed by Mulgrave and Wentworth, and finally sealed by Garvey, Kite handed the instrument of manumission to Puella.

  ‘With this, Puella, we strike the last iron fetters from you.’

  Puella curtseyed as she had been taught, and said, ‘I thank you.’

  Kite, having bowed over her hand, pressed a kiss on her cheek. Still holding Puella’s hand, Kite turned to Mulgrave. ‘Sir, while it was long my intention to manumit Puella, I cannot conceive of any circumstances in which I could have done so without your assistance. We are both most grateful.’

  Mulgrave smiled and shook his head dismissively. ‘Mr Garvey had the burden of the task,’ he said, stepping forward and taking Puella’s hand from Kite. His dark eyes glittered with pleasure as bent and kissed it. Mulgrave was followed by Wentworth and Garvey. Dorothea clasped her tribal sister, then Mulgrave led the company to a table where wine and sweetmeats were laid out. Later, as Kite followed Dorothea, Puella and Mulgrave into the carriage to return to the house, Garvey pressed into his hand a second paper with the words, ‘Mr Mulgrave is a great benefactor, sir. A great benefactor.’

  Settling himself in the carriage and smiling at Puella, Kite broke the wafer as the black coachman whipped up the horses and they jerked forward. When he had read the short letter, he looked up at Mulgrave sitting opposite, beside Dorothea. Mulgrave stared steadfastly out of the window and Kite felt a great affection from the graven features of this strange, aloof man.

  He had settled an annuity of two hundred pounds upon Puella.

  The departure of the Spitfire was subject to a number of delays, but finally decided upon for Lady Day, 1756. By that time the war was impinging increasingly upon trade in the West Indies, where merchant shipping was now under convoy. The passage of frigates and sloops in and out of English Harbour was no longer the desultory occasion it had been a few months earlier. Already the idlers inhabiting the waterfront of St John’s, Willoughby, Falmouth and Parham, had been swept up by a hot press sent in ship’s boats from the naval establishment at English Harbour. Here they had been found enforced employment in the small Leeward Islands squadron.

  From the window of Mulgrave and Company’s offices one morning, Kite and Mulgrave were regarding a naval sloop lying-to off St John’s, her main topsail backed against the mast while she waited to escort the dozen snows, brigs and schooners just then slipping their moorings and warping out to sea. Mulgrave remarked drily, ‘Now we shall see how assiduous our naval Johnnies are, Kite, for they have to choose between the lucrative pursuit of prizes and the dull, sober and routine duty of convoy escort.’

  He turned to Kite. ‘It is not my intention to sail in convoy, Kite, and I know Da Silva has taken aboard some powder and shot…’

  ‘Indeed he has, sir. But he is concerned that the, er, naval Johnnies, have requisitioned the best and left us with inferior powder of which there is little enough. I had hoped to load more.’

  Mulgrave smiled. ‘There is a store of it at the house, along with a quantity of small arms, which you may place on board. On an island with so many plantations there is a steady demand for powder and shot, and occasionally for muskets.’

  The following morning Kite and Da Silva, with a dozen of their crew of free blacks, mulattos and white riff-raff happily scooped up by the Portuguese sailing master before the Royal Navy’s ardent young midshipmen and their gangs, followed an overgrown path up the hill behind Mulgrave’s house to where a brick, bomb-proof store lay hidden by thorn scrub. The unlocked door revealed a small arsenal. Sixty kegs of fine-milled black-powder were carefully transferred to the Spitfire.

  The schooner was by now lying in the harbour, her standing rigging set up a-tanto, her topsides gleaming under a fresh application of turpentine and rosin and with new canvas lying furled along her spars. Following the powder, forty stand of muskets and a dozen bundles of cutlasses and boarding pikes were carried on board, so that apart from the dress of her officers and the absence of a naval pendant at her mainmast truck, there was little to distinguish the Spitfire from a man-of-war schooner.

  By Lady Day, the financially significant date upon which the formalities of Mulgrave and Company transforming itself into Mulgrave, Wentworth and Company were completed, the Spitfire lay ready to leave. Powder, shot and small arms had been followed on board by the packing cases, trunks and personal effects of Mulgrave, Dorothea, Puella and Kite. Late that afternoon, having gone ahead of the others, Kite welcomed Mulgrave and Dorothea on board. The quayside was crowded with well-wishers and the merely curious. The brilliant colours worn by the free-black women were in stark contrast to the black carriages of the island’s gentry drawn up along the strand, amid which Wentworth held impatient court. A foot patrol of the garrison had been sent by Major Robertson to provide a guard of honour as Mulgrave, long an institution in Antigua, courteously raised his black tricorne as he stepped aboard the Spitfire. Along the waterfront a respectful cheer rippled.

  The sun set as the schooner was warped out across the harbour heading for the open sea beyond. The western sky flushed red as the halliards were manned and the sails rose up the masts, pink in the evening light. As the Spitfire cleared the outer limits of St John’s, an unshotted gun boomed out from her bow. The concussion rolled round the bay, echoing in a long diminuendo, but this was not quite Joseph Mulgrave’s final valediction to the place where he had made his name and his fortune; he had one more surprise for the Antiguans.

  Amid the reverberations of the gun-shot a lesser explosion went unnoticed until the first flicker of fire was seen from the quayside, prompting a gasp from the crowd. Growing indistinct in the gathering twilight against the shoulder of its hill, Mulgrave’s house began to burn. It was the one thing he had denied Wentworth, though he had sold his enslaved household servants to his successor, and they now carried out their old master’s last order.
/>
  As the Spitfire stood out to sea, her sails filling to the gentle terral, Mulgrave stood rigid at the taffrail, hands clasped behind his back, staring astern at the flickering light that was soon all that could be seen of the island where he had spent the greater part of his life.

  The wooden structure had caught fire quickly and, long before Spitfire had passed beyond the horizon, the house had burned to the ground. As the last sparks faded, Mulgrave turned forward and went below.

  ‘Good night, Captain Kite,’ he said and Kite, standing next to Da Silva at the foot of the mainmast, noticed the catch in the elderly man’s voice.

  ‘Good night, sir.’

  Da Silva coughed in the darkness. ‘The Senhor is tired,’ he said.

  Part Three

  War

  Chapter Ten

  The Schooner

  During the next year and a half, Kite and the Spitfire enjoyed a varied existence. For the first quarter of that period, the schooner acted as Mulgrave’s yacht as he coasted slowly towards New York, spending weeks at a time visiting business associates and acquaintances among the merchants and trading houses of Savannah, Charleston, Norfolk, Williamsburg, Annapolis and Philadelphia. Before their arrival in the Savannah River, Spitfire had passed the bastions of the Morro Castle and called at Havana before dropping her anchor in Jamaican waters off Kingston. But her visits to these ports had been brief, for Mulgrave had come down with fever, a sweating and shuddering illness accompanied by delerium that reminded Kite and Puella of the terrible plague aboard the Enterprize.

  The cramped conditions aboard Spitfire, where the stern cabin had been neatly but not spaciously divided for the two establishments of Mulgrave and Kite, forced a greater intimacy between the two men. The latter learned that like Lorimoor, Mulgrave had long suffered recurrent bouts of this sweating sickness, for it was not the bloody yellow-jack that laid Mulgrave low. Moreover, the affliction was one of the reasons he had maintained such a private life in St John’s and that its incurable nature had persuaded Mulgrave to effectively adopt Wentworth as his heir. Fear of the disease explained Mulgrave’s apparent parsimony as a host, his abstemiousness and his avoidance of the sun, when he conceived he was at most danger from suffering a feverish attack. Mulgrave confided that he believed that if he returned to England, he would throw off the disease, claiming, to Kite’s considerable surprise, that he believed the malady to be spread by the bites of mosquitoes.