The Guineaman

  The effect of her appearance was diabolical; the boarders paused for a vital instant, staring up at the voluptuous black manifestation which might have been from hell itself, and then the Spitfire’s boatswain and the bulk of the crew swept aft. Their faces were blackened with soot from the galley and they howled in pale imitation of Puella but their weapons were bright as they wielded them with telling effect. During their wait they had helped themselves to extra rum, served out by Kite’s steward whose need for Dutch courage now justified itself.

  As the black-faced men swept aft, Kite despatched his attacker, the crude and heavy cutlass blade raking the man’s rib-cage so that he fell back with a gasp. In the Spitfire’s waist the blackguard crew were prevailing as Kite had hoped they would. Reassured, Kite looked up to the brig’s quarterdeck and raised his second pistol in his left hand. Although the slightly lower freeboard of the schooner limited his view, he could see the French commander, just recovering from his surprise at Puella’s appearance. Kite took careful aim and fired.

  Kite’s ball missed his target’s head, but he caught the commander’s shoulder and knocked him backwards. A moment later Kite was scrambling upwards, over the brig’s rail with the boatswain and his score of blackguards at his back, and Whisstock howling at his side. It was Guadeloupe and Le Gosier all over again. He cut and slashed with a wild kind of joy, relieved from the hours of anxiety and mad with the prospect of victory, assuaging his bloodlust and intent on putting his tormentors to the sword.

  In ten bloody minutes, it was all over.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Captain

  If he was to be hanged, Kite thought as he paced the captured brig’s quarterdeck, it might as well be as a sheep, not a lamb. Above him the Bourbon oriflamme fluttered in the breeze, superimposed by the British red ensign; astern of him the disabled Spitfire tugged at her tow-rope, Whisstock and two other hands left aboard to steer in the brig’s wake. On their larboard side the yellow line of Formby Sands, fringed with low breakers, formed the north bank of the Mersey Estuary. Ahead of them the river was crowded with shipping, a cutter-rigged mail packet was tacking out towards them, her post-horn pendant at her single mast-head, beyond her a pilot schooner was outward bound for her station off the Great Orme. Two coasters were, like themselves, inward bound, from Ireland, Man or, Kite thought with a leaping heart, Whitehaven, Silloth or Maryport on his native Cumbrian coast. Over on the Cheshire shore stood the White Rock Perch, and behind the beacon lay the low eminence of Bidston Hill, conspicuous with its windmills and the mast and spars of the lookout station. To starboard stretched the brown tidal flats of the Burbo Bank, beyond which rose the blue rounded hills of Flintshire. The dark peaks of a score of fishing boats, the paler sails of another pilot schooner and the square topsails of a cruising frigate dotted the horizon astern. It would be hard to make a more public entry on his return to Liverpool, Kite thought ruefully.

  The Conspiracy of Fate, Kite had written in his journal the previous evening, has Ensured that I shall Return in what the World Considers as Triumph. Luck Delivered into our Hands a fine French Corsair Brig, La Malouine, of St Malo, which having Attempted to Take us, we Boarded and carried at the Push of Pike. We found our Advantage derived from her being Short-Handed on Account of the Success of her Cruise and her having sent away the Greater Part of her Company in Prizes…

  Nor had their luck ended there, Kite thought, for among those on board, Jones had discovered a Liverpool pilot named Farnell who was much relieved to be delivered from his captivity. The unfortunate man had been captured in an outward bound snow and retained on board by the corsair’s commander, Capitaine Jean Marie Guillermic, to advise him on navigation in the North and St George’s Channels. Now Farnell stood beside the helmsman and conned them up the Channel as the young flood made beneath them.

  ‘It is a small price to pay in recompense for my freedom,’ Farnell had said, waiving aside any suggestion of a fee, ‘though I expect my wife would have been glad to see my stern for a while’, he joked.

  Below in his own cabin, Capitaine Guillermic lay a prisoner in his cot, his shoulder wound poisoning and his mind wandering in feverish distraction. In the brig’s wardroom, under the guard of the boatswain whose face still bore greasy traces of his black mask, lay the rest of the wounded, including Spitfire’s own men. Puella and the cabin steward did what they could, but four Frenchmen and five of the Spitfire’s polyglot crew had already died of their wounds. The remainder of La Malouine’s company lay below hatches in the hold, one of their own guns loaded with langridge trained on the only access and a seaman with a lighted linstock standing guard over them.

  The westerly breeze filled La Malouine’s sails, so that she made a brave sight inward bound, a white bone in her teeth as she swept up the Formby Channel on the flood tide. The lookouts on Bidston hill had signalled the strange brig’s arrival off the Mersey bar. A crowd had gathered on the waterfront as they entered the river proper, and the Cheshire bank closed with the Lancashire coast opposite. As the spires of Liverpool drew abeam, the upper yards were dropped, the fore course was clewed up and Farnell ordered the helm over. La Malouine rounded into the tide and let go her anchor, the tethered Spitfire following her and trailing astern on her tow-rope.

  ‘Well, Captain Kite,’ said Farnell as he confirmed the brig had brought up to her anchor. ‘I am much obliged to you and, the moment my gig comes off, I shall seek your immediate accommodation in the dock.’

  ‘That is kind of you, Mr Farnell.’

  ‘There will be a great deal of curiosity about your arrival, Captain, but I can assure you the Liverpool underwriters will be most grateful to you. This bloody Frenchman has been making a thorough nuisance of himself for some time now, but thanks to you and your schooner, well, I at least will be able to get my anchor down in the lee of bum island, eh?’ Farnell smiled and held out his hand.

  The distant boom of the noon gun marked the time, but it seemed to the euphoric and tired men aboard both the brig and the schooner to be a personal salutation.

  Farnell proved as good as his word. By early afternoon another pilot came aboard La Malouine, with a second clambering over the battered rail of Spitfire. As the tide slackened and approached high water, La Malouine weighed anchor, and crabbed across the last of the flood, to breast the dock wall and warp round into the dock. A crowd stood on the dockside as the two vessels secured in their berths, a small band had been mustered and played the topical tune ‘To Glory we Steer’, much popularised the previous year in celebration of British victories.

  As they slowly entered the dock, drawn forward by the men walking round the capstan and heaving the dripping head warp tight, Kite regarded the waiting assembly. On the quay Kite recognised Captain Makepeace, his wife and three children by his side; Makepeace was addressing the bewigged mayor and a party of aldermen gathered behind their mace-bearer.

  ‘We are famous it seems, Mr Jones,’ he remarked as the mate whistled his surprise.

  ‘You’re right, Captain. And to think I asked you to strike the old ensign… Deary, deary me.’ Jones shook his head ruefully.

  ‘Don’t reproach yourself, Mr Jones,’ Kite said cheeringly. ‘No man did more to secure our success than you and I hope that, in a day or so, I shall be able to help you.’

  Jones looked at Kite, his mouth opened in astonishment, but Kite remained studying the crowded quay. ‘Ah, there’s a file of soldiers…’ Kite’s voice trailed off as he was seized by a sudden apprehension.

  ‘To take care of our prisoners, I suppose,’ Jones offered.

  Kite cleared his throat. ‘Yes… I suppose so.’ Kite swept the doubt aside. ‘Mr Jones?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Be so kind as to ask Puella to come on deck.’

  ‘There’s no need, sir…’

  ‘I’m here, Kite.’

  Kite turned. Puella stood in her fox-fur which she wore over a grey silk dress, her head held high, the nostrils of her broad nose flared as
she breathed the chilly air, her eyes gleaming with pride. She looked every inch an African princess and Kite felt an enormous surge of affection for her.

  ‘I have never seen you looking so beautiful,’ he said in a low voice. As La Malouine crept closer to her berth the crowd began to cheer. ‘This is a remarkable welcome. I expected nothing like this,’ he murmured.

  ‘Captain Kite is a remarkable man,’ Puella said as a gangway was run aboard.

  ‘Captain Kite is a charlatan,’ Kite muttered to himself. ‘And worse… oh, so much worse.’ Then he raised his voice and said, ‘I shall present you to the mayor as my wife, Puella, and you must curtsey. It is a formality expected of us.’

  ‘I understand,’ Puella responded, nodding.

  Kite hitched the surrendered sword of Captain Guillermic on his hip and eased his shoulders under his best blue broadcloth coat. He had last worn it to dine at the Tyrell’s and now perhaps, with the Frenchman’s sword giving him a specious claim to gentility, he was aware that such hubris preceded a fall and that file of soldiers made him sweat. But Puella was ready and the mayor was waiting. Gamely, he led Puella ashore.

  Her appearance descending the gangway caused a stir, but the polyglot crew of black, mulattoes, quadroons and whites who milled in the waist watching their commander were not unfamiliar to the citizens of Liverpool.

  As Kite bowed to the mayor, Jones shouted, ‘Three cheers for Captain Kite of the Spitfire!’

  The crowd joined in and it was some moments before Kite could hear the rather mumbled welcome from the major and accepted the dignitaries’ compliments for capturing La Malouine. He half turned and presented Puella.

  ‘My wife, sir, Mistress Kite.’ beside him, Puella dropped a perfect curtsy.

  ‘Charmed, Ma’am…’ The mayor’s tone was condescending and beside him his lady stiffened as her husband quickly reverted to Kite. ‘You have been in the Antilles some time, Captain?’ the mayor asked pointedly.

  ‘I have, sir,’ Kite responded coldly, adding, ‘and my wife is expecting…’

  Whatever further celebrations had been meditated by the mayor and corporation, these seem to have been abruptly terminated on the appearance of Puella and there was a general retrograde movement of the robed aldermen.

  ‘Then she shall not be kept in the cold, sir. Come Captain, it is already twilight, allow me to offer my conveyance…’ Captain Makepeace swept to their rescue. ‘Kite, Kite,’ he chuckled divertingly in a low voice, ‘all this and a new brig too…’

  ‘I have to clear inwards at the Custom House,’ Kite protested mildly.

  ‘Time enough for your jerque note tomorrow, Kite. Ride the crest of this wave while you may. Come, my coach is close by…’

  ‘What crest?’ Kite asked, a hint of bitterness in his voice as the mayor and corporation withdrew behind their mace-bearer and the band were marched off.

  ‘The gratitude of the underwriters will, I am confident, be made manifest in due course…’

  A young infantry officer suddenly barred their way. ‘Captain Kite?’

  Kite coloured. For one ghastly moment he thought that he confronted nemesis and that the subaltern had come to arrest him, but the young lieutenant smiled and languidly asked, ‘I understand you may have some French prisoners, Captain?’

  ‘Yes, yes I do.’ Kite turned and called out to Jones. The big mulatto ran up, a cutlass bouncing on his hip. Kite suppressed a smile at the mate’s ostentation. ‘Mr Jones, deliver our French prisoners to the custody of the lieutenant here.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  ‘What about the wounded?’ Puella interjected, attracting the lieutenant’s eyes.

  ‘I’ll attend to them too, Ma’am,’ he said politely, staring with ill disguised and insolent curiosity at Puella.

  Kite nodded. ‘Very well.’

  ‘Come Kite, come Puella,’ Makepeace insisted, ‘it is growing cold.’

  Makepeace had a comfortable house in a new terrace on the rising ground above the river. He had schooled his wife well and she gave every appearance of sincerity as she welcomed Puella into their home, expressing concern for her condition. Mrs Makepeace was a thin, plain woman, some years younger than her husband, but she was well dressed and bustling, ordering her servants to accommodate her guests and admonishing her children as they stared with ill-concealed curiosity at Puella.

  ‘Is she a slave?’ her youngest son, a boy of about eight, asked in a piping query. It was an awkward moment, but Puella smiled.

  ‘Mrs Kite,’ Mrs Makepeace explained with hurried resource, ‘is a princess from Africa.’

  ‘Does she sell slaves…?’ The boy went on, but Makepeace’s oldest child, a girl of thirteen or fourteen clapped her hand over her brother’s mouth and said, ‘You must bow to a princess, Harry’ and she dropped a respectful and diplomatic curtsy.

  ‘Must I, Mama?’ the boy Henry asked, wrenching his head out of his sister’s grip.

  ‘Most certainly, Harry,’ his mother said.

  Henry sighed and pouted. ‘I have to bow to everybody,’ he protested, footing a jerky obeisance. Then he turned to his brother, a shy handsome boy of eleven. ‘Now Charlie, you’ve got to do it.’

  Kite looked at Puella and saw the shadow cross her eyes. The coincidence of the boy’s name to that of her dead child made her involuntarily lift her hand. Kite sensed she intended to distance herself from the boy, caught up perhaps by some primitive native instinct, but Charles Makepeace stepped docilely forward and taking Puella’s hand, bent and kissed it.

  ‘Your servant, Ma’am,’ he whispered courteously.

  To Kite’s relief, Puella was charmed and the awkward moment passed. Makepeace ruffled the hair of his youngest son and remarked that he was a chip off the old block.

  ‘And spoiled to boot,’ said Martha Makepeace, revealing a streak of severity that dominated her house when her indulgent husband was at sea.

  Kite and Puella enjoyed a pleasant enough evening in the society of Makepeace and his wife. It did not compare for courtly elegance, with the hospitality of the Tyrells on the far side of the Atlantic. Puella found Martha a cold and rather hectoring fish, but Mrs Makepeace for her part meant only kindness, informing Puella of the general state of affairs among her equals in Liverpool in a relentless manner. When the ladies had withdrawn, Martha intent on continuing her instructional monologue, Kite told Makepeace that he intended to lay his private ghosts and proceed to Cumbria at once. He hoped that there Puella would remain until she had given birth.

  As for his fears, Kite explained that, ‘the matter must be cleared up, don’t you see, before I can see my way to settling here in Liverpool.’

  Makepeace nodded. ‘I entirely agree. You will suffer from too much distraction until you have discovered how the land lies and, if, God forbid, it runs ill for you, you must return here and ship out in command. God knows, you have enough vessels to chose from.’

  ‘I had not thought that far ahead; so, you do not think I should stand trial and clear my name?’

  ‘I see no point in courting trouble, no. As you are innocent, it is surely proper to act in an easy and open manner.’

  Kite remained uncertain. ‘To run away once under the impetus of youthful fear is one thing, but to slip away now would be entirely misinterpreted.’

  ‘Ah, but if you were simply to return and go straight to sea, who would know?’

  ‘Well, you and I…’

  ‘Does Puella know anything of this matter?’

  Kite shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘And you do intend to marry her…’

  ‘Yes. I do not want the child born a bastard.’

  Makepeace refilled his glass. ‘Kite my dear fellow,’ he said, taking a deep draught, ‘you saw the interpretation put upon Puella’s presence by my innocent children this evening, and you saw the, er, surprise evinced by his worship the mayor and his lady. Are you aware of the effect an extrapolation of such behaviour by society at large may have both upon you, and u
pon Puella?’

  ‘And upon you and upon your business if it is associated with me?’ Kite asked, colouring.

  ‘Of course,’ said Makepeace reasonably, draining his glass. ‘Let us make no bones about it between ourselves. It is important that we understand each other perfectly, Kite. Surely you agree.’ Kite nodded reluctantly. ‘Very well. To Puella. She may in time be accepted, but it would be better to keep her as a mistress, if you must…’

  ‘You have long known how I feel about Puella…’

  ‘Aye, Kite,’ Makepeace soothed, ‘and I know the pleasure to be had of a blackamoor, or better still of two,’ he jested, ‘but she is black and black wives are too much a… damn it, too much a novelty to be so easily shoe-horned into society.’

  Kite shook his head and seized the decanter, filling his own glass to mask his anger. ‘Well, it is too late now. I have told her I intend to marry her and I have told the world that she is my wife. I am obliged to… Damn it, I want to…’

  Makepeace sighed. ‘You always were a contrary fellow…’

  ‘Look Makepeace, I am beholden to you; no, damn it I am obliged to you, I need your assistance and we are, or are soon to be partners unless you want me to withdraw…?’

  ‘No, I don’t. There is a great deal to be made of our association…’

  ‘But Puella is an embarrassment?’

  Makepeace shrugged. ‘Perhaps. The women do not like it. They suspect all manner of things, silly creatures, but the presence of a black woman as a legitimate, churched wife is unsettling. It uneases them to think a white man takes pleasure from lying with a blackamoor; it demeans them; it breeds jealousy and that is a contagious infection. They may take against Puella, conspire against her in some monstrous way. Damn it, Kite, the gossips will have their day. They are probably already embarked upon it as we speak, for you could scarcely have made a more public entry.’