by Wilbur Smith
‘Faster, Klebe. Like a hawk!’ Aboli admonished him, as Tom recovered smoothly, but his wrist was pronated and his blade slightly off line. It seemed he had left an opening for a cut to the right shoulder. Tom was furious and scowling at the hit against him, but he spotted the opening.
Even from the high window Hal saw him make the mistake of signalling his move with a slight lift of his chin. ‘No, Tom, no!’ he whispered. Aboli was dangling the bait that had snared Hal himself, so often, when he was Tom’s age. With consummate judgement of distance Aboli had set himself up two inches beyond the reach of Tom’s cut to the shoulder: he would hit him again if Tom tried for it.
Hal crowed with delight as his son took a double step, a feint for the shoulder, but then with the agility of a monkey and extraordinary strength of wrist for his age, he changed his angle of attack and went instead for Aboli’s hip. ‘You almost had him!’ Hal whispered, as Aboli was forced to extreme extension to protect himself with a circular parry that gathered Tom’s blade and swept it back into the original line of engagement.
Aboli stepped back and broke off the engagement. He shook his head so that drops of sweat flew from his bald head, and flashed his teeth in a huge white smile. ‘Good, Klebe. Never accept an enemy’s invitation. Good! You came close to me there.’ He placed one arm around Tom’s shoulders. ‘That’s enough for one day. Master Walsh is waiting for you to take up the pen rather than the sabre.’
‘One more hit, Aboli!’ Tom pleaded. ‘This time I will have you, fair and square.’ But Aboli pushed the boy in the direction of the inn door.
‘Aboli judges it finely,’ Hal said to himself with approval. ‘He will not drive them beyond their years and strength.’ He touched the white scar on the lobe of his own right ear and grinned ruefully. ‘But the day is not far off when he will tap a drop or two of Master Thomas’s raspberry juice, as he once did mine, to moderate the boy’s fine opinion of his own skills.’
Hal opened the casement and leaned out. ‘Aboli, where’s Big Danny?’
Aboli wiped the sweat from his forehead with his forearm. ‘He was working on the carriage. Then he went off with that new lad, Wilson.’
‘Find him and bring him up here. There is something I have to tell you.’
A little later, as the two big men shuffled in, Hal looked up from the document on the writing-desk in front of him. ‘Sit down, both of you.’ He indicated the bench and they sat side by side like two overgrown schoolboys about to be chastized. ‘I had a word with Mabel.’ Hal picked on Daniel first. ‘She says she cannot abide another winter with you prowling around the cottage like a chained bear. She begged me to take you off somewhere, far away.’
Daniel looked stunned. Mabel was his wife, the head cook at High Weald, a plump, cheerful woman with red cheeks. ‘She had no call—’ Daniel began angrily, then broke off into a grin as he saw the sparkle in Hal’s eyes.
Hal turned to Aboli. ‘As for you, you black devil, the mayor of Plymouth tells me there has been a plague of bald brown babies born in the town and all the husbands are loading their muskets. Its time we got you away for a while also.’
Aboli rumbled and shook with laughter. ‘Where are we going, Gundwane?’ He used the pet name with which he had christened Hal as a boy and which meant Cane Rat in the language of the forests. He seldom used it, these days, only in moments of great affection.
‘South!’ Hal answered him. ‘Past the Cape of Good Hope. Into that ocean you know so well.’
‘And what will we do there?’
‘Find a man named Jangiri.’
‘And when we find him?’ Aboli went on.
‘We will kill him, and take his treasure for our own.’
Aboli pondered a moment. ‘That sounds good to me.’
‘What ship?’ Big Daniel asked.
‘The Seraph. An East Indiaman, fresh off the builder’s slip. Thirty-six guns and quick as a ferret.’
‘What does Seraph mean?’
‘A seraph is one of the highest order of heavenly angels.’
‘That’s me to the letter Z.’ Daniel showed all his pink gums in a wide smile. Of course he could not read and knew of the letter Z only by repute, which made Hal smile inwardly. ‘When will we lay eyes on the Seraph?’ he demanded.
‘First thing tomorrow. Have the carriage ready at dawn. It’s a long haul up to the Company’s yards at Deptford.’ Hal stopped them from rising. ‘Before then we have much to do. To begin with we have no crew.’ They both sobered immediately. Finding a crew for a new ship, even a Fifth-Rate, was always a difficult task.
He held up the document that lay on the desk in front of him. It was a poster he had drafted the day before and sent down to the printers in Cannon Street with Walsh. This was the first pull of the press.
PRIZE MONEY!
£ HUNDREDS £!
the headline bellowed in thick black type. The text below it was smaller in size but no less flamboyant and rich with hyperbole, scattered with exclamation marks and high-cast letters.
CAPTAIN SIR HAL COURTNEY, Hero of the Dutch wars, Master mariner and Famous Navigator, Captor of the Dutch Galleons Standvastigheid and Heerlige Nacht, Who in his Fabled ships Lady Edwina and Golden Bough has pursued many capital voyages to Africa and the Spice Islands of the Indies, who has fought and vanquished the foes of His Sovereign Majesty with great capture of RICH TREASURES and VAST BOOTY, has berths for Good men and True on his new ship Seraph, a 36-gun East Indiaman of Great Power and Speed, fitted out and victualled with attention to the Comfort and Care of officers and men. Those seamen who have had the good FORTUNE to sail under CAPTAIN COURTNEY on his previous voyages have shared PRIZE MONEY as much as £200 each man. Sailing under LETTERS OF MARQUE issued by HIS MAJESTY WILLIAM III (GOD BLESS HIM!), CAPTAIN COURTNEY will seek out the enemies of HIS MAJESTY in the OCEAN OF THE INDIES, to their confusion and destruction and the WINNING of RICH PRIZE! Of which one half to be shared by officers AND CREW!
ALL GOOD SEAMEN seeking employment and fortune will be heartily welcome to take a pot of ale with BIG DANIEL FISHER the chief warrant officer of the Seraph at the PLOUGH in TAILORS LANE.
Aboli read it aloud for the benefit of Big Daniel, who always claimed that his eyes were too weak for the task but who could spot a gull on the horizon and carve the finest details on his model ships without the slightest difficulty.
When Aboli had finished his recitation, Daniel grinned. ‘’Tis too good a chance to pass by, and this famous captain is the man for me. Damn me, but I think I’ll put my cross on his watch-bill.’
When Master Walsh returned from the printers, staggering under a heavy bundle of posters, Hal sent Dorian and the twins to help Aboli and Daniel nail them up on every street corner, and on every tavern and bawdy-house door along the river and the docks.
Aboli pulled up the carriage on the hard of the shipyard. Hal leaped down impulsively and strode to the edge of the Deptford jetty where Big Daniel and Alf Wilson were waiting for him. The river was thick with shipping of every class from bum-boats to First Rate men-o’-war. Some were merely hulks while others were in full seagoing rig with yards crossed and sails set, as they ran downriver towards Gravesend for the Channel or tacked slowly up against the wind and the stream, headed for Blackwall.
In all this multitude there was no mistaking or overlooking the Seraph. Hal’s eye went to her immediately as she lay at anchor out of the main current, surrounded by lighters, her decks teeming with carpenters and sail-makers. As Hal watched, a huge water-barrel was swayed up out of one of the lighters and lowered into her open hatch aft.
‘You beauty!’ Hal whispered, as he ran his eyes over her in almost lascivious pleasure as though she were a naked woman. Although her yards were not yet crossed, her tall masts had an elegant rake and Hal could visualize the vast cloud of sail they could carry.
Her hull was a happy compromise. She had the beam and depth to accommodate a heavy cargo and her inventory of cannon, as befitted her role as an armed trad
er. Yet she had such a fine entry at the bows and pretty run at the stern as promised speed and handiness in any condition of wind.
‘She will point high as you could wish, Captain, and sail away on a fairy’s fart,’ Big Daniel said gruffly behind him. It was an indication of his own enchantment that he had spoken unbidden.
The Seraph was dressed in splendour, as befitted the pride and prestige of the East India Company. Despite the lighters that clustered around her, and partially screened her from scrutiny, her paintwork showed through, sparkling in the pale spring sunlight. She was all gold and blue, her quarter galleries intricately carved with hosts of cherubim and seraphim, and her figurehead the winged angel, with the face of a child, for which she was named. Her gunports were picked out in gold, a pleasing chequerboard pattern that emphasized her force.
‘Hail a bum-boat!’ Hal ordered, and when one came in and tied up at the slimy stone steps he ran down lightly and stepped into the stern sheets.
‘Run us out to the Seraph,’ Big Daniel told the ancient who sat at the tiller, and pushed off. The skiff stank of sewage and her decks were stained with it – probably one of her duties was to remove night soil from the officers’ cabins of the ships anchored in the river – but by day she carried vegetables and passengers out to the fleet.
‘You be Captain Courtney, the new master of the Seraph?’ the boatman quavered. ‘Seed your poster at the tavern.’
‘That he be,’ Big Daniel answered, for Hal was too intent in studying his new love to hear the question.
‘I have two fine strong lads as want to ship aboard with you,’ the old man went on.
‘Send them to see me,’ Big Daniel growled. In the three days since they had hung the posters he had recruited almost a full crew. There would be no need to visit the gaol and bribe the warden to send his most likely prisoners aboard the Seraph in chains. On the contrary Daniel had been able to pick and choose from the mob of unemployed sailors that had besieged the inn. A berth in a Company ship was in high demand: the living conditions and the pay were infinitely better than those in the Royal Navy. Every loafer in the ports and every sailor stepping off an inward-bound ship knew full well that if war was declared against France, the naval press-gangs would be scouring every port in Britain, and hauling aboard the warships the men they caught. Every fool knew that it was wiser to grab a plum berth now and ship out to the far oceans before they began their dread work.
The master shipbuilder on the Seraph’s quarterdeck had recognized the tall figure standing in the bum-boat’s sheets as a man of quality and guessed his identity. He was waiting at the rail to welcome him when Hal came up the ladder.
‘Ephraim Greene at your service, Captain.’
‘Show me the ship, Mr Greene, if you please.’ Hal’s eyes were already darting from the topmasts to every corner of the deck, and he strode off towards the stern with Greene scurrying to keep up with him. They went through the ship from the bilges to the main topgallant, and Hal snapped terse instructions to Big Daniel when he found the smallest thing that was not to his entire liking. Daniel grunted at Wilson, who scribbled a note in the leather-bound book he carried under his arm. Already Daniel and Wilson were shaping into a good working team.
When Aboli took Hal back to the inn, he left Daniel and Wilson to find quarters for themselves in the confusion of timber and sawdust, bundles and bags of new canvas sails and great coils of fresh hemp that cluttered the between-decks of the Seraph. They would hardly have time to step ashore again until the ship was ready to sail.
‘I’ll be back tomorrow early,’ Hal promised Big Daniel. ‘I’ll want a list of stores that are on board already – you can get that from Master Greene – and another list of those we yet lack.’
‘Aye, Captain.’
‘Then we will work out a load manifest and start to get her trimmed out for her best attitude of sailing.’
‘Aye, Captain.’
‘Then, in your spare time, you can start to encourage Master Greene and his lads to shake out a little more canvas and get us ready for sea before winter sets in.’ During the afternoon a nasty little wind had sprung up out of the north-east, which smelt of ice and made the men huddle into their cloaks as they stood on the open deck. ‘It is on an evening such as this that the warm southern winds seem to whisper my name.’ Hal smiled as he took his leave of them.
Big Daniel grinned. ‘I can almost smell the hot dust of Africa on the monsoon.’
It was well after dark when the carriage rolled into the cobbled yard of the Plough, but all three of Hal’s sons rushed out of the warm lamp-lit front parlour to welcome him before he stepped down from the carriage, and they trailed him up the stairs into his private salon.
Hal shouted for the landlord to bring him a pewter jug of mulled wine, for he was chilled by the turn in the weather, then threw off his cloak and dropped into a high-backed chair before he faced the line of solemn boys who stood before him. ‘To what do I owe the honour of this deputation, gentlemen?’ He put on a serious mien to match that of the young faces before him. Two heads swivelled towards Tom, the acknowledged spokesman.
‘We tried to sign up for the voyage with Big Daniel,’ Tom said, ‘but he sent us to you.’
‘What is your rating, and what experience do you have?’ Hal teased them.
‘We have naught but a good heart and a will to learn,’ Tom admitted.
‘That will serve for Tom and Guy. I will rate you captain’s servant and you will draw a guinea a month pay.’ Their faces lit like the sunrise, but Hal went on swiftly, ‘But Dorian is still too young. He must stay at High Weald.’
There was an appalled silence, and the twins turned to Dorian with stricken expressions. Dorian struggled with his tears and only just held them back. ‘Who will look after me when Tom and Guy have gone?’
‘Your brother William will be master of High Weald while I am at sea, and Master Walsh will remain with you to see to your lessons.’
‘William hates me,’ said Dorian softly, with a tremor in his voice.
‘You are too harsh on him. He is strict but he loves you.’
‘He tried to kill me,’ Dorian said, ‘and if you are not there he will try again. Master Walsh will not be able to stop him.’
Hal began to shake his head, but then he had a vivid mental picture of the expression on William’s face as he held the child by the throat. For the first time he faced the unpalatable reality that Dorian’s extravagant claim might not be too far from the truth.
‘I will have to stay and look after Dorian.’ Tom broke the silence, his face pale and set.
Hal understood intuitively how much that offer had cost him: Tom’s whole existence revolved around the thought of going to sea, yet he was prepared to give that up. Hal felt such devotion tug at his heart. ‘If you do not wish to stay at High Weald, Dorian, you can go to your uncle John at Canterbury. He is your mother’s brother and he loves you almost as much as I do.’
‘If you truly love me, Father, you will not leave me behind. I would rather have brother William kill me than that.’ Dorian spoke with a conviction and determination strange for one so young and Hal was taken aback: he had not been prepared for such steadfast refusal.
‘Tom is right,’ Guy agreed staunchly. ‘We can’t leave Dorian. None of us can. Tom and I will have to stay with him.’ More than any other, Guy’s petition swayed Hal. It was almost unheard of for Guy to take a strong stance on any issue, but when he did no threat would move him.
Hal frowned at them while his mind raced. Could he take a child of Dorian’s age into a situation that would certainly mean terrible danger? Then he looked at the twins. He remembered that when his mother had died, his own father had taken him to sea and he had been . . . how old? Perhaps a year or so older than Dorian was now. For once he felt his determination waver.
Then he considered what dangers they would surely face. He imagined Dorian’s perfect body torn by a storm of flying splinters as roundshot crashed through
a wooden bulkhead. He thought of shipwreck and the child thrown up, drowned, on some deserted, wild African beach to be devoured by hyena and other loathsome beasts. He gazed at his son, at the red and gold head as innocent and lovely as the carved seraphic angel at the bows of his new ship. He felt the words of refusal rise again in his throat. But, at that moment, Tom placed his hand protectively on his younger brother’s shoulder. It was a gesture without guile, but with a calm dignity, love and duty, and Hal felt the words to deny him dry in his throat. He took a slow breath. ‘I will think on it,’ he said gruffly. ‘Go now, all three of you. You have given me enough trouble for one day.’ They backed away, and at the door chorused, ‘Goodnight, Father.’
When they reached their own chamber, Tom held Dorian by both shoulders. ‘Don’t cry, Dorry. You know that when he says he will think on it he means yes. But you must not cry ever again. If you are coming to sea with Guy and me, then you have to act like a man. Do you understand?’ Dorian gulped and nodded vigorously, not trusting himself to reply.
There was a long line of carriages in the Mall outside the entrance to St James’s Palace. The building was a fantasy toy-soldier castle with battlements and towers, built by Henry VIII and still used by the reigning sovereign. When Hal’s carriage eventually pulled up, two footmen came forward to open the carriage door and the secretary whom Lord Hyde had sent to fetch him led him through the palace gates and across the courtyard.
There were pikemen, in steel helmets and half-armour, at the entrance to the stairway leading up to the Long Gallery, but when the secretary showed his credentials they let Hal pass, and a footman announced him in a stentorian voice. ‘Captain Sir Henry Courtney!’
The guards saluted with a flourish of pikes and Hal filed up the staircase behind the Spanish ambassador and his entourage. When he reached the top he found that the entire length of the gallery was crowded with a splendid assembly of gentlemen, and such a collection of uniforms, medals, stars, plumed hats and periwigs that Hal felt like a country bumpkin. He looked around for the secretary who was guiding him, but the idiot had vanished in the throng and Hal was at a loss as to what he should do next.