by Wilbur Smith
Hal bowed to the girl, who curtsied prettily, but he made no effort to kiss her hand. His eyes moved on swiftly to the two girls, who hopped and danced around their parents like chirping sparrows. ‘And who are these two fine young ladies?’ he asked, with a paternal smile.
‘I am Agnes!’
‘And I am Sarah!’
By the time they were all moving up the staircase and through the front doors of High Weald, Hal had a child by each hand, and they were both chattering and dancing, looking up at him, vying for his attention.
‘He always wished for a daughter,’ Aboli said softly, watching his master fondly, ‘and all he ever got was this gang of hellions.’
‘They’re only girls,’ Dorian pointed out loftily.
Tom said nothing. He had not spoken since he had come close enough to Caroline to make out every detail of her features. Since then he had been transfixed.
Caroline and Guy were following the others up the stairs. They were walking side by side, but at the top Caroline paused and looked back. Her eyes met Tom’s.
She was the most beautiful thing Tom had ever imagined. She was as tall as Guy, but her shoulders were narrow and her waist was lithe as a sapling. Her slippered feet were tiny under the flaring layers of petticoats and skirts. Her arms were bare below the puffed sleeves, the skin pale and unblemished. Her hair was a tower of shimmering curls and ribbons. Her face was exquisite, full pink lips and large violet eyes.
She looked through Tom without expression, her face calm and unsmiling: it was almost as if she had not seen him, as if for her he did not exist. Then she turned away and followed her family into the house. Tom had been holding his breath without realizing it, and now he let it out with an audible hiss.
Aboli shook his head. He had missed nothing. This may be a long voyage, he thought. And a dangerous one.
The Seraph lay alongside the quay for six days. Even with Ned Tyler and Big Daniel driving them relentlessly, it took that long for the workmen to finish fitting her out. No sooner was the last joint glued and pinned and the last wedge driven home than Daniel saw them all packed off on the post coach, back to the builders’ yards at Deptford. By this time the cargo, provisions and armaments had been swung out of the Seraph’s hold and then in again and repacked, while Hal stood off in the middle of the harbour in one of the longboats to check her trim. Edward Anderson, from the Yeoman, proved his goodwill by sending his own crew across to help with the heavy work.
In the meantime Ned had sent all the sails to the sail-makers’ yard. He had checked each seam and stitch and had those that did not please him resewn. Then he had watched each sail repacked in its canvas bag, marked and stowed away in the sail-lockers ready to hand.
Once he had dealt with the sails, Ned laid out and inspected the spare spars and yards, then sent them aboard again before the main cargo. Tom followed him around, asking questions and avidly gleaning every bit of sailing lore that he could.
Hal personally sampled a mug of water from each of the barrels before they were sent back on board, to make certain that their content was sweet and potable. He opened every third pickle barrel and had the ship’s surgeon, Dr Reynolds, check that the salt pork and beef, the biscuits and flour were of the first quality. They all knew well enough that by the time they reached Good Hope the water would be green with slime, the biscuits crackling and popping with weevils, but Hal was determined that they would start off clean, and the men took notice of his concern and murmured approvingly among themselves. ‘Not many captains would take those pains. Some would buy condemned pork from the Admiralty just to save a guinea or two.’
Daniel and his gunners looked at the powder to ensure that damp had not got into the kegs and caked it. After that they cleaned the muskets, one hundred and fifty of them, and made sure that the flints were firm and struck a shower of sparks when the lock was fired. The deck guns were run out and the carriages greased. On their swivel mounts the murderers and falconets were sited aloft in the crow’s nests and at the break of the quarterdeck so that they could command the decks of an enemy ship as she came alongside and sweep her decks with a storm of grapeshot. The blacksmith and his mates sharpened the cutlasses and the axes, and set them back in their racks ready for when they were needed.
Hal puzzled over his quarter-bill, which assigned each man his station in a battle, then worked out the space at his disposal to accommodate his unexpected passengers. In the end he evicted the boys from their newly built cabin and gave it to the three Beatty sisters, while Will Carter, the third officer, had to give up his cabin, tiny as it was, to Mr Beatty and his wife. Those two large bodies would have to share a bunk twenty-two inches wide, and Hal grinned at the picture that called to mind.
In the stern cabin of the Seraph, Hal sat for hours with Edward Anderson of the Yeoman, working out with him a system of signals with which they could communicate at sea. Forty years previously, the three parliamentarian ‘Generals at Sea’ Blake, Deane and Monck had innovated a system of signalling, using flags and sails by day and lanterns and guns by night. Hal had obtained copies of their pamphlet, ‘Instructions for the Better Ordering of the Fleet in Fighting’, and he and Anderson used the five flags and four lanterns as the basis for their own set of signals. The meaning of the flags depended on the combinations and the position in the rigging from which they were flown. At night the lanterns would be arranged in patterns, vertical and horizontal lines, or squares and triangles, on the main mast and the main yard.
Once they had agreed the signals, they drew up a schedule of rendezvous to cover the possibility of the two ships losing contact with each other in conditions of poor visibility or during the vagaries of battle. At the end of these long discussions Hal was confident that he had come to know Anderson well, and that he could trust him to do his duty.
On the seventh day after reaching Plymouth they were ready to sail, and on their last day William laid on a splendid dinner for them in the dining room at High Weald.
Caroline was placed between William and Guy at the long dinner-table. Tom sat opposite her, but the table was too wide for easy conversation. This made little difference to him: for once he could think of nothing to say. He ate little, hardly touching the lobster and sole, his favourite foods. He could barely take his eyes off the girl’s lovely tranquil face.
Guy, though, had discovered almost immediately that Caroline was a lover of music and they had formed an instant bond. Under Master Walsh’s instruction, Guy had learned to play both the harpsichord and the cittern, a fashionable plucked stringed instrument. Tom had shown no aptitude for either instrument, and his singing, Master Walsh opined, was enough to make horses bolt.
During their stay in London, Master Walsh had taken Guy and Dorian to a concert. Tom had developed a severe stomach-ache, which had prevented him accompanying them – a circumstance he bitterly regretted now, as he watched Caroline listening with what seemed divine rapture to Guy describing the evening to her, the music and the glittering gathering of London society. Guy seemed able even to remember what dresses and jewellery the women had worn, and those huge violet eyes had not left his face.
Tom made an effort to drag her eyes away from Guy by embarking on an account of their visit to Bedlam at Moorfields, to see the lunatics on display in their iron cages. ‘When I threw a stone at one, he picked up his own turds and threw them back at me,’ he recounted with relish. ‘Luckily he missed me and hit Guy instead.’
Caroline’s rosebud upper lip lifted slightly as if she had smelt the missile, and her basilisk gaze passed clean through Tom leaving him stammering, before she turned back to Guy.
Dorian sat stiffly between Agnes and Sarah at the bottom of the table. The two girls were hidden from their parents by the display of flowers in the silver vases and the tall candelabra. They giggled and whispered to each other during the whole meal, or told inane, pointless jokes that they thought so rich they had to stuff their table napkins into their mouths to control their mirth.
Dorian was left squirming with embarrassment, and terror that the footmen waiting at table would recount his agony in the servants’ quarters. Then even the stable-boys, who were usually his bosom pals, would despise him as a ninny.
At the top of the table Hal and William, Mr Beatty and Edward Anderson were engrossed in discussing the King. ‘Lord knows, I was not entirely happy with a Dutchman on the throne, but the little gentleman in black velvet has proved himself a warrior,’ Beatty said.
Hal nodded. ‘He is a great opponent of Rome, and no lover of the French. For that alone he has my loyalty. But I found him also a man with a sharp eye and mind. I think he will make us a good king.’
Alice Courtney, William’s new bride, sat pale and quiet beside Hal. In contrast to her initial loving, dutiful behaviour, she did not look at her new husband across the table. There was a purple bruise on the point of her jaw below the ear, which she had tried to hide with rice powder and by combing a lock of her dark hair over it. She responded in monosyllables to Mrs Beatty’s chatter.
At the end of the meal William stood up and rang for quiet on his wineglass with a silver spoon. ‘As one who is duty-bound to remain behind when the rest of my beloved family voyages to far lands . . .’ he began.
Tom ducked his head behind the floral decorations so that he was out of sight of William and his father, and pretended to stick his finger down his throat and throw up. Dorian found this so hilarious that he coughed and choked with laughter, and ducked his red head below the table. Caroline gave Tom a single haughty glance, then moved in her chair so that he was out of her eye-line. Oblivious to the sideshow, William was continuing, ‘. . . Father, I know that as you have many times before, you will return to us with your fame enhanced and the holds of your ships bearing great profit. I live for that day. But while you are away I wish you to know that the affairs of the family here in England will receive my unstinted care and attention.’
Hal leaned back in his chair, his eyes half closed, smiling encouragement as he listened to his eldest son’s sonorous praises and hearty wishes for his safety and well-being. But when William included the names of his three half-brothers in his address, Hal felt a tickle of doubt: the sentiments he was expressing were too fulsome.
He opened his eyes suddenly to see William looking towards Tom at the end of the table. His cold dark eyes were so much at odds with the warmth of his words that Hal knew that little of what he had said was sincere. William sensed the depth of his father’s appraisal and glanced at him, quickly masking his malevolence. At once his expression became affectionate again, tinged with sadness for the impending departure of all those he loved best.
However, what he had seen in William’s eyes started a train of thought in Hal and filled him with foreboding, a sudden premonition that this was the last time he would sit around the same table with all his sons. The winds of hazard are bearing us all away, each on his own separate course. Some of us will never see High Weald again, he thought. He felt a melancholy so profound that he could not shrug it off, and had to force a smile to his lips as he rose to reply to William’s toast: ‘God speed and fair winds!’
At the end of the breakwater William sat on Sultan, his black stallion, and lifted his hat high in salute as the two ships put out to sea. Hal walked to the rail of the quarterdeck and returned his salute before turning away to give orders to the helm to bring the ship round for the run down the Sound to the open sea.
‘What course to weather Ushant?’ he asked Ned Tyler as they cleared Penlee Point, and the green hills of England began to drop away astern. Ned stood by the new-fangled steering wheel which, on such a modern ship, had replaced the ancient whipstaff. It was a marvellous invention: using the whipstaff the helmsman had been limited to five-degree turns either side of centre but with this new wheel he could lay the tiller seventy degrees across for much greater control of the ship’s direction under way.
‘The wind stands fair, Captain. South-west by south,’ Ned answered. He knew that the question was a formality, that Hal had checked his chart carefully before leaving his cabin.
‘Mark it on your traverse!’ Hal told him, and Ned set a peg in a hole in the border of the circular traverse board. A peg would be added every half-hour and at the end of the watch the mean course could be found, and the ship’s position calculated by dead reckoning.
Hal walked aft looking up at the sails. They were running free, with the wind coming in fresh over the port quarter. With Ned’s setting, every sail was drawing beautifully, and Seraph was flying – she seemed to leap from wave to wave. Hal felt a wild exhilaration, the intensity of which surprised him: I thought I was too old to have this joy again from a ship and the promise of adventure, he thought. It took an effort to keep his expression calm and his gait dignified, but Big Daniel was standing by the break of the quarterdeck and they caught each other’s eye. They did not smile but each understood how the other felt.
The passengers were standing amidships, lining the rail. The women’s skirts whipped and fluttered in the wind, and they had to hold on to their bonnets. But as soon as Seraph cleared the land and felt the full thrust of the sea, the feminine squeals of excitement died away, and one after the other they left the rail and hurried below, until only Caroline was left standing beside her father.
All that day, and for several that followed, the force of the wind increased. It drove the two ships on, until one evening it was threatening a full gale, and Hal was forced to shorten sail. As darkness fell, both ships hoisted lanterns in their main tops to maintain contact, and as dawn broke Ned knocked on Hal’s cabin door to tell him that the Yeoman was in sight two miles astern and that the light on Ushant was fine on the port bow.
Before noon they rounded Ushant and plunged headlong into the stormy waters of Biscay, which lived up to their evil reputation. For the next week the crew had good practice at handling the sails and working the ship in turbulent waters and high winds. Among the ladies only Caroline seemed unaffected, and joined Tom and Dorian for daily lessons in Master Walsh’s crowded little cabin. She spoke little, and not at all to Tom, continuing to ignore even his most clever quips and witticisms. She declined when he offered to help her with the mathematical problems that Master Walsh set for them. Languages and mathematics were two of the areas in which Tom excelled. She also refused to join the lessons in Arabic that Alf Wilson gave the three boys for an hour each afternoon.
During the crossing of the Bay of Biscay, Guy was prostrated by seasickness. Hal was deeply disturbed that any son of his could succumb so to the motion of the waves. Nevertheless he had a pallet laid in the corner of the stern cabin for him, and Guy lay there, pale and groaning, as though on the point of death, unable to eat and only just able to gulp water from the mug Aboli held for him.
Mrs Beatty and her younger daughters were in no better case. None of them left their cabins, and Dr Reynolds, helped by Caroline, spent most of his days attending to them. There was much spiriting to and fro of chamberpots and dumping their contents over the side of the ship. The sour odour of vomit pervaded the stern quarters.
Hal had ordered their course laid off well to the westwards, to avoid running aground during darkness on the islands of Madeira and the Canaries and in the hope of picking up more favourable winds when they at last entered the doldrums. However, it was only when they were approaching thirty-five degrees north latitude, with Madeira a hundred leagues eastward, that the gales began at last to moderate. In these easier conditions Hal was able to set about repairs to the sails and rigging that the ship had sustained during the storms, and to exercise his crew in manoeuvres other than sail-setting and shortening. The crew were able to dry out their clothing and sodden bedding, the cook could get his fires going and serve hot fare. A different mood took over the ship.
Within days Mrs Beatty and her younger girls reappeared on deck, at first wan and listless, but soon in brighter spirits. It was not long before Agnes and Sarah had become the ship’s pests. They
took an especial set at Tom, for whom they had developed an overwhelming hero-worship, and it was to escape them that Tom talked Aboli into allowing him to go aloft, without his father’s permission, which they knew would not be forthcoming.
Hal came on deck at the change of the forenoon watch to find Tom out on the yard thirty feet above the deck, bare feet planted firmly on the horse as he helped shake out another reef in the main topsail. Hal froze in mid-stride, his head thrown back, searching for an order that would bring Tom back to the deck without making plain his concern. He turned to the helm, saw that all the officers on deck were watching him, and casually crossed to where Aboli stood at the rail.
‘I recall the first time you ever climbed to the main topmast, Gundwane,’ Aboli said softly. ‘It was in heavy seas off the Agulhas Bank. You did it because I had forbidden you to go higher than the main shrouds. You were two years younger than Klebe is now but, then, you always were a wild boy.’ Aboli shook his head disapprovingly, and spat over the side. ‘Your father, Sir Francis, wanted to take the rope end to you. I should have let him do it.’
Hal remembered the incident clearly. What had begun as boyish defiance had ended in abject terror as he had clung to the mast top while, a hundred feet below, vistas of the deck alternated with glimpses of the creaming green waves as the ship rolled and plunged, and the wake streamed away behind. Was Tom really two years older now than he had been that day? Certainly the yard from which his son was hanging was not even halfway to the topmast. ‘You and I have both seen a fall from the main yard,’ he growled. ‘It breaks bone and kills just as surely as from the main-mast truck.’
‘Klebe will not fall. He climbs like an ape.’ Aboli grinned suddenly. ‘It must be in his blood.’