Relentless Pursuit (19 page)

“In the King's name! Stand down and lower your weapons! I am going to board you!”

“And who speaks with such confidence?” Laughter, an unnatural sound, and Adam noticed that the voices from the vessel's hull had fallen silent, as if they all knew and thought they understood. They would be expecting more treachery, no different from that which had beaten them into captivity.

Rist muttered, “He's bluffing, sir.”

Jago reached out to prevent it; he had heard Rist's remark, like the leadsman's chant. Deeper and deeper into madness . . .

But Adam looked at him. “If I fall, get the boat away.” He smiled faintly. “Luke.”

Then he seized the hand-ropes and felt the heat on his face as his head rose above the bulwark. This was the moment. He thought of the broken watch and the boy who treasured it, of Galbraith's concern, of the church in Penzance . . .

He jumped down on to the deck. A press of figures seemed to fill it. Seamen: they looked more like pirates. And each man would know that they could hack him down and dispose of the boat's crew with neither risk nor effort.

The burly man in a rough blue coat he assumed was Cousens confronted him, his eyes flitting across the epaulettes and sheathed sword, then coming straight to his face. He said again, “And who are you,
sir?
”

“Captain Adam Bolitho. My ship you can see for yourself.” He heard an undercurrent run through the listening, watching seamen. “You and your vessel are under arrest, and will be taken to face charges as laid down . . .”

Cousens did not let him finish. “I had nothing to do with that shooting. Those vessels are barely known to me.” He folded his thick arms. “I am under charter to do this work. I have nothing to hide.” He leaned slightly towards him. “And nothing to fear from you!”

Adam heard Rist move very slightly by his shoulder, and imagined Jago waiting in the boat alongside.
Your decision.

He said abruptly, “Tell your men to put down their weapons. Now.”

Someone shouted, in French, Spanish; to Adam it could have been anything. But Cousens turned away, eyes glazed with fury or disbelief as
Unrivalled
's larboard battery ran out into the sunlight as if controlled by a single hand. Like a line of blackened teeth.

He gasped, “I'll see you in hell first!” And then stared at his men as, singly or in groups, the cutlasses and boarding-pikes clattered to the deck.

Rist stepped forward. “I'll take the pistol!” And dragged it from his hand. It was cocked and ready.

Cousens stared at the frigate again. “They wouldn't dare!”

Rist wanted to kill him. It had been too close this time. Insanity.

He answered, “And would any captain dare to board a slaver alone?”

Jago and the gig's crew climbed aboard, and Adam knew other boats were pulling across to join them.

He was unsure if he should or could move. Dazed, sick, afraid, it was all and none of them.

Cousens was staring around, baffled, unable to believe what was happening, perhaps wondering if the frigate would have fired, when her captain would have been one of the first to die.

Adam took two paces away from the side and looked up at the Portuguese flag, but he saw only Galbraith. A
nd would he have fired,
had it been his choice alone?

And suddenly there were familiar uniforms and faces, taking up positions on deck and aft in the brigantine's quarters. Varlo had come across with a fully armed party of seamen and some marines, and they were in no mood for threat or argument now that the tension was broken.

Rist saw the lieutenant placing some of his men at the swivel guns. He had at least remembered that lesson.

Rist licked his lips and nodded to Williams, the gunner's mate who was one of the boarders.

“Near thing, Frank!” His Welsh accent seemed even more alien here.

Adam said, “Search the vessel, Mr Rist. Papers, evidence—you know what to do.” He looked at the hatch covers. The silence now was almost unnerving. “Is it safe to open those, d'you think?”

“It can be done with care, sir. Slowly.”

Cousens, a Royal Marine on either side of him with a fixed bayonet at the ready, shouted, “I am within my rights, Captain!”

Adam looked at him, and found himself thinking of his aunt. Dear Nancy, she had so wanted a portrait for the old house. She had nearly lost her chance. But once again the laughter remained trapped in his throat.

He said, “I would dispute that, but others better qualified will decide in good time. For my own part, I would happily run you up to
Unrivalled
's main-yard.” He thought he saw the man flinch, and seemed to hear Rist's voice.
He's bluffing.
“And enjoy it.”

He swung round at the sound of shouted orders, and a disturbance of some kind from the companion-way by the wheel.

Williams and another seaman slowly emerged, carrying what looked like a corpse wrapped around with a filthy blanket.

Williams got down on his knees and laid the bundle carefully on the deck.

“In the cabin, sir. Tied up, she was.”

She was a child, naked, wrists and ankles scarred by ropes or shackles. Her feet were badly torn, as if she had been force-marched for some time before she had been dragged aboard
Albatroz. To this.
She was alive, but unable to see or think, on the verge of hysteria or madness.

Williams was murmuring softly to her, holding the blanket to shade her face from the glare.

But Adam was looking at her thighs and legs, caked with dried blood. There were teeth marks on her skin where she had been bitten; she must have been raped repeatedly.
A child.
He thought of the letter and the sketch . . . maybe the same age as Elizabeth, a girl he did not know any more than this one.

Varlo said, “One hold is full of women, sir. All ages.”

Adam looked at Cousens. “Is this your work, too? You are the master of this unspeakable vessel. What say you now?” He did not wait for an answer. “Open that hatch, Mr Varlo, but be well prepared.” So calm still. The tone he might use when asking a midshipman about the weather on deck, when he already knew.

Then he walked to the hatch as two marines prised it open. The stench he had expected. He had sailed downwind of slavers before, when the world had turned its back. But you never accepted it, or became accustomed to it.

Jago was beside him; he could hear his breathing. Anger, disgust, or just glad he was out of it. Alive.

To Rist he said, “Tell them, if you can, that we are here to free them.” He averted his eyes as screams and wild cries burst from the hold. What must it be like, flung aboard, chained, not knowing where they were or where bound? Days or weeks, scarcely able to breathe or move in their own filth. Until daylight found them. As slaves.

Williams called, “She wants to go down to them, sir.” He sounded both anxious and protective. The same man who had helped to blow up a chebeck with his bare hands. With Galbraith, and Rist.

“Easy with her.” He almost touched the girl as they carried her past, but saw her stare at him with eyes full of terror.

His fury helped in some way, or perhaps it was some lingering madness after toying with death.
Vanity
. . .

“You say you are the master?” His voice must have been low, for Cousens leaned forward to catch his words, and two bayonets rose level with his throat as if to some whispered command. But he managed to nod.

“You will know the name of the ship with which you intended to rendezvous, to relieve yourself of this cargo. This is too small a vessel to remain at sea for long with so many captives.”

Rist called, “Three hundred an' fifty, men an' women, sir.” He consulted a list in his hand and glanced at Williams. “An' children.”

Cousens smiled. Relief, surprise; his confidence was returning. “My orders were to deliver them elsewhere. I will tell any government official, but not here or now. I know my rights, damn you!”

Adam saw one of the marines watching from the hatchway. It was Corporal Bloxham, the crack shot. A good man in every way, and with luck listed for sergeant at the next opportunity. Adam knew he would kill Cousens here and now at the drop of a hat.

He repeated, “The name of that ship. Tell me.”

Cousens did not even shake his head.

Adam walked to the lip of the hatch again. Staring faces, eyes white in the shafted sunshine, skins like ebony, shining with sweat.

They had seen him. They would know, understand, or most of them would.

Without looking over his shoulder, he said, “As master you are expected to care for all persons carried in your vessel, at all times.” Then he did look at Cousens. “We have much to do before we can get under way again. Repairs, a jury-rig, and a prize crew to be quartered aboard when we leave this place.” He watched the smirk on Cousens's face fade. “I think it fair and proper that as master you should remain below with those women, to reassure them, if you will.” He strode to the side. “See to it, Mr Rist, directly!”

Jago muttered, “They'll tear him apart, sir.” He was staring at him, searching for something. Like that day in the church.

“I don't doubt it. Call the gig alongside. Mr Varlo can remain in charge. He is discovering a great deal today, I believe!”

The marines were dragging Cousens along the deck. Others ran to assist. He was a powerful man, but his voice, strong as it was, broke in a scream as they reached the open hatch.

The scream was almost drowned by the combined din from the hold. Like one great beast, baying for vengeance.

Rist stared at Jago and then at his captain.

“He wants to talk, sir. To tell you . . .” He glanced at the hatchway. “Anything but that!”

Adam looked across to
Unrivalled,
so bright, so clean in the sunlight.

He said, “It soils all of us. Not only the guilty!”

The master's mate strode away, and Jago said, “Would you have done it, sir?”

Adam swung around sharply, and felt the claws slackening, releasing him.

“I hope I never know.” And punched his arm. “Luke.”

Galbraith ducked beneath a deckhead beam and stood by the small desk. On the opposite side of the great cabin Yovell was seated at his table, absorbed in the notes he was copying unhurriedly in his round hand. No wonder they called them quill-pushers in the navy, he thought, Yovell was utterly engrossed, as if completely alone. As if this had been an ordinary day.

And the captain. Hard to believe he was the same man Galbraith had watched through a telescope climbing aboard the anchored
Albatroz,
unaccompanied and vulnerable. He was still scarcely able to accept what had happened.

As if to mock him, he heard eight bells ring out from the forecastle. Noon: six hours, if that, since they had seen
Paradox
strike bottom, and her masts and sails fold over her on the water like a dying seabird.

Work had not stopped since. Boats plying back and forth, slaves being released on
Albatroz
's deck, carefully guarded and separated from the vessel's crew, some of whom were in irons. Varlo was obeying orders. Take no chances.
With anyone.

The brig
Seven Sisters
had been busy, too, securing the other slaver,
Intrepido,
and kedging her into deeper water. Other boats had been ferrying guns and stores from
Paradox,
anything which might be used against her original owners.
Paradox
could not be moved, and in these currents and this climate it was doubtful if she would last much longer.

Commodore Turnbull had survived, completely unhurt. Before he had come below Galbraith had seen one last boat lying alongside the dejected topsail schooner, by then a mastless wreck. They would set her ablaze, a suitable pyre for all those who had died for one man's folly. Hastilow had been killed, among others. The wounded were shared between
Unrivalled
and
Seven Sisters.
Some would not last until Freetown.