Tide of War (10 page)

At last Nathan felt the barque begin to heel to starboard as Tully brought the bows round. They were running parallel to the polacca now but on the opposite side from before and to his immense relief Nathan saw that the polacca's gun ports were still closed and all three of the
Speedwell
's guns were run out. Nathan glanced swiftly along the muzzle and tugged on the lanyard. He arched his body back like a bow as the cannon came hurtling back under him. The sound of the shot was still resounding in his ears when he heard Solomon Pratt firing the next gun. Nathan had no time to mark the fall of shot. He ran to the third and last gun, with his crew trailing behind him. They ran the gun out in seconds but the polacca was already moving away from them. There was no time to take aim.

“Fire!” he yelled as he jerked the lanyard, though there was none to instruct but himself. He leaped forward to peer through the smoke. The polacca appeared undamaged and now the Moors were running out the guns, all along her starboard side. Then, slowly, painfully slowly, the mizzen topmast began to fall. Forward and to windward, further, further, bringing the yard and the topsail with it, crashing down into the waist.

The hands were cheering but Nathan stared in frustration and disbelief for the big lateen sail was still there at her mizzen. How? With the topmast down and the peak halliards surely parted? And he had no more guns, saving the 6-pounder at the
Speedwells
stern. He had
started to move towards it when whatever was holding the boom suddenly parted and it came down like a great signal arm swinging at the mast—and the sail with it. And without its leverage, the polacca was dropping off to leeward, just as Tully had said she would, but faster, further than they could ever have hoped.

Then Nathan saw the confusion on her decks. The sail had come down into the waist, directly forward of the quarterdeck, shrouding the helm in its folds. He leaped up into the shrouds for a better view, forgetful of the sharpshooters in the rigging …

And then he saw the flames.

Whiteley had several of his marines up in the tops hurling grenades down into the collapsed rigging and they had started a fire. Nathan could see men running aft with buckets but it was burning fiercely, burning as only dry canvas and tarred rope can burn. A tongue of flame ran up the mizzenmast shrouds and one of her guns went off as the powder caught.

The last he saw of her she was still burning but they had managed to bring her up into the wind so the fire would not spread forward.

“Pity to leave her to prey upon another honest trader,” he informed Tully, as if he considered going back to finish her off.

“Honest trader?” Tully raised a brow. “D'you think they would call us that?”

Nathan congratulated Mr. Whiteley on the conduct of his marines.

“And the crew behaved pretty well, do you not think?” he said to Tully privately.

“ Very well,” agreed Tully.

“I will be sorry to lose them when we reach the Havana.” Nathan allowed himself to admit of this possibility. He assumed his captain's pose, hands clasped behind his back, chin raised to contemplate a distant horizon, in this case smeared with smoke from the burning polacca. He might fool some people even if he did not fool himself. “I only hope the people on the
Unicorn
behave half as well.”

T
HEY CAME INTO THE HAVANA
on the morning tide, forty-two days out of Portsmouth, neither as soon as Nathan had hoped nor as late as he had feared. But it would not have made the slightest difference had he flown on the wings of Pegasus, the British consul informed him, for the
Unicorn
was not there.

“Nor has been since early August and I have had no word of her since,” the consul admitted, “for all that I have made enquiry of every vessel that has entered the port these past two months or more.”

Robert Portillo was a tall, elegant man of about fifty with the dark complexion and distinguished manner of a Spanish grandee who had spent the best part of his life in the tropics—Don Roberto, his servants called him—but whatever his ancestry, he was a subject of King George and had represented His Majesty's interests in Cuba for over twenty years. His house occupied a corner of the Plaza de Armas opposite the Palacio de los Capitanes-Generales and was a veritable palace itself, built in the Moorish style, its three floors surrounding a large central courtyard with tropical palms and an ornate stone fountain. On this occasion, however, the consul had chosen to entertain his two companions on the roof where he had caused a small garden to be built and where they could talk in total privacy, he assured them, while catching a little of the sea breeze.

The breeze proved an empty promise but they sat under a striped awning with a magnificent view of the vast harbour from the fortifications of El Morro at its neck to the Bay of Marimelena far over to their right where the
Speedwell
was moored among a host of other vessels. They had walked some distance in search of the consul's house and Nathan was drenched in sweat, despite the informality of his dress.

“Let us have no ceremony,” Imlay had begged him as they prepared to enter harbour, “for we shall discover nothing by such means. Rather let us sail under the Stars and Stripes, in the guise of an innocent merchantman. For should we enter harbour in all the dignity of your estate with the Royal Navy ensign streaming proudly at our stern, firing off all our guns in salute to His Most Catholic Majesty—which I am sure you are longing to do—you will be obliged to present yourself to the Captain-General and will become a virtual prisoner in his house, forced to dine every day with Don this and Doña that and you will learn a thousand opinions of their daily lives here and not one fact pertinent to our mission, while every French spy upon the island and its nearest neighbours will know our business before the week is out. So instead, let us sneak ashore like a pair of eager young tars anxious to sample the local harlotry and we may pay our respects to the British consul in total discretion and discover the true situation here and what has transpired since he wrote to their lordships.”

So no ceremony it was, though Imlay's notion of what an eager young tar might wear to go a-wooing would have astonished the tarts of Wapping or any other harbour in the civilised world, consisting as it did of white shirt and breeches with a wide red sash at the waist, black Hessian boots with silver tassels and a wide brimmed straw hat. As accessories to this ensemble he clenched a long black cheroot between his teeth and carried a canvas bag over his shoulder with what he called “a few necessaries,” assuring his astonished companion that he would pass unnoticed in the exotic atmosphere of the port. The fact that they were escorted through the streets by a crowd of
unruly urchins did not appear to modify this opinion.

The consul unrolled a map on the table before them.

“We had information that the missing cutter had been sighted in the Old Bahama Channel some three hundred miles east of here,” he informed them, “among the islands of Jardines del Rey.”

Nathan was familiar with the Old Bahama Channel: or as familiar as he ever wished to be. It was the route they had themselves taken to the Havana, a narrow strait between Cuba and the Bahamas, several hundred miles long but no more than fifteen miles at its widest, hedged about with hundreds of small islands. Even with the aid of the one Admiralty chart available to them—drawn by Captain Elphinstone in the year of the British siege—it had taken them almost four days to navigate and they had come near to disaster on several occasions. You could hide a fleet in the islands of Jardines del Rey, let alone a small cutter.

“Lieutenant Pym determined to investigate the report,” the consul continued, “but the day after she sailed I heard news of the body found in the Rigolets.”

“The Rigolets?”

“The Gutter—in English.” It was Imlay who replied, in the lazy drawl of the expert, the celebrated author of
A Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North America,
published by Debret's of London at two guineas. “A narrow channel from the sea to Lake Pontchartrain and thence to New Orleans—by the back door, as it were.”

The consul shot the speaker a look from beneath his brow. Nathan had introduced him merely as “my friend, Mr. Imlay,” not quite knowing how else to put it.

“The body was found by a fishing boat and taken to a small fort the Spanish have built there, whence it was delivered to the Governor-General in New Orleans. I understand that it has since been given a decent burial.”

“So we cannot be perfectly assured that it was the captain of the
Unicorn”
Imlay's tone verged on the sardonic.

“No. Only that it wore the uniform of a captain in the British navy and the
Unicorn
is the only British warship to have visited these waters for some time past.”

“But Lieutenant Pym did not know of this when he left the Havana?” Nathan confirmed.

“No. I did not then have news of it myself. And as I have not been able to locate him since …”

“The mystery deepens,” Imlay commented, heedless of Nathan's warning frown. “In addition to a missing captain and a missing cutter, we now have a missing frigate.” He drew complacently on the cigar he had acquired from the consul and blew smoke towards the roof of the awning.

“Well, we have had news of the cutter,” Portillo announced, “or at least of a vessel meeting its description. A little over a week ago it was involved in an attack upon an English brigantine off Cayo Coco, which is one of the largest of the islands of Jardines del Rey.”

“An
attack?”

“The
Charlotte May
out of Kingston. I spoke with her master, Captain Crow. The cutter was flying the Union flag and signalled her to heave to but he took them for pirates and fled to the west with a following wind. The cutter fired upon him several times from a small cannon mounted in the bow before giving up the chase.”

“I had thought that piracy was no longer tolerated in the Caribbean,” observed Imlay dryly, “not since the days of Henry Morgan.”

“It is uncommon,” Portillo conceded. “But not unknown. The offshore islands are a notorious refuge of brigands and escaped slaves and it is not the first time they have been involved in an incident of this nature. You may count yourselves fortunate you did not encounter them on your journey through the Channel.”

“ We are not unduly concerned by pirates,” remarked Imlay with a nod and a wink towards Nathan which he did his best to ignore.

“At present I am more concerned that there has been no word of the
Unicorn,
” he announced coldly.

“ Well, there may be an explanation for that,” the consul sighed. “I
do not wish to be thought a Jonah but within a week or so of her leaving La Habana the island was struck by a hurricane. One of the most severe I have known. It caused extensive damage in the city. I fear that if the
Unicorn
was in its direct path …”

“A hurricane now?” Imlay rolled his eyes drolly. “She is not what you might call a lucky ship, your
Unicorn.”

“They, too, are not unknown at this time of the year in the Caribbean,” Portillo reminded him. “And for a sound ship in open sea, not necessarily fatal. But if the
Unicorn
was in the Old Bahama Channel, surrounded by reefs and small islands …”

Nathan shook his head. He might have known. He had been promoted to the command of a ghost ship.

He stood up and leaned both hands on the parapet of the roof, staring out over the harbour towards the distant sea, tranquil enough at present but especially treacherous in these parts and at this time of the year. The
Unicorn
would not be the first vessel to have vanished without trace in the waters of the Caribbean during the season of hurricanes. Why had she not stayed in the Havana and waited for word from the Admiralty? And the arrival of her new captain?

From where he stood he could see almost the whole sweep of the harbour except for the very tip where it curved round to the west behind the city walls. The best harbour in the Caribbean, a vast haven where the treasure ships from Mexico and New Spain could berth in perfect security, it was believed, safe from the depredations of storm and pirates both.

Since the days of Francis Drake it had been guarded by three great castles—the Morro and the Punta at each side of the harbour entrance and the Fuerza in the city itself, near the Plaza de Armas. But they had not been enough to stop the British from taking the port in ‘62 and since then the Spaniards had built another fort, bigger than all three—the Castillo de la Cabana on the heights above El Morro. So big, and expensive, that the King of Spain had informed his ministers that he hoped to be able to see it from Madrid. He had been
disappointed in this expectation but it looked awesome enough to Nathan from the roof of the British consul's house. If the British tried to take the Havana again they would have a much harder job of it than in ‘62.

“And what of the
Virginie?”
he asked, returning to his chair and the welcome shade of the awning. “No news of her, either?”

“I wish that were so,” replied the consul with a weary smile. “But the latest report was a little above three weeks ago when she took a Spanish schooner among the islands of Bocas del Toro off Panama. Which is the sixth merchant vessel she has taken since we first heard of her from Captain Kerr back in July.”

“So you have met Captain Kerr?”

“I have. Briefly. When he called into La Habana.”

“And did he appear in good health?” Imlay enquired. “And in possession of all his faculties?”

Nathan closed his eyes briefly. Whatever else he was, Imlay was certainly no diplomat.

“There was no indication of any problem in that regard,” Portillo replied blandly, “but we barely spent an hour in each other's company. There had been reports of an unnamed French frigate off the coast of West Florida and Louisiana. He was impatient to be on his way.”