Tide of War (34 page)

“That would certainly not be safe. No, I will be go alone and trust in my cloth to protect me—and of course my God.”

A knock upon the door. Mr. Lamb. “Mr. Pym's compliments, sir, but the pilot is come aboard and he wishes to know are you ready to weigh anchor?”

Nathan turned to observe the view through the stern windows. It had not changed and the sea was still as calm, a shimmering crystal into which the grebes dipped their delicate beaks and the pelicans plunged with more deadly intent. As he looked, one of these strangely reptilian birds converted its body into a perfect spear and dived, entering the water at great speed and with scarcely a splash. For some reason Nathan thought of Imlay disappearing into the hole that led to the Empire of the Dead.

And even now, after what he knew, he could not entirely believe that he was his enemy.

“Tell Mr. Pym he may carry on and I will be on deck shortly. I suppose,” Nathan continued, when the door had closed, “you would have me believe that Imlay procured the mutiny on the
Unicorn
and the murder of Captain Kerr?”

“There are times, indeed, when Imlay appears to have an infinite capacity for mischief, but let us say that in this case it is more likely that fate played into his hands.”

“Well, I hope you are right about one thing and the
Virginie
is presently on its way to Boca del Serpiente. So we may encounter her on more equal terms in the Sea of Sirens.”

Then he recalled why the name had triggered an alarm when he had heard it in the Governor's Mansion.
Beware the Sirens.
The message his mother had given him from the mad philosopher he had encountered in St. James's Park, with his etchings of Odysseus.

Nonsense sprouted by a lunatic, but Nathan felt as if someone had walked on his grave.

A run of footsteps upon the deck. A moment's silence, like waiting breath. A few exploratory chords on the fiddle—and then it started …

Way, hay, up she rises,

Way, hay, up she rises,

Way, hay, up she rises

Earlye in the morning…

Stamp and go, stamp and go …

What do you do with a drunken harlot?

What do you do with a drunken harlot?

What do you do with a drunken harlot?

Earl-eye in the morning…

Give her a poke with the boatswain's starter

Give her a poke with the boatswain's starter…

No music for a monk's ears.

“Pray finish the wine,” Nathan instructed him as he stood, “for they are raising the anchor and I must go up on deck.”

T
WO MINUTES, TWELVE SECONDS.”
Silas Shaw, captain's clerk, pressed the button on his pocket chronograph and looked towards Nathan with a rare smile of satisfaction upon his bitter-lemon features.

“Thank you, Mr. Shaw.”

They had whipped up a perfect storm around the little raft of empty rum casks and timbers floating a little more than two cables' lengths off their starboard bow and though it remained irritatingly intact there was some cause for satisfaction in the timing.

Nathan turned to his first lieutenant who was glaring with displeasure at his scuffed and sullied decks. “Very good, Mr. Pym, now we will come about and see if the larboard guns can do any better.”

A rush of feet across the decks as they began to wear … a disciplined frenzy of activity and then …

“Fire as you bear!”

Again the rippling broadside and at least two close shaves before the penultimate round demolished the raft entirely and the last scattered the debris across a wide area of sea.

“One minute, fifty-eight seconds,” announced Mr. Shaw.

It was repeated by those closest to him and a great cheer arose from the gun deck.

“Quiet there! Take that man's name, Mr. Brown.” A furious Pym pointed, red-faced, at one of the more celebrant of the crew who was making lewd gestures with a rammer between his legs.

“Very good.” Nathan raised his voice so that it carried the length of the gun deck. “But you all know it must be closer to a minute by the time we meet up with the
Virginie.
For we have shipmates to be avenged.”

A great cheer went up but Nathan turned away, despising himself as much as he always did when he played the politician. He sought out the gunner to congratulate him privately. “You have done very well, Mr. Clyde, with a very mixed bunch, but I believe the Africans are coming well up to scratch.”

“That they are, sir, and they take a fair pride in the guns.”

“I dare say they do. Certainly they make better gunners than fore-topmen.”

All but five of the Africans had elected to stay aboard the
Unicorn
when she had left Jamaica, though Nathan suspected this probably had more to do with their reluctance to remain in a slave colony with little money, no prospects and very little English than with their enthusiasm for life aboard one of His Majesty's frigates.

Still, they were a welcome addition to the crew and with his extra quota of marines and the score or so of “volunteers” he had picked up from the jails and taverns of Kingston and Port Royal, the
Unicorn
was not far short of her full complement. With the improvement in her gunnery—they had been practising every day since leaving Jamaica—he felt a greater sense of optimism than at any time since joining the ship. But his talk of meeting with the
Virginie
was more for the benefit of the crew than from any private conviction, whatever Brother Ignatius had to say about it.

The notion of paying her back for the miseries she had inflicted upon them off Ship Island had taken hold on the lower deck as much as it had among his officers and he felt it advisable to nurture this ambition, rather than to reveal the true purpose of their mission as they threaded their cautious way through the Sea of Sirens. Only
his lieutenants—and of course Brother Ignatius—knew of his intention of attacking the mutineers and their rebel allies in the Mouth of the Serpent. The rest of the officers and crew remained in ignorance. Sooner or later, of course, he would have to tell them but he was still working on his speech—and that would have to be as politic as any he had made.

Tully and Maxwell returned to the quarterdeck from their divisions. They were having an animated discussion about the performance of their respective guns and crews and Nathan felt a sharp stab of envy, not only for their easy intimacy but for the technical nature of their discussion. He envied them their total absorption in the detail of things. He remembered it from when he had been a lieutenant—and a midshipman before that, conversing with another junior officer about some specific aspect of gunnery, or navigation … or what they were going to have for dinner. Larger issues, such as where they were going and why—or who they were fighting and why—had rarely entered into it. They could leave that to others—remote, godlike beings like their captain, who could never converse with anyone, not with ease, and who ate his dinner alone, an hour after everyone else, unless he summoned them to join him for a formal meal in his cabin, or was invited to join them in the gunroom on some special occasion. And whenever he spoke he would be listened to with respect, his views treated with the deference due to his godly status.

Well, to hell with it. He did not have to play by the rules all the time. He intercepted a look from Tully, vaguely questioning, perhaps sensing his discontent, and summoned him with a slight sideways movement of his head as he would have on the
Speedwell.

“What did you think?” Nathan asked him when Tully had joined him at the rail.

Tully replied formally with an intelligent summary of the operation, adding one or two trifling criticisms and modest suggestions for improvement. Nathan half listened; the question had been an excuse, a means of introducing a different subject altogether, though it was, he supposed, related.

“And the diverse elements, they are working well together?”

“Well enough—there are always diverse elements in any crew.”

“More so than usual, perhaps, with the Irish and the Africans.”

Tully knew him well enough to suspect there was a deeper reason for this line of questioning. It was not so unusual to have a significant proportion of Irish among the crew of a British man of war and even a number of Negroes.

“I have noted no particular tensions between them,” Tully said quietly, “or with any other sections of the crew. Of course there is a language difficulty.”

“With the Irish?”

“With the Africans.” In a tone of mild surprise until he saw Nathan's expression. “Your pardon. Very good.”

A poor joke but it had broken at least part of the constraint that sometimes arose between them.

“The fact is,” Nathan confided, “I cannot help but fear there will be an element of divided loyalty when I tell them the true nature of our mission. Both Africans and Irish.” He kept his voice low but they were both looking out to sea and unless Gabriel had his ear pressed to the cabin window below there was little risk of being overheard—and Gabriel probably knew already what was the true nature of their mission. It could only be hoped he had kept it to himself for the time being.

“I think you are wise to keep it to the last possible minute,” Tully agreed. “But much depends on your plan for the encounter.”

“Right. Well, when I have a plan I will share it with you. At present I have not the remotest idea what to do.” Tully smiled. Did he think he was joking? “But whatever it is, it will involve some considerable violence—and to men with whom they have much in common, and probably feel a great deal of sympathy for.”

Tully said nothing for the moment. He looked away down the length of the deck where Pym's defaulters were already down on their knees scrubbing at the marks left by the recent gunnery practice.

“Well, as to the Irish,” began Tully, “there are only twenty-eight of
them left. If you fear, that is …”

Nathan sensed him choosing his words with particular care. “Come along,” he urged him. “Speak frankly with me. I want to know your honest opinion.”

“Well, if you do not believe you can rely upon them, I suppose you may limit their participation in the affair. It does, as I say, depend on the eventual plan. If it is to be a cutting out …”

He left the sentence unfinished but Nathan nodded his understanding. If the
Unicorn
were to remain off-shore and he or Pym, Maxwell or Tully, led the boats in with the marines and some picked members of the crew—probably by night—the Irish need never know what they were about until they returned with their captives. If, indeed, they returned at all.

“And the Africans?”

“The same goes for them.”

Nathan made a sour face. “I hate it when I cannot depend on members of my own crew and have to deceive them.”

“Well, take them into your confidence, then. As you have me. I was once a smuggler. Yet you did not appear to distrust me when we encountered the smugglers in the English Channel. Men who were my former shipmates.”

“Really? You did not tell me that at the time.”

“Did I not? It must have escaped me in the heat of the moment.”

They both grinned, remembering. Nathan sighed. “To tell truth, Martin, I am not even sure of my own loyalties. Dear God. Look at us. We are entirely opposed to slavery. The King's chief minister is opposed to it, the leader of the Opposition and most of the Whigs, even a great many Tories. The Navy is opposed to it—I have yet to meet an officer who will speak in its favour—and yet here we are fighting to restore it throughout the Caribbean. In the next twenty-four hours we may be forced to fire on an army of escaped slaves. Why is it we are so often on the wrong side, Martin?”

But wiser heads than Tully's had considered this question without coming close to an answer. Nathan caught sight of a diffident figure,
hovering at the extremity of his vision. “Yes, Mr. Godfrey?”

The pilot approached and saluted. “I believe we will sight Cape Cruz in about an hour,” he announced, “and then we will follow the coast north to Boca del Serpiente.”

“Very well,
señor.”
Nathan raised his voice so that the first lieutenant could hear him at the con. “Mr. Pym, I believe we will heave to.”

He did not wish to take any chance of being observed from the coast and news of their presence carried to the rebels.

“Mr. Lamb, oblige me if you would, by finding how Mr. Lloyd is getting on with his virgin.”

A delighted grin from Lamb who was young enough to find this amusing. He dived down the nearest companionway and popped up again a minute or so later with the semblance of gravity upon his youthful features and the information that “Mr. Lloyd says her paint is still a bit wet but if you are ready to see her, he will bring her up on to the forecastle.”

Notice of the event had got about and the deck was more than usually crowded with idlers as their new figurehead emerged like Aphrodite from the waters—and with at least two of her most striking attributes.

“Dear God,” murmured Nathan to Tully. “I believe I asked for a virgin not the whore of Babylon.”

He did not know if it was the bosom that disturbed him most or the violently rouged cheeks and the lewd and self-satisfied smirk she wore upon her face. Her creator came aft, the subject of ribald comment and with the look of a naughty Welshman who knows he has been found out and for once does not mind, knowing that popular feeling is on his side.

Pym was beside himself, discipline shot to ruin. “Mr. Lloyd, you have disgraced yourself,” he said.

“I beg pardon, sir, but I am not sure I know what you mean.”

“You know very well what he means, Mr. Lloyd,” put in Nathan. “Did you have to give her such a distinctive … profile?”