3

THE ALBACORA

AN ONLOOKER, had there been one, might have compared the little topsail schooner Miranda with a giant moth. But apart from a few screaming and wheeling gulls, there was none to see her as she came about in a great welter of bursting spray, her twin booms swinging over to refill the sails on the opposite tack.

She leaned so far to leeward that the sea was spurting through her washports, rising even above her bulwark to surge along the streaming planking, or breaking over the four-pounder guns like waves on rocks.

It was wild and exhilarating, the air filled with the din of sea and banging canvas, with only the occasional shouted command, for nothing superfluous was needed here. Each man knew his work, aware of the ever-present dangers: he could be flung senseless against some immovable object to suffer a cracked skull or broken limbs, or be pitched overboard by a treacherous wave as it burst over the bows and swept along like a mill-race. Miranda was small and very lively, and certainly no place for the unwary or the inexperienced.

Aft by the compass box her commander, Lieutenant James Tyacke, swayed and leaned with his ship, one hand in his pocket, the other gripping a slippery backstay. Like his men he was soaked to the skin, his eyes raw from spray and spindrift as he watched the tilting compass card, the flapping mainsail and pendant while his command plunged again, her bowsprit pointing due south.

They had taken all night and part of the day to claw out of SaldanhaBay, away from the impressive formations of anchored men-of-war, supply ships, bombs, army transports and all the rest. Lieutenant Tyacke had used the time to beat as far out as possible to gain the sea-room he needed before heading back to Commodore Warren’s small squadron. There was another reason, which probably only his second-in-command had guessed. He wanted to put as much ocean as possible between Miranda and the squadron before someone signalled him to repair aboard the flagship yet again.

He had done what he had been ordered, delivered the despatches to the army and the commodore. He had been glad to leave.

Tyacke was thirty years old and had commanded the speedy Miranda for the last three of them. After her grace and intimacy, the flagship had seemed like a city, with the navy seemingly outnumbered by the red and scarlet of the military and the marines.

It was not that he did not know what a big ship was like. He tightened his jaw, determined to hold the memory and the bitterness at bay. Eight years ago he had been serving as a lieutenant aboard the Majestic, a two-decker with Nelson’s fleet in the Mediterranean. He had been on the lower gundeck when Nelson had finally run the French to earth at AboukirBay, the Battle of the Nile as it was now called.

It was too terrible to remember clearly, or to arrange the events in their proper order. With the passing of time they eluded him, or overlapped like insane acts in a nightmare.

At the height of it his ship, Majestic, had come up against the French Tonnant of eighty guns, which had seemed to tower over them like a flaming cliff.

The noise was still there to remember, if he let himself, the awful sights of men, and pieces of men, being flung about the bloody litter and gruel of the gundeck, a place which had become a hell all of its own. The wild eyes of the gun crews, white through their filthy skins, the cannon firing and recoiling, no longer as a controlled broadside but in divisions, then in ones and twos, while the ship shook and quaked around and above them. Unbeknown to the demented souls who sponged out, loaded and fired because it was all that they knew, their captain, Westcott, had already fallen dead, along with so many of his men. Their world was the lower gundeck. Nothing else mattered, could matter. Guns were upended and smashed by the enemy’s fire; men ran screaming to be driven back by equally terrified lieutenants and warrant officers.

Run out! Point! Fire!

He heard it still. It would never leave him. Others had told him he was lucky. Not because of the victory—only ignorant landsmen spoke of such things. But because he had survived when so many had fallen, the lucky to die, the others to cry out their lives under the surgeon’s saw, or to be pathetic cripples whom nobody wanted to see or remember.

He watched the compass card steady and felt the keel slicing through the steep rollers as if they were nothing.

He touched his face with his hand, feeling its roughness, seeing it in his mind as he was forced to do each day when he shaved himself.

Again he could remember nothing. A gun had exploded, or a flaming wad had come inboard from one of Tonnant’s lower battery and sparked off a full charge nearby. It could have been either. Nobody had been left to tell him.

But the whole of the right side of his face had been scored away, left like charred meat, half a face which people turned their heads not to see. How his eye had survived was the real miracle.

He thought of his visit to the flagship. He had not seen the general or even the commodore, just a bored-looking colonel who had been carrying a glass of hock or something cool in one elegant hand. They had not even asked Tyacke to be seated, let alone to take a glass with them.

As he had gone down the great ship’s side to his own longboat, that same aide had come dashing after him.

“I say, Lieutenant! Why did you not tell me the news? About Nelson and the victory?”

Tyacke had looked up the ship’s curving black and buff hull and had not tried to conceal his contempt.

“‘Cause nobody asked me, sir!” God damn their eyes.

Benjamin Simcox, master’s mate and acting-master of the schooner Miranda, lurched along the treacherous planking to join him. He was the same age as his captain, a seaman through and through who originally, like the schooner, had been in the merchant service. In such a small vessel—she was a bare sixty-five feet long with a company of thirty—you got to know a man very well. Love or hate and not much in between. With Bob Jay, another master’s mate, they ran the schooner to perform at her best. It was a matter of pride.

Usually one of them was on watch, and when Simcox had spent a few watches below with the tall lieutenant he had got to know him well. Now, after three years, they were true friends, their separate ranks only intruding in rare moments of formality. Like Tyacke’s visit to the flagship for instance.

Tyacke had looked at him, momentarily forgetting his hideous scars, and had said, “First time I’ve buckled on a sword for over a year, Ben!” It was good to hear him joke about it. It was rare too.

Did he ever think about the girl in Portsmouth, Simcox wondered? One night in harbour he had been awakened in his tiny cabin by Tyacke’s pitiful, dreaming entreaties to the girl who had promised to wait for him, to marry him. Rather than wake the whole ship, Simcox had shaken his shoulder, but had not explained. Tyacke had understood, and had fetched a bottle of brandy which they had taken off a runner. When dawn had broken the bottle had been empty.

Tyacke had not blamed the girl he had known for most of his life. Nobody would want to see his face every morning. But he had been deeply hurt; wounded no less severely than others at the Nile.

Simcox shouted above the din, “Runnin’ well!” He jerked a thumb at a slight figure who was clinging to the companion hatch, a lifeline tied around his waist, his breeches and stockings soiled with vomit. “He’s not so good, though!”

Mister Midshipman Roger Segrave had been in Miranda since they had taken on stores at Gibraltar. At the request of his captain he had been transferred from a big three-decker to complete his time as midshipman in a vessel where he might learn something more about practical seamanship and self-reliance. It had been said that the midshipman’s uncle, an admiral at Plymouth, had arranged the transfer, not merely for the youth’s sake but also for the family name. It would not look good to fail the lieutenant’s examination, especially in time of war when chances of promotion lay on every hand.

Tyacke had made it clear he disliked the idea. Segrave’s presence had upset their tight routine, an intrusion, like an unwanted visitor.

Simcox was one of the old school; the rope’s end or a clip round the ear were, in his book, worth far more than lengthy discussions on tradition and discipline.

But he was not a hard man, and tried to explain to the midshipman what he might expect. Lieutenant Tyacke was the only commissioned officer aboard. He could not be expected to live in total isolation in a ninety-two-ton schooner; they were a team. But he knew that Segrave did not really understand. In the teeming world of a ship of the line everything was divided and sub-divided by rank, status and experience. At the top there was the captain, usually so remote he seemed like a god. The rest, though crammed together out of necessity, were totally separated.

Segrave rolled over and leaned back against the hatchway with a deep groan. He was sixteen years old with fair, almost girlish good looks. He had perfect manners, was careful, even shy when dealing with the hands—not like some little monsters Simcox had heard about. And he tried hard at everything but, even Simcox had to agree, with very little success. He was staring up at the sky, seemingly oblivious to the spray which ripped over the deck like pellets, or the filthy state of his clothing.

Lieutenant Tyacke looked at him coldly. “Free yourself and go below, Mr Segrave, and fetch some rum from the clerk. I can’t afford to let anyone useful stand-down until I change tack again.”

As the youth clambered wretchedly down the ladder, Simcox grinned.

“Bit hard on the lad, James.”

Tyacke shrugged. “You think so?” He almost spat. “In a year or two he’ll be sending men to the gratings for a striped shirt, just for looking at him!”

The master’s mate yelled, “Wind’s veered a piece!”

“Bring her up a point. I think this is going to blow over. I want to get the tops’l spread if it does, and run with the wind under our coat-tails.”

There was a sound of breaking pottery and someone vomiting from the deck below.

Tyacke murmured, “I swear I shall kill that one.”

Simcox asked, “What d’you reckon to ViceAdmiral Bolitho, James?”

The lieutenant gripped the stay again and bent from the waist as the sea boiled over the weather bulwark in a solid flood. Amongst the streaming water and foam he saw his men, like half-naked urchins, nodding and grinning to each other. Making certain that no one had gone over.

He replied, “A good man to all accounts. When I was at the—” He looked away, remembering the cheers despite the hell when Bolitho’s ship was reported engaging. He changed tack. “I’ve known plenty who’ve served with him—there used to be an old fellow who lived in Dover. I used to speak with him when I was a lad, down by the harbour.” He smiled suddenly. “Not far from where they built this schooner, as a matter of fact … He was serving under Richard Bolitho’s father when he lost his arm.”

Simcox watched his strong profile. If you did not see the other side of his face, he was handsome enough to catch any girl’s fancy, he thought.

He said, “You should tell him that, if you meet.”

Tyacke wiped the spray from his face and throat. “He’s a viceadmiral now.”

Simcox smiled but was uneasy. “God, you make him sound like the enemy, James!”

“Do I? Well, there’s a thing!” He touched his dripping sleeve. “Now rouse these layabouts and stand by to change tack. We will steer south by east.”

Within the hour the squall had fallen away, and with all sails filling well, their dark shadows riding across the waves alongside like huge fins, Miranda responded with her usual disdain.

She had started life as a Dover mail packet, but had been taken by the navy before she had completed more than a few passages. Now at seventeen years, she was one of the many such vessels working under a naval ensign. She was not only a lively sailer; she was a delight to handle because of her simple sail-plan and deep keel. A large mainsail aft, with a forestaysail and jib and the one topsail on her foremast, she could outmanoeuvre almost anything. The deep keel, even when she was closehauled, prevented her from losing leeway like a cutter or something heavier. Armed with only four 4-pounders and some swivels, she was meant for carrying despatches, rather than taking part in any real skirmish.

Smugglers and privateers were one thing; but half a broadside from some enemy frigate would change her from a lean thoroughbred to a total wreck.

Between decks there was the strong smell of rum and tobacco, and the greasy aroma of the noon meal. As the watch below scrambled down to their messdeck, Tyacke and Simcox sat wedged on either side of the cabin table. Both men were tall, so that any movement in the cabin had to be performed bent double.

The midshipman, repentant and anxious, sat at the other end of the table. Simcox could pity him, for even under reefed canvas the motion was violent, the sea surging astern from the sharply raked counter, the prospect of food another threat for any delicate stomach.

Tyacke said suddenly, “If I do see him, the admiral I mean, I shall ask him about getting some beer. I saw some of the soldiers drinking their fill when I visited the flagship. So why not us? The water out here will kill more good sailors than Johnny Dutchman!”

They both turned as the midshipman spoke up.

Segrave said, “There was a lot of talk in London about ViceAdmiral Bolitho.”

Tyacke’s tone was deceptively mild. “Oh, and what sort of talk was that?”

Encouraged, his sickness momentarily quiescent, Segrave expounded willingly.

“My mother said it was disgraceful how he behaved. How he left his lady for that woman. She said London was up in arms about it—” He got no further.

“If you speak like that in front of the people I’ll put you under arrest—in bloody irons if need be!” Tyacke was shouting, and Simcox guessed that many of the offwatch seamen would hear. There was something terrible about his rage; pathetic too.

Tyacke leaned over towards the pale-faced youth and added, “And if you speak such shite to me, I’ll damn well call you out, young and useless though you may be!”

Simcox rested his hand on his wrist. “Be easy, James. He knows no better.”

Tyacke shook his hand away. “God damn them, Ben, what do they want of us? How dare they condemn men who daily, hourly risk their lives so that they—” he pointed an accusing finger at Segrave “—can sip their tea and eat their cakes in comfort.” He was shaking, his voice almost a sob. “I’ve never met this Richard Bolitho, but God damn me, I’d lay down my life for him right now, if only to get back at those useless, gutless bastards!”

In the sudden silence the sea intruded like a soothing chorus.

Segrave said in a whisper, “I am very sorry, sir.”

Surprisingly, Tyacke’s hideous face moved in a smile. “No. I abused you. That is wrong when you are unable to answer back.” He mopped his forehead with a crumpled handkerchief. “But I meant every bloody word, so be warned!”

“Deck thar!” The masthead’s cry was shredded by the brisk north-westerly. “Sail on th’ starboard bow!”

Simcox thrust his mug into a safe corner and began to slide towards the door.

No matter what this proved to be, he thought, it had come along just in time.

“Sou’-west-by-south, sir! Full an’ bye!”

The Miranda’s deck tilted even more steeply as she responded to her rudder and the great span of main and staysails, water cascading around the barebacked seamen while they sheeted home swollen halliards and dug with their toes at anything which would hold them.

Lieutenant Tyacke lurched up to the weather rail, and watched the surf and spray leaping high from the stem to make the flapping jib glint in the sunshine like polished metal.

Simcox nodded with approval as George Sperry, the tub-shaped boatswain, put two extra hands on the tiller. Miranda did not boast a wheel but had a long, ornately carved tiller bar, which took some handling in the brisk wind sweeping down on the starboard quarter.

He saw Midshipman Segrave standing in the shadow of the heavily raked mainmast, his eyes wary as he tried to avoid men dashing past to take up the slack of the forebrace.

Simcox called, “Over here!” He sighed when the youth all but fell, as a wave curled lazily over the lee bulwark and broke around him, leaving him spluttering and gasping, water pouring from his shirt and breeches as if he had just been pulled from the sea.

“Just bide along o’ me, young feller, and watch the mains’l an’ compass. Get th’ feel of ‘er, see?”

He forgot Segrave as a line high above the deck cracked like a whip, and instantly began to unreeve itself as if it were alive.

A sailor was already swarming aloft, another bending on some fresh cordage so that no time would be lost in repairs.

Segrave clung to the bitts beneath the driver-boom and stared dully at the men working on the damaged rigging, paying no heed to the wind which tried to pluck them down. He could not recall when he had felt so wretched, so utterly miserable, and so unable to see his way out of it.

Tyacke’s words still stung, and although it was not the first time the captain had given him the sharp side of his tongue, the boy had never seen him so angry: as if he had lost control and wanted to strike him.

Segrave had earnestly tried not to rouse Tyacke’s ire; had wanted nothing more than to keep out of his way. Both were impossible in so small a ship.

He had nobody to talk to, really talk and understand. There had been plenty of midshipmen aboard his last ship—his only ship. He shuddered. What must he do?

His father had been a hero, although Segrave could barely remember him. Even on his rare returns to their home he had seemed distant, vaguely disapproving, perhaps because he had but one son and three daughters. Then one day the news had been brought to that far-off Surrey house. Captain Segrave had been killed in battle, fighting under Admiral Dundas at Camperdown. His mother had told them, her face sad but composed. By then it was already too late for Roger Segrave. His uncle, a retired flagofficer in Plymouth, had decided to offer him his patronage—for his father’s memory, for the honour of the family. As soon as a ship could be found he was kitted out and packed off to sea. For Segrave it had been three years of hell.

He looked despairingly at Simcox. His rough kindness had almost finished him. But he would understand no better than Segrave’s lieutenant in the three-decker. What would he say if he knew that Segrave hated the navy, and had never wanted to follow the family tradition. Never.

He had intended to tell his mother on that last leave, when she had taken him to London to stay with some of her friends. They had clucked over him like hens. So sweet in his uniform as one of them had exclaimed. That had been when he had heard them discussing Nelson and another name, Richard Bolitho.

Now the unthinkable had happened. Brave Nelson was dead. And the other name was here, with the squadron.

Before he had left for Portsmouth to take passage to the Mediterranean, he had tried to explain to his mother.

She had hugged him, and then held him at arm’s length. She had sounded hurt. “After all the Admiral has done for you and the family—” It was strange, but Segrave could never recall his uncle being called by name. He was always the Admiral.

“Be brave, Roger. Make us proud of you!”

He tensed as the captain turned aft towards him. If only his face were not like that. Segrave was not too immature not to know how Tyacke must hate and loathe his own appearance. And yet he could not stop himself from staring at his disfigurement, even when he was trying to prevent himself from doing so.

If he passed his examination … Segrave ducked as a curtain of spray soaked into him again. If—he would be appointed as a lieutenant, the first real step, to share a wardroom with other officers who would see him as the weak link, a danger whenever they were called to action.

But suppose—he found he was clenching his fists until they ached—he ended up with a terrible wound like Tyacke? He felt the bile in his throat, choking him.

Simcox slapped him on the shoulder. “Let her fall off a point. Steer sou’-sou’-west.” He watched as Segrave relayed his order to the helmsman, but saw the senior hand at the tiller glance at him, not the boy, to make certain it was correct.

“Deck thar! She’s standin’ away, sir, an’ makin’ more sail!”

Tyacke tucked his thumbs into his belt. “So he wants to play games, does he?” He cupped his hands and called, “Would you take a glass aloft, Mr Jay?” As the master’s mate hurried to the shrouds he said, “Hands aloft, and loose tops’l, Ben!” He gave a rare grin. “I’ll wager he’ll not outreach Miranda!”

Then he appeared to notice the midshipman for the first time. “Go with him and learn something!” He dismissed him immediately as the topsail suddenly boomed out from its yard and then hardened like a breastplate.

Simcox eyed the set of the sails. “We must catch him afore dusk. Sir Richard Bolitho’ll not thank us for keepin’ him waiting!”

Segrave finally reached the top of the quivering ratlines and joined the master’s mate by the foot of the fidded topmast. Heights did not trouble him, and he gazed across the endless dark blue desert with its ranks of yellow-crested waves. The ship was momentarily forgotten; he stared wide-eyed at the spray as it drifted up from the plunging stem, felt the mast shaking and jerking, every brace and shroud catching the wind in a wild chorus which drowned out the men on the deck far below.

“Take a look.” Jay handed him the telescope before bellowing to the deck, “Schooner, sir! Flies no flag!”

Tyacke’s voice carried effortlessly from aft. “She running?”

“Aye, sir!”

They heard the squeal of a block, and seconds later a huge White Ensign floated from Miranda’s gaff.

Jay chuckled. “That’ll show the buggers!”

But Segrave was peering at the other vessel as she heeled over to an angle that matched Miranda’s. The vessel seemed to leap out of the distance so that he could see the patched and dirty sails, even some loose trailing cordage awaiting repair, Irish pendants as he had heard the old sailors call them. The hull was originally black but was scored, and in places worn bare by wind and weather. It would not be tolerated in a King’s ship, no matter how hard she was worked.

“What d’you think, Mr Jay?”

The man looked at him before raising the glass again. “At a guess she’s a bloody blackbirder.” He saw the uncertainty on the youth’s face. “Slaver, lad.”

Segrave looked away and did not see the other man’s pitying stare. “Will we catch her?”

Jay was watching the other vessel with professional interest. “We’ll catch the bastard right enough.”

There was a hail from the deck. “Clear for action! Mr Archer, lay aft if you please!”

Archer was the gunner, so there could be little doubt about it now.

Tyacke’s voice seemed to be right beside him.

“Mr Segrave! Down here at the double!”

Jay watched him clambering down the ratlines, his fair hair rippling in the wind.

There was nothing to dislike about the midshipman, but Jay knew the dangers. In small ships like Miranda it was one hand for the King, t’other for yourself. There was no room for passengers and mother’s boys.

Simcox faced Segrave as he reached the bulwark. “Keep with Mr Archer. He will personally lay and point a four-pounder. You will do well to watch him!”

The tub-like boatswain grinned and showed him broken teeth.

“I knowed Elias Archer knock an apple off a tree at a ‘undred paces!”

The other man who waited by halliards and braces grinned as if it was a huge joke.

Segrave saw Tyacke turn to speak with the helmsmen. In the sun’s angry glare his face looked as if it had just been clawed away. Then he followed the gunner to the foremost starboard side port and tried not to think about it. He felt like running below to hide, anything but being made to bare his fear before the others.

Elias Archer, Miranda’s master gunner, was a grizzled little man and stood effortlessly on the pitching foredeck, his arms folded while he waited for his men to clear away the four-pounder nearest to the bows.

“Done much of this, ‘ave yer?” He glanced briefly at the midshipman, then returned his gaze to the other vessel. She was larger than Miranda, and might yet outsail them until nightfall made a further chase impossible.

Segrave shook his head. His body was like ice in spite of the sun’s high glare across his neck and shoulders; and each time the schooner dipped her stem the bursting spray made him shiver uncontrollably.

He replied, “Not like this. My last ship engaged a French two-decker, but she ran aground and caught fire before we could take her.”

“This is different.” Archer took a shining black ball from the shot garland and felt it in his hard palms. “Ships like this ‘un ‘ave to be quick an’ nimble. But without the likes o’ us the fleet would be all aback fer news, an’ without that even Our Nel couldn’t move.” He nodded to one of his crew. “Right, Mason, open the port.”

Segrave watched as other men ran to the halliards and braces and the deck canted over again. The other schooner must have headed away a point or so, but it was hard to tell from where they stood now, here in the eyes of the ship.

Archer leaned over to supervise as the charge was carefully tamped home. He said, “Some ‘otheads double-shot their guns. But not me. Not in a little piece like this ‘un.”

Segrave heard the captain call, “Signal that bastard to heave-to!”

Archer chuckled, “‘E won’t take no notice!”

Segrave was puzzled. “Maybe he cannot read our signals?”

A seaman with the rammer grinned and pointed at the gun. “He’ll understand this, right enough.”

The other schooner was showing her bilge as she heeled over to the press of canvas. There were several heads above her bulwark, but there was no response to the signal.

Lieutenant Tyacke shouted, “Load and run out!”

The shot was thrust down the muzzle with a wad to keep it secure. Then, with the hands hauling on the tackles, the little gun was run up to the open port.

Archer explained, “Y’see, my lad, that bugger yonder has the wind-gage, but it will help us to put a shot down where we wants it.”

Jay, the forgotten master’s mate, called from the foremast: “They’ve just pitched a corpse over the side, sir! There goes another!”

Tyacke lowered his telescope, his eyes hard. “That last one was still alive, Mr Simcox.” The sudden formality seemed to add menace to the moment.

“Beyond her if you can, Mr Archer!”

Archer was crouching like an athlete, the trigger-line pulled taut as he peered over the barrel.

He jerked the line and the gun hurtled inboard on its tackles, smoke fanning through the port even as they began to sponge out for the next shot.

Segrave saw a sudden confusion of spray to starboard and for an instant thought that Archer’s aim had failed him. But the ball hit the water just a few yards from the schooner’s lee bow and ricocheted across the waves like a jubilant dolphin. Segrave pointed at the other disturbance which was already settling again.

“What’s that?”

Sperry the boatswain, who had sauntered forward to watch, said harshly, “Sharks.”

Segrave felt the nausea returning. Those two unknown people had been cast outboard like so much rubbish; torn to pieces while he had watched.

“Bosun! Stand by to sway out the boat!”

Segrave raised his eyes again. The other vessel was heaving-to, her patched sails in wild confusion as she rounded-up into the wind.

Segrave had the feeling that Miranda’s people were used to this kind of thing. The arms chest was already on deck and open, and Jay came slithering down a back stay with a grunt, his hands already reaching for a hanger while someone passed him his pistol.

Tyacke was saying, “I shall stand off. Board the schooner and search her. Don’t take any insolence from any of them. You know what to do.”

Simcox beckoned to the midshipman. “You go with Mr Jay, lad. If that bastard is full of slaves we’ll have to release him. There’s no law against blackbirdin’, not yet anyways, an’ we’d get precious few thanks from the commodore if we return to th’ squadron with a load o’ slaves. Me, I’d hang the bastards an’ to hell with the law an’ th’ right o’ it!”

Tyacke crossed the deck. “Help Mr Jay all you can. Arm yourself—they’re as treacherous as snakes.”

Small though she was, Miranda appeared to tower over them as they tumbled into the longboat and cast off.

“Give way all!” Jay grasped the tiller bar and watched narrowly as the men pulled strongly towards the other schooner.

Sperry was in the boat too, a boarding axe and a heavy cutlass in his belt.

“No slaves,” he said.

Jay asked, “How so, George?”

“No bloody stench, is there? An’ us downwind of ‘em an’ all!”

Segrave gritted his teeth and gripped the bulwark with all his strength. It was another nightmare. He saw a sudden picture of his mother when she had told them about their father’s death. How would she feel about him? Proud? Moist-eyed that her only son had died in battle? He stared wildly at the other vessel, stared until his eyes watered and smarted. Damn them all.

Jay cupped his hands. “We’re comin’ aboard! In th’ King’s name!”

Sperry bared his teeth and loosened the axe in his belt.

“Oh, that was prettily said, Bob!”

They grinned fiercely at each other while Segrave could only stare at them. At any second they might be fired on; he had heard it said that slavers were often well armed.

Jay was suddenly serious. “The usual, lads. Take over the helm, an’ disarm the crew.” He glanced at Segrave. “You stick with me, lad. Nowt to it!”

A grapnel flew over the schooner’s bulwark and the next second they were clambering aboard, the sea-noises fading slightly as they found themselves on the deck. Segrave stayed close to the master’s mate. When he looked at his companions he was not surprised that this vessel had failed to stop. Miranda’s White Ensign was genuine but the little boarding party looked more like ragged pirates than the King’s seamen.

Jay beckoned to a man in dirty white breeches and a contrasting ruffled silk shirt.

“You th’ Master?”

Segrave looked at the others. A mixture. The sweepings of the gutter.

“An’ wot do we ‘ave ‘ere? ” The boatswain’s thick arm shot out and dragged one of the crew away from the others. With surprising speed for such a squat man, Sperry ripped off the sailor’s shirt, then swung him round so that Jay could see the tattoos on his skin. Crossed flags and cannon, and a ship’s name: Donegal.

Jay rasped, “A deserter, eh? Looks like the end o’ th’ roamin’ life for you!”

The man cringed. “For Gawd’s sake ‘ave some pity. I’m just a poor Jack like yerselves!”

Sperry shook him gently. “An’ soon you’ll be a poor dead Jack, dancin’ at the yardarm, you bastard!”

Segrave had never even tried to understand it. How men who had been taken by the press gangs as some of Miranda’s had, were always outraged by those who had run.

The one who was obviously the master shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.

Jay sighed. “Don’t speak no English.” His eyes gleamed and he pointed at the deserter with his hanger.

“You’ll do! You ‘elp us an’ we’ll see you escapes the rope, eh?”

The sailor’s gratitude was pathetic to see. He fell on his knees and sobbed, “I only done one passage in ‘er, ‘onest, sir!”

“Wot about the two ‘burials’?” The point of the hanger lifted suddenly until it rested on the man’s throat. “An’ don’t lie, or you’ll be joinin’ them!”

“The master put ‘em over, sir!” He was babbling with fear and relief. “They’d been fighting, and one stabbed t’other.” He dropped his eyes. “The master was goin’ to get rid of ‘em anyway. They weren’t strong enough for ‘ard work.”

Segrave watched the man in the frilled shirt. He seemed calm, indifferent even. They could not hold him, although he had murdered two slaves who were no longer of any use.

Jay snapped, “Take charge of the deck, George.” He beckoned to a seaman. “We’ll go below.” He added, “You too, Mr Segrave!”

It was even filthier between decks, the whole hull creaking and pitching while the sailors, holding lanterns like tin-miners, crept amongst the evidence of the schooner’s trade. Ranks of manacles and leg-irons lined and crisscrossed the main hold, with chains to keep each batch of slaves from moving more than a few feet. And this for a voyage across an ocean, to the Indies or the Spanish Main.

Jay muttered, “That’s why they only takes the fit ones. T’others would never last the passage.” He spat. “Lyin’ in their own filth for weeks on end. Don’t bear thinkin’ about.” He shrugged. “Still, I suppose it’s a livin’, like everythin’ else.”

Segrave wanted to be sick, but he controlled it and asked timidly, “That deserter—will he really be pardoned?”

Jay paused and glanced at him. “Yes, if he’s any use to us. Pardoned the rope anyway. He’ll likely get two hundred strokes of the cat, just to remind him of ‘is loyalties in the future!”

The young seaman named Dwyer said softly, “What’s abaft this lot, Mr Jay?”

Jay forgot Segrave and turned swiftly. “Th’ cabins. Why?”

“I heard something, or someone more like.”

“God’s teeth!” Jay drew his pistol and cocked it. “Might be some bastard with a slow-match ready to blow us all to hell! Use yer shoulder, Dwyer!”

The young seaman hurled himself against one of the doors and it burst open, smashed from its hinges by the blow.

The hutchlike cabin was in darkness but for a patch of sunshine which could barely penetrate the filthy glass of a skylight.

On a littered and stained bunk was a young black woman. She was sitting half-upright, propped on her elbows, her lower limbs covered by a soiled sheet. She was otherwise quite naked. There was no fear, not even surprise, but when she tried to move a chain around her ankle restricted her.

Jay said quietly, “Well, well. Does himself very nicely, does the master!”

He led the way on deck again and shaded his eyes in the glare as Miranda changed tack and drew closer to the drifting vessel, which was apparently named Albacora.

Tyacke’s voice, unreal in a speaking-trumpet, reached them easily. “What is she?”

Jay cupped his hands, “Slaver, sir. No cargo but for one. We’ve a deserter on board as well.”

Segrave saw the man bobbing and smiling wretchedly in the background as if Tyacke could see him. But he kept thinking of the black girl. Chained there like a wild animal for the slaver’s pleasure. She had a lovely body, despite …

Tyacke called over, “Where bound?”

Jay held up the chart. “Madagascar, sir.”

A seaman near Segrave murmured, “We’ll have to let ‘er go.” He glared around the filthy deck. “She hain’t much but she’d fetch a few shillin’s in the prize court!” His mate nodded in agreement.

Tyacke’s voice betrayed no emotion. “Very well, Mr Jay. Return on board and bring the deserter with you.”

The man in question shouted, “No! No!” The boatswain cuffed him around the ear and sent him sprawling, but he crawled across the deck and clawed at Jay’s shoes like a crippled beggar.

He shouted again, “He took the chart below when you was sighted, sir! I seen him do it afore. He puts a different one for all to see.”

Jay kicked his hands away. “Now, why didn’t I think of that?” He touched Segrave’s arm. “Come with me.”

They returned to the cabin where the girl still lay propped on her elbows, as if she had not moved.

They searched through the litter of books and charts, discarded clothing and weapons, Jay becoming clumsier by the moment, well aware of Tyacke’s impatience to get under way again.

Jay said desperately, “‘S no use. I can’t find it, an’ that bugger don’t speak English.” He sounded angry. “I’ll lay odds that the deserter is lyin’ to save ‘is own skin. He’ll ‘ave no skin left when I’ve done with ‘im!”

There was a looking-glass leaning against a case of paired pistols. Jay picked it up and searched behind it as a last hope.

“Not a god-damned thing!” He tossed the glass on the table and Segrave snatched it as it slithered towards the deck. As he did so he caught the merest glimpse of the girl behind him, now turned slightly to watch, her breasts shining in the filtered sunlight.

He exclaimed, “She’s lying on something, Mr Jay!”

Jay stared from him to her with stunned amazement. “By the livin’ Jesus!” He sprang across the cabin and seized the girl’s naked shoulder to push her across the bunk.

But her body, slippery with sweat, escaped his grasp, and she moved like lightning, a knife appearing in her left hand even as Segrave ran to Jay’s assistance.

Jay went sprawling from the impetus of his charge across the cabin and as he pitched to the deck he saw Segrave fall over the girl, and heard his sharp cry of agony.

Segrave felt the blade like fire across his hip, somehow knew that she had raised the knife for another blow at his unprotected back.

There was a cracking sound and the knife went clattering to the deck. The girl lay back, her eyes closed, her mouth bleeding where Jay had punched her.

Another figure ran into the low cabin. It was the seaman named Dwyer.

Jay rasped, “‘Ere, give Mr Segrave a hand!” He rolled the girl’s body aside and tugged a worn leather pouch from beneath her.

Segrave groaned and tried to move. Then he saw the slash in his breeches where the knife had gone in. There was blood everywhere, and the pain was making him gasp, bite his lip to prevent himself from screaming.

The sailor wrapped what appeared to be a shirt around the wound, but it was soon soaked through with blood.

Jay ripped open the big pouch, his eyes speedily scanning the contents before he opened the chart with trembling fingers.

Then he stood up. “I must speak with the Cap’n.” He looked at Segrave’s contorted face. “You saved my rump, an’ no mistake!” He watched his agony and added kindly, “Be easy till I come back.”

On deck the sky already seemed darker, the clouds underbellied with deep gold.

In quick sentences Jay shouted his information across the choppy division of water. “She was bound for Cape Town! There’s a despatch, wrote in French it looks.”

Tyacke called, “How badly is Mr Segrave?” He saw Jay’s shrug. “Then you had better not move him! Send the vessel’s master across with the pouch—the deserter too. I will rejoin the squadron. Are you confident that you can manage?”

Jay grinned and said to himself, “Manage? They’ll not make trouble now.”

The Albacora’s master protested violently as a seaman seized his arm.

Jay snarled, “Put those irons on him! Attempting to murder a King’s officer, butchering slaves, to say nothing of trading with the enemy.” He nodded, satisfied as the man fell silent. “Yes, my friend, you’ve understood the signal at last.”

As the boat cast off and headed for Miranda, Jay positioned his most trusted men with great care.

“We will get under way presently. Watch every move, even if they blinks! Shoot if in any doubt, see?”

With the boatswain, he returned to the cabin where Dwyer was holding the midshipman and trying to staunch the blood.

Dwyer said helplessly, “Won’t let me do it proper, sir!”

Sperry tore his eyes from the sprawled figure on the bunk and licked his lips.

“Now there’s a thing, Bob.”

Jay was thinking of how close he had been to death. “Later, George.”

Segrave was weaker but still tried to struggle as Sperry held him on the deck, while Dwyer and Jay began to cut away his bloodied breeches.

Sperry said huskily, “I’ll put a stitch or two in it. Just lay another dressin’ on while I—”

Jay exclaimed, “Who the bloody hell did that?”

The midshipman lay quietly now, like a sick or injured animal.

The whole of his buttocks and the backs of his thighs were scarred and bruised as if he had been beaten over and over again with a cord or a whip. Whoever had done this to him it was not in Miranda. That meant he had carried these scars for over six weeks, and without a word being said.

Jay thought of the jibes and grins, and all the while he …

The boatswain said, “He’s passed out, Bob. I’ll fetch me gear.”

“Yeh, an’ see if you can find some rum or brandy—anythin’.”

He turned back to the midshipman, who lay as if he was dead. “You poor little bugger,” he said softly. He watched the blood soaking through the makeshift bandages. But for Segrave’s unexpected courage it would have been his own blood, and no second chance either.

He saw Dwyer watching him and said harshly, “And it goes no further, see? This is Miranda’s business, no one else’s! I reckon ‘e’s suffered enough in this poxy squadron.”

Midshipman Segrave opened his eyes and was conscious of two things immediately. The sky overhead was dark and dotted with tiny stars; he was wrapped in blankets, a pillow beneath his head.

A shadow bent over him, and Jay asked, “How is it?”

Then came the pain, throbbing in time with his heartbeats. He could taste brandy on his lips but could only remember the sequence of events like dark pictures. Hands holding him down; sharp stabbing pains; oblivion. Then the girl. He shook violently. That was it. When it had happened.

“Am I all right?” His voice sounded weak.

Jay forced a grin. ” ‘Course you are. ‘Ero of the hour. Saved my skin, an’ gave us cause to ‘old this ship.”

He looked across at two kneeling figures. Like some natives at prayer. But he knew they were trying to peer through the dirty skylight. Sperry was down there with the girl, doing what he probably did better than anything, if half his yarns were to be believed.

Then he asked, “Tell me, lad, who did that to you?”

But Segrave shook his head, his eyes closed with the pain and the emotion.

Jay, the hard-bitten master’s mate, had called him a hero.