by Wilbur Smith
Mungo had not expected to find seamen playing for such high stakes. Rutherford had advanced him forty dollars to get him to Baltimore, and he had thirty-two dollars and forty cents remaining. It was all the money in the world he had to his name.
He had no intention of losing any of it. Poker was his game, and had been since his first days at Eton, when the boys had called them ‘lying games’ and placed bets with pennies and shillings, and dealt with cheating with their fists. Mungo had learned then that he had a quick mind for calculating odds and probability, but an even more unusual knack for reading the faces of men. More than any other game of chance, poker was about the man, not the cards.
Mungo pulled up a stool and squeezed in to the group. He placed the coin purse on the table, watching as the other men finished their hand. The man on his right, with a permanently dour mouth and a crooked nose that told of many fights, was the least skilful of the players. Although Mungo couldn’t see his cards, he knew by the way the man’s eyes wandered back to them that he had a weak hand. Sure enough, the man folded, his expression turning into a proper sourling frown.
The man beside him was younger and better-looking, with an embroidered shirt and clever eyes, but he, too, had a nervous tic. Before he raised the bet, he touched his right eyebrow, which suggested to Mungo that he was bluffing. The man after that was the fattest among them, his torso nearly as wide as it was tall. He was the most expressive, his face constantly in motion, which made his tell less obvious. Mungo had an idea what it might be, but he needed another hand to test out his theory.
As for Lanahan, his skill showed in his carriage. He kept stone-faced, his eyes on his opponents, not his cards. Besting him would not be easy.
By the time the bet reached Lanahan again, it had increased to seven dollars. The pot in the centre of the table was piled with coins, mostly half dollars, but a few Liberty dollars. Lanahan called the fat man’s raise and all the remaining players showed their cards. As Mungo suspected, the sourling had only a pair of jacks. He wrinkled his nose when he saw the younger man’s trio of tens and shook his head in frustration at the straight displayed by the fat man. Then Lanahan laid down his cards. He had a full house.
‘What do you know?’ said Lanahan, raking in the pot. ‘I’ve always had a fancy for Lady Luck, and it seems she fancies me in return. Another hand?’
The rest of the players agreed, and after everyone had put in their dollars, the dealer dealt the cards. Mungo waited to take his until the others had collected theirs, scanning the faces of his opponents. By the way the young man touched his eyebrow and the sourling puckered his lips, Mungo knew they had nothing. The fat man was motionless, mesmerised by his cards, which confirmed Mungo’s intuition about his tell. Whatever he had was stronger than three tens.
When Mungo shifted his gaze to Lanahan, he realised his opponent wasn’t looking at his cards. He was staring at Mungo. He held Mungo’s gaze without blinking, his eyes hard and hostile. Mungo stared back at him.
Only when he had studied all his opponents did Mungo look at his own cards. Nothing but a pair of red eights. He watched the others draw their cards. The sourling was even sourer, and the fat man was still lusting after his cards. But the young man was no longer touching his eyebrow. He was sitting back smugly in his chair.
Mungo traded in the unmatched cards and placed the fresh cards in his hand without looking at them. He caught Lanahan studying him again, and held his gaze until the sourling grunted, ‘What’ll it be, mister mate?’
Lanahan blinked. ‘Three dollars.’ He looked away from Mungo and tossed a pair of silver dollars and a pair of half dollars into the pot.
Mungo looked down at the cards he had drawn. His flat expression gave the other players no hint of what he had.
‘I’ll match your bet and raise.’
Before he had time to place six dollars in the pot, the sourling folded. Mungo turned to the young man and saw his confidence waver. He had only eight dollars left on the table.
‘I’ll call,’ the young man said, and his hand trembled as he parted with his money.
‘Six dollars to me,’ said the fat man, eyeing his cards. He looked up at Mungo. ‘Since we seem to be fond of doubling, I’ll raise it to twelve.’
The young man gasped, and the sourling arched his eyebrows. Lanahan took the bet in his stride.
‘Mr Jeffers,’ he said, ‘I’m delighted to see you’ve finally been dealt a hand as generous as your girth. Unfortunately, I like mine just as well.’ Lanahan tossed nine dollars into the pot and another eight. ‘Make it an even twenty.’
All eyes turned towards Mungo. Twenty dollars was the buy-in, the total of the coins he had laid on the table.
‘I’ll call,’ Mungo said.
In the face of such a bet, the young man returned to fondling his eyebrow. He pushed his last coins into the centre of the table.
‘I’m all in.’
The fat man blinked as beads of sweat formed on his upper lip. Mungo watched for the moment he decided to fold. When it happened, the man seemed to deflate. He threw down his cards and muttered a curse.
Now it was Lanahan’s turn. When he glanced at his stack of coins, Mungo knew what he was going to do. He said the words with a flourish, even as he turned his hands into a wedge and laid down the gauntlet.
‘Like Reese here, I’m all in.’
The dilemma before Mungo was as plain as it was painful. Either he had to walk away from twenty dollars in silver to preserve the other fourteen and change in his purse, or he had to risk the lot.
If he lost, he lost everything. He could not go back to Amos Rutherford for more funds.
He picked up his purse and poured the remaining contents onto the table.
‘Thirty-two dollars and change are all I brought with me, gentlemen,’ he said. His golden eyes surveyed the table, showing no fear. ‘Let’s see what you have.’
Reese, the young man, placed his cards on the table. He had a flush: all hearts, king high. The fat man coughed and mumbled. Lanahan gestured towards Mungo with cold triumph in his eyes, but Mungo shook his head.
‘I placed the last bet. I believe the turn is yours.’
‘Very well.’ Lanahan laid down his cards. A full house, aces full of queens. ‘Now I thank you for your business and ask you to get the hell away from my gaming table.’
Mungo gave a resigned sigh, and laid his cards beside Lanahan’s. The mate had already started to reach out to scoop up his winnings. Mungo watched the man’s face as he turned up his cards one after another. Eight of diamonds. Eight of hearts. Eight of clubs.
Lanahan’s left eye began to twitch. The tavern seemed to fall silent, as if every man in the room was waiting on Mungo’s last card.
‘Get on with it,’ Lanahan grunted.
Mungo flipped the last card. The alcohol was warm in his veins; he felt a cruel delight in the way Lanahan’s mouth dropped open as he registered the long row of eights – diamonds, hearts, clubs and now spades – and realised that his full house had fallen to a superior hand.
‘I thank you for the game.’
Mungo swept his winnings off the table into the coin purse. The bag was as heavy as a weapon in his hand, and that too gave him a savage sense of joy.
But Lanahan did not accept his loss gracefully. As Mungo turned to go, he heard the scrape of the table as Lanahan burst out from the booth. He curled his fingers into fists and came at Mungo with a haymaker.
Mungo had no interest in tavern brawls. But Lanahan gave him no choice. He ducked the punch and landed an uppercut squarely on his attacker’s jaw. The man’s knees went weak. Before he could recover, Mungo grabbed him by the collar, took hold of his belt and heaved him back onto the table. Empty glasses flew aside and shattered on the floor.
The entire tavern looked on in silence, holding its breath. Mungo stared down at the other poker players. His yellow eyes burned bright; he felt himself willing them to come at him. Punching Lanahan had released something that ha
d been building inside him for a week. It made him feel whole. All he wanted was to do it again.
The men at the table stared back. All were hard men, proud, and not averse to using their fists. But none of them moved. The fury radiating from Mungo’s face pinned them to their seats.
Mungo turned slowly around the room, defying anyone to challenge him. More than that: he wanted them to challenge him, to give him an excuse to hit them like he had hit Lanahan. No one did. They had seen what he was capable of.
He gave a final scowl of disappointment and contempt.
‘I’ll bid you goodnight.’
At nine o’clock the next morning, Mungo presented himself at the wharf. The fine suits and expensive shoes he had brought from Cambridge were packed away at the inn. He was dressed now as a sailor, in a light cotton shirt and trousers rolled up over bare feet, with his long hair tied back in a queue. He was no longer Mungo St John.
‘That name is too notorious,’ Rutherford had warned him. ‘You will have to travel under an alias.’
So Mungo had chosen a new name, Thomas Sinclair, that had seemed right to him. The St John name, like the clothes, had been put away.
I will retrieve my own name, he promised himself. And a great many other things that have been taken from me.
He touched his hand to the locket around his neck. He thought of Camilla, breathing out her last breaths by the clearing in the forest. He imagined riding to Windemere and breaking Chester’s neck with his bare hands. But of course he could not. The only way back to Windemere now was aboard the Blackhawk.
She was a handsome ship. If she had not been the means of his exile, he might have fallen in love with her. She was built for speed. Even tied to the wharf, she seemed to strain at her moorings like a greyhound on its leash. She crouched low in the water, flush decked, with sleek lines that tapered to a sharp bow. She also, Mungo noted, carried a dozen guns down each side, and a long twelve-pounder mounted on a swivel on her foredeck. A heavy armament, for a trading vessel.
He mounted the gangplank, breathing in the sights and smells of the ship. He had often thought that, in another life, he would have liked to be the master of a sailing vessel. He loved the sea, its endless shifting challenges and the freedom it brought. Even after all he had picked up on his voyages to and from England, he knew he had much still to learn. But he had a quick mind, and he feared nothing. He would adapt quickly.
Then a man stepped in front of him, blocking the view, examining Mungo like a piece of excrement that had dropped on the freshly scrubbed deck. Mungo looked into his face, and all his dreams of naval glory died. It was Lanahan, the man from the tavern: the same ugly face and hooked nose, and green eyes sharp with malice. The livid bruise spreading across his jaw, where Mungo had punched him, did nothing to improve his appearance.
‘Off the ship,’ he said thickly.
‘I am to sign on as crew,’ said Mungo.
He had heard the other gamblers referring to Lanahan as ‘mate’; he had never guessed he was the mate aboard the Blackhawk.
‘Captain don’t need more crew.’
‘I have a letter of introduction to Captain Sterling.’
‘Didn’t mention it to me.’
‘Why don’t you ask him?’
‘He’s ashore. Where you should be too.’
Lanahan pointed to the gangplank. Mungo stood his ground, a lazy smile on his face to show he had no intention of leaving. The other men on deck, seeing a confrontation brewing, stopped what they were doing and started to take notice.
Now Lanahan could not back down without losing his authority. Mungo’s smile broadened. The mate had a sailor’s lean strength, but Mungo stood a head taller; his arms were twice as thick, and he had already knocked Lanahan down once. He tensed his muscles, ready to ride the first punch if it came. He would not start the fight, but he would happily end it.
He looked Lanahan straight in the eye, daring him to attack. Hatred flared in the mate’s face, but he had learned his lesson well enough. He did not dare go for Mungo. He turned away.
‘Mr Tippoo,’ he said. ‘Remove this gentleman from the ship.’
He stepped aside. Too late, Mungo realised that the mate had no intention of fighting him. The man who stepped forward was a different proposition entirely. He was a giant of a man, his clean-shaven head as round as a cannonball and criss-crossed with scars. The features were a mixture of Arabian and African, his smoke-coloured eyes set deep in the recesses beneath his brows, and his flared nose as broad as it was tall. He stood at least four inches taller than Mungo, with broad shoulders and wide hips. His forearms were as thick as a woman’s thighs.
Lanahan motioned with a flick of his wrist, and the bald-headed giant stepped forward. He shrugged off his high-collared tunic and folded his trunk-sized arms across his bulging chest, his golden skin gleaming in the sunlight. Some of the crew clambered on the rails and into the rigging to get a better view, while others gathered around the combatants. Mungo heard catcalls, and bets being placed on how long he would last before he pleaded for mercy and scampered back onto land.
Mungo refused to give them the pleasure of seeing his discomfort. He knew he would survive only if he managed to evade the grasp of Tippoo’s monumental hands. He also knew that the crew would never permit him to escape the ring they had formed around him. The fight would stay on this patch of freshly scrubbed deck between the mainmast and the mizzenmast, with the polished brass capstan and two large hatches on one side, and the starboard beam on the other.
Mungo put up his fists and danced on his toes like the great English prizefighter, William Thompson, whose defeat of James ‘the Deaf Un’ Burke for the All England Title Mungo had witnessed two years before in Leicestershire. The crew shouted encouragement as Tippoo advanced on him, head down and nostrils flaring. Without warning, the giant lashed out with a left jab, followed by a right hook. For a man so large, he was quick as a snake. As Mungo lurched backwards, barely avoiding the blow, he tripped over the edge of the hatch and lost his footing. Tippoo pounced, but Mungo scrambled away, leaping to his feet.
Mungo circled, keeping his breathing shallow and staying light on his feet. Tippoo put out his arms and tried to corner him, throwing an occasional punch but always missing. Seconds passed without a landed blow, and the crew grew restless. Their jesting escalated into threats. Mungo was shoved from behind, and he stumbled forward, seeing Tippoo’s fist a split second before it crashed into his jaw. He twisted his head and deflected the worst of the impact.
Half-stunned but reacting on instinct, he ducked and landed a sharp jab on Tippoo’s ribcage, then threw a heavier punch at the giant’s solar plexus. He felt the solidness of the impact. Tippoo grunted as the wind flew out of his lungs.
The giant seemed undeterred. He lashed out with his leg and caught Mungo on the calf, knocking him to the ground. Tippoo pounced, and this time he got a hand on Mungo’s shirt. Bunching the cotton fabric in his fingers, he threw punch after punch at Mungo’s head. Mungo struggled desperately to avoid the giant’s fist and pummelled Tippoo’s ribcage with counterpunches, but his shirt was a tether trapping him. Tippoo’s blows sent shards of pain through his skull and made stars erupt in his vision. It wouldn’t be long before one of the punches knocked him unconscious.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a glint of sunlight on polished brass. Instead of pulling against Tippoo, he leaned in and lowered his head like a battering ram, wrapping his arms around the giant and shoving him towards the capstan. Tippoo fought valiantly to stand his ground, but Mungo’s weight and churning feet threw him off balance. Tippoo staggered backwards and toppled over the capstan, taking Mungo with him. Tippoo’s sprawling body protected Mungo from injury, but nothing cushioned Tippoo’s head from the rock-hard deck. The transformation was instantaneous. The giant lost his grip on Mungo’s shirt, and his enormous body went limp.
Mungo climbed woozily to his feet. His head felt ready to split like a piece of overripe fruit. He ca
st a glance at the fallen giant and gathered his wits, then turned to face the crew. Lanahan’s face was screwed up in a furious, disbelieving rage. He had ordered Tippoo to fight, and now Mungo had made a fool of him.
Lanahan’s hand began moving to the knife in his belt. Then, suddenly, he straightened. A heavy footfall sounded on the gangplank. The crew snapped to attention, so sharp it could only mean one thing.
The captain stepped on deck. He was not tall or particularly good-looking. His skin was leathery and worn after years facing Atlantic winds and the tropical sun. A pale, crescent-shaped scar inscribed an arc on his left cheek. But there was a devil-may-care arrogance in his gaze, and more still in the clothes he wore. His coat was a cutaway and tailored to his frame, his fine shirt and waistcoat brilliant white. His gold paisley cravat shimmered in the sunlight, while his sleek Italian boots were buffed to a shine. He looked as if he had just stepped out of his box at the opera.
Any man who dressed like that must either be a foppish buffoon, or supremely self-confident. And rich enough not to care. Not for the first time, Mungo began to wonder just how lucrative the voyage might be.
The captain took in the scene: Tippoo lying in a heap; Mungo with torn shirt and battered face; fresh blood on the holystoned deck. His face clouded.
‘What the hell is going on here, Mr Lanahan?’ he snapped to the mate.
‘We had an unwanted visitor. I told Tippoo to send him away.’
‘Without success, it seems.’ Lanahan squirmed. Sterling turned to Mungo. ‘Who are you?’
‘Sinclair,’ said Mungo, giving his assumed name. ‘Thomas Sinclair. I have a letter here from my grandfather, Amos Rutherford.’
He took the letter from his sea bag and handed it to Sterling. He watched the calculation on the captain’s face as he read it. Whatever the letter from Rutherford might say, the decision to take Mungo was the captain’s alone. Announcing himself by making an enemy of the first mate, and brawling with the biggest man on the ship, was not how he had intended to start.
But Rutherford’s word must have carried considerable weight.
