by Killigrew of the Royal Navy (Killigrew RN) (retail) (epub)
A few minutes later the brig slid into the fog bank and the men gasped with relief as the low cloud masked them from the worst of the sun’s rays. Killigrew felt the moisture prickle his bare skin.
‘Keep pulling!’ ordered Madison. ‘We’re not out of it yet. Hard a-port, Mr Coffin. Port-side sweeps back water!’
The Leopardo’s head came about in the opaque mists, and with the oarsmen on the port side reversing, the ship almost turned on her axis. ‘Now forward again! One… two… three… four… five… way enough! Toss and ship sweeps. Way aloft! Take in all canvas! We’ll drift with the smoke. Silently, now, silently!’
After pulling at the sweeps for the best part of three hours, the hands climbed into the rigging like octogenarians, but the sails were soon furled. ‘Pipe down! Not a sound out of any of you, d’ye hear? The next man to make a sound other than me or Mr Coffin goes the same way as Tristão did, follow me?’
Coffin took his whip from his belt and looped it around Miss Chance’s neck. ‘That goes for you too, missy. One peep and I’ll snap that pretty little neck of yours like it was driftwood.’
The hands climbed silently down from the rigging and tiptoed across the deck. The frigate would not have chased them so far if it was going to be put off sailing into a little low cloud, but Killigrew guessed Madison was counting on their last manoeuvre inside the fog to throw the Americans off the scent.
They waited. Everything was silent but for the creaking of the timbers and the gentle slap of the waves against the brig’s sides.
‘Heave to!’ a voice with an American accent boomed barely two cables away. Killigrew thought he recognised Boatswain Charlie’s voice. ‘Counterbrace them yards!’
Everyone turned to look in that direction, and they could see a pale shadow looming through the mist behind them. Then a boatswain’s whistle sounded the order to pipe down. The Americans had guessed that the slaver was hidden in the fog bank, and they were listening for a clue which would give away its location. All that was needed was a sudden gust of wind to tear a rent in the fog and the Leopardo would be exposed to the view of the Narwhal within point-blank range of her port broadside.
There was silence for one minute, two, three. Harsh laughter, faint muffled, and Boatswain Charlie hissing for silence, threatening dire warnings against the next man to make a sound. Coffin pulled tight on the whip he still had coiled around Miss Chance’s neck, as if sensing that she was tempted to call out to the men on the frigate. She glanced across to where Killigrew stood, looking at him from under her eyelashes. He gave his head an infinitesimal shake.
‘Ah, to hell with it!’ said someone on the frigate. ‘They’re probably miles away by now. Belay that last order, men. Brace in the sails!’
The shadow moved on through the fog, but Madison quickly raised a hand, signalling for his crew to remain silent. It might yet be a ruse by the captain of the frigate to trick them into betraying their position.
They waited. An hour passed, then another. No one went near the ship’s bell. As the afternoon wore on the mist slowly evaporated, until all of a sudden it was gone. There was no sign of the Narwhal, but the African coast was visible directly ahead.
Madison took a sighting on the coast with his sextant. He returned on deck a moment later. ‘Take the helm, Mr Covilhã. Lay in a course east by north. Take the girl below and put her in irons, Eli, then join me directly in my cabin. You too, Mr Killigrew.’
Madison went below followed by Coffin dragging Miss Chance by the arm. Killigrew shrugged his shirt back on and gazed towards the bows. They were heading in towards the African coast. By his own dead reckoning they had passed Sherbro Island during the chase and now lay somewhere off the Guinea Coast to the south. Did that mean they were close to their destination?
He buttoned his shirt and went below, tucking it into the waistband. Madison was already waiting for him in his day cabin, poring over a chart. He said nothing apart from to respond to Killigrew’s knock on the door, and from the tone of the captain’s voice Killigrew deemed it wisest to stand back and say nothing until Madison looked up and addressed him.
Presently they were joined by Coffin. ‘Well?’ Madison asked him.
‘We’ve no choice, sir. She was dead the moment her ship went down. You know it and I know it. Only this dumb Limey thought he could prolong her life.’
Madison sighed. ‘You’re right, of course, Eli. All the same, she is a woman.’
‘All the more reason to kill her, sir.’ Coffin grinned. ‘You can’t trust a woman to keep her mouth shut. I’ll do it, if you like. I’ll see to it she don’t suffer too much.’
Killigrew was a patient man, but he had been subjected to Coffin’s needling for over four weeks now, and the callous way in which he spoke of murdering an innocent woman in cold blood was more than he could bear. ‘You’ll enjoy that, won’t you?’
Coffin turned to him. ‘Perhaps you’d rather do it yourself, mister, since it was your idea to bring her aboard in the first place?’
‘All right, you two, that’s enough,’ snapped Madison. He massaged his temples and sighed again. ‘There… there is another way,’ he said hesitantly. ‘I’m not sure that I care for it overmuch, but at least it doesn’t mean killing her.’
‘Cut her tongue out?’ suggested Coffin. ‘Too risky. She’d still be able to write down all she’s learned.’
Madison scowled at him. ‘I was thinking of giving her to Salazar.’
Coffin pursed his lips, and then nodded. ‘That’s not a bad idea. All them nigger whores he keeps in his harem, I reckon he must get a hankering for a bit of white meat every once in a while.’
‘What do you say, Mr Killigrew?’
Killigrew shrugged. ‘Who’s Salazar?’
Coffin chortled. ‘Why, ain’t you never heard of Salazar? No wonder you navy boys are always a-running round in circles. You don’t know anything about the slave trade if you don’t know about Francisco Salazar.’
‘And he is…?’
‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ said Madison. ‘As we should make landfall at the Owodunni Barracoon by nightfall.’
* * *
The sun was sinking into the ocean by the time the Leopardo anchored half a mile from the coast, casting an orange light like fire across the sky and sending a flaming path across the waves to where the brig floated. Killigrew stood on deck and gazed towards the land. Even with the telescope he could see nothing, but that did not surprise him. For most of its length the Guinea Coast presented nothing to the seaward observer but an unbroken barrier of impenetrable green foliage, but Killigrew knew that the foliage hid deltas and mangrove swamps, a hundred thousand tiny creeks and inlets which made ideal hiding places for the slavers’ barracoons.
‘They’re all asleep,’ sneered Coffin.
‘Then let’s wake them up, Mr Coffin,’ ordered Madison.
They fired a blank shot from the Leopardo’s bow-chaser, and ran up some signal flags. A few moments later a flag appeared on the shore, barely visible even through a telescope in that light. It seemed to flutter over the jungle in the evening breeze, and Killigrew could just make out the design: a yellow and black leopard on a white background.
Madison closed his telescope with a gesture of satisfaction.
‘That’s the signal. Lower the gig, Mr Covilhã. Fetch the girl, Mr Coffin.’
‘Where are we?’ she demanded as she was handed down into the gig. ‘Where are you taking me?’
‘Somewhere where you’ll be made comfortable,’ said Madison.
Killigrew suspected that was far from true and wished there was some way he could warn her, but thinking about it he decided it would be better if she was allowed to remain calm for now. There were eight of them in the gig altogether: Madison, Coffin, Killigrew, Miss Chance, and four oarsmen. Coffin was carrying a sample of the Leopardo’s cargo, one of the rifled muskets they hoped to exchange for slaves.
The gig shoved off from the brig’s side and they rowed across
the bar which prevented ships of any reasonable draught from getting any closer into shore. Once they were across the bar a creek suddenly appeared as if from nowhere amongst the trees which crowded the edge of the stretch of white sand on the beach. The jungle seemed impenetrable on either side of the creek, and the tangled roots of the mangrove trees which clawed at the mud looked eerie in the failing light. Strange tropical birds cried out in the darkness, and mosquitoes buzzed infuriatingly about the heads of the people in the boat. Submerged shapes glided silently through the water without even causing a ripple. Killigrew took them for logs, until he realised they moved against the current: crocodiles.
Then they turned a bend in the creek and a wooden jetty came into view. Three men stood on the jetty, two rough-looking mulattos wearing broad-brimmed straw hats and cradling rifles, and a European, tall, lean-built, dressed all in white and bare-headed.
‘Salazar? Is that you, you old son of a gun?’
‘Captain Madison.’ There was a hint of a wan smile and no trace of any particular accent in the man’s rich and sonorous voice. ‘Welcome back to the Owodunni Barracoon.’
The gig bumped against the jetty and two of the oarsmen quickly went ashore to make the painter fast, while the guards helped Madison and the others on to the jetty. ‘And Mr Coffin, of course. And who are these?’ asked Salazar, indicating Killigrew and Miss Chance.
‘This is Mr Killigrew, my new second mate, who’s been good enough to fill in for Mr Cutler, who was careless enough to get himself shanghaied aboard the Ophelia. And the lady is Miss Suzannah Chance, of whom more later.’
Salazar smiled. ‘A woman of mystery. How intriguing. And a beautiful one at that,’ he added, kissing her hand to her evident distaste.
Salazar was a younger man than Killigrew had expected, in his late thirties or early forties. Flecks of grey showed prematurely at the temples of his leonine head, and high cheekbones and a thin jaw gave his face an angular look.
‘So, have you anything in stock, Salazar, or are we going to have to look elsewhere?’ asked Madison.
‘My dear Captain Madison, when have you ever known me to have nothing in stock? The question is, what have you got for me?’
‘The usual. Guns, powder, textiles.’ He handed Salazar a sheet of paper which the barracoon owner tucked inside his shirt without bothering to read.
‘Shall we get in out of this unhealthy night air?’ he suggested, slapping at a mosquito on the back of his neck. ‘Dinner is almost ready. I do hope you will join me. I have the finest chef on the Guinea Coast in my employ, Miss Chance, and an excellently stocked wine cellar.’
Madison ordered the oarsmen to stay by the boat and one of the guards stayed with them while the other led the way up a short dirt track to an arch in the hedge which bordered the creek. Killigrew stepped through it into another world.
There were dozens of buildings: long, low barracks; workshops; clusters of mud huts; bungalows built in the colonial style; a huge stockade off to the left; and at the centre of it all what looked like an Italianate palazzo. There were guards everywhere, and Killigrew suddenly noticed a wooden watchtower a hundred feet tall growing up out of the jungle on a neighbouring island, largely camouflaged by the creepers which had been trained to climb up it.
‘I had no idea there was such a large settlement in these parts,’ said Killigrew.
‘That depends how you define a settlement, Mr Killigrew,’ said Salazar. ‘All this is my barracoon. All these islands belong to me. My own private kingdom, if you like, in which I am master of all I survey.’
Killigrew was stunned, partly by the size of the barracoon but mostly by the fact that Salazar was obviously some kind of megalomaniac. ‘It must be the biggest barracoon on the Guinea Coast?’
‘In the world, Mr Killigrew. I employ over three hundred people here: guards, servants, clerks, lawyers, administrators, workmen. I pay them well, and in return I get their total and unquestioning loyalty.’
‘And if you don’t?’
‘Every kingdom must have its laws, Mr Killigrew, and those laws are useless if there is no penal code to back them up.’
‘A place like this must be very expensive to maintain.’
‘It’s all relative. I am a businessman first and foremost. I do not run my little kingdom simply for my own aggrandisement.’
‘You don’t?’
‘This barracoon has a turnover of three and a half millions a year, Mr Killigrew. That’s pounds sterling. And most of that is clear profit.’
The barracoon was much bigger than the Slave Trade Department had estimated. ‘That’s a lot of money,’ said Killigrew.
‘Mr Salazar does very well for himself,’ observed Madison.
‘Yes. But not nearly as well as your owners do. I fear that is where the real money lies: transporting the slaves across the Atlantic.’
‘The profit lies with the risk, Mr Salazar.’
‘Indeed it does. I tell you, Mr Killigrew, when Great Britain declared the slave trade illegal it was the best thing that ever happened to our trade. Mr Madison can purchase a slave here for twenty to thirty thousand reis depending on its quality and sell it in the Americas for… how much would you say?’
‘We expect to make a nine hundred per cent profit,’ said Madison. ‘That’s before you deduct the cost of the voyage, of course.’
‘Of course. But even so we can still afford to have two out of every three ships caught by the Royal Navy and the whole operation will still be worth while. Since the proportion of vessels actually caught by the navy is pitifully small, you can imagine what kind of profits we are looking at.’
They approached the colonnaded portico of the palazzo at the centre of the settlement. ‘Welcome to my humble abode,’ said Salazar. ‘It was built in Umbria in 1502 as a summer residence for Duke Valentinois. I had it dismantled brick by brick and shipped out here to be reassembled as you see it now.’
‘Gives a whole new meaning to the term “conveyancing”,’ remarked Killigrew.
They ascended the steps to the portico and a black butler emerged to hold open the door for them. Inside it was no more opulent than some of the grander governors’ residences Killigrew had visited in some of Britain’s better-established and more profitable colonies. Thick velvet drapes hung over the windows and the floor was marble. On the walls, magnificent oil paintings depicting scenes from classical mythology vied for space with hunting trophies in the most ghastly lapse of taste – gazelles, leopards, even a huge rhinoceros’s head stuffed and mounted over the Adam fireplace.
Salazar turned to the butler. ‘Inform chef there will be six of us to supper. Shall we say half past eight? That will give my guests time to freshen up after what I’m sure was a long and tedious voyage.’
‘It was long,’ admitted Killigrew. ‘I’m not so sure about “tedious”. I had no idea supper was going to be so formal, otherwise I’d have brought some evening clothes…’
‘You can borrow some of mine,’ said Salazar. ‘We look to be about the same build. And I don’t think finding clothes for the lady is likely to present a problem. Henriques, show the gentlemen and the lady upstairs,’ he added, snapping his fingers at a liveried black footman.
‘I’d rather we kept an eye on the lady, Salazar,’ said Madison. ‘She’s kind of by way of being a prisoner.’
‘A prisoner!’ exclaimed Salazar. ‘Even more intriguing. I shall not press you on the matter, Captain Madison, since I know you well enough to know you will reveal all at the appropriate time. I shall make sure she is watched.’
‘If you think I’m going to get changed with one of your guards watching me…’ she protested.
‘Oh, heaven forbid, Miss Chance! I think I can provide you with a suitable escort. Henriques, summon Assata directly to escort Miss Chance to her chamber.’
Killigrew studied the paintings while they waited.
‘I see you are admiring my Titian, Mr Killigrew',’ said Salazar.
‘Wasn’t t
hat one stolen from the Louvre a couple of years ago?’
‘It may have been,’ Salazar admitted with a dismissive gesture. ‘I paid full price for it, however, I assure you. When one has earned one’s first million it becomes very difficult to find new ways of spending one’s money.’
Killigrew smiled thinly. ‘How you must long for a life of simple poverty.’
Salazar shrugged. ‘I happen to like the best of things in life. Am I to be blamed if God has smiled on my enterprises over the years?’
‘What about the stuffed heads? Yours?’
‘Yes indeed, Mr Killigrew. Are you a hunting man?’
‘I’m inclined to agree with Shenstone.’
‘Shenstone?’ asked Salazar.
‘A British poet. What was it he said? Ah, yes. “The world may be divided into people that read, people that write, people that think, and fox-hunters.”’
Salazar gestured dismissively. ‘Foxes are vermin, Mr Killigrew, and their extermination should be left to the lower orders. You cannot know the full thrill of hunting until you have hunted big game. Take this fellow, for example,’ he said, indicating the rhinoceros head. ‘Five years ago, it was. Can you have any conception of the thoughts that go through a man’s mind as one of those beasts bears down on him? At one hundred yards I fired my rifle, but it misfired. He lumbered on. I pulled my pistol from my belt, aimed, and fired – got him right between the eyes. I’ll swear he ran on another fifty feet before he realised he was dead.’ Salazar’s eyes glittered as he recollected the event. ‘When his body finally crashed to the ground, he was as close to me as I am to you now. I tell you, Mr Killigrew, one cannot appreciate the true exhilaration of life until one has looked death between the eyes.’
In the aide-memoire of his mind, Killigrew scrawled the words: Mad as a March hare.
Henriques returned with a tall, muscular black woman wearing a blue-and-white striped tunic belted at the waist and a white cap with a leopard device on the front. A carbine was slung over one of her shoulders, and a large dagger hung at her side along with a brace of pistols. ‘Ah, Assata,’ said Salazar. ‘One of my personal bodyguards, gentlemen, a gift from King Gezo of Dahomey.’
