A Falcon Flies (29 page)

The Portuguese officials had treated the red wax seals and ribbons which decorated Zouga's letters of authority from the Portuguese ambassador in London with great respect. However, even more important was the fact that Zouga was an officer of Queen Victoria's army, that he had arrived in a Royal Navy gunboat, and lastly that there was every reason to believe that the same gunboat would remain in the area for the foreseeable future.

The Governor of Portuguese East Africa himself would not have commanded greater respect. Already minor officials were scampering about the squalid little town arranging the best accommodation, securing warehousing for the stores, commandeering river transport for the next leg of the journey up-river to Tete, the last outpost of Portuguese empire on the Zambezi, drafting orders to have bearers and guides meet the expedition at Tete, and doing everything else that the young British officer casually demanded as though it was his God-given right.

In this turmoil of activity Robyn Ballantyne stood alone, staring after the blue-clad figure on
Black Joke
's quarterdeck. How tall he was, and his hair caught the sunlight in a flash of white gold as he lifted his hand in farewell. She waved until
Black Joke
disappeared behind a palisade of mangrove, though her masts and fuming smoke stack stayed in view for a long time after. She watched until they, too, dwindled to nothingness, and only the smear of black smoke lay low over the tops of the green mangrove.

C
linton Codrington stood on his deck, hands clasped loosely at the small of his back, and an expression of near rapture in the pale blue eyes. In this temper the knight-errant of old must have ridden out at chance, Clinton thought.

He did not find the notion at all melodramatic. He felt truly ennobled by his love, sensing somehow that he must earn something so precious, and that the opportunity to do so lay ahead of him. The earring that Robyn had given him was suspended by a thread around his neck, lying under his shirt against his skin. He touched it now, peering impatiently ahead down the channel. It seemed to him that for the first time he had a steady direction in his life, constant as the pole star to the navigator.

This gallant mood was still strong five days later when
Black Joke
rounded the headland of Ras Elat and steamed into the anchorage. There were eight large dhows keeled over on the exposed sand bar at low tide. The tidal fall on this coast at full springs was twenty-two feet. These craft were designed to take the ground readily, and it facilitated loading. The long ranks of chained slaves were being goaded out to the stranded vessels, slipping and splashing through the shallow tidal pools, to await patiently their turn to climb the ladder up the side of the dhow.

Black Joke
's unannounced arrival caused pandemonium, and the beach was alive with running stumbling figures, the screams and shrieks of the slaves, the pop of the kurbash whips and the frantic cries of the slave-masters carried clearly to
Black Joke
's deck as she dropped her anchor just beyond the reef and rounded up to the wind.

Clinton Codrington stared longingly at the heeled vessels and the concourse of panicky humanity, the way a slum-child stares at the display in the window of a food shop.

His orders were clear, had been spelled out by Admiral Kemp with painful attention to detail. The Admiral remembered with lingering horror his young Captain's capture of the slaving fleet at Calabash after forcing the masters to load their cargoes and sail north of the equator. He wanted no repetition of this type of risky action on this patrol.

Black Joke
's commander was strictly adjured to respect the territorial integrity of the Sultan of the Omani Arabs, and the exact letter of the treaty that the British Consul had negotiated at Zanzibar.

Clinton Codrington was strictly forbidden to interfere with any subject of the Sultan who was engaged in trade between any of the Sultan's dominions. He was denied even the right of search of any vessel flying the red-and-gold flag of Omani on any of the Sultan's recognized trade routes, and these were carefully defined for Captain Codrington's benefit.

He was to confine his patrol to intercepting only vessels that did not belong to the Sultan, particularly vessels of the European powers. Naturally no American vessel might be searched on the high seas. Within these limits Captain Codrington had powers of independent action.

Far from being allowed to seize or search the Sultan's vessels, Clinton was ordered to use the first opportunity to make a courtesy call on the port of Zanzibar. There he would take counsel from the British Consul as how best to use his influence to reinforce the existing treaties, and especially to remind the Sultan of his own obligations under those treaties.

So now Clinton paced his deck like a caged lion at feeding time, and glowered helplessly, through the pass in the coral reef, at the slaving fleet of Omani engaged in legitimate trade, for the Gulf of Elat was very much part of the Sultan's possessions, and had so been recognized by Her Majesty's Government.

After the first wild panic ashore, the beach and dhows were now deserted, but Clinton was aware of the thousands of watchful eyes upon him from the mud-walled town and the shadows of the coconut groves.

The thought of hauling his anchor and sailing away filled him with bitter chagrin, and he stood bare-headed and stared with cold hungry blue eyes at the prize spread before him.

T
he palace of the Sheikh of Elat, Mohamed Bin Salim, was an unpainted mud-walled building in the centre of the town. The only opening in the parapeted wall was the gate closed by thick, brass-studded double doors in carved teak, which led through to the dusty central courtyard.

In this courtyard, under the spreading branches of an ancient takamaka tree the Sheikh was in earnest conclave with his senior advisers and the emissaries of his supreme sovereign – the Sultan of Zanzibar. They were discussing a matter, literally, of life or death.

Sheikh Mohamed Bin Salim had the plump smooth body of the bon vivant, the bright red lips of the sensualist, and the hooded eyes of a falcon.

He was a very worried man, for his ambition had led him into dire danger. His ambition had been quite simply to accumulate the sum of one million gold rupees in his treasury, and he had very nearly satisfied that reasonable goal, when his overlord, the omnipotent Sultan of Zanzibar, had sent his emissaries to call the Sheikh to account.

Sheikh Mohamed had begun to satisfy his ambition ten years previously by very gently mulching the Sultan's tithe, and each year since then he had increased his depredations. Like all greedy men, one successful coup was the signal for the next. The Sultan had known this, for though he was old, he was also exceedingly cunning. He knew that the missing tithes were safely stored for him in the Sheikh's treasure house, to be collected whenever he felt inclined. He need only benignly feign ignorance of the Sheikh's manipulations, until he was so deeply in the trap that no squirming or squealing would get him out again. After ten years that moment had arrived. The Sultan would collect not only his due but the Sheikh's own accumulations.

Further retribution would be a lengthy business. It would begin with a beating on the soles of the Sheikh's bare feet, until all those delicate little bones were cracked or fractured making it extremely painful for the Sheikh to be marched into the Sultan's presence. There, the final judgement would be read, and it would end with the knotted strip of buffalo hide wound up tighter and tighter around the forehead, until first the Sheikh's falcon eyes popped from their sockets and then his skull collapsed like a bursting melon. The Sultan truly enjoyed these spectacles – and had been looking forward to this particular one for ten years.

Both men knew the ritual, and it had begun with the polite visit of the Sultan's emissaries who even now were sitting opposite the Sheikh under the takamaka, sipping thick black coffee from the brass thimbles, munching the yellow and pink coconut sweetmeats, and smiling at the Sheikh with cold passionless eyes.

It was into this chilling atmosphere that the messengers from the harbour came running to fling themselves prostrate and gabble out the news of the British warship, whose great guns threatened the harbour and the town.

The Sheikh listened quietly and then dismissed the messengers, before turning back to his distinguished guests.

‘This is a serious business,' he began, relieved to be able to change the subject under discussion. ‘It would be wise to view this strange vessel.'

‘The Ferengi have a treaty with our master,' pronounced one greybeard, ‘and they set great store by these pieces of paper.'

They all nodded, none of them showing the agitation which filled all of their breasts. Although this coast had only received passing attention from these brash northern people, still it had been enough to engender fear and apprehension.

The Sheikh deliberated for a few minutes, stroking his thick curly beard, hooding his eyes as the ideas began to flow. His mind had been almost paralysed with the extent of the disaster which had overtaken him, but now it began to work again.

‘I must go out to this warship,' he announced. There was an immediate hubbub of protest, but he held up his hand to silence them. He was still the Sheikh of Elat, and they had, perforce, to hear him out.

‘It is my duty to ascertain the intentions of the commander and to send word immediately to our master.'

Clinton Codrington had almost resigned himself to give the order to weigh anchor. There had been no sign of life on the beach for many hours, and there was nothing he could accomplish here. His hope that he might catch a European slaver, actually taking on slaves in the anchorage, had proved forlorn. He should have sailed hours ago, the sun was half way down the sky already and he did not want to run the dangers of the inshore channel in darkness, but some instinct had kept him here.

He kept returning to the starboard rail, and glassing the flat-roofed mud buildings that just showed amongst the palm trees. Each time his junior officers stiffened expectantly, then relaxed as he turned away without a word or change of expression.

This time Clinton saw movement, the flash of white robes in the deserted, single street of the town, and as he watched through the telescope he felt a prickle of excitement and a lift of self-congratulation. A small deputation was emerging from the grove and coming down the beach.

‘Pass the word to my steward to lay out my number ones and sword,' he ordered without lowering his glass. The party on the beach was led by a portly figure in blindingly white robes and a full headdress that gleamed with gold. Behind him a bearer carried the long floating banner, scarlet and gold, of the Sultan.

‘We'll treat him as a Governor,' Clinton decided. ‘And give him four guns.' With that he turned on his heel and went to his cabin to change his uniform.

The Arab climbed out of the little felucca and came in through the entry port puffing for breath, assisted by two house-slaves. As his foot touched the deck, the first gun of the salute crashed out unexpectedly, and the Sheikh let out a whinny like a wild stallion and leapt two feet straight up in the air, the high colour flying from his cheeks leaving them ashen and trembling.

Clinton stepped forward, resplendent in cocked hat, blue and gold jacket, white breeches and sword and took the Sheikh's arm to steady him through the rest of the salute, and to prevent him stampeding back into the crazily rocking felucca where the oarsmen were in equal terror.

‘Will you step this way, Your Excellency,' Clinton murmured and, without releasing his iron grip on the Sheikh's pudgy arm, marched him briskly down to his cabin.

Translation was a problem, but one of the Sheikh's entourage had a smattering of French and some English. It was almost dark before Clinton was able to see through the flowery verbiage and the atrocious rendering of his mother tongue. When it came it was like a great light filling the cabin, and Clinton found himself buoyed up with a savage, warlike glee.

The fat Sheikh, Governor of Elat, with his soft, red lips, was asking for the protection of her Britannic Majesty against the injustices and tyrannies of the Sultan of Zanzibar.

‘
Dites lui je ne peux pas
– oh, damn it, tell him I can only protect him if he declares Elat free of the Sultan's dominions,
comprenez vous
?'

‘
Je m'excuse, je ne comprends pas
.'

It was tedious, especially in view of Clinton's eagerness to remove the province of Elat from under the sway of Zanzibar.

The Foreign Office had provided all commanders of the Atlantic anti-slavery squadrons with blank treaty forms, drawn up with deference to protocol and in correct legal terminology. These were for signature of any indigenous chiefs, warlords, petty princes and native kings who could be induced to place their mark upon them.

These documents started with a declaration of mutual recognition between Her Majesty's government and the signatory, went on in vague terms to promise protection and free trade, and ended in very specific terms with a round condemnation of the slave trade and the granting of rights to Her Majesty's government to search, seize and destroy all ships engaged in such trade within the signatory's territorial waters. Further it granted rights to Her Majesty's Navy to land troops, destroy barracoons, free slaves, arrest slave-masters and do any such other act as should be deemed necessary to the extinction of the trade in all the signatory's lands and possessions.

Admiral Kemp in Cape Town had overlooked the fact that Captain Codrington had a good supply of these documents in his possession. They had been intended for use entirely on the west African coast north of the equator. The good Admiral would have been a very worried man indeed if he had realized that he had detached his most brilliant but mercurial junior on independent patrol armed with anything so explosive.