A Falcon Flies (79 page)

Clinton found he was pounding his clenched fist on the ship's rail, that he was glaring ahead with such ferocity that the idle hands of the lee rail were watching him curiously.

With an effort he forced his features to relax, and linked his hands at the small of his back, beneath the tails of his uniform coat, but his eyes still glittered pale sapphire blue and his lips were chalky with stress. It seemed too long for his patience before he could at last bring
Black Joke
on to her true course, and bend to the engine room voice-tube.

‘I want all the speed you can squeeze out of her,' he told his engineer. ‘There is twenty thousand pounds of prize money just below the horizon, but it's running like a fox and I'll need every pound of steam you can give me.'

He straightened up and the wind whipped his pale golden hair against his sun-gilded cheeks and forehead. He glanced up at the sky and saw the ponderous roll of the monsoon clouds on the wind.

Huron
would have it full and boisterous on her port beam, with that hull and rigging it was probably her best point of sailing.

He knew that there was not the remotest chance of finding the clipper on the open sea, there were millions of square miles of ocean to cover – not even a battle fleet with a full squadron of frigates ideally placed ahead of the fugitive would have much chance of finding a single ship in that infinity of water.

Clinton knew that his only chance was to reach the southern tip of the continent ahead of
Huron
and to take up station athwart the narrow shipping lane that was threaded around Cape Point. However, once
Huron
rounded the southern cape, the whole of the wide Atlantic would lie ahead of her and she would be gone again. Clinton's jawline clenched spasmodically at the thought of the American escaping into that limitless expanse of sea. If she had indeed eleven days' lead on him with this wind holding fair, she could even at this moment be raising the rocky cliffs of Cape Point. He put the thought from his mind and concentrated on coaxing every inch of speed from his ship over the long days and nights ahead.

R
obyn had searched in vain for a subterfuge to delay
Huron
departure from the Rio Save, even though she knew that if she succeeded she would be endangering the lives of all aboard her. However, Mungo St John had swiftly regained his energy and determination as his wound healed and the effects of the inoculation passed. Affected by Robyn's warning about the danger of battlefield plagues, he forced the pace of his crew in loading the slaves. They worked through the night by the light of tar-dipped rope torches, as well as by day, the crew every bit as eager as their Captain to be away from this cursed river. Four days after the loading began,
Huron
's slave-decks were in place and her cargo of slaves aboard, and that evening at the full of the tide, using the last of the light and the first gusts of the offshore night breeze,
Huron
slipped over the bar, shook out her reefs and settled down to make her offing during the night.

At dawn they caught the steady push of the trades and Mungo brought her round on to a more southerly heading, close-hauled to make good their eastings before running for the bulge of Agulhas with the wind on the beam.

The sweet clean air of the open sea that had travelled thousands upon thousands of miles since last having touched land, swept through the ship, cleansing it of the dreadful stench of the plague barracoons, and Mungo's strict hygienic discipline helped to keep the holds free of the slave stink and impressed even Robyn, though reluctantly, with his forethought and his precautions.

By sacrificing a single slave deck, raising the space between each from the traditional 20 inches to 32 inches, he allowed not only greater comfort but easier access. In these mild conditions of wind and sea, the slaves were exercised during all of the daylight hours, the higher headroom and wider ladderways enabled even those in the lowest decks to be brought up on deck in batches of fifty at a time. On the main deck they were forced to dance to the rhythm of a tribal drum beaten by a tattooed naked tribesman, the rattle and clink of their chains made a mournful background music to the drum and the sweet sound of the singing slaves.

‘Funny business, that tattooing.' Nathaniel stopped to chat with Robyn as she stood watching the dismal show. ‘They started tattooing their children to make them repulsive to us slavers, some of them file or knock out their teeth like that one there.' He pointed at a muscular black man in the circle of dancing slaves whose teeth had been filed to sharp points like those of a shark. ‘Some of them put bones through the noses of their daughters, and others stretch their tits – begging your pardon at the plain speaking, ma'am – or they put rings of copper around their necks until they look like giraffes, all so the slavers will leave them alone. They do say now that these have become marks of beauty amongst the heathen. No accounting for taste, is there, ma'am?'

Robyn saw how the extra space and regular exercise would affect the well-being of the slaves, and while they were up on the maindeck, in the open air, their empty slave decks were flushed out with sea water from the ship's pumps and then scrubbed down with a strong lye mixture. Though even this was not enough to prevent the slave stink slowly impregnating the ship.

Each slave spent two hours on deck each second day, and while they were there, Robyn held clinic and examined each of them for any signs of disease or injury. Before going below once more, they were each forced to drink a decoction of molasses and lime juice to supplement the plain diet of boiled farina and water, and to ward off the dreaded scourge of the scurvy.

The slaves responded well to this treatment, and, incredibly, began to put on the weight that they had burned off during the fevers that were the result of the inoculation against the smallpox. The mood of the slaves was resigned and compliant, although there were isolated incidents. One morning, while a batch of slaves were being brought up, one of them, a fine-looking naked woman, managed to work free the shackle of her chain and the moment she reached the deck she rushed to
Huron
's side and leapt over it, into the creaming blue wake of the racing clipper.

Despite the fact that she still wore the iron cuffs on her wrists, she managed to keep afloat for many long minutes; her struggles were pitiful to watch as she was slowly drawn down lower and lower in the water.

Robyn had run to the rail to watch the woman's efforts, expecting Mungo to heave-to and lower a boat to rescue her, but he remained detached and silent on his quarterdeck, barely glancing over the stern before occupying himself once more with the management of his ship, while
Huron
tore away and the woman's head dwindled to a speck on the blue water, then was drawn inevitably below the surface by the weight of her iron cuffs.

Although Robyn realized that it would have been impossible to stop the clipper and reach the woman before she drowned, yet she glared at Mungo across the length of the deck, wishing that there were words to express her fury and indignation.

That night she lay awake in her tiny cabin, hour after hour, racking her imagination for some ruse that could be used to delay the tall clipper's full flight towards the Southern Cape.

She thought of stealing one of the ship's boats and casting herself adrift during the night, forcing Mungo to turn back and to search for her. It took only a few minutes' reflection to realize that it would take a dozen strong men to free the whaler from its lashings and lower it on its davits over the ship's side – and even if she managed to accomplish that, it was far from certain that Mungo would delay even a minute. He was more likely to sail away and leave her, as he had left the slave woman.

She thought of setting fire to the ship, overturning a lantern in the mainsail locker, and creating so much damage that
Huron
would be obliged to call at the nearest port, Lourenc¸o Marques or Port Natal, to effect repairs, and to give
Black Joke
an opportunity to come up with her. Then she imagined eight hundred chained slaves burning to death in the hold when the fire got out of control, and she shuddered, thrust that idea from her and hopelessly composed herself to a sleep which would not come.

In the end her opportunity came from a most unexpected source, Tippoo. The huge mate had a weakness, a single weakness that Robyn could observe. He was a trencherman and, in his own taste, a gourmet. Half the lazaretto was filled with delicacies that Tippoo had hoarded and which he shared with no others. There were dried and smoked meats and sausages, cheeses the smell of which brought tears to the eyes, and wooden crates of cans and bottles of preserved foods, though as a strict Muslim, he took no alcohol. He made up what he lacked in the glass with his spoon.

His appetite was one of the ship's jokes, and Robyn had heard Mungo chaffing him across the wardroom table.

‘Were it not for the tucker you brought aboard, Mr Mate, we'd have room for another hundred blackbirds in our hold.'

‘I'll wager that belly of yours costs you more to sustain than a harem of extravagant wives.'

‘Sweet merciful heavens, Mr Tippoo, but whatever you are eating should have been given a Christian burial a month ago.'

One of Tippoo's favourite appetizers was a particularly virulent bloater paste, packed in half-pound tins. The instruction printed on the tin read ‘Spread thinly on biscuit or toast', and Tippoo would spoon it directly from the tin, consuming the entire half pound without once breaking the rhythmic dip and lift of his soup spoon, his eyes half closed and a cherubic smile buckling the wide line of his toad's mouth.

The fourth night out of the Rio Save he began his dinner with a can of bloater paste, but as he pierced the lid with his clasp knife, there was a sharp hiss of escaping gas, and Mungo St John glanced up from his own plate of pea soup.

‘It is blown, Mr Tippoo. I would not eat it if I were you.'

‘No,' Tippoo agreed. ‘But you not me.'

They called Robyn a little before midnight. Tippoo was in convulsions, doubled up with agony, his belly swollen and hard as a yellow agate boulder. He had vomited until now he was retching only a little blood-flecked bile.

‘It's ptomaine poisoning,' Robyn told Mungo St John. It was the first time she had spoken directly to him since that morning in the Rio Save, and her voice was cool and formal. ‘I do not have the medicines to treat it. You will have to put into a port where he can receive treatment. There is a military hospital at Port Natal.'

‘Doctor Ballantyne,' Mungo answered her as formally, but his infuriating smile lurked behind the gold-flecked eyes. ‘Mr Tippoo's mother was an ostrich, he can digest stones, nails and lumps of broken glass. Your concern, touching as it may be, is entirely misplaced. He will be ready to fight, flog, or devour an ox by noon tomorrow.'

‘And I tell you that without proper treatment he will be dead in a week.'

However, Mungo's prognosis proved to be correct, for by morning the vomiting and retching had abated and Tippoo seemed to have purged his bowels of the poisoned fish. Robyn was forced to a decision which she made on her knees in her cabin.

‘Forgive me, oh Lord, but there are eight hundred of your children chained below decks in this foul prison, and I will not kill him – at least, with your help, I will not kill him.'

Then, off her knees she went briskly to work. She used a solution of peppermint tincture to disguise the taste, and let fall fifteen drops of essence of ipecacuanha into the medicine glass, which was three times the recommended dosage for the most powerful emetic known to medical science.

‘Drink it down,' she told Tippoo. ‘It will soothe your stomach, and cure the diarrhoea.'

Late that afternoon she repeated the dose, but the wardroom steward had to help her lift Tippoo's head from the bolster and pour the draught down his throat. The effect was enough to alarm even Robyn.

An hour later she sent for Mungo, and the steward came back with the message, ‘Captain says as how the ship's safety demands all his attention at the moment, begging your pardon, Doctor.'

When Robyn herself went on deck, Mungo was at the weather rail, sextant in hand, waiting for the sun to appear in a gap in the clouds.

‘Tippoo is dying,' she told him.

‘And this will be my first sight of the day,' Mungo replied without taking his eye from the eyepiece of the instrument.

‘I at last believe that you are a monster with no human feelings,' she whispered fiercely, and at that moment blazing sunlight struck the deck, as the sun showed briefly through the ragged hole in the cloud.

‘Stand by the chronometer,' Mungo called to the signals yeoman, and then ‘Mark!' as he brought the sun's image down to bounce lightly as a green rubber ball on the dark line of the horizon.

‘Excellent,' he murmured with satisfaction, as he lowered the sextant and read off the height of the sun, and called it to the yeoman to mark on his slate. Only then did he turn back to Robyn.

‘I am sure you have misjudged the severity of Tippoo's ailment.'

‘See for yourself,' she invited.

‘That is my intention, Doctor.'

Mungo stooped into Tippoo's cabin, and paused. His expression changed, suddenly the light mocking smile was gone. It was evident that Tippoo was indeed dangerously ill.

‘How are you, old friend?' Mungo asked quietly. It was the first time Robyn had ever heard him use that form of address. He lifted his hand and laid it on the mate's sweat-beaded forehead.

Tippoo rolled the bald yellow cannon ball of his head towards Mungo, and he tried to smile. It was a brave effort. Robyn felt a terrible guilty pang, at the suffering she was inflicting and at being the witness to this private, and strangely intimate, moment between these two hard and dangerous men.

Tippoo tried to lift himself, but the effort brought a long dragging groan rattling up his throat, and he clutched at his stomach with both hands, drawing his knees up with agony, and then desperately twisting his head as a fresh bout of heaving and retching racked his body.