A Falcon Flies (87 page)

Clinton stepped back and rested on his cutlass. The fight was over, all around him the crew of
Huron
were throwing down their weapons.

‘Quarter, for the love of God, quarter!'

They were dragging Mungo St John to his feet, two seamen on each of his arms. He was unwounded, and Clinton's hatred was unabated. It took an enormous effort to prevent himself driving the point of the cutlass into Mungo's belly. Mungo was struggling to throw off the hands of the men who held him, straining to reach the massive body of the half-naked Moslem mate that lay at his feet.

‘Let me free,' Mungo cried. ‘I must see to my mate.' But they held him remorselessly, and Mungo looked up at Clinton.

‘In the name of mercy,' he was pleading, and Clinton had never expected that. He took a deep ragged breath, the madness began to fade.

‘I give you my word, sir,' Mungo was stricken, there was no mistaking his consuming grief, and Clinton hesitated. ‘I am your prisoner,' Mungo told him. ‘But this man is a friend—'

Clinton let out his breath slowly, and then he nodded to the seamen who held Mungo St John.

‘He has given his word.' And then to Mungo, ‘You may have five minutes.' And the seamen released him. Mungo sank swiftly to his knees beside the inert figure.

‘Old friend,' he whispered, as he tore the bandanna from off his own head and pressed it to the obscene little slit between Tippoo's ribs, ‘old friend.'

Clinton turned away, slipping the cutlass back into its scabbard and he ran across the deck to the weather rail.

Robyn Ballantyne saw him coming and she strained towards him, unable to lift her arms for the slave cuffs that still bound her, but as he embraced her she put her face against his chest and her whole body trembled and shook as she sobbed.

‘Oh, I give thanks to God—'

‘Find the keys,' Clinton ordered brusquely, and as the cuffs fell from Robyn's wrists he snatched them up and handed them to one of his men. ‘Use these on the slaver's Captain,' he ordered.

With that gesture, the last of his madness was gone.

‘Forgive me, Doctor Ballantyne. We will speak later, but now there remains much to be done.' He bowed slightly and hurried away calling his orders.

‘Carpenter's mate, go below immediately, I want the damage to this ship repaired at once. Bosun, disarm her crew, and have them sent below under lock and key with a guard on the companionway. Two men on her wheel, and a prize crew to work her.We'll sail her into Table Bay with the dawn, my boys, and there'll be prize money for your fancy.' His men were still drunk on excitement and battle lust, and they cheered him hoarsely as they rushed to obey the string of orders.

Rubbing her chafed wrists, Robyn picked her way across the littered deck and through the throngs of bustling British seamen as they hustled their captives and the still-chained files of slaves below.

Almost timorously she approached the ill-assorted pair at the foot of the ship's mainmast. Tippoo lay on his back, the mound of his naked belly pressing upwards like a woman in labour, the soiled bandanna hiding the wound. His eyes were wide, staring up at the mast that towered above him, and his lower jaw sagged.

Mungo St John held the huge bald cannon-ball head on his lap. He sat with his legs thrust out straight ahead of him, his back against the mast and as Robyn approached, he closed the lids over Tippoo's staring eyes, one at a time, with his thumb. His head was bowed, his hands gentle as those of a mother with her infant as he lifted the bandanna and used it to bind up the sagging jaw.

Robyn went down on one knee and reached out to Tippoo's chest, to feel for the heart beat, but Mungo St John raised his head and looked at her.

‘Don't touch him,' he said softly.

‘I am a doctor—'

‘He no longer needs a doctor,' Mungo's voice was low and clear, ‘especially if that doctor is you.'

‘I am sorry.'

‘Doctor Ballantyne,' he told her, ‘you and I have no reason to apologize to each other, nor for that matter to speak to each other, ever again.'

She stared at him, and his face was cold and set, the eyes that stared back at her were devoid of all emotion, and it was in that moment she knew she had lost him, irrevocably and for ever. She had thought that was what she wanted, but now the total knowledge left her devastated, without the strength to break her gaze, without the power of speech, and he stared back at her remotely, hard and unforgiving.

‘Mungo,' she whispered, finding at last the strength and will to speak. ‘I did not mean this to happen, as the Almighty is my witness, I did not mean it.'

Rough hands dragged Mungo St John to his feet, so that Tippoo's dead head slipped from his lap and the skull thumped against the wooden deck.

‘Captain's orders, me old cock, and you are to 'ave a taste of your own chains.'

Mungo St John did not resist as the slave cuffs were fastened on his wrists and ankles. He stood quietly, balancing to
Huron
's wild gale-driven lunges, looking about the fire-blackened ship with its decks covered with fallen and tangled rigging, stained with the blood of his crew, and though his expression did not change, there was a limitless grieving in his eyes.

‘I am sorry,' whispered Robyn, still kneeling beside him. ‘I am truly sorry.'

Mungo St John glanced down at her, his wrists fastened at the small of his back by the cold black links of chain.

‘Yes,' he nodded. ‘So am I.' And a seaman thrust the palm of a horny hand between his shoulder blades, shoving him away towards the
Huron
's forecastle, and the slave chains clanked about his ankles, as he staggered.

Within a dozen paces he had recovered his balance, and shrugged off the hands of his gaolers. He walked away with his back straight and his shoulders thrown back, and he did not look back at Robyn kneeling on the blood-stained deck.

M
ungo St John blinked at the brilliant sunlight as he followed the scarlet uniform coat and white cross-straps of his escort out into the courtyard of the Cape Town castle.

He had not seen the sun for five days; the cell in which he had been confined since he had been escorted ashore, had no external windows. Even in midsummer, the dark and chill of the past winter still lingered in the thick stone walls, and the air that entered through the single barred opening in the oaken door was stale and sullied by the gaol odours, the emanations from the dozen or so prisoners in the other cells.

Mungo filled his lungs now, and paused to look up at the ramparts of the castle. The British flag spread jauntily above the Katzenellenbogen redoubt, and beyond it the seagulls planed and volleyed on the fresh south-easterly wind. Force five and standing fair for a ship to clear the bay and make the open Atlantic, Mungo noted instinctively.

‘This way please.' The young Subaltern who commanded the prison escort urged him on, but Mungo hesitated a moment longer. He could hear the murmurous song of the surf-break upon the beaches just beyond the castle walls, and from the ramparts he would have a clear view across Table Bay to Bloubergstrand on the far curve of the land.

Huron
would be lying at anchor close inshore, still under her prize crew, and he longed for just a single glimpse of her, longed to know if the stern quarters were still smoke-blackened and gutted, or if O'Brien had been allowed to make the repairs to her hull and her steering-gear.

‘If only Tippoo,' he began the thought, and then stopped himself, shivered briefly in the sunlight not only from the prison chill in his bones. He squared his shoulders and nodded to the Subaltern.

‘Please lead the way,' he agreed, and the hobnailed boots of the escort gnashed the cobbles as they crossed the courtyard and then climbed the broad flight of steps to the Governor's suite of offices.

‘Prisoner and escort, halt.'

Upon the portico a naval Lieutenant waited to receive them in his navy-blue and gold jacket, white breeches and cocked hat.

‘Mr St John?' asked the Lieutenant. He was old for his rank, grey and worn-looking, with a weary disinterested eye, and Mungo nodded disdainfully.

The Lieutenant turned to the officer of the escort.

‘Thank you, sir, I will take over from here,' and then to Mungo. ‘Kindly follow me, Mr St John.'

He went in through the magnificent teak doors, carved by the master craftsman Anreith, into the Governor's antechamber with its polished floors of butter-coloured Cape deal, the high hewn rafters of the same timber, and with the thick walls hung with the treasures of the Orient gathered so assiduously by that great plunderer, the Dutch East India Company, which had in turn succumbed to an even more powerful predator.

The Lieutenant turned right, avoiding the brass and mahogany double doors of the Governor's private office to which Mungo had expected to be led; instead they went to a less pretentious single door set in a corner of the antechamber. At the Lieutenant's knock, a voice bade them enter, and they went in to a small office, clearly belonging to the Governor's Aide-de-camp whom Mungo had met before.

The Aide-de-camp sat at the plain oak desk facing the door, and he did not rise nor did he smile as Mungo entered. There were two other men in the room, both seated in armchairs.

‘You know Admiral Kemp,' said the Aide-de-camp.

‘Good morning, Admiral.'

Slogger Kemp inclined his head, but made no other gesture of recognition.

‘And this is Sir Alfred Murray, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Cape Colony.'

‘Your servant, sir.' Mungo neither bowed nor smiled, and the judge leaned forward slightly in his armchair, both hands on the gold and amber handle of his walking-stick, and stared at Mungo from under beetling white brows.

Mungo was pleased that an hour previously his gaoler had provided him with hot water and razor and that he had been allowed to contract with the ex-slave Malay washerwoman who laundered for the castle's officers. His breeches were clean, his boots polished and his shirt crisply ironed and snowy white.

The Aide-de-camp picked up an official document from the desk before him.

‘You are the Captain and owner of the clipper
Huron
?'

‘I am.'

‘The ship has been seized as prize by the Royal Navy under Articles Five to Eleven of the Treaty of Brussels, and presently lies under prize crew in British territorial waters.'

That did not need reply, and Mungo stood silently.

‘The case has been considered by the Courts of Mixed Commission for the colony, under the presidency of the Chief Justice, and after hearing evidence from the Officer Commanding the Cape Squadron and others, the Court has determined that as the
Huron
was taken on the high seas, the Cape Colony has no jurisdiction in this matter. The Chief Justice has recommended to His Excellency, the Governor of Cape Colony, that the – ahem—' the Aide-decamp paused significantly, ‘the cargo of the clipper ship
Huron
be impounded by Her Majesty's Government, but that the clipper be released under the command and cognaissance of its owner and that the owner be ordered to proceed with all despatch to place himself and his vessel under the jurisdiction of a properly constituted American Court and there to answer such charges as the President of the United States deems fit to bring against him.'

Mungo let out a long slow breath of relief. By God's breath, the Limeys were going to duck the issue! They were not about to chance the wrath of the new American President-elect. They had taken his slaves, eight hundred thousand dollars worth, but they were giving him back his ship and they were letting him go.

The Aide-de-camp went on reading without looking up.

‘The Governor of Cape Colony has accepted the Court's recommendation and has so decreed. You are required to make your ship ready and safe for the voyage with all speed. In this respect, the officer commanding the Cape Squadron has agreed to place at your disposal the repair facilities of the Naval Station.'

‘Thank you, Admiral.' Mungo turned to him, and Slogger Kemp's brows came together, his face mottled with passion, but his voice was very quiet and clear.

‘Sixteen of my men dead, and as many maimed by your actions – sir – each day the smell of your filthy ship blows in to the windows of my office.' Admiral Kemp lifted himself with an effort from his armchair, and glared at Mungo St John. ‘I say rot you, and your thanks, Mr St John, and if I had my way we wouldn't be playing coy and cute with Mr Lincoln, and I would have you swinging at the mainyard of a British man-of-war rather than sailing out of Table Bay in your stinking slaver.'

Slogger Kemp turned away and went to stare out of the single window, into the courtyard of the castle where his carriage waited.

The Aide-de-camp seemed not to have noticed the outburst. He went on smoothly,

‘A representative of the Royal Navy will accompany you aboard your ship and remain there until he determines that your vessel is seaworthy.'

The Aide-de-camp reached back and tugged the bell-pull behind his shoulder, and almost immediately the door opened and the naval Lieutenant reappeared.

‘Just one other thing, Mr St John, the Governor has declared you to be an undesirable alien and you will immediately be arrested if you are ever again so rash as to set foot in Cape Colony.'

T
he tall figure came striding up the yellow gravel pathway, under the avenue of tall date palms, and Aletta Cartwright called gaily across the rose garden, ‘Here comes your beau, Robyn. He is early today.'

Robyn straightened, the basket full of rose blossoms hanging on her arm, the wide straw hat shading her face from the flat glare of the Cape noonday. She watched Clinton coming towards her with the warmth of affection. He looked so gangling and boyish and impetuous, much too young ever to have led that rush of fighting seamen over
Huron
's stern.