The East Indiaman Read online

  Below, amid the cabins and platforms the carpenters had erected and modified out of the former slaver-cum-privateer, the unhappy entourage made the best of it. Most anticipated an early death and few could even entertain the thought that the current state of affairs would not last until they reached India. For all but the seafarers it seemed that they had voluntarily cast themselves away on a reckless adventure that could only end in shipwreck and disaster. Anything less seemed impossible.

  During the three days that the gale blew, Kite kept the deck with Zachariah, strangely elated by the trial to which his little vessel was put. The keen wind, dashing sheets of spray aboard, seemed to scour all the unpleasant associations of the land from his very soul, and Sarah too caught some of this sense of liberty and spiritual renewal. Forsaking her skirts, Sarah adopted the form of dress in which she fenced, breeches, shirt and coat, male attire which caused some outrage among the dacoits, but which was greeted with wide grins by the Spitfire’s hands, most of whom had known and admired Mistress Kite for many years.

  As the weather eased and Spitfire laid her course southwards for Madeira, spirits rose. The decks grew dry and the dacoits emerged to take exercise, a deck chair was produced for Hooker and his wife, the latter of whom began to bear up with more fortitude than she had hitherto displayed.

  ‘It is not her fault that she is fearful of the immensity of the sea, William,’ Sarah had reproved her husband when he made an offhand reference to his partner’s wife. ‘It is intimidating enough. Did you know Jackie Bow asked me if we’d reach India by the end of the week?’ Sarah laughed at the recollection. ‘He has no grasp of distance and it was quite beyond his conception that the earth was a sphere and that we had to travel round the greater part of its circumference in order to reach our destination.’

  Kite had grunted; he had other preoccupations. Only that morning Zachariah had reported several casks of water to be stinking and others to be covered with the defecations of the dacoits who had voided both their stomachs and their bowels with equally enthusiastic disregard during the gale. Thus one of the advantages of the schooner having formerly been a slaver and able to carry a quantity of water was destroyed.

  ‘I was intending to put into Madeira,’ Kite admitted with a sigh, ‘but not to undertake the cleaning of the hold.’

  ‘Well, we may get the ’tween decks cleaned out easily enough,’ Harper agreed, ‘though those pesky heathens will have to sleep on deck tonight and they won’t like that, I daresay.’

  Kite nodded. ‘See to it without delay, Zachariah, if you please. One stink is enough aboard here, to have the servants smell like their master is intolerable.’

  Zachariah Harper laughed. He occupied a small cabin of his own and was the only member of the Spitfire’s afterguard who was relatively unaffected by Hooker’s unfortunate body odour. ‘I’ll see to it right away, Cap’n.’

  The dacoits neither liked not understood their temporary eviction from their cramped quarters between decks. It seemed utterly perverse of the over-bearing white men to souse their quarters just when they had become tolerably dry. They keened their resentment until, after an elaborate explanation in Hindi conducted by Hooker with much exaggerated gyrating of his head, and some supplementary remarks made by his wife, they hunkered down in the shelter of the boats lashed on the chocks amidships.

  In the wake of Zachariah’s departure to chivvy the dacoits out of their festering berths and the hands in with brooms and buckets, Kite ruminated on the problem of Hooker’s stink. He had known the man long enough now to have observed his habits, and long enough to find the stench intolerable. Smells have a powerful nostalgic effect. If Hooker’s odour reminded Kite too painfully of the foetid stink of slaves confined over-long in their leg-irons, the recollection came with a rush of remorse for Puella. Kite could never throw off the guilt of knowing that he might have saved Puella from her early death. That was only compounded by his present happiness with Sarah whom he had first encountered in Rhode Island when she affronted Kite with the charge of being perverse in his attachment to a blackamoor.

  Fortunately Sarah, realising her great error, had quickly made amends and a friendship had been established, but none of these circumstances added to the feelings Kite entertained on Puella’s behalf. Although he became inured to insults and innuendoes made about himself and his relationship with a manumitted slave, he had been powerless to guard his beautiful black wife from those aimed at her and he would always live with a sense of shame at the sheer injustice of such prejudice. This had detached him from all but the most intimate friendships in Liverpool and, he knew, those who revelled in his ruin would point out his unnaturalness as having incurred the just wrath of providence, if not of God Almighty himself.

  Such underlying hostility made his closing down of his Liverpool enterprise easier. It contributed to his ability to stare the future squarely in the eye without looking over his shoulder at the uncomfortable past. Now Hooker’s stink rammed his moral failure into his perception, hard upon the failure of his commerce. Moreover, it was interfering with the smooth running of their passage, doubling Kite’s resentment.

  ‘Confound it, I shall have to tackle the matter,’ he murmured to himself, ‘though God knows how.’

  Early on the morning that they raised the summit of Madeira, Harper summoned Kite from his cot, pointing to windward when Kite stumbled on deck rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. The sharp peaks of two sets of widely spaced sails nicked the clean line of the horizon to windward.

  ‘Damnation!’ Kite swore. ‘Go aloft, Zachariah, and see what you make of ’em.’ Neither Kite not Harper were in much doubt, but neither man wanted to admit their suspicions prematurely. Then from the main cross trees Harper shouted down his conviction that they were, ‘God-damned Yankee pirates, Cap’n! Got New England written all over them!’

  Kite swore. He had two choices and little time to decide which was the better. he could make for Madeira and, in addition to stumming and refilling his water casks, seek the protection of Portuguese neutrality. That ran two risks, the first being that he could be cut off before he arrived off Funchal, the second that the enemy privateers would lie off the islands until he emerged. His second choice was to abandon any attempt to make Funchal, but to make a run for it. The consequent drawback to this course of action was that he risked running out of water, for far more casks than had at first been suspected were now found to be tainted.

  On balance he therefore thought that he should make for Funchal. He thought the Yankee skippers would lose patience before he did himself, and there was always the possibility, if not probability, that a British cruiser would turn up off Madeira to acquire some wine, if not a prize. The Yankees might hide in the Selvagems or the Desertas, lesser islands in the Madeiran archipelago, but Kite could inform the British naval commander of their presence. This, at the very least, would drive them off while he made his escape.

  Looking up at Zachariah’s ugly face with its expectant look, Kite shook his head. ‘We’ll try for Madeira, Zachariah…’

  Harper blew his cheeks out and interrupted. ‘They could cut us off, sir.’

  Kite nodded. ‘I know, but we must take the chance.’

  Harper stared at Kite for long enough to let his commander know that he did not agree with Kite’s decision. ‘We have a fair wind, Zachariah, so let us set some more sail. Shake out the reef in the foresail and hoist the flying jib.’ There was an edge to Kite’s voice and Harper swung away to attend to his business.

  Kite crossed the deck to stand a moment beside the helmsman and then, staring alternately at the swinging compass in its binnacle and the blue mountain rising above the horizon to leeward, he ordered an alteration of course.

  It was soon clear that the two approaching vessels were indeed hostile and that while one was steering to intercept Spitfire, the other was outrunning her companion, in order to cut the British schooner off from her refuge.

  Having set the extra sail and trimmed the br
aces, vangs and sheets to the best advantage, Harper came aft and stood beside Kite. From time to time Kite heard the mate suck the air in through his crooked teeth, an irritating reproach to Kite who grew ever more fretful. On deck the air of anxiety increased as time passed and the triangular relationship between the three vessels remained suspended. The bearings of each of the privateers from Spitfire changed little, though one slowly drew ahead as she closed Madeira ahead of her quarry. Only the distances shortened, a process as inexorable as the rising of the sun which cast a festive dazzle upon the blue waters of the Atlantic.

  As Harper drew in his breath for the umpteenth time, Kite snapped. ‘For God’s sake stop that disgusting noise!’

  Zachariah looked round, his face hurt, unaware that he had been making any noise at all. ‘We can’t do it, sir.’ he offered.

  ‘No, I can see that,’ said Kite. ‘Very well then, call all hands and clear away the guns. I’m going to come round hard on the wind and see if we can dash past that fellow,’ Kite indicated the enemy vessel whose course suggested a direct interception. She was brig rigged and, if they got past her, would be less able to follow than the low rakish schooner that was heading to cut them off. ‘We might knock a spar or two off her in passing.’

  As the watch below was turned out, the watch on deck trimmed the sheets as Klite brought the schooner round to the east, into the sun light dappling the water. In a quarter of an hour the distance between the two vessels was shrinking fast. To the south the second enemy privateer, a schooner like Spitfire herself, which had at first stood on to ensure that she could stop the British vessel reaching the safety of Funchal, now put about and began her own beat up to the assistance of her consort. It was, however, quite clear that she would not arrive in time. All now depended upon the result of the encounter between Spitfire and the brig.

  All the men in Kite’s crew were experienced; they had served in both privateers and slavers and could serve a gun and handle small arms as well as, and in many cases better than the crew of a man-of-war. Most had previously served with Kite, or in one of his ships, and they cleared away and ran out the schooners 4-pounders with a degree of high spirits.

  With the commotion transmitted below largely through the rumbling of the gun-trucks, first Sarah then McClusky and Hooker came on deck to be acquainted with their circumstances. Hooker volunteered the services of his dacoits, all of whom, he insisted, could fire muskets. Thus arrayed, and taking up their station behind the chocked boats by way of a breastwork and keeping them clear of the gun crews, these extempore and colourful marines topped with their red turbans might, at a distance, convey the impression that Spitfire was a man-of-war schooner.

  Standing alongside the helmsman, Kite left the working of the guns to Harper. He told Sarah to take care of herself, well knowing she would refuse to go below. He had, however, insisted that all other parties remain below, including Hooker himself, but the lumbering figure objected and demanded to be left on deck, in charge of his bodyguard. This seemed to Kite a reversal of roles, but Hooker was adamant, claiming that to go below would be to lose face and if he did so he might as well be dead as to afterwards call upon his dacoits to render any service in his defence. To this defiance, McClusky added his own: ‘If your wife’s to stay on deck, Captain Kite, how can Michael McClusky remained quartered below like a woman – beggin’ yer pardon Mr Hooker?’

  In the urgency of the moment Kite acceded. Rose Hooker, her maids and Maggie remained below, the last named peering up the companionway so that, standing by the helm, Kite caught sight of her disconcerting face as she strove to see what was going on.

  Jack Bow, of whom Kite had taken no account, had attached himself to Sarah, probably arguing with his brand of street-cunning, that Mrs Kite as a woman would not be too much exposed to danger. With a grim acknowledgement of the lad’s logic, Kite hoped Jack’s faith was not misplaced. Besides, he had weightier matters to consider.

  ‘Steady now,’ he said to the helmsman as the two vessels closed rapidly. Kite was aware of Harper hopping from one gun to the other. He wondered whether Zacharaiah had drawn all the quoins in the hope of wounding the enemy brig’s rigging, or told his gunners to aim for the hull. It was too late for him to intervene now and, in any case, hard on the wind as she was, Spitfire’s windward broadside would fly high until she came under the lee of the brig.

  It always surprised Kite how the apparent speeds of vessels passing on opposite tacks seemed to accelerate at the last moment. The brig suddenly loomed large and, above the noise of the wind in the Spitfire’s rigging and the creak and groan of the schooner’s fabric, there was suddenly a host of new noises: the moan of wind in the passing ship’s rigging, the break of water under her bow, the shouts of last minute command. Then a sudden lull as Spitfire passed into the brig’s wind-shadow and her deck abruptly levelled. Kite saw a fast-traversing panorama of gun ports, muzzles, sails and faces. There were shouts aboard the enemy, then Hooker bellowed. The crackle of small arms fire broke out, smoke puffs and lances of fire from the rail of the enemy, and a louder response from the dacoits amidships. At almost the same instant the two vessels exchanged rolling broadsides, the terrible, ear-splitting thumping concussions of the successive guns thundering between the two hulls so that their echoes sounded like an encounter between line-of-battleships in their reverberations.

  Then it was all over, they were past and Spitfire was heeling to the wind and the sun was dazzling them from the surface of the sea ahead. For a long suspended moment it seemed as though nothing had changed, and then from aloft there came a stuttering that a moment later became the sound of tearing canvas. The foresail split from head to foot, two of the dacoits fell screaming to the deck with the splinters from the side of a boat sticking out of their faces and chests, one man amidships had been killed stone dead from a musket ball, and another three wounded. A hole had been battered in the larboard bulwarks and the carpenter was emerging from the companionway with a curious Maggie at his heels to report two balls in the hull.

  There were several scrapes in the main boom, suggesting that most of the brig’s shot had passed over their decks and Sarah was nursing a nicked shoulder, but by-and-large they had got off lightly. The foresail, though badly torn and straining, had given way along a seam, the ball passing through it having obligingly parted it.

  Staring after the brig Kite could see little damage there either. He did, however, catch her name and port of registry in gold letters across her stern: Pegasus, Boston. Above this flew the barred ensign of the rebel Americans.

  He rounded on the helmsman and shouted for Harper. ‘We’ll run off to the south east and, Mr Harper, do you ease that foresail…’

  ‘We’ve another below, shall I rouse it out?’

  ‘Aye, but secure the guns first and get those bloody Indians below decks!’ The wailing from amidships was getting worse, but Hooker already had the matter in hand and Maggie, now on deck herself, was fussing over the wounded men.

  ‘A creditable wench and no mistake,’ he said to Sarah as she made light of her galling. ‘Like my wife,’ he added with a smile.

  Sarah nodded astern. ‘My husband has done pretty well too,’ she said and he turned to see the fore topmast of the brig totter out of alignment with the main, and hang down at a drunken angle, retained for the time being only by its standing stays. The fore yards stuck out at a crazy angle and Kite shouted for Harper to take a look. The sight caused a cheer to run round the Spitfire’s upper deck.

  ‘Don’t fill yourself too full of self-conceit, William,’ Sarah went on. ‘Have you seen the other…’

  Kite spun round before the warning was out of Sarah’s mouth. The American schooner was in chase of them, away on their lee bow, with the steady bearing that betokened interception and, if held onto long enough, collision.

  There would be no interval to change the foresail and, on their present course, no chance of making Funchal. He turned and, fishing out his glass, levelled it on the Pegasus
. The fore topmast had crashed over the side and was trailing in the water, swinging the brig round and leaving her helpless for a while.

  ‘Stand by the sheets and braces!’ Kite roared and, turning Spitfire through the wind, he brought her round before the wind again, to run down in the wake of the Yankee brig.

  Hardly had he steadied Spitfire on her new course, than the pursuing schooner had followed suit. Ignoring her, Kite sent Harper and his men back to their guns. As they swept past the Pegasus along her starboard side, a second broadside was poured into the American brig. Although they sustained several shot in return, the Americans had not cleared their starboard guns away and it was largely only musketry that they endured in passing.

  Although their own shot achieved little more than had already been accomplished, Kite had the small satisfaction of having rendered one of his opponents temporarily hors de combat. The other, however, looked set to give him a good run for his money. In the next hours Kite’s men set to plugging the shot hole in the hull, pumping out the well and making good the superficial damage to half a dozen ropes aloft. By running down wind the effect of the split foresail was not as marked as it would have been had they been clawing their way to windward, but the combination of loss of driving power and the additional weight of water within her hull was sufficient to render Spitfire the slower of the two vessels. The chase ran on throughout the forenoon, dropping the damaged brig over the horizon astern, while the peak of Madeira, the clouds curling about its lofty summit, drew out on the beam as a shift in the wind forced them to head away from safety.