illiam Pett took a sip of his Canary wine and swept an arm around the stern cabin, encompassing the tasteful decoration and polished oak furniture, the map table and the captain’s cot, now unhooked from the timbers that crossed the cabin roof and placed on its side against the far wall to give Hal’s guests more room.
‘You have a beautiful ship, Captain Courtney, which must have cost a considerable sum to build and fit to such a fine standard,’ he said. ‘I hope you will not think it rude of me to inquire, but how did a gentleman as youthful as you come by it? Was it an inheritance, perhaps?’
‘No, Mr Pett,’ Hal replied. ‘My inheritance lies elsewhere. The Golden Bough came to me by capture, seized from a deceitful, lying rogue who had come by it, as was his wont, by treachery and theft.’
‘I hope that is not the sum of your account, Captain,’ Pett said. ‘For I confess, you have whetted my appetite for what sounds like a splendid tale.’
‘I’m not much of a storyteller,’ Hal demurred. ‘I do things and leave it to other men to spin their yarns.’
Pett was intrigued. This young pup of a captain had acquired at least one enemy in his time. And when a man had enemies, Pett had hope of new clients. He directed an amiable smile in Hal’s direction and persisted, ‘Oh, you do yourself scant justice, sir. In my experience, men of the sea such as yourself are always well capable of recounting their adventures to a welcoming audience. Tell me this at least: who was this scoundrel from whom you took the Golden Bough? And from whom had he acquired it?’
Hal looked reluctant but then, to Pett’s delight, Judith entered the conversation, saying, ‘You know, my dearest, although I know very well how your story ends, you have never told me the start of it. I would love to hear it now, if it pleases you to tell it.’
‘How can you refuse a request from one so lovely, sir?’ Pett added. ‘For it will surely be to your benefit to tell her a tale from which, as our presence here attests, you emerge the conquering hero.’
‘Go on, sir,’ Big Daniel piped up. ‘Tell Mr Pett about the Buzzard and how we roasted him!’
Hal sighed, then held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘Very well, I will do as I’m asked. Pass me the Canary, if you’d be so kind, Mr Pett. I need some refreshment before I dry out my mouth with talking.’
Hal poured a glass of wine while he composed his thoughts, drained half of it and then said, ‘It began at eight bells in the middle watch, in the darkness just before dawn, when I found a ship with my nose.’
‘With your nose, sir?’ Pett exclaimed. ‘Was it so dark that you did not know the ship was there until it hit you smack in the face?’
Hal joined in the laughter that went around the table. ‘No, sir, the ship did not hit me. But the scent of the spice it was carrying in its holds, a scent as sweet as honey on the wind, struck my senses a blow they could not ignore. I was up at the masthead on the Lady Edwina, a fine ship, named after my dear, departed mother, which had begun life in Dutch colours before my father, Sir Francis Courtney, captured her and adapted her to his own purposes.
‘I raced to the foot of the mast and informed my father of what I had smelt. We had been at sea for two long months, waiting for just this moment. One of the mighty galleons of the Dutch East India Company was bearing down upon us, bound for the Cape, en route back to Amsterdam. And my father held a Letter of Marque, signed by the Lord Chancellor on behalf of King Charles himself, commissioning him to hunt down Dutch ships just like her, for, as you will recall, Mr Pett, England and Holland were at war in those days and their armed merchantmen were fair game.’
Hal paused for another sip of wine. This time there were no interruptions. He had the full attention of every diner around the table and he was discovering that he rather enjoyed the role of storyteller after all.
‘Now, we should not have been alone, out there on the southern waters of the Ocean of the Indies. Captain Cochran, otherwise known as the Buzzard, with his ship the Gull of Moray, had sworn to sail alongside my father. But the weeks of waiting had made him impatient and he had left us barely a day earlier and gone off in search of easy pickings.’
‘You could smell the Gull of Moray, and all,’ Big Daniel commented. ‘Once you keep slaves in your holds, like the Buzzard did, ain’t nothing ever going to wash that stink away.’
‘It is not the slaves who smell,’ Aboli said, his right fist clenched so tight around the knife in his hand that the knuckles were almost bursting through his skin. ‘The stink comes from the souls of the men who enslave them.’
‘Hear, hear,’ Hal murmured and got back to his yarn. ‘The ship we were about to attack was called the Standvastigheid, which means “Resolution”. She was far bigger, with many more cannons, of greater size than the Lady Edwina, and far more men aboard. We should have stood no more chance against her than Captain Tromp did, sending his pinnaces against the Bough. But my father had Dutch colours that he had captured in an earlier engagement and he flew these from the mast to deceive the Resolution into thinking that the Edwina was a friendly vessel. By this means we were able to approach right under the Dutchman’s stern and get a volley away, whereupon my father led the charge up onto the enemy’s decks and took the vessel with the sheer force and courage of his attack.’
‘You do not tell the whole story of the battle, Gundwane,’ Aboli said.
‘I’ve told all that needs to be said,’ Hal replied.
‘May I ask what has been omitted?’ Pett inquired.
‘We were betrayed by a cowardly jackal called Sam Bowles,’ Aboli said. ‘He cut the Lady Edwina free from the Dutch ship, leaving all of us who had boarded the enemy stranded on her decks. But now the captain’s son showed he was of the same blood as his father, for he sent Sam Bowles and his friends running, turned the Lady Edwina around and came back to the fight.’
‘He picked those of us who was all out on the ocean in a pinnace up as well,’ Big Daniel added. ‘Don’t forget that, Aboli.’
‘The victory was all my father’s, not mine,’ Hal insisted, though he could tell from the way that Judith was looking at him that she was well pleased by what she had heard.
‘You did not say when this battle took place, Captain,’ Pett said. ‘How long ago was it?’
‘It was the fourth day of September in the year of Our Lord 1667,’ Hal replied. ‘I remember the date for I had only the day before filled in the entry in the ship’s log for the very first time.’
‘So a little over three years ago,’ Pett said, thoughtfully. ‘And how old would you have been then?’
‘Seventeen years of age, Mr Pett.’
‘An admirable performance by one so young. But pray, sir, what does this have to do with this Buzzard gentleman?’
‘He’s no gentleman, sir, of that I can assure you. But he has a nose for treasure, and the Resolution was full of it. There were three hundred tons of hardwood in her hold: teak and balu and other woods the like of which no forest in Christendom has ever grown. That in itself would have been a fine prize, yet it was nothing compared to the other cargo we discovered. For she also carried forty-two tons of spice: barrels of cochineal, pepper, vanilla, saffron, cloves and cardamom – a treasure worth more than its weight in silver. Yet there was silver, too, ten thousand pounds of it in value, and three hundred ingots of pure gold. Yes, well may you sit there, Mr Pett, with your mouth open in wonder … And now think on this: there was more.’
‘More?’ gasped Pett as Hal allowed himself another drink. ‘How could that be?’
‘Very simple. This Dutchman had a passenger aboard. His name was Petrus van de Velde, he was a fat, blubbery, cowardly mound of poisonous jelly and he was to be the next governor of the Dutch colony at the Cape of Good Hope. My father set the price of his ransom, to be paid by the Dutch East India Company, at two hundred thousand guilders in gold, or forty thousand pounds sterling.’
‘Beggin’ your pardon, Cap’n, but you’ve left out the most precious treasure of the lot,’ said Big Daniel
with a leering tone in his voice.
‘On the contrary, I have listed all the significant contents of the Resolution’s manifest,’ said Hal, firmly, knowing precisely what Daniel was referring to and having no desire whatever to broach the subject. Daniel realized that he’d overstepped the mark and fell back into embarrassed silence. Hal was about to continue with the story as he wished to tell it, but he had not counted on a woman’s unerring intuition.
‘I do apologize for interrupting your story, my dear,’ she said, ‘but since you seem to have forgotten, I was wondering whether Daniel could answer a question for me.’
‘I’ll do me best, ma’am.’
‘Thank you so much. My question is this: was there a Mrs van de Velde?’
Daniel was a man who never quailed in the face of battle and could not be cowed by all the waves and winds that the oceans could throw at him. But as Judith looked at him with an expression of innocent curiosity on her lovely face there was something close to terror in his eyes.
‘I … ahh … I believe as how he might have been a married man, yes, ma’am.’
‘Could you describe his wife at all? For example, was she a young woman, or an old one?’
‘I’d say she was probably more young than old, ma’am.’
‘Well, now that we’ve got that settled,’ Hal cut in, ‘I’m sure Mr Pett would …’
‘No, please, do continue with your questions, madam,’ Pett said, with a courteous nod towards Judith.
‘Thank you, sir,’ she replied, with equally decorous manners. ‘Now, Daniel, we were discussing Mr van de Velde and his young wife.’ A wicked little smile played around the corners of her mouth as she said those last two words. She was teasing Hal, and enjoying it. ‘Can you remember her name?’
‘Er … Kat-something, can’t remember exactly …’
Hal gave a heavy sigh and then said, ‘Katinka … Mrs van de Velde’s Christian name was Katinka. Now can we please …’
‘Thank you, dearest,’ Judith said fondly. ‘I am pleased that your memory hadn’t failed you. I just wondered, Daniel, would you say that Katinka van de Velde – what a pretty name that is! – would you say she was a beautiful woman, or an ugly one?’
‘Well, ma’am, that’s hard to say, ain’t it? Like they say, beauty’s in the eye of the beholder … matter of taste, like …’
‘She was good looking for a white woman,’ Aboli said dismissively. ‘And Gundwane was smitten by her, for he was just a boy and had not yet discovered that when a true man is looking for his woman, he will always choose a daughter of Africa. Luckily for him, however, he grew up and made the correct choice … once he had come to his senses.’
‘Thank you, Aboli, that was very nicely put,’ Judith said and then, more seriously, but also more gently she said, ‘Tell us about her, my dear … Tell me about Katinka.’
Hal poured another glass of wine and downed it in one. ‘It is very simple,’ he said. ‘She had the golden hair and violet eyes of a heavenly angel, and a soul so foul and wicked that the devil himself would tremble in her presence. She was a Jezebel and, yes, she tempted me and I could not resist. But I learned the error of my ways, so help me God. I came to my senses, just as Aboli says, and I would not exchange one second with you, my darling, for a thousand lifetimes with Katinka van de Velde. Now … can I get on with my story?’
‘By all means,’ said Judith, who had now heard precisely the answer she’d been seeking all along.
‘In that case, I will make it quick, or none of us will get any rest this night. Now, the Buzzard, as I said, can sniff treasure on the breeze, just as I sniffed that spice. No sooner had we captured the Resolution and its treasures than up he popped demanding his share of the prize.’
‘But the Buzzard had left you before the prize was taken!’ Judith said, sounding outraged at the impertinence.
‘That was exactly what my father told him, but the Buzzard wasn’t having any of it. He ran straight to the Dutch at Good Hope and led them to the bay where we were repairing the Resolution …’ Hal stopped himself before adding, ‘And hiding all the gold and silver.
‘We were hopelessly outnumbered,’ he went on. ‘My father was obliged to surrender, rather than see all the men who had served him loyally be killed. And then the Buzzard showed himself for the vile, two-faced scoundrel that he was by telling the barefaced lie that condemned my father to torture and death.’
‘What did he say?’ said Pett, trying to suppress the thrill he felt at the mention of Sir Francis Courtney’s evidently agonizing demise.
‘You remember, sir, that I told you that England and Holland were at war and that my father had been commissioned by His Majesty the King to harass Dutch shipping, in the prosecution of that war?’
‘Indeed I do,’ said Pett, ‘just as I remember the war itself.’
‘Very well, then, my father attacked the Resolution, in good faith, as an act of war. What he did not know, however, was that the Dutch fleet under De Ruyter had, some three months previously, sailed up the Thames to the dockyards at Chatham, where the finest ships of the Royal Navy were laid up, burned a dozen or more vessels, towed away two more, including our flagship, the Royal Charles, and forced His Majesty the King to sue for a bitter and humiliating peace.
‘So when the Lady Edwina attacked the Resolution the war had actually ended. Of course, we could not have known that. My father gave his word on that, as a gentleman, and the Dutch commander Colonel Schreuder was minded to accept it. He was my family’s enemy, Schreuder, and in the end I killed him, but he always fought with honour. Naturally, however, he felt happier having some evidence of my father’s explanation, so he asked the Buzzard, whom he knew had sailed alongside us, whether my father was telling the truth. But the Buzzard …’ Hal suddenly found that it was all but impossible for him to continue. The memory was simply too painful. But Big Daniel stepped into the silence.
‘The lying Scots bastard said that he had told Sir Francis that peace had been declared. And he had the brass nerve to say that our Franky – who was as good a man, and as honourable as any that ever set to sea – had told him he was going to ignore the news and go get himself a prize anyway. That was a filthy lie, but the cheese-heads fell for it and it cost the captain his life. We was all taken prisoner, chained up in the slave hold of the Gull of Moray with the Buzzard gloatin’ over us and taken off to Good Hope where they put us to hard labour like common criminals. I’ve still got the scars on me back from the whippings I took. I know you have too, Aboli, and you, too, Cap’n, I’ll be bound.’
‘Yes,’ said Hal, his voice thick with emotion. ‘I bear the scars too.’
‘But we got our own back, mind, didn’t we just? You tell the gentleman all about that, now!’
‘What happened?’ Pett asked.
‘After my father was executed – the damn Dutch hung, drew and quartered him – we managed to escape and we headed for the bay where the Dutch had first captured us.’
‘Why go back to such a benighted place?’
‘I had my reasons, among them the knowledge that the Buzzard would very likely be there himself.’
‘He had his reasons too, then,’ said Pett, who was thinking about the love of treasure that seemed to unite Sir Francis Courtney and the Buzzard, whatever Courtney’s loyal son might say, and getting an ever clearer sense of what those reasons might be.
‘Yes,’ said Hal. ‘But matters were more complicated than I had expected. Schreuder had been disgraced, following our escape. He went to his lover, Katinka van de Velde, and, according to the stories I later heard, found her in bed with Slow John, the colony’s torturer and executioner.’
‘So she really was a Jezebel,’ Judith observed.
‘She was a fiend in female form,’ Hal replied. ‘Messalina, Empress of Rome, who prostituted herself for her own pleasure was as chaste as a nun compared to Katinka. But she got her comeuppance. Schreuder flew into a rage and killed her. He fled and managed to talk his way on
to the Golden Bough, which was lying in the harbour at Good Hope under the command of Captain Christopher Llewellyn …’
‘Another good man what was done wrong by bad ’uns,’ said Will Stanley, who had been sitting silently while Hal’s story unfolded. ‘Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am,’ he went on, ‘but I was serving on the Bough when that cheese-head colonel come aboard …’
‘Then you can correct me if I get this wrong,’ Hal said. ‘One of the officers on the Bough was Viscount Winterton, whose father had built the ship. He and Schreuder played a game of dice. Schreuder bet all the money he had in the world, but the dice ran for Winterton and he won, whereupon Schreuder called him a cheat and demanded the satisfaction of a duel.’
‘That’s right, sir,’ Stanley agreed. ‘So Cap’n Llewellyn says, you ain’t having no duel on my ship, wait till we reach shore. But then a storm came, terrible it was, fair tore the ship to pieces and we was forced to pull into this bay …’
‘… Where the Gull of Moray was moored,’ said Hal. ‘The duel was fought and Schreuder killed Winterton. Then the Buzzard tricked Llewellyn out of the Bough and thought himself very clever for now he had two boats. But we few men of the Lady Edwina who had survived all the Dutch could throw at us had the last laugh because we arrived soon afterwards at the bay and took the Bough and most of her surviving crew, leaving the Buzzard raging on the shore … And that is how I come to be master of this magnificent vessel to this day, though I will, I swear, return her to her rightful owner, Winterton, at the earliest opportunity.’
‘Was that when you killed Colonel Schreuder, Captain Courtney, when you took the Bough?’
‘No, that was later, during the Ethiopian campaign.’
‘And what of the Buzzard. Is he still flapping his wings and dipping his beak into other men’s treasure?’
‘I can answer that,’ said Judith. ‘The Buzzard is dead. He died in the flames when the Gull of Moray was destroyed by fireships. I know … I saw him die and I hope he is burning still, and for all time, in the fires of hell.’