‘Maybe King Charlie has sent his bastards to string us up,’ a man suggested.
‘They’ll never have enough bloody rope!’ a woman shouted.
But there was no doubt now. That handsome, powerful ship was coming for them and even if she held a cable length offshore to avoid the sandbars she could bring her broadside to bear on the Achilles and the dhows at their moorings.
‘We’d best flee, Captain,’ Dowling said. ‘Through the gap and away we go. But we’ll have to go now, and not waste a single minute.’
There was an urgency in the quartermaster’s voice verging on panic, for although the frigate was still a long way off it would take time to get everyone on the island aboard their respective vessels.
But Rivers did not move from the spot. He gave no orders other than telling a young lad to run up to his hut and fetch his telescope, though he would not likely need the thing by the time the boy returned. There was something about that ship. For all the sandbars that lay between her position and his own base in the lee of the outcrop, the frigate still came on, as though her captain knew the deep channels.
Or maybe it was not her captain, but someone at her bow rail; someone standing near the leadsman and yelling his commands back to the helmsman by the whipstaff.
Then Rivers saw the signal. He, not one of the younger men or the boys with their fresh eyes, but he with his eyes that had been stung with a lifetime of cannon and musket smoke and seen so much horror that it was a wonder they had not given up their sight. There were two ensigns flapping at the frigate’s masthead. One of them bore the Dutch Republic’s colours of orange, white and blue, the other was the Union flag. Why would her captain fly both ensigns? The English might be at peace with the Dutch, for now at least anyway, but Rivers had never seen a ship flying the colours of both countries at the same time. Nor would he ever expect to see such a thing again.
Then came the thunder; three peals of it from three of the frigate’s great brass culverins, their smoke blooms whipped away on the breeze.
‘Well I never,’ Dowling muttered as he broke into a smile. That had not been a broadside, but a salute. A moment later he was yelling after those of the crew who were already hurrying across the beach towards the Achilles and the dhows, telling them it was all well, that there would be no fighting today.
‘Good day, mijnheer,’ Rivers muttered to himself as he stared across at the frigate. For that three-gun salute was the pre-arranged greeting from Captain Michiel Tromp, with whom he had done a certain amount of business in the past.
‘Wonder what that cheese-head’s doing here, then,’ Dowling asked nobody in particular. ‘But he’s been busy by the looks of him.’
Rivers shook his head. ‘That ain’t his ship, lad. He’s a greedy whoreson and no mean sailor, but even Tromp’s not fool enough to go after a prize like that with this damned truce between His Majesty and the cheese-heads.’ He frowned, not entirely convinced by his own argument. ‘In any event, how would he go about it?’ He dipped his head at the frigate whose bows were now pointing almost directly at those gathered on the beach. ‘A beauty like that would pound any ship Tromp will ever skipper to kindling.’
‘So … mayhaps …’ John Blighton was frowning ‘… mayhaps Tromp’s gone turncoat, bringing some English captain down on us an’ now they’ve come to burn our bloody boats and smoke us out like bloody bilge rats.’
‘Calm down, boy,’ Rivers shook his head. ‘Tromp would not do that.’ Although he felt his jaw tighten at the thought of such betrayal. ‘He knows that if he did I would hang him with his own gut rope.’ He turned to his quartermaster. ‘Mr Dowling, you know what to do.’
The man nodded and marched off down the beach.
ot for the first time, Hal had put his trust in the hands of a man who, until recently, had been his enemy. And once again Tromp proved worthy of that trust, impressing Hal with his seamanship and guiding them through the sandbars and reefs from memory alone. It was high tide and the dangers were for the most part hidden, but Tromp had the memory of a fox returning to its lair. Guiding Mr Tyler at the helm, he took them in whilst Hal and John Lovell kept an eye on the wind in their sails, constantly glancing up to where the Amadoda hung high up at the mast tops ready to take in what little canvas the Bough still showed to the wind.
The rest of the crew held their breath, and held their tongues also, their ears straining for the ominous scrape of the Bough’s keel on a coral reef. Likewise the soles of their feet on the deck were still as spiders on their silken strings, ready to sense the slightest vibrations that would alert them to the grounding of the hull.
But there was no rumble of thunder from the bowels of the ship. Nor any tremor in the timbers, which had Hal and the officers exchanging relieved looks and nodding to each other in appreciation of that feat of seamanship. These were dangerous waters and it was little wonder that Rivers and his crew had made their base here in the lee of this spur of the island which protruded into the shoals.
‘Ten fathoms, Captain!’ one of the sailors called, hauling the lead back up from the depths and making ready to swing it again.
‘By the mark, seven, Captain!’
‘That’s as far as we go, Captain,’ Tromp said, coming up to Hal and wiping nervous sweat from his forehead. ‘It’s the longboats from here on in.’
‘Thank you, Mr Tromp,’ Hal said, then turned and gave his orders. ‘Get those topsails furled, lads!’ The Amadoda raced out along the yards, as nimble as squirrels in an oak tree.
‘Mr Tyler, drop the anchor. We are as close as we want to be.’ Some two cable lengths of clear, turquoise water lay between them and the white strand, and beyond the beach, no higher than seven feet above sea level, stood a screen of lush vegetation. The settlement, such as it was, must be beyond that.
Hal could not but help admire the choice of such a lair. ‘A passing ship might see that brigantine,’ he admitted, ‘but were she not at her anchorage, this Ilha Metundo would appear as deserted as any of the other islands in the Quirimbas.’
As the Delft, too, furled her sails, the Golden Bough slowed, her momentum lost so that she began to rock on the easy swell. The anchor splashed into the warm water and the chain sang as it spooled out. The ship swung gently round before snubbing up on the end of the line and those of her crew that were not employed went over to the larboard rail to get a good look at those folk gathered on the beach ogling the Bough.
‘That’s their little armada, eh?’ Hal said, eyeing the handsome brigantine sitting at anchor beside three large dhows and several smaller craft in the sheltered bay.
‘The Achilles,’ Tromp said. ‘She might not look the kind of ship to have sea captains shaking in their boots, but she has taken more than her share of prizes.’
‘I’ll take your word for it, Mr Tromp,’ Hal said. ‘I’ll wager she’s fast.’
‘Ja, as an arrow,’ Tromp agreed. ‘And her gunners service those demi-culverins and sakers as well as any crew afloat.’
The Achilles’s guns were not the eight-foot-long ship-killers of the Golden Bough but neither did they need to be. More often than not they would be loaded with grapeshot rather than round shot. ‘It’s in the boarding that Captain Rivers earns his gold,’ Tromp said. ‘His men are devils, Captain Courtney. Ja, most crews would sooner jump overboard than fight them.’
Hal considered the pirate captain whom they had come to meet. He knew the name Rivers. Other captains, friends of his father, had mentioned the man. He was a renegade, a Civil War survivor who had fled England and now stalked the Indian Ocean from the Cape of Good Hope to the East African shore north of Madagascar, preying upon merchantmen and slavers as the monsoon winds allowed, regardless of the flags under which they sailed.
‘He’s a killer, Sir Henry,’ Tromp warned him.
‘So I have heard,’ Hal nodded thoughtfully. He was now more dubious than ever about the wisdom of dealing with a cutthroat, an enemy of the English crown no less.
‘
But I have an understanding with the man,’ Tromp assured him.
‘Aye, you’re pirates, both,’ Hal said, giving him a flinty eye.
Tromp shrugged it off like water off an oiled sea coat. ‘That thing that two men have in common often becomes the grease that helps turn the wheels of trade.’ Then, seeing Hal’s discomfort, Tromp smiled. ‘Nevertheless, I can see that to you, an honourable English baronet, the idea of dealing with such a man is, what can I say? Distasteful.’
Hal sighed, watching the pirates thronging the beach. He was half tempted to yell at Ned Tyler to weigh anchor, spread the canvas to the wind and take the Bough back out into the good, deep, honest water.
‘I cannot help but wonder what my father would think of it,’ he agreed.
‘Leave this business to me, Captain.’ Tromp was trying not to smile. ‘I will deal with Captain Rivers and you will keep your hands clean of the whole thing.’
Hal shot him a sceptical look and Tromp raised a placating hand.
‘Nearly clean, anyway,’ the Dutchman corrected.
Hal looked back to the beach. We are here now, he thought, so let’s get on with it. But he would do it his way.
‘Mr Lovell, prepare the pinnaces!’ he called. Tromp could place his faith in this Pirate Rivers, but Hal would not trust him one bit. He would not row ashore, into this nest of pirates, in a damned longboat. No, he would go in a pinnace, upon whose gunnels were mounted swivel-guns and in whose thwarts men armed with muskets and lit matches stood ready.
‘Is that him, Mr Tromp?’ Hal asked, though he knew he needn’t have wasted his breath. There was no doubt in Hal’s mind that the tall man with the long greying hair tied back was Rivers. He wore canvas petticoats and a cotton shirt, like almost every other man there, but it was his face and bearing, even from that distance, that betrayed him.
‘Ja, that is him.’
‘He will not be pleased with you for bringing a ship like this into his lair. Not only have you shown me the way through the reefs, but at this range I could pummel his Achilles to splinters should I so choose.’
‘He might not be pleased with me,’ Tromp admitted, ‘but a vial of the Virgin’s tears will make up for it.’ His eyes sparkled. ‘Such a treasure will sell for a hundred pounds, or gold and silver rupees enough to fill one of your boots.’
Hal gave a sceptical grunt then looked towards his coxswain. ‘Master Daniel, I want forty good men and muskets. And bring up the barrels we took from the Delft. Every one, if you please, for I will be glad to see the back of them.’
‘Captain!’ Big Daniel affirmed, then set about choosing the shore party and ordering the Amadoda down to the hold to fetch the reputed relics.
‘Mr Tyler, have the gun crews stand by and keep my telescope to hand. At the first sign of trouble I want you to sink that brigantine and open the gates of hell for those pirates.’
Ned Tyler gave a gap-toothed grin. ‘If any of them rogues and rascals so much as looks at you funny, just fire your pistol and the next thing you’ll see is bits of that ship pouring from the sky like bloody rain, Captain.’
‘Very good,’ Hal acknowledged, and with that he turned and strode across the deck past the busy men to his cabin in order to dress in clothes befitting a baronet, a captain of a frigate as fine as the Golden Bough, and a man loyal to the crown of England. And if, by God, this Pirate Rivers played them false then he would pay for it with his life.
‘So, Tromp, why come ye here, then, eh?’ Rivers gestured at a lad who hurried over with his master’s broad-brimmed hat on which lay a white-feathered plume. ‘And in such a fine-looking ship, by God.’ He put the broad hat on so that he no longer had to squint against the sun and its reflection off the sea behind Hal and his party.
Most of the Bough’s men stood with the waves lapping their ankles, but four remained on the half-beached pinnaces, manning swivel-guns filled with grapeshot. Aboli stood at Hal’s right shoulder gripping a wicked-looking boarding axe and it was not lost on his captain that the African would look very much at home amongst these rogues and renegades of every colour and creed.
‘She’ll be for me, is she, Captain?’ Rivers asked.
‘Ha!’ Tromp laughed. ‘Even were she mine I would never part with her.’ As Hal held back, biding his time, the Dutchman strode forward to shake hands with the pirate. ‘And captain no more,’ he added without any discernible scrap of embarrassment. ‘I am now second mate of the Golden Bough.’ He turned to Hal. ‘May I introduce our captain, Sir Henry Courtney?’
Rivers turned his blue eyes on Hal, measuring his worth before offering his hand. Hal was reluctant to shake it, for fear that he would dishonour himself and his blood by doing so. He felt Tromp beside him tense, heard his men behind him blowing on their slow match to keep the coals red hot in case the whole thing should go sour.
‘Gundwane,’ Aboli murmured under his breath.
Hal stepped forward and took the pirate captain’s hand. ‘You are infamous, Captain Rivers,’ he said.
The pirate was completely undisturbed by the slight. ‘In my business a bad reputation is worth its weight in ivory, gold, slaves, you name it. A merchantman that does not recognize my ship or my ensign might foolishly decide to make a fight of it.’
He glanced at Tromp. ‘It is rare but it happens. A captain suddenly values his honour above the lives of his men. That is usually the last mistake he ever makes.’ He frowned. ‘But I have heard your name too, Captain. You must be Franky Courtney’s pup. Why’s he not captaining that magnificent ship of yours? Got one even bigger, has he?’
‘My father was killed,’ Hal said. ‘The Dutch settlers at Good Hope falsely accused him of piracy then tortured and murdered him.’
Rivers pointed the stem of his pipe at Tromp. ‘The Dutch killed your father and yet here you are in league with one of them?’
‘Tromp was never involved in my father’s death.’
‘Too busy causing mischief elsewhere, I dare say. Isn’t that right, Mijnheer Tromp?’
The Dutchman shrugged and smiled. ‘Ach, you know me too well, Rivers.’
‘That I do … so why don’t you tell me what brings you here, before I get to worrying that you might be up to mischief now and take those ships of yours for myself?’
‘Do not even think of attempting so rash a manoeuvre, Rivers. My ships’ guns are all loaded, and their crews are standing by them with lit matches in their hands.’
‘You are young, Captain Courtney,’ Rivers said, without the slightest sign of concern. ‘For a boy like you to have a ship like that, well, it’s very impressive. And now I come to think of it, I’ve heard the Arabs moaning about the havoc you wreaked on them in the Red Sea during the Ethiopian War. What was it they named you? El Tazar, meaning Barracuda, wasn’t it?’
‘I fail to see what that has to do with our current situation.’
‘Nothing at all. Just that even a fish like the barracuda, with all those sharp teeth in its mouth, gets caught in a net from time to time. Trapped you might say. Just as you are now?’
‘What do you mean?’ Hal exclaimed, as the boom of one of the Bough’s culverins carried across the water.
Hal turned with a start to look at his ship and the smoke plume drifting off from a gun port amidship. Ned Tyler had fired a warning shot and now the reason for it was obvious. A small fleet of dugouts had come round the headland that sheltered the bay and now they were coming up on the Golden Bough’s larboard, their crews paddling furiously. Hal counted four canoes, each carrying five or six men, as well as one of the large, heavy, flat-bottomed canoes that the Spanish called a piragua crowded with perhaps twenty-five more sailors.
‘They are coming in under our guns,’ Aboli murmured, ‘so Mr Tyler cannot fire on them.’
Hal cursed. Those canoes had come from nowhere and the men in them were armed with muskets whose long barrels were all trained up at the rail of the Bough, ready to pour a deadly fire upon her crew. He turned back round to see that Rivers
had stuck a massive, basket-hilted sword in the sand so that it stood upright in front of him still quivering slightly. What the pirate said next struck Hal like a kick in the stomach.
‘My quartermaster, Mr Dowling, and his men carry grenades, Sir Henry, and will happily lob them into your ship.’
Either cast-iron balls or glass bottles filled with black powder and lit by a fuse, these exploding bombs would shock, blind and burn the Bough’s crew, and Hal shared a look of alarm with Aboli.
‘And when your men are running about the deck like hens with a fox in the coop, my lads will disable your rudder.’
At this many of Rivers’s men whooped for joy, exulting in the prospect of winning themselves such a prize without most of them even having put to sea.
Hal was damned if he’d let Rivers threaten him like that without reply.
‘You forget the guns on Mister Tromp’s former command, the Delft,’ he said. ‘Not to mention the murderers on my two pinnaces that are trained directly upon you, Captain Rivers. So let us agree that we can both do one another a great deal of harm. And now that we have done that, perhaps you would like to know why I am here.’
Rivers looked at Hal for a second as the silence stretched out across the bay. Then he laughed. ‘By God, you must be Franky’s boy. He was a cold-blooded rascal just like you. And don’t look at me all superior-like, Master Courtney. You may call yourself “Sir” and I’m sure your pa carried fancy letters signed by King Charlie himself, telling him he could blast away at any Dutchman or Portugoose that took his fancy. But the truth is, he took ships for the money and the treasure and the hell of it. He was a pirate, same as me.’
‘My father was a man of honour, sir, a Nautonnier Knight of the Temple of the Order of—’
‘Blah-blah-blah!’ Rivers cut him short. ‘Your father was a damn fine sailor and an even better taker of other men’s ships. And now I look at her, I’ll wager you took that ship off another man. Deny it, if you can …’
‘I took it off a man who deserved to lose it.’