They reached the beach where Big Daniel Fisher had put them ashore and found the pinnace there, with John Lovell on duty that day, awaiting their return as it had done every day for the past several weeks. Hal and Judith were cheered to the echo when they went back on board the Golden Bough and the cheers rose even higher when Hal told the crew, ‘I believe I mentioned something about going to get your prize money … give us the course for Elephant Lagoon, Mr Tyler!’
When they finally reached Quelimane, the Buzzard spent four days dragging Capelo round the seamen’s taverns, trying to find a skipper with a ship for hire. Since the commission involved an immediate departure for a mysterious bay on the southernmost tip of Africa, unmarked on any chart; a journey completed in a time that would require crazy risks to be taken; the likelihood of a battle at the end of it against a seasoned captain who had just proved his worth before their very eyes; and all that just on the promise of a share of that captain’s treasure – assuming that it even existed – there were no takers. And then their luck turned. Walking despondently away from yet another failed attempt at persuasion, Capelo saw João Barros stepping off the gangplank of the Madre de Deus onto the quayside.
Capelo’s blood boiled. Here was the man who was the root cause of all his problems. He had half a mind to have him killed: Quelimane was not a place in which such things were hard to arrange. But instead he decided to make the best of a bad business and, having greeted Barros with effusive bonhomie, persuaded him to dine with him that night.
‘You know me, old friend. I am a man who takes care of his stomach. There is not a town in Africa where I do not know where to find the finest food, yes, and know the cook who prepares it, into the bargain. There is a place here, the Blue Elephant. The food is unmatched in all Africa and they have barrels of Alvarelhão from Trás-os-Montes in the Douro … oh! To taste it on one’s tongue is to be back home again!’
Barros was persuaded and, having sampled both the food and the wine, agreed that it was just as good as Capelo had said. ‘Even if,’ he added, nodding his head at the Buzzard, who had sat there not eating or drinking all evening, ‘it is a miracle that the very sight of that creature is not enough to sour it.’
‘If you’ve finished your prattling, Captain, perhaps we could start talking business,’ Capelo said, suddenly sounding a lot less effusive. ‘That white slave you insisted would work as hard as a black has caused serious damage, expense and loss of life to Senhor Lobo. His name is Courtney. He is a captain, also known to some as El Tazar. I believe you know this and I suggest that your best hope of avoiding Senhor Lobo’s justifiable retribution for the trouble you caused him is to help us catch this Courtney. In the meantime, however, every minute we waste here takes that English bastard a little further out of our grasp.’
‘What did this Courtney do then?’ Barros asked.
Lobo did his best to tell the story of Hal’s rescue and escape without making the fiasco sound too shaming, though there was no disguising the fact that Courtney and his woman had been stolen from under his nose and the Buzzard’s leather beak. By the end of the account, far from seeming concerned, Barros was pouring more wine for himself and slapping his thigh as he roared with laughter.
‘And you want me to leap aboard the Madre and set out after Courtney and this woman Nazet, is that right? Well, let me tell you, I happen to be heading in that direction anyway. I have forty pairs of magnificent elephant tusks in my hold and a merchant in the Cape who will happily take them back to Holland. But forget your threats of retribution. I do not fear an old man like Lobo who lives a thousand leagues from the sea where I ply my trade. Just give me one reason why I would want to make a detour and risk my neck to help you along the way?’
‘May I?’ the Buzzard asked Capelo with exaggerated courtesy.
‘By all means.’
‘Very well then … I knew Courtney’s father, Franky, knew him very well indeed. Now, he had two qualities. First, he could sniff out a prize as well as any man afloat, and second, he kept every damn penny he ever took off every ship he ever took. That man never shared – not even with his pals, men like me who had a right to their cut – and he never spent a brass farthing either.’
Barros opened his mouth to speak, but the Buzzard held up his three-fingered hand. ‘You were, I venture, about to ask me how great the Courtney treasure might be. Well, let me tell you this. The last ship old man Courtney ever took was a Dutch East Indiaman called the Resolution.’
‘Ah! Yes … I remember that,’ Barros said. ‘It was the talk of the Cape Colony. But the Resolution was recaptured, with all her wood and spice still aboard.’
‘Och aye, the cheese-heads got back their precious ship and their spice and their wood. But there was a lot more on that ship than a few barrels o’ cloves and a load of teak, I can tell you. There was fifty thousand Dutch guilders’ worth of silver and three hundred, aye, you heard me … three hundred ingots of pure gold, any one of which would be enough to set a man up for life, and in fine style too.’
Barros gave a low, low whistle as he contemplated the staggering wealth of the Courtney hoard, totally unaware that the Buzzard – thinking he might keep a little just for himself – had not even mentioned the one hundred thousand guilders, in coins, that also lay waiting there.
‘Now do you see why a man would chase after that treasure?’ the Buzzard went on. ‘And believe me the booty from the Resolution’s not the half of it. Yon Franky had plenty more prizes beside that one, you can take my word for that.’
‘That’s all very well,’ observed Barros, his deal-making instincts now firmly back under control, ‘but do you even know where this treasure is?’
‘That’s a very good and very interesting question. The answer is yes … and no. See, I know roughly where it is. I know it has to be within less than half a day’s journey from the point where Courtney took it all ashore. I also know where it isn’t, because I had the entire beach dug up, in case he’s buried it there and there wasn’t any sign of it.’
‘Where is this beach?’ asked Barros.
‘Place called Elephant Lagoon … but don’t even think of trying to double-cross me, Captain, for you won’t find it on any chart. But I know where this bay is and I’m absolutely certain that Courtney’s bound for it right now. We just let him get there, wait while he gets the treasure for us and then …’ There was a crash as the Buzzard slammed his fist down on the table. ‘We hit him when he’s not expecting it, kill him, take back the woman and take the treasure, too.’
‘I want half the treasure,’ said Barros.
‘The hell you do!’ snarled the Buzzard.
‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, please,’ Capelo intervened. ‘Each of us depends upon the other. Of course, Captain Barros, you are the one who has the ship. But our masked friend here is the only one who knows where to direct your ship. And that, Captain, means that you will not have to pay for provisions, fresh water and fresh gunpowder and shot, meaning that the money you make from your ivory will be pure profit, even if we do not get a single speck of gold from this treasure. I am the only one here with authority to borrow money, on Senhor Lobo’s account, to pay for the cost of this expedition, in full. So let us stop wasting time on squabbling and agree: we will each receive one third of the value of the treasure, as and when it is recovered.
‘On top of that, I will take the woman, who was Senhor Lobo’s property and return her to him. You, Captain, will take Courtney’s head, for whoever carries that back to Prince Jahan will receive his immense gratitude. And you, Senhor Buzzard, may have Courtney’s ship … if you can find any men willing to crew it with you as its master.’
‘Very well,’ said Barros, ‘I agree. But from what you say, Courtney has several days’ start. And it will be at least two days before I will be ready to sail. How can we possibly catch him?’
‘Because,’ the Buzzard answered, ‘Courtney thinks he’s safe. Och, he’ll sail swiftly enough, but he’ll see no need to take any chance
s. But we will. For we’ll be sailing as though the devil himself were chasing us.’
And so they had set sail. Urged on by the Buzzard, Captain Barros had driven his crew harder than any of them had ever imagined possible. At every hour of night or day, either Barros or the Buzzard was standing beside the helmsman, setting the course, demanding that every last scrap of sail be spread so that not one breath of wind should be wasted. When the weather turned nasty, the Buzzard insisted on keeping far more canvas than would normally be deemed safe and more than once the ship came within a hair’s breadth of floundering. But the Madre de Deus survived to sail another day … and another … and both Barros and the Buzzard knew that they must be reeling the Golden Bough in, so that the five days’ start that she had possessed must have shrunk to much less. But how much narrower the gap had become, none of them could say. Nor could they know how long Courtney would spend in Elephant Lagoon. All they could do was to keep pushing, keep flogging the ship like an exhausted stallion until they reached their destination. And pray that when they did, they would not find that Courtney had already been and gone.
y eyes are very good, sir,’ Mossie said. ‘And my voice is loud. You could hear me all across the ship. Listen …’ The boy let loose a high-pitched scream that would have drowned out a trumpeting bull elephant, causing Hal, standing right beside him, to wince and cover his ears.
Mossie grinned in triumph. ‘So you see, sir, I would be a very good lookout.’
Hal gave a rueful shake of the head. He had to hand it to the lad, he was nothing if not persistent. The Golden Bough had barely escaped from Quelimane before Mossie had been on at him, begging to be allowed to be the next lookout boy. Hal had said, no, it was out of the question and then come up with one reason after another why there was no chance of the request being granted: Mossie was too young, too small, couldn’t climb rigging, wouldn’t be able to tell one kind of ship from another, and couldn’t shout down to the quarterdeck. One by one those objections had been challenged and in the almost festive atmosphere that now reigned on the Bough, as she sped south towards what the crew all knew would be the greatest payday that any one of them had ever enjoyed, or would be likely to again, the conflict between the most senior and junior of the ship’s company had become a constant topic of conversation and speculation. Many a wager had been offered and taken as to whether the captain would give in to this scrap of a lad, and, if so, when.
‘I can tell you, lads, it ain’t never going to happen,’ Big Daniel had assured a group of mainmast hands he’d found in heated debate one afternoon. ‘And here’s why. There’s only one person in this world can make the captain do what he’s told, and he knows full well that she’ll have his bollocks cut off an’ slung overboard for the sharks to eat if she sees her little pet up a mast.’
‘Aye,’ one of the men agreed, ‘the captain’s lady’s not a woman a man would want to anger. I’ve seen what she can do with that sword of hers.’
That very thought was now playing on Hal’s mind and having run out of other cards to play he decided to deploy his last remaining trump. ‘Think about Lady Judith,’ he said, knowing that Mossie’s devotion to her was as great as hers to him. ‘If you fell from the mast, high up there …’ Hal pointed up to the very top of the mainmast, just to underline his point, ‘and fell all the way down here – crash! – against the deck, you would be dead and she would be very unhappy. And you don’t want to make Lady Judith unhappy, do you, boy?’
Mossie gave the matter due consideration and then his face split into a huge grin as he hit upon the perfect retort. ‘But I will not fall, Captain Courtney, sir! In my village I was the one they sent to climb the cliffs for gull eggs. I could climb to the moon if you gave me a long rope.’
This made Hal laugh. ‘Aboli,’ he called down to the main deck where the African was assessing the Amadodas’ work on the oakum, the tribesmen painstakingly unravelling old tarry ropes into fibre. ‘Do you think I should let the boy climb to the mast top?’
‘He’d better be right about not falling,’ Ned Tyler said. ‘I’m not having him making a mess on my nice clean deck.’
‘We all had to make our first climb, Captain,’ a young topmastman called out as if he were one of the old hands, though he was not a day over eighteen.
Aboli grinned and lifted his big arms up and down. ‘The boy is a sparrow, Gundwane!’ he called. ‘If he falls he will flap his little wings. Besides, you were his age, maybe even younger, when you first climbed the mainmast. Though if I recall, your father was below in his cabin, asleep at the time.’
Hal smiled at the memory. He remembered Aboli hissing at him, ‘Don’t look down, Gundwane. Resist the urge to look down.’ Hal’s legs had trembled and his heart had pounded in his chest but he had reached the main top and sat up there feeling like a king as he had swung like a pendulum with the ship’s pitch and roll.
‘That mast was not as tall as this one, Aboli,’ Hal said.
‘No it was not,’ Aboli admitted, then gestured at Mossie. ‘But if he falls I will catch him, just as I would have caught you.’
Hal looked down at Mossie, at those determined eyes, and he realized he respected the boy, admired the courage the lad still had in him after all he had been through, first at the hands of the slavers and then witnessing Judith’s abduction by the Buzzard.
‘And if by some chance I do not catch him, then we will clean up the mess before my lady discovers what is happening,’ Aboli said, putting on his most grim expression though his eyes were laughing. Not that Mossie was in the least put off.
‘Before my lady discovers what?’ a female voice asked, slicing as sharply as the blade of its owner’s sword through the hubbub of manly debate.
‘Oh, nothing, my darling,’ Hal said, making a painfully transparent attempt to deflect Judith’s curiosity. But any hope he might have had of getting away with it was dashed as Mossie piped up, ‘The captain said I could climb the mainmast …’
‘I said no such thing!’ Hal blustered.
‘And if I fall Mr Aboli is going to catch me.’
‘Is this true?’ said Judith, and eyes more experienced than Hal’s in the ways of women might have noticed that she was only just succeeding in suppressing a smile.
‘It is certainly true that this cheeky scamp was trying to persuade me to let him climb the mainmast, but it is absolutely not the case that I had said he could. You can rest assured of that.’
‘Cap’n’s right, m’lady,’ Ned Tyler intervened. ‘He wasn’t letting the boy climb the mast. Not likely!’
‘Really?’ asked Judith, and now it was her turn to adopt an air of complete innocence. ‘Why on earth not? I’m all for boys being given challenges. How will they grow up to be big, strong, brave men if they’re never allowed to test themselves?’
‘But I thought … I mean, you said …’ Hal searched in vain for the right words to express the outrageous injustice he had just suffered. Judith absolutely had made it clear that she didn’t want Mossie being put in harm’s way – and she knew it.
Judith, however, knew precisely when she’d pushed things far enough. So now she walked across to her man, took his arm, looked up at him adoringly, for all the crew to see, and then said, ‘I know you were doing what you thought I wanted, and I thank you for that. But this is your ship and it is for you, not me, to decide these things. If you feel Mossie is ready to climb the mast, then I will not object.’
‘Please, Captain! Please-please-please!’ Mossie piped up.
Hal knew when he was beaten, and in truth, he knew that both Aboli and Judith were right. He had done this sort of thing when he was a lad and it had indeed helped prepare him to be a man. So he got right down to business. ‘Very well, then, Mossie-my-lad, listen carefully. Once you start the climb, do not look down until you are safe at the top.’
‘No, sir,’ said Mossie. The grin on his face was as bright as the afternoon sun and his little feet danced a jig on the spot. ‘When I am up there wit
h the gulls I will tell them who I am. I will tell them who you are too, Captain sir.’
‘I’ll tell them myself, boy,’ Hal said, ‘because I’m coming up there with you.’
‘What?’ Judith gasped, having been caught completely unawares.
‘I’m sure I don’t have to tell you the first rule of good leadership, my dear general. Never ask any man – or small boy – to do something you would not do yourself.’
There were plenty of grins and a few stifled chuckles among the crewmen. That was their Hal Courtney, all right.
‘Damn, but he reminds me of his dad sometimes,’ Ned Tyler said to Big Daniel as they stood together, looking on.
‘Aye, bet old Franky’s looking down on this and loving it,’ the massive boatswain replied.
Hal took off his shirt so that he stood there bare-chested and bare-footed, looking like any other sailor on the Bough, his torso, like theirs, sinewy with hard-earned muscle and scarred from many fights. There were other scars too and as Mossie saw them now his eyes grew large and his mouth fell open though he said nothing.
‘I too have lived like a slave, Mossie,’ Hal told the boy, knowing how terrifying were the whip-marks which latticed his back and flanks.
‘You must have been very disobedient, milord,’ Mossie said with a grin.
Hal laughed. ‘Yes … even more than you, lad.’ His hair had grown long and he pulled the leather thong from it and re-tied it so that the thick dark pigtail fell between his shoulder blades. ‘Shall we?’ he said, gesturing towards the mainmast the way he might invite a lady to go for a stroll at sunset.
‘Let’s see if the captain still has the legs for it!’ one of the men shouted.
‘Aye, I’ll wager a shilling that the boy beats him to the top.’
‘Ha! You haven’t got a bleeding shilling, Evans,’ Will Stanley said.
‘Nah! Young Courtney was born in the shrouds. He’ll be up there like the king’s hand up Nellie Gwyn’s skirts,’ another man called.