Clinton Codrington leaned forward towards him and spoke quickly, persuasively, using the finely shaped hands to emphasize each point. The Admiral found this much energy and enthusiasm wearying. He preferred men with less mercurial temperament, who could be relied on to carry out orders to the letter without introducing startling improvisations.
Officers with a reputation for brilliance he viewed with deep suspicion. He had never had that reputation as a young man, in fact his nickname had been 'SloggerKemp, and he believed that the word brilliance was a pseudonym for instability.
The nature of duty on this station made it necessary for young men like Codrington to be detached for months at a time on independent service, instead of being kept with the battle fleet under the strict eye of a senior officer, ready with a signal of rebuke to check any hotheadedness.
Kemp had an uneasy conviction that he was going to be seriously embarrassed by this particular officer before his appointment of Commander to the Cape Squadron terminated, and allowed him to collect his knighthood and retire to the peace and beloved seclusion of his Surrey home. That his future plans had not already been prejudiced by young Codrington was only a matter of the utmost good fortune, and Kemp had difficulty keeping his expression neutral when he remembered the Calabash affair.
Codrington had run down on the slave barracoons at Calabash on a clear June morning so that the five Argentinian slave ships had spotted his topsails while he was thirty miles out, and had immediately begun frantically re-landing their cargoes of slaves on the beach.
By the time Black joke reached them, the five captains were grinning smugly, their holds empty, and nearly two thousand miserable slaves in clear view squatting in long lines on the shore. To add to the slavers' complacency they were a good twenty nautical miles south of the equator, and therefore at that time beyond the jurisdiction of the Royal Navy. The barracoons had been sited at Calabash to take full advantage of this provision in the international agreements.
The slavers' complacency turned to indignation when the Black joke ran out her guns, and under their menace sent boats with- armed seamen on board them. .
The Spanish masters, under their Argentinian flags of convenience, protested vigorously and volubly the presence of armed boarding parties. We are not a boarding party, Codrington explained reasonably to the senior captain. 'We are armed advisors, and our advice is that you begin taking aboard your cargo again, and swiftly.'
The Spaniard continued his protests until the crack of a gun from the Black fake drew his attention to the five nooses already dangling from the gunboat's yardarm. The Spaniard was certain that the nooses could not be put to the use for which they were very obviously intended then he looked once more into the chilled sapphire eyes of the very young silver-haired English officer and decided not to make any bets on it.
Once the slaves were re-embarked the Englishman, their self-appointed armed advisor, gave them his next piece of unsolicited advice. That was that the slave fleet up-anchor and set a course which five hours later intercepted the equatorial line.
Here Captain Codrington made a very precise observation of the sun's altitude, consulted his almanac and invited the Spanish captain to check his workings and confirm his finding that they were now in o'aS' North latitude. Then the Englishman immediately arrested him and seized the five vessels; the armed advisors changing their status, without visible pain or discomfort, to that of prize crews.
When Codrington sailed his five prizes into Table Bay, Admiral Kemp listened aghast to the Spaniard's account of his capture, and then immediately retired to his bed with bowel spasms and migraine headache. From his darkened bedroom he dictated first the order confining Codrington to his ship and the ship to its anchorage, and then his horrified report to the First Lord of the Admiralty.
This episode, which might so easily have ended with Codrington court-martialled and beached for life and with the abrupt termination of Admiral Kemp's dogged advance towards his knighthood and retirement, had in fact brought both men riches and advancement.
The sloop carrying Kemp's despatch to the First Lord passed another southbound in mid-ocean, which in its turn bore despatches for the Admiral Commanding the Cape Squadron from not only the First Lord but the Foreign Secretary as well.
Kemp was requested and required in the future to apply the 'equipment clause' to the ships of all Christian nations, with the glaring exception of the United States of America, in all latitudes, both north and south of the equatorial line.
The despatches were dated four days previous to Codrington's raid upon the Calabash barracoons, making his actions not only legal but highly meritorious.
From the very brink of professional disaster, Admiral Kemp had been snatched back, with his knighthood assured and a large sum of prize money paid into his account at Messrs Coutts of the Strand. The five Spaniards were condemned at the next session of the Court of Mixed Commission at Cape Town. Kemp's own share of the prize money had amounted to several thousand pounds, that of his junior captain to nearly twice that amount, and both officers had received personal letters of commendation from the First Lord.
None of this had done anything to increase Kemp's trust or liking for his junior, and now he listened with mounting horror to the suggestion that he sanction the boarding and search of the American trading clipper, which was at present enjoying the hospitality of the port.
For some sickening moments Kemp contemplated his place in history as the officer who had precipitated the second war with the former American colonies. There was nothing equivocal about the view of the American Government as to the sanctity of their shipping, and there were specific sections of Kemp's Admiralty orders covering the subject. Admiral Kemp, Codrington was clearly burning with enthusiasm for the enterprise, 'it is absolutely beyond question that the Huron is a slaver, and is equipped for the trade in terms of the act. She is no longer upon the high seas, but lying at anchor within British territorial waters. I can be aboard her within two hours, with impartial witnesses, a Supreme Court judge even.'
Kemp cleared his throat noisily. He had in fact tried to speak, but so appalled was he that the words had not reached his lips. Codrington seemed to take the sound as encouragement. This man, St. John, is one of the most infamous slavers of modern times. His name is a legend on the coast.
They say he carried over 3,000 slaves one year across the middle passage. It's a golden opportunity for us Kemp found his voice at last. 'I dined at Government House on Wednesday. Mr. St. John was in the company as his Excellency's personal guest. I considered Mr. St. John to be a gentleman, and I know he is a man of considerable substance and influence in his own country, he said flatly, no trace of emotion in his voice. His selfcontrol surprised even himself. He is a slaver. ' Robyn Ballantyne spoke for the first time since she had seated herself at the window of the Admiral's study. The two men had forgotten her existence, but now they both turned to her. I have been
