'He wants to talk, sir. To tell you…' He glanced at the hatchway. 'Anything but that!'
Adam looked across to Unrivalled, so bright, so clean in the sunlight.
He said, 'It soils all of us. Not only the guilty!'
The master's mate strode away, and Jago said, 'Would you have done it, sir?'
Adam swung around sharply, and felt the claws slackening, releasing him.
'I hope I never know.' And punched his arm. 'Luke.'
Galbraith ducked beneath a deckhead beam and stood by the small desk. On the opposite side of the great cabin Yovell was seated at his table, absorbed in the notes he was copying unhurriedly in his round hand. No wonder they called them quill-pushers in the navy, he thought, Yovell was utterly engrossed, as if completely alone. As if this had been an ordinary day.
And the captain. Hard to believe he was the same man Galbraith had watched through a telescope climbing aboard the anchored Alhatroz, unaccompanied and vulnerable. He was still scarcely able to accept what had happened.
As if to mock him, he heard eight bells ring out from the forecastle. Noon: six hours, if that, since they had seen Paradox strike bottom, and her masts and sails fold over her on the water like a dying seabird.
Work had not stopped since. Boats plying back and forth, slaves being released on Albatroz's deck, carefully guarded and separated from the vessel's crew, some of whom were in irons. Varlo was obeying orders. Take no chances. With anyone.
The brig Seven Sisters had been busy, too, securing the other slaver, Intrepido, and kedging her into deeper water. Other boats had been ferrying guns and stores from Paradox, anything which might be used against her original owners. Paradox could not be moved, and in these currents and this climate it was doubtful if she would last much longer.
Commodore Turnbull had survived, completely unhurt. Before he had come below Galbraith had seen one last boat lying alongside the dejected topsail schooner, by then a mastless wreck. They would set her ablaze, a suitable pyre for all those who had died for one man's folly. Hastilow had been killed, among others. The wounded were shared between Unrivalled and Seven Sisters. Some would not last until Freetown.
He looked at the captain now, shirtless, his dark hair clinging to his neck and forehead. Galbraith had heard that he had stripped naked and had ordered some seamen to use a washdeck pump to drench him from head to foot. Salt water maybe, but it seemed to help. To cleanse away something foul, and not only from his body.
Adam raised his eyes from the log book on his deck. They were clear, the aftermath of what he had done fallen into place, recognised if not accepted.
They had clasped hands when he had returned aboard. Even his voice had sounded different. Hard, as if he were expecting a confrontation.
'Fast as you can, Leigh! Tell the carpenter, and have Mr Partridge send a crew across. I want us out of here today.'
Shortly afterwards another brig, Kittiwake, had arrived. She had not managed to catch the third slaver; she had not even been a spectator.
She had sailed past them, heading for open water, many of her company clinging to the shrouds to cheer and wave. They were going to Freetown.
It had been then that they had seen the commodore's broadpendant streaming from the brig's masthead, and through the glass Galbraith had glimpsed Turnbull himself, aft with one of the lieutenants. He had raised his hat to Unrivalled, and he had been smiling.
Galbraith had turned to comment but had heard Adam Bolitho say, 'I'll see you damned for this.'
They had not been alone together again, until now.
Adam said, 'How goes it, Leigh? I can see from here that the jury-rig is raised and working. And the surgeon tells me that the wounded are settled in. Are we ready?'
'One hour, sir. The wind is holding and steady. I've told Rist to remain with the prize. He's doing well.'
Adam leaned back in the chair and tasted the coffee which Napier had made for him. That had been almost the worst part of his return on board. He had been only just holding on. Facing them, the captain again. And then here in the cabin, his sanctuary, Napier had taken his hand in both of his and had stammered, 'I thought… I thought…' It was all he had been able to say. Even Yovell, who rarely revealed emotion, as if it was something too private to share, had said, 'What you did was pure courage.' lie had paused, perhaps to measure how much more Adam could take. 'But if another had done as much, you would have been the first to call him foolhardy and reckless.'
Adam said, 'You all are, Leigh.' Ile put the cup aside; the coffee had been laced with rum.
'We will remain in company with Seven Sisters and the two prizes. We can't he certain of anything yet. The other slaver had six hundred on hoard. In a brig, how can they expect them to stay alive?'
Galbraith said, 'I have put Cousens in irons, sir. I would not trust him an inch.'
Adam opened a drawer and took out the bundle of notes Tyacke had given him.
He said, 'The ship everyone knows about but no one has seen is named Osiris.' fie shut the pitiful gibbering from his mind. Maybe he should have had Cousens thrown into that hold. He looked at the paper with the vessel's name scrawled on it. Cousens had hardly been able to grasp the pen.
Galbraith repeated it. 'Osiris. Strange name, sir.'
Yovell's pen paused in mid-air, and he murmured, 'Judge of the dead.'
Adam smiled. Like a severe schoolmaster with a slightly backward pupil.
Ile said, 'Rist discovered a few pieces of the puzzle, I did not ask how. Osiris is, or was, an American vessel, built around 1812 for use as a privateer.'
Galbraith nodded. 'Against us.' He saw the captain's hand move unconsciously to his side, to the ugly, livid scar he had seen only once.
'Yes. She's big and fast, and well armed. As the war against the trade becomes fiercer and more dangerous, so the prices will rise, and the rewards will be all the greater for those successful or aggressive enough to fight it.' He realized that his hand had moved to the wound. The mere reminder of it. Anemone's last fight against the American frigate Unity. When he had been cut down by a metal splinter, as big as your thumb, someone had told him at the time. It had never left him. The colours cut down in surrender, when he had been unable to prevent it. Afterwards, as a prisoner of war, he had escaped, only to face a court martial for the loss of Anemone. He saw the crippled sailor again in his mind. The finest in the fleet.
He glanced around the cabin. Until you, my lass.
He looked towards the stern windows, but Unrivalled had swung again to her cable. There was only the land. Albatroz and the wrecked schooner were temporarily hidden from view.
'Feed the hands by sections, two parties to each watch. A double tot of rum too, no matter what wringing of hands you get from Mr Tregellis.'
He touched the wound again, without thinking.
'We'll man the capstans this afternoon. Make it seven bellsthe light will be good for hours, God and Mr Cristie permitting!'
They both laughed. Yovell did not raise his head but gave a quiet sigh of approval. Like sand running from a glass, the strain was going. This time…
Then he heard Adam say, 'But I'll find this Osiris, somehow, some day. Cousens and his breed are dangerous, but without the power behind them they are little fish.' He banged his hand on the scrap of paper. 'The pike in the reeds, he's the one we want!'
His mood changed just as swiftly. 'But the Crown Agent must decide. And our commodore will see him before any of us.'
The explosion was like something thudding against Unrivalled's lower bilges, only a sensation. But a ship was dying.
Adam walked to the quarter window and shaded his eyes to watch the column of black smoke rising above the middle channel, torn by the hot wind like some ragged garment, or shroud.
No ship should die like that. He thought of Hastilow, and the action which had cost him so dearly.
What price revenge now?
Foolhardy and reckless.
Like a court martial, the sword could point in either direction at the end.
