In the King`s Name

and when the leadsman called from the forecastle it seemed an intrusion.

“An’ deep ten!”

They were through, undetected, and ahead was the sheltered inlet. It needed skill and strong nerves, but there always had to be a “first time.” Adam raised the telescope again and saw the nearest beach leap into focus in the lens, some ragged undergrowth almost to the water’s edge in places, elsewhere pebbles, washed white by sun and salt. His grip tightened. Two canoes pulled well clear of the water. Furrows in the sand where they had been dragged ashore. Recently.

“Seen them afore, Cap’n.” It was Jago, powerful arms crossed, but fingers still close to the cutlass.

The canoes were typical of those used to ferry wretched captives from stream or beach to the ship destined to carry them into slavery. Adam could never understand how so many survived. Slavers were known to sail from this coastline to destinations as far away as Cuba and Brazil. It was inhuman beyond belief.

Pecco said suddenly, “Another two miles. Maybe less.” He spread his hands. “There may be nothing to discover.”

Jago murmured, “Then pray, you bastard!”

Squire strode aft. “I have two good lookouts aloft, and both boats ready for lowering. There’s not much else-”

Adam’s expression silenced him. “If I should fall …” he said.

Squire said only, “Then I’ll be lying there beside you.”

They both looked in the direction of the forecastle as the leadsman completed another sounding.

“By the mark-” It was as far as he got.

The explosion was more like an echo than gunfire, and for a few seconds Adam was reminded of the early fog-warnings, the maroons he used to hear as a child in Cornwall. Local fishermen always claimed they did more harm than good.

Squire exclaimed, “So much for trust!” and was reaching for his pistol even as Adam stepped between him and Pecco, who was cupping his hands around his eyes and shaking his head in protest.

“No, no! Not us, Captain! Lookouts in the hills!” He gestured wildly. “If a trap was intended they would have been waiting in the channel!” Now his eyes were fixed on the barrel of Squire’s pistol. “I tell the truth!”

Adam said slowly, “Another ship. My guess is she’s Captain Tyacke’s brigantine.” A few more seconds while he groped for the name. “The Peterel.”

Squire uncocked his pistol and thrust it into his belt. He said, not looking at Pecco, “Your lucky day!”

Pecco said, “I have done all I can!” He pushed past two seamen and vomited in the scuppers.

Adam swallowed and looked away, forcing himself to concentrate on the strip of headland, which was tilting toward a widening expanse of water beyond the jib. “Warn all hands below.”

Jago said, “Done, Cap’n.” Aside to the gunner’s mate, he added softly, “Now or never, eh, Ted?”

After the slow and torturous passage past-and sometimes among-the offshore islets, their arrival was startling in its suddenness. From Delfim’s deck the anchorage was a lagoon as large as an enclosed lake, but from the yards and upper shrouds the keen-eyed lookouts could see the final outcroppings of land, and beyond, like a blue-grey barrier, the great ocean.

Once lying here, a ship would be invisible to any passing patrol or casual trader. In the strengthening sunlight the water seemed calm and unmoving, but the sails were taut and straining, and the tattered Portuguese flag was streaming.

Adam moved a few paces away from the wheel and trained his telescope across and ahead of their course. Individual faces stood out, gazing at the islets or beyond at the green mass of the mainland. One frowning in concentration or apprehension, another with lips pursed in a silent whistle. Men he had grown to know and understand. Who trusted him, because they had no choice.

And the doubts, which always remained in close company, the ambush when you least expected it. Like his own if I should fall. Who else would these men look to?

He thought again of his uncle, Sir Richard Bolitho, his last words on that fateful day. We always knew. His coxswain, John Allday, had heard him, and James Tyacke had written it in the flagship’s log immediately after the action. We always knew.

He wiped his smarting eye with the back of his hand and focused again, and for a moment imagined his mind was too strained to concentrate. A ship was almost broadside-on, filling and overlapping the field of view, stark against a backdrop of trees and a narrow strip of beach.

He held his breath and steadied the glass. He was not mistaken. Some of the trees merged with the ship: loose branches which were lashed to her yards and shrouds. A simple camouflage, but enough to confuse even the most experienced lookout aboard a passing man-of-war, or the brigantine Peterel, which Tyacke had sent to offer support if required.

He held out the telescope to Squire.

“We were right.”

He heard him adjusting the glass but held the image in his mind: the crude but effective disguise, some fronds and loose fragments in the water alongside drifting slowly clear, or already snared by her anchor cable.

She was preparing to get under way. To escape.

She was a big schooner, three-masted, unusual in these waters, and she looked almost cumbersome in this confined anchorage. But once out on the ocean and under full sail, she would soon show her paces.

Adam peered at the compass and saw Tozer give him an assertive nod. Very calm. Julyan would be proud of him.

Squire said, “She’s moored from aft, too. Not enough room to swing!”

Adam took the telescope, still warm from Squire’s grip. No more time. The big schooner’s stem and foremast loomed into view. There were men hurrying about her deck, and the anchor cable was already bar-taut, and possibly moving. Someone running across the forecastle slithered to a halt, peering toward Delfim, which would be fully visible by now. A flash of light, and another: telescopes being trained, but little else.

Tozer muttered, “They know this ship, right enough.”

Adam turned as a seaman shouted, “What th’ hell! Stop him!”

Pecco ignored the muskets as he ran to the side and yelled, “No! Stop, Luis!” and something in Portuguese.

One of Delfim’s crew had broken free and was waving his arms and shouting, until a sailor leaped from behind the capstan, belaying pin swinging like a club, and brought him down.

Pecco stood looking at the man sprawling by his feet. “You were wrong!”

Adam trained his telescope on the other schooner once more. There were men already aloft on the yards and others manning the braces, as if nothing untoward had happened. But the main deck was not cleared for sea. Even as he watched he saw naked bodies, Africans, scrambling up from holds and hatchways, some driven by whips and blows, others clinging to one another with terror.

Squire exclaimed, “Slaves! The bastard! What better cover?” Then, “Their anchor’s hove short, sir!” He glanced bitterly at the compass. “Those scum know we can’t open fire with all those poor devils as targets!”

Adam looked at the sails, and the vessel anchored across the gleam of open water beyond the last islet. And once able to make full sail …

He said, “Clear lower deck!” and saw Jago watching him. Waiting, as if he knew. “Run up the Colours!”

He moved closer to the wheel even as a call shrilled from below Delfim’s deck, as if she were indeed a King’s ship.

“She’s up-anchored, sir!”

Adam had already seen the big schooner’s topsails come alive, a long masthead pendant reaching out like a lance.

There was a bang, and the deck quivered under his feet.

“Do we fight ‘em, sir?”

Adam glanced at Pecco. “Stand by! We’re going to board them, right now!”

More shots, and he saw that the slaver’s topmen had been joined by others with muskets. He felt a few of the balls hitting the deck, jagged splinters lifting like quills as seamen and marines ducked for cover.

He knew the gunner’s mate was crouching by the forward carronade, never taking his eyes from him, even as