his glory.'
'What are we going to do with him then?'
'Sell him to the purser of the VOC ship.'
'Such a wonderful creature. Sell him like a sack of potatoes? That seems like sacrilege,' Mansur protested.
'I give you of the beasts of the earth and the fish of the sea. Kill! Eat!' Jim quoted. 'Genesis. God's very words. How could it be sacrilege?'
'Your God, not mine,' Mansur contradicted him.
'He's the same God, yours and mine. We just call him different names.'
'He is my God also.' Zama was not to be left out. 'Kulu Kulu, the Greatest of the Great Ones.'
Jim wrapped a strip of cloth round his injured hand. 'In the name of Kulu Kulu then. This steenbras is the means to get aboard the Dutch ship. I am going to use it as a letter of introduction to the purser. It's not just one fish I'm going to sell him, it's all the produce from High Weald.'
With the north-westerly breeze blowing ten knots behind them they could hoist the single sail, which carried them swiftly into the bay. There were eight ships lying at anchor under the guns of the castle. Most had been there for weeks and were already well provisioned.
Jim pointed out the latest arrival. 'They will not have set foot on land for months. They will be famished for fresh food. They are probably riddled with scurvy already.' Jim put the tiller over and wove through the anchored shipping. 'After what they almost did to us, they owe us a nice bit of profit.' All the Courtneys were traders to the core of their being and for even the youngest of them the word 'profit' held almost religious significance. Jim headed for the Dutch ship. It was a tall three decker, twenty guns a side, square-rigged, three masts, big and beamy, obviously an armed trader. She flew the VOC pennant and the flag of the Dutch Republic. As they closed with her Jim could see the storm damage to hull and rigging. Clearly she had endured a rough passage. Closer still, Jim could make out the ship's name on her stern in faded
gilt lettering: Het Gelukkige Meeuw, the Lucky Seagull He grinned at how inappropriately the shabby old lady had been named. Then his green eyes narrowed with surprise and interest.
'Women, by God!' He pointed ahead. 'Hundreds of them.' Both Mansur and Zama scrambled to their feet, clung to the mast and peered ahead, shading their eyes against the sun.
'You're right!' Mansur exclaimed. Apart from the wives of the burghers, their stolid, heavily chaperoned daughters and the trollops of the waterfront taverns, women were rare at the Cape of Good Hope.
'Look at them,' Jim breathed with awe. 'Just look at those beauties.' Forward of the mainmast the deck was crowded with female shapes.
'How do you know they're beautiful?' Mansur demanded. 'We're too far away to tell. They're probably ugly old crones.'
'No, God could not be so cruel to us.' Jim laughed excitedly. 'Every one of them is an angel from heaven. I just know it!'
There was a small group of officers on the quarter-deck, and knots of seamen were already at work repairing the damaged rigging and painting the hull. But the three youths in the skiff had eyes only for the female shapes on the foredeck. Once again they caught a whiff of the stench that hung over the ship, and Jim exclaimed with horror: 'They're in leg irons.' He had the sharpest eyesight of the three and had seen that the ranks of women were shuffling along the deck in single file, with the hampered gait of the chained captive.
'Convicts!' Mansur agreed. 'Your angels from heaven are female convicts. Uglier than sin.'
They were close enough now to make out the features of some of the bedraggled creatures, the grey, greasy hair, the toothless mouths, the wrinkled pallor of ancient skin, the sunken eyes and, on most of the miserable faces, the ugly blotches and bruises of scurvy. They stared down on the approaching boat with dull, hopeless eyes, showing no interest, no emotion of any kind.
Even Jim's lascivious instincts were cooled. These were no longer human beings, but beaten, abused animals. Their coarse canvas shifts were ragged and soiled. Obviously they had worn them ever since leaving Amsterdam, without water to wash their bodies, let alone their clothing. There were guards armed with muskets stationed in the mainmast bitts and the forecastle overlooking the deck. As the skiff came within hail a petty officer in a blue pea-jacket hurried to the ship's side and raised a speaking trumpet to his lips. 'Stand clear,' he shouted in Dutch. This is a prison ship. Stand off or we will fire into you.'
'He means it, Jim,' Mansur said. 'Let's get away from her.'
Jim ignored the suggestion and held up one of the fish. Vars vis!
Fresh fish,' he yelled back. 'Straight out of the sea. Caught an hour ago.' The man at the rail hesitated, and Jim sensed his opportunity. 'Look at this one.' He pointed at the huge carcass that filled most of the skiff. 'Steenbras! Finest eating fish in the seal There's enough here to feed every man on board for a week.'
'Wait!' the man yelled back, and hurried across the deck to the group of officers. There was a brief discussion, then he came back to the rail. 'Good, then. Come! But keep clear of our bows. Hook on to the stern chains.'
Mansur dropped the tiny sail and they rowed under the side of the ship. Three seamen stood at the rail, aiming their muskets down into the skiff.
'Don't try anything clever,' the petty officer warned them, 'unless you want a ball in your belly.'
Jim grinned up at him ingratiatingly and showed his empty hands. 'We mean no harm, Mijnheer. We are honest fishermen.' He was still fascinated by the lines of chained women, and stared up at them with revulsion and pity as they shuffled in a sorry line along the near rail. Then he switched his attention to bringing the skiff alongside. He did this with a sea manlike flourish, and Zama tossed the painter up to a seaman who was waiting in the chains above them.
The ship's purser, a plump bald man, stuck his head over the side and peered down into the skiff to inspect the wares on offer. He looked impressed by the size of the giant steenbras carcass. 'I'm not going to shout. Come up here where we can talk,' the purser invited Jim, and ordered a seaman to drop a rope-ladder over the side. This was the invitation Jim had been angling for. He shinned up and over the high tumble-home of the ship's side like an acrobat, and landed on the deck beside the purser with a slap of his bare feet.
'How much for the big one?' The purser's question was ambiguous, and he ran a pederast's calculating glance over Jim's body. A fine bit of beef, he thought, as he studied the muscled chest and arms, and the long, shapely legs, smooth and tanned by the sun.
'Fifteen silver guilders for the entire load of our fish.' Jim placed emphasis on the last word. The purser's interest in him was obvious.
'Are you an escaped lunatic?' the purser retorted. 'You, your fish and your dirty little boat together are not worth half that much.'
'The boat and I are not for sale,' Jim assured him, with relish. When he was bargaining he was in his element. His father had trained him well. He had no compunction in taking advantage of the purser's sexual predilections to push him for the best price. They settled on eight guilders for the full load.
'I want to keep the smallest fish for my family's dinner.' Jim said, and the purser chuckled. 'You drive a hard bargain, kerel' He spat on his rieht hand and proffered it. Jim spat on his own and they shook hands to seal the bargain.
The purser held on to Jim's hand for a little longer than was necessary. 'What else have you got for sale, young stallion?' He winked at Jim and ran his tongue round his fat, sun-cracked lips.
Jim did not answer him at once, but went to the rail to watch the crew of Het Gelukkige Meeuw lower a cargo net into the skiff. With difficulty Mansur and Zama slid the huge fish into it. Then it was hoisted up and swung on to the deck. Jim turned back to the purser. 'I can sell you a load of fresh vegetables potatoes, onions, pumpkins, fruit, anything you want at half the price they will charge you if you buy from the Company gardens,' Jim told him.
'You know full well that the VOC has the monopoly,' the purser demurred. 'I am forbidden to buy from private traders.'
'I can fix that with a few guilders in the right pocket.' Jim touched the side of his nose. Everyone knew how simple it was to placate the Company officials at Good Hope. Corruption was a way of life in the colonies.
'Very well, then. Bring me out a load of the best you have,' the purser agreed, and laid an avuncular hand on Jim's arm. 'But don't get caught at it. We don't want a pretty boy like you all cut up with the lash.' Jim evaded his touch without making it obvious. Never upset a customer. There was a sudden commotion on the foredeck and, grateful for the respite from these plump and sweaty attentions, Jim glanced over his shoulder.
The first group of women prisoners was being herded down below decks, and another line was coming up into the open air for their exercise. Jim stared at the girl at the head of this new file of prisoners. His breath came short and his pulse pounded in his ears. She was tall, but starved thin and pale. She wore a shift of threadbare canvas, with a hem so tattered that her knees showed through the holes. Her legs were thin and bony, the flesh melted off by starvation, and her arms were the same. Under the shapeless canvas her body seemed boyish, lacking the swells and round contours of a woman. But Jim was not looking at her body: he was gazing at her face.
Her head was small
