Graves nodded. “I shall help you, never fear.” He added, “You’re not entirely unknown to me as it happens. I was last with the Fleet a year ago, serving aboard the Royal Sovereign, and your name was mentioned. You have something of a reputation, as I gathered.”
“Largely for being a nuisance to my seniors, which explains my presence on the half-pay list. But that’s in the past, sir. I’m more concerned now to rejoin my Captain in the Aysgarth Falls, and with avoiding Admiral von Merkatz and his confounded guns!”
Graves cocked an eye at him. “You believe he’ll follow. He hasn’t done so yet—but no doubt there’s time. He’ll be extricating his squadron from the effects of the earthquake, I imagine. Is he likely—surely he isn’t—to use his guns?”
“He’s very likely to in my opinion.”
“And cause an international incident?”
Halfhyde shrugged. “He’s a law unto himself, sir.”
“And doesn’t stop to think?”
“Exactly. His passions take charge.”
“That’s certainly the impression he gave me—outlined by the lightning, acting like a cat that’s inadvertently sat on a gas lamp.”
“It happens to admirals, sir. Sometimes I suspect they can’t help it. They are fawned upon too much by sycophants hoping one day to occupy their positions.”
“Possibly. But those guns. I’m not keen to put my ship and crew at the mercy of gunfire. I have my owners to consider, you know!”
“Yes, indeed,” Halfhyde agreed readily. “But a means must be found to inhibit the use of his guns, and I’ve no doubt a stratagem will present itself when needed.”
Captain Graves pulled at his pipe and blew a cloud of smoke. “A stratagem, eh?”
“I’m seldom short of them, sir. They have a habit of coming to me, though if you asked me at this moment to outline a plan, I would have to confess I’ve not a thought in my head.” Halfhyde had other matters on his mind as the Tacoma proceeded south-westerly, making little more than ten knots. He was something like four days behind the Aysgarth Falls already, to say nothing of his having taken his departure more than a hundred miles north of Iquique. But the vessel should not be hard to overtake if he was on the right track. Graves was fairly hopeful that he could pick up McRafferty’s ship; he doubted if the Aysgarth Falls was likely to keep up a ten-knot average speed and, as a sailing ship man himself until recently, and one well versed in the trade between Chile and Australia, he knew the sailing-ship routes like the back of his hand. McRafferty, he said, would pick up the south-east trades fairly quickly and would tack down towards the westerlies in the High South Latitudes and then ultimately the Roaring Forties for Sydney. It would be a slow passage for a sailing ship buffeting into head winds for most of the way, and steam would have the advantage.
“And this passenger,” he said. “This Sergeant Cantlow.”
“Yes, sir?”
“I don’t like deserters, renegades. And diamond smuggling’s usually a dirty business. I don’t know anything about Cantlow, but most diamond smugglers have committed murder somewhere along the way, and my assumption would be that this one has a rope waiting for him somewhere. McRafferty was a fool to take him aboard—but then I know the financial pressures on the old windjammers. It’s a way of life going before our eyes, Halfhyde, and the ending of a race of men.”
Soon after this, Halfhyde excused himself from the Captain’s cabin and went out on deck. Although the ship’s masts were crossed with their yards, there was no canvas aloft; Graves was using his engines, and there was a rhythmic thump from below and a belch of dirty black smoke from the funnel, visible as a blacker smudge against the night’s heavy darkness. The wind of the ship’s passage blew this smoke aft along the deck, and down around the men on watch. Halfhyde was used to steam in the Queen’s ships but had never grown to like the choking, gritty result of burning Welsh coal. He moved out onto the port side paddle box, looked down at the churn of water as the great wheel smacked its blades into it. A spray rose around him; he stared aft towards the Chilean coast, now vanished from sight in the darkness and the filthy weather. There was not a sign of a light. Neither was there any sign of a pursuit by the German squadron. The Tacoma was labouring badly, rolling heavily, and every now and again one or other of the paddle-wheels lifted clear to the roll, and the blades raced. Bad for the engine; and Halfhyde wondered Graves didn’t save his engine and his coal while there was plenty of wind and send his canvas aloft instead. Even as he thought this he saw the Captain come out of his cabin and climb the ladder to the bridge and a moment later the Chief Officer was passing the word for the watch below to turn out.
“All hands…all hands on deck…make sail!”
BY NOW the Aysgarth Falls had passed through the fringe of the storm. The wind had gone, leaving light airs behind, changeable breezes that had to be snatched at by expert handling of the braces. Jesson stood by the mizzen shrouds on the port side of the poop, his big head sunk in his chest, looking down at the work along the decks in the aftermath of the bad weather. Bullock was chasing the hands without mercy; the First Mate had the notion that the cargo had shifted in the fore hold and he was down in the tween-deck investigating. When the hold had been checked Bullock came aft to the poop for a word with McRafferty; and reported that the forepeak had flooded.
“It’s been pumped out now but it can flood again. There’s the question of Float.” During the night the prisoner had been released from
