“I say you did, Float.” Halfhyde’s voice was harsh, overbearing, and the look in his eyes matched his tone. “Now I’ll tell you something else,” he went on, tongue in cheek. “The Captain of any of the Queen’s ships has full authority to carry out the death sentence summarily if he believes it to be in the best interest of the service. Did you know that, Float?”
Float’s eyes were wide, scared now. “No. I reckon that only applies to mutiny.”
“Then where I am concerned you reckon wrong. A word to the Master and I shall have you hoist to the fore royal yardarm with a slack rope about your neck and a long drop to follow. Think about that, Float. I give you ten minutes.”
Halfhyde turned and stalked from the cabin. Climbing to the Master’s deck, he found Captain Graves pacing up and down. Graves halted. “Well, Halfhyde?”
Halfhyde grinned. “A little softening-up, sir. I believe it will work.” He told Graves what he had said to Float. “He may or may not believe my terrible exaggerations of a Captain’s powers, but something tells me he believes that I personally am capable of anything—and he’ll shrink from taking the risk!”
Chapter 13
FLOAT, THE hands said, had got no more than he deserved. The feeling in the ship was lighter now; no one had liked a murderer aboard, a man destined only for the gallows. Better, as old Finney said, to let the sharks have him and put a quick end to it.
“They tears good,” he said to Althwaite. “All them teeth. Mate o’ yours, though…maybe I should ’old me tongue, eh.”
“No partic’ler mate,” Althwaite said. He was avoiding the taint: questions would be asked in Sydney about the disappearance of the steward and they might, just might, be directed towards any known friends of Float’s if any suspicions were cast towards the man presumed drowned. “We just come aboard together in the Pool, that’s all. Chance, like.”
Finney said nothing further, just got on with his dinner: cracker hash, a foul enough mess but it stayed the hunger pangs with its crushed ship’s biscuits, weevil-free with any luck, and its stewed bully beef. In the saloon, Bullock sat and ate the better fare of the afterguard along with the passenger and Miss McRafferty. Jesson kept eyeing the girl; he’d been at the bottle as usual, Bullock knew, maybe a little more than usual. Bullock hoped he would contain his nature and wait till he found an Abo woman on the coast. There wasn’t all that long to go now, and they didn’t want any trouble on the last stretch. But Jesson would know that too; there was far too much at stake. As the meal drew to an end, attended by the cook acting as a makeshift steward, Fiona McRafferty, self-effacing as ever, excused herself and went to her cabin.
Jesson gave a belch. “Pardon me. I held it in while the girl was here…always the gentleman. Right, Bullock?”
Bullock nodded.
Jesson fixed the cook with his eye. “You. Get out.”
“That,” the cook said, “is not the way a gentleman gives ’is orders. Not that you give orders to—”
Bullock interrupted. “All right, Slushy. I’ll give the orders instead. Back to the galley.” As the cook went out of the saloon looking murderous, Bullock looked at Jesson. “Careful,” he said. “Don’t let the booze take charge. You’re not in the clear yet, you know. It’s still all up to McRafferty.”
“Talking of McRafferty…have you told him where I want to be put ashore?”
“Yes.”
“He’s agreed?”
“Yes. He doesn’t like it. That’s why I’m urging caution. He could change his mind. Put a foot wrong and he will.”
“Meaning?”
Bullock said, “I saw the way you were looking at the girl—”
“That’s my business, Bullock.”
“Mine, too. I got you the passage…as you’ve reminded me more than once already. We’re in this together, anyway till you’re off the ship. And my advice is, lay off the girl.”
Jesson smiled nastily. “Thank you for your advice, Bullock, but I don’t need it. In fact, I bloody well object to it.” He lifted a bunched fist and brought it down on the table, hard. “From now on, keep your advice to yourself, do you understand?”
“It’s only in your own interest. You’re a rich man, once you’ve landed all that stuff.” Bullock jerked a hand in the direction of Jesson’s cabin. “All the women you want, they’ll be yours for the asking. Don’t throw it all away. That’s all I’m saying.”
Bullock got to his feet, picked up his peaked cap from the settee, and left the saloon. He went to his cabin for a couple of hours’ sleep before taking over the watch from McRafferty. He found sleep didn’t come easily; there was too much on his mind. All those diamonds…Float back there eastwards, disseminated into many sharks’ stomachs. He’d got clean away with that, no questions asked thanks to the parting stuns’l halliard. Then there was Halfhyde, who could now be presumed dead thanks to the clearing house in Iquique. No one could ever fix that on him, that was sure. Halfhyde and his perishing Queen’s ships…he would never come between him and his handout from Sergeant Cantlow, the handout that even McRafferty was in blissful ignorance of.
Sleep at last drifted down on Bullock’s eyelids, and they closed. He came awake again on the instant as a girl’s scream tore through the bulkhead of his cabin.
ABOARD THE Tacoma, which was gradually overhauling the windjammer but passing well north of the latter’s course, Float had suffered torment. He had taken his allowed ten minutes and then Halfhyde had come for him, together with four seamen, one of whom carried a length of rope over his shoulder. Halfhyde stood in the doorway, looking down at Float.
“Well?”
“Sod you,” Float said viciously. He stared at a blue-covered book in Halfhyde’s hand. “What’s that you got there, then?”
The book’s title could not be seen by Float: it was, in fact, the Admiralty Sailing Directions for the north-east coast
