On a Lee Shore (23 page)

“Hear, hear,” O Neill said, returning from the heads. “That’s the life. But our Kit is right. Garnet’s arse is as foul as I ever saw, and I have doubts about her planking.”

Griffin nodded. “She will serve for the moment at least.” he said. “Kit, the course change we discussed will have to wait. This wind is too high to risk the Garnet on a lee shore. Take in some sail to let her come up with us. I need to talk to Jago.”

“Aye, sir,” Kit said and ignored O’Neill’s snicker as he hurried to try to find someone to help. Less than half of the pirates could be described as seamen, being more suited to sneak theft or brutality. Of those that were not lubberly, some were asleep, some were already busy, and a few were more scared of Wigram than Griffin.

Kit cast about, recruited Maxwell, and hesitated to ask Lewis and Protheroe, who were seated arm in arm in the shadow of the sail, but smiled as they got up and came to help anyway.

“What are you about there?” Wigram bellowed from the spot in the bow where he liked to hold court over the almost perpetual dice game.

“There she blows,” Lewis said with a chuckle, his massive shoulder alongside Kit’s making him feel frail in comparison. Wigram was picking his way aft, his face purple with rage. Kit gave a grunt of annoyance and left Lewis to tie off the sheet.

Wigram saw him coming and his voice rose, cursing Protheroe and Maxwell, who were reefing the sail as instructed, and demanding to know who had been stupid enough to tell them to interfere with the set of the sails Wigram had ordered no more than a couple of hours ago.

“Captain’s orders,” Kit snapped at Wigram as soon as he was close enough to be sure he would hear. “And we both know what happens to people who go against those.”

As soon as he said it he realized that he would have done better to hold his peace. Wigram had been glaring before, but now his eyes narrowed and his hand went to his belt knife. Kit was unarmed, but there was no backing down. Besides, he was sick of Wigram’s bullying ways.

“Now, now, boys,” Protheroe murmured. “Don’t let’s be hasty.”

“Don’t spoil their sport,” Muddiford said, ranging himself at Wigram’s side. “Penrose can borrow my knife if he has none of his own.”

“Or maybe it would be better to be formal about it,” Longland suggested with a grin. “A proper duel. I think Penrose has given enough offense to be formally challenged.”

There was a murmur of agreement. Hussey called for pistols, and Wigram grinned at Kit.

Kit cursed under his breath. “I don’t have time for this. However,” he smiled back at Wigram, “if you are challenging me—formally—I accept. Said duel to take place according to the code and in due course.”

“In due course,” Wigram sneered. “And when will that be?”

“When such nonsense will not interfere with our current endeavors,” Kit said. “For the moment, Captain Griffin wishes to confer with Captain Stockley, so perhaps we can both get about our duties?”

“Current endeavor?” Protheroe asked. “You know where we’re going?”

Even Wigram’s cronies looked interested, so Kit just smiled and turned his shoulder to Wigram. “The sooner we’re there, the sooner we’ll all know.”

But both captains were giving little away. This time Griffin took his boat across to the Garnet, leaving Kit on the Africa’s quarterdeck.

“And since you don’t seem to have the least sense of discretion,” he said, giving Kit a hard stare. “Wigram will come with me to command the boat crew. Please, Kit, try not to annoy anyone else in my absence.”

“It’s not as though I tried,” Kit said to Saunders who joined him to watch Griffin climbing up to Garnet’s deck.

“You have a knack for it,” Saunders agreed. “However, you might win me over with a game of piquet. Can you play while you sail the Africa?”

“Probably not very well,” Kit admitted.

“Good, good,” Saunders said taking the deck from his pocket. “In that case it’s worth a bet to make it interesting.”

The hands weren’t happy when the two ships headed due west.

“No chance of prizes, and we’re taking a heading for some filthy shores,” Davy told Kit. “Or so I’ve been told. Protheroe tried his hand at some logging over there but says all he got was insect bites, the shits, and the shivers. I don’t want none of those. There’s flies the size of starlings, he says, that’ll suck a man’s arm dry.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Kit said. The next time he saw Protheroe he shook his head sadly. “Have you been frightening the other hands again?” he asked.

Protheroe grinned and scratched among the thatch of hair on his chest. “Maybe I exaggerated just a little,” he admitted. “But how could I not when young Davy sups it all up as gospel.”

“Young Davy is a year older than I am, and you don’t try to scare me,” Kit pointed out.

“Only one man on the Africa can do that,” Protheroe said and looked past Kit toward the stern where the captain was talking to Valliere.

“I’m not scared of Val,” Kit protested and left Protheroe to laugh. Griffin greeted him with a smile as he approached. “Are you rested, sir?” Kit asked. “I’ll turn in if you are.”

“Perfectly rested, thank you, Kit,” Griffin replied. He glanced at Valliere and dropped his voice a little. “But I do need to speak to you before you sleep. Jago and I made plans, but it’s clear that for at least some of them we will require your assistance. Perhaps a glass or two in the cabin?”

“Certainly, sir,” Kit said and followed him down the gangway with a little flutter of excitement in his belly.

Griffin poured brandy and nodded to the door. “Leave it open,” he ordered. “If anyone tries to creep up to it and overhear I want to see them. Now come, sit with me at the table, and I will tell you what I can.”

Griffin produced charts from the chest beneath his bed, spread them, and weighted them down with the bottle and his pistols. “Do you recognize this coastline?” he asked, beckoning Kit close.

Kit had pulled up his own sea chest to use as a seat and leaned until his shoulder touched Griffin’s. “I believe I do.” He turned his head to study Griffin’s intent profile. “We will be far south of Vera Cruz.”

Griffin’s smile told him he had guessed correctly. “Far to the south, yet in exactly the right place at this season,” Griffin confirmed. “You have served on first rates?”

Kit frowned. “Yes,” he said. “My first ship was a first rate. I spent most of the first week hopelessly lost. And the ship I was on in the last year of the war, too. I was fourth lieutenant there.”

“Did you ever take command?” Griffin asked, rolling the top chart aside to show a sketch map of an anchorage.

“Briefly,” Kit admitted. “With a ship so large there are always plenty of junior officers ready to step in if the seniors are called away. But I did sail her after a battle when we’d had a mauling. Everyone else was overseeing damage repairs, or ill or dead or asleep. I had a very competent master’s mate to ensure I didn’t do anything stupid.”

“Well, that’s more experience than anyone else we have.” Griffin smiled at him and tapped the sheet of paper. “This. How would you take us in if you didn’t want her seen?”

“Are these soundings accurate?” Kit asked, leaning to look more closely at the fine inked lines. “Because, if they are, there are only two ways into this death trap apart from the most obvious one, and I’m not sure Garnet would manage either.”

“Exactly,” Griffin said. “Jago will provide longboats, but we need the Africa’s guns. Which would be the better way?”

Kit grimaced. “On an ebbing tide, this one,” he said, pointing to the westernmost break in the shoals. “Either would do at a pinch on the flood. Assuming, again, that the chart, soundings and all, is accurate.”

“I think we have to make that assumption,” Griffin said. “Kit—give the matter some thought. Also what you remember of first rates and their sailing capabilities.”

“Sir,” Kit said by way of agreement. He looked at the chart again, noting the shoals off shore, the low wooded islands that protected the deep anchorage from the westerlies, the rock-strewn channels, which he traced with a fingertip. He took a deep breath.

“Sir,” he said, feeling that edge of excitement again. “I know what you’re going for.”

Griffin smiled and leaned back in his seat.

“You do.” Griffin smiled. “Then perhaps you also can imagine why?”

“I…” Kit looked down at the map. “I hope so, sir. If I’m right…if your motives are what I hope them to be—”

“Then I can count on your support?” Griffin’s smile sounded in his voice, and Kit tensed as the captain’s hand touched his shoulder then traced a line across his back—in subtle threat or a caress, Kit couldn’t decide.

“But we’re not going to talk about it, are we, Kit? Because some folk might get overexcited. Or greedy. Let it just be our secret for now.”

“Our secret,” Kit agreed and caught his breath as warm fingertips stroked the back of his neck. The memories he had put aside flooded back—of strength and heat and the taste of brandy—memories of what had happened in this room, right here on this table.

“Sweet dreams,” Griffin said and left Kit with his heart pounding.

* * *

They stood well off shore, but even so they got whiffs of the green reek that was the swamp, and the sea was alive with fish and fowl and bobbing with debris. Protheroe grimaced.

“There’s been floods,” he said. “Duw benedigiad, that’s a horrible place to live. Keep a weather eye, young Kit. That’s one lee shore we don’t want to be wrecked on.”

By Kit’s calculations they were perhaps fifty sea miles south of their destination, so he altered course and went to the cabin to see if Griffin was awake.

“Stinks, don’t it?” was Griffin’s greeting as he let Kit into the cabin. He was not just awake but dressed neatly. There were empty dishes and a teapot on the table but no sign of his customary brandy bottle. “Where are we?”

Kit pointed out the spot on the map adding the caveat, “As far as I can make out. I sent Protheroe up to the masthead, and the coast is featureless. Just one long green band.”

“We may be farther south than you think then,” Griffin said. “Because we should be able to see the mouth of a river. Hah, Kit!” He put his arm round Kit’s shoulders and gave him a shake. “Don’t look so downcast. Our readings have been in agreement, so if we are off a degree or three it’s as much my fault as yours. Come, let us signal the Garnet, assuming she is still with us? Good. I need to speak to Jago.”

Speak to Jago he did, eventually. The Garnet was there but hull down, and it took a while to reach them and raise a response. Griffin crossed in the long boat, spent a full turn of the glass aboard, and returned with Campbell, who greeted Kit enthusiastically.

“Jago has a touch of fever,” he told Kit. “So the hands are making the most of the holiday. Never fear though. They will be ready when their real work needs to be done.” He rubbed his hands gleefully. “I’m ready now. Where do you want me, Griffin?”

Griffin grinned. “It’s good to see such enthusiasm,” he said. “For now, stay out from underfoot, and I suggest you help Kit brush up on his Spanish. You may use the cabin. I’m awake now so I may as well make the most of it.”

In the cabin Campbell cocked his head to listen to Griffin’s muffled bellows as he tried to arouse some enthusiasm for hard work among his crew.

Kit chuckled at the rush of feet. “Action suits him.”

Campbell made a noncommittal noise as he inspected the cabin. “Indeed,” he replied, in beautiful court Spanish. “But then you can take some credit for that. I’ve always thought that too much abstinence is bad for a man.”

Kit hopped up to sit on one of the guns—and to give himself time to formulate a reply. “This is my hammock,” he said, replying in the rough sailors’ Spanish he had picked up in the Mediterranean. “Griffin’s bed is there. Alternate watches. Don’t make…damn it, what’s the word?”

“Assumptions?” Campbell chuckled. “If you insist. How much Spanish do you know Kit? You accent is…unique.”

Kit chuckled too. “It’s smugglers’ Spanish and sardine fishermen’s Spanish, but it’s the best I have.”

“I think it will do very well,” Campbell assured him and took a book from his pocket. “Cervantes. I’ll read—you translate.”

Kit found Campbell to be just as good company as he had anticipated. They had a lot in common besides their positions as sailing masters. Campbell had also been forced to join La Griffe’s crew when the merchant vessel he was sailing had been taken. His education had been more formal than Kit’s but had covered the same sorts of ground. However, his ear for languages outstripped Kit completely. That he was inclined to show off about it was only to be expected, and Kit put up with his corrections as patiently as he could.

After two hours during which Campbell established that, yes, Kit did understand reasonably well and could talk quite fluently as long as they kept to the subjects of the sea and sailing, Kit was thoroughly on edge.

“Tired, Kit?” Campbell laughed. “Then by all means let us go on deck. All work and no play…”

Kit snorted. “You would make a good schoolmaster,” he said. “If ever you can get away from the Garnet.”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” Campbell said as they stepped out onto the sunlit deck. “You and I, Kit, are too useful to waste, too valuable to risk losing. For instance, Griffin’s enterprise—I am sure that we will be kept off the firing lines. Both Jago and Griffin speak Spanish fluently—we are to provide assistance only if necessary.”

“That was not my understanding,” Kit said with a frown. “But we will see who has the right of it shortly. My, the Garnet wallows. She is overdue careening.”

Campbell didn’t defend his ship as Kit was sure most of the Africa’s crew would do. Instead he smiled and agreed then asked Kit a remarkably naive question about shipworm. It was only later that it occurred to Kit that Campbell’s question had given Kit a moment of authority to make up for the two hours in the cabin. At the time he just answered as fully as he could, complete with spit-drawn diagrams on the railing.

For the next two days Africa made her way north, proceeding cautiously because, as those who had sailed these waters warned Kit, sandbars and mud banks moved according to the season and to the weather inland. They kept a reliable man in the bow with the lead and another at the masthead to keep an eye open for landmarks. Garnet, keeping well to windward on account of her greater draft, was doing much the same.