The Mountain of Gold (42 page)

I leaned over to Kit Farrell and whispered to him, for I recalled something that he, too, had once said to me, during this very voyage. Kit, whose good humour toward me had seemingly been restored by our recent land-voyage, seemed puzzled at first, then smiled broadly and nodded vigorously in approbation.

I looked up. I raised my hand, and Negus and Facey fell silent. 'Gentlemen,' I said, 'I have a proposition to put to you. Musk—please ask Mister Shish to join this council.'

Those in the fort—Montnoir, Stiel, all of them—would have seen the two ships coming down to them on the strong south-easterly breeze off the land, avoiding the native canoes that thronged the river, out of the very first glimmers of the dawn. There was
Seraph
in the main channel to the south of the island, trying to force that passage: the wider channel and so the obvious one for her to take, as it afforded the greater sea-room for manoeuvring. Every inch a royal warship of England, her sails were sheeted home with precision, the lion figurehead cut through the waves at her bow, and the great red-and-white ensign spilled from the staff at her stern. In the north channel, and some way astern, was the ungainly
Krokodil
under her Courland colours, finally making her way back to the open sea after so many months stranded in the upper reaches of the Gambia. Her much-decimated crew struggled to control her as she slewed to and fro across the channel under loose, slovenly sails.

As they aimed their guns at the magnificent sight of the oncoming
Seraph,
Montnoir's men must have been filled with grim anticipation; for they knew full well that their weight of shot would tear apart the beautiful, fragile frigate.

I stood with my officers on the quarterdeck of my
Seraph.
Nerves, fear and determination struggled to gain the upper hand in my emotions.

The fort opened fire. For the hundredth time, I wondered if I had chosen the correct strategy. About that many men had died aboard my ill-fated first command, the
Happy Restoration.
Would history repeat itself here? Would Matthew Quinton's inglorious naval career end with him being cut in two by a Courlander cannonball?

Montnoir's gunners did not yet have their aim. Shot was falling just short of the
Seraph
in the south channel, but it would be only a matter of time before the Dutch, French and Courlander men on the ramparts found their range and bearing. Naturally they had massed most of their battery on the south rampart, seeing
Seraph
heading on that course. My crew were nervous and whispering among themselves, for they all knew the monstrous risk their raw young captain was taking with their lives. Still the
Seraph
bore down the south channel, straight into the withering fire that would fall upon her at any moment. I held my breath. The first shot struck just behind the head. A second went through the foresail. The enemy were gaining confidence now, truly getting their bearings, and still
Seraph
did not return fire. The fort's south rampart battery opened up with ever more vigour. As it did so, its own gunsmoke drifted back over it. The wind was ideal for Montnoir's gunners, whose view of the ship in the south channel would not be obscured.

But their view of the
Krokodil,
slewing drunkenly all over the north channel—a view already made dim enough by the darkness of the dawn—ah, now that view was obscured even more by the smoke that drifted back over the lightly armed north rampart, whose defenders were in any case looking south, to see how their more favoured brethren did. And after all, most of the men in the fort were Courlanders themselves. They had seen the
Krokodil
go up river. They knew that ship, and they knew her crew. She was one of their own, and nothing to concern them on a morning where they had hotter business to transact.

A succession of shots slammed into the
Seraph's
hull. Soon the beautiful frigate, still pressing on under full sail, would be smashed to pieces .

Now or never, boy,
cried a familiar voice in my head.

'Mister Negus! Mister Shish!' I shouted. 'Time to end the charade!'

'Aye aye, sir!'

With that, an unexpectedly large crew raced up the shrouds of the
Krokodil,
sheeted home her courses and let fall a profusion of topsails. The tipsy Courlander suddenly assumed an immaculate appearance, running in directly for the north shore and rampart of San Andreas. Axes in hand, the carpenter's crew ran to cut away some of the false bulwarks that had been erected around the rail and head. As the deals fell away, the lion figurehead of a king's warship emerged, roaring in proud defiance. The painted canvas hiding the quarter-galleries was torn off. Gunports, painted over to conceal them, opened to reveal a formidable battery of demi-culverins and sakers, their barrels now hauled through the hull by a crew ten times the size of that left to the
Krokodil.
Finally, the Courland flag came down, and the red-and-white of old England went aloft in her place.

The
Seraph
—the true
Seraph
—was ready for battle.

'Mister Lindman!' I cried.

'Sir!' replied the bluff Swede.

'Command the guns, sir, if you please—as we discussed!'

'Aye, aye, Captain!'

The hoisting of our true colours had also been the signal for two dozen or so of the native canoes to change course abruptly and make for the island. The near-naked 'natives' aboard them drew up muskets and swords from the depths of their craft. Captain Facey waved from the leading canoe. The remainder of his men were already making their way up to the main deck of the
Seraph
to form the landing party with my starboard watch.

I turned to Francis Gale. 'Let us pray, Francis, that Kit and his crew on
Krokodil
do not suffer too terribly in our stead.'

The chaplain nodded, and extemporised a prayer for our friends.

The sun was rising now, and before we ran in directly under the shore of the island it was just possible to see the false
Seraph,
taking the punishment designed for us. Daylight made it easier to see the limitations of the two disguises conjured out of nothing, and in so few hours, by Shish and his men;
Krokodil
had been cut down at the stern to masquerade as
Seraph,
and no amount of painted gunports, false gun barrels, and wood-and-canvas quarter galleries and stern windows, rounded off by an especially impressive false figurehead, could turn her into a plausible man-of-war for very long.

But it had not needed to be for very long.

'Give fire!' roared Lindman, and as one, the larboard battery of the
Seraph
bombarded the north rampart of the fort.

Montnoir and his men must have looked behind them at that moment, for at once there was movement on the south rampart. Guns were being pulled back and swivelled round, either to be moved to the north side or—because any man would realise there was no time to take enough of the guns across—being elevated so that they could fire over the north rampart from where they were, albeit at the cost of accuracy.

Seraph
fired again. Negus judged that we were now in our best position without over-running the island, and I gave the order to drop anchor. On our starboard side, Facey's canoes were coming alongside to take on the rest of the landing party. A third broadside. As the smoke cleared, I saw three breaches, if not four, in the north rampart. With that, I left the quarterdeck and made my way down into a canoe that also contained Francis Gale, Musk, Lanherne, Macferran, Ali Reis, Treninnick and Carvell, along with three or four of the Bristol men and a half-dozen soldiers. We paddled out under the bow of the
Seraph
and made directly for the narrow beach beneath the north rampart. The defenders now had a few more men on the north rampart, trying vainly to lower the elevation of the guns to fire grapeshot upon the invaders or else firing sporadically with muskets. But
Seraph,
too, was firing grape now, and the effect of our broadside on that rampart was truly dreadful.

My canoe struck the sand of the island and I leapt out into the shallow water, raising my sword to beckon the men forward. But men need no commands at such times. What needed to be done was obvious: reach the rampart, get over or through it, kill whoever stood in the way. For my part, I ran up the beach with Francis Gale at my side, a man who had experienced enough sieges to know the truth of that dictum better than most. We reached one of the breaches to find it clear. Some of the enemy's soldiers were standing in the middle of the parade ground, pointing muskets or pikes vaguely in our direction, but they were but a disordered rabble. As Facey's red-coats and my seamen charged them, they turned and fled to the south rampart.
Good,
I thought—I had a mind to avoid shedding the blood of Stiel's Courlanders if I could avoid it...

There was a sudden cry from our left—'
Saint Denis! Jeanne d'Arc!'
—and a party of two dozen or so rushed out at us from the cover of the carts under the west rampart. Some of Montnoir's Frenchmen, then: diehards, like their leader, armed with swords and half-pikes, driven by religious fervour and centuries of resentment against the English.

Francis Gale smiled. 'Ah, now this is more like it! Thank you, Lord!'—and with that he set off on a one-man countercharge.

I waved my sword above my head to rally the Seraphim nearest to me. With one voice, we charged Montnoir's forlorn hope.

'Frenchmen,' grunted Musk, smashing his musket-butt into the gut of an oncoming enemy. 'Good. Can't make head or tail of this diplomacy business,'—musket-butt crashed down onto skull—'but you know where you are, killing Frenchmen.'

A bearded brute rushed me with a half-pike. I ducked to my left, deflected the blow with my sword, and cut the man hard in the thigh. I glanced to my right and saw Carvell and Macferran wrestling with two Frenchmen. John Treninnick was surrounded by three of them; the enemy must have thought that the strange, stunted Cornishman would be easy prey, only to be disabused as he charged them single-handed, cutlasses flailing in both hands.

Another one came at me. A decent swordsman, this one, and evidently an officer, trained in best use of a blade. He slashed at my shoulder: steel struck steel as I blocked his attack. I lunged for the heart, but he was good enough to parry and counterthrust. Once more he came on, but now he faced three, for Francis and Musk were at my side. Still the valiant Frenchman attacked, but as my blade struck his once again, Francis feinted to his left and ran him through the shoulder. Simultaneously Musk applied the coup-de-grace: musket-butt smashed into knee-cap, shattering it. Our assailant fell to the ground, screaming in agony, and we turned to address our other enemies. But the Seraphim and the red-coats, coming up from the beach in greater and greater numbers, had made short work of the other Frenchmen on the parade ground.

I looked up and could see Montnoir upon the rampart, poised and unmoving in his black cloak, not deigning to join the fray himself. He seemed to be ordering another party of his troops to depress some guns to fire grape or canister into the yard, even into his own men. But the hopelessness of his cause must already have been apparent even to the grim Knight of Malta. Not a few of the Courlanders were already surrendering, seeing the utter futility of dying for two countries—France and the Netherlands—that were not their own. Stiel had already distanced himself from Montnoir and seemed to be gesturing to his men to disengage. The fort itself was built only to withstand assault by native tribes, and as the dream of the Courland empire passed into dust, it was no longer maintained even to that standard. Any modern ship of war that could run in close enough under its guns, and put a body of trained men ashore, would have been able to take it .

Especially if it was attacked from two sides at once.

As we approached the south rampart from the parade ground, we heard the eruption of gunfire beyond the fort, and the unmistakeable sound of shot striking the wall on that side. Kit Farrell, acting captain of the
Krokodil
—the false
Seraph
—must have brought at least some of that vessel's ten guns to bear.

It was the final straw. As Facey's troops trained their muskets on them, the men on the south rampart raised their hands in surrender. Gaspard de Montnoir and Otto Stiel came down the steps and approached me. Both presented their swords in the age-old gesture of defeat: Montnoir with a squint of hatred, Stiel with a cheerful grin of relief.

'You will live to regret this, Captain Quinton,' said Montnoir. 'A gentleman, a true man of honour, does not gain victory by ruse and trickery.'

'Really, My Lord Montnoir?' I said. 'Then how, pray, should a true man of honour obtain his victories? By bribing native chiefs and Eastland mercenaries to do his work for him, perchance?'

In that moment, Facey and two of his men lowered the Dutch and Courland flags flying above the fort and hoisted the Union Flag in its place. A ragged cheer went up from the men. Imperial England had its newest outpost, and I took some pleasure in renaming it James Fort: James, the name shared by the Duke of York, brother and heir to my king, and by my father, who had fallen in a far mightier battle.

So, with victory secured, there remained the matter of my reckonings with the Seigneur de Montnoir and the Irish traitor O'Dwyer.

Twenty-Six

It was a blessedly cool evening. The sun was starting to sink far in the west, beyond the mouth of the Gambia where, we were assured, the Union Flag still flew over Charles Island, and our friends were safe aboard the
Prospect of Blakeney.
We would soon join them there, but one matter remained to be disposed of, there in His Britannic Majesty's proud new fastness of James Fort. We officers of the
Seraph
had taken a little refreshment in the garrison room vacated by Stiel and his people: some bush rat, a turtle dove or two, and the inevitable palm wine, which I was finding increasingly to my taste. I have observed many times since that it is always important to eat and drink heartily before an execution; it is so much better for the digestion than attempting to do so afterwards.