Chapter 16
Scully had no time to step forward to intercept Koomi’s blade on his cutlass, so he threw the unwieldy weapon instead, a last ditch method many of the men practised. Scully was glad he had taken a turn learning how the momentum carried the service cutlass, which he preferred to the dress sword he was supposed to use, and the heavy blade impacted Koomi’s arm, wringing a cry from the man, and making Adou turn.
“Sah! You save ma life!” said Adou. “Dat swamp-rat no damn good slubberdegullion mawworm.”
“Indeed,” said Scully, amused at the mix of Jamaican accent and British slang. “Tie him up quickly, Adou, I fear his cry might have alerted the watch ashore and we are about to have company.”
Adou flashed him a white grin out of the darkness as Scully retrieved his cutlass, and hastened to pull the gangplank inboard before it became an easy way for the slavers to return to their ship, and ran aft to where the majority of the crew were still manning the boats on towlines.
“Tow!” he shouted
There were shouts from the land, but the lithe boat was moving away from them. The topsmen were in position for the moment they had room to manoeuvre and bring the ship around.
On the ‘Thetis,’ Yammi came up to William, and addressed him.
“Sah, plis, sah,” and then he ran out of English. He was crying and beating his chest.
William whistled to Kwasi, who ran over.
“Please find out what is distressing Yammi,” said William.
Kwasi questioned the man, and his eyes went wide, rolling briefly in some fear.
“He say Mistah Scully sail into de trap!” said Kwasi. “Dat mean Koomi, he plan to kill Adou an’ shout for de slavers, so British tars an’ slavers kill each other, and he take slaves from boat to make crew as pirate ship an’ take Mis’s Price as his. But he has Yammi’s nail clippings an’ put in a magic jar he make, so he can curse Yammi if he tell! But Yammi like Adou an’ not want tars to come to harm, so he sacrifice himself to tell, because now he will die,” said Kwasi, scared.
William was nonplussed. Witchcraft was not something he had ever had to deal with before. Sailors were superstitious, that was true, but he knew that people cursed by anyone they thought was a true witch was capable of imagining themselves truly hurt, even in such an enlightened age as the early nineteenth century. And Yammi was from a less scientific culture.
“Explain to Yammi please that if Koomi was such a great magician, how come he ended up a slave?” said William. “The Royal Navy has invested a much greater magic in me, as captain of one of his majesty’s vessels, and my magic will involve a court martial for mutiny for Koomi.”
“Yassah!” said Kwasi, brightening. He gabbled away to Yammi, whose face lightened into a beaming grin. He fell to his knees and grabbed William’s hand to kiss.
“Yammi, that’s quite enough. Now go about your duties; I’ve a ship to sail to back up Mr. Scully in case Koomi did manage to raise the slavers to battle.
William used his best voice to project to those left aboard.
“Now hear this!” he called. “I have word of a mutineer ready to cause trouble! I want that anchor raised and hands aloft to go support Mr. Scully, and sharpshooters at the masthead to pick off enemies! And I don’t care if you’re male or female, give me a crew!”
The capstan might have been turned to Amelia standing in as the musical accompaniment singing ‘Annie Laurie’ rather than one of the more traditional songs, but turned it was, and the largely women in the fighting tops let loose the sails with a professional aplomb which would have shamed many a ship more traditionally manned.
“I’m proud of you all!” called William. He was glad he had permitted the womenfolk to undertake the evolutions with the men; it paid off. They did not have the main strength to fight the sails in heavy weather, but having effectively an extra watch made all the difference.
The rowers knew that Mr. Scully would not call out an order when they were supposed to be working silently unless the need was urgent.
“Wonder what went wrong?” said Cruft to Smitty.
Smitty spat overboard.
“Either there’s ʼalf the Dahomian army there for some reason, or more likerly, that lubberly oaf, Koomi, caused mayhem,” he opined. “An’ if it were the latter, the sooner ʼe tries to walk back to Freetown once we’re on open water, the better.”
The ‘Thetis’ reached the rivermouth as the slave ship was casting off her tow, and backing and filling to turn, being out of range of the musketry of the slavers.
Scully and Colin slithered down to one of the boats, to row across to the ‘Thetis.’
“We have a number of problems, captain,” he said, formally.
“Adou, is he alive? Did that insane Koomi manage to kill him?” asked William.
“No, sir, I spitted his arm with my cutlass. How did you know? Have we more mutineers?”
“No, he told Yammi he would put a spell on him if he told; he could not resist boasting to him. Yammi decided to accept death by spell to warn me.”
“Death by spell, really?” said Scully.
“Well, there’s no use telling a convinced sailor that sailing on Friday isn’t bad luck, so I figured there was no point telling Yammi that there was no such thing as magic, so I told him that for one thing, Koomi was not such a good magician or he would not have been enslaved; and that the king placed better magic in the hands of a captain of one of his vessels.”
“I’ll remember that when dealing with superstition,” said Scully. “Koomi can hardly believe his plans failed, as he had worked it out in detail, and thought of each stage what would occur, so in his mind it had to work. He’s in irons, and spitting nails, but the other problem is that we have the men, and the slavers were waiting on the arrival of the women and children. And Koomi was, until I gagged him, shouting that white men don’t care, and calling for the slaves to overwhelm us and go back to rescue the women, with our weapons, and take to raiding.”
“Or, according to Yammi, downright piracy,” said William. “Well, in that case, we’ll have to go back and cut out the women. The slavers won’t expect us to return.”
“It’s bold,” said Scully. “But it could work.”
“Once we’ve gone, they’ll relax,” said William. “They’ll have half a cargo, if no boat, and they’ll fall to arguing about what to do next.”
Scully nodded.
“And when they see the two ships sail out of the bay….”
“Oh, I thought you’d be with me,” said William. “Colin can go and tell the newly freed ones that we’ll be collecting their wives and children, but that the ships must seem to sail away. It’ll be a long haul for the boat crews; I want them to drink plenty before setting off again. I’ll go in with them this time, and you have the con, Mr. Scully.”
“Aye aye, sir,” said Scully.
“Kwasi! Make me enough of that refreshing drink for my thirty rowers, ready to pass down. Mr. Lord, signal Mr. Percival, and ask him to come aboard. And pass the word to the kitchen to break into the canned ham, and slice it to be put into canteens for each boat, and one of our American biscuits for each man. Ziv, I need your men on the ‘John and Betsy’ as reinforcements.”
“Aye, sir; the lads are hoping to be more than reinforcements.”
“I want them on overwatch with their muskets to start firing if the slavers notice our intrusion. They can buy us time to get to the boats with the slaves, and then they can engage the enemy more closely if they want.”
Ziv smirked savagely.
“Aye aye, sir,” he said.
The men were glad of a cool, refreshing drink, and something they could eat easily.
“The ‘Thetis’ and her new prize are going to sail out to sea,” said William. “And so, apparently, is ‘John and Betsy;’ only the lugger is going to hug the coast and creep back behind us. We are going to sneak in and hope that, one, the other slaves have arrived, and two, the slavers have been fooled by the ships apparently leaving. Hopefully, they will be too busy arguing about what to do, to be taking any notice of us.”
“Sir, you’ll want Mrs. Price’s mosquito cream with black in it,” said Wick.
“Thank you, Wick, quite right,” said William.
Silently, or almost so, the rowing boats slid up river, against the mangrove swamps and in their shadow. The new arrivals appeared to be being just manacled and placed by a tree, to one side as the slavers argued with those bringing them.
“Well, gol-dang it, we’ll have a fishing boat from the village until we can take a proper ship,” said the apparent leader. “Damn you, no point talkin’ to you anyways, you can’t talk a proper language.”
“Nor can he,” murmured Colin.
William tweaked his ear. Less than a year ago, Colin was struggling with the difference between ‘who’ and ‘whom.’
The slavers appeared to have made themselves a rude shelter on land, or what passed for land, with a raised floor. The women and children must shift for themselves on the mud. At least, thought William, they were crying and wailing enough already that there was unlikely to be any alert when his most larcenous crewmembers released them from their shackles.
Colin identified the woman who seemed to be the de facto leader of the women, who was cuddling younger women as well as having children clustered up against her, the whites of their wide, frightened eyes showing up in the dark like disembodied eyeballs. Colin slithered up to her, put a finger to his lips, and undid her shackles. He and his fellow rogues worked through all the shackles. Colin set up a cask by the tree, with a length of slow match, and nodded to Walden.
“You’d better count the slavers so we know for head money,” he murmured. Then he winked at a girl of about twelve, and put his finger to his lips again. “Now we play follow the leader,” he said. She might not understand, but his friendly smile elicited a shy smile in return. Colin returned to slithering, and was gratified, when he looked over his shoulder, to see the children following. William was waiting to show them into the boats. Taffy set off next, and the older woman pushed some of the young women with babies to follow him, and then the older women with older infants, and finally women with no children and older women, Jeb Walden behind the leader at the rear. The slavers were drinking and had lanterns, destroying their night sight.
One, however, was more alert.
“Hey!” he cried. “Where are those Goddam women?”
This alerted the others, and they rushed out. Walden had just finished lighting the slow match, and used his poaching skills to vanish by flattening himself inside vegetation. He bit back a curse as one of the slavers stood on his hand; fortunately the uncertain ground gave somewhat under the man’s weight, which saved Walden from broken bones.
“I ʼopes you blow all the bleedin’ way to ʼEll,” muttered Walden, who was sore at this mistreatment.
Then he was away like an eel. The first boat was already on its way back along the banks, and the sharp-shooters on the ‘John and Betsy’ had opened up on the slavers, some of whom were running back to get their weapons. Jeb went head first into the last boat.
“Keep yer ʼead dahn, sir,” he said, pushing down the heads of any women looking up.
“I suspect we’re safer hunkered down here than moving…” Colin began.
The explosion ripped the night and its reverberations had scarce died away than the screaming began.
“Ah, now that’s music to the bleedin’ ears, ve cries an’ lamentations of ve enemy,” said Walden. “Orf we jolly well go, Mr. Prescott, time the maestro left ve auditoryhum.”
Colin nodded to the rowers, and they set off. He still did not like hearing screams of wounded men, but the thought of what these sort of people did to men, women, and children hardened him. He had seen whip marks on some of the previous groups they had rescued, even quite young children, and it made his blood boil.
“Kill them all, Ziv,” he muttered under his breath, as the lugger danced across the river to finish what he had started.
The ‘John and Betsy’ overtook the boats, and took them in tow to meet with the ‘Thetis,’ just around the headland. They put in at the next convenient bay, and put the women aboard the slaver with their menfolk, having taken those without womenfolk onto the ‘Thetis.’ Koomi was also transferred in irons, already delirious from the wound in his arm that nobody had bothered to treat.
“Wick, you draw a pistol, and guard the surgeon,” said William. “If he shows any trouble to her, shoot him.”
“Is that necessary?” asked Amelia.
“He was heard threatening to kill any of us who survived the slavers when he had alerted them, take the captain’s woman for his own, and turn pirate,” said William, grimly.
“That does put another complexion on it,” said Amelia.
“I can’t hang him, he should have a court martial,” said William. “I imagine he can be tried in Freetown, though; and the sooner we get there, the better.”
Amelia treated Walden’s hand first; he was one of their own, and Koomi was a self-proclaimed enemy. Now they had time, William could write up his log, and take Yammi’s deposition, attested to by Adou as a true translation. He had to trust Adou on that, and that he understood enough of Yammi’s local patois.
He also had Scully’s written deposition of the attempted murder of Adou – enough to gain a death sentence on its own – and the depositions of those who had heard Koomi try to stir up the rescued slaves to overthrow their rescuers.
He was not looking forward to the trial.
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