Under a press of sail and fairly flying, the Diamond lurched along in the van of the Navy’s flota. Braced at the taff-rail, cocking the tube of the spy-glass up, I raked the sea-scape. To a sailor’s eye, and even a landsman’s, this company of fine vessels made a grand sight, yet only bitter regretful notions filled my mind. How Will Wrack would have enjoyed the spectacle of the Navy lumbering along in the wake of his little bark. And how poor Adam’s heart might have swelled with misdirected pride at the sight of such a convoy.
The Bounteous and the Forbearance, a magnificent brace of warships, rolled heavily along the tradewind swells on a beam reach, the decks and rails thronged with sailors and fighting men, a dozen officers and midshipmen poised on their quarter-decks. For now, they had shortened canvas to run with topsails and forecourse, yet I had only to turn the Diamond’s bows to windward in order to leave those heavy vessels standing. Half a cable off, astern and to windward, ran the six-gun schooner the Charity, altogether a different matter. Carrying two big jibsails, but with mainsail reefed and staysail brailed up, she chafed like a short-reined horse just to keep station. Light on her feet, quick to turn, longer at the waterline — on any point of sailing from running to beating, she had the speed of us.
I glanced up. Rounded, cottony clouds pocked the blue of the sky. Even in the brilliance of daytime the Moon showed herself, but only in the thinnest of crescents imaginable. No more than a sliver of ghostly white, she floated above the sea waning her last on the long path from Full to Change. This was a secretive Moon, risen solely by day and now departing the scene altogether before her invisible return as the New Moon. Every time l looked up, I wondered again about Noah Spatchears and his Lunar observations.
We surged along in a small gale of wind, the brisk south-easterly on our steerboard quarter — a soldier’s wind, they called it, for the motion was easier on their landsman guts. Tell that to our nauseous vice-admiral, I grimaced.
‘Keep your course,’ I said to Jan, and stepped down the hatchway. In the stern quarters below, above the slosh and rattle of the Diamond’s progress, the familiar rapid, urgent mutterings of astronomy issued from the cell-like space between the captain’s cabin and the steps where Spatchears was bent once more over his papers. Peering round the doorway of my own quarters, I saw the generous figure of Vice-Admiral George Pitchbert spilling off the bunk, eyes tight shut and a sheen of sweat covering his face, the shirt clinging stickily to his underarms. He stirred, passing an arm over his brow, but did not open his eyes. The cabin stank richly.
‘Sir, some fish soup for you?’ I suggested.
He groaned.
‘A bowl of porridge with chicken fat, then,’ I offered.
‘Urrrggghh.’ Swaying back over the edge of the bunk, he vomited with force, spattering a colourless liquid across the deck-sole.
‘To settle the guts, my mate Eli Savary swears by a little sweetened sugar-rum with melted pig’s lard in it,’ I said. ‘You have only to let me know.’
He retched again. I left him and went forward, crouching low, heading for the midships quarters. Debris lay all around — smashed panels and broken drawers, busted locks and prised up deck-boards, the aftermath of Captain Gamble’s careless search. Where the mainmast ran up the forward side of the athwartships bulkhead was a cabinet of lockers for small stuff — seizings, light blocks and the like, a bosun’s hoardings. It had been all but torn from its fixings around the ten-inch thick mainmast, and every part of it was exposed like a raw wound. Will Wrack’s refitting of his schooner had been the labour of love, yet now it lay in ruins. With a whispered apology to him, I picked up an iron lever and forced the remains of the cabinet off the cylinder of the mast. Then, feeling around at the base where it went through the sole, I located a finger-hole and scrabbled inside the mast’s hollow centre.
The tip of my middle finger touched something smooth and leathery, the cover of a book, tightly rolled and with a line running to the masthead. At Tranquil Inlet, it had been tricky enough to remove the mast cap to reach the sixty-foot hollow, but worth it for such a hiding place. Groping with my fingertips, I touched a scroll of parchments resting on top of the book. With some difficulty, I drew out the rolls through the minute hole, crumpling them only a little. By now severely cramped, I gratefully straightened and, careful not to rouse the vice-admiral in his malodorous bunk, tiptoed into the adjoining cabin. The old calculator was startled, protectively concealing his papers.
‘It’s me, Observator Spatchears, and here’s the code,’ I said, handing him the fruit of his labours at the native village, which included his transit predictions.
‘Marvellous!’ he said, taking them at once and smoothing them on the table. ‘I shall rework all my figures.’
I frowned. ‘You said you had done the necessary calculations.’
He looked affronted. ‘Indeed, but a careful astronomer reviews and tests his work constantly. Per ardua ad astra is his motto. As a result, I have recalled even more lines of the code.’
‘But you’re sure of the day, now?’
He started to cough, chest lifting and drawing. He jammed a cloth into his mouth and I gently banged his back.
‘As certain,’ he breathed, ‘of the date as an astronomer can be. After all, the calculations are derived from my own observations.’
‘Aye, and what about the latitude?’
‘My back-staff work improves by the day,’ he said with what was almost a shy look, adding, ‘I admit to being as pleased as a jack-tar on a liberty boat, as your Mister Savary might express it. Practickal Navigation aboard a bark is a most challenging exercise.’
‘No malady mer?’ I enquired, for the man had spent a lifetime confined in the dusty corridors of study. ‘A bark’s sway and roll may make a Navigator lose more than his fixes when he’s below with his eyes on numbers and charts.’
‘Not a whiff,’ he retorted.
‘You’ll make a seaman yet,’ I said, encouragingly. ‘What about the time, then?’
He shook his old head irritatedly. ‘As to timing, well, the path is narrow and if we miss it, it all amounts to nothing.’ He sniffed — a wetly rattling sound — then lowered his voice. ‘If only we could get the Longitude exactly. My good captain, are you sure you can find the right place?’
I shrugged. ‘Near enough, I trust. My memory for coastlines is good, and the latitude helps, but I shan’t know until we see the lie of the land. The region’s quite uncharted.’
‘Then we must hope,’ said the ancient star-gazer, ‘that the Universe obliges — Deo volente.’
‘Aye, and God willing, your memory of the code is as good as your observations,’ I said, turning to go.
At dawn, we hauled sheets to close the coast. The smudgy outlines sharpened into low hills and gained both colour and features until we crested the curve of the sea and picked out rocky headlands and a forest of vegetation. The Tropick sun lifted higher and from the deck-boards rose a warm woody smell. We slanted along under a press of sail, watching for the blue-black hue of the deep sea to lighten and take on the paler hue of soundings.
Spatchears appeared briefly and wordlessly on deck to take sunsights, then dropped below to figure his numbers. Brushing the damp sweat from my eyes, I gazed into the sky. Unlike yesterday, the sun was now quite alone in her canopy. Without even the waning Moon visible, I could not rid myself of misgivings. There were so many chances for miscalculation.
Perched at the main-top, Gaspar Rittel called down that the sea’s hue had altered some distance ahead. Four or five cables off, the water took on a lighter shade, and further beyond showed the pale, insipid green of shoal water — the start of the reef field spreading across our path, as daunting a barrier as any moat and mound protecting an old-fashioned castle ashore.
‘Shorten sail, Eli,’ I called.
The Charity matched our speed by lowering jibsails, while the two warships, keeping station well astern, bunted up their top-gallants. I called down the hatchway to request the vice-admiral’s presence on deck. Tottering out, wiping the corners of his mouth with a stained linen rag, he squinted against the fierce sunlight.
‘Welcome, sir,’ I said, ‘to one of the least known and most dangerous coasts in the Caribbee Sea. Would you care to study the approach?’
He took the spy-glass from me, holding it unsteadily. ‘Can’t see a blasted thing. Just some little fishing boats.’
Pitchbert handed back the glass and lunged for the rail. He leaned over, shoulders heaving, but all that came up was a dribble, for his guts were empty and likely sore as blisters from his night-long purging.
The tube showed me a host of small canoas, mere insects at this distance, their occupants paddling furiously, melting away into the indistinct coastline. If only I could tell them that their secret cove was safe, and might be safer yet after today. I closed up the spy-glass.
‘Sir, we must stand off to ascertain our latitudinal line. The reef field extends fully two leagues out from the land, and the warships can progress no further with us.’
‘Aye, Loftus,’ gasped Pitchbert, dabbing with his linen, ‘but the Charity follows.’
‘She must dog our track as close as she can, sir. It’s a tortuous passage between the reefs.’
The gut-wracked vice-admiral looked around. ‘The sooner I go back aboard the Forbearance, the better. Do proceed with haste.’
‘With caution, sir,’ I suggested.
Green-faced, he was beyond caring. After an exchange of signals, the warships ran off a little south, well clear and to leeward of the reef field. I descended quickly to the cabin, where the astronomer brought out a sheet of rough drawn plans.
‘Captain, your pilot’s sketch, which I kept with the code sheets,’ said Spatchears, and resumed work on his figures.
The plan was crude in execution, hastily drawn in a rocking canoa while I was at Tranquil Inlet, yet it gave me the lie of the reefs.
‘What of your sights?’ I whispered. ‘Have you worked them?’
‘O, I am sure of my back-staff angles,’ declared Noah, ‘yet in using the instrument, I find its deficiencies legion, and have become intent on creating a new design. Example: take the brass scale —’
‘We shall design back-staffs and cross-staffs later. What of the event?’
Giving me his most offended look, he elaborately cleared his throat. ‘My sightings confirm that we have the day. The hour is much more problematickal. Under ordinary circumstance, I should never publish such a prediction. It exposes one to such possibilities of ridicule and —’
‘Aye, but what’s the predicted time?’
He blinked at the sharpness of my tone. ‘Twenty four minutes before the zenith point of the sun’s diurnal arc. Or local noontime, as a Navigator might have it.’
‘And how good is the pocket-clock, from yesterday’s time?’
He reached into the pouch of his weskit and pulled out that handsome time-piece of Will Wrack’s. Ever since Tranquil Inlet, old Noah had been following and recording its errors by sighting the noon meridian altitude, then adjusting his figures to allow for its daily gain or loss.
‘It is a wonder to me,’ he mused, wheezing softly, ‘that there are yet men who would believe the answer to the Longitude lies in man’s inventing instruments to measure Time accurately enough to —’
‘By all the stars in the sky,’ I rasped, ‘how is the piece keeping time?’
He stiffened as if about to argue, then recomposed himself. Gazing at the watch’s face, he said, ‘It has been gaining per diem between six minutes and forty one and six minutes and forty nine seconds. With little change in the patterns of daily temperature movements hereabouts over the period, and my estimation that humidity has not deviated beyond the usual twenty four hour differences, I subtract an average of six minutes and forty five seconds from all timings. That allows for the error of the time-piece and should give accurate time relative to local noon here.’
Lord, he was long-winded. ‘Then how long is there to go?’
‘O, tempus fugit! Local noon is but an hour and thirty minutes away.’
‘Time might fly for you, Observator, but not for me. If your prediction is for twenty four minutes before the zenith, there’s still over an hour to wait.’
‘Allowing for a margin of error in the workings, yes indeed.’
‘What margin?’
He tapped the time-piece. ‘Minutes only.’
‘Very well. Be ready to take another sight if I call you.’ I left him and went up the steps, sorely troubled. How could I procrastinate another hour? The more I delayed, the more it would arouse Pitchbert’s suspicions.
On deck, it was at once clear the Diamond had drifted quite a distance closer to the reefs, yet the vice-admiral remained as impatient as a jack-tar at the muster for rum rations.
‘Loftus, why can we not go in now?’ he demanded.
‘It’s very hard to determine the entrance, sir, and the current is driving us west at a good rate,’ I said, anxiously scanning the scene. ‘One last fix, and we’ll take the plunge.’
I called for the Observator and Spatchears appeared bearing Will Wrack’s handsome three-foot long walnut instrument case. Placing it carefully on the deck-boards, he sprang open the locks and took out the back-staff. Glancing round for the sun’s position, he unfolded the instrument to its fullest extent and steadied himself against the rail, back towards the sun. Then he sighted down the scale to see where the orb cast its shadow, adjusting the transom back and forth, muttering numbers and repeating them rapidly. For an unnerving moment, I feared the madness had returned. Pitchbert looked mildly surprised at the astronomer’s chanting, but showed no interest in the sighting itself.
‘The shore,’ I said, pointing, one hand on the vice-admiral’s shoulder, ‘offers nothing useful to the mariner, nor indeed to the settler or planter. It’s rocky and barren. The vegetation is impenetrable. Above all, there are no harbours or coves, and barely even the most tenuous of anchorages.’
‘Dammit, Loftus, this is chatter. If you are certain of the place, I am minded to order you to sail in at once.’
‘A rash thing, sir. This could be the wrong point on the coast altogether.’
‘You must know the place, dammit. You hid the appendix here.’
‘Aye, but one part is indistinguishable from another until we approach right close.’
‘Well, well, I suppose so.’
‘Nor do the reefs give any indication or feature by which I can identify them.’
‘Indeed.’
‘And I haven’t a good measure of our Longitude.’
‘Of course, of course.’
‘The astronomer here, vice-admiral, is working out our latitude to the smallest degree.’
‘I can see that for myself, Loftus,’ snapped Pitchbert.
Old Noah was busy repacking the instrument in its box. ‘In a few moments,’ he announced, ‘I shall confirm a latitudinal line, and further be able to say that the timing —’
‘Very good, Observator Spatchears,’ I cut in, guiding him rapidly towards the hatchway. Clutching the walnut case close to his chest, he stumbled down the steps. Under the tension of the moment, he began to mutter those infernal numbers again.
‘Four five two six,’ I heard from below. ‘Eight eight nine nought, then five one three and again three.’
Now the vice-admiral looked concerned. ‘Do you rely on this fellow? Is his mind quite whole?’
‘The man is a brilliant astronomer and deviser of Mathematicks, sir.’
‘Indeed? He seems deranged.’
‘Madness may be close to genius, sir.’
Eli’s urgent cry interrupted this discourse. ‘Captain — the reefs!’
Not a boat’s length off at the larboard side lurked the indistinct, brown shapes of huge coral heads, spaced unevenly at intervals of several fathoms apart, sprouting from the great reef banks that lurked below. The current swirled ominously. With the New Moon and its unusual conjunction, the tides were the highest of springs and their pull the strongest for years. On steerboard side lay a similar field of coral equally ripped by currents. The channel had closed in around our bark.
The Charity slouched along astern, trying to track our course closely. Her sails, like ours, were filling and slacking in the fickle breeze. Lord above, I thought, this is going to be a deal harder than expected. And how long to go now?
We reached a pool of clear water, free of coral heads and not far off the shore.
‘Make ready the bower,’ I said.
Eli swung the Diamond’s bows into the wind, and right forward Jan let go the anchor. The schooner’s hea’d fell off, went broadside, then the flukes bit, the cable tautened and she swung back straight. The Charity rounded up and anchored three or four boat lengths off. Going below, I returned with boots and a bundle of sailcloth, and began pulling on the footwear and tying thick leggings to my calves.
‘What the Devil is this, Loftus?’ said the vice-admiral, gesturing in annoyance at the trousseau.
‘I’m going ashore now to recover the volume, sir. The scrub behind the strand is infested with snakes and poisonous crawling creatures. The natives are undoubtedly watching from. cover nearby. They tip their arrows with a venom fierce enough to kill a large pig in half a minute.’ I stood up in my improvised rig and grasped a boat-hook. ‘And since you cleared all weapons off the Diamond and allow me no cutlass, I am obliged to fight my way into the vegetation with this in order to reach the cache.’
Gaspar and Jan lowered the Diamond’s new launch, a handsome item of Naval equipment and in fact the Charity’s spare boat, generously commissioned to us by the vice-admiral the better to expedite recovery of the lost treasures. Eli and I got in and stroked away.
Out of earshot, he leaned over and whispered, ‘Captain Matthew, excuse me, just an old salt and all that. But by the Virgin’s hairs, what the Hell are you about?’
‘The difficulty, my friend, is that there are still thirty minutes to go.’
‘Thirty minutes?’ he scowled, stroking on. ‘You mean half a glass, I shouldn’t wonder. What use are minutes to a seaman? Measure the day in ship’s watches or not at all, I say. My advice, captain, would be to junk-end all those clocks and time-pieces and just go by the sailor’s way.’
‘The sailor’s way, Eli?’ I said distantly, casting a worried glance skywards.
‘A peep at the sun or the stars tells a sailor when it’s time to rouse up for vittles or a change of the watch,’ he huffed. ‘The only thing it can’t tell him is when it’s time to sit at the heads or go in the piss-dale.’
Ashore, Eli stayed with the boat while I forged into the scrub and pretended to root about, swishing at the bushes with my boat-hook, disturbing the many scuttling creatures infesting the Tropick growth. Evil black caterpillars with shiny and segmented bodies dropped from the leaves, twisting and writhing as I stamped on them. Gingerly I pushed forwards, brushing overhanging branches aside and peering between the fronds, keeping hidden from view.
In the far distance, low down on the horizon and in bright sunshine, ranged the topsails of the Bounteous and the Forbearance, cruising unhurriedly back and forth, waiting. The Diamond lay off the strand with the Charity riding just beyond. I mooched about in the undergrowth, well aware that both the vice-admiral and the officers on the Charity would have me under constant observation. How much longer might I draw this out? At what point would my entire subterfuge collapse?
All at once, I saw a number of red-shirted men moving about on the Charity’s decks — armed marines, assembling at the rail as for a boarding party. So Pitchbert, as I guessed, had not after all the minutest intention of honouring his agreement.
If only the prediction would come right. Everything was in place except the crucial occurrence, and all hope of escape was slipping away. So too was my chance to avenge Adam’s and Will’s deaths. I wanted the Navy to suffer a defeat and loss that would make the laughter ring all around the Courts, the officers’ clubs, the Greenwich cloisters and the Chatham yards. The ambitious Vice-Admiral George Pitchbert was to be brought down from his pedestal, humiliated in the eyes of the whole officer class of the Navy. Most particularly, it was Percy Gamble I desired to see shamed, his career dished, the captain demoted to an ignominious end as a penurious dud.
Sweating in the intense heat, puzzled and angry, I hacked and lashed at the undergrowth to vent my frustration. Far from disgrace and failure being heaped on the Navy, on the heads of Gamble and Pitchbert, it was falling upon me. The sun continued to throw its infernal heat down from almost its fullest meridian height, unrelenting, merciless and uninterrupted. Dammit, I had delayed and extended to the utmost. Twenty four minutes before the zenith, Spatchears had said. Like everything to do with the mad astronomer and his works, it was a terrible error. I needed no cross-staff, nor quadrant, nor telescope, nor any blasted tables and columns, to tell me it was past noon. The time had come and gone. The prediction was nought.
A hail came from Eli and I ran to the water’s edge. He was pointing agitatedly in the direction of the Diamond. Fifteen or twenty figures now moved about her decks, the raised barrels of their long-muskets visible in the clear bright day.
‘Dam’ you,’ I cried into the sun’s face.
How ludicrous to curse the sky. I fell to my knees on the hot beach and beat my fists, throwing up showers of grains into my face from the countless numbers there — as many, the philosophers said, as there were stars in the heavens.
Eli sat slumped in the launch, staring out to sea. The boat’s prow was buried in the sandy shore, its stern rocking as wavelets lapped past and broke, hissing, on the damp strand. In the harshness of the Tropick heat and the startling blue of the sea under the noonday sun, I raged and raged, my anger incontinent. How could I have expected a conjunction of heavenly events to intervene on my behalf?
The muffled report of a musket-shot shattered the stillness. A puff of smoke rose from the Charity’s decks. The ball, half spent, whirred past and crackled into the undergrowth.
‘Impatient cussed tykes,’ said Eli, and spat.