CONTRARY TO THE PROMISE OF HER NAME, THE ADVENTURE OFFERED an uneventful passage. For a time we amused ourselves with conversation; when we tired of that, with whist; and when that too paled, with backgammon. I did not much mind that, since Miss Lyell persisted with her scheme for improving me. Each afternoon we sat together while she drilled my vocabulary and deplored my pronunciation. I made a poor student, for I concentrated rather more on the allures of her figure than the intricacies of the French language. But something must have seeped through, for eventually my brief words became stammered sentences, and at length even halting conversations. For the rest of the time, I retreated often into the darkness of my cabin. There I would extract my precious package from its concealment and hold it, turning it in my hands and staring at the impenetrable knots and seals which bound it.
There were three seals, as Mr Dawes had observed, and within a week their forms were stamped in my mind. One was a single letter, a solitary, rampant ‘A’ with flowering serifs and curlicues. The second took the image of a bird, a dove or a pigeon it seemed to me, surrounded by a motto too small and indistinct to read. As for the final seal, that needed no effort to remember it, for it was as familiar to me as my own signature: the wound rope and anchor of the Admiralty. To have that emblem stamped on so wicked and malignant an object disquieted me even more than the thing itself. I stared at it for hours, wondering who Mr Tyler of M’Culloch’s Inn, Pittsburgh, might be and what mischief my message for him might portend. Though even if I learned that, I thought dismally, how could I ever hope to defeat it as Nevell had ordered?
Of course, I found no answers.
One Thursday afternoon, during the dog watch, I was in the mess room playing cards with Kittering when the jug of water we were using to let down our brandy ran dry.
‘Not to worry,’ I said, upending it over my glass and watching the last drops trickle out. ‘Better the water runs out than the spirits.’
Kittering groaned. We were near the tropics now, both sweating freely from the heat, but he felt it worse than I. ‘Dammit, Jerrold, you cannot expect me to drink this neat. Not in this infernal climate.’ He mopped his brow. ‘My head, you know.’
I called for Fothergill, but there was no answer. It was actually something of a relief, for whenever we were together his gaze seemed to fix on me with the most severe attention.
‘You will have to refill it yourself from the cask in the foc’s’le,’ I told Kittering. I picked up the cards and started dealing them out again.
‘You go,’ he retorted. ‘You lost the last hand. And the heat in the bow will be unbearable.’
It was too hot to argue. I squeezed out of the door and past the main ladder, ducking beneath the beams as I walked through the crew’s quarters. They were all on deck, and their chests and hammocks were stowed neatly against the sides so that the room seemed empty. An amber light and the smell of wood shavings filled the air; it reminded me of exploring some long-forgotten attic on a summer’s day.
I passed the forward ladder and stepped into the galley. The fire was doused and the cook absent, but I knew what I needed. I pulled open the hatch set into the floor in the far corner, and dropped down the narrow ladder to the forepeak stores. There was hardly any light in these depths, and though I could hear the ocean rushing past the hull all about me, the air was stifling. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw chests and barrels piled high about me, a veritable warehouse of provisions. One, in particular, caught my eye.
‘What …’
It looked to be my own sea-chest, though I could not imagine how it should have come to be down here. I had seen it in my cabin a mere half hour earlier. Too befuddled to be angry, I tipped it open.
One small mystery was solved as a squat cask of brandy, nestled tight inside the chest, met my gaze. Sniffing it, I smelled the brandy within. Why someone should have wanted to store it in a sea-chest identical to my own, rather than simply in the barrel, I did not know, but obviously the similarity had confused others besides me. They must have put it in my cabin when they were loading the ship, and only realized their mistake when I complained. It would have been gracious of them, I thought, to explain the matter, rather than allow me to make a fool of myself before Trevelyan and Lyell.
I looked around at the rest of the stores. Half of them were entirely as I would have expected, sacks of flour and barrels of pork and peas, the same as you would have found on any vessel. But interspersed among them was a considerable amount of luggage – trunks and chests, and even a canvas valise – which, when I delved into them, yielded a sizeable supply of cheese, potatoes, pairs of shoes, glassware, and several more casks of brandy.
I shook my head to clear the drowsiness which had seeped in. I had spent enough time battling smugglers in Dover to guess what this little store signified. If Trevelyan winked at it, and so long as we were not all thrown in gaol by the customs officer when we reached port, I would not complain that the men of the Post Office delivered more than mail. I found a water butt and filled the jug, then climbed back to the main deck. Though before I returned to my cards, I did make sure to check my chest and its contents.
Thirty-eight days after leaving Falmouth, we reached Bermuda. From first light we could see the lush bulge on the horizon, little more than a hummock swelling out of the ocean five hundred miles from anywhere. From our low vantage, it appeared as a single, long island, though the master’s chart showed it to be a veritable archipelago of tiny islets, narrow channels and treacherous reefs, curved around like a skeletal hand beckoning westwards.
‘How enchanting,’ said Miss Lyell, standing beside me at the weather rail. ‘Have you been to the West Indies before, Lieutenant?’
I cleared my throat, gratified for the opportunity to demonstrate my knowledge. ‘Actually, Miss Lyell, we do not call Bermuda the West Indies. We are a thousand miles from Jamaica here.’
She stuck her tongue out at me. ‘They seem much the same to me. All these little islands with their blackies and their horrid climates.’
I did not risk her displeasure by pointing out that the temperature was pleasantly warm, much like an English summer’s day, though we were in the second week of October.
‘At any rate, it will be nice to stretch our legs on land.’
It seemed I was not the only one who thought so. No sooner had we passed into the opaline waters inside the reef and dropped anchor in the bay than the crew were lowering boats and making ready to go ashore. At first I thought it a commendable zeal to deliver the mails, but they paid the black portmanteaus by the mainmast no heed, instead forming a human chain down into the forepeak and bringing forth a vast pile of boxes and chests. One looked suspiciously similar to my own, though out in the sunlight I could see telltale dents and scratches which belied that fear. It was loaded into the jollyboat, stacked perilously high with the rest of the cargo, and long before the native hawkers had paddled out to meet us the crew were rowing away into the harbour.
‘They seem keen to be ashore,’ I said to Captain Trevelyan.
He looked peculiarly nonchalant, given that the greater part of his men had just absented themselves so peremptorily. ‘They’ll be back soon enough, certainly before we sail. We must allow them their little adventures, you know.’
‘What was in those boxes?’ I pressed, feigning ignorance. I wanted to know what Trevelyan made of it.
‘Provisions,’ he said shortly.
I did not pursue the matter. By his tone, I guessed he knew exactly what contraband cargoes his men delivered.
Presently, a small boat proceeded out among the vibrant flotilla which surrounded us, bringing the customs inspector and the postal agent to perform their duties. On their return ashore, Trevelyan, the Lyells and I chose to accompany them, for there were hardly men enough left aboard the Adventure to row the gig.
‘We cannot delay here long,’ said Trevelyan.
We stood clustered on the jetty, alone in the stillness of the early afternoon. The air was not infernally hot, but so heavy with moisture that it seemed to seal the heat into my body.
Trevelyan pulled out his pocket watch. ‘We will sail this evening on the ebb tide. I will have the boat take us back at four o’clock.’
Miss Lyell took a fan from her reticule and flapped it at her throat. ‘Must we leave so soon, Captain? This little island seems so picturesque. It would be such an enchanting place to explore.’
‘I regret we cannot delay.’
‘Then I shall see as much as I may in the few hours you permit us. Lieutenant Jerrold has promised to introduce me to the delights of the island.’
That was the first I had heard of such a plan, and I looked uncertainly at Lyell to see what he would make of having his daughter squired around a tropical port by a lieutenant of dubious character. To my relief, he seemed utterly uninterested.
‘You do as you like,’ he said curtly. ‘I have business I must attend.’ Without admonition or a word of goodbye, he turned and walked away. After a brief reminder not to be late returning, Trevelyan ambled off to pay his respects to the port admiral.
‘Now we are quite alone,’ said Miss Lyell. Her eyes glinted with mischief. ‘I trust you will show me all the pleasures of the island.’
It was all I could manage to resist a lecherous smirk. ‘I thought you disliked the island, its darkies and its horrid climate.’
‘That was the West Indies I spoke of. This is Bermuda.’ She hooked her arm around my own and pulled me towards the nearest street. ‘Or do you have a chère amie to see here? I know the reputation of sailors.’
‘Not in this harbour, Miss Lyell. Not yet.’
I grinned – then, remembering that her father was not far away, craned my neck about in fear he had seen our intimacy. Miss Lyell must have noticed the awkward movement, for she giggled.
‘We are quite safe. If Papa has business here you may be assured that nothing will distract him from it.’
Perhaps I should have thought to wonder what business might blind him so thoroughly to his daughter’s improprieties, but in truth it suited me too well to quibble. We wandered along the waterfront arm in arm, admiring the new Customs House, the pink sand beaches across the bay and the ships at anchor in the harbour. There were three men-of-war among them: an old seventy-four with an admiral’s blue flag drooping from her mainmast; a frigate, and a sloop, both doubtless returned from patrolling the American coast. Behind them, on the shore, I could see vast piles of cedar trunks, and the skeletons of half-completed sloops sitting in their slips.
‘What will you do when we reach New York?’ I asked, trying to fill an ungainly silence which had fallen between us.
Miss Lyell shrugged delicately. ‘I will go with Papa, of course. He has his affairs to manage – investments or consols or speculations, or whatever they may be. I confess I do not trouble to understand it.’
‘And when you return to England? Do you have a prospective husband awaiting you?’
She scowled. ‘Saving my father’s business, I cannot think of anything more tedious.’
‘But surely Mr Lyell is keen—’
‘Keen to marry me off?’ She wrinkled her nose in distaste. ‘Why should he be? He does not need the money that a rich connection would bring, and he fears that any lesser suitor would merely be bent on avarice.’
I tried to look suitably shocked at the thought of such unscrupulous rogues. To be alone with a beautiful and apparently willing girl was good fortune enough; that she should also be wealthy beyond the need for marriage was particularly fascinating.
‘I had not realized your father to be so …’
‘Rich?’ She laughed, mocking me. ‘He believes that ostentation simply serves to dissipate his wealth.’
‘But he does not even travel with servants.’
‘Why should he? I can answer his needs well enough, and save him ten shillings a week. As for servants, he does not trust them, certainly not with the cargo he has aboard the Adventure.’
In all the voyage, nobody had managed to establish precisely what brought Lyell to America – and, in turn, what he brought with him. I had not dared ask; when Kittering had attempted it once, a harsh stare and a haughty silence had been his only answer.
‘What cargo is that?’ I said, all innocence.
Throughout our conversation we had strolled through the dusty streets of the town’s hushed afternoon. Now, Miss Lyell suddenly stepped in front of me and spun about so that I collided front on with her. Instinctively, she reached her arms around my waist to keep balanced, and I found my own arms grasping her to me. I looked down: her flawless eyes were staring straight up at me, half closed against the sun, and her chin rested on my chest.
‘All this talk of my father’s business, Lieutenant.’ Her voice was fine, barely a whisper. ‘I begin to wonder what truly interests you.’
‘This.’
I leaned over and touched my lips to hers. At the back of my neck, I felt her hand pulling me down, forcing me into her. Our mouths opened and met; I could feel her whole body pressing against me through the damp muslin of her dress. My senses succumbed to the overwhelming sweetness of her scent.
I stroked one hand up the slope of her back, over the summit of her shoulder, and down her collar to the glistening skin at her bodice. And then, just as my fingers sank into the valley between her breasts, she stepped smartly away, smoothed down her dress, and was immediately a model of propriety. In the doorway to my left, deep in shadow, I saw the saucer-white eyes of a slave woman watching us without expression.
Miss Lyell reached into my waistcoat pocket and, with a demure smile, pulled out my watch.
‘Why, Lieutenant,’ she exclaimed. ‘It is four o’clock. Captain Trevelyan will be expecting us back at the ship.’
Captain Trevelyan could have been awaiting us at the last judgement for all I cared. I reached out to pull Miss Lyell back, but she was too quick: she spun away, and began walking gaily down the road. Flustered and frustrated, I could only follow.
We sailed on the tide that evening, watching the low archipelago sink into the haze behind our stern. All of the crew had returned from their excursions on shore, and whatever they had accomplished there it put them in a fine humour. The same could not be said for me, for after the fleeting bliss of our liaison on the island Miss Lyell’s affections seemed as cool as ever. And then there was the intelligence Trevelyan had had on the island: the port admiral had warned him, he said, that privateers had been sighted cruising off the American coast.
‘But I thought our mastery of the seas was absolute,’ said Lyell, when he heard the news. He looked pale, doubtless thinking of his precious cargo in the lazaret below.
Trevelyan shrugged. ‘Mostly it is. But they still sting us where they have the chance, and disrupting the mails is a favourite game of theirs.’
Each morning after that, when I took my stroll on deck, I would gaze on our meagre armament and imagine the broadside bouncing off the hull of some hulking privateer. Which is why I would have felt a particular terror when the shout came from the mainmast lookout, if only I had been able to hear it.