THE WIND ROSE AS THE SUN SET; AT LAST LIGHT, THE SCHOONER weighed anchor and slipped out into the Gulf of Mexico. The two boatmen who had brought us safe through swamp and bayou accompanied us to the mouth of the lagoon; then, when they had piloted the ship past the last hazards of the channel, they clambered down into the yawl and sailed back to the island. Nevell had invited them to stay and take up honest service in the navy, but they wisely preferred Lafitte’s employ, though they did accept the bag of golden guineas and the large cask of rum he pressed on them.
I saw none of it. The moment Nevell freed me from his embrace I had collapsed to the deck and been taken below to the stern cabin. There, aided by a draught from the surgeon, I slept, all through the night as we beat our way south, and well into the morning. When I woke, I found my boots clean, a new shirt and breeches laid out for me, and a cold breakfast awaiting me on the table. Only when I had devoured it, and twice summoned the steward to replenish my coffee, did I venture out into the mid-morning sun.
We were alone on the ocean. An archipelago of vast white clouds floated in the blue sky above, and a modest swell surged around our hull. The ship was close-hauled against the wind, which had backed around to the south, and making good speed. Nevell was deep in conversation with the master at the starboard rail, but he broke off as soon as he saw me and hurried across.
‘You are awake at last. For a time we feared that your exertions might have overwhelmed you.’
‘You would have had only yourself to blame.’ I spoke testily, for I did not yet feel well enough recovered to forgive Nevell the hardships he had inflicted on me. ‘I have come rather further than Pittsburgh since you gave me that letter to deliver.’
The smile vanished from Nevell’s eyes and he looked downcast. I relented a little. ‘Even so, it is good to see you. Is it worth my asking how you came here?’
Nevell laughed. ‘Not particularly. Suffice to say that a great many pieces of evidence suggested that the conspiracy might come to fruition in New Orleans, and I decided to witness it for myself. Then I received a message from Fothergill that you were in the city, that your enemies had captured you, and that he would attempt to bring you out through the swamps. Needless to say, I am delighted to find he succeeded.’
There at least I was in heartfelt agreement. ‘But where now?’ I asked. ‘And what is this vessel you have conjured out of the Orleans marshes? Is it a navy ship?’
A devious smile flashed across Nevell’s face, a look that intimated he was saying less than he might, and wished you to know it. ‘Not precisely. We did not feel that the navy were entirely … reliable in this matter. I have the ship under contract. Her crew are not navy men, but you will find them useful enough in battle.’
I looked down the length of the deck and almost laughed. Nevell’s schooner might be suited to lurking in swampy coves and navigating shallow waters, but she was no more built for battle than the yawl. Though pierced for ten guns she carried only four twelve-pound carronades. With a deck measuring little more than fifty feet, a single hostile broadside would reduce her to her waterline before she had fired a shot.
‘As to where we are going,’ Nevell was saying, ‘you will be relieved to hear it is London. I think our business in the New World is concluded – thanks in no small part to your own efforts, naturally. Whether Burr is captured or no his plans are ruined, and with your escape we have removed all evidence implicating Britain. But you must tell me everything that has happened.’
We went below, and for the better part of two hours I recounted all I had done since I sailed out of Falmouth on the Adventure. Nevell sat at the table and scrawled details in a notebook, halting me only to sand the pages or to press me on some detail. He showed particular interest in Lyell, and also in the letter I had carried.
‘It was from within the Admiralty itself, you say. Did it name any of the conspirators?’
‘It was vague on that point,’ I lied. ‘Certainly they must have been men of substantial influence.’ It was not that I wished to withhold the information from Nevell – though God knew he had done it to me often enough – nor that I had any sentimental loyalty to my family, but there were my own interests to consider. If I was to use the letter, still safely sewn in my coat, to gain concessions from my uncle, it would not do to have him stripped of his rank and pleading for his life in the Old Bailey.
‘And what of the naval aid the letter promised? Did you ever see any sign of it?’
There I could be more honest. ‘None whatsoever. In truth, I believe it must have been either a lie to encourage Burr, or a pledge they hastily repented.’ Every other ally had failed to provide Burr his army; why should the Admiralty have proved any different?
I continued to recount the story from Blennerhassett Island – the flight, the absurd trial in Washington, and Wilkinson’s treachery in New Orleans. The events were raw in my memory, and several times I had to reach for the bottle to steady my nerve. When I had finished, I was gratified to see Nevell watching me with frank admiration.
‘An extraordinary tale,’ he murmured. ‘Tragedy and farce, treason and honour all knotted together. One almost feels sorry for Mr Burr.’
‘I do not,’ I said harshly. ‘He might easily have started a war, but he would never have won it. If we were in London I would have him consigned to Bedlam. He was a fantasist.’
‘Nonetheless, it was as well you escaped him – and more urgent than you know. While you were away, Buonaparte issued a decree from Berlin. Having failed to subdue us with his army, he now means to strangle our finance. The entire continent has been closed to our trade. Had the Americans turned against us, all would have been lost.’
‘And what of South America?’ I asked, suddenly reminded of it. ‘Burr’s operations in Mexico were only half of Lyell’s plan. The other half, as I understood it, was that a co-opted army would invade Spain’s southern empire and take it for themselves. I heard they had already captured Buenos Aires some months ago.’
Nevell nodded. ‘They enjoyed some success there for a time, but that has now soured. The Spanish have retaken Buenos Aires and inflicted a heavy defeat on General Beresford, Lyell’s ally. They have gambled recklessly with men’s lives and with the fate of nations, and lost both wagers. It is thanks to you that the damage is not greater.’
We pondered this a moment, I sipping my wine and Nevell reading back through his notes. A knock at the door interrupted the silence.
‘Come in,’ said Nevell, snapping his book shut. A small trail of sand trickled onto the floor.
The master peered in. ‘Begging your pardon, Mr Nevell, but I’ve just taken the noon sightings and I’ll be needing to write them in the log.’
‘Of course.’
The master crossed to a shelf in the bulkhead and reached down a furled map, a pair of dividers and a weatherbeaten brown book. Nevell and I obliged him by holding down the edges of the chart while he plotted our position, then copied it into the logbook. I was gratified to see we were well away from the American mainland, though to our north the three-mouthed neck of the Mississippi estuary still stretched down into the gulf, as if even now it hoped to suck me back in.
‘What is our position?’ asked Nevell.
The master peered in his book. ‘Eighty-nine degrees and thirty-eight minutes west longitude by twenty-eight degrees north latitude, sir.’
Nevell murmured an acknowledgement and began some subsidiary question as to the time it would take us to reach Florida, but I did not hear him. Something in the master’s matter-of-fact reading had tugged an unpleasant cord in my memory. Twenty-eight degrees north latitude. That was where—
A cry from on deck echoed down the companionway and through the open door.
‘Sail in sight!’