Sea Robber
Authors: Tim Severin
PART THREE
SEA ROBBER
T
IM
S
EVERIN
, explorer, film-maker and lecturer, has made many expeditions, from crossing the Atlantic in a medieval leather boat to going out in search of Moby Dick and Robinson Crusoe. He has written books about all of them. He has won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, the Book of the Sea Award, a Christopher Prize, and the literary medal of the Academie de la Marine. He made his historical fiction debut with the hugely successful Viking series.
Pirate: Sea Robber
is his third Hector Lynch novel.
Also by Tim Severin
NON-FICTION
The Brendan Voyage
The Sindbad Voyage
The Jason Voyage
The Ulysses Voyage
Crusader
In Search of Genghis Khan
The China Voyage
The Spice Island Voyage
In Search of Moby Dick
Seeking Robinson Crusoe
FICTION
Viking: Odinn’s Child
Viking: Sworn Brother
Viking: King’s Man
Corsair
Buccaneer
PART THREE
PAN BOOKS
First published 2009 as
Sea Robber
by Macmillan
This edition published 2010 by Pan Books
This electronic edition published 2010 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-0-230-74023-5 in Adobe Reader format
ISBN 978-0-230-74022-8 in Adobe Digital Editions format
ISBN 978-0-230-74024-2 in Mobipocket format
Copyright © Tim Severin 2009
The right of Tim Severin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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SEA ROBBER
I
T WAS NUMBINGLY HOT
, even in the shadow of the fort. Hector Lynch felt his shirt sticking to his back despite the afternoon sea breeze, which stirred the shrivelled tips of the fronds of palm thatch over his head. From where he sat he had a fine view of the anchorage. The lean-to was built against the fort’s seaward wall, and the wind carried the sound of the surf. There was a constant rumble as waves crested and broke on the long expanse of dirty yellow beach. At a distance the regular lines of crashing foam were hypnotically beautiful. Their brilliant whiteness contrasted with the translucent jade-green of the sea behind them. But, up close, he knew from experience that the surf was a menace. The advancing walls of water churned and tumbled and threatened to overturn any small boat that risked a landing. That was why the five ships waiting to take on cargo stayed moored half a mile out to sea. They were secured safely in ten fathoms of water, anchors firmly lodged in good holding ground. Yesterday a longboat had attempted a landing through the surf and been thrown upside down. A man had drowned, his corpse eventually pulled from the water by one of the local fishermen whose canoes were better able to deal with the breakers.
Hector looked down at the ledger book open on the rough plank table before him. It was hard to concentrate in the stifling heat. ‘Cutlasses, carbines, musketoons, amber beads, crystal beads, rough coral, small shells called cowries,’ he read. These were what the slave dealers expected. This was the Guinea coast, and the
Carlsborg
, which had brought him and his three friends to West Africa, was waiting with the other ships to complete her human lading. Her supercargo, who normally kept the accounts, had died of breakbone fever the previous week, and Hector had been charged with drawing up an inventory of goods remaining for barter.
A movement out to sea caught his attention. A launch was putting out from one of the anchored ships and heading towards the beach. Either the oarsmen were very confident or the surf had abated a little. He watched the boat approach the area where the waves began to heap up, and there it paused. He could see the coxswain standing in the stern, scanning the backs of the waves, waiting for the right moment. Hector thought he heard a shouted command, almost lost beneath the roar of the surf. A moment later the rowers were digging their blades into the water, urging their boat forward to catch the sloping back of a wave. Then they rowed flat out, riding just behind the crest as it rolled towards the beach. The final twenty yards were covered in a frothing welter of foam. The launch, still on even keel, was cast surging up the beach. Two men leaped out and grabbed hold of the gunwale to prevent their boat being sucked away in the backwash. A small crowd of natives came running to help manhandle her farther up the beach.
The beaching had been neatly done. The half-dozen men who had landed began walking across the sand, heading towards the fort.
Hector turned back to his ledger. What on earth, he wondered, were the ‘perputtianes and sayes, and paintradoes’? Maybe these were Danish words. The supercargo had written his other entries in English, though both the
Carlsborg
and the fort belonged to Det Vestindisk-Guineiske Kompagni, the Danish West India-Guinea Company. Perhaps someone in the fort would be able to translate.
An eddy of the breeze along the foot of the fortress wall brought a whiff of some foul smell. It was the stench of stale sweat and human waste combined with the sickly-sweet odour of rotting fruit. It came from iron grilles set low in the wall, almost at the level of the sandy ground. Behind the metal bars lay the ‘storerooms’, as the dour Danish commandant called them. Hector tried not to think about the misery being suffered by the inmates crammed in the heat and semi-darkness, awaiting their fate. Hector, still barely into his twenties, had himself spent time as a slave in North Africa. Kidnapped from his Irish village by Barbary corsairs, he had been sold in the slave market of Algiers. But he’d never been exposed to such vile conditions. His owner, a Turkish sea captain, had valued his purchase and treated Hector generously. Hector shifted uncomfortably on his bench at the memory. To please his master, he’d agreed to convert to Islam and be circumcised. He had since abandoned all religious faith, but he still recalled the shocking pain of the circumcision.
