Trade Wind (3 page)

“I must learn something about nursing,” decided Hero. And to the dismay of her father and the strongly expressed disapproval of her relations she had actually done so. Going three days a week to a local Charity Hospital whose staff had been only too glad to accept the services of an unpaid voluntary assistant, and whose head doctor had informed her disgruntled parent that his daughter was not only a born nurse, but a credit to her sex: “We get a heap of rough characters in our wards, Mr Hollis,” said the doctor,” but you ought to see the way their eyes light up when your girl comes in. She seems to be able to comfort them; and to give them confidence that they’ll get well, which is half the battle. They just about worship her. Even the worst of them!”

But Barclay was not to be placated by such praise, and he continued to regard Hero’s visits to the hospital with a baffled mixture of disbelief and aversion.’ If I’d known what bees you were going to bring back in your bonnet, damned if I’d ever have let you go traipsing around in Carolina with those Langlys!” he observed sourly.

He was not to know that the shorter stay in Washington was to have a far greater effect on his daughter’s future than all Clarissa Langly’s pamphlets. The reason being that the Crayne cousins in the capital had entertained lavishly for their guests, and since their friends were largely drawn from Government circles. Hero had been able to hold forth on her favourite topics (slavery and the sad state of that infamous centre of the trade, Zanzibar) to a wide variety of disconcerted Senators and Congressmen. So that when, a few months afterwards, hearing that her Uncle Nathaniel had been appointed American Consul in Zanzibar, his brother Barclay had declared it to be an odd coincidence and his niece had seen it as the finger of fate, neither had been right. For in point of fact a solid hour of Hero’s conversation during an evening party at Cousin Louella’s house, had caused the name of “Hollis’ to become so inextricably linked with Zanzibar in the mind of one influential guest, that the appointment had been more in the nature of a reflex action.

Uncle Nathaniel had not been pleased, but he was too conscientious a man to contest the posting; and Hero Athena, sublimely unaware of being in any way responsible, had been torn between awe and envy. It was unbelievable! Zanzibar—her chosen island!…and Aunt Abby and Cousin Cressy would be going with him; and Clayton too. If only…If only…!

But there had never been any question of her accompanying them. And in any case, relations between the two families had recently become strained, owing to Barclay having taken a sudden and violent dislike to his brother’s step-son, Clayton Mayo.

Long ago, on the occasion of his daughter’s christening, Barclay had hotly defended his choice of names for die motherless infant: ‘Just you wait!’ he had retorted to the shocked chorus of disapproval: “She’ll have them swimming the Hellespont in droves one of these days. She’s going to be a beauty, is my girl. You’ll see!”

Well, he had been right in the last of those predictions, because Hero had certainly grown up to be a beauty. But a beauty without an ounce of coquetry or feminine allure. “The best lookin’ gal in Boston,” as her cousin Hartley Crayne had been heard to remark, “and the biggest goddamned bore!” By the time she celebrated her twentieth birthday—and according to the standards of the day was in grave danger of being classed as an Old Maid—there had still been no sign of any Leander: unless her Uncle Nathaniel’s handsome step-son, Clayton Mayo, could be regarded as a possible swimmer of the Hellespont. Numerous young men had looked and admired. But only from a distance, for a closer acquaintance had invariably resulted in disappointment and a hasty retreat; the young sparks of Boston preferring dimpled and sweetly feminine charmers to Grecian goddesses who looked them squarely in the eye, had no patience with coyness, swooning or the vapours, and considered flirting vulgar.

Clayton Mayo had proved to be the solitary exception. But Barclay, in his daughter’s opinion, had been impossible about Clay!

Hero was well aware that her father (when he took the trouble to think about it!) was worried by the lack of suitors for her hand. Yet he had been extravagantly annoyed by young Mr Mayo’s attentions to her, and greatly relieved when Clayton had agreed to accompany his stepfather to Zanzibar in the semi-official capacity of confidential secretary.

Hero had not seen Clayton again, but in a letter smuggled to her by a sympathetic housemaid he had promised to “prove by his constancy the enduring nature of his regard’, and to return one day, having made his fortune, and formally request her hand in marriage. Which, though gratifying, was hardly romantic. But then it had not been a particularly romantic affair.

Clay had only kissed her once—and then on the cheek, because realizing his intention she had suddenly taken fright and turned her head away at the last moment. And after he had sailed and the strife and agitation had had time to subside, she was inclined to think that perhaps everything had turned out for die best, because until her father had interfered she had not been in the least certain about her feeling for Clay.

Then, little more than a year later, Barclay died very suddenly from a heart attack, and after that there was nothing to keep his daughter in Boston or prevent her from setting out in search of her destiny. Nothing but an unbearably empty house, for even Miss Penbury had long since retired to a cottage in Pennsylvania. Hero Athena Hollis was free to do what she liked and go where she wished, and when Aunt Abby’s letter arrived urging her to visit them in Zanzibar, she had accepted thankfully and without hesitation. And without pausing to remember that old Biddy Jason, who had spoken of sun and salt water and an island full of black men, had also said: “Things you want, you have to pay for.’ Whether Clayton was one of those things remained to be seen.

There had, of course, been difficulties. Cousin Josiah Crayne, who as Chairman and co-owner of the Crayne Line Clippers might have been expected to help, had been deeply shocked. It was unthinkable that any young woman of his family (Hero must not forget that her own dear mother had been a Crayne!) should even contemplate a voyage to such an outlandish spot—and without so much as a maid or a chaperone to accompany her! He would have nothing to do with it, and he had taken the opportunity to read her a blunt lecture to the effect that people who felt called upon to do good to others had much better make a start in their own back-yard rather than in someone else’s. She would find, said Cousin Josiah, plenty of scope for her charitable instincts right here in Massachusetts.

He had not been the only one to express disapproval. Numerous other relatives and connections had not hesitated to add their own strictures, but neither lectures nor family disapproval had altered Hero’s decision: for save in the matter of Clayton she had always had her own way and got what she wanted, and now she wanted to go to Zanzibar. Not only as an escape from grief or to see Clay again, but because she was firmly convinced (or, as Josiah Crayne observed tartly, had convinced herself), that Providence intended her to go. She had always known that there was work there for her to do. And in the event there was no one with the authority to stop her, since in addition to being in sole possession of a considerable fortune, she had now turned twenty-one and was her own mistress.

Cousin Josiah gave up the unequal struggle and arranged a passage for her on one of his own clippers. And since he had also managed to placate family opinion by conjuring up a chaperone for her in the person of the captain’s wife, in the spring of 1859, Hero at last set sail for Zanzibar.

2

“Ere she comes, sir!”

The
Daffodil
’s coxswain spoke in a hoarse whisper, as though he were afraid that even in that surf-loud, murmurous night, any more audible sound might carry to the deck of the distant ship that was slowly emerging from among the trees and the tall coral rocks that masked the entrance to a small, hidden bay.

Few were aware of the existence of that bay. And those few used it exclusively for unlawful purposes. It did not appear on the official maps of the East African coast or figure on any Admiralty chart, and Lieutenant Larrimore, in command of Her Britannic Majesty’s steam sloop,
Daffodil
y had frequently passed within half a mile of it without even suspecting that what appeared to be part of the mainland was, in reality, a high, narrow reef of wind-worn coral, topped by a tangle of palms and tropical vegetation, and concealing a small, deep bay capable of sheltering half a dozen sea-going dhows.

Daniel Larrimore knew the coastal waters between Lourenço Marques and Mogadishu well, for he had spent the best part of the last five years assisting in the thankless task of suppressing the East African slave trade: that traffic having greatly increased of late as the trade shrank on the West Coast, where stricter surveillance and the strengthening of the West African and Cape Squadrons had combined to make slaving an increasingly dangerous and unprofitable venture. Although he had on occasion heard rumours of a hidden bay, he had never been able to confirm them, and as recently as a week ago would have been inclined to dismiss them as fables. On the previous Thursday, however, while his ship was engaged in taking on water and supplies of fresh food at Zanzibar, one of the negro slaves whom the Arab contractor employed to carry baskets of fruit and vegetables on board had plucked furtively at his sleeve and whispered a highly interesting piece of information…

The hidden harbour, it appeared, was no myth, but a secure and secret haven known to certain of the Arab slave traders, where they could embark slaves in safety, take refuge from storms and doldrums, and lie concealed when naval vessels were known to be on the prowl. Moreover, a notorious English-owned schooner, loaded with illegal cargo, would be leaving it at nightfall the following Tuesday, bound for an unknown destination.

The information had been both detailed and circumstantial, but the negro could not be persuaded to tell how he had come by it, and when pressed had become frightened and stupid, and backing away, muttered that he did not understand the white man’s talk.

Lieutenant Larrimore had been of two minds whether to believe him or not. Yet the story not only confirmed those earlier rumours, but explained how certain ships, sighted and pursued towards sundown, had managed to escape in the darkness when their sailing speeds were certainly not superior to his own. At least there could be no harm in acting upon the information; and the
Daffodil
had raised steam and left Zanzibar on the following day, heading northwards; her commanding officer having announced his intention of visiting Mombasa.

Once out of sight of the island, however, he had altered course, and turning south crept down the coast as close to the shore as reefs would permit. And now, late on the Tuesday evening, his ship lay in wait; lights darkened and full steam up, keeping watch on the barely visible break in the long, uneven line of coral cliffs and dark jungle, and rocking idly to the slow-breathing swell that broke lazily and monotonously against the darkened shore.

There had been little wind that day, or for many days; but an hour ago a breeze had arisen with the rising moon, and now it blew strongly off the land, dispersing at last the stinging, singing cloud of mosquitoes that had been plaguing the watchers, and bringing with it the taint of an odour; rancid, sickly, and entirely horrible.

“
Strewth!
” muttered the coxswain, grimacing with disgust: “Stinks like a floating sewer, don’t she? Must ‘av a full load on board this trip; and ‘arf of ‘em dead already, I’d say. You’d think them dhows would ‘av more sense than to kill off their own goods, wouldn’t yer?”

“This one isn’t a dhow,” said Lieutenant Larrimore grimly. “If my information is correct, it’s a bird of a very different feather. Look—”

The slave ship had edged forward into the unseen passage, and now the moonlight caught her full on and she was no longer a shadowy and unidentifiable shape, but a thing of silver, picking her way cautiously through the narrow channel under jib and foresail, and sounding as she went.

“Schooner!” exclaimed the coxswain. “I believe it’s—no, it couldn’t be…By goles, sir, I believe it is! Look at the cut of ‘er jib—if that ‘aint the
Virago
, I’m a Dutchman!”

“So that negro was right,” said the Lieutenant between his teeth. “It is Frost—we’ve got him at last, and red-handed.”

He whirled round and yelled: “Up anchor! Headsails out! Full speed ahead!”

The anchor came up with a rattle that drowned the slow crash and mumble of the surf, furled sails blossomed white in the moonlight, and smoke and sparks lit the blue of the night as the paddles threshed and turned.

The schooner had seen them, but too late. She was too nearly free of the channel to check or turn, and there was nothing for it but to crowd on sail and go forward; and winning clear of the shoals she came about and fled before the strengthening wind, heeling to larboard with the long wake of foam streaming out behind her like a shimmering path across the dancing sea.

Colours broke from her masthead and fluttered in the breeze, but by the light of the half moon it was difficult to make out what they were, until a midshipman staring through a telescope announced: “American, sir. She’s hoisted the stars-and-stripes.”

“Has she, by God,” snarled the Lieutenant. “That trick may work with the West Coast Squadron, but it won’t with me. There’s nothing American about that bastard except his blasted impertinence. Put a shot across him. Bates.”

“Ay, ay, sir.”

There was a flash and a boom, and the shot passed over the schooner’s masthead and plunged into the sea beyond.

“They’re lightening ship, sir.”

The fleeing shape ahead of them was flinging everything movable overboard. Spars, casks and timber flashed briefly in the moonlight and bobbed away in the creaming wake, and as the breeze freshened the tiny dark figures of her crew could be seen throwing water on her straining canvas and scrambling from one side to the other to trim the ship.

Even in those light airs she was faster than Lieutenant Larrimore had thought possible, and it was obvious that she was being handled in a masterly manner. He began to realize that even with the advantage of steam in his favour she might draw away from him if the breeze continued to strengthen, for he could not keep up the chase for long—the Admiralty being notoriously parsimonious in the matter of fuel, his supply of coal was far from adequate.