Kiboko

by Daniel Mannix

Part One
Chapter 1

 

One of the great swells of the Indian Ocean was slowly building up before the bows of the H.M. Steam-frigate Medusa. Half an acre of brilliantly blue water began to tremble like a shaken bowl of porridge. Then the sea gathered itself together and a long ridge appeared on the heaving surface, growing higher every second. As the ridge sucked up water to add to its height, bits of flotsam appeared on its smooth side; wreaths of seaweed, a few orange-colored jellyfish and the bodies of a man and woman.

The couple were Negroes. They were yoked together by a great stick, forked at either end, which had served to keep them afloat. They were old. As the rising swell swept the corpses up its side, the man's body broke water and the sun gleamed for an instant on his head, covered with white, woolly hair. The woman hung face down in the yoke, her long, pendulous breasts floating out in front of her. The ponderous swell moved steadily toward the frigate, carrying its grotesque burden toward the ship as though offering a gift.

From the quarter-deck of the Medusa, Captain Leslie Gordon, R.N., watched the growth of the swell with increasing irritation. From his position in the after part of the ship, Gordon had not as yet seen the bodies, but he could see the swell and as captain of a paddle-wheel frigate, Gordon disliked heavy swells. To make matters worse, ahead of the frigate an American clipper was running before the first, light breath of the autumnal monsoon with all sail set to the royals. It was Captain Gordon's duty to overhaul that clipper and see if she were carrying slaves. To do that, he would have to order the Medusa's furnaces fired up for he well knew his clumsy frigate under sail could not possibly overtake the lean greyhound ahead. But even with this light wind, overtaking the clipper would mean the expenditure of at least half a ton of coal, and coal carried from Newcastle to the east coast of Africa was a precious item. If the clipper were indeed a slaver, the expense would be fully justified. If she were only an innocent trader, Gordon knew that he could expect a stinging rebuke from the Admiralty.

Gordon was undecided and Gordon was a man who despised indecision either in himself or others. A slender man still in his early thirties, slightly over middle height with long, blond sideburns and a mustache somewhat more carefully restricted than most of the luxurious growths sported by Victorian naval officers, he hated restraints and was contemptuously indifferent to budgets. But as a captain in the Royal Navy, it was difficult entirely to ignore the edicts of the Admiralty and the Admiralty regarded coal as though every lump were part of the crown jewels.

Gordon turned away with a sigh. There was no use expending coal to overhaul the Yankee. A pity, too, for his men had been growing increasingly more sullen and moody in the last few weeks. A good chase, followed by a hard fight, would do them a world of good. Last week, for the first time since leaving Portsmouth, he had been forced to have a man flogged. This was a small matter, but some of the petty officers had actually had the insolence to protest the punishment. A bad sign. Yet one couldn't keep men in constant idleness to save coal and not expect trouble. Like a pack of hounds, a ship's crew needed a kill occasionally to keep up their interest. It was little details like this that the penny-pinching Admiralty seemed unable to grasp.

As Gordon turned away, there was a sudden hail from the lookout on the foretop crosstrees. "Deck ahoy! There's somethin' in the water, a point off the port bow. I think it's dead niggers, sir."

Dead Negroes could mean only one thing: the ship ahead was a slaver and, fearful of capture, had begun to jettison her cargo so that if she were taken there would be no incriminating evidence on board. Still, there was just a chance that these were the bodies of native fishermen who had been drowned when one of their rickety dugout canoes turned over in a heavy sea. In three steps, Gordon reached the rail. Galbraith, the quiet, studious first lieutenant, materialized beside him. Both men watched the running seas ahead of the frigate but could see nothing.

"Masthead! Can you still see those bodies?" shouted Gordon.

"They're gone now, sir." A long pause. "No, sir, there they are again. Right on the side of that swell."

At the lookout's first cry, the Medusa had been transformed from a peaceful, seemingly almost deserted ship, to a scene of the wildest activity. The port watch was already springing aloft, crowding each other on the shrouds, and men were pouring out of the hatchways with an eagerness no application of the bosun's rattan could ever produce. Every man knew that the sighting of black corpses almost certainly meant a chase and they were as hopeful as terriers at a rat hole. Gordon put up a silent prayer that the bodies would indeed be those of jettisoned slaves. To disappoint the men now would greatly increase the ship's sullen mood.

A thin line of the purest white foam flashed along the swell's crest and then with a slow, dignified motion, the great mound of water broke. For an instant the sea was covered with foam as the remnants of the swell swept past the ship. Then came a score of eager cries and a dozen fingers pointed down into the rapidly vanishing balls of foam.

"There they are. It's niggers, all right. They're slaves, yoked together, sir."

Bracing himself against one of the quarter-deck cannonades, Gordon raised his glass. The round aperture swept rapidly over the dissolving bits of foam until it focused on the two bodies. The heavy wooden yoke showed plainly and Gordon barely wasted a glance on the bodies fastened to it. He closed the glass with a snap.

"Galbraith, set the t'gallants and royals." He glanced about him and saw an excited midshipman who had just come on deck and was still buckling on his dirk. "You, Williams, there! Go below and tell Mr. McAlister that I want steam up in the second boiler."

"Aye aye, sir," squealed the boy. He threw one excited look over the side and then scuttled down the hatch to where the chief engineer lived in a stinking, red-hot hell of furnaces and ponderous machinery.

Gordon turned and saw the first lieutenant still studying the bodies through his telescope. Gordon opened his mouth to snap a reproof when Galbraith lowered his glass and shouted the order to make sail. Instantly the bosun's pipe shrilled out and the clusters of men on the shrouds broke apart. For a few seconds there was apparent chaos as men swung through the rigging, officers bellowed orders and the afterguard rushed along the waist, their bare feet slapping on the smoothly holystoned deck. Then, like a suddenly turned kaleidoscope, the scattered pieces re-formed themselves. The perfectly spaced figures of men appeared along the yards as they bent over to loosen the gaskets. Jib and spanker rose into position. Galbraith shouted another order through his hastily snatched-up speaking trumpet and the great sails plunged down like released avalanches of snow, immediately billowing out as the wind took them.

Almost at once, Gordon could feel the forward thrust of the sails on the ship. Yet the Medusa moved sluggishly, as though dragging a great weight with her. Gordon glanced at the paddle wheels, slowly revolving within their huge, sheltering boxes. Steam was always maintained in one boiler so that even when the ship was under sail, the wheels could be turned at the same rate of speed as the forward motion of the ship, otherwise they would act as a drag on her. Although these wheels were of the latest design, with paddles swung on davits so that they would automatically feather as they came out of the water, with these new sails spread the single boiler could not turn them sufficiently rapidly to prevent the paddles from slightly retarding the vessel. Gordon looked up at the smokestack for the first signs of the black, greasy smoke that would indicate McAlister was firing up the second furnace.

He had not long to wait. Even as Gordon stood fidgeting impatiently, the thin stream of gray smoke that trickled from the Medusa's lone smokestack grew thicker and blacker. Sparks began to appear in the mass, glowing like fireflies in a tar barrel. Slowly the tempo of the wheels increased and the roar of water thrown up against the tops of the paddle boxes drowned out all other sounds.

Galbraith was standing in the waist, supervising the sheeting home of the halyards. Gordon moved to the poop and hailed him.

"Mr. Galbraith!"

"Sir?" Galbraith stiffened to attention.

"I want a man aloft with a good telescope to keep an eye on the chase. Let me know immediately if she tries to jettison any more slaves."

"Aye aye, sir." Young Williams was just reappearing from the forward hatch and heard the order.

"Oh, sir, let me go. Please, sir." Galbraith smiled at the boy.

"Very well, Williams. Up you go. Keep a sharp lookout now, mind you." The delighted boy sprang for the shrouds. Galbraith looked reprovingly at Laird, another midshipman who stood near and had made no move to volunteer.

"Williams was sharper than you that time, Laird," he remarked.

"I'm no muff, sir," returned the boy imperturbably. "When the pinnace's called away with the boarding party, I'll be on deck and Williams aloft."

The boy had girded himself with an enormous cutlass, the point of which almost touched the deck. Gordon turned away with a smile. Already pistols and cutlasses were being passed up from below, to be laid in a heap at the foot of the mainmast. Second Lieutenant Morrison and his boat's crew were throwing off the boat gripes on the pinnace and swinging a little four-pound cannon into her bow. When the Medusa overtook her fleeing victim, there would be a thrilling dash in the open boat to board the slaver.

A hail from the masthead. "The chase is setting more sail!"

Both Gordon and Galbraith raised their glasses. Flashes of white, almost like bursts of smoke, were blossoming out on the masts of the fleeing clipper.

"There go her stun-syls and skys'ls," remarked Galbraith thoughtfully. "I doubt if we can keep up with her, sir."

"We'll see," said Gordon grimly. When the Medusa had first arrived on the East African station Gordon had made the unpleasant discovery that even the clumsy-seeming Arab dhows could outdistance the steam-frigate in a good wind. Gordon was not only a conscientious naval officer but also a real naval enthusiast and he had made a careful study of the complicated business of combining steam with sails so as to give the ship the greatest possible amount of speed using both mediums. While the Medusa had been coaling in Zanzibar the month before, he had completely overhauled her . . . eliminating every part of the rigging possible. Complicated rigging, no matter how useful to a sailing ship, acted as a windbreak and tended to hold the ship back when she was under steam. The designers of the Medusa had taken for granted that she would be nearly always under sail and would use her paddle wheels only as an incidental and comparatively unimportant source of power. But Gordon had discovered that the frigate could not possibly outsail either the Arab dhows or the American slavers. The frigate's only chance of taking a prize came when the wind was light and she could use power to run down her quarry. Gordon believed that his alterations to the Medusa had added a good knot and a half to her speed under steam . . . perhaps two knots. This was a chance to test his theory.

Gordon heard shouts of amazement and turned his head from studying the sails to watch the chase. She was changing course and coming into the wind. Gordon stared at her unbelievingly. Running before the wind, the clipper stood a good chance of being able to outdistance the steamship but now the paddle-wheel frigate had the advantage. Galbraith came aft and Gordon said angrily, "Her captain must be blind drunk or insane."

"It's almost as though he were testing our sailing qualities, sir," said the lieutenant quietly.

"He's testing them too far," said Gordon grimly. "Send down the yards."

Galbraith picked up his trumpet and shouted the order. With the frigate turning into the wind, the yards would simply act as a hindrance. This was one of the many details of operating under both sails and steam which Gordon had worked out by careful experimentation. Men sprang aloft, whips were rigged, and the long yards tilted and slid toward the deck. Within a few minutes, the change was noticeable but the chase was still able to maintain her distance.

Gordon turned to Midshipman Laird who was standing beside him, magnificent in his spotless white uniform and huge cutlass. "Laird, tell Mr. McAlister that I want steam up in the third boiler, a full thirty-eight pounds."

Laird stared at his captain. The third boiler was used only in case of the direst emergencies. With all three boilers going, the Medusa devoured one hundred shillings' worth of coal an hour . . . a sum sufficient to keep an ordinary sailing ship at sea for a fortnight. Gordon knew this perfectly well and he also knew what reaction he could expect from the Admiralty if the chase turned out not to be a slaver. He was already in a sufficiently irritable mood without the look of horror on the midshipman's face.

"Do as I tell you, damn it," he snapped. "And for God's sake, take off that ridiculous cutlass." Midshipman Laird fled, all his adolescent selfimportance gone, fumbling with the buckle of his sword belt as he disappeared down the hatch.

Slowly the deck of the frigate began to vibrate with the pulsation of the new power. Gordon glanced up. Smoke was vomiting out of the stack, so thick and greasy that it refused to rise and lay on the surface of the water behind the Medusa like a black wake. The paddle wheels were thrashing in their boxes and white water was pouring out on either side of the ship. Gordon studied the set of the remaining sails, longing to be able to take in what canvas was still aloft for it was retarding the motion of the ship rather than helping it. But some sail was necessary to keep the ship on an even keel; otherwise she would roll so in the heavy swells that the wheels would leave the water and their efficiency would be reduced.

Galbraith came toward him, followed by an old seaman who still wore the traditional pigtail of Nelson's day. The man had been recently transferred to the Medusa because of his knowledge of the coast.

"Sir, Phillips thinks he knows the chase," explained Galbraith.

Phillips touched his hat. "I believe she's the Flying Witch, sir. We chased her a couple o' times in the Cassiopeia, but she always got away."

"A Yankee?" asked Gordon.

"That's what they say, sir. She sails under all kinds of papers." Phillips hesitated an instant. "Her captain's got the name of being the smartest man in the Trade, sir. I know for a fact Admiral Chichester 'ud give his right arm to take her, sir, and so would all the other officers in the squadron. Beggin' your pardon, sir, but I'd be on the lookout for tricks. You know these Yankees, sir."

"I never met a Yankee, but I know their reputation," said Gordon, smiling. "Very well, Phillips, when we overhaul her, we'll see if Yankee smartness can find an answer to a broadside from our guns."

"Yes, sir. And I tell you straight, I'd give six months' pay to see that bloody clipper taken and so would every man who's ever had aught to do with her or her damn captain."

Midshipman Williams was shouting something from the masthead but the roar of the paddle wheels drowned out his words. Gordon raised his telescope and focused on the chase. With intense satisfaction, he saw a little group of men at the ship's stern.

"I believe she's trying to jettison more slaves," he said to Galbraith. But no black objects were thrown over the ship's side and the men were busy on some project the purpose of which Gordon could not fathom. "Can you see what the devil they're about, Galbraith?" he asked irritably.

"They seem to be casting the log, sir."

"Casting the log? Why in God's name should they be casting the log now?"

"I can't imagine, but that's unquestionably what they're doing."

"That captain must be mad as a March hare," Gordon said in bewilderment.

Galbraith did not reply at once. Then he spoke slowly. "This whole affair seems strange to me, sir. Those two Negroes were yoked. You know slaves are never kept in yokes on shipboard. And they were old, also. Not worth more than a dollar or so. Why should a slaver take a cargo like that? It would be a waste of space."

"You know the slavers always jettison their worst slaves first," said Gordon angrily.

"That's true, sir, but from the look of those two they'd been dead some time. Rigor mortis had already set in. A slaver would have jettisoned them long ago and why should he do it now before we'd even begun to give chase? With the current setting as it is, he must have known our lookout would spot them."

Gordon closed his glass thoughtfully. "You may be right, Galbraith, although I'll be damned if I can understand what his motive might be. At all events, we'll be up with him shortly and make Mr. Yankee give an account of himself."

The gun captain had come up and was saluting. "Gillroy thinks the chase may be in range with the Armstrong, sir," he reported.

The Armstrong pivot gun was the Medusa's bow-chaser. "Have the Armstrong cast loose and send a shot across her bow," Gordon ordered. "Give the gun extreme elevation and fire when the target is one point on the bow."

"Aye aye, sir," said the gun captain, touching his hat. He trotted forward and Gordon watched as the gun crew threw off the Armstrong's protecting canvas cover and removed the tampion. When the gun captain raised his arm, Gordon spoke to the man at the wheel without turning his head.

"Keep her off one point and steady."

"Aye aye, sir. Off one point and steady."

All hands were watching anxiously, dividing their attention between the gun and the chase. Gillroy was crouched behind the rifled thirty-pounder, his beard hanging over the gun's breech as he took careful aim. Then he stepped back and jerked the lockstring. There was a flash, a puff of smoke, a sharp report, and a brief whiz. The shell flew high in the air and then curved downwards. It struck the water, ricocheted a few rods and exploded within a hundred yards of the chase.

The clipper continued on her course. Gordon cupped his hands. "Very well, let her have it."

The steering of the ship and the work of the gun's crew had to be perfectly coordinated. The Medusa had to be kept pointed for the chase during the intervals of the discharges and steered off a point when the gun was ready. From his position on the quarter-deck, Gordon controlled the motions of the ship in accordance to the gun captain's hand signals. Half a dozen shells were fired without effect and then one burst directly over the chase. Instantly, as if by a prearrangement, the clipper hauled her wind. She lay in the trough of the swells, heaving back and forth like a great piece of driftwood.

There was a roar of contempt from the Medusa's deck. Yankees, for all their shortcomings, had the reputation of being willing to fight and the Englishmen felt as frustrated as a fisherman who hooks a magnificent salmon, only to have the fish give up without a struggle.

"Damn," said Gordon, intensely annoyed. "I thought Brother Jonathan would put up a better resistance than that."

"I expect he didn't like that last shell," remarked Galbraith.

"I suppose one can expect nothing better from a mongrel nation. I'll go with the pinnace, Galbraith. I'd like to see this notorious vessel. You're in command here."

Galbraith touched his cap. Gordon swung himself into the awaiting boat and nodded to Morrison. Instantly the Medusa's side shot past him as the boat was lowered. As the top of the swells lapped against the pinnace's bottom, the stern and aft hooks were simultaneously jerked free and the pinnace struck the water with scarcely a jolt. "Out oars!" called Morrison, and the pinnace began to move away toward the clipper.

"Pull, boys!" shouted Morrison, standing in the pinnace's stern with the tiller under his hand. "There's three pounds of prize money for every one of you in that ship . . . more, if she has any decent number of slaves. Bend those oars!" Someone raised a shout and the pinnace leaped forward through the water. And this, reflected Gordon, was the crew that only a few hours before had gone about their duties with a hangdog air and resented every order. He knew that the prize money actually meant little to them. The British government paid five pounds for every slave liberated and an additional bonus of one pound ten per ton on every slaver destroyed. But the money was more important to the men as a symbol of success than as cash. A seaman would rather have a shilling in prize money than a pound in pay.

As the pinnace approached the ship, Gordon studied the clipper with professional interest. She was a lovely thing. It almost seemed a pity to destroy her. But as the boat came closer, Gordon's admiration was shot with doubt. Compared to the great, solid ships of the honorable East India Company, the clipper seemed like an exquisite toy . . . suitable perhaps for a rich man's yacht but not as an ocean-going vessel. Morrison evidently agreed with him for the lieutenant gave a snort of contempt.

"Look at those bows. Like a razor. Typical Yankee brag and bounce. Of course, a bow like that will give her speed but it'll also drive her under in the first real blow."

"Quite so," agreed Gordon. And yet he was puzzled. The clipper must have encountered heavy weather in her Atlantic crossings many times. How had her captain managed?

Gordon was so interested in the strange ship that he went over her side more as a sight-seer than as the head of a boarding party, but once his feet touched the deck he recovered himself. A tall man was waiting to receive him. The man was slightly over six feet. His hair was black and worn so long that it fell over his collar. He was clean shaven and neatly dressed, much to the surprise of the Englishman who had expected a bewhiskered ruffian.

"Glad to see you on board, sir," said the stranger. He drawled his words so that 'sir' was almost turned into 'suh'. "We appreciate those salutes you fired to honor the United States flag, but some fool forgot to draw the charges."

You're a cool one and no mistake, thought Gordon. He stared at the man curiously. The stranger's face was delicate, almost aesthetic. He gave the impression of being small-boned but his chest and shoulders were so heavy that Gordon reflected the effect was much like that of a high-class Hindu, whose natural build is almost effeminately delicate, but who had been forced to do manual labor and had become abnormally developed.

"Who's in command here?" he snapped.

"I'm the captain. My name is Rutledge. May I ask by what authority you've boarded me?"

Gordon pointed to the Medusa's broadside trained on the clipper. "By that authority," he said briefly.

"I've no answer to that argument, but if this ship were a man-o'-war, none of you would dare to set foot on her deck."

"Unfortunately you're not a man-o'-war but a slaver," said Gordon coolly. "I intend to search this ship and if I find slaves aboard or a slave deck and slave shackles, I will take her as a lawful prize."

 

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