‘Five quintal?’ Ribeiro came back with a frown. ‘We just quit o’ three cargo for Zanzibar, not so many left. Cost me more to find.’
Idly Renzi looked out at a grove of densely clustered scrub palms nearby. To his surprise he made out arrays of the unmistakable yellow curves of magnificently sized fruit. More than enough, surely. ‘Er, may we not avail ourselves of those fine bananas yonder, or are they spoken for perhaps?’ he enquired.
The other two men turned to him with surprise. ‘Do allow I should conduct my business without your valued assistance, Mr Renzi,’ Owen said huffily. ‘Those are not bananas, rather plantains, which every soul knows may only be suffered to be eaten after cooking.’ He turned back to Ribeiro and stiffly concluded arrangements for a delivery of three quintals of standard bananas.
As Renzi rose with the purser, he offered casually, ‘Then your trade prospers, Mr Ribeiro?’
The man looked up guardedly. ‘As is always the chance o’ luck in these days. Why you ask?’
‘Oh, just that Mr Napoleon is stirring up trouble in these parts. Has your business suffered at the hands of the French at all?’
‘They don’t trouble as we,’ Ribeiro replied.
‘Then you haven’t heard – his ships of war are at sea. He seeks bases for his privateers, territory to add to France. Should he decide on Quelimane, well, as you have no friends . . .’
‘Er, no friends?’
‘Those who will rid you of him, should you tell them in time. You haven’t seen any French ships – big ones, I mean to say?’ Renzi added.
‘Um, no, not b’ me.’
‘Perhaps have had word of such?’ It was a last try. So far north and failing any intelligence, L’Aurore must now cease her search and put about for Cape Town with nothing to report.
‘No.’
Renzi shrugged and turned to go.
‘Wait.’ Ribeiro hauled himself to his feet, snorting with the effort. ‘I not seen, but the fishers? They on the sea, they will know.’ He went to the doorway and called over a wizened man on the other side of the street.
After a brief exchange in some African dialect, Ribeiro beamed. ‘He say yes! Ver’ big one, two day ago up th’ coast.’
Renzi snapped to full alert. ‘Just one? Where was it going?’
‘He remember Pebane way – t’ the north.’
Curious onlookers joined them, and another seamed individual broke in with excited jabber.
‘He say he saw as well, four day ago but swear it were off t’ the south.’
Renzi frowned. How much reliance should he place on these fishermen? A lone ship – and was it truly a big one?
‘How many masts did it have?’ he asked.
Both were insistent that it was three-masted and square-rigged on each. This, therefore, was not a local trader, nor yet a privateer or even an armed schooner, for it was ship-rigged in exactly the same way as a frigate or ship-of-the-line. Was it one of Marechal’s scouting frigates ranging ahead of the deadly squadron?
His heart quickened, but Kydd would need to know details. North or south – where was it headed? If he offered money to the wider community for information they would say anything they thought would please him but he did have something up his sleeve. ‘Oh, Mr Owen,’ he said to the purser, ‘do send for my sea-bag, if you will.’
One of the boat’s crew, red-faced with exertion in the heat, hurried up with a mysterious carry-all, surrounded by a noisy crowd of screeching children and their elders. Renzi took it, bowing politely to the young seaman who, taken aback, awkwardly bowed in return and for good measure touched his forelock.
Looking significantly at Ribeiro, Renzi opened it and peered inside. The hubbub died to an expectant hush as others flocked to join the throng. After a pause he straightened in satisfaction, then pointedly laced it shut. ‘Mr Ribeiro,’ he announced importantly, ‘our good King George is concerned at the hard life of the fishermen of Quelimane. He directs me to distribute these small gifts as a token of his esteem – but only to the worthy fisher-folk themselves.’
The faces around him looked doubtful, but after his words had been translated, several grinning, weatherbeaten men pushed themselves to the front. Renzi regarded them solemnly, then dipped into the bag and drew out the red uniform coat of a private of the Royal Marines. A collective gasp went up as it was presented to the oldest fisherman, who drew it on reverently.
He twirled about in his finery to universal admiration, and Renzi hid a grin at the sight of the patched and worn cast-off that had been routinely consigned to the boatswain’s rag-chest. More treasures were handed out: a pair of seamen’s white duck trousers with frayed bottoms, a sailor’s jacket with two brass buttons still on it, half a dozen holed stockings.
Renzi allowed that he would be obliged if he could hear from any who had seen the big ship, and stood back to let the noise and jollity overflow as things were tried on, exchanged, bartered. One man detached from the rest and passed along his observation, then more came forward. Renzi carefully entered their words into his notebook until in all he had eleven firm reports.
Such men’s lives depended on knowing where they were so he now had the time and position of each sighting; individually plotting them on the chart would give a clear picture of the track.
Pleased with himself, he politely withdrew, leaving them to their bounty.
‘Well done, Nicholas!’ Kydd said happily, wielding his dividers on the East Africa chart. ‘I do hope Mr Oakley is not too discommoded by our making free with his rag-chest. Look here, I think I have it . . .’
Renzi leaned over. The neatly encircled dots marched from the south regularly until, near Pabane in the north, the last two made an irregular hook. ‘He’s come from around Madagascar to spy out the channel, and here in the north he’s turned about and is starting to head back. We have a chance.’
‘Dear chap – you’re omitting one thing . . .’
‘Oh?’
‘These are past reports, this latest being yesterday. By now the fellow is well on.’
‘Not so. See – on this track, the speed made between points is trifling. He’s spending his time casting about, conducting a good search while our fisher-folk have to land their catch smartly and lose no time in returning. Nicholas, I’ll wager should we rest here we’ll see him topsails over, say, early tomorrow.’
Kendall, the sailing master and a man of few words, nodded in agreement and a reluctant smile surfaced. ‘Sir, there’s th’ question o’-’
‘Yes. If he’s a frigate his first duty is to report to his admiral, not offer battle with a chance o’ damage, so he’ll bear away as soon as he sights us and we’ll not discover his squadron rendezvous. We’re to calm his fears in some way, I believe.’
And lure him on. There was no way Kydd could alter his ship into a lesser breed or make it appear impotent, and with no handy island to conceal themselves . . . ‘I shall think on it, Mr Kendall,’ he said, and began pacing up and down. Nothing came of it so he went out on deck. It was pleasant under the quarterdeck awning, now permanently rigged, and by his order all officers had doffed coat and waistcoat and now felt the breeze gratefully through loose shirts.
‘Sir,’ acknowledged Curzon, the officer-of-the-watch, touching his hat. ‘A conclusion, at all?’
‘Mayhap we’ll sight a scout tomorrow. We stay off and on this coast – he’ll come from the north, if he does.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
Kydd looked about the bright seascape, then at the distant palm-fringed shore. It would not do to dignify these remote outposts with a visit by a full post-captain, Royal Navy, so he had never once set foot on this Africa, with its steaming tropical forests and all the mystery of an unknown continent, so different from the south. Perhaps one day . . .
‘’Scuse me, sir.’ An anxious voice broke into his thoughts. It was Searle, one of the volunteers of the first class, brought on board in those dark months before Trafalgar – less than a year before, Kydd realised, with surprise.
The young lad was all but unrecognisable as the pale, terrified schoolboy who had presented himself, resolutely determined to be an admiral one day. Now he was inches taller, lithe and brown, with confidence yet still a degree of modesty about him. Here was his next midshipman.