As they sailed towards the mouth of the Gambia river three weeks later, Jack could see what he’d meant. For now they had reached a place so foreign and oppressive that even the sight of it was enough to provoke alarm. Even from a distance it was plain that this was an enormous, unwelcoming river. It was fringed by salt marshes and glades of the grotesque trees that he now knew as mangroves. Their twisted trunks grew so densely that they seemed to be matted together and it was so hot that they were steaming. Vapour rose from the mass to form a dripping cloud which clung about the treetops. He was quite relieved when they sailed past.

  ‘Where do we land?’ he asked Mr Reuben, as casually as he could.

  ‘Ah now, my heart,’ the bosun said, winking at him. ‘As to that, ’tis mortal hard to know, on account of we got two opinions aboard, seemingly. They’m a-battlin’ it out, a hammer an’ tongs, this here very minute. Purser he’m all for Port James, which is the biggest port hereabouts an’ built by the East Indiamen. I daresay you knows the place. Captain Tomson, he’m for headin’ on to Mwamba, on account of he knows the chief there an’ they done business afore. Purser says he’s never heard of it an’ no more has anyone else. ’Tis a right argy-bargy. I wonder you ’aven’t heard ’em a-ragin’.’

  Jack was instantly on the captain’s side. An established port would reveal his inexperience. Better a place that no one had heard of. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘I have heard voices.’

  ‘’Twill be oaths presently,’ the bosun said, happily grim.

  But that night the ship was quiet, and the next morning they sailed past the port, which was stone built with another solid fortress, and where there were already two other slavers sitting at anchor, so apparently the captain had won his case.

  They headed inshore later that afternoon, towards a very much smaller place. It was set to windward of a deep water bay at the outlet of another massive river, and, as far as Jack could see as they approached, it was little more than a collection of rough huts made of dark cracked mud and roofed with grey reeds or long grass. There was a quay of sorts and as they drew nearer he could see that it was crowded with black figures, half-naked but armed with long spears and carrying shields. Some of them were squatting with their shields laid beside them, others were standing as though they were on guard, and they were all watching the Bonny Beaufoy’s arrival with a disquieting intensity.

  He leaned over the rail and gazed back at them with equal concentration, glad that he had his pistols at his waist, and that he was dressed in his best — without his jacket but in tricorn hat, linen shirt, fashionable breeches — right down to his buckled shoes. It was uncomfortably hot but as he was the slave master, he had to look the style.

  Now, he thought, as he climbed down into the longboat, the test is upon me. If he could outwit those hideous creatures and come away with a bargain, he would prove his worth to the ship and its owners and make a profit besides. The prospect was daunting but, as always in dangerous circumstances, exciting, for he had no real doubt that he was courageous enough to face out the worst and, given a bit of luck, to triumph in the end. But there was no more time to think or plan. They were alongside the quay.

  On-shore and without the breeze of their passage, the heat was so intense that he was sweating and breathless in his fine clothes before he’d taken ten paces on to the quay, and, to make matters worse, he was instantly assailed by a swarm of persistent stinging flies that buzzed about his face and crawled on his hands and his clothes, no matter how often he tried to flick them away.

  The stink of the place was overpowering. It was an appalling combination of all the most noisome smells that had ever clogged his nostrils — foul clothes, stale piss, stinking shit, rancid oil, rotting carcasses, dried blood and Lord knows what else besides. It rose at him from every direction: from the crowd of natives who were now standing and chattering in the most peculiar grunting, clicking language as he and his companions walked past; from the baskets that were heaped at their feet, piled with odd-looking fish and fruit; from a newly killed goat that lay on the sand, leaking black blood and muzzled with flies, to the rotting mangroves that stunk and brooded at the edge of the beach. It was like stepping into a vast privy, or some huge closed stool.

  ‘You’d forgot, my of lubber,’ Mr Reuben understood, as Jack caught his breath.

  ‘No, sir,’ Jack said with feeling. ‘’Tain’t a stink a man could ever forget.’

  ‘In an’ out in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, I think ’ee said,’ Mr Reuben reminded him.

  ‘Amen to that,’ Jack agreed. He was recovering his breath a little and taking stock of his surroundings, concentrating hard, it being imperative to learn as much as he could about this place — and as quickly as possible.

  He noticed that the beach was short and had more pink sand than marsh, and that it didn’t appear to have any shelf to speak of — so if they had to make a quick escape, it would be relatively simple once they’d negotiated the quay — that the natives were bristling with spears but had no guns, that the quay was little more than a rough stone wall and so poorly built that many stones had already come unlodged and were strewn about the sand. In fact, given the number of bodies that were presently clambering over it, it was a wonder it didn’t fall down entirely. But to the east of it, facing a wide square of well-trodden pink earth, littered with piles of ash and trails of animal droppings, there was another and far more substantial building that looked like a fortress or a blockhouse. It was two storeys high and built of stone with a flat roof and deep windows and a door made of some dark heavy wood, heavily bolted. A hundred yards or so away was another rough stone building, this time single storeyed and thatched with the same long-dead, brittle, grey grasses as the huts. There were air slits set at random between the stones but no windows that he could see, although the door was made of the same solid-looking wood as the fort and was equally heavily bolted. At first sight it appeared to be empty but then he noticed that there were swarms of flies crawling over the walls and in and out of the air slits, and he wondered whether it was a meat store of some kind. Which would account for the stink.

  Mr Tomson had been the first ashore, leading his crew, who were carrying gifts of cloth, cooking pots and guns for the chief. He turned to enlighten his slave master. ‘That there’s the slave house,’ he said, ‘as I daresay you know.’ He was wearing a wide straw hat over his bandanna which was already dark with sweat. ‘We keep ’em there till we’m ready to sail. Saves a deal of trouble. You must’ve used somethin’ sim’lar, the last time you was here.’

  ‘I ain’t been in this place before,’ Jack admitted, truthfully. ‘’Twas huts they kept ’em in at the last place, as I remember.’

  The captain looked at him shrewdly. ‘And where would that be then?’

  Cornered, Jack thought fast. He pulled a name out of the air and offered it coolly. ‘Singalee, as I remember.’

  ‘Never heard of it.’

  ‘’Twas a deal further along the coast,’ Jack said as airily as he could. Then he changed the subject quickly. ‘Here’s Mr Smith come ashore. Am I to attend him?’

  The hot air was flurried by activity to right and left of them, for as the second longboat came rolling ashore, the door of the fortress was heaved open, screeching and sticking in the heat, and a crowd of natives emerged. These were obviously of a higher class than the loin-clothed men on the quay. They wore long blue and white gowns and their fuzzy hair was twisted into curved horns or plaited into short pigtails. A dozen of them were carrying a canvas litter between them. It was as wide as a double bed and held a wooden throne on which sat a huge, portly man dressed in a cap made of cloth-of-gold and a gown of scarlet silk heavily embroidered in gold thread. The chief without a doubt. His bearers set him down with extreme caution and then backed away from him, lowering their heads. Once they were gone, a group of about twenty beautiful black girls took their place. They too wore blue and white skirts but they were naked from the waist up — except for long strings of beads — and their oiled breasts were so delectably full and so gleamingly pretty that there was much sighing and adjustment of breeches among the crew.

  The captain drew in his breath too, but for quite another reason. ‘’Od’s teeth!’ he said. ‘’Tis a different feller.’

  The purser narrowed his eyes. ‘Are you sure, sir?’

  ‘Certain sure. Ours was a little thin lubber. Arabic.’

  ‘You should have took my advice it seems.’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ the captain admitted, grimacing. ‘Belike.’

  ‘Do we proceed? How say you?’

  Mr Tomson hesitated but before he could muster his thoughts, another group of minions arrived with the chief s furniture — a padded footstool and a long-legged table carved in the same complicated pattern as the throne, two scarlet gourds slopping with liquid, a green glass bottle also full, and what appeared to be a ceremonial whip, for its wooden handle was topped by long white silken threads. Then four men dressed in white skirts arrived with an embroidered canopy, which they held aloft to protect the chief and his harem from the sun, and four more, in canvas breeches, took up positions on either side of the throne and blew importantly on long curved horns to gather the tribesmen into the square and bring them to attention.

  After that there was a pause. The chief picked up his ceremonial whip and revealed that it was a fly-whisk by deftly flicking away the swarms that were homing in upon him. Then he drank from one of the gourds, propped his sandalled feet on the footstool and waved a chubby hand to indicate that his visitors were to approach. It seemed they were about to do business.

  Now that the moment of parley had arrived Jack felt exposed and uncertain. Was it the purser’s job to trade with this man? Or the captain’s? Or was it the slave master’s? If so, how was he to go about it? So much depended on a first encounter and he was well aware that this one, here, in this hot foreign place, could be wrecked by a single mistake. Politeness came to his aid. He doffed his hat, made a leg, and gave the chief the most courteous bow he could manage, holding the tricorn delicately by one corner and sweeping it until it skimmed the ground. Following his lead the captain and the purser did likewise. The chief and the ship’s crew were equally impressed.

  But before Jack could think of what to say to open the proceedings, the captain stepped forward and began a speech. For a man so knowledgeable and so careful of his ship, it was a surprising offering, muddled and rambling and punctuated by coughs and splutters. But at last he made the point that they had come to trade in slaves and that they had ‘cloth, pots, firearms an’ so forth’ to offer in exchange. ‘Some of which, as you see sir, I offers to ’ee now, as token of our good faith, an’ so forth.’

  Switching the flies away automatically, like a horse flicking its tail, the chief accepted the gifts, which he obviously expected. Then he too made a speech in his own clicking grunting language.

  The heat rose from the pink earth in long shimmering waves of light. The tribesmen edged closer to the action, appearing, to Jack’s attentive eyes, both suspicious and belligerent.

  ‘He don’t speak English,’ the purser observed, unnecessarily. ‘We should’ve brought a linguist.’

  The chief narrowed his eyes and used his whisk more irritably, the heat intensified, two great red and green birds dropped out of the trees and shrieked into the high blue vault of the sky as if they were on fire, the stink from the dead goat rose in nauseating waves, the flies increased their attacks, buzzing like saws, the tribesmen gathered about their leader ominously.

  ‘What’s to be done?’ Mr Smith asked Captain Tomson, wiping the sweat from his eyes. ‘Ain’t there a one of ’em to speak the language?’

  ‘Not so far as I knows, sir,’ Mr Tomson said, observing the crowd. ‘We only ever dealt with Mwamba. He spoke pretty well, d’you see. There was no call to try any of the others.’

  ‘We should have used Port James,’ the purser said, irritably. ‘This is impasse and too parlous for comfort. We don’t even know that this one’s prepared to trade in slaves.’

  ‘They all trade in slaves,’ the captain told him, angrily. ‘’Tis the slave coast an’ so forth.’

  ‘He might not want to,’ the purser scowled. ‘I don’t see no sign of any slaves hereabouts. I’m for retreat afore they breaks out.’ Jack had been considering the situation too, his right hand resting on the butt of his pistol, his wits sharpened by the possibility of danger. In his opinion it was folly to have come so far and offered so many gifts only to retreat. Yet it was a parlous situation. The purser was right about that. The irritability around them was growing palpably. How could they make their intentions clear without words? By a mime, as they did at the theatre? Would these weird creatures understand such things? It seemed unlikely. Had there been a couple of slaves anywhere about, he could have put a rope round their necks to demonstrate that they were the sort of cattle he wanted, but the creatures that thronged about him, staring and grinding their teeth, were armed and independent and plainly not slaves, however dirty and repellent they might be. There must be some way to show them, he thought, some way to make our intentions known, to describe what we want, or depict it. The word rang in his mind. Depict. To make a picture. To draw. Why hadn’t he thought of it at once? There was no pen and paper in such a savage place, but he had a clear expanse of pink dust and there was wood everywhere he looked. He walked across to one of the broken branches that were lying about in the square, broke off a suitable twig and, aware that he was now the centre of all eyes, returned to the chief. Then he bowed, displayed the twig to the chief and the tribesmen to indicate its importance and began to draw in the sand. First a row of human figures, standing side by side and linked by a line running from neck to neck. ‘Slaves,’ he said, ‘for us.’ Pointing at himself and his companions. Then he drew a roll of cloth, a clay pot, and a very recognisable rifle and explained them too. ‘More cloth, more cooking pot, more gun, bang, bang, bang. For you.’ Pointing at the chief and his attendants.

  Then he waited and his companions waited with him, looking from him to his drawings and from the drawings to the chief, ill at ease and holding their breath. Despite his apparently amiable rotundity, there was an air of menace about this new chieftain, a feeling that his lolling ease could erupt at any moment into a fury and power that they wouldn’t be able to control without the rifles they’d been told to leave behind in the ship. They noticed that their slave master had come armed, but one pair of pistols would do little against all those spears. Fortunately, and to their relief, the stratagem worked. After studying the drawings for a few seconds, the chief smiled, nodded to Jack and spoke briefly to his attendants.

  ‘Well blow me down, he understands drawings,’ Mr Smith said, blowing out his cheeks as if to suit the action to the word. ‘Who’d’ve thought it?’ He nodded to the chief and tried a question himself. ‘When? Eh? When they come? When slaves come? On the shell road eh? Is that where they’ll come? When slaves come? Comprenny?’

  That only provoked another outburst of incomprehensible clicking and grunting.

  ‘Best leave it to Mr Daventry, sir,’ the captain suggested, ‘since he do seem to have the knack of it.’

  ‘Very well,’ the purser agreed. ‘Take another tack, Mr Daventry, before we lose our advantage. You’re the slave master. Ask him when they’ll be ready.’

  To be deferred to in such a way was the equal of being publicly acclaimed. Swollen with success and importance, and watched by the entire company, Jack drew four moon shapes, full, half, and two quarters, stopping after each one to point to the sky and say ‘moon’. Then, as the chief said nothing and seemed to be brooding, leaning on the arm of his great throne and stroking his double chin and his dewlaps, he added a line from each moon ending in seven neat strokes to represent the days.

  And at that the chief slapped his thigh, roared with laughter and spoke to them all loudly and in English. ‘I fool you good!’ he said, between guffaws. ‘Make you play tomfool. Yes, yes. I speak your English. I speak good.’

  For a second Jack was speechless with fury. How dare he play such a trick, he thought, great ugly, steaming, toss-pot ignoramus that he is. How dare he treat me so! He was cut to the quick to have been tricked by such a man, and tricked so easily and publicly, what’s more. But he held on to his command and answered coolly. ‘Then you may tell me when the slaves will be here,’ he said, resting his hand on the butt of his pistol and narrowing his eyes with hatred at his adversary.

  ‘Wan four,’ the chief said, wiping his own eyes from the exertions of his mirth. ‘Wan four.’

  ‘’Od’s my life!’ Mr Smith muttered to the captain as the tribe hooted with laughter and leapt with the excitement of it all. ‘What a rogue the man is! Do he mean one month, or four weeks, or four months? Ask him again, Mr Daventry.’

  ‘’Twill be a deal longer than either,’ Mr Tomson warned him. ‘No matter what he might say. They’m wily of lubbers these fellers. I never trust a one of ’em, on principle, an’ I’d advise you to do the same. You may ask him if you will sir, but you’ll get no other answer I’m thinking.’

  He was right. Although Jack repeated his question three times, he got no answer at all, except for renewed and mocking laughter. It was a little too obvious that as far as the chief was concerned the matter was concluded. After a while, his litter was taken up again and he departed with his entourage, still laughing, and at that the tribe drifted back to whatever they’d been doing before the ship arrived, and the sailors found they’d been left to their own devices, in a heat so oppressive it crushed their skulls. Some were detailed to find fresh water, the ship’s cook produced a bag of beads, walked down to where the goat lay under its crown of flies and began to barter for its meat, but the rest made a beeline for the nearest women, all except for Jack and Mr Reuben.

  ‘Ain’t you up for a piece?’ the bosun asked. ‘I thought you’d be the first, fine young chap like you.’