There was no more time for talking. The roar of the cane mill would have drowned out Crow’s death, but with the overseers dead or wounded on the beach, it would also not be long before someone noticed the disturbance in the slave quarters. The slaves made their choices. Some, too old or frightened, or calculating the odds against them, slipped back into their houses, but most stayed. They broke open the tool store and armed themselves with cane knives, mattocks and hoes. Some gathered their possessions in blankets. There was no order or organisation. In the dark, they ran as they could, in small groups or families.

  Rob, Angus, Scipio and Phoebe followed the crowd along a track between the cane breaks. Leaves rustled in the darkness either side of them, while the air was ripe with the sweet aroma of sugar. A stone wall marked the plantation boundary, though it was not well maintained. Some of the escaping slaves had already pulled down a section when they tried to climb it. Rob and the others clambered over the rubble and squeezed through the gap. On the far side, the jungle thronged at once, dense and dark. Rob and Angus took the lead, using their cane knives to cut through the undergrowth. Phoebe followed, helping Scipio, who was limping badly.

  ‘I make you slow,’ he complained. ‘Go.’

  ‘It’s the jungle making us slow,’ panted Rob. ‘And the mountain.’

  But it was obvious Scipio could not go much further. Phoebe almost had to drag him up the slope, and she was tiring quickly. From below, they heard the sound of dogs barking.

  Rob thrust his cane knife into Phoebe’s hand.

  ‘Take this.’

  He hoisted Scipio onto his shoulders. His legs buckled under the big man’s weight, but he found his footing and forced himself onwards.

  Everyone was struggling. Phoebe had been a housemaid, not a field slave. Soon her hands were blistered, and her arm ached from swinging the cane knife at the thick forest. The blade grew dull. Angus could not make much of a dent in the undergrowth. The forest clawed and tore and tripped them. Rob staggered on, his legs burning, his lungs bursting. The dogs sounded closer.

  ‘Do you have a plan, Rob?’ asked Angus in a low voice.

  Rob shook his head, too tired to speak. There must be other escaped slaves in the forest nearby, but he would never find them. There might be cliffs on the mountain where they could mount a defence, but he did not know where they were. All he could do was head on.

  He heard a trickle of water to his right and followed the sound to a small stream running down the mountain. They splashed through it to try and put the dogs off their scent, but Rob could not stay in the water long. The stones were too slippery, and with Scipio’s weight on his shoulders the current almost upended him. They clambered out the other side and carried on up the slope.

  Dawn was breaking. Light suffused the forest, though it hardly helped them see their way. The wall of green surrounding them was getting thicker.

  They could still hear barking, but it sounded further off. Perhaps the dogs had lost the trail in the stream after all. As the urgency ebbed, Rob felt Scipio’s weight heavier than ever.

  Suddenly, without warning, Rob’s body gave up. He sat down, rolling Scipio off his shoulder so that the Ebo lay flat on the ground. Rob’s mouth was parched with thirst. He pulled a fistful of moss off a tree and sucked the moisture out of it like a sponge.

  Angus and Phoebe threw themselves onto the forest floor. Stripes of blood darkened the back of Angus’s shirt where his scars had split open.

  ‘We cannae stop long,’ said Angus. ‘Bracewell will call out the militia. We’ve not gone as far from the plantation as we think.’

  No one had breath to answer. The stillness was as heavy and melancholy as a graveyard. Time itself seemed to have come to a halt.

  The silence was broken by the ratchet click of a musket’s hammer being cocked into place.

  Rob looked up in despair. Half a dozen of Bracewell’s men had emerged into the clearing, guns raised. Ugly men, scarred by fights and the pox, their beards ragged and their hair wild. There was no chance of fighting them off. Before Rob could move, they had tied his hands behind his back. Angus made to resist, but a gun at his temple and a knife at Rob’s throat left him little choice. Soon all four of them were bound.

  One of the men uncoiled a long rope he carried over his shoulder and threw it over a tree branch, about ten feet off the ground. With practised hands, he tied a noose in the other end. Two of his companions grabbed Scipio and held him while the noose was placed over his head. They pulled it snug.

  ‘What about her?’ asked the hangman, gesturing at Phoebe.

  ‘Orders was only to bring the white fellas back alive,’ said the leader, a stocky brute with matted red hair.

  The hangman put the barrel of his rifle under Phoebe’s skirt and lifted it until it was above her thighs.

  ‘Might as well taste the goods.’

  The redhead nodded. ‘We’ll string him up,’ he said, pointing to Scipio. ‘But easy like. Keep him alive a little so he can watch us take turns.’

  It took three men to hoist Scipio into the air, laughing and jeering as they did. Rob could barely watch. His friend’s eyes bulged out of their sockets, white and round. He choked and gasped, spluttering for air.

  Then the overseers turned their attentions to Phoebe.

  The redhead slit open her dress from the hem to the neck and tore it off. He threw her to the ground and spread her legs. She did not make so much as a whimper.

  ‘A quiet one, eh? I’ll soon get you singing.’

  He undid his belt and dropped his breeches. His cock stood erect, livid and engorged. Three of his men stood guard around the edge of the clearing, while the other two held Phoebe’s legs. She didn’t struggle. Probably, Rob thought, sickened, it had happened to her before.

  Rob tugged against his bonds, but the overseers knew their work and had tied the knots fast. Dangling from the tree, Scipio was still alive. He choked and jerked hopelessly. He had spun about in a half-circle so he could not see Phoebe’s debasement. But he could imagine it from the sounds he could hear.

  The redhead went down on his knees between Phoebe’s legs. He seized her thighs and dug his fingers deep into her flesh. He licked his lips.

  With a gurgling cry, one of his men staggered forwards from the trees and crashed to the ground. The redhead flinched, angry to be interrupted. The shout died on his lips as he saw the knife buried to its hilt in the man’s back.

  The men spun around, muskets raised, pointing them this way and that. There was no one to aim at. The jungle surrounding them was a wall of green.

  A branch rustled. The men were spooked, their fingers already curled tight around their triggers. One curled so tight it fired the musket. It was all the others needed to follow suit. A crescendo of smoke and flame erupted as an uneven volley went blind into the forest.

  The echo of the shots died away. The silence was so profound, leaves and twigs could be heard fluttering to the ground where the bullets had passed through. The men looked around, staring at one another.

  Hope dawned to terror as they realised they no longer had a single loaded gun between them. Frantically, they began fumbling with ramrods and cartridges. In their haste, they hardly saw the figures who flitted out of the trees like shadows. A dozen men and women, all armed. Some carried cane knives, others axes and tomahawks, and one a naval regulation-issue cutlass. They were quick, effective and brutal. The overseers had no defence. Rob watched as they were hacked to pieces in moments.

  One of the overseers’ knives lay on the ground. While the butchering went on, Rob shuffled over to it and cut through the bonds that tied his wrists. As soon as he was free he ran to the rope that held Scipio. He could not get enough slack on it to untie the knot. He cut it with a cane knife, cursing the blunt blade as it reluctantly parted the thick fibres. Scipio had stopped moving. His dark skin had turned a grey-blue.

  The last strand was severed. The rope broke. Rob was too exhausted to grab the loose end. Scipio’s body dropped in a heap to the ground and lay there unmoving. Phoebe ran to him. She threw her arms around him and put her ear to his lips.

  ‘He is breathing.’

  Rob’s relief was short-lived as he considered their unlikely saviours. Were they protectors? They clearly weren’t plantation slaves, or hadn’t been for some time. They must be Maroons, the slaves who had escaped and lived free in the wild interior of the mountains.

  He remembered Crow saying that the Maroons sometimes brought back escaped slaves to their masters for a ransom. Why, then, had they killed the overseers? The laws of the jungle were infinitely perplexing.

  He noticed that the Maroons had taken the guns from the dead overseers and were pointing them at Rob and Angus.

  Rob raised his hands.

  ‘Friend,’ he croaked. ‘I am a friend.’

  Their leader, a tall and handsome black man with a string of red beads around his throat, stared at Rob. He glanced at Phoebe and said something in a language neither Rob nor Phoebe could understand. But Scipio could. He raised himself on his elbow and gave a low, short answer.

  The Maroon leader looked surprised. He conferred with his men. He spoke more with Scipio. He nodded.

  ‘You come with us.’

  Rob was not sure if he was a prisoner or a fugitive. He was so tired his bones felt ready to collapse inside him. He did not think he could take another step. Yet the Maroons led him on relentlessly, forcing a brisk pace through the forest. Rob, Phoebe, Angus and Scipio stumbled along as best they could. They climbed high up the mountain, following twisting trails that seemed impossible to divine. The sun rose, the forest began to steam. The Maroons handed out pieces of raw sugar cane. Rob chewed on the fibrous stalk until he had sucked out every drop of the sweet juice within. It gave him a modicum of strength.

  They passed through a narrow defile between high cliffs. A river ran through it, foaming between the huge rocks which littered the ravine. Looking up, Rob could see more boulders poised on the edge of the clifftops. Dark figures peered down from the heights.

  ‘If we were enemies, they could crush us flat as canvas,’ muttered Angus. ‘No one could force this passage in a thousand years.’

  There was no path here. They had to climb from boulder to boulder, slipping and gasping as they came within inches of the surging water. Rob lost count of the times his weary limbs nearly failed him, when he almost drowned. He was ready to topple where he stood and never rise again, when suddenly the river grew calmer, and the ravine opened out in a wide bowl in the hills. On either side of the river stood a village, wooden huts surrounded by vegetable gardens and small agricultural plots. Chickens and guinea fowl wandered freely, pecking the ground. A pig rootled in the earth.

  Their escorts took them to an empty hut. There were mattresses stuffed with coconut fibre on the floor. Rob, Angus, Scipio and Phoebe fell onto them as if they were feather beds and dropped dead asleep.

  T

  he Perseus sailed away from Thebes Plantation the following morning. Only one man aboard was happy, and that was Midshipman Brompton, newly promoted to acting lieutenant following Rob Courtney’s desertion. Coyningham was dismayed to be leaving Sophie. Any satisfaction he felt at having got rid of Rob was tempered by the devastation Rob had wreaked at Thebes. Bracewell’s secretary Crow was dead, his overseers maimed or killed, and more than half his slaves had escaped into the forest. Bracewell had been in a towering fury, and Coyningham – as Rob’s superior officer – had not escaped his anger. It was not the impression he had wanted to make on the guardian of his potential future wife.

  The men were unhappy, too. Angus was a popular shipmate, and Rob had been the last bulwark protecting them from Coyningham’s cruelty. Lieutenant Fawcett was weak, and Brompton too eager to make a good impression on the captain. Now they feared for the future.

  Coyningham laid out the chart and summoned all his officers.

  ‘We will rendezvous with the convoy in two days’ time, and then escort it back along the Jamaica coast. I expect everything to be done with perfect precision. Any man who falters in his duty can expect a taste of the cat.’

  The Perseus set her course to the north-east and beat away from Thebes Plantation. There was a fine breeze, and with her clean copper she made good progress. Soon, she was little more than a dot in the far distance.

  But her sails had hardly slipped over the horizon when another ship appeared to the north. On a broad reach, she scudded before the wind, bearing down on the island like a bird of prey. All afternoon she grew in the distance, until at last she dropped anchor in almost the same place that the Perseus had been a few hours earlier.

  The striped ensign of the rebel colonies flew from her masthead, while below her bowsprit stretched an eagle with golden talons outstretched.

  A boat put ashore. A small group of officers climbed the stairs to the great mansion. A black butler greeted them with chilled glasses of white wine and ushered them into the drawing room. The visiting officers seated themselves on the sofas which bore no trace of the orgy that had occurred forty-eight hours before. The cushions had been plumped up and the fabric scrubbed clean.

  Bracewell entered with Sophie behind him.

  ‘My apologies for the delay,’ he said. ‘An outrage was perpetrated yesterday. A damn British officer ran off with half my Negroes.’

  The French captain – Étienne, resplendent in his white uniform coat – looked around cautiously.

  ‘I hope this British officer is not still here?’

  ‘He ran into the jungle. You need not worry about Lieutenant Courtney.’

  To Bracewell’s surprise, a sudden silence enveloped the room.

  ‘What is it? You know this man?’

  Étienne pointed to Cal, sitting on his right in the uniform of the Continental Army.

  ‘This is Major Caleb Courtney.’

  Bracewell gave him a penetrating stare. There was no obvious physical resemblance, except that both were about the same age, young and powerful. Yet even so, there was something indefinably familiar about the aura of the youth.

  Bracewell shook off the notion. ‘It seems you are not the only Courtney on this island. If you can be as much a hindrance to our enemies as Robert Courtney has been to me, you will do famously.’

  Cal said nothing. Since the moment the Bracewells entered, he had been staring at Sophie with eyes like a wolf. Even Sophie, no stranger to adoring men’s gazes, had blushed and looked away.

  Cal realised they were waiting for him to speak.

  ‘This Robert Courtney – did he sail on the Perseus?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We have already crossed swords with him. Twice he managed to escape the traps we had set for him.’

  It was clear from his voice he ached for revenge.

  ‘I have sent men after him, with orders to bring him back alive,’ said Bracewell. ‘I think you and I would enjoy the chance to give this Courtney his due.’ Not for the first time, he mourned Crow’s death. Crow had been a true artist when it came to inflicting pain. ‘Though you had better hope my men catch him before those bastard Maroons do. They kill any white man they find.’

  Cal nodded. ‘I would welcome the chance for an intimate conversation with this Robert Courtney.’

  Étienne coughed. ‘You speak of harming our enemies, Monsieur Bracewell,’ he said. ‘Can we be clear we are fighting on the same side?’

  ‘My enemies are your enemies,’ said Bracewell. ‘The British government.’

  ‘But you yourself are a subject of King George.’

  ‘So was George Washington,’ said Bracewell. ‘We must adapt to the times.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Étienne. ‘But how can I be sure I can trust you?’

  ‘You have seen the island,’ said Bracewell. ‘All we grow here is sugar and slaves. Everything else – every piece of furniture and clothing, every piece of iron and timber, our food and livestock and wine, down to the last mustard spoon – is imported. And the greatest part of that trade comes from America. If America wins the war and the colonies cut themselves off from the British Empire, these islands will be impoverished.’ He thumped his fist on the table. ‘I will lose money!’

  He recovered himself.

  ‘Also, the British are taxing us outrageously. Our only choice is to throw off rule from London and ally ourselves with the Americans.’

  ‘And this does not trouble you?’ said Étienne.

  ‘All that troubles me is failing to turn a profit from my estates.’

  ‘You said “our only choice”,’ noted Cal. ‘Who else is with you?’

  ‘All the most significant landowners in the Caribbean. We are few in number, but together we control the lion’s share of land and men across the West Indies. We are all sworn to this purpose. We have been planning it for months. Now is the time to strike.’

  ‘If you rebel against the King,’ said Étienne, ‘he will send his army and navy to crush you.’

  ‘His army is already overstretched in America. And we have an advocate in London. A very highly placed member of the government, who is sympathetic to our cause. He will work behind the scenes to ensure that the ministry does not declare war on us, but instead negotiates a peaceful separation.’

  ‘A member of the government who is willing to trade away Britain’s empire?’ said Étienne drily.

  ‘We have made it an attractive proposition for him.’

  Bracewell winced to think of the colossal amount of money it had taken to bribe a man as rich as Baron Dartmouth. But it was an investment. When Bracewell controlled the sugar exports of the entire Caribbean, his money would be returned a thousandfold.

  And he would also have kept safe all the capital he had invested in his slaves. In 1772 the courts had already ruled that slavery was unsupported by common law in England and Wales, and now the government had offered to free the slaves in America. What if they extended emancipation to the other colonies? The thought of his slaves going free was enough to give him nightmares. But in alliance with America, his slaves would be safe. A revolution led by men such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison – slave-holders all – would respect his property rights.