Free Mr Corbett's Ghost by Leon Garfield Page A

could answer—and God knows what I’d have said—Mynheer Tripp burst out with: ‘How dare you, sir, put such ideas into a boy’s head!What d’you expect him to say? A boy of good family like him! Unfair, sir! Cruel! Dishonest! What can he know? I warn you, if you don’t put him off, I’ll not stir from your miserable ship! Both of us—or none! Oh, there’ll be trouble! In the courts!’
    Then he turned his mean, inflamed face towards me and muttered urgently: ‘Keep quiet, Vaarlem! None of your business! Don’t you dare say a word! I forbid it!’
    Captain Kuyper shrugged his shoulders and turned away. ‘Put them both in the boat, and let one man go with them to take the oars. Immediately! I want Mynheer Tripp off this ship at once. Or by God, I’ll throw him off!’
    Quite sick with shame, I followed Mynheer Tripp, who’d scuttled to the boat and hopped into it, clutching his sketchbooks and horrible clothes about him—in a panic that the captain would do him a mischief.
    The sailor who rowed us was a tall, silent fellow by the name of Krebs. For about twenty minutes he said nothing but rowed with a seemingly slow, but steady stroke. Mynheer Tripp, his head hunched into his shoulders, grasped my wrist and stared at the diminishing bulk of the
Little Willelm
which lay between us and the huge Englishman. Implacably, the Englishman came nearer and nearer and still did not turn. We could no more see the longboats . . . but the men in them must have had nerves of iron, for they were within musket range of the
Little Willelm
and could have been shot to pieces.
    â€˜Faster! Faster!’ urged my master, as the bowsprit of the Englishman appeared to nod above the
Willelm
’s deck. There looked to be no more than fifty metres between them. Then she began to slew round . . . ponderously . . . malignantly . . .
    â€˜Will you watch from here, sirs?’ Krebs had stopped rowing. There was nothing contemptuous in the way he spoke. He simply wanted to know.
    â€˜Is it . . . is it safe?’
    Krebs eyed the distance. ‘Most likely . . . yes, sir.’
    The two ships now lay side by side—the Englishman’s aft projecting beyond the
Willelm
. Her after-castle, much gilded and gleaming under three lanterns, rose nearly as high as the
Willelm
’s mizzen yard. A very unequal encounter. Perhaps she thought so? And was waiting for a surrender?
    Krebs shipped his oars and stuck his chin in his great hands. Calmly he stared at the dark shape of his own ship, outlined against the sombre, spiky brown of her enemy. Though the shrouds and yards must have been alive with marksmen, nothing stirred to betray them.
    â€˜Thank God we ain’t aboard!’ he remarked at length. Mynheer Tripp nodded vigorously. He’d begun to make sketches by the light of a small lantern. Approvingly, Krebs glanced at them. Very workmanlike. I began to feel cold and lonely. Was I the only one who wished himself back aboard the
Little Willelm
?
    The beginnings of a breeze. The great ghostly sails of the Englishman began to shift, but not quite to fill. The
Willelm
’s sails being smaller, bellied out more fatly. The bold little Dutchman and the skinny Englishman began to move. Masts, which had seemed all of one ship, began to divide—to part asunder . . .
    There seemed to be a moment of extraordinary stillness—even breathlessness—when suddenly a huge yellow flower of fire grew out of the side of the Englishman. (Beautiful Dutch lady—take my murdering bouquet!)
    And then enormous billows of reddish smoke roared and blossomed up, blundering through the rigging and fouling the sails and sky. The engagement was begun.
    A faint sound of screaming and shouting reached us, but was instantly drowned in the roar of the
Willelm
’s broadside. Then the Englishman fired again—this time