Betrayal Read Online Free

seen.’
    ‘Then are you not aware that under our lee is the great Zambezi River, which for prodigious size is matched only by your Congo?’
    ‘Nobody but a main fool would take a ship up among all th’ crocodiles an’ such,’ Gilbey replied, but stood back as the master brought up the chart and they saw that indeed the river entered the sea close by – but with an awkward twist. Like the Nile, it ended in a delta of many mouths – four, at least.
    ‘You’re right, Nicholas,’ Kydd agreed. ‘But up a river? If he’s there, he’s trapped, but then how to get at him?’
    ‘Sure t’ be boats against broadsides,’ Gilbey muttered.
    ‘Right,’ said Kydd, briskly, ignoring him. ‘Which mouth’s it to be, gentlemen? Four – we’ll take ’em one at a time.’
    Kydd did not add that, quite apart from the time it would need, there was the possibility that their prey could go inland and around, then scuttle out of one of the other mouths. They being near to forty miles apart, it would be impossible to tell from which he would emerge. ‘We start with the first ’un – the Chinde River, it says here,’ he said, tapping the chart.
    So close in, it was an easy fix when the first Zambezi mouth was sighted. Discoloured water could be seen more than five miles out, and across their path was the white of breaking seas on a monstrous bar a mile across and extending directly out to sea for three – just one branch of a giant African river endlessly disgorging into the ocean from the vast and mysterious interior.
    ‘I’m not taking her in,’ Kydd told Renzi. ‘Moor offshore, send in a boat. Go myself, I believe, reconnoitre what we’re up against,’ he added casually, inviting Renzi along, too. He left unspoken that it was also a chance to satisfy his curiosity and see the wonders of tropical Africa. The odds were against the corvette lying hidden in the very first river mouth they visited.
    Kydd’s barge was of modest draught and not designed for fighting, but they were not expecting any. With his coxswain, Poulden, at the tiller, Renzi in the sternsheets with him, four hands ready for the oars and Doud in the eyes of the boat with a hand lead, they pushed off under sail.
    They passed along in the lee of the bar. A channel of some depth quickly became evident, which they used to follow into the estuary – a two-mile-wide sprawl of constantly sliding grey-green water. They then left behind the ceaseless hurry of the sea’s waves and cool breezes for the lowering heat and humidity, the echoing quiet and rich stink of the dark continent.
    The sailors looked about, fascinated. On either bank was the uniform low tangle of mangroves from which a miasma of decay drifted out as uncountable numbers of birds beat their way into the air at their intrusion. Bursts of harsh sounds from hidden creatures came on the air and insects swarmed annoyingly.
    Doud urgently hailed aft: ‘’Ware rocks!’
    Ahead were three or four bare brown humps – but as they watched one disappeared and others turned to offer gaping mouths. ‘Hippos!’ Renzi said, and others turned to watch, exclaiming excitedly.
    ‘Eyes in the boat!’ Kydd growled. The age-old call to boat discipline seemed out of keeping on a frigate’s barge in an African river and a sense of unreality crept in. Naval service had taken him to many exotic places in the world but this promised to be the strangest.
    Where the estuary narrowed, the mangroves gave way to low grassy banks and open woodland. At the water’s edge were four of the largest crocodiles Kydd had ever seen, basking in the late-afternoon sun. The boat glided past them in silence, every man thinking of the consequences of pitching overboard.
    Somewhere far upstream the wet season was sending down vast quantities of water, swelling the river and bringing brown silt, tearing clumps of earth from the bank and with it masses of vegetation, occasionally even floating islands of light woodland.
    The river