Sloop Of War

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In a little more than a hundred yards' walk from the busy foreshore to the elegant white building at the top of the coast road, but within a minute of leaving the launch Richard Bolitho was damp with sweat. In the broad expanse of English Harbour there had been an illusion of a breeze, but here, as the noon sun stood high above Monk's Hill and bathed the island of Antigua in a shimmering haze, there was no such comfort.

Nevertheless, Bolitho quickened his pace conscious of his rising excitement and a sense of unreality which had been with him since his arrival just a week earlier. Events had moved so fast that he felt unable to keep a grip on them, as if he was a spectator watching somebody else, a being quite alien to his own resources?

Through wide gates, the sand and dust covering his new shoes with a pale layer, and across some well tended gardens towards the building itself. But for the flag which hung limply from its staff it could have been the residence of some rich merchant or shipowner. From the number of Negro servants who were working amidst the flowers and shrubs he guessed that the previous occupant had probably been a dealer in African slaves?

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