by Alex Scarrow
Liam heard the bee-like hum of balls whipping past, the soft percussive thwack as several hit their targets. ‘GET DOWN!’ he shouted. They all dropped to the ground, a rattling of sabres, cutlasses, muskets and flintlocks mixed with a smattering of curses.
Liam turned to Rashim. ‘I thought Modyford’s spy said this one wasn’t garrisoned yet?’
They squinted through the tall grass at the unfinished front wall and spotted the flicker of light blue tunics and yellow cuffs and collars moving among the support struts of scaffolding and stacks of coral bricks.
Rashim bit his lip. ‘Hmmm … so much for “an army engineer and seven labourers”.’
‘Soldiers … there can’t be that many, though.’ Liam closed his eyes, recalling a snapshot image of the uneven, unfinished wall as he’d dropped down to the dirt; a dozen plumes of smoke, certainly no more than eighteen curling out towards them. ‘Less than twenty,’ he said quickly. ‘We can rush them, now … before they finish reloading!’
Rashim stroked his chin thoughtfully.
‘Now, Rashim … not in thirty seconds’ time. Now!’
‘All right … yes … OK, we –’
Liam wasted no time. He scrambled to his feet. ‘Charge ’em down, lads!’ He began to sprint up the last twenty yards of slope. ‘CHARGE ’EM DOWN!’
A roar rippled along the swaying grass and heads and shoulders emerged, men clambering to their feet and yipping and hooting excitedly, like a room full of bored schoolchildren finally excused from a morning of dull lessons to play in the sunshine outside.
Rashim reluctantly pulled himself to his knees, wondering why men like these so willingly hastened towards each other with deadly intent and childlike joy, when a single wound in this time – a single cut! – could lead to infection and a lingering death of fever and agony … Where exactly is the ‘fun’ in this?
Upfront he caught just a glimpse of Liam, waving his cutlass in wide, rallying loops above his head, his mouth wide open, roaring encouragement to his men. And he envied Liam that. He envied the young man’s recently discovered fearlessness. God, he envied that.
Chapter 58
1667, Port Royal, Jamaica
Sir Thomas looked at the scruffy man standing in front of him. ‘So, Jamieson you said your name was?’
Jamieson nodded edgily, shifting from foot to foot. ‘Aye, Your Lordship. Jamesey, the lads call me.’
The governor sucked his fingers clean of mango juice then steepled them beneath his chin. ‘And you are absolutely certain of this? Of what you have just told me?’
‘Oh yeah, Your Honour. Them Negroes on the ship was yours all right. They got yer mark on their arms. I saw it with me own eyes.’
‘To be certain they are mine, Jamieson, describe the mark for me, will you?’
Jamieson closed his eyes as he concentrated. He’d seen it several dozen times. The Negroes had all made some effort to conceal the branded mark on their upper arms, wrapping cloth strips round their arms, but the work aboard any ship and the complete lack of privacy ensured every square inch of a man was exposed at one time or another.
‘’Tis the letter of yer name, sir, “M” but with a crown, is it? Sittin’ atop the letter?’
Sir Thomas nodded slowly. The crowned ‘M’ was his personal design and one he was rather proud of: the ‘M’ for his family name, the crown to clearly demonstrate his loyalty to the King. A simple and quite distinctive design, the raised lines of seared and scarred tissue defined very well against a slave’s dark skin. Quite easy to spot a Modyford slave.
‘And you say they have a dozen of them aboard the Pandora?’
‘A dozen? Yes, Yer Lordship. Split between both ships. The Maddy Carter and the Pandora.’
Twelve. Indeed.
In the last month alone, fourteen of his slaves had gone Maroon: simply vanished from the plantation and slipped into the surrounding jungle. His men, attempting to hunt them down, had come across one of them, quite dead from starvation, but the rest he presumed had joined the growing band of wild savages, Maroons, that inhabited the interior wilderness of Jamaica. They were becoming a problem that needed addressing. Every now and then a supply wagon on the dirt tracks that linked the plantations and settlements spread out across the island was raided, the driver inevitably killed. In the past that had been an infrequent enough event to be an occasional nuisance, but now it was becoming a problem of increasing concern.
There were terrifying stories from the island of Hispaniola of the entire slave population of the plantations rising up and killing their handlers and masters. Something that could so easily occur over here if the slaves got a collective mind, and will, to do it. The wild Maroons were a law-and-order problem, but perhaps also, more worryingly, a potential source of inspiration for the many others toiling in the fields. Something needed to be done about them, decided Sir Thomas. They needed to be rounded up and put down like feral dogs.
He gave the scruffy sailor standing in front of him a coin for his story and dismissed him. No doubt the man had a grievance of his own against Captain Anwar, but his description of the branding was wholly accurate. More to the point, substantiating the man’s story, there had been some sightings just before Anwar’s two ships set sail of a group of unescorted, ‘wild-looking’ Negroes hovering around Port Royal for several days.
Sir Thomas ground his teeth angrily. Hiring slaves as crew, though. ‘My God, you stupid, stupid man!’ he whispered. If ever there was a thing that would make his slaves and those of every other plantation on the island down tools and rise up in revolt, it was the knowledge that some reckless fool of a privateer captain was happy and willing to hire Negroes for his crew. The Negroes would need to be made an example of. Captain Anwar and his Irish colleague too. The hangman’s noose for the lot of them.
And if he was to revoke the letter of marque right now, in their absence, their raid on Puerto Bello could be considered a flagrant act of piracy. The plunder would be entirely forfeit.
Sir Thomas Modyford smiled. ‘In other words … mine,’ he muttered.
He reached across his desk for a pot of ink and a quill. With one hastily scribbled note, he could quite legally make an important example of this man and show that Negroes were fit for the field and nothing else: two-legged beasts of burden and nothing more. An important example not just to the slaves, but to all of those lawless criminals who considered themselves brethren of the sea, with their funny liberal notions about electing their captains and all being equal before God.
More than that, he could use this to demonstrate to King Charles II that he was doing something to rein in the rampant piracy in the Caribbean.
And, of course, last but not least, the Puerto Bello plunder – and there was surely going to be a lot from this raid – would be entirely his.
Chapter 59
1667, San Geronimo, Puerto Bello
‘What is it with those guys?’ Rashim muttered as he slumped to the ground beside Liam. ‘Why the hell won’t they surrender?’
Liam was busy inspecting his arm. A musket-ball fragment had torn a ragged hole in his forearm. He peeled back the strip of cloth he’d ripped from his shirt and tied round it. Already the blood had congealed to a thick crusty syrup.
‘How’s the arm?’ asked Rashim.
‘All right. It’ll be fine.’
‘I suspect your blood is laced with a heady cocktail of antibiotics. The wound you sustained back in Rome healed without any help, didn’t it?’
‘Aye. Didn’t stop it hurting like buggery, though,’ replied Liam, tightening the bandage once more.
Rashim cast a glance at their wounded, a line of a dozen men squirming in the long grass nearby, moaning and whimpering. Uphill, another dozen or more of their men lay dead. The wounded, most of them from musket fire, were unlikely to survive their injuries. The wadding that came for free with each musket ball was embedded deep in their flesh, wadding alive with bacteria that would eventually turn a wound into a festering, f
atal infection. Sword injuries, by contrast, though more horrific to look at than the small puckered entry hole of a gunshot wound, were more survivable.
‘What a screw-up,’ Rashim said. ‘I thought all the hard work was done.’
Liam nodded. The skirmish had settled down into a stand-off. After three unsuccessful charges up the slope towards the unfinished wall the morning had ended in stalemate. Quiet now, save for the moaning of the wounded and peppered with the solitary crack of an opportune shot fired every now and then.
‘It looks like you’ve no option,’ said Liam, ‘but to do it.’
Rashim sighed. He turned to look downhill, across Puerto Bello and out at the bay. Both of their ships were more or less in place, anchored near the shallows and in easy cannon range of San Geronimo.
A drastic last resort and one Rashim was reluctant to deploy. A bombardment was a sledgehammer to break a nut. ‘God knows, there might be priceless things in that hoard that we’ll end up blasting to bits.’
‘It’s mostly gold and silver coins. It’ll survive a pounding.’
‘Incan treasures, fine-plated gold statuettes, jewellery. Who knows what goodies they’ve transported up from Peru?’
Liam nodded at the men squatting among the tall grass and boulders nearby. ‘I think our men are not that fussed, Rashim. If there’s gold and silver up there, they’ll be just as happy with mangled nuggets of it.’
‘Hmmmm … ’ He reached for the parlay flag lying on the ground beside him. The white rag was holed several times with shot: the defenders, it seemed, were far more eager to fight than talk terms. ‘I’ll try once more,’ he said with a sigh. He nodded at their ships in the bay, side by side, presenting this way a total of twenty-four cannons between them. ‘Perhaps those stubborn morons in the fort have noticed the ships by now.’
Five minutes later, standing downhill from the building site, Rashim and Liam waited beneath their fluttering flag for someone to emerge from the bricks and scaffolding to talk to them. Finally someone did. A short man in a tattered and blood-spattered uniform. A bandage was wrapped round his forehead over one eye. He limped down towards them, using a musket as a crutch; one leg was bound with bloody rags.
‘Jay-zus,’ Liam whispered, ‘you’d think this fella would have had enough.’
Finally he drew up in front of them, wheezing from the exertion. Closer now, Liam could see he was unremarkable-looking: a gaunt, middle-aged man with a badly clipped toothbrush moustache and a balding head lacerated with scratches and cuts. Out of uniform and not looking like he’d just emerged from Hell, he might just as easily pass as a mere bank teller, a humble backstreet tailor, a hotel doorman, a shoeshiner. Nothing to suggest heroic officer material.
Rashim spoke first. ‘Do you understand English?’
The man nodded. ‘Yes, I speak this well.’
‘I am Captain Rashim Anwar. And this is my partner, Captain Liam O’Connor.’
The Spaniard nodded politely. ‘Captain Raoul Garcia.’
‘Look, Mr Garcia,’ said Liam, ‘we think this has gone on long enough. You and your men have fought honourably.’ He looked back at the distant outline of the forts either side of the bay. ‘Far more honourably, I might add, than the other officers and soldiers back there.’
Garcia smiled. ‘I am not a soldier. I am an engineer.’ He hunched his narrow shoulders humbly. ‘The title “Captain” is a temporary one while I build this fort.’
‘Then you’ve put real officers to shame.’ Liam took a step closer. ‘Why not surrender, sir?’ he asked. ‘Enough men, yours and ours, have died this morning already.’
‘I have a duty to protect this property of my King.’
‘Do you see the ships out there in the bay, Mr Garcia?’ Rashim stepped to one side. ‘They are now within accurate range of your fort.’
‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘I have seen them already.’
‘We, uh … we really don’t want to do this if we can avoid it, but if you don’t surrender I will have to give the order for them to fire on San Geronimo. They will bombard you. You understand?’
‘Yes, I understand.’
‘The fort will be flattened … you, your men will die.’
‘I understand this … but my men and I have a duty.’
‘Look,’ said Liam, ‘why don’t you put it to your men? We’ll give you ten minutes. Let them have a choice?’ Liam looked at Rashim and Rashim nodded. ‘If you surrender, none of your men will be harmed or taken prisoner. In fact,’ Liam scratched at the binding on his wounded arm, ‘any men who wish to join us … including yourself, Captain Garcia, will be welcome and entitled to a share of the booty.’ He smiled. ‘Clearly you are all courageous men, good fighters.’
The engineer nodded politely. ‘I thank you. I must decline your offer. But I will put it to my men.’
‘A pistol shot will be fired to mark when your time is up,’ said Rashim.
‘I understand.’ He turned and began to limp up the hill towards the fort. They watched him until he disappeared from view among the piles of building materials.
‘Now there’s courage,’ said Liam. ‘The real bleedin’ thing right there.’
Rashim nodded. ‘Dying for duty … that would be a foolish, old-fashioned notion in my time.’ He pulled out a leather flask of water, uncorked it and took a slug. ‘In the latter half of the twenty-first century, Liam, war is a … a remote thing. Soldiers sit in comfortable, air-conditioned command-and-control centres, remotely directing drones, assigning waypoints and capture points to squads of combat clones. Like a game. Just like they’re playing a child’s computer war game.’ He offered the flask to Liam. He took it and chugged down several mouthfuls.
‘There’s no courage in the soldiering of my time, Liam. No courage, no honour. Just relative target values and successful hit ratios.’
Liam handed the flask back to Rashim. ‘I hope he surrenders. I’m not sure I can bring myself to do this.’
‘We don’t have much choice. Our men won’t charge the fort again … and I wonder whether they’ll lynch us if we walk away now empty-handed.’
The ten minutes felt like ten hours. Finally the time had elapsed without any sign of movement from the fort. Rashim pulled out the pistol tucked into his belt, poured a small measure of powder into the barrel and tamped it down. He cocked the flint.
‘For what it’s worth,’ he muttered then fired the pistol into the air.
The shot echoed across the slope, the tongue of smoke carried across the gently stirring grass by a languid breeze. The sound of the shot, Liam had been hoping desperately, would be the final necessary incentive to stir the men inside to emerge with their hands in the air. Instead, all he saw was the flash of a light blue tunic among the coral-white masonry, somebody shuffling into position, readying himself for the final showdown.
‘Jay-zus, Rashim … are we actually going to do this?’
‘We’ve left ourselves with little other choice.’ He tucked the pistol back into his belt, turned downhill to face the ships anchored in the bay and waved his arms. Old Tom would be watching with the spyglass.
They waited. Aboard the Pandora Liam could just about make out individual blobs of colour, the tunics of the skeleton crew left aboard. There seemed to be movement going on there. Rashim waved his arms again.
‘Come on,’ Rashim muttered. ‘Wake up, you –’
A plume of white smoke erupted from the front of the ship, followed by another further along, and another – the first boom finally reaching their ears a moment later. Liam heard the buzz of a shot passing overhead, a buzz that sounded vaguely like the whir of a propeller spinning. Then impact. One then another against the unfinished front wall, sending showers of coral shards and wood splinters into the air.
They ducked down into the long grass as razor-sharp flecks of coral brick spun towards them and the low walls of the fort disappeared behind an increasing fog of swirling dust and debris. The first twenty-four-cannon volley ended. They
waited in expectant silence for the cannons to be reloaded and watched the dust slowly settle, Liam still hoping that this first volley would be the final encouragement for Garcia and his men to emerge.
Chapter 60
2025, New York
She followed them north through Greenwich Village, up along Broadway and back towards Times Square. Papaji and Saleena Vikram taking in the sights and sounds and smells of New York. Father and daughter enjoying their day together. And, as the afternoon spun away into evening, Sal had watched them from the street outside as they stepped into a fast-food restaurant for some dinner. From the street, among jostling pedestrians and amid the jangle of bicycle bells, the beehive hum of electric-engine vehicles and the intermittent beeping of traffic lights, she watched the two of them through the grubby glass.
She watched them settle down in a cosy window booth, pick up menus and discuss what they were going to eat. Saleena pointed at the food pictures and asked her father something. Again, he smiled and laughed. A harried-looking waitress arrived and quickly took their order.
Sal felt a tear roll down her cheek. ‘I want to be you,’ she muttered as she watched Saleena Vikram chatter away to her father, as she pulled out and inspected the things she’d bought in various shops that afternoon. Gaudily coloured clothes and gel-plastic bangles. A Pikodu flexi-mag that lit up her face as she opened the cover to wake up the display and started on the easy puzzles.
The waitress arrived with a tray of chicken wraps and fries and tall cardboard cups of Pepsi, and Sal watched the pair of them hungrily tuck into their junk food. Two real people in this real world. No monsters, mutants, dinosaurs, hominids, Nazis, eugenics. No time waves, churning storm fronts of infinite realities. No chaos space haunted by ever-encroaching apparitions. None of that.
Just this very real, ordinary moment between a doting father and a contented child.