Buccaneers Series

by Linda Lee Chaikin

  Later, as the sun set, Emerald waited for Baret to appear at the table for dinner, but he had unobtrusively disappeared.

  “How can a man disappear from off his ship?” she asked Zeddie, but he straightened his golden periwig and looked as though he might know something that he was forbidden to tell her.

  “I’m thinking, m’gal, he don’t want you to know, but ye can be sure the viscount knows what he’s about.”

  Which did not explain where he had gone.

  She awakened late that night to hear him enter the cabin, obviously trying to be quiet.

  “Where did you go?” she whispered.

  “Oh—to visit a small fishing village farther up the coast, borrowing canoes.”

  “Fishing canoes?”

  “Big ones. At least twenty-five.”

  “From whom did you borrow them?”

  “From the Spanish, of course.”

  She sensed the smile in his voice but couldn’t see him in the darkness as he flung off his boots and came to bed.

  “Why canoes?” she whispered, but his lips silenced hers.

  She awoke next day to the sound of hundreds of parakeets squawking and chattering.

  At breakfast Emerald learned that a patache, a Spanish boat, had seen them and fled south before any of the ships could overtake it and stop the Spaniards from giving the alarm.

  “Doubtless they’ll spread word that Morgan’s ‘heretics’ are again on the coast.”

  Emerald’s dry throat wanted to choke as she tried to finish her ripe melon.

  If the dons were warned that Morgan was coming…

  But Baret was not at all gloomy. “They’ll never suspect us of having our eyes on Porto Bello.”

  “When will you go?” she whispered, trying to look as calm as he did.

  “Tomorrow morning,” was all he would say.

  She laid down her spoon, her appetite gone.

  Baret came around the table to where she sat and pulled her gently to her feet. His dark eyes were grave even as he smiled, trying to convince her.

  “It will soon be over, Emerald. After Porto Bello we’ll break away from Morgan. I’m not pleased with the character of the men he has with him. Neither is he, but we’ve no choice now. There will be no more of this style of living once my father is free. We’ll sail with Karl ton to Margarita, retrieve the treasure of the Prince Philip, and be off for London to King Charles—war or no war with Holland. In England I’ll dazzle you with civility. How does that suit you?”

  “If you are with me, it will be wonderful. Without you, nothing will matter to me again.”

  “Then I’ll make certain I come back. We’ll enjoy today. I’ll take you ashore if you like. The foliage and wildlife are worth seeing.”

  The June morning was dark and ominous when some four hundred buccaneers under Henry Morgan lowered canoes into the wide stream and began their long and arduous rowing journey upstream beneath thick overhanging vines. The overhang was an additional threat, since poisonous snakes and other creatures were abundant.

  Morgan crouched in the lead canoe. With him was a crewman from the Golden Future who had in years gone by been a prisoner in Porto Bello. Though an old man, he was here to validate the words of Don Miguel Vasquez as to the route to the castle of San Geronimo.

  Baret captained his own canoe of trusted buccaneers, as did Erik, who sat with the large-muscled Jeb from the Warspite.

  Baret was garbed as the others, in rough rawhide jerkin and cool cotton shirt, but while most liked head kerchiefs of various colors to hold back their hair and also absorb perspiration, he preferred the Spanish soft-brimmed hat, which gave more shade from the sweltering sun.

  Like Morgan, he wore a wide leather belt holding several lightweight pistols, plus a peculiarity of his own—a leather chest bandolier slung over his shoulder from which hung what the Spanish soldiers called “Apostles” (a name that displeased him since he deemed it irreverent). These were small cylindrical containers, each holding sufficient gunpowder to load a pistol. Yorke and Jeremy were with him, carrying extra swords and cutlasses.

  Don Miguel rode in Baret’s canoe. Baret looked at him and saw that sweat dripped from his handsome forehead. His brown eyes shot toward Baret, but they did not plead; they cursed.

  “Remember, Miguel, if you have lied to me about my father being in San Geronimo, I will not kill you myself. I will merely leave you to Captain Senolve or to the Frenchman Gascoigne.”

  Miguel’s smile showed white against his deep tan. “It is no more than I should expect from hereticos Luteranos!—ninos de diablos!”

  Baret grabbed the front of Miguel’s frilled shirt and held him angrily. “You are deceived, Miguel. It is the cruelty of the Spanish throughout the world that has brought about the hatred that is now evident in the hearts of the buccaneers. Every one of them, including me, can tell you of atrocities committed against innocent relatives and friends. The church that God establishes does not carry a cross in one hand and implements of torture in the other. Spain is a cruel beast that must be stopped. You sorely tempt me even now to toss you to the crocodiles!”

  In the dense and humid jungle, colorful macaws screamed from overhead branches while warblers sang sweetly. Golden orioles had built their nests on the tips of overspreading branches for protection from snakes. He recognized the bansanuco plant, used for treating bites from the dreaded taboas and coralis vipers. Mammoth butterflies flitted. Monkeys chittered nervously as they swung from limb to limb, showering Baret with dew from the green leaves. Farther into the jungle, a peyote squeaked. He saw wild pigs and little honey bears—all in contrast to the pall of violence and death that waited the break of day over Porto Bello—the “Beautiful Port.”

  Baret watched Don Miguel Vasquez, sullen but frightened of the other pirate captains, especially Hans Senolve from Holland. Hans was notorious for vengeful atrocities against Spaniards that even L’Ollonais didn’t measure up to.

  Baret could agree with Miguel about the brutal character of many of the men with Morgan. They were pirates through and through, and these were some of the worst. In a meeting before they had departed, they made Morgan swear that, if they joined him to attack Porto Bello, afterward he must grant them freedom in the city. Baret and Erik voted against it but had been overruled.

  “We all know your fair reputation, Captain Foxworth. But we have our own ways!”

  “Cruelty for its own sake is damnable folly and accomplishes nothing but the staining of your own hands and heart. When this is over, I intend to return to civility. I don’t want the torture of a city of people on my conscience.”

  “Then you can depart when you’ve rescued your father,” Morgan told him. “And when I am ready, I will leave for my ship.”

  “And leave these devils free rein?”

  Morgan’s eyes turned hard and cold. He began to say something, then whipped about and strode away.

  The pirates had won, and they laughed over their victory. Their hatred of Spain was intense, and because they had grown brutal along with the time and place in which they lived, vengeance flared like fire in their bones.

  This disturbed Baret more than he would admit. That morning before they departed in the canoes, he had risen early and read from the Bible. The Scripture that he had “by hap” opened to was Proverbs chapter 1, verses 10–19. The words still rang in his mind like the warning toll of a bell:

  My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause: let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit: we shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil: cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse: my son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path: for their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood …. So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof.

  Baret wanted
no part in their acts of vengeance, drunkenness, and rape. He must be cautious to locate and deliver his father, then retreat from the city. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” But memories of his mother, and now his father, sprang up like hot flames in his heart! Apart from the Spirit of God within him, apart from his new nature in Christ, he was as capable as the others of ripping Porto Bello into shreds with his cutlass.

  Remembering Christ being nailed to the cross and His words “Father, forgive them: for they know not what they do” helped extinguish those devouring flames that could so quickly leap out of control. He continually had to remind himself that God alone was final judge and that the personal injustices that stung his life were to be entrusted to His care.

  By dawn they had landed on the sandy beach and were hiding their canoes in the foliage. Then began the march on foot. Crewman Dent, serving Morgan, who had been imprisoned in Porto Bello, led the way, but Baret had plans for using Miguel. His hands bound behind him and quieted by a gag, the Spaniard walked just ahead of Baret and Erik.

  When they came to a road, Baret had Yorke untie him and remove the gag. Miguel slumped down beneath a tree and drank thirstily from a canteen while Baret checked his map, drawn from Miguel’s descriptions. He studied the layout of the three fortress castles and the postern gate near San Geronimo.

  “Your map does not show this trail.” Baret gestured ahead to where Dent had led Morgan’s men.

  Miguel shrugged. “I do not keep cattle. I am a soldier.”

  Yorke sneered. “Ye don’t know what soldiers are. Look at ye—we’ve got to stop to let ye rest while Morgan’s men march on!”

  Miguel’s black eyes smoldered like coals. “Spanish soldiers of His Most Catholic Majesty are not driven dogs!”

  “No,” said Baret, “they use others as their dogs. How many slaves in the castle?”

  He shrugged. “I have told you before, maybe eleven.”

  “Where is Governor Modyford’s son?”

  Miguel smiled. “Where he belongs!”

  Baret backhanded him, thinking of his father’s being put to the rack.

  Miguel spit blood. “If it is the walls of San Geronimo you want, they are ahead. You have but to stay on this road.”

  Baret gave him a cool measured look. “And if it leads elsewhere?”

  “Where would it lead, Capitan?”

  “To your Spanish soldiers. And if it does—”

  “It does not. At this time of dawn, maybe one soldier on the road.”

  Baret reported to Morgan.

  “Aye, his words match Dent’s.” Morgan turned and gave quiet orders to move ahead and seize the Spanish guard.

  Within a short time, a handful of men returned, leading a Spaniard wearing a close-belted leather doublet, a loose-sleeved red shirt, and yellow-and-red pantaloons.

  “Throw him down,” growled Morgan and turned to Baret. “Ye speak their fancy language. Tell him I’ll skin him alive if he don’t cooperate.”

  Baret stooped and looked at the sweating brown face, the eyes that stared up fearfully. Then he spoke in precise Castilian. “The password and countersign of your garrison at San Geronimo—what is it? And if you are foolish enough to lie, this pirate Morgan will turn you over to these English fiends. Believe me, señor, they are nothing to rile. I, myself, have a conscience, but these men have none.”

  The soldier tried to speak, but his throat seemed dry. Baret gave him water. He blurted out the information Morgan demanded.

  Baret stood. “He has spoken the truth.”

  “Aye, you speak that language as smoothly as butter. You’ll call up to the guard and tell him to open the postern gate.”

  They crept forward through the trees fringing the fort’s walls and waited, eating dried boucan and drinking water until dawn revealed the castle walls.

  Standing directly below the gate, Baret looked up at the tall crenelated tower topped by a flagstaff. Beneath it, eight-foot machicolated walls were flanked at their corners by stone lookout towers.

  Baret thought again of his father. At last—had he finally reached the hour of seeing him free, or had he deceived his heart by believing any man could survive the dungeons of the Inquisitors?

  A cock crowed within the city. The buccaneers waited in tense silence, their cutlasses ready, their pistols primed.

  We must be mad, thought Baret. How could four hundred buccaneers take a city that held thousands of Spanish soldiers? Yet the men who followed Henry Morgan boasted that they were each worth twenty Spanish soldiers, and maybe they were. At least they were crazy enough and wild enough to believe they were. Their courage and ruthlessness were well-known and feared up and down the Main.

  Baret looked toward Morgan. He gave the signal.

  Baret left the trees and walked alone toward the wall, shouting up in Castilian: “Ole, arriba! Tell your Capitano that Henry Morgan is here with all his Luteranos! Save your lives, señors. You will receive quarter. Open the postern gate, and you will live!”

  Morgan and the buccaneers waited out of sight, gripping their weapons.

  The Spaniard’s answer to the call to surrender came swiftly. Baret hit the ground as a wheel-lock’s ball crashed into the trees, severing branches and spitting dirt into his face.

  Morgan shouted, “Then take the Spanish dogs! Forward! Forward!”

  A fiendish clamor broke from the pirates as they rushed toward the walls of San Geronimo, drums beating and cutlasses waving. While the first band stooped, the second group climbed to their backs, and then the third. Soon their feet were on the ramparts, and they were climbing over the wall.

  Within, an infantry trumpet blasted a tinny warning, but only a few volleys were fired from the guns on the walls before Morgan’s shouting men were clambering over the embrasure rims.

  Baret and Morgan were the first over the parapet. The buccaneers, sweeping right and left were soon among the unattended cannons. Baret swung his cutlass, attacking the guards, and soon seized the postern gate. Moving aside the heavy iron bars, he flung it wide, and the pirates came storming through.

  Bewildered infantryman ran from the barracks onto the parade ground.

  “Take them!” shouted Baret. “Cut off their escape!”

  The sundry forts and batteries shot off alarm guns to awaken the city as the pirates surged forward, slashing and hacking at anything moving in Spanish pantaloons.

  Baret ran to where Erik guarded Don Miguel.

  “All right, the dungeon where my father is. You’ll lead me there now!”

  He pushed Miguel forward, trying to avoid the fighting.

  Miguel stumbled along, looking about with horror as soldiers fell in heaps and the pirates walked over them, moving steadily forward to secure the ammunition storage chamber.

  Inside the city, church bells clanged. Citizens poured into the streets, dazed and running in panic in all directions.

  Could it be this easy? Baret wondered. Porto Bello was like a rich slumbering giant about to be gutted! And Miguel was leading him swiftly to the governor.

  “Watch out!” Erik shouted.

  Baret had only a moment before he saw Lex Thorpe coming at him, his cutlass drawn, venom in his wild eyes.

  “D’ye think you’re any better to me than these Spaniards, Foxworth? Ye’ll die wi’ the dogs for marooning me! I’ll run ye through and through, straight to your gullet.”

  Miguel broke away from Baret’s hand. Baret made a move to thwart him, but Lex sprang between them, snarling his hate.

  Miguel ran, stumbled over a body in his haste, scrambled onto his feet again, and plunged ahead.

  Erik ran after him.

  Miguel, glancing back, saw Erik, changed direction, and ran into a pirate with a ready cutlass.

  “Where ye be runnin’, ye yeller-livered cur?” He hacked savagely.

  Miguel sprawled in a heap on the cobbles as the pirate snarled, “Death to Spain!”

  Gone! Dismay seized Bar
et’s mind and wouldn’t let go. His guide and ransom to free his father was gone, all because of foul Lex Thorpe—

  Thorpe lunged, hissing a curse between his teeth. A swipe of his cutlass whistled past Baret’s throat, and Baret narrowly deflected the blow with his own blade.

  In outrage over the loss of Miguel, Baret turned on Thorpe with cold determination. He fended off Lex’s cutlass with a series of blows so powerful that the pirate, startled, fought defensively, backing away, with opportunity to do no more than avert immediate death.

  Again and again, Baret’s blade jarred with the merciless impact of his strength as it slashed and hammered against Lex’s weapon.

  With each blow, Baret was not seeing Lex but his dreams, dying and blowing away like rotting leaves in the wind. All of his intricate planning with Miguel! The taking of the San Pedro! All wasted, ending prematurely in catastrophe. His frustration energized his attack on Thorpe.

  Lex stumbled back, retreating, fighting wildly for his life. Baret drove him against a stone wall, and Thorpe, his eyes wide, leaned there, undone. Baret, gritting his teeth, rammed him through without pity.

  He withdrew his Toledo blade, glaring at Lex as he slid slowly downward.

  The pirate sat leaning against the wall as though taking a rest, his eyes staring blankly ahead in startled amazement.

  Baret, too, stared, looking down at the dead man, dazed by his own fury and what he had done.

  From behind, the cry of the pirates filling his ears brought sudden loathing and disgust. As swiftly as his rage had caught him up, it ebbed. He turned from Thorpe to look at his own hand gripping the hilt.

  Baret backed several steps away, colliding with Erik. Their eyes met. Then Baret, turning away, made his way through the throng to where he had seen Miguel fall.

  His boots sounded over the bloodstained brown cobbles. Sickened, he stooped beside the Spaniard, while Erik stood guard.

  Don Miguel Vasquez was dead.

  The first castle fort, San Geronimo, was now securely in the hands of the buccaneers. Most of the Spanish soldiers had died, including the Castilian don.

  “Check the dungeon for prisoners,” Morgan shouted above the noise.