Buccaneer

by Dudley Pope

  “Do you think he is honest?”

  “Probably, anyway he produced the gold. He hadn’t much choice: his men are starving, he has no ships to get food except these two, and that’s that!”

  “And he gave you both commissions.”

  “I think it shocked his Parliamentary soul when he realized that otherwise he’d be buying grain from vulgar smugglers!”

  Clear of the land the wind freshened and Saxby gave the order to harden in the mainsheet so that the Griffin could comfortably follow in the Peleus’ wake, watching her closely as she turned from time to time when her lookouts spotted coral below the surface.

  Slowly the sandspit dropped below the horizon but the mountains seemed to turn bluish-grey rather than diminish in size. Saxby gestured back to the anchorage they had just left, still known by its Spanish name of Caguas. “Must be the biggest harbour in the Caribbee!” he said.

  Yorke nodded. “Perhaps Cartagena is bigger – that’s the main Spanish base. People talk of huge forts there.”

  “Aye, that’s true. Well, if we stay in Sir Thomas’ company very long,” he said cheerfully, “no doubt we’ll see them!”

  Yorke looked at the sun, now a few degrees above the eastern horizon and just lifting over the top of low distant clouds that always seemed to line the eastern horizon at dawn. “Time Burton was exercising his guns’ crews.”

  “Yes, sir,” Saxby said and turned to bellow, “Pass the word for Mr Burton. Oh, there you are. Guns’ crews, Burton, where are they, eh? Still sleeping, I’ll be bound!”

  Burton hurried below while Yorke said quietly, “Give them a couple of hours at it. They’ll be ready to drop, but one day we might be fighting for our lives and the ability to keep at it longer than the Dons…”

  “Exactly, sir. Anyway, it’s a sight easier than spending the day cutting cane.”

  Yorke nodded thoughtfully. “You know, Saxby, the fact is they’ve had an easy life since we left Kingsnorth.”

  “I know, sir; muscles are softening up. Mine, too.”

  “We’ll have some sail training this afternoon after lunch. We can’t delay the Peleus, but the men can get up the spare mainsail from below. We can spread it and inspect it for rat holes. And the jibs. Make sure we have sail needles, palms and thread ready to do any repairs.”

  “I’ve a good mind to tell Mrs Judd she’s included in the sail handlers; she’s getting mortal fat.”

  “You’re the master,” Yorke said with a grin.

  “I’ve a mind to make everyone in the ship do some heavy manual work each day. They’ll keep fit.”

  “He is right, Edouard,” Aurelia said. “I do not get enough exercise.” Then, as Ned stared at her she slowly blushed. “Just like Mrs Judd,” she added, knowing that she was the cause of Saxby’s bloodshot eyes. “One cannot have enough exercise just walking the deck.”

  “No, ma’am,” said Saxby, who was obviously thinking that regular exercise might slow down Mrs Judd’s demands.

  “I think we should have some target practice with the small arms, too,” Yorke said. “When we’re ready – after lunch, I think – we’ll close with the Peleus and have her drop some casks or planks of wood in her wake to give us targets.”

  Saxby nodded; he was thankful that Mr Yorke was beginning to take an interest in the running of the ship. No, that was not quite fair; he had always taken an interest. Now he was beginning to take part. He was, Saxby supposed, beginning to understand the workings of a ship. Not an ordinary merchant ship, because there was nothing difficult about that, but a smuggling or buccaneer ship. Saxby looked forward to the day when he would be the mate and Mr Yorke the master. Having all these lives dependent on you was a heavy responsibility or, rather, the responsibility was in trying to think ahead – like staying out of the trap they fell into off Cumaná. Certainly they escaped the guarda costa, thanks to that trick of cutting across the Don’s bow, but Saxby knew he should not have been so close in to the shore. Sir Thomas had spotted that when first he heard about it, but he knew they were all inexperienced and had made no criticism. Still, Saxby looked forward to the day when Mr Yorke was as fine a seaman as Sir Thomas. Mrs Wilson – she had the same spirit as Sir Thomas’ lady, and with these women it was the spirit that mattered. Like Martha Judd – and Mrs Bullock for that matter. They were just naturally loyal to their men, and that was all that governed their lives.

  Just at noon four days later the lookout reported that the Peleus was deliberately luffing, slowing so that the Griffin would catch up. As soon as they were within hailing distance, Whetstone bellowed across: “Can you see land way over on the larboard bow? It’s low; looks like a distant cloud.”

  Saxby could see nothing but called to the lookout aloft who finally allowed that yes, it could be a cloud or land.

  “It’s Cabo de la Vela,” Whetstone shouted. “The mouth of the Riohacha is about sixty miles along the coast to the west. I deliberately made this landfall so we can get to the coast and then run back along it – it’s flat all the way. The first we’ll see of Riohacha will be the church on the west side of the river and some trees on the east side.”

  “What are we going to do when we arrive?” Ned yelled.

  “As soon as we close the coast, I’ll come over,” Whetstone said. “It’s very shallow all along the coast; a mile offshore you can anchor in three fathoms!”

  By five o’clock in the evening, with a low sandy shore a mile away ahead of them, the Peleus rounded up, dropped her mainsail and jibs, and anchored. Saxby brought the Griffin close to leeward, listening to the depths being called by the leadsman, and finally anchored.

  “Can’t get used to anchoring so far out in such shallow water, sir,” he commented to Yorke, gesturing at the Peleus to make sure he had seen the boat being hoisted out.

  Whetstone brought Diana with him and was in high spirits.

  “How was that for navigation, Ned! Always afraid of being too far to the north-east – then you miss this peninsula and the first you know is you’re passing Aruba and arriving at Curaçao.”

  Diana was talking quietly to Aurelia, and from the French girl’s blush and smiling face Ned had no doubt about what they were discussing: the last few days had been in effect Aurelia’s honeymoon, and Diana was obviously curious.

  “Now what?” he asked Whetstone, in case his thoughts were straying in the same direction.

  “We’ve enough moon tonight to run along the coast to the town of Riohacha. We shan’t miss it because it’s built at the mouth of the river. A forest is conspicuous on high land at one side of the river, and the village is on the other. There’s a church and close to it the jetty sticks out into the river mouth. It’s damn shallow, though. If there was any north in the wind we’d have to wait because it kicks up a heavy surf.”

  “You seem to know this place!”

  Whetstone nodded and grinned. “Yes, they know La Perla here. That’s why you’ll have to go in and do the bargaining. You’ll have to bring out my 200 tons and I’ll meet you out of sight down the coast: we’ll transfer it by boat. It’ll be tedious. Then you can go back to get your 400 tons and rejoin me for the return to Jamaica.”

  “I wish you weren’t so popular,” Yorke grumbled. “Transferring 200 tons of maize by boat…still, if we find there’s no swell we can lie alongside each other.”

  “Yes – but we’d have to be lucky. Still, the price the governor is going to pay makes it worth it. And don’t forget, we have commissions now!”

  “Yes, I’m sure the Spanish mayor of Riohacha will be delighted to see them!”

  “Now listen, Ned, the difficulty is going to be the language. Bargaining with these scoundrels and not speaking the language…”

  “What did you do? You don’t speak Spanish, do you?”

  No. I used Latin. The priest translated. It was all
I could do to keep a straight face.”

  “What were you bargaining for?” Ned asked curiously.

  “Oh, the lives of the mayor, a bishop who happened to be visiting his flock from Cartagena, a handful of businessmen – and the priest himself. I had them all on board the Pearl, in irons, of course. Always try and bargain with the other fellow in surroundings strange to him.”

  “I can just imagine a bishop in the Pearl, with Diana…”

  “Yes, the poor fellow’s eyes nearly burst. I think she overdid it, myself, but what with the priest and the bishop, the ransom was paid!”

  “What happens now when these people sight a foreign ship? After a visit from someone like you, I’d have thought they would simply start shooting.”

  Whetstone gave a laugh which Ned knew would have made any bishop clutch his crucifix. “No, they’re in a cleft stick. You forget the Spanish government doesn’t sent them enough goods from Spain and they’re always short of everything. Felt for hats, nankeen for jerkins and breeches, calico and lace for dresses, pots and pans, olive oil and wine… Where do they come from? Dutch smugglers!”

  “But why don’t the Spaniards raise the alarm every time they sight a sail?”

  “I’m sure they do, but if the ship anchors a mile out – not difficult because it’s so shallow along here – and sends a boat on shore to negotiate, the Spanish can see there’s no threat.”

  “Do you suggest I do that?”

  “Yes. How’s your Latin?”

  “Aurelia speaks good Spanish.”

  “You’d risk taking her with you?”

  Ned told him how Aurelia had disguised herself to be on the boat on their first – and only – smuggling expedition. “I don’t think she’d be left behind this time.”

  Whetstone sniffed disapprovingly. “Don’t let women run the ship,” he warned.

  “Diana always obeys you, of course.” Ned was only teasing but watched the reaction.

  “Well, yes, in her own way. I mean, she sees that what I say is for her own good,” Whetstone said uncomfortably, running his fingers through his beard.

  “But she does what she wants.”

  Whetstone grinned mischievously and said: “I suppose she does. The fact is, it rarely arises because she comes along.”

  “She does what you say as long as it coincides with what she wants to do.”

  Whetstone’s grin, Ned thought, was one of the most pleasant he had ever seen; it seemed to spread all over his body, and was conspiratorial, drawing in the other person to share the joke.

  Whetstone nodded towards where Aurelia and Diana were talking and laughing. “I’m glad they get on well. Diana was saying Aurelia loves this life.”

  “She hasn’t had much experience of it.”

  “Enough, enough though; at least, Diana thought so, and that woman can see through a six-inch plank. I hope so, for Diana’s sake: she needs another woman’s company, and Aurelia has the same sense of humour.”

  Ned nodded towards the sun. “I don’t look forward to creeping along unknown coasts in the dark, so perhaps we’d better get under way.”

  Whetstone waved to Saxby. “I’d better say this to the Griffin’s master, but the way you’re going on, Saxby’s going to be out of a job soon!” As soon as the master joined them, Whetstone continued: “I suggest you follow me because I know this coast fairly well. As soon as it gets dark I’ll light a single poop lantern. But once we’re off the entrance to Riohacha, I’ll put up two lanterns: that’ll be a sign for you to anchor. You’ll be able to spot the town as soon as it’s dawn and you can go in with a boat.”

  Saxby asked: “What sort of depths shall we be anchoring in?”

  “Four or five fathoms, no more.”

  “And do you want us to signal to acknowledge your second lantern?”

  “No. If you don’t spot it I’ll see you passing me! My lanterns couldn’t be seen in Riohacha but yours could, and the Dons would be suspicious of two ships.”

  With that he called Diana, gave Ned and Saxby a cheery wave, and climbed down to his boat.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The wind had eased considerably during the night so Saxby and Ned saw the Peleus’ second lantern only an hour before dawn and, without thinking what he was doing, Ned gave the order for the two seamen to put the helm down and the jibs to be dropped before realizing that it was Saxby’s job. However, the master was already making for the mainsheet, calling to men to take in the slack, before going on to the fo’c’sle for anchoring.

  Ned went to the ship’s side and watched the black, inky water gradually slow down as the Griffin lost way. Overhead the great mainsail, with the wind blowing down both sides, rippled and occasionally flapped. Now he could see the waves were not passing the hull; the Griffin was dead in the water. In a minute or two she would be drifting astern, so that she would pull on her anchor and make it dig in.

  “Let go, Mr Saxby!”

  There was a thud from forward, then a clatter as the carpenter knocked the wedge out of the windlass. A bellow – “Don’t stand in a bight, you fools; you’ll lose a leg!” – followed by a hissing as the anchor rope ran out of the hawse.

  How much cable should he let go? That depended on the depth of the water. And he (and Saxby too, he noted thankfully) had forgotten to have a man in the chains heaving the lead and shouting out the depth. It was not too late now!

  “Leadsman – to the chains and give me a cast at once!”

  It took only a minute before the man was reporting three fathoms and Yorke realized he had been standing by ready with lead and line, his heavy canvas apron lashed round his waist to keep off the worst of the drips as he coiled in the rope after each cast.

  Three fathoms, eighteen feet. Two and a half fathoms, which was fifteen feet. Again two and a half, two and a half…obviously the bottom was level here.

  “Snub her, Mr Saxby!”

  He was not quite sure at what point Saxby normally gave the order, except the cable had always stopped racing out, and it entailed taking a turn round the bitts so that, with no more cable running out, the weight of the ship came on to the anchor and if it was going to drag it would drag at that point, otherwise it would dig well in.

  “She’s holding, sir!” Saxby shouted.

  “Very well, veer away to thirty fathoms!”

  That was 180 feet of cable, a dozen times the depth. It sounded enough. Anyway, Saxby would mention it if he thought they ought to have more.

  “Chéri, you sound like a commodore!”

  Aurelia, wakened by the change in the ship’s motion, had come on deck and was standing beside him.

  “I know, I’m treading on Saxby’s toes.”

  “I do not think Saxby will mind,” she said in her attractively precise English. Her grammar was almost perfect; her grasp of idiomatic English was so good that Ned rarely had to explain anything, but her accent was for him the most amorous sound he knew; more rousing than the rustle of silk on bare flesh. And these are fine thoughts to be having as a man anchors his ship in a couple of fathoms of water off the Spanish Main.

  “Are we off this town now?”

  “Riohacha. Yes. At least, Thomas showed two lights. I’m damned if I can see any sign of it, except a dark patch on the land. That may be the forest on the other side of the river.”

  “When do we go on shore?”

  “Listen, I think I prefer to go in and fetch someone out to the ship, so you can translate here.”

  “And how do you explain this to the man?”

  “Oh, that is not difficult,” Ned said airily. “I find a priest and explain in Latin.”

  “Is your Latin good enough for that?”

  “Yes, and Greek too. My Latin and Greek teachers both used leather straps as well as exercise books.”
/>   “There is, ’owever, one difficulty.”

  He loved the way she could never master the aitch in “however”, and had never mentioned it to her.

  “And that is?”

  “How do you persuade a responsible Spaniard – a mayor, a dealer in grain, a priest even – that you are trustworthy? Why should they come out to the ship? I expect some of them in the past have already paid ransom to Thomas!”

  “So they will trust me if you come on shore with me and speak to them in Spanish?”

  “Of course! What pirate or buccaneer would have a woman on board? Obviously the Griffin is a very respectable ship!”

  “Thomas has Diana!”

  “But she never went on shore to translate.”

  “Oh, all right, you can come with us.” He had not meant to sound so ungracious.

  “You are saying that in a very grudging way, my darling. You make it very clear I am a nuisance but agree you need a translator.” She sounded hurt, distant, a foreigner among people who barely tolerated her. Was it a passing hurt? He was not sure. In fact she was – with Mrs Judd – the most popular person in the ship, but did she know that?

  “My dearest, the only reason I prefer you not to come on shore is that I don’t want you to be hurt: I am frightened for you.”

  “There! I am a billstone. You wish you had never brought me from Barbados.”

  “Millstone. Surely it is no crime to want the person you love to be safe? You are not a millstone round my neck. You are all I live for –”

  He broke off as Saxby shouted from the foredeck. “Very well, furl the mainsail.” He turned back to Aurelia, wishing the moon had set, so he could hold her in his arms without everyone seeing.

  “–everything. I want you to be safe.”

  “And me?” Her voice was softer. “How about me? If I stay on board while you go on shore I die a thousand times in case something happens to you. If you were killed, I should jump in the sea and drown myself.”

  It was said in a normal quiet tone but he knew she meant it. And likewise, would he want to live if – he deliberately stopped thinking and watched the men easing away the throat and peak halyards so that the heavy gaff was lowered, the mainsail being folded on the main boom by other seamen.