by Dudley Pope
The three of them had watched closely, but there was not the slightest hint of an intention to plunder on the part of the crew of either ship. Ramage was reasonably sure that by now the men had a few gold coins sewn into the waistbands of their trousers: he secretly hoped that they had, since it was unrealistic to begrudge a man ten guineas when ten thousand were his for the taking.
Yorke had agreed that as far as they were concerned no treasure was “dug up” until it was noted in the log as it was lifted out of the hole. What men did with odd coins when they were in a hole six feet deep and eight feet square was not their affair. There was a limit to what they could hide each time since none of them wore more than a pair of trousers. He only hoped the diggers shared with the rest of the men.
From the time the treasure was first found, St Brieuc had been urging Ramage to take special precautions against the seamen mutinying. He was so alarmed and so certain they would all be murdered in their beds that Ramage had asked Yorke to give him and St Cast a brace of pistols. St Brieuc had accepted gladly and then, four days later, returned the pistols to Yorke, explaining that having them about the house upset his wife and daughter. As Yorke told Ramage, it was a signal that St Brieuc now agreed with them that the men were “safe.”
Teniente Colon frequently asked to see Ramage, but when the guard took him pencil and paper, with instructions to write his message, he wrote nothing, so presumably he was simply curious to know if any treasure had been found.
Ramage did not care whether Colon knew or not, but had neither told him nor given the Marines instructions that he was to be kept in the dark. It was interesting that the Marine guards had said nothing to him even though Colon often tried to strike up conversations with them in his halting English.
Two days before the supply ship was due from San Juan the last of the treasure had been brought to the surface and packed, and the skeletons reburied. Ramage read a burial service, the ground was smoothed over, and the working party marched away from Punta Tamarindo for the last time.
“I wish we’d been here when it was buried,” Yorke commented. “Intriguing not to know exactly what happened.”
Ramage shrugged his shoulders. “We might have ended up in the grave. I’m more interested to know why the owner decided to bury it. I’m sure we’ve guessed correctly that the hole was dug by slaves or prisoners, and that they were killed and buried here as well to ensure secrecy.”
“Why the poem, then?” Yorke persisted.
“That’s the puzzle. How about pirates trapped here because their ship hit a reef, and hurrying to bury their treasure before being captured. Perhaps they were put in prison and never came back … and one of them made up the poem …”
“Or one of them stayed behind on the island—Colon said something about an ancestor having a copy of the poem.”
“An ancestor … one of the original pirates who stayed or came back … we’ll never know.”
That night at dinner Bowen asked the question on nearly everyone’s lips.
“Any idea of the value of it all, sir?”
Ramage shook his head. “I don’t know the current price of gold.”
St Cast glanced up. “I can help there. Last February I was realizing some assets in London, and I can remember the prices quite well. Bar and gold coin was £3 17s 6d per fine ounce, and Portuguese gold was the same. That’s troy measure, of course,” he added. “A troy pound is over half an avoirdupois pound. Eight-tenths, if I remember correctly.”
Southwick was scribbling with a pencil.
“A pound of gold avoirdupois is worth at least £100,” Southwick said. “In other words, over £11,200 a hundredweight avoirdupois.”
“How much does all the treasure weigh?” St Brieuc asked.
Ramage said: “We haven’t totalled it all up yet, but we’ve estimated there’s more than five tons of gold, and roughly a ton of silver.”
“A ton of gold,” Southwick said, “is worth nearly a quarter of a million pounds.”
“Nearly?” Yorke repeated.
“About £224,000. Our five tons totals roughly £1,120,000 …”
Southwick caught Ramage’s eye. “It won’t rate as prize, sir. I’m sure of it. The Crown will claim it all, and no shares for anyone.”
“I told you that when we started digging,” Ramage said heavily. “It’s a pity we didn’t let the Spanish find it, and then capture the ship they used for carrying it away …”
“Why?” asked St Cast.
“That would have made it prize-money … in which case I would have received two-eighths. Southwick and Bowen would share an eighth, and the seamen two-eighths.”
Southwick threw down his pencil in disgust. “It would have meant £280,000 for you, sir,” he told Ramage, “while Bowen and I share £140,000 equally. Phew,” he whistled, “I’ve just realized young Appleby would have an entire eighth share, £140,000: no other principal warrant officers, lieutenants of Marines, chaplains and so on to share with him …”
Yorke began laughing. “Actually I come off best. Since I’m not entitled to anything I haven’t just lost either £280,000 or £140,000!”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
STAFFORD marched up, halted and saluted smartly. “A dozen bleedin’ cabbyleeroes, all present an’ ker-rect, señor!”
Jackson, resplendent in the Spanish Lieutenant’s uniform, looked down his nose at Stafford and the dozen seamen now dressed in the uniforms of the Spanish soldiers.
“Hmm,” he said airily, “none of you’d pass muster as the King’s Guard in Madrid; but out here I can’t be so fussy!”
The seamen laughed cheerfully; then Jackson said quickly: “Right, straighten yourselves up, you bedraggled dons; here comes the Captain.”
Ramage came out of the house, jamming his hat squarely on his head and walked over to where Jackson had the seamen formed up in two ranks.
Jackson, enjoying playing the role of the teniente, saluted and said: “Garrison all present and correct, sir.”
“Very well,” Ramage said, and slowly walked along the first rank, inspecting the men as Jackson followed a pace behind.
From the house fifteen yards away they certainly passed for soldiers. Even at ten yards they looked smart enough—but close to they looked exactly what they were, British sailors dressed up in Spanish soldiers’ uniforms.
Suddenly Ramage said: “Stafford, march to the door of my house and back.”
As the seaman left the front rank, Jackson said: “I’m afraid they all walk like that, sir.”
“It’s a bit late to do anything. Stick broom handles up the back of their jackets!”
“Maybe in twenty minutes, sir….”
“Don’t bother, just don’t let them march!”
The crew of the supply ship might expect trouble but Ramage doubted if they would. Her Captain would certainly see the wrecks on the eastern reef and be curious, but if he saw the gold and red flag of Spain flying from the flagpole in front of the houses at San Ildefonso and the garrison standing waiting on the wooden jetty with their Lieutenant he would probably think all was well.
Ramage had discussed it a dozen times with Southwick and Yorke. Since he commanded a small transport, the Spaniard was unlikely to be very intelligent, and anyway no other plan had been thought of. If the Spanish Captain got suspicious at the last moment, it would be too late. Four of the Topaz’s brass six-pounders covered the jetty from carefully concealed positions beside the houses. Even before the transport tacked off Punta del Soldado to make the last long board up to the narrow entrance to the bay, the guns had been loaded with grape and aimed at different points near the jetty. If anything went wrong, a command from Ramage would send the dozen seamen disguised as soldiers bolting from the jetty, out of the line of fire; at a second command the four guns would fire at the ship.
The ship was a day late. She had been due the previous afternoon but lookouts on Punta del Soldado had not sighted her until ten o’clock this morning, slowly beating her
way up to Snake Island from Cape San Juan, the nearest point of Puerto Rico. It had been a long and tedious turn to windward, with the tacks to the north shortened by the almost continuous line of cays and reefs between Cape San Juan and Snake Island.
There had been plenty of time to prepare: to relieve the real Spanish soldiers of their uniforms and dress up a dozen laughing, joking seamen so that tunics, breeches, hats and boots were the best possible fit.
Jackson, in Colon’s uniform, had come out best: the men were of similar build. Ramage grinned to himself as he recalled Colon’s expression when, having suffered the indignity of being made to remove his uniform by a none too gentle Jackson, he had watched the American dress up in it, with Stafford providing a ribald commentary.
The island had a perfect anchorage, with the bay shaped like a bottle, the narrow entrance, or neck, facing south. With the Trade winds always blowing from the easterly quadrant, any ship entering could be reasonably sure of a commanding wind. Leaving might be a different story: a south-easterly wind could mean towing out, using the boats for a few hundred yards. But few ships sailing from Snake Island would be likely to be in that much of a hurry.
Ramage caught sight of a distant white shape beyond the entrance to the bay and walked up to the house, where he was met by Southwick.
“Just spotted her,” Ramage said. “She’s rounded Punta del Soldado and is getting ready to ease sheets to reach in.”
“Everything is fine here, sir.”
“Your Castile Yeomanry,” Yorke commented, “may not be smart enough to be His Most Catholic Majesty’s palace guards at the Escorial, but from a distance they’ll pass muster as the garrison of Snake Island.”
“I’ll remuster them as the Snake Island Volunteers,” Ramage said. “Recruiting starts in the morning. Subalterns’ commissions are selling for five hundred guineas.”
Yorke whistled. “A stylish regiment, hey?”
“We can afford to be fussy about who we accept,” Ramage said airily, and then suddenly stiffened as he saw Maxine watching from the window of her house.
“I thought I gave an order that the St Brieucs were to be escorted inland until the ship arrived.”
“You did,” Yorke said wearily. “There is a slight difficulty in making the youngest member of the family obey it.”
“What about the parents, and St Cast?”
“They’re already a couple of miles away, escorted by a couple of mates and six of my seamen.”
“But why wasn’t Maxine … ?”
“Ask her yourself,” Yorke said.
Ramage blushed and turned to look to the entrance of the bay again. The ship’s hull was lifting appreciably over the curvature of the earth: she had a couple of miles to go. There was no need for the men to stand in the heat of the sun providing they formed up before the Spanish Captain could see their rolling gait, and Ramage told Jackson to march them to the shade of the houses.
Jackson looked uncertainly at Ramage.
“March them,” he repeated. “I heard one or two of them laughing at Stafford’s attempts.”
So they marched.
“Hogarth ought to be here,” Yorke said, “with his easel placed on this balcony. Only his brush could do justice to it!”
“‘The Rakes’ Progress,’” Ramage said. “Not the kind of rake he had in mind, nor the progress, but it’d be a fitting title.”
An hour passed before the ship, a beamy schooner, finally stretched through the bottle-neck entrance to the bay, and Jackson’s soldiers returned to the jetty.
No one seemed to know why the troops met the schooner, but Ramage was relying on the slave Roberto’s description of how the last supply ship had been greeted. She had arrived a few days after the frigate that brought Colon, the soldiers and the slaves from San Juan, and Roberto had mimicked Colon’s annoyance at having to stop the slaves digging so that the soldiers could be at the jetty.
Roberto was unable to offer any explanation, however. The soldiers did not help unload; the slaves did that. The soldiers neither fired a salute nor presented arms when the ship came alongside. Roberto added that they ran off the jetty at the last moment “because the Captain of the ship is not very skilful and he hit the jetty so hard that everyone thought it would collapse.”
Apparently Lieutenant Colon sat on the balcony of his house, watching. Lines from the ship to secure her alongside were handled by the men in the ship, who jumped down on to the jetty. Once the crew had shouted abuse at the soldiers and later the Captain had had words with the teniente. They had shouted at each other for half an hour and after that they never spoke to each other again.
They asked Roberto what sort of ship she was but he shrugged his shoulders. Two masts, the body was black with a red stripe all round it, like a belt. He had only been in two ships in his life, the one that brought him to Puerto Rico (a slaver) and the one that brought him here. The ship was called La Perla—”The teniente mentioned her name when he was swearing at the Captain.”
The slave’s information was reassuring: there was no Spanish military or naval custom which, if ignored, would arouse suspicion. Ramage wanted no mistakes made: if even one of the Topaz’s guns had to open fire, it would mean damage to the schooner and might even put her permanently out of commission.
Once inside the bay, the schooner moved fast: her captain had to harden in sheets to get up towards the jetty, and then for a reason neither Ramage nor Yorke could subsequently explain, he bore away and then suddenly luffed up head to wind, dropping his foresail, mainsail and headsails. But she was carrying too much way: as the seamen hurriedly tried to furl the sails, the captain ran from side to side of the quarterdeck, screeching at the two men at the massive tiller. At the last moment they heaved it to larboard as the schooner came directly towards the jetty and the houses.
“Try prayer,” Yorke advised.
“Miracles,” Ramage said. “He—we—need lots of miracles.”
A minute or two before the schooner was due to hit the jetty her bow gradually began to come round to starboard. Ramage shouted to Jackson to clear his men out of the way—security was not necessary now. Jackson could have been conducting a band playing “Heart of Oak” without being noticed. Ramage began running down the slope from the house, followed by Southwick and Yorke.
At that moment the schooner passed clear of the end of the jetty and her bow slid up on the sandy beach at the water’s edge.
Ramage, Southwick and Yorke all stopped, looking up at the masts now towering above them. “Bolt!” Southwick shouted and they spread out in all directions to avoid being crushed if the masts fell over the bow, broken like twigs by the force of the impact. But there was no splintering wood and snapping rope rigging. The screeching of the Spanish Captain, who appeared to have gone berserk, was the only sound to be heard.
Ramage turned back and began running for the beach, again shouting for Jackson who had vanished with his seamen. He had no idea how to regain control of the situation. His splendid plans took no account of the potentially lethal effect of bad seamanship.
The only way of getting on board the schooner now was by wading and clambering up over the bow. He waved to Southwick and pointed to the gun positions.
“One round to one side to scare ‘em!”
He and Yorke stood at the water’s edge looking up at the schooner’s bowsprit and jib-boom jutting out above them.
“I could strangle him,” he said thickly. “The damned incompetent idiot!”
“Saves anchoring or wearing out ropes,” Yorke said, “but of course, you get your feet wet going on shore!”
Ramage was trembling with rage. Where the hell was that damned American with his men?
“Jackson!” he bellowed. “Jackson, blast you!”
“Here, sir!” the American called. Ramage and Yorke looked round and saw nothing.
“Up here, sir!” said Jackson, peering down from the schooner’s bow.
“What are you doing up there?” Ramage aske
d weakly.
“You said to board and—”
A tremendous explosion behind them sent Ramage and Yorke flat on their faces in the sand; then, as the noise echoed and reechoed across the bay and among the hills, sending up flocks of squawking white egrets, Ramage realized what it was.
“Your bloody brass ordnance,” he said to Yorke, standing up, and brushing sand from his breeches. “God, what a mess!”
“I don’t know,” Yorke said coolly. “Prize captured without a shot fired until after it was secured!”
The schooner was La Perla, built at Rota seven years earlier of Spanish oak and larch. Yorke commented to Ramage that one advantage of having the ship run aground was that inspecting her lines was so much easier.
The ship’s company had put up no fight and Jackson’s description of how they captured her was one that Ramage could dine out on for years. They had realized La Perla would miss the jetty and run up on the beach, so that they were there to meet her, waiting on her starboard side and had been hidden from Ramage and Yorke.
As soon as she came to rest they had splashed out, slung their muskets over their shoulders and climbed up over the bow, using the bobstay and anchors to get a foothold. The Spanish sailors had been very courteous, assuming they were Colon and his men.
“They helped every one of us over the bulwark,” Jackson said. “One of the fattest men I’ve ever seen gave me his hand as I jumped on deck. As long as no one spoke there seemed no hurry so I began strutting up and down as though I was disgusted with the Captain and impatient with my soldiers.
“The lads were busy getting their muskets unslung, and without me saying anything, Staff and Rosey stood side by side, and the rest of the lads took the hint and formed up in one rank. So there we were, sir, my dozen lads standing to attention and me marching up and down in front of them.