by Steve White
“Nor will they need to do so.” Don Alonzo swung around, and now he could let his avidity show. “Don’t you see? We don’t need to proceed on down into the Laguna de Maracaibo and seek Morgan out. He must come to us! There’s no way out of the lake except through the one eight-hundred-yard-wide channel. All we have to do is wait for him there. Any one of our three ships could blow his entire fleet out of the water.”
The captain’s eyes lit up. “So Morgan is trapped! He’s in a bottle and we’ll be the cork.”
“Yes. This time we have him—he can’t possibly get away.” The thought energized Don Alonzo and he began rapping out orders. “We’ll leave nothing to chance—remember, this is Morgan we’re dealing with. Put couriers ashore with letters for the governors of Mérida and other towns requesting whatever ships and men they can send. And as soon as we arrive at the channel-mouth, we’ll reoccupy the fort on San Carlos—it will be like an unsinkable fourth ship for us.”
“Yes, Almirante.” The flag captain hastened to obey.
Don Alonzo looked out over the water and sighed with contentment. The hour of divine justice had arrived for the diabolical Henry Morgan, and he himself was going to have the honor of being God’s instrument.
He set himself a penance for reflecting that it also wouldn’t do his career a bit of harm.
* * *
It was now mid-April. After raking over Maracaibo and the area thirty miles around it, Morgan’s fleet had set sail down the lake. Following a token cannonade from Gibraltar’s fort, the people of that town had fled like those of Maracaibo. Here again, the buccaneers had spent weeks scouring the surrounding countryside for prisoners. Now the fleet—grown to fourteen vessels as a result of captures, including a merchantman from Cuba that was larger than anything else Morgan had—was preparing to depart, groaning with loot.
That loot included more than the expected gold, silver and other valuables. The holds also contained slaves stolen from the local planters, who could be sold in Jamaica to feed the voracious demands of the burgeoning sugar plantations. Jason had noted that Zenobia’s crew had no more trouble with this than any of the other pirates. No one in this century had any moral objection to slavery as an institution, as opposed to objecting to being a slave. But it was something with which Jason and his companions were less than comfortable.
Nor was that all. There had been worse. Much worse.
They sat at a rough table outside a dockside tavern, drinking plundered Spanish wine, as some last remaining cargo was loaded aboard. No one was much more talkative than Grenfell. Even Mondrago, who was hardened to battlefield behavior in many eras, stared into his wine-cup moodily. “Now I understand why pirates get drunk so much.”
Nesbit, who was not so hardened, wore a haunted look. “One time,” he said to no one in particular, “I saw burning matches tied between a prisoner’s fingers. I saw men racked until their joints popped out. I saw a man’s wrists tied together behind his back and his arms lifted straight up over his head so they broke behind the shoulders. I saw another man’s face scorched with burning palm leaves until skin was hanging off in strips. I saw—”
“We all saw this stuff, Irving,” said Jason. “I witnessed a woolding.” It had taken all his gift of gab to avoid having to actually participate without incurring suspicion. He turned to Zenobia, who looked less affected than any of them . . . but then, she was accustomed to it. “At least your Maroons weren’t as bad as some.”
“Even though, as escaped slaves, they have reason to have a lot of resentment stored up,” Mondrago added.
“I do my best,” she said shortly and tossed off some wine. When she next spoke, it was with a note of defensiveness. “You can’t view all this in isolation. Do you have any conception of the things the Spaniards do to prisoners? When they take a crew of ‘heretics’ in what they consider their waters, they cut off their hands, feet, noses and ears, and then smear them with honey, tie them to trees and leave them for the insects. Have you heard the story of what happened after the Spanish reconquest of Providence Island from the buccaneers in 1666? Under the terms of surrender, the prisoners were supposed to be returned to Jamaica. In fact they were taken to Portobello and worked to death in an enclosure knee-deep in water and exposed to the sun, packed together and chained to the floor, subjected to constant beatings. When Morgan took Portobello, he and his men liberated the few survivors . . . or what was left of them. They weren’t likely to forget those men’s stories.” She took another swig of wine. “You just can’t apply your standards here.”
All at once, Roderick Grenfell spoke, so crisply that at first they didn’t even recognize his voice. “At the same time, the more lurid stories—crucifixions, and sexual mutilation of female prisoners, and deliberate starvation of women and children—have proven to be exaggerations by Esquemeling, as has long been suspected. Doubtless his publishers wanted such sensational embellishments.” Then, just as abruptly, he fell silent.
They all stared at him. It was the longest and most articulate statement they had heard out of him since that night in the hills north of the Bahia de Neiba. Eagerly, but keeping his voice calm, Jason spoke.
“That’s very interesting, Roderick. Can you tell us more? Can you tell us what’s going to happen to Morgan and his fleet next, after they leave Gibraltar?”
“What?” Grenfell blinked several times and met Jason’s eyes . . . but only briefly. His eyes slid away and he fell silent as the shadows settled over his mind again.
Jason let out his breath. The historian was improving, and Jason had no doubt that twenty-fourth-century therapists would be able to bring him around after their retrieval. But he was nowhere near fully functional now, so the group was going to have to continue to get along without detailed foreknowledge of events.
They saw Morgan advancing along the quay, ordering the last men aboard. “So, Captain,” Zenobia called out, “we’re off to Maracaibo and the open sea?”
“Yes, and not a minute too soon,” Morgan replied, looking preoccupied. “We don’t know what’s going on up there . . . surely the Spaniards sent messengers to Cartagena or even Panama. We need to move. I’ve released all the prisoners who’ve already paid their ransoms, keeping only four as security for the money still owed us.” He scowled. “The freed prisoners wanted me to turn that slave over to them—the one who gave us so much valuable information on them.”
If it had been possible, Zenobia would have paled. “They’d burn him alive!”
Jason knew what she meant. The buccaneers had forced the slave to kill some of the Spanish captives—a kind of initiation. He had cooperated with no noticeable hesitancy. I wonder why? Jason thought ironically.
“I know,” said Morgan grimly. “Well, to hell with them. He was a help to us. He comes with us, and goes free. I pay my debts.” Morgan moved on.
“Well,” said Mondrago, quaffing the last of his wine, “we’ll find out soon enough what comes next, with or without Roderick’s help.”
* * *
Don Alonzo de Campos y Espinosa nodded in satisfaction as the flag captain concluded his report.
“So, Almirante, those seventy local militiamen are now at the fort on San Carlos, to reinforce the forty of our own troops already there. And they are fully provisioned.”
“Good. This time Morgan won’t encounter a token garrison, as he did when he first arrived. Nine men, to serve eleven cannon!” Don Alonzo muttered with disgust.
Finding the fort deserted had been an unanticipated stroke of luck, for he had expected to have to overcome a pirate garrison. But Morgan must have gotten too greedy, wanting every available man for ransacking the coastal towns. He would live to regret his greed . . . but not for long. The Spaniards had unburied the fort’s cannons and gotten six of them back in working order, and provided others from the ships.
“Send another twenty-four of our musketeers to reinforce the fort,” he ordered. “We have more than enough aboard our ships.”
“Yes, A
lmirante.” The flag captain hurried off.
Don Alonzo walked to the quarterdeck rail and surveyed the other two ships of his command. It had not been easy, getting them all on station and holding that station, for gales from the north had threatened to blow them onto the reefs. He had ordered ballast thrown overboard to lighten ship, and the crisis had passed. Not surprisingly, he thought with a touch of pride in the Armada Barlovento. These were not the fat galleons of the treasure fleets, stuffed with cargo and passengers and meddling royal notaries, and captained by time-servers who had bought their lucrative commissions. No, these were fighting ships manned by trained soldiers. And now they were in position across the narrow channel that was Morgan’s only escape route. The bottle was corked.
As he turned to go below to his cabin, he happened to glance northward, at the sky over the Gulf of Venezuela. There! He blinked and it was gone.
It wasn’t the first time he had thought he glimpsed it: a little area of sky that somehow rippled or wavered, as though something was there and yet not there, hovering above the waters.
Ridiculous! he chided himself. Everyone knew that the eyes could play tricks in the dazzling sunlight of the tropics. He shook his head as though to clear it of nonsense and descended the ladder to his cabin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“All right, everyone,” said a grim Henry Morgan to the assembled captains and the Lilly’s crewmen who crowded around the quarterdeck. “The boat has returned. And what the old Spaniard told us is true.”
There was a dead silence, broken only by a more than usually eloquent grunt from Roche Braziliano.
They had arrived at Maracaibo the day before, after a four-day voyage up the lake from Gibraltar. They had found the town deserted save for one sick old man who—perhaps resentful at his fellows for leaving him behind—had told them that three Spanish ships lay in wait at the narrowest point of the channel, where the fort was now fully manned and armed, and could have commanded the passage by itself. Morgan had immediately sent his fastest boat to investigate. It had returned today with confirmation.
“And it’s even worse than we thought,” Morgan continued inexorably. “These aren’t just any Spanish ships. They’re war galleons, with forty-eight, thirty-eight and twenty-four guns. There’s no question—it’s got to be the Armada de Barlovento. And they have us trapped.”
“How did they know we were here?” Roche Braziliano wondered, furrowing his brow so intensely it practically disappeared.
“How else?” said Zenobia scornfully. “Loose talk by some of our men back in Hispaniola.”
“Naturally,” said Mondrago in a sneering undertone, and even at this moment Jason had to smile. The Corsican was what might be called a security snob. He was firmly convinced—not altogether without reason—that no one in past eras had had any inkling of counterintelligence.
Everyone else broke into a babble of nervous muttering, knowing that the least of those three Spanish ships was more than a match for their entire fleet. Morgan was uncharacteristically silent, seemingly lost in thought, which added to the general nervousness. If he was discouraged . . .
Suddenly, Morgan stood up and the hubbub stilled. All eyes were riveted on him. The brooding silence stretched.
“Well, there’s only one thing to do,” he said slowly. “I’ll send a letter to the Spanish admiral—”
What’s this? He’s going to surrender? thought Jason incredulously. That can’t be . . . can it?
“—demanding that he pay us a hefty ransom, and telling him that otherwise we’ll burn Maracaibo to a cinder.”
For a couple of heartbeats, everyone goggled in absolute silence. Then an explosion of laughter and cheering burst forth, with an unmistakable undertone of relief. This was still Henry Morgan.
Jason was certain that his lower jaw must be touching the deck.
Morgan must have noticed his expression, for he turned to him with a smile and spoke as though explaining something that ought to be self-evident. “Remember, Jason: always behave as though you have the upper hand.”
“Even when you don’t?”
Morgan’s smile widened. “Especially when you don’t!”
* * *
The captain of Magdalena looked like he was in danger of having a stroke.
“Morgan’s insolence is beyond belief! Is there no limit to the effrontery of this scoundrel? Surely he must be possessed by the Devil. With your permission, Almirante, I will immediately order the hanging of the pirate scum who brought us this insultingly preposterous demand.”
Don Alonzo gestured his flag captain to silence. He turned back to the heavy oaken table in his cabin and ran his eyes over Morgan’s letter one more time. He shook his head.
“No. For one thing, I must reluctantly admire this messenger’s boldness. And besides, I intend to use him to convey my reply to Morgan.”
“What? But . . . but surely, Almirante, you do not mean to dignify this letter with a response!”
“But I do. I will make Morgan a counterproposal. If he will off-load his captives and all his loot and slaves, and return to Jamaica peaceably, I will offer to allow him to pass unmolested.”
The flag captain tried several times to speak. When he finally succeeded, it was in a voice choked by the conflict between his indignation and his fear of straying over the line into insubordination. “Almirante, you would demean yourself by negotiating with this Lutheran pig! And your orders are to exterminate piracy in these waters. Surely you cannot intend to disregard those orders by letting him go!”
Don Alonzo shot him an irritated look. “Don’t be absurd. As you yourself have repeatedly pointed out, Morgan is both a heretic and a pirate.”
“Ah!” The flag captain’s features smoothed themselves out into a smile as understanding dawned. “And either would suffice to release you from any promises to him.”
“You’ve grasped it. Now please summon my secretary so I can dictate a letter.”
* * *
“Well,” said Morgan two days later, “I’ll say this for Don Alonzo. At least the tone of his letter is appropriately courteous, as one gentleman to another. Not like Don Agustín de Bracamonte, the governor of Panama.” Blood rushed to his face and he scowled at the recollection. “After I captured Portobello last year I sent him a letter demanding ransom for the city. Do you know what he wrote in reply? He called me a pirate! Me! A pirate! Can you imagine? When I had a perfectly legal commission from Governor Modyford, with everything in order. A pirate! Ha!” Morgan got himself under control with an effort, and soothed his injured feelings with a slug of rum. After a year, he was obviously still seething about it.
They sat in the desecrated church near the square, which Morgan had been using for his headquarters. Several of the captains were there, as were some members of Lilly’s crew, including Jason. Zenobia spoke up as soon as Morgan had regained his composure.
“Courteous or not, do you really believe his offer of free passage?”
“No. I believe he wants to lure us into the channel and sink us without the treasure going to the bottom in deep water. But I owe it to the men to put this before them fairly.” Morgan finished his rum and stood up. “Come on. They all ought to be gathered in the square by now.”
They walked the short distance to the marketplace, which was packed with almost the entire personnel of the fleet, waiting in uncharacteristic silence. Morgan hitched himself up on a cart and waved Don Alonzo’s letter.
“We have the Spanish admiral’s reply,” he began, then proceeded to read them the letter. Afterwards he handed it to a French buccaneer to translate for the benefit of his countrymen in the crowd. Then he stepped forward and addressed the still-silent assembly.
“You’ve heard Don Alonzo’s offer: we can go back to Jamaica in safety if we go empty-handed. You’ve also heard his warning that he’ll put every one of us to the sword if we refuse. So what is our choice to be?”
An indignant roar arose.
“Trust a
Spaniard?” someone jeered over the din.
“Those men on Providence Island did,” shouted someone else. “And we saw what happened to them, in the dungeons at Portobello!”
The roar grew ugly.
“But,” came a hesitant demurer, “this Don might be a man of his word. And—” Whatever else the speaker was going to say was drowned in catcalls. One bellowing voice rose over them.
“I don’t give a tinker’s damn if he is being honest! Are we to meekly give up all we’ve fought for and slink back to Port Royal as beggars, to starve or maybe sell ourselves into indenture so we can at least eat slops?”
Now the roar rose to a unanimous thunder of No! No!
Morgan stepped forward and raised his arms. The noise instantly subsided.
“All right. We’re agreed. We’ll fight rather than accept the Spaniard’s offer. So we’re back to the question of how to fight when we stand no chance at all.”
This brought them back down to Earth. A gloomy silence settled over the square. Morgan, with his usual uncanny sense of timing, let it last just long enough.
“No, we stand no chance in the kind of fight they expect—that is, if we do it their way, which is the only way they know. But there’s another way.” Again, Morgan paused for a precisely calibrated moment. “I’m thinking of that big Cuban merchant ship we captured at Gibraltar. Here’s my idea.” He outlined it in a few swift sentences, and as he spoke the buccaneers’ silence turned to one of excited eagerness.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jason noticed Grenfell stirring. The historian blinked several times, and his eyes seemed to clear. “Yes! I remember now. How could I have forgotten?” Nesbit clasped his shoulder, then turned and met Jason’s eyes. They exchanged a nod.
“Now,” Morgan concluded, “that’s just a rough idea. To make it work, I need everyone’s ideas. The first question is: can it work?”