by Tim Severin
‘They’re a long way off yet. We’ll wait to see what course they intend,’ said Hector. ‘Then report to Avery.’
The two men watched for a full hour before Hector finally stood up on the skyline and waved his arms, signalling for a boat to collect them. They made their way down the side of the ridge and by the time they reached the landing place they could see that the other ships had spotted his signal. Small boats were converging on the Fancy, carrying the freebooter captains.
The air was tense with expectation as Hector and Jacques climbed aboard. The ship’s company clustered along the rail, shouting down at them and demanding to know the news. Hector ignored them and headed for Avery standing with the other captains. He recognized most of them from the conference held aboard Fancy when they had elected Avery as their overall leader. Thomas Tew of the Amity was in shirtsleeves and still wearing his rapier. Joseph Faro of the Portsmouth Adventure was chatting with Thomas Wake of the Susanna, while the big black-bearded man was Richard Want. His vessel, Dolphin, was a small and sluggish sloop whose rigging was so wispy and badly frayed that the sailors had dubbed her the ‘hay wain’. The final member of the group was a squat, heavy-set man with narrow, watchful eyes. Hector presumed that he was William Mayes, captain of the Pearl. His ship had only arrived in the anchorage the previous evening and, at 200 tons, was the second largest vessel in the squadron, though comparatively toothless as she mounted only sixteen guns.
All six captains were regarding him with close interest, waiting to hear his report. Behind him the Fancy’s company edged forward, close enough to listen in.
‘Sails to north.’ Hector spoke directly to Avery.
‘How many?’ Tew interrupted harshly. He was finding it difficult to contain his eagerness, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He had one hand on his baldric and kept adjusting it, sliding it back and forward, across his shoulder.
‘Difficult to say at this distance,’ Hector answered. ‘Between twenty and twenty-five sail.’
‘How long before they get here?’ Joseph Faro wanted to know. Like Tew he spoke with the nasal accent that marked him as being from the New England colonies.
‘Jacques and I observed for an hour and we estimate that they’ll be off the island in another four or five hours if the wind holds.’
‘And what course are they following?’ This time it was Avery who asked. As always, he was calm and matter-of-fact, though his was the crucial question.
Hector paused for a moment before answering. ‘They appear to be sailing along the coast, keeping a couple of miles off shore. That would take them into the Small Channel.’
Tew let go of his baldric and smacked a fist into the palm of his hand. ‘Then we’ve got them!’ he burst out. ‘They won’t get here until dusk and they can’t risk passing through the channel in the dark. They’ll shorten sail and wait until daylight when they can see where they are going.’
A broad smile split Richard Want’s black beard. ‘I propose we remain here, out of sight so as not to scare them off. On the morning breeze we weigh anchor and emerge from behind the island just as they are entering the channel. They’ll be unable to turn back and will drop into our hands like over-ripe fruit. We won’t even have to shake the branch.’
He beamed at Avery. ‘Long Ben, it seems like your luck is holding. I’ll send two of my own lads up on that ridge to stay overnight. They’ll signal us when the fleet is well and truly committed into the channel.’
Tew made a sucking noise through his teeth, expressing his disagreement. ‘Better if we left the anchorage as soon as it is too dark for the Moors to see us. There’s no moon tonight and we can loiter in position. That way they’d run right into us.’
Avery turned to Joseph Faro, seeking his opinion. The captain of the Portsmouth Adventure was the oldest of the group, a seasoned campaigner with a reputation for always calculating the odds before he committed himself and his vessel. ‘There are too many rocks and reefs. In the dark someone could easily come to grief,’ he said.
Tew nodded at Hector. ‘He’s been doing his homework. We ought to be able to stay clear of trouble.’
Avery looked across at Hector and raised an eyebrow, inviting him to comment. Hector hesitated, uncertain what to say. Twice in the past fortnight he had rowed out in a small boat with Jacques and Jezreel to make notes on the position of rocks and other dangers in the mouth of the bay. Tew must have seen them at work.
‘Well . . . ?’ Tew prompted.
Out of the corner of his eye Hector saw Avery give a very slight, almost imperceptible shake of his head.
Hector raised his voice so that all could hear. ‘With the sun high the water is clear enough so that the rocks show up well against the sandy bottom. But it would be a very different matter in the dark.’
Tew’s gaze swept across his fellow captains as he sought their support for his proposal. When none was forthcoming, he shrugged, pulled his rapier a couple of inches from its scabbard and slammed it back again irritably. ‘Just one more point,’ he added, ‘plunder is to be shared only between those vessels that take an active part in a capture. Nothing for those who hang back. That’s our custom.’
Avery checked with the other captains. ‘Are we agreed?’
Richard Want gave a reluctant nod.
‘Good. Then that’s settled. We return to our ships and prepare for tomorrow. There’s much to do.’
The meeting broke up, and Hector and Jacques went to join Jezreel in the crowd of onlookers.
‘Sorry now that you didn’t stay on Amity?’ Jacques asked the big man mischievously as the three of them made their way to a quiet spot near the bow. They knew exactly why Tew had spoken up. Amity was the swiftest vessel in the squadron. When the ambush was sprung, his ship would be first on the scene, and have the choice of the richest prize in the pilgrim fleet. If she succeeded in capturing her chosen victim, without help from another vessel in the squadron, all the loot from that ship would be for the Amity’s company alone. That was freebooter law.
‘Tew’s too bold for my liking,’ said Jezreel. ‘I’ve seen the like of him in the ring. Goes charging in recklessly and finishes up flat on his back, with a dent in his skull. Besides, how’s he to tell which is the richest vessel in the pilgrim fleet?’
‘A good question,’ said Jacques looking at Hector. ‘Why would pilgrims be carrying anything worth plundering?’
Hector rubbed his sore eyes with the back of his hand. It made him see spots. ‘The hajj is more than just a pilgrimage. It’s a chance to combine piety with profit. Everyone who can afford to do so takes some trade goods with them when they set out for their holy places. There they spend their spare time in buying and selling, and now they’ll be bringing home their acquisitions.’
He stepped to one side as Fancy’s gunner came past with two of his assistants. They were checking the demi-culverins, one by one, lifting the small lead apron covering the vent hole, removing the plug of greased oakum, and poking in a thin wire to make sure that there was no obstruction when the touch powder was ignited and the fire reached the main powder charge.
‘Then there are the merchants who travel with the convoy. They reserve cargo space, often a year in advance.’
‘What about escort ships? Will there be any?’ Jacques asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Hector told him. ‘We can’t be the only ones who’ve thought about robbing the fleet.’
‘Perhaps they’re relying on safety in numbers,’ Jezreel suggested.
‘Or on the prestige and power of the Great Mogul. He’s a very devout Muslim. You can imagine how he will react to an attack on pilgrims from Mecca. He’d consider it sacrilege.’
Jacques pulled a face. ‘Then we’d better make sure to disappear afterwards. I wouldn’t like to be on bad terms with the Emperor of India as well as with the King of France.’
FIVE
Avery, with his customary thoroughness, set the crew to preparing the ship for action. Fancy’s sun a
wning was taken down and stowed. Men climbed out on the spars, checking on the furling of the sails, tying each one in place with twine. In the morning a strong tug on the sheets would snap the twine, allowing the sails to fall free and catch the wind and ensure a quick departure from the bay. The support boats – the larger pinnace and two skiffs – had been lifted aboard and placed on their chocks amidships. The heavy thick anchor cable was brought up short, ready to be hoisted in, and the last of the chain shot left over from the warship’s original navy stores distributed among the top-deck demi-culverins. These guns had the clearest field of fire and were most likely to bring down the target’s masts and rigging. Avery’s plan was to cripple, not sink, Fancy’s chosen victims, then get close enough to put boarding parties on them. As the light faded Quartermaster Hathaway and his team of assistants opened the arms chests and handed out muskets, half-pikes, pistols and cutlasses. The ship’s company spread along the full length of the deck, a hundred and fifty men busying themselves with preparing cartridges, filling powder horns and replacing flints. Once that was done, there was nothing to do but wait. As a precaution the master gunner had not yet issued powder for the cannon, and as night fell, the flare and glow of dozens of clay pipes punctuated the darkness. There was not a breath of wind so the smoke and smell of burning tobacco hung in the night air. The general feeling on board was of pent-up anticipation tinged with nervous uncertainty as to whether the long voyage to stalk their prey would finally produce its reward. Many of the men formed small groups to gamble away the hours with cards and dice. Others dug out the bottles of rum and brandy they had been hoarding.
‘I wonder where Dan is at this moment,’ said Jezreel. He had cleared himself enough deck space to stretch out between two of the demi-culverins and was lying on his back, staring up at the sky where a thin veil of cloud was moving in from the south and beginning to dim the stars. Dan had been the fourth member of their tight-knit little group. A Miskito Indian from the coastal swamps of the western Caribbean, he had gone back to his homeland shortly before the great Jamaica earthquake.
‘If we had a few more like him aboard I wouldn’t have to listen to your stomach rumbling,’ Jacques muttered. Miskito Indians were renowned as hunters and fishermen, and it was claimed that four Miskito Indians were enough to keep a ship’s crew supplied with fresh food. With the ship’s stores almost exhausted, meals on Fancy had become very meagre.
‘Somehow I don’t think Dan stayed at home. He’s not one to settle down,’ observed Hector from where he was sitting, his back against a gun carriage. A sudden outburst of swearing made him look round. Without a moon, there was no longer enough starlight for the gamblers to see their cards and dice clearly. It sounded as if someone had already staked and lost the plunder he confidently expected to win the next morning, and he wanted the game to continue. The winner was refusing.
‘Things could get out of hand tomorrow over the division of the plunder.’ Hector took care to keep his voice down.
‘And Hathaway needs to be watched. He never stops grumbling that there was no vote before we joined up,’ added Jezreel. It was the quartermaster’s role to share out the spoil between the crew, and it was a time-honoured rule that a freebooter’s company only accepted new crew members after agreement among themselves. Each additional recruit meant a smaller portion of the plunder when it was divided. Deliberately or not, Avery had bypassed this custom when he added Hector and his friends to Fancy’s complement.
‘Well, it’s too late to do anything about that now,’ said Jacques. ‘Without Hector to make sense of that sketch map, Fancy might not have got here at all.’
Hector was grateful for what had been left unsaid. Hathaway’s initial resentment had been greatly sharpened by the way Avery had favoured his new navigator. In front of the crew Avery had complimented Hector on his skill in bringing Fancy into harbour past the dangerous reefs that ringed the island. The quartermaster’s dissatisfaction had spread to his circle of cronies, and they made their hostility towards him and his friends very plain.
Aboard one of the sloops anchored nearby, someone began plucking the strings of an out-of-tune guitar, playing the same few notes over and over again until a rough voice called out for him to stop his racket. Hector glanced towards the stern, hoping to catch a glimpse of Avery where he had last seen him beside the foot of the mizzenmast. But the captain was nowhere in sight. Picking up one of the shot wads that had been placed in readiness, he used it as a pillow, leaning his head back against the breech of the gun. He closed his eyes and focused his mind on Maria. Their baby had been due in late May, and now it was early September. Whether it was a boy or a girl was unimportant, only that Maria and the child were healthy and well looked after. He longed for the next twenty-four hours to be over and for the ambush to have been a success. It would mean that the Fancy could set course back to St Mary’s, where Baldridge would be waiting to acquire the spoils and forward them to his contacts in Europe and New England. It should be possible to find a ship that was due to call in at Tenerife en route. Hector made a mental calculation. By the time he next saw Maria, their child would be crawling, maybe even learning to stand. He wanted very badly to be there where the toddler took its first few steps.
✻
Hector awoke with a start. It was still very dark and someone had tripped over his outstretched foot. He heard a sigh of relief, then the sound of a thin jet of water striking the surface of the bay. Whoever had trodden on him was at the ship’s rail and pissing over the side. He reached behind him and used the demi-culverin’s barrel to pull himself upright. The metal was still slightly warm from yesterday’s sun, though this was the coolest hour, shortly before sunrise. Jezreel was snoring softly, still lying on the deck, and he couldn’t see where Jacques had got to. The thin layer of cloud was dissolving into streaks. A few late stars were showing through, enough to reveal the dark outline of the island ridge to the north. He could picture the two lookouts from Dolphin up there on their vantage point, watching over the channel, waiting for the first tinge of daylight to reveal the position of the pilgrim fleet.
Jacques appeared, an indistinct shape in the darkness. ‘A little treat from the ship’s stores,’ he said quietly. Avery had assigned the Frenchman to help the Fancy’s cooks, and Hector imagined his friend had stolen some ship’s biscuit. It would make a pleasant change from the gritty flat discs of unleaven bread made from local grain. Instead, there was a gurgling sound and Jacques thrust a small metal cup into his hand. He took a sip. It had the tangy, slightly sweet taste of small beer. Hector drank slowly, savouring every drop.
‘That’s the last of it,’ the Frenchman murmured. Since arriving at the waterless island, the crew of Fancy had been drinking vile-tasting cloudy water from barrels filled a month earlier on the African coast. It was wise not to look too closely into one’s cup, as there would be tiny worms wriggling in the bottom of it. Jacques stirred Jezreel with his foot. ‘Time to wake up, you great lunk.’
The big man sat up, yawned noisily, gave a deep gassy belch and stretched. Jacques passed him the refilled cup. ‘Maybe that will settle your guts,’ he said. Bad water, as everyone knew, caused the flux.
Hector peered up at the masts. He could make out the tracery of rigging and the pennants hanging limp at the mast tops. It was still too early for the first hint of wind that would carry the squadron out from the bay. They would have to wait at least another hour until the rising sun warmed the mainland and sucked in the onshore breeze.
All around the anchorage, as the light strengthened, the smaller ships were preparing for the ambush. He could hear the squeal of ropes in blocks, the calling of commands and the rub of timber on timber as the spars were hauled into place. On board Fancy there was a general stir. Men were getting to their feet, hawking up phlegm and spitting over the side, breaking wind noisily and deliberately, groaning and stretching. Someone tossed a bucket on a rope over the side and hauled it up, the contents slopping loudly. He heard coxswain Dan
n’s sharp tones telling the laggards to move away from the guns so that the gunner’s assistants could set out the gunpowder charges. Jezreel, who was still sitting on deck, was chivvied out of the way.
There was so much bustle and activity that the faint cries from the land could have been mistaken for the calls of a seabird.
When he next looked towards the island, he could just make out two figures. They were running down the side of the ridge towards the anchorage. As he watched, the lead runner lost his footing and fell. His companion tripped over him and both men slithered down the steep slope for several yards before coming to a halt. When they got back up again and began to run downhill once more, he realized that the cries had come from them.
‘They must be the two lookouts sent by Richard Want,’ he said to Jacques.
‘Worried that they’ll miss out on the plunder if they don’t get back on Dolphin before she sails.’
Hector saw the two lookouts reach the landing place and scramble on to the little skiff that they had left beached there. Instead of heading back to Dolphin, they set course for Fancy, rowing frantically. Every few seconds one of them glanced over his shoulder and shouted, but the distance was too great to make out the words.
‘What’s going on?’ asked a gunner’s assistant who had been checking the gun tackles.
‘I don’t know,’ Hector told him. One of the rowers missed the water with his oar stroke and fell off his seat. His companion stood up, turned and shouted at Fancy through his cupped hands.
‘Drunk, both of them,’ observed Jacques sourly.
Aboard Fancy several men gathered at the rail, peering out into the half-darkness.
‘What’s he yelling about?’ asked someone.
‘Something about the Moors,’ said his colleague.
‘Lynch! Report aft!’ called a voice. It was Avery standing beside the helm. Leaving his friends, Hector hurried along the deck, pushing past the late risers who were grumbling and demanding to know what all the excitement was about, their voices petulant.