by Dudley Pope
“I’m not tired,” Aurelia said, “that’s why I’m giving my hair a good combing.”
Ned looked at the breasts with their pink nipples dividing the long hair as it fell in cascades. “I’m not tired either, but come to bed.”
The sun was already bright one morning a week later, but had not begun to scorch, when Ned inspected the new mast. A dozen men were still balancing themselves along the top of the tree trunk, tapping away like patient labourers hoeing sun-baked soil and shaping it into a long tapered cylinder. The adzes, looking like short-handled hoes, were sharp and enough chips of wood were scattered over the white sand to stop the glare.
Ned walked to one end and sighted along the great log. The men were shaping it skilfully and one of them, holding up his hand, called: “Right, all off! We’ve got to turn ’er.”
All the men jumped off, put down their adzes and picked up short lengths of wood. Standing evenly spaced along its length, they pushed the levers under the tree and heaved down so that it turned a few inches.
Then, adze in hand, each scrambled back on top and began cutting once again, the chips of wood flying. “Another six inches all round,” Lobb commented. “Then we can start shaping up for the ironwork.”
“Pity we couldn’t make new ironwork to fit this mast,” Ned said. “It’d save us time, too.”
“The only man with the right thickness of ironwork is the blacksmith here,” Lobb growled, pointing to a small building half a mile away, “and he must have started cutting firewood and weaving baskets. He tells a fine tale and his boy works hard with the bellows, but I wouldn’t trust him to shoe a dead horse, let alone go to sea with any mastwork he made.”
“Pity our best blacksmiths have gone off to Cartagena,” Ned said.
“I was going to talk to you about that one day, sir,” Lobb said. “With not a blacksmith among the three ships, Griffin, Peleus or Phoenix, we ought to start looking for one.”
“Or train one of our own. We had a couple of men making ironwork for the house.”
Exactly a week later, as Ned and Saxby stood with Lobb watching men with tongs heating up a mast band in a rudimentary furnace before slipping it into place over the completed new mast, and while carpenters nearby shaped up the new yard, an excited seaman ran up from the jetty.
“The lady sent me over,” he gasped to Ned. It was curious how the men never called her “Mrs Wilson”, and Ned knew it was less a question of not referring to her dead husband, whose vile reputation the seamen knew about, than a wish to refer to her instead as his wife. “The lady says a boat’s coming round Gallows Point with three men in it, and they’re sailing it, but through the glass they look too weak to row up to the Griffin.”
“Well, for God’s sake–”
“The lady’s already sent a boat to take ’em in tow, sir, an’ my boat’s ready to take you out to the Griffin.”
Ned stared at the man, puzzled. Why on earth was Aurelia getting so excited over a boat being sailed in by three tired men?
“What the Devil’s wrong with the boat?” he demanded.
“Nothin’ wrong with the boat, sir; s’just we recognize it as being one belonging to the Peleus…”
Chapter Eight
Ned looked at the three men lying on the deck on tarpaulins. The sun had scorched and blackened their skin; starvation stripping away every ounce of spare flesh had left the bones in their bodies protruding – yes, Ned realized with horror, like those of a body left to hang on a gibbet. Worse, their flesh had that aged, dried and shrunken look of meat that had been boucanned.
Their eyes were shut; the sockets seemed enormous, emphasizing cheekbones and giving them an oddly Indian appearance. Ned remembered seeing them on board the Peleus.
“Stand back, sir,” Mrs Judd said as she moved in to crouch beside the men, a leather bucket full of water beside her. She began dipping a cloth in the water and rubbing down the man nearest her.
Ned suddenly realized that Aurelia was standing beside him. “What happened?” he asked.
“They can’t talk yet. They’ve come in one of the Peleus’ boats, though: you know Thomas had all his boats painted in what he calls his livery, red and yellow.”
“And Mrs Judd?”
“She and Saxby saw the boat and came over immediately. Mrs Judd learned this–” she gestured at the water, “–from an Indian. A man left for days in the sun like these poor fellows has all the water dried out of him, so you keep his mouth moist while you bathe his body to restore the water to the flesh.”
“Why not give them a good drink of water?”
“We tried that, but they can’t drink properly – I think their throats are too swollen. So we’re just wetting their mouths as well.”
Were they mutineers that Thomas had cast adrift? Had the Peleus sunk and these were the only survivors? What about Thomas and Diana, two people so full of life and love and zest it seemed a blasphemy even to think of them as drowned? Thomas with a mug or a sword in his hand always looked happy; a soldier or sailor of fortune who appeared the most independent of men – until you realized that he was incomplete unless Diana was with him (which she usually was). And Diana, dark-haired, always heavily tanned, proud of her body in a way few other women were – or dared to be. Diana talking to Thomas, and standing so close a breast brushed his chest, yet there was no coquettishness, just that they needed to touch each other, as though touch gave a deeper meaning to mere words. To see them standing together talking was to think of them making love – not because of a lewd curiosity but because their happiness together was so open and obvious – so natural, in other words.
He felt Aurelia’s touch on his arm and looked down at her, guessing that the same thoughts were going through her mind. “Ned, I’m frightened for them.”
There was no mistaking who “them” meant. The three men Mrs Judd was nursing, shouting at seamen to bring more buckets of fresh water, would be able to talk soon – but how long was “soon”? An hour, five hours, a day? Whether or not the King gave Jamaica back to Spain, whether or not the Ferret ever understood that Spain would always be the enemy of all foreigners who dared sail into the Caribbee – none of it mattered now. What mattered was what those men had to say.
“Supposing they’re mutineers?”
He felt Aurelia shudder as he realized he had spoken his thoughts aloud. “I thought of that and then when I looked at them lying there like boucan, I was ashamed,” Aurelia admitted. “But I suppose it’s possible.”
“What doesn’t seem likely is Thomas casting such men adrift in a boat. He might hang mutineers from the yardarm: but a boat? It doesn’t seem like him.”
Aurelia nodded. “Diana wouldn’t let him. Landing them to take their chance with the Cimarróns, yes; marooning is common enough.”
“And Thomas had only four boats. He wouldn’t want to lose one for the sake of getting rid of three mutineers,” Ned added.
“There may have been more men,” Aurelia said. “These three might be the only survivors. But Thomas didn’t cast them adrift,” she said firmly. “That’s not his way. Something awful has happened, Ned. I can feel it. Will those men live?”
Martha Judd heard the last few words, which were almost a cry of distress from the Frenchwoman, and she looked up from her sponging. “They’ll live”, she said crisply. “The sun’s burnt ’em so badly they’ll be in agony for a few days, but they’ll live. Send for Saxby – he’s down in their boat seeing if he can find out anything – and tell him to bring me some rum and I’ll try rinsing their mouths out with a more familiar taste than water: it might bring ’em round quicker. Come on,” she snapped, squeezing one of the men’s scrotum and watching his face for any reaction to the pain. “Ah, this one’s coming back to us.” She walked round and crouched beside the second man, repeating the test. “This one, too,�
� she said. “He’s even groaning. Probably thinks he’s arrived in Paradise. Just think,” she said, winking at Aurelia, “a man arrives in Paradise – and there’s Martha Judd to greet him with a clutching hand…”
Saxby soon arrived with an earthenware jug of rum. “Who’s it for, you or them?” he asked Martha.
She ignored Saxby’s teasing. “Well, what have you found out from the boat?”
“Precious little,” he admitted. “All the oars are on board, and so are three pistols and three cutlasses. There’s just one small water bareca and that’s empty and the bung is missing. Seven notches cut into the aftermost thwart – probably chopped with a cutlass to mark each passing day. No compass, no signs of food, not even a shred of boucan.”
Knowing Ned could hear his report, Saxby said: “There you are sir. They wasn’t sent off on some expedition and got lost, else there’d be a compass. Three pistols and three cutlasses makes me think there was just the three of ’em. Yet three’s an odd number of men to be doing anything with a boat: two oars one side and one the other. Don’t make sense, but I don’t reckon four started off, otherwise there’d be a fourth pistol – or at least a cutlass.”
Saxby saw Martha Judd reaching over to the third man’s scrotum and watched incredulously as she squeezed hard. “Here, Martha, what the Devil d’you think you’re doing?”
“Quickest way to a man’s heart,” she said, picking up a fresh cloth and dipping the end into the rum. She knelt down at the first man’s head and rinsed the inside of his mouth, squeezing the last few drops carefully so they did not fall directly into the throat.
The man stirred and then coughed. He then gave a loud groan. Martha Judd looked up at Saxby. “You see, it works.”
Because the Griffin was without mast or rigging there was nowhere to sling hammocks on deck, so once Martha pronounced that her water, squeezing and rum treatment had worked, the three men were carefully carried below and put into hammocks.
Mrs Judd was forward in the galley preparing some thin gruel when the first of the men recovered consciousness. He did it so suddenly that he took Ned, Aurelia and Saxby by surprise. Muttering “Wemmeye,” he clutched the sides of the hammock and tried to sit up.
Aurelia was beside him in a moment, making noises like a mother comforting a child as the man repeated, his voice rising in panic: “Wemmeye, wemmeye?”
Ned was the first to realize that the man was asking “Where am I?” and said, slowly and clearly: “You’re on board the Griffin in Port Royal.”
“Oh Gawd,” the man muttered, “’spected Dons!”
Ned looked at Saxby, who shook his head. “Why should he expect Spaniards?”
Did he expect Jamaica to have been taken by the Spanish? Unlikely, Ned thought. Did he realize he was in Jamaica or had he expected the boat to arrive in Hispaniola?
Ned asked Aurelia: “When you sighted their boat, it was sailing, but did you see any of the men moving?”
“Not actually moving, no. With the glass I could see men and they were obviously exhausted. From their positions,” she explained, “we could see that. We did not think they could row.”
“When our boat towed theirs up alongside, did the men move then?”
Puzzled at the questions, Aurelia shook her head. “No, they were already unconscious, and our men had to lift them on board. Why do you ask?”
“I think these men have been unconscious for hours, if not days. This fellow didn’t know he’s in Port Royal. He was expecting to find himself in Hispaniola, a prisoner of the Dons. The western end of Hispaniola is a hundred and fifty miles to windward of here. I think that boat has been sailing itself for two or three days, and just a chance of the wind and current brought it into Port Royal.”
Aurelia shuddered at the thought. “Supposing the boat had drifted up on a beach out of sight of us,” she murmured. “Another mile or two to the eastward…”
“Think of what’d happen if they’d landed in Hispaniola, in sight of the Dons ma’am,” Saxby said. “But best of all, don’t think about it: they landed among friends, and they’re three lucky fellows.”
Ned looked down at the man again, and saw his eyelids flickering. He bent over and spoke clearly to the man. “Can you hear me?”
“S’right, can ’ear yer,” the man muttered, and added: “Sir.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“S’Mister Yorke, innit?”
“Yes. What’s happened to the Peleus?”
“Dons got her. All of ’em. We was goin’ woodin’ an’ waterin’. Dons agreed to give us water an’ let us collect wood. All lies, tho’.”
The effort of talking exhausted him and he seemed to doze. Ned left him a few minutes and, despite Aurelia’s protests, shook him awake again.
“What happened to Sir Thomas and Lady Diana?”
“Orl gawn, sir; Dons got ’em. Only us escaped ’cos we was acrorst the bay, fishin’…”
“Where? Where did all this happen?”
“Wessen end P’ Rico,” the man mumbled, and Ned was not sure whether he was going to sleep or lapsing into unconsciousness.
“What’s the name of the port? What bay?” When the man did not reply he tried Martha Judd’s trick, and said loudly: “Where were you watering?”
“Bokker somewhere,” the man mumbled.
“Boquerón?”
“S’right, sir.” Then he murmured, “Sorry…gotta…sleep…”
“Oh, you’re a cruel man!” Aurelia accused Ned. “This poor matelot – you bully him with questions even though he’s probably dying!”
The skin of Ned’s face tightened. “If necessary, I’d have killed all three of them for the information I’ve just got,” he said harshly. “Their lives against eighty or more in the Peleus? But it wasn’t necessary, anyway.”
“But the Spanish must have killed Thomas and Diana and all the rest of the Peleus’ crew,” Aurelia said, beginning to weep as the full significance of what she had just said sank in. “Oh Ned, no plate galleon, nothing, was worth that.”
“The Spanish won’t have killed them yet. A cat likes to play with a mouse. Saxby, go across to Lobb and the rest of our men. Gather them round and tell ’em what we’ve just heard. Then ask them to work night and day until we get the mast stepped and can sway up the yard and bend on the sails.”
“Aye, that’s the way to do it,” Saxby said. “What was that place in Porto Rico?”
“Boquerón. It’s the long bay on the western coast at the southern entrance of the Mona Passage.”
“Reckon there’s much we can do, sir?”
Ned shrugged his shoulders, avoiding looking at Aurelia. “I hope so. You know what a garotte looks like.”
Next day, as the men of the Griffin and Phoenix hurried to get the mast ready to be towed out and stepped in place using sheer legs rigged on the ship, a canoe brought Sir Harold Luce’s secretary Hamilton with a message for Ned.
Hot and tired from helping to rig the sheer legs – two roughly trimmed tree trunks lashed together at the top so that when raised they would form a large upside-down letter V – Ned did not know the young man had arrived on board until Aurelia came up to tell him: “There’s a message from the Governor.”
“Take it – I’ll read it later.”
Aurelia, dressed in seamen’s clothes because she too was helping, said: “No, it’s a young man with a message.”
“If the Governor has any message for me, let him put it in writing,” Ned said crossly, shouting an order to seamen standing ready aft to haul on a rope.
“Oh Ned, this poor young man has come all the way out in a fisherman’s canoe with the message,” Aurelia said. “Give him a minute!”
“Pretty young fellow with a silly blond beard, dressed like a haberdasher
?”
“Well, he’s–”
“That’s ‘Shifty Hamilton’! Send him off in his canoe!”
“Ah, Mr Yorke,” the young man said, having followed Aurelia across the deck, “this sailor told me you were busy, but…”
Ned stared at Aurelia. Yes, she wore seamen’s clothes; yes, her ash-blonde hair was piled on her head and covered with a scarf. But the face, even though sun-tanned…
“Don’t listen to these rough sailors,” Ned said, “they’ll tell you anything. I’ve been waiting here for days for you to bring me a message from the Governor. What does Sir Harold say – that couldn’t have been written in a letter and delivered next week?”
Hamilton, oblivious to Aurelia (whose face was flushed with embarrassment and anger as she realized that the young man was either unaware or uninterested in the fact she was a woman), said: “Sir Harold asked me to find out about the boat that came into the harbour yesterday.”
“Did he?” Ned said politely.
“Er, yes, he did. There were men in it.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, three men.”
“Well, now you can go back and tell Sir Harold all
about it.”
“But…well, that’s all I know.”
“What else do you want? The names of all their wives? How many children they have?”
“I’m sure Sir Harold will want to know where they came from, and why they came here, and what they want.”
“I’m sure he will,” Ned said, signalling to the seamen at the rope to start heaving. “Excuse me, I’ve work to do,” he told Hamilton.
“But Mr Yorke, what shall I tell Sir Harold?” Hamilton asked plaintively.
“Tell him what you’ve just told me.”
“But he’ll want to know more. They tell me at the jetty you are hurrying to get that mast on board so you can sail. Is that because of the men?”