by Dudley Pope
The Pole suddenly looked distressed and in his excitement held Ned’s arm. “But you must, sir: she is a woman among women. Never again you meet one like her. This griffin–” he pointed to the amber carving which Ned was holding, “–will bring you much luck and many children! I know it: I bring people luck.”
Ned gave him back the amber. “We shall marry, Miroslav,” he assured the man, “but in the meantime you continue bringing all of us luck: we’re going to need it for the next few days.”
Miroslav agreed and then, understanding that both Ned and Lobb admired his workmanship, said: “I have a request to make, sir.”
Ned nodded, wondering what was coming next.
“I need a piece of shagreen so that I can give the amber a final smoothing.”
Ned looked questioningly at Lobb, who said: “We haven’t got a piece left on board – the carpenter used the last to smooth the saloon table for you, sir. But it’s not hard to catch another shark. Can I take a piece of boucan and bait the hook?”
“Are a shark’s teeth sharp enough to bite it?” Ned asked sarcastically. “I think it’s wearing out my teeth.”
“Oh, it will, sir,” Lobb said lightly, “but the shark doesn’t have to eat it regularly like us! And by the way,” he said to Miroslav, “it’s up to you to flay the shark and nail out the skin to dry. You want the shagreen, and the only way to get it is to prepare it yourself. We have salt and alum on board.”
“I shan’t want the whole skin,” Miroslav said. “What shall–”
“Sell it to the carpenter, or anyone else wanting to rub something smooth. We have enough sharks in these waters to set up a business selling shagreen.”
Miroslav, a faraway look in his eye, said almost to himself: “If only I could get more amber from Hispaniola, I could set up an atelier in Port Royal. Would people in Jamaica buy my amber?” he asked Ned.
Ned thought of all the spare money in the island, where the tradesmen became rich in a year selling to buccaneers who spent their gold even faster than they acquired it. Wealthy tradesmen might not appreciate Miroslav’s artistry, but their wives would.
“Yes. Carve the finest articles you can, trim them with gold, and charge high prices. If you never lower your standards, you’ll never have to lower your prices.”
“And I’ll get rich selling you shagreen,” Lobb said with a grin. “Anyway, Mr Yorke and Sir Thomas will always be good customers, buying amber for their ladies – wives and daughters.”
At the mention of Thomas’ name, all three men looked instinctively at the thin grey line on the horizon representing Porto Rico. “Yes,” Miroslav said soberly, “I have to look after my customers as well.”
Because the two Spaniards belonging to the Phoenix had been transferred to the Griffin before the ships left Port Royal, Ned was able to have the four of them sitting on the deck in front of him as he leaned against the breech of one of the Griffin’s aftermost guns.
First he confirmed that they knew the survivors’ story (two of those men were now recovered enough to be out of their bunks and employed on light day work, though careful to keep their bodies out of the sun). Then Ned passed round the rough chart of Boquerón which they had drawn.
“You can see it’s inside and on the edge of quite a deep bay which is almost closed by this reef across the entrance. There’s just that gap in the middle of it, and the Peleus sailed through it, anchoring very close to Boquerón village. That heavy line is the way from the jetty to the wells where they were going to get fresh water.
“But first we have to avoid two other reefs – Bajo Corona Larga, about five miles out and stretching north-south for a couple of miles, and then Bajo Resuello, two miles out and also running north-south for a couple of miles.
“Once we’ve passed them and reach Bahia de Boquerón, we find the whole bay almost completely closed off by the Bajo Enmedio, which is like a gate. Luckily there is a gap in it, a channel about four hundred yards wide but with more than thirty feet of water.
“And, as you can see from the sketch, the channel is marked for us by those clumps of mangroves growing on the coral. The coral comes up sharply on both sides of the channel, so if the sun is up we’ll be able to see the channel clearly. Sir Thomas beat through it, so…
“Once we’re inside the bay we’ve plenty of room, with depths of twenty or thirty feet in most places, except right close in to the shore. So let’s hope we get a good sun and not too much wind…”
The four men nodded. The water should be clear – because of the Trade winds the western side of a large island was almost always in a lee; an onshore wind kicking up a sea and stirring up enough sand to make the water murky was rare. The art of pilotage in these clear waters was knowing what the different colours of the sea meant when translated into depths of water. Well offshore, a rich dark bluish-purple meant almost infinite depth, and as you approached land the blue gradually became lighter, changing into green. Not the murky and depressing green of northern waters, but a lively pale green which, as the water shallowed, became like shot silk and warned a prudent pilot that (if he was not already doing so) the man with the lead line should be busy calling out depths.
Interpreting all the greens came only with experience, because they varied not only with the depths but the light. A pilot faced with finding his way through a difficult channel strewn with rocks and coral wanted the sun over his shoulder, going into the water. If it was ahead it reflected off the surface like a mirror so that one could not see anything below. Rocks and coral reefs (especially staghorn coral which, as its name implied, grew up with wide antlers), and shoals of sand with fields of turtle grass on them, showed up brown. There was, for brown, a simple rule: the darker, the shallower.
For all that, it was a bonus when clumps of mangrove sprouted up on a reef. Mangrove, Ned reflected, must be one of the strangest trees (or were they really bushes?) that grew in the Tropics. Instead of a mangrove having a main trunk with branches, it comprised dozens of springy stems, or branches, like very young ash saplings, which rooted in shallow water. Each grew up to a height of three or four feet and then curved down again into the water, sending out roots before pushing another branch upwards. This in turn curved down so that in time the mangroves formed a swamp which was almost impenetrable, with thousands of thin boughs climbing up or down or across, so springy it was almost impossible to cut a way through using a machete, and never more than about ten feet high, and with roots growing just below the surface, a tangled web ready to trip any man unwary enough to try to wade through the shallow water in which they grew. And on the roots grew tree oysters, sharp-edged discs which cut like knives…
It was curious that the mangrove (which seemed to be the natural home of swarms of mosquitoes) should have one particular warlike use – supplying slowmatch. Strips of mangrove bark, dried in the sun (after being hammered flatter), made excellent slowmatch. Providing one was careful to watch its thickness, or plait it into a strip, it burned evenly, like a regular fuse. More important, while regular slowmatch made in England was hard to get, mangrove match only entailed a visit to a swamp. Ned recalled the enormous explosions when the buccaneers had blown up the fortress at Santiago in Cuba, and the fort at Portobelo: the humble mangrove bark, beaten and dried, had burned steadily down to the kegs of powder…
The four men were sitting patiently waiting for him to resume: they had seen that his thoughts had left them, and they were content to wait for them to come back from wherever they had been.
“Yes, well,” Ned said, “my plan is this.” Then he came to a stop. He had no real plan, he had to admit to himself; he was hoping that something would come to mind as he talked with these men; that they would say something which made obvious to him the way they could all set about rescuing Thomas and Diana and the rest of the men from the Peleus. “Yes,” he said, starting to improvise, “w
ell, do you think the four of you can row to the village and land, and make the local people believe this is a Spanish ship?”
The men looked questioningly at each other, and then one, who seemed to be emerging as their leader, nodded his head vigorously. “Yes, we can, Capitán, but first we must do some things.”
“What sort of things?”
“Make a Spanish flag and hoist it. Paint out our name on the transom – it does not matter that we do not have a Spanish one there. Think of a Spanish name for the ship, though, so we can tell anyone who asks – the alcalde and the aduana will want to know.”
“That’s easy. You can choose a suitable saint’s name.”
“Yes,” the seaman said, and Ned suddenly remembered he was called Julio, “all Spanish ships are called by saints’ names. The flag, and the name,” he said, counting them off on the fingers of his left hand with the index finger of his right. “If we are to pretend that we are the officers–” he raised a questioning eyebrow to Ned, who nodded, “– we shall need some smarter clothes.” He touched the fourth finger. “We’ll row ourselves, just in case – if we had men waiting in the boat who did not speak Spanish and children came down to the boat asking questions – as they’d be sure to do…”
“Armour,” Ned said suddenly. “We still have some Spanish breastplates, backs and helmets stowed on board – yes, and some Spanish swords and pistols.”
Julio, the seaman who was obviously going to be the leader, banged his brow. “I had forgotten them! Two of us can wear armour and carry swords: that would be in order. The ‘Capitán’ and the mate need not wear armour, but swords, yes. They’d be useful to salute the alcalde.”
“And you think you could find out what has happened to our people without raising suspicions?”
“Is easy,” Julio said confidently. “I ask about the Peleus – after all I will have seen her at anchor – and as soon as they tell me that she is English and just captured, I offer to buy her.”
“You’ll look silly if they say yes!” Ned said.
“No sir: you give me enough Spanish money to pay a deposit. A bribe really. I tell them I have the rest of the money on board, and we must draw up a contract. That will give me an excuse for returning to the ship as soon as possible to tell you what we have discovered. I say I must inspect her, too – so later we have an excuse for boarding.”
Yet the more Ned thought about it, the more impossible the whole expedition became. How were a few score buccaneers to rescue all the people from the Peleus if they were shut up in some dungeon ten or twenty miles inland?
“Very well, you’d better sort out the armour and the pistols and swords. Check the leather straps on the armour – you know how leather rots in this climate. And you’d better start going through my wardrobe and Mr Lobb’s. We all seem to be about the same build.”
He thought for a minute and then asked Julio: “The Griffin is English-built. Do you think she’ll pass for Spanish?”
“No one in Boquerón would be able to tell,” Julio said contemptuously. “Fishermen, a few soldiers, the mayor, a customs officer, the priest… Once they’ve made sure we’re not another English ship come in for fresh water, they’ll be occupied with thinking up ways of getting things from us free. And the Phoenix following us in – well, she’s Spanish-built anyway.”
“It’s so peaceful here,” Aurelia said quietly. “Listen, you can hear the land birds singing. There’s a kingbird. And doves, listen to them talking to each other. And there’s a donkey protesting about something. And we’re not rolling!”
Ned understood her sense of wonder because he could hardly believe it himself. The bay was set well back into the land as though a giant had bitten a great mouthful: with the entrance facing west and the land encircling the ships on the other three sides, the Griffin was anchored five hundred yards south-west of the village of Boquerón, the anchor down in a sticky mixture of sand and mud. The afternoon sun mirroring off the sea gave the impression that Saxby’s Phoenix was floating in the air. Beyond the Phoenix the Peleus swung at anchor, with only one man – probably a Spanish sentry – visible on deck.
The land round the bay was a dark-green collar of mangroves growing ten or a dozen feet high, except where they had been cut down for the village of Boquerón and its small jetty, a small beach nearby where the fishing boats were hauled up (and made a sudden splash of colour) and, south of them, a narrow gap in the mangroves, just wide enough for an open boat.
This was the entrance into a mile-long but narrow lagoon lying just behind the mangroves and parallel to the sea. Ned could see salt pans just where the mangroves ended in the south-west corner of the bay, squares divided up like fields and shaped into moulds by banking holding in the sea, so that the sun evaporated the water, leaving behind the precious salt.
With the glass he could distinguish small pyramids of salt, brownish white, glistening on the landward side of the pans, ready to be taken away on carts and sold to preserve meat or fish. Was salt Boquerón’s main industry? Did they send it to Spain? The main source of salt was of course the province of Venezuela, but exporting it from the Main meant licences and taxes…
“To be anchored in Spanish waters and no forts shooting at us,” Aurelia said suddenly, pointing at the peaks of three hills to the south of them. “Forts – or gun batteries, anyway – on top of them, with that reef across the entrance, would close the bay like a cork in a bottle! Just think of it, Ned, here we are anchored in the Bahia de Boquerón. Beyond the mangroves by the salt ponds is the Laguna Rincón.” She turned to face westward. “There,” she said, “that reef growing out from the shore – that’s the Bajo Palo. Then the channel we sailed through, the Canal Sur. Then the main reef in the middle with those funny clumps of mangroves growing on them, looking as though they’re growing on the sea – oh, I’ve forgotten: what’s that one called?”
“Bajo Enmedio,” Ned said. “You forgot that headland–” he pointed to the cliffs forming the southern side of the entrance, “–that’s Punta Melones and the one opposite is Punta Guanaquilla. They’re the only names I know. I doubt if there are any more because there’s only the one village.”
“Melones, Laguna Rincón, Bajo Enmedio…they sound so musical. That headland, for instance, ‘Melons’ it would be in English, but how much better it sounds in Spanish, ‘mellow-nays’.”
“What do the other names mean?” Ned asked.
“You’re straining my Spanish! Laguna is obvious, and anyway it’s a lagoon. ‘Rincón’ is a town not far away. Bajo Palo…well, bajo is a reef, and palo means a log, or a stick. A palo mayor is a mainmast, so I’m not very sure about the reef. Enmedio has me beaten. Guanaquillo is probably a place, no particular meaning. Bahia de Boquerón – well, bahia is bay and Boquerón is just a place name, though I remember the Spanish word boquete means a narrow entrance.”
“Well,” he said brightly, “let’s make up some names.”
“It’s no good, darling,” she said gently, “we just have to wait as patiently as we can for the boat to come back. Meanwhile, let’s just enjoy the hills and the mangroves and the fish jumping out of the water… How green it all looks, the hills so fresh, and–” she broke off and began sobbing, and Ned took her in his arms.
“Steady,” he murmured, “don’t let the men think we’ve given up hope.”
“I haven’t given up hope of Julio; it’s just that it seems impossible we’ll ever be able to rescue Diana and Thomas, even if they’re still alive.”
“We mustn’t get upset when the Spanish play tricks on us: we play tricks on them. Don’t forget Portobelo.”
She nodded, wiping her eyes. “Ned, I think I’m changing. Once I thought I’d always be content being at sea with you in the Griffin, but now we’ve started to build the house…”
“Now we’ve started to build the house,” N
ed echoed, “you’ve been thinking that it’s time we settled down and…”
“Well, we’ve enough money to live comfortably,” she said. “For you, buccaneering comes easily; you love leading these men, and you do it well. But for me – well, the worry sends me crazy: I have nightmares in which I see the Spanish garotting you, or a cannonball smashing you into a pulp, or–”
“But I always come back safely, and anyway usually you’re with us.”
“I know, I know,” Aurelia wailed, “but Diana gets the same nightmares about Thomas…”
“So what am I to do, then?” Ned asked, half angry and half wishing to placate her. “Plant sugar-cane, tobacco, and buy ships to collect dyewoods from the Moskito Coast?”
“Ned,” Aurelia said, holding his arm, “both you and Thomas are going to have to accept that Jamaica is secure now: you’ve beaten the Spanish, you’ve provided the big guns for Heffer to put in the batteries to defend Port Royal, you’ve provided enough gold from the Portobelo raid to establish the island’s currency. Now both of you have one enemy left, and you’ve got to be in the island to fight them.”
“Who on earth – ?”
“The government in London! They have no idea of what it’s like out here in the Caribbee islands, and for years to come they’ll be sending out people as stupid as this man Luce and, quelle blague, these bouffons will destroy everything you’ve done unless you are there to argue or persuade them. This buffoon – it sounds stronger in English – Luce will never understand that Spain in Europe is one thing, but Spain out here is another. I think the French and the Dutch understand, but they don’t own Jamaica, so–”
Ned pointed, interrupting her.
“Oh,” Aurelia exclaimed, “here they come! Four of them, and the sun is shining on the armour of two of them. Oh, let us pray that he’s managed to find out what’s been happening. Just look at the Peleus – she looks so forlorn at anchor, with just that Spanish sentry…”