by Dudley Pope
Chapter Ten
Ned did not think four men in a boat could take so long to get alongside the Griffin and board. Yes, Julio could not rush back because if any Spanish were watching from the shore they would be puzzled (or even suspicious) of such haste. Yes, the sun was scorching and the two men at the oars wearing breastplates and backplates must be as hot as steaming kettles – not that anyone in the Tropics ever saw a boiling kettle steam, unless it was a very cold morning in January… He was thankful that Aurelia was so patient: it was extraordinary how she understood him, a man born without patience.
Finally seamen were at the bulwarks taking the boat’s painter and sternfast and Julio swung over the bulwark, landing on the deck with a thump. Grinning, he gave Ned a salute and then swept off his hat in a deep bow to Aurelia.
“From the silly grin on your face it seems the news is good,” Ned growled, still irritated by the man’s tardiness.
“What little we could find out was good,” Julio said cautiously, obviously put out by Ned’s manner and not understanding its cause.
Ned gestured to the square of canvas rigged up over the afterdeck to provide some shade. “Let’s stand under the awning; it’s so damned hot in this bay: the hills shut off all the breeze.”
The other three Spaniards joined them, the two in armour thankfully undoing the straps and taking off their breast and backplates, revealing the shirts underneath sodden and dark with perspiration. Their hair was matted and flattened by the weight and heat of the helmets: where the edges of the helmets had rested, both had livid red weals across their brows below the hairline.
Julio, as if wanting his three countrymen to share in his report, waited patiently. A diving pelican hit the water with a splash a moment before one of the men dropped his helmet on deck with a clatter, and black-headed gulls circled uttering shrill cries, waiting for the pelican to sit squarely on the sea, water streaming from the bulbous pouch forming his lower beak and letting some small fish accidentally escape to provide a meal for the gulls.
“Well,” said Julio, “we landed on the jetty and there to meet us was the alcalde, the aduana, the priest and the agent for the man who owns the salt pans behind the mangroves–”
“Come on!” Ned urged, but it was clear to Aurelia that Julio had reached his hour of importance, when he had the complete attention of the Admiral of the Brethren of the Coast, and he was not going to rush anything; a time of glory to be savoured, not gulped, but Ned would not understand that in a thousand years.
“–all very friendly and obviously wondering what they could get out of us. If you want to ship fifty tons of salt to Vieques – that’s an island just off the eastern end of Porto Rico – the agent will pay well.”
“No salt,” Ned said, hoping to speed up Julio’s report.
“Good,” Julio said, “it’s a truly vile cargo: the salt gets into every cut or graze when you’re loading and it hurts, and if it gets wet and a few sacks burst, it makes a mess of the bilges.”
“No salt,” Ned repeated doggedly, fighting back an urge to scream at the man, “we are not salters.”
“Well, I left these two in armour to guard the boat even though they complained of the heat,” Julio said, nodding at the two men, “and Fernando and I went along to the mayor’s house where we all had a mug of wine. Very bad it was,” Julio said, shuddering and screwing up his face, as though expecting sympathy from Ned. “It was a wine that wouldn’t travel ten miles in Spain before turning to vinegar, which is probably why it was shipped out here.
“So we drank and gossiped. I worked the conversation round to the Peleus – rather cleverly, I thought, eh Fernando?”
“Very cleverly.”
“The alcalde said he thought she might be sold soon: he was waiting to hear from San Germán. I asked – very innocently, you understand – eh Fernando?”
“Very innocently.”
“–if the owner lived in San Germán, because I might be interested in buying the ship. I thought that was a clever approach,” he told Ned, who nodded.
“The alcalde laughed in a strange way. ‘You could say so,’ he said, ‘but there’s no need for you to go all the way there: I shall be hearing very soon.’ I thought it best to let them drink more of that terrible wine, tho’ I realized it might have killed them before it loosened their tongues!
“Eventually, the alcalde admitted that she was an English ship – it was very cunning, eh Fernando, how I said she seemed to be foreign-built?”
“Very cunning,” Fernando repeated obediently.
“Then, confidentially, he told me that she was English, and how she had sailed in on the seventh of this month and sent a boat to the jetty with a white flag, asking for water. The aduana then described how he had galloped to San Germán for soldiers, who rode in just as the priest had roused out the fishermen to have their boats ready. The rest we know – the soldiers caught our seamen on shore with the water casks, and the fishermen then rowed the soldiers out to seize the Peleus. Three soldiers were killed.”
“How did that happen?” Ned asked.
“Well, there was a fight on board: Sir Thomas ran one through with his sword: the lady shot one with a pistol and a third was drowned.”
“Drowned?” Ned exclaimed.
“Yes, Sir Thomas threw him over the side and, because he was wearing armour, he sank at once.”
That would be enough, Ned thought. In Spanish eyes, both Thomas and Diana were murderers. It was irrelevant that in English eyes the Spanish had broken their word and were behaving like pirates, and Thomas was quite rightly defending his property against attack. And as murderers they would be tried and sentenced to death. Had the sentence already been carried out? There was no point in hurrying Julio; like a flood or ebb tide, he moved ponderously at his own speed.
“I made it clear how shocked I was at this brutal behaviour by the English,” Julio continued. “I said I hoped the rack and the garotte were doing their job.”
Ned felt himself going cold at the matter-of-fact way that Julio phrased it; but the man was Spanish; to him the rack and the garotte were as familiar a part of life as a donkey and cart.
“The alcalde said the man when put on the rack a few days later claimed to have shot one soldier and killed the other with his sword, but other soldiers had seen the woman firing the pistol, so there was no argument.”
“What happened then?” Aurelia asked, knowing she would burst into tears if Julio kept her waiting any longer.
“Death,” said Julio.
Aurelia collapsed on the deck while Ned felt the ship and the bay swirling round him as he tried to go to her help.
***
Julio himself was almost in tears as, once Aurelia had recovered, he began to explain. He had crushed his hat – Ned’s hat, in fact – and screwed the plume into a ball before he could get both Ned and Aurelia, still white-faced and trembling, to listen as he finished his report.
“The alcalde was quite definite – wasn’t he Fernando?”
“Quite definite.”
“So that was the sentence of the court after they had heard the evidence and after the torturing,” Julio said.
“That’s enough,” Ned said abruptly, watching Aurelia. “I’ll hear the rest some other time.”
Both Julio and Fernando looked puzzled, and finally Fernando, with a nervous glance at Julio said: “Sir, there’s more to hear.”
“I realize that,” Ned snapped, “but the lady has heard enough. Surely you realize that Sir Thomas and Lady Diana are our closest friends? Were our closest friends,” he corrected himself, but neither Spaniard realized the significance of the change in tense.
“We know they’re your friends, sir,” Fernando persisted, “That’s why you should hear the rest of the report.”
Aurelia said: “Let them fi
nish, Ned: I’ve got over the first shock.”
As Ned nodded, Julio took a deep breath as if to ward off interruptions by sheer staying power. “Well, the court sentenced the two of them to death for murder, and the rest of the men of the Peleus, sixty-one of them, were sentenced to death for piracy–”
“Where was the trial held?” Ned interrupted.
“San Germán, on the fifteenth of the month. But the court has to get the approval of the Governor of Porto Rico (who is in San Juan) before carrying out a death sentence, and the Governor insists on having the full minutes – is that the word? A complete report of everything said at the trial? Ah, good, well, he has to have the minutes – in Spanish, of course.
“These are needed to send to Spain. But, of course, Sir Thomas, Lady Diana and the three or four men of the Peleus who were questioned gave their evidence in English. Apparently, all this had to be translated for the minutes and the translations – every page of them – marked with a notary’s seal that they are correct.
“The only notary in San Germán died a week before the trial, and the translations took several days, so by the time another notary had been found who could read English – there was one in Mayagüez – many days had passed. So the minutes, properly notarized and also signed and sealed by the president of the court, were sent off to San Juan on the twentieth.”
“So we are just too late,” Aurelia said, numbed.
Julio glanced up suddenly and stared at her. “No, señora, I think we might be just in time. Today is the twenty-third.”
“Just in time? But they’re already dead!”
“The three soldiers who boarded the ship, yes,” agreed Julio, “but who cares about them?”
“But you said ‘Death’,” Aurelia forced herself to say, although her voice was faltering, “when we asked what had happened to Sir Thomas and Lady Diana.”
“Ah yes, I did say ‘Death’,” Julio said, and this time Ned caught Aurelia as she fell towards the deck.
“But they’re not dead yet!” Julio suddenly screamed, frightened that for the second time he had caused the Admiral’s lady to collapse. “‘Death’ that was the sentence of the court. But alive they still is,” his grammar beginning to collapse under the strain. “Not dead yet, you understand! No one, except the two soldiers and the man in the armour. Madre de Dios,” he exclaimed, hurling the remains of Ned’s hat down on the deck, “a few miles from here are they, locked up in the town jail, all of them, and waiting for us to rescue them!”
After a near-sleepless night, when both he and Aurelia had tossed restlessly in their bunk and it was far too hot to hold each other, Ned had tried to work out several mathematical problems.
Somewhere locked up in San Germán were Thomas, Diana and sixty-one men: sixty-three people in all. Here on board the Griffin he had fifty-nine men and himself and Aurelia, sixty-one in all. And on board the Phoenix were forty-seven men, Saxby and Mrs Judd, forty-nine in all.
So, leaving aside men who would have to be left on board to guard the two ships, and including the two women, he had one hundred and ten people to attempt the rescue of sixty-three. Assuming it was successful, at some point he would be traipsing around the Spanish countryside with more than one hundred and seventy people, some sixty of whom would be unarmed. Twelve miles from Boquerón to San Germán… Spanish cavalry could spit them all without risk or much effort.
The beginning of the rescue depended on more than one hundred buccaneers (and two women) managing to get from Boquerón to San Germán without being spotted. That should not be too difficult – land at night, and keep off the road – track, rather, from what Julio said. The main thing would be to avoid houses, but it was hilly, almost mountainous country in places and in the darkness people could fall down crevasses, stumble into ditches dug out of rock, and break limbs. Goats suddenly starting up with their high-pitched cry would startle men trying to creep silently; the packs of dogs lurking round every village, scratching over the middens, would start up a chorus of barking. The only advantage that Ned could think of was that in two nights’ time there would be a full moon. The light from the moon was even now streaming through the skylight and falling on Aurelia as she lay naked on her back, one arm thrown up above her head on to the pillow, her long hair framing her face, the twin peaks of her breasts crowned with the rose-pink summits of her nipples, the slight curve of her belly merging into the mount of Venus…
He thought of waking her and trying to lose his worries between her thighs, but he knew he would not lose them; they would be thrust away for an hour but they would return as surely as the tide turned or the sun rose.
One thing was certain: given the present odds, it would be madness to blunder off towards San Germán without having more details about the track they would follow and the position and type of building in which Thomas and his people were held.
So, at what would seem to the Spaniards a normal hour, Julio and Fernando could go on shore, have another chat with the alcalde and his cronies, and then hire a couple of horses and ride into San Germán: it would be a natural thing to do, and the two men rowing them on shore could return to the Griffin and, eight or nine hours later, keep a watch on the jetty ready to collect Julio and Fernando on their return and, Ned hoped, with all the information he needed.
After breakfast, as he stood on deck giving last-minute instructions to the Spaniards, Lobb hurried up. “Look at the jetty, sir; who are all those people?”
Ned reached for the perspective glass which was kept in the drawer of the binnacle box and pulled out the tube to focus it. Yes, there was the alcalde, recognizable because of his sagging belly, the aduana with his goatlike beard, the priest in black… Why were all the fishing boats gathered at that side of the jetty, the men in them standing up? And the priest was talking to them. And who were those twenty or so men in long robes? Monks? Yes – but what were they doing here in Boquerón?
He handed the glass to Julio, who had been nodding knowingly. The Spaniard took one look and shut the glass before putting it back in the drawer.
“I forgot to tell you, today is a fiesta. The Blessing of the Boats – it ensures good fishing,” he explained. “The monks – the men you can see in long robes – are on a pilgrimage round the whole island. They come from a monastery near San Juan, and other groups of them are visiting all the towns and villages. It’s something they do every year around Easter. Don’t forget it’s Good Friday in three days’ time…”
“I hope all this doesn’t mean you’ll find it difficult to hire a couple of horses to take you to San Germán,” Ned said.
“No,” Julio assured him. “What’s more, the alcalde will be more talkative. Everyone can drink as much as he likes at fiesta. I’ll wait until the boats have been blessed before I go on shore, otherwise the priest, who is probably borracho by now because he drinks heavily, will want to bless our boat, too, and as it is a good Protestant boat it’d probably start leaking in protest.”
“You have enough money to hire the horses?” Ned asked.
“Enough to buy a dozen!”
“And you remember all the questions I want answered?”
“Yes, sir, and Fernando has a good memory, too.”
“And you–”
Ned stopped as Julio held up both hands. “Please, sir,” he said, “Sir Thomas is also one of our leaders as well as your friend.”
“I’m sorry,” Ned said impulsively, shaking Julio’s hand.
Bats were just beginning to jink round the ship as darkness fell and the damp hay smell of the shore drifted invisibly over the ship. The seamen always came up on deck now in an anchorage like this just to watch in near-disbelief as the bats weaved through the rigging and round the mast. They had long since given up betting each other that one of the creatures would hit something and fall to the deck stunned. Now every man in the ship was listen
ing as well as watching the bats and sipping rum.
“Ah,” one of them exclaimed, “here they come!”
In the silence that followed Ned listened and in the distance finally heard the creak of oars pressing against thole pins and then the faint splashes as oar blades dipped into the water and lifted again. The boat had gone in at twilight, even though Julio and Fernando had not appeared, with orders to wait for them amid the buzzing mosquitoes.
Suddenly they heard Julio shouting, announcing his arrival: doing just what any watcher on the shore would expect, Ned realized: the jovial master of the ship returning on board after a happy day spent on shore.
The night began to feel chilly and, as Ned shivered, Aurelia held his arm in the darkness. A lantern hanging in the shrouds threw darting shadows as the ship rolled slightly; Ned reckoned there must be at least thirty bats flying over the ship. Maybe even fifty, he thought to himself. Or sixty. Think of anything to avoid trying to guess what Julio is going to report.
Julio was not drunk but a pedant could argue that he was not sober, either. He was tired, and like Fernando his clothes were covered with a light dust thrown up by their horses. Constantly wiping perspiration from their faces with the back of their hands had smeared the dust, giving them a startled, almost dazed look.
The two men stood before Ned who, as if to postpone listening to their report in case it contained more bad news, said: “You are hungry? Do you want to eat first? A drink?”
Julio shook his head. “Thank you, but no sir: we have just had supper with the alcalde, the priest and the commander of the garrison at Cabo Rojo – the man whose soldiers captured the Peleus.”
“Very well. How did your journey go?”
“We have the answers to all your questions, sir. The road to San Germán is bad. It passes through several villages, I’ve never seen so many packs of dogs, the hogs walk along the track as though it is all one big farmyard, every family (I swear this is true) comprises at least twenty nosy children: the men and women can never rest o’ nights. I defy a barren donkey to roam the streets without becoming pregnant.”