by Dudley Pope
“Everyone who comes gets a share of the purchase – so much for the captain, for the ship, for the mate, the carpenter, sailmaker and so on down to the cook and cabin boy. If any of them are wounded they get extra shares, depending on the wound – there is an agreed scale. If any are killed, well, that means more to share among the others.
“Every captain is responsible for the discipline of his own ship and once he agrees to join an expedition, then he also agrees to follow Mr Yorke. So far everyone has wanted to, anyway.”
“I understand, and I accept the terms, but do you accept me?”
“If you have a ship, yes,” Ned said, “and Sir Thomas didn’t make it clear that a buccaneer captain abandons his normal allegiances. Your allegiance would then be to the Brethren, and until recently the buccaneers in turn had been giving their allegiance to Jamaica because they use Port Royal as a base. Until recently they have been defending Jamaica, but now they are moving to Tortuga.”
“Which is French,” Couperin said.
“France claims it,” Ned said, “but can’t hold it.”
“True,” Couperin acknowledged, “and that of course is the basis of everyone’s quarrel with Spain: she claims all these islands but cannot control or use them.”
“Well, if you have a ship, understand the conditions, and still want to join the Brethren, then welcome!”
“Thank you,” Couperin said simply but sincerely. “Let’s go and inspect the ‘purchase’ then,” savouring the word as though it was a fine wine. “So now I am a buccaneer!”
“One thing occurs to me,” Ned said. “You are getting a quarter share, and we offered that to save us from any interference by the French authorities. After we had agreed, we discovered that the French authorities – you, in other words – were in no position to interfere anyway. However, we had made a bargain, and that’s that. But I want you to be clear at what point you become a buccaneer, and at what point you recruit your men, because they too are going to join the Brethren and will be entitled to a share in future purchases, and I don’t want them coming to me in the future and claiming a share in this one.”
“You are shrewd as well as drôle,” Couperin said, “but rest assured that the men who helped me drive the Spaniards into the hills are going to be rewarded separately – we all agreed on a price, which comes out of my own pocket. Don’t forget, at the time I hired them we did not know whether or not the galleon carried plate.
“They are also the men I shall bring with me when I get my ship back. It was only after finding I could lead them and they would follow that I considered seriously asking to join the Brethren.”
“Good, it’s always worth having men around you that have smelled powder,” Ned said, “and those muskets we lent you – keep them as a present. If you don’t get your ship back from the Spaniards when they return from Cartagena…”
Couperin shrugged his shoulders. “I have two others to choose from. Neither is very big, but will do until we capture something larger.”
Again Thomas slapped his knee and bellowed with laughter. “Spoken like a true buccaneer,” he exclaimed. “The Dons build fine ships. The Hollanders are not so good because they have so little wood in the Netherlands and build for shallow waters. The French – yes, they’re all right, as long as they don’t build with that damned larch or Spanish oak. An English ship of English oak – that’s the best of course.”
“Of course,” Couperin said politely, picking up his hat as he stood up and ripping off the black mourning band.
***
Lobb had found a small table and chair somewhere and set them up just inside the strongroom door, ready with paper, quill and ink. Saxby had already sailed the Griffin and Phoenix round to Gallows Bay and was anchored a hundred yards to windward of the galleon. Now he waited with Lobb to begin the inventory.
Couperin walked from one pile of crates and chests to the other, reading the words painted on the sides. Occasionally he slapped the flat of his hand against a crate, as if still not believing what he saw.
He turned to Ned. “This was all here, and I sat in my house afraid that the Spanish captain would start bombarding Marigot…and while I waited you were coming from Jamaica… And because of you…” He slapped another crate. “And those chests; gold and silver, it says so on the sides. There must be an emerald for every mistress in the world in those pouches.”
“That’s the way,” Thomas said encouragingly, “always take the grand view! The buccaneer’s secret (thanks to Ned) is to think on the grand scale. The Spanish shipment of silver and gems for the whole year is waiting at Portobelo? Right, let’s go and capture it! All the guns defending Jamaica come from Santiago de Cuba which was regarded as impregnable by the Dons until Ned here decided we needed those guns.”
“The grand view – yes. It reminds me of distant horizons. I have sat in my house in St Christophe for too long and seen only Nevis to the south and St Eustatius and Saba to the north; and when I’m here in Marigot I stare at the sea, but Anguilla is the only horizon,” Couperin exclaimed enthusiastically.
“Be careful,” Thomas warned, “sudden freedom can affect you like a very good but very strong wine…”
“Let’s get the Peleus round here,” Ned said, “then Mitchell can help Saxby, Lobb and Simpson with this inventory. By the way,” he explained to Couperin, “usually each ship sends her mate along to watch an inventory being taken: that prevents any misunderstandings. Do you want to stay and watch – or send someone on your behalf?”
“What to the mates usually do?” Couperin asked.
Saxby laughed and answered for Ned. “They usually find the ship’s spirit room and stay there getting happily drunk, leaving Lobb and me to count while a couple of men open the crates and chests for us and another couple seal ’em again.”
“I won’t bother,” Couperin said. “I want to have a talk with my men and explain what you’ve been telling me. And I must get my ship ready. My ship, that is, if the Spaniards don’t bring my original one back from Cartagena in time.”
“Which will you choose?” Ned asked.
“The Sans Peur. You took the best one, the Didon,” he added dolefully, “so I’ll have to make do with what’s left…”
“I thought all three ships belonged to friends of yours,” Ned said, remembering a remark Couperin had made several days earlier.
“Ah yes, they belonged to friends of the Governor General. But he’s become a buccaneer now, and buccaneers have no friends!” He thought for a moment. “The two sloops are your prizes – I forgot. Can I buy one?”
When Ned and Thomas went back on board the smoke-blackened galleon after anchoring the Peleus close to the Griffin and Phoenix, they found the strongroom sounding like a busy carpenter’s shop.
All the men were stripped to the waist, working in breeches and hose by the light of lanterns whose guttering wicks added to the heat. While two seamen levered open one crate, two others were busy hammering in nails to seal another.
“How is it going?” Ned asked Saxby, who gestured at the pile of papers on Lobb’s table which were held down by a cake of silver, weighing about a pound and almost covered in assay marks and the Spanish royal stamp.
Lobb grinned and turned the sheet he was writing on so that Ned could read it. It was in fact the running total of gold, silver, emeralds and pearls.
“We’re a third of the way through counting the silver, sir, and we’ve finished the gold.” He gestured to the pair of small scales beside the pile of paper. “We’ve checked one chest of emeralds and one of pearls. Even allowing that the emeralds are rough and a lot will be lost in cutting, I’ve never seen such fine gems.”
Ned had been reading the totals as Lobb talked. “Not as big as Portobelo, but it’ll do – unless you find the remaining crates are filled with rocks.”
Lobb grinned as he began wri
ting down the number of sugar loaves, wedges and cakes of silver that the two men were taking out of the crate they had just opened. It needed both of them to reach down to lift out the sugar loaves, which weighed seventy pounds each, while the wedges turned the scales at about ten pounds. “How much longer will you need?” Ned asked Saxby, who looked at the rest of the crates and chests.
“About four hours, I reckon.”
“Then we can share out?”
Saxby looked at Ned and then at Thomas. “Am I right in thinking you’re in a hurry to get out of here, sir?”
Ned nodded. “We’ve no idea what ships the Dons will bring from Cartagena to collect their bullion. If there happens to be a galleon available, they might come in that. Perhaps a frigate or two; maybe three or four petachas and a frigate. But they’re liable to cause us trouble.”
“So if we could get clear of Marigot by nightfall…?”
“That would be fine, because I don’t think the Dons can get here from Cartagena before tomorrow at the earliest.”
“Dividing all this plate and the gems among the three ships – four if you include that Frenchman – will take time. Supposing we brought the Griffin alongside – I went round taking the depths with the leadline as soon as I came on board: these galleons draw three times as much as the Griffin. And with all her yards burned there’s no chance of them catching in yours, sir.”
All the plate and gems would be on board the Griffin. It was the custom to share out the purchase before returning to port, but Saxby seemed quite content with what was his own idea. Ned looked at Thomas. “What about you and your people?”
Thomas gave a lopsided grin. “I think I can speak for them and assure you they’ll trust you. We’ll all meet in Port Royal and make the division there.
Chapter Twenty
As the four ships ran down the outside of the giant cocked thumb forming the flat and sandy peninsula of the Palisades, the long spit protecting the wide and sheltered Port Royal anchorage on the inshore side of it, Ned was thankful that the batteries which he had forced General Heffer to build (supplying him with the cannons for them after raiding Santiago) were still intact.
They were sailing close enough inshore to see that, except for a few small trading sloops, the anchorage was empty, so the rest of the buccaneers were either still attacking the Main or had moved to Tortuga. And there was no sign of damage to batteries or buildings, so there had not been any attack by the Spanish.
This was confirmed a couple of minutes later when Lobb, who had been standing on the foredeck with the perspective glass, called aft that he could see the flag flying from the flagpole in front of the Governor’s residence.
“That won’t please Thomas,” Ned commented to Aurelia. “He’s sooner see it at half-mast and go on shore to find out he’d just missed old Loosely’s funeral by a couple of days…”
“Chéri, promise me you’ll try to be civil to Sir Harold from now on. He has a very difficult task,” Aurelia said, “and for the first week or two – when you and Thomas took against him – he still thought he was in London.”
“You’re fair to him but hardly fair to Thomas and me,” Ned grumbled. “We’ve defended this damned island for the King, and even given it a currency – don’t forget that but for us the piece of eight would not be the official currency of Jamaica, and without it what would we buccaneers and the tradesmen – and old Loosely – do for money? Why, he withdraws the commissions of the buccaneers and drives them away. The man is a fool, even by Court standards. Idiots like him belong in the Church or Parliament.”
“In Parliament with your brother?” Aurelia asked innocently.
“Just because George is a peer it doesn’t mean he is stupid – he never attends Parliament.”
“He hasn’t had much chance because he was with the King in France until the Restoration, and since then he’s been busy trying to get the family estates back. So not everyone in Parliament is stupid.”
“Enough to make George an exception,” Ned said sourly and turned to look astern. Following closely in the Griffin’s wake (too closely for comfort, as far as Ned was concerned) was the Sans Peur. Couperin, making his first visit to Port Royal, was certainly following Ned’s instructions that he was to follow in the Griffin’s wake.
The Peleus and the Phoenix were following on each quarter of the French ship. For the hundreds of miles run from St Martin, past St Eustatius, Saba, Santa Cruz, Porto Rico (like Hispaniola seen only as a thin grey line on the northern horizon) and now the south coast of Jamaica, they had maintained perfect formation, keeping each other in sight at night with lanterns but in daylight taking it in turns to investigate any strange sail seen in the distance. Seldom, Ned thought to himself, had any golden goose had such an attentive flock.
For that matter, the goose (with a galleon’s cargo of bullion and gems stowed below) was lucky that no ship or fleet hove in sight to say “boo”. There were always enough rumours – even definite reports – that the Spanish on the Main were expecting a fleet from Spain or had a squadron at sea, to make a voyage from somewhere like St Martin to Jamaica with such a cargo in such a small vessel a desperate venture. Santa Cruz, Vieques, Port Rico, Hispaniola – all were Spanish islands, and although they were all to the north, the Main itself was to the south.
Lobb was giving orders to the men and the Griffin turned a point to starboard to avoid Gun Cay, and then a point to larboard to dodge a reef. Ned watched the Sans Peur as Lobb then ordered a large alteration as they turned northwards to thread their way among some more reefs.
Finally, the Griffin led the ships round the headland and into the anchorage, and started the long beat to windward, intending to anchor close to the jetty jutting out from the north side of Port Royal, opposite the Governor’s residence and close to the lobster crawl.
Fresh meat, Ned thought, his mouth watering. With the meat market only a few yards from the end of the jetty, Ned knew one of Lobb’s first tasks after anchoring the ship would be to send men to buy beeves and make arrangements to roast them. Everyone on board the Griffin was tired of boucanned or salt meat.
Aurelia smiled and patted his stomach. “It’s not hard to guess what you are thinking about. Thomas and Saxby, too!”
“You and Diana will continue eating boucan, of course?” Ned inquired innocently. “By the way, is there any woman on the island who might suit Couperin? I think he’s rather lonely.”
“I know he’s rather ‘lonely’, poor man,” Aurelia said, “but at the moment I can’t think of anyone who might interest him in a regular sense.”
Ned shrugged his shoulders. “Well, those sort of introductions never work. Anyway, I don’t know what kind of woman he likes.”
“From the way he looks at Diana and me, I don’t think he’ll be too fussy. Anyway, I wonder how General Heffer has been getting on while we’ve been away.”
“Either he’s taken to locking himself in his office, or he’s a trembling wreck, leaping into the air every time old Loosely calls him.”
“Yes, I’m afraid it’ll be one or the other.” She paused, staring at the James bastion, which they were passing close on the starboard bow as Lobb tacked the ship. “Look, old Heffer has his men exercising at the guns!”
Ned thought for a moment. Exercising? But Sir Harold Luce had declared that he was paying off most of the soldiers. “Quick Lobb, you’ve got the glass – what are those men doing at the James bastion?”
Before Lobb had time to put the glass to his eye they all saw smoke spurting from the muzzles of the guns, smoke which began streaming off to leeward and was followed by distant thuds.
Without realizing he was doing it, Ned looked for the fall of shot, but there were no spurts of water between the Griffin and the bastion, and certainly no cloth-ripping sound of passing ball. He glanced astern just in time to see small fountains of water collaps
ing midway between the Griffin and the Sans Peur.
Lobb held out his arms palms upwards, in a gesture of despair. “They don’t get any better, sir,” he called. “Perhaps we should all wear round and pass closer!”
“Who do they think we are, Spaniards?” Aurelia asked.
“Heffer must have recognized the three of us when we passed the other side of the sandspit,” Ned said. “I’m sure he didn’t order these men to open fire.”
“Then who did? Oh no!” Aurelia exclaimed. “Oh well, if you’re right I’ll take back all I said about him!”
The bastion also fired at the Peleus and the Phoenix as they passed but, as Lobb commented, their aim was so bad that the officer in charge of the bastion ought to have his hand slapped.
Ned noted thankfully that the Sans Peur had stayed close in the Griffin’s wake, even though Couperin must have been startled at being fired on when entering what he had been told was the buccaneers’ home port. There had been no time before leaving Marigot (nor had it seemed the appropriate place) to give a detailed explanation of the English government’s curious attitude towards Jamaica. Until he was absolutely sure that Couperin was going to prove an enthusiastic buccaneer, Ned was reluctant to reveal that there was a very good chance the English King intended to give Jamaica back to Spain (much as one might shut the front door and say thank you after having the use of a house for a week).
Poor old Charles: barely back on the throne of England before being blamed for everything that went wrong. To be fair, no king could be wiser than his advisers when deciding what to do in lands he did not know. As far as Ned could see, the men giving advice (whether to Cromwell or to the King) about the West Indies had always been ignorant fools. His own experience admittedly only went back to Cromwell, but there was no reason to think the present advisers were any better; in fact, the way things were going now it seemed that those round the King might be worse. Every fool whose horizon was limited to St James’s was probably an expert (at Court) on West Indian affairs.