Pirate Latitudes

by Michael Crichton

  Five more soldiers were singing and drinking in an adjacent cabin. She peered in and saw that they had guns. Her own pistols were jammed in her belt; she would not fire a shot unless she had to. She waited outside the room.

  After a moment, the Moor crept alongside her.

  She pointed into the room. He shook his head. They remained by the door.

  After a time, one of the soldiers announced his bladder was bursting, and left the room. As he came out, the Moor crashed a belaying pin down on his skull; the man hit the deck with a thud, just a few steps from the room.

  The others inside looked toward the sound. They could see the man’s feet in the light from the room.

  “Juan?”

  The fallen man did not move.

  “Too much to drink,” somebody said, and they resumed their cards. But soon enough one of the men began to worry about Juan, and came out to investigate. Lazue cut his throat and the Moor leapt into the room, swinging the pin in wide arcs. The men dropped soundlessly.

  In the aft quarter of the ship, Sanson left the galley and moved forward, running right into a Spanish soldier. The man was drunk, a crock of rum dangling loosely from one hand, and he laughed at Sanson in the darkness.

  “You gave me a fright,” the soldier said in Spanish. “I did not expect to see anyone.”

  Then, up close, he saw Sanson’s grim face, and did not recognize it. He had a brief moment of astonishment before Sanson’s fingers closed around his throat.

  Sanson went down another companionway, below the berth deck. He came to the aft storerooms, and found them all hard-locked and bolted. There were seals on all the locks; in the darkness, he bent to examine them. Unmistakably, in the yellow wax, he saw the crown-and-anchor seal of the Lima mint. So there was New Spain silver here; his heart jumped.

  He returned to the deck, coming up on the aft castle, near the tiller. He again heard the faint sounds of singing. It was still no more possible to locate the sound than before. He paused and listened, and then the singing stopped, and a concerned voice said, “Que pasa? Que esta vous?”

  Sanson looked up. Of course! There, in the perch above the mainmast spars, a man stood looking down at him.

  “Que esta vous?” he demanded.

  Sanson knew the man could not see him well. He stepped back into shadows.

  “Que?” the man said, confused.

  In the darkness, Sanson unsheathed his crossbow, bent the steel spring, fitted the arrow, and raised it to his eye. He looked at the Spaniard coming down the rigging, swearing irritably.

  Sanson shot him.

  The impact of the arrow knocked him free of the rigging; his body flew a dozen yards out into dark space, and he hit the water with a soft splash. There was no other sound.

  Sanson prowled the empty aft deck, and finally, satisfied that he was alone, he gripped the tiller in his hands. A moment later, he saw Lazue and the Moor come abovedecks near the bow. They looked back and waved to him; they were grinning.

  The ship was theirs.

  . . .

  HUNTER AND DON DIEGO had returned to the magazine, and were setting a long fuse to the powder kegs. They worked swiftly now, for when they had left the cannon, the sky above them was already beginning to lighten to a paler blue.

  Don Diego stacked the kegs in small clusters around the room. “It must be this way,” he whispered. “Otherwise there will be one explosion, which we do not desire.”

  He broke two kegs and sprinkled the black grain over the floor. Finally, satisfied, he lit the fuse.

  At that moment, there was a shout from outside in the fortress yard, and then another.

  “What is that?” Diego said.

  Hunter frowned. “Perhaps they have found the dead watch,” he said.

  A moment later, there was more shouting in the yard, and the sound of running feet. Now they heard one word repeated over and over: “Pirata! Pirata!”

  “The ship must be in the channel,” Hunter said. He glanced over at the fuse, which sputtered and sizzled in the corner of the room.

  “Shall I put it out?” Diego said.

  “No. Leave it.”

  “We cannot stay here.”

  “In a few minutes, there will be panic in the yard. Then we will escape.”

  “It had better be a very few minutes,” Diego said.

  The shouting in the courtyard was louder. They heard literally hundreds of running feet, as the garrison was mobilized.

  “They will check the magazine,” Diego said nervously.

  “Eventually,” Hunter agreed.

  And at that moment, the door was flung open, and Cazalla came into the room, with a sword in his hand. He saw them.

  Hunter plucked a sword from the dozens that hung in racks along the wall. “Go, Diego,” he whispered. Diego dashed out the door as Cazalla’s blade struck Hunter’s own. Hunter and Cazalla circled the room.

  Hunter was backing away.

  “Englishman,” Cazalla said, laughing. “I will feed the pieces of your body to my dogs.”

  Hunter did not reply. He balanced the sword in his hand, feeling the unfamiliar weight, testing the whip of the blade.

  “And my mistress,” Cazalla said, “shall dine on your testicles.”

  They circled the room warily. Hunter was leading Cazalla out of the magazine, away from the sputtering fuse, which the Spaniard had not noticed.

  “Are you afraid, Englishman?”

  Hunter backed away, almost to the door. Cazalla lunged. Hunter parried, still backing. Cazalla lunged again. The movement took him into the yard.

  “You are a stinking coward, Englishman.”

  Now they were both in the yard. Hunter engaged Cazalla fully, and Cazalla laughed with pleasure. For some moments they fought in silence, Hunter always moving farther from the magazine.

  All around them, the garrison troops ran and shouted. Any of them could kill Hunter from behind in an instant. His danger was extreme, and Cazalla suddenly realized the reason. He broke, stepped back, and looked at the magazine.

  “You son of an English buggered swine . . .”

  Cazalla ran toward the magazine, just as the first of the explosions engulfed it in rolling white flame and blasting heat.

  The crew aboard the Cassandra, now moving up the narrow channel, saw the magazine explode and cheered. But Enders, at the helm, was frowning. The guns of Matanceros were still there; he could see the long barrels protruding through the notchings in the stone wall. In the red light of the magazine fires, the gun crews preparing to fire the cannon were clearly visible.

  “God help us,” Enders said. The Cassandra was now directly off the shore batteries. “Stand by, mates,” he shouted. “We’re going to eat Donnish shot today.”

  Lazue and the Moor, on the foredeck of the galleon, also saw the explosion. They saw the Cassandra beating up the channel past the fortress.

  “Mother of God,” Lazue said. “They didn’t get the guns. They didn’t get the guns.”

  . . .

  DIEGO WAS OUTSIDE the fortress, running for the water. He did not stop when the magazine exploded with a frightful roar; he did not wonder if Hunter was still inside; he did not think anything. He ran with screaming, painful lungs for the water.

  Hunter was trapped in the fortress. The Spanish patrols from outside were pouring in through the west gate; he could not escape that way. He did not see Cazalla anywhere, but he ran east from the magazine toward a low stone building, intending to climb onto the roof, and from there, jump over the wall.

  When he got to the building, four soldiers engaged him; they backed him with swords to the door of the building and he locked himself in. The door was heavy timber; they pounded on it to no avail.

  He turned to look around the room. This wa
s Cazalla’s quarters, richly furnished. A dark-haired girl was in the bed. She looked at him in terror, holding the sheets to her chin, as Hunter dashed through the room to the rear windows. He was halfway out the window when he heard her say, in English, “Who are you?”

  Hunter paused, astonished. Her accent was crisp and aristocratic. “Who the hell are you?”

  “I am Lady Sarah Almont, late of London,” she said. “I am being held prisoner here.”

  Hunter’s mouth fell open.

  “Well, get on your clothing, madam,” he said.

  At that moment, another glass window shattered, and Cazalla landed on the floor of the room, his sword in his hand. He was gray and blackened from the powder explosion. The girl screamed.

  “Dress, madam,” Hunter said, as his blade engaged Cazalla’s. He saw her hastily pulling on an elaborate white dress.

  Cazalla panted as he fought. He had the desperation of fury and something else, perhaps fear.

  “Englishman,” he said, starting another taunt. Then Hunter flung his sword across the room. The blade pierced Cazalla in the throat. He coughed and sat backward, into the chair by his heavy ornate desk. He leaned forward, pulling at the blade, and in his posture, he seemed to be examining charts on the desk. Blood dripped onto the charts. Cazalla made a gurgling sound. Then he collapsed.

  “Come on,” the woman said.

  Hunter led her through the window, out of the room. He did not look back at Cazalla’s body.

  He stood with the woman on the north face of the parapet. The ground was thirty feet below, hard earth with a few scrubby plants. Lady Sarah clutched him.

  “It’s too far,” she said.

  “There’s no choice,” he said, and pushed her. With a shriek, she fell. He looked back, and saw the Cassandra pull into the channel, under the main battery of the fortress. The gun crews were ready to fire. Hunter jumped to the ground. The girl was still lying there, holding her ankle.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “Not badly, I think.”

  He got her to her feet, and drew her arm over his shoulder. Supporting her, they ran toward the water. They heard the first guns open fire on the Cassandra.

  The guns of Matanceros were fired serially, one second apart. Each one breeched one second apart, spitting hot powder and fragments of bronze into the air, sending the crews diving for cover. One by one, the big guns rocked back to their recoil position, and were still.

  The crews slowly got to their feet, and approached the guns in astonishment. They examined the blown touch-holes and chattered excitedly among themselves.

  And then, one by one, the charges under the carriages blew, sending splinters of wood flying, dropping the guns to the ground. The last of the cannon went rolling along the parapet, with terrified soldiers racing out of its path.

  Less than five hundred yards offshore, the Cassandra sailed untouched into the harbor.

  Don Diego was treading water, shouting at the top of his lungs as the Cassandra bore down on him. For a horrified moment he thought no one would see or hear him, and then the bow of the sloop veered to port, and strong hands reached over the side and hauled him, dripping, onto the deck. A flask of kill-devil was thrust into his hands; his back was pounded and there was laughter.

  Diego looked around the boat. “Where is Hunter?” he said.

  In the early-dawn light, Hunter was running with the girl to the shore at the eastern point of Matanceros. He was now just beneath the fort’s walls; directly above him were the barrels of some of the guns, now lying at odd and irregular angles.

  They paused by the water to catch their breath.

  “Can you swim?” Hunter asked.

  The girl shook her head.

  “Not at all?”

  “No, I swear.”

  He looked at the Cassandra’s stern, as she moved up the channel to the galleon.

  “Come on,” he said. They ran toward the harbor.

  Enders, the sea artist, delicately maneuvered the Cassandra alongside the galleon. Immediately, most of the crew jumped to the larger boat. Enders himself went aboard the galleon, where he saw Lazue and the Moor at the railing. Sanson was at the tiller.

  “My pleasure, sir,” Sanson said with a bow, handing the helm to Enders.

  “Don’t mind if I do, mate,” Enders said. Immediately, he looked aloft, where seamen were scrambling up the rigging. “Hoist the foretop. Smart there with the jib!” The sails were let out. The big ship began to move.

  Alongside them, the small crew remaining with the Cassandra tied the bow to the stern of the galleon and swung around, sails luffing.

  Enders paid no attention to the little ship.

  His attention was fixed on the galleon. As she began to move, and the crews worked the capstan to bring up the anchor, he shook his head. “Soggy old bitch,” he said. “Moves like a cow.”

  “But she’ll sail,” Sanson said.

  “Oh, she’ll sail, in a manner of speaking.”

  The galleon was moving east, toward the harbor mouth. Enders now looked toward the shore, for Hunter.

  “There he is!” Lazue shouted.

  And indeed, there he was, standing at the shore with some woman.

  “Can you stop?” Lazue demanded.

  Enders shook his head. “We’ll go into irons,” he said. “Throw a line.”

  The Moor had already thrown a line. It hit the shore. Hunter grabbed it with the girl, and they were immediately yanked off their feet and dragged into the water.

  “Better get them up smartly, before they drown,” Enders said, but he was grinning.

  The girl nearly drowned, she was coughing for hours afterward. But Hunter was in fine spirits as he took command of the treasure nao and sailed, in tandem with the Cassandra, out into the open seas.

  By eight in the morning, the smoking ruins of Matanceros lay far astern. Hunter, drinking heavily, reflected that he now had the distinction of successfully leading the most extraordinary privateering expedition in the century since Drake attacked Panama.

  Chapter 24

  THEY WERE STILL in Spanish waters, and they moved southward quickly, under every inch of canvas they could muster. The galleon normally carried as many as a thousand people, and crews of two hundred seamen or more.

  Hunter had seventy men, including prisoners. But most of the Spanish prisoners were garrison soldiers, not sailors. Not only were they untrustworthy, they were also unskilled. Hunter’s crews had their hands full managing the sails and rigging.

  Hunter had interrogated the prisoners in his halting Spanish. By midday, he knew a good deal about the ship he now commanded. She was the nao Nuestra Señora de los Reves, San Fernando y San Francisco de Paula, Captain José del Villar de Andrade, owner the Marques de Canada, a vessel of nine hundred tons, built in Genoa. Like all Spanish galleons — which were invariably cumbersomely christened — this ship had a nickname, El Trinidad. The origin of the name was obscure.

  El Trinidad had been built to carry fifty cannon, but after formal departure from Havana the previous August, the ship had stopped along the Cuban coast, and most of the cannon offloaded to permit the ship to carry more cargo. She was presently fitted with only thirty-two twelve-pounders. Enders had gone over the ship thoroughly and pronounced her seaworthy but filthy. A party of prisoners were now clearing some of the refuse from the holds.

  “She’s taking on water, too,” Enders said.

  “Badly?”

  “No, but she’s an old ship, and bears watching. Not kept in good repair.” Enders’s frown seemed to encompass the long tradition of shoddy Spanish seamanship.

  “How does she sail?”

  “Like a pregnant sow, but we’ll make do, with fair weather and no trouble. We’re short, is the truth.”

  Hunter nodded
. He paced the deck of the ship and looked at the canvas. Fully rigged, El Trinidad carried fourteen separate sails. Even the simplest task — such as letting out a reefed topsail — required almost a dozen strong backs.

  “If there’s heavy seas, we’ll have to ride it out with bare poles,” Enders said, shaking his head.

  Hunter knew this was true. In a storm, he would have no choice but to reef all his canvas, and ride out the foul weather, but that was a dangerous thing to do on a ship so large.

  But even more worrisome was the prospect of an attack. A ship under attack needed maneuverability, and Hunter lacked the crew to handle El Trinidad smartly.

  And then there was the problem of the guns.

  His thirty-two twelve-pounders were Danish cannon, of recent vintage, and all in good repair. Together they represented a reasonable — if not formidable — measure of defense. Thirty-two cannon made El Trinidad the equivalent of a third-rate ship of the line, and she could be expected to hold her own against all but the largest enemy warships. At least she could if Hunter had the men to work the guns, and he did not.

  An efficient gun crew, a crew capable of loading, running out, aiming, and firing a cannon once a minute during battle consisted of fifteen men, not including the gun captain. To allow for injury, and simple fatigue during battle — the men grew tired pushing around two and a half tons of hot bronze — the crews were usually seventeen to twenty men. Assuming only half the cannon were fired at one time, Hunter really needed more than two hundred and seventy men just to work his guns. Yet he had none to spare. He was already shorthanded topside with his canvas.

  The hard facts Hunter faced were these: he commanded a crew one-tenth the size he would need to fight well in a sea engagement, and one-third the size he would need to survive a heavy storm. The implication was clear enough — run from a fight, and find shelter before a storm.

  It was Enders who voiced the concern. “I wish we could run out full canvas,” he said. He looked aloft. Right now, El Trinidad sailed without mizzens, spritsails, or topgallants.

  “What’re we making?” Hunter asked.

  “No better than eight knots. We should be doing double that.”