Corsair

by Dudley Pope

  “We’re ready to board the boat, sir,” Lobb reported, and Ned turned to Aurelia and kissed her. “You’re the captain of the Griffin again. But I should leave more men with you.”

  “Don’t be silly. All we have to do is make sure we don’t drag the anchor, and there are enough of us for that!”

  Ned scrambled down into the boat and turned to watch men carefully handing down the four boxes that were the petards, making sure not to snag the hooks on anything.

  “The men with the slowmatch?”

  “They’re just coming,” Lobb said. “I told them to keep away from the petards, in case any powder leaks out.”

  Slowmatch was not very reliable. Made from mangrove bark pounded into flat strips and dried in the sun, it had the merit of burning evenly, as long as it stayed alight. And that was why four men were carrying strips of slowmatch: one of the four pieces should stay alight, particularly as each of the men from time to time blew gently on his glowing strip.

  Ned could already see boats detaching themselves from the sides of the ships: they did not have to bother loading petards and he listened: no, not a sound: they had all made a good job of muffling their oars. As long as all the men were sober: it just wanted a drunken man to shout or start singing or some damned thing…

  And there was the Peleus: Thomas had anchored closer to the Dolphyn and Argonauta. In four or five minutes – as soon as he saw the other boats reach the shore – his boats would be going over to take them.

  Now the Griffin’s boats were pulling for the shore, petards carefully stowed, the four men with the slowmatches huddled over their precious strips of mangrove and the rest of the men in the boat straining at the muffled oars.

  Ned eyed the river entrance. There were no jetties close in to the town or in front of the fort. Did that mean the water was too shallow? For a moment he almost ordered Lobb to head further to seaward, then he remembered the surf: there was usually too much surf to let a jetty last more than a few hours: they were just lucky that at the moment there was no north in the wind: it was the norther that brought the surf thundering in along this coast.

  “Head for the beach directly in front of the fort,” Ned muttered to Lobb. He was conscious that at least thirty boats were following – some of the buccaneer ships had canoes as well as boats – carrying about a thousand men. A thousand at least, probably more. And the effectiveness of each of them depended on one of the petards exploding and blowing down the door of the fortress. And the petards depended on the slowmatch. Which in turn – oh, stop that, he told himself impatiently: that way lies madness: the never-never-land of it, perhaps and maybe…

  The wind was warm and steady. Yes, he could now see where the waves lapped along the shore. Not much phosphorescence – there never was when the moon was up. He looked astern. Yes, the other boats were following closely – in fact the one just astern was within five yards, and he could see the stem cutting a smooth moustache of water.

  They were passing the town now as they approached the river mouth. Not one light at a window: the town slept. He hoped a restless individual did not decide to go for a walk, or stand at the door relieving himself…

  Then it suddenly happened: Lobb wrenched the tiller and hissed an order to the men at the oars, and a moment later the keel of the boat grated as it ran on to the sand. The men leapt out, pulling at the gunwales, and one of them ran up the beach with a grapnel on a line, which he dug into the sand.

  Six men still remained in the boat: the four men with the slowmatches and the two guarding the petards. Lobb stood against the gunwale with two men and growled: “Quickly, hand out the first petard!”

  The two men standing in the water took the box, turned and hurried up the beach, to be replaced by two more. Within a couple of minutes the four petards were landed and Lobb said: “Come on, you with the slowmatches: carefully now!”

  With the petards and slowmatches on the shore, Ned led the way to the fort. The yielding sand which seemed to be trying to trip him soon gave way to harder ground and he risked looking up. The fort now seemed enormous, towering over him, black and menacing in the darkness. Still there were no musket shots, no trumpets sounding the alarm. But the huge double doors were shut and locked. Clearly the Dons relied on a lock and did not bother with sentries.

  A ring was fitted to the door beside the big keyhole so that it could be grasped to swing it open. Ned gestured to the two men with the first petard and ran a hand round the edges seeking a hook. He fitted it into the ring and muttered to the men to let the petard hang. He felt carefully for a fuse. It was hanging out of the box but was firmly fixed.

  “Go back to the boats,” he told the men with the other three petards, and took a slowmatch from one of the four men. He blew on the burning end until it glowed, held it against the fuse and blew again until the fuse began to splutter, and then with a hasty warning he told every man to get clear of the door.

  By now the beach was littered with boats and, just clear of the water, several hundred men were crouching ready. Finding Lobb beside him and recognizing the limping man as Saxby, he hurried down to the water’s edge, still counting. The petard had been fitted with a four-minute fuse, the shortest time he dared risk. Two minutes…no shout from a sentry, no crash of a musket…the Dons could not believe that anyone would dare attack them…

  Two and a half minutes…three…three and a half…

  The explosion blinded him and he staggered up to his knees into the sea: the noise made him lose his sense of balance for a few moments. He blinked and then with a bellow ran towards the door, coughing as the smoke of the gunpowder bit into his lungs.

  From the corner of his eye he saw that the arch over the doorway was now jagged, and he ran over the wreckage of the doors beneath it into an open courtyard, followed by several score buccaneers who were now bellowing, shouting threats intended to paralyse the Spaniards with fright.

  Hurry, Ned said to himself, imagining the four men with the slowmatches trying to light lanterns. He stopped a moment and then, as a shaft of moonlight swept across the courtyard, saw a single door.

  Even as he watched, the door flung open and a man stumbled out, clearly half asleep. Half a dozen buccaneers leapt on him and flung the door wide open. In a flicker of moonlight Ned caught sight of steps: they probably led up to the garrison’s sleeping quarters.

  One of the buccaneers arrived with a lantern and Ned grabbed it in his left hand, unsheathing his cutlass with the right. He pushed past the buccaneers wrestling with the sleepy Spaniard and started up the steps, shouting to the men crowding into the courtyard to follow him.

  He had only just started climbing the stairs when another man blundered down, cursing in Spanish. He was carrying a sword and, without needing to parry, Ned ran him through, wrenching the cutlass free so that the man’s body tumbled down to the door.

  But in the moments as Ned wrestled with the cutlass, a couple of buccaneers managed to squeeze past him and run up the steps. They met a third Spanish soldier, as sleepy as the first two, and his body spun down the steps.

  By now Ned could hear questioning shouts in Spanish coming from what was probably a guardroom at the top of the stairs, and he hurried after the two buccaneers, holding up the lantern.

  Then he saw a light through an open door at the top of the steps, which curved round to the left: the Spaniards must sleep with a lantern left burning. He felt many more buccaneers pushing from behind him and he hurried up the remaining stairs. He burst into the room to find the first two buccaneers slashing at a dozen Spaniards who had backed into a corner of the room.

  One fell with a gurgle, followed by another, and as Ned jumped forward to attack a Spaniard the rest of the buccaneers burst into the room behind him.

  “Don’t kill them all!” Ned shouted. “I want a couple of prisoners.”

  But amid all the shouting no
one heard him: every Spaniard had half a dozen buccaneers slashing at him: within a couple of minutes only buccaneers, puffing and laughing with excitement, were left alive in the room.

  “Damnation!” Ned bellowed. “I needed prisoners to show us where our men are!”

  “Look in here!” shouted a buccaneer, grabbing the lantern and pulling open a door Ned had not seen. It led to a corridor and he followed the excited buccaneer, who was wrenching open yet another door.

  And there, standing in a long nightshirt, was a white-faced man who Ned guessed must be the commander of the garrison.

  The buccaneer stood behind the man with his cutlass, and Ned said in Spanish: “Are you in command?”

  “Yes,” the man stammered. “What is happening?”

  “Buccaneers,” Ned said briefly. “Where are your prisoners?”

  The man pointed downwards. “The dungeon. They are all secured down there.”

  “Get the keys and lead the way,” Ned said. “No, you’d better follow me: my men are excited…”

  “May I dress?” the garrison commander quavered.

  “No, you look splendid like that,” Ned said, flicking the hem of the nightshirt with the point of his cutlass. “Which way?”

  “Along to the guardroom: the sergeant will have the key.”

  “Your sergeant is certainly dead: I hope the key is somewhere safe.”

  “It’s on a hook; we’ll find it,” the man said, obviously relieved to find himself still alive and gaining a little confidence with each passing second. Ned turned and led the way along the corridor, calling to the buccaneers that he had a prisoner.

  As soon as they reached the guardroom, now lit by more lanterns, the prisoner saw the pile of bodies and groaned. The sight of his men lying dead seemed to paralyse him and Ned prodded him with the cutlass.

  “The key,” he growled. “Hurry up!”

  Even as he spoke he heard the ripe voice of Thomas, who had just arrived at the fort to discover that the fighting was already over.

  The prisoner stepped carefully over the bodies and round the wooden frames of the beds on which the guards had been sleeping. He pointed to a locker fixed to the wall. “In there, on a hook,” he said.

  Before Ned had time to give any order a buccaneer was levering off the door with a pike, and Ned recognized the man as one of his captains, the Spaniard Secco, who had understood what the garrison commander had said.

  Ned hurried over with the lantern and as the splintered door of the locker swung open Ned saw several large keys hanging from hooks.

  “Which one?”

  “We need the large one for the door. And…” he hesitated. “Yes, we shall need those small ones too, all four of them.”

  Ned, not noticing the hesitation, snatched the keys and motioned the prisoner to lead the way to the dungeon.

  At that moment Thomas came into the guardroom. “Why Ned, you were in too much of a hurry: you’ve done me out of a fight. Who’s this fellow? Why, you woke him up!”

  “Says he’s the garrison commander.”

  “Ah, and he knows where the keys are, I see.”

  Ned waved the keys. “You’re just in time – we’re on our way to the dungeon: all our men are down there.”

  “Must be a damned big dungeon,” Thomas commented. “There’ll be upward of a hundred men.”

  Ned led the way with the thoroughly frightened commander closely behind him, followed by Thomas and several dozen buccaneers, disappointed that the fighting in the fort was all over.

  “By the way,” Thomas said, “no trouble with the Argonauta and Dolphyn: you were quite right, half a dozen Dons in each ship and all of ’em drunk. Soldiers, they were, and they’d found some rum jars.”

  “Probably why there were so few soldiers here,” Ned said. “I don’t reckon there were twenty men, though I haven’t counted the bodies.”

  The commander pointed across the courtyard to a passageway in the far corner. He directed Ned along it until they came to a heavy door which was studded with bolt heads. He indicated the large key.

  Ned unlocked the door and swung it back. In the light of the lantern he could see a narrow staircase leading downwards. But the place smelled like a sewer. Ned took a deep breath and started down the steps.

  He was almost at the bottom when he realized he was actually in the dungeon, and that crowded on the stone floor were at least a hundred men – the crews of the two buccaneer ships.

  He stopped and shouted: “Coles – are you here? Gottlieb?”

  “Over on the far wall in irons,” a voice said in English, “but they can’t talk. That’s – that’s not Mr Yorke, is it?” the voice added, as though the speaker could not believe his ears.

  “Yes it is.” In the dim light of the lantern Ned could only see sprawled bodies, men lying on the stone floor so closely packed it was impossible to walk. The stench was almost unendurable.

  “Why can’t they talk?” Ned demanded.

  “Beaten by the Dons and they’re slung in irons,” the man said. “Wait, I’ll lead you.”

  Ned turned and held the lantern up to the garrison commander’s face. The man had turned grey; he stared at the floor, knowing Ned was examining him. “Start saying prayers,” Ned said in Spanish. “There are more than a thousand of these men’s friends in the courtyard…”

  Picking his way carefully, Ned followed his buccaneer guide, who was trying to shout, though his voice came out at little more than a croak. “Make way there, it’s Mr Yorke and Sir Thomas, make way!”

  They found Coles unconscious hanging as though crucified from leg and arm irons on the far wall. The lantern showed his chest still moving, but otherwise the man could have been dead. And ten feet to one side Gottlieb also hung in irons: he too was unconscious.

  “The smaller keys,” the garrison commander whispered.

  Ned passed the lantern to Thomas and knelt by Coles. First he unlocked the irons holding his arms and then unlocked the leg irons. He gently lowered Coles’ body and the man groaned.

  With the other two keys Ned freed Gottlieb and lowered him to the stone floor.

  Thomas examined him with the lantern. “He’s alive too, but a few more hours…”

  Ned felt so cold that he wondered why he was not shivering, although the heat in the dungeon was intense. He stood up and turned to the garrison commander. He pointed to where Coles had been hanging. “Lean with your back against the wall,” he said.

  The puzzled Spaniard turned and leaned against the wall.

  “Raise your arms.”

  Before the man fully realized what had happened, Ned had shut the arm irons round his wrists and locked them.

  Then he crouched and fitted the leg irons and locked them. He put the keys in his pocket and Thomas said angrily, waving his cutlass: “I’d spit him, Ned!”

  Ned shook his head. “We have a lot of questions to ask him. Leave him there while we get these men out of here. Send some of our men down – we’re going to have to carry Coles and Gottlieb up to the fresh air. Then we’ll come and have a chat with our Spanish friend.”

  Before anyone could move, one of the buccaneers staggered over to where the prisoner was held in the irons and kicked him in the stomach amid a torrent of what Ned took to be Dutch. The man was swaying from the effort and Ned waited to see if he was going to repeat it, but he seemed satisfied and turned away, while the prisoner writhed in the chains.

  “That’ll get him in the right frame of mind for our chat,” Thomas commented grimly.

  As soon as Ned reached the top of the steps and found himself in the courtyard he shouted for Saxby, who limped across. Quickly Ned explained that Coles and Gottlieb were below. “Take them out to the Phoenix: they’re in very poor shape and in need of some treatment from Mrs Judd. Tell your
men to be gentle with them.”

  He turned to Lobb, who had just walked up. “All the men from the Argonauta and Dolphyn are down there in the dungeon, starved and parched. Have then taken out to their ships so they can get some food and water.”

  Ned turned to Thomas. “Can you spare your mate, Mitchell? Neither Coles nor Gottlieb will be much use for a few days.”

  “I can spare Mitchell. Which ship do you want him to go to?”

  “Let him take the Dolphyn.” He spoke to Lobb. “You’d better take command of the Argonauta when it’s time to sail. I reckon by then the men will have recovered enough to get the sails up.”

  What next? The fort, of course; it had to be secured; the explosion would have been heard everywhere, but people must have pulled the bedclothes over their heads. He saw Leclerc bustling about with a lantern, trying to sort out his men. “Ah, take a hundred or so men and cover the fortress from outside: I don’t think we need fear an attack from the townspeople, but we’d better be on our guard.”

  He waited as both Saxby and Leclerc shouted to the men milling about in the courtyard and then watched as the first of the buccaneer prisoners stumbled up from the dungeon, gathering round listlessly at the top, uncertain what to do. The sudden change from being prisoners in that stinking dungeon to being free men in the courtyard, Ned realized, had happened so quickly that the men were bewildered.

  He walked over to them. “You’re now going to be taken out to your ships, where you’ll have to feed yourselves because I can’t spare men to help you. Your captains are being taken to the Phoenix for treatment; in the meantime the mates of the Peleus and the Griffin will command your ships.”

  Two or three of the men gave a weak cheer, and Ned waved his lantern, pointing towards the beach. “Boats are down there waiting for you.”

  He turned to Thomas. “Once all these men are out of the dungeon, we’ll continue our chat with that garrison commander.”

  “You’re not turning the rest of the men loose to raid the town?”

  “Not yet. We’ve plenty of time, and the most important thing is to find out why the Spanish seized our men. Ah,” Ned said, “here they come with Coles and Gottlieb.”