Corsair

by Dudley Pope

  Preceded by a man with a lantern, three men came out carrying the Englishman and Dutchman. Although the lantern was dim, Ned saw that Coles’ eyes were open.

  He hurried over to the man. “How are you feeling?”

  “Sore,” Coles murmured. “But glad to see you. Wouldn’t have lasted much longer.”

  “What were the Spanish after?”

  “Don’t know; just seized us when we were selling ’em some piece goods. Kept asking us about paying off the Army in Jamaica. Gottlieb and I didn’t know much about it, but the Dons wouldn’t believe us and kept on with the bastinado.”

  The man’s eyes closed: those few words had exhausted him. Ned bent down and said: “Mrs Judd in the Phoenix will soon put you right.”

  Gottlieb was too exhausted to speak English; clearly his brain was working in Dutch, and Ned signalled to the three men carrying him to take him down to the boats.

  Thomas grunted and said to Ned: “Paying off the Army in Jamaica, eh? Why are the Dons suddenly interested in that?”

  “No Army means the island’s undefended on land,” Ned said crisply. “And if the buccaneers move to Tortuga…”

  “Yes, old Loosely could find he has the crazy King Carlos as a new landlord,” Thomas said.

  Lobb came out through the doorway carrying a lantern. “That’s all out fellows out. Phew, what a stink down there. There’s just someone in a nightshirt chained to the wall, but I expect you know about him. He’s mumbling in Spanish.”

  “Yes, he’s responsible for all this trouble. Now, you hurry with those men and send the boats back.”

  “Aye, but the men are right poorly,” Lobb said. “They’ve only been fed a little thin soup each night. No water during the day.” With that he followed the last of the freed prisoners out through the shattered archway and down to the beach.

  “Come on,” Ned said to Thomas. “Let’s go down and question our man.”

  At that moment Secco appeared out of the darkness. “You need help,” he said, making it a statement, not a question. Realizing that a Spaniard could best deal with a Spaniard, Ned led the way down into the dungeon.

  Chapter Four

  The garrison commander, stretched out against the slimy wall by the chains, grey-faced with fear and looking absurd in his nightshirt, watched the three men nervously.

  “What is your name?” Ned asked in Spanish.

  “Balliardo. Francesco Balliardo.”

  “You questioned our men; now it’s our turn to question you,” Ned said heavily, “and you will answer truthfully. If you do not survive, we’ll simply start on the mayor, and then the customs officer, and the priest… Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, yes,” the man stammered.

  Ned turned to Secco and said in English: “You question him. We want to know first why he took the Argonauta and Dolphyn people prisoner.”

  Secco spoke rapidly, idly tapping his foot with his cutlass, a gesture which Balliardo watched warily.

  Ned understood the halting reply. He had received orders from the provincial governor at Barranquilla.

  What had the orders said?

  That any buccaneers and smugglers along the coast were to be seized.

  Why seize them now? Smuggling had been going on for years.

  Yes, Balliardo said, he knew that; but his orders had been definite: seize any smugglers and buccaneers – indeed, any foreign ship – that came along the coast.

  “And having seized them?” Ned asked.

  “I was to ask their captains some questions, if the ships came from Jamaica.”

  “What were the questions?”

  “I cannot tell you,” Balliardo said, staring fixedly at the floor.

  Ned looked significantly at Secco, who slapped the man’s face.

  “Answer!”

  “I can’t; it is more than my life is worth.”

  “Why?” Ned asked innocently. “Will the authorities kill you?”

  “I expect so,” the man said brokenly.

  Ned gave a bloodcurdling laugh. “What an unlucky man you are. You think there is a possibility your people will kill you if you answer my questions. Just a possibility. But let me assure you, I am certainly going to kill you if you don’t answer me. Now, what questions?”

  The man looked up like a trapped animal, sighed and then whispered, as though afraid of being overheard, “What ships there were in Jamaica. How many frigates. If more were expected.”

  Ned guessed the Spanish authorities would never believe the correct answer – that there were no British frigates and none was expected, unless carrying despatches for the governor. “What else,” he said to Secco in English, leaving the Spaniard to ask the question, guessing that Balliardo might need persuading to answer.

  “Nothing else, I swear.”

  Secco did not bother to translate: instead he kicked Balliardo’s shin. The man said nothing.

  “What else?” Secco repeated, his voice quiet but menacing.

  Balliardo shook his head and Secco punched him in the stomach, leaving him winded and gasping for breath. As soon as Balliardo had recovered, Secco said once again: “What else?”

  The man shook his head helplessly. Secco said coldly: “Our lives are at stake.” His cutlass flashed and a piece of Balliardo’s nightshirt fluttered to the ground.

  “The rack…” Balliardo gabbled. “If I tell you anything they’ll put me on the rack!”

  “How will they know?” Secco asked.

  “But they’re here now!” Balliardo had blurted it out and a moment later realized what he had said.

  “Who is?”

  Balliardo shook his head but a moment later Secco was standing close to him, doing something with his left hand. Balliardo screamed with pain and tried to cover his groin with his hands, clanking the chains of the metal bands round his arms.

  “I know a thousand painful and slow ways to kill you,” Secco said calmly, “and I have all night. I repeat, who is?”

  This time Balliardo was taking no chances: he had obviously made up his mind that he preferred risking the rack administered by his own people to the certain death he inevitably faced at the hands of these heretics.

  “The provincial governor from Barranquilla. He is here.”

  Balliardo’s voice had again dropped to a whisper, and clearly the thought of the provincial governor terrified him.

  Secco glanced at Ned to make sure he had understood. Ned nodded.

  Secco said: “Where is he staying?”

  “With the bishop. No, I mean with the major.”

  “The bishop? Riohacha does not have a bishop!”

  “No, of course, but he is here too, the provincial bishop. He and the governor are staying for several days.”

  “Where?”

  Balliardo was no longer even pretending to be reluctant to answer the questions. “The governor is at the mayor’s house; the bishop with the priest.”

  Ned asked: “Are there any more important people staying here in Riohacha?”

  “No, only the staff of the governor, who are lodged in some other house – I don’t know which one – and the bishop’s chaplain, who is also lodging elsewhere: the priest’s house is quite small.”

  Then Ned said suddenly : “Why did you ask about the Army in Jamaica?”

  Balliardo shrugged his shoulders and set the chains clanking. “We heard that the Army was being disbanded. Had been disbanded, by the new governor who had just come out from England.”

  “Why are you interested?”

  “Me? Balliardo exclaimed. “I am not interested. It was the governor.”

  “Why did you torture the two captains?”

  “Why are you torturing me? The same reason. To get answers.”

 
“But they knew nothing,” Ned said.

  “How was I to know? They are brave men. They said nothing. One of them spat in my face.”

  There was a flash of steel and the flat of Secco’s cutlass hit Balliardo across the face. “I spit in your face, too,” Secco said angrily. “Why was the provincial governor from Barranquilla interested in the disbanding of the Jamaican Army? Make a guess!”

  Balliardo turned his face away from Secco, spitting blood. He coughed a few times, shook his head and then muttered: “There have been rumours that the English governor has gone mad. I suppose the governor at Barranquilla is curious. The Viceroy in Panama even. It is a strange thing to do, you must admit.”

  Secco laughed drily. “The English do strange things from time to time. But never rely on it.”

  “I will not,” Balliardo said politely, “and thank you for the advice.”

  “Where is the mayor’s house?” Ned asked.

  “The big white building past the church.”

  “And the priest’s?”

  “Just before the church there are three big kapok trees. The priest’s house is right beside the middle one.”

  “This comedian knows nothing,” Ned said in English. “He is just a parrot repeating words put in his mouth. I think we’ll call on the governor.”

  Thomas nodded. “Just a moment. The governor wants to know about disbanding the Army, so do you think Spain intends to make our King give the island back – make him keep to that secret treaty?”

  “Perhaps, though I can’t see the merchants in London staying quiet about it: they are investing money out here, and Jamaica is the key to the Caribbee.”

  “Who does the governor of the province get his orders from?” Thomas asked.

  “The Viceroy, I suppose, who hears direct from Spain.”

  “I wonder how much the Viceroy told the governor.”

  “Well, we can’t get the Viceroy, but the governor is ours for the taking. He’s an important figure: there aren’t many provinces, and this is the one nearest Jamaica.”

  “Let’s hope he talks,” Thomas said.

  “There’s no rush,” Ned said bluntly. “We can take him with us.”

  “Yes, and the bishop; they would make good hostages. I wonder how much ransom they’re worth? What about this apology?” he said, gesturing at Balliardo.

  “We’ll leave him here. Somebody will find him. What he did to Coles and Gottlieb – what he would have done to them in the end – doesn’t make me want to unlock him. In fact, I’d sooner throw the keys into the sea. Come on, let’s go.”

  He led the way out of the dungeon, up to the courtyard and out to the shattered gate. “Leclerc,” he bellowed. “Where are you?”

  The Frenchman answered from further along the wall of the fortress.

  “It seems the governor of the province is here in town: I want fifty men to come with me and find him. And the bishop, too: he is staying at the priest’s house, which is beside three big kapok trees next to the church. Send another fifty men to surround the house, but don’t disturb the bishop: we’ll call on him after we’ve seen the governor.”

  Leclerc laughed cheerfully. “All we lack is the Viceroy,” he said as he called to his men. “Shall I stay here?”

  “Yes, guard the fort. The garrison commander is down in the dungeon.”

  “From what I hear, that’s a good place for him.”

  “Yes, you can go down and kick him when you feel bored.”

  Ned waited until the men were ready and then led the way towards the mayor’s house. It was a wide track rather than a road and, from the smell, lined with rotting cabbage and heavily traversed by donkeys and pigs.

  The air was hot and very humid: the high land and the trees on the other side of the river seemed to be blocking any night wind that might have cleared away the smell, which seemed to hover in the air, sticky and clinging, catching the back of the nose.

  There was the church – and yes, the three kapok trees. Ned turned and called to the second group of men: “That’s the house. Don’t let anyone leave.”

  A hundred yards further a high wall surrounded what was obviously the mayor’s house.

  “Do we expect any shooting?” Thomas said.

  “I doubt it. The explosion of that petard didn’t bring the townspeople rushing down to the fort with the mayor leading them… The sound of us forcing his gate open will by comparison sound like music. As soon as he heard the petard the mayor must have guessed what was going on.”

  As they spoke three buccaneers were smashing down the wooden gate and as it collapsed inwards, it left a black hole in the wall.

  Ned walked through the entrance and could see the house set back thirty yards from the wall. There were lights at several windows.

  He walked along the path and up half a dozen wooden steps to the front door, banging on it with the hilt of his cutlass.

  A man’s voice asked nervously in Spanish: “Who is there?”

  “The buccaneers. Open up, or we smash the door down,” Ned answered in Spanish.

  “But what do you want? What was that explosion?” the voice persisted.

  “Open this door or we’ll cut your throat,” Ned said harshly.

  The door creaked open and a man with a lantern cringed against the door jamb. “What do you want?” he repeated, unable to keep the despair from his voice. “That explosion – what is happening?”

  Ned pushed into the house, seizing the lantern from the servant with his left hand and holding his cutlass in his right. “Fetch the mayor!”

  “I am the mayor,” a voice said from the darkness at the back of the first room. Ned held the lantern higher and could just make out a figure standing beside another door. “What was that explosion? Was it the magazine of the fort?”

  “You have the governor staying here. Fetch him!”

  “I – er, well–”

  “Fetch him!”

  The figure scurried off.

  Ned turned and asked: “Is Secco there?”

  The buccaneers behind Thomas turned and called the Spanish captain, who hurried into the room.

  Quickly Ned explained what was happening. “We can take this man – the governor of the province – back with us, but I want to get him to talk now: it may save us time.”

  “At your service,” Secco said with a flourish. “I can guarantee that he will give no more trouble than that garrison commander. But it’s a pity we have no arm and leg irons. A man in irons feels very vulnerable…”

  The mayor hurried back into the room, followed by a tall man fully dressed, with lace at throat and wrists and a heavily embroidered coat.

  “Well?” the man demanded haughtily.

  Ned stared at him for a minute or more, realizing he must have dressed after the explosion.

  “Who are you?” he said casually.

  “Don Esteban Sanchez,” the man said. “And you?”

  “I am the Admiral of the Brethren of the Coast,” Ned said quietly. “We are the people who have just captured Riohacha. No doubt you heard us.”

  “I heard an explosion, certainly,” the governor agreed. “The mayor thought there had been an accident at the fort.”

  “No, that was a petard blowing down the doors. All the prisoners have been released. The only person left in the dungeon,” Ned added, “is the garrison commander.”

  The governor shrugged his shoulders: it was a matter of indifference to him, he seemed to be saying.

  Ned put down the lantern, as if indicating the preliminaries were over.

  “Now we come for you.”

  “Come for me? But I am the governor: you can’t bother me. After all, England and Spain are at peace.”

  “But ‘No peace beyond the Line’,” Ned said
ironically. “If we are all at peace, why did you give orders that my people should be captured and tortured?”

  “I gave no orders about torturing.”

  “You gave orders that they were to be taken prisoner and asked certain questions. The torturing just followed as a matter of course.”

  Again Don Esteban shrugged his shoulders.

  Ned tapped the floor with the point of his cutlass. “Don Esteban,” he said coldly, “I hope you have made your peace with God, because you are close to death.”

  The mayor – who Ned saw was a chubby little man, greasy of face with darting eyes – gave a gasp. Ned turned to him. “And you, too. I’ll probably let the bishop live, because he had nothing to do with the torturing of my men. At least, I assume he did not.”

  Don Esteban’s face was now grey in the light of the smoky lantern: he seemed to Ned to have shrunk a little. His shoulders were now hunched and he was looking down, so that he seemed less tall than when he walked into the room.

  Ned turned to some of the buccaneers standing in the room behind him, and said in English: “Seize that man – the tall one.”

  Don Esteban tried to cling to a semblance of dignity as two burly buccaneers seized him, one twisting his arm behind him and the other putting an arm round his throat.

  “This is an outrage!” Sanchez spluttered, gasping for breath.

  “Don’t use childish phrases,” Ned said coldly. “You are facing death, so don’t pretend to be offended.” He turned to the mayor. “Sit down on the floor out of the way; your turn will come.”

  He faced Sanchez and said formally: “I am going to question you here, but there is a spare set of irons and chains in the dungeon of the fort. I have the key for them in my pocket. Which do you prefer, here or the dungeon?”

  Sanchez shrugged his shoulders, as best he could. “It makes no difference to me; I am not going to answer your questions.”

  “We shall see,” Ned said, looking round to Secco, and gesturing towards the governor.

  Secco moved over until he stood a yard in front of the governor and tapped the wooden floor with the point of his cutlass. “You ordered the garrison commander to seize anyone in foreign ships who visited Riohacha. Why?”