Corsair

by Dudley Pope

  Again the governor shrugged his shoulders as best he could. “The same order went out to Santa Marta, Barranquilla, anywhere there were likely to be smugglers.”

  “What was the reason?”

  “Orders from the Viceroy,” the governor said without hesitation, obviously glad to shift the responsibility.

  “Why did the Viceroy give that order?”

  “How do I know?”

  And that is what he is going to do, Ned realized: answer the obvious questions and shelter behind the Viceroy for the rest: Sanchez has realized that his life is dangling on a thread.

  “You wanted to know if the Army in Jamaica has been disbanded. Why?”

  “Curiosity. We had heard rumours that the new governor was paying off the soldiers. This seemed a strange decision, so we wanted to know more about it.”

  “And curiosity was the only reason for the question?”

  “Of course.”

  Secco took a step forward and slapped him across the face.

  “You lie.”

  Sanchez said nothing.

  “Now give us the true answer. It wasn’t just curiosity, was it?”

  “The Viceroy wanted to know. He gave no explanation.”

  So we get the Viceroy again, Ned thought. The perfect excuse – at least, so Sanchez thought.

  “Why seize our ships?”

  For the third time Sanchez shrugged his shoulders and almost immediately doubled over as Secco punched him in the stomach. His arm would have been dislocated had the buccaneer holding him not eased his grasp.

  Sanchez was gasping for breath and he looked round at the buccaneers, who were just staring at him.

  “We have the whole night,” Ned said helpfully. “And tomorrow, too. In fact even longer; no one is going to come to rescue you.”

  “Pay attention,” Secco said. “Why seize the ships?”

  Sanchez shook his head and Secco hit him again.

  The man began to wheeze, dragging in each breath as though he had a cloth in his mouth.

  “Why?” Secco repeated, drawing back his arm once more.

  “To stop them sailing again.”

  “Obviously,” Secco said. “Why did you not want them to sail?”

  Yet again Sanchez shrugged his shoulders and yet again Secco hit him. This time the governor collapsed, like a punctured bladder, and slowly enough that the two men holding him could let him go.

  Secco turned to Ned. “No stamina, this one. A pity there’s no rack in the dungeon. Still, this might help,” he said, sliding a dagger out of a sheath at his waist. “We’ll see how he likes being used as a pin cushion.”

  They all waited for the man on the floor to recover his breath. The lace collar at his throat was now creased and soaked with perspiration; his embroidered coat was riding up and tearing the buttons from his breeches; his breeches were marked with dust from the floor.

  “Hoist him up,” Ned told the two buccaneers. There was no point in giving him too long to recover.

  Once on his feet and held by the buccaneers, the man’s eyes moved slowly from Ned to Secco, obviously unable to work out the relationship and puzzled because Ned had spoken to him in good Spanish.

  Secco resumed his position a yard in front of Sanchez, only now he deliberately sheathed his cutlass and held the dagger in his right hand. The blade was less than a foot long, and the metal glinted in the light of the lantern so that Sanchez now stared at it like a rabbit watching a ferret.

  “I was asking you why you didn’t want the ships to sail…”

  Sanchez said nothing, still staring at the dagger.

  Suddenly the blade snaked out, stabbing Sanchez lightly in the left arm.

  “So that they would not report movements of our ships.”

  “Ships?” repeated a startled Secco. “What ships do you have?”

  Watching the governor’s face, Ned thought: he let that slip. He did not mean to say that, but he is frightened of that dagger.

  The dagger flashed again and Sanchez recoiled as the blade jabbed the fleshy part of his upper arm.

  “We – we have a few ships in the coasting trade.”

  “Have any ships come recently from Spain?” Ned asked casually.

  “No, no, of course not,” Sanchez stammered.

  So, Ned thought, ships have arrived from Spain. And they would be in the main port of Cartagena. What kind? Ships of war or a few trading ships with some long overdue cargoes?

  “Why are you here?” Ned asked. “What made you leave Barranquilla?”

  Again Sanchez looked at the dagger before answering. “The Viceroy ordered me to inspect the ports.”

  “Inspect the ports?” Ned repeated dubiously. “What is there to inspect here?”

  When Sanchez hesitated, Secco twirled the dagger and the governor said hurriedly: “It is just routine: inspect the fort, talk to the mayor and the garrison commander.”

  “And tell them to prepare to receive some ships?” Ned asked on the spur of the moment.

  Sanchez looked down at the floor and to Ned, who was watching him closely, the man seemed to have aged several years in a matter of moments. “No,” the governor muttered, “just the usual. Inspect the guns, look at the mayor’s accounts, see if there is any damage to the sea wall that wants repairing – the surf is bad along this coast.”

  “Ask him again about disbanding the Army,” Ned told Secco and then took Thomas by the arm and led him outside.

  “That was a good shot,” Thomas said. “My Spanish isn’t much good, but you have him worried with that last question about receiving ships.”

  “Yes, but it’s all a puzzle. I think some ships have come out from Spain, and I expect they’re in Cartagena. And it looks as though this fellow is visiting the ports along this coast to get them ready to receive ships.”

  “That means one of two things,” Thomas said. “Either the Dons are getting ready to make a bolt for Spain with a plate convoy – or else they are going to make some move against Jamaica.”

  “That would explain the interest in disbanding the Army,” Ned said thoughtfully. “But they’ve never had enough ships to make any move…”

  The mosquitoes were whining round their heads and Ned brushed them off his neck. Out here it was humid and in the night air the perfume of the flowers and shrubs hung heavily, almost oppressive.

  “Look at if from the Viceroy’s point of view,” Thomas said. “He’s heard that the Jamaica Army has been disbanded, which means his own troops wouldn’t meet any opposition. He’s probably heard that the buccaneers have had their commissions withdrawn by this same governor and intend going to Tortuga. That leaves Jamaica helpless. So just a few Spanish ships crammed with soldiers…”

  “I wonder…that’s strange: Coles and Gottlieb were questioned about the Army: they weren’t asked about us and commissions being withdrawn.”

  Thomas sniffed. “Maybe the Viceroy knows for certain about the commissions: don’t forget, no one made much secret about them. In fact, you went round to every ship and collected them up for old Loosely.”

  “Come on,” Ned said, “we’ll ask the governor!”

  Sanchez was lying on the floor again, curled up, and Secco and the two buccaneers were standing over him. The major, wide-eyed, was watching still squatting on the floor.

  Secco gestured at Sanchez and said contemptuously in English: “The man has started fainting. His arm is a bit bloody but only from pinpricks.”

  “There’s no hurry,” Ned said, thankful that Secco had not been too enthusiastic with the dagger, “but I have a particular question I want to ask him.”

  “He hadn’t any more to say about disbanding the Army,” Secco reported. “But I’m sure some ships have arrived from Spain. The way he answered that
question – tried to avoid it, rather. More ships from Spain, and they’re afraid some of the smugglers will see them and report them in Jamaica.”

  Ned nodded as Sanchez groaned and stirred. When he is asked questions in Spanish by Secco, he answers immediately, without pausing, Ned reflected. When I ask him a question in my not-so-good Spanish, he pauses, and that gives him time to think up an answer.

  Ned told Secco: “When he recovers, ask him when he heard that the governor of Jamaica had withdrawn the commissions of the buccaneers. Try to trap him into a sudden answer. I think the Viceroy already knew, but he wasn’t sure about disbanding the Army.”

  Secco grinned. “I understand perfectly.” He pushed Sanchez’s body contemptuously with the toe of his boot. “He’s a very frightened man. He thinks he is going to be killed any minute, when we have finished questioning him.”

  Finally Sanchez was back on his feet, supported by the two buccaneers, and before Secco resumed his former position, Ned said: “Can you understand me?”

  Sanchez nodded.

  “You are not answering our questions properly, so you’re no use to us,” Ned said harshly. “There is no point in keeping you alive. I warned you to make your peace.” A sudden thought struck him. “Would you like a priest?” he asked innocently. “Isn’t there some ritual you Catholics have when a man is dying?”

  “I…I’m not dying,” Sanchez protested feebly.

  “Oh, but you are,” Ned said, summoning up a fiendish laugh which left him wanting to giggle. “Oh, yes, you are a dying man. The Last Rites, isn’t that what the priest administers?”

  Sanchez fainted again, sliding to the floor like a collapsing sack.

  “Ned, you’re being nasty to the poor man,” Thomas said lightly. “My Spanish isn’t very good, but you’re frightening him.”

  “I don’t know what I said that upset him,” Ned said. “I just told him that he was dying, and asked him if he wanted a priest.”

  Thomas roared with laughter. “Masterly, he’s dying and does he want a priest! Oh, wait until I tell Diana. She’ll love that! Very droll, Ned, very droll.”

  “Our friend on the floor doesn’t seem to appreciate the drollery,” Ned said. “I do wish he’d stop fainting.”

  Secco gestured to the two buccaneers, who hauled the governor to his feet. Secco looked at Ned with raised eyebrows, and when Ned nodded said immediately in Spanish: “When did you hear about the commissions?”

  “A man in Port Royal – what commissions?”

  Secco turned the dagger, his thumb along the flat of the blade.

  “What man in Port Royal?”

  Sanchez shook his head muzzily. “I don’t know; an agent of the Viceroy, I suppose.”

  The dagger flashed again and Sanchez recoiled, trying to wrench his right arm from the buccaneer’s grasp so that he could protect his left. The dagger moved a second time and Secco said quietly: “What did you hear about the commissions?”

  “Oh my God, that they had been withdrawn!”

  “And then what did you hear?” Secco asked relentlessly.

  “That the buccaneers were going to Tortuga.”

  “The Viceroy knows all this for certain?”

  “For certain,” Sanchez agreed hurriedly, as though anxious to avoid another jab from the dagger.

  “So there’d be no buccaneers and no soldiers?”

  “I suppose not,” Sanchez said wearily, and fainted again.

  “We’re wasting our time,” Ned told Thomas. “Let’s collect the bishop.” He told Secco: “Take the governor and the mayor out to the ships, we’ll keep them with us, along with the bishop. You never know when a trio of hostages might come in useful.”

  Thomas said: “Why not send the governor and this greasy mayor to the Dolphyn or the Argonauta: those fellows will guard them carefully!”

  “I was going to ask you to be host to the bishop!”

  “No Papist on board the Peleus,” Thomas said firmly. “Not even sitting in a boat towing astern.”

  “All right, we’ll let Secco guard him.” He turned to the Spaniard. “How do you feel about having a bishop on board?”

  “I have two murderers, a coiner, a triple bigamist and four thieves among my crew, so I’d hardly notice a bishop.”

  “Chat with him,” Ned said. “You never know what information you might pick up.”

  “Search the priest’s house thoroughly,” Secco advised. “The bishop is probably travelling with all his finery: these fellows like their comfort.”

  The bishop, when they had hammered on the priest’s door and demanded that he produce him, turned out to be a man who made the mayor look like a fine upstanding example of the human race. He was almost as wide as he was tall; his eyes were so close together they seemed to touch; his mouth reminded Ned of a squashed banana. His hands kept moving, as though he was washing them. He was a man, Ned decided, who could never be trusted to give a straight answer about anything: to him the shortest distance between two points was the most devious way.

  Ned had wasted no time: he had introduced himself as the leader of the buccaneers, agreed he was responsible for the explosion which had brought them all out of their beds in alarm, and asked the bishop: “Why are you here in Riohacha?”

  “Just visiting my flock,” the bishop said ingratiatingly.

  “Why are you travelling with the governor?”

  “Because of the danger from bandits,” the bishop admitted. “Bandits commit any outrages against the Church.”

  “So you and the governor have been warning the ports?”

  The bishop’s eyes flickered. He was gross, as repulsive a man as a busy person would meet in a month, but he was shrewd.

  “Visiting the ports. Why should we be warning them?”

  “To keep a lookout for buccaneers.”

  The bishop shrugged his shoulders, a gesture which started his stomach swinging from side to side. “I know nothing of buccaneers – except for you.”

  The man was too quick to be trapped and too pathetic to be forced. “You will come with us,” Ned said, and turned to the buccaneers standing behind him. “Search the house.”

  “But this is an outrage!” exclaimed the bishop. “I am a man of God engaged on his pastoral duties.”

  “And particularly the bishop’s room,” Ned added.

  Chapter Five

  Aurelia was waiting for him on board the Griffin, and the first hint of dawn was lightening the eastern sky as he climbed on board. As she kissed him she murmured: “You’ve been such a long time!”

  “We had to ask many people many questions.”

  “That explosion! How it echoed! But I didn’t hear any musket shots afterwards.”

  “Not a musket or pistol was fired,” Ned said. “We took the fort by complete surprise; even the garrison commander was still in his nightshirt.”

  “Did you find out anything from him?”

  “Not really; we found out more from the governor of the province,” Ned said airily.

  “The governor? But where…?”

  “He’s on a visit to Riohacha. Or he was; he’s on a visit to the Dolphyn or the Argonauta now, on his way to Jamaica.”

  “And our men? A boat passed nearby taking Gottlieb and Coles out to the Phoenix for Mrs Judd to nurse. What happened to them?”

  “Torture,” Ned said. “The garrison commander was asking them questions – using a bastinado.”

  “And the rest of their men?”

  “Locked in the dungeon without water and with very little food, but they’ll be all right. And we found a bishop, too.”

  “Ned – what do you mean, a bishop?”

  “He was travelling with the governor. The bishop of the province. He was staying with the town’s priest.”

>   “Where is he now?”

  “Being held on board Secco’s ship. He’s a little fat toad; I’ve seldom seen anyone so repulsive. Do I get some breakfast?”

  Aurelia sat opposite Ned at the table in the saloon as he ate his food. “Did you find out much from the governor?” she asked.

  Ned shrugged his shoulders. “Not much. He didn’t know anything really. He was just carrying out the Viceroy’s orders.”

  “What were they?”

  “That’s the part that wasn’t too clear. We spent some time trying to get him to tell us more.”

  “What were you trying to get him to tell you?”

  “Well,” Ned said, “it looks as though the Argonauta and Dolphyn were seized because the Spanish had some more ships arrive recently, and they’re afraid that buccaneer ships might see them and report back to Jamaica.”

  “Why should it matter?”

  “That’s the puzzle. The garrison commander was trying to find out for sure if it was true that the Army has been disbanded in Jamaica. The Viceroy already knows that old Loosely has withdrawn the buccaneers’ commissions. As far as I could make out from the governor, the Viceroy must know – or think, anyway – that Jamaica is defenceless, or soon will be: no army, no buccaneers. So if more ships have arrived from Spain, he might be planning to invade the island. Or he might be planning to send home a plate convoy…”

  “You couldn’t get the governor to talk about that?”

  “No, Secco did his best.”

  “What do you mean – you tortured him?”

  “Well, we tried to persuade him to help us.”

  “You tortured him!” Aurelia said accusingly.

  “What if we did? We didn’t kill him. And we are trying to find out something concerning the very safety of Jamaica.”

  “But if you tortured him, you’re no better than the garrison commander who tortured Coles and Gottlieb.”

  “They started it,” Ned said lamely. “They seized our ships and men. The garrison commander chained Coles and Gottlieb to the wall of the dungeon and went to work with the bastinado. Both were in a terrible state when we arrived. So the garrison commander and the governor can’t complain if we use a little persuasion as well.”