by Dudley Pope
“You can see how it got its Spanish name, Tortuga de mar,” Thomas said.
Aurelia laughed excitedly. “Yes, when we first saw the island it looked in the distance just like a turtle sleeping on the water. I half expected it to dive and swim away!”
The mainland of Haiti, forming the south side of the channel, was covered in thick jungle, a green mat right down to the coast where occasional strips of sand, dazzling now in the sunlight, showed the beaches between outcrops of rock.
Tortuga, oval-shaped and lying five miles away along the coast like a large marrow, stretched between West Point, which they had just passed to larboard, and East Point. The southwestern corner had a remarkable red cliff, like a scar, and Ned and Aurelia could see that the south side of the island justified the name given to the anchorage off Cayona, Rada de Tierra Baja, because the land was low but like a vast wedge it sloped up rocky and heavily forested to the north coast facing the Atlantic, which Thomas said was a mass of cliffs and rocks. There were only two main peaks. The island was like so many others in the Greater and Lesser Antilles: a layer of soil spread thinly on rocky hills and just supporting knee-high, dark-green bushes and occasional banks of trees.
Even from this distance Ned could see dozens of the small trees which the French called chandelle anglaise, the branches of which burned like a candle and because of their steady flame were used by the fisherman when trying their luck at night. Its dark-grey bark helped treat fevers, though not as well as cinchona. He could see plenty of aloes growing, too, the West Indies’ most popular herb. According to many, if the aloe leaf, used as a dressing or boiled or soaked to prepare an infusion, would not cure the ill, then the sick person was doomed. Another tree which grew freely here, twenty or thirty feet high with a dense but drooping crown, was lignum sanctum. Almost alone the blue-flowered tree could account for Tortuga’s popularity among the buccaneers; an extract from it was used by physicians and witch doctors alike for treating venereal diseases, as well as ordinary fevers – it was famous for bringing on the sweat.
“The buccaneers,” Thomas said, gesturing to many masts looking like rushes on the far side of a pond and now coming into sight. “Looks as though most of the ships are here.”
“And no doubt hurriedly getting ready for action,” Diana commented. “They won’t have recognized the Griffin, although–” she looked astern “–by now they might be able to see the Perdrix and the other three, which they know well enough.”
“There’s the fort,” Thomas said, pointing above the anchorage. “Built by a mad genius!”
It was perched high on a hill and surrounded by almost perpendicular rocks, as though a giant had put a completed fort down on top of a steep hill beyond the ability of even a wild boar to climb. The fort had only two guns, but they covered the anchorage, which was simply a dent in the coast almost completely closed off by a reef running alongside it, a low and wide brown wall of coral over which waves broke like waving sheets as the wind swept them westward through the channel.
“There’s a strong current,” Thomas explained. “One entrance through the reef is at this end” – he pointed over the Griffin’s bow as she thrashed northeastward – “but the deepest channel is at the other end. Anyway, you can’t get trapped here: if an enemy appears at one end of the anchorage, you simply bolt out the other!”
Four or five boats were already leaving some of the anchored vessels and pulling towards the reef. “The welcoming party,” Diana said. “Once they hear how much purchase Leclerc and his friends brought back from Santiago, they’ll settle down to a few days’ drinking: Leclerc bought up all the rumbullion he could in Jamaica!”
Ned nodded but said: “Before they start drinking we need them to vote for me leading them. I want to be making plans for our next expedition once we know how many men we have and while they are sleeping off their celebration…”
Thomas shrugged his shoulders, unwilling to commit himself to their sobriety. “Shall I help Lobb with the pilotage? I’ve been in here a couple of times, and with your draught you’ll have to use the eastern entrance and anchor as soon as maybe once you get inside.”
By now the Griffin was the leader of a long snake of ships: this last tack up to the entrance to Cayona had now been copied by the rest of the little flotilla as the entrances to the reef opened up. The Perdrix was now immediately astern of the Griffin; then came the Peleus, the Dutchman Gottlieb’s Dolphyn, Charles Coles’ Argonauta, Edward Brace’s Mercury and finally Saxby with the Phoenix.
Ned watched as Lobb gave orders to drop the big and baggy jib, using only the mainsail to get the Griffin through the eastern entrance, which was simply a gap in the line of the coral reef which grew up within a few inches of the surface like staghorns, flat-topped and brown under the water.
The buccaneers’ vessels anchored behind the reef were small: he was surprised to see that none was as big as Leclerc’s Perdrix, The Griffin was by far the largest vessel present, followed by the Peleus and then the Phoenix. He recognized three or four of the hulls as Spanish: like Coles’ Argonauta they must be prizes. Like Ned Yorke’s Phoenix, he reminded himself, which until recently was the Nuestra Señora del Carmen… There were two Dutchmen, apple-cheeked bows and beamy, probably shallow-draughted and built for the shoal waters of the Netherlands coast.
Then the Griffin was inside the reef, the water calm, although there was nothing to shelter Cayona or the anchored ships from the wind, and a sudden popping and booming startled Ned until he realized that the men in the boats were firing muskets and several of the ships were letting off cannon to greet the Perdrix as she came through the reef. Soon he heard the honking of men blowing horns made from conch shells.
“They waste a lot of powder and breath, but they mean well!” Thomas grinned, watching the Griffin’s seamen let go the anchor as the ship turned head to wind and lost her way. “It’s good to be back among these scoundrels!”
Diana wagged a warning finger. “Whetstone – watch the rumbillian and mobbie. Especially the mobbie!”
Aurelia turned to her. “How do they keep mobbie?”
“They don’t; it doesn’t get a chance of being kept, even if it could be, if you know what I mean! No, they boil their potatoes into a mash early in morning, strain through a bag with a little water and drink it before nightfall, so it doesn’t have time to ferment. It’s ruined by midnight.”
Ned sat on the barrel of the Perdrix’s windlass and looked at the men round him. All the captains of buccaneer ships, including Saxby, were sitting or standing on the French vessel’s fo’c’sle, while Thomas perched beside him. Even without Thomas it would be hard to find twenty-six more contrasting men. Each was tanned; few looked as though they had seen, let alone been attended by, a barber for several years. Even the two English captains he already knew could not be more unalike: Brace of the Mercury was thin and angular, his red beard and red hair carefully combed; Cole of the Argonauta was stocky with blond hair, cheerful blue eyes and a hearty manner. He looked around him with the air of a man trying to find an excuse for a celebration. The single Spanish captain, Secco, although black-haired and with a sallow, almost swarthy skin, was as neat as Brace: his beard was trimmed to a point, his hair held back by a band of red cloth.
Several of the Frenchmen had the small, slightly flat faces with hard black eyes that Ned regarded as typical of the nation. Brace could only be an Englishman, Gottlieb a Dutchman with his fair hair, moon face and widely spaced eyes, Secco – well, Spanish, Portuguese or Italian. Leclerc could only be a Frenchman. Thomas – yes, typical of a kind of Englishman.
Their dress was bizarre. If twenty-six men had undressed and thrown their clothes into a basket, mixed everything up and then donned what first came to hand, Ned decided the result would look something like this group of buccaneers. Secco wore black breeches and no stockings, but instead of a jerkin he wore a tattered blouse of w
hite cotton which had an ominous stain on the left shoulder, like a rust mark. The blood of the original Spanish owner which had marked the material and defied laundering? Brace could pass for a country parson with stern principles, Coles would be the host at an expensive tavern. Leclerc? A well-educated glutton fallen on hard times and now tutor to a rich man’s son? And Thomas? Well, in mustard-coloured breeches, purple jerkin, and a wide-brimmed hat with a large red plume round its crown, he looked very much what he was.
Diana and Aurelia stood over on the larboard side, deliberately keeping apart from all the men to emphasize that they were merely onlookers. This resulted from a warning by Leclerc: many of the captains, he said would not at this stage regard women as worthy of joining any conversation, let alone taking any part in planning.
Leclerc had grinned when he said: “It would be better to let the captains remain like Mr Yorke and Sir Thomas – under the impression that where the ladies were concerned they make the decisions!”
Leclerc had surprised both Ned and Thomas with the news that none of the Tortuga captains knew of the Portobelo proposal: the information about the bullion was known only to the four privateers on the Santiago raid, because they had picked up the man escaping from the Main. Ned had at once asked Leclerc to keep the business secret for the time being and the Frenchman agreed, saying that there was no need even to ask Gottlieb, Coles or Brace to keep silent.
The first hour on board the Perdrix had been a time for meeting each of the other captains. There was none of the drawing-room and very little of the tavern about it. They had heard from Leclerc and the others about the Santiago purchase and were obviously anxious to size up this man Yorke, who came as a stranger. He had two recommendations – one was from Leclerc and the other three, who had seen him in action, planning and leading the Santiago raid, and the second was his being a friend of Sir Thomas.
Not more than eight or nine of them actually knew Sir Thomas, but what they had heard was good: he was a bonny fighter. The only thing that puzzled some of them was that up to now Sir Thomas had always preferred to sail alone, except for his woman, who, Leclerc had been quick to report, was such a one as to dream about. Sir Thomas could have joined the Brethren a long time ago, but he went his own way with the Pearl, now renamed the Peleus. Leclerc was also the source for information about Mr Yorke’s woman, whose reputation for beauty, bravery and intelligence lost nothing from the fact that she too was French and a Protestant like Leclerc.
Ned had kept a careful count as he met the captains. There were twenty-five buccaneer ships altogether, so that the Griffin, Phoenix and Peleus made a total of twenty-eight. Nine of the captains were French, eight British, five Dutch, two Portuguese and one, unlikely as it seemed, but obviously completely trusted by the others, was Spanish, the bearded Secco, who spoke good English of the kind that came from an education, not just usage.
With no awning rigged, the Perdrix’s deck was hot, and from the smell of rotting food it was clear that the seas in the Windward Passage had not been rough enough on the way up from Jamaica to give the decks a good wash down.
The six other English captains (Ned was irritated to find he was adopting the habit of using “English” when the person might be Scots, Welsh or Irish) had gathered round Coles and Brace, but obviously their questions were quickly answered because they soon mingled with Thomas and Ned. Similarly the four other Dutchmen questioned Gottlieb, leaving only the two Portuguese and the Spaniard with no countrymen of their own to reassure them.
Both Portuguese spoke English and soon cornered Ned with the Spaniard, who commented on Ned drinking wine instead of rumbullion.
“The influence of the French lady, eh?” he said, gesturing at Aurelia.
“It’s Spanish wine,” Ned said “from Santiago!”
“Ah,” Secco said wistfully, “I should have been there.”
“Just for the wine,” one of the Portuguese said. “For the wine alone it would have been good. Rumbullion sits heavily, drunk month after month. Well, Mr Yorke, you enjoyed Santiago?”
Ned shrugged his shoulders and said casually: “There was no real fighting. We made a good choice for purchase, but we sharpened our cutlasses for nothing.”
The second Portuguese sniffed. “I go on a raid for the purchase, not the glory, Mr Yorke,” he said heavily. “I don’t like my men being killed or wounded.”
Ned nodded and smiled. The Portuguese, in reacting as he expected, enabled him to make a point without being suspected of cowardice. “I agree with you; better a bag of doubloons than a sack of glory, but the Spanish aren’t frightened enough yet.”
“Frightened?” echoed the Portuguese.
“Yes – but I’ll explain that when I talk to you all.”
“Very well,” said the Portuguese. “But tell me, Mr Yorke, how do you go on a raid with the women? I hear all three of your English ships carried women to Santiago.”
The man was curious, not critical; and the other two nodded, to establish a friendly interest. Ned decided in a moment that genuine interest deserved a genuine answer, and there might come a time when all the women might be in some danger and benefit from the buccaneer captains knowing they were not just kept whores.
“Do you know how I became a buccaneer?” he asked the men, and noticed two Frenchmen joining the group.
Secco shook his head on behalf of the rest. “Tell us, please,” he asked courteously.
“I was a planter in Barbados, a Royalist. The lady over there”– he nodded – towards Aurelia “–was the wife of a neighbour. A bad and cruel man. He’s since been killed – not by me,” he added hastily, but then realized that these men would have regarded “bad and cruel” as being reason enough.
“Well, the Roundheads drove me out: I escaped with my ship, the lady and all my plantation workers that wanted to come. They included Saxby, who now commands the Phoenix.
“At the time we left, the lady’s husband was still alive; in fact he took over my estate. And while we sailed away, trying to make up our minds what to do, we met Sir Thomas Whetstone.”
“And that decided you,” the Spaniard said with a grin.
“It certainly helped. But the lady really persuaded me. Anyway, it led to Santiago, and when we returned to Jamaica she and I heard that her husband had been killed, which meant we could get married.”
“So she is your wife, then.” Secco said.
“No, not yet.”
“You are a cautious man, eh?”
“No,” Ned said, “our wedding was delayed.”
“That is bad. With such a lovely woman it is not good to delay.”
Ned touched the Spaniard’s shoulder reassuringly. “You gentleman have caused the delay: in Jamaica, Leclerc wanted us to leave for Tortuga at once, so…”
“Ah, we’ll have to build you a special church! But what about Sir Thomas? He is not married, surely?”
“He has a wife in England – an unpleasant woman, I believe, so he cannot marry the present lady. They are very much in love, as you can see. They have been together for a long time: they left England in the Peleus.”
“That used to be the Pearl,” Secco said as if pedantically wanting the record to be correct while also establishing that he had known Sir Thomas for a long time.
“Yes, she was the Pearl. Anyway, they are happy just being together.”
“Yes, a priest can’t make a couple happy,” the Spaniard said gravely, “he can only make it legal. But tell us about the woman of the Phoenix: we hear she is an enormous woman of enormous appetites.”
Ned smiled at this description of Mrs Judd. “She worked for me in Barbados. Her friend was the foreman of the plantation – that man over there.” He nodded towards Saxby. “The foreman acted as the master of my ship, the Griffin, when we needed to use her, so the pair of them came – with most of my other people
– when we left. Then we captured a Spanish prize and Saxby took command of her. I now command the Griffin.”
“Why did you not command the Griffin at the beginning?” the Spaniard asked shrewdly.
Ned thought for a moment, then decided to be frank. “When we left Barbados, I knew very little about seamanship. I have learned quickly because I had good teachers.”
“Enough to lead the Brethren?”
Again Ned hesitated. “Are you sure you need a seaman to lead you?” he asked, speaking clearly so that the three men, and the others who were now gathering around, should hear him distinctly.
“Why, of course!” the Spaniard said. “We are all seamen; we use our ships for our raids!”
Ned knew that a wrong emphasis now or a misunderstood phrase could make just one of these men angry, and then the whole point of his visit to Tortuga would be lost.
“I’ve been thinking about all that,” Ned said, working a judicial tone into his voice. “Certainly one needs fine seamanship to sail back and forth in these seas; to navigate from here to the Main and find exactly the town you intend to attack. But what happens when you arrive at the town and anchor?”
“What happens? Well,” said Secco, “we get into our boats and land and capture it!”
“Supposing it has forts, and needs a few days’ siege?”
The Spaniard held his hands out, palms uppermost. “So we besiege it!”
“What about capturing Spanish ships, then?”
“We don’t, señor, because there haven’t been any Spanish ships in these waters worth attacking. There’s no point in trying to seize a guardacosta because he has no purchase on board, and the plate fleets are too strongly defended for our little ships. And anyway there has been no plate fleet for two years.”
Ned turned so that he faced the majority of men. The meeting that was to have taken place on the fo’c’sle and ended with them voting was taking place now, and he saw no reason to postpone it.