by Dudley Pope
“Timing,” Ned said yet again. “We’ve so few watches I want to avoid having to time anything. But we’ve got to give the boats a time.”
Thomas waved his hand airily. “If a dozen boats can’t row a couple of miles round to Portobelo carrying only a few roundshot and barrels of powder and time their arrival within half an hour, I’d flog every third man!”
Ned thought again. “Come to think of it, the timing of the boats is not so important. The vital part of this plan is having a file of men marching in those Spanish helmets!”
Chapter Fourteen
Hauling the guns over the mountains was a nightmare the men thought would never end. Ned and Secco had estimated it would take at most five hours, so to ensure arriving at Portobelo at dawn, the buccaneers left the Rio Guanche just before midnight. Four men were left behind with each of the dozen boats which were later to go on to Portobelo; the rest hauled guns, carried powder, staggered under panniers of shot, or looked after gear ranging from halberds to pistols. The rest of the boats, now empty, would have to take their chance; oars and paddles were hidden some distance away.
Ropes secured to the loops, the eyebolts on the outer ends of the axles of the guns, made them easier to haul and the first part of the journey, up the rough path Secco had marked to the track, was not difficult. Half a dozen men were out ahead, slashing at bushes with machetes and rolling rocks out of the way. The buccaneers heaved at each gun and, at a warning shout from a gun captain, two men would jam rocks under the wheels to stop the gun running backwards, allowing those at the ropes and limbers to rest.
During the first half an hour Ned thought sourly that the mosquitoes would suck them dry of blood before they reached the track: face, neck, wrists were viciously attacked by the whining insects, which were invisible in the darkness and quite impervious to slaps and the perspiration streaming off every man’s body. But as they hauled the guns higher, the attacks eased. “We must be getting above the mosquito line,” Thomas grunted. “Makes all the heaving worth while.”
Finally they reached the track, and the men sighed with relief as the wheels of the gun carriages began to turn more easily over a comparatively smooth surface which for nearly two centuries had been worn by the hooves of the donkeys and mules walking back and forth. The men who had been cutting down the bushes and rolling aside rocks tailed on to the ropes and Ned found his party moving steadily up the track at a good pace yet slowly enough for Ned and Thomas to walk back and forth along the column, encouraging the men, checking that no axles were running hot, and ensuring that those carrying the canvas panniers of roundshot were not surreptitiously lightening their loads.
Although the moon had not yet risen, the stars were bright and the sky clear; for once the mountains were not capped with cloud spreading to leeward as though each peak trailed a white cloak.
Secco came up to Ned to report: “We are within a hundred feet of our highest point on the track. From then on it’s all downhill to Portobelo.”
“We’ll stop there for a quarter of an hour,” Ned said. “I want to make sure the men on the ropes know they have to pull back just as hard to stop the guns running away downhill! Issue boucan and a mug of water to each man.”
As he walked along the track with Thomas he looked down at Portobelo. The harbour below was a rectangular dish filled with black water, the castles and forts crouched like toads, and he was startled to see how big was San Gerónimo. The town – as Secco had said – was little more than a large village. Everyone was sleeping – except the guards.
Dawn? Ned looked over to the eastward. There was no sign of it yet, showing they were well ahead of the schedule. The selected boats from the Rio Guanche would soon be rounding the western headland of Portobelo.
If his plan failed, the buccaneer ships led by Aurelia in the Griffin, and the buccaneer boats, would be sailing into a dreadful trap that would destroy them. Instead of capturing Portobelo – or the most important part of it – he would have warned the Spaniards of an imminent attack: an attack they never expected in half a century or more. From the day that El Draco died, the Dons had regarded Portobelo as impregnable. Come to think of it, Drake had died within sight of Portobelo: his leaden coffin had been buried only a few miles to seaward. That was in 1596, more than half a century ago, yet Spanish mothers still used El Draco to frighten their children. But across the Isthmus, in Panama, the Viceroy had obviously grown complacent: El Draco was long dead, and Portobelo with all its forts and castles was impregnable. Except, Ned reflected, that now the new admiral of the Brethren of the Coast had decided it was not, and had committed every life for which he was responsible to a crazy plan that rested not on cannons but on shiny breast plates and distinctive helmets.
As the Griffin’s mainsail slatted for a few minutes and then finally filled with the puffs of an offshore breeze that had just enough strength to make dancing shadows on the sea, Aurelia glanced astern, looking from one ship to another. All had their sails hoisted; most had weighed their anchors. The three – no, four – still at anchor had taken in most of their cable (Ned called it being “at short stay”, she seemed to remember) but obviously were getting under way in succession to avoid colliding in the light wind which was across the current, so that a ship could be carried some distance before her sails were drawing and she answered her helm.
The Peleus was clear and following in the Griffin’s wake, so Diana and her men had met no problems; the Phoenix was there too. Aurelia wondered who was commanding temporarily in Saxby’s place. Probably Mrs Judd! That vast woman had a cheerfulness, quickness of wit, and strength of mind that could conjure a wind from a flat calm, apart from an appetite for men that kept Saxby in an almost perpetual daze.
Ned would be at Portobelo by now. She felt a cold fear, having at last lost the struggle to avoid thinking about him. Four forts. The mayor was a man called Jose Arias Ximenez, and from what the Spaniards at Old Providence had said, he was evil: cruel and corrupt, he was a man almost ruined now because the absence of the plate fleet had cut the bribes and commissions he could extort from ship masters and traders from Panama.
Ned had fewer than a thousand men. Many fewer – there were five sailors in each of these ships, so at least 140 men were not with their admiral at Portobelo. So Ned had fewer than a thousand against four forts and castles with their garrisons, and a mountain range… He had a few of those little cannon on wheels, armour, muskets, pistols, and pikes captured at Old Providence… But those cannon fired a ball weighing only two or three pounds, although they were noisy and made much smoke. Such a gun would not knock down the front door of a house, let alone the walls of a castle. Still, Ned had a plan for them, although as far as she could see it must depend on magic.
The Peleus picked up a puff of wind which missed the rest of the ships and she surged ahead, closing with the Griffin. She saw Diana walk to the side and wave, obviously enjoying herself and perhaps remembering how they had led the way into Santiago… She had to admit that the twenty-eight ships looked impressive. They were all different sizes, different shapes – built in different countries, a fact which was reflected in their sheers, bows and sterns. Some were beamy, with a bow as round as a pendulous breast; others were lean, with sharp bows. Several had been built as coasting carriers of cargo, three or four had the fast lines of small vessels intended for smuggling or privateering. “The Motleys” was Ned’s nickname for all of them, and she was thankful that the last one was now getting her anchor on board and steering clear of the land.
The sky to the east was getting lighter, although the wavelets were still that ominous grey, almost frightening, that was part of the dawn, but looking over the starboard bow towards the mountains, she could see that the peaks were clear of cloud. Ned had worried in case low cloud over the mountains round Portobelo would mean trying to find the track in thick mist. She remembered her terror as a young girl when her father’s carriage, dri
ving into the Pyrenees on an expedition from St Jean-de-Luz, had been trapped in low clouds that surrounded them. Neither coachman nor horses could see the road and they all sat for hours, cold and damp, shivering as the water dripped from the ceiling of the carriage and ran down the leather sides. It seemed a miracle at the time that they could breathe – she had been young and frightened enough to confuse cloud with smoke.
By the time all the ships were under way, she could detect to the east a light pink, a delicate oyster tint that was yet only a faint wash low in the sky. This was what Ned wanted: settled weather and a smooth sea. Now she prayed that the wind would not die. A calm was the only thing that would stop them getting to Portobelo.
Oh Ned, she murmured to herself… Had he found the track? Were they all going down it to Portobelo? Were they already there and attacking the Castillo de San Gerónimo? She clasped her breasts, which were almost bursting with longing for him.
Søren Jensen came from a small village called Gilleleje, a few miles westward round the coast from Helsingør. A Dane whose first childhood memory was of being hoisted on board his father’s fishing boat in a fish bucket lined with a smelly old sack, he had long ago given up explaining to foreigners that Denmark comprised (except for the Jutland peninsula) a group of islands, and that his home village, pronounced ‘Gilly-lie’ was close to the port which the English insisted on calling ‘Elsinore’, although nothing seemed easier to pronounce than ‘Helsingør’.
Apparently the English had even written a play concerning the big castle, a story about a Danish prince. They had that name wrong too; it certainly was not Danish. Englishmen called him Amlet, though he had heard Captain Leclerc referring to Omelette. Captain Coles, the Englishman who owned the ship in which Jensen had been serving as mate for the past two years, said he had heard of the play but thought it all happened in Verona, which was near Venice, and concerned two Italian gentlemen, not one Danish prince.
The flat, green countryside which made up the island on which stood Gilleleje and Helsingør (and, further round the coast to the south, København, which these strange English insisted on calling ‘Copenhagen’) seemed a lifetime away as Jensen walked from boat to boat along the south bank of the Rio Guanche, checking in the darkness that the men at the oars were ready.
Mr Yorke had suddenly said to him: “Jensen, you will be in charge of twelve boats carrying arms or food, and you will take them round to Portobelo tomorrow morning.” Just like that. In the dust he had sketched Portobelo, showing him where the forts and castles were, and the cays and reefs. “Meet us on the jetty in front of the Castillo de San Gerónimo about an hour after dawn,” he had said, as though Portobelo was deserted and all the buccaneers had to do was climb over the mountains and walk down the track to it.
He liked both Mr Yorke and Sir Thomas, but these English were eccentric: they never seemed to take anything seriously. “Meet us on the jetty” indeed! Still, to be fair, there was nothing eccentric about the way Mr Yorke blew up that castle at Santiago, nor how he captured Old Providence without losing a man’s life.
Jensen paused for a moment as he made his way back to his own boat and wondered if they really were eccentric. If Mr Yorke had been Dutch, or a Scandinavian, or a Prussian, he would have given detailed orders with definite times and distances… All quite unnecessary instructions, Jensen suddenly realized, if you had a man you could trust: a man to whom you could say “meet me at the jetty an hour after dawn” and leave the details to him, so that if anything unexpected happened, the man could deal with it without being tied down.
Jensen looked up at the sky to the eastward. Still black. The ships would soon be leaving the Bahia las Minas. Suddenly it did not seem so eccentric that Mr Yorke had left his lady in command of the Griffin and Lady Diana had the Peleus.
The admiral, he now understood, was not risking ships and men by favouring mistresses: he knew they could do it, and that freed experienced buccaneers, masters and mates of ships, fighting men, for the attack on Portobelo. And, Jensen suddenly realized with pride, that was why Mr Yorke had picked him to bring the boats round: the admiral knew that few if any of the buccaneers had his experience with open boats.
He scrambled down in to the stern of his own boat, reached for the tiller in the darkness and gave orders to the oarsmen. Once the boat was clear of the river bank he turned and called into the darkness astern, “Kingsnorth”. He knew his voice would just reach the next boat, and once it was clear of the bank and rowing after the leader, the man at the helm would call to the third boat, and all the way to the last one.
“Kingsnorth” – that was a strange password Mr Yorke had chosen and he was not sure what the whole word meant. “King’s” he understood because it was very similar to the Danish word, and “north”, but not the two run together… Perhaps it meant several kings from the north. Anyway, the English were very proud of their new king now this man Cromsen was dead.
The boat was beginning to butt into small waves and he could see the river bank on the starboard side beginning to trend away. He eased over the tiller a few inches and looked astern, where he could just see the stem of the next boat as it cut a tiny bow wave. A man would need to have sharp ears to hear the boats tonight. Supple leather and cloth were wrapped round the oars where they pressed against the rowlocks.
Jensen prided himself on not being what he called a “dreamer”, a word he had taken from the English. No, he was a practical seaman who preferred to name his destination after his ship had arrived. But now, as the boat moved eastward in the darkness, seeming with its muffled oars to be gliding through the water like a great fish, he allowed his imagination to wander.
At the moment the boat carried some baskets of roundshot for the falcons, two or three baskets of ball for the muskets and pistols, a barrel of powder carefully protected from spray by an old piece of canvas, a cask of water and several satchels of boucan. All were to be landed on the jetty of the Castillo de San Gerónimo. What would the boat then load to carry out to the Argonauta when she had arrived from Bahia las Minas and anchored in Portobelo? Ingots of silver stamped with the arms of the king of Spain and canvas bags of coin and gems, pieces of eight, emeralds, doubloons…all the things that they dreamed about? The purchase that could then be changed so easily into rumbullion, tobacco and wine, and women who never tired while there were coins to clink one against the other. Or would the boat be carrying out wounded buccaneers to the nearest ship that could treat them?
In the darkness, death seemed very close and he tried to drive it away by thinking of women. He was glad that they had left Tortuga – which was simply that damned French fort, an anchorage and a rumbullion shop – and were going to make their base at Port Royal. Tortuga was a fine little island if you wanted to shoot pigeon (he had never seen so many before), if you enjoyed looking at the bois de chandelle and liked to use it as a torch at night to catch fish, or wanted to shoot wild boar, but for Jensen being in an anchorage meant drinking and wenching, and the devil take where you woke up in the morning.
Port Royal had the women, and many more were expected. And the liquor, too. Port Royal had promise; give it six months to get used to the new king, and it should be able to cater for every pleasure and vice devised by pliant women and imaginative buccaneers with their pockets full of gold. Even during their recent brief stay he had heard stories that some of the richest folk in Jamaica were the whores, who demanded payment in advance and locked the money away before starting business.
There was the headland half a mile ahead. Cocal Point was a black shape in the darkness and visible only because it outlined itself against the stars. He knew where to look for the three islets about three cables off the end of the point. Six hundred yards…yes, there they were, the largest one being the furthest out and called San Buenaventura.
So that was the southern side of the entrance to Portobelo! He felt a mild excitement as he slowly put the ti
ller over to pass a hundred yards to seaward of Buenaventura. Mr Yorke had impressed on him that there were many coral reefs between and round the three islets, and Jensen glanced astern to make sure the next boat was following him. He was startled to see it only four or five yards away – a tribute to the muffling of the oars.
Although they were meeting only wavelets, there was an occasional underlying swell, and he could hear the hollow boom as it buried itself among the rocks round Buenaventura – a useful sound because he would be able to locate the islet long after it had passed out of sight.
He steered to starboard in a slow curve which should bring him round Cocal Point and into the anchorage of Portobelo, giving them about a mile to row down to the castle of San Gerónimo, keeping close in to the southern shore but not running on to the straggling reefs of staghorn coral extending half a mile into the harbour. Harbour? It was a big anchorage really, with a village down at the end: Jensen, remembering the orderly villages at home, thought that calling the whole place by a single name gave the wrong idea of what it was like. The English did not make that mistake: in Jamaica, Port Royal was only a tiny town built on a spit which almost closed off the great bay. No one made the mistake of confusing it with the anchorage.
Suddenly Jensen realized that dawn was turning the blackness of night into grey and he was actually looking eastward into Portobelo through the wide entrance. As he instinctively moved the tiller he hurriedly tried to identify everything. Yes, there was the headland forming the other side of the entrance – Portobelo Point, and just inside a blacker smudge which must be the first castle, San Felipe de Todo Fierro, and which everyone called the Iron Fort.
Ah, this course should take them all safely down the south side, as far as the village of Portobelo, when they would turn to larboard to pass Triana, which they said was a little fort, before reaching the jetty of San Gerónimo.