‘No. He was taken by some men from the Navarro, but not the Captain. Once he’d got inside the bay the pirates scattered, using the bayous too narrow for the galleys to follow. De Barrameda ordered his men to pursue them in boats, taking one himself. He didn’t come back aboard till the next day. When he returned he ordered that Charpentier be suspended in a cage on the deck.’
‘Tell me, Monsieur Saraille, how do the local French population feel about this man’s execution?’
‘Angry, Captain Ludlow. Very angry. Had it happened right after his capture, then perhaps it would have been seen as a just reward, but not now, nearly two months later. Charpentier might be a rogue. He is most certainly a thief. But he has never used violence, indeed he has the reputation of always being polite to his victims. Myth, of course, partly of his own creation, which is that of a gentleman who only robs rich Spaniards. But that is what is going to see him garrotted. It is to lay that myth that he is to die, not for his crimes.’
The soft tap at the door made Saraille jump and his face went grey as it creaked open.
‘All set, Capt’n,’ said Pender, as he slipped through the narrow gap. ‘The chests are on the cart.’
‘Good,’ Harry replied. He turned back to Saraille as Pender took station behind him. ‘It seems to me, Monsieur, that if the people are angry they should let de Carondelet know.’
The editor’s jowls shook as he responded in the negative. ‘He has extra troops on the streets, Monsieur. And his watchmen. He’s expecting trouble.’
‘I am no more keen to disappoint him than your Creole settlers. What if I were to take care of some of those troops, so that the good citizens of New Orleans could express themselves?’
Saraille knew from experience just how expressing themselves would be manifested. ‘A mob has its own logic, Captain Ludlow. It is not always easy to manufacture a riot.’
‘Come along, sir. If anyone knows the people who can whip up the populace, you do.’
‘They would need an excuse. Charpentier, much though he is seen as one of us, might not be enough.’
‘What if you were to tell them the story I told you? How would they feel if they knew that in the Spanish administration there was a murderer and a thief who might never be brought to justice, while one of their number faced death just as an example?’
‘I could only print that story if I was absolutely sure of his name.’
‘Print the rest, Saraille, leave just the name out. Show it to those who can whip up a mob.’
‘The name, Monsieur.’
Knowing he was lying made Harry uncomfortable, but not enough to stop him. ‘Tell them you will have it by morning, before Charpentier is due to be garrotted.’
‘That might not be enough to convince them that anything I say is true.’
Harry turned to Pender and spoke quietly. His servant reached inside the bag he was carrying over his shoulder and handed him one of the ingots which he’d received from Lampin. Harry laid it on the desk. The candlelight glinted on the twin crests of Spain and New Orleans.
‘Then show them this, Monsieur, and bid them use it, with what wisdom they can muster, for your cause.’
Outside, once they’d joined James, Pender couldn’t resist asking the obvious question.
‘I wish you joy, your honour,’ he said, ‘but how in hell’s name are you going to name the man who’s done murder?’
The voice that replied held all the despair that Harry felt.
‘I can’t. I knew long before I ever talked to Saraille that the task is impossible. I don’t have time unless I’m prepared to sacrifice everyone aboard Bucephalas.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
DARKNESS fell quickly at this latitude. By the time the light had completely faded twenty of Harry’s men, moving in ones and twos, were off the Bucephalas. Some carried turpentine-filled bottles, slow-match, and flints, others coiled lengths of hemp, wrapped round their bodies and covered with their shirts. Pender had unlocked the armoury and the real weapons had been replaced by the wooden replicas they’d been working on for weeks. Nothing larger than a knife or a marlinspike could be taken ashore, but cutlasses and muskets for the whole crew were concealed all over the ship. Pender was there, standing by the two chests full of gunpowder he fetched from the Ursulines. He ordered them to leave the items they’d sneaked off the ship beside the chests which he’d hidden at the back of Santiago Coquet’s dancehall. The warehouse was already full of mixed groups, black, white, and coloured, drinking and dancing to the tuneful sound of three well-played, sharply strung fiddles.
Finding the rendezvous in a city so evenly quartered was simple, and on the crowded Calle Real their presence, standing in a group, raised no comment. Not so the Creole speaker that Saraille had found. A natural demagogue in the Danton mould, he stood at the street corner haranguing the crowd. Ignored initially, he soon attracted the less reputable members of the local fraternity. Mostly inebriated without being too drunk to stand, they were loud, argumentative, and gratifyingly inclined to sing.
‘I think they’ll do,’ said Harry. ‘The trick now is to get them to the square in front of the Governor’s house without de Carondelet’s watchmen interfering.’
James, sent up the Calle Real to keep watch, came running through the gathering crowd. ‘Ten soldiers and a sergeant,’ he called. ‘With two of the watchmen in the lead.’
‘Walloon Guards?’
‘No. Cubans, I think.’
Harry turned to his men. ‘Four of you to stay here with my brother. James, if any soldiers come from the waterfront try and hold them up. If they’re too numerous at least start a fight amongst yourselves.’ He counted off a dozen sailors. ‘You come with me, the rest join Pender.’
As they made their way along the street it was nearly empty: those inclined to enjoy trouble had gravitated towards the loud speakers along the Calle Real. The other citizens, with a sure nose for an impending riot, had cleared the street.
‘Two groups,’ said Harry. ‘Take one side of the road each.’
The soldiers, with the watchmen a few paces ahead, were marching with fixed bayonets towards a potential trouble spot, occupying the centre of the Calle. At a command from Harry his men stopped, adopting poses of half-interested curiosity as they came abreast. The sudden attack when he whistled, delivered from two sides by men who knew their business, took the armed party completely by surprise. They were given no time to swing their muskets before the crew was in amongst them, clubbing with marlinspikes at heads that carried no more protection than a tricorne hat. The Cubans had faced crowds before, but never any as determined as this, and all the frustration of men who’d been cooped up for weeks was evident in the fury of the attack. The soldiers went down before them, dropping their weapons in an attempt to avoid the raining blows. Harry’s men had been told that inflicting real wounds was not required. Their Captain wanted them to run, to spread the word that whatever had happened in New Orleans in the past, this was different. The watchmen led the way, with the now disarmed Cubans at their heels.
‘Pick up the weapons and any pieces of uniform and put on your cockades!’ Harry yelled as the Cubans scattered. That was mostly hats, but one, in his panic, had torn off his coat. Harry formed the men up into a column of two, as groups of curious onlookers seemed to emerge from the surrounding woodwork. Then, having attached a Revolutionary cockade to a Spanish hat, he skewered it on the tip of a bayonet, raised it high, and retraced his steps up the road.
‘Charpentier, Charpentier! Allez en enfer, Cochon du lait!’
Harry turned and repeated the shout, waving his arms to encourage his men to do likewise. What emerged was certainly not a clear invitation for the Governor to go to hell, but it was loud, confused, and sounded French enough to make those gathered before the Creole agitator part to let them through to the centre. A loud murmur and much pointing greeted the tricolour cockades, a reminder to the French of the storming of the Bastille. As his men handed out more cockad
es to the crowd, Harry presented the speaker, who had stood on a barrel, with the musket and hat. ‘Vive la France!’ he shouted, before slipping backwards into the mass of bodies. The noise had risen around him, so that he had to yell to be heard. But that he did, jabbing at the sky with the bayoneted musket, and exhorting his listeners to action.
‘I hope you’re aware of what you’re about, Harry!’ shouted James in his ear. He’d emerged from the back of the crowd, followed in dribs and drabs by the men he’d led. ‘This is bound to end in bloodshed.’
James recoiled when Harry turned to face him. He’d seen the glint of battle in his brother’s eye before, though nothing like the mad look that was present now. But the voice, for all that it was harsh and indifferent, wasn’t loud.
‘Time to get them moving, I think. Get the men up ahead with those muskets and send to tell Pender to act as a rearguard.’
He plunged back into the mêlée, shouting in French. James heard the word Bastille, first from one throat and then from a dozen, as the crowd were whipped up into a frenzy of quasi-Revolutionary fervour. The speaker, who seized the cockaded hat, was now calling for the head of King Carlos. He jumped off his barrel and pushed his way through the crowd. A tricolour flag appeared from nowhere and was raised on a pole. News had spread through the town and groups of men were running towards them, torches aloft, eager to join in the mayhem, perhaps from conviction, more likely for sheer mischief. James had to jostle hard to get to the front. There he saw Harry, well ahead, with his armed men fanned out like the advanced guard of an invading army. Before him the street was empty, but in the distance bugles blew to sound the alarm. Suddenly Harry stopped and fell to one knee. A small party of white-coated soldiers was advancing up the street at a run. His voice carried just enough to be heard.
‘Fire when I give the command. Aim either at their feet or above their heads.’
‘We can bring ’em down, Capt’n,’ shouted one of the crew.
‘No! If we kill anyone they’ll only turn their guns on the civilians. Let’s see if we can drive them off without bloodshed.’
There was a pause, before the word Fire! was drowned out by the simultaneous discharge of half a dozen muskets, which in the confined space between the houses made enough noise for fifty. The crowd stopped momentarily, nonplussed at this development. But when they gazed down the Calle Real, through the drifting smoke from the guns, they could see the white coats of the hated Walloon Guards as they retreated back towards the Governor’s house in some disorder. Harry’s hope, that gunfire in the streets, where prior to this they’d only faced sticks and stones, would unnerve even the best troops, had paid off. Nothing could have raised the spirits of the mob more, and with a yell they started to run after them, yelling and screaming insults, laughing and whooping like madmen. Harry, knowing his work was done, led his men up a side-street, letting the rioters rush by. James had to draw back into a doorway to avoid being mown down. Through the dust kicked up by hundreds of feet he saw Pender and his men bringing up the rear at a steady, disciplined pace. Once they came abreast James fell in with them, Harry doing likewise as they reached the side-street he’d used to get out of the crowd’s path.
Harry stayed well to the rear as they approached the square before de Carondelet’s residence. The platform on which Charpentier was to be garrotted stood right in the centre, before the windows of the Governor’s quarters. The gas-lights over the doorway illuminated the white coats of the Walloon Guards. There was no disorder now. More numerous, they were standing, bayonets at the ready, to bar the passage of these malcontents. De Chigny stood before them, sword at the ready. The crowd pressed forward only far enough to hurl insults. Harry grabbed a torch and pushed his way to a point near the front. Tossed high, it arced over the heads of those before him and landed right on the execution platform. That brought forth a roar from several hundred throats and a whole stream of torches followed suit. The wooden structure, as dry as tinder, was soon fully ablaze, the flickering flames adding an infernal light to the faces of the mob.
More and more people were arriving in the confined space before de Carondelet’s temporary residence. But of greater import to the men of the Bucephalas was the way that troops from the outlying forts, north and south, were being fetched in to beef up the defences. That didn’t mean their original posts had been deserted, but they had lost part of their strength, and what was left would be concentrating on a threat from the town rather than the river. Against that, everyone on duty would be alert, and the one group that would still be at their posts, or close to them, would be the artillerymen in those stone bastions.
Santiago Coquet’s dancehall was too far away from the riot to be affected, the noise of music and merriment drowning out anything from outside. They’d know, of course, since that kind of news travelled faster than fire, but few, if any, had left. The old royal warehouse backed right on to the levee, and was thus a perfect spot for Pender and his party to make their preparations. James was sent to the rim of the embankment to make sure that the guard on the jetty below hadn’t been increased, while the rest spliced the short pieces of rope together to make decent lengths. Others were drilling holes with their knives and slipping slow-match into the two chests full of powder. All the time Harry was talking to Pender, issuing quiet instructions.
‘For God’s sake, Pender, don’t let anything happen to you. I’ve lost enough in New Orleans.’
‘More than any man should,’ his servant replied.
‘As soon as we get under way we’ll lower the cutter.’
Pender’s reply was quite brusque. ‘You’ve said that twice already, Capt’n. If you don’t get goin’ them soldiers will chase off the Frenchies then start looking for someone else to get at. An’ since I’m the party ashore I don’t fancy that one little bit.’
‘Just take care,’ Harry replied softly. Then he turned, signalled to the four men he was taking back to the ship, and climbed up to join his brother on the rim of the levee. The first thing he felt was the easterly breeze on his face, which cooled the sweat caused by his exertions; it wasn’t strong by any means, but it might be enough to extract Bucephalas from the anchorage. His eyes were automatically drawn to the Navarro and her two consorts, tied up opposite the open space of the parade ground. Presumably the alarms in the city meant that they too would be more alert than usual. If he could get close to them before they could get under way, that wouldn’t aid them much. Stationary like that, he’d blow them out of the water. With luck he’d damage the lead ship before he even got close. What a pity that San Lucar de Barrameda would probably be ashore.
‘The guards are fewer, but wide awake,’ said James, pointing down to the jetty. Harry could see that only two of the original four were still in place. They were standing by the bollard, one facing up, the other down, muskets at the ready.
‘What about the one on the firestep?’
‘If he’s there at all, I think he’s likely to be more interested in what’s going on in the town.’
‘Well, it’s time to pretend we’re drunk.’
Harry started singing quietly, gesturing to the others to join in. It started badly, disjointed, in an embarrassed way. But cajoled by their Captain, the shanty he’d begun to sing took on some of the sound of drunken revelry. It was not the kind of thing James could manage, so Harry advised him to stagger silently, while keeping an eye on the firestep above their heads. The guards showed no alarm at their approach. This had been a nightly occurrence since de Carondelet had given permission to go ashore. Indeed they looked at the approaching party with keen anticipation. These ingleses, when drunk, could be quarrelsome or generous. The former was easily attended to by a gentle swing of the musket. But the latter meant they shared their drink, and to a group of men whose pay didn’t extend to much luxury the thought of a free share of their bottle made their attitude rather benign.
The crack as Harry hit the first one was followed by the dull thud of his companion collapsing under th
e attentions of a marlinspike. Two of Harry’s men immediately went to work, dragging the coats off the pair. An anxious minute followed, in which the singing kept going by the rest had a strained quality. If the other sentry crossed from the landward side of the bastion he’d see them for certain and raise the alarm and that would make the planned escape difficult, if not impossible. Harry required a fair amount of unobserved time before he could cast off.
The men on board were wound up to a fever pitch, not knowing whether the planned escape was about to go ahead. Harry went round them all, greeting them and admonishing them to calm down and do their tasks with the minimum of noise. The topmen climbed the shrouds like ghosts, their bare feet making no sound on the horses as they edged out onto the yards. The cutter was gently tipped to one side, the water used to keep its seams tight allowed to run down into the bilges. The carpenter’s rafts, with the barrels of powder attached, were lowered into the water, each with a length of slow-match cut to a calculated point. This had been decided by the gunner, who’d floated a piece of debris downriver and watched its progress till it passed the hull of the nearest galley.
Those left on deck loosed the guns, running them back in silence, then levering the port battery up to maximum elevation. The loading drill was carried out in the same silence, with the gunner and his mates tripping barefoot over the wooden deck with wads and charges. A party was put to fetching up the small arms they would need to repel any attempt to board, cutlasses, pistols, and muskets, and James went below to set up the cockpit as a temporary hospital.
The cabin smelt of Fernandez, a mixture of sweat, garlic, and cheap cigars, and it was untidy in a way that Harry would never have allowed. Dreaver came in, carrying the things Pender had fetched aboard that morning, including the portrait case. Harry ignored that and his sea-chest, grabbing instead at the untidy package lashed to James’s easel containing the long frontier rifle. Slipping it out he began to load it quickly, ramming home the ball viciously.
The Scent of Betrayal Page 39