by Alys Clare
‘How long were you there?’ I asked. I could hardly believe what I was hearing: that a group of Englishmen, two of whom were in that very room, had survived when men indigenous to the country had perished. It could only be, surely, because they had not been there for long …
But, ‘Oh, years,’ said Simoun Wex indifferently.
‘You were sold into slavery?’ I queried, again struggling with my incredulity.
‘We were, Doctor. And, bearing in mind who sold us and where we’d been before, we were glad to go.’
‘What could possibly have been so bad that enslavement was preferable?’ Jonathan asked, his voice full of anguish.
Simoun peered round me to look at him.
Then he said very quietly, ‘The Spanish had us, Father.’
‘The Spanish …’
‘Their priests, to be exact. Furthermore, they believed we had something they very badly wanted, and they had their own ways of trying to make us tell them where we’d hidden it.’ He paused. ‘It was just seven of us – Job Allcorn, Philpot, Arthur Noble, three others and me – who were sold and sent to the indigo plantations, but there were quite a lot more of us when they first took us. They gave up on us.’ He gave a gaunt smile of grim satisfaction. ‘Even they tired, in the end, of trying to extract from us something we kept insisting we didn’t know.’
‘What happened to the other three you just mentioned, who were sold with you?’
‘They died on the plantation, Doctor, just as Arthur Noble did only sooner,’ he said. Then, in a soft voice that sounded full of pain, he added, ‘And before that, eight of us from the original group died under the priests’ tortures, three more lasted long enough to get as far as the indigo plantations, then they died as well.’ He drew a shaking breath. ‘Now Job Allcorn, Philpot and young Bartholomew are dead too, and it’s just my son and me, and Puma there. We are all that is left.’
And he dropped his face into his hands.
EIGHTEEN
‘It all began with such high hopes,’ Simoun Wex said, picking up his tale. ‘We set out together, Philpot, Job Allcorn, poor old Arthur Noble and me, and so many other men and boys whose faces I still can picture, for all that it’s half a lifetime since I saw most of them. I first sailed with John Hawkins when I was ten years old, and it was two years later when we set off on what was to be my final voyage. Mine and that of so many more.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Philpot was five or six years older than me, Job Allcorn a couple of years older still, and he – Job – was a man already, in body, mind and experience, and he took care of Philpot and me while we found our feet. We were all Plymouth men, see.
‘So, there we were in our great convoy. Two royal ships led us, the Jesus of Lübeck – and she was huge, and the old king, God preserve him, purchased her from the Hanseatic League and converted her to a fighting ship – and the Minion, and four other ships besides, and one of those was the Judith, and she was Francis Drake’s ship. It was Hawkins’s third triangular voyage – you know what that means?’
‘Yes,’ I said. Jonathan frowned.
He nodded. ‘Aye, of course you do. You told me you were a navy man. He was a man brimming with confidence, was John Hawkins. He took such pains to find out what he needed to know; he had eyes and ears everywhere from the Thames to the Spanish Main, and he used the intelligence they provided to the utmost. He knew how to get what he wanted out of people, and as a leader of men he was in a class of his own. Well, that’s what we all reckoned, anyway, and although I was young and green, I’d seen enough of other captains to recognize a good one when I saw him.
‘We sailed from Plymouth and as soon as we were rounding the long nose of Brittany the bad luck began. The nimbler, newer ships fared well enough but the Jesus, God bless her memory, was an old lady by then, riding so high on the water and far too big for the job she was now being asked to do. She was meant for brief, fine weather jaunts in her own waters, and now here she was rolling and pitching in heavy seas, every timber strained to its limit and caulking spewing out everywhere you looked. We all thought we were doomed, Hawkins ordered us to pray, and how the old Jesus survived I’ll never know, unless it was the fervent and desperate prayers of a hundred and fifty men …’ He smiled reminiscently.
‘We sailed on, past Spain and Portugal until we were off West Africa, and there we collected our black gold and sailed for the Caribbean. But our masters didn’t have it all their own way once we began trading, for the Spanish devils were wary of us by now and in most of the islands and the mainland ports the governors were under strict orders to have nothing to do with us. But Hawkins and Drake had golden tongues, both of them, and they knew well enough how to exploit a man’s weak spots, which were usually closely associated with his greed. In the end, Hawkins made it all turn out the way he wanted, and our ships were groaning with gold and other precious cargo and we were ready to go home.
‘But it had all taken too long; far too long. The hurricane season was on us, and there we were on the Jesus of Lübeck, a battered old ship totally unsuited for what we were putting her through, and every one of us haunted by the memory of how nearly we’d come to grief back off Brittany all those months ago. Great God above, I’d never been so frightened in all my young life – the stern planks were breached, and the wild waves flooding in and out filled the hold and we found fish swimming above the ballast as if they were out in the open water.’ He shook his head, his old face deeply troubled.
‘By the time that storm abated and we had time to collect ourselves,’ he went on after a moment, ‘we knew we were lost. We were all but out of supplies and we tried eating hides, and even cats and rats, only we sicked most of it up again. We had to put in somewhere for food and clean water and to set about urgent repairs if we stood any chance of sailing back to England. So when a Spanish ship directed us towards a port that was close enough for us to limp to, that was what we did, and we sent up prayers of gratitude because we reckoned we’d been saved. But salvation came with a warning: the place we were heading for was where the Spanish amassed their purloined gold and silver before shipping it back to Spain. They’d be on their guard, it stood to reason, for the reputation of the English went before us and no Spanish governor or ship’s captain was going to welcome us with open arms when they had a flotilla of treasure ships amassing in their harbour.
‘But Hawkins, he had a plan. He always had a plan.’ Simoun smiled briefly. ‘We sailed the proud old Jesus into San Juan d’Ulúa under the royal standard, because he – Hawkins – knew full well that from a distance it resembled the Spaniards’ own flag, and the only fire that greeted us as we sailed into port was a welcoming salute from the shore batteries. They thought we were the vanguard of the treasure fleet.’ He grinned savagely.
‘When they realized it was the dreaded Juan Aquínez, as they called Hawkins, their fear overcame their common sense and they threw down their weapons, abandoned the big guns and fled. Hawkins told the commander we were friendly English ships only there to re-supply and that we’d sail first thing in the morning, as soon as we had what we’d come for. But our luck changed, for morning brought the treasure fleet, and, for all that Hawkins held the port and the shore batteries, keeping Spanish ships from entering their own harbour would be an act of war. So he decided to negotiate.’
Simoun paused, took a drink, then collected his thoughts and resumed. ‘We won’t stop your ships coming into port, Hawkins tells the commander, as long as you permit us to finish our repairs before we leave. It looked like the commander was agreeing, but behind our backs he sent to Veracruz for more men, and heavily-armed men at that.
‘We reckoned we would be all right. The ships of the Spanish treasure fleet were packing into that narrow harbour, sure enough, but we were lined up on the other side, the Minion, us on the Jesus, the Grace of God, then Drake’s Judith, the Angel and the Swallow, and between us and the Spanish there was an old hulk of a vessel, deserted but for the rats.’ He paused. ‘Only it wasn’t, becau
se that crafty bastard of a Spaniard was secretly sending his newly-arrived reinforcements aboard. Oh, John Hawkins challenged him, only to be fobbed off, but then one of our Spanish hostages was discovered with a hidden knife, and that was that. Hawkins fetched his crossbow and shouted his challenge, the Spanish on the hulk came out from their hiding places and Hawkins loosed a bolt at the Spanish vice admiral. Then it all started in earnest. The Spaniards overran the Minion, which was the closest ship to the hulk, and up on the Jesus – which towered over all the other ships – we got the perfect view as the fighting swarmed up onto our own decks.
‘Hawkins was prepared, just as he always was, and straight away he issued the command, at which we cut our cables and began to warp out of that hellhole of a harbour.’ He paused, glancing at Jonathan. ‘Are you still with me?’
Jonathan shook his head.
‘Doctor?’ Simoun said. ‘Want to explain while I take a breather?’
‘Warping is a way of clearing harbour,’ I said. ‘You send out a boat on which you’ve loaded the anchor, secure the anchor some distance away and then the crew back on the ship haul on the anchor cable and in this way move the ship up to the anchor. Then you pull up the anchor, take it further away and repeat the process, and go on doing so until you’re in the open, and the tide and the wind take over.’
Jonathan looked at Simoun. ‘And you managed that, under those conditions, with your six ships?’
‘We did,’ Simoun replied, and the pride was still vivid in his voice. ‘Once we were in our proper element we could bring our guns into play, and that was where us on the Jesus showed our worth because we had the mightiest fire power, we all knew what we were doing and we pounded those Spanish vessels until we hit the vice admiral’s ship right in her magazine and tore her apart.
‘But it did for the old Jesus, and soon we all began to realize it. Hawkins was right there with us in the thick of it, yelling himself hoarse and watering his throat with draughts of ale from his special silver mug, telling us not to be afraid because God was with us – hadn’t the almighty saved him from the shot that had just blown away his silver mug? – and that deliverance would be ours.
‘And we had to witness the poor old Jesus as she died.’ Simoun’s voice broke on the words. ‘Hawkins knew she was done for and he used her to shield the Minion and Drake’s Judith, onto which we’d loaded all our gold and treasure. But we didn’t give up, and our gunners kept to their posts, and we went on firing even while the rest of the cargo was carried from our holds to the Judith and the Minion. But then the Spanish sent in the fireships, and that was our cue to leave, and we leapt from the Jesus’s high decks down onto those smaller ships, and John Hawkins was the last to go.’
Briefly he fell silent, perhaps out of respect for his brave captain.
‘We might have had the Judith and the Minion, but we’d lost every other ship, and it was a terrible, terrible day,’ Simoun went on heavily. ‘We’d made off with the Spaniards’ treasure, for sure, but we’d suffered many casualties, lost the beloved Jesus and far worse was to come.’ He paused, looking round at his audience one by one, as if assuring himself he had our full attention. ‘Because next day we discovered that under cover of the night, Drake had set off in the Judith and sailed for England. Oh, he was right to do so, and we all knew it, for his ship was badly damaged, in no condition to take on the Spanish again, and although the Judith was loaded – overloaded – with treasure, there hadn’t been time to stock her with food and drink. For all that every man and boy of us crammed so tight on board the Minion cursed Drake that morning for abandoning us, we all knew he’d done the right thing – the only thing – and, moreover, that his own chances of making it home were slim at best.
‘John Hawkins covered up his fury, for it did no good to rail and fume when it wasn’t going to change anything. He knew the Minion had no hope of getting back to England seriously overcrowded as she was with two hundred men and hardly any food, so he said that half of us had to go ashore and try our luck on land. We wouldn’t be deserting, he told us, because there he was giving us permission, and, believe me, it was hard to decide where giving permission stopped and issuing a direct order began.
‘So there we were, a hundred desperate English sailors on a northern Mexican shore, Philpot, Allcorn, Noble and me among them, and we stood and watched as our ship, our only link to home, hearth, kith and kin, safety, security – to England herself – sailed away and left us.
‘Very soon we were attacked by the jungle tribes that lived there, and we made up our minds that we’d be better off handing ourselves in to the Spanish.’ He shook his head again. ‘And what a mistake that turned out to be. Some of our company got shipped off to Spain to work like the slaves we’d just been importing to the Caribbean. We thought at first that we who remained were the lucky ones, for what could be worse than the fate of those who had gone? But then the Inquisition turned up.’
I looked at Jonathan. He had gone pale.
‘I was still only thirteen years old,’ Simoun went on, ‘and Philpot reckoned I’d likely be sent off with the other boys to work in the monasteries with the black-robed priests. But I was big for my age, and when the priests came to select the lads they wanted, I stood up straight and threw my chest out and I was passed over. Dear Lord, I recall so well how I was glad!’ His eyes widened in remembered amazement. ‘I thought it had to be better, to stay with the men I knew, and Philpot, he leaned close and said, don’t worry, lad, you’ll be with Job and me and the others, and we’ll take care of you. But, of course, he – they – couldn’t take care of me any more than they could of themselves.’
He paused briefly, and I had the sense that he was steeling himself for what was to come.
‘Lord, but they knew how to hurt a man, those damned priests of the Inquisition,’ he said softly. ‘And all in the name of the vicious, cruel and narrow-minded God they worshipped, although even in the very worst of it I remember asking myself what Our Lord would make of it all when he’d said so often that we were to love one another. Love!’ Simoun’s suddenly harsh expression suggested he might have spat had it not been for Jonathan’s and my presence. ‘They dispatched those they didn’t want.’ His voice was louder now, full of ancient anger. ‘You got strangled if you were lucky, burned alive if not. The ones they had a use for – the strong ones – were sent to the galleys.’
He looked down at his blue-stained hands, once again gathering himself.
‘For us, they reserved their most refined methods of information extraction. They knew, we reckoned. They knew damned well that we bore a secret; that an object of great importance to the Spanish had been entrusted to us as we left the Judith. Somebody must have pointed the finger, and if it was in order to end the same tortures that were being meted out on us, then I can’t say I blame him, whoever he was, and I’d have given up a name myself if I’d had one to give.’
‘But you held out?’ I said, my voice hardly more than a whisper.
Simoun’s mouth stretched in a terrible smile. ‘I did, Doctor, because the name I’d have screamed out was my own.’
There was a long silence. Then he said, his voice infinitely weary, ‘In the end they gave up. We were shadows of the men we’d been by then, myself especially – they knew, those fucking Spanish priests, they knew, but I’d made my mind up I wasn’t going to tell them and I never did. And, like I said, they gave up. They sold us to the owner of an indigo plantation in Guatemala, and that’s where we stayed for the next thirty years. Some of us took wives and begat sons – I did, so did old Arthur Noble before he died, and he called his son Bartholomew – and we made as good a job of living a normal life as we could. As any man can, when he is enslaved and has no choice over his own fate.’
His eyes had been roaming round the room, and now they rested on Puma.
‘And there we might have stayed, Job Allcorn, Philpot, my son and I and Bartholomew Noble, and there we might still be, except that one day he came into our li
ves.’
Simoun gave a deep sigh, and it seemed to me, watching him, that of a sudden he was exhausted. His eyes had closed, his thin face had sunk and he leaned back into his pillows as if all strength had left him. I looked at Henry, who had quietly come to crouch beside me.
‘There is more, I know,’ I said to him softly, ‘but for now your father has talked for long enough. He needs sleep most of all, and also food and clean water, and—’
‘And another measure or two of that brandy,’ Henry said.
Jonathan stirred from whatever deep thoughts held him captive. ‘I will fetch all that is needed,’ he said. ‘And also more firewood.’ He took in Henry’s worried face. ‘Yes, I know you want to stay in hiding, but you are under my protection now, and I will look after you.’
He didn’t say how, or from what or whom, but the very tone of his voice seemed to inspire confidence, and Henry simply nodded.
‘You need water to wash with,’ Jonathan went on, studying the three men in turn, ‘and you urgently require new clothes.’
‘I may be able to help with the clothes,’ I said, thinking of my sister and the chests full to bursting that she had brought with her from the marital home after the death of her husband.
‘Good, thank you,’ Jonathan replied.
I stood up. ‘I must be off, in any case – I need to go home to Rosewyke and make sure Judyth is all right.’
Henry hung his head. ‘Please tell her how sorry I am,’ he muttered.
‘I will. I’ll make haste, I’ll find some clothes for you, then—’ There was something else I had to do, but I was tired now too and my brain was turning sluggish. Glancing out through one of the many cracks in the door, I noticed to my great surprise that it was dark. No wonder I was tired.
Rapidly I revised my plan.
‘It is late, and we all need sleep, not just him.’ I was addressing Henry, and now I inclined my head towards his father, eyes half closed as he lay back in his bed. Henry nodded his understanding. ‘Before I go home I must ride down to see Theo Davey,’ I said, ‘for there is much to tell him.’