A Dishonorable Few (The Honor Series)

by Robert N. Macomber

  Wake proposed the plan to a surly Terrington the following morning and got a half-hearted, begrudging approval. An angered Wake was tempted to confront the man about his addiction, but wondered what he would do next if the captain forced a showdown. Should he forcibly remove him from command? Could he forcibly remove him from command? The naval regulations allowed for relief of a captain when he was incapacitated by wound or catastrophic illness—but Wake’s question was right on the dangerous edge of mutiny.

  Deliberating in his cabin, Wake grimly reasoned that it was better to maintain the captain in his present position than to disrupt the efficiency of the mission and image of the U.S. Navy by a possibly violent confrontation with Terrington. There was no telling where such a confrontation would lead, and Wake knew that once he started down that road he would have to be ready to go all the way, using force if necessary to remove the captain from command.

  The men of the Canton were going into a perilous area against dangerous men, alongside new international allies. Now was not the time to compound the uncertainty and danger of the situation. Besides, so far he had been able to contain Terrington as long as he thought he was in command. Surely this strategy would work a little longer, long enough to complete this mission and then get Terrington to a place where he could be helped—and never be in command again.

  Wake sat there in the swaying gloom of his cabin. He was uneasy, wondering whether his decision not to confront the captain had more to do with personal hesitancy than professional evaluation—and if they would make it back to an American naval station before he had to employ that dreaded last resort.

  ***

  Singleton expected that it would take weeks, possibly a month, before he would hear from the Office of Consular Affairs at the Department of State in Washington. In the meantime he would placate Toro and maintain his business operations, while replenishing the get-away stash he had hidden.

  It bothered him that Rosas was gone so long. It had never been this long before. They had had mutually profitable dealings for some time now, and the man’s absence was troubling. Had Toro gotten to Rosas? Had Rosas switched business partners? Was this another sign that Singleton’s days in Cartagena were dwindling?

  He put it out of his mind as he walked down Calle Real, past the Catedral de San Pedro Claver, to the waterfront to deal with the merchant ship that had just come in from Aruba. She had some Dutch ironwork and fancy goods to sell, and her captain had heard that the man known as Swan could be trusted.

  Singleton laughed inwardly at the thought that someone had said he was a man to be trusted. He wasn’t even really Swanson Singleton. The real Singleton had been killed in a robbery on his way to his new post in Cartagena on the long road from Bogotá. The man’s identification papers and consular documents had been sold cheap by the outlaws, and since the real Singleton was unknown in Cartagena, it had been easy to become the man.

  Singleton got into a rowboat at the docks, told the old man the name of the Dutch ship, and sat down in the stern while he was taken to where she was anchored in the outer harbor. As the old fisherman labored away at the oars, Singleton eye’s swept over the anchorage to see if any new ships, and potential deals, had come in that he didn’t know about. He examined the inner harbor in the Bahía de las Ánimas, then looked over the outer harbor. But his eyes returned to something odd in the inner harbor. Singleton felt a chill run down his neck as he looked at one vessel among the others.

  There, anchored in her usual place, was Abuela, the schooner of that old goat Rosas.

  ***

  The ships swayed gently in the undulating swells on the leeward side of St. Andrews Island. The fishermen ashore at both Old Providence and St. Andrews had told the American landing party that they had seen no sign of any pirates, but the way they said it indicated fear of reprisal. Rork, in charge of the landing, told Wake he thought they were lying.

  Meanwhile, the meeting of the ships’ captains was held in Terrington’s cabin. The American captain actually impressed Wake, putting on his best façade and asking each foreigner for their views of the situation and suggestions on how to accomplish their mission. He then asked his executive officer to present the proposed plan.

  After it had been laid out and questions about individual responsibilities answered, Terrington stood up at the table and asked the others if they would please give him a “vote of confidence and approval.”

  The assembled naval officers were stunned, Monteblanco confused, and Wake was embarrassed. The cabin was silent except for the creaking of the frames. Terrington’s eyes darted around, and Wake was trying to think of something to say to salvage the American Navy’s reputation when Captain Russell spoke up.

  “Ah, Captain Terrington . . . sir. You’ve been given command of us by our superiors, sir. You don’t need a referendum, Captain. Your authority and responsibility for this operation is total and unquestioned. You are the senior officer afloat.”

  21

  Patience

  Cadena was initially excited that they now had three ships. The possibilities were endless with the power they now enjoyed. In fact, Cadena grandly realized, they were the most powerful force of ships in the lower Caribbean. He, Alfonso Cadena, son of a whore and an unknown father, was the second in command of a fleet that caused everyone to have fear.

  Romero and Cadena had their hands full handling the men, who were getting restless. Porto Bello was less than five hours steaming time away from their hideout and several of the louder men were making noises that they could strike at sunrise, take loot and women, and be back by the sun’s meridian. And then, they told the others, a serious party could be had on this miserable little island.

  But the men did not understand that they needed discipline to use the ships in the best manner. El Jefe understood, and while Cadena’s hatred of the man was growing, he did admit that the gringo’s leadership had brought them this far. Many of the men had drunkenly dismissed their success as merely the good luck of a roll of dice. Cadena knew differently.

  ***

  Captain Fernando Toledo was pleased because of several things. First and foremost, his ship had not wrecked at Haiti on her way to Puerto Rico, and for that he would be forever grateful to the American sailor Peter Wake and to God. Second, the British, of all people, had taken care of his repair needs and even cleaned his hull, and who would have ever thought that would happen? And third, his government had given permission for Sirena to participate in the operation against the pirates, which would give his crew a chance to do what they were in the navy to do—fight enemies, not their own citizens. It would also get them away from the problems in Cuba, give them pride in the glory of Spain, and respect from the Americans and the British.

  For Fernando Toledo, this was an opportunity of a lifetime. A personal moment of truth. And he had made it quite clear to his officers and petty officers that the Sirena would be successful in their mission to search the coast of Nicaragua and Costa Rica. They would find the enemy, and they would destroy him.

  However, he had no false expectations, for Toledo knew the coast was very dangerous aside from the pirates. It was full of uncharted reefs and islands, the diseases were notorious, and the Indians very dangerous.

  As they closed on the Los Cayos Moskitos, a group of coral rock islets thirty miles off the coast, Toledo set his jaw and told the officer of the watch to call out the landing party. They would search every part of these islands. Then they would search the coast. The men of Sirena would continue without end until they found the pirates.

  ***

  HMS Plover rolled heavily in the following sea as she headed due west from St. Andrews Island to Punta Perla, far north of the Costa Rican-Nicaraguan border and more than two hundred miles north of where the Americans had directed Captain Russell to go. Captain Terrington’s orders had been to search the coast from the Costa Rican-Colombian borde
r eastward, and Russell speculated what the Americans’ reaction would be if they knew where he was actually heading, and why.

  Russell watched the sun rise in the mist to the east and thought about his rather delicate position. He had been taken aside by Commodore Forester after the meeting that night at Admiralty House and given further instructions. Private instructions. At some point during the operation, preferably near the start, Plover was to close on the Nicaraguan coast and visit each of the English logging and fishing settlements that had sprung up there decades earlier. Russell was to document the English settlements and any complaints the inhabitants had about the Nicaraguan government’s lack of protection for them, religious persecution of them, or thievery from them. He was to give out some provisions to engender goodwill and also promise the settlers that their home country would provide the protection they needed, but that his visit was to remain confidential from the Nicaraguan authorities for the time being.

  A foreign office official that Russell had seen at the earlier gathering was at the private meeting also. He suavely explained that the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850 and the Anglo-Nicaraguan Treaty of 1867 had ended the quasi-official British protectorate of a theoretically independent “Moskitia” along that coast, returning the area to Nicaraguan sovereignty. But, he added with an insincere attempt at a regretful tone, recent developments had brought the validity of the assumptions in those treaties into question. Therefore, Captain Russell’s covert reconnoitering of the situation would prove quite useful in Her Majesty’s subsequent negotiations in the region.

  The foreign office man, who had been silent throughout the evening when the guests were present, smiled and thanked the captain in advance for his service to the Crown. Then Commodore Forester had bid Russell good night.

  It was an order and as a professional Russell would obey it, but not with enthusiasm. He respected the American naval officers’ plan and felt more than uneasy about his duplicitous failure to follow it as they expected. Skullduggery . . . and all for what? So the empire could be expanded? What the hell was on this Godforsaken coast that Queen Victoria could be proud of governing?

  And then it hit him like a belaying pin from above: the old idea of an isthmian canal across Nicaragua. As part of the treaty twenty years earlier, the Americans and British had jointly agreed with the Nicaraguans to someday build a canal, keep it neutral and unfortified, reimburse Nicaragua, and keep transit rates for all three countries equal. But what if the coast didn’t belong to Nicaragua? What if the idea of the British protectorate was revived and officially sanctioned? And what if the white people of the coast—the Indians wouldn’t count—voted in a plebiscite for British protection? The previous treaties would be null and void, for the Nicaraguans would not own the Caribbean entrance to the canal, and thus the British would have control over the most important canal in the world. Russell slowly shook his head at the deviousness of it. He had to admit, in a way it was brilliant.

  The windswept rock known as Little Coco Island was passing to port as Russell went over in his mind the positions of the expedition’s ships. The Spanish ship Sirena was arriving at the Central American coast only about a hundred miles north of him, and he knew that he would need to keep going south along the coast well ahead of her in order for the surreptitious British plan to work. He did not tell his officers of his private briefing or the ship’s secret mission, only that they would search for the pirates a bit further north, then head south and east along the coast to meet the other ships at the rendezvous in Panama.

  He hoped he could carry off his mission and not embarrass himself or the Royal Navy. “This could end up a right bloody mess,” he muttered to the rolling sea.

  ***

  Monteblanco was buttering his toast at breakfast when Wake asked him for suggestions on how to go about looking for the pirates’ contacts, or the pirates themselves, in Cartagena. The Canton would be at the infamous city the next day and Wake still did not know what they would do there. The Venezuelan chewed his breakfast while cogitating a response, for he had been thinking about the very the same thing.

  “I think we should use the proverbial carrot and the stick, my friend. Go into the town and offer money for information. But do it with a sense of quiet intrigue, so that those who have that information will not be found out when they give it to us. That would be the carrot. The Canton, of course, is the stick. If we do not get the information the easy way, then Canton stays offshore in international water and searches every vessel coming in or out. That will take more time, but definitely get results also.”

  “Explain further, Pablo. I understand the stick—that’s usually my method. But the carrot. How do we offer money to people but not let people know?” said Wake.

  “Ah, that is the art of the matter, Peter. You only offer the money to the people you think would know.”

  Wake was still confused. “How do you know who those people are?”

  Monteblanco raised an eyebrow, a grin starting to form. “By the ancient military practice of reconnaissance, my friend. Only in this situation it is not done with a formation of cavalry, boldly riding throughout the countryside. No, no.” He waved a finger. “It is done with the quiet but effective assistance of rum, and perhaps a female, in tavernas. Do you see my idea now, Peter Wake?”

  Wake did indeed see the idea. “And who, by chance, would be doing this reconnaissance?”

  Monteblanco laughed mischievously and shrugged his shoulders in the classic Latin style. “Why, the two men most suited for this dangerous mission. You and I. Not dressed as we are now, of course.”

  Wake laughed at his friend and the notion, then thought about it. Maybe it would work. It was worth a try. “How much money would we need, Pablo?”

  “Not so much, I think. Maybe a hundred in gold coins. No, my friend, what we will really need is something that is everywhere in Latin America, but something you Americans find it difficult to use.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Patience, my friend. Patience . . .”

  22

  Simple Solutions

  “Deck there—land ho! Two points on the port bow! A flat-topped mountain.”

  The officer of the deck, Custen, shielded his eyes against the sun, then turned to Wake and Terrington and repeated the lookout’s report. He was acknowledged and dismissed by the captain, who usually never came out in the midday tropical sun, preferring to stay in his cabin and have Wake come there. Wake realized the captain was very concerned about something, or he wouldn’t have broken his habit. Terrington returned to the subject of his conversation with Wake.

  “Let’s see. You and the passenger are going to go gallivanting around Cartagena disguised as a couple of itinerant ne’er-do-wells, drinking rum and trying to give away one hundred gold dollars from the ship’s funds in a half-baked effort to get some scummy harbor dregs tell you some probably negligible information about the pirates we are supposed to be after. Do I have that right, Mister Wake?”

  Wake had to fight to keep from laughing. Terrington was being sarcastic, but his rendition did make the plan sound very farfetched. Maybe he is right, Wake admitted to himself, but how else will we find out anything?

  “Sir, the other option is to stay offshore and search every ship, thereby disrupting the other legal trade in the port, some of which takes places with Americans. But that will take weeks or months, and what if the pirates strike in the meantime, when with a little initiative we could have obtained information on them and struck them first, sir.”

  He could see that the captain was weighing the options. Terrington looked down at the deck and shook his head. His brow was creased as if in pain, like he had a severe headache.

  “Don’t get that damned Venezuelan killed in some knife fight ashore, Mr. Wake. Good God, can you imagine the hell there’d be for me to pay if we got our passenger, a highfalutin diplomat t
o boot, killed in some bung hole of a bar in a South American shanty town?”

  He was still shaking his head while he walked aft toward the hatch as Wake responded. “Don’t worry, Captain. I won’t get him killed. And . . . sir?”

  “What, Wake?”

  “I’ll try hard not to get killed myself, Captain.”

  Terrington harrumphed and began to go down the ladder, saying, “You’re not the one I’m worried about. You’re expendable.”

  Custen came up and reported, “Sir, that mountain is Cerro La Popa, from what I can figure. That’s the mountain at Cartagena. Looks like we’re dead on and should sight the city soon. The counter-current here wasn’t as bad as the Spanish captain told us it might be.”

  “Very good, Mr. Custen. Keep everyone alert. They may see a guardia costa craft, but probably not. I don’t think they have much of a coastal patrol in these parts.”

  “I guess if they did we wouldn’t have to come down here, sir.”

  “Good point, David.”

  The wind and seas from the east diminished as they steamed closer to the coast. By the time they had identified the large islands of Baru and Tierra Bomba, and the little islands of Las Rosarias, they were in calm water.

  “The chart says to use Boca Chica to enter the main bay, sir,” said Custen, one finger on a chart that was strapped down to the chart board by the binnacle. “Evidently, the Spanish built an underwater wall across the mouth of Boca Grande, right next to the city, so we have to enter the bay miles away and steam up to the city from that way, around this island called Baru.”

  Monteblanco stepped up beside them and explained, “Yes, the British pirate Drake sacked the town three hundred years ago, forcing the Spanish to subsequently fortify it, including building the wall that is under water. Since then, you must take a circuitous route into the city by water. There are fortresses all along the route through the bay. It is the most heavily fortified city in the Western Hemisphere, gentlemen. No fleet has taken it since then, and none can take it now.”