Galleon

by Dudley Pope

  “True, Lily, true,” Thomas said with mock sadness. “The dreadful story of how you became a poor sailor’s doxy should be a lesson to all the legions of the fallen women that my uncle Cromwell transported to the Indies.” He nodded his head. “Of course, my concern for these poor young women’s welfare is well known; indeed that’s why Ned always refers to me as ‘my lord bishop’.”

  Diana looked directly at Thomas and smiled lewdly. “Indeed? Aurelia told me it was because you once confided to him, when you were more than usually drunk, that you dreamed of making love to me on a church altar.”

  Thomas flushed and coughed. “Well, that’s Ned’s story. I’ve never been inside a church with you.”

  “No,” Diana said thoughtfully, “nor you have.”

  Later, on board the Griffin, Ned said: “That must be St Barthélemy almost dead ahead. We’ll have it abeam by nightfall, and soon after dawn tomorrow you’ll see the Dutch side of St Martin. I believe the Dutch spell it ‘Maarten’, but I prefer the French way.”

  “You’re prejudiced, sir,” Lobb said, grinning at Aurelia.

  She clapped her hands. “Think, in a day or so I’ll be hearing French spoken by Frenchmen – the first time for many months. Years, in fact, apart from the buccaneers.”

  “Well, you can’t expect your luck to hold for ever,” Ned growled, and then suddenly stiffened. “You’re still a French subject!”

  “No, I’m not,” Aurelia said firmly. “I became English when I married Wilson. I don’t lose that just because Wilson died!”

  “Of course not,” Ned correctly himself hurriedly. “Just for a moment – well, you were only saying a few days ago about trusting kings and governments…”

  Lobb said: “Anyway, I think madame could give a very good account of herself as an Englishwoman who happens to speak good French.”

  “You should have heard her cursing those Spaniards in the plaza at San Germán,” Ned said. “Sounded very Spanish and earthy to me!”

  “What time does the moon rise?” Aurelia asked sweetly. “It should make those islands there, Nevis, St Kitts and St Eustatius too, look like fairy islands!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  As the Griffin ran northwards from St Barthélemy with the Dutch side of the island of St Martin sitting four-square on the horizon ahead, the sun rose on the starboard hand, tinting several small islets a rose colour that just managed to soften their harsh and jagged lines. A constant swell put ragged white collars of breaking water round every rock and it was still early enough for the sea itself to be a harsh grey, the rolling crests flecking with red.

  “So that’s the mynheers’ half of the island,” Aurelia commented to Ned, pointing ahead. “Well, they seem to have chosen all the mountains! That line of peaks running through the middle is a spine; it looks like a sleeping iguana.”

  “I wish I knew if this damned south-east wind was going to hold for the rest of the day,” Ned said crossly.

  “Why don’t you like it now? It’s brought us up from Guadeloupe at a spanking pace!”

  Ned pointed over the starboard bow. “Just look at all those islets and isolated rocks lying between us and the eastern side of St Martin.”

  “Why should they put you in such a bad humour?”

  “Marigot is on the opposite side of the island – on the far side from where we’re heading. If we sail down the western side and the wind backs, we’ll have to beat up to Marigot.”

  “Beating just a few miles? I don’t mind that!” Aurelia said. “Why are you worrying? If you want to avoid the risk of having to beat up to Marigot, let’s dodge about among those rocks and islets and sail round the east coast, so we’ll be running free, whether the wind has backed or not!”

  He continued staring at the island ahead, a blue-grey lump: too far away to distinguish the natural colours yet.

  “Oh Ned,” Aurelia said impatiently, “it doesn’t matter! Go whichever way round you want.”

  Ned sighed theatrically. “I’m sure Thomas doesn’t have to put up with this sort of bullying from Diana. She cossets him and is understanding when he has problems.”

  “I don’t know what makes you think that! I’ve noticed Thomas does exactly what Diana says, although perhaps not at once, just to save his pride. At least he doesn’t treat her like a mistress who comes running to bed as soon as he calls.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Ned asked innocently. “I always do what you say and I come to bed the minute you call. That’s if I’m not already there, waiting for you.”

  Aurelia made a face. “If you’re not careful I’ll give in and marry you. Then I’ll demand my rights as a wife.”

  Ned inspected a group of islets on the Griffin’s starboard bow and then tucked the glass under his arm. “I always had the impression that mistresses have more privileges than wives.”

  “Oh yes,” Aurelia agreed sweetly, “when her lover dies she has no responsibilities whatsoever: no money, no home, no rights… The poor wife has all the worry of being left her husband’s fortune, his house, his estate…”

  “Unless there’s a son, in which case she’s moved out to the dower house and becomes a plump dowager and an indulgent grandmother living on the charity of her son.”

  “All right. I’m persuaded now,” Aurelia declared, “I remain your mistress.”

  “It was the running to bed that decided you,” Ned teased.

  “No, I don’t fancy the dower house. England is probably crowded with dower houses, all cold, damp and gloomy.” She shivered.

  Ned thought for a moment. “Well, you’d have a choice of three Yorke dower houses. The nicest is the one on the Godmersham estate. It’s near Ashford in the lee of the Downs, and is far from gloomy. A stream runs through the garden, plenty of fruit trees… When I was last there, plenty of flowers too. The one on the Ilex estate – well, you’d probably find that too big; nine bedrooms, a kitchen with a spit large enough to roast an ox. And of course you’d be cheek by jowl with your nephew, who’d have inherited the title from brother George and be living at Ilex.”

  Aurelia pretended to be considering the alternatives. “Yes, the Godmersham house does sound possible, but still, England is so cold…and the long, long winter, as bad as northern France. No, I shall stay in the Tropics to be warm, so I won’t marry you. But I warn you, as your mistress I shall demand emeralds and rubies, and gold rings and chains and brooches…”

  “None of which you have already?” Ned asked with raised eyebrows.

  “Oh,” she said airily, “I do have a few trinkets you’ve given me and which I can wear when I go back to live in Barbados, a cast-off mistress. Don’t forget I still have the estate there that I inherited from my husband. Not that I shall ever set foot in it again because it would remind me of what a terrible man he was. But I could sell it and buy another. One large enough to attract another lover.”

  “Yes,” Ned agreed with mock seriousness, “and then you’ll realize what a wonderful lover you had before…”

  “It’s a risk I’ll take,” Aurelia said. “If he’s after my money at least he’ll be kind – until he gets it, anyway. So you’re going round the west side of the island?”

  “The chart I have doesn’t show half these islets; just a few scribbles,” Ned said. “But along the west coast there’s nothing to worry about, nor round to Marigot.”

  Aurelia shivered, and Ned noticed. “What’s the matter? Do you want your cloak?”

  She shook her head. “No, I just wish I could see the other side of the island. I’m beginning to feel timide. How big is a galleon?”

  “I’ve never seen one, but four or five times as big as this ship, I suppose. But it may not still be there. I’ve stopped thinking about how many weeks ago we first heard about the damned thing. If they’ve had any ba
d weather she could have broken up. A few weeks of northerly swells lifting her and bumping her down again could break her back or send the masts by the board… Or the French might have brought in ships and captured her; all the gold and silver could be on its way to Paris by now…”

  “Cheer up,” Aurelia said, “but if you’re going to satisfy your mistress’ greed, you’ll need better luck than that.”

  An hour later, when the sun had lifted high enough to raise the shadow from the western side of the mountains, the Griffin, followed by the Phoenix and the Peleus, reached the southern tip of the island, finding a deep half-circle of a bay almost entirely closed by a reef. Ned saw that the reef in fact made the bay into a natural port, and in addition to a ruined jetty there was a small fort on the western arm. More interesting was the fact that there were twenty or more sloops anchored close to the remains of the jetty, and on the beach beyond there were several pyramids of salt. A minute or two later, as the Griffin was lifted on a swell wave, Ned saw a big lagoon behind the beach – probably an enormous salt pond. It was surprising the whole place was not called Salt Island – most of the inhabitants must (judging from the mountainous land) be salters – or goats!

  “That reef must give very little protection when the wind pipes up from the south or west,” Ned commented to Lobb. “But while it stays in the east, these sloops can unload cargo into boats, or take off salt. Carry it down to Curaçao, I suppose. All that salt–” he gestured to the piles on the beach, “–with all those mountains means mynheer can’t grow much. If the French have any flat land, they got the best bargain!”

  “How did they decide who had which half?” Lobb asked.

  Ned laughed drily. “I don’t really know, but there’s a story (no doubt told by the French) that it was agreed a Frenchman and a Hollander should stand back to back and, at a signal, start walking in opposite directions round the coast. That was to be one end of the frontier, and the other would be where they met. The Frenchman got farther round – giving the French the larger portion – because the Hollander was also a trencherman and stopped for a hearty lunch.”

  “To be fair to the Dutch, I can’t see a Frenchman missing a good meal,” Aurelia said doubtfully. “But if the French part is like this, all mountains and valleys and cliffs, I don’t think either of them got a bargain (except in salt) if they wanted to plant sugar or tobacco, or even vegetables to eat themselves! The mountains look beautiful enough, but only goats can appreciate them. And water…both sugar and tobacco need plenty, but does it rain much?”

  As the three ships sailed along the coast, they saw that the mountains with their rounded peaks soon curved inland, leaving a flat plain like a shelf to form the western corner of the island, with long sandy beaches.

  “Low land, shallow water,” Ned said to Aurelia, who looked puzzled.

  He explained: “Where the land is low, as it’s now becoming, usually the sea gets shallower. Where there are high mountains and cliffs, you’ll find the sea is generally deep right up to the shore.”

  Aurelia, looking ahead over the Griffin’s bow, nodded. “I can see the water changing colour. It’s becoming a lighter blue, and where that furthest bay curves inland, it’s light green.”

  Ned searched the coast with his glass. These mountains were high but beautiful: in every case the slope up to the peak was smooth and gentle; each mountain had trees growing on the lower slopes and usually they thinned out to give way to smaller trees, little more than bushes, and finally shrubs which were so green that from a distance each mountain seemed covered in a green carpet. Only occasionally a sharp edge of rock showed where some fall had made a crevasse.

  A slight movement on the lower slopes of one mountain showed a herd of cattle grazing and, a little higher, he could distinguish goats. Then he saw a village of half a dozen buildings tucked in the lee of a small hill, then another village at the end of a long beach had fishing boats pulled up to the mangroves. A few wisps of smoke, from cooking fires or boucans, were the only signs that people lived on the island.

  The Dutch here must (apart from the salt) make their living by trading with the other islands: buying and selling goods that were brought out from the Netherlands. The Dutch, he admitted, were the best merchants in the Caribbee. They were also the most successful smugglers to the Spanish Main. Judging from their part of St Martin and from what he had heard about St Eustatius, just in sight as a grey lump on the southern horizon, the Dutch were more interested in trade than farming: on the British and French islands, from Grenada up to Guadeloupe, but especially Barbados and St Kitts and Nevis, sugar and tobacco ruled supreme. And cotton, of course. Three crops which together made men rich and then ruined all too many of them with the hot waters.

  There was a dreadful irony, Ned mused, that a man devoted his whole life to his sugar plantation, getting from it wealth every time he sent a ship back to England laden with sugar and barrels of molasses. Nevertheless, that same sugar cane produced rumbullion, with which that same man drank himself insensible every night after passing the day in a drunken haze.

  Slowly the drink would make him careless: careless about how his plantation was run, careless of his dress, his manners, his accounts, his honour and his wife. Slowly but quite inexorably his own rumbullion would kill him, and in the process would ruin the estate. In a way it was what had happened to Aurelia’s husband (although he was also a complete scoundrel). A man spent a brief lifetime digging his own grave after fashioning his own shovel.

  Gradually Ned could distinguish the low tongue of sand marking the corner of the island and which stretched out to the west like a pointing finger. Somewhere back there they had passed an invisible line which divided the island, because this low area must be French. They had the best beaches and probably they were growing crops behind the mangrove forming a low barrier at the back of the sand.

  As the Griffin came up to the sand spit Ned could just glimpse the western end of Anguilla seven or eight miles away on the far side of the channel between the islands. With the sheets hardened the Griffin came on the wind after rounding the spit and Ned saw Anguilla continuing to stretch away eastward into the Atlantic – and what a difference: that island was flat, reminding him of Romney Marsh and Dungeness.

  As he looked at St Martin again he could see that the flat land was slowly beginning to rise again to the eastward, but there was no sign yet of the little town of Marigot – nor of the galleon.

  Gradually, as the Griffin sailed hard on the wind towards the middle of the channel between the two islands, with the Phoenix and the Peleus following closely in her wake, Ned could see that the north-western coast of St Martin was scalloped by bays and short headlands, each a little shorter than its neighbour beyond. Sailing eastward, Ned noted, was like peeling skin from an onion: passing one spur revealed yet another bay and yet another spur. Some bays had small sandy beaches with one or two fishing boats dragged up well clear of the water.

  By now the Griffin was a third of the way across the channel towards Anguilla. Once again Ned looked back at St Martin and across the top of a low spur, where the land dipped, he saw in the distance the white speckles of a small town, obviously Marigot. The galleon was supposed to be aground beyond it. If he could see Marigot (or part of it, anyway) should he be able to see the galleon?

  Aurelia asked the question a moment later and, answering instinctively to delay disappointment, Ned said: “Not necessarily – there’s another much smaller bay just beyond the town. Remember, it is called Gallows Bay.”

  “Ah yes, the Baie de Potence. Perhaps the people of Marigot don’t want to look out of their doors and see a row of gallows… Quelle blague, I can’t make up my mind whether I want the galleon to be here or not! Half of me wants it to be gone so we can go back to Jamaica; the other half wants it here so we can capture it…”

  Ned laughed softly and made sure no one else c
ould overhear him. “To be honest, that’s just how I feel. So I shan’t be disappointed whatever we find. Certainly, we’d all be delighted with a good purchase, but in my imagination that damned galleon gets bigger every time I think about it. If it’s as big as I think it is (assuming it’s still there!) our three ships don’t stand a chance, unless we can think of some trick to play on the Dons.”

  Ned and Aurelia stood together on the afterdeck looking over the Griffin’s starboard quarter while Marigot opened up. As he had guessed, it was in a wide moon-shaped bay. The western half comprised just a rocky headland; then it curved round to a flat beach backed by mangroves: with the glass, Ned could just distinguish small fishing boats hauled up in front of huts, and brown specks on the sea turned out to be small logs cut from palm trees, obviously markers for fish pots.

  The bay’s eastern curve ended at the town of Marigot, which was built at the point where the first of the mountain peaks (the north-western end of the ridge running across the island) sloped down to form the flat western corner. A rocky hill, like a redoubt, stuck out in front of the town and a much smaller bay, presumably Gallows, began. On top of the cliffs forming the side of the hill – Ned strained his eye, refocusing the glass – there was a flat platform, a ledge surrounded by a rough stone wall. A gun battery to defend Marigot and its anchorage? From there guns could fire along the low beach to the west, northwards over the shallow Marigot Bay, and also round to the north-east, into Gallows Bay itself.

  All right, he told himself, now he had to take a careful look. He had quite deliberately started his inspection from the west, slowly creeping up, as it were, on Marigot. Now he had inspected the low coast and the ridge of peaks coming down in a series of valleys behind Marigot like waves breaking on a beach. He had looked at Marigot, the rocky bastion in front and its gun platform. Now for Gallows Bay itself.