Galleon

by Dudley Pope

  Couperin nodded. “Yes. My estimate was higher, for both men and guns, but I had forgotten the smaller guns.”

  “And how many men can you muster?”

  Couperin shrugged his shoulders. “Given a few days – two or three, anyway – about forty. Thirty, anyway. That includes the fishermen.”

  “We can land about two hundred men. They rather outnumber your thirty,” Ned said pointedly, and watched as Couperin divided thirty into two hundred.

  The Frenchman realized that Yorke, Saxby and Whetstone were together providing two hundred men. Each captain, he thought, was like a Roman centurion: he had (almost) a century of men. Each captain, that was, except himself, the Governor.

  Couperin, thinking of his thirty, was thankful that Yorke had not asked him (yet, anyway) if the men would be armed. There were perhaps twenty muskets and ten pistols in St Martin, and he dreaded to think of the condition of the powder: it would be damp and caking. The slowmatch for the locks…well, better not to think about it.

  “And weapons?” Ned asked.

  Couperin decided there was no point in prevaricating: Yorke had the kind of eyes that could see through a green-heart plank. “Twenty muskets, ten pistols, poor powder, doubtful slowmatch,” he said. “Swords of course, and we have the three cannon up in the bastion.”

  “Three canons equal one bishop,” Ned said and as Saxby and Thomas laughed, Ned explained to a puzzled Couperin: “A complicated sort of joke. A cannon, spelled with two ‘n’s’, is of course a gun. With one ‘n’ it is a religious rank.”

  Couperin laughed heartily and then said: “We use only one ‘n’ in French: droit canon – that’s what the ecclesiastics call ‘canon law’. Cannon law and canon law – ha, the Spanish will notice the difference! You are a drôle fellow, M’sieur Yorke. I use the word in the English sense.”

  He lifted his mug, still not realizing that the other men had nothing to drink. “I give you a toast – to much drôlerie! May it make us rich!”

  “Yes, indeed,” Ned said. “Which reminds me. We agreed earlier that if you joined us, you would have a quarter share.”

  “Yes, a quarter,” Couperin said, clearly doing his sums again. Thirty men as a proportion of two hundred. Sadly he watched his quarter shrink to a sixth, thought again and then smiled. A sixth of all the treasure in that galleon would still leave him a very rich man, and now there was no deputy to share in it. Just small rewards for the thirty or so men and the fishermen. A sixth of the sixth would keep them quiet.

  Couperin felt faint when Ned nodded. “Very well, we agreed on a quarter, even though we expected you to provide more men. Still, it may not matter now. And what I am going to tell you is for your ears only. Do not repeat it to anyone.”

  Ned finally jumped down from the breech of the aftermost gun on the Griffin’s starboard side, his voice hoarse from having explained for the third time (once to each ship) the plan of attack. Just as his feet hit the deck, Lobb called and pointed towards the western headland forming the bay. Further out to sea, obviously tacking towards Anguilla before tacking in again for Marigot, was a ship.

  Ned grabbed the perspective glass which Aurelia had snatched from the binnacle box drawer, pulled out the tube to the ring marking the correct focus for his eyes and examined the vessel.

  She was perhaps half the size of the Phoenix. Heavy laden – her hull so low in the water that the waves, not particularly high, were occasionally sweeping over her foredeck. Guns – a gun port aft, so perhaps two guns. Just a small trading sloop bound for Marigot with a mixed cargo from somewhere. Then as he was going to take the glass from his eye, he caught sight of a second sail, another vessel on the same course and perhaps half a mile behind the first.

  Not so heavily laden, about the same size, and armed with four guns, and neither ship flying any flag. Sailing in company “for mutual protection” – that made sense in these waters where anyone with a ship who was short of money could indulge in piracy. And, the Devil take it, a third sail! Three sloops bound for Marigot. They were not intending to go to Road Harbour, on the north side of Anguilla, because they were hard on the wind, whereas they would ease sheets if they wanted to round Anguilla, at the western end of the island.

  He handed the glass to Lobb. “Tell the men to forget what I’ve just said. My throat’s too sore to raise my voice again.”

  With that he went down to the cabin, followed by Aurelia.

  “What ships are they?”

  He realized that apart from his instruction to Lobb, he had not spoken a word. “Nothing to worry about,” he said reassuringly. “Three small trading vessels bringing cargo to Marigot. Half a dozen men in each of them and they’re heavily laden.”

  “What cargoes? Not salt, because they have their own salt pans here.”

  Ned shrugged his shoulders. “Potatoes? I haven’t seen any growing here. Cattle, horses, hogs – not much land here for farming.”

  “But you told Lobb to tell the men to forget what you’ve just said,” Aurelia reminded him. “Why should the arrival of these three sloops affect your plan?”

  “Damned if I know until they get here.” Ned admitted, “but it might mean Couperin has a few more men. They won’t be in for another two hours and by the time they’ve gone on shore and Couperin has enough details to tell us about them, it’ll be much too late for us to do anything tonight. That reminds me, I must send over Thomas and Saxby and tell them of the delay.”

  “Don’t forget those Spaniards coming from Cartagena, Ned,” Aurelia said anxiously. “You’ve said you think they’ll send several ships…”

  Ned shook his head. “Those chaps aren’t the Dons: we’ve at least three days more before we see them, even if they made a fast passage in Couperin’s ship. The wind has been brisk every day but it falls flat every night. You know what a wretched passage we had from Porto Rico, so you can imagine what a miserable sail it’ll be from Cartagena to here: foul wind, foul current…and no doubt the bottoms of the Spanish ships so foul with barnacles and grass their speed is halved. Three days? More likely another week!”

  “Where are you going now?” she asked as Ned buckled on his sword. “If you are going on shore I’m coming too: I need some exercise. And we can collect Diana on the way.”

  “I was just going to call on Couperin.”

  “M. Couperin is lucky,” she said. “The way he looks at Diana and me, I suspect there are few women on this island, or St Kitts.”

  ***

  Couperin looked startled when he saw Ned, Thomas and the two women approaching his house along the narrow, sandy track. He hurried forward to greet them, kissing the hands of Diana and Aurelia in a way which reminded Ned that Aurelia’s suspicions were obviously correct.

  He waited until they were all in the house before asking Ned nervously: “Is there a difficulty? Have you changed the plan?”

  Ned gestured towards the harbour. “For tonight, yes. Those three ships coming in – what are they?”

  “Oh, just three sloops from St Christophe. Mine would have been with them, if those damnable Spaniards had not stolen her.”

  “What are they carrying?”

  Couperin shrugged his shoulders. “The usual mixed cargo. They bring items needed here, but their most important job is carrying cargo from here to St Christophe. Hides, salt, some fruit…to be transferred to the next ship going to France. We never know when one will arrive, but we have warehouses in St Christophe where we can store it all.”

  “Fruit, for France?” Thomas asked.

  Couperin laughed. “I’m sorry, I must correct myself. These ships–” he waved seaward, “–bring pitch and casks for the people here to preserve the fruit.”

  Aurelia made some comment in French which Ned did not quite understand, but Couperin looked towards Diana and Thomas. “Excuse me, I will explain. In France such fruits as
guava, prickly pear and prickly apple are rare delicacies for which some people will pay a very high price. The only way of keeping them on the voyage across the Atlantic is to pick them before they are fully ripe, and then store them in a barrel with pitch. The pitch, it seems, has properties that prevent the fruit from rotting without affecting the taste. Rather like salt preserving meat. Whereas we have our own salt pans – most islands have – we have to bring up the pitch from Trinidad. There’s plenty there but getting it away from the Spaniards is a problem. All of it is smuggled: that’s why pitch is so expensive.”

  Aurelia nodded in agreement. “We used to send some fruits to England from Barbados packed with pitch in barrels. Although the pitch is soft out here in this heat, it is brittle by the time it arrives in England and it is easy to break it away without damaging the fruit. If the fruit still isn’t quite ripe, hanging it up in a dark corner is enough.”

  “How much pitch will these ships be bringing?” Ned asked.

  Couperin shrugged his shoulders. “Twenty barrels each, perhaps. Preserved fruit is a profitable luxury. Here in St Martin they can grow fruit, and they can breed cattle for their hides. And there’s salt. Sugar and tobacco – well, they grow some sugar, but the tobacco smokes with an earthy taste, and the Dutch – who buy all they can – give such a poor price for it that planters here are giving up tobacco altogether, except for their own needs.”

  “Hot waters,” Ned said. “Do they make their own rumbullion here in St Martin?”

  Couperin shook his head, almost apologetically. “No, they bring it over from St Christophe. The three sloops you saw will be carrying some, I expect.”

  “You are sure they’re from St Christophe?” Ned asked casually.

  “Oh yes, absolutely certain. As I said, mine should have been among them. They are owned by my friends.”

  “And as Governor General, in an emergency you can commandeer the ships?”

  “Well, I have the power to,” Couperin admitted reluctantly, “but you understand, they belong to my friends.”

  Ned nodded. “Your friends, but not ours. What you don’t commandeer, we can always take. You can always explain it away to your friends as submitting to force majeure…”

  “Yes, indeed: it would be a more tactful way,” Couperin agreed.

  “Just one ship, and part of some of the cargoes,” Ned said. “That would be enough.”

  “Ah yes, force majeure. I shall have to make a formal protest to you, of course.”

  “Of course,” Ned agreed. “In writing. As soon as we know the name of the ships and can read the cargo manifests, we’ll draw up the protest. I’m sure Madame Wilson will make you a fair copy – I would not care to trust my French.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ned broke the seal of the letter from Charles Couperin and began reading. Couperin began with the names of the three ships – Les Deux Sœurs of Nantes, the Sans Peur of Toulon and the Didon of Honfleur. They had a total of twenty men on board, and he then listed the main items of their cargo. The Didon carried fifty-five barrels of pitch and the Sans Peur another twenty. The Deux Sœurs had mostly clothing – bundles of jerkins, breeches, stockings, hats, feathers and shirts, along with boots, not all intended for Marigot.

  All three had bundles of barrel staves and hoops to be assembled in the island and used for carrying salt. The ships carried casks of rumbullion and one had a quantity of gin (Dutch, Couperin noted – presumably in case any of the English felt nostalgic about what foreigners regarded as the country’s national drink).

  Ned folded the letter and put it down, watched by Aurelia from the other side of the table. She gave him the whimsical, questioning smile that regularly made him fall in love with her again. “Well,” she said, examining her finger nails, “what brilliant ideas has the Governor’s letter stirred up in my lord and master?”

  “Do you know Honfleur?” Ned asked unexpectedly.

  “I’ve been there as a child, but I can’t remember much about it. Tarred rope, rotting fish, paint, linseed oil – I seem to remember only smells. The ship’s chandlers’ shops fascinated me. I can’t recall what they looked like, but what mysterious smells! Why do you ask? Honfleur must be as far from Paris as we are from Porto Rico!”

  Ned waved towards the anchored sloops. “The Didon of Honfleur is just the ship we need.”

  “Stop talking in riddles!”

  “I haven’t put all my ideas together yet, but we need Thomas and Saxby over here, and their mates.” He looked at Aurelia and grinned. “And Diana and Martha Judd too, of course.”

  While a boat went off with the message, Ned took out the inkwell and uncorked it, found a new quill and searched for his pen knife to cut a point, and then took a sheet of paper. He sketched the bay with Marigot at its eastern end, marked in the hill with the battery on top, and then drew in Gallows Bay, carrying the sweep round to include the headland from which they had launched the coconuts, naming it ‘Coconut Point’. Then he marked in the position of the galleon.

  After carefully wiping the quill and putting the cork back in the inkwell (and, after looking at his sketch, cursing that he had not shaken the bottle first: the ink was very faint), he shut his eyes and in his imagination pictured the night attack on the galleon. He was not conscious of Aurelia coming back to the cabin after telling Lobb to fetch the others, and she sat quietly sewing after tiptoeing round the table to look at the chart he had drawn.

  When he opened his eyes, as though wakening from a brief nap, she looked at him with a raised eyebrow, and he smiled and nodded. “A plan. I’m not sure if it’s practical, but I can’t think of a better way of tackling it.”

  “You’re going to set Martha Judd on to them?”

  He sighed. “I thought of that, but poor Saxby’d be heartbroken if she went off with a handsome hidalgo.”

  “I see no alternative to leaving it to Martha,” Aurelia said teasingly, hoping Ned would describe his plan. “It has to be a night attack but there’s no moon. We’d need scaling ladders if we go alongside and try to board. They’re expecting an attack and your coconut trick showed us their sentries are wide awake. And Couperin is frightened to death that the Spanish will bombard the town…”

  “All looks hopeless, doesn’t it?” Ned said blithely. “Let’s leave all the gold and silver plate to Couperin, sail home to Jamaica and finish building our house.”

  “Oh you beast! Give me some hint!”

  Ned looked down at his rough chart. “You’ll hear all about it when the others arrive, but there are three main points. We’ve got to be able to see the galleon in the dark: we’ve got to be able to attack her: and we’ve got to take the Spaniards by surprise.”

  “Martha Judd, swimming out holding a candle – there you have it all: seeing, attacking and surprising. Aren’t I a wonderful help?”

  He walked round the table and kissed her. “We’ll use some of the gold and silver to build a big church in Port Royal so that we can be married properly. In stone, and pews to hold a hundred. A minstrel’s gallery. A peal of bronze bells. Have I forgotten anything?”

  “Yes. I haven’t agreed to marry you.”

  “A mere trifle,” Ned said, kissing her again. “Ah, here they come: I can hear Thomas booming and Martha chiming. Let’s go on deck and meet them.”

  After welcoming them on board, Ned pointed out the Didon. “Take note of her,” he said. “Do you agree she looks the most weatherly of the trio?”

  “All three must be reasonably weatherly,” Thomas said. “After all, they crossed the Atlantic to get here!”

  “She’s the one I’d pick,” Saxby said. “Why do you ask, sir: are we taking her as a prize?”

  Ned laughed. “No, not a prize. Come below and pick holes in an idea I have. Couperin has sent out the cargo manifests – or at least an indication of what the three ships ar
e carrying, and this idea occurred to me.”

  “I know,” Thomas said, “we’re all going to make our fortune by preserving guavas and bananas in pitch and sending them to London in the Didon. We’ll also send Martha to set up a business at the Sign of the Golden Guava, next to Mr Wickes who sells hot waters to the gentry from his establishment at Black Friars, just by the Playhouse.”

  “You’re not getting me back to England,” Martha said emphatically. “Cromwell had me transported and I’ve been grateful ever since. Your uncle was a rogue in every other respect,” she told Thomas, “but he got me out of the drizzle and cold into sunshine and warmth, and no one – not even you,” she told Saxby, “will every make me return to that miserable weather!”

  “Well spoken,” Ned said, “so Thomas will have to leave the guavas to rot on the trees. Now come on, we haven’t a lot of time.”

  He sat at the head of the table and explained his plan, surprised at the end of it that everyone congratulated him and agreed it was the only possible one.

  “There are three aspects as I see it,” Thomas said, holding up three fingers. “The first is that there must be plenty of illumination, so that whoever is sailing the Didon can see where to go. But we can’t wait for the moon.” He folded one finger. “That leaves us with ‘surprise’ and ‘means’. Only you could think of a way of surprising the Dons while they’re actually watching us,” he told Ned. “But I’m sure it’ll work.” He folded down the second finger, leaving only the index finger sticking up. “The means – well, as long as we don’t have any trouble with Couperin, it should work. But we must remember there are enough Dons on board that galleon to seize Marigot.”

  “That did occur to me too,” Ned admitted, “but even if they did they wouldn’t stay. The ships are due here soon from Cartagena, and they’d take them back. The island is big enough for the French to hide in the mountains for a few days.”