by Dudley Pope
“We could have some of our men with muskets along the beach, just to discourage them,” Saxby said. “Just enough to make them think Marigot is strongly held, so they’d keep away from the town.”
“Yes, there are other bays to the eastward where they can be taken off by their friends from Cartagena,” Ned said, “but our interest is getting the plate! Thomas, you and I had better go over and tell Couperin the glad news. In the meantime the rest of you can be getting your men ready.”
He looked down at a list he had written. “Very well. Lobb, you will be responsible for lighting up the merry scene, so you’d better come on shore with us, and have a good look round. Saxby, you should start filling kegs and collecting boats.” He looked up impatiently, listened to Martha and then glanced at Saxby, who shook his head helplessly. “Very well, Martha, you can go along with him. You can make sure the slowmatch doesn’t go out. Now, Thomas – Mitchell and fifteen men had better get over to the Didon. You’ve got your list of what they need? Good. The Didon should be ready to sail within a couple of hours. Now Lobb should take ten men from the Griffin and ten from the Phoenix, all with muskets, and decide where he’s going to place them, after dark. And remember, everyone must make dam’ sure the Dons can’t see anything you do. The galleon is behind the great hill, which Nature put there as a convenient screen. They can’t see our three ships, nor the three sloops. They’ll have seen the sloops arrive – and think no more than that: three small sloops laden with the usual cargoes.”
Couperin listened to Ned describing the plan with all the enthusiasm of a man accused of murder listening to a hanging judge sum up the overwhelming evidence against him. Finally he shook his head. “I can’t allow the Didon to be used like that.”
Ned watched him without comment.
“And all those Spaniards! Why, you agreed there must be at least two hundred of them. They could capture Marigot – I’ve barely fifty men I can rely on!”
“That’s twenty more than you mentioned when we were last here,” Thomas commented sourly.
“And who is going to pay for all that cargo?”
Ned leaned forward. “I agree, Your Excellency. It is unfair to burden you with all this responsibility. After all, you will have to account to Paris for everything – ship, cargoes, perhaps even the capture of Marigot by the Spaniards for a few days.”
Couperin looked relieved. “I am glad you understand the position I am in. I am sympathetic towards the Brethren of the Coast, and I admit I agreed to your earlier offer, but I must look after the interests of France–”
“And your own,” Ned said sympathetically.
“–and of course my own responsibilities as Governor General of St Christophe and St Martin. Already I have had my own ship stolen. Commandeered, anyway, and I doubt if the Spanish will keep their word to return her. And I bear all this responsibility alone: since the unfortunate death of my deputy yesterday, I have no one to advise me.”
“It is insupportable,” Ned said gently, “and it is unfair of us to make these demands on you. The answer is clear to me, and I am sure you will agree. We cancel the agreement making you temporarily a member of the Brethren which entitled you to a quarter share. Thus no blame can rest on your shoulders. True, you won’t get any of the purchase, but of course ‘Nothing venture…’
“Instead of you commandeering the Didon and confiscating the few tons of cargo we need from the other two ships, we shall take all three ships as prizes, so they will go into the general purchase account. I am sure your friends are well insured, and no blame attaches to you: the vessels were captured by the buccaneers, and that’s that – there was nothing you could do to prevent it.”
By now Couperin, face drained white and hands shaking, was like the accused man after the judge had pronounced sentence. His dreams of gold and silver ingots, leather pouches of gems, even a few ornaments being given to him as his share of the purchase, with no one else to split it with (the original partner’s funeral was being held tomorrow), had vanished. He had just talked himself out of a possible fortune.
“But…but well, surely–”
Ned interrupted him. “It is simple enough, Your Excellency. If you commandeer a French ship and a few tons of cargo, you stand a good chance of getting a fortune. But your duty to France, your sense of honour, your responsibility to your friends who own the Didon, all these prevent you from taking that chance. And believe me, Your Excellency, we respect your sentiments. You are a man of honour; we are but thieves sailing in from beyond the horizon.” He stood up and bowed. “The only request I have, Your Excellency, is that since we told you our plan in good faith, you will in equal good faith not repeat it to a living soul.”
“I – of course, Mr Yorke. I–”
“Otherwise,” Ned said grimly, “there’ll be a double funeral tomorrow.”
Couperin leapt to his feet, his face now changing: gone was the look of fear, of apprehension and doubt. Ned stared at the man, unable to believe the sudden transformation.
“Monsieur Yorke, please: the Didon is requisitioned, along with whatever cargo you need from the other two ships. I will give the orders at once. All my men – fifty-two – are at your disposal: give me their orders and they will be carried out to the letter. There are times, m’sieur,” he explained, “when Paris seems very near. Equally, there are times when Paris must be forgotten; when the emergencies we governors face are immediate and would never be understood by the bufones in Paris. Someone who has never been to these islands, who has never seen Spain’s grip, can never understand.”
Ned smiled and shook Couperin’s hand. “London gives us the same problems. London and Paris – they could be on the moon for all the relevance they have. We live out here, M’sieur Couperin, and one must remember that. The Spaniards could kill and rob us, not the elegant gentlemen in London and Paris.”
He thought a moment. Fifty Frenchmen on the beach. Yes, that would save using men from the Griffin and the Peleus. Which in turn…
“Yes,” he said, “so we are agreed: you help the Brethren and have a quarter share. In return we have the Didon and the cargoes we need, and your fifty men – led by you, eh?” When Couperin agreed, Ned gave him their instructions and then said: “Two good horses: you must give two of my men sound horses with good saddles. Can you do that? Not mules, horses.”
“From my own stable,” Couperin said eagerly.
“Good – have them waiting here for the men to collect tonight – any time from eight o’clock onwards. Eight o’clock our time,” he emphasized, “not French time. Everything – success or failure, a fortune or our destruction – depends on those two horses. They have to gallop a mile in the darkness – less, in fact. But gallop they must!”
“Twenty miles if necessary,” Couperin said. “You can trust me,” and his eyes twinkled as he added, “this time.”
Chapter Eighteen
Thomas bent over the binnacle, trying to read the heading in the faint light of a rush candle. “Who’d believe these dam’ fools would use rush candles for the compass,” he growled.
“I certainly would,” Ned said, amused by Thomas’ wrath. “No trader sails at night among these islands! They have more sense, since they can make every passage in daylight. I’m surprised there was even a candle in the holder!”
“I’ll be glad when we get to Marigot,” Thomas admitted frankly. “We don’t have a good enough chart to take us round St Martin safely at night. We might as well be riding round the coast on horseback: we’re just navigating from village to village. Let’s hope the village opposite this island of Tintamarre still has some people awake and with lanterns alight.”
“The channel is wide enough,” Ned said unsympatheti-cally. “I admit it’s a dark night but you can just distinguish the shore.”
“Just,” Thomas growled. “In fact I can just make out Tintamarre. Once it’s
on our starboard quarter, we turn to larboard and then it is a dead run to Marigot. When do you want the two lanterns lit?”
“We have to start counting headlands as soon as we turn. Light the lanterns as we pass the village of Grand Case. Then there’ll be four small headlands before we pass Coconut Point, about two miles. But before that our two horsemen should be able to spot the lights and start their gallop.”
“That fellow Parker sits a horse well,” Thomas said. “I was quite surprised.”
Ned gave a dry laugh. “You surprise me, Thomas. Can’t you guess what he was?”
“Ah, I see what you mean. A groom, or an ostler.”
“A knight of the road – or so he claims. I can believe it, the way he tucks a brace of pistols in his belt and rides hunched up. Obviously you’ve never met a highwayman – not on the road, anyway.”
“I haven’t, though before I met Diana I thought about becoming one,” Thomas admitted. “But as I’d lost everything at the gaming tables I hadn’t enough money to buy a decent horse.”
He looked down at the compass again and then peered into the darkness ahead of the Didon. He turned aft to speak to the man at the heavy tiller. “Stand by, we’ll be wearing round to larboard in a couple of minutes.”
Mitchell, the mate of the Peleus, was standing just in front of Thomas and received orders to prepare to trim the sails. Ned stood to one side, glad that for once he had no responsibility for handling the ship – not until the last few minutes, anyway. Once again they were skirting the French part, and he was alone with his plan.
He was a fool to be on board the Didon: he should have stayed in Marigot: it was there that things could (and almost certainly would) go wrong. To start with, supposing those two seamen with the horses did not spot the two lanterns which would be hoisted up the Didon’s mast – or did not spot them until too late? Or else, as they galloped their horses put their feet into crab holes and broke their legs. And then Lobb, he thought – supposing his slowmatch goes out and he spends twenty minutes with flint and steel trying to light more tinder. And Couperin – can he be trusted to get his men into position – with muskets (provided by the buccaneers)?
What about Saxby and Martha Judd – had they made all their preparations and were they ready in position? If the horsemen and Lobb were the most important part of the plan, then Saxby and his men came next. And after Saxby – well, after Saxby, it was up to Ned Yorke. It was Ned Yorke’s plan and like the hero in the last scene of a play, the last move of all, the one which meant success or failure, was to be handled by Ned Yorke.
He began to feel sorry for himself just as the helmsman and his mate leaned on the tiller, the sails flapped wildly and then filled with a thud on the other tack, and Ned could just make out a darker line in the night which was the north-eastern corner of St Martin.
“Time for the axes,” he reminded Thomas.
Thomas bellowed at the dozen men waiting abreast the mainmast, sleeping in the lee of the hatch coaming. They jumped up and quickly began knocking out the wedges jamming the long battens that held down the tarpaulin over the cargo hatch. The tarpaulin was hauled off and while one man began cutting it into strips, the others lifted off the planks of the hatch cover. Quickly they chopped and split the planks into three-foot lengths and dropped them down into the hold and then tossed in the strips of tarpaulin.
“Carry on!” Thomas shouted, and the men began hacking at the deck planking with their axes. In the darkness Ned could only hear and feel, through the thudding of the planks on which he stood, that the men were working quickly and, judging from the ribald remarks, confidently, cutting small holes every few feet.
The men with the axes had finished their work and Mitchell was standing by with two lanterns when Thomas announced: “That’s Grand Case on our larboard beam. That nearer black shape is Crole Rock, which stands tall a few hundred yards off the shore. Grand Case is just to the west of it – there’s quite a bay here, like the one at Marigot. But we’re steering a steady course and we’ll pick up the headland at the end of the bay. That’s the headland where we hoist the lanterns.”
“Let’s get ’em lit, then,” Ned said. “Is the halyard ready to hoist them?”
“I checked it an hour ago, sir,” Mitchell reported.
Ned saw the man’s face lit up by the first of the lanterns. Mitchell waited a few moments to make sure the wick was drawing well and not smoking, and then shut the door and, in the light from the window, lit the second lantern. He then picked them both up and, calling to two seamen, walked forward ready to hoist them.
“Hoist away!” Ned called.
“I don’t know if the fellows at Coconut Point will see ’em,” Thomas grumbled, “but they’ve damned well blinded me. Can’t see a thing.”
“Always keep one eye shut when there’s a light around,” Ned advised. “Then, when the light’s gone, you can still see in the darkness when you open that eye.”
Thomas sniffed. “You were a bit late with that advice. It’s the sort of thing a highwayman would know.”
“Just as well you couldn’t afford to buy that horse,” Ned said, and heard the squeak of rope rendering through a block as the lanterns were hoisted up.
“They’ll see them on Coconut Point all right,” Ned said. “Look, they’re even lighting up the foredeck and reflecting on the bow wave.”
“There’s just enough phosphorescence along here to help too,” Thomas commented. “We must be making five knots – there, see how that surge sent out the bow wave and the phosphorescence is as bright as a couple of coach lanterns! I hope those two men got out to Coconut Point all right. All those land crab holes. Worse than hunting across land riddled with coney warrens.”
“The men are probably perfectly safe,” Ned said reassuringly, although made nervous that Thomas’ fears ran parallel with his own. “They’re probably out on the point, asleep in the lee of a large rock. Or else keeping up their courage with rumbullion.”
“Ned, don’t joke about such things. They could be asleep or they could be sucking at a bottle of rumbullion like a lamb at its mother’s teats.”
“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now,” Ned said, “so remember what we told Couperin. Drôle, Thomas, stay drôle: all else is madness – as you well know.”
“That’s the headland at the end of Grand Case bay,” Thomas said. “So start counting – one, and three more to go to Coconut Point.”
Although the wind was light and steady, low swell waves creeping up under the wind waves on the starboard quarter made the Didon pitch at times so that as her bow dipped, she slowed momentarily until the wind, bulging her sails, thrust her forward again so that the bow wave chuckled. Cloud hid most of the stars although Ned had an occasional fleeting look at Orion’s Belt and, low down on the starboard hand, the Pole Star. If only it had been a clear night there would have been enough light from the stars to show up the land clearly. If only, Ned thought grimly. If only was another road leading to madness. If only there had been a moon… If only the galleon was smaller so the three ships could board… If only the Governor of Jamaica was not such a fool…
That is the second headland and, damnation, he could see the third and…the fourth, Coconut Point…and the sky over on the larboard bow is turning a faint pink and now going black again, becoming pink and then fading, as though someone is using a bellows to revive a dying fire.
“They were neither asleep nor drunk,” Thomas grunted happily. “That’s the only advantage of a dark night – a lantern shows up better.” He moved closer to Ned and whispered: “You know, I think I’m more nervous than I was sitting in that dam’ chair at San Germán staring at the garotte!”
“I should think so, too,” Ned said drily. “All you had to lose then was your life; now all our gold and silver is at risk!”
“Those two lads must have spotted
the lanterns the moment we hoisted them and then galloped like the wind round to Lobb,” Thomas commented. “Those land crab holes…there must be hundreds of them between the point and the track round to Marigot.”
Ned watched the pink of the western sky gradually deepening into an angry red, pulsing like a severed vein. The glow was not only growing larger but beginning to burn steadily.
“Lobb has done a splendid job – lighting all the scrub on the hill couldn’t have been easy. I wonder if they pulled those three cannon clear? The battery and carriages are just a pile of rotten wood, but the guns themselves can be remounted. It might be quite a blaze. I thought he was just boasting when he told me he was going to set everything alight from the beach right up to the top of the hill!”
“It’s quite a blaze all right!” Thomas said. “I can distinguish your features, and we’ve still a headland before we reach Coconut Point. By Jove,” he exclaimed. “Saxby can probably see us by now! Let’s hope the Dons don’t spot him!”
“They’ll be too puzzled about what’s going on at the hill – at least I hope so. Look, that’s Coconut Point – three palm trees, then the two rocks. You’d better get the men below. Mitchell! Lower those lanterns!”
The halyard squealed in the block aloft as the lanterns swayed down to the deck, and Mitchell and another seaman hurriedly untied the knots.
“What about Saxby?” Thomas exclaimed.
“If he hasn’t already seen us, he’ll soon spot us in the light from Lobb’s bonfire as we round the point. Don’t forget, he only starts five minutes early. Sorry, three minutes – though how he’ll be able to judge that accurately I don’t know!”
“He can see the point, he’ll see us, and he can see the galleon. He knows what we’re trying to do and he knows what his job is. So don’t worry – don’t forget Martha’s with him!”
