by M. C. Muir
‘So the young men went with them?’
‘How could they?’ the woman replied.
Oliver was puzzled.
‘We have no young men here.’
‘Tell her I do not understand,’ Oliver said politely, his words and tone being conveyed to the old woman.
She sighed and interlocked her crippled fingers in a gesture of praying. Closing her eyes for a second she explained. ‘Since the Crown of Portugal ruled that all young men must serve the country’s army, our young men have left the island by whatever means they could. Once they reach the age of sixteen years, they go. If they hear of a whale ship on this island or any other island, they leave in the hope of signing on or stowing away on it. The same happens if there is a word of a British ship or an Indiaman in Ponta Delgada, they take a boat and go. Those in the towns whose families have money pay for their sons to sail to England or America in the hope once they reach that destination, they will make their fortunes and return to collect their sisters and parents and deliver them to a new land. But that doesn’t happen very often. Most boys are never heard of again.’
Oliver shook his head. ‘That must be hard on the mothers.’
‘Very hard. It breaks their hearts.’
Oliver paused.
‘So how do you survive with no men to care for you?’
The woman straightened her back. ‘We are strong and capable,’ she said, her voice feeble, but her tone determined. ‘Between us, we tend the fields, grow crops, fish, and care for the animals. We weave and sew, tan hides and fillet the fish we catch. We grind the grain and make out own bread, and we care for the old men who are too old or infirm to toil for us. But when this demon from the sea descended on us, he ordered all the men from their houses and lined them up. He cursed us because there were no young men amongst them and accused us of hiding our sons. The priest explained about the government’s regulations, but he did not believe him, and even while the priest was explaining, he drew a curved blade and sliced it across his throat.’
Her words brought a sudden intake of breath and sobs from some of the women, but the expression on the wrinkled face remained steadfast.
‘That is not the worst of it,’ she said. ‘The leader was a foreigner. He wore a long coat, like yours, in blue and red.’ Then she shook her head and was unable to continue for a while.
The captain waited patiently.
Smearing the tears across her cheeks, she continued. ‘This demon grabbed one of the girls―Antonia, my neighbour’s granddaughter. He tied her hands to the pump behind you. “Where are your brothers and your father?” he asked in Spanish. When she didn’t reply, he bellowed in her ear. The sound of his voice made her cry. From the fear and bewilderment on her face, it was obvious she did not understand his questions. Her mother, who was being held back by the other women, screamed at the man, “Her father is dead. Lost at sea. Her brother left the island on a ship”. The man demanded to know the name of the ship, but she could not answer. While the villagers cursed and threatened him with sticks, Antonia begged for mercy. But he did not listen. He continued to demand men but when no one appeared, he took out his pistol and pointed it at the girl’s head. He spoke in Spanish, and though it is not the language of the island, most understood what he was saying. But with no response to his call, he laughed. He accused us of defying him.’ She caught her breath. ‘He pulled the trigger.’
Ekundayo’s face creased as he translated the woman’s words. He felt her pain when she leaned down and touched the white stones at her feet crusted with blackened blood.
‘It was a nightmare,’ she continued. ‘Like the demons of Hell had descended on us. The children screamed and grabbed their mother’s skirts. The women whisked them into their arms and ran back to their houses. I did not move an inch from where I was standing because my legs would not carry me. My eyes would not leave the body of the young girl. She was only thirteen.’
‘Dear God!’ Oliver exclaimed. There was nothing more he could say.
‘When my breath returned to me, I pointed my stick at him and cursed him with every ounce of my being. I spat at his feet and told him again and again that we had no young men, but the monster would not listen. He accused the men of being cowards hiding behind women’s petticoats.’
‘What happened next?’
‘The captain was wild and ordered his men to search the houses. They took all the food they found, but they did not find anyone hiding from them, only six old men resting on their beds because they could hardly walk.’
‘Could you not call on the local militia to help you?’
She explained that there were no soldiers or militia on Santa Maria. There was absolutely nothing they could do.
‘While the old men were prepared to fight, we women knew it would be futile to try. What good are sticks against a mob of armed cut-throats?’ Her body swayed back and forth on the cold stone trough. ‘The six men he took were weak and infirm. Most of them could hardly walk. Yet he ordered them to march to the beach. I think by the time they reached there, he realized they were not fit enough to work on his ship. I think that is why he hung them.’ The tears rolled freely down her cheeks. ‘My husband was one of them.’
The captain was lost for words to express the depth of his sympathy.
‘When this Devil departed the square he left one message. “I will return two days from now, and when I do, if you do no give me twenty strong men, I will blow the heads off twenty of your women and children right here in the village square.”’
‘God in Heaven,’ Oliver cried, ‘who is this devil? This son of Satan? Even our enemies would not behave in such a fiendish manner.’
‘What can we do?’ Eku begged. ‘There must be something.’
The captain had no answer. He didn’t even have his ship in the water to chase this pirate, so there was nothing more to be said. After thanking the Negro, who had translated the woman’s words, he ordered his men back to the boat.
Before he left, Ekundayo talked quietly with women, speaking gently in a mixture of Spanish and broken Portuguese. Having witnessed the invasion of his home in the Caribbean, he understood their pain. He had watched the brutal murder of the plantation owner and could only imagine the fate suffered by his mother at the hands of the renegade black rebels. Though he had only been a boy at the time, those acts of butchery had never left him.
‘Please, Captain,’ the woman begged in faltering English. ‘Do not leave us. This man is returning tomorrow. God only knows what will become of us then.’
‘I am sorry, I must return to my ship,’ he said sincerely. ‘I am afraid there is nothing I can do.’
The old woman looked into his eyes and touched his arm. ‘Then pray for us, senhor.’
In no mood to partake of the refreshments the villagers offered them, Captain Quintrell and his party left immediately and returned to the beach where it was apparent that, during their time in the village, the wind had freshened, whipping up the waves to a degree that would have made it near impossible to get the boat back out to sea safely. Furthermore, after what he had heard, the captain had no desire to encounter the foreign ship on the water. Therefore, he decided to leave the cutter and return to Perpetual on the track over the headland taken the previous day by Mr Tully and the two boys.
When the group of seamen hurried past the gallows, the beady gaze of the hawks perched along the spar followed them. This time, however, the birds were uninclined to leave their prey, and not a single feather fluttered in response to the seamen’s presence.
Despite the captain’s concerns about finding a suitable path, with numerous goats and pigs roaming wild on the island, there were plenty of well-used tracks to choose from. Following in single file, Mr Tully led the way. In parts, the uphill climb over steep uneven ground was difficult for men more adept at to climbing rigging. Scrambling down the intervening valleys was not easy either with vines hooking around their legs, and dry branches clawing their bare arms.
The captain estimated the journey on foot would take at least two hours with no time to rest along the way. After travelling for less than half that time, a noise in the bushes ahead of them alerted the captain. It was the sound of a cutlass blade slashing the undergrowth. Holding up his hand to halt his men, he put his finger to his mouth for silence.
Pray God it is not the band of cut-throats.
The crew immediately squatted down on the path or took cover in the bushes.
‘Captain, is that you?’ a familiar voice called. Then, after a moment of silence an officer showed himself. ‘Thank the Lord, I have found you, sir.’
‘Mr Nightingale, what brings you here?’
‘I was sent to find you, Captain, I’m afraid all is not well,
Chapter 7
Careened
Within an hour of Captain Quintrell and his party being farewelled from the beach and the cutter disappearing from sight, Lieutenant Parry, who had been left in command, had allocated the hands to various groups. The woodcutters, armed with axes, saws and hatchets, were supplied with a day’s rations and despatched to a woody headland that had been sighted from the frigate to the west. They would spend one day felling and sawing before the arduous job of transporting the wood back to the ship would begin.
Another party of twenty headed inland, following the course of the valley in the hope of finding a source of fresh water. Everyone knew it would be a frustratingly slow job to refill the empty leaguers in the hull from the small barrels the men were able to carry on their shoulders. But only enough water was needed to supply the ship for another week. By then, Perpetual would be refloated and would be heading for Ponta Delgada where supplies could be replenished from the reservoirs at the port.
With the cooper, carpenter and some of the carpenter’s mates employed moving barrels in the hold under Mr Parry’s orders, the keenest-eyed topmen were chosen as lookouts and despatched to the cliff tops.
For the rest of the crew, regular watches were discontinued and any man who could hold a chisel or swing a hammer or put a strong elbow behind a bristle brush was employed in scraping the crust of barnacles and weed from the frigate’s hull. Being built in Bombay and constructed of Malabar teak, the oils in the wood had helped protect it from being bored into by the Teredo mollusc, and the copper plating had provided a further barrier to the worm, but nothing stopped barnacles from clinging to the hull. In parts the rock-hard layer was several inches thick. Had the frigate spent its recent months patrolling with the Channel Fleet or sailing in the North Sea, the constant pounding from the waves would have helped deter them, but sitting at anchor in the rich warm waters of Gibraltar Bay for several months had exacerbated the problem.
‘I pity the poor souls who were keel-hauled,’ Simon said, when examining the shells. ‘Such a hull would have ripped a man’s flesh from his bones. It would have been merciful for the man to drown.’
Sitting on the sand fifty paces from the careened ship with a drawing book propped on his knees, Jeremy Nightingale was happy to sketch the scene. Resting on the beach, leaning to her larboard side and well-supported with lines, anchor cable and struts, the naval frigate revealed to the artist its slightly bulbous curves usually hidden beneath the water. Mr Nightingale appreciated the lines and copied them accurately into his book.
With all precautions taken to prevent the vessel from rolling over, the waves of the incoming tide lapped the rudder and swirled around in the pool that had formed in the sand. But, otherwise, the sea had no effect on the hull. Everyone knew that when the time came to refloat the ship, it would take more than those transparent lapping wavelets to shift it.
Though the lieutenant enjoyed his art, today’s sketching was not purely for pleasure. He had been charged with the task by the captain before he had departed in the cutter to investigate the gallows on the nearby beach. While the captain’s log included adequate descriptive passages, he always appreciated a visual image to illustrate his entries. As was the artist’s usual practice, he would make rough sketches on the beach and complete his drawings at the wardroom table when the frigate was back at sea.
The sound of hammers echoed around the ship’s hull and, from the makeshift galley the smell of salt pork cooking wafted across the beach. It competed with the odour drifting from the bosun’s pot of pitch bubbling on a brazier not far from the ship. The sounds and sights were reminiscent of any busy shipyard.
Turning his attention from the careened ship, Mr Nightingale turned to face the cove’s entrance where the sea flowed in. Framed by two near-vertical headlands, it made a perfect picture. He watched the noisy terns diving into the water to catch fish and compared them with the larger gulls that appeared content to float on the water and wait for the fish to come to them.
Flipping the page, to commence his next sketch, he looked up and saw the image being sliced horizontally across by a long straight beam of timber. It was the bowsprit of a ship. Slowly and silently, it poked its nose from the point of the western headland and proceeded across the water half a mile from the cove’s entrance.
Jumping to his feet and allowing his drawing book and pencil to drop to the sand, Mr Nightingale shouted for the first lieutenant. At the same time, a cry came from Perpetual’s deck. In answer to the urgent calls, Mr Parry emerged from behind the hull to a barrage of shouting and pointing fingers.
‘What is it?’ he called. But, by then, he could see the ship for himself. ‘Bring me a glass,’ he ordered one of the midshipmen.
‘I see no flag,’ Mr Nightingale said. ‘Looks like a merchantman.’ It was a ship, indeed. Square-rigged on all three masts. ‘At least it’s not a French man-o’-war.’
‘Why was there no warning from the lookouts up on the cliffs?’ Mr Parry quizzed, but no one answered.
From the beach, he followed the ship’s progress as it swam across the azure sea. It was heading east in the direction of Portugal. But the half-smile disappeared from his face, when he heard the next call.
‘She’s heaving to!’
Grabbing the brass tube from the midshipman’s hand, Mr Parry focused the lens on the passing ship. The lookout was right. As soon as the helm was thrown over, the wind backed the sails and the ship’s progress slowed noticeably.
Mr Nightingale stepped up beside him. ‘What are your orders, Mr Parry?’
‘Tell the sergeant of marines to have his men armed and assembled on the beach and inform the men working below decks to be ready. Order the hands working on the hull on the starboard side to stand down and await my orders. Pass a message to the cockpit for the women to remain out of sight. Let us first ascertain the nationality and find out what the captain’s intentions are. I want no firing.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’ The third lieutenant quickly relayed the orders to two of the middies, who headed off to pass the orders to the others.
While the workers stopped what they were doing and watched from the beach, the visiting ship’s anchor splashed into the sea. At the same time, they observed two boats being swayed out from the davits.
‘Why doesn’t he show his colours?’ Mr Parry hissed.
Waiting was tedious, especially as little could be done from the beach or the gun deck. With Perpetual’s gunports closed and the muzzles pointing down to the sand from the larboard ports and at the sky on the opposite side, it would have been impossible to bring any gun to bear, even if there had been time permitting.
Mr Parry was uneasy. He had been instructed to send a message to Captain Quintrell should anything unusual eventuate, but the ship’s arrival had happened without warning and he had been caught off-guard. He cursed the lookouts on the headland for not giving him prior warning.
Observing the ship carefully, he noted the men who descended into the boats. They were dressed neither as marines nor soldiers nor even as respectable sailors. But that was not unusual for traders or whalers. Of the two boats, each accommodated eight men besides the six sailors on the oars. After pushing off from the ship’s side, the oar
s dipped rhythmically in the water as the sailors pulled towards the beach. Then two more boats emerged from around the far side of the vessel. Neither of the officers had noticed them being lowered.
With six red-coated marines standing at the cap rail on Perpetual’s deck and two in the shrouds, the remaining soldiers lined up in file in front of the frigate.
As if in answer to his earlier query, a large Danish flag was run up. Though it fell around the post, Mr Parry was familiar with that country’s colours. Somewhat relieved, the first officer remained where he was and waited until the four approaching boats had been run up on the beach.
A short but solid man in a faded blue coat and wearing a bicorn hat was carried from the first boat in the arms of a mightily built African. It was evident this was the captain. Once his feet were placed on the sand, he lifted his hat and waved it in a friendly gesture in the direction of the group gathered on the beach.
Rolling down his shirt sleeves, Mr Parry fastened the shirt buttons across his chest. Wearing neither coat, nor hat, nor shoes, and without his sword, he was inadequately dressed to greet a visiting captain. But the visitor had arrived unannounced and there had been no time to prepare. With Lieutenant Nightingale beside him, Simon Parry stepped across the sand to welcome him. After rubbing the sand from his hands, he extended his hand to greet the foreigner.
The events that followed happened with the speed of lightning. The lieutenant’s arm was grabbed and twisted behind his back and the point of a knife put to his throat. The third lieutenant received the same treatment. At the same time, the men who had manned the oars in the boats stood upright, but in place of oars, they levelled muskets at the marines and fired. The volley of shots hit two seamen, felled three of the marines on the beach and dropped two more from the shrouds. Their bodies thudded onto the sand beneath the hull.
