Buccaneer

by Tim Severin

  Peralta had to admire the pirates’ courage. They did not flinch under the bursts of scatter shot but changed their methods. Only a handful of their men in the bow were still shooting, the rest were straining at the oars, rowing the piragua forwards, roaring and chanting their defiance. They were desperate to close and board.

  Let them come, Peralta thought. He had enough men to deal with the onslaught.

  A cry from behind him made him spin around. His second mate was running towards the far rail. A hand had appeared at deck level. Someone had climbed up the side of the ship away from the battle. The mate stamped hard on the hand and it withdrew.

  Peralta drew a pistol from his belt and hurried to join his officer. Looking over the rail he found himself staring straight down into one of the pirate canoes. It had succeeded in sneaking up, unnoticed, to the stern of the barca longa. There were six men in the canoe, and at least one of them was wounded for he was leaking blood. The faces of the others were turned towards him. Don Francisco thrust his pistol over the rail and fired downwards. It was impossible to miss. The pirate in the centre of the canoe fell back, half in and half out of the canoe.

  His second mate was waving a cutlass and screaming curses. Peralta realised that the man had no musket. ‘Here, take this,’ he shouted, pulling a second pistol from his waistband, and handing it to the man. ‘Keep them off.’

  He turned and ran back across the deck. He was needed there to direct the patareros. To his dismay he found that the piragua was now far closer than he had expected. Only a gap of a few yards separated the two vessels. A moment later they touched sides and a score of the enemy were clambering on his deck, yelling and whooping like fiends.

  Peralta drew his sword, a rapier given him when he first received his commission, and the next instant found himself fending off a haggard, ginger-haired man who rushed at him hefting a boarding axe. Don Francisco felt a heavy jolt as the axe struck his rapier blade. Fortunately it was a glancing blow, otherwise the steel would have shattered. The axe head slid as far as the rapier’s hilt and turned aside harmlessly. Peralta took his chance to run his assailant through the shoulder with the point. More and more pirates were climbing aboard, and there was chaos across the entire width of the deck. Buccaneers and his black crew men surged together in hand-to-hand combat. There was an occasional pistol shot, but most of the fight was waged with cutlasses and daggers, cudgels, muskets used as clubs, short pikes and fists. One of his own men was swinging a capstan bar, using it to batter and smash at his opponents. Peralta caught a glimpse of a giant buccaneer who was wreaking havoc with a weapon that the Spanish captain had never encountered before. It was a stubby sword scarcely longer than a cutlass and not as broad in the blade. The giant was wielding it with extraordinary agility, slashing and cutting almost too fast to follow, and he was driving back anyone who challenged him. As the captain watched, the giant cut down two of Santa Catalina’s crew.

  ‘Come on! We are more than they are!’ he yelled, and flung himself into the thick of the fight. He was conscious of someone at his left shoulder. It was Estevan and he was fighting grimly, protecting his captain’s vulnerable side. Peralta shouted again, urging on his crew, and he felt a thrill of pride as they responded with a concerted charge. A score of them began to force the boarders back towards their own vessel. ‘Well done! Well done!’ he screamed, smashing his sword hilt into a sweating pirate face. His crewmen pressed forward. Now they had the initiative. The pirates were in retreat. Don Francisco was panting with effort. His foot skidded and he almost fell. The deck was slippery with blood. But it did not matter. Already the first of the pirates were jumping back into their piragua; their comrades were fighting a rearguard action. In another few moments the deck of his barca longa would be cleared. Now was the time to smash the enemy into oblivion.

  Don Francisco grabbed his contremaestre by the shoulder. ‘We must get to the forward patarero, Estevan!’ he bellowed in the man’s ear. ‘Load it with the heaviest shot you can find. Shoot down into that damned piragua, and send her to the bottom.’ Estevan had never failed him in all those years they had served together on the royal ships. He always knew exactly what he was doing. Now he and Don Francisco sprinted forward to the bow, hurdling two badly wounded men sprawled on the deck. As Estevan ran, he was calling out to two of his own men to help him with the patarero.

  The four of them reached the swivel gun where it sat on its mounting on the rail. Its muzzle was pointing skyward, left at that angle after the last time it had been fired. Peralta watched Estevan grab the breech and swing the weapon level so that two assistants could take their positions. One man stood at each side of the gun and clasped the barrel. At a command from the contremaestre, all three men heaved the patarero off its mount, then gently laid the weapon on deck ready to reload.

  Peralta gave a smile of relief. Now the gun crew was behind the ship’s rail, out of sight of the pirates in the piragua. Jeers, confused shouting, and the occasional report of a musket told him that his crew were managing to keep the pirates at bay, preventing them from climbing back aboard the barca longa. In another minute or two, the patarero would be reloaded, hoisted back into position, and then he and Estevan would tilt the gun so that it pointed directly down into the piragua. A single shot at such close range would be devastating. It would rip the bottom out of the pirate’s craft, and that would be the end of the fight.

  Perhaps it was an ember still smouldering inside the bronze barrel of the patarero which caused the disaster. Or maybe metal struck on metal and produced an unlucky spark, or the inexperienced gun crew bungled their work. Whatever the reason, there was a tremendous explosion on the foredeck. A dozen powder charges ignited simultaneously. Sections of planking flew into the air. Two of the gun crew were blown to pieces, and a blast of heat struck Peralta in the face. He threw up his hands to protect himself from the sheet of flame which followed, and felt a searing pain. Deafened by the clap of sound, he was thrown bodily over the ship’s rail and into the sea.

  HECTOR AND his comrades in their canoe were only fifty paces away when the thunderclap of the explosion occurred. Something terrible had taken place on the barca longa’s deck.

  ‘Man in the water!’ Hector shouted. He could see the head of someone swimming.

  ‘Let him drown. He’s just a Spaniard,’ said a voice.

  ‘No! He could be from our boarding party,’ Hector insisted, thinking that perhaps it was Jacques or Jezreel who had been in the piragua. He started paddling. Ahead of him, John Wat-ling followed his example. From the Spanish vessel there was no sound at all. Hector supposed that everyone aboard was too shocked and stunned to continue fighting.

  When the canoe reached the swimmer, he proved to be an older man with short, nearly white hair. By his dark complexon it was evident that he was a Spaniard. He was supporting the unconscious body of a black man, holding his head above the sea. The negro was horribly wounded. His skin was lacerated and torn, his face a mask of blood.

  ‘Here, grab on and let us help you,’ Hector called out in Spanish as he reached down to take hold of the unconscious figure. The swimmer gave a nod of thanks, and the black man was lifted carefully into the canoe. ‘You too,’ Hector added, holding out his hand. ‘Come aboard. You are our prisoner now.’

  The stranger clambered into the canoe, and there was something about his manner which indicated that he was an officer.

  ‘My name is Hector Lynch. I’m not a surgeon, but I have a few medicines with me which may help your friend here.’

  ‘I will be grateful for that,’ answered the stranger. ‘Allow me to introduce myself. I am Capitan Francisco de Peralta, commander of the Santa Catalina that you and your colleagues have assaulted. The wounded man is my quartermaster, Estevan.’

  ‘What do we do now? The black man needs proper medical attention,’ Hector asked, addressing his colleagues.

  ‘We could bring Peralta to his ship, and get him to call on the crew to surrender,’ suggested Watling.
He spoke enough Spanish to have followed Hector’s conversation with their prisoner.

  Cautiously they began to paddle their canoe towards the barca longa. One or two men could be seen moving about on deck of the stricken Spanish warship. There was a thin flicker of flame along the lower edge of the mainsail which had been set alight in the explosion. Someone was attempting to put out the fire, throwing water from a bucket. There was no sign of anyone from the boarding party from the piragua which was still on the opposite side of the Spanish vessel and out of sight.

  The canoe had covered less than half the distance when there was a second explosion, even more thunderous than the first. This time it came from the stern of the Santa Catalina and was so powerful that it snapped the mainmast and sent it crashing over the side, trailing tattered sails and rigging. A black cloud of smoke rose in the air. Soon afterwards came the sounds of wailing and screams of pain.

  Peralta went pale. ‘God help my crew. They did not deserve that,’ he muttered.

  When Hector and the others reached the barca longa, they found carnage everywhere – broad streaks of blood on the deck, broken and shattered gear, scorched planking, the smell of burning. Only about a quarter of the crew seemed still alive, and the survivors were either badly wounded or in a state of shock. Peralta was grim-faced, appalled by the destruction.

  Hector and Watling helped the capitan hoist the still unconscious black man aboard and lay him on deck, and Hector knelt beside the injured contremaestre, trying to remember how surgeon Smeeton had treated gunpowder burns.

  ‘Any idea who’s the senior Spanish survivor?’ someone asked. Hector looked up. It was Sawkins. Miraculously the hot-headed buccaneer captain was still alive though there was a bloody bandage round his head, and his buff coat was smudged with gunpowder. He must have boarded from the piragua.

  ‘This is Captain Francisco Peralta. He’s the commander,’ Hector answered.

  ‘Ask him about those other ships. We need to know how they are manned and armed,’ said Sawkins briskly. He was his usual terrier-like self, eager for action and gazing towards the four vessels which could be seen at anchor in the roadstead off Panama. Hector marvelled at the man’s unquenchable energy.

  The Spanish captain hesitated for a moment before replying. ‘You’ll find four hundred well-armed men aboard those ships.’

  On the deck beside Peralta the black man stirred and opened his eyes. They were filled with pain. It was clear that he was mortally wounded.

  ‘There’s no one over there. Everyone already volunteered for this fight,’ Estevan wheezed.

  Peralta started to contradict him, but Sawkins cut him short. ‘I accept the word of a dying man, captain. You have fought well, and there is no disgrace. What we need now is a hospital ship.’

  The contremaestre had spoken the truth. There was not a soul on the anchored vessels when the buccaneers reached them, though someone had attempted to scuttle the largest of them, the galleon La Santissima Trinidad. A fire of rags and wood shavings had been deliberately set in her forecastle and several planks punctured with an axe. But the blaze had not yet taken hold and was quickly extinguished, and a carpenter was able to seal the leak. Then the wounded, both buccaneers and their enemies, were laid out on the galleon’s broad deck to receive attention.

  ‘I doubt that our Captain Harris will live. He was shot through both legs while trying to climb up onto Peralta’s ship,’ said Jacques. He was watching Hector stitch up a deep gash in the shoulder of a buccaneer.

  ‘Does that mean our company has to elect a new captain?’ asked his friend. He had watched surgeon Smeeton use sewing quill and thread to close a wound and was imitating his technique.

  ‘As soon as our wounded are sufficiently recovered, there’ll have to be a council of the entire expedition to decide what to do next,’ answered the Frenchman. ‘Already some of the men are demanding to return to Golden Island. Others are saying that we haven’t gained sufficient plunder yet, and they would prefer to continue with the expedition.’

  ‘How will you vote?’

  Jacques spread out his hands in a gesture of resignation. ‘It doesn’t make much difference to me. On the whole I’d vote to go back, but it will depend on who is elected as our new commander.’

  Hector turned his attention to the next patient. It was Capitan Peralta, whose burned hands and forehead needed treatment.

  ‘I’m sorry that so many of your crew were killed. They fought very bravely,’ he said to the Spaniard. Fewer than one in four of Santa Catalina’s crew had survived the carnage.

  ‘Never in my life have I seen such accurate musketry nor met such audacity,’ answered the captain coolly. ‘I thank God that the people of Panama are safe behind their walls.’

  ‘So you don’t think that the city will fall?’

  ‘Last year the city councillors sent the royal exchequer an invoice for the cost of building their new city rampart. They asked to be reimbursed. The response they got from Spain was a question: had they built the wall of gold or silver?’ The veteran Spanish commander gave a mirthless smile. ‘I assure you it was made of great stone blocks, each weighing several tons.’

  Hector reached for a pot of ointment and began to spread salve on the man’s wounds.

  ‘How is it that you speak such good Spanish?’ Peralta enquired.

  ‘My mother was from Galicia.’

  ‘And what brought you here with this pack of thieves? You don’t seem to be naturally one of their kind.’

  ‘I was trying to avoid one of these thieves, as you call them, and yet I now find myself under his command,’ answered Hector. He did not want to go into details.

  ‘Then I advise you to get away from them as quickly as you can. When you or any of your colleagues fall into the hands of the authorities here – which will surely happen – you will be executed as pirates. There will be no mercy.’

  ‘I have every intention of leaving this expedition. And I hope I will be able to persuade my friends to go with me,’ Hector assured him.

  ‘The quality of his friends often defines a man, though friendship sometimes brings sorrow in its wake,’ said the Spaniard, and it was clear that Peralta was thinking of his contremaestre. Estevan had died of his burns.

  ‘What do you think will happen to you now?’ Hector asked.

  The Spaniard tilted back his head so that Hector could smear the ointment on the forehead where the fire had burned away the hairline, leaving white patches on the skin.

  ‘I expect your colleagues will demand a ransom for me,’ he said. ‘But whether the authorities will pay is another matter. After all, I no longer have a ship to command.’

  ‘There will be other ships.’

  Peralta gave the young man a shrewd look. ‘If you are trying to extract information from me about the strength of the South Sea Fleet, you will not succeed.’

  Hector blushed. ‘I had not intended to pry. Perhaps your original vessel will be repaired one day.’

  The Spanish captain softened his tone. ‘It is clear that you are not experienced in the ways of piracy. Your colleagues will not leave a single vessel afloat that they don’t need for themselves.’

  Seeing that Hector looked puzzled, Peralta continued. ‘They fear retribution for their crimes. As soon as your band of thieves moves on, the authorities will commandeer and arm every available vessel and use them to hunt down your gang of sea bandits.’

  As if to confirm the Spaniard’s prediction, Captain Coxon was heard shouting orders. He was despatching a party of men to the other anchored vessels. They were to return aboard Peralta’s fire-damaged barca longa and complete what the explosions had failed to do.

  IT WAS ANOTHER five days before the wounded were well enough to attend a general council of the expedition. It was held on the deck of La Santissima Trinidad, the men massed in the waist of the galleon, their leaders on the quarterdeck. Coxon, Sawkins, Cook and Sharpe were there. Only Harris was missing as he had died of his wounds. Hector, watch
ing from where he stood with his friends beside the rail, could detect a change in Coxon. Now that his rival Harris was gone, the buccaneer captain appeared even more arrogant and self-confident than at Golden Island, and his harsh voice carried clearly over the assembly.

  ‘We have now been three weeks on this Adventure and I have always counselled caution . . .’ he began.

  ‘Caution! Some might call it craven,’ someone shouted. Coxon coloured with anger. The flush spread unevenly across his face, leaving darker and lighter patches, and Hector was pleased to see that the effect of the spiked ointment had not yet fully worn off.

  ‘At our outset we agreed to take the gold mines at Santa Maria,’ Coxon continued.

  ‘And small prize it brought us,’ shouted the heckler, but Coxon ignored him this time.

  ‘We have defeated the enemy in open battle, but our position is exposed and difficult. Our supplies are perilously low. We are in unfamiliar territory, and the enemy will regain their strength and may sever our line of retreat.’

  ‘I dislike the man, but he’s right,’ muttered Jezreel standing beside Hector. ‘We are badly overstretched.’

  Coxon was speaking again. ‘I therefore think it prudent that we return to our ships waiting for us at Golden Island. Once in the Caribbean we can resume our cruising for purchase.’

  ‘What does Captain Sawkins say?’ called out a voice. Sawkins’ rampaging courage during the battle off Panama had made him immensely popular.

  Sawkins stepped up to the low rail which divided the quarterdeck from the waist of the ship and cleared his throat. As usual he spoke bluntly.

  ‘I propose we continue with the Adventure,’ he said firmly. ‘The walls of Panama are too strong for us, but there are towns all along the coast which do not yet know we are here in the South Sea. If we act boldly, we can take such places by surprise. We might even find their quays heaped with silver bars ready for shipment.’

  His words met with a low rumble of enthusiasm from several in his audience though the majority looked towards Coxon again, waiting for his rejoinder.