by Tim Severin
‘It was more important to come to warn you that a trap is closing about them. I tried to tell Watling, but he was too angry to listen.’
‘What sort of a trap?’
‘Dan went out to scout. He counted at least four hundred militiamen moving into position on either side of the road leading here. They’ll wait for our men to come to the anchorage loaded with the plunder. Then they’ll cut them to pieces.’
Captain Sharpe stared thoughtfully towards the shore. There was no sign of life. He could make out the flagpole on the tall stone watchtower the Spaniards had built to survey the anchorage. If the tower was manned its occupants would long ago have hoisted signals to alert their forces farther inland. But the flag staff was bare. Nor was there any movement among the cluster of warehouses, or on the broad gravel-and-sand road which led up from the shingle beach and inland towards the town. But anything could be happening out of sight behind the swell of the ground. That is where the Spanish troops could be massing. He took Hector by the arm. ‘Let me show you something.’ He led the young man to the stern of the ship. ‘Look over the rail,’ he said. ‘What do you see?’
Hector stared down towards the galleon’s rudder. There were black scorch marks on the timber and the rudder’s fastenings, traces of a fire.
‘Someone tried to burn away our steering,’ he said.
‘If they had succeeded, this ship would have been crippled. Luckily we spotted the fire before it had spread and managed to put it out. Someone came quietly out from shore in the darkness, stuffed pitch and rags between the rudder and the stern, and set it alight.’
Hector thought back to how Dan had disabled the Spanish patrol ship off the Campeachy coast.
‘It was a brave thing to do.’
‘We found the float the arsonist must have used, an inflated horse hide lying on the beach.’
Sharpe wheeled to face Hector and said fiercely, ‘Make no mistake about it. The Spaniards are willing to fight for what is theirs, and fight hard. I want you to return to La Serena. If Watling won’t listen to you, persuade the others. Tell them to abandon the place and get back here as fast as possible.’
Hector shook his head. ‘Half the men are drunk. They won’t leave the town until they’ve looted it to their satisfaction, probably by mid afternoon. Then they’ll stumble back in no fit condition to fight their way through.’
Sharpe regarded the young man with interest. There was something about his quiet manner which suggested that he had a plan in mind.
‘Now is the time to use our prisoners,’ said Hector. ‘Put them ashore where they will be visible to the Spanish, but keep them under guard. I will go to the Spaniards and tell them that we will release the prisoners unharmed if they allow our men to return safely to the ship.’
Sharpe gave Hector a long, calculating look. ‘You’re learning this trade,’ he said softly. ‘One day you could be elected general yourself.’
‘I’ve no wish for that,’ said Hector. ‘Just let me talk to Captain Peralta and his comrades.’
Sharpe gave a grunt. ‘This scheme is your responsibility. If something goes wrong, and I have to leave you on shore, I will do so.’
Hector was about to answer that he expected nothing less, but instead began arrangements with Jacques and the crew of the canoe to ferry Peralta and the prisoners ashore.
‘SHARPE IS NOT to be trusted,’ was Peralta’s immediate response when he and Hector had landed on the beach and the young man told him what was intended. ‘The moment your captain sees that his men are safe, he’ll decide to take his prisoners back on board and sail away.’
‘That is why you – not I – will be the one who goes to find the commander of the Spanish forces and arrange the safe conduct.’
Peralta pursed his lips and looked doubtful. ‘Are you telling me that you will stay with the prisoners and personally see that they are released unharmed?’
‘Yes.’
‘All right then. I am known in these parts and my word will carry weight.’ The Spaniard’s voice grew very serious. ‘But if the sack of La Serena has been barbarous, then I cannot guarantee to hold back its citizens from seeking revenge. My countrymen think of your people as bloodthirsty vermin to be exterminated.’
‘I intend to place half a dozen of the prisoners on the top of the watchtower. They’ll be standing on the parapet, with a rope around each man’s neck. Tell whoever is in charge of the ambush that if there is any treachery, the captives will be hanged in public view.’
Peralta raised his eyebrows. ‘You are beginning to think like a pirate.’
‘Captain Sharpe said something very similar to me earlier today.’
The Spaniard gave a slow, reluctant nod. ‘Let us both hope that your plan works. If there is falsehood on either side, each of us will live in shame for the rest of our lives.’ He turned on his heel and began to walk up towards the road leading inland.
The watchtower was some forty feet high and a series of ladders led to its flat roof, passing through small square openings in the building’s three floors. With Jacques’s help, Hector bound the hands of six of the prisoners, placed nooses around their necks, and ordered them to climb the ladders. They made awkward progress, fumbling their way up the rungs, hampered by their bonds. Hector followed and when he reached the top of the first ladder, he pulled it up after him, and laid it on the floor. The remaining prisoners would be locked into the ground floor of the tower. He did not want them climbing up and interfering. Arriving on the flat roof of the tower, Hector fastened the free ends of the nooses to the base of the flagpole. ‘Up on the parapet and face inland,’ he told his prisoners. Then he sat down to wait.
HECTOR WAITED for half a day. Peralta was nowhere to be seen and there was nothing to do but be patient. The wind gradually eased until it was no more than the slightest whisper of a breeze, and from a cloudless sky the sun beat down on the flat roof of the tower. There was no shade, either for Hector or his prisoners, and after a while he allowed them to be seated. They took it in turns one man at a time to stand on the parapet with a rope around his neck. Hector thought the threat was sufficient.
Twice Jacques sent up one of his captives with a flask of water. No one spoke as the drink was handed round, and then the waiting continued. The parched countryside lay silent and still. There was no sign of any activity apart from a bird of prey riding the air currents and circling over the bush. The only sound was the low incessant rumble of the surf on the beach. Half a mile away Trinity rode at anchor on a sparkling sea.
Finally, far into the afternoon, there was movement along the road, tiny figures in the distance, putting up a small cloud of dust. Slowly they came nearer and resolved themselves in an untidy straggle of men. They were Watling’s company. Someone had found half a dozen mules and these were laden high with untidy loads of boxes and sacks. But most of the men were their own porters. They were trudging along, hung about with bundles, satchels and bags. One or two had rigged up wicker baskets on their backs to serve as panniers, while a group of four men were pushing a handcart piled with various items they must have looted. Oddest of all was a man with a wheelbarrow. He was wheeling along a companion, who must have been so drunk that he was incapable of walking. At the rear was the unmistakable figure of Jezreel. He and half a dozen other men had muskets on their shoulders and formed a semblance of a rearguard.
Anxiously Hector checked the countryside. Still there was no hint of movement among the scrubland and trees on each side of the road. He could see nothing but tangles of grey-brown bushes, stunted trees, and the open patches where wild grass and reeds grew waist high. Then, suddenly, he saw a glint of light reflected from metal. He concentrated his gaze on the spot, and gradually he was able to make out the figures of soldiers, half a company at least, crouching motionless in one of the washed-out gullies which bordered the road. They were visible from his vantage point high on the tower, but from the road they would have been hidden. Concealed in the broken ground must be the
remainder of the Spanish force.
‘On your feet! All of you!’ he snapped at his prisoners. ‘Move to the parapet and show yourselves!’
The Spaniards shuffled forward and stood in line. Several were trembling with fear. One man had wet himself and the flies were settling on the damp patch on his breeches. Another cast a nervous glance behind him, and Hector snarled at him to face the front. He felt demeaned by the whole charade. Hector knew that he lacked the nerve to push any man to his death dangling at the end of a rope, but the barbarity had to continue. Without it, Jezreel and the other raiders would have no chance of reaching the beach alive.
He looked away to his left, along the coast, and to his relief saw two canoes and a ship’s launch sailing parallel to the shore, coming closer. They were Trinity’s remaining boats. Now it would be possible to evacuate the entire raiding party at one time.
His attention returned to the road. Watling’s company were closer now, still straggling along in disorder. To his dismay he saw there were several women in the party. If the buccaneers had kidnapped La Serena’s women, then he doubted that the Spaniards would hold back their ambush even at the risk of the public hanging of the prisoners on the parapet. A second glance revealed his mistake. He was seeing not La Serena’s womenfolk, but buccaneers who must have found women’s clothes in the town, and stolen them. Now they were wearing them as the easiest way to carry them. They made a strange sight, their skirts and shawls worn over smocks and breeches. One man had a mantilla draped over the top of his head to keep off the sun.
Watling’s rabble slowly advanced. Occasionally a man would halt and double over, vomiting in the road. Others stumbled and tripped. One fell flat on his face in the dust before he was pulled back to his feet by a comrade. Soon the gaggle of drunken looters were level with the gully where the Spaniards waited in ambush, and for one alarming moment Hector saw a buccaneer break away from the group and run to the side of the road. If he stumbled into the ambush, a massacre would follow. The man was clawing at his breeches as he ran, and he must have been caught short, for before he reached the roadside, he suddenly squatted and defecated in the dust. Gorged on too much fresh fruit from the gardens of La Serena, Hector thought grimly, as the man pulled up his breeches and broke into a weaving run to rejoin the column.
‘Canoes ready on the beach,’ Jacques called up from the foot of the tower. At last some of Watling’s men had noticed the row of figures standing on the parapet. Faces turned up as the returning buccaneers began to wonder what was happening. Others were pointing, and Jezreel and the rearguard could be seen bringing their muskets to the ready. Hector stepped forward, hoping that he would be recognised, and waved at them, urging them to hurry down the final slope to the waiting canoes.
‘Don’t move!’ Hector snapped at his hostages. ‘We stay here until everyone is safe back to the ship.’
One of the Spaniards shifted on his feet and asked mockingly, ‘And what about you, how will you leave?’
Hector did not answer. Watling’s party were sliding and stumbling down the slope towards the beach. He could hear the crunch and clatter of the shingle beneath their feet and, amazingly, a snatch of drunken song. Some of the buccaneers still did not understand the danger they were in. From his vantage point Hector saw Jacques emerge from the base of the tower below him and run forward and speak urgently to Jezreel. Watling was beside him. A sense of urgency finally spread through the entire group. Some of them turned to face inland, reaching for their muskets.
Hector looked towards the ridge at the top of the beach. Now it was lined with dozens of Spanish soldiers. More and more armed men were appearing out of ravines and dips in the ground, or pushing out from the bushes. There must have been at least four companies of soldiers, and they were well disciplined and trained for they took up their positions in orderly formation, looking down on the buccaneers as they splashed out into the shallows and began loading their booty into the canoes. If anything went wrong now, the beach would become a killing ground.
A sudden flurry of movement, and Hector saw Jezreel reach out and wrest a gun away from a drunken buccaneer. He must have been preparing to fire a shot in bravado.
The loaded canoes began leaving the beach, heading towards Trinity. Only the smallest one was left, and Jezreel was standing up to his knees in the water holding the bow steady, waiting for him.
From below, a group of men came into view. They were the Spaniards whom Jacques had been holding captive. They were running towards the militiamen at the top of the slope. As they ran they were gesticulating and shouting out that they were Spanish, calling on the soldiers not to shoot. Now the only remaining prisoners were the half dozen men with Hector on the roof of the tower.
He went over the row of hostages, and raised the nooses from their necks. He crossed to the ladder which led down from the roof and began to climb down the rungs. As his head came level with the flat roof, he took out his knife and cut the cords which bound the ladder in place. Reaching the foot of the ladder, he pulled it clear. It would take several minutes for the prisoners to free themselves and still they would be trapped in the tower.
Continuing down the ladders, Hector removed each one as he descended. Reaching the ground, he walked out of the door and onto the beach. He was alone. To his right Jezreel waited with the canoe. To his left, no more than fifty paces away, stood the line of Spanish soldiers. They had advanced down the slope in open formation, muskets ready. Hector remembered how he had gone forward under the white flag of truce to the palisade of Santa Maria. But this time he had no white flag, only his faith in Peralta.
Someone stepped out from the Spanish line. It was Peralta himself. He came down the slope of beach, unarmed, his face sad.
‘Your people have gutted La Serena,’ he said. ‘But I am grateful to you for making sure that my colleagues and I were released unharmed.’ Behind him, Hector heard Jacques shouting that Trinity was weighing anchor and they must leave now if they were to reach the ship in time. Peralta stared into his eyes and his gaze was unflinching.
‘You may tell your captain that the next time he tries to raid us, he and his men will not be so lucky. Now go.’
Hector did not know how to answer. For a moment he stood where he was, conscious of the hostility of the Spanish soldiers fingering their guns and Peralta’s flinty tone. Then he turned, walked down the beach and climbed into the waiting canoe.
THIRTEEN
HECTOR HAD grown accustomed to the constant moaning and braying, barking and hissing, bubbling and trumpeting. The clamour had been in the background from the day Trinity arrived at the island exactly two weeks after the withdrawal from La Serena. The hubbub came from hundreds upon hundreds of large furry seals which lounged and fought and squabbled on the rocks. There were so many of the creatures and they were so sure of their possession that when the sailors first landed, the men had to force their way through the ranks of fishy-smelling beasts, clubbing them aside. The largest of the bull seals, gross lords and terrors of their harems, had resented the intrusion. They rushed furiously at the strangers, silver manes swollen, long yellow fangs bared, grunting and roaring hoarsely until the seamen fired pistols down their angry pink throats. The dark, almost black seal meat had been welcome at first, but the men soon tired of the taste. Now, if a seal was killed, the carcass was left to rot.
Sharpe had brought Trinity to Juan Fernandez at the crew’s angry insistence. After the disappointment of La Serena the men had voted to spend Christmas there, far from the constant threat of vengeful Spanish cruisers. Hector wondered how sailors had known about the remote, mountainous island. Juan Fernandez lay 400 miles from the South American coast, and the South Sea was an uncharted mystery to all but the Spaniards. Yet there were men aboard Trinity who were aware that this bleak, unfrequented place offered a refuge. He supposed that somehow in the taverns of European ports and Caribbean harbours where sailors gathered, men talked of the island and how they had been able to recruit their strengt
h there, repair their vessels, and relax.
When Trinity arrived on a grey, windswept day in early December the island was uninhabited. But it was obvious that people had visited Juan Fernandez because someone had stocked the place with goats. The animals had thrived and wild herds of them roamed the broken scrub-covered uplands. Their flesh was much to be preferred to seal meat, so Dan and the other remaining striker, another Miskito named Will, went off daily with their muskets and came back with goat carcasses draped over their shoulders. However, it was Jacques who had provided the most certain proof that other sailors had used the island as a resting place. Shortly after landing, he had come hurrying back, beaming with pleasure and brandishing a handful of various leaves and plants. ‘Herbs and vegetables!’ he crowed. ‘Someone planted a garden here and left it behind to grow! Look! Turnips, salads, green stuff!’
The crew of Trinity had quickly made themselves comfortable. They draped spare sails over the branches of trees to make tents, set up frames on which they barbecued goat meat and fish, filled their water jars at the stream which emptied across a beach of small boulders and into the bay. On Christmas Day itself Jacques had cooked the entire company a great dish of lobsters, broiling them over the fire. He insisted on calling them langoustes, and they crawled in the shallows of the bay in such numbers that one had only to wade out into the chilly water and gather them by hand, dozens at a time. For their vegetable the company had eaten finely sliced strips of tree cabbage cut from the tender head of sprouting palms.
Yet the atmosphere continued to be very sour and unhappy. The crew grumbled about the lack of plunder. The sack of La Serena had yielded barely 500 pounds’ weight of silver to be divided between nearly 140 men. They felt this was a paltry sum for all the risks they had taken, and it made matters worse that many of the malcontents had gambled away their booty in the long, dull sea days that followed. By the time they reached Juan Fernandez, a majority of the dice and card players were virtually penniless, and they muttered darkly that they had been swindled. When they did so, they looked towards Captain Sharpe. Unable to prove it, they were sure that he had somehow gulled them.
