by Dudley Pope
Hernández stood up and coughed. “The governor will be himself in a minute – ah!” He bent and helped the man to his feet. Vásquez brushed the sand from his sleeves, breathing deeply, and then turned on Ned.
“I protest!” he said angrily. “I have four hundred women and children up there, and five hundred old people, and –”
“Your Excellency, be silent. Let me say my terms again; my grammar was bad. I want all guns, powder, muskets, other weapons and armour. I shall destroy any forts, castles or batteries I please. I shall not touch any man, woman or child you now have in Santa Catalina. When we sail you will all be left here as you are now. Puerto Catalina will not be burned.”
He looked at Vásquez, who looked down at the sand.
“And if I do not agree to these terms?”
Ned turned and waved dramatically to where the sun had just dropped below the horizon, leaving a crimson haze. “Then you and every man, woman and child on Santa Catalina have seen their last sunset!”
Vásquez dropped to his knees and began praying, and Ned tried to compose his face into a ruthless mask for the sake of Hernández, although fearful that Thomas would wink and destroy the effect. “I have no need to tell you what it means because you are a soldier. The smoke of the guns, the screams of the wounded, the earth shaking as magazines explode…”
“Madre de Dios,” Hernández muttered. “I am a retired soldier, of the quartermaster branch. I allocated supplies in the Netherlands, not fired guns… This morning was the nearest I have ever been to guns when they are fired.”
Ned shook his head sadly and pointed down to Vásquez. “You had better interrupt his prayers to see what the Good Lord has advised him, because I am going back to my ship and unless he agrees to my terms the next time I see him will be when my sailors bury him.”
As Hernández knelt beside the praying governor, Ned cursed that Thomas did not speak Spanish: he was pleased with the way the most bloodcurdling of threats came easily to his tongue. On the other hand, Thomas better than anyone else knew that he could never carry them out, and was likely to laugh – or at least tease him for weeks.
Then the governor and the garrison commander were standing to attention in front of him, hose and breeches covered in sand.
“I accept your terms,” Vásquez said hurriedly. “But they must be in writing. Properly signed.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” Ned said, guessing the man would go on qualifying it for hours. “You can come out to the ship now and we will draw up the document – two copies, one for you and one for me,” he added hurriedly, “and we can all sleep soundly, and tomorrow we can start carrying out the terms.”
“I come out to your ship?” Vásquez asked fearfully. “But I have no security! You must leave a hostage!”
“You cannot dictate terms. However, I shall also want the garrison commander’s signature on the documents, and there is not room for both of you in the canoe unless I leave one of my people behind. I shall leave this gentleman –” he pointed to Thomas “–he is my second in command.”
Vásquez nodded but eyed the narrow canoe fearfully. “That is safe?”
“Safe enough,” Ned said. “Now, you can remove your shoes or get them wet!”
He explained to the boatmen that they had two passengers, and told Thomas he would have to stay behind for half an hour. Because neither Vásquez nor Hernández had explained anything to the other men on the beach, none knew that Thomas was supposed to be a hostage. Ned explained: “You’re supposed to be a hostage, your grace, but I’ll send a canoe for you as soon as I get back on board. You’ll have half an hour of mosquitoes, then you can join us and watch the signing, and listen to the governor call me a cheat for not leaving you here.”
“By the way, Ned, why have they agreed to surrender?”
“They know there are twenty-one more of our ships in sight. At least, because they’ve taken away their look-outs, they’ve taken my word for it.”
“Are there twenty-one?”
“Yes. My Highlanders climbed to the top of that hill and saw them in the distance. A bit strung out, but obviously they can see Providence.”
Vásquez climbed up the rope ladder behind Ned, stepped warily on to the Griffin’s deck and, without looking round the ship, waited for Hernández to follow. He did not see who greeted Ned until, with the garrison commander beside him, he turned to find two beautiful women smiling at him, one with ash-coloured hair and the other black hair in long ringlets.
Ned, whose quick wink had warned the women what to do, watched Vásquez for a few moments and there was little doubt that the man was going pale again. However, he knew enough of the Spanish pride to know that it was important to stop the governor making a fool of himself in front of women. Then he realized that, although the two women had given Vásquez a shock, what had made him go pale was the sight of the buccaneer captains, who were still on board, standing in a group close by the entry-port. Each had a tankard of rum in his hands, all wore swords of different patterns, all were unshaven and had that desperate look that went with independent men. It was not, of course, desperate: that was simply how it was interpreted by other men living a more routine life, and Governor Vásquez’s life was obviously bounded on all sides by routine and the narrow confines of Providence and Santa Catalina.
Vásquez, Ned reflected, had seen first the Sirens to lure him and then, beyond them, the bearded rocks that could be his doom.
He stepped forward. “Your Excellency…permit me to introduce you to Mrs Yorke –” he thought the exaggeration was only one of time, and permissible “–and Miss Diana Gilbert-Manners. His Excellency the Governor of Providence.”
Ned had deliberately spoken in a leisurely voice, giving the man time to recover. Vásquez bowed deeply but as Aurelia and Diana were both deliberately standing with their hands behind their backs to avoid it, he made no attempt to kiss them. He turned and gestured to Hernández, introducing him as the garrison commander, but managing to imply that he was of little consequence. After gesturing to Secco and Lobb to take the two Spaniards down to the cabin, Ned took the women by the arm and moved aft. “Thomas will be along in a few minutes: the canoe has gone back to fetch him.”
“I was beginning to wonder,” Diana admitted. “Are we permitted to ask what is happening?”
“Yes, of course you are,” Ned said with the vagueness he knew irritated Aurelia.
“Very well, we are asking,” Aurelia said. “Why do we now have the governor of Providencia and the commander of the garrison on board?”
“We have some documents to sign.”
“Documents?” Diana exclaimed. “Is he selling you beeves, or vegetables?”
“Oh no, he’s given us both islands…”
“Given?”
“Well, surrendered is the correct word.”
Diana turned and put her arms round him and kissed him full on the lips. “I don’t know how you did it,” she said, “but that’s your reward from me.”
He turned to Aurelia with a grin, but she shook her head. “You’ll get mine later,” she said and then blushed.
Ned led the way down to the cabin, where Lobb and Secco were lighting lanterns and the two Spaniards were trying to look at ease. The two women followed, and in excellent Spanish Aurelia asked the men what refreshment they would like. Both Spaniards refused with an elaborate politeness that made Ned think they were secretly congratulating themselves on avoiding poisoned wine.
Ned put paper, quill and ink on the table, waited while Secco and Lobb trimmed the wicks of the lanterns, and then said: “Your Excellency, let us prepare an inventory of Santa Catalina’s defences.”
He pulled the wooden plug from the ink bottle. “Now, the castle, Santa Teresa, I believe you call it.”
Vásquez told Hernández: “You know all the figures. Tell him.”
“Continue with the various forts,” Ned instructed, dipping the quill into the bottle again and taking a fresh sheet of paper.
“The next biggest is Fort St Jerome, by the bridge. Eight guns, all English, 12-, 8- and 6- pounders. Two pipes of muskets, I think, but I don’t know about swords and armour.”
“What about powder?” Ned asked.
“Altogether there are three hundred quintals of coarse, and fifty quintals of priming powder, Spanish of course, but it is distributed among the forts and batteries according to the number of guns they have.”
Ned finished writing and said: “Carry on with the forts – names and numbers of guns.”
“Well, St Joseph’s fort has six guns, 12- and 8-pounders. Like the rest of them it has muskets, armour, swords, but I do not know the figures. St Matthew’s Fort has three 8-pounders; St Augustine’s has three guns, 8- and 6-pounders; Santa Cruz has three guns but I cannot remember the weights, except that they were cast in Spain. San Salvador’s Fort, and the two batteries, each have two guns, Spanish, but I do not recall the sizes. And twelve falcons with carriages – they are in the courtyard of Santa Teresa.”
“And roundshot?” Ned asked.
“I cannot remember exactly, but not too many for the English guns because the shot are old and they rust and get smaller when they are scaled. You saw this morning that the shot would not reach your ships – they were such a poor fit in the bore of the guns that they rolled about like an orange in a bucket.”
“Give me a rough figure.”
“About two hundred shot for each English gun, and three hundred for the Spanish.”
“And totals of armour?”
“I think there are one hundred breast plates, one hundred back plates, and fifty helmets.”
“What else?”
“Eighteen barrels of balls for the muskets – they are all in the magazine of Santa Teresa, because we were just about to issue them. Let me see…four hundred empty grenade cases, in good condition and newly painted…fourteen barrels of brimstone, but the barrels are not in good condition…”
“Slow-match, pistols, pistol balls, flints?”
“Ah yes, a total of three hundred bundles of slow-match in Santa Teresa, and two bundles in each of the other positions. Four skips of pistols – about five hundred altogether, all fine Spanish wheel-locks. Fifteen barrels of balls for them. Flints – about five thousand: a ship brought us several barrels recently. We get them from the Netherlands,” he said vaguely.
“That is the whole inventory?”
“All that’s left. You see, the garrison –” he broke off when he realized the significance of what he had been about to say.
Ned gave a dry laugh. “The garrison was taken to Jamaica. Yes, I was aware of that.”
Vásquez said: “Do you know what has happened to them?”
Ned shrugged his shoulders expressively. “The English were expecting them and they have a large garrison…” Both facts, Ned thought, were quite true; Vásquez, judging from his long face, was drawing the wrong conclusion.
A bellow of laughter told Ned that Thomas had arrived on board, and Vásquez looked up, startled. “My second-in-command has returned,” Ned said, forestalling any protest. “There was no point leaving him standing on the beach to be eaten by your mosquitoes, which probably welcome a change to Protestant blood.”
He collected the sheets of paper listing Santa Catalina’s inventory and handed them to Aurelia. “I shall need four copies of that for tomorrow, when we start collecting it.”
He turned back to Vásquez but paused as Thomas came down the companionway scratching himself and cursing.
“Those sandflies and mosquitoes,” he growled. “They have bites like sword thrusts!”
“You’re just in time to help draw up the surrender terms.”
“Keep it short and simple, Ned. Then we can’t argue afterwards about the wording.”
Ned nodded. “You’re quite right. Let’s draft it in English on one side of a sheet of paper, and then translate it. Two copies and all four of us to sign.”
For the next fifteen minutes Ned and Thomas wrote, crossed out, altered and rewrote a draft while the two women, Lobb and Secco made criticisms and suggestions, and Vásquez and Hernández sat in the lantern light looking like subjects waiting to model for a painting by one of the sadder Dutch masters.
Finally Ned sighed and put down his quill. “I think that will do. Let me read it aloud in English from beginning to end without anyone interrupting.”
When he had finished and Thomas, Secco and Lobb agreed it was adequate, Aurelia suddenly said: “I have just been looking through the inventory. Your surrender terms really mean that the Spaniards hand over all the arms on Santa Catalina, true?”
Ned nodded warily: he knew only too well that when Aurelia used this tone of voice she felt very strongly about something.
“You are not making them provide grain, cattle, hogs; you are not even making them provide labour to restore the bridge and carry this stuff across so that you can load it from the port.”
“No, well,” Ned began lamely, and Thomas offered a tentative: “Well, you see –”
“I do not see,” Aurelia said firmly. “You men have made an agreement with these two – these two poltroons – where you allow them to give you back English guns, a few paltry Spanish pistols, and a few quintals of Spanish powder which is probably damp and you know is always unreliable. This,” she said with a contemptuous gesture which threw the pages of the inventory across the table and made one of the lanterns flicker, “you call a great victory. It is – for the Spanish. They give you back your guns and get rid of you!”
There was a full minute of complete silence in the cabin, broken eventually by Diana. “And take that silly grin off your face, Thomas. At least Ned bluffed them into surrendering the place –”
“He didn’t bluff them!” Thomas protested. “The rest of the ships are in sight!”
Diana waved away the protest, but Ned said: “You’re right, ma chérie, and I’ve handled it all very stupidly –”
“But,” Thomas interrupted, “Don Poltroon here will agree to our terms, so that’s like a contract. It’s as though we’ve given our word.”
“One does not give one’s word to a scoundrel, nor accept his,” Diana said haughtily. “Anyway, he hasn’t heard the terms yet.”
“Yes, dear,” Thomas said, a plaintive note in his voice. “But Ned and I, slow-witted coxcombs that we are, have given our word, so there’s nothing we can do about it.”
Vásquez said nervously in Spanish: “You quarrel: There are difficulties? Do we not sign the papers?”
“It is nothing,” Ned said, “my wife is complaining that she cannot read my writing – she is to make copies of the inventory.”
Vásquez smiled understandingly. “The words used by artillerymen are hard to understand, and you had to write quickly.”
Ned did not bother to translate for the others: he was becoming angry, the more so because he knew Aurelia was right. He and Thomas had behaved like two excited schoolboys raiding a neighbour’s orchard.
Yet…yet…the fact was he never wanted to capture and keep Old Providence; never even considered the idea. He wanted to seize it long enough to scare the Spanish authorities into recalling the Jamaica expedition, and while he held it he wanted to pull its teeth by taking or destroying its guns, so that when the garrison returned their only weapons would be the muskets, swords and pikes they carried with them.
The idea of holding on to Providence was nonsense, despite the ar
guments of Leclerc and the other buccaneers. Why burden buccaneers with guarding and garrisoning Providence as a base when Heffer and three thousand soldiers were going to do it all for nothing at Jamaica? Certainly Providence was only a couple of hundred miles from the Main and near the Isthmus, but it was further from Cuba and Hispaniola by as much as it was nearer the Main.
If the English government (providing ships) wanted to control the West Indies, then having Barbados to windward of everything and Jamaica to leeward and covering it from the north and acting as a main base, was sound strategy, with Providence a hornet’s nest close to Portobelo and Cartagena. But let the King provide troops, guns, powder and ships; the buccaneers were being generous enough already, taking on the seaward defence of Jamaica.
“Well?” Aurelia demanded. “You are just daydreaming.”
Ned picked up the sheet of paper on which they had drafted the terms of surrender and sat down. He read them through and then said in English to Secco: “As it can’t complicate anything now, would you like to read this to the governor in Spanish? I don’t want any misunderstandings.”
Secco grinned wickedly. “It will be an honour. And from now on each of them will fear a knife in the back!”
Ned looked puzzled and Secco explained: “I am his enemy but I am also Spanish, so they trust you but won’t trust me. They know I would be happy to use a knife; they know you never would.”
Ned shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t be too sure about that. Now, read it aloud and then write a copy in Spanish.”
The remaining twenty-one buccaneer ships arrived off the island just after dawn to find an open boat – a local fishing boat confiscated by Ned – tacking back and forth under a tattered sail a couple of miles offshore, ready to pilot them in, round rocks and coral reefs that would not be visible under the water until the sun was higher in the sky.
With their ships anchored, the twenty-one captains had themselves rowed over to the Griffin to get the latest news and describe how, after being scattered by the hurricane, they collected themselves together, waited out the subsequent calm and then, led by Brace, made for the rendezvous at Old Providence.
