by Dudley Pope
Aurelia agreed and they walked round several more houses before finding another street running back down to the water’s edge. By chance they emerged where the buccaneers were unloading the booty from Santa Catalina. The wooden cylinders were being broken open and the muskets stacked; tubs full of pistols were ready to be hoisted into the boats, barrels of powder and shot were being checked and the quantities called out to a buccaneer who, seated at a table taken from one of the houses, was making an inventory.
“Lets go across to Santa Catalina,” Aurelia suggested. “We’ll let the Spanish garrison see the cruel and ruthless women buccaneers.”
At that moment there was a muffled explosion and a black tube belching smoke left one of the batteries like a rocket and then began slowly cartwheeling as it dropped into the sea between the islands. One of the buccaneers, realizing that the two women thought the Spanish were somehow launching an attack, called out in English: “It’s all right, ladies: the admiral’s getting rid of some old guns he don’t want.”
“What’s wrong with nailing them?” Diana asked.
“He ordered them to ream out the vent so it can never be repaired, which is better than nailing. (Drive in a nail and pein it over, ma’am, and a good armourer can drill it out. But this way…) Then they turn ’em round so that when they’re fired the recoil drives them off the battery into the sea. Saves a lot of pushing and hauling, as you’ve just seen!”
“We’d better watch where we’re going,” Aurelia said warily. “We might walk in through the castle gate just as they are blowing it up.”
At that moment a second explosion heralded another cannon flying through the air, spouting smoke and slowly turning as it splashed into the sea, sending up one last great bubble of smoke as though expressing exasperation.
“Iron guns,” the buccaneer said. “The admiral reckons they date from before the Armada! They’re just rust held together with blacking. Wonder they never fell to pieces in a high wind! It’s the bronze guns we’re after. We can use them.”
When he saw Aurelia and Diana turning to go up the hill he said: “A crowd of us are just going back to Santa Teresa. We’ll escort you ladies.”
Late that evening Ned and Thomas, worn out from the day’s work, almost deafened by the explosions which sent old cannon recoiling over the cliffs, and feet throbbing from so much unaccustomed walking, most of it up or down hill, looked at the pages of the inventory of materials taken from Santa Catalina and still being ferried out to the ships.
“One thing is certain,” Ned said, “either Hernández didn’t really know what there was in the castle and forts, or he was deliberately telling us there was a lot less.”
“Why do that?” Thomas asked. “He knew we were going to take it.”
“I know, but I can’t credit a garrison commander being so wrong – unless, I suppose, you look at the governor.”
“You saw Vásquez’s house?” Thomas asked, and when Ned nodded, added: “You didn’t come right inside with me. I don’t think his wife, or mistress, that big, fat, sulky-looking woman, gives him a moment’s peace in bed or out of it. But his main interests, I think are eating and playing cards. It was the house of a spoiled man, not a soldier. He’s just living out the rest of his life on a pension, glad to be forgotten by his superiors.”
Ned grinned at the thought of Vásquez, full of food and wine after an unlucky evening at cards, being harried in bed by an importunate wife. He started reading through the inventories, and referring to a list of his own.
“We have fourteen bronze falcons, all with land carriages. They fire a 2- or 3-pound ball and we have one hundred for each of them. They’re useful guns and are light enough to be hauled by hand – half a dozen men, I should think.
“Then come eight iron falcons (I believe you can also call them half-sakers) and fortress carriages, firing a 4-pound ball. A hundred shot for each of them. Five bronze sakers and carriages firing a 6-pound ball, seven sakers (also called quarter culverins, aren’t they?) with a 9-pound shot, and three mortars.
“We blew up nine culverins and eight whole culverins. They fired a 40-pound shot. Seeing the crown and rose on top of the barrel, and ‘Pour défendre’, one could almost imagine Drake watching us and shaking his head.”
He put two pages to one side. “So much for the great guns. Oh yes, I forgot to mention – the falcons can be carried on horses, according to Secco. He showed me how you take the carriages apart. The wheels unbolt from the axles and you sling a barrel on each side on one horse, and another carries two wheels, trail and axle…”
Thomas grunted unenthusiastically. “We’re turning ourselves into soldiers,” he grumbled.
Ned’s brow wrinkled with impatience as he said: “We’ve been into all that before… We stay soldiers until the Spaniards get more ships and put to sea. Anyway, let’s read on. Muskets – seventy-three pipes. They’ve opened them up and shared them out among our ships, 730 matchlocks.”
Again Thomas growled his disapproval. “Muskets in the Tropics. If your men are well trained and well disciplined, you’ll be lucky to have ’em fire once in two or three minutes. A longbowman can loose off six aimed arrows in a minute and be a good deal more accurate over the same range. Man for man, it’s twelve arrows against one bullet in two minutes.”
Ned groaned and put down the inventory. The longbow versus matchlock was one of Thomas’ favourite arguments. “Well, your longbowman can have a pistol as well – we have two hundred wheel-lock and four hundred matchlock.”
“Matchlock for me,” Thomas said. “I’d sooner trust my life – or someone else’s death – to a good piece of slow-match that I can see and smell burning than an unreliable spring or faulty pyrites.”
“Yes, quite, so you said before. You’ll have the choice. Now, the armour. One hundred breast plates, one hundred back, and fifty helmets, one with a plume. Some repairs needed on the leather straps of the armour. Halberds – fifty, all with new ash staves; pikes – seventy-five, also with new staves.”
“And powder and shot enough for all the great guns and handguns,” Thomas said. “And two islands and nine forts… Not a bad haul, I suppose. Am I invited for supper?”
“You weren’t, but Aurelia’s already sent a canoe for Diana, so you’d better stay.”
Chapter Eleven
Inspecting his ships through the perspective glass, Ned could see that on board the twelve that had a carriage gun secured on deck, the buccaneers were exercising at loading, training and elevating. Other men were taking advantage of the light northwesterly breeze, which gave them a quartering wind and a calm sea, to move about wearing armour and helmets as they exercised with swords, pikes and halberds. Ned did not envy them: the sun was hot enough to make metal uncomfortable to touch, but the buccaneers were experienced enough to know that in a few day’s time that same armour might save them from a fatal wound.
Amidships in the Griffin two bronze falcons had been lashed down, with wedges under the wheels, and Lobb was patiently explaining that point-blank range did not mean with the muzzle stuck in the target’s stomach, but the distance a shot travelled in an absolutely straight line before gravity made it droop – often as much as two or three hundred yards.
Aurelia and Diana were listening carefully while Thomas, who had taken advantage of the quieter sea to pay a visit, came up to talk with Ned. They had been at sea three days: with light winds it had taken more than a night and a day to drop the three peaks of Providence below the horizon, and they had sailed due east all the time they were in sight of the Spaniards. Due east was a course that gave nothing away to Hernández or Vásquez: the buccaneers were obviously intending to alter course at nightfall – and that could be north to Hispaniola and Jamaica, south to the Isthmus and Portobelo or Chagres, southeast to Cartagena, or east to turn away to Riohacha, Santa Marta, Maracaibo… Or on to any of the islands to windwa
rd.
Thomas took a folded paper from inside his jerkin and smoothed it out. “This is the best that Secco could do by way of a map of Portobelo. He has one or two old maps on board but they didn’t help much.”
“And Bahia las Minas?”
“He doesn’t know it as well as I do, but he agrees it’s the best anchorage.”
“Have you drawn that chart yet?”
“Yes,” Thomas said, diving a hand into his jerkin again and bringing out a roll of parchment. “At least, Diana did. She has a more delicate touch with the pen – and a better memory, too: it’s a couple of years since we visited it with the Peleus. The Pearl,” he corrected himself. “I forget we changed the name. I prefer Peleus anyway; we’ve decided to keep it.” He thought for a minute, trying to make up his mind whether to mention something. Finally he said: “I think Secco expected to be told more, Ned.”
“Everyone wants to be told more. But if they walk into a trap set by the enemy they’ll never admit it was because they gossiped.”
“There’s not much chance with us all at sea.” Thomas protested.
“No, but one ship could stray and get captured. That hurricane scattered us and could have put a few ships ashore on the Main. Supposing something like that happens again before we get to Portobelo, and the Dons get hold of them and strap them to the rack?”
“But they would never talk!”
“Why not?” Ned asked quietly. “You remember the rack we saw in the cathedral at Santiago. Those leather straps were dark, stained with the sweat and blood of victims; the wheels and ratchets turned easily with the coating of tallow.”
“That doesn’t mean a man would talk!”
“What’s there to stop him? Do you think they all have a burning loyalty to the Brethren, a sort of religious fervour? I don’t! They are Brethren to get purchase. I wouldn’t blame them for talking. But by not giving them information they won’t need until much later we make it easier for them if they are caught and put on the rack; they can tell all they know – but they don’t endanger anyone because they don’t know anything that matters.”
“But they all know we’re going to attack Portobelo!”
“Yes, because people have gossiped. But have they any idea how? Are we going to sail straight into the harbour and engage the forts? Or climb the mountains and besiege them? If the Spaniards knew we’re going to attack the place, the news wouldn’t help much: they need to know how, and so far only you and I know that. Without us there’ll be no attack, so if we’re captured we could reveal everything without risking the lives of the Brethren!”
“They’d lose the bullion, though.”
“Not necessarily: eventually someone might think of a good way of attacking…”
“Four forts to be captured by a few hundred men!” Thomas said sourly.
Ned grinned to cheer up a man he rarely saw depressed or nervous. “Why don’t you start worrying about how to stow the silver bars – they’re heavy to carry you know.”
“I could bear it,” Thomas said. “Now, is Diana’s chart of the Bahia las Minas sufficient?”
Instead of inking in the outlines as in a normal chart, she had produced an excellent perspective drawing of a high-flying frigate bird’s view as it flew in from seaward.
Although the bird would not know it was looking south, it would see to its left mountains and high hills which gradually flattened as they came to the right across its view to become a flat and uninteresting coastline fringed with mangrove swamps, rocky reefs and banks of coral and visited only by Indians in canoes scooped from solid tree trunks; people who lived on fish and never planted.
The two highest peaks in the drawing were close to the shore and the highest was called the Pan de Azúcar. It did not need a knowledge of Spanish to know that its name meant “sugar loaf” in English. Further inland three higher peaks beyond formed a distant triangle and warned of a rugged countryside where only goats and mountain sheep would feel at home.
Ned concentrated on the left-hand side of the drawing, trying to impress on his memory what he would see as he sailed eastward towards Portobelo. Then he looked at the centre of Diana’s drawing, where her excellent use of perspective showed with remarkable realism three rivers running into the sea.
To the right of them and still moving westward, where the coast was shown as solid mangroves growing to the water’s edge, like the slime lining a stagnant pond, there was another peak, Cerro Merced, with two islands in a large bay just in front of it.
Very cleverly she had emphasized Cerro Merced without exaggerating it but obviously meaning that it was a good marker for the particular two islands (among many others) which were small, low and lined with mangrove and would, from seaward, be hard to distinguish against the shore.
The two islands were together called Cayos Naranjos, which he recognized as meaning the Orange Cays. The left-hand one was named Naranjo Arriba and the other Naranjo Abajo, though he could not follow why one should be called “Upper” and the other “Lower”. The two cays formed the eastern side of a deep bay strewn with islands, cays and reefs and which swept round to where the large island of Galeta formed its western side.
The bay was the Bahia las Minas while the largest islands inside it, scattered like fallen fruit, were Payardi, Samba Bonita, Pina Guapa, Drogue and Largo Remo. The names were written in Diana’s neat calligraphy and Ned noticed that steering direct for the mountain Cerro Merced, while keeping the peaks of the Pan de Azúcar and Las Palmas (which were nearer the coast and close to Portobelo) to the east, would bring them right up to the Bahia las Minas. After that, Thomas would have to pilot them in: the entrance was four miles wide, but the bay was crowded with so many islands, cays and reefs that it seemed impossible that twenty-eight buccaneer ships could hide there, although Thomas assured him there was room for fifty.
Would it all work? Ned looked at Diana’s drawing yet again, admiring her skill and picturing the approach to the bay, which was about twenty-five miles west of Portobelo. The plan for the attack was simple, and simplicity was the most important part of any enterprise involving a large number of men. Of course, simplicity alone could not guarantee success, but it was a good plan; Thomas admitted that, even though he did not like it. He could not explain why, and Ned began to suspect that Thomas was simply uncomfortable with such a large force. It was not large in the number of men (on the contrary, considering what they had to do) but it was in terms of ships.
Twenty-eight ships sounded a large fleet, and looking astern at the number of sails following the Griffin it looked it, until one realized that they were all small vessels, most of them carrying four or six guns, and some eight. Only a few had more than a hundred men on board.
Thomas, whose opinion he had to consider since it was the only one he heard, was particularly concerned that they might be seen by a guardacosta or, anchored in the Bahia las Minas, by fishermen. When Ned pointed out that fishermen and fishing boats could be captured, and certainly no one could get overland in time to warn Portobelo, Thomas had grunted his agreement; not entirely convinced, but not so uncertain that he wanted to make an issue of it.
It was the nearest to an argument they had reached so far in their relationship. Not disagreeing, though, because each trusted the other’s judgement well enough to listen, to accept a criticism in the spirit in which it was meant, and modify ideas when necessary.
Diana (she and Aurelia knew the details; it was impossible to keep it from them and Ned never intended to) liked the plan and thought it stood a good chance of succeeding, but (like Aurelia) understood Thomas’ reservations. Like Aurelia, she had said flatly to Thomas: “We have to use Ned’s plan unless you can think of something better.”
Lobb came up, his hair soaking and clothes sodden from perspiration. “They’ve got the hang of loading and aiming the carriage guns,” he reported. “They pr
efer ’em to ship guns – barrel at a more comfortable height for ramming, so they say.”
“Aye, and they’re that much more exposed to enemy fire,” Thomas commented. “Tell ’em that. Better an aching back with a ship gun than getting your head knocked off because a land gun has big wheels!”
Diana had walked up in time to hear Thomas and said impatiently: “Cheer up, Thomas; you are going round like a black cloud.”
“Sir,” Lobb said, “I was wondering if we could unlash the wheels of one of the falcons so the men could get used to moving it about and taking the carriage to pieces. Apart from running the falcons down the hill from the Santa Catalina bridge, the only ones they’ve ever moved are ship guns using train tackles.”
Ned glanced round the horizon as he felt the slight roll of the ship beneath his feet. The sky was almost cloudless and an unbelievable blue; the sky had the deep purple tinge of the ocean. A few terns jinked and wheeled in the Griffin’s wake and the big black frigate birds soared as effortlessly as children’s kites and dived after the flying fish. What the men would learn while hauling and pushing a falcon round the Griffin’s deck that would help them later he did not know, but taking the carriages apart would be useful, and it showed that at least they were keen. “All right,” he said, “but secure it the moment we start rolling.”
Diana stayed with them and Ned beckoned to Aurelia. This sort of gunnery exercise, he decided was not for women: the gun running away with the men could cause a great deal of damage with those iron-hooped wheels, even with guys secured to the eyebolts at each end of the axle to restrain them.
Early on Sunday morning, with a good northerly breeze driving the squadron towards the Isthmus, a look-out in the Griffin sighted the three peaks forming a triangle behind the Pan de Azúcar and two hours later the perspective glass revealed the lower mountains nearer the coast, including the Pan de Azúcar itself. Soon they were close enough to distinguish the land sloping downwards to the west like a wedge until it reached Cerro Merced, which it seemed to be trying to drive under and lift.
