Admiral

by Dudley Pope

  “Listen, Thomas, all the plate is down in the dungeon: Saxby found it and his men are guarding it. We have so many prisoners we’ll have to put them in the dungeon as well – they can’t harm the bullion. Will you take over from Secco and secure the prisoners? The rest of them are in the guardhouse.”

  Thomas gave a happy bellow which brought over the buccaneers who had been guarding the powder beside the falcons, and using one of the Spanish buccaneers as a translator he soon had the Triana and San Fernando men marching towards the dungeon.

  In the meantime Ned was deep in conversation with Secco. Once again the Spaniard had a delighted grin on his face.

  “Sir, if I may suggest something… Yes, I can give this ultimatum, but it might help if I had some other captains with me, who could speak their own languages. They won’t be understood, of course, but to these people buccaneers are foreigners! They’d be much more impressed by Englishmen, say, or Dutchmen, than someone they regard as a renegade Spaniard.”

  Secco was quite right of course. Ned looked round to where the buccaneers were standing in various groups, as they had been ordered, with their captains nearby. A Dutchman – Gottlieb really looked a foreigner, blond with widely spaced eyes and high cheekbones. Coles and Brace – a calm pair who, if things went wrong, would act as a steadying influence. And Rideau. Black-bearded, short, he was unmistakably French. He named them to Secco, who nodded in agreement.

  “Now we want a white flag!”

  “The officers’ quarters,” Ned said promptly. “They won’t have taken all their table and bed linen to Jamaica!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Charles Coles slapped at the swarming mosquitoes whining out of the shrubs and attacking the five men. The path skirting the anchorage from the Castillo de San Fernando round to the Castillo de San Felipe de Todo Fierro was narrow, often twisting to avoid big rocks, and – all too frequently for Coles, who had no head for heights – running almost to the edge of the cliff. Not exactly a cliff, Coles admitted, but a very steep drop to the sea. Still, he thought with a grin, it was in a good cause – a king’s ransom, according to Mr Yorke, because the bullion was there, in the dungeon.

  Would they get to the Iron Fort in time, or would the ships arrive and – to all intents and purposes – sail into a trap? Mr Yorke’s lady, and Lady Diana, would not know that a damned trumpeter whom happened to be on sentry duty on the battlements and whom everyone had forgotten in the rush had been able to sound the alarm.

  Coles cursed as he slipped, grabbed a bush and knew without looking that it was prickly pear: now he had a dozen fine spines, looking as innocent as the blow-away seeds on a dandelion, stuck in his hand, each as painful as a needle and broken off level with the skin.

  Coles was unusual for a buccaneer: he had been at sea ever since he was nine years old, and he owned a ship only because, escaping after transportation to Barbados for a noisy affair in a Scarborough tavern leading to a man’s death, he had joined a group of buccaneers on the north coast of Hispaniola and led them in a raid on a ship in La Plata. Ah, that had been an expedition! Through jungle and pampas, over mountains and across rivers to the port – but no one had expected them, least of all the ship’s crew. Eight Spanish throats were quietly cut, and perhaps the rest of the Spaniards strolling along the quayside wondered why the Argonauta was suddenly sailing… Well, that was five years ago and he had kept the name. Now, with a king back on the throne in England, perhaps he’d fly English colours.

  They were making good time: it was completely light now, although the sun was still below the top of the hill. The Iron Fort – well, it looked strong enough, built on top of the steep cliff so that it could not be attacked from seaward. Not by armed men, anyway. Bombarded from ships, yes, though the walls were probably as thick as San Gerónimo’s, and it would take a month of Sundays to make any impression on them.

  In a few minutes they would be far enough along the path to be able to see round the end of Cocal Point, which formed the other side of the entrance, and perhaps catch a glimpse of the ships.

  Coles suddenly had an idea. “Wait a moment. Listen, if the ships come in sight we can set fire to this brushwood. It’s dry enough to burn well, but there are enough leaves to make smoke. That’ll warn ’em something is the matter and they won’t try to sail in.”

  Gottlieb nodded and Brace said it was a good idea. Secco and Rideau thought for a moment and then agreed with enthusiasm.

  “Flint and steel?” inquired Brace and both Gottlieb and Coles slapped the sides of their breeches.

  “Come on, then,” Secco said, “we’ll be there in five minutes.”

  Now, in the clear sight of the Iron Fort, the men were hurrying in a crouch. Then, as the path straightened for the last hundred yards up to the big gates, Secco stopped them, motioning them to shelter behind the bushes. From there they carefully examined the Iron Fort. It seemed deserted. No sentry paced the battlements, watching to seaward, no sentry at the small door set into the gates guarded the entrance from the path. The barrels of cannon poked out through the embrasures, stubby black fingers streaked with rust. How many could be trained to fire at the ships entering the harbour? Coles and Brace guessed at six, the rest agreed on eight. “Six, eight, a lot,” Coles commented wryly.

  But all agreed that from here it must have been possible to hear the San Gerónimo’s trumpeter sounding the alarm, so either the Iron Fort had no garrison – which seemed absurd to all except Secco – or they had prepared a trap.

  “You don’t understand the Spanish,” Secco explained. “They probably garrison Triana, Gerónimo and Fernando because they have orders to protect the town of Portobelo. The Iron Fort’s guns cannot reach the town, so…” He gave an expressive shrug. “The orders in writing from the Viceroy in Panama said Portobelo, so no commanding officer would interpret that as guarding the harbour. Portobelo is the town, the harbour is the harbour.”

  “Time we started,” Brace said, holding out the pike he had been carrying. “Let’s lash on the flag.”

  Secco unfolded a white tablecloth that had been torn in half to make it the right size, and a piece of line tied to each of two corners. Swiftly he secured it to the pike, using it as a flagstaff. “That’s big enough,” he commented.

  “Right,” Brace said, “off we go.”

  “I’ll carry the flag,” Secco said.

  “No, leave it to me. The first one they’ll shoot is the flag-bearer. We need you alive to protest about it in good Spanish.”

  The others laughed at Brace’s dry humour, but all of them knew it was a possibility, and each was secretly thankful for Brace’s offer.

  Quite without being conscious of doing it, they spread out to make less of a target as they walked towards the fort. Then Coles saw that a door which seemed to be shut was in fact partly open: he could see a sliver of light down one side and a movement showed that someone was watching.

  When they were twenty yards from the small door it swung open and revealed three men: one crouching with a pistol, the second kneeling and holding another and the third standing with a musket. From all three guns the breeze was not enough to disperse the smoke from the slow-match held in the serpentines: it curled up and reminded Coles of an old man’s pipe.

  As soon as the door was open the man standing with the musket shouted an order and Secco hurriedly translated: “Stop. Hold your hands out sideways so they can be sure you are unarmed.”

  A stream of Spanish followed and Secco waited patiently until it had stopped. The speaker could well be the brother of the sergeant at San Gerónimo: he was fat, he had flowing moustaches (the cups were missing: a sign, Coles wondered that they had heard the trumpet and were prepared?) and was short of breath.

  This one, Secco thought to himself, is a stupid ox. Probably born out here – his accent has that slurring that those brought up on the Main seem to acquire
: a laziness of the tongue.

  “Listen,” Secco said, “we are not armed and we come under a flag of truce, so put down those guns. Who is in command here?”

  “I am,” growled the man with the musket, “and that’s a white flag!”

  “Yes, it is the flag for an armistice. For a truce. For –” he broke off, realizing that this fat oaf had probably never served anywhere but Portobelo and that the words “truce”or “armistice” probably had no real meaning for him.

  “Truce? You mean there’s been fighting?” The man (Secco guessed he was a sergeant) was bewildered by Secco’s Castilian accent. “Was that why the trumpet sounded?”

  Warning the others in English to watch for the ships without giving anything away, Secco began a long but simple explanation of what had happened.

  “So we have the garrisons of Triana, San Gerónimo and San Fernando locked in the dungeon,” he said. “We come under a flag of truce to offer you terms. Either you surrender Todo Fierro and the garrison to us, or we will blow up San Gerónimo with all the prisoners in it. Your comrades,” he added.

  “I do not believe it. You tell lies. It is a trap!”

  “Calm yourself, sergeant. You do not believe we have the garrison of Triana as our prisoners? Let me tell you the name of the commanding officer. Does the name Captain Peralta mean anything? You do not believe we hold San Gerónimo? But I am sure you have drunk many glasses of wine with Sergeant Bayona, as fat as yourself, and who is now locked in the dungeon with the rest of his men. And San Fernando, where normally there are one sergeant, two corporals and twelve men, all present and correct, sir. Sergeant Pardal and his corporals and all his men are in the dungeon too. Do you believe me now, sergeant?”

  There was a pause. Coles heard the hissing of the two men with pistols talking to the sergeant. That was the silly thing about the Spanish language: it sometimes sounded like a boxful of angry snakes bargaining. Then the sergeant said: “I believe you, yes, but what is the reason for it? Why do our own people capture our forts and castles?”

  The man sounded bewildered, so much so that Coles and Brace asked for a translation, and laughed heartily when Secco gave it.

  “Sergeant,” said Secco, “we are not ‘your own people’; we are buccaneers. These two gentlemen are countrymen of El Draco.” He turned to Brace and Coles. “Shout something about Drake in English!”

  He waited until both men finished an impassioned impromptu eulogy about Drake, and then pointed to Gottlieb. “This gentleman is Dutch.”

  Gottlieb needed no explanation: with hands waving he described in Dutch the viciousness of the Spanish occupation of his country.

  “Are you satisfied?” Secco asked politely. “There is a French captain here, too.”

  “No, I’m satisfied.”

  At that moment Secco realized that there was a musket barrel protruding from each of the dozen or so gun loops cut in the wall above the door: slots that allowed an archer or musketeer to fire at an enemy outside the walls.

  He pointed up at them and said to the sergeant sharply: “Tell those men to put down those muskets; don’t forget we come under a flag of truce.”

  The sergeant shouted into the courtyard and Secco saw the musket barrels being withdrawn and could picture the reluctant look on the men’s faces.

  “Well,” Secco said briskly, “now you understand that we have seized Portobelo and the three castles.” He felt the casual addition of the town was allowable. “We have come to give you your orders. You will march your men to San Gerónimo and leave this fort.”

  “March to San Gerónimo? Leave this fort –” the sergeant was incredulous. “But my orders are to command this garrison until my captain comes back from Jamaica!”

  Secco sighed. At this point he was not sure whether to wheedle this ox or rage and shout. He glanced across at Cocal Point and there was no sign of the ships: the light wind was slowing them up, thank goodness.

  Firmness, Secco decided. “Sergeant, either you form up your men and start marching to San Gerónimo, or we shall leave you and return to San Gerónimo ourselves. There we shall light the slow-match we have laid down to the magazines, and all your comrades will be blown to pieces along with the castle. You’ll have a good view from here.”

  “But you can’t do that! All the bullion –” he broke off suddenly, perhaps remembering old orders that its presence was never to be mentioned.

  “All the bullion is now stacked well away from the castle,” Secco said calmly. “What do you think nearly a thousand men have been doing all night?”

  “A thousand men? Buccaneers? A thousand?”

  “Oh, there were a thousand carrying the bullion,” Secco said airily. “And a thousand more must be looting the town. When I left them the rest were talking of blowing up San Fernando and Triana…”

  “But I don’t understand… How did they get here? No ship has…”

  Secco waved up at the line of mountains. “The road from Panama. We just walked in. Your comrades took one look and surrendered. Well, sergeant what are you going to do? Kill all your old comrades and destroy San Gerónimo or surrender like the rest of them? You can’t fight, unless you have enough men to attack more than two thousand.”

  “We stay here!” the sergeant said firmly. Secco guessed the man was completely befuddled but in his own dogged fashion was refusing to leave the place he knew – and, although he did not know it, the place where he could do a great deal of harm.

  “Very well, we’ll tell your comrades in the dungeon as we light the slow-match. Your name, sergeant? I would like them to be grateful to the right man.”

  “Gonzales…” the man growled, “and I didn’t kill them.”

  “You will,” Secco said coldly. “You can save their lives by surrendering – or you can kill them, by being stupid.”

  “Stupid” was obviously a word with unhappy associations in the sergeant’s past: he began jumping up and down, jowls quivering and waving the musket. “No one calls me stupid!” he roared. “Me, important enough to be left in command of Todo Fierro by the major, and you call me stupid! Run away with your silly white flag before we decide to turn you into real boucan! Farewell, filibustero!”

  Secco shrugged his shoulders and turned away, followed by the four other men, and for fifty yards he reflected that it only needed the idiot or a zealot at one of the gun loops to put a musket ball between his shoulder-blades. Flags of truce, he realized, only worked when both sides understood the meaning of the word “truce”.

  Ned and Thomas watched from the battlements of San Gerónimo. “I can see the five of them coming back along the track,” Ned said, watching with the glass. “They’ve taken the white cloth from the pike, and now the little door is shut at the castle. No, they haven’t succeeded. The dam’ garrison won’t surrender…”

  “That means they’ll open fire at the ships,” Thomas said.

  “Look!” Ned exclaimed. “There’s Jensen and his boats creeping along the side of those mangroves!”

  He leapt on to the top of the battlements and waved his arms wildly and was relieved to see a man in the leading boat – he presumed it was Jensen – wave back. Thomas jumped up beside him. “My shape is more recognizable,” he commented. “But Jensen seems reassured that we hold the castle – they look like ducklings, don’t they, coming out of those mangroves.”

  Warning the ships: could one of Jensen’s boats get down to the entrance in time – and avoid being blown out of the water as it passed the Iron Fort? Was there time? No, or rather he could not risk it. There was one other chance…

  He turned to Thomas. “Send fifty men with pistols, pikes and cutlasses to get the prisoners up from the dungeon and into the courtyard. Bunch ’em in a corner and train all the falcons on them. Any nonsense, fire into the middle. You understand?”

  “It’ll
be a pleasure; means we didn’t haul those guns for nothing,” Thomas said, and jumped down from the battlement and headed for the stairs down to the courtyard.

  Ned took one last look round from the battlements and, catching sight of the Castillo de San Fernando out of the corner of his eye, realized that it would serve the purpose just as well. Except that Secco would have told the Iron Fort’s garrison that all the prisoners were in San Gerónimo… Well, that settled that. He followed Thomas into the courtyard and then plunged down the steps into the dungeon, calling for Saxby.

  The dungeon smelled like a sewer. It comprised six large cells along one side of a long corridor, and all the walls glistened in the light of lanterns from the water seeping through the stonework from the harbour. The floor was slippery, slimy with some sort of lichen or moss that grew everywhere. The doors of the cells were made of iron bars, giving the impression of cages for wild animals, and Ned remembered a description of the cells for animals and humans beneath the area of the Colosseum in Rome.

  In the middle of the corridor was a rack and at the far end a thick post had been let into the stone floor. It took Ned a few moments to realize that it was the flogging post; a man had to put his arms round it and his wrists were tied on the far side, leaving his back exposed to the lash. And whether a man was being flogged at the post or stretched on the rack, all the other prisoners could see – in fact were probably made to watch – through the bars. Now the cells were crammed with Spaniards, two buccaneers standing at each door, a cutlass in one hand and a pistol in the other. Already Thomas, with more buccaneers, was getting the prisoners out of the first celll, having just explained to Saxby who, seeing Ned coming down the steps, hurried over.

  “Change of plan, sir?”

  “Yes, the Iron Fort won’t surrender. Now, take all the men you need, apart from Sir Thomas’ guards, and carry the bullion out of here. Pile it up outside at least five hundred yards away. Put sentries over it.” He thought for a moment whether or not to use the Spanish prisoners as porters, then decided the extra buccaneers needed to guard them would be better used carrying bullion.