by Dudley Pope
Aurelia had once amused him by saying that the best place to hide something was by putting it where everyone could see it without effort, and now the phrase came back to him.
The moment he had a good look at them, the Spanish captain or admiral would guess that the anchored vessels were buccaneers and then, noticing San Gerónimo, conclude they had just attacked Portobelo – and attacked it successfully. He would also see at once that he had twenty-eight buccaneer ships trapped.
He would have to attack them at once. His ships would not have many guns because they were built as transports, but if he had all the garrison with him he had more than double the men needed to board and capture the ships and – as far as he knew – recapture the forts.
Very well: the admiral of the Brethren of the Coast needed to think of some way of making the Spanish admiral draw the wrong conclusion from what he saw, so that he would just sail his ships in and anchor.
Ned looked round the room. The buccaneer captains were all here, and most of them, wild-looking with bloodshot eyes after a sleepless night crossing the mountains, looked impatient, anxious to be back in Portobelo searching cisterns, wells and chimneys and poking behind lathe-and-plaster walls to see where the rich had hidden their wealth.
“I’m sorry I had to interrupt you all,” he said. “But we haven’t much time: the Spanish are coming back and we have to get ready for them.” No actor playing the most dramatic scene in his life could have created such an atmosphere: suddenly more than a score of the toughest men at sea in the West Indies were tense and silent: having successfully captured Portobelo and a king’s ransom in bullion, they suddenly heard from their leader that the job was not yet completed.
“Spaniards? Coming back, Ned? How? From where?” Thomas was so puzzled he was almost stammering.
“There are five transports on the horizon, heading for here. You can take your choice as to what they’re doing: they’re empty, having landed their troops in Jamaica; they’re full because General Heffer beat them off; or they’re bringing back the survivors having failed in their attempt.”
“Which is it?” Leclerc asked bluntly. “What do you think?”
Ned shrugged his shoulders. “For the moment, it doesn’t matter: we have to act as though they’re carrying all the Portobelo and Providence garrisons.”
“But we’ll be outnumbered two or three to one!” Gottlieb exclaimed.
“At least,” Ned agreed. “Now, you are going to have to work fast…”
Chapter Eighteen
They stood under the hot sun amid the swamp stench drifting invisible across Triana, and Thomas wiped the perspiration from his face and said sourly: “Just imagine having to spend your whole life in this place… Always the stink of the swamp; mosquitoes and sandflies; the mountains making cloud, rain and humidity most of the time; always the same faces and the same conversation and the same gossip… The women complaining they can’t get cloth, lace, thread or needles to make new dresses, the men cursing the lack of wine, or poor quality… The garrison steeped in the history of Francis Drake and guarding against the English who never come – until the one occasion when they’re away…you know, I’m getting sorry for them!”
“Don’t,” Ned said, gesturing towards the five ships which were now past Todo Fierro and stretching into the anchorage, the leading one almost level with the last of the buccaneer vessels. “They might be cutting our throats very soon, or handing us over to the priests. Saxby, you said the church has a rack in the vault; perhaps you should have smashed it!”
The stone of Triana’s battlements seemed to soak up the heat of the sun and almost immediately throw it out again twice as hot, and the only moving things unaffected by it all were the lizards, their skins shiny like chain mail, which watched with beady eyes for a few moments, reminding Thomas of politicians looking for votes, and then seemed to vanish, to reappear several feet away, eyes unwinking, apparently missing nothing.
Pelicans plunged into the water with reckless abandon down in the anchorage and then floated smugly, gulping fish like old men with heavy jowls emptying tankards of ale. Laughing gulls wheeled and shrieked overhead, demanding their share, while an osprey hovered motionless above San Fernando.
A sudden hoarse shrieking from the town made the three men and both women stiffen and then relax, grinning with relief. Some Spaniard was ignoring the buccaneers and slaughtering a pig.
“As long as they don’t roast it now,” Diana murmured. “I’m so hungry.”
“There’s a satchel of boucan at the top of the steps, in the shade,” Thomas said.
“Please, my dear Thomas,” Diana said, “don’t mention that dried-up beef in the same breath as fresh roast pork!”
“We’ll round up some hogs and roast them when we’ve finished this business,” Thomas promised.
Ned looked carefully across the anchorage. To his eye it all looked genuine enough but how would it seem to a Spaniard? Was it likely? That, he was sure, must be the first question the leader of the Spanish ships would ask, whether a soldier or a naval officer. (One could never be sure which it would be with the dam’d Dons; the senior captain of the ships might in fact be taking orders from the garrison commander.)
Each of the twenty-eight buccaneer ships lying head to wind in the anchorage now had a large white flag streaming from the masthead. They were anchored so close together, lying with their sterns towards the entrance, that it would be difficult for the Spaniards to see exactly how many there were until they sailed past. And on the deck of each of them were a few men wearing the distinctive Spanish armour and helmets, obviously guards.
At this very moment the Spanish leader must be examining the ships with his perspective glass. Unless he was obtuse or stupid, Ned was convinced, the man could only conclude from the fact that each ship was properly anchored and flying a white flag and had Spanish troops pacing their decks, that filibusteros had attacked, failed and been wiped out.
So much for the ships. Supposing the Spanish leader then began examining the forts… Well, the flags were flying and a couple of “soldiers” in Spanish armour were obvious on the battlements of Todo Fierro, San Fernando and Triana. The only question mark (a large one, of course) was San Gerónimo.
“He might think it was an accident.”
Thomas looked round startled, and Ned realized he had been thinking aloud. “The Spanish commander, when he sees San Gerónimo. When he sees the damage to San Gerónimo, I mean.”
Thomas thought for a moment, brow furrowed and putting himself in the position of the Spanish commander. He held out one hand and ticked off the fingers with the other as he made the points.
“Buccaneer ships but obviously captured and guarded by Spaniards; all but one fort have Spanish soldiers on the battlements and Spanish colours flying; no damage to the other forts. With all the buccaneers captured why should only San Gerónimo be damaged? Yes, Ned,” he said with a grin, “he’d conclude there had been an accident in the magazine…”
Aurelia laughed and said to Diana: “It would be ironic if the Spanish commander is feeling reassured by looking at buccaneers wearing Spanish armour!”
“Yes – unless some Spaniard in Portobelo town thinks of a way of raising the alarm.”
“That’s not likely,” Thomas said. “We have the intendant and the other leading citizens locked up in the dungeon here.”
“They’re lively enough over there to slaughter a pig!”
“If they slaughter pigs while the garrison is sailing back home, they can’t be very interested.”
“No, I suppose not,” Diana said. “One forgets the great gap between the Spanish people and the government.”
“Remember they have to deal with the enemy – his smugglers anyway – to get new pots and pans and knives and forks,” Aurelia said.
“They do it in England!”
/> “Yes, but for luxuries, brandy and lace, not for the things used every day, and the smugglers are English.”
“Watch them!” Ned said sharply, wanting more pairs of eyes to supplement his own looking at the five ships. He glanced across and down at the buccaneer boats and canoes made fast at the remains of the jetty in front of the wrecked San Gerónimo. A dozen of them, secured casually by their painters just where men of the Spanish garrison would put them, having captured their parent ships.
There was no sign of the falcons or their crews. Thomas, Saxby and Burton had done a good job in siting them. Down there, the fourteen falcons were already in position, all aimed at a half-mile square a few hundred yards in front of San Gerónimo jetty. All were loaded with langrage, although beside each gun was a pile of roundshot.
Falcons! Compared with the guns in the forts, they were little more than fowling pieces, firing a roundshot three inches in diameter with a point-blank range of 130 paces and a random range of 1,500.
“You allow powder equal to half the weight of the ball… Be sure it is not pistol powder, which is finer and takes up less room and will split the gun… Select the balls to make sure you use only perfectly spherical ones…” Ned found himself recalling Burton’s instructions to the buccaneers. The armourer was a patient and careful man with an enormous enthusiasm for his work. He had tried to place each falcon so that its target should be about 700 paces away, and this had led to some new trees suddenly appearing close to the water’s edge, and small huts and beached boats being quickly moved to new positions where they would better camouflage the falcons and the men serving them.
Ned felt a quite irrational anger with the man, or men, who designed Triana and San Fernando. The embrasures were built so that the barrels of the guns could not be depressed enough to fire at a target close below. The minimum range was about half a mile from both forts, which meant that they could only fire at an enemy ship until it was half-way up the anchorage. For the last half mile the enemy would be quite safe, the roundshot going over his head. Ironically enough, this almost incredible shortcoming in the forts was saving the five Spanish ships from being destroyed by their own great guns…
“He’s not going to make it,” Saxby exclaimed suddenly, uttering the first words Ned had heard him speak for an hour or two.
A couple of minutes later the leading Spanish ship, which had been sagging across the anchorage to the northern side, unable to sail close enough to the wind to fetch the inshore end, suddenly swung round to starboard as she tacked, her flapping sails making her look like an impatient dowager bothered by a beggar. Her next astern, trying to follow in her wake but a good fifty yards more to leeward, tacked almost immediately and Ned could nearly hear her captain’s sigh of relief.
“That one nearly hit the reef,” Saxby growled. “Daren’t tack before the leader even if it means going aground.”
“Look at those jibs flogging,” Diana said contemptuously. “We tacked faster than that, didn’t we Aurelia?”
The French girl laughed but admitted: “Not at first!”
The leading Spanish ship’s tack meant she was now heading for the Griffin, the buccaneer ship anchored nearest to San Gerónimo, while the second Spanish ship, now sailing towards the Peleus, made Thomas grunt: “I hope he’s not as clumsy with his next tack!”
Now the third Spanish ship tacked, followed by the fourth and then the fifth.
Ned again trained the perspective glass on the leading ship.
“D’you see anything special, Ned?” Thomas asked.
“No, just three or four men in gaudy uniforms standing aft, big plumes in their hats. Must be soldiers… The leading ship has six guns a side, as you can see, but they’re not run out and don’t have crews standing by them… Looks as though they’ll tack over to the north shore again and then back, rounding up in front of the jetty. They’re preparing to anchor…”
“Sounds too good to be true,” Thomas muttered as Ned handed him the glass.
Thomas looked from ship to ship and then lowered the perspective. “Our men in Jensen’s boats must be almost barbecued by now!”
Most of the boats at the jetty had armed buccaneers crouching in the bottom, out of sight from the Spanish ships. But to keep themselves below the gunwales they had to crawl beneath thwarts or hide under oars which were stowed on one side to make a shelter, both from Spanish eyes and the sun. The Spanish were not likely to notice that the weight caused several of the boats to list slightly because they were secured to the jetty at random, the bow of one butting the stern of another, canoe next to a long boat, like a dozen dung beetles nestling beside a choice piece of carrion.
“If the Spanish ships are bringing back the Portobelo garrison from its Jamaica expedition,” Thomas commented, “the soldiers must be below: there’s no sign of ’em on deck.”
“Wouldn’t be, would there?” Saxby murmured. “Get in the way of the sailors while they’re short tacking.” He was obviously speaking from past experience, from a time he served in the King’s ships.
“No, s’pose not,” Thomas said. “Never been to sea with a few score landsmen. Batten the beggars below – yes, it makes sense, but I don’t envy them in this heat. Means the Dons aren’t suspicious, though!”
The leading Spanish ship was tacking again and Thomas stared with the perspective. “Ah,” he said appreciatively, “everyone’s waving to each other. The returning garrison must be impressed with the lads they left behind, capturing all these ships! Secco – goodness me, the hat with plumes that he took! He’s standing aft in the Peleus and just swept it off in a salute to someone in that leading Spanish ship. Cunning fellow, he did it in such a way that his face was hidden!”
The remaining four ships were still on the other tack and now the second followed the leader.
“Lubberly scoundrel,” Thomas grumbled. “I quite thought he was going to ram the Peleus, or get into stays and drift aboard her.”
Ned sensed rather than saw that Aurelia, Diana and Saxby were watching him out of the corner of their eyes waiting for the signal. Well, they’re going to have to wait: although the anchorage was narrower at this end of the harbour, the wind was lighter, partly shut out by the mountains and high hills. From the top of Triana the ships looked like five fat fish porters wheeling their barrows up a narrow lane: there was no grace in the curve of the sails and the vessels’ sheer lines could not be seen: looking down on the decks from this height, the hulls resembled boxes, vaguely rounded at one end, and the masts seemed to be vertical poles from which laundry was hung out to dry.
No guns loaded and run out… “That Spanish commander has put down San Gerónimo as an accident in the magazine,” Ned said to no one in particular.
“And he’s getting ready to congratulate the young captain he left behind – the one whose hat Secco fancied.”
Aurelia said: “I wonder if they captured Jamaica.”
“If they have, we must look for another base,” Diana commented. “That would be a pity. I was beginning to like Jamaica. Baiting General Heffer gave Ned and Thomas something to do.”
“Not Tortuga though,” Aurelia said. “That place depresses me, I don’t know why. ‘Opresses’, I mean: I feel it is evil. Like Marigot Bay in St Lucia and Cumberland Bay in St Vincent; it has an aura of wickedness. Triste, too.”
Ned sighed. “Can you two old ladies save your gossip for another time?”
“We’re not gossiping,” Aurelia said, speaking louder than normal because she was angry with herself for rambling on thoughtlessly while Ned was trying to concentrate.
The leading Spanish ship tacking back from the north shore would pass close across the end of the jetty. Or, Ned corrected himself, she would if she did not round up and anchor. Would the second ship anchor abreast of her or astern? The question was important, because almost certainly the rest of the ships w
ould follow, and he pictured the imaginary box into which the falcons would fire.
The perspective, at this close range, showed up the group of men standing on the leading ship’s afterdeck. He recognized three uniforms as army and two as navy. A group of seamen on the fo’c’sle were waiting for the order to anchor; another group were at the halyards, while more stood ready to furl the sails the moment they were lowered.
The men in armour on board the Peleus and Griffin waved cheerfully at the passing ships, and Ned was sure he heard some shouted Spanish. Trust Secco, who seemed to be taking a devilish delight in tricking his own countrymen.
A man without a country… Ned remembered that he and Thomas had been two such men until very recently, until Cromwell’s death and the Restoration. But what about Secco? What had to happen in Spain to reconcile him? Perhaps his quarrel was with those who enforced the law, rather than those that enacted it. Ned suspected, though, that Secco’s quarrel was with the church – which, in Spain, meant the king. His Most Catholic Majesty, Carlos the Second, had his descriptive title for a reason.
The headsails were flapping, the ship’s bow was heading for the jetty, and she was slowing down as though grounding on soft mud. A splash and the anchor cable snaked out as the ship slowly gathered sternway and the cable straightened its curve. Nicely anchored, a stationary target like a tethered wild boar.
By now the second ship was luffing up on its leader’s beam and a couple of minutes later her anchor plunged into the water. She was followed by the third, but the fourth and fifth, deciding that there was not room for them, came in and anchored astern of the first and second vessels.
