by Dudley Pope
Thomas nodded as the fifth anchor splashed into the water and glanced over at Ned. “That was what you predicted, wasn’t it?”
“Guessed, not predicted. Hoped, to be honest.”
Ned turned round and looked across the courtyard of Triana to the battlements on the southern side, where three cannon faced out across the swamp. There was only one buccaneer at each gun, and when they saw Ned looking across at them they waved their linstocks, reassuring him that they were ready.
How often, Ned wondered, could one see a cannon with only one man standing by it? Still, the three guns had earlier been loaded and run out, and those men had then gone off to help with the falcons, leaving only the trio behind. There was no aiming to be done; the Dons would never see the spurt of smoke when they fired because they were aimed over the swamp, nor would they be hit by a roundshot because the guns were loaded only with a powder charge. The Dons would only hear them firing – and for many of them it might be the last thing they did hear, because it was to be the signal for the falcons to fire.
Even now, Ned knew, the falcons were aimed, three at each of the first four ships and two at the fifth one. Each gun captain would be holding his linstock, occasionally blowing on the slow-match to ensure it was burning well, and waiting for the guns of Triana. As the ships swung slightly with a wind change, or because they settled back on their anchor cables, the aim of the falcons would be changed; just a degree or two one way or another would be enough.
Ned took one more look at the ships with the perspective. Each was anchored but sails were being furled. The army officers were walking away from the afterdecks as though there was nothing else happening that interested them. Surely the soldiers would be allowed up on deck soon?
Silver measured by the hundredweight, a year’s income for Spain… The timing of this next move, Ned reflected, decides whether it goes into the pockets of His Most Catholic Majesty or the buccaneers.
The next move was now. He turned round, held up his right arm to point across at the three guns, and saw the men reach out with the linstocks. The sudden movement made his left arm feel as though it had been run through with a sword, and as his head swam from the pain there was a deep cough as the first cannon fired, the blam echoing back and forth among the hills and mountains, rising in pitch; the second crashed out and then the third, one echo overtaking another, bouncing among the mountains and valleys like invisible roundshot.
In the circle of the perspective glass he saw everyone on the leader’s ship, officers and seamen, freeze and look up towards Triana, but seeing nothing and bewildered by the noise now echoing in from different directions, they were now staring at each other – and, he realized, the first of the soldiers had been allowed on deck and were running up the hatchways in alarm, betraying the landsman’s fear of being trapped below in a ship.
He swept the perspective round the shore just in time to see the flash and puff of smoke as one after another the falcons gave their sharp bark, several of them shaking the bushes and knocking over the huts that concealed them as they rolled back in recoil. The buccaneers leapt out of hiding with spongers, rammers, powder and more bags of langrage.
He saw puffs of what seemed to be dust sweeping the decks of the ships and did not realize it was the langrage until he saw Spaniards falling, ropes parting and showers of sparks showing where metal ricocheted off metal.
There was a sudden silence as the last falcon fired but he could see the buccaneers were not rushing: each man moved decisively, never walking a step more than needed.
“Good shooting,” Saxby said. “If they can hit with the first round, they should do better now…”
Ned watched the buccaneers sponging out the guns, loading powder, wad, bag of langrage and another wad, and aiming the gun again as the second captain carefully poured priming powder from a flask into the vent.
Then from one gun after another all the men jumped back out of the way and the gun captains, like magicians delicately waving wands, reached out with the linstocks and dabbed the spluttering slow-match on to the little pool of gunpowder piled over the vent. There was a sudden tiny spurt of flame from the vent as the burning match ignited the powder and a moment later each gun coughed a great spurt of yellow and black oily smoke and once again leapt back in recoil.
Ned saw a large group of soldiers standing beside a hatchway on the leader’s ship fall as though the deck had collapsed beneath them, and he moved the perspective to the second ship just in time to see the langrage cutting down more soldiers as though an invisible scythe was at work. Yet more men were still coming up the hatchways, pushing aside the bodies in their panic-stricken rush to get out in the daylight.
By now the guns were again being sponged out with wet mops to extinguish any burning residue, then loaded again. After the third round of langrage had been fired they switched to solid shot, and after firing three of them the gun captains stood at the rear of each falcon and looked up towards Ned: they had carried out their orders: three of langrage, three of roundshot and stop.
Ned now watched Jensen’s boats at the end of the jetty. Suddenly they were full of movement, seeming from this height and distance to be the brown seedpods of some exotic plant and crawling with maggots. Two or three at at a time, they jerked away from the jetty, sprouting oars or paddles like pond insects unfolding legs, and were rapidly rowed or paddled towards the five Spanish ships.
“Like water beetles,” Thomas commented. “And they’re keeping well spread out, too. Ah, look the Dons have woken up!”
Ned trained the perspective on the commander’s ships and could see soldiers still rushing up from below, but these ran to the ship’s side, clutching a musket in one arm and dragging a wooden rest with the other.
They lined up along the bulwark and Ned watched them go through the ritual of loading. Resting the musket on its butt, muzzle uppermost, each man took one of the wooden “Apostles” hanging from the bandolier across his chest, removed the cap, and poured the powder down the barrel. Then he took a wad from a pocket, pushed it into the muzzle and with the rammer drove it down, then took a shot from the bag also slung from the bandolier, wrapped it in a piece of cloth, and rammed that home.
More than two minutes had passed and none of the muskets was ready to fire, but Jensen’s boats and canoes were approaching fast, surging forward under oars or paddles, each making a bow wave like a chevron in the water.
Ned saw Spanish officers in beplumed hats gesturing at the musketeers, obviously trying to hurry them (nothing, he noted with satisfaction, slowed men down more than having an hysterical officer shouting at them).
By now the first of Jensen’s boats was making the turn to come alongside, and Ned realized that the coxswain had been very clever: the ships, lying head to wind, also had their bows pointing at the jetty, and the boats were approaching by steering straight at the bows, waiting until the last moment to choose which side to board.
The first boat’s coxswain must have seen that the musketeers were lined up along the starboard side, and at the last moment he steered his boat to come alongside to larboard. Spanish seamen, obviously roused from various parts of the ship, paused to grab cutlasses or pikes before running to meet them.
Ned was puzzled by the way the Spanish musketeers, the heavy guns lodged in the rests, were obviously waiting for something. At least one more buccaneer boat was now almost alongside, making a good target at an easy range. Several of the Spanish musketeers were looking nervously over their shoulders, and suddenly he saw two men running towards them from forward, their arms outstretched, and looking as though they were carrying handfuls of long, thin snakes.
“Those two men running?” Thomas asked. “What’s happening?”
“They’re about to issue slow-match to the musketeers,” Ned said, hardly able to believe his eyes. “Must have been lighting it at the galley fire. The ship came in wi
thout any match alight.”
“Shows they believed everything they saw – white flags, our men dressed in their armour…”
“What about the lid of San Gerónimo?” Diana asked.
“Must have thought it blew up by accident.” Thomas said. “It’s probably the sort of thing they expect to happen.”
“There they go,” Ned said, watching the first buccaneer boat get alongside the commander’s ship. In a moment men seemed to erupt from the boat and go up the ship’s side like a cloud of smoke, cutlasses glinting in the sunlight.
He saw the Spanish seamen standing uncertainly at the bulwarks, and then suddenly they bolted. A moment later Ned saw why – the musketeers on the starboard side had turned right round, to face across the ship, and having completed looping the slow-match into the serpentines of their guns, were now rearranging the rests.
Whoever had given them that order, and shouted to the seamen on the larboard side to get out of the line of fire, must also be on the larboard side and have seen only the first boatload of buccaneers nearest him, because the musketeers in obeying orders had turned their backs on the boatload of buccaneers who would be alongside in a few moments.
The first few buccaneers reached the top of the bulwarks and were just starting to scramble over when all the muskets fired at once. Ned saw four or five tumble backwards. A moment later the rest of the buccaneers were swarming over the bulwarks and, with their cutlasses swinging, heading across the deck for the line of musketeers. Some of the Spaniards pushed away their muskets, which pivoted over on the rests and crashed to the deck, their owners tugging at swords. But as the majority of the musketeers retreated they were attacked by buccaneers just boarding from the next boat.
Ned swung the perspective to the next ship. Buccaneer boats were already alongside her, and the deck looked like a suddenly-disturbed termites’ nest, with fifty or sixty buccaneers hacking away at a group of about the same number of Spaniards, half of whom wore the uniform of the Spanish army.
Why so few soldiers? Five ships with – he confirmed it by a quick look at the rest – between a fifty and a hundred soldiers on board each, a total of perhaps five hundred. Where were the rest of the Portobelo garrison and the levies who had set out to recapture Jamaica?
Perhaps they were still there. As prisoners? Or had they succeeded in recapturing the island, and these five ships were simply bringing back a few men because the Viceroy realized the Portobelo garrison was very much under strength?
The dozen boats, having ferried out buccaneers, were now going on to the buccaneer ships to pick up the men who had worn armour to fool the Spaniards. By now they would have taken off the breast and back plates and helmets and armed themselves with cutlasses ready to reinforce the men already fighting.
Ned kicked a tuft of grass growing between the two stones on which he was standing, then saw Aurelia watching him anxiously.
“You couldn’t have done anything, with that arm broken,” she said.
“The newly elected admiral was standing safely on top of a captured fort while his men stormed five enemy ships,” he said bitterly. “That’ll sound fine back in Jamaica – if we haven’t lost it.”
A booming laugh startled him. “Dear old Ned,” Thomas said, “only you could have said that. We took all the forts in Portobelo – using your plans. We found all the bullion – just where you expected it to be. Then, following your orders, we blew up San Gerónimo and then captured – I don’t think there’s much doubt about that, they’ll have done the job in the next fifteen minutes – five Spanish ships which could have trapped us all. Is Ned cheerful? Oh no, Ned’s weeping in his pot of ale, feeling sorry for himself because he was hoisted by his own petard, or hit by one of his own bricks, if you prefer it. Ah,” Thomas suddenly exclaimed, “I see what your little game is – you want compliments from us! And what about me: I’m only the admiral’s second-in-command, but he wouldn’t let me lead the attack on the Spanish ships. ‘Oh, no,’ he said, ‘you’re too valuable. You take command if anything happens to me.’ He doesn’t specify what is likely to happen to him standing on top of his fort, but what will the buccaneers think when they hear that the noble and brave Sir Thomas watched them cut, thrust and parry – but through a perspective?”
“Thomas is right,” said Diana, “so stop feeing sorry for yourself. And I see the first Spanish ship has been captured: they’re lowering the colours. If you want my opinion – and you shall have it anyway – the buccaneers see the whole thing quite differently.”
“They don’t want a husky great brute of a man with a voice like a bull leading them into battle waving a two-handed sword; they’ve all been in action a dozen, a score and some no doubt a gross of times. I suppose what I mean is, they know they don’t have the brains and ability to plan a raid like this and, if things go wrong, produce new alternative plans that succeed.
“No, my dear Ned, I’ll tell you what they’ll do. They’ll count up the purchase, which will be more than they ever dreamed of in their wildest moments of greed and venery, divide it by the number of buccaneers, and try to hurry you back to Port Royal, that being the nearest place offering wine, hot liquors and women. And they’ll count up their casualties and marvel. And you, my dear Ned, will be their hero.
“Within a few hours of them getting to windward of a bottle or a tankard you’ll be the greatest admiral that ever put to sea: by comparison, Drake will be a capon: the defeat of Medina Sidonia and the Spanish Armada a mere fracas. Quite apart from that, Ned, you and Aurelia are rich now – or you will be very soon. Thomas and me, too. Our new and noble King’s fifth will make him a very nice Restoration present. Cheer up Ned, we love you.”
Ned found it curious how Diana swayed and the horizon began moving like a seesaw. The anchorage was expanding and contracting, as though someone was turning a rectangle of blue wood so that one minute it was flat, the next on edge. It was so hot, yet he felt cold: his breathing seemed shallow, his knees trembled and his arm seemed to contain all the pain in the world, but he managed to hold the sling away from his body when the ground moved from under his feet and hit him in the face.
He recovered consciousness to find himself with his head cradled in Aurelia’s arms. As soon as she was sure he knew what was happening round him, she said: “All the Spanish ships have surrendered, cheri.”
“Tell Saxby to arrange prize crews. Thomas had better finish in Portobelo town.”
“That has all been arranged,” Aurelia said, moving so that her breasts lightly touched his cheek, “and Saxby is sending the Spanish commander to see you.”
Ned groaned and tried to organize his thoughts while Aurelia shaded his face from the sun. “I’m so proud of you,” she whispered. “Will that arm prevent you… I mean, will we… The pain?”
Chapter Nineteen
The commander was Don José Arias Ximenez, who was also the mayor of Portobelo, and he had been acting, he told Ned petulantly, under the orders of the Viceroy of the Province of Panama, Don Juan Perez de Guzman.
The commanding officer’s quarters in Triana were cool and well furnished. Ned sat back comfortably in a reclining chair that was almost a hammock of interwoven soft leather straps. Aurelia sat on a stool by his head while Thomas, holding a cutlass, stood behind Arias, who was perched on the edge of an upright wooden chair. Secco, a wheel-lock pistol in his belt and holding a heavily jewelled ceremonial sword in his right hand (one which he had obviously just confiscated from its original owner, and the jewels of which he examined from time to time), sat between Arias and Ned and translated, although Ned found he could understand Arias without much effort.
“What happened in Jamaica?” Ned asked.
Arias gave an expressive shrug. “It was madness from the start.”
“What happened?” Ned repeated.
“The Viceroy’s orders. ‘Liberate Jamaica’, he said. Madn
ess.”
“Start at the beginning,” Ned said patiently. “You say you are the mayor of Portobelo. Very well, one day you are here in Portobelo when a messenger arrives from Panama with orders from the Viceroy…”
Arias sighed, as if the memory wounded him deeply. He was, Ned considered, an improbable man to lead an expedition to recapture an island the size of Jamaica, but typical of the mayor of a town like Portobelo.
His black hair, sallow skin, thin and pointed face, protruding teeth and bulging eyes under a sloping forehead gave him the appearance of a startled piebald rabbit. The moustache was thin and sagged as though it was a weather-vane indicating the man’s mood. The eyes were the man’s most revealing characteristic: they were never still and apparently never looked above shoulder height. They jerked from one wall of the room to another; Arias inspected Ned from the waist down in a series of darting glances and then transferred his attention to Aurelia who, wearing her divided skirt, her skin a golden brown, was obviously a kind of woman he had never seen before.
Arias noticed that she and the other woman, the brown-haired one, spoke out just like men, commenting and suggesting, and the men listened. But this man with the splinted and bandaged arm was most persistent, and that renegade Spaniard doing the translating was getting impatient, so he had better answer fully.
“I am sitting here in my office in the town hall attending to important matters. I have to see the Intendant over some tax questions. Suddenly this lieutenant arrives, dusty and very insolent, saying he has just ridden from Panama with urgent orders from the Viceroy, and five hundred levies will be arriving in two days from Panama, Venta de Cruz and various other towns. With that he tosses a letter on to my desk and demands comfortable accommodation suitable for an aide to the Viceroy.
“I was very angry at his manner,” Arias said, and added, a look of extreme craftiness settling on his face: “But I decided to say nothing until I had read the letter.
