A Pirate of the Caribbees

by Harry Collingwood

  CHAPTER ELEVEN.

  CARIACOU--AND AFTERWARD.

  As soon as the darkness had closed down sufficiently to conceal ourmovements, I filled away again upon the schooner, and stood in until wewere within two miles of the southern extremity of the island,--whichalso forms the southern headland of the harbour mentioned by Garcia,--when, having run well in behind the head, I again hove-to and, launchingthe dinghy, proceeded toward the harbour's mouth; my crew being two menwho, like myself, were armed to the teeth.

  We pulled in with muffled oars, and in due time arrived within a stone'sthrow of the shore. The coast here proved to be precipitous and rocky,the swell which set round the southern extremity of the island breakingwith great violence upon the shore and rendering landing absolutelyimpossible; moreover, the night was so dark that--although in everyother respect admirably suited for my purpose--it was impossible toclearly see where we were going, and two or three times we inadvertentlygot so close to the rocks that we narrowly and with the utmostdifficulty avoided being dashed upon them. At length, however, werounded the southernmost head and entered the harbour, and almostimmediately afterwards made out a narrow strip of sandy beach, uponwhich I landed without difficulty, leaving the two men to look after thedinghy and lay off a few yards from the shore, ready to pull in againand take me aboard at a moment's notice if necessary.

  Having landed, I ascended a rather steep, grassy slope, some seventy oreighty feet high, and stood to look about me. The harbour was quite aspacious affair, the entrance being about half a mile wide, while theharbour itself seemed--so far as I could make out in the darkness--to bequite two miles long. The general shape of this inlet immediatelysuggested to me the conviction that if, as Garcia had informed me,Morillo really had established his headquarters here, he would be almostcertain to have constructed a couple of batteries--one on eachheadland--to defend the place; and I at once set about the task ofascertaining how far my conjecture might happen to be correct. Towardthe eastward from where I had halted the land continued to rise in asort of ridge, culminating in what had the appearance of a knoll, and itstruck me that, if a battery really existed on that side of the harbour,I ought to find it not far from this spot. I accordingly wended my waytoward it as best I could, forcing a passage for myself through thegrass and scrub, with a most unpleasant conviction that I might at anymoment place my hand or foot upon a venomous snake or reptile of somesort; and finally, after about twenty minutes of most unpleasantscrambling, found myself alongside the "knoll," which, as I had morethan half suspected, now proved to be nothing less than a roughearthwork, mounting four thirty-two pounders.

  My devious path had brought me to the face of the battery, so I had toclamber up the steep face of the slope before I could get a view of theinterior. This I did, entering the battery through one of theembrasures, when I found myself standing upon a level platformconstituting the floor of the battery. Keeping carefully within thedeep shadow of the gun, and crouching down upon my hands and knees, I atonce proceeded to reconnoitre the place, and presently made out a coupleof huts, the smaller of which I concluded must be the magazine, whilethe larger probably accommodated the garrison. Both were in utterdarkness, however, and my first impression was that they wereuntenanted; but, to make quite certain, I crept very softly up to thelarger building, and, finding a closed door, listened intently at it.For a few seconds I heard nothing save the sough of the night breezethrough the branches of some cotton-wood trees that grew close at hand,but presently I detected a sound of snoring in the interior, which, as Ilistened, grew momentarily more distinct and unmistakable. The soundscertainly emanated from more than one sleeper; I thought that there wereprobably at least three or four of them at work, but my hearing was notquite keen enough to enable me to accurately differentiate the soundsand thus arrive at the correct number of those who emitted them. Theywere, however, sound asleep, and therefore not likely to be disturbed bya slight noise. Moreover, the hut was well to windward, and the soughand swish of the wind through the cotton-woods seemed powerful enough todrown such slight sounds as I might be likely to make; so I stole softlyacross the open area to the nearest gun, which I at once proceeded tocarefully spike with the aid of some nails and a leather-covered hammerwith which I had provided myself. Despite the deadening effect of theleather the hammer still made a distinct "clink," which to my earssounded loud enough to wake the dead; but a few seconds' anxious worksufficed to effectually spike the first gun, and as nobody appeared tohave heard me, I then proceeded to spike the next, and the next, until Ihad rendered all four of them harmless. This done, I slipped out of thesame embrasure by which I had entered, and successfully made my way backto the beach and to the spot off which the dinghy lay awaiting me.

  The presence of a battery on the south head of the harbour entranceconvinced me that there must also be a similar structure on the northhead. As soon, therefore, as I found myself once more aboard thedinghy, I headed her straight across the mouth, reaching the northernside in about twenty minutes. Half an hour's search enabled me to findthe battery which I was looking for,--which proved to be a pretty exactcounterpart of the one I had already visited,--and here again Isucceeded in spiking all four of the guns without discovery. This Iregarded as a fairly successful night's work; so, as we should have tobe stirring pretty early in the morning, I now returned to the schooner,and, having hove her to with her head off shore, turned in and had agood night's rest.

  At daybreak on the following morning I was called by Black Peter, andwithin ten minutes I was on deck. We were then some eight miles off theland, with the schooner heading to the eastward; but we at once woreround and bore straight away for the harbour's mouth, clearing foraction and making all our arrangements as we went.

  An hour's run, with the wind well over our starboard quarter, brought usoff the mouth of the harbour, which we at once entered; and as soon aswe were fairly inside, the schooner was hove-to, and two boats werelowered, each carrying eleven men armed to the teeth, in addition to theofficer in command. One of the boats was commanded by Christie and theother by Lindsay; and their mission was to capture the two batteriescommanding the harbour's mouth, and blow them up before the spikedcannon could be again rendered serviceable. I brought the telescope tobear upon the batteries as soon as we were far enough inside the harbourto get a sight of them, and was amused to observe that there was aterrible commotion going on in both. Our presence had been promptlydiscovered, and the first attempt to open fire upon us had resulted inthe discovery that their guns were all spiked. Of course it was by nomeans an easy matter to estimate the strength of the garrisons of thesebatteries, but I calculated that it would probably total up to aboutthirty men to each battery; and as they would be nearly or quite allSpaniards, I felt that the boats' crews which I had sent away would bequite strong enough to satisfactorily account for them. Nor was Idisappointed; for although the pirates opened a brisk musketry fire uponour lads the moment that they were fairly within range, the lattersimply swarmed up the hill and carried the two batteries with a rush,the pirates retreating by the rear as the _Terns_ clambered in throughthe embrasures. The moment that the boats shoved off from theschooner's side I saw that the spirit of emulation had seized upon thetwo crews, for they both went away at a racing pace, and their actionsthroughout were evidently inspired by this same spirit; the result ofwhich was that the two batteries were destroyed within five minutes ofeach other, while the whole affair, from the moment when the boatsshoved off to the moment when they arrived alongside again, wasaccomplished within an hour and a quarter, and that, too, without anyloss whatever on our side, or even a wound severe enough to disable therecipient. The pirates were less fortunate, their loss in the twobatteries amounting to five killed, and at least seven wounded severelyenough to render them incapable of escaping. These seven were broughton board by our lads, and secured below immediately upon their arrival.

  Meanwhile I had not been idle, for while the boats were away I hademployed my tim
e in making, with the aid of the telescope, a mostcareful inspection of this piratical stronghold; and I was obliged toadmit to myself that it would be difficult to imagine--and still moredifficult to find--a spot more perfectly adapted in every way for itspurpose. The harbour itself was spacious enough to hold a fleet, andalmost completely land-locked, so that, once inside, a ship wasperfectly concealed; while the fact that the opening faced in a south-westerly direction rendered it absolutely safe in all weathers. And, sofar as enemies were concerned, the two batteries at the harbour's mouthwere so admirably placed that they _ought_ to have proved amplysufficient for the defence of the place; and no doubt they _would_ haveso proved in other hands, or had a proper lookout been kept. That theyhad fallen so easily to us was the fault, not of Morillo, but of the manwhom he had left in command.

  At the bottom of the bay or inlet--for it partook of the nature of thelatter rather than of the former--lay the settlement that Morillo hadestablished, consisting of no less than seventeen buildings. There wasalso a small wharf, with a brig lying alongside it.

  The moment that the boats arrived alongside I ordered the men out ofthem, and had them dropped astern, when sail was made and we stood downtoward the settlement, with our ensign flying at the gaff-end. As wedrew near I was able to make out that here too our presence wasproductive of a tremendous amount of excitement; and presently fire wasopened upon us from a battery of six nine-pounders that had beenconstructed on the rising ground immediately to the rear of the wharf,while the black flag was boldly run up on a flagstaff close at hand. Itdid not suit my purpose, however, to engage in a running fight; Itherefore bore down upon the brig--discharging our port broadside at thebattery when we were within pistol-shot of it--and, running alongside,grapnelled her. This done, every man Jack of us swarmed ashore, Lindsayholding the wharf with a dozen of our lads, while Christie and I, withthe remainder of the crew, made a rush for the battery and took it. Tenminutes sufficed us to spike the guns and blow up the magazine, whichdone, we found ourselves masters of the whole place, the inhabitantshaving taken to flight the moment that this third battery fell into ourhands.

  We now proceeded to make a leisurely inspection of the place, with theresult that we discovered it to be quite a miniature dockyard, withstorehouses, mast-houses, rigging and sail-lofts all complete; in fact,there was every possible convenience for repairing and refitting a ship.Nor was this all; there was also a large magazine full of ammunition,quite an armoury of muskets, pistols, and cutlasses, and severaldismounted guns, ranging from six-pounders to thirty-two poundcarronades; while the storehouses were well stocked with provisions andstores of every possible description. One large building immediatelyfacing the wharf was apparently used as a receptacle for plunder, for wefound several bales of stuff that had evidently formed part of a cargo,or cargoes, but there was surprisingly little of it, which was accountedfor, later on, by the discovery that the brig was full of plunder to thehatches. In addition to the buildings which were in use as stores,there were two most comfortably fitted up as barracks, while at the backof the settlement and well up the side of the hill stood a little groupof seven handsome timber dwelling-houses, each standing in its owngarden and nestling among the lofty trees that clothed the hillside.

  Having secured complete possession of the place, my first care was tohave the small amount of plunder that lay in the storehouse, and theguns, conveyed on board the _Tern_ and sent down her main hatchway.This job took us about two hours, during which a few shots wereoccasionally fired at us from the woods; but as the bullets all fellshort, we did not trouble ourselves to go in pursuit of the individualswho were firing upon us. Our next act was to blow up the magazine, thusdestroying the whole of the pirates' stock of ammunition; and when thishad been successfully accomplished, we went systematically to work, andset fire to the whole of the storehouses and barracks, one after theother, until the whole place was in flames. Finally, we turned ourattention to the seven dwelling-houses on the hillside. These proved,to our astonishment, to be most elegantly and sumptuously furnished inevery respect, the only peculiarity noticeable being a lack ofuniformity among the articles contained in some of the houses, plainlyshowing that they had been gathered together at different times and fromdifferent places. Evidences of female influence were abundantly presentin all these houses, from which we assumed that they formed the abode ofMorillo and his most important subordinates during their short sojournsin port. The six largest of these buildings we set fire to, leaving theseventh as a refuge for the unfortunate women, who were doubtlessconcealed at no great distance in the adjacent woods.

  The burning of these houses completed the destruction of the settlement,which was accomplished absolutely without casualties of any kind _onour_ side. We waited until the houses were well ablaze, and thenretreated in good order to the harbour, a few shots being fired at ushere and there from ambush as we went; but as we were well out of rangeI took no notice of them, and in due time we arrived once more on thewharf.

  Our next business was to take possession of the brig, which we didforthwith, Christie, with eight hands, going on board her as a prizecrew. She was a beamy, bluff-bowed, motherly old craft named the _ThreeSisters_, hailing out of Port-of-Spain, and was evidently British built,her whole appearance being that of a sober, honest, slow-going trader,such as one constantly meets with, doing business among the islands.Her hold, however, was full of booty; and I conjectured that Morillohad, through his agents, purchased her in a perfectly straightforwardmanner for use in the conveyance of booty from Cariacou to such ports asafforded opportunity for its disposal without the asking of too manyinconvenient questions.

  It was the work of but a few minutes for the prize crew to transfertheir few belongings from the schooner to the brig; and, this done, wegot both craft under way and stood out to sea--the brig under everystitch of canvas that she could show to the breeze, while the schooner,under topsail, foresail, and jib, had to heave-to at frequent intervalsto wait for her.

  My first intention was to send the brig to Port Royal in charge of theprize crew alone, remaining off the island in the _Tern_ until Morilloshould appear--as he would be certain to do, sooner or later--in hisbrigantine. A little reflection, however, caused me to alter my plansand to determine upon escorting the _Three Sisters_ to her destination,lest she should haply encounter Morillo on the way, in which case thefate of her defenceless prize crew would probably be too dreadful tobear thinking about. As soon, therefore, as we were clear of theharbour I set the course for Jamaica, and away we both went, cheek byjowl, the brig--with a roaring breeze over her starboard quarter--reeling off her six and a half knots per hour with as much fuss andsplutter as though she were going fifteen!

  For the first two days nothing of any importance occurred. On the thirdnight out from Cariacou, however,--or, to be strictly accurate, abouttwo o'clock in the morning,--it being my watch on deck, the night darkand somewhat overcast, two sails were sighted on our starboard bow,heading to the eastward on the port tack, and steering a course whichwould bring them close to us. One of them was a craft of considerablesize, the other a small vessel; and from the moment that these two factsbecame apparent, I made up my mind that one was the prize of the other,though which of the two was the captor, there was just then no means ofascertaining. The smaller craft was perhaps a privateer, and the bigone her prize; or--quite as likely--the big craft might be a frigate,and the small craft her prize. In either case, however, it behoved meto be very careful; for one of the two was almost certain to be anenemy, and if she happened to be also the captor of the other it wasmore than probable she would tackle us. From the moment, therefore,when we first sighted them, I never allowed the night-glass to be offthem for more than a few seconds at a time.

  When first discovered, they were hull down, and only justdistinguishable in the darkness as two vague blots of black against thelowering gloom of the night sky; but the trade wind was piping up ratherstronger than usual that night, while we and the stra
ngers wereapproaching each other on a nearly straight line. We consequentlyclosed each other rapidly, and within about twenty minutes from themoment of their discovery we were able to make out that one of the twainwas a full-rigged ship, while the other seemed to be a large brigantine;and a few minutes later I discovered that the ship was showing a muchbroader spread of canvas than the brigantine, thus proving the latter tobe the faster craft of the two. It was scarcely likely, therefore, thatthe ship was a frigate; and if not that, she must be a merchantman, anddoubtless the prize of the brigantine.

  At this point, the question suggested itself to me: Might not thebrigantine be Morillo's craft? She appeared to be about the same size,so far as it was possible to distinguish in the darkness; and if so, itwould fully account for the boldness with which she held on upon hercourse, instead of heaving about and endeavouring to avoid a possibleenemy--for doubtless they had made us out almost if not quite at thesame time as we had discovered them. I most fervently hoped it might beas I surmised, for, if so, I should have the fellow at advantage,inasmuch as he would doubtless have put a fairly strong prize crew onboard the ship, which would proportionately weaken his own crew. Fullof the hope that this Ishmael of the sea might be about to place himselfwithin my power, I caused all hands to be called, and, having first madesail, sent them to quarters, the gunner at the same time descending tothe magazine and sending up a plentiful supply of powder and shot. Bythe time that we were ready, the brigantine and her consort had nearedus to within a couple of miles, the two craft closing meanwhile,doubtless for the purpose of communicating instructions. That they werequite prepared to fight aboard the brigantine was perfectly evident, forwe could see that her deck was lit up with lanterns, the light of which,shining through her ports, enabled me to ascertain that she mounted sixguns of a side. Both craft held their luff, but it was now quite clearthat the brigantine was much the faster and more weatherly of the two,she walking away out to windward of the big fellow as though the latterhad been at anchor the moment that she made sail in answer to ourchallenge.

  And now ensued a little bit of manoeuvring on both sides, with thetwofold object of discovering whether the stranger happened to be anenemy, and if so, to secure the weather-gage of him. We had theadvantage, however, as we were running free and could haul our wind atany moment; and this advantage I kept by hauling up on the starboardtack and then heaving in stays with the topsail aback, waiting for thebrigantine to close; which she presently did, ranging up within biscuit-toss of our lee quarter. She was now so close to us that, despite thedarkness, it was quite possible to make out details; and it was with afeeling of mingled disgust and disappointment that I discovered that,whatever she might be, she certainly was not Morillo's beautiful butnotorious brigantine.

  She was, however, in all probability an enemy,--it seemed to me that, sofar as I could make out in the uncertain light of the partially cloudedstars, she had a French look about her,--so, with the idea of securingthe advantage of the first hail, I sprang upon the rail as she ranged upalongside, and hailed, in Spanish--

  "Ho, the brigantine ahoy! What vessel is that?"

  "The _Belle Diane_, French privateer. What schooner is that?" came thereply, also in Spanish of the most execrable kind, uttered with anunmistakable French accent.

  "His Britannic Majesty's schooner _Tern_, monsieur, to which ship I mustrequest you to surrender, or I shall be under the painful necessity ofblowing you out of the water," answered I, firmly persuaded of thepolicy of rendering oneself as formidable as possible to one's enemy.

  But my well-meant endeavour proved to be a signal failure; the enemy wasnot in this case to be so easily frightened.

  "Les Anglais! mille tonneres!" I heard the Frenchman in thebrigantine's main rigging exclaim, as he waved his clenched fist in theair. Then he retorted, in what he doubtless believed to be the purestEnglish--

  "Vat is dat you say, Monsieur Angleeshman? If I do not surrendaire, youvill blow me out of de vattar? Ha, ha! Sacre! It is _I_, monsieur,who vill blow dat footy leetle schooner of yours into ze sky, if you donot surrendaire yourshelf plus promptement, eh!"

  "All right, monsieur; blaze away, then, as soon as you like!" retortedI, in the best attempt at French I could muster. Then, to my ownpeople, who were at quarters--

  "Stand by, starboard guns! Wait until she rolls toward us. _Now,fire_!"

  Our imposing broadside of three guns rang out at the precise moment whenthe brigantine rolled heavily toward us, exposing her deck to our fire;and I heard the shot go crashing through her bulwarks to theaccompaniment of sundry yells and screams, that told me they had notbeen altogether ineffective. Almost at the same instant _three_ of herguns replied; but their muzzles were so deeply depressed, and she wasjust then rolling so heavily toward us, that the shot struck the waterbetween her and ourselves, and we neither saw nor felt any more of them.Meanwhile, our square canvas being aback, our antagonist swept rapidlyahead of us; seeing which, I filled upon the schooner and bore up underthe brigantine's stern, raking with our port broadside as we crossed herstern, immediately hauling my wind and making a half-board across herstern again to regain my position upon her weather quarter. Ourstarboard guns were by this time reloaded, and we gave her the three ofthem, double-shotted, as we recrossed her; and the tremendous clatter,with the howls and shrieks that followed this discharge, showed that wehad wrought a considerable amount of execution among the Frenchmen.

  "There's _something_ gone aboard of him, but what it is I can't makeout," exclaimed Lindsay, who was standing close beside me. "Ah!" hecontinued, "I see what it is now; it is her mainboom that we have shotaway. I can see the outer end of it towing overboard. And see, she ispaying off; with the loss of their after-sail they can no longer keeptheir luff!"

  It was even as Lindsay had said; we had shot away the brigantine'smainboom, and thus rendered her big, powerful mainsail useless; so that,despite the lee helm that they were giving her, she was graduallyfalling off, until within a minute or two she was nearly dead before thewind. This placed her almost completely at our mercy, for we were nowenabled to sail to and fro athwart her stern, raking her alternatelywith our port and starboard guns, and with our nine-pounder as well,while she could only reply with two guns which her people had run outthrough her stern ports. Still, although disabled, she was by no meansbeaten, her plucky crew keeping up a brisk fire upon us from these twoguns until by a lucky broadside we dismounted them both. But even thenthey would not give in; despite the relentless fire that we continued topour into them, they contrived after a time to get two more guns intoposition, with which they renewed their fire upon us as briskly as ever.This sort of thing, however, could not continue for very long; our firewas so hot and our guns were so well aimed, that we fairly drove theplucky fellows from the only two guns that they could bring to bear uponus, and within a couple of minutes of the cessation of their fire, alantern was waved aboard the brigantine, and someone hailed that theysurrendered, while at the same moment all sheets and halliards were letgo and her canvas came down by the run, as a further intimation thatthey had had enough of it.

  Upon this we of course at once ceased firing, and ranged up alongsidethe prize, hailing her that we would send a boat aboard. Then, for thefirst time, we discovered that both our large boats were so severelydamaged that neither of them would float; whereupon Lindsay offered toboard the prize in the dinghy, with two hands, and take possession.Accordingly, the little cockleshell of a craft was dropped over theside, and in less than two minutes my chum hailed to say that he wassafely aboard, and that the execution wrought by our fire had beenterrible, the brigantine having lost nearly half her crew, both thecaptain and the chief mate being among the killed. He added that thebrigantine's long-boat was undamaged, and that he proposed to hoist herout, with the assistance of the prisoners, and send her to us by the twohands who had manned the dinghy, if we would look out to pick her up inthe event of their being unable to bring her alongside. To this I ofcourse agreed
; and a quarter of an hour later the boat was safelyalongside us, with a prize crew of twelve picked men tumbling themselvesand their traps into her.

  Meanwhile, what had become of the _Three Sisters_ and the big ship? Ilooked round for them, and behold! there they both were, about half amile to windward, and bearing down upon us _in company_!

  "Phew!" thought I, "here is a nice business! While we have been playingthe game of hammer and tongs down here, the big ship--doubtless mannedby a strong prize crew--has run alongside the old brig and taken her!And yet--can it be so? Christie has eight hands with him, and I believethe fellow would make a stout fight for it before giving in. I cannotunderstand it; but we shall soon see. If they have captured him weshall have to recapture him, that is all!" Then, turning to the men,who were busy securing the guns and repairing such slight damage as hadbeen inflicted upon our rigging, I said--

  "Avast, there, with those guns! Load them again, lads, for we may haveto fight once more in a few minutes. Here is the big ship running downupon us, and it looks very much as though she had taken the brig. Fillyour topsail, and let draw the headsheets!"

  Getting sufficient way upon the schooner, we tacked and stood toward thenew-comers, passing close under the stern of the ship, with theintention of hailing her. But before I could get the trumpet to mylips, a figure sprang into the ship's mizzen rigging, and Christie'swell-known voice hailed--

  "_Tern_ ahoy! is Mr Courtenay aboard?"

  "Ay, ay," I answered; "I am here, Mr Christie. What are you doingaboard there?"

  "Why," answered Christie, "I am in charge, you know. Seeing you busywith the brigantine, I thought I might as well try my luck at the sametime; so I managed somehow to put the brig alongside this ship, and--and--well, _we just took her_!"

  "Well done, Mr Christie!" I shouted; but before I could get outanother word, my voice was drowned in the roaring cheer that the _Terns_gave vent to as they heard the news, told in Christie's usual gentle,drawling tones; and by the time that the cheers had died away the twocraft had drawn so far apart that further conversation was, for themoment, impossible.