Corsair Read online

  Aurelia called to him to say the midday meal was ready, and after they had eaten, an hour after Heffer had gone to the fort, Ned decided he would go over to see Thomas. Aurelia said she was bored with staying on board alone and decided to go over to see Diana.

  They found Thomas in a cheerful mood. “You don’t know what a relief it is not to have Heffer’s sheeplike face around the ship,” he said. “He’s a good sort but he tries my patience. Those teeth – I’ve never met a man before whose teeth bothered me so much. They’re so big and yellow, and they protrude so far they keep drying. He says three words and then has to lick his teeth, otherwise his lips stick to them.”

  “Thomas!” Diana said sternly. “Stop being so nasty about the poor man. It’s not his fault.”

  “No,” Thomas agreed, with mock penitence, “it’s not his fault that Nature made him look like a sheep and gave him a laugh like the braying of an ass. But it’s not my fault either!”

  They talked of the view from the ship, the distant mountains fading into a faint blueness. “That’s a well-built fort,” Thomas commented. “Nicely placed to cover the harbour entrance.”

  Ned picked up Thomas’ perspective glass, adjusted it and looked at the fort. “Eight guns covering us this side, and eight more facing southwards.” His eye caught the row of fishing boats. “Did you hear or see any fishing boats come in during the night?”

  “No. Why do you ask?”

  “There are now nearly twice as many drawn up on that beach as there were yesterday. I counted them yesterday out of curiosity. Twenty-one. Now there are–” he began counting, “now there are thirty-seven.”

  “Well, most fishermen go out at night,” Thomas said. “Perhaps they gave us a wide berth as we were strange ships.”

  “Perhaps,” Ned said, “but it’s odd that none of them fish during the day: they do at every other island…”

  Thomas pulled out his watch. “Old Heffer’s been gone a couple of hours. I wonder if he’s seeing the governor or some functionary.”

  “You’ll look silly if your ‘old sheep’ comes back having signed an agreement allowing trade,” Diana said.

  “I’d quite happily look silly,” Thomas said evenly, “but let’s wait and see…”

  They had to wait another hour before they saw four horsemen approach the fort and then a party of soldiers escorting the two men down the jetty to the waiting boat.

  When Heffer came back on board the Peleus he greeted the four people waiting for him with a stiff bow and said, by way of explanation, “I have to go back again tomorrow, at the same time.”

  “Did you see the governor?” Ned asked.

  Heffer nodded. “Yes, and I gave him the message from Sir Harold. It was translated for him.”

  “How did he take it?”

  Heffer thought for a moment. “Hard to tell. He’s a fat little man whose face gives nothing away. He said he would consider the proposal and give me an answer tomorrow.”

  “He didn’t say anything about having to ask Spain?”

  “No. I asked him first about permitting a trade, and then told him we would otherwise force it.”

  “What did he do then – laugh?” Ned inquired.

  “No, he gave no reaction. He’s got to consider it, obviously, and he may have a legislative council to consult.”

  “Perhaps,” Ned said doubtfully. “Anyway, no more news until noon tomorrow?”

  “No,” Heffer agreed. “I’m surprised he agreed to give an answer so quickly.”

  “So am I,” Ned said. “That’s why I don’t think he has a legislative council to consult; it’d take a day or two to call them together.”

  “We’ll see,” Heffer said philosophically, and went below to change into cooler clothes.

  Ned resumed his examination of the fishing boats and counted them again. “How far to that beach?” he asked Thomas.

  “Something over half a mile. I’d say it’s almost exactly half a mile to the fort.”

  “That’s what I reckon,” Ned said. “I wish I knew why those fishermen don’t fish during the day.”

  “It’s too hot for them,” Thomas said. “Why row round in the heat of the sun when fishing at night is so much cooler.”

  “True, but where have all those extra boats come from?”

  “I’m damned if I know,” Thomas said, beginning to lose interest. “Perhaps they were already out when we arrived, and came in after dark.”

  “Why weren’t the first lot of boats we saw out fishing as well, then?” Ned asked, still looking through the perspective glass.

  “My dear Ned, I don’t know and I must say my interest in Spanish fishing boats is very slight.”

  Ned put down the perspective glass. “Mine, too,” he agreed. “Are we going to be offered something to drink? It’s so hot.”

  Chapter Eight

  Back on board the Griffin, Ned took out his perspective glass and inspected the fishing boats yet again. Yes, there were thirty-seven of them, and not a man on the beach now. They were lucky fishermen if not one out of thirty-seven boats needed some sort of repair. Then he realized that the oars were in the boats, lying along the thwarts.

  The fishermen of Santo Domingo must be an honest crowd, he decided; everywhere else he had seen fishermen, they carried their oars home with them. In Santo Domingo they so trusted each other that they left oars on board…

  He found he wished he had been present at the meeting between Heffer and the governor. Heffer was not the shrewdest of men, and unless the governor stood on his head, Heffer was unlikely to notice anything unusual.

  Heffer had been taken to see the governor. Good, no problem there. He had then handed over a letter from Luce, which was written in English and which had to be translated. Did the translator write down the translation? Then the governor had told Heffer to come back at the same time tomorrow. Not nine o’clock in the morning, when it was still comparatively cool, and not at four in the afternoon, after siesta; no, at the same time, at noon, when the sun was right overhead and it was the hottest part of the day.

  Ned put the perspective glass back in its drawer. There was something strange somewhere, but he could not put his finger on it.

  “You look very unhappy,” Aurelia said from the hammock on which she was sitting in the shade of the awning. “Worried, rather.”

  “Puzzled rather than worried,” he said, and told Aurelia about the extra fishing boats and the oars left in them.

  “Were there oars in the boats that were there yesterday?” she asked.

  “I didn’t notice,” he admitted.

  “Chéri, it seems to be an odd thing to be puzzling about,” she said, laughing to take any edge off the remark.

  “That’s only half of it,” Ned said, and went on to relate his curiosity about the time fixed for Heffer’s meeting next day.

  Aurelia thought about it. “You know, it could just be thoughtlessness. The governor is comfortable in his house and doesn’t think about Heffer having to ride in from the fort in the heat of the sun. Why, don’t you remember that you made old Loosely stop having legislative council meetings in the evenings because of the mosquitoes? I remember you were so cross because you found out that he didn’t know the mosquitoes were worse at dawn and dusk.”

  Ned laughed at the memory. “Yes, it was small enough satisfaction that he thought mosquitoes just stung all day! They were certainly stinging him!”

  “So you see,” Aurelia said, “the governor here might be another Loosely, either not knowing or not thinking. Or even not caring.”

  “It could be,” Ned said doubtfully, “but I don’t like ignoring these nagging thoughts.”

  “You’re just bored because you’ve nothing to do,” Aurelia said. “You want to be giving orders and making things happen!”

&nb
sp; Ned grimaced. “I think you’re right,” he finally admitted. “All this sitting and standing around doesn’t suit me.”

  “It’s your own fault,” Aurelia said unsympathetically. “You told Sir Harold that you’d simply bring Heffer here, but wouldn’t have anything to do with the negotiations. Now you’re paying the price by being bored.”

  “It’s not boredom that makes me puzzled about the boats and the time of Heffer’s meeting tomorrow,” Ned protested.

  He sat down on a hammock opposite Aurelia. “You realize that we might find things changed when we get back to Port Royal?”

  “In what way?”

  “Well, now the brothels have been closed, some of the buccaneers will leave for Tortuga.”

  “But you and Thomas don’t intend going there.”

  “No,” he agreed, “because we have the houses built. But if all the buccaneers go, and the Spaniards in Cartagena do try an invasion…”

  “Chéri, short of telling Sir Harold about our raid on Riohacha and making him reopen the brothels, what can we do about it?”

  “Nothing, I suppose. But if the Dons do come and the buccaneers have left, we’ll just have to get on board the Griffin and make a bolt for it. Go to Tortuga, or up to the Windward or Leeward Islands. Go back to Barbados, perhaps.”

  She shuddered at the mention of Barbados. “When the Roundheads drove us out, and we left that wretch of a husband of mine behind, I was so excited at being free that I swore I’d never go to Barbados again. Then when my husband was killed and I was truly free, I knew nothing could ever make me go. So if we have to escape, then not to Barbados! Antigua is too arid and I don’t like the people there. But there are other islands, and we’ll find somewhere.”

  Ned laughed and said: “Don’t get too sad: the Spanish haven’t come yet! They might only be planning a plate convoy.”

  “That would be exciting. We’d be pirates, according to Sir Harold, but it would be exciting to try and capture some plate ships. Would they be big galleons?”

  “They might be, but I expect they’d be smaller. Galleons draw too much water to get into Riohacha and Santa Marta, yet the governor of Colombia was worrying about foreign ships seeing any of the vessels from Spain. Galleons would stay in Cartagena and sail from there to Havana and then out into the Atlantic.”

  “Would our ships stand a chance against frigates?”

  “Not in size, but we’d outnumber them – perhaps as much as three to one.”

  Aurelia pulled her hair back clear of her forehead. “Which do you think it’ll be – a plate convoy or an attempt to invade Jamaica?”

  Ned pulled a face. “If the Spanish captured Jamaica and the buccaneers were dispersed, the Dons wouldn’t have to worry about plate convoys: they could sail them at their leisure. They might meet trouble the other side of the Atlantic with French privateers, but they’d be content to risk that.”

  Soon Ned and Aurelia sat quietly and dozed in their hammocks. There was just enough breeze to flap the awning and keep them cool. When Ned woke from time to time – usually when a pelican splashed into the water nearby, or a couple of terns quarrelled with each other, squawking as they flew in tight circles – he found himself picturing the untidy row of boats pulled up on the beach. He was now almost certain that if the oars had been in the boats yesterday, he would have noticed them: oars in boats drawn up on the beach was something most seamen would notice. No oars yesterday; oars in every boat today. Why?

  It was late afternoon, just at the time the mosquitoes would be coming out on shore, and he was thankful that the ship was anchored far enough out to be clear of them. Then he connected the boats and the noon meeting arranged for Heffer. He sat up suddenly, startling Aurelia, picked up the perspective glass and looked again at the boats. Still not a man in sight; no one repairing a broken thole pin or painting over a scratch on the elaborate designs on the sides. It was all too quiet.

  He made up his mind: he would risk making a fool of himself. “I’m just going over to see Thomas: I shan’t be ten minutes.”

  He shouted for Lobb to find some men to row him over to the Peleus. Once on board he walked Thomas aft, where they could not be overheard, and told him his suspicions.

  Thomas listened to him carefully, and then shrugged his shoulders. “I’m sure it’s simply a coincidence,” Thomas said. “I’ll do as you suggest, but I think you are too suspicious of the Dons.”

  “No one’s ever grown old from trusting them,” Ned said quietly.

  “That’s true. Anyway, I’ll do what you suggest. Shall we tell old Heffer?”

  “No, don’t bother him: he’ll only start braying, and you and Diana can do without that.”

  Thomas took his perspective glass out of its locker and looked at the boats. “You’re right about the oars, and there’s certainly not a soul on the beach. But the oars may just be a custom of the port: maybe people here don’t steal as much as they do in Jamaica.”

  “Perhaps,” Ned agreed, “but I’m pretty certain the oars weren’t in the boats yesterday.”

  “You’re not absolutely sure, though. Don’t forget you were more interested in what the garrison was doing, and old Heffer galloping off on the horse.”

  “That’s true,” Ned agreed, and added: “Pity there’s no moon tonight. Still, unless the wind gets up it’ll be quiet enough.”

  Ned and Aurelia stood side by side in the darkness, looking over the Griffin’s bulwarks towards the shore. Round them men sat or sprawled on the deck, muskets or pistols beside them, and cutlasses at their waists. The Griffin’s guns were loaded and run out. Several pieces of slowmatch glowed in the darkness, hidden below the level of the bulwark, ready to be twisted round a linstock and used to fire the guns.

  “It must be midnight by now,” Aurelia said.

  Ned had been listening to the sounds from the shore. There was the occasional sharp cry of a night heron; in the distance the pack of yapping dogs so familiar in any Caribbee town. The occasional subdued splashing of fish trying to elude an enemy made Ned listen carefully, and then relax when he was sure. The water gurgled alongside the Griffin as she swung gently to her anchor.

  Lobb padded along the deck and stopped beside Ned. “Just the usual noises so far,” he muttered.

  “Yes, birds, dogs and fishes.”

  “I’m not sure whether or not we should be disappointed!” Lobb admitted.

  “Plenty of the night left,” Ned said.

  “Yes, and the men aren’t losing much sleep. Most of them are asleep already. They seem to find the deck as soft as their hammocks.”

  After another quarter of an hour Ned said to Aurelia: “Why don’t you go down and have a sleep? You’ll soon wake if anything happens.”

  Aurelia stifled a yawn. “I think I will. How about you?”

  “I’m not sleepy,” Ned said, thinking about the Peleus, where Thomas and Diana were probably having a similar conversation, and the ship’s deck would be crowded with sleepy men, the slowmatches burning with the same slightly acrid smell.

  After Aurelia had gone below, Ned found himself staring up at the stars as they shone between the clouds. The Southern Cross was bright on the horizon, almost vertical. Orion’s Belt above, the Pole Star low on the northern horizon… So different from England, where the Southern Cross was never seen and the Pole Star was much higher. Yet his memory of things in England was now becoming appreciably fainter: he could remember the places where he spent his childhood, but Canterbury, London, Oxford, places he had only visited before coming out to the Caribbee – they were blurred in his mind.

  He could remember the family home in Ilex, on the edge of Romney Marsh in Kent; he could remember the estate at Godmersham, at the foothills of the North Downs, he could – was that a creak? Of oars against thole pins?

  He stared out towards the bea
ch, trying to penetrate the darkness. If only there was a moon!

  He did not hear the noise again, and none of the five lookouts reported anything, so he must have imagined it. That night heron squawking – its cry was getting fainter, so it must be flying inland. Did something alarm it?

  He found himself thinking about the house they had just built in Jamaica. Did Aurelia really like it, now it was finished? Well, she had said that when she was in the house she wished she was in the Griffin, and when she was in the Griffin she longed for the house, and since that was how he felt these days perhaps they would never find peace. What they were looking for was always round the corner.

  Why was this? When he lived on the estate in Barbados, he had been content – no, he hadn’t, he contradicted himself. Always he had dreamed about Aurelia, living on the neighbouring estate with that brute of a husband. Then, when he had to escape from the estate because the Roundheads were coming, he had persuaded Aurelia to come with him, and since then they had lived this curious gipsy life in the Griffin – until, just a few months ago, they had built the house. So now, with the brutal husband long since dead, the house built, and Aurelia agreeing they could be married as soon as there was a proper church built at Port Royal, everything had at last seemed at peace. Until the new governor arrived.

  It might have been possible for the Privy Council to have made a worse choice than Sir Harold Luce, but Ned doubted it. Apart from being a prejudiced fool who would never admit he did not know anything, the man was obviously a convert: he had spent his life under Cromwell as a fervent Roundhead, and by means Ned could not fathom, he had managed to get into favour once the King was restored. Anyway, Luce’s reputation, and a hint of his activities, had already reached the Spanish, so there was no certainty that Jamaica would remain a safe place where people could live happily.