Admiral Read online

  “I haven’t inspected the town,” Aurelia said, “but isn’t there a shortage of women?”

  Ned shook his head. “On the contrary. Cromwell sent out a thousand young women – orphans, trollops, dependants of prisoners of war, and some who had been jailed for picking pockets, robbing their mistresses… They weren’t very welcome in the eastern islands, and several hundred (I’m not sure exactly how many) were sent on to Jamaica, to be indentured as servants.”

  “Servants? But surely there are no plantations working here, and few private inhabitants?”

  “No, and that’s why the brothels opened, to be closed later by Heffer. It was the only way the women had of making a living.”

  “How do they live now, then?”

  “I can’t think Heffer’s garrison entirely share his views,” Ned said. “Three thousand soldiers…”

  “But the soldiers aren’t being paid!”

  “No, so I presume they barter food. The buccaneers with cash will be a blessing for the women, and tavern keepers are going to make fortunes!”

  Aurelia sighed. “The poor buccaneers…”

  A startled Ned turned back to her. “Why ‘poor buccaneers’?”

  Aurelia blushed. “I was thinking that in our three ships we seem to have a fair and happy arrangement!”

  “Floating bordellos, eh?”

  General Heffer was delighted to see Ned and Thomas again, but obviously nervous: he too could count twenty-eight ships at anchor, and even if he had not seen it himself, Rowlands would have reported that the Griffin had led in a small fleet.

  Ned watched Heffer as he sat down again behind his table, and was reminded of a dishonest servant whose master had returned unexpectedly. Heffer was puzzled and worried; if he had been a butler, Ned would have assumed he had been secretly drinking in the pantry, yet the more Ned observed him the more he suspected that although the man was puzzled and worried, it was Heffer’s normal state. He trusted no man, living his life in constant fear of eavesdroppers. And one thing Ned had long ago learned was never to trust a man who trusted no one else: distrust soon became a disease.

  Being puzzled was, for Heffer, undoubtedly the result of being one of Cromwell’s followers – after the civil war he must have received many orders which were nearly inexplicable. Now, of course, Heffer’s normal indecisive state was augmented by the Restoration. He had no orders at all; he had heard from London only that the King was granting an amnesty…

  “Mr Yorke… Sir Thomas… I am glad to see you both back.”

  Was there, Ned wondered, just a slight emphasis on “both”, indicating a reservation about the rest of the buccaneers. It was worth just being sure.

  “Water,” Ned said. “We just want to fill some butts, then we’ll be on our way.”

  “Can one inquire where…?”

  “One can,” Thomas said with an exaggerated guffaw, “as long as one doesn’t expect an answer!”

  “Of course, of course,” Heffer said hastily. “But please don’t misunderstand me: you are all very welcome to stay as long as you wish.”

  Heffer’s welcoming smile, Ned thought, must be similar to a ram’s grimace at the moment of castration. “Oh, they’d stay readily enough,” Ned said casually, apparently making polite conversation, “if there was something to entertain them in the evening. But they want taverns and bordellos, which” – he decided on a white lie – “means Tortuga – or Barbados.”

  Heffer’s eyebrows slid up his forehead in surprise. “Oh, I hadn’t realized there was much to offer in Tortuga.”

  “Ah,” Thomas gave a lecherous bellow, “remarkable place, Cayona – that’s the capital of Tortuga. Quite remarkable, don’t you agree, Ned? Why, we –”

  The door flung open and slammed back against the wall. Four men burst into the room as a startled Ned and Thomas leapt to their feet. Two of the men held wheel-lock pistols, two waved swords. All four wore the breast plates and helmets which had become the hallmark of Cromwell’s New Model Army.

  Ned just had time to realize that the four men wore the uniform of officers, to recognize one as Slinger, Heffer’s deputy, and glimpse a grinning Rowlands through the doorway, before an excited Slinger yelled at Heffer in a shrill voice: “You are under arrest. The Seventh Regiment has taken over government of the island!”

  Heffer, by now on his feet but careful to make no sudden movement, as both pistols pointed at him, bellowed: “Mutiny, by God! This is mutiny. No, it’s treason, Colonel Slinger; you are threatening the governor, who represents the King!”

  Slinger, almost gibbering with excitement, waved his pistol at Heffer. “Sit down, put your hands flat on the table. Treason!” he screamed, “you accuse me of treason? You damnable traitor, talking of the King: you have betrayed the Commonwealth!”

  Ned noted that Slinger had been promoted since he last saw him. He glanced at Thomas. One of the officers stood close to them, a pistol at the ready, and the other two looked excited enough to use their swords before their brains. Conversation, not action, was needed for a while.

  So not only the Dons were worrying Heffer, Ned thought, remembering that the general had been having trouble with his officers from the beginning. Long before Cromwell died, as soon as they realized that the Lord Protector might keep them out here to garrison Jamaica, the majority of them had been conspiring to get back to England, scared that yellow fever would kill them. Letters had been sent to England describing the uselessness of the island, accusing Heffer of every military and spiritual offence possible, and accusing any officers who wanted to stay of being secret Royalists.

  All this Ned had heard even before the Santiago raid: it was obvious that at least half the officers were completely incompetent, half were surly and unreliable, and all disloyal to Heffer. But Ned realized he had been wrong in assuming that Cromwell’s death had changed anything. The restoration of the King merely added an extra complication – an extra complication for Heffer, and an extra grudge for the dissident officers. Not only could they not get home, but their general was changing sides!

  Slinger and Heffer glared at each other across the table, one man sitting with his hands flat on the top as though holding it down, the other leaning across the waving the pistol as if it was a bunch of flowers whose perfume he wanted Heffer to smell.

  Suddenly he turned on Ned and Thomas. “Who are you?”

  “The son of the ghost of Hamlet’s father,” Ned said, “and allow me to introduce Yorick, His Grace the Bishop of Woolwich. Recently defrocked, alas, but still a good man: I know him well.”

  Slinger looked suspiciously from one man to another. Clearly Shakespeare had never crossed his path; he and his friends never discussed anything so frivolous as theatricals. Finely-wrought phrases were dangerous, hinting at luxury or, much worse, blasphemous thoughts.

  “You look and talk like Royalists,” he said. “Ah! I recognize you! You are buccaneers!”

  Ned looked him up and down. Boots not polished and never had been; they were greased, model boots in the New Model Army – but quite unsuitable for the August heat of Jamaica. The man’s feet must be swollen and throbbing, and the Palisades being a sand-spit meant that Slinger’s boots looked almost tan coloured: sand stuck to the grease was mixed with dried salt so that the boots also had a fringe of white crystals. His wrinkled hose must have once been white, but the cotton had become a bedraggled brown. The breeches had been tailored using the minimum of material so that his shanks looked as though they had been wedged into them. The sleeves of his jerkin were darned, but so inexpertly that each mend was like a shrivelled scar. The front of his breastplate was rusty, as though dusted with a pepperpot: obviously it had last seen service at the Santo Domingo fiasco, and no one had bothered to grease it since. More absurdly, one of the leather straps under the arms, joining front to back, had cracked and parted altogether in
the tropical heat, so that the front and back parts of the armour moved against each other like an anxious innkeeper rubbing his hands together.

  The helmet fitted well, the chin strap had been greased, and over each ear the metal was worn: clearly Slinger wore his helmet daily, a bent and dented halo. But Ned found the face beneath the helmet intriguing: if Heffer’s face was large and long and sheeplike, then Slinger’s belonged to a mangy fox lurking round the flock waiting to snap up a newly-born lamb. It was narrow, pointed, the eyes close together, the teeth small and yellowed. The moustache was usually trained back and down, but the heat of excitement had melted the wax so it drooped, thin and straggly. Slinger, Ned considered, looked more like an impoverished but enraged apothecary than a colonel of infantry.

  “Royalist, Colonel Slinger? How does a Royalist talk? Anyway, you haven’t heard us talk yet.”

  “You know what I mean! Come,” he brandished the pistol like an acolyte waving a censer, “are you Royalist traitors, too?”

  “Stop waving that pistol,” Ned snapped. “It’s General Teffler’s affair if he lets inexperienced soldiers enter his office without knocking, but I’m sure he doesn’t expect his visitors to put up with those soldiers waving pistols.”

  Slinger’s jaw dropped, making him look like a breathless fox. “How dare you call me an inexperienced soldier –”

  “Your only experience of soldiering was at Santo Domingo when you ran away, and no one with experience would wave a pistol like that,” Ned said, reaching out and taking it from the man’s hand as Slinger watched unbelievingly.

  Ned flicked back the pan cover, tilted the pistol to shake out the priming powder and then tossed the pistol on to the floor, making sure that it fell on to the flint, which would almost certainly be dislodged.

  The other three officers were more in control of themselves than Slinger: already the remaining pistol was aimed at Ned and two swords were lifted.

  “Tell this other fellow to stop waggling his pistol, Teffler,” Thomas growled, “otherwise I’ll take down his breeches and smack his bottom…”

  But Heffer said nothing, and Slinger, who had gone white when Ned removed his pistol, now recovered himself enough to start blustering again. “I am in command here, not this man Heffer, who is under an arrest,” Slinger said crossly.

  “And who the devil are you, then?” Thomas demanded. “Some dam’ soldier I remember seeing once, now dressed up in rusty armour and who has lost his gun. Colonel Falstaff looking for yokels to press, eh? Oh, what’s the good: you’re too much of a yokel to know who Falstaff was,” he said disgustedly.

  Slinger flushed: he did not understand exactly what the black-bearded scoundrel was saying, but he knew he was being insulted.

  “You two are under arrest, along with Heffer!”

  “On what charges?” Ned inquired mildly.

  “Plotting with a known traitor!” Slinger exclaimed, as though it was absurd even to ask the question.

  “And who is making the charges?”

  “I am,” Slinger said.

  “And apart from being called Slinger,” Ned said politely, “who or what do you claim to be?”

  “I am not claiming to be anyone. I am Colonel Ezekiel Slinger, the most senior colonel serving in this island, and I have removed General Heffer from his command and assumed it myself.”

  Slinger unexpectedly stood to attention and gave a slight bow.

  “Thank you,” Ned said politely, “but the bishop and I are strangers to the island. What exactly was General Teffler before you removed him?”

  “Heffer, Heffer,” Slinger corrected impatiently. “General Heffer was the commanding officer of all Commonwealth land forces on the island of Jamaica.”

  “Are you sure it isn’t Teffler?” Ned asked. “‘Heffer’ sounds so bovine. It is Heffer? Well, if you say so. So now you have arrested him, you say?”

  “Yes, he is under an arrest and removed from his post.”

  “And you have taken – would you mind saying it again? I’m afraid everything was happening so quickly I became muddled.”

  “I have assumed the position of governor of the island and commander of the land forces on behalf of the Commonwealth. Now, who are you?”

  Ned smiled and said apologetically. “Someone of no importance, I am afraid; my friend the bishop and I are passengers in one of those little ships which arrived this morning. We were just looking round and General Teffler – I beg your pardon, General Heffer – was kind enough to invite us in. I thought to offer us a drink, but I was disappointed.”

  At that moment Ned saw Rowlands stepping through the doorway, and knew that at last the wretched young man was going to attempt to get his revenge for scores of fish scales and a dozen or so uncomfortable trips out to the Griffin in fishing canoes, his sabretache clutched to his scrawny chest.

  “Colonel!” he cried triumphantly, “these two men are Royalists and the leaders of the buccaneers. That one’s father – he pointed at Ned “–is the Earl of Ilex; the other, with the beard is Sir Thomas Whetstone, the Lord Protector’s traitorous nephew!”

  “Good for you, laddie,” Thomas said amiably, “you’ll make your mark at Billingsgate fishmarket, as long as the yellow fever doesn’t keep you here permanently.”

  “That’s enough of that; you are both under an arrest!” Slinger suddenly screamed. “I am in command here!”

  “Of the land forces, not the buccaneers,” Ned said, still speaking quietly.

  “I have no interest in that rabble,” Slinger sneered. “I want to get my hands on all the Royalists and their lackeys!”

  “Treason, no less, since the King is back on the throne,” Ned said conversationally. Thomas breathed out noisily. “He’ll be brave enough until the Dons attack the island. As soon as he hears they’re on their way, he’ll be pleading with the buccaneers to drive them off!”

  “We’ll meet that emergency when it arises,” Slinger said contemptuously.

  Ned stared questioningly at Heffer, who, although careful to keep his hands on the table, shrugged his shoulders and said apologetically. “He doesn’t know. There were only half a dozen of them I could trust and he wasn’t one of them.”

  “What don’t I know? Tell me at once!” Slinger demanded in his shrill voice.

  Ned said quickly, before Heffer could speak: “If the general didn’t trust you before, obviously he doesn’t trust you now, so he’d be silly – and so would we –” he added icily, “to tell you.”

  “We’ll see about that!” Slinger exclaimed, and gestured to Rowlands. “Come with me. You –” he pointed to one of the officers “–go and inform the other colonels that I have assumed all powers. You other two will guard these men. I shall lock the door from outside and within the hour three companies of my men will be guarding this house.”

  “Only three companies?” Thomas protested. “You insult all three of us!”

  Slinger looked uncertain and then suddenly left the room, followed by Rowlands, who pulled the door closed after him. There was some whispering, and then they heard the key being turned.

  Ned looked at Heffer. “You are a fool, you know,” he said conversationally. “You ought to enter politics, because you can’t distinguish your friends from your enemies; by trying to be popular you end up trusting the wrong people.”

  “Yes,” Heffer said miserably, “I know. My mother and my wife say the same thing.”

  Thomas looked round at the guards and found himself staring into the bore of a pistol. “That flint is chipped,” he commented. “It’ll give a poor spark.”

  The officer grinned and nudged the other soldier. “Yes, if Lieutenant Foot will pick up the other pistol and replace the priming powder, we shall have a reliable gun.”

  While the other officer picked up the pistol and began shaking out powder
from a small horn powder flask, Ned sighed: “I’m tired, Thomas. I presume these gentlemen have no objection to us sitting down.” Without waiting for a reply he sat at the table opposite Heffer, who seemed to have aged ten years in ten minutes. There was no chance of talking to him confidentially, so Ned said lightly: “Can we expect dozens of loyal battalions to come thundering across the Palisades to rescue us, or are they likely to listen to this jumped-up apothecary, Slinger?”

  “Apothecary?” Heffer said. “He’s not an –”

  “No, he just looks like one. I was insulting him,” Ned explained patiently, noting how difficult it was to make jokes when talking to a humourless man. “Be patient with me and answer my question.”

  “Well no, I don’t think so,” Heffer said miserably.

  “Please, General Heffer, ‘yes’ or ‘no’ does not answer the question…”

  Heffer shook his head as though starting a clock ticking. “I am not relying on being rescued by loyal battalions,” he said. “The loyal battalions are the ones furthest from here – I decided I could risk only certain commanding officers at places like Runaway Bay. The doubtful ones I kept close to Cagway.”

  Thomas sniffed disparagingly. “Now you know better than nursing vipers to your bosom. You should have had the loyal battalions close round you; then it doesn’t matter what the devil the distant ones do.”

  “Yes, I see that now,” Heffer said ruefully. “I’m afraid all the battalions within fifty miles will obey Slinger. Can we expect any help from the buccaneers?”

  Ned looked at Heffer disbelievingly. The man really was a fool. In front of two mutinous officers who were guarding him, he could ask questions about rescue…

  “To start with, we didn’t come on shore until about five o’clock, which means that no one will expect us back until at least midnight. No,” Ned shook his head regretfully, noting that the officers were listening carefully while pretending to be doing other things, like adjusting a sword belt, “probably not until morning because the women won’t wait up for us. It’ll be dark in half an hour…they’ll be going to bed soon.”