Corsair Page 16

  “I’m going to keep the name of the town I’ve chosen secret until we sail, but I want to know which of you are coming and which want to stay behind. So those who are staying, walk over to the companionway.”

  Not a man moved, and Ned grinned. “I thought as much. Now the ladies will give you your commissions!”

  Ned was startled by the cheering: the men yelled and hallooed, some even dancing a jig as they made their way over to the table. There Diana and Aurelia unrolled parchments, called out the names written on them, and passed them over. The men were obviously delighted at getting their commissions back and several playfully hit each other on the head, using the rolled parchments as clubs.

  As soon as the commissions had all been handed out, the two women went below again and returned with baskets full of mugs and tankards. A seaman carried up a keg of rumbullion and put it on the table.

  “Right,” Ned called, “now you have your commissions and you know what we are going to do, let’s drink to our success.”

  Saxby stationed himself at the tap of the keg and started filling tankards and mugs as the women handed them to him. Ned jumped down from the gun and Thomas came over to join him, fingering his beard and grinning.

  “Just like old times, eh Ned?”

  “Yes, they seem glad to be off again.”

  “The Riohacha affair whetted their appetites. Reminded them of what they’ve been missing. That was too tame for them, though; no purchase, not many flames!”

  “We’ll make up for it,” Ned said. “They don’t seem to care where they are going!”

  “No, but just look at them clutching their commissions! They really do value those bits of parchment.”

  “I thought they did,” Ned said. “That’s why I was determined to get them from old Loosely. As far as I’m concerned I don’t really care whether I sail as a pirate or as a buccaneer, no matter what I might tell Loosely,” Ned went on, “but as far as these fellows are concerned it adds something – what is it, I wonder? Respectability?”

  “Makes it all seem legal,” Thomas rumbled. “Like being married: the ceremony doesn’t really change anything, but it puts a seal on it.”

  Ned laughed lightly. “You should know, as an old married man.”

  “That bloody woman,” Thomas swore. “Why couldn’t I have met Diana first?”

  “She’d have been about six years old then,” Ned pointed out. “Rather too young for you to appreciate.”

  “She’s old for her years,” Thomas said with a grin. “Anyway, at least when I met her she wasn’t married to anyone else.”

  “Aurelia was, when I met her,” Ned pointed out.

  “Ah, but he very conveniently got himself murdered.”

  Ned shrugged his shoulders. “We still haven’t married.”

  “That’s your fault,” Thomas said unsympathetically. “Aurelia wants to be married in a proper church. You’ll have to build one; you can’t expect her to put up with that wooden shack. We’ll call it ‘St Ned’s and All Saints’.”

  Ned walked over to Coles and Gottlieb, who had been joined by Secco and were talking away to each other. “Are your prisoners still happy and fit?”

  “The governor is fit but not happy,” Coles said.

  “The bishop is happier now I give him better wine,” Secco said. “They must live well, these churchmen.”

  Ned pretended to look shocked. “I’m sorry to hear you had been giving him poor wine.”

  Secco gave a rumbling laugh. “I went to the trouble of getting him Spanish wine. That was the trouble: he prefers French!”

  Once the little fleet was clear of Morant Point at the eastern end of Jamaica, Ned tacked the Griffin to lead them to the north-north-east to begin the voyage of about 150 miles to Santa Lucia.

  The navigation was not too difficult: as the Griffin steadied on the new course, Cuba was dead ahead, the Windward Passage on the starboard bow and Hispaniola on the starboard beam. The buccaneer fleet, in the Griffin’s wake, looked a brave sight, each ship butting into the seas knocked up by a brisk east wind. The Peleus followed directly astern, then the Phoenix. Behind them the rest of the buccaneers kept in no sort of formation, looking like a flock of sheep straying over a meadow.

  At least the buccaneers now knew their target. Boats from the Griffin and Peleus had called on each ship just before they sailed and given them the name Santa Lucia. There was not much chance that the word could get to the Spaniards even if the buccaneers had been told the destination the day before, but Ned preferred to take no risks.

  The only risk, he thought as he stood aft in the Griffin, staring at the ship’s wake, was in guessing the strength of the west-going current between Jamaica and Cuba. Allowing it too little speed and they would get down to the west of Santa Lucia; allowing too much and they would arrive too far to the east.

  “When do you expect to arrive?” Aurelia asked.

  “With this wind we’re making about five knots. Say thirty hours to reach the Cuba coast. Tomorrow night. I’m hoping we’ll sight the land before it’s dark, so that we have some idea where we are.”

  “And the raid on Santa Lucia? Have you planned it yet?”

  “No, not yet,” Ned admitted. “It’s a town at the head of a shallow bay, and they’re not expecting us. We don’t need a complicated plan.”

  “Just storm ashore, shouting and screaming?”

  “Or creep ashore, as we did at Riohacha. It depends – if the wind goes south there’ll be too much surf to land anyway. That’s why I’m leaving the planning to the last moment; we’re at the mercy of the wind.”

  “We’ve picked a fine day for the crossing,” Aurelia said, gesturing towards the sun and the cottonball clouds. “The flying fish like it, too.”

  Ned watched as a couple of dozen appeared out of the sea on the starboard bow, skimmed along a few feet above the waves and, after a hundred yards, disappeared into the sea without a splash. Overhead four or five menacing black frigate birds wheeled in lazy arcs, waiting to swoop on the flying fish, often coming down to within a foot of the waves without appearing to move a muscle of their wings.

  Ned moved back under the small awning stretched across a corner of the afterdeck, and Aurelia followed him.

  “There’s real heat in the sun,” he commented. “You’re as brown as – well, as brown as a piece of mahogany.”

  “I thought you liked me tanned.”

  “I do, but don’t get burned: the sun is glaring up from the sea.”

  By next afternoon Ned could see the great mass of mountains forming the Sierra Maestra distant on the larboard beam; with the perspective glass he could just pick out Pico Turquino, the highest in the range and about in the middle of the coast.

  The wind had been freshening for several hours, and Ned reckoned they were making a good seven knots. Even the smallest of the buccaneers was managing to keep up, and Ned hoped the increase in speed would mean that they would sight the coast around Santa Lucia while it was still light.

  The difficulty was that no one knew exactly what Santa Lucia looked like. Or, Ned corrected himself, he had forgotten to ask people like Secco, who might have been there. The only thing he knew for certain was that the bay was clear of obstructions: the chart told him that there was no reef across the entrance, though the scale was too small to show isolated rocks.

  He sat in the hot saloon working out his plan. The moon rose just before midnight, so that fixed the time of the attack: they would start in with the boats a few minutes after the moon lifted over the horizon, and by the time they reached the shore the moon should be high enough to help them land at the right place on the beach and then find their way about the town.

  Lots of noise, or a silent approach? Well, the buccaneers wanted their share of the purchase this time, so it needed to be a silent approach: a
lot of noise would raise the alarm too soon and give the wiser inhabitants time to hide their valuables – drop them down a well, for instance.

  So, a silent approach. Silent, anyway, until they started the real attack on the town: then noise was inevitable. Hostages? Yes – the mayor, treasurer, a few leading citizens if they could be identified. What an irony that the governor of Colombia, the bishop and the mayor of Riohacha, still on board the buccaneer ships, were coming on this raid! But there had been no question of leaving them on shore at Port Royal. Had one of the buccaneer ships been unable to sail they could have looked after the hostages; but no one was staying behind this time.

  Very well, the ships could wait off Santa Lucia, out of sight, until after dark, which was about seven. Then a careful approach, and they could anchor off ready to send all the men in just after moonrise. After that – Ned shrugged his shoulders: every man for himself.

  There remained only to tell each one: that could be done later, because the wind would begin to drop about six o’clock, when the Griffin could go up to a ship and hail. Or, rather, as soon as the ships saw what she was doing they would sail past close.

  Having decided on the broad outlines of the plan, Ned studied the chart. The scale was small, to there was not much detail, but the bay was a semicircle with cliffs on the left and flat land on the right. The town seemed to be built on a flat area exactly in the centre of the half moon of the bay, and it would be reasonable to expect sandy beeches: there the fishermen would draw up their boats, because a town like Santa Lucia lived beside and off the sea.

  Time passed quickly, and soon Ned went on deck to inspect the land ahead. Twenty miles? About that. Yes, there were the hills and the land flattened away to the eastward. They were making six knots but the wind was taking off: not enough to becalm them, but it might mean arriving late.

  By six o’clock Ned was close enough to be sure: the cliffs were shadowed by the setting sun, emphasizing their position, and the land on the opposite side of the bay was flat. The bay itself was not obvious, but the shadows off the cliffs gave enough hint of the inward curve for Ned to be certain.

  He called Lobb over and told him to work the ship over towards the Peleus, and then the Phoenix. It took only a few minutes to pass the details to the two ships and tell them to help give them to the other ships, which promptly started passing close when they saw what was happening. Ned, his voice hoarse, handed over to Lobb, who finally had to give up, and the bosun shouted the orders to the last three ships. Then the Griffin returned to her position at the head of the little fleet and steered for Santa Lucia.

  Just as it got dark Ned had one final inspection with the perspective glass. Yes, there were the cliffs, curving inwards to form the western side of the bay, and there was the flat land doing the same on the eastern side. The town was just a small, grey blob, but had they been any closer it would have been possible for a sharp-eyed lookout with a glass to have seen the ships.

  Aurelia looked at him with raised eyebrows. “You’re certain of it?”

  “It matches the chart,” Ned replied. “Anyway, there’s a town there, and it’ll still do even if it’s not Santa Lucia!”

  “It would be nice to be sure!”

  “I was sure until you came along and put doubts in my mind,” Ned said. “You’re supposed to reassure me; tell me what a wonderful navigator I am.”

  “I’ll do that tomorrow,” Aurelia said, laughing.

  By now Lobb had hoisted the small grindstone up on deck, and men were sharpening their cutlasses, the blades making a sharp, scratching noise. As soon as they had finished the cutlasses, they started on the pikes, holding them carefully so the ends were pointed.

  With all the pikes sharpened and put back in their rack round the mainmast, Lobb gave out muskets and pistols. The men selected lead shot from the leather bags, rolling them along the deck to make sure they were spherical. Then, using the powder horns and careful to protect the powder from the wind, they loaded and primed all the guns.

  So far the work had been done in the order of importance. In fact the men had little time for muskets or pistols; once fired, they were useless, except as clubs. Cutlasses were the most important and received the most care; men wanted a knife edge on the blade. Next in importance came the pikes, cast-iron heads fitted on the end of seven-foot ash staves, the heads designed for stabbing. The one thing a man did not want was his victim hanging lifeless on the end of the pike, collapsing over it as if it was a trident and making it hard to withdraw.

  Some of the men had long knives, elaborate daggers which they wore in rough sheaths at their waists. These were given an edge on the grindstone, but their owners treated them with delicacy, anxious not to overheat the metal on the stone, and particular how much water was poured on to the spinning wheel.

  The men normally went barefoot in the ship and they now brought out the boots they would wear when they went on shore. Most were simply strips of leather which covered the foot and were then stitched so that they stayed in place. Once fitted, a boot stayed on until the owner had no more need for it, when the stitching was cut and the leather strip put away until wanted again.

  The men started sewing on their boots as it became dark. As usual in the Tropics the light went quickly: no sooner had the sun slipped below the horizon than the darkness spread in from the east. With the last of the light Ned inspected the coast ahead yet again. Cliffs in shadow on the left, land flat on the right, a town in the middle: if it was not Santa Lucia it was its double and anyway would serve the purpose.

  The stars which had come out even as the sun went down now brightened; the clouds and sea turned grey; distances became hard to judge. The buccaneer ships seemed to get closer to each other; the Peleus and Phoenix were almost within hailing distance.

  The next few hours are the dangerous ones, Ned thought; every man is getting excited, and it is the time when ships collide in the dark. It is a strange thing that on an ordinary night passage thirty ships can sail along in company and there will be no danger of collision. But those same ships heading for a town they are going to raid may well collide with each other, as though excitement affected judgement.

  There was a candle in the binnacle now, lighting up the compass, and the quartermaster was watching it like a hawk. With the Griffin heading directly for the distant town, Ned had read off the bearing and now with a small allowance for the current, the Griffin was sailing a direct course, with the rest of the ships following.

  Now time was dragging for Ned. He went below to have his supper with Aurelia, and then came back on deck. There was just the creak of the yard, the occasional flap of the mainsail, and the hissing of the bow wave with an odd thump as an extra large wave hit the side of the ship.

  An hour before midnight he thought he could just distinguish the cliffs on the side of the bay: a dark sliver on an even darker horizon. Ned looked, turned his head and looked back again. The sliver was still there, in the same place. Lobb was the next to see it, and then Aurelia. A comparison with the course they were steering put it beyond doubt: Santa Lucia – if that was the name of the place – was dead ahead, about six miles…

  It was curious how in the darkness the ship seemed to slide through the water: almost as if the ship remained stationary and the water was drawn past it. Ned paced up and down the deck, constantly looking over the bow, and when the bay appeared beyond any doubt he was surprised at the speed the Griffin must have been making.

  There were the cliffs, now very close on the larboard bow, and he stood on a gun to get a better view over the bow. Close astern the Peleus and the Phoenix kept station; astern of them, just a group of black blobs, the rest of the buccaneers followed. Followed the Griffin, Ned reflected: if he sailed on to a reef, the chances were that the whole fleet would follow, unless it was a very small reef.

  Ned shook his head impatiently: he had led the buccaneers
into various strange places at night without any problems, so why was he getting nervous about Santa Lucia? If he was honest with himself, he admitted, he was no more nervous now than he usually was: it was about this time that he wanted to turn the Griffin away and call the whole thing off. Leadership, he thought ruefully, is not a question of not being nervous; it just means that you learn not to show it.

  Thank goodness the cliffs were on the west side of the bay; if they were on the east side they would blanket the wind which, instead, blew gently across the flat land on the eastern side. Santa Lucia was perfectly placed to be raided from seaward – providing there were no isolated rocks scattered about the bay.

  He watched as Lobb brought the ship another point to starboard, so that she headed directly for the town, and Ned estimated they were well into the bay: the first of the cliffs were now on the larboard quarter; he thought he could distinguish the seaward end of the flat land on the starboard beam. He tried to estimate the distance to the town. It was difficult in the darkness, although some clouds shifted for a few moments, allowing starlight to show a thin line where waves were breaking on the beach in front of the town. A mile? Less.

  “They’re ready with the anchor?” he asked Lobb.

  “Ready, sir,” Lobb answered patiently.

  Ned looked astern again. The Griffin’s two boats were towing astern, having been hoisted out half an hour ago, and they were throwing up a glow of phosphorescence. Yes, and he could just make out the Peleus’ bow wave in the darkness. He had noticed in the past how the water was often phosphorescent in patches. What on earth caused it? On a night like this it seemed eerie.

  “We’ll go in under headsails,” Ned told Lobb, who gave orders to clew up the mainsail. Three quarters of a mile to the beach, perhaps less. And there was the smell of the land: a mixture of rotting cabbage and herbs, with a hint of damp earth… He heard the occasional squawk of some land bird and then the bark of a disconsolate dog. No shouts of alarm, no challenges, no pealing bells raising the alarm. The town slept.