Admiral Page 4

  Just before noon next day Lobb reported to Ned that the Peleus’ boat was bringing over Sir Thomas Whetstone “and his lady”. There was no doubt about how the Griffins viewed the Restoration: they had asked for a boat and, with the exception of the Bullocks, the couple who had left Barbados with Aurelia and acted as her servants, had all gone over to the Phoenix. There they celebrated the final overthrow of their real enemy, Cromwell, with Saxby and the rest of the men and women who had fled from the Kingsnorth estate.

  Ned had sent for Saxby to give him the news, and the foreman from the Kingsnorth plantation (and now master of the first prize captured by Ned and his men) had at first just grinned happily, without saying anything, as though he had not understood Ned’s words.

  Then he said: “Means we could all go back to Kingsnorth and start planting again. Except –” he broke off, doubtful.

  “Except what?” Ned prompted.

  “Except that I don’t reckon many of them will want to.”

  At that moment Ned realized that he had been so excited by the news of the Restoration that he had not really considered how it affected him. Affected not just him, but every man and woman now on board the Griffin and the Phoenix – and affected the future of Kingsnorth. There was plenty of excitement – at the Restoration, at his forthcoming marriage to Aurelia, at the fact that neither he nor Thomas needed to use false names any longer.

  Now Saxby, the stolid and reliable Lincolnshire man who long ago deserted from the Royal Navy and proved himself a very competent plantation manager, was doing the thinking for him.

  “Except” – that was the key. Except that the men and women on board the two ships might not think the same way as Mr Yorke.

  “No,” Saxby said quietly, “I can’t see ’em wanting to go back to plantation life. You see, sir, they came out here in the first place because of Cromwell: transported because he’d captured them in battle – the Irish after Drogheda and Wexford, the Scots after Dunbar – or was emptying the jails. Some just decided they couldn’t go on living in the funeral atmosphere the Puritans spread everywhere. Not everyone reckons it’s a crime to laugh; not everyone measures a man’s honesty and generosity by the length of his face and the frequency of his prayers and psalm singing. So thanks to Cromwell, we all go out to the West Indies; thanks to Cromwell we all then had to make a bolt for it from Barbados to escape from those Roundheads.”

  Saxby, now launched into one of the longest speeches Ned had ever heard him make – six or a dozen words were his normal limit – took a deep breath.

  “The fact is, sir, we like this life. I know most of the men and women are indentured to you, sir, and they’ve got more time to serve, but I reckon if you gave us the choice of continuing to go privateering with you or going back to Kingsnorth with you, we’d all choose privateering.”

  “You’ve talked this over with them?”

  “In a manner o’ speaking, sir: after we heard Cromwell was dead, most of us agreed we really owed our new life at sea to him, an’ preferred it to plantin’.”

  “What did Mrs Judd think?”

  “She likes privateering, sir. Says the excitement – well…” Saxby’s normally red face reddened with embarrassment “…gives her more zest for things.”

  The dark rings under Saxby’s eyes told the rest of the story, and he had returned to the Phoenix leaving Ned with questions but no answers. He realized he had not really thought about what would happen to Kingsnorth – presumably the weeds had already spread across the land, and no doubt the termites were busy eating the woodwork of the house. Planting or privateering? He had, without much thought, assumed that Saxby and the men would want to go back to Kingsnorth. But what about Aurelia and, for that matter, Thomas and Diana? All he knew was the brief reference they had made yesterday, but had Thomas really thought about his own people in the Peleus? If they could return to England –the Restoration presumably cancelled all the transportations ordered by the Commonwealth – surely most of them would? Diana alone had said that she had no wish to return to England: out here she was completely free: one week in battle, the next returning from it in the Peleus, the third looking for more excitement. No, a woman with such a zest for life and action was not likely to return to an English drawing-room life where watching the men play backgammon, surely the dullest of games, would be the highlight of a week, and deciding the day’s menus and drawing up a guest list for next Thursday, the usual run of events. Diana, who had sailed the Peleus into Santiago while he and Thomas attacked it overland… She would have little to talk about with the vapid wives of Royalists, even though for a few months they would be telling stories of living as refugees in France. No, come to think of it, the King has been back on the throne for several weeks, and by the time anyone reached England from the West Indies, the refugees’ stories would be forgotten… Further discussion about the future had been stopped yesterday by the determined way that they celebrated the Restoration: at one point, mug in one hand and linstock in the other, the four of them fired the Griffin’s guns in a salute, loaded them all again, and fired a second. The Peleus and Phoenix had followed suit and then the Convertine had fired more salutes with the four privateers (after they had sent over to the Griffin to find out what was happening) firing their great guns sporadically through most of the night, glad of something to celebrate and beating drums and singing wild songs in several languages. Now, it was very much the morning after, with only Aurelia looking fresh because she rarely drank anything intoxicating, and his own head throbbing because he normally drank little but had made an exception for the Restoration. Lobb, too, kept his voice low when he reported the Peleus’ boat, as though fearing that loud noises would split his head open.

  Diana came through the entry-port like the sun suddenly rising but Thomas was walking with care, as if knowing that jarring his heels would make his head ring like a chime of cathedral bells. Diana again wore one of her divided skirts, a white dress the skirt of which had been cut up the length of her legs and resewn into two tubes, like men’s trousers. The top of her dress was cut low and the shoulders were bare, keeping her cool and revealing and increasing the sun tan. She kissed Aurelia and grimaced at Ned. “Sir is a trifle brittle this morning. He growls like a bear but if anyone stamps their feet he will fall to pieces.”

  “She has a Puritanical streak,” Thomas muttered, his eyes red-rimmed and his beard uncombed. “Or perhaps she’s become a Jesuit, all piety and reforming zeal.”

  Ned looked at the generous body, the half exposed and heavily tanned bosoms, the warm and full-lipped mouth, and the laughing eyes. “Yes, you’re probably right. But what else put you into such an ill humour?”

  “I confess to you, Ned and Aurelia, that I drank far too much yesterday, during the night and well into today, and now I am paying the price. But I did not expect to face a deputation from the privateers as soon as I dared open an eye this morning.”

  “A deputation?”

  “Yes. All but pounding on my door, they were.”

  “But they were drinking most of the night, too!”

  “They’re used to it,” Thomas said, not attempting to conceal the awe in his voice. “They drink raw rumbullion as you and I might take the juice of a lime.”

  “What did they come to see you about?”

  “Several things. You, the Restoration, the election of a new leader of the buccaneers, the future of this place - Cagway, or whatever it’s called – and a raid.”

  “Let’s go below,” Aurelia said. “The sun is scorching. The deck is so hot it makes my feet swell.”

  “Feet!” Thomas grumbled. “It’s boiling my brains!”

  Down in the Griffin’s cabin, Aurelia looked questioningly at Diana.

  “Shall I offer Thomas a drink?”

  “No,” Diana said firmly. “We celebrated the King’s restoration yesterday; today we must conce
ntrate on restoring Thomas.”

  Thomas laughed and then winced. “If only one was rewarded for celebrating the Restoration, I’d get a peerage.”

  “Your name should have been Touchstone, or Drystone; anything but ‘Whet’,” Diana said.

  “No, the lady has made up my mind,” Thomas said. “Anyway, we have a lot to decide before Ned and I go to see the privateersmen.”

  Ned looked puzzled. “They’re not grumbling about their share of the Santiago purchase, are they?”

  “On the contrary! Their only complaint is that here there aren’t enough taverns and wenches to spend it!”

  “What is –”

  “Ned, I have a list of questions more or less committed to memory. In my present state you could easily jolt them into the wrong order, so listen carefully. Now, I’m here as a representative of the privateers: they came to me simply because they’ve known me for some years.”

  “And trust you,” Diana added.

  “I suppose they do,” Thomas said, “though I don’t always trust them. Anyway, their first question, Ned, is whether or not you’re going to continue buccaneering now that the King is back.”

  Ned looked at Aurelia, puzzled by the question. She shrugged her shoulders, as if indicating she could not account for the doubt either, and he said: “Of course, providing we stay at war with Spain, so that we’re privateers, not pirates. But what about you? Have you made up your mind whether or not you are going back to England?”

  Diana gave a disdainful wave, as if to indicate that Thomas’ answer was of no consequence. “He only talks of going back when he’s in his cups. He can’t afford London; neither can London afford him.”

  Thomas grunted. “I was thinking of living on your money, m’dear.”

  “I know,” Diana retorted, “but we shall continue living out here, with the king of Spain paying our expenses.”

  Aurelia coughed and the three of them looked at her. “That answers your first question, Thomas. What is the second?”

  “Ah yes. Barbados. They want to know if it is necessary for you to go to Barbados at once. They say you’d be away for at least six months, if you were planning to start up Kingsnorth again, quite apart from doing up the plantation Aurelia inherited on her husband’s death.”

  Ned shook his head. “I don’t understand the question. Or, rather, I don’t see how it affects the privateersmen.”

  Aurelia said promptly: “Mon chéri, if you are away in Barbados putting two plantations in order, you can’t be here privateering!”

  Thomas nodded and again winced as the movement made his headache worse. “That’s about it, Ned; they say they can send an island sloop to Barbados with a letter, but they’d rather not lose you and the Griffin for so long.”

  “Six months is not very long.”

  “It’s also very optimistic,” Thomas said. “More likely to be a year.”

  “That’s true,” Aurelia said, and turned to Ned. “Remember, chéri, that Barbados has only just heard of the Restoration. It will take months to get the island running properly again. My late husband –” she refused to mention his name “–died intestate, so the lawyers will squabble about the probate. We may not be allowed to start work on either plantation until the legal papers are cleared up. It will probably have to be referred to London. That alone could take a year, probably two…”

  “What do you suggest, then? They’re your plantations at the moment.”

  Aurelia held out her hands, palm uppermost. She looked directly at Ned and said in a low voice: “My late husband used to beat me every day. I never want to see that plantation again. The one he stole from you and which I want to give back to you as soon as the probate is done, I value only because it’s yours. I don’t want to see it again. I will, of course, because I will be with you.”

  “Sell ’em,” Thomas growled. “Sell Kingsnorth. I suppose you’ll have to give the money to your brother, because it was a family plantation until that man Wilson stole it, and it could be argued it still belongs to the family. Use the money raised by your plantation, Aurelia, as a reserve when the Dons are parsimonious with prizes.”

  Diana said: “Or rent yours, Aurelia. I agree with Thomas about Kingsnorth: Ned was managing it for his family. But if you rent out both of them, it means you have an income until you feel like retiring from the sea in your old age. By then everyone will have forgotten the words Cromwell, Roundhead and Commonwealth.”

  Ned said: “I am more concerned that Aurelia and I get married. But I didn’t realize she was reluctant to go back to Barbados. You said nothing, chérie.”

  The Frenchwoman shook her head. “I thought you wanted to go back,” she said simply. “Where you go, I go.”

  Ned gestured to Thomas. “Well, the answer for the moment, then, is that we shall not hasten back to Barbados. I might write to John Alston, my only friend while I lived in the island, and if he’s survived I’ll see what he thinks about renting or selling. So let’s have the next question.”

  Thomas waved them aside. “There were only more questions if you’d given different answers to the first ones. Now we need to talk to the privateers again.”

  “What about?” Ned demanded.

  Thomas ran his fingers through his beard. “Why don’t you wait and see? I know what it is, but they swore me to secrecy. It is nothing unpleasant, I can assure you.”

  Chapter Three

  The French privateer Perdrix was, as Thomas quickly pointed out, a ship with a strange name. The most powerfully armed of the four other privateers and so bereft of paint that she seemed made of bare wood, her decks were filthy with scraps of food lying in the scuppers, her side stained where rubbish was thrown or poured over the side, and her French colours looked like a torn blouse left pegged out for the wind and rain to clean and now bleached by the sun.

  “Partridge!” Thomas exclaimed as he helped Aurelia on board from the Griffin’s boat. “‘Vulture’ would be a better name!”

  “Look at the rigging – and the sails,” Ned said quietly. “Freshly tarred rope, and that hemp looks almost new.” He looked round, saw a sharp-eyed, fat-bellied man he recognized as the owner, and waved a salute.

  The man bustled over. “Forgive me,” he said in a cultured voice that belied his appearance – he looked, Ned thought, like the foreman in a slaughterhouse – “but I did not hear you arrive and these canaille did not bother to tell me.” He turned and bowed to Aurelia, welcoming her on board in French, but changing back to his excellent English as he kissed Diana’s hand. Obviously Diana knew both ship and owner well, because she immediately began teasing him.

  “If you won’t give the order to swab the decks, why don’t you drive this old bird to windward for an hour or two and ship a few seas to start the job?”

  The man shrugged and patted his stomach. “We look after the important things, milady Diana. You will find no fault in the Perdrix’s rigging, sails or guns, so as a privateer she is formidable. You have many times in the past praised our cuisine. What else is of importance?”

  Diana laughed and turned to Aurelia. “It’s true about the cuisine. That is why these four privateers make him their leader – it gives them an excuse to dine on board the Perdrix!”

  The privateersman shook hands with Thomas and Ned realized that this man, Leclerc, was the one with the questions – and, he hoped, some answers.

  “If you will follow me,” Leclerc said, leading the way aft and disappearing down a companion-way. The cabin was large, the full width of the ship, with standing headroom, and Ned turned as he reached the bottom of the ladder to find three more men, obviously the other captains, already greeting Diana and being introduced by her to Aurelia.

  The cabin was a startling change from the rest of the ship: it was panelled in rich polished mahogany; the handrails for the companion-way were cove
red in fine ropework; the hammock, now pushed to one side out of the way, was edged with lacework and a large cot, or box, was fitted into it – big enough, Ned noted, for two people, even allowing for Leclerc’s paunch. A rack pierced with circular holes held several onion-shaped bottles inserted neck downwards, so that the tropical heat should not dry the corks and spoil the wine. The rack must contain Leclerc’s favourite wines: most privateersmen seemed to prefer tapping a barrel.

  Leclerc, now seating Aurelia and Diana with all the courtesy of a host with highly regarded guests, was a complete contradiction, and Ned wondered if Thomas and Diana had deliberately not warned him, to avoid influencing his opinion. The man’s ship was outwardly filthy yet, as he had said, the masts, spars, rigging and guns could not be faulted. But the rotted scraps of food in various corners of the deck, the smell of rotting food fighting with the reek of garlic, the man himself gross, unshaven yet not bearded, his face greasy and obviously unwashed for days, his clothes giving the appearance of having been slept in for several weeks – and yet this cabin, spotlessly clean, the panelling and furniture highly polished (could he detect the smell of the beeswax polish?) and lockers and table fitted with well-polished brass hinges. And that swinging cot – it was too elaborate to be called a hammock. A woman’s touch? That could explain the cabin, and obviously Leclerc kept her hidden away.

  “Now, M’sieur Yorke, you have met these gentlemen only briefly before the Santiago raid,” Leclerc said, “so I will introduce you again. First, your fellow countrymen, Charles Coles, who owns the Argonauta and Edward Brace, who commands the Mercury.”

  One owned a ship with a Spanish name; the other commanded one with an English. Ned wondered at the significance and decided there was none. He immediately recognized Coles, who was stocky, blond-haired and blue-eyed, had a hearty manner and a vigorous handshake. “My lads want to thank you for the biggest purchase they’ve ever shared – and, when you blew up the castle at Santiago, the biggest bang they’ve ever heard!”