Admiral Page 8

  “Hmm…two thousand, five hundred in five ships…all heavily armed…” Ned seemed to be murmuring to himself, but now Thomas waited: he too could see what was coming, and Diana turned her face away to hide a smile.

  “Against them we have seven ships…”

  “Ah indeed,” Heffer said cheerfully, “you have a majority.”

  “…but the Spanish ships are very much bigger, and in men they would outnumber us more than five to one: two thousand, five hundred men against five hundred or so buccaneers.”

  Heffer looked startled. “But you won’t be fighting them hand to hand, surely? Won’t you keep your distance and sink the ships so the Spaniards drown?”

  “Unfortunately the buccaneer squadron here” (he was pleased with the way the word ‘squadron’ came out so easily) “is made up of seven merchant ships, all small. Even if we concentrated all our guns on one Spanish ship – an obvious impossibility – we’d never sink her.”

  “But…but I thought you buccaneers existed by attacking other ships!”

  “How did you get that idea?” Ned asked. “We stole the grain you needed for your starving garrison by raiding Riohacha; we dealt with your fears of a Spanish fleet by raiding Santiago. We are sea soldiers, General Heffer, not sailors.”

  “Bless my soul!” Heffer exclaimed. “I hadn’t realized that! Sea soldiers, eh? Yes, a good name.”

  Ned shrugged. “It is quite obvious when you think about it. Our ships are not built for fighting. As former merchant ships they can carry a certain number of men and a quantity of purchase, but they are not built to carry a number of guns. Apart from that, the buccaneers have no Spanish targets at sea. The plate fleet never appears; the coasting trade along the Main is tiny – most of the vessesl are foreign smugglers.

  “So obviously our targets are places. We look for gold and silver and jewellery belonging to the inhabitants; we hold the richest to ransom; we rob the churches and the town treasuries. We are not very nice people. We raid from the sea, like the Vikings a few centuries ago. Like El Draco more recently.”

  Heffer wetted his teeth again and said: “Now I understand, but what about these Spanish troops? It’s a whole army!”

  “Is it really a threat? Suppose it does land on the north coast. It’ll probably come ashore at Runaway Bay, where the last of the original Spaniards fled to Cuba. Do you think they can threaten Cagway? The harbour? The Palisades? Will they really get across the mountains without losing half their men from sickness? It’s the rainy season now and humidity makes even a healthy man lethargic.”

  “You are not going to help me, then,” Heffer said flatly.

  “‘Are not’? Those aren’t the right words! ‘Cannot’ would describe it exactly. In any case we have much to do.”

  “What can be more important than saving Jamaica?” Heffer asked, almost wailing.

  “It depends on your point of view,” Thomas said unexpectedly. “Ned here is going to get married, and that’s the most important step in a man’s life, for better or worse, as I know to my cost. Then we all have to go to Tortuga, to meet the rest of the buccaneers…”

  “’The rest’?” Heffer echoed. “Why, how many are there at Tortuga?”

  “About twenty ships,” Thomas said.

  “Bless my soul!” Heffer exclaimed. “Can you not persuade them to come here?” Twenty buccaneer ships, he realized, would be a big reinforcement with the ones already here; twenty-seven or more ships to act as transports for his own troops, if he suddenly wanted to shift them round to the north coast – or indeed, to any of the island’s coasts, since there were no roads to speak of.

  Ned decided to take over. He looked carefully at Heffer, like a tailor preparing to give an estimate for an elaborate jerkin. “Shall I speak honestly and frankly? Shall I answer your question and risk shocking you? Do you, as a Godfearing former church and cathedral despoiler committed never to laugh on Sundays feel strong enough to hear my words?”

  Heffer, already shocked at Ned’s emphatic little speech, ran his tongue over his teeth as the muscles of his face worked hard to pull it into a reassuring smile. The smile failed; the best Heffer could manage was a nervous smirk.

  “I am a man of the world, Mr Yorke,” he said nervously.

  “Indeed you are not, or else you would never have been mixed up with Cromwell. You have broken the stained-glass windows in beautiful churches; you have destroyed the stone and wood carvings on tombs, pews reredos and choir stalls. No, don’t bother to deny it, because that’s all past now, although I loved the beauty. What I want to know, General, is have you ever been inside a brothel and dragged your choice into a back room? Have you ever lurched from one tavern to another too drunk to know where the devil you are? Have you ever cursed and sworn at a potman or innkeeper for being tardy with fresh tankards of ale?”

  A distressed Heffer looked first at Diana and then at Aurelia, then back at Diana, to whom he made an appeal. “Miss Diana, it distresses me that there should be such talk in front of ladies. Can you – er, persuade Mr Yorke…”

  “Indeed not,” Diana retorted. “I’m more interested in hearing your answer!”

  “Yes,” Aurelia added, “please do not be shy!”

  “But what does it matter – I mean, how can it affect the buccaneers if I have never – well, I am a married man!”

  “I’ll tell you, then,” Ned rasped. “You’ve shut down the only brothel in Cagway, and put a curfew on the taverns. This may suit your soldiers, who were, officially anyway, Roundheads until very recently. The New Model Army may be the New Model Eunuchs who do not want the company of women or the relief of hot liquors. But buccaneers do, mon général, buccaneers do! Each arm round a half-naked woman and four tankards of rum in front of him – that’s a buccaneer’s idea of an evening on shore. And he’ll pay for it!”

  Heffer looked like a prelate who had just heard five drunken bishops gathered round the pulpit singing blasphemous and obscene songs.

  “Are you suggesting that I permit brothels here in Cagway? Permit more taverns to open? Let loose women roam the street? Allow Cagway to become a town of sin, a sanctuary for the devil, a sink of iniquity?”

  “Yes,” Thomas said promptly, “you’ll have to if you expect the buccaneers to use this as a base.”

  Ned tapped the table. “You’ll also have to rename it Port Royal, to honour the King and flatter Thomas and me; you’ll have to get those batteries finished by the end of the month; you’ll have to allow the brothels and the taverns…then we have something to offer the buccaneers at Tortuga. It may not be enough to tempt them, but you can always increase the offer by not charging customs and excise duty on their liquors and tobacco, and issuing each buccaneer vessel a letter of marque without charge. You might even call it a commission.”

  “But you are suggesting I do the Devil’s work!”

  “The Devil doesn’t need your help; he would regard it as puny,” Ned said. “But you need help. You need a squadron of ships based here in Port Royal. Do you expect the buccaneers to live like monks? Because in my limited experience men who live like monks usually fight like monks. To defend Port Royal, Jamaica, and all these other islands against the Spanish, you need men with normal appetites who fight like demons when necessary. And women too.”

  Aurelia blushed and Diana laughed, and Heffer’s face turned crimson, surprising Ned that the man had enough blood in his body.

  “Supposing I refuse any brothels or more taverns?” Heffer demanded.

  Again Ned shrugged his shoulders. “Five minutes ago I told you that we were going to Tortuga. You suggested that those buccaneers join us here, and we told you the terms. It’s of little concern to us whether or not you accept them, because if you don’t then we simply forget this conversation, bid you farewell and sail for Tortuga.”

  “You don’t give me much
choice,” Heffer said, his voice taking on a whining note.

  “You have all the choice you need,” Ned said unsympathetically. “When you go into a shop and inquire the price of an object, you don’t have to buy. There’s no obligation. Is Jamaica worth a brothel or two, that’s what you have to decide.”

  Thomas gestured at Heffer, a gesture which could only be interpreted as contemptuous. “Teffler, my dear fellow,” he said, reverting to his habit of deliberately getting men’s names wrong, “your answer to our question is really based on your answer to your own question.”

  “I don’t understand!” the general said nervously.

  “It is simple. Ask yourself just one question: Am I defending Jamaica for myself, Cromwell and Puritan principles, or am I defending it for the King and red-blooded Englishmen?”

  “Well, it’s obvious what I’m trying to do!” Heffer said lamely.

  “Indeed, it is,” Thomas said harshly. “You are trying to defend it with Puritan principles. The trouble is you don’t have Puritan ships to go with ’em. The King doesn’t want to be defended with Puritan principles, especially if they drive away Royalists. In fact he may ask awkward questions like ‘Why is Teffler still working in Jamaica for Cromwell’s ghost?’ And if he gets an answer which displeases him, he might decide Teffler is a traitor to the country, and since Teffler is being a naughty boy he’d better be brought home because he don’t qualify for General Monck’s amnesty, because he committed his offences after the Restoration.”

  “They can never accuse me of that!”

  “They most certainly can, and I’d give evidence. For the want of a brothel, the island was lost – oh yes, the King would see the humour of that, and the crowds watching your execution would roar with laughter; not often they get a bawdy hanging.”

  Ned stood up and gestured to the women. “We must be going; we’re wasting the general’s time with all this gossip. Sometimes we forget he has command of 3,000 soldiers and the whole island: a heavy responsibility!”

  Both women stood and walked towards the door, smiling a farewell over their shoulders. Thomas barked a gruff and friendly goodbye and Ned made his half apologetic. By now Heffer was standing at his desk, his face frozen by the suddenness of their move.

  “Please, give me time to consider!” he gabbled, but Ned waved airily as he went through the door and closed it behind him.

  They had gone back to the Peleus for a change, Aurelia declaring that the dinner being prepared on board the Griffin must be ruined by now. The four of them sat in the small cabin which Diana had hung with tapestries she had bought, or Thomas had looted, from the Spaniards. They were bright, the designs influenced by local Indian patterns, and lightened the dark polished mahogany of the panelling. The cot was enormous; the richly woven hammock in which it fitted had been pulled to one side, allowing more room in the cabin, and the heavy table, held to the deck by a chain from the centre of the underside, was just comfortably large enough to seat four.

  Diana joined them from the galley with the news that “a dinner worth eating” would be ready in half an hour, and Thomas put carafes and bottles on the table.

  “Rumbullion or wine, Ned? Aurelia m’dear, I recommend this white wine. One of my last few dozen of French, but today seems a pleasantly sinful occasion for you and Ned to ignore your quaint prohibition on drinking before the sun has sunk to the horizon.”

  He poured for both of them and glanced at Diana, who said: “Wine, please; rumbullion is making my skin leathery. Look at Aurelia’s wonderful complexion, and she drinks only wine.”

  “Perhaps it will do something for mine,” Thomas said, rasping the side of his beard with his hand. “Now, Leclerc and his friends want to leave for Tortuga tomorrow. We have the question of your wedding. Do we leave for Tortuga before or after the wedding?”

  Aurelia said, without even glancing at Ned: “Don’t worry about that, Thomas; we will have the ceremony at a suitable time and at a suitable church. Ned is being silly. The church here is a depressing affair built by Heffer from old planks and bits of jetsam. It looks as squalid as the watchman’s shelter in the meat market. I refuse to be married there.”

  “I agree with you,” Diana said, looking at Ned. “A wedding is the most special day in a woman’s life. We must find you a good church. The Catholic one in St Jago de Vega is no good, although I must admit it’s impressive. Heffer’s little monstrosity ought to be destroyed, but the site is splendid, overlooking the Palisades north and south. When we have a really big purchase and Heffer’s gone, we might be able to afford to build a proper church there in stone. We need bells, gentlemen. Remember that when we raid a town.”

  “Very well,” Thomas said briskly, after raising his glass in a silent toast, “if the bride is not impatient to rush to the altar because of the lack of a church, let’s consider the problem raised by the guardian of our morals, General Teffler.”

  Diana groaned.”Why spoil good wine and a good dinner by thinking about that sheep’s carcass?”

  “My dear, that man is making a problem for us.”

  “I don’t see why,” Diana said acidly. “For his wife, perhaps; but he is not bothering me.”

  “Think, woman,” Thomas said impatiently. “The buccaneers have elected Ned their admiral – we just have to visit Tortuga to confirm it. We have enough information to plan a most fantastic attack on Portobelo that will make us rich beyond the dreams of even a king of Spain. Now all we want is a good base. We’ve found this place, but if that fool Teffler insists on running it like a monastery, we’ll never get the Brethren here and we’ll have to find another. Use Tortuga, perhaps.”

  “Forget Portobelo for the moment,” Diana said.”What about all those Spanish troops arriving at the island of Providencia, and collecting the garrison for an attack on Jamaica?”

  Thomas drained his glass and reached for the onion-shaped bottle of rumbullion. The dark-green glass made the liquid inside seem black, and Thomas pulled out the cork with care. “We’re getting short of cork,” he told Diana. “We must find a sheet of it and have the men cut out some more bungs.”

  “What about those Spanish troops attacking Jamaica,” Diana repeated, ignoring talk of corks.

  Thomas shook his head. “They’re no concern of ours. If we can’t use Port Royal as a base, then it’s none of our affair. We have Tortuga, or we can make a rendezvous where we want: the Isle of Pines, the Queen’s Gardens, Ile de Vache…” He named the island at the southwestern corner of Cuba, the scattering of cays on the south side of central Cuba, and an island off the southwestern side of Hispaniola. “Or wherever you will: just name a place!”

  “Don’t bother to drink any more,” Diana said. “Already you talk and think like a drunken man. Tortuga is a bad anchorage and depresses me. Ned, say something!”

  Ned grinned at Diana’s exasperation with Thomas and then glanced across at Aurelia, to see if she was still irritated with him. She smiled and the cloud over his head slid away. “What do you think about it all?” she asked.

  “Yes, come on, Ned,” Diana said, “tell us before dinner is served, because you’ll eat and drink so much you’ll want to doze afterwards.”

  “‘Well’, as General Teffler would say, I’m prepared to lead the Brethren, if they’ll have me, but we have to move fast. Very fast. Not just the seven ships here, but all the buccaneer fleet.”

  “What’s the hurry, Ned?” Thomas twiddled his beard and went cross-eyed looking down at it.”There won’t be a plate fleet out here until next year at the earliest. The Dons aren’t going to carry all those ingots back to Panama; obviously they think it’s safe enough where it is.”

  “We need to hurry for two reasons, perhaps more. Let me jump ahead for a moment. We’ll have Port Royal as our base eventually – as soon as Heffer gets really frightened, he’ll agree to make Port Royal less of a monastery
.

  “But the main reasons we need to hurry are that first, as soon as the buccaneers have a real success under my leadership, they’ll do whatever I tell ’em, which means that the Brethren are united and strong. (Although they won’t realize it they’ll then be in a much more powerful position to bargain with people like Heffer, and infinitely stronger when they demand ransom from the Spanish.)”

  Aurelia said proudly: “Chéri, you sound like Machiavelli! Do you think you can mould those scoundrels? Because they are scoundrels, you know: brave scoundrels and good-natured ones, but how do you say, feckless, and with no loyalty except to the man who finds them the biggest purchase!”

  Ned shrugged his shoulders and grinned. “Do you seek loyalty in a shopkeeper? He’s trying to sell you the least quantity of the lowest quality for the most money. You’re loyal to him only as long as you can’t find a shopkeeper who sells cheaper!”

  Aurelia laughed and agreed. “Now let’s hear your second reason.”

  “The second is very obvious. We’ve more chance of attacking Portobelo successfully if we do it while most of its garrison is away. It’s unlucky for Heffer that they’ll be attempting to recapture Jamaica, but I don’t think he has much to fear. Anyway at Portobelo we shall give the Dons a terrible fright. We could perhaps seize the island of Providencia, if its garrison has been taken away: who knows, Providencia – I prefer the proper name, Old Providence – might make us better base than Port Royal. I haven’t seen it, but the chart shows it’s half the distance from Jamaica to the Main and Isthmus.”

  “Aye, it is,” Thomas said. “You know, Ned, it’s a long time since I heard anyone talking such sense. How about that dinner, girl? Can’t you hustle them in the galley?”

  Chapter Five

  Thomas and Diana stood with Ned and Aurelia on the quarterdeck of the Griffin as she made the last tack up the Chenal de Tortuga which would bring them into Cayona, which was no more than a hamlet on the edge of the bay forming one of the two anchorages of the island.