Admiral (12 page)

Several of the Frenchmen had the small, slightly flat faces with hard black eyes that Ned regarded as typical of the nation. Brace could only be an Englishman, Gottlieb a Dutchman with his fair hair, moon face and widely spaced eyes, Secco – well, Spanish, Portuguese or Italian. Leclerc could only be a Frenchman. Thomas – yes, typical of a kind of Englishman.

Their dress was bizarre. If twenty-six men had undressed and thrown their clothes into a basket, mixed everything up and then donned what first came to hand, Ned decided the result would look something like this group of buccaneers. Secco wore black breeches and no stockings, but instead of a jerkin he wore a tattered blouse of white cotton which had an ominous stain on the left shoulder, like a rust mark. The blood of the original Spanish owner which had marked the material and defied laundering? Brace could pass for a country parson with stern principles, Coles would be the host at an expensive tavern. Leclerc? A well-educated glutton fallen on hard times and now tutor to a rich man’s son? And Thomas? Well, in mustard-coloured breeches, purple jerkin, and a wide-brimmed hat with a large red plume round its crown, he looked very much what he was.

Diana and Aurelia stood over on the larboard side, deliberately keeping apart from all the men to emphasize that they were merely onlookers. This resulted from a warning by Leclerc: many of the captains, he said would not at this stage regard women as worthy of joining any conversation, let alone taking any part in planning.

Leclerc had grinned when he said: “It would be better to let the captains remain like Mr Yorke and Sir Thomas – under the impression that where the ladies were concerned they make the decisions!”

Leclerc had surprised both Ned and Thomas with the news that none of the Tortuga captains knew of the Portobelo proposal: the information about the bullion was known only to the four privateers on the Santiago raid, because they had picked up the man escaping from the Main. Ned had at once asked Leclerc to keep the business secret for the time being and the Frenchman agreed, saying that there was no need even to ask Gottlieb, Coles or Brace to keep silent.

The first hour on board the
Perdrix
had been a time for meeting each of the other captains. There was none of the drawing-room and very little of the tavern about it. They had heard from Leclerc and the others about the Santiago purchase and were obviously anxious to size up this man Yorke, who came as a stranger. He had two recommendations – one was from Leclerc and the other three, who had seen him in action, planning and leading the Santiago raid, and the second was his being a friend of Sir Thomas.

Not more than eight or nine of them actually knew Sir Thomas, but what they had heard was good: he was a bonny fighter. The only thing that puzzled some of them was that up to now Sir Thomas had always preferred to sail alone, except for his woman, who, Leclerc had been quick to report, was such a one as to dream about. Sir Thomas could have joined the Brethren a long time ago, but he went his own way with the
Pearl
, now renamed the
Peleus
. Leclerc was also the source for information about Mr Yorke’s woman, whose reputation for beauty, bravery and intelligence lost nothing from the fact that she too was French and a Protestant like Leclerc.

Ned had kept a careful count as he met the captains. There were twenty-five buccaneer ships altogether, so that the
Griffin
,
Phoenix
and
Peleus
made a total of twenty-eight. Nine of the captains were French, eight British, five Dutch, two Portuguese and one, unlikely as it seemed, but obviously completely trusted by the others, was Spanish, the bearded Secco, who spoke good English of the kind that came from an education, not just usage.

With no awning rigged, the
Perdrix
’s deck was hot, and from the smell of rotting food it was clear that the seas in the Windward Passage had not been rough enough on the way up from Jamaica to give the decks a good wash down.

The six other English captains (Ned was irritated to find he was adopting the habit of using “English” when the person might be Scots, Welsh or Irish) had gathered round Coles and Brace, but obviously their questions were quickly answered because they soon mingled with Thomas and Ned. Similarly the four other Dutchmen questioned Gottlieb, leaving only the two Portuguese and the Spaniard with no countrymen of their own to reassure them.

Both Portuguese spoke English and soon cornered Ned with the Spaniard, who commented on Ned drinking wine instead of rumbullion.

“The influence of the French lady, eh?” he said, gesturing at Aurelia.

“It’s Spanish wine,” Ned said “from Santiago!”

“Ah,” Secco said wistfully, “I should have been there.”

“Just for the wine,” one of the Portuguese said. “For the wine alone it would have been good. Rumbullion sits heavily, drunk month after month. Well, Mr Yorke, you enjoyed Santiago?”

Ned shrugged his shoulders and said casually: “There was no real fighting. We made a good choice for purchase, but we sharpened our cutlasses for nothing.”

The second Portuguese sniffed. “I go on a raid for the purchase, not the glory, Mr Yorke,” he said heavily. “I don’t like my men being killed or wounded.”

Ned nodded and smiled. The Portuguese, in reacting as he expected, enabled him to make a point without being suspected of cowardice. “I agree with you; better a bag of doubloons than a sack of glory, but the Spanish aren’t frightened enough yet.”

“Frightened?” echoed the Portuguese.

“Yes – but I’ll explain that when I talk to you all.”

“Very well,” said the Portuguese. “But tell me, Mr Yorke, how do you go on a raid with the women? I hear all three of your English ships carried women to Santiago.”

The man was curious, not critical; and the other two nodded, to establish a friendly interest. Ned decided in a moment that genuine interest deserved a genuine answer, and there might come a time when all the women might be in some danger and benefit from the buccaneer captains knowing they were not just kept whores.

“Do you know how I became a buccaneer?” he asked the men, and noticed two Frenchmen joining the group.

Secco shook his head on behalf of the rest. “Tell us, please,” he asked courteously.

“I was a planter in Barbados, a Royalist. The lady over there”– he nodded – towards Aurelia “–was the wife of a neighbour. A bad and cruel man. He’s since been killed – not by me,” he added hastily, but then realized that these men would have regarded “bad and cruel” as being reason enough.

“Well, the Roundheads drove me out: I escaped with my ship, the lady and all my plantation workers that wanted to come. They included Saxby, who now commands the
Phoenix
.

“At the time we left, the lady’s husband was still alive; in fact he took over my estate. And while we sailed away, trying to make up our minds what to do, we met Sir Thomas Whetstone.”

“And that decided you,” the Spaniard said with a grin.

“It certainly helped. But the lady really persuaded me. Anyway, it led to Santiago, and when we returned to Jamaica she and I heard that her husband had been killed, which meant we could get married.”

“So she is your wife, then.” Secco said.

“No, not yet.”

“You are a cautious man, eh?”

“No,” Ned said, “our wedding was delayed.”

“That is bad. With such a lovely woman it is not good to delay.”

Ned touched the Spaniard’s shoulder reassuringly. “You gentleman have caused the delay: in Jamaica, Leclerc wanted us to leave for Tortuga at once, so…”

“Ah, we’ll have to build you a special church! But what about Sir Thomas? He is not married, surely?”

“He has a wife in England – an unpleasant woman, I believe, so he cannot marry the present lady. They are very much in love, as you can see. They have been together for a long time: they left England in the
Peleus
.”

“That used to be the
Pearl
,” Secco said as if pedantically wanting the record to be correct while also establishing that he had known Sir Thomas for a long time.

“Yes, she was the
Pearl
. Anyway, they are happy just being together.”

“Yes, a priest can’t make a couple happy,” the Spaniard said gravely, “he can only make it legal. But tell us about the woman of the
Phoenix
: we hear she is an enormous woman of enormous appetites.”

Ned smiled at this description of Mrs Judd. “She worked for me in Barbados. Her friend was the foreman of the plantation – that man over there.” He nodded towards Saxby. “The foreman acted as the master of my ship, the
Griffin,
when we needed to use her, so the pair of them came
–
with most of my other people – when we left. Then we captured a Spanish prize and Saxby took command of her. I now command the
Griffin
.”

“Why did you not command the
Griffin
at the beginning?” the Spaniard asked shrewdly.

Ned thought for a moment, then decided to be frank. “When we left Barbados, I knew very little about seamanship. I have learned quickly because I had good teachers.”

“Enough to lead the Brethren?”

Again Ned hesitated. “Are you sure you need a
seaman
to lead you?” he asked, speaking clearly so that the three men, and the others who were now gathering around, should hear him distinctly.

“Why, of course!” the Spaniard said. “We are all seamen; we use our ships for our raids!”

Ned knew that a wrong emphasis now or a misunderstood phrase could make just one of these men angry, and then the whole point of his visit to Tortuga would be lost.

“I’ve been thinking about all that,” Ned said, working a judicial tone into his voice. “Certainly one needs fine seamanship to sail back and forth in these seas; to navigate from here to the Main and find exactly the town you intend to attack. But what happens when you arrive at the town and anchor?”

“What happens? Well,” said Secco, “we get into our boats and land and capture it!”

“Supposing it has forts, and needs a few days’ siege?”

The Spaniard held his hands out, palms uppermost. “So we besiege it!”

“What about capturing Spanish ships, then?”

“We don’t,
señor
, because there haven’t been any Spanish ships in these waters worth attacking. There’s no point in trying to seize a
guardacosta
because he has no purchase on board, and the plate fleets are too strongly defended for our little ships. And anyway there has been no plate fleet for two years.”

Ned turned so that he faced the majority of men. The meeting that was to have taken place on the fo’c’sle and ended with them voting was taking place now, and he saw no reason to postpone it.

“I come as a stranger,” he said, “but since Leclerc spoke to me in Jamaica, I have been considering the position of the Brethren. I saw how four of your ships behaved at Santiago, and I liked what I saw.

“But I will be completely honest with you. I think your whole approach to buccaneering is wrong. Very wrong.”

Thomas, Aurelia and Diana were watching the group of men. Close by the ship a pair of terns quarrelled noisily over a small fish; a pelican splashed into the water. A halyard slatted against the mast, rattling in the wind with the insistent noise of a woodpecker. All these isolated noises suddenly seemed very loud.

The Spaniard glanced round at the other buccaneers, as if seeking approval to act as their spokesman.

“Wrong
señor
? Why, we are still alive!”

“Alive, yes, thanks to your own bravery and probably luck –”

“Who are you to say we are wrong?” Leclerc suddenly interrupted, having realized that he might be held responsible if his protégé caused a fight.

Thomas Whetstone strode into the centre of the group of men, his beard seeming to bristle and his eyes glinting.

“I’ll tell you who he is to say you’re wrong: he’s the man who thought of the raid on Santiago, planned it and led it. I have not heard of the Brethren ever attempting, let alone successfully carrying out, such a raid. So, brothers, you should listen to him. You don’t have to agree, you don’t have to act, but listen!”

“Very well, M. Yorke,” Leclerc said warily, “we will listen.”

Ned looked around at the couple of dozen faces. Yes, indeed they belonged to a motley collection of men; he could see a half-drunken Falstaff at the head of an army press gang leading them fettered out of a sleepy and unsuspecting town. But he had their attention! Yet did he want it? The picture of Kingsnorth was suddenly bright in his mind: he longed to be back, but he knew Aurelia did not want to see Barbados for a long time. He had been turned into a sea gypsy by the Roundheads; it remained to be seen whether he would (or could?) ever return to the old life. But, now he looked at them, did he really want to lead this rabble? Did he want to be a sober Falstaff? Why not just the
Griffin
and the
Phoenix
, and the
Peleus
if Thomas wanted to come along? Surely better to plan raids on small towns, with no need to share the purchase among this crowd. No chance of treachery, everyone understanding all aspects of the particular raid… No, he wanted no part of this crowd. The decision was sudden, but he could see no alternative. He was not going to lead a rabble, of that he was sure.

“Gentlemen, I would like you to come over to the
Griffin
, where there will be plenty to eat and drink, because at dawn the
Griffin
returns to Jamaica.”

“Dawn… Jamaica?” Leclerc was dumbfounded. “But you have only just arrived in Tortuga, M’sieur. We have not even voted…”

“I have no wish to lead you,” Ned said amiably. “I thought I had, but now I’ve met you all, I have changed my mind. Not,” he added quickly, “that I think any the less of you: simply that I now realize that you are quite content with the scale of what you are doing, and do not wish to change anything.”

A flustered Leclerc took over the role of spokesman. “You made a statement and we simply asked for details. If you think we are going about our work the wrong way, then please tell us the right way!”