An Embarrassment of Riches (36 page)

“Cut down that flag,” I told my men, not realizing that I was committing an act of war upon a nation at peace with the United States.

Inside the garrison nothing stirred save a rotted canvas awning before what must have been the captain's quarters, and which flapped gloomily in the breeze. The prospect into the broad bay southward showed a sky-scape of terrible roiling storm clouds the color of ash. Whitecaps were rolling out on the open water. The horizon line was obscured by a curtain of haze, possibly rain.

“Bugbear, Tom, Basilisco, stay here aloft as watches.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“The rest, with me.”

Three squat buildings stood within the fortress's walls. They were not much grander than Wejun cottages and made of marly blocks of yellow-gray stone, very crumbly to the touch. The roofs were woven mats of palmetto leaves, weighted down with flat stones. Like everything Spanish, these dwellings were in a condition of the utmost shabbiness. We entered the first.

It was dim inside, for no windows existed, only slots to fire out of in the event the ramparts were breached and the defenders fell back to their barracks. A barracks, incidentally, is what this hovel was—a foul little room hung with double tiers of rude rope hammocks. The rafters were festooned with oddments of their wardrobes, a shirt here, a stocking there. At the room's center stood a round table made of a barrelhead and surrounded by packing crates: seats. A deck of cards was dealt to five vanished hands. I thought of those poor mutilated mother's sons carved up in that little glade on Paradise Island. They had probably been called to arms hastily, I fancied, and left on their fatal sortie thinking they would return after slaughtering a few helpless Wejuns and finish their game. No such luck, thought I.

Tapers were found. My men marveled at the idea of running a wick through some solidified fat—the art of candle-making. It was quite new to them, being among hundreds of other skills lost to them over the generations. Some time was wasted here in plundering these common soldiers' sea chests and meager belongings. They contained almost nothing of value beyond a few strings of rosary beads and a velvet cloak that must have been some poor fellow's pride and joy.

The second building was evidently the officers' quarters. One grim little room contained a crude plank bed. Standing in a niche carved into the soft building blocks was a painted statuette, about a foot high, of the holy virgin. The paint was peeling and the wood was cracked, denoting its many years of service. How pious these Spaniards were while they set about the task of systematically butchering two continents of primitive peoples. How such a man as this Spanish captain addressed his idol in the festering dark of the Floridian night and confessed his litany of foul deeds I was hard put to comprehend. More pathetic still, the bare little chamber evoked a character driven not by gold—for the prospect of fortune in this dreary Gulf Coast backwater must have been long extinguished—but a personality driven by a sense of duty. And what duty! To murder for the love of Christ?

The Wejuns evinced curiosity over the statue of the virgin. They had never seen such an one before and, of course, the entire grand fable of Christianity was a blank to them. For the time being I lacked the patience to explain.

“'Tis a likeness of his mother,” I told them. Thus, the object became at once an hundred times as abhorrent to them, and Wart, a wit amongst them, dashed it to pieces.

The third and final building we entered was a stout little edifice with an arched roof of that same jaundice-colored stone, set up against the earthen ramparts. This proved to be their storehouse and magazine, and it contained precisely what we had come in search of—guns, lead, and powder—plus something we had hoped not to find, viz., a live Spaniard. What is more, he was a Spaniard equipped with a lighted candle that, upon seeing us enter, he threatened to toss amongst the powder kegs. By means of mummery, he made his intentions very plain.

“Nunca hecho dañado a nadie!”
he protested.

“Thou needy, hollow-eyed wretch,” Lovelace sneered at him. “Thou cur of curs, thou living dead man—”

“Or creature that doth bear the shape of man,” quoth Goatsbeard.

“Por favor! Por favor! No me matas! No me matas! No hecho nada! Por favor….”

“Goodly Lord, what a wit-snapper is he,” said Karoo.

“Careful, my boys,” I warned them, “for villain that he may be, he has the means to blow us all to England, should he choose.” The men muttered restlessly behind me. “No sharp moves, my hearties. You, Fernando, Rodrigo, whatever your name is. Give me that taper. Do you understand? Hand it over.”

The terrified knave merely froze where he was, apparently deaf to the English language. His eyes were rheumy, cheeks gaunt, clothing and person filthy. He must have suffered considerable privation since the fatal departure of his brethren.

“The candle, sir,” I demanded, trying to be firm without frightening him to the commission of a rash act. Still, it was no use. After repeated entreaties, my patience began to wear thin. “The candle, I say!”

“Nunca hecho dañado a nadie!”
he continued to gibber, his veiny red eyes darting from one face to another of us, his hand trembling with the brandished taper. A muffled cry could be heard outside.

“What's that?” I asked.

“'Tis Bugbear, sir. ‘A sail! A sail!' he cries.”

“A sail?” I said. “What colors?”

Another cry from without.

“A Spaniel sail, my lord, is what he says,” reported Hammerhead, nearest to the door.

“O, shit and damnation,” I exclaimed. “Quick, Rinaldo, the taper! Give it to me at once. Hand it over, I say!”

The stupid wretch merely shrank further back amongst the kegs, sniveling like a beggar. An alternative course of action was obviously in order.

“Lovelace—”

“Sirrah…?”

“Clear the men out of here.”

“But—”

“Please, do what I say. O, yes, take this,” I added, handing him my pistol. He took it, skeptically, and cleared the room. “Shut the door behind you.”

He reluctantly did so. Now we were alone in the gloomy storeroom: myself and the cowering Spanish serveling. I sat down upon a crate. His eyes, moist with terror, followed my every move.

“All right, then, Felipe,” I said quietly. “What are you going to do? Blow us all to kingdom come? Or surrender? Eh?”

“No comprendo,”
he said with a gulp.

“You don't comprendo? I see. Let me put it this way. We have come a long way to seize these munitions and we must needs be departing at once, without delay. Why not be a good fellow and hand me that candle, and then we shall all be happy.”

“Soy nada más que cocinero!”

“I'll tell you what, Manuel. Why not just get on with the job, eh?” I stood up, seized a small powder keg, staved it in with my fish, and poured the contents all about his bare feet. “There you go. Well, Alphonso? What are you waiting for?”

The two of us stood face to face in that dreary room.

“Nunca quisé matar a nadie,”
he said in a quavering voice, and then broke down in tears.

“A noble sentiment,” I said, not understanding him in the least. But as he stood there a'blubbering, I reached for the candle and snuffed the wick ‘twixt my thumb and forefinger. He surrendered without further struggle. “Come alone now, Enrique.”

I made for the door and threw it open.

“Hast scotched the rogue? Huzzah, my mighty lord!” said Lovelace, whose devotion was boundless.

“Let us say he has seen the better part of valor,” I replied. “Now mark you, Lovelace, he is a prisoner and I shall not see him abused. Come out, Diego,” I importuned him. “Come along now.”

But neither would he come out. Instead, to my horror he produced a long and glinting cook's blade from the rear of his pantaloons, held it beneath his chin, and in a single deft stroke that evinced the deepest acquaintance with the butcher's craft, slit his own throat from ear to ear.

“O, God….”

“Another sail! Of Spaniel colors, lord!” cried the vigilant Bugbear aloft the parapet. The Spaniard fell on the dirt floor of the magazine with a sickening thump, his fingers twitching and his life spilling out in crimson rivulets.

“We've not a moment to lose,” I said, trying to regain my composure. “Get all this onto the ship. Step lively, men!”

It was quite a haul: thirteen kegs of good dry black powder, twenty-four muskets, half a ton of lead in small bars, bullet molds, some small arms, several swords, two double-bitted axes, and a gentleman's fowling piece. Also in the chamber were some carpenter's tools, a box of assorted iron hardwares such as nails and hinges, two 30-foot lengths of small chain, and a keg of tacks. It took a quarter of an hour to get it all aboard. The Spanish ships, a pinnace and a larger brigantine, were approaching fast.

“Hurry, men!”

It was not possible to bring any of the cannon with us, and what a huge disappointment this was. But we simply did not have the time to get them aboard. Instead, I had the men scuttle them, dumping them over the ramparts and into the tidal muck below.

The wind had risen to near gale force. Big rolling waves crashed on the windward side of the island. It put me much in mind of the great hurricane of '90 that roared out of the Atlantic and slammed into my dear Long Island. (I was very young then, but I remember the howling air being filled with improbable things: women's caps, cornstalks, a rooster, loose shingles. During the height of the storm an iron crowbar was driven straight through the heart of a linden tree in the nearby hamlet of Huntington. It was a great curiosity of the district for years afterward.)

Loading the sloop was not easy, for she pitched this way and that way at her mooring, and we lost a few kegs when they rolled free of hands and shattered against the bulwarks. It was out of the question to stow them belowdecks, for the hold of this creaking old scow was ankle deep in bilgewater.

“Ready to cast off, Mr. Lovelace?” I shouted above the gale.

“Aye, sirrah, an it please you, anytime.”

We hove back out into the river, our mainsail full and hull singing. With the storm blowing directly out of the Gulf, we were able to run before the wind upriver, our tattered harlequin sail outspread and glorious. We had made less than a league from the Spanish fortress when those two sinister ships once again hove into view. The brigantine stopped on the lee side of the island, unwilling to hazard the shoals of the river with her deep draft. But to my alarm the pinnace beat forward on our wake, without a moment's pause. The prospect of an actual engagement with a live enemy—not merely an idle cannonading upon a vacant fortress—turned my exhilaration to the darkest dread. For in the real world of modern naval combat we were as ill-equipped against this foe as an Egyptian dhow against one of Bonaparte's men-of-war.

“Charge both swivel guns with a pound of nails,” I told my ensign, “and see that every free hand is ready with a musket.”

“Aye, sirrah, we'll sting those Spaniel puppies!”

Though our sails could not have been more favorably full, it was equally so for the pinnace, and they soon commenced to close the gap between our running crafts. Through my glass I counted six cannon on her deck, of the six-pounder class. Also visible through the lens was the curious sight of the Spanish captain, gazing right back at me through his own glass.

Just as they inexorably closed on us, so too did the river narrow as we plied upstream with the gale to our backs. In a little while, they were an hundred yards off our stern, then seventy-five. Then they were right upon our stern, stealing our wind.

“A nombre del Rey, Carlos IV, halta!”
cried the Spaniard captain through a leathern speaking cone. My knowledge of his language was, of course, nil, but anyone not an imbecile could tell that he wished us to come about and stand. When it was quite clear to him that we would not obey his order, he called a dozen crewmen forward with muskets bristling. Luckily for us, neither their port nor starboard cannon could be employed against us in the present disposition of things, nor had they any arms on deck like our swivels. My men, however, showed marked unease at the sight of the more disciplined Spanish sailors.

“Shoal ahead, sirrah!” cried Thistle, our lookout up on the masthead, and at once I sensed a remedy to our problem.

“What side?” I shouted aloft.

“I have forgotten myself which is which,” he cried down.

“Port to left, starboard to the right.”

“Then it's starboard, an it please you, sir.”

Just so, for the pinnace was now drawing up upon our starboard. The enemy captain was yelling through his funnel,
“Halta, tus perros sucios!”

“Up thy filthy arse, thou Spaniel whoreson!” Lovelace replied politely, doffing his cap. A volley of musket fire raked our deck as a blue pall of smoke swirled into our sail. “Why, bugger me! I am shot through and slain!” my devoted ensign uttered in a tone of complete astonishment before this Earl of Fishes corkscrewed to the deck, clutching his breast. Two of our men held him in their arms as his eyes went waxy. My terror was extreme, but there are times when even panic must take a back seat to vengeance.