Buccaneer (27 page)

“What did you do? You don’t speak Spanish, do you?”

No. I used Latin. The priest translated. It was all I could do to keep a straight face.”

“What were you bargaining for?” Ned asked curiously.

“Oh, the lives of the mayor, a bishop who happened to be visiting his flock from Cartagena, a handful of businessmen – and the priest himself. I had them all on board the
Pearl
, in irons, of course. Always try and bargain with the other fellow in surroundings strange to him.”

“I can just imagine a bishop in the
Pearl
, with Diana…”

“Yes, the poor fellow’s eyes nearly burst. I think she overdid it, myself, but what with the priest and the bishop, the ransom was paid!”

“What happens now when these people sight a foreign ship? After a visit from someone like you, I’d have thought they would simply start shooting.”

Whetstone gave a laugh which Ned knew would have made any bishop clutch his crucifix. “No, they’re in a cleft stick. You forget the Spanish government doesn’t sent them enough goods from Spain and they’re always short of everything. Felt for hats, nankeen for jerkins and breeches, calico and lace for dresses, pots and pans, olive oil and wine… Where do they come from? Dutch smugglers!”

“But why don’t the Spaniards raise the alarm every time they sight a sail?”

“I’m sure they do, but if the ship anchors a mile out – not difficult because it’s so shallow along here – and sends a boat on shore to negotiate, the Spanish can see there’s no threat.”

“Do you suggest I do that?”

“Yes. How’s your Latin?”

“Aurelia speaks good Spanish.”

“You’d risk taking her with you?”

Ned told him how Aurelia had disguised herself to be on the boat on their first – and only – smuggling expedition. “I don’t think she’d be left behind this time.”

Whetstone sniffed disapprovingly. “Don’t let women run the ship,” he warned.

“Diana always obeys you, of course.” Ned was only teasing but watched the reaction.

“Well, yes, in her own way. I mean, she sees that what I say is for her own good,” Whetstone said uncomfortably, running his fingers through his beard.

“But she does what she wants.”

Whetstone grinned mischievously and said: “I suppose she does. The fact is, it rarely arises because she comes along.”

“She does what you say as long as it coincides with what she wants to do.”

Whetstone’s grin, Ned thought, was one of the most pleasant he had ever seen; it seemed to spread all over his body, and was conspiratorial, drawing in the other person to share the joke.

Whetstone nodded towards where Aurelia and Diana were talking and laughing. “I’m glad they get on well. Diana was saying Aurelia loves this life.”

“She hasn’t had much experience of it.”

“Enough, enough though; at least, Diana thought so, and that woman can see through a six-inch plank. I hope so, for Diana’s sake: she needs another woman’s company, and Aurelia has the same sense of humour.”

Ned nodded towards the sun. “I don’t look forward to creeping along unknown coasts in the dark, so perhaps we’d better get under way.”

Whetstone waved to Saxby. “I’d better say this to the
Griffin
’s master, but the way you’re going on, Saxby’s going to be out of a job soon!” As soon as the master joined them, Whetstone continued: “I suggest you follow me because I know this coast fairly well. As soon as it gets dark I’ll light a single poop lantern. But once we’re off the entrance to Riohacha, I’ll put up two lanterns: that’ll be a sign for you to anchor. You’ll be able to spot the town as soon as it’s dawn and you can go in with a boat.”

Saxby asked: “What sort of depths shall we be anchoring in?”

“Four or five fathoms, no more.”

“And do you want us to signal to acknowledge your second lantern?”

“No. If you don’t spot it I’ll see you passing me! My lanterns couldn’t be seen in Riohacha but yours could, and the Dons would be suspicious of two ships.”

With that he called Diana, gave Ned and Saxby a cheery wave, and climbed down to his boat.

The wind had eased considerably during the night so Saxby and Ned saw the
Peleus’
second lantern only an hour before dawn and, without thinking what he was doing, Ned gave the order for the two seamen to put the helm down and the jibs to be dropped before realizing that it was Saxby’s job. However, the master was already making for the mainsheet, calling to men to take in the slack, before going on to the fo’c’sle for anchoring.

Ned went to the ship’s side and watched the black, inky water gradually slow down as the
Griffin
lost way. Overhead the great mainsail, with the wind blowing down both sides, rippled and occasionally flapped. Now he could see the waves were not passing the hull; the
Griffin
was dead in the water. In a minute or two she would be drifting astern, so that she would pull on her anchor and make it dig in.

“Let go, Mr Saxby!”

There was a thud from forward, then a clatter as the carpenter knocked the wedge out of the windlass. A bellow – “Don’t stand in a bight, you fools; you’ll lose a leg!” – followed by a hissing as the anchor rope ran out of the hawse.

How much cable should he let go? That depended on the depth of the water. And he (and Saxby too, he noted thankfully) had forgotten to have a man in the chains heaving the lead and shouting out the depth. It was not too late now!

“Leadsman – to the chains and give me a cast at once!”

It took only a minute before the man was reporting three fathoms and Yorke realized he had been standing by ready with lead and line, his heavy canvas apron lashed round his waist to keep off the worst of the drips as he coiled in the rope after each cast.

Three fathoms, eighteen feet. Two and a half fathoms, which was fifteen feet. Again two and a half, two and a half…obviously the bottom was level here.

“Snub her, Mr Saxby!”

He was not quite sure at what point Saxby normally gave the order, except the cable had always stopped racing out, and it entailed taking a turn round the bitts so that, with no more cable running out, the weight of the ship came on to the anchor and if it was going to drag it would drag at that point, otherwise it would dig well in.

“She’s holding, sir!” Saxby shouted.

“Very well, veer away to thirty fathoms!”

That was 180 feet of cable, a dozen times the depth. It
sounded
enough. Anyway, Saxby would mention it if he thought they ought to have more.

“
Chéri
, you sound like a commodore!”

Aurelia, wakened by the change in the ship’s motion, had come on deck and was standing beside him.

“I know, I’m treading on Saxby’s toes.”

“I do not think Saxby will mind,” she said in her attractively precise English. Her grammar was almost perfect; her grasp of idiomatic English was so good that Ned rarely had to explain anything, but her accent was for him the most amorous sound he knew; more rousing than the rustle of silk on bare flesh. And these are fine thoughts to be having as a man anchors his ship in a couple of fathoms of water off the Spanish Main.

“Are we off this town now?”

“Riohacha. Yes. At least, Thomas showed two lights. I’m damned if I can see any sign of it, except a dark patch on the land. That may be the forest on the other side of the river.”

“When do we go on shore?”

“Listen, I think I prefer to go in and fetch someone out to the ship, so you can translate here.”

“And how do you explain this to the man?”

“Oh, that is not difficult,” Ned said airily. “I find a priest and explain in Latin.”

“Is your Latin good enough for that?”

“Yes, and Greek too. My Latin and Greek teachers both used leather straps as well as exercise books.”

“There is, ’owever, one difficulty.”

He loved the way she could never master the aitch in “however”, and had never mentioned it to her.

“And that is?”

“How do you persuade a responsible Spaniard – a mayor, a dealer in grain, a priest even – that you are trustworthy? Why should they come out to the ship? I expect some of them in the past have already paid ransom to Thomas!”

“So they will trust me if you come on shore with me and speak to them in Spanish?”

“Of course! What pirate or buccaneer would have a woman on board? Obviously the
Griffin
is a very respectable ship!”

“Thomas has Diana!”

“But she never went on shore to translate.”

“Oh, all right, you can come with us.” He had not meant to sound so ungracious.

“You are saying that in a very grudging way, my darling. You make it very clear I am a nuisance but agree you need a translator.” She sounded hurt, distant, a foreigner among people who barely tolerated her. Was it a passing hurt? He was not sure. In fact she was – with Mrs Judd – the most popular person in the ship, but did she know that?

“My dearest, the only reason I prefer you not to come on shore is that I don’t want you to be hurt: I am frightened for you.”

“There! I am a billstone. You wish you had never brought me from Barbados.”

“Millstone. Surely it is no crime to want the person you love to be safe? You are not a millstone round my neck. You are all I live for –”

He broke off as Saxby shouted from the foredeck. “Very well, furl the mainsail.” He turned back to Aurelia, wishing the moon had set, so he could hold her in his arms without everyone seeing.

“–everything. I want you to be safe.”

“And me?” Her voice was softer. “How about me? If I stay on board while you go on shore I die a thousand times in case something happens to you. If you were killed, I should jump in the sea and drown myself.”

It was said in a normal quiet tone but he knew she meant it. And likewise, would he want to live if – he deliberately stopped thinking and watched the men easing away the throat and peak halyards so that the heavy gaff was lowered, the mainsail being folded on the main boom by other seamen.

“It will be light in half an hour,” she said. “I can just make out the false dawn. See how far west Orion’s Belt is now.”

“I wish we were married,” he said suddenly.

“What difference would it make? Could we be more together?”

A gold band on her finger and bearing his name. She was right, that was all it would mean. And being his heir, but all he owned was the
Griffin
. Not even the ship, because of course it, too, belonged to the family. Certainly he had nothing to offer her, and since her talk with Diana she seemed quite content with the present situation. As he thought about it, watching the black line of coast, the sky overhead a shimmering mass of stars outlining the lace-like tracery of the
Griffin
’s rigging, he had to admit that his feelings were proprietary; he wanted them to be married so she bore his name. No children yet; a pregnant wife at sea, and then a bawling baby… He could wait a few years for fatherhood!

Daylight showed that Whetstone had been precise: the
Griffin
was anchored a mile off the river mouth and the forest on the higher land on one side made a dark mat, while opposite a scattering of white buildings were gathered round the church.

“Puts you in mind of the east coast of England,” Saxby commented.

“Or the Kent coast from Folkestone round to Dungeness,” he said.

“Aye, but it shows how right the old rule of thumb is: low lands warns of shallow water; cliffs tell of deep water.”

“The boat is ready?”

“Six oarsmen, sir, and a boatkeeper in case you need one. And Mrs Wilson, sir.”

“Very well, let’s get started, before the wind gets up.”

“You saw the ship alongside the jetty, sir?”

“Yes. Laden, from the look of her. Doesn’t look Dutch to me.”

“Oh no, she’s Spanish – just look at that sheer. Quite graceful, for a merchant ship. Hasn’t that fat fishwife look of a Dutchman.”

“What do you reckon she’ll be carrying?”

Saxby shrugged and held out his hands, palms uppermost. “She may have come in just to pick up a small quantity, having worked her way along the coast from somewhere like Cumaná or La Guaira. Hides, tobacco…maybe even live cattle: shifting a herd up or down the coast to different pastures.”

“I’ll try and find out. In fact we’ll smell it as we get close.” With that Ned went down the ladder and gave the order to cast off. As the men began rowing and he pushed over the tiller to steer for the river entrance, he looked the length of the
Griffin
. She looked innocent enough; just the number of guns one would expect a merchantman to carry; just the worn paint; just the wear on the mast where the hoops of the mainsail chafed. Saxby would have men up there in a few minutes painting on linseed oil. More important, the wary watchers on the shore would recognize a peaceful scene: a merchant ship had anchored and her crew were going about their normal day’s work.

Ned was thankful it was still cool: the sun had not yet risen over the horizon so the light was not harsh to the eyes. The whitewashed houses seemed pink, but before the boat returned to the
Griffin
the sun would have risen and the white would be a glare.

He spotted several men at the seaward end of the little town, obviously watching both the ship and the boat. No one was rushing about; no horses galloped from one end of the town to the other raising the alarm or carrying self-important men. The church bell was not tolling a warning. Obviously no one regarded the ship as a threat; instead she was a welcome smuggler, with olive oil and wine, nails and household articles, material for clothing.

He steered the boat towards the jetty and saw that the ship secured alongside it, her hull green and with a small figurehead of some woman wearing a crown, was the
Nuestra Señora del Carmen
. The men in the
Griffin
’s boat could read the name painted across the transom. Although most of the other paint was peeling or worn, the name itself was picked out in gold leaf on a red scroll that ran almost the full width of the transom itself. “Cor, look at it,” one of the men muttered. “Fancy having to paint all those letters!”