Buccaneer (35 page)

“You see, Ned, it doesn’t matter a damn where the
Peleus
is, at anchor or at sea. If she’s anchored in Curaçao, very well, then our home for a while is in Curaçao. But it could be Barbados, some bay along the Main or, as it is now, Aguadores. Tomorrow – later today, rather – it should be Santiago de Cuba. Freedom, Ned, that’s what Diana and I have. Who cares what my damnable uncle does next? He won’t live for ever, and his son is a ninny, so as soon as they bury Uncle Oliver the Council of State will be quarrelling – but I don’t care. Just so long as they don’t make peace with Spain!”

All that Whetstone said made sense; in fact, as Thomas described how he and Diana had begun to feel like tinkers and then slowly the ship had become their home, Ned realized that Aurelia had already reached that stage; that she already regarded the
Griffin
as her home. In the last two or three weeks, when he had been apologetic about bad weather, rough seas, the monotony of the food, she had been more and more dismissive about whatever it was. He realized that she had not been trying to reassure him that she did not mind; she was trying to convince
him
that the life of a buccaneer was an interesting one, to persuade him that they should be like the snail, carrying their home around with them.

Gottlieb had stopped, and by the time Ned and Thomas reached him they could see that they had just climbed over the edge of a great flat ridge: ahead of them the ground was level and in the starlight they could see a bulky building on a lower slope.

Thomas turned to face the oncoming column and bellowed: “Stop. Ten minutes rest. Pass it back!”

Ned had the feeling that he could see through the darkness; that like some bird he could hover over the far corner of the ridge and look down on Santiago sleeping in its valley at the end of the narrow channel leading from the sea. On the eastern side the great Castillo del Morro stood at the end of the precipitous cliffs that they had been skirting most of the way from Aguadores; on the west side the Catalina battery was built into a flat ledge more suited to ospreys. In the town the
alcaldia
would be locked up on one side of the
plaza
; the mayor would be sleeping peacefully. Would there be an
alcaide
, a governor of the Castillo? Presumably Santiago was big enough to have its own
gobernador
. In fact it must be the main town of a province, so somewhere down there the governor slept soundly too, unaware that three hundred buccaneers were approaching, a column of cutthroats escorted, so it seemed, by an aerial column of vicious mosquitoes, each with a sting sharp enough to fell an ox.

“We’ll split up when we’re closer to the Castillo,” Thomas said. “Are you sure you want to tackle the castle? It looks enormous. The town will be easy. No troops down there, and the rule of thumb is simple – the rich and the important live in the largest houses. Ransack the homes and ransom the owners!”

“The castle suits me. I’m new to all this. It’s best that you have the most men. My fifty should be enough for the castle, as long as we can get to it without raising the alarm.”

Thomas looked back along the column. “At least they had the wit to douse the torches without being told.”

“They just burned out. They don’t last forever.”

“True, true, Ned! Ah well, these sorry poltroons have had enough rest. If we wait too long, some rascal who managed to hide some hot waters will get drunk. Still, we searched ’em thoroughly.”

“Do you remember that passage from Shakespeare, where Falstaff is leading a column of men he has just pressed into the King’s service…”

“Yes, but we’ve better bargains! You’re not comparing me with Falstaff? I haven’t such a belly!”

Ned and Thomas stood side by side as the column trudged past them. “Griffins this side,” Ned said, counting them off. As soon as fifty had passed he called softly; “Stop and wait.”

Now Thomas was counting out eighty of his own men and grouping them to one side and then calling for Saxby, who stood beside him as another eighty were counted and then led them a hundred yards ahead and halted. “Burton?” Thomas called and as soon as the
Griffin
’s gunner stepped forward had the rest of the column follow him, counting as they went. The last man was given a slap on the back as Thomas said: “That’s nearly three hundred of us! Not a man fallen by the wayside.”

The Castillo seemed black and menacing, heavily shadowed by the light of the stars in a clear sky. The entrance was on the north side and Ned could see a long path zigzagging up the hillside from the town below.

Thomas came and stood beside him. “Santiago de Cuba…” he said quietly. “Down there they’re all sleeping – prelates and pimps, treasurers and trollops, rich and poor.” He looked up at the sky. “Our people will be weighing anchor at Aguadores about now. I’ll be glad to see the
Peleus
coming in through the channel. Look.” He pointed down at it; they could not see the entrance from this angle but the main anchorage was clear enough, reflecting the stars and showing how sheltered it was. “We can go alongside those jetties and load the purchase; aye, and hoist on board your dam’ guns.”

“You’ll be glad to see them when they’re installed in batteries on the Palizadas.”

“Aye, but you don’t expect me to admit it, do you?”

The two men stood together for another couple of minutes, and then Thomas turned and Ned saw he was holding out his hand. “Good luck, Ned. Two or more pistol shots, and we’ll know you’re having to fight for it, and we’ll go ahead and attack the town.”

“And if there’s a big explosion,” Ned said, “you’ll know some fool fired a pistol in the magazine!”

With that Thomas laughed and strode off towards the groups of men waiting at the top of the track leading down the steep side of the valley to the town.

Ned’s men were still squatting behind a big wedge-shaped rock, out of sight of the castle but less than three hundred yards from it. He stood in the midst of them and said quietly: “The entrance is on the other side from here – the landward side. There’ll be sentries. I want a couple of men to come with me now: we’ve got to silence those sentries. Then you can all come in and secure the rest of the garrison. Find the governor of the castle – take him alive, if we can. Roberts – you pick five men, and your job will be to find the magazine and seize it. The governor will probably have the key. Raven – you have the nails and hammers? Right, pick your men and you’ll be responsible for spiking the guns if necessary. The rest of you will be with me but you stay outside until we’ve dealt with the guards. Who’s coming with me for the sentries? Ah, Day and Lloyd. Right, we’ll start. Now, remember, everyone: no shots unless it is to save your own lives: we don’t want to raise the alarm down in the town and make it harder for the others.”

He led the way to the eastern side of the castle, the three men creeping from one great boulder to another and managing most of the time to stay out of sight of the castle battlements. The rock forming the whole ridge was criss-crossed with splits and crevices which slowed them up, but when Ned looked behind from time to time at the rest of the men he was hard put to distinguish them at fifty paces.

Then they were close up against the castle walls and Ned led the way round to the side. There was no path, indicating how often the garrison inspected the place, and he had to push through low brush, thankful that, like the rest of the men, he had lashed strips of canvas round his shins to keep out the painful thorns and prickly pear spines.

Suddenly he was at the north-east corner. From here he could look down on the town and distinguish the path up to the castle which led to the doorway halfway along the north side. He stopped and took out his pistols and felt in his pocket for the spanning key. Putting down one pistol he fitted the key on to the other and turned it until he could feel the tension hard on the spring. Putting that pistol in his belt he fitted the key on the other one, conscious that Day and Lloyd were doing the same. The three men then drew their cutlasses. The sword seemed heavy and clumsy in his hand and Ned suddenly realized that drawing it was the last act before tackling the sentries in the sequence that started in Jamaica. Before killing the sentries. He felt dizzy for a moment. What about Day and Lloyd, did they feel squeamish? He doubted it; both had been transported and although they had been good workers at Kingsnorth and enthusiastic members of the
Griffin
’s crew, Ned had always guessed that the crimes for which they had been transported had been serious. That, he realized, was an advantage at a time like this: he needed men about him that would not hesitate to cut a throat.

He began creeping towards the path, keeping as close to the castle as he could, but over the years masonry had fallen from the walls, stones that were rectangular and still as sharp-edged as when the masons had chiselled them to shape a hundred years ago. Now the blocks, two and three feet long, were often hidden in low bushes and forcing Ned and his two men to walk three or four yards away from the shadowy shelter of the wall. Were there snakes in Cuba?

Suddenly he was on the path, realizing that his concern to avoid cracking his shins on the stones had led him to walk with his head down. The doorway of the castle was now only five yards away and he was standing in front of it like an obelisk!

He promptly crouched and turned slightly. The doorway was enormous, a great black square studded with bolts to blunt the axes of attackers. Inset at the side of this door was a much smaller one just large enough to admit a man. It was open, but beside it Ned could distinguish a black bundle, as though someone had left a sack of potatoes for the garrison cook.

He turned and gestured to Day and Lloyd to follow as he crawled towards the door. A yard or two to one side of the worn path, the rock showed up lighter than the surrounding dried grass and scrub. Ned realized that a sentry looking out through the door would see three black tortoises coming towards him.

It was painful: every shrub seemed a hedgehog of thorns, every stone as sharp as the point of a knife. And now he could hear a strange noise, as though a child was blowing up and deflating a pig’s bladder. He stopped warily. It was coming from above so he lay down and rolled over on his back to be able to peer up at the top of the door. At once several thorns stuck into his shoulders, but now the noise seemed to be coming from ground level. He rolled over again and raised his head. It was coming from both sides.

He moved another couple of yards towards the door and listened again, and Day crawled up alongside. “It’s that sack thing by the door, sir. I think it’s the sentry sitting there asleep and snorin’. Shall I…?”

The man was holding a knife in his right hand, as well as the cutlass in his left. Ned hesitated a few seconds and then thought of Thomas and the other 250 buccaneers descending on the town. “Yes,” he muttered.

Day moved slowly and evenly towards the sentry and stopped beside him, obviously sizing him up. Then he put a knee against the man’s left shoulder and pulled his head towards him. The knife winked a moment in the starlight, there was a hoarse intake of breath, and then the snoring stopped.

Lloyd immediately jumped up and helped Day pull the man’s body to one side, away from the door, and leaving it beside a helmet and pike. A moment later Ned was through the door and, expecting to find himself in a dark cavern forming the inside of the castle, was startled to see stars above him. The building formed a hollow square, the inside being a parade ground. Just inside the doorway a staircase spiralled up, obviously leading to the guardroom and the garrison’s quarters at a higher level.

Ned knew that the rest of his party, who must have been watching the grisly affair of the sentry, would be streaming in through the door at any moment. The magazine entrance would be somewhere out there in the square, and there might be another staircase, but this one was, for the moment anyway, the most important.

Day hissed at someone and the men filed in as Ned took a cautious few steps up the staircase. It began spiralling to the left in the usual fashion, so that a defender retreating up the stairwell (or attacking coming down) kept his body covered with the sword in his right hand, while the man below had his left side open, being forced to use his sword across his body and shortening his reach.

Treading on stone was better than wood: there was no risk of a plank squeaking. Yet it was not as dark as Ned had expected. He paused for a moment and, glancing up, he saw there was a light above – a lantern in the guardroom? He sensed that Day and Lloyd were close behind and resumed climbing. Down below, somewhere at the bottom of the stairwell, there was a metallic click as a careless buccaneer’s cutlass caught the wall.

Now it was much lighter – and again he heard snoring. He stopped and counted. He could distinguish at least four men, perhaps five. If there was always a sentry at the castle gate during the hours of darkness, the men would probably do four hours on duty and eight off. Oh, what did it matter? Suddenly he was in a corridor going to the left: facing him, opposite the top of the stairs, was the guardroom door and he saw seven men asleep on simple truckle beds, naked because the room was hot, both from the sun’s heat held in the thick stone walls and the lantern hanging from a hook in the ceiling.

The thought of slaughtering seven sleeping men made him pause, but without thinking he moved to one side as he felt Day trying to pass him, followed by Lloyd. The two men moved as silently as shadows, passing from one bed to another like priests bestowing blessings, and each time a gasp told of a throat cut.

First Day and then Lloyd bent down over the last man to wipe the bloodstains from their knives before sliding them back into the canvas sheaths.

By now Ned, sick with the knowledge that he had hesitated when he should have acted swiftly, and feeling faint at the sight of the dark pools of blood spreading from the head of each bed, had reached up and unhooked the lantern.