Buccaneer (46 page)

Finally, after six days of sluggish progress, the coach deposited him and Ringrose at the destination that Mr Bradley had arranged – the Marshalsea Prison in Southwark. Despite brick walls topped by revolving iron spikes and a massive entry gate plated with iron, the Marshalsea proved much more comfortable than
Trinity
’s dank and rat-infested accommodation. They were shown to a set of well-appointed rooms and told that their meals would be brought in from the outside.

‘Tomorrow morning, Mr Lynch, you are required to attend a preliminary assessment of your case,’ Bradley told him in his punctilious manner. ‘Customarily the High Court of Admiralty deals with matters of prizes taken by sea. It decides their legitimacy and value and awards portions. But there are new procedures to adjudicate on matters which might normally be dealt within a criminal court . . . that is to say, you will be appearing before a Court of Instance not a Court of Prize. Mr Brice, an attorney to the court, has been appointed to determine how your case should be dealt with.’

M
R BRICE
proved to be a man so unassuming and nondescript that for a moment Hector mistook him to be an under-clerk. The attorney was waiting to interview Hector in the prison governor’s office next morning. Of middling height and indeterminate age, Brice’s pallid features were so bland that Hector would later have difficulty in recalling exactly what Brice looked like. His clothing gave no clue to his status for he was dressed in a suit of plain drab whose only effect was to make him even less obtrusive. Had it not been for the gleam of penetrating intelligence when he caught Hector’s eye, Brice would have seemed a very ordinary person of little consequence.

‘My apologies for disturbing you, Lynch,’ Brice began in an affable tone. Various legal-looking documents and scrolls were spread on the governor’s desk and Brice was leafing through them casually. ‘I need to ask you a few more questions in relation to a charge arising from information provided by our lieutenant governor in Jamaica. Namely, that you were an originator of an illegal scheme to despoil the territories of a ruler in treaty and friendship with our king.

‘What is the evidence for this charge?’

Brice frowned. ‘We will come to that. First, would you be kind enough to write a few words on this sheet of paper for me?’

‘What should I write?’

‘Some of those exotic Caribee names that we hear from time to time – Campeachy, Panama, Boca del Toro, half a dozen will do.’

Hector, bewildered by the request, wrote down the names and handed the sheet back. Brice sprinkled sand on the wet ink, fastidiously poured the excess sand away, then laid the sheet on the desk. Selecting a large scroll from the pile of documents beside him, he undid the ribbon which held it. Hector had presumed the scroll was some sort of legal document but now he recognised it as a map. His mind leapt back to the days in Port Royal. It was one of the sheets that he had copied for the surveyor Snead in Jamaica.

Brice compared Hector’s writing with the names written on the map and gave a small cluck of recognition. ‘The same hand,’ he announced. ‘The deposition placed before the Court states you provided maps and charts, knowing they were to be used in the planning and execution of an expedition contrary to the interests of His Majesty.’

‘Who accuses me of this?’

Brice glanced down at his notes. ‘The witness has signed his statement and sworn to its truth. He sent this map as his evidence. His name is John Coxon, and he styles himself “Captain”. Do you know him?’

‘I do.’

‘There is also a letter from Sir Henry Morgan, the lieutenant governor in Jamaica. Sir Henry affirms that Captain Coxon’s testimony is credible.’

Hector felt a twinge of satisfaction mixed with outrage. He had guessed correctly. It was Coxon who had provided Morgan with the names of those who had been on the South Seas raid. Coxon was the turncoat and informer. He was still seeking to curry favour with Morgan just as he had done when he had tried to hand Hector over, believing him to be related to Governor Lynch.

The attorney was speaking again. ‘Did you provide maps to assist the planning and execution of this illegal raid?’

‘I was destitute and without employment. I had no idea that the charts would be used in that manner.’

‘Can anyone vouch for the truth of this or provide you with character?’

Desperately Hector tried to think of someone who might speak up on his behalf. Snead was far away and would never admit to copying. There was no one else who might speak up for him. Then he remembered the carriage ride from Morgan’s plantation in company with Susanna and her brother and the friendship that seemed to blossom between them.

‘There is someone,’ he said, ‘Mr Robert Lynch, the nephew of Governor Lynch, would speak up for me. He was in Jamaica when all this took place.’

Brice looked disappointed. His lips set in a thin line. ‘Sir Thomas Lynch is unavailable as he left London only recently to return to his duties as governor. Unfortunately Robert Lynch also cannot be here.’

Hector detected the sombre note in the reply. ‘Has something happened to Robert Lynch?’

‘Six months ago he died of the flux and, it is said, of chagrin. He had lost a great deal of money in indigo plantation.’

‘I’m sorry to hear it. He was kind-hearted and generous.’

‘Indeed. Have you no one else to substantiate your story?’ Brice was looking at him as if genuinely interested in helping him.

Taking a deep breath, Hector said, ‘Perhaps Mr Lynch’s sister, Susanna, would be able to give evidence on my behalf in place of her brother.’

The attorney raised his eyebrows in shock. ‘Mr Lynch, if I were you I would think carefully before approaching that person. Sir Thomas Exton would not take it kindly that his daughter-in-law is called as a character witness in a criminal case.’

Hector tried to make sense of the reply. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Sir Thomas Exton is the Advocate General. He is also the senior member of the Admiralty Court. This means that he will be president of the Court if your case comes to trial. Last month his oldest son John – whom I may say has the reputation as an up-and-coming attorney in his own right – married Miss Susanna Lynch. That is why Sir Thomas delayed his departure for Jamaica. To celebrate the wedding.’

Hector’s spirits sagged. The news of Susanna’s wedding was not unexpected. He had always imagined that she would one day marry someone of her own background. But the knowledge that she was now the wife of a lawyer somehow made the announcement more hurtful.

‘I admit that I copied the maps but I was merely using my experience in cartography in the same way that I assisted Mr Ringrose in making drawings and plans of all the anchorages and places we visited in the South Seas.’

For the first time in the interview Hector sensed that he had said something to assist his case. Brice said softly, ‘You made maps in the South Seas? Tell me about them.’

‘Mr Ringrose always took sketches of the places where we anchored, and he drew profiles of the coast whenever we were near land. I helped him. Occasionally we took soundings with lead and line. Much as the Spaniards do when they prepared their own deroteros and pilot books.’

‘You have seen a pilot book for the Peruvian coast?’ Belatedly Hector realised that Brice knew exactly what a derotero was.

‘There was one aboard a vessel we captured – the
Santo Rosario
.’

‘What happened to it?’

‘It was returned to the Spaniards.’

A flicker of disappointment crossed the attorney’s face.

‘But we made notes and sketches before it was handed back,’ Hector hastened to add.

‘We?’

‘My colleague Dan and I.’

Brice looked at Hector with narrowed eyes.

‘If you still have this material, I would like to see a sample.’

‘If you allow me to contact my friend, that can be arranged.’

Brice began rolling up the Caribbean chart. ‘We will continue our discussion just as soon as you can produce some of those notes. Do you think you could have them available next week, perhaps on Thursday?’

‘I’m sure that can be arranged.’

‘I’ll ask Mr Bradley to bring you to somewhere more congenial than these rather depressing surroundings.’ He glanced around the prison governor’s austere office as he wound the ribbon neatly around the rolled-up chart, pausing only to say in a quiet, confidential voice, ‘Mr Lynch, I would be grateful if you talked to no one about my visit here today.’

‘As you wish,’ Hector assured him, though he was wondering why a lawyer like Brice knew such a complicated way to tie the ribbon. Either Brice was a fly-fisherman or he had seagoing experience.

B
Y
T
HURSDAY
, when Bradley came to collect him, Hector had assembled the material Brice had requested. Dan had brought the bamboo tube containing the notes and sketches, and Ringrose had lent his journals from the South Sea. After Hector introduced Dan to the marshal, the three of them set off on foot into Southwark’s tangle of alleyways. An overcast grey sky threatened yet another day of blustery showers as they joined the slow-moving mass of pedestrians, carts and carriages using London Bridge to cross the river. On the far side they turned right into a street lined with tall commercial buildings. After about a quarter mile they came to a shop front over which hung a trade sign showing an outline map of Britain and Ireland. Here Bradley led them down a narrow passageway and then up a flight of outside stairs to a large first-floor room at the rear of the building. Several windows looked out across London Pool and its constant activity of wherries and lighters attending to the needs of the anchored shipping. Beside a broad table littered with drawing instruments, Brice was waiting. With him was a stooped, rather bookish individual wearing a pair of spectacles.

The lawyer came quickly to the point. ‘Mr Lynch, please show to Mr Hack your material from the South Sea.’

From his bamboo tube Hector slid the page copied from Captain Lopez’s notes which he and Dan had consulted as they tried to decide where
Trinity
had so nearly been wrecked. The paper was creased and stained, and there were scuff marks where they had laid it out on the rock many months ago. Hack walked over to the window to examine their handiwork in the light. Beyond him the surface of the Thames suddenly flecked with white as a gust of wind riffled the water. A moment later came the sound of raindrops spattering against the window glass.

‘What do you make of it, Mr Hack?’ Brice was asking.

There was a long pause. ‘Very interesting. The entrance to the Fretum Magellanicum agrees with Mr Jansson’s depiction in his atlas, but here it is in greater detail.’

‘Would such information help a navigator attempting the Strait?’

‘Most certainly.’

‘This provides extra detail,’ said Hector holding out Ring-rose’s journal.

Hack took it from him and began to turn the pages slowly and deliberately until he came to Ringrose’s sketch of the anchorage where they had mended
Trinity
’s rudder. Several moments passed before he looked up and said, ‘If I had time to correlate the details in this journal with the page of navigation notes, I would be hopeful of providing a chart for this section of the coast.’

Earlier Hector had thought that Hack might be a sea captain. Now he knew that Hack was a professional cartographer.

Brice glanced at the bamboo tube Hector was holding. ‘Mr Lynch, you say that you have other pages of navigation notes. Who made them?’

‘The captain of the
Santo Rosario
. He was a very experienced mariner, and conscientious. Besides making his own observations, he compiled information from other captains, going back many years. There are details of anchorages and navigation dangers and port facilities.’

Brice picked up a pair of compasses from the mapmaker’s table and began fiddling with them, opening and closing them as he considered Hector’s statement. ‘Mr Lynch, the Spanish ambassador, Señor Ronquillo, is pressing to have your case decided by the Court. He has personally intervened with His Majesty who has agreed to his demand. I have an offer to make to you.’