Devil to Pay (36 page)

Marco said adios and left them, walking back the way they had come, and Delancey set about building a shelter for the night. Choosing a windward corner of the ruin, he and Hodder cleaned it of loose stones and rubbish. Demolishing the cart, they used its wheels for two side walls, its floor for a roof and its shafts to make a temporary stable for the horse. Finally, Delancey lashed some timbers together to make a frame for his lanterns. After dark it would be at least technically possible to signal the
Dove.
Whether any signal would be recognised was also problematical for Sam was no man-of-war's man and Mr Evans' knowledge would be as limited. Looking seaward, Delancey could see one or two sail in the distance but they were most probably fishing craft or coasters. If the
Dove
returned it would be after dark. One thing was certain, however, he and Hodder would have to embark at Léon; and yet how were they to pass through a town where their descriptions had most probably been circulated and where troops were hunting for them?

That evening Señor Davila appeared, having walked out from the town. He was accompanied by José Alvarez whom he introduced as his business partner. They brought with them meat, bread, butter, cheese and a bottle of wine. Sitting with them as they ate by their hidden camp fire, Davila drank a glass of wine and gave them the news. First of all, he said, the cavalry had been sent in pursuit of them; an officer and 24 troopers. The lieutenant was young and inexperienced and had gleaned little information at the Léon inn and nothing at all at the Barco de Vela tavern. He had told people that he had been ordered to arrest a couple of spies but the seafaring folk disbelieved him, thinking that he was really searching for contraband—of which the place had plenty. So far as the soldiers were concerned the people of Léon had seen nothing, heard nothing and knew nothing. Unfortunately, however, the garrison commander had followed up his cavalry troop by a whole company of infantry under a captain called Miguel de Passamonte. Since his arrival in the late afternoon he had taken the cavalry under command and intensified the search.

“He is not another boy without experience, then?” asked Delancey.

“Miguel de Passamonte? No, señor, he is an old soldier risen from the ranks, a man who knows his trade. His patrols are ready to ask who is known and who is a stranger. It is all most unfortunate, señor. Until today this was a peaceful town with no real difficulty over anything. A man could do business without fear of gossip. Now all is upset and we have begun to distrust each other. Passamonte is at the Barco de Vela tavern this evening and who knows what may be revealed by men who have drunk too much? You and I were seen there together, remember. Frankly, señor, I don't know what to do!”

“May I suggest that we take one problem at a time? The first one, I think, centres upon the
Dove.
Dare we bring her into port? I assume that you have the means of warning her to remain outside?”

“Yes, there is a signal arranged. I think, however, that she can enter harbour safely under the French flag. The customs officers are friends of mine and it is to them that Passamonte will address any questions he may want to ask about the
Dove.
She will be safe but Passamonte will place sentries on the quayside. The lugger will be watched, of this we can be certain.”

“Very well. The next problem concerns the extent of Passamonte's knowledge. How much does he know?”

“He knows that you have been in the town. He is certain, I should say, that you are not there now. He will conclude that you are somewhere in the vicinity and he will assume that Léon is the place at which you mean to embark. His plan will be to wait and watch.”

“But how does he know that I am to embark here? I might well go on down the coast and attempt to reach Gibraltar. I may yet have to do this and I should regard it indeed as the obvious plan.”

“I agree, señor, but Passamonte is not concerned with what happens at Tarifa—that is another officer's responsibility. His orders confine him to this place and he must assume that this is the point at which you intend to leave Spain.”

“So my best plan might be to go farther south . . . ?”

“But other garrisons will also have been warned and you would not, elsewhere, have a friend ashore.”

“You think that Passamonte will look on the
Dove
with suspicion?”

“Yes, but not to the point of interference. She will be the bait, her gangplank the point at which the trap is to close.”

“I wonder that she has been able to linger on this coast: visiting this port more than once, I assume?”

“She has been here three times already and her visits are profitable to me and to my friends. At sea she is protected on this occasion by a British frigate, the
Medusa,
which keeps almost out of sight.”

“The
Medusa?
Captain Morris?”

“I don't know the captain's name.”

“How does the frigate keep in touch?”

“The
Dove
has been lent a set of signal flags and a midshipman who knows the code. She also carries rockets and blue flares to light in an emergency.”

“Good! What other ships are there in port? Anything of interest?”

“Only the
Aguila,
supposed to be fitting out as a ten-gun privateer, but the owners could never find a crew for her.”

“One other question: is there another landing place, outside the actual harbour?”

“There is a sort of creek on the north side called the Playa Blanco where one can land on a calm day but it is extremely dangerous in any sort of sea—impossible, for instance, on such a day as this has been. Fishing boats are sometimes repaired there.”

“Good! With the wind moderating I think that we shall be able to leave Spain tomorrow night. During the next few hours I shall try to signal the
Dove.
If Señor Carter knows that I am here he will bring the lugger into port tomorrow. When he does that I want you to go aboard, give him my kind regards, explain the situation and tell him to expect me aboard just before the beginning of the ebb. What hour would that be?”

“At half-past one in the morning.”

“Then I want you to bring the signal midshipman out here, disguised as a Spaniard and bringing with him a rocket, his flags and code. I want to communicate with the
Medusa
from here.”

“Very well, señor—all that is possible, even under the sentry's eye.”

“Thank you for all your help, Señor Davila, and not least for the supper. The crisis should be over in two days' time and you should be back in business.”

“What I have done is nothing. My reward will be to know that you are safe. Forgive me if I leave you now.”

“You can reach home without being challenged by the sentries?”

“Oh, yes, señor. I know this town well and have good friends in every street.”

“Goodnight, then, and thank you!”

“Goodnight, señor, and God keep you safe!”

After Davila and Alvarez had gone Hodder asked Delancey whether he thought the Spaniards were to be trusted. He himself was more than doubtful. “I don't like the look of Davila, Captain. I don't like the look of him at all. These dagoes are all alike, sir, each one no better than the last. He would change sides any day if he thought it would pay him.”

“I daresay; but in this case it wouldn't pay him. He is in business here as a smuggler's agent, he and Alvarez working with Sam Carter. Sam is therefore the man he dare not antagonise—and Sam is a friend of mine.”

“I hope you're right, sir, and I hope you regard me as a friend, too. My life has not been all that respectable, as you know, or will have guessed, but I've learnt something in these last few weeks, I don't exactly know what. But I want England to win, sir, and I admire the way in which you never waver from your purpose. You are a gentleman, sir, and can trust me as you would your own boatswain or gunner. If we have to fight our way out of this, I'll not give in easily.”

“I know that, Mr Hodder—and thank you. It's time now to signal the
Dove.
God knows whether she is in sight!”

Delancey had hoped to find a tree from which he could hang his pattern of lanterns, a tree which, bereft of branches, could be used as a mast. All the trees in sight were stunted oaks, however, the best of them effectively masked by others. In the end he chose a sturdy bush on the very cliff top from which his frame could hang on the cliff face, not an ideal arrangement but one which ensured that the signal could not be seen from any other direction. He and Hodder now arranged six of their eight lanterns in a framework, making a pattern which was (or had been) the Channel Fleet recognition signal. The lanterns were lit and the whole clumsy device was lowered gingerly down the cliff at a point where projection hid it from either side. Over the next hour or two Delancey hauled the frame up for a few minutes at a time. The signal might or might not be understood but it would at least be recognised as a signal. Hours passed without a reply and it was not long before dawn when Hodder called out, “Look, sir!” and pointed to a distant blue flare which showed for an instant and vanished again. Delancey pulled up his framework and rearranged the lanterns, adding two more and using all eight to form the letter “D.” He hoped that this would tell Sam everything. There was an answering flare and no further signal from either side. Delancey and Hodder lay down to rest.

They woke in broad daylight to breakfast on what remained from yesterday's supper. Afterwards they walked northwards to a headland from which they had a better view of Léon. The wind had dropped and there, sure enough, was the
Dove!
She was about to enter the harbour in daylight and there, far seawards, was another sail, evidently that of the
Medusa.
The sight of these distant sails had the emotional impact of a miracle. To have exchanged signals in the dark had given him reason to hope but actually to see the
Dove
again brought tears to his eyes. He brushed them aside impatiently and then found that his hands were trembling as he levelled the spyglass. He realised with a sort of shock that he had not really expected to escape from Spain. God knew that the chances were still against his survival. But there was the
Dove
and his spyglass, when finally focused, showed her sails being lowered as she sidled up to the farther quayside. He could just see a rope being made fast to a bollard in the north-east corner of the harbour. That would be Evans, that speck on the forecastle, not recognizable at this distance but placed where the chief mate should be as the vessel was hauled into her berth. Here were petty criminals risking their vessel and their lives to rescue a friend. . . . He realised that Hodder was talking.

“There's a sight, sir, to do me a power of good. I'm no seaman, as you know, but it's a tonic, as you might say, to see the old
Dove
again.”

Delancey could not reply but turned his spyglass on the
Medusa.
There was little he could see but he remembered something about her. She was a fifth-rate of 36 guns and would measure something over 900 tons with a length of 145 feet or thereabouts on the gun-deck. She would mount eighteen-pounders, he thought, and could have been built at Buckler's Hard. Or had she been taken from the French? Morris he had heard mentioned as the previous captain of a sloop; a sister ship, he thought, to the
Calypso.
He pictured for a moment the ordered routine on board. Her crew would number 264 and Morris would have made them into seamen by now. They would just have finished holystoning and washing the decks. The brasswork would have been polished and the ropes coiled down. Now the pipes would call “Up hammocks” and soon it would be eight bells and time for breakfast. There had been a time, years ago, when he had resented the inexorable pattern of the naval day's work. Now the mere sight of these distant sails gave him a sense of homecoming. He had lacked for so long that sense of security he had derived from other men about him who knew their tasks and would do their duty. For the first time since he left the
Royalist
he was feeling homesick.

As there was nothing more to do they returned to camp where they were joined before midday by Señor Davila and José Alvarez, bringing with them some dinner and also, in disguise, the signal midshipman from the
Dove,
carrying his flags in a bundle. This youth was a red-haired character called O'Keefe, in whose presence Delancey again felt a sense of exile. Had it been weeks or months since he had spoken with a man-of-war's man? He forced himself to give all his attention to Davila who was full of news and anxiety. Handbills had been printed now with a description of the two spies as wanted men and an offer of a reward for information which might lead to their capture. There were soldiers everywhere and the
Dove
was being closely watched. Sam Carter sent his greetings and said that his lugger would be ready to sail after dark and at a minute's notice. O'Keefe professed a knowledge of the current system of numerical signals. To the burden of flags, shared with Alvarez, he had added several rockets. “One wouldn't do,” he explained, “to convey a message. Without a sequence of colour they are meaningless.”

“You address me as ‘Sir,'“ said Delancey.

“Beg pardon, sir,” replied O'Keefe. “But the signal asking for assistance is a red and a blue. That would best serve to bring the
Medusa
to within flag-signalling distance.”

“Very well, Mr O'Keefe. Prepare the rockets for firing and get ready to use the bush as your mast.” He explained that the hoist would hang down the cliff face, weighted by a stone.

Davila expressed his alarm: “But the rockets will be seen from Léon, señor! We shall have the cavalry here within the hour!”

“Not if Alvarez here does his part. The time has come, Señor Alvarez, for you to give information to Captain Passamonte. Tell him, when you return to Léon, that the men he is hunting are at some hiding place on the inland side of town—you don't know exactly where. When their friends, camping here, see the vessel that is to rescue them—a schooner, now in the offing—they will fire certain rockets. That is the signal for the two fugitives to come here at nightfall. It is also the signal to the schooner, which will come in after dark and send her boat into the Playa Blanco, the creek on the north side of the harbour. Tell Passamonte that his best plan is to surround this place just before sunset, allow the fugitives to enter and then close in on this ruined cottage at two in the morning, capturing both the spies and their accomplices ashore. Simultaneously he should lay an ambush at the Playa Blanco creek and be ready to fire on the boat which comes in with the last of the flood. If the spies are taken you claim the reward. If they should not be caught here they will be caught at the landing place.”