Galleon (12 page)

Secco grinned and nodded. “Yes, Sir Thomas. Many of us think we can capture some, exchanging our small ships for bigger ones. I have fifty men crowded into my ship, for instance. I would like a bigger one, and then I can carry more men–”

“And your share of the purchase will then be bigger,” Thomas said teasingly.

“My share as a captain stays the same,” Secco said stiffly. “If I have more men, there are more men to share the crew’s portion.”

“Don’t be so damned touchy,” Thomas said. “I was only teasing you. Bigger ships and more men mean more purchase, so we all get richer.”

“You don’t want me to come with you?” Ned asked.

“No, sir,” Secco said, and then corrected himself as Firman made a sudden gesture. “Forgive me, I didn’t mean we don’t want you to come. The message I bring is that the captains want to go after these ships, and if you and Sir Thomas want to stay behind to complete your houses, we shall understand. It is a raid of no importance, except in improving our fleet.”

Ned nodded. “Good. I agree to that, and neither Sir Thomas nor I expect to share in the purchase. Just one thing, though. In time I may be able to persuade the Governor to be more – er, practical. For the moment, therefore, I don’t want to quarrel with him.”

“You want to leave the door open,” Secco said, pleased with his knowledge of English idiom.

“Exactly. A door the Governor can come through to ask us for a favour, and a door we can go through, for whatever reason.”

“I’ll explain that to the Brethren,” Secco said.

“And explain that the open door is the reason why neither I nor Sir Thomas want to know where you are all going. As far as we know you are all going to Tortuga because the Governor has taken away your commissions. If you all change your minds after you’ve sailed from Port Royal – well,” Ned shrugged his shoulders, “that’s your affair. Sir Thomas and I will be busy over on the north coast working as masons and sawyers – and perhaps tilers – before we see you again. Anyway, good luck to you all.”

After the two captains had left, Thomas said: “They found the right answer without any nudges or winks from us.”

“Yes, though I suppose it could be argued they’re doing the right thing for the wrong reason.”

“Wrong reason?” Thomas raised his eyebrows, but Diana said at once: “Don’t be so dense. Ned means that the right reason – for the future of Jamaica – is that they’re going to capture ships which might land a Spanish army on our beaches; but, in fact, they’re off in search of the ships simply to capture larger ones for themselves.”

“Let’s not be too fussy,” Thomas rumbled. “Otherwise we’ll get as muddled as a convocation of bishops and start jabbering the sort of nonsense one expects from the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

“A Canterbury gallop,” Diana said unexpectedly. “When I was young and had my first horse, my father said I could ride only at a Canterbury gallop.”

“What’s that, riding facing the horse’s tail?” Thomas asked facetiously.

“Riding at a canter, of course,” Diana said.

“Slower than what we’d call a canter,” Ned said. “Comes from the monks riding to Canterbury – their horses would amble, not
canter
. Irony, my lord bishop.”

“I keep forgetting you come from Kent,” Thomas said. “So you’d know all the scurrilous stories from Canterbury…”

For the next week the work on the houses went sufficiently fast to complete the foundations, and both Diana and Aurelia walked round, jumping the trenches, and delighted to have at long last a real idea of the size of each room.

Thomas, who had been teasing Diana because she had not been able to visualize the sizes from the scale on the plans, admitted to Ned that his house was proving larger than he had expected.

“At least it’ll be cool,” he said.

“Like a barn,” Ned said. “You’ll be able to have the hens and the horses eating with you in the dining room.”

“You wait,” Thomas said gloomily, “as soon as it’s finished, we’re going to get dozens of visitors. They’ll all be ‘just calling in’ as it gets dark, so we’ll have to offer a night’s lodging, and each of ’em will find an excuse to stay sennight.”

“I thought you liked people: always surrounded by a merry throng of topers and gamblers – I thought that was when my lord bishop was in his element. A belly full of wine and slapping your last hundred pounds on the roll of a dice.”

“Ah, that was before I met Diana,” Thomas said reminiscently. “The sound of wine tumbling into a goblet was a musical waterfall and the clinking of dice a welcome descant – music to m’ears. Now – well, I hate the sound of dice more than a fusillade of musketry, and the music has gone out of wine and hot liquors.”

“Ah, Thomas, now even your late and unlamented Uncle Oliver would be proud of you.”

“Yes, and if only Diana was Lady Whetstone so that she was my lawful wife and not my mistress, he’d have made me one of his admirals. But no! I think he may have forgiven the gambling and the drinking and the wenching, but he knew I was a Royalist at heart and that he couldn’t–”

He stopped for a moment, listening above the buffeting wind. “A horse. Don’t say it’s Secco back already! Two horses, in fact!”

“More likely a messenger from old Loosely bidding us to a council meeting to consider raising taxes to build him a residence more in keeping with his sense of his own importance.”

“My word, we need some rain: just look at the dust those horses are raising. Recognize the men?”

Ned shook his head. “Strangers to me. I’m sure they’re messengers from Loosely.”

“He wouldn’t spare a
couple
of men.”

Aurelia had joined them and said: “Why try to guess? Just be patient!”

“Patience has never been a friend of mine,” Ned said. “Ah, they’ve seen us. No, I don’t recognize them.”

“Sailors,” Aurelia commented. “From their clothes and the way they sit a horse, they’re more used to holding a tiller than reins.”

The two men reined in and while raising their hats to Aurelia confirmed her identification if only by the lack of flourish and the cautious way they dismounted.

“Mr Yorke?” one inquired. “Mr Edward Yorke?”

When introductions had been made, it transpired that the men were the captain and the mate of a trading sloop. The captain, George Hoskins, a chubby and jovial man from the Isle of Wight, who, despite his obvious lack of experience with horses, was very bow-legged, explained that they traded between Jamaica and the eastern islands, starting at Barbados and taking on their final cargo at St Kitts and Nevis, and then bearing away for the long run to leeward which brought them to Jamaica while staying far enough south to avoid the Spaniards in Porto Rico and Hispaniola.

“Going back,” he explained, “it’s such a long beat to windward to lay up for Barbados that if it gets too brisk we ease sheets a little to go down south to Curaçao and see what the Hollanders are offering. Drive a very hard bargain, does
mynheer
, an’ o’ course enough of their own ships trade northwards that they don’t leave much pickings for us.”

Ned realized that Hoskins was not to be rushed and in his own good time would explain why he had ridden over the mountains on what he obviously regarded as a dangerous and uncomfortable beast.

Finally Hoskins glanced at Ned and then Thomas. “St Martin and Anguilla. You know them?”

Both men shook their heads. “I know where they are,” Ned said, “but I’ve never been farther north than Antigua. Don’t the French and Dutch share St Martin? Anguilla – who claims that?”

“Whoever happens to be anchored in the bay on the north side,” Hoskins said. “The island’s almost deserted; it’s just a good anchorage, ’cept in a west or north wind.”

Ned saw that there was a reason for Hoskins asking if they knew two of the most insignificant of the dozen or so islands forming the chain known as the Windward and Leeward Islands. “What are they like, these two?”

“Well, on the chart St Martin and Anguilla look like a cooking pot with the lid held up across the top. The lid’s Anguilla, which is separated from St Martin by a channel about seven miles wide.”

As the man did not go on, Ned asked: “How do the French and the Dutch get on, sharing an island?”

Hoskins grinned. “About as well as you could expect: until any trouble comes over the horizon, they cooperate as little as possible. The Dutch own the southern half, the French the northern. A ridge of mountains cuts the island in half the other way, so it’s really a bun divided into quarters.

“Anguilla is as flat as St Martin is mountainous. Flat as the pot lid I was talking about. Still, St Martin has some decent anchorages – off the village of Marigot on the north side; then on the south side there’s Simson Bay (got its name from an Englishman who owned a plantation there, I shouldn’t wonder) and a larger anchorage on the south-east corner with a reef protecting it. Very dangerous, both of ’em, when the wind goes south or west. Get embayed in a blow and you drag up on to the beach.”

“All this is very interesting,” Ned said, “but I’m baking standing here in this sun, and you two must be thirsty.”

“Aye, we are that,” said Hoskins, who seemed to accept that his mate did not speak.

Ned led the way to the tent where Mrs Judd presided over what was somewhat grandiosely called the kitchen.

“‘Ello,” she said to Ned, eyeing the two strangers suspiciously, “what have you brought in? Not two rough sailors, I ’ope. I’ve got my reputation to think of.”

“If we’d thought of that we’d have brought two dozen,” Thomas said. “Ask our worthy friends what they want to drink, and offer them something to eat. Larks’ tongue, nightingales’ liver, unicorns’ kidneys – whatever you happen to have at hand: they’re not fussy.”

“Boucanned beef or salt snapper, that’s all we’ve got. Hot waters, o’ course. Bread won’t be ready for half an hour; that’s a right fussy oven Saxby’s built me – won’t draw in this wind. Must ’ave found a load of special cold bricks.
And
,” she added crossly, “the dogs piddled on the charcoal, so it’s ’ard to get it started. What I’d give for an ’undredweight of proper sea coal.”

Hoskins looked nervously at Ned. “I’m sure we don’t want to be any trouble to the lady,” he said.

“Oh, don’t worry, Mrs Judd’s just serving you the first course. Once she’s had her grumble, you’ll get a good meal.”

“Dunno why I let Saxby talk me into coming up ’ere,” Mrs Judd growled. “Reckon it’s because ’e ’ates sleeping alone.”

Hoskins eyed her more carefully as she turned away to the table which half filled the tent. “Who is Saxby?” he asked Ned.

“A jealous man. Handy with a knife, though… Now,” Ned said firmly, leading the men to the second tent which served as a canteen, “what have you been kind enough to ride all the way from Port Royal to tell us?”

“Oh, yes, well, this channel ’twixt Anguilla and St Martin, it’s only seven miles wide, you understand?”

“Yes, so you told us. Coast flat on the Anguilla side to the north, mountainous on the French side to the south.”

“S’right,” Hoskins said. “Shallow, too. Four an’ five fathoms in the middle, but a lot less at the sides.”

“Indeed?” Ned said, wondering how long his patience would last. “Shallow, eh? Ships could accidentally run aground.” He thought of the low ground on Anguilla, and the fact that it was the last of the chain, except for Sombrero, which was a barren rock. “Sandy bottom, I suppose. Once you’re aground, you’re stuck, if you happen to be running before a brisk Trade wind.”

“Ah, you’ve guessed!” Hoskins exclaimed happily and, turning to his mate, said: “See, Mr Yorke’s guessed! You don’t get made the Admiral of the Brethren for nothing, just like I told you.” He turned to Ned, grinning broadly. “Well, then, that’s worth something, isn’t it?”

Ned frowned, puzzled by the man’s eagerness. “So far, you’ve described two islands and the channel between, and I’ve guessed that the channel is shallow. But neither I nor the Brethren give a damn; as far as we’re concerned–”

“But the treasure!” the mate said suddenly.

Hoskins looked crestfallen. “Sorry, Mr Yorke, I’ve forgotten the important part. One of they Spanish plate galleons is stuck hard aground just off Marigot. They – that’s the French – think she’s laden, but she’s got more than enough guns to drive off anything the French can bring up – trading sloops, fishing boats, canoes they use for conch diving… I don’t reckon the French have a dozen muskets, let alone cannon. But that Don’s there until his mates find him – or he breaks up in a gale o’ wind. He’s beginning to pound already. Leastways, he was when we left.”

“When was that?”

“Just eight days ago. As soon as we heard what had happened we sailed for here.”

“Hmm, you were sailing for Jamaica anyway,” Thomas said. “Did you hear about it at St Martin?”

“Well, no,” Hoskins admitted. “We were at St Kitts. That was our last place: we weren’t carrying nothing to St Martin this time.”

“Oh, so you haven’t actually seen this galleon?” Ned asked.

“Not actually
seen
her, Mr Yorke, but we know the channel well enough. Look, I can draw you a chart, with soundings.”

“Very well, I’ll get you some writing materials. But eat first – sit down in here and Mrs Judd will feed you. I want to talk with Sir Thomas, then we’ll come back for the chart.”

As soon as they left the tent and walked over to shelter from the sun under the shade of a tamarind tree, Ned said: “A
plate
ship? What on earth would she be doing in
that
channel? If she’s laden for Spain, she’s hundreds of miles too far south…”

“And if she isn’t laden with plate she’s bound
from
Spain to the Main laden with needles and cotton, pots and pans for the worthy Spanish citizens waiting along the Main,” Thomas said. “In which case she was probably chancing her arm, and taking a short cut to Cartagena through the Anegada Passage. She’d only have to be twenty miles too far south – likely enough after three and a half thousand miles across the Atlantic – and she’d land up just where she is.”

“The Spanish pilot could hardly make a mistake like that,” Ned pointed out. “That’s the only place with such a narrow channel with high land to larboard and low to starboard. The Anegada’s further north and seventy miles wide!”