Galleon (13 page)

“Think of that dam’ haze,” Thomas reminded him. “Sometimes you can see only a couple of miles. Or at night. They don’t realize how far ahead of their reckoning they are. Scared maybe of getting too far north because of the Horseshoe Reef at the end of Anegada. Then – no breakers, no warning: the ship just slows up and stops. The leadline tells you you’re hard aground on sand – and a brisk following wind telling you there isn’t much chance of getting off.”

“Very well, if she’s come from Spain laden with ‘needles and cotton, pots and pans’, as you suggested and she’s nine hundred miles to windward of us, then I for one am not interested!”

“Ah yes, Ned, but supposing she was making a bolt for it
the other way
, from Cartagena to Spain; just think, instead of risking the weather by rounding Cuba and calling at Havana before beating out through the Bahamas, and then up past Somers Island and over to the Azores…”

“You mean she’d break out into the Atlantic at Anguilla to face a couple of thousand miles of brisk head winds! No fear, they’re not that mad!”

“I didn’t mean that. Just that she’d risk getting out into the Atlantic through the Anegada and then turn north until she’s level with Somers Island. Then she’d be on the normal track of the homeward-bound galleons but she’d have avoided all the risks sailing past here and then round Cuba and the Bahamas.”

Ned turned and faced Thomas, nodding his head slowly. “My lord bishop, imagine yourself the captain of this wretched galleon laden with silver ingots, gold cobs and gems by the sackful. Are you dodging the enemy or the difficult navigation?”

“Well, mainly the enemy, of course, but–”

“But
there’s no enemy now
! Remember Spain has just signed a treaty of peace with our newly restored King, so the Dons have ensured the English heretics won’t attack their plate fleets any more.”

“But the heretics don’t have ships of war out here anyway!”

“Indeed they don’t, so the Dons are probably sure they have nothing to fear. Their ambassador to the Court of St James will have reported to Madrid already that the new Governor of Jamaica was sent out with orders to cancel all the privateers’ commissions and start a trade with the Main–”

“Which the Dons know they won’t allow!”

“Which the Dons won’t allow, yes, but they haven’t yet told the English King they won’t allow it! So, my lord bishop, from the Spanish point of view now is a very good time to send off a galleon laden with plate! And to send it by the shortest route because the English Court has already agreed to stop privateering. If you were the King of Spain – or, since he is a busy fellow, his Minister of Finance, desperate to pay off those importunate Italian and Austrian bankers – wouldn’t you send out a frigate or something to Cartagena, telling them to hurry over a galleon with as much plate as she can carry?”

“Why only one, Ned? The Dons aren’t short of silver on the Main!”

“No, but they’re short of ships. Supposing this was the only galleon in Cartagena that was seaworthy?” A sudden thought struck him. “Supposing, my lord bishop, that’s why the Viceroy has called in all the large trading vessels around his coast? Supposing he is going to use them to carry more plate to Spain because the Dons in Spain can’t afford to fit out the galleons and the
flota
because the money to repair ships and buy sails and cordage is still on the Main, still in ingots of gold and silver, useless until it arrives in Spain?”

Thomas suddenly grabbed Ned by his coat. “And think, Ned, these are the very ships the Brethren have gone off to capture – before they get to Cartagena!”

“Yes,” Ned said calmly, “it’s called ‘Cutting your nose off to spite your face’.”

“It’s too late to stop them, I suppose, but they’ll go mad when they realize the ships would have been loaded with plate if only they’d waited…”

“Well, we can’t do anything about it, so let’s find out whether we’re talking sense or just daydreaming.”

Thomas looked puzzled. “How do we do that?”

“By asking a question we should have asked at the beginning.”

Thomas took off his hat and scratched his head. “What’s the question and who should we ask?”

“We ask Hoskins which way the galleon was going when she ran aground. Was she coming westward into the Caribbean from Spain – or was she beating her way out eastwards into the Atlantic heading for Spain?”

The galleon had been going eastward, towards Spain. She had gone aground in Potence Bay, just east of the village of Marigot, because she stood on too far (Hoskins had heard that just a ship’s length would have made all the difference) before tacking towards Anguilla. Seamen watching from the village reckoned she was making all of eight knots at the time, running up on hard sand and then slewing round to head west as they tried to tack, so that her stern dragged over a small shoal of rocks, damaging the rudder.

“You didn’t mention the rudder before,” Ned commented crossly.

“What difference does it make?” Hoskins asked, aggrieved. “I told you she was hard aground and there was no chance of getting her off. I can’t tell you all the damage. There may not be any more; still, having a broken rudder – and probably unable to rig a jury one – is bad enough. But did those rocks stove in some planks as well? For all I know she might be resting on the bottom, her holds full of water. Usually hard to tell from a distance whether a ship aground will float off or she’s holed. Only a few inches rise of tide, you realize.”

“We know all that,” Thomas growled, “but be sure there’s nothing else of importance you’ve forgotten. Is she in range of French batteries?”

“There’s only a small fort on the top of a hill at the seaward side of the village of Marigot. Not even a fort, really; just a built-up battery. Perhaps a couple of guns. Never heard tell of them being fired, and I first saw the battery at least twenty-five years ago, when I were a boy, so I reckon the termites have weakened the platform so much by now no one’d dare walk on it, let alone put match to a gun.”

Ned nodded, and waved a piece of paper. “You’re sure of the soundings you’ve put on this chart?”

“Yes – that’s the channel I always follow when I anchor off Marigot. We come in from the west and go out by the west, that’s why there aren’t soundings beyond into Potence Bay, where the galleon’s stranded.”

“I noticed that,” Ned said. “By the way, you know what Potence Bay means in English?”

Hoskins shook his head. “Haven’t concerned myself with it.”

“Don’t,” Ned said drily, “it means ‘Gallows Bay’.”

“Well, sir, you going after him?”

It’s curious, Ned noted, how the English always referred to their own ships as “her”, while enemy vessels became “him”. Certainly Latins usually referred to their own ships as male, so was there any significance in the fact that the English considered their own female? Did Englishmen not wage war on females, even in the guise of ships of war?

“Most of the Brethren have sailed,” Ned said.

“I saw three at anchor off Port Royal,” Hoskins said.

“My
Griffin
, Sir Thomas’
Peleus
and Saxby’s
Phoenix
. Hardly a match for a galleon, even if it is aground. And the French in Marigot might feel they have a claim on her.”

“They can claim all they like,” Hoskins said contemptuously, “but the only way they’d ever capture her is to starve out the Dons, and that’d take months because she’s provisioned for Spain.”

“You think we should anchor round her, just out of gunshot, and start a siege?” Thomas asked sarcastically.

Hoskins flushed and said: “There must be a way, Sir Thomas. I have only thirty men, otherwise I’d try myself.”

“Look,” Ned said, “you’d better start off back to Port Royal, otherwise you’ll get benighted. Thank you for the information. If we go after her and get her treasure, I promise you’ll get a look in.”

“How much?”

Thomas growled: “How do we know, until we capture her? Anyway, it’ll be more than you deserve! Mr Yorke is very generous. If we take our three ships, that’s three captains. You won’t even smell powder or take any risks!”

“Supposing the rest of the buccaneers come back in time to go with you, what then?”

“Then you still get a reward. You’d still be a rich man, judging from our last purchases, but don’t worry,” Thomas said, “they won’t be back in time.”

Sitting at the table in the tent which served as a canteen, listening to the saw (which sounded like a bull spasmodically gasping for breath) and the chinking of maul and chisel against stone as the masons faced up the rock, Ned smoothed out the chart drawn by Hoskins.

With a finger Thomas traced round the edge of a soup stain on the bare wood of the table. “It’s a temptation, Ned.”

“We need a pair of scales. Put the chances of treasure in one pan, and the consequences on the other.”

“Never been much of a person for worrying about consequences, Ned; nor have you.”

“Not until now. This time the consequences could be much more serious. Officially we’re at peace with Spain, so if you and I and Saxby go off and deliberately attack a Spanish plate ship, we’re probably guilty of treason because we’re waging war on a friendly nation. Certainly we’d never be able to return to Jamaica.”

“I see what you mean,” Thomas said. “The women would lose their houses.”

“That, and the fact we’ve a monarchy again. I always thought of Cromwell and his Roundheads as a passing phase: the English would eventually get over him, like recovering from a nasty disease you caught from a passing beggar. It all took a dozen years, but now the King is back; England’s a monarchy once again. But if we’re forbidden to enter every acre the King rules because we’re accused of treason, it won’t change in our lifetime. Exiles for the rest of our lives. Where shall we spend our old age, Thomas?”

Thomas grimaced but said: “You’re quite right, Ned, but don’t forget what’s in the other pan of the scales. How much plate do we need for a lifetime? How much plate does a galleon carry?”

“A lot more that we can stow in our three ships, but where could we sell it? We’d end up like the Dons, tons of silver but we can’t use a penny of it.”

“Well, Ned, although I can’t speak for Aurelia I’m damned sure Diana will agree with me: let’s first try to get our hands on the plate. We can start worrying about the consequences if we have some silver and gold stowed in the holds! After all, here we’re only leaving–” he gestured towards the site of Ned’s house, “–the trenches we’ve dug for the foundations and a few sawn planks and faced stones. If I can exchange them for my share of a Spanish galleon, old Loosely’s welcome to mine. Don’t forget Loosely’s only the first of a string of fools to be Governor here – even if the King isn’t giving the island back to Spain.”

“I’ve just realized that your share might be the whole lot,” Ned said ruefully. “The
Griffin
can’t sail at the moment: you remember there was that soft patch in the mast? Just before we left Port Royal I told Lobb to make a new mast and step it…”

“So first he’s got to find the tree, fell it, lop it, get it carried down to Port Royal for the men to shape it up with adzes, fit the ironwork for the topmast… Three weeks?”

“At least,” Ned said lamely. “I’m sorry, Thomas, but with all the rest of the ships sailing for Tortuga, I thought we’d have at least a couple of months to get the houses built, and it seemed a good time for Lobb to do the mast work. He’s a good man,” Ned added, “he won’t waste time once he’s started.”

“You weren’t to know about this galleon,” Thomas said. He reached across and took the chart, and then he looked squarely at Ned. “Supposing I go up there with the
Peleus
? I can have a good look round and rattle the bars loud enough to keep everyone quiet until you arrive. After all, by now the Dons might already have patched themselves up enough to escape. We’ll find out how Lobb’s getting on before I sail; then we can arrange a rendezvous so that if I find the Dons
have
gone, I can meet you and save you going all the way.”

Ned nodded. “Very well, then. Take Saxby and the
Phoenix
, and I’ll follow as soon as I can.”

Thomas held up his hand. “No, let Saxby stay with you. The
Phoenix
will only slow me down, and you can use every one of her men (and Mrs Judd) to help Lobb’s crowd. There won’t be any action until the
Griffin
and the
Phoenix
arrive, I promise you that.”

“Let’s go and tell Saxby and the women,” Ned said. “Diana is the only one who’ll be smiling…” He looked round the site. “So now all the sawyers and masons and carpenters are going back to being sailors. I don’t think many will mind much.”

He saw Aurelia walking towards them. She had seen Hoskins and his silent mate ride off and now, knowing she would not be interrupting any conference, she was coming to find out the reason for the strangers’ visit.

Thomas listened while Ned explained because he wanted to describe to Diana all the details of Aurelia’s reaction. Aurelia’s final comment left Ned dumbfounded and Thomas laughing.

“Thank goodness. I’m sick of being eaten by mosquitoes and stabbed by sandflies, and I’m tired of the grating and grunting of that saw and the way the masons have to peck, peck at the stone, like a
pic
. How do you say – like a woodpecker!”

In the shimmering heat the four of them rode the length of the Palisades, the long spit of sand and scrub on which Port Royal was built and which formed the south side of the great anchorage. They led such a motley crowd of tanned and bearded men, dressed in little more than rags (none was going to wear decent clothes while working as a labourer on shore), that Ned turned to Thomas.

“There’s a man called Falstaff in one of Shakespeare’s plays that I saw at a playhouse near the White Hart, in Southwark, when I was a boy. Falstaff is pressing men to be soldiers but careful to take a good percentage of men who’ll bribe him well to let them go free. He says: ‘I have misus’d the King’s press damnably’, and grumbles because the quality of the men is so poor, blaming ‘the cankers of a calm world and a long peace’. Looking back at my rogues,” Ned commented, “I can see that the cankers of building a house and a long time away from the ship have made them soft!”