Mistress of the Sea (37 page)

The men were nervous. They twitched and cowered, glancing around furtively. Kit could not tell whether they were English or Spanish. They wore the loose slops of mariners, and they were alone, without any slaves, but their jabbering made no sense to him. He edged closer through the undergrowth, sliding around rocks, keeping silent.

Peering out from the forest, he saw the backs of the men, only steps away from him, and the grassland before them, dipping steeply to the river. There were scores of mules in the pasture, mostly bunched up in strings, though packsaddles and crates lay scattered around them. But what drew his attention was the bundle near the men. It was a body, he realised, when he focused on the shape: a man injured, and not dead, who raised blood-stained fingers to flick feebly at the gathering insects. What had happened to him and all the mules left abandoned? Had there been an attack? One of the jittery men waved at the flies, but a moment later he turned to stare across the lowland. Suddenly, with a guttural cry, he pulled his friend down into the grass. Kit could hear snatches of their agitated conversation, enough to convince him that they were neither English nor Spanish, though their way of talking stirred distant memories. Then he realised the
men
must be French, having come across their language in Plymouth years before. So he kept still and quiet, and let the ants crawl over his skin.

The wounded man made a gurgling noise but gradually that faded. He did not answer when the Frenchmen spoke to him, and his hands were limp when they raised his arms. Were they going to carry him? Kit thought that they might until they darted away down the slope. After that, he supposed the wounded man was dead. The Frenchmen ran off into the forest, heading east.

What he saw next almost made Kit run as well.

There was movement: a dark ripple in the distance that suggested a crowd was approaching, and dust above it making the details hazy. Kit crept in shadow towards a gap in the vegetation. He looked along the valley; then he was certain. There were soldiers marching south from the direction of the city: men carrying pikes and lances – a troop led by a horseman. No Englishman would have a horse. The soldiers were probably Spanish. He should flee, but something held him. He searched for signs of the possibility he could not dismiss – that Englishmen might be linked with what he could see of a recent attack. He kept silent and peered out.

The horseman cantered past the milling strings of mules. He rode straight-backed and proud. He was a
caballero
, Kit was sure; he caught sight of the man’s helmet: a curved and plumed morion, his cuirass and slashed sleeves. Behind him was an army of footmen, maybe a hundred soldiers, many of them with firearms. The
caballero
dismounted and cut at something in the grass. What? Kit strained to look. The soldiers trooped on. One of them
raised
a lance. Impaled on it was a head. The horseman pointed east, bellowing orders, sending half of the footmen at a fast pace into the forest. The rest spread around the mules, collecting up the baggage.

Kit crouched motionless. All at once he heard the rumble of hooves. He turned to see the
caballero
emerging from the valley side. The horseman galloped towards him and charged past, only slowing when he reached the wounded man. Kit ducked down. The Spaniard reined round his horse and dismounted merely paces away, near enough for Kit to see the thick, black line of his scowling brow – a line without break over the Spaniard’s nose. Then the scowl transformed into a smile. The smile broadened as the Spaniard gave the wounded man a kick.

Was he alive? Kit stared. The wounded man lay inert, but Kit thought he could hear a faint gurgling, the same kind of sucking he had noticed before. The
caballero
took out a handkerchief and held it to his mouth. As he spoke he poked at the man with the pointed toe of his boot.

‘
De dónde viene usted?
Who are you? English?
Vous êtes Français?
’

The wounded man wheezed.

The Spaniard raised his boot, and then brought it down hard onto the wounded man’s belly.

‘Your friends. Where are they?
Dónde están?
’

Kit shut his eyes, but he could hear. The Spaniard was shouting, ‘Where?’
Dónde está el tesoro? Où est-il?
’

Kit could hear squelching mixed with screeching, sounds that set his teeth grinding. He clutched the hilt of his machete and looked again. The wounded man’s hands were waving, clawing at
the
horseman’s boot, hands covered in blood. Kit saw them clearly above the grass, and the twisting of the Spaniard’s foot.

‘The treasure. Where is it?’

Kit swallowed bile and crouched lower, unable to get away because a horde of soldiers were advancing, rushing up and crowding round. He could see the sweat on their glowering faces. One of them turned his way. Kit shrank back.

The soldier approached.

When Kit peered out again, he glimpsed the wounded man’s white hair through a curtain of thorny creepers. The nearest soldier had turned aside. Further off were others. He caught sight of men pulling at a rope, gabbling and panting, marching on up the hill. With trembling fingers, Kit parted the spiny stems before him. He saw the soldiers more clearly, and the
caballero
giving orders. They formed the semblance of a column that proceeded almost to the forest edge. At the end of the rope was a man, noosed by the neck, hands tied behind his back. Soldiers were goading him, poking at his buttocks with halberds and pikes. He was one of the Frenchmen; Kit recognised his loose slops. The soldiers marched nearer. Kit tensed. Only feet away from his hiding place, the prisoner was dragged beneath a tree.

Kit watched; he could not get away without attracting attention. The
caballero
shouted, bellowing questions as before, and though the wounded man was silent, the man under the tree began to shriek, gabbling at the top of his voice.

‘
La rivière. La rive. Non! Pitié!
. . .’

They must have heard him, known he was French, understood what he was saying, though the man could not point. He could do nothing with his arms because they were being pulled over his
head,
still tied behind his back, bound at the wrist. They were being yanked up and up by a rope looped over a branch, and Kit could hear his bones cracking once the man’s feet were off the ground, and his shrill screams and garbled pleading. Yet the lifting went on. It continued until the man swung, dangling from bulging joints, and he had vomited and soiled himself, and Kit could no longer look. He clutched at the creepers and clenched his fists over the thorns, turned his eyes to the white-haired wounded man, and hoped he was dead.

But he was not.

While the
caballero
carried on shouting, the wounded man moved his hand. Kit saw his fingers twitching in the folds of his cape, all red, slick with blood. The screams rose in pitch. Kit glanced back to the torture, in the shadows very near. The
caballero
yelled louder. Kit grasped his machete. The screams cut into his thoughts, cleaving his sense. He could not reason beyond where he was: trapped in a horror he had to bring to an end – act fast and move. The wounded man was spluttering. Blood sprayed from his mouth. He drew a pistol from under his cape.

‘
Bâtard!
’

Kit was poised to charge the moment the pistol fired. He froze. The
caballero
staggered back, falling heavily against his men. Through the thinning smoke Kit saw him clutching his arm, and he understood next what the
caballero
must have said, though he could not have heard. The Frenchman never stopped screaming until the rope was lowered and someone severed his throat. Then a soldier with a broadsword marched over to the wounded man, slashed down twice, and held up his head.

Men were running. Kit recoiled, vision swimming. He groped
through
the undergrowth, heedless of the noise he was making. Who would hear? Soldiers were scrambling down the slope and spreading out across the pasture. Kit saw them from between the trees. They stumbled down the riverbanks and around the gravel islands, digging and delving, churning up the sediment, burrowing in the riverbed like maggots over meat. Before long they began prizing out bars from the sludge: heavy ingots caked in thick red mud. But Kit looked away. He had spotted the
caballero
.

The
caballero
’s right arm was bound with a cloth. He handled the reins in his left, but his back was straight. Kit willed him to lose his limb and die by slow degrees, but the way the man rode gave no sign that was likely. Behind him marched three lancers each bearing a spiked head: one was a Negro’s and one was white-haired; the other was that of the Frenchman whose body now lay in quarters.

Kit brought his hands to his face. They were bleeding and shaking. He looked.

Another horseman was approaching, coming down from the road and proceeding across the pasture. He advanced before a large crowd, mostly slaves as far as Kit could tell: servants in rough clothes. The new horseman was dressed finely with a silk sash across his chest. When he reached the
caballero
he did not dismount first, but waited for the
caballero
to walk over to him and bow; only then did he alight.

Kit could not follow their talking; they were too far away. The noises he heard were of frantic digging mixed with splashing, cries from the work across the riverbed, and the rushing in his ears from the pounding of his pulse. But he saw. He saw the wounded
caballero
stand rigid while the man with the sash pointed to the
severed
heads behind him and then reached for the
caballero’s
sword. No one opposed him. The lancers did not move. The sword was taken, angled against the ground, firmly trodden on and levered until it broke. Kit supposed the
caballero
had been stripped of rank. Kit prayed the man’s punishment would be worse. He watched as the hilt was returned with a stilted flourish, first to the
caballero’s
right hand, then to his left. The man had to be helped back on his horse. When he rode away, only the three lancers followed him. They passed through the crowd, heading north towards the city.

Kit shuddered and let out his breath. He clutched at his sides, and rocked back and forth. He turned to sink his sight within the deep forest shadows. He wanted to escape inside. Disappear into the shade. Go back to Ololade. But he would discover the truth. Had Englishmen been by the road? And if they had, would they return?

Whoever had buried the bars would be back for them.

21

Fear

‘. . . No time now to fear, but rather to hasten to prevent that which was feared! If the enemy have prevailed against our pinnaces, which God forbid! Yet they must have time to search them, time to examine the mariners, time to execute their resolution after it is determined. Before all these times be taken, we may get to our ships . . . !’

—
From the speech of Francis Drake, 3rd April 1573, on finding the Spanish in command of the mouth of the Río Francisco, where he had arranged for his land force to be picked up by English pinnaces, as reported in
Sir Francis Drake Revived,
compiled by Philip Nichols

‘
WHERE ARE THEY
?’

‘Gone . . .’

‘This is the day agreed?’

‘Aye, but they’re not here.’

The men were still carrying the saddlebags. They stood in a
thicket
on the ridge, gazing from the mangroves to the river mouth, muttering as Will joined them, and their stink was such that Will caught his breath. It was the stink of men who have sweated through two days on the run, soaked by storms, deprived of sleep, mired in the forest, each burdened by a load at least half his own weight. No one smelt good.

He stared at the water like everyone else, scanning the whole of the quiet creek, deserted save for a crocodile drifting slowly downstream. Then he felt the weight on his shoulders as if he was being dragged down by hands, but he stood doggedly and stared out to sea.

‘What’s that offshore?’

‘Not our pinnaces,’ someone answered.

‘Spanish shallops.’ Ox edged forward, and room was made for him since his eyes were keenest. ‘Six or seven vessels, maybe half a league away: a fleet riding outside the reef.’

‘Shit.’

‘Sweet bloody Jesus.’

A piping whine rose above a groundswell of oaths: ‘What if they come searchin’ for us?’

Will pointed to the mud beside a near stretch of river.

‘Look at those prints. I think the Spaniards have been here already.’

‘They won’t come back?’

Will shook his head. The way the ground was disturbed convinced him that the Spaniards had reached the place first: the banks of the Río Francisco had already been combed, and the question the men kept repeating was the one that screamed in his mind.

‘Where are our boats?’

There was no sign of them. Drake had two pinnaces left, and they should both have been waiting.

‘Taken!’ someone cried out. ‘The Spaniards have come looking for us and found them.’

‘God ’a mercy.’

‘Keep easy,’ Morrys said steadily. ‘Our boats may not yet have got here.’

Men began dropping their loads and falling where they stood: French as well as English, even the stolid Cimaroons. Whatever had happened to the pinnaces, they were not at the river mouth as planned. Will turned to see a mariner cursing and rubbing his eyes, a great strong man with thick dirt-stained fingers. Those nearest him looked away; others slumped down. Some hunched together, their fears magnified in the echoing.

‘If the Spaniards have taken the pinnaces, then they’ll make the men talk.’

‘They’ll find our ships.’

‘We’ll never get back.’

Will looked for Drake and saw him standing apart. He was alone, facing the river and Will supposed he was best left to his own quiet thoughts. Will pushed his hands under the straps that were digging into his shoulders, and only then wondered why he had not set his burden down. He took off the saddlebags, but felt no relief. In a burst of intense sunlight he watched steam rising from his clothes. His back and chest were at once cold. His legs ached, but he did not sit. He stared again at the river. He could not believe it – after so much toil, so much lost, after they had won the greatest victory, beaten the Spaniards and taken enough gold for
every
man to make his fortune. He had never considered that they might not escape. After the success of the ambush his confidence had been complete – he would return to Ellyn. He would show her the gold. His reward would be her delight. It was everything he had fought for. Throughout the hard marching his spirits had been high, never far from exultant, buoyed up by the conviction that the best prize awaited him: greeting Ellyn with the gold, the promise of wealth and rank, and that made all the sweeter for knowing his brother had been avenged. And there would have been even more satisfaction in proving his father wrong, showing he was worthy – in answering that last, hate-filled question: ‘What hast thou brought back?’ He would bring back gold. Now, at a stroke, he would be lucky to get away. He felt a rush of sudden dread. It could be even worse: the Spaniards might find Slaughter Island and get to Ellyn first.