Corsair (21 page)

The men normally went barefoot in the ship and they now brought out the boots they would wear when they went on shore. Most were simply strips of leather which covered the foot and were then stitched so that they stayed in place. Once fitted, a boot stayed on until the owner had no more need for it, when the stitching was cut and the leather strip put away until wanted again.

The men started sewing on their boots as it became dark. As usual in the Tropics the light went quickly: no sooner had the sun slipped below the horizon than the darkness spread in from the east. With the last of the light Ned inspected the coast ahead yet again. Cliffs in shadow on the left, land flat on the right, a town in the middle: if it was not Santa Lucia it was its double and anyway would serve the purpose.

The stars which had come out even as the sun went down now brightened; the clouds and sea turned grey; distances became hard to judge. The buccaneer ships seemed to get closer to each other; the
Peleus
and
Phoenix
were almost within hailing distance.

The next few hours are the dangerous ones, Ned thought; every man is getting excited, and it is the time when ships collide in the dark. It is a strange thing that on an ordinary night passage thirty ships can sail along in company and there will be no danger of collision. But those same ships heading for a town they are going to raid may well collide with each other, as though excitement affected judgement.

There was a candle in the binnacle now, lighting up the compass, and the quartermaster was watching it like a hawk. With the
Griffin
heading directly for the distant town, Ned had read off the bearing and now with a small allowance for the current, the
Griffin
was sailing a direct course, with the rest of the ships following.

Now time was dragging for Ned. He went below to have his supper with Aurelia, and then came back on deck. There was just the creak of the yard, the occasional flap of the mainsail, and the hissing of the bow wave with an odd thump as an extra large wave hit the side of the ship.

An hour before midnight he thought he could just distinguish the cliffs on the side of the bay: a dark sliver on an even darker horizon. Ned looked, turned his head and looked back again. The sliver was still there, in the same place. Lobb was the next to see it, and then Aurelia. A comparison with the course they were steering put it beyond doubt: Santa Lucia – if that was the name of the place – was dead ahead, about six miles…

It was curious how in the darkness the ship seemed to slide through the water: almost as if the ship remained stationary and the water was drawn past it. Ned paced up and down the deck, constantly looking over the bow, and when the bay appeared beyond any doubt he was surprised at the speed the
Griffin
must have been making.

There were the cliffs, now very close on the larboard bow, and he stood on a gun to get a better view over the bow. Close astern the
Peleus
and the
Phoenix
kept station; astern of them, just a group of black blobs, the rest of the buccaneers followed. Followed the
Griffin
, Ned reflected: if he sailed on to a reef, the chances were that the whole fleet would follow, unless it was a very small reef.

Ned shook his head impatiently: he had led the buccaneers into various strange places at night without any problems, so why was he getting nervous about Santa Lucia? If he was honest with himself, he admitted, he was no more nervous now than he usually was: it was about this time that he wanted to turn the
Griffin
away and call the whole thing off. Leadership, he thought ruefully, is not a question of not being nervous; it just means that you learn not to show it.

Thank goodness the cliffs were on the west side of the bay; if they were on the east side they would blanket the wind which, instead, blew gently across the flat land on the eastern side. Santa Lucia was perfectly placed to be raided from seaward – providing there were no isolated rocks scattered about the bay.

He watched as Lobb brought the ship another point to starboard, so that she headed directly for the town, and Ned estimated they were well into the bay: the first of the cliffs were now on the larboard quarter; he thought he could distinguish the seaward end of the flat land on the starboard beam. He tried to estimate the distance to the town. It was difficult in the darkness, although some clouds shifted for a few moments, allowing starlight to show a thin line where waves were breaking on the beach in front of the town. A mile? Less.

“They’re ready with the anchor?” he asked Lobb.

“Ready, sir,” Lobb answered patiently.

Ned looked astern again. The
Griffin
’s two boats were towing astern, having been hoisted out half an hour ago, and they were throwing up a glow of phosphorescence. Yes, and he could just make out the
Peleus’
bow wave in the darkness. He had noticed in the past how the water was often phosphorescent in patches. What on earth caused it? On a night like this it seemed eerie.

“We’ll go in under headsails,” Ned told Lobb, who gave orders to clew up the mainsail. Three quarters of a mile to the beach, perhaps less. And there was the smell of the land: a mixture of rotting cabbage and herbs, with a hint of damp earth… He heard the occasional squawk of some land bird and then the bark of a disconsolate dog. No shouts of alarm, no challenges, no pealing bells raising the alarm. The town slept.

In a way it was unfair, Ned mused: Santa Lucia was an innocent town, chosen by chance. But then the five villages set ablaze by the Spaniards on Jamaica had been innocent, too; their inhabitants had been fisherfolk and people farming the land nearby, people caught up in a Spanish decision to attack the island. They were innocent people in the Jamaica villages; they were innocent people in Santa Lucia. It was always the innocent who suffered – but then who was not innocent? In Cuba, perhaps everyone except the Viceroy…

There was a grating noise under the keel and the
Griffin
came to a stop. Even before Ned had time to register that they had gone aground the
Peleus
was passing on one side and the
Phoenix
on the other, showing that the ship was hung up on an isolated rock, not a reef, so that the rest of the ships could pass her on either side. But how many more isolated rocks were there, waiting hidden below the water ready to strand or hole an unsuspecting ship?

“I think we ran on it to starboard,” Ned told Lobb. “We’ll heel her to larboard and see if she comes off. Hoist up one of the boats by the yardarm, and run the guns over to the other side.”

But it all takes time, he cursed: time in which the rest of the buccaneer fleet will have anchored and sent their men ashore. Hurriedly men cast off the breechings and train tackles of the guns on the starboard side and began to haul them over to larboard, the trucks rumbling on the deck. More men pulled one of the boats round while others scrambled up the rigging and out along the yard, reeving a tackle to hoist the boat.

“Will that be enough weight?” Lobb asked anxiously. “This wind isn’t strong enough to help heel us much.”

“As soon as we get the boat hoisted up we’ll set the mainsail and brace the yard sharp up,” Ned said. “If that doesn’t heel us enough, then we’ll have to start the water and pump it over the side to lighten the ship.”

But who was going to lead the raid on the port? Ned thought whether or not to take the remaining boat and hurry for the shore, but he realized that with the distance involved and the delay he would arrive after most of the boats had landed and that it would then be hopeless trying to take command of more than a thousand excited men. But for running up on this damnable rock the
Griffin
would now be at anchor and her boats would be the first to land on the beach, leaving him properly placed to lead.

So now it was up to Thomas, who was more than capable of taking charge. The
Peleus
had passed close enough for Thomas to see what had happened and he would have wasted no time in deciding what to do.

By now all the starboard side guns had been pushed and hauled over to larboard and the men who had rove the tackle were dangling the rope down to those in the boat, which was now directly under the end of the yard.

Ned went to the bulwark and watched the men feed the rope through the lifting eyebolts and, as soon as they stood back with the task completed, Ned called to the men at the tackle. “Hoist away…”

Should he have filled the boat with water? It was only a question of pulling the bung out and letting the boat flood, but a flooded boat might be too heavy, springing the yard or parting the tackle.

Slowly the boat jerked into the air, and once it was clear of the bulwarks Ned gave the order to set the mainsail and sheet it home.

With the guns on the larboard side, the boat added its weight at the end of the yard, levering the mast over to larboard. Now the mainsail caught the wind and, as the men hauled on the sheet and braces, helped heel the ship further to larboard.

What did you do during the attack on Santa Lucia? Well, actually I watched from the middle of the harbour because we ran aground… The last of the buccaneer ships had passed the stranded
Griffin
, heading for the beach, and not one of them had stranded.

Aurelia had noticed and she commented: “I think we hit the only rock in the whole harbour.”

“At least it didn’t hole us. Remind me to talk to the carpenter – he was quick to get below and sound the well. We’re not taking a drop of water so we’ve that much to be thankful for.”

As Ned and Lobb stood silent for a moment, watching the big mainsail belly in the wind, ghostly in the darkness, they felt the ship grunt, then grunt again as the keel slid across the rock. And then suddenly the
Griffin
was under way once more, sailing unrestrained.

Ned snapped at the helmsman and the
Griffin
turned towards the town. “We’re finished with the mainsail,” he told Lobb. “Back the headsails while we get the boat back in the water.”

He turned to the larboard side. “You men with the guns – get them back to starboard and secure the breechings and train trackles; if we roll they’ll go clean through the ship’s side.”

Once again the heavy wooden wheels on the gun carriages rumbled as the grunting men pulled and heaved them back into position, and then they crouched as they knotted the heavy rope through the eyebolts fitted to the ship’s side.

The boat was lowered back into the water, the tackle was cast off and men with the painter began to haul it aft. Ned called them to leave it alongside: the moment the
Griffin
was properly anchored, he intended to get ashore.

The headsails were sheeted home and the
Griffin
once again stretched towards the town. It was hard to see the beach for anchored ships, and Ned cursed: he would not be able to anchor close in, and that meant he would be even later in landing. The devil take that rock!

Lobb gave the order to ease the helm as the
Griffin
slipped past one of the buccaneer ships, and quickly followed that with instructions to luff up to avoid another anchored just beyond.

“Don’t go in any closer,” Ned said. “We’ll anchor here.”

With most of the buccaneers now ashore, judging from the boats Ned could see on the beach, there was no need to avoid shouting orders, and after a bellow from Lobb the headsails slid down the stays and the
Griffin
slowly turned head to wind.

Lobb ran to the ship’s side to see when the way had come off her and gave another bellow, which was followed by the splash of the anchor and the sound of the cable coursing through the hawsehole.

Ned hitched at his cutlass and pushed at the two pistols stuck in his belt. He jumped up on to the bulwark above the boat and shouted to the nearest men to join him.

A couple of minutes later he was seated on a thwart while the men fitted the oars into the rowlocks. He heard Aurelia call something and answered with a reassuring hail. Now the men began rowing briskly, and at that moment Ned heard the tolling of a church bell: the Spaniards were raising the alarm. How far had the buccaneers got?

The boat’s keel grated on the sand and Ned leapt out. There were many boats on the beach, like great fish tossed up by the sea. The sand was hard and Ned held up his cutlass as he ran towards the tolling bell and the yelling of the buccaneers who had already landed. The men who had been rowing followed him, by now shouting with excitement.

That damned bell! It would get everyone excited and he could just see the church tower above the roof tops. He ran along one street and then turned into another, seeing the white-painted church on the far side of a small
plaza
, which was already teeming with men.

Drawing his cutlass he flung open the church door and ran in. A few moments later he found the bellringer: a man in his nightshirt ringing with something approaching a frenzy. “Stop!” Ned ordered in Spanish but the man was oblivious, apparently hauling in panic. Ned slashed at the bellrope above the man’s head and the bell rang once more as the man tugged and collapsed. The bellrope flicked back and forth for a few moments and Ned decided to leave the man – priest or sexton? – slumped where he was, still holding on to a few feet of bellrope.

By now he had been joined by several of the buccaneers, who ran to the altar looking for gold ornaments and candlesticks. Ned left the church and walked over to the nearest house, banging on the door with the hilt of his cutlass.

A woman asked what he wanted in a voice trembling with fear. “Where does the mayor live?” he demanded.

“On the other side of the
plaza
– a double gate beside the big tree!”

Ned turned and ran across the
plaza
, calling to the buccaneers.

The mayor refused to come to the door of his house and the buccaneers soon smashed it in. Ned led them into the house and eventually found their quarry hiding under a big table in what seemed to be the dining room.