Corsair (24 page)

“Sheer waste of time,” Luce said.

“Perhaps,” Ned said. “But I was curious about why our two ships had been captured, so I started asking a few questions of my own. I discovered that the Spanish were afraid that the ships would find out about some ship movements that had been going on. The Spanish on the Main have just been reinforced by more ships from Spain.”

“Just gossip, that’s all that is. Gossip you picked up from the taverns.”

“No, not gossip,” Ned said. “The man who told me was the governor of the province.”

“I don’t believe you,” Luce said flatly. “The governor of the province isn’t going to gossip with any buccaneers who call.”

“Perhaps you would like to question him yourself?” Ned asked innocently.

“Are you suggesting that I go to Riohacha or Barranquilla, or wherever the governor lives?” Luce asked sarcastically.

“Oh no, nothing like that, you could question him here in this room, if you like, along with the bishop of the province.”

Luce looked at him wide-eyed. “This is not a joking matter, Mr Yorke.”

“I am not joking. Both the governor and the bishop are on board my ships. I took the precaution of picking them up when I was in Riohacha: they were both there on a visit.”

Luce’s sallow face was beginning to turn red. “Do you mean to say you have a
governor
out there in irons on board one of your stinking ships?”

“We can put him in irons if you like,” Ned said amiably, enjoying Luce’s outrage, “but I think he would prefer to be at large. And his ship smells as sweet as does this house.”

“Go and bring him over here at once!” Luce demanded.

Ned shook his head. “Oh no, I can’t do that. I take back my offer of letting you question him in this room: you can go out to the ship if you want to talk to him.”

“But the courtesies!” Luce snapped. “I must show him the courtesies due to a fellow governor. You wouldn’t understand, but–”

“He’s our hostage,” Ned interrupted. “There’ll be no courtesies – particularly since we found our captains chained up and unconscious in his prison.”

“I insist!” Luce said hotly. “Fetch him here at once!”

Ned put his hands flat on the table with a slow deliberation. Then he stared at Luce, holding his eyes until the man looked down at the table.

“You tell me that our commissions are cancelled,” Ned said, his voice quiet but each word spoken with chilly distinctness. “Yet you still think you can give us orders. Let me tell you, Your Excellency, the Spanish governor I have on board one of my ships means even less to me than you do, because he was responsible for torturing my captains. I’d cut his throat and toss his body over the side without a qualm. Not a qualm,” he repeated, “and strip his body first for any rings or gems to pay for his keep.”

“Don’t you dare harm a hair of his head,” Luce yelled. “Bring him over here at once! I insist!”

Ned looked at him coldly. “I tell you what. We’ll cut the throats of the governor, the bishop and the mayor of Riohacha – I forgot to tell you we have him too – and leave them on the end of the jetty. Then we’ll all be satisfied. You can play host – or gravedigger – to all three.”

Luce looked at Ned’s eyes and knew he was serious: this was no idle threat. “Why did you take them as hostages, then?”

“A precaution,” Ned said. “The ships that have come from Spain will be used for one of two things – the governor says he does not know which. Either they’ll be used to land Spanish troops here in Jamaica, or they’ll carry plate back to Spain.

“If they try to invade Jamaica, hostages might be useful. Especially,” Ned said brutally, “because the present governor of Jamaica is – capricious.”

“Don’t you call me capricious!” Luce exclaimed hotly. “I insist you show me respect.”

“But I have shown you respect,” Ned said. “I’ve considered you capricious – at least capricious – for a long time, but I have always been respectful: you must admit that.”

Luce was silent for some time, obviously thinking over what Ned had been saying. Finally he unexpectedly asked: “Which do you think it will be – a plate convoy or an attempt on this island?”

“An attempt on Jamaica,” Ned said without hesitation. “That’s what we have to guard against. If the Dons in fact send off a plate convoy instead, well and good; we’ll have lost nothing by being alert.”

“I disagree with you completely,” Luce announced, as though he had been considering the matter for a week and was now announcing it to a full legislative council meeting. “Obviously they are planning a plate convoy. The silver from Potosi has been piling up, and none of it is reaching Spain, where the government needs it. Why would they be bothered with an island like this?”

“Mainly because the only ships that could capture the convoy are based here,” Ned said evenly. “There’s no point in sailing a convoy that you know will be captured. If the Viceroy has any sense, he’ll secure Jamaica first, and then sail the convoy. Not just that convoy but as many as he likes, since he’d then have nothing to fear from Jamaica.”

“Nonsense,” said Luce, “you are just frightening yourself.” He gave his moustaches another tug, as if to make them flare out. “Well, Yorke, there we are: I want those commissions back, and I want the governor.”

The room seemed oppressively hot. “We’ll deliver both – to the end of the jetty,” Ned said ominously.

As soon as he realized what Ned had said, Luce went white; perspiration started to bead his forehead and upper lip. “You’d never harm that governor,” he said, but he clearly did not believe his own words.

Ned laughed melodramatically, decided the laugh was effective, and sniffed. “He’s just eating up food and drinking valuable water,” Ned said. “He’s just a nuisance to all of us. If what you say is true, the chances of using him as a hostage are remote. Why should we keep him?”

“But you – you can’t just murder him like that!”

Ned decided to risk another melodramatic laugh. “Can’t we?” he asked. “Governor, bishop and mayor – just carrion!”

“No, no,” Luce said desperately. “Just bring them over here. I’ll look after them. I don’t mind the cost,” he said eagerly. “It would be an honour.”

“Exactly,” Ned said. “That’s why we’ll keep ’em. We have the right attitude to Spanish governors and prelates!”

Thomas poured more rumbullion from the green, onion-shaped bottle and took a sip from his mug. “There’s no way that we are ever going to change old Loosely’s attitude: he just sits in his little office, shuts his eyes, and thinks that no one can see him.”

Ned said quietly: “Does it really matter what he does or thinks? The fact is that unless the buccaneers do something, there’s nothing to stop the Spaniards taking Jamaica if they feel like it.”

“It seems too damned unfair that the buccaneers have to repair the gaps left by the Privy Council or the governor,” Thomas complained. “The Privy Council care so little about the island they won’t even send out a frigate to help defend it, yet at the same time they think the buccaneers are naughty boys. And Loosely messes about with commissions as though he’s playing cards.”

“Yes, it’s unfair,” Ned said, “but we can’t change it. Anyway, we ignored Loosely’s demand for the ransom!”

“What on earth was that?” Diana asked.

Ned explained about the governor’s initial demand.

“The man’s mad!” Diana exclaimed. “He’ll soon start issuing letters of marque and charging for them.”

“Yes, the Port Royal buccaneering fee. But the only thing that would knock any sense into him would be a good fight. Seeing half a dozen Spanish ships anchoring off the Palisadoes and putting a thousand soldiers ashore, or something like that.”

“It’d be too late for him to get frightened then,” Aurelia pointed out. “They’d capture the whole island with a thousand men, wouldn’t they?”

“With no buccaneers to interfere, they could probably do it with five hundred. Take Port Royal, anyway, and whoever has Port Royal controls the whole island.”

“If only we knew what those extra Spanish ships were going to do,” Aurelia said. “Come here or go to Spain with plate.”

“If only we could be sure they were going to Spain with plate, we could get ready to capture them,” Thomas said. “It seems such a waste of time sitting here in Port Royal in case they should attack.”

“It’s not knowing that’s the trouble,” Diana said. “We’ve got to find out somehow.”

“That damned Spanish governor knows,” Ned growled. “I’m sure of that. We should fetch him over from the
Argonauta
and persuade him to talk.”

“How are you going to do that?” asked Diana.

“Tickle him – or burn the soles of his feet,” Thomas said grimly. “If he doesn’t know for certain, he can make a pretty shrewd guess.”

The more Ned thought about it, the more he was certain that Thomas was right. Sanchez would be in the Viceroy’s confidence: he would be one of the first to know that ships had arrived (almost certainly unexpectedly) from Spain, and be told what the Viceroy intended to do with them. So far Sanchez had protested that he did not know, but it was more likely that he not only knew but might well have been asked by the Viceroy for an opinion.

“Mind you,” Thomas said, “by now I should think the word has got out in a place like Cartagena, so if we had someone there he could find out if it’s a plate convoy or Jamaica.”

“It means going over there and capturing a coasting vessel,” Ned said.

“Secco would like to go,” Thomas said. “Any excuse to kill off a few more of his countrymen.”

“Very well,” Ned said decisively, “let’s do that. Ask Secco and question Sanchez again.”

“I’ll go on deck and tell Lobb to send boats for both of them,” Thomas said, emptying his mug of rumbullion. “Anything to get the taste of old Loosely out of my mouth.”

After he had left the saloon, Aurelia said: “I still think you are too hard on Sir Harold: he’s very new to the job, and you must make allowances.”

“But we
do
make allowances,” Ned said. “You only hear us describing what
he
says; what you don’t hear is Thomas and me explaining things. For instance, when he demanded the ransom this morning, I found myself explaining how the buccaneers operate: the costs, the sharing of the purchase and so on.”

“There you are! All this time and he doesn’t know how the buccaneers operate.”

“We’ve told him a dozen times,” Ned said patiently. “If it doesn’t suit his latest mad idea, he conveniently forgets.”

“You exaggerate!”

“No, I don’t,” Ned protested. “Why, this morning he said he did not need the buccaneers any more because there was no further threat to Jamaica. I had to point out that there was probably no more threat from Cuba, but what about the Main? Oh, don’t bother about the Main, says he, they’ve never attacked us.”

“What about Riohacha?” Diana asked.

“Yes, I then told him about Riohacha – and that we had the governor, bishop and mayor on board.” He laughed to himself at the thought of it.

“What’s so funny?” Aurelia inquired.

“The old fool’s first thought was to have the Spanish governor brought over to him as an act of courtesy! Pay his respects to a fellow governor!”

“What did you say to that?”

“I said we’d cut his throat without batting an eyelid and dump his body on the end of the jetty.”

“What effect did that have?”

“Oh, upset him no end. He probably thought it would offend the Dons – and we mustn’t do that!”

“So what happens now? Are you going to hand Sanchez over to Sir Harold?”

“No, we’re not,” Ned said emphatically. “Luce was also talking wildly about cancelling commissions again. At that point I decided we were on our own: what Sir Harold does or doesn’t do is no longer our concern. If we want to stay in Port Royal, then we defend it; if we want to go to Tortuga, we leave Jamaica to the Dons.”

“I must admit he tries one’s patience,” Aurelia said. “But you must seem a couple of wild men to him!”

“If he stopped to think, we’ve served him well. Why, when he had orders to start or force a trade with the Spaniards, who took old Heffer up to Santo Domingo? Luce hasn’t the wit to buy the three prizes we took at Grand Cayman so that he has some transport. Yet he has the money in the treasury – we know that since we put it there after the Portobelo raid. Damnation take it,” Ned exclaimed explosively, “since we first came here we’ve supplied the guns they’ve got in the batteries, and we’ve supplied the money and plate they have in the treasury. What would this island do for currency if we’d never raided Portobelo and brought back all that coin?”

“All right, all right,” Aurelia said, “I know all about that: I was there, too, remember?”

At that moment Thomas came back into the saloon. “The two boats have left. Tell me, Ned, how do you suggest we persuade this fellow Sanchez to talk?”

Ned grinned happily. “Your mention of burning the soles of his feet gave me an idea.”

“Which bit of his anatomy are you going to singe?”

“His pride. Being Spanish that’s his most sensitive possession. Just you wait and see.”

Ned was thankful that the saloon table was large. Sanchez sat against the bulkhead on the starboard side, with Thomas next to him, then Diana and Secco at the end. Ned sat against the bulkhead on the larboard side opposite Sanchez, with Aurelia next to him.

There was an empty mug in front of Sanchez and Ned pointed to the onion bottle of rum. “This may take some time,” he said casually, putting an ominous note in his voice. “Perhaps you’d like a drink?”

The Spaniard shook his head.

“Wine perhaps?”

Again the Spaniard shook his head, obviously deciding that whatever his fate he was going to meet it with a clear head.

“You are missing your family, I imagine,” Ned said in Spanish.

“Of course. They won’t even know what has happened to me.”

“Oh come now, someone at Riohacha must have seen us taking you away and guessed what happened.”

“I hope so. My dear wife, and my children…”

Ned had a picture of a woman ignored and bullied by her husband who probably had a grossly inflated idea of how a governor should behave. Like her, the children would be cowed. All of them might well be thankful that the lord and master of the house was absent…