Corsair (26 page)

Ned held up another finger. “Second, there’s no point in waiting to meet the Dons off Port Royal: if they’ve any sense they’ll try to board us and they have plenty of men.

“Third, and most important, if we destroy the ships they can’t sail anyway.

“Fourth, if we are going to destroy the ships it has to be before the troops embark, and that means, ladies and gentlemen, attack them in Santa Marta, as soon as possible.”

“You’re right Ned!” Thomas exclaimed. “A sudden raid, sail in, sink or capture, sail out and home – and then tell old Loosely!”

Secco put down his mug with a bang. “And it can be done,” he exclaimed. “When I think of what I saw in Santa Marta, there is room for us to get in to attack. There’s only one fort and the gun platforms are probably rotten. A splendid plan,” he said appreciatively.

Ned looked at Thomas. “Can you get your rigging up and be ready to sail by nightfall?”

“Just give me a couple of hours,” Thomas said.

Aurelia stood up. “I’ll go and tell Lobb,” she said. “He said four hours for our rigging, but once he knows we’re all waiting to sail he’ll halve that.”

“Tell him to send both boats round to call a meeting of captains on board here as soon as possible. Inside the hour. And the boats had better warn the captains that while they’re over here their mates should be preparing for sea.”

Secco said: “If you will give me pen and paper, I’ll draw a rough chart of Santa Marta with the position of the ships. The captains can look at it.”

Ned went to a drawer and took out a quill, pen, knife, ink, sand box and paper, putting them down on the table in front of the Spaniard. “Amuse yourself by making some copies,” he said. “You’ve plenty of time before the captains arrive. Put in as many soundings as you can…remember what happened to me at Santa Lucia!”

Ned watched Secco as he frowned and slowly drew from memory the chart of Santa Marta, which was on a stretch of coast running south-west and about seventy-five miles westward of Riohacha, towards Cartagena. Inland of it were the peaks of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, with the Pico de Santa Marta only a dozen miles away to the south-east.

Secco drew with his tongue protruding from the effort of concentrating. He held the pen like a man more used to wielding a sword than a quill, but the final chart contained all the information that a sailor needed.

As soon as he had drawn the first chart he glanced at Ned, as if asking for approval. Ned nodded appreciatively and Secco took up another sheet of paper and once again dipped the quill in the ink.

By the time the first of the captains arrived, Secco had drawn enough charts for each of them to have a copy and he put the cork back in the inkpot with a sigh. “I’m glad I do not have to use a quill very often,” he said. “Just look at my fingers – more ink on them than on the paper!”

As soon as the captains had all arrived and assembled on the afterdeck – excited because they had all seen Secco return, and they knew where he had been – Ned as usual stood on the breech of the aftermost gun on the starboard side. He greeted the captains and then told them of Secco’s voyage and what he had found.

He described his plans for the attack. Then he said: “You have all got some blocks of pitch on board, and one of my boats is already collecting all that O’Leary has in his shop. I want you to take it and put it on board the three prizes we brought back from Grand Cayman. That’s the first thing. Then will you put half a case of powder on board each of them. That along with a demijohn of spirits. Not your best; if you’ve some rough stuff your men don’t like, that will be fine. Make sure you spread these things among the three ships; we don’t want it all on board one of them.”

Several of the captains looked at each other and nodded knowingly: they could guess what Ned had in mind.

Ned then described Secco’s patient work with the charts and he paused while Aurelia gave a copy to each of the captains.

“Most of you know Santa Marta already. That’s how the Spanish ships are anchored – or were, when Secco saw them. Some may have moved, especially if they are getting ready to embark the guns and horses. No one likes embarking horses, so you can be sure they’ll try and arrange as little boatwork as possible. But the dock is too shallow for some of the big ships to get alongside, so some boatwork is inevitable.”

When Ned had finished explaining and asked if there were any questions, Leclerc and Brace asked about soundings close in to the shore, where the four smaller ships were anchored. Then Coles asked about the hostage he had on board.

“Getting very sad is Sanchez,” Coles said. “Ever since he came over here he doesn’t seem to think about much except getting his throat cut. Asked me if I had any orders about it.”

“I hope you didn’t reassure him too much,” Ned said laughingly.

“No, I wasn’t sure what it was all about so I just gave a diabolical laugh and walked away.”

“We’re keeping him, the bishop and the mayor in case we need hostages,” Ned explained, “but as things are now – after the news we have from Secco – I doubt if we’ll have any more use for them. So if the attack goes well and you get the chance, perhaps you can put the three of them ashore. Don’t waste time or take any risks, but just bear it in mind.”

“I think that Sanchez will be quite disappointed if I don’t cut his throat on the beach,” Coles commented. “Perhaps he doesn’t fancy going back to his wife.”

Ned held up his hand and called to the captains. “I haven’t made it clear,” he said, “that any of you are welcome to cut out the Spanish ships. Destroy or capture – whichever you like.”

Ned had the perspective glass to his eye, and Aurelia and Lobb were standing beside him. “There we are,” he said cheerfully, “there are the white cliffs near Taganga, the only ones like that along this coast. There’s the cathedral in Santa Marta – I can just make out the two domes. And behind the town, a dozen miles to the south-east, the Pico de Santa Marta. Pity the haze is hiding all the other peaks of the Sierra Nevada: we’d have been able to estimate our position a lot sooner, because you can see most of the Sierra Nevada for forty miles on a clear day.”

“I seem to remember the town of Santa Marta itself is on a flat plain,” Aurelia said.

“It is,” Ned replied. “The mountains start rising inland. There, the haze is clearing to the eastward: seems strange seeing snow on those peaks and yet it’s so hot down here.”

Ned could imagine that every perspective glass in the flotilla was now being used. It was strange how the haze had hidden the land until a few moments ago, when it cleared between the flotilla and the shore as though someone had pulled aside a curtain.

He looked round at the rest of the ships. Astern in their usual position were the
Peleus
and the
Phoenix
; then came the rest of the flotilla in no particular order, except that the three ships taken at Grand Cayman were in the middle, as though the other captains were protecting them, like mother hens with their chicks.

They were being sailed well and Ned was thankful that, so far anyway, his idea of giving the commands to the bosuns of the
Griffin
,
Peleus
and
Phoenix
had proved a good one. With the prospect of bitter fighting, he was loth to lose Lobb, and he knew that Thomas and Saxby would be equally unwilling to give up their mates.

Ned had spent twenty minutes with the bosuns, giving them copies of Secco’s chart and explaining what was expected of them. They had six men each, and they would soon be preparing their ships. They knew about getting to windward in the anchorage, and none of them underestimated the risks they were facing.

It was a few minutes past noon and the sun, almost directly overhead, was like the open door of a furnace. The awning gave Ned and Aurelia some shade but the rays reflected up from the sea in dancing diamonds and the wind was hot; it sapped the energy when it should have refreshed.

When Ned looked again, the snow-covered peaks of the Sierra Nevada had vanished as more haze appeared. Just as well, Ned thought to himself; it was tantalizing, when one was almost gasping for breath and everything was so hot, be it wooden decks or metal fittings, to see snow. Up in those peaks, Ned guessed, men could freeze to death… Down here they were being almost boiled like lobsters.

The buccaneer flotilla was reaching along at about five knots. In two hours, perhaps two and a half, they would all be fighting for their lives. But this attack on Santa Marta had to be carried out in broad daylight: there was no moon, and trying to find nine ships (and the frigate) in complete darkness would be hopeless – and, with the alarm raised, there could be no second attempt the following night.

“That new rigging has stretched,” Lobb commented, pointing aloft.

The new halyards did not matter: as they stretched it was just a question of swigging them up tighter, but the shrouds were different. The lanyards at the lower end had to be tightened up, but this could only be done satisfactorily when the ship was at anchor. Now, with the shrouds a little slack, the mast could work, and it did, creaking at the partners.

Ned watched for a minute or two. Yes, although the mast was working there was nothing to worry about. The mast was sound; in fact in the sunlight it still glistened from its recent coats of linseed oil.

Ned moved his feet carefully. The pitch in the deck seams was so hot that it was sticky; one had to be careful to stand on the planks and not on the seams. Damn the heat. Then he thought about beating down the English Channel at this time of the year; there would be a strong south-wester, it would be freezing cold with no chance of getting warm, and the decks would be swept with spray, soaking you with no chance of getting dry. Soaking wet and freezing, or half roasted and nearly panting for breath? Give me the heat, he decided; it lasts only a few hours each day before cooling down for the night, but for the poor miserable seaman fighting his way down Channel night merely made it colder and the cold felt worse. No sane man who had sailed in the Caribbee ever volunteered to sail in northern waters…

Now he could see the white cliffs and a hint of the cathedral without using the perspective glass, and the Pico de Santa Marta stood four-square like a signpost. In this wind a reach meant they could lay Santa Marta; unless there was a change in wind direction as they approached the land (not unknown, particularly in this weather) they should be able to sail straight into the Bahia Santa Marta without altering course.

“When we get back to Port Royal,” Ned told Lobb, “you shall have a whole week to set up the rigging and change the old stuff you had to put back. You can worm, parcel and serve to your heart’s content.”

“Thank you, but personally I’m sick of rigging,” Lobb said lightly. “‘Worm and parcel with the lay, turn and serve the other way’, ” he repeated parrot-fashion the rules for the work, a phrase dinned into a seaman from the time he first set foot in a ship as a boy.

“It’s the stink of pitch and Stockholm tar that bothers me,” Ned said. “And madame grumbles about it, too.”

“You’re lucky, it’s about the only thing I
do
grumble about,” Aurelia said. “Never a moan about the stink of the bilges or the smell of boucan…I am a treasure among women.”

“And we all appreciate you,” Ned said lightly. “You and Diana – and Martha Judd: but for you three we’d be savages, tearing at our food with bare hands and wearing only the hides of beeves.”

“True,” Aurelia said coolly. “You almost sound as though you mean it – about wearing hides, and tearing at food.”

An hour later, using the perspective glass, Ned could make out the masts of the ships in the harbour, and he told Lobb to prepare the ship for action. The guns were loaded and run out, the grindstone hoisted on deck once again to give the men another chance of putting an edge on their cutlasses and a point on the boarding pikes.

Ned looked at the three Grand Cayman prizes and was pleased to see the men bustling around on deck. They would be removing all the hatch covers and throwing them over the side, and then using axes to cut holes in the decks and bulkheads, to ensure that a good draught blew through each ship. And then they would scatter the chunks of pitch and, at the last moment, leave heaps of gunpowder joined by slowmatch and with the demijohns of spirits near powder which would blow them up and ignite the spirit, spreading the flames.

Now he began to feel the apprehensions that always came before an action. Had he forgotten something that could endanger the operation or cost men’s lives? Would he be unlucky, as he was at Santa Lucia, and run aground at a critical moment? Would a raking broadside tear through the
Griffin
and kill Aurelia? Would a random roundshot tear off one of his limbs? Would the Cayman prizes be successful or would they cause more harm to the buccaneer flotilla? Would – and this was much more likely – would the expedition find that the Spanish troops were already on board the Spanish ships, ready and waiting with musket and pike?

“The largest is anchored up to windward: lay us alongside her,” Ned told Lobb. The whole of the Bahia Santa Marta lay open in front of them; the nine ships were anchored right across their bow. So far not a shot had been fired; it was as though the Spanish had not noticed them approaching.

Suddenly a little wreath of smoke appeared at a gunport of the frigate, followed a moment later by several more. Ned heard the calico-tearing noise of shot passing overhead. Yes, the frigate quite sensibly was firing at the nearest ship, which happened to be the
Griffin
.

All the Spanish ships were heading into the wind, which meant into the shore. The frigate, anchored by chance some distance from the other ships, was catching a different slant of wind so that she was almost broadside-on to the approaching buccaneers and could bring at least some of her guns to bear. But the approaching buccaneers could do nothing to fire back; they would be helpless with their guns unable to bear until they could get broadside-on, and that meant getting alongside.