Galleon (10 page)

“Hmmm,” Ned said, to give himself time to think and let Secco get his breath back.

“Water,” Gustav growled. “For the troops they carry to attack Jamaica.”

That makes sense, Ned thought to himself. All we need now is proof that troops are being marched to Cartagena: that battalions from Panama are being brought across the isthmus to join more from the Caribbee side. And that sort of proof will be hard to get. Troops cannot march on this side because there are no roads: they would have to be carried in by sea. In the ships the Viceroy has requested? Perhaps. And their horses, and the carts to carry their tents, and their field kitchens, and artillery and powder and shot?

But why? Trying to see into the mind of a Spanish Viceroy while standing in the shade of a tamarind tree with two buccaneers and two sweating and farting horses smelling ripe after their long gallop was – no, not a waste of time. Facts were facts, however hot the weather; it was easier to consider them in the cool, though.

If these two men now rode back to Port Royal they would gossip, and that would raise the alarm as effectively as half a dozen hoarse criers with handbells swinging. Gossip would reach the Governor and Heffer and the soldiers (who by now were anxiously waiting to get their back pay, which many of them probably saw as the key to Port Royal’s rum shops and brothels, both long denied them since neither gave credit). Gossip would soon be regarded as fact, embroidered until a Spanish fleet had been seen on the horizon and priests in long black robes had been sighted striding down from the mountains, followed by mules dragging carts loaded with the racks of the Inquisition. Crowds, Ned thought soberly, were only slightly less gullible and easily panicked than vote-hunting members of Parliament in session.

Ned gestured along the track. “Come along, we’d better water your horses and give you something to eat. I want to ride over and have a chat with Sir Thomas. You’d better stay here until I get back. I don’t suppose either of you wants to ride back to Port Royal tonight? No? Very well, we’ll find beds for you in one of the tents.”

Ned found Thomas down in the small quarry from which half a dozen men were cutting out rock in giant wafers, using pick-axes and thick chisels they drove between the strata with heavy mauls.

“Did you see Diana?” Thomas demanded nervously.

“No – not a sign of her: I rode along the coast. Why, do you want to talk to her?”

“God forbid!” Thomas exclaimed. “I’m hiding from her until she’s cooled off a bit.”

Ned deliberately asked no more: the couple quarrelled with (he suspected) the same ardour with which they made love and Diana’s temper could be aroused as quickly as the ardour of any stranger seeing her for the first time.

“What brings you over?” Thomas asked. “Tiff with Aurelia?” he suggested almost hopefully, anxious for a companion to share his grouse against bullying women.

“No. Secco and Firman have ridden up from Port Royal. They’ve just arrived from the Main.”

“Has old Loosely been upsetting them?”

“No, they’ve picked up some news from the Spaniards.”

“Oh damn, have the Dons heard already that Charles is going to pay the rent owing on his exile by giving ’em Jamaica?”

Ned laughed drily. “No, it’s a better yarn than that.”

“What, has their wretched king, Philip the Fourth, suddenly become a sane Habsburg?”

“You ask for miracles! No, apparently the Viceroy in Panama has decreed that all merchant ships over a certain size take on all the water they can and sail for Cartagena.”

“Why, does he plan to take the Vicereine and his large family and entourage on a cruise?”

“Not his family, his Army. To pay us a visit.”

“Tell him he’ll have to use some of the Governor’s beds: we can’t be expected to have guests until we get the roofs on our houses.” Thomas held up a hand for Ned to help him scramble out of the pit. He brushed the dust from his breeches and then nodded to Ned. “Bit like the bridegroom wanting to start the honeymoon a week before the church service, eh?”

“Exactly. Why? Secco and Firman are certain: they heard the same story in several ports in two different provinces and both swear they saw ships taking on water as ordered. They’re both sound men. I believe ’em.”

“So do I, so do I,” Thomas repeated. “Of course, the Viceroy might have just received orders to send some jolly soldiers over here to take possession of the island in the name of the worthy Philip the Fourth by courtesy–” he looked round to make sure none of the labourers were within earshot, “–of our own crazy Charles the Second. Stranger, isn’t it, that Philip will be succeeded by another Charles II…”

“Do you think it’s likely the Viceroy has received such orders?”

Thomas thought for a few moments. “I’m inclined to doubt it – but only because even the Committee for Trade and Foreign Plantations in London couldn’t be stupid enough to forget to tell us we’ve been given away, kicking and screaming like an unwanted bastard.”

“Old Loosely admits he heard the rumour in London but was not told anything by Albemarle: I’m prepared to believe him over that.”

Thomas nodded agreement. “And although I’ve never met the Duke of Albemarle, I’m sure he wouldn’t send an odd fellow like Loosely as Governor without warning him that his days in the job were numbered.”

Ned said: “Why would the Spanish want to attack something that’s going to be given them anyway? That’s what puzzles me. Either they’re preparing to accept Jamaica as a gift and the troops are simply taking possession, or they’re preparing to attack it – it’s as simple as that. Accept the gift idea and you accept that our new King has given us away; accepting the attack idea means old Philip is making a dastardly attack on a pearl in our great and good new King’s crown.”

“I can’t see old Loosely rising to an occasion like this. He’ll be petulant and stamping his foot or he’ll have the vapours. What do you reckon we should do, Ned?”

“Most of our ships are still in Port Royal. If it’s an attack, we’ll have to put it to a vote. As you know, they’re all very angry because Loosely took away their commissions. Coming back a week later and saying ‘Sorry, it was all a mistake: please chase those nasty Dons away’ won’t have them cheering and firing off salutes.”

“I’ll go and find Diana. Do you want to tell Aurelia you’re going down to Port Royal? Diana can go across and stay with her: no point in taking both women with us.”

“I’m taking Saxby,” Ned said, “just in case we have to get ready to sail, and Aurelia won’t stay here if she sees Saxby coming. And anyway, I have to collect Secco and Firman.”

“All right, I’ll bring Diana, Might get her into a cheerful mood. She’s making a fuss about where we put the kitchen. Most unreasonable, she is.”

His last words were lost to Ned, who was spurring his horse into a gallop.

General Heffer came into the new council chamber, formerly his office, greeted the four men and said apologetically that the Governor was busy: could he make an appointment for them to see him tomorrow?

“You told him it was very important and urgent?” Ned asked.

“Yes: I said you had ridden over the mountains especially.”

Thomas said sourly: “All this reminds me of some of the nonsense we had with you, Teffler, until you learned your lesson.”

Heffer gave a wintry grin. “Yes, indeed; that’s why I tried to impress on the Governor that there was some urgency…”

“Very well,” Ned said, “then tell him this: first, he would be very unwise to disband his Army now; second, the Spanish are probably coming; and third, the buccaneers are certainly going. In fact they’ll have sailed by noon tomorrow.”

Although Heffer had by now learned never to doubt such remarks, he knew the new Governor’s limited horizons. “Sir Harold would need a great deal of proof…”

Ned sighed and shook his head. “Heffer, you duffer, you’ll never learn. We are refugees from England: even now my brother is trying to retrieve our estates which were confiscated by that thief Cromwell. In fact it now looks as if the King might give them to one of
his
favourites. So for the time being my own allegiance to the new King is qualified. But the majority of the
buccaneers
are foreigners: as long as they can use Port Royal as a base, they don’t give a damn who sits on the throne in London. If the Spanish retake Jamaica – well, so be it: the buccaneers can use Tortuga as a base, or move down to the Dutch islands. So you’d better rouse out old Loosely so we can sing him our song or, from noon tomorrow, you are on your own and His Excellency can bombard the Dons with the coin he brought out to pay off the Army.”

“Will you wait ten minutes?” Heffer asked.

When Ned nodded, he hurried from the room.

“I hate this place,” Thomas announced. “It seems we’ve encountered more unpleasantness in this room than we’ve ever met in battle with the Dons!”

Secco took off his hat and scratched his head. “I’m not understanding the problem,” he said. “Where is this new Governor? Is he ill? Why tomorrow?”

“You have this sort in Spain as well,” Thomas said. “Give a man a bit o’ authority and while his head swells like a bladder of lard his brain shrinks.”

“We sail tomorrow?” Firman asked. “I need water, provisions; we were out a long time, this last voyage.”

“Me too,” said Secco. “Very little food and only a few gallons of water left on board. I must go out to the ship!”

“Wait, wait,” Ned said. “We’re only bluffing for the moment about sailing tomorrow: we’re just getting the Governor into the right frame of mind!”

“He sounds a fool, like this man Heffer. A heifer, isn’t that a young cow?”

“Yes, a virgin one,” said Thomas. “That’s why we feed him fresh grass. We’ll be milking him by Christmas.”

“Milking him? I do not understand,” Secco grumbled, putting on his hat again after running the plume through his fingers.

The door flung open and the Governor came in, followed by a red-faced Heffer.

“Well, what’s all this about?” he demanded.

“Good morning, Your Excellency. These two gentlemen bring–”

“Who the Devil are they, eh?”

“I was about to introduce them,” Ned said, a warning note in his voice. “They’re in a hurry, so we must be grateful for them sparing us their time.”

Sir Harold looked them over. “Well, who are they?”

“Captain Secco and Captain Firman. Gentlemen, the Governor, Sir Harold Loosely.”

“Luce, Luce!” Sir Harold said crossly. “What do they want?” he asked, deliberately avoiding talking directly to them.

“They want nothing, Your Excellency. They’ve brought something for you.”

Luce looked at their hands and noted they were carrying nothing. “Well, what have they brought?”

“Information, intelligence, news: call it what you will.”

“If it’s anything to do with the nonsense Heffer has just been talking, I don’t want to hear it,” Luce said crossly.

Ned bowed and said quietly: “In that case we won’t take up your time, Your Excellency.” He held out his hand. “We had better take this opportunity to say goodbye.”

“Ah, yes!” Thomas bellowed. “Goodbye and good luck, Your Excellency. By the way–” he lowered his voice, “–are you a Catholic by any chance?”

“Indeed not!” exclaimed a startled Luce. “Why?”

“Pity, pity. It often helps,” Thomas murmured sympathetically. “The Dons are very excitable when they get their hands on a heretic – especially an important one. Great people for giving precedence at the rack, the Spaniards. Though to be fair, after racking you they only do you in to save your soul. Nod your head to show you repent as they give the garotte the last turn of the screw (you can’t speak, of course, with the thing throttling you and breaking your neck) and they more or less guarantee you’ll go to Heaven.”

By now Luce had collapsed into a chair, his skin clammy, his forehead beginning to glisten with perspiration. He looked appealingly at Heffer. “What
is
all this nonsense about the Spanish?”

“I’ve no idea, Your Excellency,” he said in the cheerful voice he had now adopted when dealing with the Governor. “I thought Mr Yorke and Sir Thomas had come to tell you about it.”

“Well?” Sir Harold glowered at both men.

Ned shrugged his shoulders. “I’m sorry, Your Excellency, we’d all like to stay and gossip with you – even accept your kind offer of refreshments after our long gallop over the mountains – but we must hurry off: I have orders to give and all the captains have much to do, provisioning and watering.”

“No you don’t,” Sir Harold yelped, like a dog protesting at his tail being trodden on. “No one sails from this port without my permission!”

“You had better send written orders to all the captains, then,” Ned said quietly. “French, Spanish, Dutch…they won’t take kindly to it; in fact they’ll probably give your messenger a ducking! You ought to send your secretary with such important orders,” he added. “That shifty fellow William Hamilton.”

The Governor, by now white-faced, his eyes once again flickering from side to side as though looking for a way to escape, waved his hand. “All right, Yorke, I withdraw that. Now, what have you all come to see me about?”

“Warn you. We came to warn you. The Spanish Viceroy in Panama has sent orders to all ports on the Main that ships over a certain size are to water and sail at once for Cartagena.”

Luce looked puzzled. “Is that all?”

“
All
,” growled Thomas. “If you’re the Governor of Jamaica, it’s more than enough!”

“But I don’t understand. What’s the significance of that? It’s not as if they’re ships of war.”

“What exactly
is
a ship of war?” Ned inquired sarcastically. “Surely a merchant ship carrying five hundred soldiers, field artillery, horses, powder and shot is a ship of
war
, especially if it belongs to your enemy and he intends to land those troops on your shores to cause you mischief?”

“But who says these ships
are
assembling in Cartagena, and
why
should the Spanish land troops on our shores?”

Firman grunted, as though unable to believe his ears. Secco took off his hat and inspected the inside of the brim. Ned stared at Luce while Thomas groaned as though wracked by twinges of rheumatism. Only Heffer remained silent and motionless, and Ned had the impression that the General was enjoying the baiting of the Governor.