Galleon (22 page)

“Ah,” Lobb said, “I was going to mention it to you, sir. Those sentries don’t patrol the deck any longer, and since Julio will be able to confirm that there are only three of them, I don’t think we have to bother much. Two or three of our men – from those we’re leaving behind to look after the
Griffin
– can go over there tonight and deal with them.”

“Good, you seem to have everything ready. I want the men to get some sleep if they can. Twelve miles – say three hours’ walking in the darkness, and dawn is about six o’clock. So we’ll start from here at half past two in the morning. That gives us half an hour to put all our party on shore, and then three hours to get near San Germán. We have to hide until about ten o’clock tomorrow morning so that we then have an hour to make a dignified arrival. The execution is arranged for noon.”

“I doubt if the Dons will be punctual!”

“No, probably not,” Ned agreed. “But we can’t afford to be late…”

The church – a simple whitewashed building with a tiny open-sided belfry perched on top of the roof like an afterthought above the arched west door – seemed poised over the crowded
plaza
. The bell tolled slowly and because it was small and the noise was quickly dispersed by the wind, it sounded like the call of a muffin man, or some other tradesman, rather than a summons to watch the execution of sixty-three people.

As Julio had predicted, the wide steps leading up to the church were crowded with people, the bright colours of their clothes emphasized by the peeling white west wall of the church high above them. Priests in black robes, thirty or forty women whose silk shawls of gay colours shone in the sun and who wore mostly black mantillas, many men in elaborate hats with bright plumes – the leading citizens, obviously, all as excited as if they were about to watch a bullfight or a play.

At the foot of the steps, five yards away (just far enough from the bottom that the crowd of dignitaries could see them clearly), were three wooden chairs, and seated in them, ropes binding their arms and legs, were Thomas, Diana and the
Peleus’
mate, Mitchell, all three slumped, despite the ropes, as though exhausted. On the ground beside each chair was an iron hoop which, apart from a rod projecting outwards, looked as though it belonged to a small barrel.

A soldier holding a musket stood behind each chair, but a whole file of soldiers lined the north side of the
plaza
, muskets resting on wooden rests, and facing them were all the
Peleus’
seamen, legs tied at the ankles and wrists tied behind their backs. Men that Ned recognized as normally clean-shaven had a month’s beard; all of them had the pallor which came only from being shut away in the darkness. Each had sunken cheeks.

Parallel with the wall was a row of young trees planted at four-yard intervals. A seaman was tied to each of the three trees in front of the soldiers, their arms held backwards round the trunks and tied by the wrists: obviously they were intended to be the firing squad’s first target.

To one side of the file of soldiers facing the
Peleus
men was their officer, a corpulent man in a bright green doublet edged with gold and with white silk facings, the sleeves slashed to reveal more white silk. His breeches, cut very wide in a style which had gone out of fashion in England fifty years earlier, were in a very pale green, but his hose was the same darker green as his doublet. However, his hat was the crowning glory: a dark yellow bird’s nest of a hat had been heavily trimmed with gold, and the single larger plume seemed gilded. How had he done it, Ned wondered: shaken gold dust over it?

His enormous sword, slung from an ornate leather strap that went over his right shoulder and ended in a scabbard on which gold wire was sewn into elaborate patterns, was the most magnificent Ned had ever seen. No doubt it was one of the finer swords wrought in Toledo, and Ned was sure the steel blade was also decorated with the inlaid gold wire work for which Toledo had long been famous.

Many monks in long robes were scattered among the crowd, their cowls thrown back because of the heat, their hands clasped in front of them, their eyes generally fixed on the ground in front of them, as became holy men who had devoted their lives to a particular religious order and whose vows of celibacy made them conscious of the number of plumply provocative women in the crowd.

Two things distinguished this crowd from any other. First, although the people were packed shoulder to shoulder (but kept back from the
Peleus
men by the line of soldiers) neither they nor the dignitaries on the church steps were chattering noisily: instead everyone seemed to be speaking in hushed voices, as though awaiting the arrival of a famous man rather than the execution of more than a hundred scoundrels.

Second, there was tension. Ned felt it even though his Spanish was far from fluent. He had never seen a bullfight but he had often been told of the tension which gripped the crowd before the first bull was let into the ring: they seemed to be holding their breath and they all sighed when they first saw the bull charging through the open gates and heard its hooves thundering on the sun-baked earth.

Ned stood almost alone between the bottom of the steps and the edge of the crowd in the
plaza
. Had they raised their heads, Thomas and Diana could have seen but not recognized him. Julio stood beside him, occasionally muttering a comment; indeed, his task was to give Ned a commentary on what was happening, based on his own experience of Spanish life and what people in the crowd were saying.

The sun was scorching and almost directly overhead: Ned looked down and found the shadow he cast was little wider than the brim of a Roundhead’s hat. Perspiration ran down his spine and he had to wipe his brow frequently as it trickled into his eyes.

Suddenly the bell stopped its tolling. The great west door of the church began creaking open and everyone on the steps turned to watch as though this was what they had been expecting all along.

The first man coming out was splendidly dressed; the cloth of his jerkin was a rich wine red and round his neck was what Ned guessed must be if not a king’s at least an archbishop’s ransom in gold chains.

“The
alcalde
of San Germán,” Julio muttered. Following him, walking ponderously as though carrying a heavy but invisible load, was a corpulent man in cope and mitre, two young boys carrying the train of his long robes.

“A bishop – probably of the province,” whispered Julio.

The next two men wore uniforms similar to the officer already standing in the
plaza
but even more ornate, and behind them were two younger officers, obviously aides.

“The military governor of the province and his deputy, I should think.”

The people on the top few steps drew to each side, leaving an open space for the newcomers. The bishop stepped forward and everyone in the
plaza
and on the steps not only stopped whispering but seemed to freeze.

The bishop began talking in a deep, sonorous voice, sentences drawn out and each ending on a sorrowful note.

“He’s talking about the wickedness of pirates, buccaneers, heretics, sinners – just about everyone,” Julio muttered.

“Turning on his friends, eh?”

Julio nodded. “Now he’s congratulating the military governor for capturing so many wicked English pirates, buccaneers, heretics and sinners…”

The bishop waved to the crowd, his arm swinging as though brushing aside a bough, then turned and made way for the military governor, who began speaking to the crowd in a sharp voice, as though giving them orders, but spoke in what Ned recognized as a clear Seville accent which he could understand.

“There,” the commander cried, pointing at Thomas, “we have the leader of the buccaneers, the famous Sir Tomás Witstone, the nephew of the heretical Cromwell, and sitting next to him the infamous woman who has whored the length and breadth of these seas in his company. And over there–” he waved at the seamen standing by the north wall, “–are their minions. All have just been tried before the court, all have been found guilty. All–” he turned and bowed respectfully at the bishop, who bowed back, “–have been given the chance of confessing their sins and recanting their heretical beliefs, but they have turned their faces away.”

He paused, seeming to swell like a bullfrog mating, and then bellowed: “All are now to suffer death!” He pointed down at the officer in the
plaza
, who had now drawn his sword and was holding it pointing horizontally in front of him. “Begin the executions!”

The officer barked out an order and the file of soldiers cocked the locks of their muskets and then bent their heads to sight along the barrels at the three men lashed to the trees. Ned already had counted the file of soldiers. Twenty-one muskets. Seven shots for each man. The officer had allowed for some poor shooting…

The officer, having satisfied himself apparently that all the musketeers were now ready, bowed to the bishop and raised his sword so that it pointed up vertically. In a few seconds it would flash down and the first three seamen would be shot dead.

Ned pulled aside his robe, raised his pistol, and fired. The officer seemed to shrink as his sword clattered to the stone paving, his plumed hat tilted and flew off like a wounded bird, and then the man’s body slewed round and fell to the ground.

At the same moment all the monks in the
plaza
tore off their robes, producing pistols and cutlasses, and started shouting “Griff-in, Griff-in” at the top of their voices, pushing their way through the startled crowd to the wall to begin slashing the ropes holding the seamen.

Ned and Julio, sharp knives in their hands, ran the few yards to the chairs and cut Thomas, Diana and Mitchell free. Saxby, Lobb and Fernando appeared out of the now frightened crowd, and while Ned lifted up an almost helpless Diana and carried her in his arms into the anonymity of the crowd, the other men helped Thomas and Mitchell to stand. Both were so weak and cramped that they had difficulty in walking, and finally the two Spaniards lifted them over their shoulders and followed Ned.

While the crowd of men, women and children fell over themselves in panic as they made room to let Ned pass through, Aurelia and Mrs Judd, both still in monks’ robes, faces darkened with dust to make them appear mannish and unshaven and their hair tied down, walked beside Ned, each waving a pistol and Mrs Judd shouting blood-curdling threats in English at the frightened Spaniards.

A young man in the crowd who suddenly ran towards Ned waving a sword paused for a moment as Mrs Judd bellowed at him but, recognizing a woman’s voice, started running again.

Mrs Judd calmly aimed her pistol and shot him, his sword sliding along the ground in front of him as he lurched a pace and then collapsed, his legs folding under him.

An enormous tamarind tree, its dense branches spread out horizontally like a parasol only a few feet above the ground and shading the far end of the
plaza
, had been chosen as the rallying point for the buccaneers.

Ned, beginning to lurch as Diana started wriggling, was unable to hear what she was saying because of the screams of the crowd trying to push back to make room for what seemed to them to be the leader of a party of mad monks.

Finally he stopped, heard Diana shouting that she could walk now, and set her down. As she slid from his shoulder, one magnificent breast surging from a torn bodice, she gasped: “Where’s Thomas?”

Ned looked behind and pointed to Thomas only a few yards away. His feet were hardly touching the ground and he had one arm draped round Saxby’s neck, the other round Lobb’s.

“They almost killed him on the rack,” Diana said. “He can’t stand.”

“He doesn’t need to!” Ned said impatiently. “Come on – we’re making for that tree!”

Then the yells and screams of the crowd began to fade as Ned heard a chorus of shouts growing over his right shoulder: the seamen, shouting in a variety of accents “Griff-in, Griff-in…” as they were cut free, picked up the cry from their rescuers and began running towards the tamarind tree.

Ned heard shots from the same direction, followed by agonized screams of wounded men. As all three women hesitated Ned said savagely: “Get to the tree! There’s nothing you can do!”

Diana, although able to hurry, was finding it difficult to walk in a straight line. Ned took her arm and found himself momentarily fascinated by the movement of the bared breast. At that moment Mrs Judd bellowed more threats to the crowd in front of her as the people fought each other to make way, and Ned was proud to see Aurelia waving a pistol and screaming equally terrible threats in Spanish. The sight of a clearly enraged but beautiful woman monk waving a pistol at them left no doubt what she meant.

At last the four of them reached the tree and Mrs Judd turned with her back to the trunk, empty pistol waving threateningly. “Come on dearie, stand by me and look fierce!” she told Aurelia. “All right now?” she asked Diana. “Nice breast, but you’ve never suckled brats, that’s for sure. But tuck it away for now, dearie, in case it rouses lewd thoughts in the minds of these ’eathen Dons!”

Diana blushed, and Ned laughed at her embarrassment in such surroundings: pointing pistols, pointing nipples, pointing fingers: at the moment all seemed to be chaos as Diana struggled with her bodice.

Then between the other two men Thomas lurched up, followed by Mitchell. “Ned,” Thomas gasped, “there I am sitting ready to meet my Maker but instead I meet you!”

“Sit down and rest,” Ned said. “We’ve still a long way to walk.”

By now the crowd in the
plaza
was thinning as scores of panic-stricken Spaniards escaped along the track running beside the church. As Ned watched them for a moment he was surprised to see bodies sprawled at the top of the steps. By now the first of the ragged seamen, still shouting “Griff-in!”, reached the shade of the tamarind and began whooping as they saw Thomas and Diana.

“Saxby – you and Lobb go over and see how they’re getting on freeing those men,” Ned snapped, “and make sure all the Spanish soldiers are accounted for. I counted twenty-one with muskets and there were eleven others.”