Galleon (5 page)

“Most encouraging,” Ned said, and reflected on the letter from his elder brother George which the
Convertine
had brought out. George, who had inherited the title and the estates on their father’s death and had been with the King during the royal exile in France and Spain, warned that the King had signed a secret treaty while in exile in Spain.

“Oh yes, it is,” Luce said. “Indeed, the King of Spain has already sent an ambassador to the Court of St James, the Prince de Ligne, a most charming gentleman.”

“And what did the ambassador demand, as a reward for Spain’s hospitality during the King’s exile there?”

Luce looked puzzled, and Ned asked innocently: “Was not a secret treaty signed with Spain which would come into effect on the King’s Restoration?”

Luce stared down at the papers in front of him. “If it was secret, Mr Yorke, then I don’t think it’s any concern of ours.”

“Oh, it’s our concern all right: I just wondered if you had later news about it, or if the Duke had confided his views?”

“My lips are sealed,” Luce said primly, squeezing them together until they vanished, leaving the tiny eyes and nostrils as the only marks on his face.

Thomas, who had read the letter from Ned’s brother, roared with laughter and slapped the table again. “Well, your lips might be sealed, Your Excellency, but if you are going to survive out here in Jamaica, within musket shot of the Spanish Main, you’d better keep your ear to the grindstone and your nose to the keyhole!”

“Grindstone…keyhole? I don’t–”

“I think Sir Thomas is hinting that although we are but yokels, we do have friends in England watching our interests,” Ned said mildly.

Luce eyed both men with wary suspicion. “What have you heard, then?”

Ned looked at Thomas doubtfully then shook his head. “No, Your Excellency, it wouldn’t be fair to burden you; you’d only worry. Later we’ll pass it on to General Heffer – I suppose you still command the island garrison, General?”

Heffer nodded cautiously, wondering what Ned had heard.

“If your information concerns the interests of this island, I demand that you tell me!” Luce said angrily.

Ned looked at him contemptuously. In appointing Luce, the Duke of Albemarle was either paying off an old debt or getting rid of a nuisance, but either way Jamaica was the loser. A Governor who did not want to understand the actual position out here (compared with what he had been told in London) was an even bigger liability than Heffer.

“Very well, I’ll tell you, Your Excellency,” Ned said patiently, “not because you ‘demand’ it but because your ignorance is a liability to us–”

“Damme sir, I’ll not stand for your confounded insolence!”

Ned stood, followed a moment later by Thomas. “My apologies, Your Excellency, we embarrass you, but since your lips are sealed so that we cannot hear any more news of the danger in which the island stands, we’d better sail back to Tortuga.”

Even without Heffer’s appealing look, Luce realized that his “I am the Governor” bluster was simply antagonizing these two men. He also realized that they owed him nothing and all too clearly did not give a damn for his authority. And, he noted, Heffer seemed very anxious to placate them.

“Oh, do sit down again; you’re a sight too touchy to deal with governors,” Luce said, trying to sound jocular but, like all weak men, determined not to apologize again. “We are all concerned with the wellbeing of Jamaica, so we have the same interests.”

“I doubt that,” Thomas said sourly, “not judging by the pathetic little bag of money the Duke gave you to run this place. Each one of those ships out there uses more than that to buy the week’s rum.”

“Yes, well,” Luce said lamely, not realizing that Thomas was only guessing, “do please tell me what you’ve heard.”

“Surely you must know,” Ned said brusquely, “the King signed a secret treaty with Spain promising to return Jamaica and Dunkirk, and now the Prince de Ligne is in London demanding them both.”

“Oh,
that
,” Luce said offhandedly. “Yes, I heard about that,” adding pompously, “these are matters of State.”

“So you don’t mention them to yokels, eh?” Thomas exclaimed angrily. “‘Matters of State’ like this are our daily bread. Our lives in fact. ‘Matters of State’ are stupid decisions wrapped up in flowery language!”

“Well, I have to be discreet.”

“Your Excellency,” Ned said crisply, having decided that it was time to put his cards face-up on the table, “Europe is one world and the Caribbee another. Treaties signed in London, Madrid, Paris, Lisbon or wherever you care to name, do not have the slightest effect on us out here.

“I told you the nationalities of the owners of our ships. The Frenchmen and Portuguese don’t give a damn with whom France and Portugal are at war; they fled their countries years ago because of persecution. The Dutch are refugees from Spanish persecution in the Netherlands–”

“And the English?” Luce interrupted shrewdly.

“Originally we were Royalists escaping from Cromwell’s régime, or men and women he had transported, prisoners of war or those sick of Puritanism. Now we have settled down here, trying to remake our lives again.”

“A pretty speech,” Luce said sarcastically, “but how does it concern me?”

“Because,” Ned said slowly, now enunciating each word very clearly and carefully, “whatever the Spanish say in London and Madrid, whatever treaties they might sign, whatever agreements they might make with England, out here in the Caribbee
there is No Peace Beyond the Line
. No peace, no trade.”

“You’re exaggerating,” Luce said contemptuously.

Heffer suddenly looked up. “He’s not, Your Excellency. No Peace Beyond the Line – that is the prayer every Don says before he sleeps o’ night.”

“The Line, the Line – what the Devil has it to do with us?”

“Dear me,” Ned said wearily, “I never expected to hear a Governor of Jamaica speak those words. Briefly, Spain forbids any country to trade with her possessions out here. Not just trade, but forbids them to sail in the waters or enter her ports. The actual Line is a particular degree of longitude a few hundred miles west of the Azores. Anything west of that – the Americas, the Caribbee islands – all is ‘Beyond the Line’.”

“But that’s nonsense – you
do
trade with the Main,” Luce said.

Ned shook his head. “No, we don’t ‘trade’, we
smuggle
. And if anyone is caught by the Spanish authorities he is handed over to the Inquisition, or sent to the salt mines, or put to work in the quarries, cutting out stone to build more fortresses.”

“But that’s absurd! I’ll send a despatch to London!”

“Don’t waste your time,” Ned advised. “London knows all about it and, in answer to your next question, does nothing. Any moment the Spanish may attack and try to recapture Jamaica. What will the King do to defend it? After all, he’s already signed a treaty giving it back to Spain.”

“But I was told nothing of this in London,” Luce wailed.

Thomas gave a throaty chuckle. “Nor were you given any ships to protect your new kingdom – even the
Convertine
is spared only long enough to bring you out, and she has orders to return home as soon as she’s provisioned and watered.”

Luce looked wildly from Ned to Thomas and then to Heffer.

“What can we do if the Spanish attack us?”

Heffer, in what Ned saw was probably the most daring act in his whole life, said in a lugubrious voice: “Pray, Your Excellency, and put your trust in the buccaneers…”

“Buccaneers? But they are simply pirates! The King didn’t give me a commission to come out and entrust this island to a gang of pirates!”

“Then, he should have done,” Heffer said unexpectedly. “They’ve saved it for him up to now and filled the Treasury with gold
and
kept the Spanish sufficiently frightened that so far they haven’t dared make a regular attack.”

“But they’re just pirates!” Luce repeated helplessly, almost whimpering as he slowly realized the position he was in. Should he pretend illness and return to England in the
Convertine
? What illness, though? The Duke would see through that. Obviously, the Duke had known the situation out here when he gave him the job. Luce saw with a clarity which chilled the room that he was trapped between the deceit of an almost bankrupt Court in London and the murderous Spaniards out here. He tried to grab the conflicting ideas racing through his mind. Admittedly, these fellows in Jamaica have survived so far; there are plenty of prosperous plantations in the other islands, which are even more vulnerable than Jamaica. But remember, none of the other islands is such a threat to the Spaniards as Jamaica, which sits astride the route of the plate fleets to and from Cartagena. The other islands are small and Spain does not need land. Jamaica, though, is a dagger at its throat because of the plate fleet.

Heffer said quietly: “Yes, ‘just pirates’, Your Excellency, but Mr Yorke is their leader and Sir Thomas is his second-in-command.” He took a deep breath. “In view of your attitude, I reserve the right to resign my commission and return to England in the
Convertine
: you shall have that in writing just as soon as this meeting is over.”

“Oh come, now,” Luce said hastily, “let’s discuss this like reasonable men. After all, I–”

“We are not reasonable men,” Thomas growled. “We are drunken pirates, the outcasts of nearly every country in Europe. We’ve not abandoned God; He’s abandoned us. Drunkards and lechers we are – we whore all day and carouse all night and on Sundays sleep off a week of sin, and we are not the sort of people to whom a Governor holding the King’s commission should introduce his wife or mistress. Is that not right, my worthy General? Was it wise of you to introduce the Governor to such scoundrels, rapscallions and heretics as us? Does he
know
how much I owe in gaming debts in London? Does he
know
I live in vigorous sin on board my pirate vessel with a most beautiful member of the aristocracy? Are you wise to keep such things secret from the Governor?”

Heffer began laughing and both Thomas and Ned stared at him. They had always assumed that when Heffer’s unfortunate sheeplike face and head had been constructed, a malignant Nature had also omitted a sense of humour and the muscles necessary to pull his features into a smile.

However, having plucked up enough courage to threaten to resign, Heffer decided that, after all these years, he liked this new feeling of freedom. “My loyalty,” he told Luce and was pleasantly surprised to hear himself saying it, “is to Jamaica and the King, not to any other individual.”

“Well spoken,” bellowed Thomas, again thumping the table. “There you are, Your Excellency, you’d never believe that a few months ago old Heffer here regarded my rascally Uncle Oliver as second-in-command to the Lord himself, would you? But Heffer has at last learned the one and only lesson that concerns the safety of Jamaica, and which I pass on to you
. If the Spanish come, they’ve got to come by sea
. Have a sampler made up with those words embroidered on it and hang it on the wall where you see it the moment you wake up in the morning.”

While Thomas was making his little speech, using both arms as though beating time, Luce had been thinking quickly. Obviously, he needed these two men, both to help him govern Jamaica and – he shuddered – prevent him from ending up on a Spanish rack. He had been a fool not to have realized it sooner: these men were right: no one in London gave a damn about the safety, future or welfare of an island acquired almost as a whim and which the King intended giving away.

Even if the King changed his mind (because of the protests of the London merchants who now had interests in the West Indies), no one was going to push Jamaica’s case at Court because that would only emphasize the King’s error in the first place… But, Luce realized, he personally was stuck with it. There would be neither honour nor advancement if he managed to secure the island and get it properly governed; on the other hand, if he failed no one in London would grieve overmuch, so he would probably end his days in a dank Spanish dungeon.

“Very well, gentlemen, in confidence, I’ll reveal my instructions–”

“No thank you!” Ned’s interruption was quick and firm. “Tell us officially or not at all. This ‘in confidence’ is simply blackmail: it ties our hands so we can’t do or say anything without you declaring: ‘But I told you that in confidence.’”

“Your Excellency,” Heffer added, “you should realize that even with our garrison disbanded (no, I’m not giving away secrets: everyone will know about that in a day or two) the Spaniards will still be out there. They’ll discover within a few weeks that we no longer have a garrison – and their King already knows the value
our
King privately places on Jamaica.”

“Well? What’s all that got to do with it?”

Heffer stared squarely at Luce. “You don’t seem to understand, Your Excellency, that you have few friends out here. In fact, none except the buccaneers.”

Ned also turned and looked Luce straight in the eye. “And don’t count on the buccaneers unless you make an agreement with them so that they can trust you. Remember, when the King promised Jamaica to Spain, he wasn’t even on the throne – he had no right to do it.”

Luce gestured to both Ned and Thomas. “Very well, you are the leaders of the buccaneers. As General Heffer has more than hinted, my first task is to pay off and disband the Army.”

He thought a few moments. “No, I’ll start earlier so that you can understand the sequence of events. As you know, both France and England have signed treaties with Spain. I know nothing of the secret treaty concerning Jamaica and Dunkirk apart from the London merchants protesting to the Duke about their trade interests out here. However, the Privy Council has set up a permanent committee to deal with the West Indies – with ‘Trade and Foreign Plantations’. I report to this committee.”

Ned asked: “So the Committee for Trade and Foreign Plantations drew up your instructions?”

“Well, I think they had received instructions from the Duke, but they actually drew up the new constitution for us. And a very fair one it is, too,” Luce said defensively.