Admiral (21 page)

“What’s wrong with the fellow?” Thomas asked anxiously. “Looks as though he’s going to faint.”

“He said he was the garrison commander, but now he’s just accidentally told me, without using words, that he has no garrison!”

At that moment the Spanish flag of truce and the two civilians arrived. One was obviously in command; he brusquely inquired of Hernández what was happening and was told, in fast nervous Spanish, that the pirates knew the garrison was gone.

The civilian swore at Hernández for saying it, since obviously one of the English spoke Spanish, but the soldier said angrily: “He speaks it very slowly, that was why I spoke quickly!”

Ned said to Hernández, deliberately thickening his accent and using wrong tenses: “You should introduce us.”

Hernández asked the other man’s permission, but before Hernández could speak the man snapped: “Vásquez, the Governor of Providencia. Why have you come here under a flag of truce? You raided our port first, now you want a truce!”

Ned shook his head politely and still spoke softly in bad Spanish. “No, you must give me an opportunity to explain. Your Excellency,
you
want the truce.”

The governor, a portly, sallow-faced man in a large plumed hat and with drooping moustaches and clearly very short-sighted, obviously could hardly believe his ears. “
I
want a truce? Why, that is absurd! We sighted your ships – your
seven
ships,” he said with sarcastic emphasis, “last night. We evacuated Providencia, manned our
nine
castles, fortresses, and batteries, and removed the bridge. So tell me please, why should
I
want a truce?” Hernández and the other officers and the civilian laughed dutifully.

“You had good look-outs on duty yesterday evening,” Ned said, “and this morning at first light you saw the seven ships come in and anchor. Yes?”

“Yes,” Vásquez said, his voice patronizing. “Seven ships. Seven small ships. And their boats took less than 400 men on shore, leaving four or five on board each ship.”

“Your men have sharp eyes,” Ned said admiringly, and both Vásquez and Hernández nodded their heads, as if accepting the praise. “But the look-outs on duty yesterday evening – what happened to them?”

Vásquez turned to Hernández. “Tell him. No, tell me first.”

“They were sent to the guns. They fired at the ships this morning,” he said very quickly.

“Did you understand that?” Vásquez asked, and when Ned shook his head, repeated it slowly.

Ned managed to look both sad and disappointed. “Oh,” he said, like a man who had just found the answer to a puzzle. “So that is why you do not realize that
you
need the truce –”

“Explain yourself!” Vásquez interrupted angrily. “I did not ask for a truce, I do not
want
a truce, and I’ve granted
you
one against my better judgement.”

Again Ned shook his head, hard put to avoid bursting out laughing as he adopted the more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger role, and thankful Thomas could not understand.

“I suggest, Your Excellency,” he said politely, “that you send those look-outs up the hill again with a good –” he broke off, using his hands to imitate a perspective glass. “I do not know the word in Spanish.”

Both Vásquez and Hernández stared at him. “What would they see?” the governor asked suspiciously.

“At this moment they would see in the last of the sunlight twenty-one ships – the rest of my fleet – on the horizon, approaching Santa Catalina. They will come in and anchor at daylight, so you see, I have twenty-eight ships, not seven.”

Vásquez and Hernández began a violent argument with each other. The governor wanted to know why the look-outs had been sent to the guns instead of keeping a watch, and the garrison commander, forgetting Ned in his anger, said they were two of only eleven men who knew how to aim and fire a gun.

Secco’s eyes caught Ned’s for a moment, and Ned was thankful he had not misheard the commander. Nine forts, castles and batteries, with an estimated fifty guns, and only eleven men on Santa Catalina who could aim and fire them. The Spaniards had vastly underestimated the English: obviously when taking the garrisons of Portobelo and Providence they knew there were no English ships of war at Jamaica, simply the garrison of three thousand men to defend the island. Equally obviously, the Spanish authorities on the Main (the Viceroy of Panama? Ned was not sure) thought there was no danger in taking Providence’s garrison – the island had never been attacked since the English were driven out seventeen years ago, and the English had run away after attempting Santo Domingo, losing thousands…

After telling Hernández to hold his tongue – using a vulgar phrase which he obviously assumed Ned would not know – Vásquez stood stiffly, pushing out his chest and bracing up his stomach, and told Ned: “The truce is over. You cannot possibly capture Santa Catalina, there is nothing to discuss.”

Ned decided to play all his aces. This was a game that could be won in the next five minutes or otherwise last a couple of months – and certainly no buccaneer would wait that long.

“Nothing to
discuss
,” he said agreeably. “However, you should listen to my terms. They are generous – very generous.”

“A pirate’s terms
generous
?” Vásquez sneered.

“Yes. You see, I know that you have nine forts and half a hundred guns, and probably about three hundred quintals of powder in your magazines – enough to defend Santa Catalina for months, because of course you have a well of sweet water and no doubt plenty of grain. But, Your Excellency, who will aim and fire all those guns?

“You have only eleven trained men… And yes, you have drawn back the bridge, but I have three thousand men, agile as mountain goats – more so, because climbing rigging in a storm is much more difficult than scrambling up rocks… And of course, we would put the port to the torch before doing anything else. That would mean none of the refugees in your little fortress island will have a house when it is all over. Not a house, not a shop, not a tavern; just charred wood and blackened stone.”

“You mentioned ‘generous’…” Vásquez said, his voice strangled, his hands now shaking as he loosened the collar of his jerkin and took off his hat with its large white plume, “‘generous terms’?”

“Yes. We take or destroy all your cannon, shot, musket, pistols, and powder, pikes and swords and armour. We destroy any of the forts on Santa Catalina that I choose. That is all.”

“All? What about the women and children?” Vásquez asked, unaware that he was revealing that he would accept the terms. “You promise to send all the prisoners to Portobelo or Cartagena? You give me a safe-conduct? No hostages – you must guarantee that –”

“You have heard my terms,” Ned said, deliberately speaking in a harsh tone. “I want all your weapons. No prisoners, no hostages, no ransoms and no safe-conducts.”

Vásquez slid down on to the sand in a faint, and Thomas said triumphantly: “I knew he would, he was swaying like a drunken curate. Dead faint. What on earth did you say?”

As Hernández and the other Spaniards knelt down round the governor, Secco muttered in English: “He misunderstood you – your grammar was bad. He thought you meant you were taking no prisoners or hostages, that you were going to kill everyone.”

Thomas roared with laughter. “No wonder he fainted. Still, just shows you, Ned, he reckons you can do it. He can’t have any defences up there!”

“They haven’t,” Ned said quickly. “Or at least, they have plenty of guns but no men to fire them.”

Hernández stood up and coughed. “The governor will be himself in a minute – ah!” He bent and helped the man to his feet. Vásquez brushed the sand from his sleeves, breathing deeply, and then turned on Ned.

“I protest!” he said angrily. “I have four hundred women and children up there, and five hundred old people, and –”

“Your Excellency, be silent. Let me say my terms again; my grammar was bad. I want all guns, powder, muskets, other weapons and armour. I shall destroy any forts, castles or batteries I please. I shall
not
touch any man, woman or child you now have in Santa Catalina. When we sail you will all be left here as you are now. Puerto Catalina will not be burned.”

He looked at Vásquez, who looked down at the sand.

“And if I do not agree to these terms?”

Ned turned and waved dramatically to where the sun had just dropped below the horizon, leaving a crimson haze. “Then you and every man, woman and child on Santa Catalina have seen their last sunset!”

Vásquez dropped to his knees and began praying, and Ned tried to compose his face into a ruthless mask for the sake of Hernández, although fearful that Thomas would wink and destroy the effect. “I have no need to tell you
what
it means because you are a soldier. The smoke of the guns, the screams of the wounded, the earth shaking as magazines explode…”

“
Madre de Dios
,” Hernández muttered. “I am a retired soldier, of the quartermaster branch. I allocated supplies in the Netherlands, not fired guns… This morning was the nearest I have ever been to guns when they are fired.”

Ned shook his head sadly and pointed down to Vásquez. “You had better interrupt his prayers to see what the Good Lord has advised him, because I am going back to my ship and unless he agrees to my terms the next time I see him will be when my sailors bury him.”

As Hernández knelt beside the praying governor, Ned cursed that Thomas did not speak Spanish: he was pleased with the way the most bloodcurdling of threats came easily to his tongue. On the other hand, Thomas better than anyone else knew that he could never carry them out, and was likely to laugh – or at least tease him for weeks.

Then the governor and the garrison commander were standing to attention in front of him, hose and breeches covered in sand.

“I accept your terms,” Vásquez said hurriedly. “But they must be in writing. Properly signed.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Ned said, guessing the man would go on qualifying it for hours. “You can come out to the ship now and we will draw up the document – two copies, one for you and one for me,” he added hurriedly, “and we can all sleep soundly, and tomorrow we can start carrying out the terms.”

“I come out to your ship?” Vásquez asked fearfully. “But I have no security! You must leave a hostage!”

“You cannot dictate terms. However, I shall also want the garrison commander’s signature on the documents, and there is not room for both of you in the canoe unless I leave one of my people behind. I shall leave this gentleman –” he pointed to Thomas “–he is my second in command.”

Vásquez nodded but eyed the narrow canoe fearfully. “That is safe?”

“Safe enough,” Ned said. “Now, you can remove your shoes or get them wet!”

He explained to the boatmen that they had two passengers, and told Thomas he would have to stay behind for half an hour. Because neither Vásquez nor Hernández had explained anything to the other men on the beach, none knew that Thomas was supposed to be a hostage. Ned explained: “You’re supposed to be a hostage, your grace, but I’ll send a canoe for you as soon as I get back on board. You’ll have half an hour of mosquitoes, then you can join us and watch the signing, and listen to the governor call me a cheat for not leaving you here.”

“By the way, Ned, why have they agreed to surrender?”

“They know there are twenty-one more of our ships in sight. At least, because they’ve taken away their look-outs, they’ve taken my word for it.”

“
Are
there twenty-one?”

“Yes. My Highlanders climbed to the top of that hill and saw them in the distance. A bit strung out, but obviously they can see Providence.”

Vásquez climbed up the rope ladder behind Ned, stepped warily on to the
Griffin
’s deck and, without looking round the ship, waited for Hernández to follow. He did not see who greeted Ned until, with the garrison commander beside him, he turned to find two beautiful women smiling at him, one with ash-coloured hair and the other black hair in long ringlets.

Ned, whose quick wink had warned the women what to do, watched Vásquez for a few moments and there was little doubt that the man was going pale again. However, he knew enough of the Spanish pride to know that it was important to stop the governor making a fool of himself in front of women. Then he realized that, although the two women had given Vásquez a shock, what had made him go pale was the sight of the buccaneer captains, who were still on board, standing in a group close by the entry-port. Each had a tankard of rum in his hands, all wore swords of different patterns, all were unshaven and had that desperate look that went with independent men. It was not, of course, desperate: that was simply how it was interpreted by other men living a more routine life, and Governor Vásquez’s life was obviously bounded on all sides by routine and the narrow confines of Providence and Santa Catalina.

Vásquez, Ned reflected, had seen first the Sirens to lure him and then, beyond them, the bearded rocks that could be his doom.

He stepped forward. “Your Excellency…permit me to introduce you to Mrs Yorke –” he thought the exaggeration was only one of time, and permissible “–and Miss Diana Gilbert-Manners. His Excellency the Governor of Providence.”

Ned had deliberately spoken in a leisurely voice, giving the man time to recover. Vásquez bowed deeply but as Aurelia and Diana were both deliberately standing with their hands behind their backs to avoid it, he made no attempt to kiss them. He turned and gestured to Hernández, introducing him as the garrison commander, but managing to imply that he was of little consequence. After gesturing to Secco and Lobb to take the two Spaniards down to the cabin, Ned took the women by the arm and moved aft. “Thomas will be along in a few minutes: the canoe has gone back to fetch him.”

“I was beginning to wonder,” Diana admitted. “Are we permitted to ask what is happening?”

“Yes, of course you are,” Ned said with the vagueness he knew irritated Aurelia.

“Very well, we
are
asking,” Aurelia said. “Why do we now have the governor of Providencia and the commander of the garrison on board?”