Buccaneer (26 page)

“I suppose so,” Slinger said.

Whetstone told him the price and added: “In view of your earlier remarks about requisitioning, perhaps the lieutenant would allow you to use his boat to fetch the money first. Then we can begin unloading – at the wharf in front of your headquarters, do you suggest?”

“This is all
most
irregular!” Slinger protested.

“Yes,” Yorke agreed. “We are the first merchant ships to call, I imagine.”

“Well, yes,” Slinger admitted.

“Do you have the money?” Whetstone demanded.

“Yes. I need the governor’s approval, of course.”

“You will not have trouble getting that. Listen carefully. How much will you pay for flour?”

“How do I know! I’m not a merchant. I only know the price of sugar because those drunken planters in Barbados talked of nothing else.”

“Very well, talk to the governor and decide what you will offer – for grain and for flour.”

“But I don’t understand. To whom do we make an offer?”

“To Mr Kent and to me. And if we accept it, as soon as you’ve unloaded the sugar we will sail and get you grain or flour. It’ll take about two weeks.”

“Can you guarantee it?”

Whetstone looked him straight in the eye. “I guarantee it.”

“How many tons?”

Whetstone turned to Yorke, who said: “I can load 400 tons.”

“So you have 600 tons, Major, providing your price is right.”

“Where will you get it?”

“How much of the sugar and grain money will find its way into your pocket and the governor’s?”

“What an outrageous question!”

“Quite. We are going to enemy territory; that’s all you need to know, particularly when thinking of a price. Now, supposing you fetch the purchase money for the sugar, and we’ll be preparing to bring the
Griffin
alongside the jetty.”

At dawn the next day the
Griffin
and the
Peleus
weighed anchor and ran down the harbour, past the jetty where two companies of soldiers had made short work of unloading the sugar, and with the
Peleus
leading they rounded the sandspit and headed out into the open sea.

Aurelia, back in breeches, stood beside Ned watching the peninsula foreshorten and then lengthen again as the
Griffin
turned south-east and they saw it from seaward.

“Are we pirates or buccaneers?” she asked mischievously.

“Madam, you saw the gallant major deliver the commission signed by the governor. We are buccaneers!”

“But we have no
boucan
!”

“No, once again we’ll have to make do with salt beef, but Thomas says that when we get back we’ll go on to the Cayman islands and catch turtles, and then up to Cuba, where there are so many beeves that a fleet could supply itself with
boucan
.”

“Ned,” Aurelia asked, almost plaintively, “when we do get fresh meat, may I cook my own steak? All that smoke, and the meat gets so dry over the boucan.”

“When did you learn about boucaning?”

“Oh, he tried it several times.” The faint emphasis on the “he” told Ned yet again that he had nothing to be jealous about, but he found that at night even in the cramped bunk while holding her naked in his arms, he would be jealous of her past, when Wilson had held her. He had reminded himself that the man was impotent, and that she had never loved him, and that no lover had less to be jealous of than himself, but it was no good. Finally he admitted to himself that even if she had had a pet puppy, he would have been jealous of it. Love and jealousy seemed to be two sides of the same coin.

Oddly enough last night, after they had left the jetty with the
Griffin
and anchored out in the harbour, clear of the swarms of mosquitoes and sandflies, she had shown that she too could be jealous. Her long hair loose and making a soft shawl over his shoulders, her breasts melting into him and a leg flung over his thigh so that he did not know when his body ended and hers began, she had asked him about the first woman he had ever loved.

Ned had told her her name, described the colour of her hair and eyes, and how deeply they had loved each other and sworn eternal devotion. By this time Aurelia was lying beside him on one elbow, the moonlight through the skylight showing her eyes narrowed and her breasts taut, the nipples stiff with anger.

“This woman – this Rosemary, why did you not marry her, if you were both so
épris
?“

“Oh yes, we were enamoured; that is exactly the word!”

“So now you betray her with me! And you betray me with her!
Mon Dieu
, have you no shame?”

“No,” he admitted. “I betrayed you both without a moment’s thought…”

“Oh! You beast!” Aurelia tried to scramble out of the bunk but because she was on the inside she had to pull herself across Ned’s body, and the moment she was above him he pulled her down, struggling, her hair falling across his face and, tickling his nose, making him sneeze.

The absurdity of the situation started him laughing and this made a furious Aurelia pummel him in her efforts to get free. Finally Ned managed to stop laughing and hold her still long enough to say: “Beloved, we were both four years old at the time!”

To begin with she would not believe him. “How do I know this?”

“You don’t, my dearest, but I told you her name. Diana will know her; ask her who she married, who she is now.”

“Who is she?” Aurelia asked suspiciously, as if half expecting to meet her on board another privateer.

“The Countess of Rolles. And probably with her husband in exile in France, or wherever the Prince is living.”

“You make me foolish,” she said crossly, rolling to her side of the bunk and turning her back on him.

“No,” he said, clasping her body close to him, “that’s the first time a woman has ever been jealous of my past. You don’t know how flattered I am.”

With the sun rising and Ned feeling the effects of a night spent making love instead of sleeping, Aurelia said: “Where are we going for this corn?”

“Thomas reckons we should find enough at Riohacha, about 450 miles and the nearest part of the Main.”

“Will they want goods or money?”

“Thomas thinks they would have preferred sugar, but we wanted to make sure the English governor of Jamaica was an honest man; that’s why we made him buy the sugar.”

“Do you think he is honest?”

“Probably, anyway he produced the gold. He hadn’t much choice: his men are starving, he has no ships to get food except these two, and that’s that!”

“
And
he gave you both commissions.”

“I think it shocked his Parliamentary soul when he realized that otherwise he’d be buying grain from vulgar smugglers!”

Clear of the land the wind freshened and Saxby gave the order to harden in the mainsheet so that the
Griffin
could comfortably follow in the
Peleus’
wake, watching her closely as she turned from time to time when her lookouts spotted coral below the surface.

Slowly the sandspit dropped below the horizon but the mountains seemed to turn bluish-grey rather than diminish in size. Saxby gestured back to the anchorage they had just left, still known by its Spanish name of Caguas. “Must be the biggest harbour in the Caribbee!” he said.

Yorke nodded. “Perhaps Cartagena is bigger – that’s the main Spanish base. People talk of huge forts there.”

“Aye, that’s true. Well, if we stay in Sir Thomas’ company very long,” he said cheerfully, “no doubt we’ll see them!”

Yorke looked at the sun, now a few degrees above the eastern horizon and just lifting over the top of low distant clouds that always seemed to line the eastern horizon at dawn. “Time Burton was exercising his guns’ crews.”

“Yes, sir,” Saxby said and turned to bellow, “Pass the word for Mr Burton. Oh, there you are. Guns’ crews, Burton, where are they, eh? Still sleeping, I’ll be bound!”

Burton hurried below while Yorke said quietly, “Give them a couple of hours at it. They’ll be ready to drop, but one day we might be fighting for our lives and the ability to keep at it longer than the Dons…”

“Exactly, sir. Anyway, it’s a sight easier than spending the day cutting cane.”

Yorke nodded thoughtfully. “You know, Saxby, the fact is they’ve had an easy life since we left Kingsnorth.”

“I know, sir; muscles are softening up. Mine, too.”

“We’ll have some sail training this afternoon after lunch. We can’t delay the
Peleus
, but the men can get up the spare mainsail from below. We can spread it and inspect it for rat holes. And the jibs. Make sure we have sail needles, palms and thread ready to do any repairs.”

“I’ve a good mind to tell Mrs Judd she’s included in the sail handlers; she’s getting mortal fat.”

“You’re the master,” Yorke said with a grin.

“I’ve a mind to make everyone in the ship do some heavy manual work each day. They’ll keep fit.”

“He is right, Edouard,” Aurelia said. “I do not get enough exercise.” Then, as Ned stared at her she slowly blushed. “Just like Mrs Judd,” she added, knowing that she was the cause of Saxby’s bloodshot eyes. “One cannot have enough exercise just walking the deck.”

“No, ma’am,” said Saxby, who was obviously thinking that regular exercise might slow down Mrs Judd’s demands.

“I think we should have some target practice with the small arms, too,” Yorke said. “When we’re ready – after lunch, I think – we’ll close with the
Peleus
and have her drop some casks or planks of wood in her wake to give us targets.”

Saxby nodded; he was thankful that Mr Yorke was beginning to take an interest in the running of the ship. No, that was not quite fair; he had always taken an interest. Now he was beginning to take part. He was, Saxby supposed, beginning to understand the workings of a ship. Not an ordinary merchant ship, because there was nothing difficult about that, but a smuggling or buccaneer ship. Saxby looked forward to the day when he would be the mate and Mr Yorke the master. Having all these lives dependent on you was a heavy responsibility or, rather, the responsibility was in trying to think ahead – like staying out of the trap they fell into off Cumaná. Certainly they escaped the
guarda costa
, thanks to that trick of cutting across the Don’s bow, but Saxby knew he should not have been so close in to the shore. Sir Thomas had spotted that when first he heard about it, but he knew they were all inexperienced and had made no criticism. Still, Saxby looked forward to the day when Mr Yorke was as fine a seaman as Sir Thomas. Mrs Wilson – she had the same spirit as Sir Thomas’ lady, and with these women it was the spirit that mattered. Like Martha Judd – and Mrs Bullock for that matter. They were just naturally loyal to their men, and that was all that governed their lives.

Just at noon four days later the lookout reported that the
Peleus
was deliberately luffing, slowing so that the
Griffin
would catch up. As soon as they were within hailing distance, Whetstone bellowed across: “Can you see land way over on the larboard bow? It’s low; looks like a distant cloud.”

Saxby could see nothing but called to the lookout aloft who finally allowed that yes, it could be a cloud or land.

“It’s Cabo de la Vela,” Whetstone shouted. “The mouth of the Riohacha is about sixty miles along the coast to the west. I deliberately made this landfall so we can get to the coast and then run back along it – it’s flat all the way. The first we’ll see of Riohacha will be the church on the west side of the river and some trees on the east side.”

“What are we going to do when we arrive?” Ned yelled.

“As soon as we close the coast, I’ll come over,” Whetstone said. “It’s very shallow all along the coast; a mile offshore you can anchor in three fathoms!”

By five o’clock in the evening, with a low sandy shore a mile away ahead of them, the
Peleus
rounded up, dropped her mainsail and jibs, and anchored. Saxby brought the
Griffin
close to leeward, listening to the depths being called by the leadsman, and finally anchored.

“Can’t get used to anchoring so far out in such shallow water, sir,” he commented to Yorke, gesturing at the
Peleus
to make sure he had seen the boat being hoisted out.

Whetstone brought Diana with him and was in high spirits.

“How was that for navigation, Ned! Always afraid of being too far to the north-east – then you miss this peninsula and the first you know is you’re passing Aruba and arriving at Curaçao.”

Diana was talking quietly to Aurelia, and from the French girl’s blush and smiling face Ned had no doubt about what they were discussing: the last few days had been in effect Aurelia’s honeymoon, and Diana was obviously curious.

“Now what?” he asked Whetstone, in case his thoughts were straying in the same direction.

“We’ve enough moon tonight to run along the coast to the town of Riohacha. We shan’t miss it because it’s built at the mouth of the river. A forest is conspicuous on high land at one side of the river, and the village is on the other. There’s a church and close to it the jetty sticks out into the river mouth. It’s damn shallow, though. If there was any north in the wind we’d have to wait because it kicks up a heavy surf.”

“You seem to know this place!”

Whetstone nodded and grinned. “Yes, they know
La Perla
here. That’s why you’ll have to go in and do the bargaining. You’ll have to bring out my 200 tons and I’ll meet you out of sight down the coast: we’ll transfer it by boat. It’ll be tedious. Then you can go back to get your 400 tons and rejoin me for the return to Jamaica.”

“I wish you weren’t so popular,” Yorke grumbled. “Transferring 200 tons of maize by boat…still, if we find there’s no swell we can lie alongside each other.”

“Yes – but we’d have to be lucky. Still, the price the governor is going to pay makes it worth it. And don’t forget, we have commissions now!”

“Yes, I’m sure the Spanish mayor of Riohacha will be delighted to see them!”

“Now listen, Ned, the difficulty is going to be the language. Bargaining with these scoundrels and not speaking the language…”