Corsair (27 page)

Ned saw the three Cayman prizes now working their way up to windward, as he had instructed, so that they would get into a position where the Spanish ships were to leeward of them. The
Peleus
, following astern, was bearing away slightly, intending to tackle the second merchant ship to windward, and Saxby was obviously proposing to attack the third. The rest of the buccaneer flotilla was in no sort of formation; it was evident that each of the Spanish ships would be attacked by several buccaneers at once, which would be like a pack of dogs attacking a bull.

The men were standing by at the guns; linstocks were being waved like wands, pieces of slowmatch wound round them, the glowing ends fitting into the Y-shaped crutches at the end.

Beside the guns, cutlasses, pikes and muskets were lying ready for use. The
Griffin
’s buccaneers had strips of coloured cloth tied round their foreheads to prevent perspiration running into their eyes. Most of them were bare from the waist up, stripped so that they could move freely. All were barefooted although several of them fidgeted, finding the deck hot to stand on.

Ned took one last look at the ship towards which the
Griffin
was heading and put the perspective glass back in the drawer. The soldiers were not on board – at least, they were not lining the bulwarks with muskets and pikes, nor was there any sign of troops on board the other eight ships.

More guns fired from the frigate: the wind must have swung her a little more so that extra guns could bear. There were three thuds as shot hit the
Griffin
, but there were no shouts or screams from wounded crew. Now they would be reloading the guns in the frigate and Ned hoped the Spaniards were so excited that they slowed themselves down.

The ship he was going to attack was painted a plum red and her masts were yellow. Yes, she had six gunports on this side, but the way she was heading not one of the guns could be brought to bear yet.

Forty yards to go; at the moment the
Griffin
was steering directly for the ship; at the last moment she would have to luff up, furling sails at the same time, and slam alongside her, guns firing.

And it was up to him to judge the exact moment when the
Griffin
luffed up. A few moments too early, and she would stop short of the ship and be blown away from her by the prevailing wind; a few moments too late and she would overshoot.

There is, Ned warned himself, no second chance.

Forty yards…thirty…twenty…ten… “Luff her!” he bellowed at Lobb. “Let fly the headsails sheets, furl the mainsail!”

Now the
Griffin
was alongside the Spanish ship, whose bulwarks were six feet higher than the
Griffin
’s. Ned faced his gunners. “Fire when you bear!” he shouted and two of the guns spurted flame and smoke immediately, rumbling back in recoil.

“Grapnels over!” Ned yelled at the men standing between the guns.

More guns fired; then the
Griffin
was close alongside the Spaniard, her hull grinding against the other ship.

“Board her!” Ned commanded as he ran for the bulwark, cutlass in his hand. Men left the guns, snatching up cutlasses and pikes and leaping on to the bulwarks and then clawing their way up the side of the Spaniard.

Ned wriggled up a chain plate, swung himself on to the Spaniard’s bulwark and dropped on to the deck.

There were thirty or forty Spaniards waiting there, some with boarding pikes poised and the others wielding cutlasses, but they stood away from the bulwarks as though the broadside from the guns had driven them back.

Ned waited until he sensed that a dozen or more buccaneers were behind him and then, yelling “Griffins!”, ran towards the nearest group of Spaniards. One man lunged with a pike and Ned slammed it aside with his cutlass, turning the movement into a slashing blow so that the blade bit into the man’s skull. As he fell Ned was just in time to parry a cutlass blow from another Spaniard and was saved from a lunging pike by a buccaneer who drove the haft downwards so that the point stuck in the deck. While the bewildered Spaniard tried to wrestle it free from the planking Ned slashed at him and the man screamed as he crumpled.

By now more buccaneers were pouring over the bulwarks, some with muskets. One fired so close to Ned that he was almost deafened and with his ears ringing he slashed his way into the same group of Spaniards.

A wild-eyed man with long, curly hair screamed as he slashed at Ned with a cutlass, but he was not holding the blade square and it slid away as Ned parried, swung the cutlass up and cut down with it. The blade bit into the man’s shoulder and he reeled backwards and collapsed.

At that moment Ned felt an agonizing pain and out of the corner of his eye saw a pike: the point had caught his right arm. He wrenched himself away, punched the haft with his left hand and turned to slash at a man with a cutlass on his right.

But before the blade drove home the man fell and a yelling Lobb grinned at Ned, waving the pike with which he had spitted his victim.

Ned was conscious of gunfire on the starboard side of the ship: the rest of the buccaneers must be in action. Then suddenly he saw the smoke. Sailing down towards the anchored vessels, running before the wind, were three ships almost entirely enveloped in smoke: the Grand Cayman fireships!

He dared not spend much time looking at them – a moment’s inattention had already seen him stabbed in the arm with a pike – but he could see flames beginning to lick at the hulls. They were being steered directly towards the smaller merchant ships anchored closer in, to windward of the others.

By now the Spanish ship’s deck was a whirling mass of men shouting and screaming, slashing with cutlasses, jabbing with pikes, and one buccaneer was whirling a musket round his head, holding it by the barrel, and screaming defiance at the top of his voice as he launched himself at the nearest Spaniards like a spinning wheel.

Ned realized that the fight was moving several feet away from him: the Spaniards were retreating fast and most of the men he could see were buccaneers, easily distinguished by the rags round their foreheads.

The Spanish ship’s deck was now littered with bodies; blood streamed across it as though someone had been emptying it in buckets. Suddenly there was almost a silence, and Ned guessed the Spaniards had surrendered.

“Griffins!” Ned shouted, knowing the buccaneers were quite likely to kill the remaining Spaniards in their excitement, not understanding Spanish and not caring much anyway.

After several shouts the buccaneers stopped fighting and Ned saw that only six or seven Spaniards were left on their feet, and they had thrown down their cutlasses and pikes.

“Secure the prisoners!” he told Lobb.

Now Ned looked at the fireships. The first of them, shapeless from the flames enveloping it, was within a few yards of running into one of the anchored merchant ships. He could see a small boat pulling away from it – the bosun and his crew escaping. The second fireship, a few yards from another ship, was gradually turning broadside-on in the wind, but she would still hit the bow of her target. The third fireship, with no flames coming from it yet, was a good forty yards from its target and still towing the boat which the crew would use to escape. And the target, Ned suddenly realized, was the frigate: the Spaniards were firing at it, but even as they did flames leapt up from the hatches, the boat was dragged up close, and the crew jumped into it, casting off.

The fireship burst into flames as he watched and Ned realized that the roaring noise he could hear in the distance was the sound of the flames fanned by the wind. The fireship headed for the frigate as though drawn by a magnet and lodged across its bow just as the merchant ship caught by the first fireship began to blaze.

Well, Ned thought, fireships worked for Sir Francis Drake against the Spanish Armada off Calais, and they are certainly working for us here at Santa Marta…

Now to secure the ship they had just taken and go on to tackle the next. But one glance aft at the
Peleus
and the rest of the buccaneers showed him there was no hurry: each of the merchant ships had two or three buccaneer ships alongside: some had a ship on each side, with one more hanging on each quarter.

Only then did he realize that the fort had been firing; the gunners were probably shooting at the fireships, unable to fire at anyone else in case they hit their own ships.

By now the frigate was ablaze, looking as if she was holding the fireship in a warm embrace. The other two fireships had set their targets on fire, and Ned saw that the three boats, carrying the bosuns and the volunteer crews, were all rowing for the
Griffin
, the nearest ship.

They were all brave men: Ned had warned the bosuns of the risks they would have to run, steering their ships for the targets while starting the fires, and there would be only moments left for them to scramble into the boats and row to safety. But the bosuns had laughed; handling fireships took the monotony out of life. And the crews were cheerful enough. Come to think of it, there was probably less risk in handling fireships than boarding a Spanish ship and, within moments, finding yourself in a life-or-death fight with cutlass or pike.

Damn, his arm was beginning to hurt. He looked down and was startled to see his sleeve soggy with blood. Well, the hand, although stiffening up, still worked so it could only be a flesh wound. Aurelia would soon have it cleaned up when he got back on board the
Griffin
.

Right, now to check up on what’s happening. Two merchant ships burning from the fireships and – he ducked as a great flash preceded the rumbling roar of the frigate exploding: the masts collapsed like falling trees and curved into the water, trailing yards and sails; great wooden deck beams and hull frames flew slowly into the air in wide arcs before splashing down into the sea. In a matter of moments what had been a ship was changed to a ring of boiling water in which a scattering of wreckage bobbed about. There was no sign of life; Ned had grabbed a perspective glass from a drawer, but could not see a man swimming or clinging to wreckage.

He then looked astern, inspecting the ships with the glass. Yes, the next nearest merchant ship, and the one beyond, attacked by the
Peleus
and
Phoenix
, had obviously surrendered: there was little or no movement on deck. There was still fighting on the next ship – which would be the sixth – but the seventh seemed to have surrendered. There was still a lot of movement on the deck of the eighth, but the ninth seemed quiet – yes, he could see men climbing back over the bulwarks into the buccaneer ships.

Ned turned to Lobb and said: “Send the prisoners and wounded on board the
Griffin
. Have the carpenter inspect this ship, and then you can select a prize crew. I’m going back on board the
Griffin
: I’d better get this tied up–” he held up his arm “–and I want to talk to the fireship men. That was quite a bang when the frigate went up. Didn’t take long for the flames to reach her magazine.”

“My ears are still ringing,” Lobb said ruefully. “By the way, the fort will soon be shooting at all of us.”

“We can cut our cables if they get too close,” Ned said. “But I doubt if those gunners get much practice.”

Ned found it hard to climb back on board the
Griffin
: his arm was beginning to stiffen rapidly and it was hard to grip anything with his hand. As soon as Aurelia saw him she insisted that he came down to the saloon to be bandaged.

“What about the other wounded?” Ned protested.

“No one has come back wounded yet,” she said. “You’re the first.”

It had long been the rule among the buccaneers that the wounded were treated in the order in which they presented themselves, so Ned went down to the saloon, where Aurelia had roughly cut bandages and basins of water already set out on the table.

She slit the cloth of his sleeve, washed away the blood from the wound, and commented: “You were very lucky, Ned: another inch and it would have cut the muscle badly.”

With that she began tying a bandage while Ned mumbled: “My fault anyway; I wasn’t looking, and this Don came up where I didn’t see him.”

“The fireships,” Aurelia said. “They did everything you wanted them to?”

“Yes. Have the bosuns come on board?”

“Yes, they’re all here, as excited as small boys who’ve just raided an orchard. I had to laugh: the first thing our bosun asked me when he got on board was whether I heard the frigate blow up. I should think they heard it in Riohacha!”

“I hope you told him that.”

“Oh, I did; I made a fuss of all of them.”

Ned ripped off a bit more of his shirt and said: “I must be getting back on deck. You’ll have plenty of wounded down in a few minutes – some will be Spanish.”

He reached the deck to find Lobb supervising the transfer of the wounded, lowering them from the merchant ship’s higher bulwark down to the
Griffin
’s deck.

“How many?” Ned asked.

“Five of ours – none badly – and seven Spanish. We had two men killed; the Spanish lost eight.”

Ned caught sight of the three bosuns and went over to congratulate them.

“Cor, you warned us they’d burn quick,” the
Griffin
’s bosun said. “That wood was dry! And that spirit sprayed all over the place – that helped the flames. But the frigate!”

“Who did that one?”

“I did,” the bosun said proudly. “I reckoned she was the one ship that could cause us trouble – if she’d swung she could have raked you.”

Ned shook him by the hand. “She made quite a bang. If we ever want someone to command a fireship in the future, I’ll come to you!”

Just then he saw a boat approaching with Thomas in it.

Whetstone had a rough bandage tied round his head and his hair was bloodstained. The moment he came on board and saw the bandage round Ned’s arm he bellowed: “Ah, they spitted you too, did they Ned?”

“What happened to you? Bumped your head on a deck beam?”