Admiral (10 page)

“Yes, yes, I’ll do that. Very well gentlemen – ladies and gentlemen,” he corrected himself, “I know that I was badly informed in the matter of Santiago de Cuba, but I have now received very bad news from an unimpeachable source.”

“The only unimpeachable source,” Thomas muttered, “is the Almighty Himself, and I doubt if He confides in you yet.”

“Well, yes, but this information comes from one of my own officers who was captured in our unfortunate attack on Hispaniola–”

“Supposing you give us the information first, then the source,” Thomas said impatiently.

“Ah yes, let me do that. Well, five Spanish ships are at present in Providencia – that’s a small island half-way between here and the Isthmus –with troops from the Portobelo and other towns and orders to embark all the Spanish garrison at Providencia as well, and then land them on the north coast of Jamaica. The ships will then go on to Cuba for supplies and many more troops.”

Thomas roared with laughter and when he had wiped his eyes he said to Ned: “I’m sorry, I can just imagine that. The Spanish commander of the squadron lands the troops without trouble – there’s nothing to stop him, although certainly the troops have a few mountain ranges to climb – and then goes off to Cuba for the supplies and extra troops. When he arrives he’s met with ‘
What
troops?
What
supplies?
Caramba
, we know nothing about it! Orders from the Viceroy of Panama? He has no jurisdiction here!”

“And that’s why the Spanish troops already landed in Jamaica would have to be re-embarked and taken back to the Main: they could not find the enemy, they couldn’t cross the mountains, they had nothing to eat or drink, the rain in the hills soaked their powder…oh dear me!”

Heffer looked appealingly at Ned, hoping he would contradict Sir Thomas Whetstone, but Mr Yorke just nodded in agreement.

“What had you in mind for us to do?” Ned asked.

“Well, I was hoping you could sink or capture these ships before they land the Spanish troops on the north coast…”

Ned stared at him and then said coldly: “You have three thousand men doing nothing, apart from the hundred or so building the batteries here on the Palisades. Why don’t you move them to the north coast so they can kill or capture the Dons? Good training for them.”

Heffer suddenly looked like a man whose adored wife had just walked out of the house saying she really despised him. Ned had expected him to answer that the northern coastline, 165 miles or so from Morant Point in the east to Point Negril in the west, was all cliffs, jungle and mountains and too long and inaccessible for him to be able to cover it and still have enough men to defend Cagway. But Heffer made no such excuse.

“The obvious place to capture them is at sea, surely Mr Yorke?” he said, licking his teeth nervously.

“Perhaps,” Ned said, and Aurelia saw at once that he was gently luring Heffer into a position where they could take their leave and sail for Tortuga. “You have some idea how many soldiers the Dons will be carrying in those five ships?”

“My informant says there will be a total of about two thousand soldiers.”

“Plus the crews of the ships.”

“Of course.”

“Say two thousand, five hundred men altogether, at the most.”

“About that,” Heffer agreed.

“Hmm…two thousand, five hundred in five ships…all heavily armed…” Ned seemed to be murmuring to himself, but now Thomas waited: he too could see what was coming, and Diana turned her face away to hide a smile.

“Against them we have seven ships…”

“Ah indeed,” Heffer said cheerfully, “you have a majority.”

“…but the Spanish ships are very much bigger, and in men they would outnumber us more than five to one: two thousand, five hundred men against five hundred or so buccaneers.”

Heffer looked startled. “But you won’t be fighting them hand to hand, surely? Won’t you keep your distance and sink the ships so the Spaniards drown?”

“Unfortunately the buccaneer squadron here” (he was pleased with the way the word ‘squadron’ came out so easily) “is made up of seven merchant ships, all small. Even if we concentrated all our guns on one Spanish ship – an obvious impossibility – we’d never sink her.”

“But…but I thought you buccaneers existed by attacking other ships!”

“How did you get that idea?” Ned asked. “We stole the grain you needed for your starving garrison by raiding Riohacha; we dealt with your fears of a Spanish fleet by raiding Santiago. We are sea soldiers, General Heffer, not sailors.”

“Bless my soul!” Heffer exclaimed. “I hadn’t realized that! Sea soldiers, eh? Yes, a good name.”

Ned shrugged. “It is quite obvious when you think about it. Our ships are not built for fighting. As former merchant ships they can carry a certain number of men and a quantity of purchase, but they are not built to carry a number of guns. Apart from that, the buccaneers have no Spanish targets at sea. The plate fleet never appears; the coasting trade along the Main is tiny – most of the vessesl are foreign smugglers.

“So obviously our targets are
places
. We look for gold and silver and jewellery belonging to the inhabitants; we hold the richest to ransom; we rob the churches and the town treasuries. We are not very nice people. We raid from the sea, like the Vikings a few centuries ago. Like
El Draco
more recently.”

Heffer wetted his teeth again and said: “Now I understand, but what about these Spanish troops? It’s a whole army!”

“Is it
really
a threat? Suppose it does land on the north coast. It’ll probably come ashore at Runaway Bay, where the last of the original Spaniards fled to Cuba. Do you think they can threaten Cagway? The harbour? The Palisades? Will they
really
get across the mountains without losing half their men from sickness? It’s the rainy season now and humidity makes even a healthy man lethargic.”

“You are not going to help me, then,” Heffer said flatly.

“‘Are not’? Those aren’t the right words! ‘Cannot’ would describe it exactly. In any case we have much to do.”

“What can be more important than saving Jamaica?” Heffer asked, almost wailing.

“It depends on your point of view,” Thomas said unexpectedly. “Ned here is going to get married, and that’s the most important step in a man’s life, for better or worse, as I know to my cost. Then we all have to go to Tortuga, to meet the rest of the buccaneers…”

“’
The rest’?
” Heffer echoed. “Why, how many are there at Tortuga?”

“About twenty ships,” Thomas said.

“Bless my soul!” Heffer exclaimed. “Can you not persuade them to come here?” Twenty buccaneer ships, he realized, would be a big reinforcement with the ones already here; twenty-seven or more ships to act as transports for his own troops, if he suddenly wanted to shift them round to the north coast – or indeed, to any of the island’s coasts, since there were no roads to speak of.

Ned decided to take over. He looked carefully at Heffer, like a tailor preparing to give an estimate for an elaborate jerkin. “Shall I speak honestly and frankly? Shall I answer your question and risk shocking you? Do you, as a Godfearing former church and cathedral despoiler committed never to laugh on Sundays feel strong enough to hear my words?”

Heffer, already shocked at Ned’s emphatic little speech, ran his tongue over his teeth as the muscles of his face worked hard to pull it into a reassuring smile. The smile failed; the best Heffer could manage was a nervous smirk.

“I am a man of the world, Mr Yorke,” he said nervously.

“Indeed you are not, or else you would never have been mixed up with Cromwell. You have broken the stained-glass windows in beautiful churches; you have destroyed the stone and wood carvings on tombs, pews reredos and choir stalls. No, don’t bother to deny it, because that’s all past now, although I loved the beauty. What I want to know, General, is have you ever been inside a brothel and dragged your choice into a back room? Have you ever lurched from one tavern to another too drunk to know where the devil you are? Have you ever cursed and sworn at a potman or innkeeper for being tardy with fresh tankards of ale?”

A distressed Heffer looked first at Diana and then at Aurelia, then back at Diana, to whom he made an appeal. “Miss Diana, it distresses me that there should be such talk in front of ladies. Can you – er, persuade Mr Yorke…”

“Indeed not,” Diana retorted. “I’m more interested in hearing your answer!”

“Yes,” Aurelia added, “please do not be shy!”

“But what does it matter – I mean, how can it affect the buccaneers if I have never – well, I am a married man!”

“I’ll tell you, then,” Ned rasped. “You’ve shut down the only brothel in Cagway, and put a curfew on the taverns. This may suit your soldiers, who were, officially anyway, Roundheads until very recently. The New Model Army may be the New Model Eunuchs who do not want the company of women or the relief of hot liquors. But buccaneers do,
mon général
, buccaneers do! Each arm round a half-naked woman and four tankards of rum in front of him – that’s a buccaneer’s idea of an evening on shore. And he’ll pay for it!”

Heffer looked like a prelate who had just heard five drunken bishops gathered round the pulpit singing blasphemous and obscene songs.

“Are you suggesting that I permit brothels here in Cagway? Permit more taverns to open? Let loose women roam the street? Allow Cagway to become a town of sin, a sanctuary for the devil, a sink of iniquity?”

“Yes,” Thomas said promptly, “you’ll have to if you expect the buccaneers to use this as a base.”

Ned tapped the table. “You’ll also have to rename it Port Royal, to honour the King and flatter Thomas and me; you’ll have to get those batteries finished by the end of the month; you’ll have to allow the brothels and the taverns…then we have something to offer the buccaneers at Tortuga. It may not be enough to tempt them, but you can always increase the offer by not charging customs and excise duty on their liquors and tobacco, and issuing each buccaneer vessel a letter of marque without charge. You might even call it a commission.”

“But you are suggesting I do the Devil’s work!”

“The Devil doesn’t need your help; he would regard it as puny,” Ned said. “But
you
need help. You need a squadron of ships based here in Port Royal. Do you expect the buccaneers to live like monks? Because in my limited experience men who live like monks usually fight like monks. To defend Port Royal, Jamaica, and all these other islands against the Spanish, you need men with normal appetites who fight like demons when necessary. And women too.”

Aurelia blushed and Diana laughed, and Heffer’s face turned crimson, surprising Ned that the man had enough blood in his body.

“Supposing I refuse any brothels or more taverns?” Heffer demanded.

Again Ned shrugged his shoulders. “Five minutes ago I told you that we were going to Tortuga. You suggested that those buccaneers join us here, and we told you the terms. It’s of little concern to us whether or not you accept them, because if you don’t then we simply forget this conversation, bid you farewell and sail for Tortuga.”

“You don’t give me much choice,” Heffer said, his voice taking on a whining note.

“You have all the choice you need,” Ned said unsympathetically. “When you go into a shop and inquire the price of an object, you don’t have to buy. There’s no obligation. Is Jamaica worth a brothel or two, that’s what you have to decide.”

Thomas gestured at Heffer, a gesture which could only be interpreted as contemptuous. “Teffler, my dear fellow,” he said, reverting to his habit of deliberately getting men’s names wrong, “
your
answer to
our
question is really based on
your
answer to
your own
question.”

“I don’t understand!” the general said nervously.

“It is simple. Ask yourself just one question: Am I defending Jamaica for myself, Cromwell and Puritan principles, or am I defending it for the King and red-blooded Englishmen?”

“Well, it’s obvious what I’m trying to do!” Heffer said lamely.

“Indeed, it is,” Thomas said harshly. “You are trying to defend it with Puritan principles. The trouble is you don’t have Puritan ships to go with ’em. The King doesn’t want to be defended with Puritan principles, especially if they drive away Royalists. In fact he may ask awkward questions like ‘Why is Teffler still working in Jamaica for Cromwell’s ghost?’ And if he gets an answer which displeases him, he might decide Teffler is a traitor to the country, and since Teffler is being a naughty boy he’d better be brought home because he don’t qualify for General Monck’s amnesty, because he committed his offences
after
the Restoration.”

“They can never accuse me of that!”

“They most certainly can, and I’d give evidence. For the want of a brothel, the island was lost – oh yes, the King would see the humour of that, and the crowds watching your execution would roar with laughter; not often they get a bawdy hanging.”

Ned stood up and gestured to the women. “We must be going; we’re wasting the general’s time with all this gossip. Sometimes we forget he has command of 3,000 soldiers and the whole island: a heavy responsibility!”

Both women stood and walked towards the door, smiling a farewell over their shoulders. Thomas barked a gruff and friendly goodbye and Ned made his half apologetic. By now Heffer was standing at his desk, his face frozen by the suddenness of their move.

“Please, give me time to consider!” he gabbled, but Ned waved airily as he went through the door and closed it behind him.

They had gone back to the
Peleus
for a change, Aurelia declaring that the dinner being prepared on board the
Griffin
must be ruined by now. The four of them sat in the small cabin which Diana had hung with tapestries she had bought, or Thomas had looted, from the Spaniards. They were bright, the designs influenced by local Indian patterns, and lightened the dark polished mahogany of the panelling. The cot was enormous; the richly woven hammock in which it fitted had been pulled to one side, allowing more room in the cabin, and the heavy table, held to the deck by a chain from the centre of the underside, was just comfortably large enough to seat four.