Admiral (9 page)

“Ah, my creditors were muttering harsh words like ‘Marshalsea’ – the debtor’s prison,” he explained to Leclerc and Gottlieb, “when her ladyship sailed to my rescue.”

“His Most Catholic Majesty must be praying for a Lady Diana.” Leclerc said, adding with a bow: “I’m thankful we have her!”

“Potosi… Potosi…” Thomas said the name, rolling the word on his tongue. “Two thousand miles from Panama, you say. Pity we can’t get at the silver before it arrives at Panama. Two thousand miles, and with no enemy ships in the South Sea I doubt if the Dons bother to escort it.”

“Not since Sir Francis Drake,” Ned said.

“About one hundred and fifty years ago! Yet even here in the North Sea they still talk of
El Draco
.”

Leclerc gave a mirthless laugh. “
El Draco
’s
ghost is a good friend of the buccaneers: he has conjured the Spanish into believing that they can
never
win at sea and rarely on land.”

“They shouldn’t have needed much persuasion,” Thomas said.

“Well,” Leclerc said, “let us continue to follow the voyage of the bullion. Panama is a poor port, very shallow, but a large and wealthy city. The Viceroy and all the rich merchants live there. The silver is landed and put in the treasury to await the most difficult part of the journey, and I’ll leave it there for a moment to outline the story from this side, from the North Sea.

“Those two names tell the story: on our side, our sea is called the North Sea because it is on the north side of the Isthmus; the South Sea is so called because it is on the south side of it. And the Isthmus is one hundred miles wide, and where there aren’t swamps and dozens of rivers, like the veins on the back of an old man’s hand, there are mountains. Their galleons from Spain arrive in the North Sea, and – as I’m sure you know M. Yorke – they go to Cartagena.”

“Why not Portobelo?”

“Ah, because Portobelo suffers from the same problem as Panama: it is very shallow. The galleons draw too much water, and Portobelo has been silting up for years. Now the problem for the Spanish is that they have the bullion in Panama and the ships in Cartagena, but the journey from Panama by land to Cartagena is, as far as bullion is concerned, impossible.”

Leclerc finished on a note of triumph, as though he personally had made it impossible, but Ned merely glanced up and said: “So what happens?”

“Well,” Leclerc said lamely, “when the galleons are due the bullion is carried from Panama to Portobelo – a tedious journey of a hundred miles over the mountains by donkey and mule – and stored there in one of the forts (Portobelo is well guarded by forts) until the galleons actually arrive.”

“In Cartagena,” Ned said.

“Yes, in Cartagena. But the word is passed in good time to Portobelo and smaller, shallow-draught ships begin to carry the bullion round to Cartagena, and take back to Portobelo the trade goods brought out by the galleons.”

“From where they are carried over the mountains to Panama?”

“Yes, once the galleons arrive and goods are shipped round, the Panama merchants hold a fair in Portobelo, buy and sell the trade goods, and take their purchases back to Panama by donkey and mule. Then I suppose they ship them down the coast to all the other places, like Arica and Potosi.”

“I understand that well enough,” Ned said. “So the bullion (from our point of view) is vulnerable while being carried by sea from Portobelo to Cartagena.”

Leclerc shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid not. The galleons bring with them enough smaller ships to provide strong escorts.”

Ned was puzzled. He had been told how the bullion reached Portobelo and was shipped on to the great port of Cartagena; he understood that the galleons went to Cartagena and the bullion was brought to them; and Leclerc said there was little or no chance of getting at the bullion while it was on its way from Portobelo to Cartagena. Quite apart from all that, the king of Spain was not in any case sending galleons to Cartagena or the
flota
to Vera Cruz this year.

“Forgive me,” he said politely but firmly. “but I can’t see where any of this concerns the buccaneers. The bullion is stored in Panama, on the other side of the Isthmus…”

Leclerc shook his head. “Not all of it. One of our brothers escaping from a prison on the Main and reaching Tortuga found out that all of last year’s silver production was brought to Portobelo ready for the galleons which never came.”

Ned glanced up and Thomas looked at him quickly to judge his reaction.

“And the Spaniards never carried it back to the Treasury in Panama for safekeeping?”

“No,” Leclerc said. “Our brother reported that he had spoken to several witnesses who said the Spaniards have it stored in the dungeon at ‘the main castle’, which almost certainly is San Gerónimo.”

“Witnesses? How reliable is he?”

“He is dead now – he died of consumption contracted in prison. But he was a shrewd man we all knew, loved and trusted. He knew exactly how many cones, wedges and cakes of silver, canvas bags and barrels of coin the witnesses were forced to carry down the steps to the dungeon. The Spaniards didn’t trust their Negro slaves…”

“And now you want us to carry it all back up the steps again, eh?”

Leclerc grinned happily. “Forty-seven steps,” he said. “Our brother even told us that, too.” Suddenly, appalled at Leclerc’s ideas, Ned hoped that when they reached Tortuga and all the buccaneers met to vote on his election as their admiral, they would take an instant dislike to him and vote for someone who could plan but had no imagination. For the moment, although he had never seen San Gerónimo Castle at Portobelo, he could picture the smoke of cannon and the unreal popping of musket, the hollow boom of mortar shells and stinkpots exploding, the chilling twang of arrows launched by crossbows… A few thousand Dons defending the year’s bullion shipment from the Main.

Back on board the
Griffin
, even Thomas was quiet, as though he had at last realized the enormity of Leclerc’s proposal. Diana and Aurelia retired to the tiny cabin that Aurelia called her “dressing-room” and changed their dresses and tidied their hair, and had a hurried whispered discussion about how to cheer up the two men. Because Thomas had told Diana nothing of the buccaneers’ Portobelo plan, Leclerc’s announcement had been as big a surprise to her as to Aurelia, and she had as many misgivings.

“Thomas is doubtful – I could tell,” Diana whispered. “We’ve always stayed well away from Portobelo because of the fortresses, and Thomas guessed the Spanish had ships there. Even if they’re only
petachas
– they’re small, fast vessels, used for carrying dispatches –” she explained, “three or four of them could probably take the
Peleus
. Anyway, Thomas would never risk it. Still, there are two dozen buccaneer ships…”

They went back to the main cabin to hear Thomas asking Ned: “What do you think of it?”

“Can we assume the information they have about the bullion is reliable?”

“Yes, because it’s from an escaped prisoner they all knew and trusted – even though he has since died.”

Ned considered Thomas’ answer. There was a certain harsh logic about it, but what allowance did one make for greed? An escaped prisoner’s memory of ingots of silver piled in a dungeon might well lead to him lessening the height and thickness of a castle’s wall and reduce the size of the garrison.

“Greed creates optimism,” Ned said.

“Brings sudden death, too,” Thomas agreed. “More lethal than a wheel-lock pistol on a dry day with no wind.”

“We’ve got to get a good chart of Portobelo. And drawings of the forts. Do we need to make scaling ladders? How do we carry the ingots? How big is the garrison –?”

“Red or white?” Aurelia asked.

“What?” Ned asked, coming back from San Gerónimo.

“Wine.”

“Have we fresh limes? I’d prefer juice.”

Thomas looked mournful. “The future admiral of the Brethren of the Coast choosing lime juice when offered wine… The last admiral was chosen for the amount of rumbullion he could drink at one sitting.”

“And all that brought him was an early death in his hammock and an elaborate funeral at sea,” said Diana. “The sharks stayed drunk for a month.”

“He was a good man, though,” Thomas said defensively.

“Good man! Thomas, you know perfectly well he lost his manhood the day after he was elected. He was frightened of every shadow. He drank so much because only hot liquors drove the shadows away! Towards the end the Brethren wouldn’t follow him; they just stayed in port or skulked out on nice little coastal raids.”

Ned looked up at Diana with interest. “Go on, my dear. What else do you know about my predecessor?”

“That you should forget all about him; he was disastrous. The Brethren made the mistake of thinking that a man with a great thirst, a very loud voice and a heavy hand to slap backs must be a good leader. They should have talked to his woman.”

“What would she have told them?” Thomas demanded.

“That like all thirsty, loud-mouthed back-slappers, he was impotent most of the time and drank, shouted and slapped backs to hide the fact.”

“Oh, what saves me then?”

“Your voice is not so loud,” Diana said with mock sweetness.

Ned grinned at the two of them. “Then you think that once –” he broke off to listen to the voices on deck, and almost at once Lobb was knocking on the door and calling apologetically: “Sir, there’s a canoe from the shore with that Rowlands fellow. Says he has a message from the general.”

Ned made a face at Thomas. “I suppose we have to be nice to him now we’re officially on the same side.” To Lobb he called: “Very well, I’m coming.”

He found the young lieutenant perspiring as he waited in the shade of the awning and the moment he saw Ned he stood stiffly to attention. When Ned was five paces away, Rowlands saluted and received a nodded acknowledgement.

“The general, sir,” he said, opening his sabretache. “A letter from him.” He handed over what was becoming a familiar sight, a piece of folded paper, only this time the blobs of red wax bore no seal. As Ned noticed that, he realized that Heffer’s only official seal had borne the impression of the Commonwealth arms. Having no crest of his own, he now had to leave the wax as it dripped on to the letter, instead of applying the usual square of paper and impressing it into the wax. The ramifications of the Restoration, Ned reflected, are widespread…

“Are you expected to take back a reply?”

Ned usually refused to write any replies to Heffer, although he had no particular reason beyond the fact that Heffer always seemed the kind of man with whom one did not commit anything to writing. Rowlands nodded emphatically. “Yes, sir!”

“Wait here then,” Ned said and went back to the cabin. He passed the letter to Thomas. “Your turn to read the general’s next epistle to the heathen buccaneers.”

“Hmm, no seal, eh?” Thomas noted as he broke the wax and unfolded the paper. He finished reading it and passed it to Ned. “You had better read this one: it has a slight odour of possibility about it.”

Ned read:

Gentlemen. In the past there have been false alarms about the activities of the Spanish in Cuba, but I have just received news from an agent in Cartagena which is sufficiently alarming for me to trouble you to come to my headquarters so that you too may question my informant and satisfy yourselves, or otherwise, of his veracity.

Thomas grinned. “You know what makes me think there might be something in this report?”

“He says ‘satisfy yourselves or
otherwise
’.”

Thomas looked disappointed. “I thought I was being clever…”

“What is all this about?” Diana demanded. “Dinner will be served in an hour; now you talk of going over to see that man.”

Ned passed her the letter, which she read and handed to Aurelia. The Frenchwoman read it and said: “Whatever it is, it will certainly delay dinner, and probably our wedding and the visit to Tortuga. So we’ll come with you to see the general.”

Aurelia noted that the general was in an uncomfortable state of nervousness. It always ruffled him when she and Diana came with the two men. He was obviously far from comfortable with women at the best of times, but having to deal with two women whom clearly he regarded as coming from the upper reaches of the aristocracy reduced a man whose Puritanism was based on jealousy to almost tongue-tied incoherence. That the two women were also buccaneers only clinched Heffer’s fervent prayer that they would stay on board their ships.

Ned and Thomas settled the women in their chairs while Heffer blundered about the hot room, hoping almost incoherently that they were comfortable and apologizing for the crudeness of the seats. Ned noticed that four chairs faced the general’s desk but a fifth one was placed to one side, on the general’s right.

As soon as his guests were seated, Heffer sat down, mopped his long face with a cloth and ran his tongue over his protruding teeth.

“My letter – you will see how unfortunate it is that the
Convertine
has just sailed for England. She would have been able to help us –”

“Nonsense!” Thomas said conversationally. “Her captain was under orders to deliver dispatches to you and return at once for England. He had no choice.”

“Well, yes, I suppose so,” Heffer admitted. “We seem to be forgotten in London in all the excitement of the King’s restoration”

“More nonsense,” Thomas said firmly. “Capturing this island was the idea of Cromwell’s two nincompoops, Penn and Venables; you can’t even blame my late and unlamented uncle, since he expected ’em to give him Hispaniola, which is ten times as big – though fifty times more useless. Why should the King worry about Jamaica? I’m sure that as far as he’s concerned it was stolen from His Most Catholic Majesty just when our King was expressing his gratitude for being allowed to spend part of his exile in Spain…”

“Well, yes, I suppose so,” Heffer said yet again, “but if I should let the island fall to a Spanish attack, I should be culpable, never fear: I should be court-martialled and –”

“Oh no, I trust you would have died leading your troops in a desperate defence of Cagway – or have you already renamed it Port Royal?” Ned said innocently. “In fact, if you think there is any chance of losing the island, I should announce the change of name at once: the King will be more impressed that you perished in the siege of Port Royal than the siege of Cagway. ‘Cagway’ is a dreary name, while ‘Port Royal’ has a certain grandeur…”