Buccaneer (12 page)

Then the mainsail was full and Saxby was giving orders for easing away the mainsheet and the mooring ropes were creaking as the
Griffin
tried to break away from the jetty. Gust after gust hit the ship as Saxby bawled at the men to make fast the mainsheet.

A great creaking began as though the largest door in Christendom was being pushed open on rusty hinges; then through the ship’s deck Ned felt the snapping of wood. It seemed more like the kitchen noise of a cook breaking crisp rhubarb but as he swung round to have a better look at the jetty he heard scores of men screaming and as a sudden brief thinning of cloud let a beam of moonlight sweep the shore, he saw that the beach was already a hundred yards away and the jetty tilting like a mill grain platform collapsing in a flood.

Secured alongside the
Griffin
like a raft the jetty was being pulled seaward, but as the ship gathered speed the jetty heeled more and more, and in the distance he heard Saxby’s hoarse shouts to the men to grab axes and cut the mooring lines to free the ship.

The men were quick and Ned was thankful Saxby had been very strict about ensuring that there was an axe secured inside the bulwark every ten or twelve feet. The strain on the mooring ropes was enormous; as the axe blades bit into them the strands unwound like suddenly-released springs.

Then he felt the
Griffin
surge forward like a good horse starting a gallop, and Saxby, now standing beside him, said: “I’m glad I mentioned the need for mending the jetty! We owe you our lives.”

An embarrassed Ned said: “I led you into this mess. I’m glad that…well, anyway, it was a close run affair. And there’ll be enough wreckage for those men to hold on to as they paddle back to the shore.”

Saxby snorted and said with genuine regret in his voice: “This squall’s blowing itself out so they won’t drift far. A hundred yards to paddle…I’d like to use them for target practice.”

The
Griffin
had run into Falmouth Bay at Antigua, passed the reef which almost closed its circular shape like a lid on a pot, and anchored inside close to a sandy beach. Yorke could see two batteries perched like pelicans’ nests, one on a small cay just inside the bay, the other on a cliff opposite, and the guns were all trained on to the ship.

The voyage from Barbados had been good, the Trade winds blowing steadily. With the
Griffin
’s heavy mainsail drawing well they had first sighted Guadeloupe, and then Antigua just north of it. Now, as he waited for a boat to be hoisted out so that he could go over to report to the Governor, Yorke felt nervous. Falmouth looked busy – courthouse in the north-east corner, and other scattered buildings. A few men were walking about – but the men at the batteries were Roundheads: that much was clear from their hats and jerkins.

Still, the brief voyage had done them all good. Saxby knew his seamanship, and he was a good leader of the men. Mrs Judd was very different from the plump and cheerful person who had been the housekeeper and head woman at Kingsnorth: now she was twice as cheerful and if it had been the custom for a ship to have a mistress as well as a master, she would have qualified for the job. She kept the six women busy so that meals were served on time; she found jobs for any man who had managed to evade Saxby’s sharp eye. As soon as the flying jib developed a tear she had her women standing by with needles, thread and the four sail palms that were on board, and in spite of Saxby’s protest that it was seamen’s work, had the tear repaired – and reinforced half a dozen other seams whose stitching to her sharp eye seemed doubtful.

However, she had not understood why the repaired jib, when rehoisted, had not filled with wind like the mainsail and had promptly turned on Saxby, accusing him of being a poor sailor. It had taken him half an hour to persuade her that with a following wind the mainsail took all the breeze, keeping it from the jibs like a shut door stopping a draught, but all the women and many of the men had benefited from Saxby’s lesson in seamanship.

Aurelia had been fascinated by it all. At first, soon after dawn and before Barbados had dropped below the horizon astern, still being outlined by a rising sun, she had appeared on deck wearing a pale green dress with a full skirt, the neck cut higher than was fashionable, presumably because there were so many men about. She had walked over to Ned, a wan smile on her face but admitting she had slept well once she had become used to the ship’s rolling, but as she spoke she broke off, staring forward, wide-eyed, and Ned had turned hurriedly, suddenly alarmed, to find that she was looking at Mrs Judd and the woman following her.

Mrs Judd had the kind of figure that would immediately remind a miller of upper and nether grindstones: wide shoulders and enormous breasts seemed to move one way when she walked, and a large stomach and generous buttocks moved another, giving the impression that the two sections of her body were only loosely joined at the waist. But what fascinated Aurelia, who knew Mrs Judd from Kingsnorth, was the fact that she was now dressed as a man: black breeches, obviously too tight for her, did their best to contain the lower half of her body, down as far as stockings, which were probably her own; above, a man’s jerkin had no chance of enveloping her and her bosoms strained the wooden buttons, one of which had already broken in half.

The woman with her, young and with a good figure, was also dressed in men’s clothes and Ned noted appreciatively how the breeches and jerkin displayed advantages in her figure which were usually hidden by the folds of a dress.

More obviously, though, was that the both women moved about the
Griffin
’s decks easily, unhampered by skirts and petticoats when a sudden extra roll sent them lurching to leeward, grasping at a rope or reaching for the bulwark.

Mrs Judd, seeing Aurelia in a dress, had greeted her cheerfully and then declared: “If you’ll forgive me for saying so, Mrs Wilson, if you wear those clothes you’ll catch your heel in your skirt and trip and break a leg. Breeches and hose, and barefoot, is safer, and that’s what you need. There’s only one thing more comfortable, and modesty forbids that!”

Both the second woman and Aurelia blushed as Mrs Judd gave a great bellow of laughter at her remark, and Ned saw Aurelia watch fascinated as the big woman’s breasts bounced up and down, straining the buttons.

“Mr Yorke’s brought a good wardrobe, ma’am,” Mrs Judd added. “Otherwise, if you want a better fit, I’d be only too glad to make you a pair of breeches.”

Aurelia nodded helplessly, for the moment unable to think of an appropriate comment in English, and Mrs Judd, misinterpreting the nod, said breezily as she walked away: “Right, ma’am, you’ll have the breeches by noon.”

As soon as she was out of earshot an embarrassed Aurelia turned to Ned. “But I cannot wear breeches! How do I tell her?”

“Why bother?” Ned said cheerfully. “They’ll suit you well. And she’s quite right about them being more practical.”

“But all the men…”

“My beloved, you must forget masters, mistresses and servants for now; we’re all just the crew of the
Griffin
. She’s our only home; she may remain so for months. And in the meantime, if in an emergency you are needed to haul on a rope would you sooner be wearing a dress or breeches? And she’s quite right about the danger of you catching a heel on your skirt.”

“What did Mrs Judd mean,” Aurelia asked cautiously, “when she said ‘only one thing is more comfortable’?”

“Put modesty to one side and think,” Ned said with a grin.

“Oh – she meant
that
?”

Ned nodded. “But I am glad you don’t see me like that!” Aurelia said.

The tone of voice startled Ned. This was the woman he dreamed of marrying, the woman he dreamed of naked in his arms. And here she was… “Why?” he asked flatly.

She turned away but was not blushing, so he guessed that whatever the reason it had nothing to do with normal modesty.

“Aurelia,” he said, almost pleading, “answer me.”

“Ask me again in a few weeks’ time,” she said in a whisper he barely heard above the hissing of the waves sluicing past the hull.

“Will the answer be different?”

Although when she nodded he felt relief, he could not avoid asking bluntly: “Why, beloved?”

“Mrs Bullock would know…”

Then suddenly he realized. “You are still bruised?”

Again she nodded. “It will go.”

“It will never happen again!”

She shrugged her shoulders as though indifferent to the past and Ned felt himself swept by a warm wave of love. That shrug – so typically French and so reassuring.

Then she turned to face Ned squarely, as if wanting to use this moment right at the beginning of the voyage, and said: “Ned – do not think too bitterly about him…”

“What – when he used to punch you as well? That bruise on your face, the whippings…”

“But,” she said carefully, “that was all he ever did to me.”

There was such a distinct emphasis on “all” that her meaning was unmistakable, but how could it be so? Those negresses, the mulatto he kept in Bridgetown?

“Beloved – it makes no difference to my feelings for you, but remember his mistresses!”

“He did nothing to them: they whipped
him
. He is – how do you say, impotent. That is why we have no children. I suppose,” she added bitterly, “that is why I came out here from England with him. He disgusted me but the alternatives were worse. A wife abandoned in a foreign country…”

An unusually large following sea lifted the
Griffin
and she rolled violently as she slid down the side of it. Aurelia, unprepared and with nothing to grasp, began staggering towards the ship’s side until, a few moments later and before Ned could grab her, she sprawled flat on her face as a heel caught in her dress.

Ned ran to help her up and, finding she was unhurt and only her dignity ruffled, teased her. “Such beautiful ankles…such beautiful legs…who would want to hide them under breeches!”

“I do,” Aurelia said firmly as Ned helped her to her feet. “Mrs Judd gives good advice. May I use some of your wardrobe?”

Ned called Mrs Judd and when she came nodded down towards his cabin, now being used by Aurelia, and winked. “Mrs Wilson would like to experiment with the wardrobe…”

The governor was most polite. Yes, he had heard of Mr Yorke’s plantation in Barbados; no, he had heard nothing of a fleet due in the West Indies under Vice Admiral Penn and General Venables. Yes, there were estates for sale in Antigua, mostly those abandoned by Royalists and neglected for up to five years – but they could be bought only by permission of the Council of State in London.

Granting this permission, he said, took time (a year or more) and was preceded by a searching examination of the political allegiances of the applicant. He did not say in as many words that Edward Yorke’s would not even be sent off to London, but he made it clear that his single clerk was kept busy with other things. He agreed, though, that the
Griffin
could be careened but would offer no guarantees of their safety while doing so. Roving bands of deserted apprentices, he admitted, moved the length and breadth of the island, calling themselves cattle-killers, and took what they wanted, except at some plantations, where the owners had the buildings well defended with loopholes cut in the shutters covering windows.

Yorke’s reference to the battery on the cay opposite the anchorage met with no response: the implication was that, like the church and the courthouse, the island looked after its own, and its own had to be supporters of Cromwell.

As soon as Yorke had left the governor’s grubby house with Saxby, the master almost exploded. “He doesn’t want us staying here, that’s certain!”

“I am sure he knows Penn and Venables are on their way and he doesn’t want them to find people like us in his waters.”

“So what do we do now?”

“Well, with so much barnacle and weed on the bottom we have to careen the
Griffin
as soon as possible, and the bad weather will be here soon. I intend finding a sheltered anchorage and staying there. We’ll careen – and wait for Penn and Venables to pass to the westward.”

“What’s the advantage of that, sir?”

“There are plenty. First, a large British fleet ahead of us will clear the seas of Spanish privateers for a few weeks.”

“They’ll come back later.” Saxby had no doubt about that.

“Yes, but while they’re out of the way we can move about safely. Visit other islands.”

“Aye, that way we’ll be safe from the Dons
and
the bloody Roundheads.”

“But Saxby,” Yorke warned as they walked along the track back to the ship, avoiding the thorns of the wild tamarind and the prickly pear cactus with its fine needle-sharp spines, “wherever we go, whatever estate I manage to buy, we’ve years of work ahead of us.”

“We’d be better off buccaneering,” Saxby said bitterly. “There’s no call for honest work and honest men these days.”

“Buccaneers are no better than pirates,” Yorke said.

“No, sir, beggin’ yer pardon, they are.” Saxby stopped walking and, partly because they were walking over the crest of a hill which gave them a good view of the bay, Yorke stopped too.

“I’d like to say this to you out o’ hearing of the others, sir, but buccaneering is something I knows about, and you’re wrong.”

“Why, were you ever one?” Yorke asked curiously.

“No, sir, but although you didn’t know, they’ve called of a dark night at Kingsnorth to visit me.”

“What? Do you mean to say you had – well, pirates – on my property without me knowing?”

“Yes, sir. And I’m glad I did. You’ll see you ain’t no call to be angry, if you’ll just listen to me for a few minutes, sir.”

“Very well, but let’s sit in the shade of that divi-divi; it’s hot here, even though there’s a breeze.”

They sat but had to move hastily to another tree when they found they had chosen a nest of red ants, several of which had crawled into their clothing before being noticed. Ned and Saxby slapped themselves vigorously and then sat down again, giving the soil a precautionary stir with their feet.