Galleon (32 page)

“We have to start counting headlands as soon as we turn. Light the lanterns as we pass the village of Grand Case. Then there’ll be four small headlands before we pass Coconut Point, about two miles. But before that our two horsemen should be able to spot the lights and start their gallop.”

“That fellow Parker sits a horse well,” Thomas said. “I was quite surprised.”

Ned gave a dry laugh. “You surprise me, Thomas. Can’t you guess what he was?”

“Ah, I see what you mean. A groom, or an ostler.”

“A knight of the road – or so he claims. I can believe it, the way he tucks a brace of pistols in his belt and rides hunched up. Obviously you’ve never met a highwayman – not on the road, anyway.”

“I haven’t, though before I met Diana I thought about becoming one,” Thomas admitted. “But as I’d lost everything at the gaming tables I hadn’t enough money to buy a decent horse.”

He looked down at the compass again and then peered into the darkness ahead of the
Didon
. He turned aft to speak to the man at the heavy tiller. “Stand by, we’ll be wearing round to larboard in a couple of minutes.”

Mitchell, the mate of the
Peleus
, was standing just in front of Thomas and received orders to prepare to trim the sails. Ned stood to one side, glad that for once he had no responsibility for handling the ship – not until the last few minutes, anyway. Once again they were skirting the French part, and he was alone with his plan.

He was a fool to be on board the
Didon
: he should have stayed in Marigot: it was there that things could (and almost certainly would) go wrong. To start with, supposing those two seamen with the horses did not spot the two lanterns which would be hoisted up the
Didon’s
mast – or did not spot them until too late? Or else, as they galloped their horses put their feet into crab holes and broke their legs. And then Lobb, he thought – supposing his slowmatch goes out and he spends twenty minutes with flint and steel trying to light more tinder. And Couperin – can he be trusted to get his men into position – with muskets (provided by the buccaneers)?

What about Saxby and Martha Judd – had they made all their preparations and were they ready in position? If the horsemen and Lobb were the most important part of the plan, then Saxby and his men came next. And after Saxby – well, after Saxby, it was up to Ned Yorke. It was Ned Yorke’s plan and like the hero in the last scene of a play, the last move of all, the one which meant success or failure, was to be handled by Ned Yorke.

He began to feel sorry for himself just as the helmsman and his mate leaned on the tiller, the sails flapped wildly and then filled with a thud on the other tack, and Ned could just make out a darker line in the night which was the north-eastern corner of St Martin.

“Time for the axes,” he reminded Thomas.

Thomas bellowed at the dozen men waiting abreast the mainmast, sleeping in the lee of the hatch coaming. They jumped up and quickly began knocking out the wedges jamming the long battens that held down the tarpaulin over the cargo hatch. The tarpaulin was hauled off and while one man began cutting it into strips, the others lifted off the planks of the hatch cover. Quickly they chopped and split the planks into three-foot lengths and dropped them down into the hold and then tossed in the strips of tarpaulin.

“Carry on!” Thomas shouted, and the men began hacking at the deck planking with their axes. In the darkness Ned could only hear and feel, through the thudding of the planks on which he stood, that the men were working quickly and, judging from the ribald remarks, confidently, cutting small holes every few feet.

The men with the axes had finished their work and Mitchell was standing by with two lanterns when Thomas announced: “That’s Grand Case on our larboard beam. That nearer black shape is Crole Rock, which stands tall a few hundred yards off the shore. Grand Case is just to the west of it – there’s quite a bay here, like the one at Marigot. But we’re steering a steady course and we’ll pick up the headland at the end of the bay. That’s the headland where we hoist the lanterns.”

“Let’s get ’em lit, then,” Ned said. “Is the halyard ready to hoist them?”

“I checked it an hour ago, sir,” Mitchell reported.

Ned saw the man’s face lit up by the first of the lanterns. Mitchell waited a few moments to make sure the wick was drawing well and not smoking, and then shut the door and, in the light from the window, lit the second lantern. He then picked them both up and, calling to two seamen, walked forward ready to hoist them.

“Hoist away!” Ned called.

“I don’t know if the fellows at Coconut Point will see ’em,” Thomas grumbled, “but they’ve damned well blinded me. Can’t see a thing.”

“Always keep one eye shut when there’s a light around,” Ned advised. “Then, when the light’s gone, you can still see in the darkness when you open that eye.”

Thomas sniffed. “You were a bit late with that advice. It’s the sort of thing a highwayman would know.”

“Just as well you couldn’t afford to buy that horse,” Ned said, and heard the squeak of rope rendering through a block as the lanterns were hoisted up.

“They’ll see them on Coconut Point all right,” Ned said. “Look, they’re even lighting up the foredeck and reflecting on the bow wave.”

“There’s just enough phosphorescence along here to help too,” Thomas commented. “We must be making five knots – there, see how that surge sent out the bow wave and the phosphorescence is as bright as a couple of coach lanterns! I hope those two men got out to Coconut Point all right. All those land crab holes. Worse than hunting across land riddled with coney warrens.”

“The men are probably perfectly safe,” Ned said reassuringly, although made nervous that Thomas’ fears ran parallel with his own. “They’re probably out on the point, asleep in the lee of a large rock. Or else keeping up their courage with rumbullion.”

“Ned, don’t joke about such things. They
could
be asleep or they
could
be sucking at a bottle of rumbullion like a lamb at its mother’s teats.”

“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now,” Ned said, “so remember what we told Couperin.
Drôle
, Thomas, stay
drôle
: all else is madness – as you well know.”

“That’s the headland at the end of Grand Case bay,” Thomas said. “So start counting – one, and three more to go to Coconut Point.”

Although the wind was light and steady, low swell waves creeping up under the wind waves on the starboard quarter made the
Didon
pitch at times so that as her bow dipped, she slowed momentarily until the wind, bulging her sails, thrust her forward again so that the bow wave chuckled. Cloud hid most of the stars although Ned had an occasional fleeting look at Orion’s Belt and, low down on the starboard hand, the Pole Star. If only it had been a clear night there would have been enough light from the stars to show up the land clearly. If only, Ned thought grimly.
If only
was another road leading to madness. If only there had been a moon… If only the galleon was smaller so the three ships could board… If only the Governor of Jamaica was not such a fool…

That is the second headland and, damnation, he could see the third and…the fourth, Coconut Point…and the sky over on the larboard bow is turning a faint pink and now going black again, becoming pink and then fading, as though someone is using a bellows to revive a dying fire.

“They were neither asleep nor drunk,” Thomas grunted happily. “That’s the only advantage of a dark night – a lantern shows up better.” He moved closer to Ned and whispered: “You know, I think I’m more nervous than I was sitting in that dam’ chair at San Germán staring at the garotte!”

“I should think so, too,” Ned said drily. “All you had to lose then was your life; now all our gold and silver is at risk!”

“Those two lads must have spotted the lanterns the moment we hoisted them and then galloped like the wind round to Lobb,” Thomas commented. “Those land crab holes…there must be hundreds of them between the point and the track round to Marigot.”

Ned watched the pink of the western sky gradually deepening into an angry red, pulsing like a severed vein. The glow was not only growing larger but beginning to burn steadily.

“Lobb has done a splendid job – lighting all the scrub on the hill couldn’t have been easy. I wonder if they pulled those three cannon clear? The battery and carriages are just a pile of rotten wood, but the guns themselves can be remounted. It might be quite a blaze. I thought he was just boasting when he told me he was going to set everything alight from the beach right up to the top of the hill!”

“It’s quite a blaze all right!” Thomas said. “I can distinguish your features, and we’ve still a headland before we reach Coconut Point. By Jove,” he exclaimed. “Saxby can probably see us by now! Let’s hope the Dons don’t spot
him
!”

“They’ll be too puzzled about what’s going on at the hill – at least I hope so. Look, that’s Coconut Point – three palm trees, then the two rocks. You’d better get the men below. Mitchell! Lower those lanterns!”

The halyard squealed in the block aloft as the lanterns swayed down to the deck, and Mitchell and another seaman hurriedly untied the knots.

“What about Saxby?” Thomas exclaimed.

“If he hasn’t already seen us, he’ll soon spot us in the light from Lobb’s bonfire as we round the point. Don’t forget, he only starts five minutes early. Sorry, three minutes – though how he’ll be able to judge that accurately I don’t know!”

“He can see the point, he’ll see us, and he can see the galleon. He knows what we’re trying to do and he knows what his job is. So don’t worry – don’t forget Martha’s with him!”

“Ah,” Ned said with a melodramatic sigh of relief, “I’d forgotten her.”

“Not sure Diana’ll ever forgive me,” Thomas muttered. “When she heard that Martha was going with Saxby and I told her she couldn’t come with us…”

“I had the same trouble with Aurelia,” Ned admitted, “but I left her in command of the
Griffin
. Not that she was very impressed by that. Thomas! Just look at those flames – if we can see them they must have reached the top of the hill. I think you’d better go to the hold – I see Mitchell’s already down there with the lanterns. Check the draught.”

Thomas hurried forward and Ned saw him swing a leg over the coaming and then scramble down the ladder into the hold. Ned found himself alone on the
Didon
’s deck, apart from the two men at the tiller behind him.

“Can you see Coconut Point?”

“Aye, sir, see it fine. Pass it fifty yards orf, y’ said?”

“There’s deep water up to the two rocks, so take it as close as you like.”

Ned knew he was talking for the sake of it: the men at the tiller knew exactly what to do. And now the
Didon
was passing the last headland before Coconut Point: it would all be over, one way or the other, in the next ten minutes, and the breeze chilled the perspiration on his brow. At least, he blamed it on the breeze.

Very well, so far –
so far
, remember – the horsemen at Coconut Point had done their job, and so had Lobb: the whole hillside was ablaze and lighting up Gallows Bay and the galleon, just as he had planned. He should – should be damned, he certainly
would
– be able to see the galleon very clearly the moment he reached Coconut Point and began steering round into Gallows Bay. Saxby should see the
Didon
approaching and, as Thomas had forcibly reminded him, be able to judge distances without fiddling around with minutes. That left Charles Couperin – was he ready on the beach with his fifty-two men and muskets provided by the buccaneers, ready to defend their town – if town was not too grandiose a title for the village? Large village, anyway.

And on the other side of the blazing hill, unable to see what the Devil was going on and probably dying a thousand deaths from worry, Aurelia was in the
Griffin
without even Lobb to talk to, and Diana was on board the
Peleus
, without even Mitchell. Martha and Saxby were the lucky couple – if sitting amidst all that gunpowder, holding slowmatch, could be considered lucky.

A couple of hundred yards. He hurried forward and leaned over the edge of the hatch coaming. Down in the hold, looking like prancing devils in the flickering lanternlight, were a dozen seamen, Mitchell and Thomas. They were pulling at barrels, tugging strips of tarpaulin as though rearranging the bedclothes of a loved one (but for all that giving the impression of men who had done their job properly and were now just adding a little gilding to what they knew was a lily).

“All ready?” Ned asked.

“All ready!” Thomas called back, “and the draught’s fine; just look at those lanterns flickering!”

“We’re a hundred yards from Coconut Point…”

“Not so many mosquitoes as the last time we were here!” Thomas commented.

Ned moved to the bulwark on the larboard side. It seemed he could almost touch the low cliffs, but a glance forward showed that the
Didon
would pass well clear of the two rocks. Fifty yards to Coconut Point. He could make out the colours of the leaves – Lobb’s blaze would be seen in Anguilla, he thought, though what they’d make of it over there…

Twenty-five yards – and then with startling suddenness the
Didon
had passed the point and the whole of Gallows Bay opened up: there was the blazing hillside, a livid and pulsating red and yellow inverted cone, and there, squatting in the centre of the bay like a small, steep-sided island, black and menacing with shadows flickering across it, was the galleon. No one on board was firing a cannon or a musket: with luck, the Dons might still be thinking the hill was burning because of someone’s carelessness. Yes, the galleon’s people were not alarmed: her four boats still drifted on their painters at her bow; her stern still faced the east and all was well.

Suddenly a huge red eye, like the setting sun, winked a mile over the
Didon
’s starboard bow and as far to seaward of the galleon. A few moments later the thunder of an enormous explosion bounded among the mountains and then echoed and re-echoed back again. The rumbling had hardly died away when a second red eye winked in almost the same position and the noise of the explosion boomed across the bay to lose itself among the mountain peaks, and it seemed to Ned that both the
Didon
and the galleon trembled.