Galleon (34 page)

“Just bluff. Run out a few guns and threaten the French – Couperin isn’t fool enough to defy those muzzles and call his bluff. He never for a moment suspected the Dons
were
bluffing.”

“But we saw powder exploding on deck,” Ned said.

“Not much – probably a couple of kegs they managed to get out while the magazine was flooding, or which happened to be there for use in the muskets.”

“Dearest,” Aurelia said softly, “does this mean you don’t have to dive to get the gold and silver and emeralds and pearls?”

“Marry her,” Thomas said. “Don’t let her escape, Ned; she’s the only one with any brains round here. Not like that feather-brained trollop that sticks to me like a limpet.”

“I have infinite faith in Ned,” Diana said sweetly. “Whether his men dive to enormous depths for months on end, or whether they just climb on board and hoist out the crates, I know he will make us all very rich at the King of Spain’s expense. He’ll find the loveliest emeralds and give them to Aurelia and me. Pearls, too. He’ll be kind and loving, as usual. Oh Thomas, if Aurelia had not found him first!”

“The two of you could share me,” Ned suggested. “We’ll send Thomas away on a voyage round the world.”

Diana shook her head sadly. “A noble thought, Ned, and I thank you. A noble sentiment I know Aurelia shares. But the fact is that Whetstone owes me too much money to let him out of my sight for more than a couple of hours.”

Thomas coughed politely. “When you carrion crows have finished pecking over my impoverished bones, may I point out it is now light enough to board the galleon? Shall I signal to our boarding parties? There’s no sign of life in the galleon but to be on the safe side we’d better let our men make a thorough search. There might be an inflamed prelate down below somewhere, waiting to ambush us with a red-hot excommunication.”

They waited while three boatloads of buccaneers swarmed on board, led by Saxby, who eventually came back on deck and waved them to the gangway. As soon as they were alongside he shouted down: “Not a soul on board. We’ve found the bullion. I have a dozen men guarding it.”

He led the way below where excited buccaneers holding pistols and lanterns were grouped round the door to the ship’s strongroom, which they had broken open.

On one side of the cavernous cabin were more than a hundred wooden crates made of thick boards and carefully roped, each knot almost hidden in a big blob of red wax. It was too dark to read from the doorway the words painted on the side of the crates but Ned recognized them: they were full of silver, mined at Potosí, cast in various sized ingots, shipped up the South Sea coast to Panama, then carried in panniers on the backs of horses and mules across the peninsula to Portobelo, where royal assayers once again checked the weights and the individual numbers stamped on the ingots before packing it all up, roping and sealing each crate, and watching it being loaded on to ships for the brief voyage from the shallow-water Portobelo to the deep-water Cartagena, where the galleons could get in without risking going aground.

There were the crates of silver; on the other side of the strongroom, equally neatly stacked, were fifty or more crates containing gold. And in between, nestling like small lambs on beds of thick straw, were leather bags, the cord round the neck of each also sealed with blobs of red wax. These held the gems and each bag weighed – well, Ned guessed about twenty-four pounds each. Emeralds by the handful from Columbia, pearls by the bucketful from the island of Margarita.

Thomas gave Diana’s bottom a playful slap. “A quarter of all that belongs to the
Peleus
. I’ll be able to pay off my debt and then maroon you on Anguilla.”

“You forget I share in the purchase with the rest of the Peleuses. By the time I’ve compounded the interest, you’ll still be in my debt. Mistresses like me, my dear Thomas, are very, very expensive!”

“Well,” Ned said briskly, “it’s time we fetched the ships round from Marigot: I’ll feel much happier when I know all this plate is closely guarded by the
Peleus
,
Phoenix
and
Griffin
. Looking at all those red seals reminds me that Spanish ships are due here soon to take everything back to the royal treasure house in Cartagena…”

Aurelia said: “Wouldn’t it be a good idea to fetch out the Governor so that he can see all the crates and leather pouches?”

“He can wait for his share, like everyone else,” Thomas said offhandedly, but Ned realized that a Frenchwoman understood only too well the thoughts which would be running through the mind of a Frenchman. Was he being cheated? Were these Englishmen secretly carrying away some of the crates? Were they going through the purses of gems and removing the best?

“We’ll go over and see Couperin now, Thomas. Saxby, please put the ladies on board their ships on your way back to the
Phoenix
– and will the ladies pass the word that we’ll be getting under way in an hour to shift our berths round to here?”

Couperin was in his house, holding out his hat while a servant tied a wide strip of black cloth round the brim. “For the funeral,” he explained. “The service starts in an hour. Well,
mes braves
, what a night, eh! I guarantee there is not a living Spaniard within ten miles of Marigot. Those we did not shoot down as they jumped out of their boats ran inland and by now are hiding themselves up in the mountains by the Pic du Paradis. One of the prisoners – we took a few so that they could answer some questions – said the captain was killed when he fell from the bowsprit (is that what you call it, that thick pole at the bow?) into one of the boats. Broke his neck. And can you guess what I discovered about the guns that he threatened he’d use to bombard Marigot?”

“Yes,” Ned said. “They had no powder to fire the shot.”

Couperin’s face fell. “When did you discover that?”

“We suspected it last night when the ship didn’t blow up, but we weren’t sure until half an hour ago, when we found her magazine flooded.”

“Why would they flood it?”

“When she ran aground she hit some rocks which stove in a couple of planks, so that although she was aground she was also sunk. That’s why you didn’t see any attempts to refloat her.”

“I should have guessed,” Couperin said. “I did wonder why they never used the boats to take out anchors to pull themselves into deeper water.” He banged his brow melodramatically. “I am a fool. I wonder, but I do not realize I am asking myself a question that I should be able to answer. Not,” he added, shrugging his shoulders, “that it would have made any difference because we could not do anything against them until you gentlemen arrived. Er, have you been out to inspect the ship this morning?”

“Yes, that’s how we found out that she was sitting on the bottom.”

The servant, finally tying the black cloth with a neat knot, left the room. Ned was amused to see the conflict showing in Couperin’s face: manners prevented him from asking at once the one question that interested him, but avarice was trying to nudge its way to the front.

“The Spaniards you killed on the beach,” Ned said conversationally, “when is their funeral?”

“Funeral? Funeral?” Couperin repeated, as though he had never heard the word before. “The dead we threw back into the sea; the five prisoners are under guard in the hut at the end of the jetty.”

“What will you do with them when you’ve asked all the questions?”

Couperin shrugged his shoulders. “Tell me, was the galleon much damaged by your ship of fire? Did you copy your Francis Drake when he sent fireships into the Spanish armada at anchor off Calais?”

“No, I didn’t copy Drake,” Ned said, “because the circumstances were different. The ship is badly damaged: her transom is almost entirely destroyed, thanks to the
Didon
. The mizenmast burned through and went over the side. The topgallant masts on the fore and main will come down in the next strong wind – most of the shrouds are burned through. The yards which had been sent down on deck (and the sails from them) are all burned.”

“Our prisoners were very frightened.” Couperin said. “It is strange, but they were gabbling about the ship blowing up. Yet if the magazine was flooded…”

“The ship they were frightened of was the
Didon
,” Ned said. “She did explode and blew off the galleon’s stern as you saw. The Spaniards probably expected more explosions. Don’t forget, we’ve been planning all this for days so none of it was a surprise, but it all happened to the Spaniards in ten minutes or so. They’ve been sitting here for weeks without anything happening – and then within ten minutes their ship is blazing and they are jumping on shore from their boats – to be shot down by your Frenchmen. It must be disturbing.”

“Disturbing,” Couperin repeated. “Yes, disturbing.
M’sieur
Yorke, you are
drôle
!”

“Yes, well, would you like to come out and look at the ship? We have opened up the strongroom and we want to begin making an inventory of all the bullion and gems before dividing it.”

“Ah, yes, indeed. How much do you think there is?”

“I’ve no idea at the moment. Have you ever seen bullion?”

Couperin shook his head. “No, only dreamed about it.”

“It doesn’t look very exciting,” Ned warned. “Most of it is silver and cast in three different forms. There’ll be loaves, each weighing about seventy English pounds; wedges, of about ten pounds; and cakes, weighing only a pound or two. There’ll be plenty of coins, minted in silver at Potosí and Lima. Gold doubloons, too, each worth a French pistole or an English pound. And pieces of eight (also called a dollar), each worth a quarter of a pistole or five English shillings. It can be cut into eight parts (hence its name) or ‘bits’, also known as reals, and worth an eighth of a dollar.

“What we call ‘cobs’ are known by the Spaniards as
cabo de barra
, or ‘cut from the bar’. However, although a piece of eight is worth five shillings and silver and gold have definite prices, emeralds and pearls, and other gems – well, they’re worth whatever people will pay. This galleon isn’t carrying many gems–”

“What do you mean by ‘many’?” Couperin asked.

“Well, we know about fifty years ago one ship alone carried two chests of rough (uncut) emeralds, and each chest weighed a hundred pounds. The difficulty out here in the West Indies, of course, is that there’s no proper market for gems.

“Just remember a doubloon equals a French pistole or an English pound; a dollar or piece of eight is five English shillings or a quarter of a pistole; and a piece of eight, which can be cut into eight reals is also equal to a peso. A peso equals a dollar equals a piece of eight!

“Then of course you have maravedi. About fifty-nine of them equal an English pound, and 375 of them are worth a ducat. Does that help?”

“So how many pesos’ worth of gold and silver would you expect this galleon to be carrying?”

“I don’t like guessing when we are just about to count it all, but she may be the only plate ship to get away for Spain this year. So – an English frigate captured a galleon in 1655 with two million pesos of plate and gems. The Spanish King’s royalty is a
quinto
, so a fifth of that is 400,000 pesos. Quite a loss! Four hundred thousand pesos is one hundred thousand pounds or pistoles… Let’s hope this galleon is the same: we’d share four hundred thousand pounds or pistoles.”

“Quite a loss for the King of Spain, but quite a gain for us,” Couperin pointed out with a grin. “We shall not starve, then!”

“No, indeed. By the way, how do we pay your share? Bring it to your house? You should have guards. And the gems – shall we agree on a value for your share and give it to you in gold and silver, or would you prefer the actual gems?”

By now the figures which Ned had mentioned were being absorbed by Couperin, and he was dazed. Whether considered in pounds of weight or the actual value in doubloons or pistoles, Couperin’s quarter share was enormous. And Ned realized there was an interesting legal question hanging over Couperin’s head. Ned was thankful the decision did not rest with him. The facts were simple enough: a Spanish galleon laden with bullion had run aground on a French island. The two countries were not at war, but Spain maintained that no foreigners had rights “Beyond the Line”, so Spain would argue that legally the French were not in St Martin and therefore had no rights. So there could be no question about the present ownership of the bullion: it belonged to Spain whether the galleon was sailing past or hard aground in Gallows Bay.

But France, England and the Netherlands did claim administer, farm and trade from islands “Beyond the Line”. Gallows Bay as far as the King of France was concerned was as much French as Calais Roads. Any wrecks in French waters belonged to France. To the King, Ned corrected himself.

Hmmm. The buccaneers had given the Governor General of St Christophe and St Martin a quarter share, but as far as the King of France was concerned the buccaneers had no right to the galleon. Still, he could not stop them making free with it. It followed that as far as the King was concerned, his Governor General had no right to make any arrangement with the buccaneers – yet the King’s advisers might decide that a bird in the hand…

It might look very different from Couperin’s point of view. If he accepted the quarter share on behalf of his King he might get into trouble from Paris for accepting a single piece of eight, or he might be in for worse trouble for not demanding all of it.

But Ned had more than a suspicion that Couperin was going to take his share and run. Put the Governor-Generalship of two tiny West Indian islands on one side of the scales and a quarter share in the galleon’s bullion in the other and there was no doubt on which side the pan would crash down. What Couperin did might well depend on whether he could get his ship back from the Spaniards. Well, there were still the two sloops that came in with the
Didon
.

So where could Couperin go with a fortune? Ned was curious only because he found himself liking the man, who clearly did not belong among the rumbullion-swilling plantation owners.