Galleon (37 page)

“Ned,” she said in a neutral voice, “I think this gentleman has a message for you from the Governor.”

“I know that: he said so at the beginning. And I’ve told him that before I have any other communication from the Governor, I want his written apology for opening fire on us. Lobb!” he called. “Ah, there you are. Send on shore for those beeves. It’ll take hours to get them slaughtered and roasted. And take this fellow away with you and send him home. Shoot at him if he tries to come on board again without that written apology.”

Ned realized that Aurelia had moved close to him again and any moment there would be another pinch. He promptly sat down at the table and glared at the polished surface.

“But sir–” Hamilton cried, scuttling out of the cabin when Ned bellowed: “What, are you still there? Where are my pistols, woman?”

As soon as she could no longer hear Hamilton’s boots clattering up the ladder, Aurelia said: “Ned, that wasn’t funny: it was cruel. You are a bully.”

“Why are you laughing, then?”

“I’m not laughing. I’m ashamed of you.”

Ned stood up and kissed her again. He started to unlace the soft leather jerkin she was wearing but she pushed him away. “Not now! The Governor wants to see you!”

“Darling, if I have to choose between you and the Governor, you will always win.”

At that moment they both heard Thomas’ deep voice calling from the top of the companionway, followed by Diana who, Ned noted, always sounded as though she was inviting you to her bed, no matter what she was saying.

“What did that fancy boy want?” Thomas asked. “He was as white as a sheet! Lobb fairly threw him into that fishing boat!”

Aurelia jabbed Ned with her finger and turned to Thomas. “Ned was absolutely hateful to him. He came with a message from the Governor and we still don’t know what it is – even though it’s urgent.”

Thomas raised his eyebrows, startled by Aurelia’s sharp tone of voice. “Why don’t we know? Was he struck dumb?”

“No, Ned completely confused the poor man with demands for an apology because the bastion opened fire on us.”

“I should think so too,” Thomas rumbled. “Fired on by our own guns!”

“But we weren’t hit!” Aurelia said, almost wailing with exasperation.

“Even worse! At that range they should have riddled us. That damned Heffer – he hasn’t the faintest idea of how to train his men, although we’ve told him enough times!”

“But the Governor – it’s urgent!”

Diana tugged Thomas’ arm. “Listen to Aurelia,” she said firmly, “because Ned is having one of his attacks. Just look at him: he’s just sitting there giggling like a young girl.”

“Very sensible of him,” growled Thomas, subsiding on the settee facing Ned. “What’s all this about, Ned? Aurelia looks as though she’s going to lay a clutch of hard-boiled eggs.”

Ned shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, to tell the truth. Our friend was mincing down the companionway when he missed his footing and arrived with a crash. After that everything went to pieces.”

“Yes,” Aurelia said crossly, “it did because Ned got the Devil in him. The poor man was trying to say the Governor wanted to see Ned urgently, but Ned was shouting – oh yes you
were
shouting – that he wouldn’t have anything to do with anyone on shore until he had a written apology from the Governor over that shooting business.”

“Steady on,” Thomas said. “Someone could have been killed by ‘that shooting business’. Never underrate a roundshot, I say.”

Aurelia looked despairingly at Diana, who took her arm and led her out of the cabin.

Ned looked up at Thomas. “I was a naughty boy, but I couldn’t resist it!”

“When shall we go over and see him – tomorrow morning?”

Ned nodded. “Quite soon enough.”

General Heffer was, as Ned had suspected, sitting in his office with the door shut, even though it was a humid day with only a slight breeze to ruffle the jalousies and stir up tiny whirlwinds of dust. There was no sentry on the door. Had Luce already paid off the Army, keeping only the four hundred militia?

Ned banged on the door and walked into the room. Heffer might well have been dozing: he leapt from his chair, his startled eyes blinking in the familiar mournful sheep’s face.

“Ah, Mr Yorke and Sir Thomas! Welcome back. I heard you had returned.”

“You didn’t see us passing yesterday?”

“Er, well, yes. With an extra ship.”

“Did you order the James bastion to fire on us as we came in?”

“Indeed I did not! I heard the guns firing.”

“Why?” Ned demanded. “Why at us?”

Heffer sat down after closing the door firmly and gestured to Ned and Thomas to be seated. “There have been changes here since you left. My role is – well, my title is now Quartermaster General. I am (I think) supposed to make sure the island doesn’t starve and we don’t run out of powder and shot for the militia. I also have to make sure the Governor is well supplied with lobster, and with turtles from the Caymans (he’s very partial to turtle cutlets). Oh yes, I have to collect all the uniforms and arms from the soldiers now they’re paid off. As they have nothing else to wear and they haven’t the money to buy clothes (there isn’t enough cloth in the island anyway, let alone boots or shoes), the Governor has a crisis on his hands.”

“So that’s why the bastion fired at us, eh?” Ned asked. “We’re not welcome, I suppose, after Loosely cancelled all the commissions and the Brethren left.”

Heffer gave an unexpected gulping laugh, like a sheep sneezing. “Ah, yes, as I just told you, things have changed! But I’m only the quartermaster. I hear the Governor tried to send you an urgent message yesterday, but you gave his messenger a dusty answer!”

“Yes, that’s about it. What was the message?”

“Mr Yorke,” Heffer said ironically, “I’m now only the quartermaster – the island’s housekeeper. The Governor doesn’t confide in me nor does he ask my advice. He asks no one’s advice. If he wants to see you urgently, I’m sure it’s over an urgent matter. I’ve just told you we have a clothing crisis. Or perhaps it’s a turtle cutlets crisis – the sloop from the Caymans is two days overdue…”

“Nothing changes much,” Ned said with a grin. “Quite like old times.”

“Except that you’re not humbugging me any more!” Heffer said thankfully. “I remember when I first met the pair of you. Buying grain you had stolen from the Spanish!”

“Captured, not stolen,” Thomas corrected. “You talk as though my sainted Uncle Oliver was still alive. The King is back, Heffer!”

Heffer glanced at the door, as if making sure it was still shut. “Yes, I know. He sent us the Governor!”

“Heffer,” Ned said suddenly, “that’s the third time you’ve smiled, and you just laughed. What’s the matter? Whence come this ribald Heffer? Why are you so cheerful? I’ve never seen you smile before, and as for laughing…”

Heffer smiled yet again, self-consciously. “Well, Sir Harold is not an easy man to work for but he has all the responsibility now. I can assure you that I’d sooner be responsible for turtle cutlets than the safety of the whole island. And–” he took a large watch from his fob and flipped open the front, “–perhaps you gentlemen had better go and pay him your respects: someone will have seen your boat arriving at the jetty, and he’ll probably think I’m deliberately keeping you.”

Ned stood up. “Well, we’ll call in after we’ve seen him. Not to tell you about the urgent matter, but to see if you can find some turtle cutlets for us. And who knows, we might then sail over to the Main and get some cloth so that your former soldiers can hide their nakedness.”

Hamilton was standing at the front door of the Governor’s residence, hands trembling, his forehead beaded with perspiration that owed more to nervousness than humidity.

“Ah, Mr Yorke! We saw you coming on shore – but then you and Sir Thomas vanished!”

“We often do,” Ned said. “It’s a trick Sir Thomas learned on one of the Crusades. The Third, wasn’t it, Thomas?”

“The Fourth,” Thomas said.

“Ah yes. The Third was when you rescued Lady Diana from the Sultan.”

“No, no, no, my dear fellow: I rescued the Sultan from Lady Diana,” Thomas said, straight-faced. “The poor man was in mortal danger of being transmuted into a eunuch.”

William Hamilton’s eyes had long since become glazed. “Sir Harold…” he said weakly, “Sir Harold has–”

“The written apology waiting for us,” Ned said.

“Er, well, I’m not sure–”

“Good day,” Ned said crisply, “we have plenty of work to supervise on board our ships.” As he turned, Hamilton said hurriedly: “I’m sure Sir Harold is only waiting to–”

Ned knew that Hamilton was lying to save his master’s face, but now, having spoken to Heffer, he was curious to know what it was that Loosely regarded as urgent.

“Very well, tell Sir Harold we’ll give him ten minutes.”

As Hamilton turned to hurry into the house, Thomas growled: “At the most, and that includes time for the apology.”

And there Sir Harold Luce was, sitting at an enormous desk: the ferret face, wisps of urine-coloured hair poking out from under his wig, sharp little hungry eyes, the face like freckled cold pork on the turn, the mouth open enough to reveal yellowed teeth.

Hamilton announced their names and Luce stared at them without speaking. Both Ned and Thomas stopped walking into the room, waited a full minute and then turned to go out again.

“Gentlemen,” Luce said hurriedly, “welcome back to Port Royal. I was getting anxious about you!”

“So I noticed,” Ned said, taking out his watch and looking at it carefully. “Welcoming us with the guns of the James bastion.”

“Oh,
that
,” Luce said, waving his hand as though to dismiss it. “Just a mistake; some fool misunderstood an order.”

“Indeed?” Ned’s eyebrows were raised. “Well, we haven’t much time and no doubt the explanation is given fully in your written apology.”

Luce’s eyes flickered from one side of the room to the other, reminding Ned of a trapped animal. “Well, no, I’m explaining now.”

“No you’re not,” Ned said quietly. “We haven’t time to listen. You received my message that I have nothing to discuss with you until I receive your written apology?”

“Damnation, boy,” Luce shouted, thumping his desk, “you don’t send messages like that to the Governor, laying down conditions!”

“Oh, but I do,” Ned said. “Why, we could tar and feather you and send you back to England in a turtle shell, and everyone in the island would cheer us. You’ve no Army, you’ve no idea what is needed here in Jamaica, and you gave the order to fire on my ships. You are the Governor, yes; your commission is no doubt securely locked away somewhere. But don’t forget – if we are exchanging compliments – that I am the Admiral of the Brethren of the Coast, and if the rest of my men hear that you opened fire on me, they’ll come back here and capture the island. You’ll be marched along to Gallows Point and instead of sitting at a desk, you’ll be hanging from a gibbet, the
late
Governor.”

Luce realized that he had gone too far: in a very few seconds he weighed his own ideas of the respect due to his position and its powers against the buccaneers’ ships – more than thirty, he recalled – that this wretched fellow Yorke led.

“Very well, I apologize, and if you’ll sit down I’ll draft the apology now. William! Ink, paper and quill. Hurry!”

Five minutes later, having read it carefully, Ned folded the apology, tucked it into the capacious pocket in the sleeve of his jerkin, and then consulted his watch. “Three minutes, Sir Harold.”

The Governor looked puzzled. “Three minutes? What about them?”

“You have three minutes left of the ten,” Ned explained patiently. “You wanted to see me, urgently.”

“My dear fellow, I can’t tell you all about it in
three minutes
!”

“A pity,” Ned said, and stood up, followed an instant later by Thomas. “You see, we don’t set traps and fire on people that trust us: we say exactly what we can do or can’t do, and that’s it. We said ten minutes, and they have almost passed.”

His face now red with indignation, his wig beginning to slip and revealing what Ned had expected, that the man’s hair still had not grown out after having been cut back to the fashionable “Roundhead” style under the Commonwealth (and which was the main reason for the wig’s popularity at the Restoration), Sir Harold whined: “You have the impertinence to give me
three minutes
! Damnation, I am the Governor of Jamaica: don’t you understand? The
Governor
!”

Ned turned to Thomas and nodded towards the door. “Good day, Your Excellency,” he said ironically, “I’m afraid we have urgent business on board our ships.” He thought a moment and then added, much as a fisherman threw out bait before casting his line: “We have to provision and water before sailing again tomorrow afternoon.”

“Sailing? So soon?”

Far from looking like a trapped ferret, Sir Harold, wig awry, eyes flickering like guttering candle flame, looked more like a ferret dying painfully after being bitten by a viper. “Oh please, Mr Yorke, and Sir Thomas, hear what I have to say. It is urgent! It concerns the very safety of Jamaica! The island has never faced such a crisis! We’ve no Army, no defences except a few bastions – you are my last hope, Mr Yorke!”

“Poor you,” Ned said unsympathetically. “If things are as bad as that there’s nothing we can do to help. Just four ships and perhaps two hundred and fifty men – all the rest are at Tortuga or along the Main. Why, if you cleared the bars and brothels of Port Royal you’d find more men – most of your disbanded Army, probably. Fill ’em up with rumbullion and point them in the right direction and shout ‘Charge!’ – that’s only a suggestion, but the best I can do at the moment.”

“Please…” Luce pleaded, and Ned suddenly realized that the man was almost in tears. Yet Ned was sure that Luce was not to be trusted: he was the kind of man who interpreted someone’s kindly act as a sign of weakness. Luce and his type had moral standards somewhere between those of a cutpurse and a highwayman stranded with a lame horse and a pregnant and shrill doxy.

Ned sat down again. “Very well, but please hurry, Sir Harold. You must realize we do not like leaving our ships in an anchorage where batteries open fire on us without warning…”