Mad Morgan (8 page)

Read Mad Morgan Online

Authors: Kerry Newcomb

BOOK: Mad Morgan
2.42Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
Down through the green streets, past painted shops and shuttered stalls, past children hiding in alleys and behind the lush foliage, past courtesans in their brothels and mixed-breed slaves, many of whom had already abandoned their captivity and cast their lot with the buccaneers …
All eyes were upon him, no hand against him, a man invincible through his own daring. Sweat seeped into his linen shirt. A fair wind tugged at his long brown locks, ruffled his loose sleeves. A stray dog barked to protest his passing. The shadow of a hawk passed over him. A shutter creaked listlessly on its hinges, swaying to and fro.
An old blind man sat in the shade of a lemon tree, singing to himself, his leathery features bobbing up and down with the refrain. The song died on his lips as he heard Morgan approach.
“Be off with you,” the old one snarled, batting the empty air with his walking stick.
Morgan knelt by the blind man and placed a gold doubloon in the palm of his hand.
“Take this,
viejo.
”
“What for?”
“Tribute for your courage.”
The blind man bit the coin and, satisfied it was the real thing, tucked it in his pocket. He cackled as if he had just bested the pirate in a trade. Morgan grinned and, dodging a final thrust of the cane, continued through the town, up one street and down the next, working his way to the sea.
When Morgan arrived on the waterfront, Sir William, Israel, Nell, and the rest of freebooters breathed a sigh of relief and scrambled aboard the ships. Sir William took a skeleton crew aboard the
Glenmorran.
Morgan led the rest to the
Santa Rosa.
LeBishop and the
Jericho
had already cast off. Oars poked through the ports on the lower deck and dug into the bay. The sloop pulled away from shore. The
Glenmorran
soon followed. Then it was the
Santa Rosa'‘
s turn.
Morgan crossed the gangplank and swaggered amidships, bowed to Elena Maria.
“You would do well to retire to your cabin, señorita.”
“I shall remain here,” Elena replied.
“You may be dodging chain-shot before the morning is through.”
“The señorita is not afraid,” Nell interjected, her tone thick with sarcasm.
“So be it,” said Morgan. “Voisin … can you sail this bucket?”
“To perdition, if need be,
mon capitaine.”
The Frenchman removed his cap and scratched his head, obviously concerned about attempting to escape in broad daylight.
“Put your backs into the oars, lads,” Morgan called down through an open hatch, where his rowers labored in the stifling heat. The brigantine eased away from the pier and when she caught the wind in her
mainsails, the oars were drawn in and the guns were rolled back into the ports.
Morgan leaped onto the ship's railing and caught a hand in the shroud as he leaned forward over the glassy surface of the bay for an unobstructed view of the port. He watched its whitewashed buildings recede into the swampy coastline.
Farewell
,
Maracaibo.
It was a nice place to pillage, but he wouldn't want to live here.
A
s the recently appointed governor of Jamaica, Don Alonso del Campo had no business crouching in the thicket of
monstera
ferns, wild ginger, tangled vines, and flowering lobster-claw. The path before him wound off through a thicket of fishtail palms clustered tightly together like an ancient phalanx defending the wooded shore from attack. Tiny gnats, like swirling ashes, whirred about his sweat-streaked features, alighted on his eyelids, and invaded his nostrils. He wasn't alone in his discomfort. The bothersome insects tormented the skirmishers Don Alonso had brought out from the safety of the fortress. While the soldiers around him cursed and grumbled, the governor concealed his discomfort behind a mask of pretense and bravado. Of course, the Spanish aristocrat had some help. Where does a man look for bravery if he cannot find it in himself? Don Alonso hunched forward and, shielding his actions, slipped a small silver flask from his shot-pouch and took a couple of swallows of bay rum. The warm spring spreading through his limbs fueled his false courage. Now he could slay giants.
Captain Muñez had argued against the governor's decision to lead the foray. But Don Alonso had insisted. He was determined to demonstrate to one and all that he was no coward and that his escape from Maracaibo, however disgraceful it seemed on the surface, had been the act of a rational man.
Something bit the back of his neck. He slapped. The sound seemed
louder than he had expected in the leafy thicket. His hand came away bloody. He wiped the palm clean on his trouser leg and then transferred the musket back to his right hand. He motioned for the skirmishers, thirty soldiers in faded white uniforms and cockade hats, to ready their weapons and follow his lead. The Spaniards eyed one another, their misgivings plainly evident. They had no confidence in the man leading them into the unknown. And if what they had seen earlier in the morning was any indication, this patrol was going to be clearly outnumbered by an overwhelming force of buccaneers disembarking on the shore beyond the palms.
The same thought had crossed the governor's mind.
Earlier that morning he had watched with great anticipation as the two sloops and the
Santa Rosa,
at quarter sail, left the safety of the harbor and eased across the glassy waters of the bay. Their approach was tentative at best, as if the crews dreaded what was to come. The Spanish gunners were prepared to give the men beneath the Black Flag the welcome they deserved.
But to the amazement and consternation of Don Alonso and the garrison, the pirate ships weighed anchor well nigh of the entrance to the bay. As Captain Muñez, Don Alonso, and the troops looked on in puzzled silence from the fortress walls, a stately procession of longboats bearing a well-armed contingent of cutthroats pulled out from the brigantine and headed toward the island. The longboats disappeared beyond the dense barrier of broadleaf ferns and palm trees screening the far shore from view. A few minutes later the longboats made a return crossing, with only a pair of oarsmen dutifully rowing back to the brigantine. Then, after a few moments, as long as it took to take on more brigands, the longboats made a return trip to shore, with another armed party of buccaneers sitting two abreast. Somewhere on the leeward side of the island, beyond the woods, these pirates joined their brethren already ashore. The process repeated itself for the better part of the morning.
“What was built by men can be torn down.”
With a slip of the tongue, Morgan had sown the seeds of his own destruction. Don Alonso was convinced the buccaneers intended to storm the landward walls of the fortress, the very battlements the Spaniards had chosen not to protect. Don Alonso was certain of it. But Muñez was not so easily convinced. The continuing procession of longboats, ferrying the brigands to shore, caused the governor to order the gun crews to strip the cannons from the seaward walls and bring them around the perimeter of the castle and mount the twelve-pounders
along the ramparts facing the woods. While the gun crews labored to bring the guns about, Don Alonso had chosen his thirty men and instructed them to volunteer to follow him into the undergrowth to get a better read on Morgan's intentions. If the pirates were ashore in any great number, Don Alonso intended to discover where and how many and bring this information back to the fortress.
He caught a glimpse of movement through the trees and halted in his tracks and brought up his musket. He managed to catch himself in time and ease his finger off the trigger before he blasted a round at a pair of enormous grackles. The black birds exploded from the undergrowth and swooped past the startled patrol. The soldiers heaved a collective sigh of relief and followed the governor into the gloom beneath the fishtail palms. They made slow, tedious progress. Within a matter of minutes the fortress was obscured by the dense foliage. It had proved impossible to keep in formation. The very nature of the terrain broke their ranks and divided the skirmishers into smaller clusters of anxious men, muskets ready, nerves on edge, regretting each and every step that took them farther from the main gate and the safety of those stout walls, soon to be bristling with a heavy complement of cannon and grapeshot. Any assault was going to be met with a murderous fire once the guns were in place along the landward walls.
Perhaps there was a better way to prove his courage. Don Alonso began to reconsider his options, hoping to curb his fears by finding a less precarious adventure with which to rescue his reputation. He slapped his cheek, his neck, and brushed the gnats from his eyes. He paused to take a breather and to listen for any suspicious sound. Suddenly he experienced a burning, prickling sensation that spread from his calf to his knee. He glanced down and discovered he had chosen to squat next to an ant bed. The nasty little insects, hardly more than brown dots no bigger than a pinprick, had a bite that burned like fire. And worse, they attacked not singly but in battalions. A couple of the men around him found themselves assailed by a similar colony of pests.
The governor's subordinate, a corporal named Jesus Simone, dropped his musket and stripped off his pants. His legs were covered with red welts from the bites he had received. The corporal began to slap feverishly at his thighs and calves. Don Alonso chose what he thought was the more dignified approach. He rested his own musket against a nearby tree trunk and began to crush the insects between his flesh and trouser leg. Only when the determined survivors made a
dash for his crotch did he shed his pants and finish the task, brushing the last insects away with short quick strokes. The look in the governor's eyes dared any man to crack a smile. He shook out his trousers until they were free of unwanted visitors, quickly dressed, and slung his powder flask and shot-pouch across his shoulder. Then he reached for his musket but miscalculated the distance and struck the weapon with his fingertips. He made an attempt to correct his mistake, but the musket slipped from his grasp and fell to the ground, discharging on impact. The shot rang out and shattered the stillness. A swirling flight of emerald-winged parrots swarmed skyward. As the gunshot faded in the distance, the line of trees ahead of the skirmishers erupted in thunder and flame.
Hell broke loose from the thicket of vines and palm trees barring the path. Don Alonso flattened himself against the first patch of ant-free ground he could find. Fire and black smoke, whirring lead slugs and sudden death, roared all around him. Don Alonso hit the dirt alongside Jesus Simone. The corporal began to thrash and moan as he clutched at the blood spurting from his throat.
“Mierda!”
the governor exclaimed. He met the corporal's dying gaze and in that horrible event found the strength to stand and drag his pistols from his belt. “To me. To me!” he shouted, exhorting his men to form a line of defense at his side. The skirmishers returned fire but could not tell whether their aim had any effect.
Half a dozen grenades came sailing over a cluster of ferns, fuses sputtering as the flames disappeared into the round black spheres. The ground shuddered with each detonation. Iron splinters shredded plants, punctured flesh. A soldier was tossed into the air like a rag doll and landed upside down and draped over a stack of deadwood. Another poor soul staggered backward, bleeding from a dozen wounds, then sank out of sight in the pall of gunsmoke.
“Close ranks!”
Don Alonso emptied his pistols in the direction of the pirates. Some of the skirmishers struggled to hold their ground, but too many of the patrol had no stomach for annihilation. They turned and ran for their lives.
A third of the skirmishers were dead or dying; others had fled. His command was obviously about to be overrun and captured or killed. Don Alonso had seen enough. He was certain Henry Morgan and his brigands were planning to storm the gate. Let them come. Don Alonso would welcome them in kind. He barked an order to the men around him, ordering the soldiers to depart the field in an orderly
fashion. The soldiers tried. But their resolve wilted before the constant heat of the gunfire the pirates continued to pour into their ranks. At last, the governor broke into a run, keeping low, and with him, the soldiers departed the field and beat a hasty retreat back to the fortress.
 
 
As the last of the gunshots reverberated in the distance, Henry Morgan returned to the wooded shore, followed by the dozen hardy seamen who had helped him create the illusion of an armed host. A longboat with Rafiki Kogi, another oarsman, and eight pirates pulled into the shallows. Once out of sight of the Spaniards on the battlements, the eight buccaneers reclined on the floor of the longboat so that it would appear they had disembarked for the shore, further swelling the ranks of the attackers. Another boat rounded the point, bobbing on the breeze-driven waves.
Morgan hailed Rafiki then glanced around him. Twenty-two men were all that had come over from the brigantine. Hardly an army. But the Spaniards didn't know that. And his men had put on a good show, firing and shouting, hurling grenades, and giving the impression of a force three times their number. Pierre Voisin drew abreast of the captain. The Frenchman finished reloading his pistols and thrust them in his belt. Behind him, clouds of acrid black gunsmoke began to drift past the trees and out toward the water.
“Reckon we convinced them, Captain?”
“We'll find that out soon enough. I shall return to the
Santa Rosa.
See that the rest of you quit the island within the hour. I should not like to waste a good wind.”
Morgan waved for the African to bring the longboat closer in to shore. Then he waded into the shallows and climbed into the boat.
“Jambo,
Captain. We heard the gunfire. Sounded like a whole war be breaking out.”
“The Dons started the ball but lost their stomach for the dance,” Henry chuckled. “Lucky for us.”
The men crowded together on the floor of the longboat managed to create just enough room for Morgan to squeeze down among them for the uncomfortable trip back to the brig.
“Easy now, my beauties,” he told Kogi and the other the oarsman. “Don't work so hard. The Dons must think the boat's empty, remember? Just an easy pull back across the bay. Only the two of you aboard. Nothing to it.”
“Wako uongo.
Tell that to my aching back,” Rafiki grumbled. The African continued to mutter and grumble until the fortress eased into view. Then he began to sing in a low voice, a song of a distant people, a distant land. And the oars dipped and swung in an arc, dipped again into the dappled sea; he rowed to the rhythm of his cadence and the quick, clipped phrases of his native tongue. He sang of luck and misfortune, of courage and cunning.
“
‘Ninavyooona. Fania yokuambia.
As I am seeing. As I am telling you, of a time of battle and daring deeds.'” Tribal memories stirred deep in his soul. The vestige of an ancient culture, old as the veldt and the mountains of the moon. Times changed. But he was still among warriors. “‘The way it was once,'” he sang. “‘The way it is now.'”
 
 
“Where are they?” Captain Muñez complained, pacing the length of the parapet to siphon off some of his youthful impatience. Conscious of the men around him, and sensing their anxiety, he struck a position of defiance, legs planted firm, stern-faced, a man ready for anything. But this waiting was worse than any torture he could imagine. “All morning, all afternoon, we work, we wait, move the cannons, break our backs. Well, I say come and let us kill you, Señor Morgan. We are ready, my men and I.”
And the soldiers who heard him nodded sagely to one another. Here was an officer worth following. He would let the pirates make the first move, then crush them. There would be a great victory, one to tell their grandchildren.
“Where are they?” Don Alonso said, arriving on the wall and unaware he had echoed the captain's sentiments. “Come taste what we have in store for you. Not even the claws of
el Tigre
are a match for these twelve-pounders.” Morgan was clever. A land attack was a brilliant gambit, but doomed to failure. The cannons were loaded with enough grapeshot to cut his forces to ribbons. “What was the last count, Paloma?” Don Alonso asked one of his aides, a bookish, weary-looking corporal the governor had impressed into his own service. The corporal had been only to happy to oblige the governor, after all; duty with Don Alonso exempted Estéban Paloma from the grueling task of shifting the majority of the cannons from the bay to the land approach.

Other books

Sealed with a Kick by Zenina Masters
Lady Dearing's Masquerade by Greene, Elena
A Radical Arrangement by Ashford, Jane
Lord of All Things by Andreas Eschbach
Witch Ways by Tate, Kristy