The Scent of Betrayal (11 page)

‘Pender,’ said Harry softly, after drinks had been poured, ‘get that stuff from the
Gauchos
on deck, so that our Spanish peacock can examine it. Put it beside that raft.’

Pender left a scene of restrained conversation. Direct questions were avoided. Even James knew that there was a protocol in these things: the polite exchange of conversation regarding each sovereign’s health, larded with flattery as to the numerous virtues of the two nations; the enquiries regarding the nature of each other’s task, without in any way indicating unseemly inquisitiveness. Even if the word privateer surprised him, it would have taken a very observant onlooker to notice the effect on San Lucar de Barrameda, determined to abide the rules. And, as befitted a man of his station, he ate and drank sparingly. Not so his fellow officer. Fernandez, presented with an opportunity to eat and drink things he rarely saw, slurped and munched away, taking no part in the exchange of pleasantries. Indeed, his indulgence forced his superior to continue with his gossip for some time, until, finally losing patience, he said a sharp word in Spanish that had the infantry Captain sitting bolt upright in his chair. Then having served notice of a change of mood, he turned to Harry.

‘I am, sir, curious as to why an English privateer should be in these waters, which I would remind you, are wholly the province of His Most Catholic Majesty.’

Harry stood up abruptly, turned, and reached into his desk drawer. His hand emerged holding the packet that contained the log and papers of the
Gauchos
.

‘Would you return to the deck with me, sir? I have something very unpleasant to show you.’

THE SPANIARD
was surprised by this suddenness and he recoiled slightly. With an evident expression of distaste at such unseemly behaviour, he pulled himself to his feet in preparation. Then, with his mask of indifference firmly back in place, he followed Harry to the deck. The
Navarro
had now come quite close, and like
Bucephalas
had dropped anchor. She lay bow on, her oars now shipped. There was some form of cage on the foredeck but Harry was so busy shepherding his guest that he couldn’t spare it a proper look. The items that had been fetched off the sinking ship were laid out on the deck. On seeing them, San Lucar de Barrameda stopped dead, clearly perplexed. After a moment of examination he raised his eyes to meet the steady, sad gaze of his host.

‘It is never a pleasant duty to tell a fellow sailor that one of his country’s ships has been lost.’ Harry handed him the packet. ‘These are the ship’s papers of a merchant vessel we came across called
Gauchos de Andalusia
.’

Harry got no further. This time San Lucar de Barrameda reacted as if he’d been slapped. His eyes held a startled expression and what little blood he had in his face drained away.

‘
Gauchos
?’ he whispered.

‘We came across her drifting, with not a soul aboard, about a day’s sailing to the south of the delta.’ The Spaniard couldn’t help it. He looked at the guns lining the side as Harry continued quickly, ‘It was no act of ours that left her so. Nor was she fired on by any other vessel. Apart from an attempt to open her planking below the waterline, she was undamaged. Indeed we tried to tow her to Fort Balize. I’m sorry to say we didn’t succeed.’

‘Where did this take place?’ de Barrameda snapped.

Quite clearly, in his shock, he’d failed to hear all that Harry had said. The explanation which followed was complex, since he could only guess at the precise location. Certainly, the chart showed the Spanish merchantman’s course, but lacking an accurate position of his own, Harry couldn’t say with any conviction how long she’d been drifting and at what point they’d intercepted her. His reference to soup tureens and some sticky blood on the deck brought a growl of impatience, which Harry reacted to with stoical forbearance. He couldn’t advance a full explanation of what had occurred, even if he did list the thoughts he’d had, and this was frustrating his guest. But as he tried San Lucar de Barrameda recovered some of his composure, only the pressure of his lips now betraying the depth of his anxiety. James was watching him closely, and he was probably the only one to see the skin tighten around his cheeks when Harry mentioned the sweet-tasting granules. By the time he’d heard about the top layer of boxes in the hold being opened such evidence of discomfort had disappeared.

‘Naturally, unable to save the ship, we took out as much as we could in the way of personal possessions, plus everything that might provide a clue to what actually happened. Then we set course for New Orleans.’

‘That may account for your presence off Balize, Captain Ludlow. But it does not explain your presence so far north in the Gulf of Mexico. Just where were you headed when you came across the
Gauchos
?’

James, when he saw Harry’s face, with that tightness a man adopts when suppressing a curse, suddenly understood what he was up to. Harry knew full well that Pollock was telling the truth. The Spanish might not welcome French colonists with any greater degree of enthusiasm than the American. The plan to drop them at Fort Balize having gone awry, his brother was trying to sneak the Frenchmen upriver on the back of this unfortunate discovery. Worried by the possibility of a refusal, he was keen not to ask that they be allowed to stay. A firm
no
would leave him with the unpleasant alternative of putting them ashore surreptitiously or
even worse taking them elsewhere. De Barrameda had spotted the flaw and Harry was about to be forced to explain himself.

‘I think there’s one other thing you should see, Captain.’ Harry nodded to Pender, who was standing by the tarpaulin that covered the raft. ‘We found this as well, just before we raised Fort Balize. It was drifting on the tide. There were half a dozen casks tied to it, all empty, which we suppose had been used to dispose of the crew.’

De Barrameda stared at the body impassively, which was more than could be said for Harry’s crew. Denied the chance for a close look when it came aboard, they pressed forward as much as decency allowed.

‘I’m sure you will recognise this form of punishment as one usually confined to pirates.’

Harry’s crew were not alone in their curiosity. Fernandez had actually walked up to the raft, and, like man who coveted them, knelt down to finger the victim’s boots. To look at the state of his own footwear, scuffed and practically worn through with exposure to sea and sand, it wasn’t too fanciful a notion. Suddenly he crossed himself. Then he stood up and resumed the stance he’d adopted since coming on deck, shoulders hunched, sucking his teeth, the picture of indifference. Hardly surprising since the entire conversation had taken place in a language he didn’t comprehend.

‘This was not the work of pirates,’ said de Barrameda.

‘Naturally,’ Harry replied, ‘I bow to your superior knowledge. But I’m at a loss to know how you can be so certain.’

‘If you cast your eyes over my ship, you will observe that there is a caged man on the deck.’

Harry turned to look, as did James and everyone else aboard. The
Navarro
had swung round slightly, giving a clearer view of her foredeck. The cage was easy to see now. Just as obvious was the man hanging by his wrists from the roof.

‘Henri-Luc Charpentier, who claims to lead the vermin who occupy Barataria Bay. I burnt four of their vessels and chased the crews into the swamps. There have been no pirates at sea for days.’

De Barrameda suddenly rapped out a series of orders that
made Fernandez jerk to attention. Harry only understood a fraction of what he said, but little genius was required to guess the rest. Once he’d received his instructions, Fernandez was over the side and into his cutter at the pace of a scalded cat. The rowers caught his mood and grabbed their oars. De Barrameda waited till they’d pushed off from the side, frowning at the untidy nature of their efforts, before composing his features once more, in order to address Harry.

‘How can we thank you, Captain? You say it is sad to tell a man of the sinking of one of his country’s ships.’ He nodded in the direction of the desiccated body. ‘How much worse to know that friends have suffered such a dread fate at sea.’

‘Captain Rodrigo was a friend?’ asked Harry, solicitously.

Out of the corner of his eye Harry could see the Spanish cutter heading for the
Navarro
, not Fort Balize or the mouth of the river. Given the proximity of de Barrameda’s ship any orders could easily have been shouted, which could only mean that the Spaniard didn’t want him to hear them. That made him uneasy.

James, less distracted, was concentrating on this hidalgo sailor, observing the effect of Harry’s question. He saw the skin tighten around the mouth again. Clearly the grief that the Spanish officer was about to convey made him uncomfortable.

‘He was, indeed,’ de Barrameda replied. Then, as if aware of the discomfort this would cause his hosts, he waved an elegant hand towards his ship.

‘As you will observe, I have sent Captain Fernandez over to the
Navarro
. I have given orders to my master to signal the galley with the best oarsmen aboard. They will row upriver at speed. The Barón de Carondelet must be told what has happened.’

‘And who, pray, is the Barón de Carondelet?’ asked James.

‘He is the Governor of Louisiana,’ snapped the Spaniard, as if such ignorance was inexcusable. ‘You, of course, must make your way there too. And as soon as my present mission is complete, I, along with the rest of my fleet, shall accompany you.’

‘Your present mission?’ said Harry.

‘I am here to rendezvous with two transports carrying troops from Havana.’

Harry still didn’t give the Spaniard his undivided attention. Part of that was focused on the
Navarro
, with him quietly wondering what orders Fernandez had imparted which caused so much activity along her decks.

‘They are a day overdue,’ the Spaniard said, looking to the south, where his galleys now formed a line that blocked the route.

‘I expect they have been delayed by the same weather that slowed our voyage,’ said Harry, a remark which earned him a cold look.

Fernandez put off from the
Navarro
and headed back to the fort, his eyes firmly fixed on the quarterdeck of
Bucephalas
. He was hardly ten feet away from the side before the signal broke out at the masthead. One of the galleys immediately dipped its oars and headed for the river mouth at an impressive pace.

‘Do you wish to take these things aboard your own ship?’ asked Harry, indicating the sea-chests and the box.

De Barrameda shook his head emphatically. ‘No, Captain Ludlow. I would rather you kept them. The Governor will want to question you himself. It is better that everything you took out of the
Gauchos
stays with you aboard your own ship.’

‘Sail, Capt’n,’ called the lookout, ‘due south.’

De Barrameda, having looked aloft, first at
Bucephalas
’ tops, then at his own, aimed a hard look at
Navarro
’s quarterdeck. He was upset that these ships should have been spotted by an
Inglese
first. This wasn’t helped when the lookout added: ‘Two sail, your honour.’

The five seconds of embarrassed silence that followed seemed like an eternity as the Spaniard continued to glare, first at his own ship, then at the rest of his little fleet. Finally a cry came from one, which was immediately taken up by the others. This was followed by a bustle on deck of the
Navarro
. A man appeared at the bows and informed his Captain, in Spanish, what he’d already learned in English. Aloft, Harry’s lookout continued to reel off
information about the approaching vessels, identifying them to de Barrameda’s satisfaction as the ships with which he was to rendezvous.

‘I must return to
Navarro
,’ he said abruptly.

Harry waited for him to call across the intervening water for transportation, only to find himself on the receiving end of a cold stare.

‘The barge, if you please, Pender.’

‘Well, Harry, we are to be granted our wish, it seems. If we tell our Frenchmen we are going to New Orleans with them, they will jump for joy.’

Harry didn’t even drop his telescope, nor did he respond. James concluded he had cares he was loathe to share, since, as usual, most of the crew had stayed as far aft as they dared. The Spanish ships were hull up now, closing the distance slowly, the wind having dropped considerably with the heat of the day. Occasionally Harry would turn his glass to look at the fort, now a distorted image in the haze. With the accommodation so low in relation to the wooden walls there was no way of telling accurately what was going on inside. Yet enough activity showed, with men running to and fro on the firesteps, to indicate some form of bustle. He could see the deck of the
Navarro
with his naked eye and there was nothing there to reassure him of San Lucar de Barrameda’s peaceful intentions, especially with the other three galleys still anchored across his stern. He stayed like this until the ships, broad-beamed merchant vessels, dropped anchor.

Various signals were exchanged between the Spaniards, with the odd one including the garrison of Fort Balize. After several of these, each emphasised with a signal gun, the cutter put off from the island, with Fernandez again sitting in the stern. Two boats had been lowered from the merchantmen and all three converged on the
Navarro
, where a party of marines had lined up to do the honours. De Barrameda was on deck to greet the arrivals and Harry watched to see how they stood in relation to each other. It
was all revealed in the bowing, with only one individual, in a buff military coat and a braided hat, of enough stature to get by with a mere nod of the head to the Spanish Captain. They then approached the cage on the foredeck. A bucket of water brought some life to the man inside, but not much, and after trading a few insults with him the whole party went below.

‘I dare say that we are a ripe topic of conversation, brother,’ said James. This time Harry turned to grin at him, as if to compensate for both his past and his continuing silence.

‘You may whisper to me if you wish, Harry.’

The clash of metal as the marines presented arms made both men turn their heads sharply. De Barrameda was back on deck with the military officer. Fernandez followed in their wake. The two senior officers got into one boat while the garrison commander went aboard his own. A signal gun banged and Harry saw one of the merchantmen begin to weigh anchor. The master hauled round his yards and started to edge in towards the island, a leadsman in the chains. Boats were lowered from the other three ships and slipped into his wake. Fernandez was ahead of them all, on course for the fort. But the two senior officers were taking no part in this. They were heading straight for the side of
Bucephalas
.

‘El Señor Cayetano de Fajardo de Coburrabias.’

‘Brevity is not only the soul of wit,’ said James, so quickly and softly that only Harry picked it up. ‘A plainer appellation would do these men good.’

‘The military commander of the Louisiana Territory,’ added San Lucar de Barrameda, without warmth. ‘I have informed him of the unfortunate fate of the
Gauchos
. He has particularly asked to look at what you have discovered.’

On being shown the raft, de Coburrabias examined it closely, all the while carrying on a heated conversation with de Barrameda. Even if he couldn’t understand it, Harry was listening hard, trying to establish the relationship, in terms of rank, of these two individuals. Clearly, judging by the icy tone of the exchange, there
was little love lost between them. But neither one backed down to the other, which led him to conclude that they were equals. Finally, subjected to another pointed enquiry, de Barrameda threw up a hand in angry disgust and walked back towards the Ludlow brothers. As he spoke to them, he adopted the same tone as he’d used to his fellow countryman.