Pirate Latitudes

Chapter 21

SANSON GAVE HUNTER another drink of water from the cask, and then Don Diego said, “There is something else you should see, Captain.”

The little party climbed up the sloping hill toward the edge of the cliff they had scaled the night before. They moved slowly, in deference to Hunter, who felt pain in every step. And as he looked up at the clear, cloudless blue sky, he felt pain of a different sort. He knew he had made a serious and nearly fatal mistake to force the climb during the storm. They should have waited and made the ascent the next morning. He had been foolish and overeager, and he berated himself for the error.

As they approached the lip of the cliff, Don Diego squatted down and looked over cautiously to the west. The others did the same, Sanson helping Hunter. Hunter did not understand why they were being so careful — until he looked over the sheer precipice, to the jungle foliage, to the bay beyond.

In the bay was Cazalla’s warship.

“Damn me,” he whispered softly.

Sanson, crouched alongside him, nodded. “Luck is with us, my friend. The ship arrived in the bay at dawn. It has been there ever since.” As Hunter watched, he could see a longboat ferrying soldiers to the shore. Along the beach, there were dozens of red-coated Spanish troops searching the shoreline. Cazalla, dressed in a yellow tunic, was clearly visible, gesticulating wildly as he gave orders.

“They are searching the beach,” Sanson said. “They have guessed our plan.”

“But the storm . . .” Hunter said.

“Yes, the storm will have washed away any trace of our presence there.”

Hunter thought of the canvas sling that had fallen from his feet. It would be lying now at the base of the cliff. But the soldiers would probably never find it. To reach the cliff was a full daylong hard journey through the undergrowth. They would not make that journey without evidence a party had landed on the shore.

As Hunter watched, a second longboat loaded with soldiers put out from the warship.

“He has been landing men all morning,” Don Diego said. “There must be a hundred on the beach now.”

“Then he intends to leave men,” Hunter said.

Don Diego nodded.

“All the better for us,” Hunter said. Any troops left on the western side of the island would be unable to fight in Matanceros. “Let us hope he leaves a thousand.”

. . .

BACK IN THE mouth of the cave, Don Diego made a gruel for Hunter to drink while Sanson put out their little fire, and Lazue held the spyglass to her eyes. She described the scene to Hunter, who was sitting alongside her. Hunter himself could see only the basic outlines of the structures by the water below. He relied upon the keenness of Lazue’s vision to guide him.

“Tell me first,” he said, “about the guns. The guns in the fortress.”

Lazue’s lips worked silently as she peered through the glass. “Twelve,” she said finally. “Two batteries of three each face east, toward the open ocean. Six in a single battery fire across the harbor entrance.”

“And they are culverins?”

“They have long barrels. I think they are culverins.”

“What can you say of their age?”

She was silent a moment. “We are too distant,” she replied. “Perhaps later, when we move down, I will see more.”

“And the mountings?”

“Carriages. I think wood, with four wheels.”

Hunter nodded. Those would be ordinary shipboard gun carriages, transferred to the shore batteries.

Don Diego came over with the gruel. “I am glad they are wood,” he said. “I feared they might be stone-mounted. That would make it more difficult.”

Hunter said, “We will blow the carriages?”

“Of course,” Don Diego said.

The culverins weighed more than two tons each. If their carriages were destroyed, they would be useless; they could not be aimed or fired. And even if the Matanceros fortress had extra gun carriages, it would take dozens of men many hours to seat each cannon back into a new carriage.

“But first,” Don Diego said with a smile, “we will breech them.”

The idea had never occurred to Hunter, but he immediately saw its value. The culverins were, like all cannon, muzzle-loaders. The crews first rammed a bag of gunpowder down the mouth of the cannon, followed by a ball of shot. Then, through a touch-hole in the breech, the powder bag was broken with a pointed quill, and a burning fuse inserted. The fuse burned through the touch-hole, ignited the powder, and fired the ball.

This method of firing was reliable enough, so long as the touch-hole remained small. But after repeated firings, the burning fuse and the exploding powder corroded the touch-hole, widening it until it acted as an escape valve for the expanding gases. Once that happened, the range of the cannon was severely reduced; ultimately, the ball would not fire at all. And the cannon was very dangerous for its crews to operate.

Faced with this inevitable deterioration, cannon-makers fitted the breech with a replaceable metal plug, wider at one end than the other, with a touch-hole bored in the center. The plug was fitted from inside the cannon, so that the expanding gases of the gunpowder would tend to ram the plug home more snugly with each firing. Whenever the touch-hole became too large, the metal plug was simply removed and a new one fitted.

But sometimes the whole plug was blown out in a piece, leaving a very large hole at the breech of the cannon. That was true breeching, and it rendered the gun wholly useless until a new plug could be fitted. That process took many hours.

“Believe me,” Don Diego said, “when we are finished with those guns, they will be useful for nothing but ballast in a merchant’s hold.”

Hunter turned back to Lazue. “What can you see inside the fortress itself?”

“Tents. Many tents.”

“That will be the garrison,” Hunter said. During most of the year, the weather in the New World was so fair that troops did not require more permanent protection, and this was particularly true for an island as rainless as Leres. Although now Hunter could imagine the consternation of the troops, who had slept in mud from the storm of the previous night.

“What about the powder magazine?”

“There is a wood building north, inside the walls. That may be it.”

“Good,” Hunter said. He did not want to spend time searching for the magazine once they entered the fortress. “Are there defenses outside the walls?”

Lazue scanned the ground below. “I see nothing.”

“Good. Now what of the ship?”

“A skeleton crew,” she said. “I see five or six men on the longboats tied to the shore, by the town.”

Hunter had noticed the town. It was a surprise — a series of rough wood buildings along the shore, some distance from the fort. Obviously, they had been erected to house the galleon’s crew on land, proof that the crew intended to stay at Matanceros for a period of time, perhaps until next year’s sailing of the treasure fleet.

“Troops in the town?”

“I see a few red jackets.”

“Guards at the longboats?”

“None.”

“They are making things easy for us,” Hunter said.

“So far,” Sanson said.

The party collected their gear, obliterating any traces of their time in the cave. They started the long hike down the sloping hill to Matanceros.

On their descent, they faced the opposite problem from their trek two days before. High on the eastern slope of Mt. Leres, there was little foliage and little protection. They were obliged to slip from one dense clump of thorny vegetation to the next, and their progress was slow.

At noon, they had a surprise. Cazalla’s black warship appeared in the mouth of the harbor, and, reefing her sails, came to anchor near the fort. A longboat was put out; Lazue, with the glass, said that Cazalla was in the stern.

“This ruins everything,” Hunter said, looking at the position of the warship. It was parallel to the shore, so that a full broadside of its cannon would rake the channel.

“What if she stays there?” Sanson said.

Hunter was wondering exactly that, and he could think of only one answer. “We’ll fire her,” he said. “If she stays at anchor, we’ll have to fire her.”

“Light a longboat from shore, and set it adrift?”

Hunter nodded.

“A slim chance,” Sanson said.

Then Lazue, still watching through the glass, said, “There’s a woman.”

“What?” Hunter said.

“In the longboat. There’s a woman with Cazalla.”

“Let me see.” Hunter took the glass eagerly. But to his eyes, there was only a white irregular shape seated in the stern next to Cazalla, who stood and faced the fortress. Hunter could discern no details. He returned the glass to Lazue. “Describe her.”

“White dress and parasol — or some large hat or covering on her head. Dark face. Could be a Negro.”

“His mistress?”

Lazue shook her head. The longboat was now tying up by the fort. “She’s getting off. She’s struggling—”

“Perhaps she’s not got balance.”

“No,” Lazue said firmly. “She is struggling. Three men are holding her. Forcing her to enter the fortress.”

“You say she’s dark?” Hunter asked again. That was perplexing. Cazalla might have taken a woman captive, but any woman worth ransoming would certainly be very fair.

“Dark, yes,” Lazue said. “But I cannot really see further.”

“We will wait,” Hunter said.

Puzzled, they continued down the slope.

. . .

THREE HOURS LATER, in the hottest part of the afternoon, they paused in a cluster of prickly acara bushes to drink a ration of water. Lazue noticed that the longboat was putting out from the fortress, this time carrying a man she described as “stern, very slender, very proper and erect.”

“Bosquet,” Hunter said. Bosquet was Cazalla’s second in command, a renegade Frenchman, known as a cool and implacable leader. “Is Cazalla with him?”

“No,” Lazue said.

The longboat tied up alongside the warship, and Bosquet boarded. Moments later, the ship’s crew began to hoist the longboat. That could mean only one thing.

“They’re setting off,” Sanson said. “Your luck holds, my friend.”

“Not quite yet,” Hunter said. “Let us see if she will be making for Ramonas,” where the Cassandra and her crew were hidden. The Cassandra was in water too shallow for the warship to attack her, but Bosquet could blockade the pirate sloop in the cove — and without the Cassandra, there was no point in attacking Matanceros. They needed the men of the Cassandra to sail the treasure galleon out of the harbor.

The warship left the harbor on a southerly reach, but that was necessary to make deep water. Outside the channel, it continued south.

“Damn,” Sanson said.

“No, she’s just making speed,” Hunter said. “Wait.”

As he spoke, the warship came into the wind, and took a starboard tack to the north. Hunter shook his head in relief.

“I can feel the gold between my fingers now,” Sanson said.

After an hour, the black ship was gone from view.

By nightfall, they were no more than a quarter of a mile from the Spanish encampment. The ground cover was more dense here; they selected a heavy clump of Mayaguana trees in which to spend the night. They lit no fire, and ate only a few raw plants before lying down on the damp earth. They were all tired, but excited by the fact that from their position, they could faintly hear the chatter of Spanish voices, and the drifting smells from Spanish cookfires. As they lay beneath the stars, those sounds and aromas reminded them that the coming battle was very close at hand.