Buccaneer (12 page)

‘What do you mean?’ shouted Hector.

‘Nothing will remain after this flood,’ answered the big man. ‘All our stock of logwood is being washed away. Some may stay in place, but the rest will shift and be buried in the mud. It will take weeks to salvage it, and even then it will be almost impossible to bring it to the landing place. A North rarely lasts more than a day or two, but it will be weeks before the flood waters recede far enough for us to begin any recovery. Besides, all our food stores will have been destroyed, and the gunpowder soaked and ruined.’

Glumly Hector looked down at the swirling water. His mind was on Gutteridge and his sloop. Unless the captain had found a truly secure anchorage there was little chance that his vessel would survive.

That evening they ate a meal of cold meat washed down with gulps of water. From time to time they shifted position by a few inches, cautiously easing the discomfort of their perch because the gale still raged. Occasionally a bird flashed past them, swept helplessly downwind.

The gale began to slacken about the time the stars came out and, looking north, Hector saw that the long black cloud had gone. ‘That means the North is finished,’ Jezreel told him.

They dozed fitfully and at sunrise looked out on a scene of devastation. The flood water extended as far as the eye could see. Here and there the tops of small trees were still visible, but their branches had been stripped of foliage. The only movement was the small, reluctant swirls and eddies in the brown flood which told that the water had reached its peak and was slowly beginning to recede.

‘It’ll be some hours yet before we can descend,’ Jezreel warned. He leaned his head back against the tree trunk, and there was a companionable silence between them.

‘Tell me,’ said Hector, ‘how did you finish up here of all places?’

Jezreel waited several moments before answering. ‘Those scars on my face are the mark of my former profession. Did you ever hear of Nat Hall, the “Sussex Gladiator”?’

When Hector did not reply, he continued. ‘You might have done if you had lived in London and visited Clare Market or Hockley in the Hole. It was there I fought trials of skill, gave exhibitions, taught classes too. The singlestick was my favourite, though I was handy enough with the backsword.’

‘I’ve seen prize fights at home,’ said Hector. ‘But that was with fists, between farmers at the country fairs.’

‘You are talking about trials of manhood,’ the big man corrected him. He stretched out his hands to show the callused knuckles. ‘That’s what fistics leave you with, and maybe a flattened nose and mis-shapen ears. Trials of skill are different. They’re done with weapons. My nose was shaped by a blow from a singlestick, and the same caused my scars. Had I received a slash from a backsword that would have left no ear at all.’

‘It must take courage to follow such a dangerous profession,’ commented Hector.

Jezreel shook his head. ‘I drifted into it. I was always very big for my age, and strong too. By the time I was fourteen, I was taking wagers on feats of strength – breaking thick ropes, pulling saplings up by their roots, lifting heavy stones, that sort of thing. Eventually I found my way to London where a showman promised me that I would be the new English Samson in his theatre. But I was never quite good enough, and he was a cheat.’

Jezreel leaned over from his branch and spat down into the flood water. He waited for a moment, watching the blob of spittle float on the surface. Slowly it drifted seawards. ‘On the ebb,’ he commented as he settled back against the tree trunk, and continued with his tale. ‘I was always quick, as much as I was strong. Have you ever seen hot work at the singlestick?’ he asked.

‘Never. Is it some sort of cudgel?’

Jezreel made a grimace of distaste. ‘That’s what some people call it, but gives the wrong idea. Imagine a short sword, but with a blade of ash, and a basket handle. Two men stand face to face, no more than a yard apart, easy striking distance. They hold their weapons high and make lightning cuts and slashes at one another. Each blocks the other’s blow and strikes back in an instant. The target is any part of the body above the waist. The feet must stay on the ground, not moving.’

Jezreel’s right hand was above his head now and, with bent wrist, he was whipping an imaginary blade through the air, down and sideways, slashing and parrying. For a moment Hector feared that the big man would lose his balance on the branch and tumble into the flood.

‘How is the winner decided?’ he asked.

‘Whoever first suffers a broken head is the loser. To win you must draw blood with a blow to the head, hence my scars.’

‘But that doesn’t explain why you are here now.’

The prize fighter waited a long time before he continued. ‘Like I told you, singlestick was my favourite, but I was handy with the short sword too. It’s the same style and technique but with a sharp metal blade, and when you fight for big money, the crowd wants to see the blood flow freely.’

Hector sensed that the big man was finding it difficult to speak of his past.

‘I was matched against a good man, a champion. The purse was very big and I knew that I was outclassed. He need not have cheated. He cut me across the back of my leg, tried to hamstring me, and in my anger and pain I lashed out with a lucky stroke. It split his skull.’

‘But it was an accident.’

‘He had a patron, a powerful man who lost both his wager and his investment. I was warned that I would be tried for murder, so I fled.’ Jezreel gave a bitter smile. ‘One thing, though, all that exercise with singlestick or backsword will have its uses.’

‘I don’t grasp your meaning,’ said Hector.

‘This cursed flood has put an end to my hopes of making a living out of logwood. I expect my comrades will go back to what they did before – buccaneering. I think I’ll join them.’

When eventually Jezreel judged it was safe to descend from their perch, Hector accompanied the prize fighter as they waded waist deep through the retreating flood water. They found their camp was wrecked. The huts still stood, though skewed and made lopsided by the current, but all their contents were either washed away or ruined. There was nothing to salvage. They made their way to the landing place among the mangroves and were relieved that the pirogue was undamaged though they had to extract it from the upper branches of a mangrove thicket where it had lodged. Just when they had succeeded in relaunching the pirogue, the two other Bay Men straggled in. They too had shifted for themselves and managed to climb out of harm’s way.

‘What do we do now?’ asked the man with the scarred face whom Jezreel called Otway.

‘Best try to link up with Captain Gutteridge . . . if his ship still floats,’ answered Jezreel. The little group stacked their last remaining possessions into the pirogue, then paddled out from among the mangroves, and along the coast in the direction they had last seen the sloop. They had not gone more than five miles when they saw in the distance a sight which confirmed Jezreel’s fears. Cast up a hundred yards into the coastal swamp was the dark outline of a ship. It was Gutteridge’s sloop. She lay on her side. A shattered stump showed where the mainmast had once stood. The spar itself lay across the deck in a tangled web of rigging. The mainsail was draped over the bow like a winding sheet.

‘Poor sods,’ breathed Otway. ‘She must have driven ashore in the gale. I doubt there were any survivors.’

They paddled their pirogue closer, looking for any signs of life. Jezreel fired his musket as a signal. But there was no response, no answering shot, no call. The big man reloaded and fired again in the air – still there was nothing. The shattered hulk was abandoned, dark, and silent.

T
HE
N
ORTH
’
S
baleful effect was detected far to the south. In Dan’s homeland on the Miskito coast his people saw the tide recede beyond its normal range, then flood in with unusual strength, and they knew that it signified a great, distant upheaval. The flotsam washed ashore was still being gathered by children from the Miskito villages when Dan came home a fortnight later. He recounted how he and Jacques had been taken by Coxon’s buccaneers and sent aboard
L’Arc-de-Ciel
to Petit Guave. The French settlement had been abuzz with preparations for a free-booting raid on the Spanish Main, and the governor, Monsieur de Pouncay, was absent. Rather than wait for his return to decide if their prisoners were guilty of piracy, Captain Coxon’s prize crew saw their chance of easy plunder. They volunteered to join the French expedition, freed their prisoners, and recruited Dan to pilot them to the Miskito coast for it was from there that the French proposed to march on the Spanish settlements in the interior. Jacques was happy to join them as he had encountered several former acquaintances from the Paris gaols among the freebooters. But when the French expedition disembarked, Jacques had changed his mind, preferring to stay behind on the beach and watch out for any Spanish patrol ships and wait for Dan to return from a visit to his Miskito family.

‘Weren’t they happy to see you again?’ asked Jacques. He had been surprised to see Dan reappear after less than a week. Dan looked up from where he was kneeling on the sand, about to butcher a turtle for their midday meal.

‘Of course. They wanted to hear about all the places I had seen during my travels.’

‘And didn’t they expect you to stay at home?’

‘That’s not our custom,’ the Miskito replied. ‘Our young men are encouraged to join the foreign raiding parties who come to our coast. They get well rewarded as scouts and hunters.’

He turned the turtle on its back and tickled it under the chin with the point of his cutlass. The creature extended its neck, and with a lightning stroke he chopped down with his blade. The head spun away, the beaked jaws still snapping and narrowly missing Jacques who jumped aside.

‘How are you going to get into the shell?’ the Frenchman asked.

‘It’s easy. You slip the tip of your cutlass into this slot where the upper and lower shells meet. Then carefully slice sideways, following right around the joint. If you try to cut anywhere else, you’ll find it impossible.’

Jacques rubbed the galerien’s brand on his cheek as he watched his companion. Within moments the Miskito had prised apart the turtle, opening it like a clam shell.

‘Why, the gut’s like the intestines of a cow,’ the Frenchman noted in surprise.

‘I suppose that’s because the turtles also feed on grass.’

‘But they are sea creatures.’

‘If it’s calm tomorrow,’ answered the Miskito, ‘I’ll take you out in a canoe to where you can see four fathoms down. You’ll see grass growing on the sea floor. That’s the turtle’s food.’

He turned back to his work and pointed out two discoloured patches of flesh in the body of the turtle, close to the muscles of the front flippers. ‘You must cut those out,’ he said. ‘If you don’t, the flesh will have a bad taste when cooked.’

‘Just leave the cooking to me,’ said Jacques impatiently. He was of the opinion that the Miskito showed a great lack of imagination by only grilling or boiling turtle meat. He had already suggested to Dan that a sauce of lemon juice, pimento and pepper would enhance the flavour.

‘As you wish,’ said Dan equably. ‘For frying the meat, use that yellowish fat on the inside of the lower shell. But please leave me the greenish fat of the upper shell.’

‘Is it poisonous?’ asked Jacques who felt that perhaps he was too hasty in his culinary plans.

‘Not at all. I’ll set the shell upright in the sand after we’ve got all the meat out of it. When the sun has softened the green fat, you can scrape it off and eat it raw. It’s delicious.’

A halloo attracted their attention. A hundred yards offshore a dugout canoe was passing down the coast under a small triangular sail. Its occupant was standing up and waving to them. Immediately Dan got to his feet and waved back, beckoning the newcomer to come to land. ‘That’s Jon, one of my cousins,’ the Miskito explained. ‘He’s been away on a fishing trip.’

Dan hurried down the slope of the beach to greet his relative, and to Jacques’s astonishment, as the newcomer stepped out of his canoe Dan fell flat on his face on the sand. For a moment Jacques thought that his friend had tripped. But then the Miskito got to his feet, and his cousin also dropped prone in front of Dan, and lay spreadeagle and face down for the space of a few heartbeats, then stood up again. Next the two men threw their arms around one another and hugged tightly, each with his face pressed against the other’s neck. Jacques, who had walked towards them, distinctly heard both men snuffling loudly and with gusto. His puzzlement must have shown, for when Dan introduced the Frenchman, he added, ‘Don’t look so surprised. That’s our way of greeting someone we are fond of and have not seen for a long time. We call it
kia walaia
. It means “to smell, to understand”.’

The two Miskito exchanged news and when Dan turned back to Jacques, he was looking thoughtful. ‘Jon has been fishing to the north. He heard rumours of a party of white men travelling along the coast in pirogues. Three boatloads of them. They are coming this way, but very slowly, for they are weak and sickly. Also he says that a Spanish patrol ship was seen five days ago.’