Nobody's Slave (22 page)

‘I suppose they might take it hard,’ Tom answered, downcast. ‘But surely the Admiral cannot mean to let them in, when they are so many more than us?’

‘What the Admiral means to do depends on what these gentlemen say, and how much longer the wind stays off-shore, to favour us. But I'll have you bear in mind, when we go aboard, that this here fleet is carrying some of the finest grandees of Spain. So if we ruffle their feathers now, our good Queen's likely to wring our necks when we get home. She don't want no war with Spain, she wants a prosperous trade with it.’

‘But what if they attack us in harbour?’ Now that they were closer to the fleet, Tom could see that a good half of the Spanish ships were at least as big as the
Jesus
, or the
Minion
. Perhaps bigger.

‘Then there'll be a battle royal, lad, said Barrett, smiling, as the pinnace dug her nose into a wave, sending a sheet of spray hissing aft.  ‘But you begin to see the problem. Our job is to get them to give us their word they won't attack us, afore they come in.’

‘If you can trust their word,' said Tom, mindful of the troubles they had had before, at Rio de la Hacha. He saw Madu staring at him, coolly, but Tom was too slow to guess the cause.

‘Aye. It depends what manner of men they are. There's Spaniards and Spaniards, Tom lad, as you've seen for yourself. But they prate enough of honour, at least; though to my mind, 'tis always their pride comes first.’

The Spaniards they met on the flagship were certainly full of pride, and by no means pleased to see them. The quarterdeck was crowded with finely dressed gentlemen, any one of whom would have put George Fitzwilliam to shame. The burly, bearded figure of Robert Barrett towered over the Spanish Admiral, Don Francisco de Luxan, who swelled like a turkey-cock with rage at Barrett's news. But the control of the negotiations was quickly taken over by the new Viceroy, Don Martin Enriquez, a thin, languid man, equally furious, but more in control of his emotions. When they left, Robert Barrett looked serious, but not entirely displeased.

‘Would you trust yourself aboard such a ship, lad?’ he asked Tom suddenly, breaking a long silence in which the only sound had been the surge of wind and water around the boat, the creak of its timbers, and the cry of the gulls.

‘Me? On the Spanish ship? How do you mean, Master Barrett?’

‘Not you personally, lad - you're not important enough. But someone's got to go. Ten men, we agreed, for hostages. Ten of ours to go to them, ten of theirs to come to us, to prove we mean to keep our word. Should you trust yourself, as one of those ten?’

Tom hesitated, looking back over his shoulder, to where the Spanish ships were anchored. There was something very final about being on board a ship. If the Spanish captain did break his word, an English hostage would be helpless.

‘I ... should not like it, sir,’ he said. ‘Though I should go, readily enough, if I were asked’

‘Surely you would.’ Barrett clapped him on the shoulder, reassuringly. ‘Let us hope those we do ask are as ready. But I confess I should not like it overmuch. The Dons do not lightly let go those whom they have in their clutches.’

Tom was to remember those words later; but for the moment he relaxed, enjoying the movement of the boat as they beat back to the harbour, watching the activities of the English sailors as the low island drew nearer.

The hostages were exchanged, among them George Fitzwilliam, who left with a fine swirling bow to the Admiral, saying he hoped to show the Dons there were Englishmen who knew as much about fashion and manners as they. And two days later, when the wind changed, the Spanish fleet was brought in, and moored with their bows to the island next to the English, only a few dozen yards between their flagship and the
Minion
. The English sailors stayed with the guns on the island, and the repairs to the
Jesus
carried on apace.

M
ADU WAS the first to see the soldiers come from the town to the Spanish ships. He was fairly sure they were soldiers, because the early morning sunlight glinted from the armour beneath their cloaks, which they wore wrapped tightly around them, despite the warmth. And the boat they were in had gone ashore almost empty, yet there were now fully fifteen men in it.

He wondered if he should speak. There were many boats plying between the Spanish fleet and the shore that morning, and the men might have gone ashore in any one of them. Yet three times, in half an hour, he saw boats laden with similar cloaked figures approach the Spanish ships, and the boat go back empty. Perhaps the soldiers had been coming aboard all night. But if the Spaniards were about to attack, what business was it of his? Let John Hawkins find out for himself what it feels like to be betrayed, he thought, turning silently away.

A group of the remaining slaves lay on the forecastle, with four sailors guarding them. Madu looked at them sadly; these were the old, the skinny, the diseased, whom no-one wanted to buy. An old man yawned, scratching his stomach; near him another coughed feebly, incessantly, shivering despite the heat of the sun. A pathetic island of calm in the frenzied activity of the ship. Madu knew none of them, and found it hard to think he had once been chained and helpless like them. But he wondered what would happen to these slaves if the red-face fought each other, and realised that no-one would care but he.

‘Master Barrett! The galleon's opening her gunports, sir! Or at least, she's loosed 'em, though they're not up yet!’

Madu scowled at Tom, who it seemed had been watching as intently as he had. For the moment Barrett, busy with taking on board several sides of fresh beef, only looked up, and then bade him continue watching; but by mid-morning it was clear that something would have to be done.

‘He's got three boats in position, to haul his ship up to the
Minion
, sir,’ Barrett reported to Hawkins. ‘And the like is true of every ship along their line. They could move down on us at any moment.’

‘Then we should prepare for the worst, even as we hope for the best,’ answered Hawkins. ‘Tom, do you go ashore to Mr Knightley, to bid him be ready to fire on the Spaniards at any moment. Master Gunner!’

‘Sir!’ Job Hortob, the gunner, hurried aft, knuckling his sweaty brow to the Admiral.

‘Make sure you have our larboard side guns primed and ready to be run out, at my order. Master Barrett, I must send you on board to protest and point out that these moves are not consistent with their honour. I meanwhile will entertain our guests.’

He smiled grimly at the four disarmed Spanish gentlemen - the
Jesus
’ share of the hostages - who stood on the other side of the quarterdeck. ‘Do not hesitate to point out that they are hostages for your return, as well as for their Viceroy’s good faith.’

Tom hurried ashore, clambering down the bow-cable to the island. As soon as they had arrived, Hawkins had sent a strong force to take possession of the guns on the island, to make sure that no Spanish gunners could fire on his ships from there. Whoever controlled the island, controlled the harbor. To his horror, he found Mr Knightley, the officer in charge of the shore battery, lounging idly against one of the cannon, smoking his clay pipe and
talking to a Spaniard
!

‘Well? What is it, lad? You seem pregnant with some great news. Give birth to it, lad, give birth!’

The Spaniard laughed indulgently, as did several other gentlemen within earshot. Tom flushed red.

‘It ... is a message from the Admiral, sir. For your ears alone.’ He looked pointedly at the Spaniard, who raised an eyebrow in scorn.

‘Indeed! Such important news for a young boy! So, Don Rodrigo, if you will excuse me. Matters of state, you understand.’ Knightley bowed, and then, to Tom's increasing confusion
walked away from the gun
, leaving the Spaniards round it. Tom had thought Fitzwilliam a fool, but this!

They were hardly out of earshot when Knightley turned, as though bored with walking. ‘Well, boy, what is it?’

‘My lord, the Admiral says you are to be ready to fire on the Spanish ships at any moment. He believes they are making ready to attack us.’ Tom spoke low and urgently, keeping his back to the Spaniards.

Knightley smiled, in polite disbelief. ‘Surely not. He must be misinformed. As you see, they are here with us, but quite friendly and unarmed ...’

‘Sir, are you sure you trust them? May they not be planning some treachery?’

Knightley frowned, angry at being interrupted. ‘I think I may be the judge of that, boy, not you. You have delivered your message and I have heard it. Now you may return my compliments to the Admiral and tell him that the guns are ready at all times to fire upon the Spanish ships, as they should be; though I greatly doubt it will be necessary.’

‘But sir ...’ Tom saw another group of Spaniards, casually chatting to a gun crew ... and another … and another. Unarmed, it was true, but ...

‘But nothing! Begone, lad, and take the message!’ Knightley snapped hard at him, like a duke to a page, and then turned back to his Spanish guests.

Tom hesitated, staring round at the scene of idle fraternization, apparently friendly Spaniards and English mingling in almost equal numbers around the guns. Then he made up his mind and tore over the shingle, back to the
Jesus
, clambering up the slippery cable like a boy possessed.

But he was too late. Even as he arrived on the poop he saw Hawkins with a crossbow in his hands, furiously yelling in Spanish at a gentleman on the deck of the nearest Spanish merchantman, which was surely nearer the
Minion
than when Tom had left! The Spaniard shouted back, and Hawkins fired the crossbow by way of answer, missing his stunned target by a few inches only.

‘My lord! My …’

‘Mr Hampton! Cut your bow cable! Haul the
Minion
out by her stern! Lively now, lads - we are betrayed! Bosun ...’

His next words were drowned by a blare of trumpets from the Spanish ships. Tom looked down at the flurry of activity on the deck of the
Minion,
and saw the Spanish ship moving steadily closer to her - twenty feet, fifteen, ten. The decks of the Spanish ship were suddenly bristling with soldiers.

‘My lord, the guns ashore …’

‘Traitorous villains! They're out to board her! Every man take up arms and go into the
Minion!
Samuel, my pistols! Come on, boy, hurry!’

Tom saw Madu walk, oddly slowly, into the Admiral's cabin and come out with his pistols. The Spanish ship crunched against the
Minion's
side before she had managed to move clear. With a roar of
‘Sant Iago!
’ the Spanish soldiers surged onto the
Minion’s
decks, their bright swords hissing out of their sheaths and flicking back and forth like the tongues of a hundred snakes.

‘St George! God and St George!’ Tom was running with the rest, down to the gundeck to grab a cutlass from a barrel, and then up, over the side of the maindeck where already a dozen planks had been flung, precariously linking the
Jesus
and the
Minion
over a thirty-foot drop to the sea. Tom felt the plank bounce under him as he ran across, and then he was on the maindeck of the
Minion,
in the midst of the fray.

He swung at a great, bearded Spaniard in front of him, felt his arm jar as the cutlass bounced uselessly off the man’s breastplate, and then ducked under a whistling blow from another. He trod on a body, strangely soft, and slipped in the warm blood. All around him was the ding! and clang! of steel, the crack of pistols, the roar and grunt of struggling men. He saw the bosun club a Spaniard's helmet forwards over his eyes, so that he could not see, and then spin him round and send him headfirst overboard with a great kick in the seat of his pants. An English sailor crumpled in front of him from a sword thrust. The Spaniard who had done it levelled the pistol in his left hand at Tom, but before he could fire Tom brought his cutlass full down on the man's wrist so that the blood spurted out and the hand hung limp, a useless rag.

And then, quite suddenly, the Spaniards were gone. The
Minion'
s bow cable had been cut before they had boarded, and all through the fight, boatloads of English seamen had been straining at their oars to drag her stern first away from the shore. A moment came when the Spaniards, outnumbered and fighting furiously, saw they were about to be dragged clear of their own ship, and turned frantically to scramble back aboard while there was still time.

But even as the
Minion
was dragged free, and Tom stood, stunned and triumphant, amid the groaning bodies and the crowd of victorious sailors, another Spanish merchantman drifted down towards the now half-empty
Jesus
. Frantically, the English sailors called for boats and hurried down into them to row back to their own ship and save her. And Tom, looking towards the island, saw the disaster he had tried to warn the Admiral about.

None of the guns on the island were firing. They could not, for each was surrounded by a knot of desperate, struggling men; the English gun-crews striving to resist the friendly, unarmed Spaniards who had suddenly pulled knives and pistols from beneath their doublets; while behind them, to decide the issue, dozens of fully armed Spanish sailors were swarming ashore from the boats and the overhanging beakheads of the moored Spanish ships.

On the quarterdeck of the
Jesus
Madu saw the Spanish merchant ship approach, and wondered what to do. Now, perhaps, was the time when he could slip to the hold, and release the slaves. But the bosun was on board the
Minion
with the keys, and the only other keys were in the forecastle, which was hurriedly being barricaded against the attack. He would have to wait.

A few guns fired from the waist, and then it was too late. Spanish soldiers poured into the waist of the undermanned
Jesus
. But all was not lost. The
Jesus,
like the
Minion
and most great galleons, was designed to resist just this sort of attack: her high stern- and fore-castles were little fortresses between which the boarders were trapped. Arrows, musket-balls, and grape-shot from the swivel-guns rained down on the attackers; and then, while the Spanish soldiers were still trying to train round some of the maindeck guns to fire back, the Admiral and the first of the boatloads of sailors returning from the
Minion
came over the starboard side, and the vicious cut and thrust began again.