‘That seems a little harsh,’ said Rashim.
Modyford looked at him incredulously. ‘You have to understand, my good man, the idea of freedom is an infection that any responsible plantation owner must be constantly vigilant for. And it is just like an infection: it spreads, corrupts. Before you know it, the disease has got a hold and you are left with savages running wild. Chaos. This entire colony relies on my harshness, as you put it. Relies on the fact that every slave knows, as a cast-iron certainty, that if he runs and he is caught … he will most certainly hang for it.’ He looked at Liam. ‘Am I right?’
Liam nodded. ‘Of course you are.’
Modyford’s gaze remained on the slaves a while longer then he looked back at Rashim. ‘So, your raid will be on Puerto Bello itself?’
‘Indeed. Word is there is silver stockpiling there as they wait for a new convoy of ships.’
Modyford nodded. ‘With Morgan’s continued clumsy raids along the Spanish Main, and your recent successful raid, they will be more wary now. More warships accompanying their merchant ships. Perhaps even bringing more troops to garrison their ports.’
‘Which is why we are planning a quick hit-and-run shore raid,’ said Rashim. ‘Before reinforcements arrive.’
‘Very shrewd, my friend.’ He looked around once more approvingly. ‘And you say you are setting sail tomorrow?’
‘At first light.’
‘Very good.’ Modyford smiled. ‘Captain Anwar, I can’t wait to see what my investment in you will earn for me this time around. Godspeed and good hunting.’ He turned and headed back to his carriage.
Chapter 51
1667, off Port Royal, Jamaica
‘Sorry, Jamesey, we got no more spicy mutton,’ said Cookie. ‘All gone. Just the broth now. And the bread.’
Jamieson leaned forward and looked down into the serving pot. By the light of the gently swaying oil lamp hooked to a beam above, they were clearly down to a sludge pool of steaming thick gravy at the bottom.
‘Dammit! I been splicing rope and un-caking salt all day. I’m bloody hungry!’
‘Sorry, friend. Look, Jamesey, the broth’s got the flavour of mutton right through it. Just as good for you.’
‘I need some bloody meat!’ Jamieson looked at the men standing behind him in the queue, their wooden bowls empty. ‘We want mutton, Cookie! Not bloody gruel!’
‘Sorry, lads. I’m out of it tonight.’ He addressed Jamieson. ‘You’ll just have to make sure you’re front of the queue tomorrow night, won’t you?’
Jamieson glared at him, then turned to look at the man who’d just been served the last few fatty chunks of meat. He was already sitting down and dipping a spoon hungrily into the thick spiced broth.
‘Ain’t right, Cookie,’ he muttered. ‘Ain’t right. Worked twice as hard as anyone today. Spliced the ropes once over again cos those fools ain’t done it right the first time. What’s more, dammit, I already served on this ship. I ain’t a newcomer.’ He ducked under a looping shroud, crossed the main deck and stood over the man who’d just had the last of the meat. He was squatting on his haunches as he ate, wooden clogs off his feet and placed tidily in front of him.
‘What the hell’re you smiling at, Negro?’
Jamieson looked at the other runaways, all twelve of them huddled closely together, squatting the same way and all grinning anxiously up at him, small white teeth in night-black faces. ‘You slaves laughin’ at me?’
‘My name … John,’ said the one with the clogs. ‘Not Neg-ro.’
‘No, it ain’t. Your real name is some fool-sounding Diji-Bungo-Bongo savage name.’
‘My name John. John Shoe. Not slave now. Ship man, like you.’ He said that still politely smiling, which angered Jamieson even more.
‘No, you ain’t! You ain’t a damned sailor. You’re deadweight. All of you useless dirty plantation Maroons! Can’t even tie a simple bloody clove hitch. Good for carryin’ an’ fetchin’ an’ not much else!’
John Shoe’s smile quickly faded. ‘We learn. We work.’
‘You’ll learn nothing. You and your kind’s dumb as mules. Shouldn’t even be on this ship.’ Jamieson bent down and picked up one of his wooden clogs.
John Shoe dropped his bowl on the floor and reached out to grab hold of the other one. ‘Mine! My shoe!’
Jamieson held the weathered clog by its toe and shook his head, amused by the thing. ‘What? This is so goddamned precious to you, you named yourself after it? Mr Shoe!’ He laughed at that. ‘You Negroes! What the hell ya goin’ to do with yer money anyway? Buy more of these?’
‘Give me shoe!’
‘Oh, you want it back? Go fetch it!’ He tossed it over the rail. It disappeared into the darkness followed a moment later by the sound of a faint splash.
‘Jamie-son!’
Jamieson turned to see Kwami standing on the other side of the deck. ‘You go fetch!’
‘Oh, now … there we are!’ Jamieson replied, raising his voice for everyone to hear. ‘There we are, gents! So, this is what a Maroon looks like soon as he got a bit of money of his own! Tryin’ to dress up like some fancy gentleman!’
Kwami crossed the deck and stopped a stride short. He looked down at his clothes, smarter than most of the other men. He wore a silk scarf round his broad neck. ‘Better this things … better than just drink!’
‘What? Oh, you think those pretty clothes change you? Huh? Make you better than me? Better than a man who’s served seven years at sea? Weathered countless godless storms and got me scars, front an’ back, fightin’ them Spaniards!’ He shook his head. ‘See? I’ve earned the bloody right to call myself a sailor! But you? All you have is a fancy yard of silk.’
‘I am a seaman.’
‘Oh, are you? Is that it? We equal now?’
‘You drink too much, Jamie-son.’
Jamieson clamped his lips shut; he was shaking with rage. He drew a knife from his belt.
‘Hoy! Jamesey man,’ called out Gunny. ‘Why don’t you put that thing away? There’ll be mutton again tomorrow.’
‘Shut up, Gunny!’ He turned to Kwami, the knife held out at arm’s length, its tip wavering and glinting in the space between them. ‘I’ll give you a scar then maybe you might start to look like a proper –’
Out of the gloom a hand suddenly emerged and wrapped round Jamieson’s wrist. ‘Whuh?’
Liam twisted it sharply and the blade clattered to the deck. With his other hand, he snatched a fistful of Jamieson’s dreadlocked hair and yanked it back hard. Liam grimaced as he caught a fetid blast of the man’s breath. ‘Yup, Rashim, he’s been drinking again.’
Rashim emerged into the pool of light cast from the oil lamp above Cookie’s serving pot. ‘Drinking. That’s one breach of contract.’ He walked over, stooped, picked up the knife. ‘Fighting among the crew? That’s another breach right there.’ He gestured at Liam to follow him to the ship’s rail. Liam pulled the man roughly by his hair.
‘Goddammit, you let go of me, boy!’
‘Ahh,’ said Rashim with a smile, ‘and insubordination. That’s another. Three strikes.’
‘This ain’t right!’ growled Jamieson. ‘THIS AIN’T RIGHT!’
‘Really?’
‘Them damned Negroes! They’re no good! They’re a waste of –’
‘Every man aboard my ships will have a chance to prove their worth, Jamieson. That’s how this works, you see? No good? Then off you go and work somewhere else.’
‘Them runaways is no good! You’ll see that, by God!’
‘Well, we shall just have to find out for ourselves, won’t we?’
Rashim looked out into the darkness. Across the shallow harbour the faint flicker of nightwatchmen’s fires along the north docks glinted on the becalmed water. A five-minute swim ashore, no more than that. He nodded at Liam.
‘You really are more trouble than you’re worth,’ Liam muttered into Jamieson’s ear. ‘Off you go, then.’ With a hard shove to Jamieson’s chest, h
e pushed him over the rail. The man disappeared into the darkness and a moment after the splash had subsided they heard the even sound of strokes as he began to swim for shore.
‘Oh, and if you find that shoe floating out there …!’ called Liam. ‘Do us a favour and toss it back aboard, will you?’
Rashim made his way towards the swinging lamp and stood beneath it. ‘Gentlemen, let me be very clear on this. You all signed the charter. So, there will be no drinking, no fighting until the job is done.’ He stroked his chin. ‘And there you have it.’ He was about to turn and go.
‘Actually, one more thing. Jamieson raised a valid point. Every man will do his job, earn his share. Or they will forfeit it. There will be no favourites.’
Chapter 52
1667, off the coast of Puerto Bello
‘No, no, no!’ Gunny shook his head impatiently. ‘Yer doin’ it all wrong!’ He snatched the swab off the young black man. ‘What’s yer name again?’
‘David,’ he mumbled, looking down at his feet.
‘You twist it as you push it down, right? Twist it? Understand?’ Gunny demonstrated, pulled it out of the cannon’s barrel then handed it back to him. ‘Now you do it.’
The young man reluctantly eased the rag-covered end in and warily began turning the pole cautiously, slowly in his hands, wide eyes regarding the cannon as if he was foolishly prodding a slumbering giant with a stick.
‘Faster! You got to do it quicker than that, boy!’ He looked at his other trainees, all of them standing well back from the cannon. The first swab and load he’d done on his own to demonstrate, then fired a shot of wadding. The boom had terrified his trainee gun crew such that they’d scrambled in alarm towards the far end of the gun deck. It had taken him nearly ten minutes to coax them back towards the still smoking cannon. He’d even sat astride the warm barrel to show them it wasn’t some monster that was going to rear up and swallow him whole.
The swabbing finally done, the rod extracted, he beckoned at them for another volunteer to step forward. ‘Come on, who’s next?’
They shuffled uncomfortably.
‘Come on, it ain’t gonna bite.’
One of them stepped forward. Gunny smiled. ‘Aye, good man … what’s yer name?’
He nodded. ‘Simon, boss.’
‘Gunny is good enough. Now … here, take this.’ He handed over a small bag of powder. ‘This is the stuff ya got to be wary of.’ He slapped the top of the cannon. ‘Not this ol’ thing. Without the powder, this is just a big ol’ chunk of iron. Now … Simon … we put that charge bag in the mouth and then we’re gonna ram it all the way down. Just like I did last time?’
The man nodded. Eased the packet of powder in, then took the ramrod from Gunny and pushed it carefully all the way down.
‘And a couple of firm pats.’ Gunny watched him do that. ‘Good. Now … we ram down some wadding.’ Gunny reached for a handful of straw wadding and pushed it into the barrel. ‘Now, Simon, push that all the way down and a couple more pats.’
Job done, he nodded. ‘If we was firing in battle, the next thing would be the cannonball, but … we ain’t gonna waste any of those today. We’ll just fire the wadding again.’ Gunny grinned. ‘So, who wants to be the gunner and fire this big beauty?’
The trainees stared back anxiously.
‘Look, lads, it really isn’t going to –’
‘I will.’ John Shoe stepped forward.
‘Good man. Come here … this end of the cannon.’ He pointed to a small hole on the top of the rear end of the cannon. ‘This, John, this is what wakes our monster up. The touch hole.’ Gunny produced a foot-long metal rod with a sharpened tip and pushed it into the hole. ‘Clearing it for blockage and now piercing a hole in that bag of powder.’
‘Charge … bag.’
Gunny nodded. ‘That’s right. Well remembered. Then … we pour a little more powder into the touch hole. That’s called the primer.’
John nodded, his intense face lined with concentration. ‘Primer.’
‘Now, my friend –’ he produced a linstock with a smouldering twist of rope on the end of it – ‘we’re ready to fire.’ He looked at John. ‘You ready?’
John licked his lips nervously, nodded quickly. ‘Yes, boss.’
‘Get down low, look along the barrel … that’s it. Now see our Maddy Carter? That’s our target. We want to aim right at her hull. See how we’re swaying slightly, that she’s goin’ up an’ down as we sway?’
John nodded.
‘We want to aim for just above her hull. We want this cannon to fire just a finger above because the shot will drop in flight. You understand what I’m saying?’
‘Yes, boss.’
‘But we gotta light the touch hole about two seconds before we want it to fire. Cos that’s how long it takes for the primer to burn through to the charge bag. So, the gunner has to judge the timing of the sway and, when he’s ready, call the warning, “Have a care”.’
‘Have … a … care?’
‘That’s right, it means everyone stand clear of the cannon and cover their ears.’
John nodded. The smouldering rope quivered on the end of the linstock.
‘Don’t be afraid, man.’ Gunny rested a hand on his shoulder. ‘S’gonna be just fine.’ He took a step back. ‘So … when you’re ready, John … just touch that hole.’
Gunny glanced at his other trainees. All of them were grimacing in anticipation. ‘No running away this time, lads, right?’ He squatted down to look out of the porthole of the next cannon along and waited.
John hunkered down, his chin almost touching the cannon’s barrel as he narrowed his eyes and stared down it out through the gun’s porthole at the rolling horizon and the low profile of the ship two hundred yards away, watching it sedately rise and fall. Finally …
‘Have … care!’ He touched the rope to the hole and stepped smartly back as the primer sparked and fizzed. The cannon boomed and leaped back.
Gunny watched the wadding fly out across the water and disintegrate fifty yards out, descending to the water and leaving arc trails of smoke. He turned to look at his trainees, half expecting them to have vanished once again. But they were still there, standing amid the swirls of smoke, hands still clasped over their ears.
The shot was good. Perfectly judged. As John Shoe had touched the hole, so Gunny had absently tapped his thumb on his thigh.
He nodded. ‘Good work, lads! I think we can make a gun crew of you.’
The gun deck echoed with their delight, perhaps tinged with a little relief, a high-pitched yipping and howling. He stepped over a coil of rope towards John and slapped him firmly on the shoulder. ‘And you, sir, I think have the makings of a fine gunner.’
John Shoe beamed with pleasure. ‘Thank you, boss!’
‘Gunny, right? That’s what you call me.’ He turned to the others, still yipping with excitement. ‘Right! Let’s do this again.’
Liam watched a plume of smoke drifting in the wake of the Pandora. The faint intermittent boom of cannon drill had been going on all morning. And to his right, on the Maddy Carter’s main deck, it was being complemented by the crack of musket fire as the French marksman, Pasquinel, put some of their new recruits through the basics of loading and firing. Just as they had done with the cannon drill, they made sure some of the runaways were being included. The sooner the rest of the crew saw these men could carry and use weapons as well as them, the sooner the mutterings about them would cease.
He shaded his eyes and scanned the afterdeck of the Pandora. There he could make out the distinct form of Rashim, taking another sun reading with his sextant. He seemed to take a nerdish delight in playing with the device, constantly reconfirming their position with increasing precision and reminding Liam how easy it all was. In this time, the art of navigation and those who practised it well were treated with the same reverential awe and respect as people in the twenty-first century seemed to treat quantum physicists. As if the practice was some dark art tha
t only the anointed few, those with almost other-worldly intelligence, could comprehend.
He suspected that half the time Rashim was actually merely posing with the thing. Secretly savouring the knowledge that half his crew were quietly watching his mysterious little fiddlings with the sextant and the jotting down of cryptic notes and muttering to each other, ‘Aye, see that man over there? Bleedin’ genius ’e is.’
Liam smiled. Perhaps that’s what Rashim missed the most being stuck here in the past, the chance to show off his geekery, his pointy-headed rocket-science knowledge. Precious little opportunity to do that here in a world without computers, where the cutting edge of science was a clockwork model of the solar system or a course of leeches for any given illness.
Perhaps it was glory-hunting, vanity on Rashim’s part, that he was tempted to take on Modyford’s suggestion that they try their hand at raiding Puerto Bello itself. At first glance a rather foolhardy proposition. The small settlement was at the end of a narrow bay protected on the way in on one side by a fort, San Felipe, with twelve cannons, on the other side by another fort, Castillo Santiago with thirty-two cannons. The settlement itself was overlooked by a third fort, San Geronimo, with a company-strength garrison of troops permanently stationed there.
Recklessly foolish at first glance, but then Puerto Bello was the shipping point for all the gold being brought up from Peru, bound for Spain. It was stockpiled in the garrison fortress, building up and up until another convoy of Spanish merchant ships arrived. Then it was hastily loaded aboard and the ships turned round, hoping to make best speed back for Spain: the first leg of the journey, through the Caribbean, was the most hazardous as they hoped desperately to avoid being spotted by any pirates.
Modyford had suggested the stockpile at Puerto Bello might be even greater than normal given the last-minute exodus of valuables from Cuba in advance of Morgan’s poorly concealed and loudly trumpeted preparations for the raid.