The Privateer Page 6

  It amused Morgan to find that the same loafer was still leaning at the door of the Dolphin and still picking his teeth with a fish-bone. He stopped and said: ‘Well, is he Governor yet?’

  ‘Who?’ asked the man.

  ‘Sir Thomas.’

  ‘Modyford? Oh, aye, he’s Governor. What made you ask?’

  ‘You prophesied that he would be very soon.’

  ‘Prophesied to who?’

  ‘To me.’

  ‘Never saw you before in my life,’ said the man.

  Upon which Henry laughed and said: ‘See how easy it is to leave denim behind, Jack!’ and walked away, still laughing, to call on the Governor.

  Henry had imagined himself walking into a room and talking man to man across a table with the man who had sat across the room from him that afternoon at the Dolphin. But it turned out to be not at all like that. At the official residence of the Governor a secretary interviewed him and asked him to state his business, informed him that the Governor’s day was nearly over and that in half an hour or so he would be leaving for his home in the country, and that the press of affairs was very great.

  Henry said that he, Henry Morgan, was one of those affairs, and the secretary left him to wait in a little hot room, where his heart grew less joyful and his head less confident. When at last the pen-and-ink man came back and said: ‘Captain Morgan, please,’ irritation, plain itching irritation, had taken the place of that fine flourish with which he had parted from Jack Morris.

  And irritation was no quantity to take to an interview with Thomas Modyford.

  Sir Thomas was very polite, and apologised for keeping his visitor waiting. He looked tired but not unfriendly. The apology did something to soothe Henry’s ruffled vanity, and he in turn had the grace to regret in suitable words his belated arrival; and then, the amenities having been observed, he stated his errand.

  ‘The Fortune?’ said Sir Thomas. ‘That is the newcomer, out in the roads.’

  They were right about this man, Henry thought. Bart was right in his face-reading: you would have to start very early to get the better of Sir Thomas, or he would make you feel unpunctual. The ship had been there not more than an hour and the Governor had had ‘press of affairs’ all the afternoon, but he knew about the arrival.

  He also knew what the arrival looked like. It looked, he said, very like a ship called the Gloria that the Spaniards were much worried about. The Gloria had disappeared off the coast of Barbados, and pressing inquiries had been addressed to the authorities about her.

  ‘She is the Gloria,’ Henry said. ‘We took her, up the coast a little from here.’

  ‘Unprovoked?’ asked Modyford.

  ‘No,’ said Henry; ‘they provoked us past bearing.’

  ‘What had they done?’

  ‘There wasn’t a man of them who hadn’t been born in Spain.’

  ‘So you took her on principle. Or was it that you perhaps wanted a better ship than your own? What, by the way, did you take her in?’

  ‘Our stocking soles.’

  ‘What!’ said Sir Thomas, startled out of his urbanity.

  ‘Our stocking soles, I said, sir.’

  ‘Yes, but with what ship?’

  ‘We did not have a ship. We were hunting boar in the forest, and the ship put in for water. We liked the look of her and we didn’t like the flag she was wearing, so we went out in our longboat after dark and seized her.’

  ‘We?’ said the Governor faintly. ‘How many?’

  ‘Ten white men, one mulatto, and one Indian.’

  Sir Thomas sat digesting this for a little. ‘Would it be indiscreet of me to inquire what became of the Spanish crew?’ he asked at last.

  ‘It would be very natural, sir. They are on Tortuga, waiting to be ransomed.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘When we sailed from Tortuga they were all there. I don’t know how many are there now. The castle has no keys, and Mr Elias Watts has plans for them that I don’t think they are going to like.’

  ‘Plans?’

  ‘Spade-and-hoe plans, sir.’

  ‘Ah. Torture. That will be another black mark against us in Spanish archives. Am I to understand, then, that there were no—casualties?’

  ‘Only some blood-letting.’

  ‘And this Señor de Rasperu? This Don Christoval?’

  ‘I victualled the ship with him.’

  ‘What!’ said the Governor for the second time.

  ‘I exchanged him for some meal and salt beef.’

  ‘You mean that he is safe on Tortuga.’

  ‘I’ll take my oath that he is, sir. The dealers are not going to let him out of their sight until they have their hands on that ransom.’

  ‘Is he in prison there?’

  ‘No, sir, oh no. He is teaching little Oliver his eleven-times.’

  ‘Oliver?’

  ‘Oliver Watts.’

  A shadow of suspicion was perceptible in Sir Thomas’s grey eye. But he said smoothly: ‘I am glad to hear that the gentleman is living comfortably en famille with the Governor.’

  ‘Well—en famille,’ said Henry; and the shadow in Sir Thomas’s grey eye deepened almost to a smile.

  ‘So you want me to give you a letter-of-marque?’ He paused and looked benevolently at Henry. ‘I think, do you know, that as an example of impudence that defeats even your taking of the Gloria.’ And as Henry looked startled: ‘You must be aware, young man, that letters-of-marque are given only to men of reputation; to masters of vessels who are well known to us and answerable for their actions. An English commission is not merely handed out to anyone who asks for it.’

  ‘I am not “anyone”!’ Henry wanted to say. But instead he said: ‘I have taken a ship from my country’s enemies without the loss of a life, and I have handed over my prisoners for ransom. What more do you want?’

  ‘I should want, in the first instance, to know more about you. How did you come to be hunting boar in Barbados, for instance?’

  Now if I tell him I’m a freed bondsman, thought Henry, he’ll never accept me. ‘Is there anything of ill-repute in hunting boar?’

  ‘No. But a great many ill-reputed persons do so. I never saw you before this afternoon—’

  ‘But—’ began Henry, and stopped. Then, after all, he had been for Sir Thomas only a blank space: a place on which to rest his glance.

  ‘But?’

  ‘Nothing, sir.’

  ‘I had never seen you before and know nothing about you. I have, indeed, only your word for it that Don Christoval is instructing the young in the mysteries of the multiplication table and not being digested by sharks. You must have some background, my friend, before I could be responsible for giving you a commission.’

  ‘I thought the war against Spain was a holy war!’

  ‘It has been so far,’ Modyford said with a dryness that was lost on the angry Morgan.

  ‘How immaculate must one be to take part in a holy war? I have never heard that the Crusaders were asked for testimonials or guarantees before they went to fight in Palestine.’

  ‘No,’ Modyford said with a half-smile. ‘The Crusades might have proved a greater success if they had. I admire your exploit, young man, and I would give you official recognition if it were within my power. But I have a great responsibility vested in me, and I cannot abuse it. If I can help you unofficially, of course, I shall be glad to do so. You want to dispose of the cargo, perhaps. What is it, by the way?’

  ‘Wood,’ said Henry, almost unable to get the monosyllable out.

  ‘Wood for dyeing? Logwood?’

  ‘No. If it had been logwood I could have sold it in Tortuga. Wood for building.’

  ‘Oh. Not so good. But perhaps I could find a purchaser for you.’

  ‘I should not dream of putting Your Excellency to that inconvenience.’

  ‘I am not planning to confiscate the ship when you bring her in, if that is what is in your mind.’

  ‘That is very generous of Your E
xcellency,’ said Henry through his teeth.

  Modyford cast him a glance that was almost pitying, but Henry did not see it. Even if he had been aware of it, it is doubtful if he would have pleaded where he had requested and been refused. He was sick with disappointment and aching with hurt pride.

  ‘I am sorry not to be able to be of official help to you,’ Sir Thomas said.

  ‘And I am sorry to have taken up Your Excellency’s valuable time,’ said Henry with a sarcasm he was too young and too angry to make light enough to be effective.

  He went out in a blind anger, and stood in the dusty road until the mist cleared from in front of his eyes and his breath came more easily. Then he walked slowly back to the Dolphin. The Dolphin that had been going to witness all those progressive triumphs of his.

  Jack Morris was sitting where Bartholomew had sat on that afternoon a few weeks ago, and Henry slumped into the seat by his side without looking at him, and reached for the mug on the table. He finished what was in the mug and called on the serving-man for more.

  ‘No?’ said Morris, into the silence that followed.

  ‘I made a mistake,’ Henry said.

  ‘What kind of mistake?’

  ‘I did not go to school with his son.’

  The equable Morris let this pass in silence and waited until Henry had had the drink he had sent for.

  Then he said: ‘So that was his excuse.’

  ‘That was his reason.’

  ‘Oh, no, it wasn’t.’

  ‘What do you know about it!’

  ‘I don’t know what his excuse was—except what I can guess—but about his reason for saying no I know a great deal, and believe me, Harry Morgan, it had nothing whatever to do with you. The excellent Governor is teetering on the edge of a chasm, and he isn’t going to take any step that may overbalance him. Was he civil, by the way?’

  Henry tried to think back beyond the blackness of his defeat, and confessed that yes, he supposed Modyford had been civil.

  ‘Well, that is something to his credit.’

  ‘What chasm?’

  ‘You said you came to Modyford because he was a good Cromwell man and would consider war against Spain a holy war.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, it isn’t going to do him any good any more to be a good Cromwell man.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because Cromwell’s dead. He’s been dead for months.’

  ‘No!’ said Henry, all his personal failure and fury vanishing in the wonder of this news.

  ‘The town’s got over their excitement because they’ve known for a week, but they’re waiting with their breath held for the next news. The gossip is all that young Charles will be king. And the person who is holding his breath tightest is your friend the Governor. The holy war is at an end, and he doesn’t want to take any part in anything that has become unfashionable. He wouldn’t give his best friend a letter-of-marque against Spain this week.’

  ‘So that was it!’ Henry’s shrivelled ‘conceit of himself’ swelled and unfolded into healthy bloom again. ‘It wasn’t—’

  He began to bask. And then, looking back at Modyford from his recovered security: ‘The damned sail-trimmer!’ he said.

  4

  Now that he was no longer a snubbed nobody, and could look down with cheerful superiority on a sail-trimming Governor, the world was once more Henry’s. But if it was still a world full of opportunity, the opportunities were hardly as insistent as they had been.

  What were they to do now?

  ‘There’s always trade, I suppose,’ Henry said, a little dashed at this unexciting way to fortune.

  ‘Not in this part of the world,’ Morris pointed out. ‘The Spaniards don’t allow it. They don’t even allow us the freedom of watering our ships, God blast them. The trade’s all Spain’s. Unless you were planning a ferry service between Barbados and Jamaica.’

  Henry did not bother to answer that.

  ‘You could sail her home, of course.’

  ‘I’m not ready to go home,’ said Henry shortly.

  ‘You could sell her there for a good sum. They’re short of ships,’ said Morris, who had long ago come privately to the conclusion that Henry, who was so obviously neither criminal nor born pauper, had run away from England to avoid a debtor’s prison.

  ‘I’m not ready to go home.’ Henry looked in some surprise at him and said: ‘Would you and the crew go home in her?’

  ‘No. My life is here.’

  ‘So is mine,’ said Henry, ‘so let’s hear no more of England. You don’t think,’ he added, the mention of England reminding him, ‘that they’re going to make peace with Spain at home, do you?’

  ‘I think it’s highly likely.’

  ‘But they can’t!’ said Henry.

  ‘Why worry?’ said Morris, amused at Morgan’s heat. ‘It means only some ink on a paper; and perhaps more comfortable sleep for the gentlemen at home. They can’t change Spanish habits with a scrape of the pen. It will make no difference to us.’

  ‘It will make no difference to what they do to us, you mean. It will make a very big difference to what we can do to them.’

  ‘For a little. It won’t last, you know. The Spaniards always overdo things. In no time at all they’ll do something that even the gentlemen at home can’t overlook, and then it will be once more legitimate to what Barney calls “slap Spanish faces”.’

  ‘There are times when I could throttle you, Jack. You talk as if you were going to live for four hundred years and time was nothing to you.’

  ‘Things always turn up,’ Morris said, with a sailor’s easy philosophy, and looked at the descendant of soldiers with something like affection. ‘Drink up, and look on the bright side.’ He summoned the serving-man. ‘We have a ship, and that’s something. I know a great many good men knocking about the Caribbean who’d give their right arm for that.’

  ‘We also have a cargo,’ said Henry, not too happily.

  ‘Did your Governor show any signs of wanting to confiscate it?’

  ‘No. He offered to help us get a buyer.’

  ‘He did! That was vastly obliging of him, upon my word.’

  ‘I would dump the whole lot in the sea sooner than let him get a percentage of it.’ What he really meant was ‘sooner than let him help me’.

  ‘Perhaps he didn’t want a percentage.’

  ‘I never came across an official yet that didn’t.’

  ‘You didn’t discuss it with him, then.’

  ‘No,’ said Henry. ‘He was too busy explaining to me what an undesirable piece of flotsam I was. Did you buy the rum for Bart?’

  ‘Yes. They’ve sent it down to the ferry steps, and we’ll take it out with us. About the cargo: I know a little man here that used to be a carpenter in the Navy. Was chips on a frigate, and lost both his legs when a gun blew up. He makes furniture for all those new people coming out. Planters and what not. Perhaps he would take some of the wood off our hands.’

  So they went to look for Mr Boobyer, and found him on the farthest edge of the town on the inland side, out of sight and sound of the sea, and half buried in exotic greenery. They followed the sound of a saw and the smell of cut wood up a little alley, and there was the ex-Navy man, looking oddly like a piece of Plymouth dropped down in the tropics.

  ‘Well, well. Jack Morris!’ he said, laying the saw carefully down and sweeping the sawdust off a bench with a fine hospitable gesture. ‘You fetched up on a lee shore again?’

  Not exactly,’ Morris said, and presented Henry.

  ‘Captain!’ commented Mr Boobyer. ‘You haven’t been wasting time, young man. Is it true what I hear about the Dolphin, Jack?’

  ‘Yes. She’s on the reefs outside Tortuga.’

  ‘Too bad. Too bad. Fog, was it?’

  ‘No. Hurricane.’

  ‘Ah, a man’s mad to go to sea when he could stay on shore. Look at me. Nothing to do all day but work with the sweet wood. Can’t even smell the sea from here. Cosy as a
weevil in a biscuit.’

  Henry complimented him on the chair that he was making.

  ‘Ah,’ agreed Mr Boobyer. ‘Nice, that is. That’s for the Governor. A set of six it is. Governor’s a Devon man, like me. Knows a good bit of work when he sees it.’

  ‘What will happen if they string him up?’ Morris asked.

  ‘What for?’ asked Mr Boobyer, startled.

  ‘Treason. Or even regicide, perhaps. The Royalists are coming back, it seems.’

  ‘Ah, Governor’s a Devon man. He’ll come out on top. You see. Any come, it has nothing to do with me. Anyone in the island will be glad to get this set of chairs. You don’t get wood like that every day. No, nor workmanship, neither.’

  ‘Find it difficult to get wood?’ Morris asked, and broached their proposition.

  At first Mr Boobyer was not interested. What would he do with a whole ship-load of wood?

  ‘Not a whole load,’ Henry said. ‘We’ll keep some as ballast.’

  ‘Ah,’ agreed Mr Boobyer. ‘At least it won’t sink you.’

  But it was not until he had heard the tale of the Fortune that he really considered the deal. When Henry and Jack Morris between them had made clear to him how the Gloria became the Fortune and how the Fortune by being crewless had rescued the marooned crew of the Dolphin from boredom and semi-starvation on Tortuga, he began to wheeze, then he began to heave, then he sat down on the bench beside him and mopped his eyes, and it was clear that Mr Boobyer was laughing.

  ‘Well!’ he said, when speech was possible to him. ‘If that don’t beat cock-fighting!’

  Then, when he had heaved and wheezed and mopped his eyes a little more, he said: ‘Now about this wood.’

  And it seemed that although he would need only a small amount himself, he would undertake to sell the rest for shipbuilding. He would pay them for his share now, and pay them the rest as he sold the wood.

  ‘And I know what’s troubling you, so you needn’t tell me,’ he said, with a sly glance at their faces. ‘You’re afraid to bring the Fortune in. Afraid they’ll disallow and confiscate her. Ain’t you? Well, you don’t have to bring her in a fathom. You drop the logs overside and let the tide bring them in, and my boys’ll rope and chain them on the beach till I want them. How’s that?’