By the Knife Read online

  Carter had described what he wanted with great care over many hours of discussion.

  He sought a native village of the same people as were working with the Spanish. They needed to arrive unseen and to be able to approach the village without being discovered.

  Teema had promised all this was possible, but that the last would be difficult.

  As a safeguard the ships flew Spanish flags and some of the crew wore Spanish uniforms taken from the island.

  Timing was now Carter’s concern; he needed to arrive after the men had left the village to join the Spanish and also when as many as possible of the remainder were away.

  The Indian told him that the guides had long gone and that the menfolk would leave early to hunt and fish.

  ‘What if they come here to fish?’ John asked.

  Teema shook his head. ‘They will not. This is my people’s land.’

  ‘I don’t want your people to know we are here,’ John exclaimed.

  ‘They already know,’ the Indian replied.

  ‘Then let them think we are Spanish,’ Carter snarled.

  ‘They will come to the beach. When they come I will talk with them.’

  John thought for a moment. ‘Will they help us attack the Spanish if we pay them?’

  ‘They have no need of gold.’

  ‘What do they need?’

  The Indian smiled. ‘They like swords, knives, rope and canvas, these things.’

  John looked at Teema. ‘Are the people of the village their enemies?’ The Indian nodded. ‘Then I will tell you my plan.’

  They had lain in the jungle for three hours. The ground crawled with insects and the air buzzed with biting flying pests. All were silent; Carter had promised a quick death for any who made a sound.

  Starting out in the fading light of evening, they had walked, crawled and finally wriggled on their bellies to arrive in this cursed place before first light. Fifty yards ahead of them, Teema and two young men from his tribe watched the village come awake.

  The Areca remained unaware of their presence and prepared for another day like any other. They were the most powerful tribe in the area, which was why the Spanish used them. They had no thought of being attacked.

  The agreement Teema had come to with his tribal elders was simple: their young men would take the pirates, unseen, to the Areca village and then fade away before the attack.

  Their part in this must never be known.

  Teema slid back to Carter. ‘The men of the village are gone; by now they will hear nothing,’ he muttered.

  ‘Good.’ John waved his hand and his men moved out, slowly, quietly. His instructions were to surround the village and attack on his shout. All must die: men, women and children, especially the children. He wanted the tribesmen to go crazy for revenge when they returned, and no guns, minimum noise.

  It took less than one turn of an hour glass to complete this part of the plan. Once the natives were slaughtered, the Spanish soldiers were brought in and killed with local weapons. One of the crew had been killed and another wounded. John made them both dead and dressed the bodies in Spanish clothes.

  Now, once the scene was set, he led his men at a run to the trail that the Spanish troops had taken on their way to meet the gold. They ran hard until they arrived at a river crossing some mile and a half up the trail and then entering the water they waded downriver to a place Teema had picked. Once there they crawled exhausted into a rock-strewn valley and collapsed in the shade of the trees.

  The young men from Teema’s tribe reappeared and spent some time making sure there was no sign of their exit from the river. Once they were satisfied, the pirates moved off making as little noise as possible. They marched for some four hours before arriving at the trail down which the mule train must come.

  John spent a lot of time placing his men in their ambush positions and then they settled down to wait. According to Teema the gold should pass by in about three days.

  Three days in which John hoped the Spanish would be under constant attack from the Areca.

  The next morning, after warning his men to stay in position, John and Teema walked through the jungle to the river, a distance of about one mile. They picked a way through. It was hard going and would be worse with loaded mules but possible. That night the ships’ boats would come upriver, to be concealed on the river bank, ready for their escape.

  The two ships would have moved along the coast to anchor in the mouth of this larger river. John had ordered the guns loaded with grape and run out.

  It was a risk to bring the ships closer to the Spanish port, but John doubted they would survive trying to take loaded mules back to the original position.

  They marked the trail as they came back to make it easier when the time came.

  Back at the ambush site all was quiet. Carter had the men cut small trees to form a barricade across the trail, out of sight, round a corner. He would expect the Spanish commander to send word to the town garrison.

  They waited another day. The men were growing restless. They complained of eating uncooked food – John would allow no fires – and two men started to show signs of fever.

  That evening the sound of horses sent them all to their positions and down the trail came two horsemen riding hard, the horses wide eyed and lathered. As they rounded the bend they saw the barricade. The first tried to jump his horse and was badly thrown. The second pulled his horse up hard, setting it back on its haunches. Whilst it struggled to keep its feet, a pirate drove a pike into the rider’s side. Both men were dragged into the trees.

  The horses were taken further down the trail and tied up.

  Carter sat beside the two men. One was bleeding heavily and the other seemed paralyzed. John thought he had broken his back. He waved Carlo over.

  ‘Ask them what’s happening,’ he ordered. At first, they said nothing, but once John started cutting, the words began to flood out, along with their life blood.

  The natives had gone mad, attacking the mule train again and again. The Spanish had taken heavy losses.

  The escort commander, one Don Marco Del Cassia, had ordered the mules on at their best pace with twenty men whilst he tried to contain the natives.

  These two were to ride to the garrison in the town and beg reinforcements.

  John smiled. ‘Ask them how far away the mules are and how many.’

  ‘Forty mules,’ they replied, ‘and half a day away.’

  ‘How many bags of gold to a mule?’

  ‘Ten,’ Carlo told him, his eyes wide in wonder.

  Carter tried to imagine so much gold and then with a shrug stood up. The most he could move to the boats was around fifteen mule loads, but the idea of one hundred and fifty bags of gold made him smile.

  Once he had gone round the men and made sure all was ready – they would use their muskets and pistols this time – he sat back with the Spaniards and watched them bleed out.

  They were quite young and well bred; it gave him some satisfaction.

  That night they slept in their positions; the morning sun found them tense and wide awake. As the morning wore on, the tension became unbearable and the men began to fidget.

  John was just about to go round his men again when a horse was heard in the distance. Then they heard voices shouting in Spanish urging the mule train on.

  When they came into sight John saw that the mules were flagging, the men tired and dusty. An officer on a black horse was shouting orders demanding more haste.

  As the Spaniards drew abreast, he saw that his men outnumbered them two to one.

  Having been told there were forty mules, he had spread his men further down the trail and now he had to stand high to be seen by all. With a huge grin he fired his pistol into a soldier below him and the trail erupted with gunfire. The pirates charged out, overwhelming the tired Spaniards. The officer was blown from his horse. In fact, the escort fought well, killing seven of John’s men, but the day was theirs.

  They drove twenty mule
s into the forest, leaving the rest where they stood, all thoughts now on getting back to the ships as quickly as possible. John had fifteen men bring up the rear. He had no idea how close the main force was or how close the natives were. He doubted the locals could distinguish between English and Spanish, not that many of his men were English.

  In fact, they saw no one and managed to load all the gold. The good thing about John’s losses was that it made more room in the boats. As they boarded the ships, natives were seen on the shoreline. They made sail in haste and clawed off the coast.

  Since leaving Port Royal John had lost fourteen men to enemy action, snake bite and by his own hand. He had twelve men wounded and now he had four men down with fever. They had two hundred bags of gold in the brig’s hold and almost no provisions. What to do next was the question.

  After two days of good sailing, the wind veered and fell away. A greasy calm left the two ships wallowing in a slow swell from the northeast.

  With nothing to do the men began to discuss the future. The brig’s crew fell into two camps. Some wanted to return to Port Royal and spend the gold, whilst the rest thought the captain would find more gold. The discussion developed into an argument. In whispers they pointed out that John had made them all rich but others spoke of the losses.

  ‘This man cares for nothing but blood,’ they said. ‘He would see us all dead with a smile.’

  After two days becalmed, the disputes became more vocal; some now feared they would run out of water. The captain should have refilled the casks whilst they were on the coast. Others were for dividing the gold. In the end they asked Ben to speak to Carter. For all their brave talk the men feared John’s temper.

  In the aft cabin John cursed the delay. He cared not for the men or their fears. When Ben entered and spoke of the discontent that he saw brewing, John flew into a rage saying he would gut any who came to his door.

  On hearing shouting on deck, Carter rushed from the cabin with a pistol in each hand. The ketch, which had been drifting slowly closer, was now almost alongside. Her crew were shouting and pointing to the horizon.

  John looked east and all thoughts of mutiny left his mind.

  A thick black line covered the horizon. The swell he noticed was now coming from the northwest.

  ‘Get the sail off her,’ he screamed. ‘Lash up and stow.’ As the men rushed to obey, a slight flicker of wind ruffled the rigging and then fell away.

  John looked round the ship. The coast was some two hundred miles under his lee. He made his decision. ‘Set the driver reefed down and the inner staysail,’ he ordered. ‘When the wind comes we must work south.’

  The ketch lay a few yards to starboard.

  ‘Work south,’ he shouted. ‘We meet back at the Delft when it’s gone through.’ Again the breeze ruffled the sails and fell away.

  The swell was building up at an amazing rate and the sky was covering from the east like a great curtain pulled by the hand of god.

  ‘Yonder,’ Ben said, pointing to a line of white water that raced towards the starboard quarter. Then the wind struck like a hammer blow, laying the brig onto her beam ends, throwing the men into the scuppers. She came half up and then raced away to the south.

  Four helmsmen fought with the wheel as the wind continued to rise.

  Over the next twenty-four hours the wind increased as none had ever seen. The swell became massive, towering over the stern. All sail was gone, but she seemed to be moving just as fast under bare poles. John had trailed all the warpage over the stern but lived in fear that she would broach.

  Night again passed, but daylight brought little comfort. The mountains of white water were terrifying to look at, if you could look for driven spray.

  In the middle of the following night the main topmast came crashing down to flail about in the rigging; none could do much about that. No one had control now. The ship was on her own.

  Morning once again, the men hung on below decks waiting for the end. John and four others had tied themselves by the wheel. Now salt encrusted and exhausted, they seemed battered senseless by the power of the storm.

  For one more day they endured and then slowly the weather began to ease.

  As the wind reduced, the sea became confused, the motion even worse if that were possible. John dragged himself from his stupor. ‘Set some head sails,’ he ordered. ‘We must get control back over the ship.’

  Then it was gone. The wind died to a light breeze and the sea, still confused at first, slowly went back to the trade wind swell.

  ‘My god, what a storm,’ Ben said.

  John looked at him. ‘It missed us,’ he said. ‘We were at its bottom edge.’

  The decks were swept clean of all small items of gear. The Indian’s shelter, his wife and the ship’s launch were all washed away. The Indian, however, crawled out from under the bowsprit grating, shook himself like a dog and walked to the water barrel that was still lashed at the foot of the main mast. They all suddenly felt a great thirst and gathered round drinking directly from the barrel.

  What repairs they could make were rough and ready, but at least they could set the driver and main course. Along with the inner head sails they had power to head for the rendezvous.

  When they arrived the Delft was still there; in fact, she was everywhere, spread all over the bay. The wreckage lay across the beach and into the trees; quite a lot of the trees were lying flat as well.

  The stream was still flowing, however, and John sent men ashore to hunt the wild goats that populated the island.

  The rest of them searched the wreck for anything they could use.

  The repairs to the brig proved harder than anyone had thought; she had four feet of water in the bilge and it was thought she had sprung a butt end.

  ‘She will have to be hauled down,’ Ben offered.

  ‘Yes,’ said John, ‘but not here. Find me another of your little islands but without the Spanish this time.’

  The Delft’s main yard would cut down for a topmast and what was left of her bowsprit a topgallant yard. As the men worked they speculated on the fate of the ketch.

  ‘She hove to. That’s what we should have done,’ one man said.

  ‘We are here,’ replied another. ‘She’s not.’

  As the days became weeks it was accepted that she was lost.

  John Carter now had forty-two men out of the seventy-five he had sailed with and all as rich as kings.

  Finally, Carter decided the brig was sound enough to sail. The leak had been found and shored up from inside and her sails and spars would do for now.

  They slipped out of the bay one early morning and headed north.

  Ben had spoken of an island settled by some sort of farmer. ‘Just he and his family came from England a couple of years ago,’ he said. ‘A few more have come since. They are all at the north end of the island where the land is flat. To the south there is a little landlocked bay entered through a reef; should do us nicely.’

  That evening, as the sun went down, a sail was sighted to leeward. The ship had seen them and immediately tacked towards them.

  ‘A frigate,’ John shouted. ‘Set more sail, all we can carry.’ As they drove the brig up into the wind, it became obvious that she was closer winded and as night fell the frigate disappeared.

  ‘Spanish,’ said Ben, ‘and in a hurry to talk to us.

  ‘Keep going east,’ John ordered. ‘In six hours we turn north then east again. By first light I want to be a long way from the islands.’

  For two days John kept far from land, slowly working the brig towards the north against the prevailing wind. At last he set back towards the islands sailing free. Ben had given a position for his island and soon it came into sight. All had to admit that Carter could navigate.

  They hove to for the night and at first light carefully entered the bay. The reef passage had a bend to the south and once in, the brig was hidden from all points of the compass except the southwest.

  Laying an anchor well o
ff, they hauled the brig back against the wooded slopes under a headland. John then had them cut branches from the trees and hang them in the rigging.

  When he had himself rowed out to the reef, he saw that the ship was well hidden from any who did not know she was there.

  Carter had two immediate objects. The first was to hide the gold, the second to replenish his ship.

  Hiding the gold presented a problem. The men would not let it out of their sights.

  He called the crew together and gave each man a bag of gold. ‘This is the first part of your share,’ he explained. ‘Do with it what you will. As for the rest it must be hidden; we will find a good place ashore and put it underground.’

  With a straight face he took ten men ashore to find hiding places. ‘We will all decide on the best place when we return,’ he promised. On the beach they split up. ‘Back here at dusk,’ he ordered.

  Watching his men spread out into the hills, he smiled to himself and set off along the shoreline. That night each man described his ideas and John, with a great show of open handedness, picked the place found by the Indian.

  Next day a work party started digging a hole whilst the rest offloaded the gold and then all else to lighten the ship in readiness to repair the hull.

  John had sent a lookout to the hilltop to watch for ships. The Spanish frigate had worried him. Do they look for us, he mused, or just search all ships for the gold?

  The sooner his ship was ready the happier he would be. Twenty days’ hard work saw the ship’s hull repaired and loading started. The gold was safely buried and the water casks refilled. They were very short of food and John would wish for some more powder, so he would make that his next priority. If they could take a ship, their needs would be answered.