Caribbean: a novel Part 17

When Will saw the la.s.situde into which his nephew had fallen over the loss of Ines, he challenged him: 'You commanded a s.h.i.+p, surely you can command your own life,' but Ned insisted: 'Ines, I can't forget her,' and Will said: 'You better. She's in another part of the world,' but Ned continued to mope, keeping to the small room that his uncle had rented in Bridgetown.

To distract his attention, Will suggested a daring excursion-they would visit Sir Isaac. And one morning, having no horses, they walked out to Saltonstall Manor, now even more resplendent with its lane bordered by young trees and hedges of croton. Banging on the door, they attracted several of the slaves working inside and could hear a woman calling: 'Tell Pompey men he come,' and promptly a black man in golden-yellow livery with big white cuffs opened the door and asked in a polite voice: 'Gem'mum, what your pleasure?'

When Will snapped: 'We want to see Sir Isaac,' the slave said: 'Well, now ...' but Will pushed him aside, strode into the reception area, and bellowed: 'Isaac, come out!' and when both Sir Isaac and his lady appeared, Will said, with a bow: 'We've come back.'

Icily, Clarissa said: 'We heard. You've been pirating they tell us,' and since neither she nor her husband made any gesture toward welcoming their relatives, Will asked: 'Aren't you going to ask us to stay?' and after a grudging invitation was extended, Pompey was sent to fetch some refreshments.

In the interval, the older Tatums, now approaching their prosperous fifties, stared uneasily at the intruders, seeing in Will a battle-scarred veteran of naval brawling and in Ned a youth just entering his twenties whose life was surely already ruined from his years as a buccaneer. They were a sorry pair, and Lady Clarissa could feel no regrets at having been responsible for the branding of her brother-in-law: Let the world see him for what he is.

The visit was extremely unpleasant, and even before the first cup of tea was pa.s.sed, it was painfully obvious that Sir Isaac was already wondering how he could get rid of these unwelcome relatives. Leaning back and speaking as if from a distance, he asked: 'And what do you two propose doing on Barbados this time?' and Will replied, as he reached for his tea: 'We'll be looking around. By the way, pa.s.s me one of those little cakes?' and Ned thought: He actually wants Uncle Isaac to lose his temper. But the plantation owner refused to rise to the bait. Turning to Ned, he asked, still from a great distance: 'Where will you be looking? Several plantations seek overseers, but I suppose you'll be off adventuring again?'

'With mother gone ...'

'She died shortly after you left the last time. Lady Clarissa and I attended to her funeral.'

'Thank you.'

'She left a small fund for you. Mr. Clapton the banker has it in his care, and it's growing, he tells me. Honorable man, Clapton.'

'I'm glad to hear about the money. I've been thinking I ought to make my home in Bridgetown. I've seen the oceans.'

This statement, which implied so much, awakened no interest in the older Tatums, for whom the sea was no more than a highway from Barbados to London. The rest of the world's oceans were superfluous, and Will, sensing that this was the case, said solemnly: 'The boy was navigator of a great s.h.i.+p at nineteen, captain at twenty, fighting off the Spaniards.'

'We've been warned,' Clarissa said, 'that those who fight Spaniards these days are to be hanged. New rules for new times.'

And so the frigid meeting ended, with no invitation to return, no inquiry as to what a.s.sistance the master and his lady might extend, and when Sir Isaac told Pompey in haughty syllables: 'Direct the groom to saddle three horses and lead these men back to town,' Will said crisply: 'No thanks. We'll walk,' and down the long avenue of trees they trudged.

But when they reached their quarters Will said: 'Ned, we've got to get serious about your future,' and he suggested that they dip into their Giralda prize money, rent two horses, and ride straight eastward across the island to the wild Atlantic sh.o.r.e where he knew a sailor recluse named Frakes who had an unusual treasure.

It was a journey Ned would never forget, as exciting in its way as trying to negotiate the Magellan, for it carried him through parts of Barbados he had not seen before: lovely hills from whose crests he saw endless fields sweeping eastward; lanes through the heart of great plantations with green sugarcane stalks crowded like trees in a forest; little vales filled with mult.i.tudes of flowers; and cl.u.s.ters of brown shacks in which lived the slaves who made the prosperity possible. The ride, under a warm sun that peeped from behind white clouds sweeping from the unseen ocean, was an adventure into the heart of the splendid island, and as each new vista revealed itself he felt increasingly attached to this land. He knew then that he did not wish ever to leave Barbados. The buccaneer had become the settler.

Even at this late hour in their day's journey, Ned still had no intimation of what the attraction of this old seaman Frakes could be. Now they reached the western edge of the central plateau which comprised most of Barbados and found themselves at the edge of a considerable cliff down whose face a narrow path led to the seash.o.r.e below, and there surged the great Atlantic, a wild ocean whose waves beat upon a desolate sh.o.r.e completely different from that provided by the gentler Caribbean.

Reining in to savor the grand panorama, Ned cried: 'It's been hiding all these years,' and his uncle replied: 'Only the strong ones dared to come over here,' and with his long right arm extended, he pointed to the remarkable feature which differentiated this sh.o.r.e from all others, and Ned saw for the first time that haunting collection of gigantic reddish boulders which at certain spots cl.u.s.tered along the edge of the sea, their feet deep in the water, their jagged faces tilted to catch the sun. At some locations they stood four or five together, like huge judges trying to reach a verdict, at others a lone giant defied the ocean, but at a spot that caught Will's eye, a parade of nearly a dozen left the sh.o.r.e and marched out to sea, forming a peril to navigation attested to by the wrecked timbers of a cargo vessel that had strayed too close.

'Where did they come from?' Ned asked, and Will explained: 'Either G.o.d dropped them accidentally when He was building the earth, or giants used them to play marbles.'

Inland, from where the procession started, stood a small, rudely built house whose lone doorway revealed how enormously thick were the stone walls into which it had been set. 'Frakes?' Ned asked, and his uncle nodded, whereupon the travelers descended to the plain below. On their arrival at the stone cottage with heavy moss growing across the roof, Ned still had no inkling of why the journey had been made. When Tom Frakes came to the door, Ned saw a tall lanky man with a wild head of hair and a scraggly beard which looked as if he trimmed it with dull scissors, but only occasionally. He wore tattered trousers and s.h.i.+rt, the former held about his nonexistent waist by a rope whose ends were frayed. His face was as timeworn as his clothes, for he had few teeth, a badly broken nose and eyes that watered sadly. He appeared to be in his late sixties, but that might have been deceptive, for he had lived a hard life which was now approaching its battered end.

Recognizing Will as a former s.h.i.+pmate, he left the doorway to clasp him about the shoulders: 'Dear Will, come in, come in!' But then he stopped, stared at Ned, and asked: 'Who's the lad?' and when Will replied: 'My nephew,' the old man shouted: 'Twice welcome!' and into the cottage they went.

Ned expected the interior to resemble its owner, an unholy mess. Instead, it was a revelation-neat, with furniture, some of it elegant, properly disposed against walls that were decorated with fine paintings expensively framed. The floor was covered by two rugs, probably from Persia or some similar country, and the three chests which stood in corners were finished with heavy bra.s.s tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs.

'This is a treasure trove!' Ned cried admiringly, and Will explained: 'Frakes salvages wrecks that pile up on his rocks out there,' and the s.h.i.+ps that went astray must have been preciously laden, for the old sailor owned some items of great value.

And then from the small inner room came his greatest possession, his daughter Nancy, a lovely girl of sixteen, dark, lithe and unusually beautiful. In that first moment, within seconds, really, it was clear to everyone that Will Tatum had brought his nephew Ned on this long trip in hopes that he would find this child of the storms attractive and perhaps want to marry her. Old Frakes, his time running out, was delighted, and Nancy was breathing deeply, for she had begun to wonder if she was ever going to meet a young man. Ned was spellbound.

The visit lasted three wonderful days, during which Frakes led explorations of storm-beaten wrecks while Ned and Nancy trailed behind, kicking at rocks and speculating as to how those gigantic boulders had found their way to the sh.o.r.e. Later, when the visitors were alone, Will confided: 'Government suspects that on stormy nights he keeps a bright light showing on his cottage to confuse captains into thinking it's a lighthouse. Next morning he combs the wreck,' and that afternoon Frakes, in what was obviously an encouragement to Ned, showed his guests a storeroom attached to the back of the cottage in which he had ama.s.sed a treasure in baled carpets, fine furniture, silver settings and an endless number of practical tools and small machines, all salvaged from s.h.i.+ps which had crashed onto the rocks at his doorstep.

'A young couple could do wonders with these things,' Frakes said, and when Will asked 'What?' the old sailor said: 'Depends on the couple.'

Next day Will suggested that the young people have a picnic by themselves, and when Nancy led the way to a height from which they could watch the surging Atlantic thunder upon the boulders, Ned asked: 'How did your father get here?' and she explained that he had gone buccaneering with Will Tatum, had heard from him about Barbados, and had come here at the end of their cruise to inspect: 'When he returned to England he asked Mother and me one foggy November day: "Who's for Barbados and the sun?" and he didn't have to ask twice.'

'Was it your mother who taught you to be a lady?' and she replied, eyes lowered: 'Yes, that was always Mother's dream,' and Ned, bursting with sentiment, blurted out: 'She taught you well.'

On their last day Will said abruptly: 'Time we got down to business,' and as the four sat on gra.s.sy mounds among the boulders he broached the subject that had preoccupied everyone: 'Frakes, you're an old man. You have a splendid daughter who ought to be getting married. I'm not so young anymore, and I have a nephew here who also ought to be finding himself a mate. What do you young people say?'

For some moments everyone looked out to sea where the Atlantic was delivering great waves, and then Nancy quietly slipped her hand into Ned's, felt the warm pressure of his response, and exclaimed: 'What a wonderful day!' Then she further surprised Ned by giving him an ardent kiss.

That night as they sat at supper, she said: 'When Father was away at sea, Mum worked as a barmaid and ...' Ned broke in: 'But she always wanted to be a lady?' and Nancy replied, laughing: 'Her? She wouldn't have known a lady if she saw one, but she did try to teach me: "If you want to catch a proper young man, act like a lady, however that would be." She loved it here, and it was she who insisted on neatness, everything in its place. She was a good one.'

Once the marriage was agreed upon, Nancy took charge, and in doing so, displayed that wild joyousness that many would comment upon in the years ahead: 'We have a wealth of stuff here, if we can only figure out what to do with it,' and sometimes she would suddenly stop her planning, run to her father, and kiss him: 'Oh, I do love you so much, Father, and you mustn't leave us, ever.' And then she would pout: 'But I do so want to live in Bridgetown with its shops and s.h.i.+ps,' and she asked Uncle Will, as she had been asked to call him: 'But what could we do in Bridgetown to earn a living?'

Will and Ned decided to remain an extra day to explore the possibilities, and they sat among the boulders as one idea after another was proposed and rejected, until finally Will said: 'Wherever I've gone-Port Royal, Tortuga, Lisbon-I've noticed that men need inns and taverns. Places to talk, to learn what s.h.i.+ps are sailing where, to drink with old friends and remember battles. Bridgetown's growing. It could use another inn. A proper one.'

When this was agreed upon, with Nancy lilting about as if she were already mistress of the place and teasing the customers, Frakes said: 'Capital idea for you youngsters. You can have everything in the cottage, and the storeroom. Make it a handsome inn, a lively one, but I, I'll stay here by the sea.'

This decision dampened the discussion, but then Will said: 'He's right. Might as well spend it where he's happy,' but Nancy argued: 'You know, there's a sea at Bridgetown, too,' and he replied: 'I mean the real sea.'

Talk then turned to what name the proposed inn should have, and Will warned: 'The right name means everything. Men grow to cherish it,' and he suggested copies of the type so popular in England: 'Cavalier & Roundhead, or maybe Pig & Thistle.' Nancy offered The Carib or perhaps Rest & Riot, but Ned volunteered nothing until the others had exhausted their wits. Then he said quietly: 'It'll be The Giralda Inn,' and when each of the others protested, he explained: 'That's why I'm here today. It's the s.h.i.+p I helped capture, the one I captained, the one that brought us safely home,' and Will thought: And the one in which you discovered love with Ines, and it's proper that a man should honor such a s.h.i.+p.

When the time came for Will and Ned to leave, Frakes surprised them by announcing: 'Nancy and I'll be comin' with you. Sooner married, sooner bedded,' and he suggested that Will and Ned scour the eastern sh.o.r.e to find carters who would carry the treasures of his cottage into Bridgetown for the furnis.h.i.+ng of the inn, and the others were astonished when he told the draymen: 'Clean out everything,' and when the place was bare, Nancy asked: 'Now what will you live with?' and he said: 'I'll make do.' He must have been receiving signals, for two days after he attended the wedding in Bridgetown and saw to the installation of his furniture and paintings in the building Ned had purchased with the money left him by his mother, he died, but not before issuing orders to a woodcarver for a rather large sign which would proclaim The Giralda Inn.

The inn quickly became noted for three features: the red-haired keeper who had served as a buccaneer with Henry Morgan, the beautiful and vivacious black-haired girl who tended bar, and the older fellow, now forty-one, with a deep scar on his left cheek, who occupied a chair at a corner table, telling dubious but interesting stories of his supposed adventures at the sack of Panama, the wild days at Tortuga and his escape from a Spanish prison. He had a host of tales and became one of the reasons why sailors hurried to the Giralda as soon as their s.h.i.+ps anch.o.r.ed. Rarely did they mention a port at which he had not touched: Maracaibo, Havana, Porto Bello, Cadiz, Lisbon, he'd seen them all, and then he'd add, with a touch of true disappointment: 'Cartagena, I never reached. We tried, but the Dons were too strong for us. Maybe if I ever go out again ...'

However, it was Nancy who established the spirit of the place, with her constant smile and bright laughter and the little tricks she had developed to keep the customers happy. When one sailor made bold with her after a long trip at sea, she did not take offense. Shouting to all in the bar, she would cry: 'Did you hear what he just said?' and she would repeat word for word the man's improper proposal, but then, when everyone was jeering, she would chuck the sailor under the chin, plant a kiss on his forehead, and say, equally loudly: 'But he didn't mean a word of it.'

Her lively ways fathered the rumor that The Giralda Inn was a place of a.s.signation, with Nancy being little better than an ordinary prost.i.tute, and when this reached the ears of Sir Isaac and Lady Clarissa, they became outraged-Isaac, because it demeaned the exalted position he occupied in the island; Clarissa, because it was an offense against morals-and once again she visited her obsequious clergyman with a demand that he make his churchmen do something about the scandal. A vigorous drive was launched to close down the Giralda as a menace to the proprieties of Little England. Sermons were preached and discussions held, with Sir Isaac leading the a.s.sault under his wife's sharp supervision, and it looked for a while as if Will Tatum and his ugly breed would once again be thrown off the island.

But by this time things had changed, for many of the planters-certainly the smaller ones-were fed up with the domination of outworn Cavaliers like Oldmixon and Tatum, so that when the time came for a showdown, the islanders discovered that they loved honest Will Tatum, scar and all, and disdained his pompous brother, Sir Isaac.

This showdown came in a public meeting which Isaac and Clarissa had goaded their toadies into convening. 'We shall kill two birds if we manage it properly,' Isaac predicted. 'We'll outlaw the Giralda as a public menace, and without that anchor to cling to, Will can be run out of town.'

The plot was faulty, for unexpected speakers preempted the platform, launching such a barrage against the petty tyrannies of the older Tatums that unruly listeners began to cheer each accusation. Sir Isaac stood revealed as a would-be dictator, and an insufferable prude as well. When it was clear that his plans, whatever they might have been, had been frustrated, a farmer with a modest number of acres took the floor. 'I think we've uncovered this man's plot,' he said, and pointed contemptuously toward Sir Isaac. 'He wants to run his brother out of Barbados, as he and his wife once did long ago. I'd like to hear what the man involved thinks about this, and so would we all. Tell us, Will.'

Gratified that old wrongs were being righted, Will rose, coughed to clear his voice, then said quietly, turning his back on his brother: 'When I first fled the island, I went with this scar across my face. You know who gave it to me. I played the pirate. I fought the Don, and when he won I was an inch from being burned alive. I cut logwood in Honduras, and fought with Sir Harry Morgan at Panama. I rounded the Horn, and no man should be forced to do that. Now I've made it back home, and you ask me what I think of my brother. After such adventures, do you think I would bother my head over that silly a.s.s?' The crowd roared. Will was carried back on shoulders to the Giralda. And when the lights were dimmed and night regained the town, Sir Isaac and his wife slipped away through the side streets.

Two nights later, Will decided that the victory of honest men over tyrants should be celebrated, so he organized an affair at which he paid for drinks and refreshments for all who came from the waterfront. 'A late feast for my nephew and his bride,' he called it, and Ned wondered why his uncle was creating such a fuss, singing old songs and telling wild stories, but as midnight approached, Will banged a gla.s.s for attention and asked quietly: 'How many of you saw that Dutch s.h.i.+p dropping anchor out there this morning?' and when two men indicated they had, he addressed them: 'They've spent all day unloading cargo, and in the morning they sail westward to Port Royal.'

Nancy looked at her husband as if to ask: 'What is this?' and Will said: 'When she sails, I'll be aboard. I still have old scores to settle with Spain,' and all in the room gathered about to see if he meant what he said. He did, and when some asked why he should leave his good life, he replied with solemn emphasis: 'Time comes when a man wants to go back to what he does best,' and because Ned and Nancy realized that their uncle's violent life meant they might never see him again, they stayed close as he sat in his corner, regaling younger sailors with his tales of far places. When the night was late Nancy heard him tell a sailor: 'I should never have picked up this scar. Carelessness. If you get one, young feller, and you will, get it for trying something big.' And in the morning he was gone.

The Dutch s.h.i.+p put into Port Royal, where Will saw once more the wild activity of that Caribbean h.e.l.lhole: the small boats scurrying among British s.h.i.+ps of the line to bring sailors ash.o.r.e for the grog shops and the girls, pickpockets plying their silent trade, interrupted now and then by cries of 'Stop that thief!' but most of all, the movement of people of every color, every tongue, in and out of the hundreds of shops and greasy eating places. Port Royal on a bright January morning was a striking relief from the English aloofness of Barbados, and he looked forward to being back in the business of hauling captured Spanish vessels and crews and silver into its turmoil.

To his surprise, he had difficulty finding a berth on a privateer, for despite his acknowledged bravery when boarding a Spanish s.h.i.+p with pistol and cutla.s.s, there were few privateers scouring the seas these days. As one old French sailor explained: 'Henry Morgan, he's Sir Henry now. Lieutenant governor. Seeks to make his English king happy. Arrests all pirates.'

'You mean ...' Tatum could not believe that this old Welsh pirate had allowed himself to be seduced by a big t.i.tle and a little salary, but the Frenchman corrected him: 'Not one t.i.tle, many,' and he ticked off Morgan's new glories: 'Acting governor, lieutenant general, vice-admiral, colonel commandant of the Port Royal regiment, judge of the Admiralty Court, justice of the peace and Custos Rotulorum.' Seeing Will gaping, he added with a leering wink: 'The old rule. Set a thief to catch a thief.'

'I've got to see him,' Will interrupted. 'If I can just talk to him man to man ...' But when he tried to visit his s.h.i.+pmate at his office inland in Spanish Town, he was bluntly told by the young officer guarding access: 'Sir Henry refuses to see old privateers. He has one message for them: "Go home and leave Spain alone." '

Tatum would not accept this, and when he persisted in wanting an explanation, the young man said: 'Our king has promised the King of Spain: "No more pirates will be allowed in Port Royal. No more attacks on your Spanish s.h.i.+ps." Sir Henry obeys the king.'

Appalled by this shameless twisting in the wind, Tatum went back to Port Royal without seeing Morgan, and after much thras.h.i.+ng about, found a berth on a Dutch pirate s.h.i.+p whose captain did not feel bound by any agreements made in Europe: 'In the Caribbean, we decide,' and he decided, to Tatum's delight, to prowl the Main once more for Spanish prizes.

Whenever in the years that followed he succeeded in taking a s.h.i.+p from the King of Spain, Tatum was first aboard the stricken vessel, and while Dutch sailors fought among themselves for the booty, he raged with cutla.s.s and pistol, slaying any Spaniards who gave even a hint they might oppose him, until his Dutch captain had to cry: 'Tatum! Stop!'

As the Dutch buccaneer prowled the Caribbean, word of Tatum's wild behavior trickled back to Port Royal, and British officers warned Lieutenant Governor Morgan: 'You've got to discipline this d.a.m.ned fool. If the Spanish king complains to our king, h.e.l.l's to pay.'

So once when the Dutch s.h.i.+p was spotted returning laden with prize money to Port Royal, Acting Governor Morgan, racked with pain from the gout in his left big toe occasioned by his excessive drinking, hobbled into his office and growled out an ugly set of orders: 'Intercept that s.h.i.+p. Fetch me that crazy Will Tatum,' and when the old pirate was brought before him, he said simply: 'You're a menace to the king. You're living many years too late.'

Will was appalled at the appearance of his former captain, immense in girth, red of face, his foot in bandages, his voice a beer-heavy rasp. And then he heard the brutal decision: 'Tatum, to prove we're trying to maintain the peace, I've got to deliver you as prisoner to the Spanish governor at Cartagena.'

'No!' Will shouted.

'King's orders.'

'Spaniards hate me. They'll kill me.' When Morgan smiled, Will pleaded: 'But I was your right-hand man at Porto Bello ... Panama.'

This particular plea amused Morgan, for he remembered Tatum well: a hero once when he blew up the Spanish soldiery at Porto Bello, again when he led the storming of the defenses at Panama, but an arrant knave when he organized the loud protests at the division of spoils on the beach. And the last offense obliterated the two contributions. He owed this old buccaneer nothing.

'Different times, different problems,' he said curtly as he limped from the office.

As the English s.h.i.+p bearing the prisoner Tatum approached Cartagena, that fatal port where so many English lives had been lost, Will could not believe the fatal twists of history. Years ago in Cadiz he had been within two days of being burned at the stake, but he had escaped to serve Portugal, England, and Henry Morgan, always against the immortal enemy Spain. Now he was being delivered, wrists bound, back into the Spanish captivity he had escaped thirty years before, and to a punishment equally barbaric.

His trial before the Inquisition opened with his soulful protestations that he had been an ordinary sailor, no better, no worse than others, but the prosecuter brought forward six Spaniards who testified that this man, Will Tatum, infamously known on the Main, had led a.s.saults on their s.h.i.+ps, killed their mates, and sent them and others adrift in small boats with no sails and little water. His guilt was unquestioned, and when the senior judge intoned: 'You have offended G.o.d and Spain,' Will supposed that he was about to receive another sentence of death. But since the Inquisition in Cartagena was notoriously loath to order executions, he heard a more lenient sentence: 'Life imprisonment as a rower in the galleys,' and in the moments after the words were spoken he thought it sardonic that he who had been such a menace to Spanish s.h.i.+pping would now spend the rest of his life rowing it across the seven seas.

But now a sharp-eyed junior priest noticed the faded B on Will's left cheek, a most unusual mark, and recalled that an English prisoner marked like that had not only escaped from the Inquisition in Cadiz but had murdered guards in doing so, and Will was brought back to the black-robed judges to hear his new sentence: 'Judgment pa.s.sed in Spain on the heretical criminal Tatum will be executed here. By hanging.'

Back in his cell, Will reflected on his tumultuous life as a buccaneer: nights of wild celebration in Port Royal, cutting logwood in Honduras, sacking Panama, getting lost in rounding Cape Horn, capturing a Spanish galleon off Cuba, losing the Pride of Devon off Cadiz, in jail and out, and four days from now ... a gibbet in Cartagena. He shrugged his shoulders and went to sleep.

On the third morning he was visited by two distinguished citizens of Cartagena who knew him well, the condesa and her spiritual adviser, Fray Baltazar, who spoke first: 'Will Tatum, the sentence against you is just and you deserve to die for your crimes in the Old World as well as the New. However, the condesa wishes to speak.' And she said in those crisp tones that Will remembered so well: 'Tatum, despite our long ordeal, you helped bring my daughter Ines home a virgin. I do not forget, and have prevailed upon the conde to spare your life.'

He was released that day, and as soon as he was free he hurried unrepentant to the seafront to sign on with any s.h.i.+p that might carry him back to Port Royal, but when he appeared near the water he was apprehended by three policemen under the control of Fray Baltazar: 'You have been such an implacable enemy of Spain that you must remain here in Cartagena for the rest of your life. We dare not risk having you play pirate against our s.h.i.+pping.'

Submitting to this more lenient sentence, Will became a laborer on public roads away from the seafront, and after seven months of tiring work he accepted the dismal prospect of spending the remainder of his life in such toil, when, on a day in late 1692, gloomy Fray Baltazar hurried his mule to where Will labored, shouting: 'Tatum! They need you at the wharf!' and Tatum made a comical sight as he rode behind the priest, clinging to his robes.

The problem was perplexing, for a Dutch trading s.h.i.+p had limped into port, where it had no right to be, with its spars and decks a shambles. Its crew had a tale so preposterous that the captain was forced to repeat it at least six times in his broken Spanish, and still the Cartagena officials could not believe him. When Tatum arrived he was shoved forward: 'You speak English and you know Port Royal. What can sensible men make of what he is saying?' And it was Will's careful rendition that was entered into the chronicles of Cartagena: On the morning of 7 June 1692, a day never to be forgotten, our s.h.i.+p was riding peacefully at anchor in the roads at Port Royal in Jamaica when of a sudden we saw the land in town begin to heave, break into large fragments and writhe in violent contortion. Great cavities appeared in the earth, sucking entire churches into them, never again to be seen. Lesser openings engulfed large groups of unsuspecting people, and soon tidal waves swept in to cleanse the ruins and sink more than half of the former land area beneath the sea. Two thousand citizens lost their lives within the first trembling minutes, and huge waves punished s.h.i.+ps in the harbor, sweeping our decks and smas.h.i.+ng everything.

Sailors from the s.h.i.+ps, those who had saved themselves from drowning, helped rescue victims left floating in the sea where their homes had been, and one old man told us: 'The ancient G.o.ds must have grown disgusted with the debauchery of the buccaneers who had made our town a cesspool, and decided to bury it deep within the waves.'

In this manner, Port Royal, capital of the buccaneers and the wildest haven in the Seven Seas, vanished from the earth in less than twenty-five minutes.

Will received small thanks for translating the tragic news about Port Royal, for next day he was back laboring on the roads, but on the day after, he received an unexpected reward, for Fray Baltazar reappeared on his little mule: 'Tatum, the conde appreciated your help the other day. He tells me you've been an upstanding prisoner, obedient and good at your job. He gave permission to grant you a boon. Lay down your shovel and share with me a stew and a bottle of red wine ... at my sister's.'

Every Spanish man, whether priest or scoundrel, trusted old adviser or conniving clerk in a government office, was subservient to the ironclad rule that had always dictated behavior in Cartagena: 'Look after your family,' and not even Baltazar was exempt from that stern edict. His sister was a presentable widow with forty-four acres of productive land who had for a dozen years been trying to find a new husband. On this day when her brother brought yet another unmarried man for one of her fine stews, she served such a splendid meal that Will was encouraged to return frequently, without Fray Baltazar's urging. Then one day the priest rode his mule to Will's workplace, bringing an unexpected proposition for this Englishman he had grown to trust: 'Will, you must have observed that my sister needs someone to help work her land. I will explain to the conde. I know he will release you ... and you could live there ...'

'Oh, you want me to marry your sister? But I'm not Catholic and ...'

'Who said marry?' the priest shouted. 'For me to marry a Protestant like you to a good Catholic like her would be a mortal sin. I'd roast in h.e.l.l. But I've had a small hut built ... on a corner of her land ... I'm not talking about marriage!'

Before Will could respond to this amazing suggestion, the priest said almost in a whisper: 'She's a good woman, Will, a dear woman whom I love. I'm past sixty and I must see to it that she has help on her little farm.'

In this manner, Will Tatum, mortal enemy of things Spanish, became caretaker for a Spanish widow with forty-four acres and marvelous skill in the kitchen, and as the years pa.s.sed, and he took his meals increasingly at her table, he discovered that 'When a man understands the Spanish, they aren't all that bad.'

* In 1697, because the French pirates had taken effective control of this western portion of Hispaniola, the Treaty of Ryswick, which ended a European war, awarded it to France, who held it until 1804, when rebellious blacks expelled Napoleon's armies and established the republic of Haiti. Tortuga, too, is now a part of Haiti.

In 1678 one of Morgan's buccaneers, a Dutchman of questionable background known as Exquemelin or Esquemeling, published in Amsterdam the sensationally popular De Americaensche Zee-Rovers. When it appeared in London in 1684 in English, Morgan started legal action, claiming that this story, among others, was libelous. Two different publishers recanted and settled for 200 each, but other buccaneers who had partic.i.p.ated in the attack averred that the accounts of Morgan's brutality were true.

The Miskito Indian known as David was rescued years later by the legendary pirate-naturalist-writer William Dampier and carried to freedom. Curiously, in 1704 the famous Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk marooned himself on this same island, where he lived in total solitude for four and a half years before being found by this same Dampier on a return visit to Juan Fernandez. Daniel Defoe, who knew Dampier, later borrowed the story, unacknowledged, as the basis for his novel Robinson Crusoe.

The Falklands in English. In Spanish, Las Islas Malvinas.

ENGLISH SETTLERS in Jamaica knew them as Maroons, black slaves of fierce character whose ancestors had escaped when their Spanish owners were driven from the island by the British in the 1650s. These slaves had fled to remote mountain glens in the center of the island, and there they had survived and prospered for more than eighty years, repelling all English efforts to dislodge them. Year by year their numbers had grown as new slaves, imported into Jamaica at great expense, worked a few years on the sugar plantations, then disappeared into the mountains to form the new stock of Maroons.

In 1731 the situation grew so grave, with daring Maroons actually mounting formal a.s.saults on sugar plantations, that the white planters decided on a drastic counterattack, and launched a major campaign against the mountain robbers. Each plantation was required to contribute arms, money and especially white men or trusted blacks to a militia formed to chastise the renegades. As expected, the distinguished Trevelyan Plantation north of the capital, Spanish Town, contributed many arms, much ammunition and a captain for the force, Sir Hugh Pembroke. He was forty-six that year, military in bearing, his slim form showing to good advantage in the uniform of an English regiment. A descendant of that bold young Officer Pembroke who had suggested to Admiral Penn in 1655 'Since the Spanish have thrown us out of Hispaniola, why don't we throw them out of Jamaica?'-thus adding this fine island to the empire-Sir Hugh loved politics and was an important member of Parliament in London.

The large contingent of more than a hundred from Spanish Town and its attendant plantations marched north to Trevelyan, where the troop was joined by an extraordinary planter, Pentheny Croome, two hundred and forty pounds, a shape like a newly patted b.u.t.terball, and a flaming red face. Like Sir Hugh, he was a member of the British Parliament, famed in that body as 'the only man in either House who has never read a book.' Indeed, some members said behind his back: 'We doubt he even knows his alphabet, but for sure he knows how to calculate fifteen percent per annum on his investments.'

Pentheny's investments, like those of all the senior leaders of this improvised expeditionary force, were in sugar, for he had, through natural cunning, avarice and theft, acquired not only a huge working plantation, twice as large as Sir Hugh's, but also several thousand acres which he was about to bring into cultivation. He was a giant man with giant appet.i.tes, and when the troops were ready to start their chase through the hills, he told them: 'We're goin' to rout out them Maroons and kill the lot! No quarter!'

Sir Hugh, with superior military experience, corrected him: 'No, Pentheny, my good friend, the governor's orders are quite different. We've tried to shoot the Maroons for the past three decades. One excursion after another. The tally? Six of us dead, for sure. Four of them dead, maybe.'

'Then why're we goin'?'

'A truce. Men, we're not going to fire at a single Maroon. We're going to offer them a truce. No more war ... ever ... if they'll pledge to bring back our slaves who try to run away.'

'Can we trust them?' Croome asked, and Sir Hugh retorted: 'What other choice do we have?'

Pentheny Croome muscled his way to the front, thrust his face close to Sir Hugh's, and asked: 'Was that your recommendation, Pembroke?' And Sir Hugh said loud enough for all the troops to hear: 'Back in 1717 when they pa.s.sed that law, difficult slaves could be mutilated at your and my decision. Even dismembered and burned if the offense was grave enough. I warned you then it wouldn't work. And it hasn't.' He stared at each of the other plantation owners: 'Well, now we're going to try something better, at least in our part of Jamaica.' And he led his troops into the hills.

After four days of climbing up and down the backbreaking c.o.c.kpit country, they had seen no sign of the Maroons they knew to be in the area, despite the fact that they had sent scouts ahead to call out the name of the Maroon leader: 'Cuffee! Cuffee! Come out! We want to talk.' There was no response, but toward sunset on the fifth day, Maroon fire came from a tangle of banyan roots, and Croome shouted: 'Over here!' and into the matted jungle he crashed, firing his gun and killing one of the Maroons.

'That's how we'll handle this,' he said as he sat on a log cleaning his gun, the dead black at his feet. But Sir Hugh would have none of it. Tying a big white kerchief to the tip of his rifle, he called to his son Roger to do the same, and together they walked toward the banyan thicket, crying: 'Cuffee! Cuffee! It's Sir Hugh here. Come talk with me.' And as darkness fell the famous leader of the Maroons, a man of forty whose forefathers had been hauled from the Gulf of Guinea in 1529, came cautiously out to parley with the enemy, as if he were a head of state.

When the expeditionary force returned to civilization, Sir Hugh did not stop off at Trevelyan, but accompanied by Pentheny Croome, rode on to Spanish Town, where he reported to the governor, General Hunter: 'Brief skirmish. Croome here reacted with extreme bravery in one tight squeeze. Had to kill a Maroon.'

'Excellent man, Croome. And what did you accomplish?'