Caribbee Part 81

"Aye, the d.a.m.n'd Frenchmen," Bartholomew interjected. "I was there, sir."

"I'm sorry the rest of us didn't manage to warn you in time." Winston slipped his arm around her.

Suddenly she wanted to smother him in her arms. "But do you realize you must have saved my life? They would have killed us all."

"They doubtless would have. Eventually." He reached over and kissed her, then drew back and examined her. "Katy, I have a confession to make. I think I can still remember watching you. When I was in the longboat, trying to reach the ship. I think I fell in love with you that morning. With that brave girl who stood there at the railing, musket b.a.l.l.s flying. I never forgot it, in all the years. My G.o.d, to think it was you." He held her against him for a moment, then lifted up her face. "Which also means I have you and yours to thank for trying to kill me, when I wanted to get out to where you were."

"The captain just a.s.sumed you were one of them. I heard him talk about it after. n.o.body had any idea . . ." She hugged him. "You and your 'honor.' You changed my life."

"You and that ship sure as h.e.l.l changed mine. After I fell in love with you, I d.a.m.ned near died of thirst in that leaky longboat. And then Ruyters . . ."

"Capitaine, please tell them I was the one who shot Jacques. That I am now _commandant de place_." De Fontenay interrupted, his voice pleading. "That I have the authority to order them . . ."

"You're not ordering anything, by Jesus. I'm about to put an end to any more French orders here and now." Bartholomew seized a burning stick from the fire in the boucan and flung it upward, onto the veranda of the "dovecote."

A cheer went up from the English seamen cl.u.s.tered around,

and before Jacques's French guards could stop them, they were flinging torches and flaming logs up into the citadel.

"_Messieurs, no_. Please! _Je vous en prie. Non_!" De Fontenay stared up in horror.

Tongues of flame began to lick at the edge of the platform. Some of the guards dropped their muskets and yelled to get buckets of water from the spring behind the rock. Then they thought better of it and started edging gingerly toward the iron gates leading out of the fortress and down the hill.

The other guards who had been rifling the liquor came scurrying down the ladder, jostling de Fontenay aside. As Winston urged Katherine toward the gates, the young _matelot_ was still lingering forlornly on the steps, gazing up at the burning "dovecote." Finally, the last to leave Forte de la Roche, he sadly turned and made his way out.

"Senhor, what is happening here?" Atiba was racing up the steps leading to the gate, carrying his cutla.s.s. "I swam to sh.o.r.e and came fastly as I could."

"There's been a little revolution up here, my friend. And I'll tell you something else. There's likely to be some gunpowder in that citadel.

For those demi-culverin. I don't have any idea how many kegs he had, but knowing Jacques, there was enough." He took Katherine's hand. "It's the end for this place, that much you can be sure."

"Hugh, what about the plan to use his men?" She turned back to look.

"We'll just have to see how things here are going to settle out now.

Maybe it's not over yet."

They moved onto the tree-lined pathway. The night air was sharp, fragrant. Above the glow of the fire, the moon hung like a lantern in the tropical sky.

"You know, I never trusted him for a minute. Truly I didn't." She slipped her arm around Winston's jerkin. "I realize now he was planning to somehow try and kill us both tonight. Thank heaven it's over. Why don't we just get out of here while we still can?"

"Well, sir, it's a new day." Guy Bartholomew emerged out of the crowd, his smile illuminated by the glow of the blaze. "An' I've been talkin'

with some of my lads. Why don't we just have done with these d.a.m.n'd Frenchmen and claim this island?" He gleefully rubbed at the stubble on his chin. "No Englishman here's goin' to line the pockets of a Frenchman ever again, that I'll promise you."

"You can try and make Tortuga English if you like, but you won't be sailing with me if you do."

"What do you mean, sir?" Bartholomew stood puzzling. "This is our best chance ever to take hold and keep this place. An' there's precious few other islands where we can headquarter."

"I know one that has a better harbor. And a better fortress guarding it"

"Where might that be?"

"Ever think of Jamaica?"

"Jamaica, sir?" He glanced up confusedly. "But that belongs to the pox- eaten Spaniards."

"Not after we take it away from them it won't. And when we do, any English privateer who wants can use the harbor there."

"Now, sir." Bartholomew stopped. "Tryin' to seize Jamaica's another matter entirely. We thought you were the man to help us take charge of this little enterprise here of pillagin' the cursed Spaniards'

shipping. You didn't say you're plannin' to try stealin' a whole island from the wh.o.r.esons."

"I'm not just planning, my friend." Winston moved on ahead, Atiba by his side. "G.o.d willing, I'm d.a.m.ned sure going to do it."

"It's a bold notion, that I'll grant you." He examined Winston skeptically, then grinned as he followed after. "G.o.d's life, that'd be the biggest prize any Englishman in the Caribbean ever tried."

"I think it can be done."

"Well, I'll be plain with you, sir. I don't know how many men here'll be willing to risk their hide on such a venture. I hear the Spaniards've got a militia over there, maybe a thousand strong. 'Tis even said they've got some cavalry."

"Then all you Englishmen here can stay on and sail for the next commandant Chevalier de Poncy finds to send down and take over. He'll hold La Tortue for France, don't you think otherwise. All those commissions didn't stay in Jacques's pocket, you can be sure. He's bound to have pa.s.sed a share up to the Frenchmen on St. Christopher."

"We'll not permit it, sir. We'll not let the Frenchmen have it back."

"How do you figure on stopping them? This fortress'll take weeks to put into any kind of shape again, and de Poncy's sure to post a fleet down the minute he hears of this. I'd say this place'll have no choice but stay French."

"Aye, I'm beginnin' to get the thrust of your thinkin'." He gazed ruefully back up at the burning fort. "If that should happen, and I grant you there's some likelihood it just might, then there's apt to be d.a.m.ned little future here for a G.o.d-fearin' Englishman. So either we keep on sailin' for some other French b.a.s.t.a.r.d or we find ourselves another harbor."

"That's how I read the situation now." Winston continued on down the hill. "So why don't we hold a vote amongst the men and see, Master Bartholomew? Maybe a few of them are game to try making a whole new place."

JAMAICA

Chapter Twenty-two

A cricket sang from somewhere within the dark crevices of the stone wall surrounding the two men, a sharp, shrill cadence in the night. To the older it was a welcome sign all was well; the younger gave it no heed, as again he bent over and hit his steel against the flint, sending sparks flying into the wind. Finally he cursed in Spanish and paused to pull his goatskin jerkin closer.

Hipolito de Valera had not expected this roofless hilltop outpost would catch the full force of the breeze that rolled in off the bay. He paused for another gust to die away, then struck the flint once more. A shower of sparks scattered across the small pile of dry gra.s.s and twigs by the wall, and then slowly, tentatively the tinder began to glow.

When at last it was blazing, he tossed on a large handful of twigs and leaned back to watch.

In the uneven glow of the fire his face was soft, with an aquiline nose and dark Castilian eyes. He was from the spa.r.s.ely settled north, where his father don Alfonso de Valera had planted forty-five acres of grape arbor in the mountains. Winemaking was forbidden in the Spanish Americas, but taxes on Spanish wines were high and Spain was far away.

"_!Tenga cuidado!_ The flame must be kept low. It has to be heated slowly." Juan Jose Pereira was, as he had already

observed several times previously this night, more knowing of the world. His lined cheeks were leather-dark from a lifetime of riding in the harsh Jamaican sun for the cattle-rancher who owned the largest _hato_ on the Liguanea Plain. Perhaps the youngest son of a vineyard owner might understand the best day to pick grapes for the claret, but such a raw youth would know nothing of the correct preparation of chocolate.