The Fortunes of Captain Blood cb-3 Read online

  It was not an order that Don Sebastian could be expected to receive with equanimity. He frowned and blew out his fat lips. 'I do not understand this at all. Colonel Vargas who commands the fort under my orders is a competent, experienced officer. Besides,' he bristled, 'I have been under the impression that it is I who am Captain–General of Puerto Rico, and that it is for me to appoint my officers.'

  No speech or manner could have been more conciliatory than Captain Blood's. 'In your place, Don Sebastian, I must confess — oh, but entirely between ourselves — that I should feel precisely as you do. But… What would you? It is necessary to have patience. The Admiral is moved to excessive anxiety for the safety of the plate–ships.'

  'Is not their safety in San Juan my affair? Am I not the King's representative in Puerto Rico? Let the Admiral command as he pleases on the ocean; but here on land…'

  Suavely Captain Blood interrupted him, a hand familiarly upon his shoulder. 'My dear Don Sebastian!' He lowered his voice to a confidential tone. 'You know how it is with these royal favourites.'

  'Royal…' Don Sebastian choked down his annoyance in sudden apprehension. 'I never heard that the Marquis of Riconete is a royal favourite.'

  'A lap–dog to his Majesty. That, of course, between ourselves. Hence his audacity. I should not blame you for holding the opinion that he abuses the King's affection for him. You know how the royal favour goes to a man's head.' He paused and sighed. 'It distresses me to be the instrument of this encroachment upon your province but I am as helpless as yourself, my friend.'

  Thus brought to imagine that he trod dangerous ground, Don Sebastian suppressed the heat begotten of this indignity to his office, and philosophically consented, as Captain Blood urged him, to take comfort in the thought that the Admiral's interference possessed at least the advantage for him of relieving him of all responsibility for what might follow.

  After this, and in the two succeeding days, Peter Blood displayed a tact that made things easy, not only for the Captain–General, but also for Colonel Vargas, who at first had been disposed to verbal violence on the subject of his supersession. It reconciled the Colonel, at least in part, to discover that the new commandant showed no inclination to interfere with any of his military measures. Far from it, having made a close inspection of the fort, its armament, garrison, and munitions, he warmly commended all that he beheld, and generously confessed that he should not know how to improve upon the Colonel's dispositions.

  It was on the first Friday in June that the false Don Pedro had come ashore to take command. On the following Sunday morning in the courtyard of the Captain–General's quarters, a breathless young officer reeled from the saddle of a lathered, spent, and quivering horse. To Don Sebastian, who was at breakfast with his lady and his temporary Commandant, this messenger brought the alarming news that a powerfully armed ship that flew no flag and was manifestly a pirate was threatening San Patrico, fifty miles away. It had opened a bombardment of the settlement, so far without damage because it dared not come within range of the fire maintained by the guns of the harbour fort. Lamentably, however, the fort was very short of ammunition, and once this were exhausted there was no adequate force in men to resist a landing.

  Such was Don Sebastian's amazement that it transcended his alarm. 'In the devil's name, what should pirates seek at San Patrico? There's nothing there but sugarcane and maize.'

  'I think I understand,' said Captain Blood. 'San Patrico is the back door to San Juan and the plate–ships.'

  'The back door?'

  'Don't you see? Because these pirates dare not venture a frontal attack against your heavily armed fort of Santo Antonio here, they hoped to march overland from San Patrico and take you in the rear.'

  The Captain–General was profoundly impressed by this prompt display of military acumen.

  'By all the Saints, I believe you explain it.' He heaved himself up, announcing that he would take order at once, dismissed the officer to rest and refreshment, and despatched a messenger to fetch Colonel Vargas from the fort.

  Stamping up and down the long room, which was kept in cool shadow by the slatted blinds, he gave thanks to his patron saint, the martyred centurion, that Santo Antonio was abundantly munitioned, thanks to his foresight, and could spare all the powder and shot that San Patrico might require so as to hold these infernal pirates at bay.

  The timid glance of Doña Leocadia followed him about the room, then was turned upon the new commandant when his voice, cool and calm, invaded the Captain–General's pause for breath.

  'With submission, sir, it would be an error to take munitions from Santo Antonio. We may require all that we have. Several things are possible. These buccaneers may change their plans, when they find the landing at San Patrico less easy than they suppose. Or' — and now he stated what he knew to be the case, since it was precisely what he had commanded — 'the attack on San Patrico may be no more than a feint, to draw thither your strength.'

  Don Sebastian stared blankly, passing a jewelled hand over his ponderous blue jowl. 'That is possible. Yes, God help me!' And thankful now for the presence of this calm, discerning commandant, whose coming at first had so offended him, he cast himself entirely upon the man's resourcefulness.

  Don Pedro was prompt to take command. 'I have a note of the munitions aboard the plate–ships. They are considerable. Abundant for the needs of San Patrico, and useless at present to the vessels. We will take not only their powder and shot, but their guns as well, and haul them at once to San Patrico.'

  'You'll disarm the plate–ships?' Don Sebastian stared alarm.

  'What need to keep them armed whilst in harbour here? It is the fort that will defend the entrance if it should come to need defending. The emergency is at San Patrico.' He became more definite. 'You will be good enough to order the necessary mules and oxen for the transport. As for men, there are two hundred and thirty at Santo Antonio and a hundred and twenty aboard the plate–ships. What is the force at San Patrico?'

  'Between forty and fifty.'

  'God help us! If these buccaneers intend a landing, it follows that they must be four or five hundred strong. To oppose them San Patrico will need every man we can spare. I shall have to send Colonel Vargas thither with a hundred and fifty men from Santo Antonio and a hundred men from the ships.'

  'And leave San Juan defenceless?' In his horror Don Sebastian could not help adding: 'Are you mad?'

  Captain Blood's air was that of a man whose knowledge of his business places him beyond all wavering. 'I think not. We have the fort with a hundred guns, half of them of powerful calibre. A hundred men should abundantly suffice to serve them. And lest you suppose that I subject you to risks I am not prepared to share, I shall, myself, remain here to command them.'

  When Vargas came, he was as horrified as Don Sebastian at this depletion of the defence of San Juan. In the heat of his arguments against it he became almost discourteous. He looked down his nose at the Admiral's deputy, and spoke of the Art of War as if from an eminence where it had no secrets. From that eminence, the new commandant coolly dislodged him. 'If you tell me that we can attempt to resist a landing at San Patrico with fewer than three hundred men, I shall understand that you have still to learn the elements of your profession. And, anyway,' he added, rising, so as to mark the end of the discussion, 'I have the honour to command here, and the responsibility is mine. I shall be glad if you will give my orders your promptest obedience.'

  Colonel Vargas bowed stiffly, biting his lip, and the Captain–General returned explosive thanks to Heaven that he held a parchment from the Admiral of the Ocean–Sea which must relieve him of all blame for whatever consequences might attend this rashness.

  As the Cathedral bells were summoning the faithful to High Mass, and notwithstanding the approaching sweltering heat of noontide, the matter admitting of no delay, Colonel Vargas marched his men out of San Juan. At the head of the column, and followed by a long train of mules, laden with ammunition, and of oxen–teams
hauling the guns, the Colonel took the road across the gently undulating plains to San Patrico, fifty miles away.

  III

  You will have conceived that the pirate threatening San Patrico was the erstwhile flagship of the Spanish Admiral of the Ocean–Sea, now the Andalusian Lass, despatched thither on that business by Captain Blood. Wolverstone had been placed in command of her, and his orders were to maintain his demonstration and keep the miserable little fort of San Patrico in play for forty–eight hours. At the end of that time, and under cover of night, he was to slip quietly away before the arrival of the reinforcements from San Juan, which by then would be well upon their way, and, abandoning the feint, come round at speed to deliver the real blow at the now comparatively defenceless San Juan.

  Messengers from San Patrico arriving at regular intervals throughout Monday brought reports that showed how faithfully Wolverstone was fulfilling his instructions. The messages gave assurance that the constant fire of the fort was compelling the pirates to keep their distance.

  It was heartening news to the Captain–General, persuaded that every hour that passed increased the chances that the raiders would be caught red–handed by the Admiral of the Ocean–Sea, who must be somewhere in the neighbourhood, and incontinently destroyed. 'By tomorrow,' he said, 'Vargas will be at San Patrico with the reinforcements and the pirates' chance of landing will be at an end.'

  But what the morrow brought was something very different from the expectations of all concerned. Soon after daybreak, San Juan was awakened by the roar of guns. Don Sebastian's first uplifting thought, as he thrust a leg out of bed, was that here was the Marquis of Riconete announcing his return by a fully royal salute. The continuous bombardment, however, stirred his misgivings even before he reached the terrace of his fine house. Once there, and having seen what his telescope could show him in detail, his misgivings were changed to stark consternation.

  Captain Blood's first awakening emotions had been the very opposite to Don Sebastian's. But his annoyed assumptions were at once dismissed. Even if Wolverstone should have left San Patrico before midnight, which was unlikely, it was impossible, in the teeth of the keen westerly wind now blowing, that he could reach San Juan for another twelve hours. Moreover, Wolverstone was not the man to act in such careless disregard of his instructions.

  Half dressed, Captain Blood made haste to seek at Don Sebastian's side the explanation of this artillery, and there experienced a consternation no whit inferior to the Captain–General's, though vastly different of source. For the great red ship whose guns were pounding the fort from the roads, a half–mile away, had all the appearance of his own Arabella, which he had left careened in Tortuga less than a month ago.

  He remembered the false current tale of a raid by Captain Blood on Cartagena, and he asked himself was it possible that Pitt and Dyke and other associates whom he had left behind had gone roving in his absence, conducting their raids with inhuman cruelties such as those which had disgraced Morgan and Montbars. He could not believe it of them; and yet here stood his ship under a billowing cloud of smoke from her own gunfire, delivering broadsides that were bringing down the walls of a fort that had the appearance of being massive and substantial, but the mortar of which, as he had been glad to ascertain when inspecting it, was mere adobe.

  At his side the Captain–General of Puerto Rico was invoking alternately all the saints in the calendar and all the fiends in Hell to bear witness that here was that incarnate devil Captain Blood.

  Tight–lipped, that incarnate devil at his very elbow gave no heed to his imprecations. With a hand to his brow, so as to shade his eyes from the morning sun, he scanned the lines of that red ship from gilded beak–head to towering poop. It was the Arabella, and yet it was not the Arabella. The difference eluded him, yet a difference he perceived.

  As he looked, the great vessel came broadside on in the act of going about. Then, even without counting her gunports, he obtained a clear assurance. She carried four guns less than his own flagship.

  'That is not Captain Blood,' he said.

  'Not Captain Blood? You'll tell me that I am not Sebastian Mendes. Is not his ship named the Arabella?'

  'That is not the Arabella.'

  Don Sebastian looked him over with a contemptuous, blood–injected eye. Then he proffered his telescope.

  'Read the name on the counter for yourself.'

  Captain Blood took the glass. The ship was swinging, so as to bring her starboard guns to bear, and her counter came fully into view. In letters of gold, he read there the name Arabella, and his bewilderment was renewed.

  'I do not understand,' he said. But the roar of her broadside drowned his words and loosened some further tons of the fort's masonry. And then, at last, the guns of the fort thundered in their turn for the first time. The fire was wild and wide of the mark, but at least it had the effect of compelling the attacking ship to stand off, so as to get out of range.

  'By God, they're awake at last!' cried Don Sebastian, with bitter irony.

  Blood departed in search of his boots, ordering the scared servants who stood about to find and saddle him a horse.

  When, five minutes later, booted, but still not more than half dressed, he was setting his foot to the stirrup, the Captain–General surged beside him. 'It's your responsibility,' he raged. 'Yours and your precious Admiral's. Your fatuous measures have left us defenceless. I hope you'll be able to answer for it. I hope so.'

  'I hope so too; and to that brigand, whoever he may be.' Captain Blood spoke through his teeth in an anger more bitter if less boisterous than the Captain–General's. For he was experiencing the condition of being hoist with his own petard and all the emotions that accompany it. He had been at such elaborate and crafty pains to disarm San Juan, merely, it seemed, so as to make it easy for a pestilential interloper to come and snatch from under his very nose the prize for which he played. He could not conjecture the identity of the interloper, but he had more than a suspicion that it was not by mere coincidence that this red ship was named the Arabella, and not a doubt but that her master was the author of those horrors in Cartagena which were being assigned to Captain Blood.

  However that might be, what mattered now was to do what might be done so as to frustrate this most inopportune of interlopers. And so, by a singular irony, Captain Blood rode forth upon the hope, rendered forlorn by his own contriving, of organizing the defences of a Spanish place against an attack by buccaneers.

  He found the fortress in a state of desolation and confusion. Half the guns were already out of action under the heaped rubble. Of the hundred men that had been left to garrison it, ten had been killed and thirty disabled. The sixty that remained whole were resolute and steady men — there were no better troops in the world than those of the Spanish infantry — but reduced to helplessness by the bewildered incompetence of the young officer in command.

  Captain Blood came amongst them just as another broadside shore away twenty yards of ramparts. In the well–like courtyard, half choked with the dust of crumbling masonry and the acrid fumes of gunpowder, he stormed at the officer who ran to meet him.

  'Will you keep your company cowering here until men and guns are all buried together in these ruins?'

  Captain Araña bridled. He threw a chest. 'We can die at our posts, sir, to pay for your errors.'

  'So can any fool. But if you had as much intelligence as impertinence you would be saving some of the guns. They'll be needed presently. Haul a score of them out of this, and have them posted in that cover.' He pointed to a pimento grove less than a half–mile away in the direction of the city. 'Leave me a dozen hands to serve the guns that remain, and take every other man with you. And get your wounded out of this death–trap. When you're in the grove send out for teams of mules, horses, oxen, what you will, against the need for further haulage. Load with canister. Use your wits, man, and waste no time. About it!'

  If Captain Araña lacked imagination to conceive, at least he possessed energy to e
xecute the conceptions of another. Dominated by the commandant's brisk authority fired by admiration for measures whose simple soundness he at once perceived, he went diligently to work, whilst Blood took charge of a battery of ten guns emplaced on the southern rampart which best commanded the bay. A dozen men, aroused from their inertia by his vigour, and stimulated by his own indifference to danger, carried out his orders calmly and swiftly.

  The buccaneer, having emptied her starboard guns, was going about so as to bring her larboard broadside to bear. Taking advantage of the manoeuvre, and gauging as best he could the station from which her next fire would be delivered, Blood passed from gun to gun, laying each with his own hands, deliberately and carefully. He had just laid the last of them when the red ship, having put the helm over, presented her larboard flank. He snatched the spluttering match from the hand of a musketeer, and instantly touched off the gun at that broad target. If the shot was not as lucky as he hoped, yet it was lucky enough. It shore away the pirate's bowsprit. She yawed under the shock and listed slightly, and this at the very moment that her broadside was delivered. As a consequence of that fortuitously altered elevation, the discharge soared harmlessly over the fort and went to plough the ground away in its rear. At once she swung downwind so as to run out of range.

  'Fire!' roared Blood, and the other nine guns blazed as one.

  The buccaneer's stern presenting but a narrow mark, Blood could hope for little more than a moral effect. But again luck favoured him, and if eight of the twenty–four–pound missiles merely flung up the spray about the ship, the ninth crashed into her stern–coach, to speed her on her way.

  The Spaniards sent up a cheer. 'Viva Don Pedro!' And it was actually with laughter that they set about reloading, their courage resurrected by that first if slight success.