Caribbee(36)

The master’s mate arrived, wide-eyed and expectant. When Kydd explained to him what he wanted, he broke into a wide grin and went away immediately to find a boat’s crew.

L’Aurore got under way again, shaking out sail as though she meant to circle the island once more. But she had left her gig behind – the smallest boat on board, which, with bows towards land and its crew hunkered down out of sight below the gunwale, was near invisible from the shore.

For long minutes it lay bobbing to the waves until a hoarse cry came from forward. ‘She’s away.’ L’Aurore had disappeared behind the green slopes of the island.

‘Out oars,’ Saxton ordered crisply.

They were only five: himself, gunner’s mate Stirk, and the seamen Doud, Wong and Pinto.

‘Give way together,’ Saxton rapped. ‘Silence in the boat, fore ’n’ aft!’

He was concentrating on the landing: there was a fringing beach with few rocks and the greenery was resolving into palm trees and the deep green verdure of a Caribbean island. He picked out the likeliest spot and conned the little boat in.

It hissed to a stop at the water’s edge, the rich odour of the land welcoming them in a wall of warmth.

‘Doud ’n’ Pinto, away to the right. Stirk ’n’ Wong, to the left,’ he ordered.

Doud eased the pistol in his belt and headed out with Pinto to follow the water’s edge around.

Saxton went off along the beach behind Stirk and Wong. Then he realised that if L’Aurore was in that direction their quarry would be at the other end of the island – in fact, close by.

‘Stirk!’ he called urgently. ‘Go ahead and spy out the lay.’

The big man loped quickly out of sight. Shortly afterwards his head bobbed above the bushes and he beckoned.

Heart in his mouth, Saxton joined him. Stirk pointed. No more than fifty yards away a black man sat on the beach, staring intently at L’Aurore far off to the right. Beside him were two large flags on sticks, one red, one white.

Stirk tapped Saxton on the arm and pointed again. Nearly out of view in the opposite direction around the point was a low-lined schooner, her sails loose in their gear.

That old yarn that Kydd had recalled had saved the day: in the American war the South Sea whaler Amelia had avoided capture by a privateer by the simple ruse of dodging about an island, a man ashore signalling to it the whereabouts of the other so that it could keep to the opposite side, always out of sight. It had been in effect the childhood game of chase in which a frustrated pursuer could never catch any quarry who made it to the fat trunk of a tree.

The watcher did not hear their tiptoe approach along the soft sand. They loomed up beside him and the man jerked around in fright. Then, from the other direction, Doud and Pinto appeared.

‘So what do we do wi’ the bastard?’ Stirk asked mildly, fingering his weapon. ‘I can give him the frights, should ye need to ask him his code.’

‘No need,’ said Saxton, smugly. ‘I’ve got it figured!’

‘Oh?’ said Stirk.

‘Simple. He stays in sight o’ both, and signals where L’Aurore is by saying she is to my left or right, larboard or starboard. That’s red or green at sea – he can use red but green won’t be seen, so he uses white. See?’

‘I reckon,’ Stirk said, in admiration.

The rest was easy. Leaving Wong to keep the man company, they took the flags and went to a point of rock. L’Aurore was approaching from the right – so Saxton took the red flag and furiously waved it to and fro as if in the utmost urgency.

There was an immediate response: the schooner hauled in on her tacks and sheets and got under way as soon as she could, rounding the point under a press of sail – directly into the open arms of the frigate.

‘A splendid catch,’ Gilbey said, admiring the fine lines of their prize. An island schooner of about eighty tons, low and with a roguishly raked mast, she was built for speed over cargo capacity, as might be expected of a privateer.

Her crew, disconsolate on the main deck of L’Aurore, were not many, which implied men away in prizes. The captain, a bitter young man of South American origin, demanded to know who had betrayed them.

‘His papers, if he has any. If none, I’m desolated to have to inform him that he and his crew shall swing as pirates,’ Kydd told Renzi, whose Spanish, since their actions at Buenos Aires, was now more than adequate.

‘He shall fetch them, if he is at liberty to do so.’

Returning with Curzon, the captain stiffly presented a folded parchment. It was a Spanish letter of marque for the schooner Infanta on a privateering voyage in the north Caribbean and appeared to have been issued under the hand of the viceroy of New Grenada in Venezuela.