Dark Mondays Page 26

  John drew his pistol and fired. Some fellows even plunged into the river, assuming that since the Indians had crossed easy, it must be shallow here. But maybe the Indians had picked up the trick of walking on water; Morgan’s men sank over their heads, and came up gasping and clawing at the mangrove roots.

  The Indians jeered and shot at them from the other bank, calling names in Spanish. John bent to pull one fellow ashore, and just as he came level with John’s face he gave a shivering cry and died, pierced through with an arrow. John dropped him and pulled back; as he did, he heard a shot ring out on the other side and saw an Indian drop where he stood, with the red blood starting down over his bare breast. Another shot rang out, another one fell, and the Indians took to their heels, vanishing through the woods.

  And someone ran after them.

  John gaped to see a pale figure darting off between the branches. He had only one clear sight of her, but it was certainly the girl, carrying a musket soldier-fashion as she ran. He stood, dumb, staring after her. When he turned away he saw Morgan staring too, as though doubting his senses, and knew he’d seen her as well.

  “That was her,” said John.

  “She can shoot,” said Morgan. And then he swore, not loud but a lot, some in Welsh.

  * * *

  That night the Brethren camped by the river. What weathercocks men are, John soon learned: for all the high spirits and bold talk of the day before were gone entirely, now that the enemy had drawn a little blood. Smeeks, who was getting to be a right sea-lawyer, sat muttering with his friends and casting black looks at Morgan.

  Some said as how they’d best to turn back, now that the Indians had found them. If they didn’t, the Indians would pick them off one by one. Other folk were plain hopeless and reckoned it was better to lie down and die right there, rather than fight their way back through the jungle.

  Morgan must have heard it all, sitting upright by his fire. It was a strange thing, but John, looking across at him, felt pity for the man, alone there with his thoughts.

  John began to talk loud about how the Indians attacking only meant that Panama was near to hand; that folk only fought when they had something to lose. He went on to take wagers as to whether they’d sight the church towers of Panama next day, or the day after, and whether it would be gold or silver or jewels they should lay their hands to first. He allowed as how it was a shame they’d lost a few men, but no one ever made buttered eggs without breaking the shells first.

  Some men told him to go to hell, but some took heart and said he was right; weeping and wailing was bootless now, and they may as well laugh and hope for the best, by God.

  And so they argued back and forth. And all the while the prince sat a little distance away on the bare earth, looking out of his empty eyes, like an image of Fortune’s Wheel: I was once among the great. Regard me now…

  * * *

  Next morning they saw to their firearms before setting out, for it was plain there’d be fighting soon. Morgan had the canoes brought up to ferry the men across, and on they went, and not long after they saw a great pall of smoke hanging over the jungle ahead.

  “What should this be?” Morgan muttered to himself. John clapped Bob Plum on the shoulder and said: “Cooking fires! They’re boiling up our dinner, messmates!” Whereat the men all raised a great cheer and picked up the pace, jogging along with their muskets in their hands. They came to the palisade and stormed over it, whooping and firing, but no one fired back; and now they saw it was another deserted place, so recently left that the houses were still in flames, and abandoned cats and dogs ran here and there.

  “Roof rabbits!” cried Jago, and raising his musket drew a bead on someone’s Tibby and blew its brains out. Others fell to following his example, and presently there were little groups of men clustered here and there, cooking succulent bits of house pet over house coals. You’d have thought it was Christmas, they laughed and chattered so.

  “Admiral sir!” Dick Pettibone came waddling up, sweating and panting. “Here’s the king’s stables, that aren’t burned; and the lads have found, must be a dozen jars of wine of Peru.”

  “Oh Christ,” said Morgan, not as though in thanks, and he strode over to the stables and John followed him close. There were the great clay jars lined up along the stable wall, with a bread-bag hanging in the rafters above them. Two fellows had already hauled out one jar and broached it, and as John watched they gulped down near a quart each of the dark, sticky stuff, scooping it up in their dirty hands. Morgan looked on them with despair in his eyes; for nothing breaks discipline on a march like strong drink, and here was enough to make his whole force stupid.

  But Fortune did Morgan another good turn; for the two drinkers turned, first one and then the other, a queer shade of pea-green, and proceeded to puke their guts up. No surprise, guzzling down that much sweet wine on an empty belly. Morgan turned and shouted, “Treachery! It’s poisoned, you stupid bastards!”

  As the two groveled and moaned, and the others stood looking on in dismay, Morgan went to the other jars and smashed them, each one, with the hilt of his cutlass, and threw them over. There were some snarls, and one man ran forward to try to stop him. Morgan caught him by the front of his shirt and held him out at arm’s length.

  “You’d drink, would you? The whole town in flames about our ears, and the cattle driven away, and this one place left standing, with a drink for the thirsty privateers when they arrive? Fool! It’s a snare!”

  Such was the light in his eyes as he spoke, that the man stood down abashed, and so did all the rest who had come up to see; and by then the wine had all spilled out and soaked into the ground. So mutiny was avoided, and whether the wine had been really poisoned or whether no Spaniard had dared to set fire to royal property, who knows? It served Morgan’s turn. It taught John a lesson in quick thinking too.

  * * *

  Now, it happened that this was the place where the Chagres turned north, and Panama lay to the south; so being as it was all hard marching overland after this, and them having taken themselves possession of the palisadoed town, Morgan let them rest up here that day and through the night. Come morning they left the river.

  John marched among his messmates in the advance party, peering up at the mountains that rose to either side. Their way lay through the bottom of a gorge that narrowed. Soon there was room for no more than four or five to march abreast. Ahead it narrowed still further, for they could see the mouth of an arch through which they must go single file, a tunnel cut out of the rock. Jacques muttered something uneasily.

  “He says, this is where they will make their embuscade,” said Jago. Jacques said more, very earnestly and in a tone of entreaty, to Jago. Jago laughed and said something back, seeming to make mock of whatever Jacques had asked him.

  “Gentlemen! Say to one, say to all,” said Blackstone. “Has he noticed something else about which we ought to hear?”

  “No,” said Jago. “Only, he is afraid for me. Wish me to walk a little under the cover of the trees.”

  Which some men sneered at, and made kissing noises; and so the sound was obscured when it came.

  The clouds of locusts coming down on Egypt might have made such a noise, whirring and clattering. John never heard anything like it before or after. He looked up to see what it might be.

  There must have been four thousand arrows dropping toward them out of the sky, coming nearly straight down, and no sign of the bowmen who’d loosed them. John never remembered afterward how he’d got under cover, but there he found himself amongst the trees, with other men crowded around him, shaking and swearing. Arrows were still falling, out on the trail, like so many jackstraws. There were four men lying dead that John could see and Bob Plum dragging himself toward the trees, with an arrow sticking up under his chin. Out in the middle of the road the prince marched on, unconcerned, though an arrow had hit him in the shoulder.

  Dick Pettibone screamed, and he and the Reverend ran out to pull Bob to safety, heedles
s of the arrows still falling.

  “Hold your positions!” shouted Morgan, for some men had begun to run back the way they’d come.

  The Reverend was moaning and wringing his hands. Dick took hold of Bob’s collar and hauled.

  “Over there—” he said, panting. “We need privacy, Elias!”

  “What are you playing at?” said John, for it was plain Bob oughtn’t to be shifted much. “Get the bleeding arrow out first.”

  He drew his knife and sliced open the front of Bob’s shirt. “No!” cried Dick, but too late; for John saw that Bob was already bandaged tight around the chest, and the arrow had stabbed down between this bandage and his skin, cutting only a shallow trench where it had passed.

  “No, no, no—” said Bob, fending him off.

  “Oh, don’t be such a coward,” said John.

  You may think John a capital bull-calf, and you’d be right; for even now he only wondered, When did Bob get wounded before? And he cut the bandage to free the arrow, and the bandage fell away and there was the arrow lying between—

  “Bob’s a woman!” said John, astonished. He sat back on his heels, as Bob clutched the edges of her shirt and pulled them together.

  “You have looked upon my wife,” said the Reverend, and in a trice his big hands were about John’s throat and his red eyes were peering down into John’s own, and John felt his windpipe squeak shut before he could say anything in apology. Blackstone came running with cutlass drawn, and so did Jago and Jacques.

  “Elias! Stop!” said Dick, and began to sing the song about the little white lamb. Bob, where she lay, chimed in feebly. The Reverend joined in at last, easing up his grip enough for John to pull free. He fell back, gulping for breath.

  “Bloody hell,” he said, rubbing his throat. Light was dawning at last. Looking at Dick, he said: “And—you’re a woman too! Ain’t you?”

  “Les femmes!” said Jacques, horrified. Blackstone began to laugh.

  Morgan himself came striding through the brush. “What is this? I’ll have no damned fighting here!”

  “Dick ain’t a eunuch after all,” said John.

  “What?” said Morgan.

  “We have two of the fair sex here, disguised,” said Blackstone, smirking. Morgan looked at them, aghast; for of course now it seemed too obvious. Dick folded his arms and glared at them all.

  “You can’t send us back now,” she said. “Have we not been fit companions? Was not Mr. Hackbrace the first to the wall at Chagres Castle? We have fought bravely and well. Do we not deserve our shares?”

  “We must apologize, ladies, for our dull senses,” said Blackstone. “Else we’d have penetrated your disguises sooner.”

  “Spare us such feigned gallantries, sir,” said Dick.

  “You had better explain this,” said Morgan to the Reverend, who was crouched beside Bob, vainly trying to tuck the cut bandage back into place. He merely raised a bewildered face. Dick said:

  “We were attempting to repair our fortune, sir. We had lived humbly but honestly, until poor Elias yielded to the sin of Wrath and smote that man dead in Winksley, and we were obliged to flee England. We thought to make his temper, that had been the instrument of our undoing, also the means by which we gained a comfortable sufficiency. Yet Elias could not be trusted to go adventuring alone; only Clementine and I are able to soothe his rages.

  “Wherefore, Admiral, we hit upon the stratagem of disguising ourselves and traveling as comrades. But for this sad mischance, none had ever been the wiser.”

  “Some at least ought to have guessed,” said Morgan, giving John a look that made him squirm. He in his turn looked accusingly at Bob.

  “So you’re Clementine, then?”

  “Mrs. Clementine Hackbrace,” said she, pale but defiant.

  “And I am Lady Phyllida de Bellehache,” said she who had been Dick, and Blackstone left off leering for surprise.

  “But—but you were a great society beauty!” he said. “I’ve heard of you! There was a scandal—”

  Reverend Hackbrace was on his feet in an instant.

  “ ‘Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise,’ ” he said in a warning tone, flexing his hands.

  “Even so,” said Lady Phyllida, putting her hand on her hip. “Time changes us all, does it not? And now, Admiral, you will comprehend our desire for blest privacy to tend to poor Clementine’s hurts.”

  “That you may have,” said Morgan. “But understand me, ladies: you would be soldiers, and now you must soldier on. I have no men to spare to convey you safe home.”

  “We ask none,” said Lady Phyllida, with a toss of her head.

  “Where’s the prince?” said Blackstone, looking around suddenly. John pointed out through the brush, at the distant figure marching along and still drawing an occasional hail of arrows. Blackstone swore and charged after him.

  Some Indians had broken cover to come and stare at the prince. One fell dead in his tracks with Blackstone’s musket-ball between his eyes. The Brethren, seeing them, rallied and sent out a volley of shot, which killed two more; and though they retreated, Jago and several others rushed them, reloading on the run. Blackstone caught the prince and turned him round, and half-dragged him back to the cover on their side of the woods.

  “Get ’em!” said John, drawing and running from cover; for just then a pitched battle seemed a more congenial place to be. He ran, and others ran with him, as Morgan yelled, “Take prisoners! Twenty pieces of eight for the first man to take a prisoner!”

  Yet the prize went unclaimed. There was bloody battle in that pass before the tunnel, with nearly a score of Morgan’s men killed or wounded, and more of the Indians slain, since all they had to fight with close to were spears. They broke and ran at last, swift as deer through the tunnel, and by the time enough of the Brethren came pouring after them they were beyond range.

  * * *

  Strangely enough, the mood in camp that night was more cheerful than otherwise. This though it poured rain half the night, and with no shelter but a few shepherds’ huts. Maybe it was the fact that battle had finally been joined, which likely meant that Panama was near; maybe it was the news that two ladies had been discovered within the party. Morgan had a field shelter rigged with branches, and set John to guard it, along with the Reverend, and there Mrs. Hackbrace and Lady Phyllida sat and conversed pleasantly. Mrs. Hackbrace, once her wounds were tended at last, was found to be not much hurt.

  Notwithstanding what he’d said, Morgan was minded to send them back down to Chagres Castle in a canoe, with Jago and Jacques, who could be trusted not to commit outrages on their persons. But in the end he relented. For one thing, the ladies had held their own so far, and nobody else could sing the Reverend out of his rages. For another, they had been the only ones willing to see to the washing of the prince, and he soiled himself pretty regularly.

  So when the army moved on next morning, Lady Phyllida and Mrs. Hackbrace marched with them.

  * * *

  John marched by Morgan. The land was all cleared now, the road wide; there were the prints of booted feet that had gone before, so they knew it was not just Indians now but the Spanish too, who retreated from them. Morgan watched the forest with a scowl, and let it be known again that he’d pay for a prisoner to question. The boucaniers slipped ahead and ferreted through the brush, but the Indians were too swift and silent, the Spaniards too long gone.

  And then, as they struggled up the switchback road that scaled a green mountain, there was a shout from ahead. Jago came sprinting back, glad-faced, waving; Morgan broke into a run, and John ran beside him, and the whole army mustered its strength and sprinted, until at last they broke like a wave over the mountaintop—

  And there was the sea.

  Men sighed, and not a few dropped to their knees. John stared at the placid blue expanse, where a ship and half a dozen boats were gliding. That was the first time in his life he beheld the great South Sea. A salt wind came out of it, rolling up the face
of the mountain toward them, and blew their hair back out of their faces. Morgan’s cloak rustled with the breeze, and all their banners snapped.

  “We’ve done it!” said Morgan, turning to them all. How his eyes burned! “Here we stand, my boys, in despite of hunger and thirst and all that they dared to send against us. And we’re the first. Not Drake nor Hawkins nor Baskerville ever got so far. That great ocean there is henceforth ours.”

  Well, that got the Brethren cheering, and John with the rest; though it did seem to him that if boats were putting out from Panama, they might well be carrying the city’s wealth on them, to get it out of danger. He dropped his gaze from the sweet line of horizon to where the mountainside fell away below them into hills and broad meadows. He saw a white flash among the green. He peered harder, and saw the little figure running, holding her musket well away from her body.

  “Sir!” He caught Morgan’s arm, and pointed. Morgan turned swiftly and saw her.

  “By God, she’s beaten us,” he said under his breath. “There’s a girl for you, eh? Let God preserve us both, I’ll no nurses for her, nor corset-stays and tight shoes. She shall ride horses if she choose, and shoot, and climb trees. Who’d lock up a brave heart?”

  THE CITY

  The Brethren came down the mountain in good order, at least until they found a meadow where cows and horses grazed together. Then no starving man could think of anything but butchery, and Morgan let them do as they liked. The boucaniers among them dropped the animals with a few neat shots, and waded in with cutlasses drawn. Others scrambled for firewood. In short order they were stuffing themselves with grilled beef, and roasted horsemeat and asses’ flesh too, and nothing in the world had ever tasted so good to John. Morgan himself laid hold of a great gobbet of meat and wolfed it down nearly raw.