The Jamaica Station, page 13
part #3 of Carlisle & Holbrooke Naval Adventures Series
‘Good morning Your Excellency,’ said Carlisle. He hadn’t seen Don Alonso since the previous evening and was surprised to see him so well. ‘As you see, we have anchored and here is a boat to take you ashore.’
It was a remarkable scene. Castillo San Marco glistened in the bright sunshine. Its walls were made of Coquina, a stone that was formed of ancient shells bonded together, and its myriad silvery grains reflected the light so that it was painful to look at it directly.
Medina was anchored right under the fort’s guns. It was easy to see why all attempts at siege had so far failed. The river was so narrow that any attacking ship would be destroyed by the Spanish gunners before they could manoeuvre into position to bombard the fort. And even if a hostile ship should come unscathed to that position, one of the properties of Coquina was that it absorbed the shock of impacts. It wasn’t a question of cannon balls bouncing off, they just failed to cause the sort of damage that was expected. The only possibility was to establish a battery on the higher land across the river, but that would hardly answer against such strong battlements. It gave Carlisle an uneasy feeling lying there under the Spanish guns. If Don Alonso had played them false, if Spain had already declared war, then Medina would be hard-pressed to make her escape from this elegant trap.
The barge that approached was worthy of a Spanish colonial governor. It rowed six oars on each side, but the liveried rowers were all in the forward part. The space from amidships right aft to the transom was covered by a gaudy canopy held up by four posts. There were tassels at each corner of the canopy, and below it, the inward-facing seats were cushioned in red fabric. The flag of the ruling house of Spain, the Bourbon arms on a white background, flew from a staff on the transom.
As the last of Medina’s gun salutes echoed back from the tall walls of the castle, the barge hooked onto the larboard side of the frigate. Carlisle had alerted the bosun to the need for chairs slung from the yards to move Don Alonso and his family from the frigate into the boat, but he’d reckoned without the awe in which the office of the governor of Florida was held. The barge was broad, and the space between the oarsmen was taken up with a folding accommodation ladder. At first, it appeared that rigging the ladder would take some time, but within two minutes it was complete, a rigid contraption that locked onto the gunwale of the barge and provided a convenient, dignified and safe means for people of consequence – and the governor indeed met the description – to embark or disembark. All they had to do was to time the short step from the deck of Medina onto the accommodation ladder; the rest was just a stately descent. Medina’s bosun looked at it scornfully. ‘It’s all very well for this here harbour – more like a lake really – but I’d like to see how that device would survive even a flat day at Spithead,’ he said to anyone who would listen.
First up the ladder was the colonel whom Chalmers had already indicated to Carlisle as the commander of the Castillo San Marco, closely followed by an army doctor. From that moment, Carlisle lost all authority over Don Alonso and his family. The efficient Spanish army took over, and Don Alonso was carefully handed down into the boat, followed by his wife and daughter. His baggage, such of it that had survived the hurricane, would follow later.
‘You will stay in St. Augustine a few days, Captain?’ asked Don Alonso. ‘I owe you a debt of gratitude that it will be hard to repay, but I will do my poor best.’
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Medina spent five days in St. Augustine. Never had a British ship been so welcome; in fact, never had a British ship been welcome at all in the capital of Spanish Florida. Twice in that century, the southern British colonies had laid siege to Castillo San Marco, the last time only seventeen years before Medina’s visit, and the memories were still fresh. That both attacks had failed hardly mattered. The people of the town had been forced to take refuge in the castle, and their homes had been first levelled by the Spanish army to clear the fields of fire, and then the work was completed by the attackers who pillaged ruthlessly. Both sieges resulted in a castle that remained more-or-less intact, a town that was wholly destroyed and a populace that had to rebuild their homes and farms from the ground up.
However, Don Alonso ruled the colony with powers that were not unlike those that King Ferdinand, his master, enjoyed in Spain. He was the absolute ruler of this distant and half-forgotten colony, and if he said that Medina and its crew were welcome, there were none in St. Augustine who would dare to contradict him. The taverns were thrown open to those of the crew who were given leave. They complained that all they could get was wine, there was no beer and very little rum available, but nevertheless, they made the most of this unexpected welcome. In a way, it wasn’t unlike a run ashore in Cadiz or Cartagena in Old Spain: the same wine shops, the same heat, the same grinding poverty existing cheek-by-jowl with conspicuous wealth. By Sunday, Medina was an inch or two deeper in the water, weighed down with fresh fruit and vegetables, her water butts refilled and enough wood to keep the galley fire burning until they should reach Port Royal.
Carlisle had caught sight of Maria at each of the formal events during their stay in St. Augustine, the dinners, the celebratory mass and the receptions, but here on home territory, she’d been returned to the discipline of a chaperone. This lady of indeterminate age had evidently been well-briefed, and she hadn’t allowed Maria to pass close enough to Carlisle to exchange even a word. Much to his relief, Carlisle was favoured by nothing more than a wistful glance.
At dinner on Sunday the unfortunate young lady had been ushered out of the room when her composure left her, and she threatened to collapse, her passing marked by a strangled sob and the clucking of her chaperone. Chiara noted all this with satisfaction. She didn’t blame her husband and neither did she blame Maria. In fact, Chiara could have forecast how it would end, the whole affair had the stately inevitability of a Greek tragedy. It was even amusing in a way, but she was glad that it had passed without any lasting damage. Looking around at all the young Spanish officers, she could confidently forecast that Maria’s despair wouldn’t last out the month, probably not even the week.
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‘Well, Captain,’ said Don Alonso as they sat together after an early breakfast on Monday morning, ‘I shall miss your company, and that of Lady Chiara, but you have a war to return to, and it’s not possible that King George has so many ships of this quality that he can spare Medina indefinitely. The weather looks fair but beware of hurricanes, the season is still young.’
‘I regret that’s so,’ said Carlisle, wondering what Don Alonso knew or guessed about his orders to return home by way of the Caicos Passage and Cape François. ‘Admiral Cotes will be fretting for lack of frigates and my men are growing fat on Florida’s hospitality.’
Both men looked out beyond the castle’s walls to Medina in the harbour. The governor’s personal barge was at the jetty waiting for Carlisle, Medina’s anchor had been heaved in short, the Spanish pilot was on board, and the frigate would be feeling the Atlantic swell within half an hour of them finishing their coffee. This was a private breakfast. The formal farewells had been said at dinner on Sunday, after Mass at the castle’s chapel, which Chiara, Carlisle and Chalmers had attended. Chiara, of course, was a Catholic, and Carlisle attended out of respect and support to his wife. Chalmers, meanwhile, seized the opportunity to participate in a Catholic mass without the risk of being censured, which would surely have been the least he could expect if he’d attended a mass in England. So, this was the final farewell, but Carlisle had the distinct feeling that there were some things that Don Alonso wanted to say to him, issues that couldn’t be discussed in public.
‘You’ll be aware, captain, that I have engineered this last meeting so that I can speak freely to you in private,’ said Don Alonso in his habitually straightforward manner. It almost seemed that he’d been reading Carlisle’s thoughts. ‘There are three matters I want to raise. First, and most sincerely to thank you. You have saved my life on two occasions, but of greater importance, you saved the lives of my wife and daughter, whom I treasure above all else.’
Carlisle watched Don Alonso carefully. He was sure that the governor valued his daughter’s life, perhaps even over his own, but he wasn’t at all sure that his devotion extended to his wife, and he was confident that many of the ladies of the governor’s court could attest to that.
‘Second, to express my sincere hope that Britain and Spain won’t go to war again this century,’ said Don Alonso, with a conspiratorial air. ‘It will come as no surprise to you that our mutual friends, the French, are working hard to bring Spain into the war and create a Hapsburg family alliance against your country. The invasion of Minorca, of course, was principally so that France could offer the island to Spain in exchange for our support in the war. However, it is not in my country’s interests to fight Britain again, and I want to express my fervent hope that we will remain at peace, if only so that I can welcome Medina to St. Augustine again.’
Carlisle bowed. It wasn’t his place as a junior post-captain to comment on matters of high diplomacy, and from the expression on Don Alonso’s face, his host knew that very well. In any case, he strongly suspected that the governor knew more than he was saying about Spain’s real attitude to this latest war.
‘And third, Captain, a warning.’
Carlisle moved uncomfortably in his chair as he waited for Don Alonso to continue.
‘A caution is perhaps a better word to use, but anyway, you would do well to heed it,’ he said, stroking his beard. Carlisle had never seen Don Alonso stroke his beard, it was generally considered impolite, and in this case, it lent a hint of drama to the Spaniard’s delivery of his warning.
‘The Dutch pirate, as you know, is a resolute man. He is not only determined, but he is also vindictive. I would not be surprised if he extends his vendetta to include you and your crew. You must be on your guard! Medina is powerful enough to resist the two Dutch ships in the open sea, but he will attempt to use surprise to overpower you, and I believe he will stop at nothing. My family and I are safe enough in Florida, and I will not put to sea again without an adequate escort, but I am afraid that while he cannot strike at me, he may make an attempt on you. Be on your guard, Captain!’
Carlisle considered for a moment. Did Don Alonso know that his wife had revealed to Chiara the reason that these Dutchmen were hunting him across the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico? Why they’d been pursuing him for the past nine years? From the slight conspiratorial smile on his face, it appeared that he did, but for some reason didn’t wish to acknowledge it. Probably he’d contrived the conversation between the two women so that his role was deniable. Carlisle held his gaze for a few seconds. Evidently, the knowledge was shared, and it was better not to press the point.
They parted with a most cordial handshake, and as Medina’s anchor broke away from the mud of the Matanzas River, the Castillo’s batteries fired a parting salute that shook the slates on the roofs of the houses of the town. Medina dropped her pilot into the accompanying cutter when they were clear of the river mouth and then she stood out into the open ocean. When she was out of sight of land, she put the wind on her beam and reached away towards Savannah in the British colony of Georgia, some hundred and fifty miles to the north. If Don Alonso had guessed that they were bound for Savannah, he politely didn’t show it. Although Britain and Spain were at peace, that fact hardly mattered to the colonies of Florida and Georgia who carried out a constant and bitter feud across the border. As far as Florida was concerned, Georgia was a hostile colony with which they shared an ill-defined and often contested border. No peace beyond the line indeed.
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13: The Angelini Cousins
Wednesday, tenth of August1757.
Medina, at Sea. Tybee Island, Georgia west 12 leagues.
Medina was under full sail, moving steadily eastwards out into the Atlantic. She’d weighed her anchor and left Savannah Sound soon after first light, glad to shake off the intense, sticky heat, the mosquitos and the barely-concealed hostility of the colonists. The Province of Georgia was a new colony, only thirty-five years old, and it sat precariously between the established territory of Carolina and Spanish Florida. Indeed, part of the reason for Georgia’s existence was as a buffer between the British and Spanish colonies on the eastern seaboard of America. The Georgia militia had laid siege to Castillo San Marco only seventeen years before, and the defeat and the loss of so many colonists was still fresh in the memory of the inhabitants of Savannah. When this Virginian captain came sailing in out of the blue with the news that he’d saved the lives of the governor of Florida and his family and restored them to their home, it was understandable that he should find little friendliness in Savannah. Medina had stayed barely twenty-four hours and had not sailed up the Savannah River at all, remaining at anchor in the sound where at least there was some breeze and fewer biting insects.
‘Good evening Mister Hosking. I hope this cool sea air agrees with you after the coast of America.’
‘It certainly does ma’am.’ The sailing master had reverted to his usual offshore rig of duck trousers and a linen shirt, and he was apparently the better for it. Even twelve miles downriver from the colonial capital, he’d felt the need to wear his blue coat and hat to maintain the dignity of the ship while it was at anchor.
‘Captain Carlisle tells me that it will take two weeks to return to Port Royal,’ said Chiara.
‘That it will ma’am, a fortnight if we can get through these variables and back into the northeast trade winds without too much delay. We have an errand to perform at Cape François that will add a day or two, so I can’t promise that we will be stretching out our cable before the last week of the month.’
‘Are we then in the variables that you spoke of?’ Chiara asked, ‘and yet we appear to be sailing at a reasonable speed.’
‘Well, here’s the problem, ma’am,’ said the sailing master. He was always happy to display his knowledge and here he saw a great opportunity and a willing listener.
‘Mister Smith,’ he said to the midshipman of the watch, who was loitering only a few paces away. ‘Jump below to my cabin and bring me the chart that you’ll see on my desk.’
‘Aye, aye, sir,’ replied the midshipman who sprinted for the quarterdeck ladder and thence below. He returned so fast that Hosking hadn’t even managed to start another sentence. It was wonderful how all these young men were so eager to show their zeal and energy when the captain’s wife was on deck.
‘Now, hold this down on the binnacle, both hands for the chart, don’t worry about yourself.’
In an hour it would be dark, but so abrupt was the transition from day to night this close to the tropics, that the chart could be seen clearly in the slanting light.
‘Now, we’re here, more-or-less,’ said Hosking, his finger to the chart some thirty-five miles off the coast, on the same latitude as Savannah which they had left twelve hours ago. ‘Our orders are to return to Port Royal here,’ and his finger traced a straight line cutting south and a little east, back through the Florida Straits, clipping the western edge of the Bahamas, crossing Cuba and Jamaica to the island’s southwestern corner where Port Royal could just be identified as a notch in the coastline. ‘Now, if we could fly there at our average speed of, say, six knots, we’d make it in just seven days, it’s less than a thousand miles south of here.’
Chiara nodded. This much she knew already having studied her husband’s chart, but she didn’t want to interrupt Hosking while he was so talkative. She wanted to hear the details that only navigators knew and if it took a little charm to extract it from this seasoned sailor, then so be it.
‘I’m sure you have a plan that prevents us being wrecked on any of those islands, Mister Hosking,’ she said with a smile.
‘Aye, I do,’ he replied, not sensing the irony in Chiara’s voice. ‘We’ve to look at the French navy in Cape François,’ he pointed to a tiny indent in the northwest coast of Hispaniola, ‘and then we can take the Windward Passage between Cuba and French Hispaniola – they call it Saint Domingue nowadays – and then around the eastern end of Jamaica and so to Port Royal.’
Chiara recognised the geographical logic, but it was the subtlety of winds and tides that interested her.
‘We’re well out of the northeast trades here and won’t pick them up until we’re about twenty-eight degrees above the equator,’ Hosking traced a horizontal line across the chart from at St. Augustine. ‘Further north from here the westerlies rule but between the westerlies and the trade winds we have this band of variables. We can’t head straight south to pick up the trade winds because that would put us too far west and we’d have to beat against the wind to make our way to the east. So, we must head out into the Atlantic for perhaps three or four days before we set our head to the south and aim for this gap between the Caicos Islands and the easterly Bahamas.’
Chiara frowned. She could see the problem immediately. For centuries mariners had been able to fix their latitude with some certainty, particularly in areas where the sun was less likely to be obscured. But if Medina was to head east into the trackless wastes of the Atlantic, she needed to know her longitude to determine when to head south for the coast of Hispaniola. Chiara knew very well that there was no reliable way of directly measuring longitude.
‘How will you determine when we should turn to the south, Mister Hosking,’ she asked, studying the chart and running her finger along their intended track. ‘You speak of three or four days, but a day of error, either way, will cause us to entirely miss this passage.’
