PIRATE: Privateer (34 page)

‘That was nothing. The man I work for told me about you. He knew a great deal about you and where to find you. Even suggested that I visit you.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Captain Blackmore. He’s a wealthy planter and member of the Assembly. I have a job teaching Spanish to his three children.’ Hector looked down at the floor. A thought had
occurred to him. It was a coincidence, but worth following up. ‘This Blackmore. Does he have any contact with the Spanish?’

‘He sees Señor Pimiento often. Señor Pimiento is the agent for the asiento in Port Royal.’

‘And you say that Blackmore knows all about me?’

‘Yes. He described your appearance, the colour of your eyes, even that you speak Spanish with a Galician accent.’

‘That’s odd,’ said Hector slowly. ‘As far as I know, I’ve never met this Captain Blackmore.’

He turned to her, his eyes lit up with hope. ‘He has to be the man Señor Corbalan was speaking about!’ He jumped to his feet and began to pace up and down the small cell.
‘Maria, think for a moment. Is there any reason why Blackmore would have commercial contact with Cartagena?’

Maria thought back to her days in Jamaica. Then she remembered the morning she had first come ashore from Petit Goâve and watched the furtive loading of the casks of rum from the isolated
beach, rum that came from Captain Blackmore. Then there was the odd remark from the mulatto overseer who had helped her. When he had heard her Spanish accent and that she was looking for work, he
had suggested that he take her to see Captain Blackmore. How had he put it? ‘He’s in thick with the Spaniards.’ It all added up.

Maria’s heart sank as she looked into Hector’s excited face and said, ‘Hector, you’re almost certainly right. Blackmore is heavily engaged in smuggling. He probably has
been dealing with the Spaniards for years.’

Hector was triumphant. ‘Oh, Maria!’ He seized her hand. ‘This is the stroke of fortune that we needed. The man who employs you is the man who Corbalan spoke about. It will be
the easiest thing in the world to work with him, and organize my release.’

Maria looked at him, a flush rising to her cheeks. Her voice trembled as she said, ‘Hector, this man is the last person in the world who would help you.’

He saw her distress, and his eyes searched her face. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Captain Blackmore would prefer to see you hang rather than help you. He risks being exposed as an accomplice of the Spaniards.’

The light in Hector’s eyes began to dim. ‘That’s what Reeve said might happen.’

Maria was twisting the scrap of cloth in her hands. She summoned up her courage before she looked Hector full in the face and told him, ‘There is another reason why I cannot ask Captain
Blackmore to use his influence to help you. He has made it clear that he will only do so if I sleep with him.’

Hector went white. He felt dazed and angry, strangely detached from his surroundings. It was as if someone had punched him in the stomach. He could not trust his emotions and dropped his gaze,
staring at the floor, trying to gather his thoughts. The bricks in the floor seemed to ripple as if a wave had passed through them.

Time stood still, and then the world was tilting and shaking in the strangest, most unnatural way.

The bench on which Maria sat rocked a couple of times. Then it tipped over and she was thrown to the ground. Hector had already lost his balance and was sprawled on the floor. He tried in vain
to get to his feet but everything was moving from side to side and there was nothing solid or firm which he could hold on to. Maria was staring about her wildly.

Then they heard the rumble and crash of falling masonry.

‘E
ARTHQUAKE
!’
BLURTED
H
ECTOR
. Without thinking he was crouching over Maria, trying to
protect her with his body. Another tremor shook the ground, and several lumps of plaster cascaded down from the ceiling. The air was filled with a fog of swirling dust. Dimly he heard the first
screams float in from the outside world, then another rumbling crash as somewhere in the distance another wall fell. He looked around for better shelter, but there was none. The bench was the only
furniture in the cell.

‘We must get out of the building,’ he shouted into Maria’s ear. Her hair was powdered with brick dust. She had sustained a cut to her cheek, and there was a smear of blood. But
she appeared unharmed, though numbed by the suddenness and severity of the earthquake.

Still on hands and knees, Hector forced himself to take a long slow breath to calm himself. Then he rose slowly and cautiously, and made a dash for the door. He grabbed the heavy iron handle
just as another tremor rocked the building. He clung on, lurching to one side and managed to stay upright. There was a splintering crack close above his head, and he looked up to see that the heavy
doorframe had been twisted out of shape by the movement of the building. He wrenched at the handle and, to his relief, the door pulled a third of the way open before it jammed on its distorted
hinges. He turned back and helped Maria to her feet. The ground had stopped shaking, though he dreaded that another tremor could come at any time. Holding her by the hand, he began to squeeze
through the narrow gap, praying that the building would not shift, crushing him between the door and jamb. He burst free, and a moment later Maria followed him.

They found themselves in a narrow corridor. A pile of slumped rubble blocked any movement to their left, but in the opposite direction the way was clear. Hand in hand they staggered forward,
breathing in the fog of dust. ‘I must find the others,’ Hector wheezed, coughing to clear his throat. They passed several more doors that led into cells, for each had a shuttered
window. Then they were in a room where the warders spent their time. It was deserted. Three or four chairs lay on their sides, a table still upright but streaked with spilled beer, a couple of
leather tankards had tumbled across the floor. The door to the street was wide open. Clearly the warders had fled into the safety of the open air. Hector looked to see if they had abandoned the
prison keys. Lying under the table he saw them – a bunch of heavy metal keys on a ring. ‘Maria, get outside and wait for me. I’ll find the others,’ he said. She hesitated.
‘Go!’ he shouted. ‘I’ll be out in a moment.’

She turned and ran.

He tried to get his bearings in the unfamiliar surroundings. Two doors led off into the interior of the building. He opened the nearest of them. Another corridor, very like the first, more
iron-plated cell doors on either side. ‘Jezreel! Jacques!’ he shouted. To his relief he heard an answering shout. It came from the second door along. He ran to it and slammed back the
shutter. Jezreel, Bartaboa and Jacques were all inside and on their feet. None of them looked to have been harmed. ‘Hang on! I’ll get you out,’ Hector called. He tried the keys in
the lock, one after the other. On the third attempt he felt the levers turn. ‘That’s it!’ he called, and pushed on the door. It did not move. He stepped back and threw his weight
on the door. Still it did not budge. ‘It’s jammed. Try pulling it open from your side!’ he shouted. He slammed his shoulder against the metal panels, ignoring the jolt of pain. He
felt the door move a fraction. He heard Jezreel’s deep voice say calmly, ‘Take your time, Hector. On my count, One, two, three . . .’ And this time the door banged open.

His friends stepped out. ‘This way!’ Hector hustled them back the way he had come.

‘What about the other prisoners?’ asked Jacques.

‘There’s no time! If there’s another quake, the whole building may come down,’ Hector snapped irritably. He was thinking of Maria waiting outside. To have found her, only
to be crushed beneath a collapsing building would be stupid.

‘You’ve done your bit. See you shortly,’ said Jezreel. He took the bunch of keys from Hector’s hand, and strode along the corridor, sliding open the shutters of the cell
doors and peering in.

Hector found Maria hovering anxiously by the main prison entrance. With her were half a dozen strangers, local worthies by the look of them. They were nervously watching the prisoners coming out
of the gaol although they were doing nothing to stop them. There was no sign of any warder nor of the boy. Hector supposed that they had gone to their homes to see what damage had been done.

‘Thank God you’re safe,’ said Maria hugging him. She was half crying with relief.

‘We must wait for Jezreel,’ Hector told her. He looked about him. The scene of devastation came as a physical shock. Inside the prison there had been no way of knowing what was going
on outside. The prison lay at the eastern, poorer end of town, and possibly two-thirds of the houses had collapsed. Their brick and plaster walls had fallen into the roadway, their roofs caved in.
The houses that still stood were the humbler structures lightly built of wood, though several of these were askew and looked dangerously unstable. In several places the ground had split into
jagged, random cracks, several feet across. Several large holes had appeared, as if the surface had suddenly fallen into underground caves. There were surprisingly few people about. Most were
standing in shock, though a few were clawing at the rubble and fallen stone, trying to get back into their shattered houses. Whether they were searching for their families or merely to recover
their possessions, was impossible to tell.

It was when he turned and looked in the opposite direction that Hector understood the full force of the tremor. The building adjacent to the Marshalsea was the courthouse. It had been designed
to look imposing, with tall windows, a broad flight of steps leading to a door flanked by columns, and faced in imported stone. It was a total ruin. Beams and rafters stuck out of piles of
rubble.

‘Looks as though we won’t be standing trial in there, at least for a while,’ said Jezreel. He, Jacques and Bartaboa had finally emerged from the prison. Behind them were five
or six men, fellow prisoners. These were looking about themselves with a mixture of disbelief and optimism.

‘Come on!’ one of them muttered to his companion. ‘Let’s get out of here.’ The two of them scurried away.

Bartaboa was distraught. ‘I must go to see how my family are.’

‘Your family?’ said Jacques.

‘My sister and her children live above the Three Mariners.’

‘We’ll go with you in case you need a hand,’ said Jezreel.

The little group set off past the wrecked courthouse and turned out on the waterfront. They had not gone more than a few paces when they stopped short, unable to believe their eyes. It was
Hector who first voiced what all of them could scarcely credit.

‘The sea! Where’s it gone?’ All along the docks, the water level had dropped far below anything that was natural. Vessels normally tied up with their decks above or level with
the quayside, were now sunk almost out of sight. Gangplanks which had once sloped downward from the ships to the dock were now tilted the other way.

‘What’s going on?’ murmured Jacques in awe.

As they watched, the row of ships continued to sink downward. Gangplanks clattered and slipped. Mooring lines grew taut and snapped, or wrenched the bollards from the quays. The sea was
disappearing beneath them, sucking backwards, recoiling from the land.

Suddenly there was a slithering, grinding crash, and a large section of the parapet of Fort Carlisle, the nearest harbour bastion, broke away and fell, landing into water now less than a foot
deep, where once an ocean-going ship had been able to moor.

‘What makes the tide do that?’ asked Jacques.

‘That’s not the tide, but something else,’ said Hector. Puzzled, he was staring up at the outer wall of the fort. It appeared to be leaning outwards and at the same time
sinking downwards. He dragged his attention back to the harbour. The water had ebbed so far that they were beginning to see patches of stinking mud, slime-covered boulders, the blackened ribs of
old wrecks. Farther out, from where the merchant ships were at anchor, came shouts and cries of fear. The ships were grounding, touching the bottom with their keels. There was not enough water to
keep them afloat. Their crews were scrambling to abandon their vessels or keep their footing on sloping decks. Several of the vessels began to heel over on their sides.

‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ breathed Jezreel.

They stood transfixed, unable to comprehend what was going on. Before their eyes, fish wriggled and flapped in the damp mud, stranded by the receding water. Gulls and cormorants came wheeling
down from the sky, calling and shrieking, to pick up easy meals. There was something uncanny and frightening about their gleeful bursts of gluttony in a harbour that was draining away and
vanishing. All along the quay astonished observers stood and gaped at the sight. It was so extraordinary that even those who were salvaging goods from a shattered warehouse turned and watched.

Through the soles of his feet Hector felt a distant trembling. It was a very faint shivering. Something made him look at Fort Carlisle again. This time there was no doubt. The seaward wall of
the fort was definitely leaning at an angle. The massive rampart, made of stone blocks weighing several tons, was tilting towards the sea as if the foundations had been undermined. Yet there was no
water to gnaw away the foundations.