He shivered. A cloud had passed across the sun and the wind brought a momentary chill in the shadow. Robbed of sunlight, the plumage of the two dancing hummingbirds abruptly lost its irridescence and, as if sensing the change in his mood, they darted back into the foliage. Hector got to his feet and began to descend the path back to camp.
He arrived to find the general council already in session. The entire crew of Trinity was gathered in the glade where they had set up their tents. Watling was standing on a makeshift platform of water barrels and planks and haranguing them in his gruff soldierly voice.
'What's going on?' Hector asked quietly as he joined Jezreel and Jacques at the back of the crowd.
'Watling has just been elected our new general by a majority of twenty votes. They've turned Sharpe out and chosen Watling to replace him,' answered the big man. Hector peered over the shoulders of the men. Bartholomew Sharpe was in the front rank of the assembly, over to one side. He appeared relaxed and unconcerned, his head tilted back as he listened to Watling's announcements, his soft round face inscrutable. Hector remembered how he had thought when he had first laid eyes on Sharpe that his fleshy lips reminded him of a fish, a carp, and there was still that same faint air of guile. Seemingly, Sharpe was unaffected by his abrupt dismissal from overall command but Hector wondered what was going on behind that bland exterior.
'We return to the ways of our gallant Captain Sawkins before his death,' Watling was saying loudly. 'Courage and comradeship will be our watchwords!'
There was a murmur of approval from one section of his audience. Among them Hector recognised several of the more brutish members of the crew.
'There will be no more blasphemy!' grated Watling. 'From now on we observe the Sabbath, and unnatural vice will be punished!' His tone had turned harsh and he was staring directly at someone in the crowd. Hector craned his neck to see who it was. Watling had singled out Edmund Cook, the fastidiously dressed leader of one of the companies that set out from Golden Island. Hector had heard a rumour that Cook had been found in bed one day with another man, but had dismissed the tale as mere gossip.
Watling was speaking again, barking out his words.
'Gambling is forbidden. Anyone who plays at cards or dice will have his share of plunder reduced . . .' Watling stopped abruptly, and suddenly his arm shot out as he pointed at Sharpe. 'Hand your dice to the quartermaster,' he ordered.
Hector watched Bartholomew Sharpe reach into his pocket and produce his dice. They were taken from him by Duill, one of the men who had tossed the shot priest overboard while he was still alive.
'What's happened to Samuel Gifford? I thought he was our quartermaster,' Hector asked Jezreel.
'Watling insisted on having a second quartermaster appointed. John Duill is one of his cronies.'
Duill had handed the dice on to Watling who held them up over his head for all to see and called out, 'These are not fit to be aboard a ship.' Then he drew back his arm and flung them far into the bushes. From several onlookers came catcalls and scornful whistles, clearly directed at Sharpe. The demoted captain still showed no emotion.
'Where would you lead us?' yelled someone from the crowd.
Watling paused before answering. His eyes swept across his audience. He looked very sure of himself. When he did finally speak, his voice rang out as though he was a drill sergeant.
'I propose we attack Arica.'
There was a moment's lull, then an excited noisy chatter broke out in the crowd. Hector heard one scarred buccaneer give a subdued snort of approval.
'What's so special about Arica?' he whispered to Jezreel.
'Arica is where the treasure from the Potosi silver mines is brought to be loaded on the galleons for shipment. It's said that bars of bullion are left stacked on the quays.'
'Surely a place like that would be powerfully defended,' said Hector.
Someone in the crowd must have thought the same, for he called out to Watling, 'How can we take such a stronghold?'
'If we attack boldly, we can overrun the town in less than an hour. We'll use grenades in the assault.'
Hector caught sight of Ringrose in the crowd. He was standing beside Dampier, and both men looked unconvinced by Watling's confident assertion. Duill, the new second quartermaster, was already calling for a show of hands to vote on his commander's proposal.
The vote was two-thirds in favour of an assault on Arica, and Watling's supporters cheered loudly, slapping one another on the back and promising their comrades that soon they would all be rich beyond their dreams. The council over, Samuel Gifford was calling for volunteers to help prepare the grenades to be used in the assault.
'Why don't we join the grenade makers,' suggested Jacques. 'I'm growing bored on this island, and it will give us something to do.'
As the three of them walked over to where Gifford was assembling his work crew, Hector found himself agreeing with Jacques. Life on Juan Fernandez had grown wearisome and dull. Five weeks spent on the island was enough. He had no wish to go raiding the Spaniards but he was looking forward to getting to sea again. He wondered if the reason for his restlessness was wanderlust or had more to do with his decision to leave aside his dream about Susanna.
'I need someone to cut up musket bullets in half,' said Gifford. His glance fell on Jezreel. 'That's a job for you.'
He sent Hector to search Trinity's stores for lengths of condemned rope while Jacques was to bring back a large iron cooking pot and a quantity of the pitch normally used to treat the vessel's hull.
When the materials arrived, the quartermaster set Jacques to melting the pitch over a fire while the others unpicked the rope into long strands of cord.
'Now follow closely what I do,' Gifford said as he took a length of the unravelled cord and began to wind it around his fist. 'Make a ball of the twine but do it carefully, from the outside in and leaving the coils loose so they run out freely.'
When he had the ball of twine completed, he showed the loose end of the string which emerged from the centre like the stalk on a large apple.
'Now for the coating,' he announced. He took a sharp straight stick and carefully pushed it through the completed ball. Going across to Jacques's iron pot he dipped the ball into the melted pitch and held it up in the air for the pitch to harden. Then he repeated the process. 'Two or three coatings should be right. Enough to hold a shape.'
He beckoned to Jezreel. 'Hand me some of those half musket balls,' and he began to stick the lead bullets into the soft tar.