Buccaneer

'And had you?'

The pilot shot Hector a venomous glance. 'What do you think? The captain and the owner were both peninsulares, good Spaniards, so no one is ever going to charge them with smuggling, nor accuse the local consulado who sell on the contraband. On the other hand I am a foreigner. So I am disposable.'

'I thought 1 detected a foreign accent,' said Hector.

'I'm originally from Greece. In the merchant service hereabouts you'll find Portuguese, Corsicans, Genoese, Venetians, men from all over. Local-born lads prefer to stay ashore and run plantations with Indian labourers. It's an easier life than tramping up and down the coast in merchant tubs.'

'But at least everyone respects a pilot.'

The Greek gave a cynical laugh. 'I'm only half a pilot. The Alcalde and his sort fear that we'll gang up and run for home and take our knowledge with us. So the rules say that I can never serve aboard a ship whose captain is also a foreigner.'

'But now you'll be aboard Trinity and that's a foreign ship.'

'Even then my knowledge won't be of much use. I only know the coast south of here, and most of that is a barren, godforsaken land. That's about as much as this addled head can hold at any one time.' The Greek smiled sourly and tapped his brow.

'So you don't have any charts?'

The Greek bared his teeth at Hector in astonishment. 'Charts! If the Alcalde got to learn that I was making charts, or even possessed one, I would prefer to take my punishment as a smuggler. No one except a handful of the most trusted captains are allowed to keep a derotero and they must be Spaniards, like Captain Lopez of the Santo Rosario, God rest his soul.'

His remark reminded Hector of the glance that had passed between the Alcalde and Captain Peralta. It dawned on him now that the real reason why they had agreed to an exchange was the need to recover Captain Lopez's folder of navigation notes and sketches. All their talk about Dona Juana's well-being had been a sham. They had insisted that she was treated with respect because then no one would search her belongings and find the derotero.

Hector groaned inwardly. If he had not been so distracted by Maria, he would have worked this out for himself. Then an even more dispiriting thought occurred: the only person who could have told the Alcalde about the hidden derotero was Maria.

Looking back towards Paita's church tower, Hector cursed himself for being a fool. He had allowed himself to be misled. But what made his chagrin even more painful was that he still could not stop thinking about Maria.

_SEVENTEEN

'You weren't exactly honest with her either,' Dan bluntly pointed out when Hector told him of Maria's deception. 'Neither she nor Dona Juana know that we've made a copy of the derotero. That was done behind their backs.'

It was a breezy afternoon with a scattering of high cloud and Trinity was beating out to sea under plain sail. Hector had come back aboard three days earlier and, as arranged with the Alcalde, Dona Juana and the Santo Rosario had been left behind at Paita in exchange for the stores from Paita's royal dockyard. The supply of rope, canvas, tallow and tar meant that Trinity could be made fit for a long voyage, and as none of the crew relished the prospect of sailing back to Panama and returning through the jungle to the Caribbean, it had been decided to leave the Pacific by sailing south, all the way around the tip of South America.

'Do you think our pilot knows what he's doing? He seems more interested in gambling than in making sure we are heading the right way,' asked Dan dubiously. He was watching the Greek, whose name was Sidias. After telling the helmsman his course, he had produced a tavil board and started a game of backgammon against the quartermaster. Now they were quarrelling as to how the game should be played. Sidias was insisting that they follow the Greek rules, as they were more ancient.

'No harm in following his advice, at least for now,' Hector assured the Miskito. 'He says there's a strong adverse current along the coast and we need to be at least a hundred miles offshore before we turn south. Sidias claims that, by staying well out to sea, we'll trim weeks off our passage.'

'Is he proposing to take us through the Passage or around the Cape?'

'He hasn't said,' Hector answered.

'Not much use as a pilot then,' sniffed Jacques who had walked over to join them. He lowered his voice. 'Will those navigation notes you copied be of any use when we are trying to find the Passage?'

'I can't be sure. We've never put any of them to the test.'

'If Captain Lopez's navigation notes were so precious, I don't understand why Dona Juana did not simply get rid of them overboard. She could have dropped the folder out of the stern window at any time,' said Dan.

'You don't know how those aristocratic women think,' Jacques told him. 'Dona Juana might have known the value of the folder and wanted to make sure it got back into Spanish hands. But more likely she took a delight in believing that she was making fools of a group of slow-witted mariners. It was a game for her, to demonstrate her superiority.'

He fell silent as someone behind them coughed. It was Basil Ringrose who had just appeared on deck, carrying a back-staff and notebook. He looked ill, his skin waxy and pale, eyes bloodshot, and he had difficulty in breathing. Many of the crew believed that he was still suffering from taking shelter under a manzanilla tree on a night he had spent ashore. There had been a shower of rain in the night and he had woken up with his skin covered in red spots from the poisonous drips which had sprinkled on him while he slept. The spots and their burning sensation had long since faded, but Ringrose remained sickly. He suffered from frequent headaches and bouts of near-blindness.

Ringrose reached out and grasped a weather shroud for support as another fit of violent coughing racked him.

Dan spoke up. 'I was just asking Hector if we would be better going around the Cape or through the Passage.'

'The Passage would be my choice,' Ringrose answered huskily. 'Provided we can find the entrance. The coast is likely to be scattered with islands and reefs. We could finish up smashed to pieces.'

'Then why not try for the Cape?'

'Because no English vessel has ever gone that way. That's something our captain failed to mention when he suggested we should sail our way out of the South Sea. The Spaniards and the Dutch have gone round the Cape, but no other nation as far as is known. Even Drake himself preferred the Passage. There are ice islands down there.' He hawked, turned his head and spat a gob of phlegm over the rail. 'Anyway, that's a much longer way. I doubt we'd be back in home waters before Christmas. And who knows what sort of reception we will receive.'

'Couldn't be worse than what the Spaniards will do to us if we stay around here,' said Jacques.

Ringrose treated him to a sardonic smile. 'You forget that we are the rump of an irregular expedition. Captain Sharpe and his friends left Jamaica without so much as by-your-leave to the governor. Not one of our leaders carried a commission to go raiding the Main. That makes us all pirates, if the authorities choose to think so.'

'But Sir Henry Morgan never obtained prior permission when he attacked Panama, and he finished up with a knighthood,' Hector objected.

'He brought back so much plunder that he was too wealthy to be prosecuted. By contrast, what have we got to show for our efforts? A few hundred pieces of eight for every man? That's not enough to buy our way out of trouble. Besides, we don't have Morgan's connections with the rich and powerful.'

There was a short silence, then Ringrose was speaking again. 'In the time we've been gone from Jamaica, anything can have happened. A new king on the throne, a different governor, wars declared and peace treaties signed. We've no idea of what might have changed, and how that will affect our return. We'll not find out until we get there.' He glanced up at the sky. 'Sun's close to its zenith, Hector.'