Dan ran his finger down the page. 'See here, the entrance to the Passage is clearly shown.'
Hector brightened. 'If our notes are accurate — and Captain Lopez's original is right - I'm confident that I could find the Passage. All we need to know is our latitude.'
Dan rubbed his chin. 'What if there's an overcast sky like these past few days and you cannot take a backstaff reading? I doubt very much that the crew will want to risk this coast again. They've had a bad fright already.'
Hector was about to reassure his friend that even a glimpse of the sun would be enough, when Dan added, 'And if we suddenly announce to the crew that we have these navigation notes, we'll bring further trouble on ourselves. They will want to know why we did not say so before.'
'Then we go around the Cape and not through the Passage, and say not a word to anyone about Captain Lopez's notes,' Hector answered. 'Those more general maps we took out of the Santo Rosario are good enough to get us around the Cape if we go to fifty-eight degrees and then turn east. After that, we should come into the Atlantic'
He rolled up the papers and slid them back into the tube.
'Come on, Dan. No one wants to stay a moment longer in this dreary place.'
So it turned out. Trinity, with her rudder repaired and rerigged with the cordage from Paita, took advantage of an offshore breeze and threaded her way through the skerries until she reached the open ocean. Shortly after, she turned south and sailed into waters known to her crew only from hearsay. There they came upon sights that confirmed the stories they had heard - immense blocks of blue-white ice, the size of small islands and drifting on the current, whales of monstrous size, and birds who followed the ship day after day, gliding on wings whose span exceeded the width of even Jezreel's outstretched arms. All this time the weather remained kind, and Trinity entered the Atlantic without enduring a single storm. Northwards next, the sea miles rolling by, the sun higher each day, and the temperature increasing. With no sight of land or other ship, Trinity might have been the only vessel on the ocean. To pass the time, the men reverted yet again to their favourite pastime
—gambling. It was as if nothing had changed since the South Sea. Those who gambled lost most of their plunder to Captain Sharpe who, fearful of their resentment, took to sleeping with a loaded pistol beside him. Only Sidias was his rival for winnings. The Greek's cunning at backgammon meant he swept up most of what the captain missed.
Christmas came and Paita's sow was slaughtered and eaten under a clear blue sky while waiting for the fickle doldrum winds. By that time the men were so anxious for the voyage to end that they clustered around Hector and Ringrose as they took each midday sight, demanding to know how much progress had been made. Ringrose's health had improved with the warmer weather, and he had regained his usual cheerful manner. It was he who finally declared that they must make their landfall very soon. The following dawn a low, green island on the horizon was recognisable as Barbados, though the unwelcome sight of an English man-of-war in the offing led to a hastily called general council. It was decided to find a more discreet place in which to dispose their booty, and on the last day of January Trinity dropped anchor in a deep and deserted inlet on the rocky coast of Antigua. They had completed eighty days at sea.
'No one is to go ashore until I've had a chance to learn our situation,' warned Sharpe for perhaps the twentieth time. The crew were gazing impatiently at a small stone jetty and a handful of whitewashed houses nestled in the farthest curve of the bay. 'If the governor receives us, there'll be time enough for every man to enjoy his rewards. If he's hostile, then we go elsewhere.' He turned towards Hector. 'Lynch, you come with me. You look more presentable than most.'
Together the two men clambered down into the cockboat and were rowed towards the jetty. Seated beside Sharpe on the after thwart, Hector found himself recalling the last time he had gone ashore with a buccaneer captain so warily. That had been with Captain Coxon more than two years earlier and so much had happened since then: his own flight from Port Royal, the hurricane among the logwood cutters of Campeachy, the steamy march across the isthmus and the near-fatal charge on the stockade at Santa Maria, then the long plundering South Sea cruise that followed. He wondered what had happened to Coxon, whom he had last seen after the frustrated attack on Panama. Perhaps the buccaneer captain had given up seafaring and retired with whatever plunder he had amassed. But Hector rather doubted it. Coxon was the sort of person who would always be seeking to make one last lucrative coup.
The cockboat scraped against the rough stones of the jetty and Hector followed Sharpe up the steps. No one greeted them or paid the least attention. Indeed the few people on hand, a couple of fishermen mending nets and a man who might have been a minor government official, deliberately looked the other way.
'That's encouraging,' grunted Sharpe. 'It seems we don't exist. So no questions asked.'
Without even a nod to the onlookers, he began walking up the unpaved road that led past the little houses and over the brow of a low hill. At the point where the road began to descend they had a fine view over a larger, busier anchorage than the one they had just left. Sharpe paused for a moment to check what vessels lay at anchor.
'No sign of a king's ship,' he observed. Spreading across the slope below them was a modest-sized town of stone-built houses. A single, rather ugly church tower rose above their roofs. To Hector's eye the place looked haphazard and chaotic compared to the orderly Spanish towns he had become used to.
'Are we going to meet someone you know?' he asked.
Sharpe shot him a sideways look, full of cunning. 'Depends who is in charge. Antigua's not as prosperous as Jamaica, or even Barbados for that matter. Only a few plantations as yet, though doubtless they will come. The place is happy to make a bit of money with whoever comes to trade, if the price is right.'
He started down the hill and evidently knew his way for he went briskly along the main street and halted before the front door of a two-storey building more substantial than the others. A black servant answered his knock and when Sharpe asked if Lieutenant Governor Vaughan was at home, the black man at first looked puzzled, then beckoned them inside before retreating down a hallway. A few moments later a loud voice called, 'Who's looking for James Vaughan?' and a stout, red-faced man appeared. He was in undress, had removed his wig to reveal a scalp covered with a crop of short, sparse bristles. Draped around him was a loose dressing gown of patterned calico, and he was sweating heavily.
'My name is Captain Bartholomew Sharpe,' the buccaneer captain said. 'I'm looking for Lieutenant Governor Vaughan.'
The red-faced man took out a large handkerchief and wiped his forehead. 'Jim Vaughan is no longer the lieutenant governor,' he said. 'He's retired to his estate. Cane is the thing now.'
'Then perhaps I can speak with the governor, Sir William Stapleton,' Sharpe suggested.
'Sir William is not on the island. He's visiting Nevis in the course of his official duties.'
All this time the man's shrewd eyes had been sizing up his visitor.
'Captain, I did not see your vessel enter harbour. What did you say is the name of your ship?' he asked.
'We arrived only this morning, and are anchored in the next inlet.' It was clear that Sharpe did not wish to give further details. 'I had hoped to engage in a little discreet commerce during the visit.'