Part III
Matanceros
Chapter 20
IN THE AFTERNOON, the sky was streaked with patchy clouds that turned dark and gray as the sun faded. The air was damp and forbidding. It was then that Lazue spotted the first of the timbers.
Sailing on, the Cassandra moved among dozens of broken pieces of wood and ship’s wreckage. The crew threw out lines and brought some of it aboard.
“Looks English,” Sanson said, when a piece of the high transom, painted red and blue, was hauled onto the deck.
Hunter nodded. A good-sized ship had been sunk. “Not long ago,” he said. He scanned the horizon for any sign of survivors, but there was none. “Our Donnish friends have been hunting.”
Pieces of wood thumped against the hull of the ship for another fifteen minutes. The crew was uneasy; sailors did not like to see the evidence of such destruction. Another cross-brace was brought aboard, and from it, Enders guessed the ship had been a merchantman, probably a brig or frigate, one hundred fifty feet or so.
They never found any sign of the crew.
The air turned increasingly sullen as night fell, and a sea squall blew up. In the darkness, hot rain hammered the wooden decks of the Cassandra. The men were soaked and miserable through the night. Yet the dawn was fair and clear, and when it broke, they saw their destination dead ahead on the horizon.
From a distance, the western face of the island of Matanceros is singularly uninviting. Its volcanic contours are sharp and jagged, and except for low vegetation along the shore, the island appears dry and brown and barren, with patches of exposed bare reddish-gray rock. Little rain fell on the island, and because it was so far eastward in the Caribbean, the winds off the Atlantic whipped around its single peak ceaselessly.
The crew of the Cassandra watched Matanceros approach without any trace of enthusiasm. Enders, at the helm, frowned. “It’s September,” he said. “She’s as green and welcoming as ever she gets.”
“Aye,” Hunter said. “It’s no haven. But there’s a forest on the eastern shore, and plenty of water.”
“And plenty of Popish muskets,” Enders said.
“And plenty of Popish gold,” Hunter said. “How long do you make landfall?”
“Fair wind. Midday at latest, I’d warrant.”
“Bear for the cove,” Hunter said, pointing. Already they could see the only indentation on the western coast, a narrow inlet called Blind Man’s Cove.
Hunter went off to collect the supplies that his small landing party would carry with them. He found Don Diego, the Jew, already setting out the equipment on the deck. The Jew fixed Hunter with a weak eye. “Considerate of the Dons,” he said. “They looked, but didn’t take anything.”
“Except the rats.”
“We can make do with anything small, Hunter. Possum, any small creature.”
“We’ll have to,” Hunter said.
Sanson was standing in the bow, looking forward at the peak of Mt. Leres. From a distance, it appeared absolutely sheer, a curving semicircle of naked red rock.
“There’s no way around it?” Sanson asked.
Hunter responded, “The only passages around will be guarded. We must go over the top.”
Sanson gave a slight smile; Hunter went aft again to Enders. He gave orders that once his party had been beached, the Cassandra was to sail south to the next island, Ramonas. A small cove with fresh water could be found there, and the sloop would be safe from attack.
“You know the place?”
“Aye,” Enders said. “I know it. Holed up a week in that cove some years back under Captain Lewisham with his one eye. She’s fair enough. How long do we wait there?”
“Four days. On the afternoon of the fourth day, move out of the cove and anchor in deep water. Sail at midnight, and bring yourself to Matanceros just before dawn on the fifth day.”
“And then?”
“Sail right up into the harbor at dawn, and board the men onto the galleon.”
“Passing the guns of the fort?”
“They’ll not trouble you on the fifth morning.”
“I’m not a praying man,” Enders said. “But I’m hoping.”
Hunter clapped him on the shoulder. “There’s nothing to fear.”
Enders looked toward the island and did not smile.
. . .
BY NOON, IN the still midday heat, Hunter, Sanson, Lazue, the Moor, and Don Diego stood on the narrow strip of white sand beach and watched the Cassandra depart. At their feet was more than a hundred and twenty pounds of equipment — rope, grappling hooks, canvas slings, muskets, water caskets.
They stood in silence for a moment, breathing in lungfuls of burning air. Then Hunter turned away. “Let’s make off,” he said. They moved away from the water’s edge, toward the shoreline.
Beyond the beach, the shoreline of palm trees and tangled mangroves appeared as impenetrable as a stone wall. They knew from bitter experience that they could not hack their way through this barrier; to attempt it was to make no more than a few hundred yards of progress in the course of a day of feverish physical effort. The usual method of entering the interior of an island was to find a stream, and move up it.
They knew there must be such a stream here, for the very existence of a cove implied it. Coves were formed in part because there was a break in the outer reefs, and that break meant fresh water pouring out from the land. They walked along the beach, and after an hour located a sparse trickle of water cutting a muddy track through the foliage along the shore. The streambed was so narrow that the plants overgrew it, making a sort of cramped, hot tunnel. The passage was obviously not easy.
“Should we look for a better one?” Sanson said.
The Jew shook his head. “There is little rainfall here. I doubt there is a better one.”
They all seemed to agree, and set out, moving up the creek, away from the sea. Almost immediately, the heat became unbearable, the air hot and rank. It was, as Lazue said, like breathing cloth.
After the first few minutes, they traveled in silence, wasting no energy on talk. The only sound was the thwack of their cutlasses on the foliage, and the chatter of birds and small animals in the canopy of trees above them. Their progress was slow. Toward the end of the day, when they looked over their shoulders, the blue ocean below seemed discouragingly near.
They pressed on, pausing only to capture food. Sanson was a master of the crossbow, and used it to shoot several birds. They were encouraged to notice the droppings of a wild boar near the streambed. Lazue collected plants that were edible.
Nightfall found them halfway up the strip of jungle between the sea and the bare rock of Mt. Leres. Although the air turned cooler, they were trapped beneath the foliage and it remained almost as hot as before. In addition, the mosquitoes were out.
The mosquitoes were a formidable enemy, coming in thick clouds so dense as to be almost palpable, obscuring each man’s vision of those near him. The insects buzzed and whined around them, clinging to every part of their bodies, getting into ears and nose and mouth. They coated themselves liberally with mud and water, but nothing really helped. They dared not light a fire, but ate the caught game raw, and slept the night fitfully, propped up against trees, with the droning buzz of mosquitoes in their ears.
In the morning, they awoke, the caked mud dropping off their stiff bodies, and they looked at each other and laughed. They were all changed, their faces red and swollen and lumpy with mosquito bites. Hunter checked the water; a quarter of their supply was gone, and he announced they would have to consume less. They moved on, hoping to see a wild boar, for they were all hungry. They never sighted one. The monkeys chattering in the overhead canopy of foliage seemed to taunt them. They heard the animals, but Sanson never had a clear shot at one.