Page 140 of A Column of Fire

Bacon bought three hundred and twenty men, women and children in Sierra Leone. Then theHawkheaded west across the Atlantic Ocean to the vast unmapped territory called New Spain.

The crew did not like the slave business. The wretched victims were crammed together in the hold, chained up in filthy conditions. Everyone could hear the children crying and the women wailing. Sometimes they sang sad songs to keep up their spirits, and that was even worse. Every few days one of them would die, and the body would be thrown overboard with no ceremony. ‘They’re just cattle,’ Bacon said, if anyone complained; but cattle did not sing laments.

The first Europeans to cross the Atlantic had thought, when they made landfall, that they were in India, so they had called these islands the West Indies. They knew better now that Magellan and Elcano had circumnavigated the globe, but the name stuck.

Hispaniola was the most developed of many islands, few of which were even named. Its capital, Santo Domingo, was the first European city in New Spain, and even had a cathedral, but to his disappointment Barney did not get to see it. The pilot Duarte directed theHawkaway from the city because what the ship was doing was illegal. Hispaniola was governed by the king of Spain, and English merchants were forbidden to trade there. So Duarte advised Captain Bacon to head for the northern coast, as far away as possible from the forces of law and order.

The sugar planters were desperate for labour. Barney had heard that something like half of all Europeans who migrated to the West Indies died within two years, and the death rate was almost as bad among Africans, who seemed resistant to some but not all the diseases of New Spain. As a result, the planters did not scruple to buy from illicit English traders, and the day after theHawkdocked at a little place with no name, Bacon sold eighty slaves, taking payment in gold, pearls and hides.

Jonathan Greenland, the first mate, bought supplies in the town and the crew enjoyed their first fresh food in two months.

The following morning Barney was standing in the waist, the low, middle part of the deck, talking anxiously to Jonathan. From where they were, they could see most of the small town where they had at last made landfall. A wooden jetty led to a little beach, beyond which was a square. All the buildings were of wood but one, a small palace built of pale-gold coral limestone.

‘I don’t like the illegality of this,’ Barney said quietly to Jonathan. ‘We could end up in a Spanish jail, and who knows how long it would take to get out?’

‘And all for nothing,’ Jonathan said. The crew did not share in the profits of regular trading, just the prize money from captured ships, and he was disappointed that the voyage had been peaceful.

As they talked, a young man in clerical black came out of the main door of the palace and walked, looking important, across the square, down the beach and along the jetty. Coming to the gangplank he hesitated, then stepped onto it and crossed to the deck.

In Spanish he said: ‘I must speak to your master.’

Barney replied in the same language. ‘Captain Bacon is in his cabin. Who are you?’

The man looked offended to be questioned. ‘Father Ignacio, and I bring a message from Don Alfonso.’

Barney guessed that Alfonso was the local representative of authority, and Ignacio was his secretary. ‘Give me the message, and I’ll make sure the captain gets it.’

‘Don Alfonso summons your captain to see him immediately.’

Barney was keen to avoid offending the local authorities, so he pretended not to notice Ignacio’s arrogance. Mildly he said: ‘Then I’m sure my captain will come. If you’ll wait a moment, I’ll find him.’

Barney went to Bacon’s cabin. The captain was dressed and eating fried plantains with fresh bread. Barney gave him the message. ‘You can come with me,’ Bacon said. ‘Your Spanish is better than mine.’

A few minutes later they stepped off the ship onto the jetty. Barney felt the warmth of the rising sun on his face: today would be very hot again. They followed Ignacio up the beach. A few early-rising townspeople stared at them with lively interest: clearly strangers were rare enough here to be fascinating.

As they crossed the dusty square, Barney’s eye was caught by a girl in a yellow gown. She was a golden-skinned African, but too well-dressed to be a slave. She rolled a small barrel from a doorway to a waiting cart, then looked up at the visitors. She met Barney’s gaze with a fearless expression, and he was startled to see that she had blue eyes.

With an effort Barney returned his attention to the palace. Two armed guards, their eyes narrowed against the glare, watched silently as he and Bacon followed Ignacio through the gate. Barney felt like a criminal, which he was, and he wondered whether he would get out as easily as he had got in.

The palace was cool inside, with high ceilings and stone floors. The walls were covered with tiles of bright blue and golden yellow that Barney recognized as coming from the potteries of Seville. Ignacio led them up a wide staircase and told them to sit on a wooden bench. Barney figured this was a snub. The mayor of this place did not have a string of people to see every morning. He was making them wait just to show that he could. Barney thought this was a good sign. You do not bother to slight a man if you are about to throw him in jail.

After a quarter of an hour, Ignacio reappeared and said: ‘Don Alfonso will see you now.’ He showed them into a spacious room with tall shuttered windows.

Alfonso was obese. A man of about fifty, with silver hair and blue eyes, he sat in a chair that appeared to have been made specially to fit his unnatural girth. Two stout walking-sticks on a table beside him suggested that he could not walk around unaided.

He was reading a sheaf of papers, and once again Barney thought this was for show. He and Bacon stood with Ignacio, waiting for Alfonso to speak. Barney sensed Bacon becoming angry. The disdainful treatment was getting to him. Barney willed him to stay calm.

At last Alfonso looked up. ‘You’re under arrest,’ he said. ‘You have been trading illegally.’

That was what Barney had been afraid of.

He translated, and Bacon said: ‘If he tries to arrest me, theHawkwill flatten his town.’

This was an exaggeration. TheHawk’s guns were minions, small cannons that would not destroy any well-built masonry structure. They were too small even to sink a ship, unless by extraordinary luck. The four-pound cannonballs were designed to paralyse an enemy vessel by wrecking its masts and rigging, and killing or demoralizing the crew, thereby depriving the captain of all control. Just the same, theHawkcould inflict a good deal of unpleasant damage on the little town square.

Barney scrambled for a more conciliatory way of phrasing Bacon’s rejoinder. After a moment he said to Alfonso in Spanish: ‘Captain Bacon suggests that you send a message to his crew, telling them that he has been detained quite lawfully, and that they should not fire the ship’s guns at your town, no matter how angry they may feel.’

‘That’s not what he said.’ Clearly Alfonso understood some English.