'No, sir, it's not. It's on a different island on the other side of the strait- Isla de la Vigia. It means Lookout Island. It's a stone tower on a hill. I'd guess the tower must be about fifty feet high, but the top of the tower must be close to a hundred feet above sea level. Whenever a ship comes into the Gulf, the tower signals to the fort. I tried to crack the code, but I couldn't.'
'I take it the strait's narrow? That's how it looks on every map I've seen.'
'Yes, sir. Really narrow, and the channel down it is worse. Narrow and crooked. There's a famous sandbar called El Tablazo about ten feet down. A lot of ships get hung up on it.'
'I've got the picture.' The steeple came back. 'What would prevent our taking the tower, Chris?'
'Fire from the fort. Soldiers from the fort or from the barracks outside the city.'
'There are more soldiers there to defend the city, then.'
'Yes, sir. About eight hundred, from what I saw of them.'
'Good soldiers?'
I shrugged. 'About average, I'd say. I don't know a lot about soldiers.'
'Good soldiers stand straight and keep themselves as clean as possible. Like marines.' Capt. Burt rose as he spoke, walked to the big stern windows and looked out at Snow Lady. 'I don't imagine you know much about marines, either.'
I said, 'No, Captain. I don't.'
'I wish I had some. I wish the Navy would lend me a couple of hundred. Or more.' As he walked back to his chair, I noticed that the deck beams just cleared his head. I had to crouch in that cabin, just like I crouched in our cabin on Sabina.
'I've got two plans to propose, Chris. Maybe they're both workable. Maybe neither one is. I'd like your frank opinion of both.'
'Sure,' I said. 'You'll get it, Captain.'
'Good. Here's the first. We land on the western shore of the Gulf, march along the coast staying out of range of the guns of the fort, and take the city.'
'Sure.' I nodded. 'That's what I was thinking when I got there. It might be done, sir, but it carries some big disadvantages.'
'Which are?'
'A tough march, to start with. The men won't like that. We'd have to leave half our force on the ships, just like Portobello, but Maracaibo's a lot bigger.'
'And we've fewer ships. Go on.'
'We'd be seen landing by the watchtower. That would give General Sanchez-he's in the city now-two or three days to arrange a defense outside the city. Not just soldiers, but cannon.'
'No element of surprise,' Capt. Burt murmured.
'Exactly, sir. It would also give General Sanchez time to call for more soldiers from Caracas. He'd get them, too. He's the highest-ranking officer in Venezuela, from what I hear.'
'We might beat him before they got there, Chris. Or so I'd hope.'
'Yes, sir. We might, but we'd have to get our hands on the gold fast, and they'd have had lots of time to hide it. If we hadn't gotten it, we'd have to fight the fresh soldiers, too. If we beat them, we'd still have to carry everything out to the ships the same way we came in. And if Caracas sent ships instead of troops marching overland-'
Capt. Burt cut me off. 'Exactly. That's the great objection. Our ships'd be trapped in the Gulf like so many rats. They'd have to fight their way out, with their crews at half strength.'
'Leaving us,' I added.
'Right. I take it we agree my first plan's workable but damnably risky. Here's my second. Don't be afraid to get rough with it. All the guns in the fort are directed toward the strait?'
'All but two eight-pounders, sir. Those are pointed inland.'
'Good. We could bombard the watchtower without being shot at by the fort, from what you say. We'll knock it down, blinding them. When there's a good stiff wind on a dark night, we'll run through the strait. We'll take the city and threaten to burn it and kill our hostages if the fort doesn't surrender.'
I said, 'I like that one a lot better than the first, Captain. The strait would be the tricky part. The longer we wait for a favoring wind, the longer the Spanish will have to send for ships and soldiers. And to get them.'
Capt. Burt nodded. 'I agree, of course. We'll have to act within the next few nights.'
'It's narrow, too, and we'll have to feel our way with sounding poles. Any ship that runs aground will be knocked to pieces as soon as the sun's up.'
'I understand.'
'What's worse is that any ship that runs aground may block the channel for the others. If they've entered the strait, they'll have to kedge to get out. May I tell you how I'd do it, sir?'
He nodded, and I did. We came into the Gulf in broad daylight, proudly flying our black flags. Sabina was in the lead, and the man at the masthead called down, 'Tower's makin' signals, Cap'n. I can't read 'em, though.'
I grinned at Novia and said, 'I imagine it is.' I remember that so well that I cannot resist putting it in.
She insisted on going with me in the longboat. We landed-all our boats landed-on the west side of the Pigeon Island, the side away from the strait. Putting it another way, we landed just about opposite the fort, which put us behind the ambush that Hoodahs and I had found. I had hoped to catch the soldiers as they beat it back into the fort, but nobody had warned them. We came up behind them while they waited in their trench. We drove them like sheep to the northern end of the island, where our ships' guns did for a hundred or more before they could surrender.
After that we jumped the fort from behind, took it, and drove iron spikes into the touchholes of the guns. There was hardly anybody left inside, and I doubt that more than a dozen shots were fired.
So I had been wrong about the soldiers. I was wrong about the city, too, because I had expected street fighting with the civilians and General Sanchez's soldiers. He used his men to cover the evacuation instead. That might have been good if the civilians had stuck together. As soon as they were clear of the city they scattered like chickens, and he could not have covered them all with five thousand men. We sent strong parties pretty much wherever we wanted to, and rounded up a lot of them, with the gold, silver, and jewelry they had been trying to save from us.
That was when I really found out why Capt. Burt rated buccaneers as highly as he did. Our buccaneers could load and fire twice in the time it took a soldier to load and fire once, and they could bowl over a running man at fifty paces. There were days when it seemed like the only time anybody was hit by one of those soldiers was when the soldier was aiming at somebody else. Hand-to-hand was liable to be pretty even-the side with the most men won. (That was just about always us.) But the way to win with the fewest losses was to follow a party of civilians who were hot to get away from us and pick off the soldiers who were trying to protect it. In half an hour they would have hardly one man left.
I would be lying to you if I said there was no rape and no torture, but I did not do it and did my best to stop it. As well as I can remember I succeeded twice.
Here I ought to say more about torture. I have been skipping over things, I know, and I would like to skip over that. I am not going to do it here because I understand very well how useless it is to make a confession that does not confess.
Besides, I know that a lot of things are considered torture now that would just be punishments on a ship. A sailor would be keelhauled, for instance. It meant that he was tied to rope looped around the ship's waist and dragged under water, beneath the keel, and up on the other side. When he came up he would be half drowned, and half skinned by the barnacles, too. If he did not die, he might be given a week or two in chains to recover. When he was a little stronger, he would be returned to his duty, and nobody called it torture.
We burned our prisoners, dropping live coals onto their faces and roasting them over fires. We cut off men's private parts and raped their wives before their eyes. We tied ropes around people's heads, stuck a stick through the ropes, and turned that stick until their eyes came out and hung down on their cheeks-all this to get them to tell where they had hidden money, or where somebody else had.
We did all that, and while we did it we knew that if we were captured by the Spanish we might be treated the same way. The Spanish often tortured a Native American slave just to make their other slaves fear and respect
