“Damn me,” he whispered softly.
Sanson, crouched alongside him, nodded. “Luck is with us, my friend. The ship arrived in the bay at dawn. It has been there ever since.” As Hunter watched, he could see a longboat ferrying soldiers to the shore. Along the beach, there were dozens of red-coated Spanish troops searching the shoreline. Cazalla, dressed in a yellow tunic, was clearly visible, gesticulating wildly as he gave orders.
“They are searching the beach,” Sanson said. “They have guessed our plan.”
“But the storm…” Hunter said.
“Yes, the storm will have washed away any trace of our presence there.”
Hunter thought of the canvas sling that had fallen from his feet. It would be lying now at the base of the cliff. But the soldiers would probably never find it. To reach the cliff was a full daylong hard journey through the undergrowth. They would not make that journey without evidence a party had landed on the shore.
As Hunter watched, a second longboat loaded with soldiers put out from the warship.
“He has been landing men all morning,” Don Diego said. “There must be a hundred on the beach now.”
“Then he intends to leave men,” Hunter said.
Don Diego nodded.
“All the better for us,” Hunter said. Any troops left on the western side of the island would be unable to fight in Matanceros. “Let us hope he leaves a thousand.”
…
BACK IN THE mouth of the cave, Don Diego made a gruel for Hunter to drink while Sanson put out their little fire, and Lazue held the spyglass to her eyes. She described the scene to Hunter, who was sitting alongside her. Hunter himself could see only the basic outlines of the structures by the water below. He relied upon the keenness of Lazue’s vision to guide him.
“Tell me first,” he said, “about the guns. The guns in the fortress.”
Lazue’s lips worked silently as she peered through the glass. “Twelve,” she said finally. “Two batteries of three each face east, toward the open ocean. Six in a single battery fire across the harbor entrance.”
“And they are culverins?”
“They have long barrels. I think they are culverins.”
“What can you say of their age?”
She was silent a moment. “We are too distant,” she replied. “Perhaps later, when we move down, I will see more.”
“And the mountings?”
“Carriages. I think wood, with four wheels.”
Hunter nodded. Those would be ordinary shipboard gun carriages, transferred to the shore batteries.
Don Diego came over with the gruel. “I am glad they are wood,” he said. “I feared they might be stone- mounted. That would make it more difficult.”
Hunter said, “We will blow the carriages?”
“Of course,” Don Diego said.
The culverins weighed more than two tons each. If their carriages were destroyed, they would be useless; they could not be aimed or fired. And even if the Matanceros fortress had extra gun carriages, it would take dozens of men many hours to seat each cannon back into a new carriage.
“But first,” Don Diego said with a smile, “we will breech them.”
The idea had never occurred to Hunter, but he immediately saw its value. The culverins were, like all cannon, muzzle-loaders. The crews first rammed a bag of gunpowder down the mouth of the cannon, followed by a ball of shot. Then, through a touch-hole in the breech, the powder bag was broken with a pointed quill, and a burning fuse inserted. The fuse burned through the touch-hole, ignited the powder, and fired the ball.
This method of firing was reliable enough, so long as the touch-hole remained small. But after repeated firings, the burning fuse and the exploding powder corroded the touch-hole, widening it until it acted as an escape valve for the expanding gases. Once that happened, the range of the cannon was severely reduced; ultimately, the ball would not fire at all. And the cannon was very dangerous for its crews to operate.
Faced with this inevitable deterioration, cannon-makers fitted the breech with a replaceable metal plug, wider at one end than the other, with a touch-hole bored in the center. The plug was fitted from inside the cannon, so that the expanding gases of the gunpowder would tend to ram the plug home more snugly with each firing. Whenever the touch-hole became too large, the metal plug was simply removed and a new one fitted.
But sometimes the whole plug was blown out in a piece, leaving a very large hole at the breech of the cannon. That was true breeching, and it rendered the gun wholly useless until a new plug could be fitted. That process took many hours.
“Believe me,” Don Diego said, “when we are finished with those guns, they will be useful for nothing but ballast in a merchant’s hold.”
Hunter turned back to Lazue. “What can you see inside the fortress itself?”
“Tents. Many tents.”
“That will be the garrison,” Hunter said. During most of the year, the weather in the New World was so fair that troops did not require more permanent protection, and this was particularly true for an island as rainless as Leres. Although now Hunter could imagine the consternation of the troops, who had slept in mud from the storm of the previous night.
“What about the powder magazine?”
“There is a wood building north, inside the walls. That may be it.”
“Good,” Hunter said. He did not want to spend time searching for the magazine once they entered the fortress. “Are there defenses outside the walls?”
Lazue scanned the ground below. “I see nothing.”
“Good. Now what of the ship?”
“A skeleton crew,” she said. “I see five or six men on the longboats tied to the shore, by the town.”
Hunter had noticed the town. It was a surprise - a series of rough wood buildings along the shore, some distance from the fort. Obviously, they had been erected to house the galleon’s crew on land, proof that the crew intended to stay at Matanceros for a period of time, perhaps until next year’s sailing of the treasure fleet.
“Troops in the town?”
“I see a few red jackets.”
“Guards at the longboats?”
“None.”
“They are making things easy for us,” Hunter said.
“So far,” Sanson said.
The party collected their gear, obliterating any traces of their time in the cave. They started the long hike down the sloping hill to Matanceros.
On their descent, they faced the opposite problem from their trek two days before. High on the eastern slope of Mt. Leres, there was little foliage and little protection. They were obliged to slip from one dense clump of thorny vegetation to the next, and their progress was slow.
At noon, they had a surprise. Cazalla’s black warship appeared in the mouth of the harbor, and, reefing her sails, came to anchor near the fort. A longboat was put out; Lazue, with the glass, said that Cazalla was in the stern.
“This ruins everything,” Hunter said, looking at the position of the warship. It was parallel to the shore, so that a full broadside of its cannon would rake the channel.
“What if she stays there?” Sanson said.
Hunter was wondering exactly that, and he could think of only one answer. “We’ll fire her,” he said. “If she stays at anchor, we’ll have to fire her.”
“Light a longboat from shore, and set it adrift?”
Hunter nodded.
“A slim chance,” Sanson said.
Then Lazue, still watching through the glass, said, “There’s a woman.”
“What?” Hunter said.
“In the longboat. There’s a woman with Cazalla.”
