The Grove of Eagles
Page 44
“What of Victor?” I said, struggling to sit up.
“Lie quiet, sur, I beg,” said Bell who was trying to draw a rough cotton bandage round my waist.
“Katherine Footmarker would sometimes mix a cordial—”
“I have my own cordial,” said Sir Walter, “but we shall not get it down him, I think …”
An officer who had lost a leg was groaning in his corner.
“Over this way, sur,” said Bell; and I turned on my side. The servant had a rough but handy way with him that showed I was not the first he had dealt with.
Lying on my shoulder away from the room I could look out of the porthole across the harbour, not towards the town but towards the dark hills. Just out of the corner of my view was a flickering glow, and I edged an inch or two farther up the board to see what it was. Bell’s remonstrance was cut short.
“Sir,” I said to Ralegh. “There’s a new fire.”
He came at once and peered through the open porthole. Flames were flickering up in the distance.
“By the living God,” he said, “ the Spaniards have fired their own flota. We are too late now.”
Chapter Seven
Cadiz was occupied, and the Fort and Citadel capitulated. No woman was molested, no church burned. The richest and noblest of the captors were held for ransom, the rest allowed to go.
But the flota was lost. With suicidal pride the Spaniards had set fire to every ship stuck in the mud of the inner harbour, and the whole of the great treasure fleet was sacrificed. I lay and watched it burning. It burned for three days. The flames seemed at times to get into my head. The Generals held constant conferences in the city, argument was rife as to whether the port should be held in permanent occupation or evacuated, whether we should instead seize Cape St Vincent and then blockade the Spanish coast, as Drake had once done. But only Ralegh, I think, from the start perceived that we had missed the greatest prize. Essex and the Howards were conscious of the great feat of arms we had performed in thus capturing the first port in Spain, a richer port than London, of the glory and the honour of it. Sir Walter, perhaps because he had once been a poor man, or perhaps because his nature was most similar to the Queen’s, thought more of all the wealth of the Indies lost in the flames and perceived what her feelings would be.
One afternoon, returning briefly to the ship for some documents, he came to sit beside me and to peer at Victor, who still lived and was conscious from time to time.
“There’s much to be seized in the city—much already has been: at least the half of it as private spoils. But it will bring no fortune to England such as was contained in those forty fine ships. They say the value was twelve million ducats. Spain has deprived us of the fruits of victory and almost bankrupted herself. Most of the merchants will never recover—”
“It was not they who fired it?”
“Oh dear, no. They would have treated with us, as Howard expected. It was the royal officers, to whom any sort of composition is a disgrace. If we had moved earlier …”
“You did your best.”
“Best is not enough if it fails … Now Essex and the Howards hold princely court in the city. Tomorrow there’s to be a state dinner to celebrate the victory …”
“Have you news of the galleys, sir?”
“Portocarrero retired his squadron into the narrow neck by the Suazo Bridge and by some mechanical means dragged them through the shallows and the mud. When the water deepened they were refloated and so made their way back to the sea at San Petri. They are thought to have gone north towards Faro.”
Sir Walter fanned himself. The heat in this harbour in the middle of the day was stifling and the stench from the dead bodies rotting in the mud made it impossible to keep the windows open. Victor groaned and tried to turn over.
“Anthony Ashley is to be sent back to England with despatches for the Queen,” Sir Walter said, “ requesting her permission for a permanent occupation of the city. Crosse will carry him in Swiftsure, a dozen other vessels will go taking some of the treasure and most of the sick and wounded. I shall send you both home on that convoy.”
“Oh, no! … Victor, perhaps, for he’s sorely ill; but another week and I shall be on my feet again.”
“Wood thinks otherwise. This fever which has persisted leaves you in no state for campaigning.”
“What of your own wound, sir?”
“I suspect my leg will always be in need of a little aid. Too much of the muscle was shot away. But I cannot go yet. Tell me, young Killigrew …” He paused.
“Yes?”
“Did you gain any booty that first night?”
I looked at his face, which had narrowed. “Some few pieces of jewellery. If it is still in my pockets.”
“It will be there: only Bell has attended on you. And Victor?”
“I think not. He was looking for some books when two priests attacked him.”
“That’s like him. Well, take care of your gleanings. Everyone else is, so far as they can hide them. It’s not a savoury spectacle.”
“If I go home,” I said, “it will be to look after Victor. Having survived all the worst of the fighting unscratched, he came to his wounds through following me in search of plunder.”
“Ah,” he sighed and got up. “ Don’t let it trouble your conscience. If I thought of all those who for one reason or another I had led to their death I should not sleep of nights.”
Swiftsure left three days later. With her went 14 other vessels, carrying horses, booty and wounded men. Victor and I were to have travelled on Swiftsure, but at the last Sir Gelly Meyricke with special private despatches from the Earl of Essex to the Queen, and the Earl of Sussex, who was sick with measles, took our places and we were moved to a flyboat, the Peter of Anchusen. So are fates decided.
We left a city still held in complete subjection by the English but a council of the Lords Generals in no way more decided what to do with it. Ralegh came to see us off. He was on the edge of melancholia; the excitement of battle which had transformed him had long since been lost in the drearier battles of the council chamber.
“For my part,” he said, “I believe we waste time here. Our crews sicken in the heat, our victuals rot, our army wastes its strength on futile skirmishes. To retain the city would put a breaking burden on armament and supply. We have done what we came for. Staying will only fritter away the victory.”
He was smoking his pipe, more perhaps to keep away the flies than for pleasure. Victor was propped up on his pillows, able now to eat light foods. As soon as he had known what was planned he had protested vigorously; in the end he had accepted his fate but was still displeased by it.
“I believe, Cousin Walter, you’re waiting to see us sail so that you can be assured we’re safely gone. If I’d a thought more use in my legs I’d dive overboard and swim in again as soon as your back was turned … Even now you cannot be sure of Maugan!”
Ralegh looked at me sourly. “ We are all under discipline, and he has received his orders. Which are to see you home. He’ll do so.”
“I’ll do so,” I said.
Cadiz looked unreal in the hot shimmering light as we put out on the ebb-tide. Mottled clouds clustered like a flock of sheep in a sky the colour of a latten plate. Wisps of smoke still rose from the burned fleet in Port Royal road. Our own ships clustered in the main harbour, pennants lifting in the hot breeze. The Queen’s Standard fluttered from the citadel, Essex’s from Fort San Felipe. Outside the harbour a half-dozen frigates cruised as a guard against surprise.
“Well,” I said to Victor, “ we have not conquered the world, but we live to try again, and as I saw you a week ago I would not have thought that likely.”
“Blood-letting did no one any harm. I haven’t coughed since we left England. It’s all part of the cure.”
“Look,” I said. “ You got no spoils from your efforts. I have a little hoard which will do for two. When we get to England we’ll sell the jewels and split the proceeds.”
“But for me you’d never have gone into that accursed church, and so no doubt you’d have got your plunder somewhere else and unscathed. Deny that.”
“You got me in without compulsion. You brought me out on your back. Deny that.”
We wrangled amiably until it was time to sleep through the hottest hours of the day. By the time we woke the city was a dark blur on the distant coastline. Peter of Anchusen was a large fly-boat, smarter and faster than most of her kind, she carried a crew of 40, with a black-bearded Captain Smith in command, and there were about 60 wounded and sick aboard, not to mention divers others returning in charge of plunder and horses, so that the whole complement was around 120, about a third Dutch. Besides ourselves there were only eight wounded officers, and we shared a cabin with a Lieutenant Fraser who had lost a leg and a Major George who had been blinded in one eye and much disfigured by a flaming spar.
As well as the powerful but cumbersome Swiftsure we had two frigates for protection, and every transport was armed, so there was little risk of our being challenged on the way home.
The wind that had got us out of harbour and safely away from the coast hesitated with the setting sun, and the lateen sails of a half-dozen Portuguese feluccas standing well away from the land as they fled south were suddenly flushed with the afterglow so that they looked like flamingoes rising off the surface of the sea. I left Victor and sat for an hour or two on deck in the cooler air of evening talking to Major George, who was a veteran of the Dutch wars and in no way cast down by his injuries. While the stars grew ever brighter till they lamp-lit the sky, George told me of bloody encounters at Zutphen and Gertruydenberg. Below I could hear Victor playing, almost for the first time since his wounding.
“Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee;
When thou art old there’s grief enough for thee.”
Around us were the lights of the other ships, closest—so close that we could see aboard—being Maybird, a very small man o’ war belonging to Sir Ferdinando Gorges of Plymouth; and behind her, like a sheep-dog central to her flock, the high decks of Swiftsure, commanded by Captain Robert Crosse, now Sir Robert, knighted by Essex after the celebrations last Sunday. (The one thing in all this, said Sir Walter, that would have pleased Drake.)
A swell got up later in the night but no wind with it, and by morning our fleet was somewhat scattered. During the following day we crawled slowly west-north-west, wallowing more than we advanced, the land still visible as we made across the great gulf. The second night was hazy but the light airs were just enough to keep way on; the third day brought a return of dead calm.
It was a breathless dawn, the sky like pale stretched silk, its limits hardly separate from the sky. The sun came up like a red button which, being constantly polished, at last glittered so brightly one could no longer look. In the night the land had receded. The sails of every ship hung like damp washing.
Although we had drawn together yesterday the scattering this night had been more complete, and the only vessel within hail was Maybird. Swiftsure was a mile or more away on our larboard beam, with two transports near by, the frigates and the rest of the fleet being strung out behind. I did not always wake so early, but without helm way the ship had swung so that the rising sun came full on my face, and I got up at once and put a cloak over my bandages and went out on deck to get some cool air while it lasted.
There was a great peace such as sometimes comes at dawn, and the few sailors on deck did not disturb it. I stood there feeling completely at rest. My soul was calmed by the silence and the space, it yearned for the unreachable but without ambition or regret, in part disembodied yet seeming to find a new joy in the senses. I had been in battle and wounded, my wounds were mending, I was young and I was going home.
The chief officer, a man called Lumsden, was on watch with a Flemish seaman at the helm. I went over to them. Three seagulls stood on our main yard but even they gave no cry.
I said to Lumsden: “Do you think we shall double Cape St Vincent today?”
He yawned. “Not a chance while this weather lasts, sur. I doubt if we’ve made 10 miles in the dark hours.”
The man aloft in the cross-trees shouted something: it was a long sing-song call in Flemish.
“What did he say?” Lumsden asked the helmsman.
“He says three ships to landward. He think they be Spanish.”
“Well, a lot of harm they’ll do us or we them while this calm lasts,” Lumsden said. “ You couldn’t sail a skiff.”
I peered towards the land but could see nothing. The silk stretched taut and unbroken. One of the seagulls dropped off the yard and planed in delicate semi-circles towards some refuse floating near, but without alighting saw that it was nothing edible and rose again with a lazy motion to resume his position on the ship.
“Was you on this trek to Suazo Bridge?” Lumsden asked me.
“No.”
“Oh … Reckoned perhaps that was where you was wounded. They say we lost nigh on 200 men on the home-ward way, most of ’em drunk and fallen on so soon as they was separate from the rest. A nasty piece of—”
The black-bearded Captain Smith was suddenly beside us. “What sort of Spanish ships?” he demanded of the helmsman. “Ask him that, and whither away.”
The sailor called a guttural question up to the sailor at the fighting top. There was a pause then, for the man on look-out seemed uncertain. Then he shouted.
“Five or six of them,” said the helmsman. “East by nor’-east; four miles or a thought more. In line astern.”
Smith shaded his eyes into the rising sun. “I fancy there’s something to be seen … Here, Gruyt, tell your man we want the type of ship as soon as ever—Nay, I’ll go up myself.”
He jumped quickly onto the bulwark and swung himself into the shrouds. But before he could go far the look-out shouted again. It was one word and we all understood it well.
“Galleys …”
They came up rapidly. First they were like part of the land, then like islands, then in no time their insect shapes were clear. I wondered how many English prisoners sweated at the glinting oars.
All the English ships had seen them now. Swiftsure fired her bow chasers; whether to try to ward off the enemy or as a signal to her flock to group around her we never knew. In any event we were helpless to group at all. Like trees planted on the blue silk we had no power either to challenge or to flee.
Smith sent a half-dozen of his crew leaping with orders to rouse the rest of the ship. Major George came up, the un-bandaged side of his face bristling with the night’s beard.
“So Portocarrero escaped to some purpose. Where’s he making for d’you think?”
“Us,” said Captain Smith.
It looked as if he was right. We and Maybird were far ahead of the rest and were the obvious prey. Swiftsure continued to fire intermittently, being the only ship in the convoy with guns of sufficient range to make it worth a try, but the galleys held on. Soon the first of them was within two miles of us.
Peter of Anchusen had for armament two 5 lb. sakers with a range of 1500 paces, and three small breech-load ‘man killers’ of very short range. Maybird, though so much smaller, carried about the same. Both ships were now in great commotion, sailors and such of the wounded as could defend themselves milling about, priming muskets, handing out cutlasses. As soon as I was sure the leading galley was heading straight for us I went below. Lieutenant Fraser, still in much pain from his leg, was lying flat on his bunk and taking little heed of the alarm; Victor was sitting in a chair loading an old pistol someone had given him.
“Well, so it’s an ill wind that blows from no direction, Maugan. Move me closer to the porthole, will you.”
I pushed his chair forward. “ Victor, I suggest you confine yourself to this place until we have beaten them off. I shall be just above you and no one will come down.”
; “You were ever one for a bold front, dear Maugan. Confess we have as much chance as a duck among foxes. Then pray for wind.”
“I will.” I finished struggling painfully into my breastplate and patted his shoulder. “ Good luck and shoot straight.”
I climbed up the companion ladder to the capstan deck. Of a sudden I felt terribly tired of fighting and killing, and fearful of injury and death. Weakness creeps on us unawares. It had come now out of the happiness and content of half an hour ago. I prayed for some miracle to intervene: this sudden unfair attack when we were home-bound, and an attack on wounded men, had come at the wrong moment for courage and endurance.
The leading galley was now no more than a mile off. I turned and saw that Maybird’s captain in a forlorn effort to escape had put down his two ship’s boats and they were manned with sailors breaking their backs to tow the little warship towards the safety of Swiftsure’s guns.
Lumsden came past me carrying a keg of powder, and following him was Major George. George’s cask was broken and spilling powder. I caught his arm.
“Take care!”
The side of his mouth clear of bandages creased in an angry grin. “A little surprise for ’em, lad. We want to welcome ’em aboard, lad—”
“But the wounded—below decks.”
“Would you have ’em captives of Spain?”
Both our sakers spoke, and then two from Maybird. The shot fell short. The leading galley had slowed to allow two of her sisters to catch up; then together in line they came forward again, not firing, but not presenting any good target with their sweeping oars and narrow bows. Swiftsure fired again, but was far out of range. Slowly Maybird began to draw away from us, as the ship’s boats got her under way. As they neared us the two outside galleys turned in a slow arc to come on us from either side. This gave our armament plenty to do. In the distance I noticed one of the English frigates had adopted Maybird’s tactics and was trying to row towards us. I looked at the sun. It was beating down out of a sky leaden and silent with heat. Wind. Where is the wind? Wind only will save us. God send us wind.