by Tim Severin
'Here comes Dan now,' said Jacques, grimacing as he plucked out the broken spine. 'I wonder what he's found.'
The Miskito had gone forward to scout, leaving his satchel of grenades with Jezreel. Now Dan was returning, musket balanced on his shoulder and loping along as if the blazing heat was nothing. As usual, it was difficult to read anything into his expression.
'Arica's a mile beyond that ridge, and the town is expecting us,' he announced.
Watling came striding up. 'What do you mean, expecting us?' he demanded.
'The Spaniards have built a barricade of timber and earth across the main approach leading into the town. It's manned by soldiers, a lot of them. There's also a fort over to one side, and that seems to have a large garrison on the alert.'
'How many defenders?'
'It's impossible to say. But several hundred.'
Watling took off his broad-brimmed hat, wiped his brow with a large orange handkerchief, and beckoned to Duill, his second in command. 'The Miskito says that Arica is expecting an attack. The place may have been reinforced.'
Duill showed his teeth in a wolfish smile. 'That only goes to prove they have something worth defending.'
Watling brushed the fine desert dust off his sleeve. He turned to Dan. 'Do you think that we've been seen?' he asked.
'Certainly,' the Miskito replied. 'Three horsemen over on our right flank. They have been shadowing us for the past two hours. They know our strength, and purpose.'
'Then that decides it,' said Watling firmly. 'There's no going back. If we are seen in retreat, Arica's garrison will come out in pursuit and things will go badly for us. We stick to the original plan. When we reach the high ground ahead of us, we camp for the night. In the morning we advance on the town and rush the barricade.'
Hector was surprised that Arica was such an ordinary, rundown place. He lay on the ridge above the town as the sky began to lighten and the streets of Arica emerged from the shadows. They had been laid out in the grid pattern familiar from La Serena. But he saw nothing to match La Serena's fine stone buildings. Arica's houses were unpainted single-storey dwellings made of what looked like humble mud brick. The single church tower was modest in size, and the perimeter wall of the fort that Dan had mentioned was no higher than the flat roofs of the nearby houses which surrounded it. From his vantage point Hector could see down into the parade ground where soldiers were emerging from their barracks and assembling for dawn muster. What held his attention was the makeshift outwork of rubble and earth which blocked the main approach to the town. It was at least fifty paces in length and built to a height so that a defender could rest his musket on it and take steady aim. There were sentinels posted at regular intervals and an officer was walking behind the line, checking that his lookouts were alert. Hector could see no sign of artillery, and for this he breathed a sigh of relief. To attack into the mouths of cannon would have been suicidal.
'On your feet! First rank make ready!' It was Watling, his army training evident. This was to be a disciplined assault, unlike previous campaigns against towns which had often been little more than an unruly rush against the defence. This time the buccaneers were to advance in three waves. The first and second were to alternate, one moving forward as the other gave covering fire, leapfrogging forward until they were close enough to reach the breastwork in a concerted charge. The four grenadiers and a dozen of the older, less active men were being held back in reserve. Under Bartholomew Sharpe they would stay fifty yards in the rear of the attack, ready to be called on wherever the need arose.
'Advance!' Watling was moving forward. Behind him the first wave of buccaneers began to make their way down the slope at a fast walk. Each man had an orange ribbon tied to his left shoulder to identify him in the coming engagement. Hector tried to judge the distance they would have to cover. It was perhaps half a mile. Several outhouses and barns would provide some cover, and there was an occasional fold in the ground where a man could crouch down in safety and reload his musket. Below him the officer in charge of the barricade had already turned towards the town and was gesticulating urgently. He must have seen the movement on the hill. Moments later a squad of armed men came running out from the town and took up their positions at the outwork. Counting them, Hector calculated that there must be at least forty musketeers facing the buccaneer attack. Allowing for the fact that a great many more Spanish soldiers were being held in reserve in the fort, Watling's force was heavily outnumbered. If the buccaneers were to take Arica, they would have to rely on their superior musketry and the professional ferocity of their assault.
The second wave had left its position and was also advancing down the slope. The men spread out in a skirmishing line, wide gaps between them to reduce the target. A scatter of shots came from the barricade, but the range was too great and the firing quickly died away. Hector supposed that a Spanish officer had restrained his men.
'I suppose we should get moving too!' said Sharpe in a relaxed voice. He got casually to his feet as though about to go for a stroll in the country and puffed on a clay pipe. He took the pipe stem from his mouth, blew out a thin plume of smoke, and watched the smoke hang in the air before slowly dissipating. 'Perfect day for a grenadier,' he observed. 'No chance of the match blowing out in the wind.' He glanced up at the cloudless sky and gave a sardonic smile, 'And of course no likelihood of a rain shower to extinguish it.'
Hector held out the length of match cord that had been issued to him. Sharpe sucked vigorously on the pipe, then thrust the end of the cord into the glowing tobacco. 'You've got enough match there for about five hours. Let's hope the battle is over by that time,' he said as he handed it back. Hector blew gently on the glowing end of the cord, wound the extra length around his wrist, then held the burning end between his fingers. He waited for Sharpe to light the match held out by his companions, and they began to make their way cautiously down the hill towards Arica.
The front rank of buccaneers were now within range of the barricade. One by one they paused, took aim and fired towards the defenders behind their earthwork. Hector thought he saw splinters and spurts of dust fly up. There was a scatter of answering musketry from the Spanish defenders, but they were outranged by the buccaneers' better weapons and their response did no damage. The second wave of attackers was passing through the front line of skirmishers, and had taken up their positions. There was no cheering. The only sounds were the flat detonations of their flintlocks, and the shouted insults and defiance from the Spaniards.
Moments later Hector saw the first of the buccaneers fall. The man was on his feet, taking aim, and the next instant he spun round and dropped to the ground. There was a whoop of triumph from the barricade.
Watling shouted an order and waved his orange handkerchief. His signal was followed by a ragged volley and all of a sudden the buccaneers were running forward in a concerted rush. Now they were shouting and hallooing, muskets and cutlasses in hand. A crackle of musketry from the barricade, and this time Hector saw at least three of the assailants knocked down before the first of them reached the earthwork and began to scramble over. There was a glimpse of a single buccaneer -he was almost sure it was Duill - balancing on top of the barricade and swinging his musket by the barrel, using it as a club to strike downward. A dozen of his men had gone wide, intending to get around the end of the barricade, even as their comrades swarmed over the obstacle. For several minutes the outcome of the pitched battle was in the balance. Men were shouting and yelling, hacking and stabbing. There was the clash of metal in the dust and smoke, cries of pain, and several times Hector heard the lighter crack of pistol shots.
The furore began to ease, and Watling was climbing up back on the barricade and beckoning urgently to the reserve. 'Close up, close up,' he was yelling. 'Hold our ground.'
He jumped back down out of sight as Hector and his comrades ran the last few paces to the barricade and clambered over. On the far side was a scene of devastation. Corpses lying in the dust, the ground was torn and
tramped and stained with blood. A buccaneer with a terrible gash on the side of his face was stumbling around in a daze, and at least thirty or forty Spaniards were standing or sitting on the ground in a state of shock, their faces black with powder smoke and several of them wounded. 'Guard the prisoners while we move forward,' Watling bawled. There was the sound of more musket fire. From within the town the defenders of Arica were sniping at the attackers.
'Put your hands behind your heads!' Hector screamed in Spanish at the prisoners. They looked at him in disbelief. Hector realised that, without a firearm, he must have looked a harmless figure, with only a cutlass at his waist and the slow match coiled around his wrist. 'Do as he says,' growled Jezreel. He spoke in English but his giant size and fierce scowl made it clear what he wanted. The prisoners hurriedly obeyed.
From within the gateway came the sound of more gunfire, a lot of it. Watling's advance guard was encountering furious resistance. A man came scurrying out from the town, bent low to dodge stray bullets. 'There are more barricades inside,' he gasped. 'The Spaniards have built them at every street corner. Watling says we need grenades to clear them.'
'I'll go,' said Jezreel. He unfastened the flap to his satchel and hurried off behind the messenger. Hector turned back to face the prisoners. 'No one move!' he ordered. Looking around, he saw a musket lying on the ground where it had been dropped by one of the defenders. He picked it up and took a quick glance at the lock. It appeared to be primed and loaded. He pointed it at the captives.
Minutes passed and there was a muffled explosion from inside the town, not far away. Hector presumed the grenade had done its work, for there was a lull in the sounds of fighting. Then almost at once the crackle of musket fire resumed.
'We need reinforcements! Come on ahead!' Duill had appeared in the entrance to the town. He was dishevelled and streaked with grime. There was a look of urgency in his movements.
'On whose orders?' Sharpe snapped.
'The general! Watling orders the rearguard to enter the town!'
'And what about the prisoners?'
Duill swore at him and for a moment Hector thought that the second quartermaster would strike Sharpe in the face. 'Leave a couple of men in charge of them,' he snarled. 'There's no time to argue.'
Sharpe turned to Hector. 'You and Jacques stay to guard the prisoners,' he ordered. 'Dan, leave your grenades here and go back up the hill. Your task is to keep a lookout for any extra Spanish troop reinforcements arriving. Let us know if you see anything that poses a risk. The rest of you follow me.' At an unhurried walk he set off towards the sound of the musketry.
A groan came from Hector's right. It was the buccaneer with the wounded face. He had slumped against the barricade and, with his forearm, was trying to staunch the flow of blood from his ravaged face. Hector set down his musket and hurried across to him. 'Here, let me bandage that,' he said and reached for his satchel before he realised that it did not contain medicines and bandages, but grenades. The corpse of a Spanish soldier was lying on the ground nearby. The dead man had worn a cotton scarf around his throat. Hector reached down and removed the neck cloth, then began to knot the bandage around the wounded man's head. Behind him, he heard Jacques let out a curse. Hector spun round in time to see at least twenty of the Spanish prisoners running away. 'Halt!' he shouted. 'Halt or I fire.' But he knew it was a bluff. There was no way that he and Jacques could restrain them.
'Not much point in hanging about here,' said Jacques. 'We should see if we can help Jezreel and the others.'
The two of them cautiously made their way into the town.
At the first crossroads they came upon the wreckage of another barricade. It had been made of upturned carts, planks and old furniture. There was a gap where Watling's men must have forced their way through. On the far side lay more dead men, both Spanish and buccaneer. A second crossroads and another barricade, and this time the buccaneers were using it as a breastwork themselves, taking shelter behind it, then standing up and taking shots at the enemy.
Hector spotted Jezreel. He was aiming his flintlock towards a nearby roof top, and a second later he pulled the trigger. A Spanish arquebusier ducked back out of sight. 'Missed him,' grunted Jezreel. He extracted the ramrod from under the barrel, spat on a rag to moisten it and began to clean out the gun. 'We can't keep up this rate of fire. Our weapons are getting fouled.'
Watling was in a doorway, conferring with Duill. The two men beckoned to Sharpe and spoke with him for a few moments before Sharpe came running back, tapped Hector on the shoulder, and shouted to him, 'Collect together the rearguard, and as many men as you can. We must take the fort. Until we secure our flank, we are exposed. The others will deal with the town itself.'
Hector passed the word to Jacques and soon they and some thirty men, including Jezreel, were fighting their way down a narrow street. Ahead of them, Spanish militiamen could be seen falling back, retreating to the safety of the fort. As the last of them passed through the wooden gate, it was heaved shut, and a fusillade from loopholes in the wall forced the attackers to take cover.
Bartholomew Sharpe ducked back into an alleyway and leaned against a mud wall, catching his breath. 'Time for another of our famous grenades,' he said. Hector realised that to this moment he had not fired a single shot but had been swept along in the general confusion. He looked down at his left wrist, and was surprised to see red burn marks on his skin where the lit end of the match had scorched him. In the chaos of battle he had never noticed the pain. He opened the flap of his satchel and took out a grenade. The little bomb looked very ill-made. The covering of hardened pitch had softened in the heat and lost its shape. Several of the half musket bullets had fallen loose. The fuse, a short length of slow match an inch long, was pressed over to one side and stuck into the pitch like the bent wick of a candle. Carefully he prised the fuse straight.
'Try to throw it over the gate! And good luck!' muttered Sharpe as he backed away. Hector brought the glowing end of the slow match across to the fuse and touched the two ends together. He saw the grenade's fuse begin to burn and, forcing himself to stay calm, started to count to ten very slowly. He stepped out from cover and as Watling had instructed, tossed the grenade, keeping his arm straight. The bomb flew through the air and, to his chagrin, thudded against the wall of the fort at least a foot beneath the top, dropped down, and lay on the road.
'Beware bomb!' he shouted and leaped back into shelter, pressing himself into a doorway. Several moments passed and nothing happened. Cautiously he peered out, and saw the grenade lying in the dust. He could not see any smoke rising from it. The device had failed to work. He fumbled in his satchel for a second grenade.
'Don't be in a hurry. Let's use our heads about this,' said Sharpe, who had reappeared beside him. 'You and Jacques follow me.'
He pushed open the door to the house and led the two of them inside. A buccaneer was already in the room, kneeling by the window and aiming his musket towards the fort. Sharpe looked up. The ceiling was made of narrow poles laid horizontally, above them a layer of palm fronds.
'There must be a way onto the roof,' Sharpe said. He crossed the room and pulled open the back door. 'Just as I thought, there's a ladder.' He began to climb its rungs with Hector and Jacques at his heels.
Emerging on the flat roof Hector found that he was level with the top of the wall of the fort just across the street. The roof itself was made of clay and tamped earth. Sharpe gripped his arm, holding him back. 'We don't want to be seen before we are ready, and we've got to get this right,' he said quietly.
Jacques had scrambled up beside them and was already selecting a grenade from his satchel.
'Compare your fuses, and make sure that both are the same length,' Sharpe advised. 'I'll light both the fuses so that the two of you can concentrate on the throw. When I give the word, step across the roof, it's no more than five paces, and hurl the bombs. Don't worry about hitting a precise target, just make sure they fall inside the fort. As soon as you've th
rown your grenades, get back here and crouch down.'
Hector unwound the slow match from his wrist, gave it to Sharpe, and then picked out the better of his two remaining grenades. 'Are you ready?' Sharpe asked. Both men nodded, and their commander pressed the slow match to the fuses. They began to burn, the dull red glow steadily eating its way towards the gunpowder. But Sharpe appeared to ignore them. He was gazing out across the roof tops. As the seconds dragged past, Hector found himself sweating with apprehension. He could smell the acrid stench of the burning match.
Finally, and very softly, Sharpe said, 'Now!' With Jacques by his side, Hector started out across the flat roof. For one heart-stopping moment he felt the surface crumble beneath his weight, and thought he would fall through with the lit grenade still in his grasp. Then he was at the edge of the roof, overlooking the street. The top of the fort wall was no more than thirty feet away. Hector swung back his arm and threw the little bomb. It went in an arc over the fort wall, cleared it easily, and dropped out of sight. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jacques's grenade follow.
There was a musket shot and Hector felt a tug at his sleeve. A defender must have seen them and opened fire. Bending double, the two men scurried back to where Sharpe was waiting. 'Now we wait,' he said.
For what seemed like an age nothing happened. Then abruptly there was the sound of a detonation, followed by shouts of fear, then silence.
They waited another minute, but there was no further explosion. 'One bomb seems to have been enough,' said Sharpe. He cocked his head to one side, listening. 'We've given them something to think about.'
There was an anxious shout from below. Someone was calling 'Captain Sharpe! Captain Sharpe!' and a worried-looking buccaneer appeared at the rear of the building. He had a bloody rag wrapped around one hand.
'Who are you calling "Captain"? I'm just one of the company now!' exclaimed Sharpe, looking down.
'The general's dead!' cried out the newcomer. 'He was shot at the barricades. We need someone to lead us.'