Sir Walter said: “I.came ashore to urge once more on the Lord Admiral that the flota be taken at once. He is unheeding … It is there to be had at will, he says. They will have to treat with him in the morning...”
Great efforts were being made by the English officers to get their men under control, and for the most part the soldiers, although already at the wine, were good tempered and amenable.
“I came too to see the city. So have come all the captains all except Crosse who stays on Swiftsure. Vere has sent part of his army to the Bridge of Suazo to guard against a surprise counter-attack. It is as well some of us preserve a sense of discipline.”
Fighting broke out on a wrought-iron balcony above our heads. Two Spaniards had retreated on to it and were beseeching their attackers for mercy. They did not get it, but had their throats cut and in a few moments the blood was dripping off the balcony’s edge as if from the scarlet geraniums growing there.
“Dutch … I don’t like their ferocity, but how can you blame them? You stumble, Maugan.”
We got down into a lower square. Two English soldiers were disputing over a Spanish woman, one tugging at each arm, but an officer came rapidly towards them with drawn sword, and resentfully they freed her and she fled back into the house behind. There was fighting on a roof, and a body fell with a great thud upon the cobbles; our horse shied away and nearly trod on me; BeH tugged at the bridle and we went on.
At the city gates a new company of English soldiers was marching in. They walked in good order, taking no heed of the fire that raged in a house built beside the gate or of sporadic shooting that was still going on from a nearby tower. Beside the gate was a heap of some twenty dead, limbs sprawling grotesquely; they seemed to have no kinship with us. In the flickering torchlight a few faces peered upwards, mummers’ masks without blood or hope; they might have been Spanish or our own comrades; death had robbed them not merely of nationality but of humanity too.
It was a brilliant night, and lights winked here and there on the surrounding hills. We stopped and lifted Victor down; I moistened his lips and bathed his face. Bell and Myers broke and tied some wood and made a rough litter and put Victor on it. Ralegh could just mount the horse. We ploughed across the soft yielding sand.
We rounded the wall that had hidden us from the harbour. The two great galleons were still aglow but the fire was now within them; ribs showed; they were like brasero bowls burning in the mud. The halfdozen smaller ships which had been afire had sunk and the flames put out. Beyond, our own ships showed like a line of forts built too close together, their clustered masts fenced the skyline.
Ralegh said: “I’m told that Admiral Portocarrero commanded the galley squadron. I would like to feel they too were accounted for. They are a spiteful breed of ship and could do some harm to us if prepared to risk loss.”
We reached the water. A few rowboats and barges were fringing the muddy edge. Guards had been posted. Victor was lifted into a boat and Sir Walter helped from his horse. I struggled in the mud, put one foot to the gunnel; Bell took my arm. Pain was throbbing now. It had always been there but a secondary sensation while other urgencies dominated.
As we pushed off an old woman came along the edge angrily screaming at us. We steered among the dead, some floating, some stuck in the mud. Burning smoke drifted about; broken spars, charred sailcloth, casks of wine, kegs of biscuit lay under festoons of rigging like netted fish; here and there a voice still shouted and groaned. The water was black and billy as if itself charred by the fire.
There were lights on Warspite; someone was playing a lute and a few unsteady voices were singing, but the men at the ladder sprang to attention when they saw who was back. Somehow we got Victor into the long cabin abaft the mainmast. Surgeon Wood was sent for. Bell at last unbuckled my breastplate and it came away with a clack of half dried blood. He slit the shirt up and the tired blood began welling up again.
Ralegh came in, his face dark. “Well?”
“He’s far gone,” said Wood, looking up from Victor. “I can do little.”
“And this lad?”
Wood came over and began to thumb my wounds. Then he looked at my arm which had a knife thrust through the muscle. “This is nothing. But the other wound’s deep. There may be laceration of the abdominal wall. Bind him tight to keep the lips of the wound closed, Bell. If he lives till morning he may well mend.”
“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 …”