Panting, swooning from the heat and the fatigue of battle, the group of leading officers paused within musket shot of the gates.
“All but successful, Vere ~ ” Essex shouted. “In another minute we’d have had ‘em! By God, I had no thought to attempt the city yet …”
“It’s too strong to attempt here,” Sir Francis said. “But I’ll wager it’s not so well guarded all the way; I suggest we take a battalion each, you to the right, my lord, I to the left. These fortifications are part new and part old. They’ll have their weak points.”
“It would be splendid to capture the place before Howard comes,” Essex muttered.
“Have a care for yourself, my lord. The Queen will not be pleased with us if we return without you.”
So they parted. We attached ourselves to the battalion led by Essex. Some twenty gaily-armoured gentlemen surrounded him, but he topped them all, impulsive, ardent, arrogant.
The fortifications of Cadiz consisted of a deep ditch with a high wall behind punctuated by defence towers. As we made our progress round, the defendants were firing at us.
After five minutes Essex stopped. Part of the city wall was ruinous here, and the earth thrown up from the ditch made a mountable slope to reach the top of the wall. But knowing the weakness, the Spaniards were guarding it with a line of musketeers, and one of the defence towers overlooked it.
Essex said: “I think we shall find nothing more enticing than this, gentlemen. When I give the word, follow me.”
“No, sir!” said Captain Savage. “With respect it is not a place for your Lordship to lead. As your Captain-Lieutenant I claim that privilege.”
Essex hesitated, while the officers and gentlemen crowded round him, claiming his attention. “So be it, then. Savage and you, Evans and you, Bagnal take five men each. But we’ll follow on your heels. Wait. Musketeers ! prepare to fire! “
Shots from the tower were already peppering round us. Eighteen soldiers gathered in three groups. Then the musketeers discharged three volleys at the defenders. Savage shouted and the men rushed forward, first down into the ditch, then clambering wildly up the broken earth towards the city wall. Two men fell but the others gained the wall. Savage at the parapet killed a man and stood with sword raised defying the fire of the city.
Essex and twenty more followed, and we were in that number; behind came a platoon of pikemen, and then the musketeers. It was a hard and anxious scramble: had I been alone I should have been much more afraid.
I gained the city wall ahead of Victor and just behind Essex himself: in the street below us a man driving a water cart stared up open-mouthed; a line of washing hung from the balcony opposite; on a further rooftop two children played beside a wooden cradle; a mangy dog was eating some refuse in the alley below.
We were in no good place here: the Spaniards had been driven from this part of the wall, but our position was still dominated by the tower to our right; also there was another tower, invisible from below, set back but within musket range. There was no way down to the street except by jumping, and that little short of 20 feet.
Two more of our men had been wounded. Captain Bagnal, one of Vere’s veterans, now assembled the musketeers into two lines, one firing through the other, and ordered them to concentrate on the tower. This they did with such accuracy that the tower ceased to fire.
“I do not like this drop,” Essex said. “Carrying this armour, one is certain to break a leg.”
“I’ll try,” I said, and began to unbuckle my breastplate, but Lieutenant Evans sat on the edge of the wall, threw down his sword, and slithered and fell into the street. For a moment after the clatter of his armour he lay still, but before two Spaniards could seize him he got to his knees and reached for his sword. Another English officer with a whoop followed, and then three more. I went over the edge, breastplate and all, and the ground hit me a great blow.
By the time two dozen were down the street was clear of the enemy. There was still some desultory fire from the other tower; Essex remained hesitating on the wall, though only one of those who had jumped was rolling over in pain. Victor landed almost in my arms and collapsed in a heap.
Then I heard cheering farther along, unmistakably English in character. Essex raised his head and thereafter made no attempt to jump. Vere and his veterans had forced the gate.
CHAPTER SIX
The streets were narrow as slits, and the Spanish were fighting for each house. In some cases the women had carried boulders up on to the flat roofs and toppled these down as we advanced. It was murderous work, sometimes by musket but more often hand to hand.
There were about sixty of us to begin, led by Essex, but in no time the narrow streets split us up, like water trickling through a honeycomb; we were all making towards the centre of the city but in different channels and at different speeds.
Victor and I found ourselves with Captain Samuel Bagnal and a Captain Carey and six others. In the streets to our left Sir John Wingfield had appeared with a dozen men. To our right was Evans. In our second street three Spanish pikemen had overturned a vegetable cart; behind them were eight civilians armed with staves and axes. We only had one musketeer in our band, and as he raised his gun it was knocked from his hand by a great earthenware pot dropped from a window.
Bagnal bent down and picked up one of the big oranges tying in the gutter. He bit into it, spat out the peel and took a mouthful of juice and sweet pulp. Then he leaped at the barrier, pulling at the cart’s end to swing it round. A pikeman lunged and wounded Bagnal in the shoulder; Bagnal stabbed the man through the throat and sat astride the upturned cart. Three other soldiers joined him and I followed. The civilians did not run but charged us as we climbed, a soldier had his helmet and head cleft open. I thrust at a civilian with my sword; it went in and my wrist jarred as the steel struck some bone. The man’s eyes went white and he collapsed, pulling me with him. In a welter of arms and legs I dragged my sword out; we were over the barrier. Carey was driving two men back and the rest fled.
Bagnal smeared the blood down his doublet sleeve, and sword in hand stalked to the end of the alley. Three men attacked him. He was stabbed again in the side, but Carey was up with him and Victor and others, and the three men were killed. One of our men was shot through the head from a window.
Another street like the last, except for some acacia trees at the end. Spanish soldiers at windows had it under a cross-fire. Bagnal ducked into a doorway, smashed the lattice with his elbow to get a view, and then fired his pistol at one of the windows while two of his own men crept up in the shadow of the opposite wall. They broke in the doors with their pikes and disappeared inside.
There was much firing down a cross alley where Wingfield was engaging a group of Spaniards. A donkey came trotting riderless along this alley, its little knockkneed legs rubbing against each other; as it turned the corner it spilled its burden of dried palmetto leaves and stopped to sniff at something in the gutter.
Bagnal beckoned to me and we moved on down the street followed by three of the others. At the trees the street split left and right. Since Wingfield was in a pitched battle to our left we turned right and came into a tiny patio with awnings still out, a well in the middle with pink geraniums, two mules tethered and a dog barking. The heat everywhere was overpowering, and even shade brought no relief.