[Illustration: The inner workings of the Castillo drawbridge.
Pulling up the drawbridge was like locking the door. Once it was pulled
up flush against the walls and the portcullis—the heavy grating made of
solid yellow pine—rolled shut, no one could get into the fort. To raise
the bridge, trapdoors were removed so that the counterweights could
descend into the pit. A windlass also lay beneath this trapdoor.
Soldiers inserted bars into holes bored into the windlass and rotated
it, causing the lifting drums to revolve. The chains, attached to the
far end of the bridge, pulled the bridge up as the chains turned on the
lifting drums. The counterweights helped neutralize the weight of the
bridge so that three soldiers were able to lift its great
weight—approximately 1,900 pounds. When the bridge was in the upright
position, the soldiers then rolled the portcullis shut behind them, and
secured it. This was done every night or in time of danger.]
To lessen the chances of famine in the future, Florida officials
resolved to plant great fields of corn nearby. And where was better than
the broad clearings around the fort? Acres of waving corn soon covered
the land almost up to the moat. When the crown heard of these plantings,
back to Florida came a royal order banning corn fields within a musket
shot of the Castillo. A whole army could hide in the tall corn without
being seen by the sentries!
[Illustration: The Castillo drawbridge.]
A new governor, Don Laureano de Torres y Ayala, arrived in 1693. At the
outset he had to deal with hostilities between St. Augustine and
Charleston—hostilities that mocked the Spanish-English alliance in
Europe.
More importantly, however, to Governor Torres belongs the credit for
completing Castillo de San Marcos. Torres saw the last stones go into
place for the water battery—bright yellow coquina that was in contrast
to weathered masonry almost a quarter of a century old. In August 1695
the workmen finally moved out of the Castillo to another job: a seawall
that would keep storm tides out of the city.
The pile of stone on which Cendoya had planned to spend some 70,000
pesos and which Hita had estimated would cost a good 80,000 if built
elsewhere, ended up costing at least 138,375 pesos, a tremendous sum
impossible to translate into today’s money. But more than the money, it
was the blood, sweat, and hardship of the Florida soldier that paid the
cost. For the funds came out of money never paid. Let the Castillo be
his monument!
And what did completion of this citadel mean? Only a year later,
soldiers gaunt with hunger slipped into the church and left an unsigned
warning for the governor: If the enemy came, they intended to surrender,
for they were starving.
[Illustration: Weapons of the 17th and 18th centuries may seem crude
and primitive to a late-20th-century observer, but they could rain
death and destruction on any foe. See the feature on Ordnance, pages
44-45, for more details.]