THE TAKING OF THE GALLEONS.
Looking back upon that great day--it was October 11--it seems to me
that many of the events which happened must have been due to the mercy
and goodness of God, so incredible were they.
For see now what fell out at the very first, namely, that the haze and
mist were so thick that we were enabled to anchor at the mouth of the
great river and harbour without so much as even our presence being
known, so that when the sun set and the fog lifted, the surprise of
those snared and trapped creatures was great, and they at once began
firing wildly upon us, without, however, doing any harm whatever. But
the lifting of that fog showed us what we had to encounter, the work
that was to be done.
For, first, it enabled us to see that, across the river, or narrow
strait, as indeed it was, the French admiral had laid a tremendous
boom, made up of cables, yards and masts, topchains and casts, some
nine feet in circumference, while the whole was kept fixed and steady
by anchors at either side. This, too, we perceived, was constructed
between two forts known as the Ronde and the Noot, one on the left
bank and the other on the right, while far up the harbour, where we
saw the galleons all a-lying tucked in comfortably under the cliffs,
with a line of French ships of battle, and some Spanish ones, ahead of
and guarding them, we perceived a great fort, which is known as the
Fort of Redondella.
And now the night came down upon us, and we knew that for this day
there would be no fighting, though, since all through it the admiral
went from ship to ship in his barge, giving orders, 'twas very certain
that at daybreak it would begin.
And so it did, as now I have to describe.
For on the morrow, and when, as near six o'clock as may be, the sun
came up swiftly over the great hills, or mountains, which abound here,
we made our first preparations for the attack by the landing of the
Duke of Ormond with two thousand five hundred and fifty men on the
side of the Fort Redondella, they marching at once toward it on foot.
As for myself, although a soldier, it had been decided that I should
remain in the _Pembroke_, and this for more than one reason.
"You have," said Captain Hardy to me, "no uniform with you; therefore,
if you fall into the hands of those on shore it may go hard with you.
Yet here you can be of service; help train a gun, if need be, issue
orders, take part in the boarding, which must surely occur, perhaps
take part in sacking of the galleons. There's business for you--such,
indeed as, as a soldier, you are not very like to ever see again. My
lad!" he went on--and in truth I was a lad to him, though I esteemed
myself a very full-fledged man--"you are to be congratulated. You
will have much to talk about in years to come--if you survive this
day--which falls not often to a landsman's lot," and he ran away as
gay as a lad himself, all grizzled with service though he was, to
prepare for assisting in breaking the boom.
So I stayed in the _Pembroke_ and, as you shall see, if you do but
read, the doing so led to all that happened to me which I have now to
set down, and all of which--had it not so happened--would have
prevented this narrative from ever being penned, since it is not to
describe only the siege of Vigo and the taking of the Spanish galleons
that I am a-writing of this story.
Therefore I proceed:
Down from the hills already the smoke was rolling fast, obscuring
the beauteous morn by now; white smoke from the cannon in the
fort--through which there leapt every moment great spits of flame from
the big guns' mouths!--dun-coloured smoke from the grenades carried by
Lord Shannon and Colonel Pierce's grenadiers; black, greasy smoke
vomited forth from the fuzees. And it came down to the water and
poured across it in clouds, enveloping the galleons in its wreaths and
the great French ships of battle; clinging around our own topsails and
masts, almost obscuring each of our vessels from the other.
Yet not so much, neither, but that--a breeze having sprung up after a
calm which had enforced us to drop our anchors for a while--we,
of the _Pembroke_, could see glide by us a great ship, with her men on
yards and masts and in fighting tops, all cheering lustily, and some
a-singing--a vessel that rushed forward as a tiger rushes to its prey.
At first we thought it was the _Royal Sovereign_--that great, noble
ship which transmits a name down from Bluff Harry's days--then knew we
were mistaken. It was the _Torbay_, Vice-Admiral Hopson's own, in
which he flew his flag, her sails all clapt on, her cable training at
her side, where he had cut it, so as to lose no precious time, her
course direct for the boom. And after her went ourselves, as hound let
loose from leash follows hound. Captain Hardy had spoken true--'twas a
day not to be missed!
We heard a snapping, a crashing--'twas awful, too, to hear!--we heard
roar upon roar from hundreds of lusty throats in that great ship--we
knew the boom was gone--cut through as a woodsman's axe cuts through a
sapling. Amidst all the enemy's fire--fire from the French ships and
those Spanish forts on shore--we heard it. And we, too, cheered and
shouted--sent up our queen's name to the smoke-obscured heavens above.
Some cried the old watchword of past days, "St. George and England";
some even danced and jumped upon the decks for glee--danced and
jumped, even though the hail of ball was scattering us like ninepins,
or a hundred pins!--even though some lay writhing on those decks, and
some were lying there headless, armless, legless! What mattered? The
enemy were there behind that boom, and it was broken. We were amongst
them now. Let those die who must; those live who were to conquer.
Between the _Bourbon_ and _L'Espérance_ the noble _Torbay_ rushed--to
the jaws of death she went, as though to a summer cruise on friendly
seas, her anchor cables roared through her hawse-holes--Hopson had
anchored 'twixt those two great French ships! He was there; there was
to be, could be, no retreat now; 'twas death or victory.
At first it seemed as though it could alone be the first. The cannon
grinned like teeth through tier upon tier of gunboats in the
Frenchman's sides; the balls crashed into the Torbay; they did the
same with us and Vandergoes' ship, now ranged on the other side of the
_Bourbon_--a French fireship had clapt alongside of her, and set her
rigging alight; her foretopmast went by the board; her sails were all
aflame; her foreyard burnt like a dry log; her larboard shrouds burnt
at the dead-eyes.
Yet still she fought and fought--vomited forth her own flames and
destruction; still from the throats of those left alive came shouts of
savage exultation, for, all afire as she was, we saw that she was
winning. And not only she, but all of us. We had sunk one Frenchman
ourselves. Vandergoes had mastered the _Bourbon_--she was done for!
The _Association_ had silenced a battery ashore. And now a greater
thing than all happened--Chateaurenault saw that he was beaten, set
his flagship, _Le Fort_, on fire, and fled to the shore, calling on
all his captains to follow him.
Yet still one awful dread remained! The _Torbay_ was burning
fiercely, charred masts and yards were falling to the deck--itself
aflame--blocks burning like tarred wood crashed down, too. What if her
powder magazine exploded! If it did, all in her neighbourhood would be
destroyed, hurled to atoms, as she herself would be.
Almost it seemed as if that had happened now. There came a hideous
roar, a belch of black, suffocating smoke; it set all sneezing and
coughing as though a sulphur mine were afire. Yet that explosion, that
great cloud of filthy blackness, those masses of burnt and charred
wood hurled up into the air and falling with a crash on every deck
around, amidst shrieks and howls and curses terrible to hear, though
drowned somewhat by the booming of the cannon all about, was to be the
salvation of the _Torbay_, of ourselves, and of the Dutchmen.
For it was the fireship itself that had exploded. It was, in truth, a
merchantman laden with snuff, which had been hastily fitted up as one
of those craft. And in so doing the density of the fumes which it
emitted, and its falling _débris_ when it was burst asunder, helped to
put out the flames that raged in the _Torbay_ and in us.
The firing began to cease even as this happened; the enemy began to
recognise that 'twas useless. They would have been blind not to have
so recognised. On shore 'twas easy _Association_; on the water the
_Bourbon_ was ours. The lilies were hauled down, in their place
floated the banner of England; the fireship had vanished into the
elements, the great boom lay in pieces on the water like some long,
severed snake. Yet might one have wept to gaze upon the _Torbay_--the
queen and victress of this fight--and upon ourselves.
There she lay--Hopson by now in the _Monmouth_, to which he had been
forced to transfer his flag, so sad a ruin was she--listing over to
her wounded starboard side, into which the water poured in volumes, it
becoming tinged as it mixed with the blood in her scuppers; her yards
and masts were charred sticks; black bits of sooty, greasy matter,
which had once been her white sails, floated down slowly to the waves
and fell upon and dissolved into them. Also her shrouds were but burnt
pieces of rope and twine now. Upon her deck there were stretched a
hundred and twenty men, dead or dying. And with the _Pembroke_ it was
almost as bad. We were shattered and bruised, our foremast gone, our
own sails shot through and through, and hanging over the sides like
winding sheets, our own decks charnel houses. Yet we had won the
fight, the day was ours, the galleons our booty.
But were they? That was the question!
'Twas true, they were all as we had first seen them, though some, we
noticed, had been run ashore, perhaps to give them a chance of
hurriedly landing some of their cargo; but, alas! we noticed now that
they were all aflame, were burning fiercely.
And we knew well enough what this meant--meant that the French and
Spaniards had set them on fire so that we should benefit nothing
through their falling into our hands. And all of us saw it at the same
time--Rooke saw it, Hopson saw it--every man on board our English
decks who was still alive saw and understood.
By God's mercy the breeze was still blowing into the strait. Some of
us still had some sail left clinging to our bruised and battered
yards; enough to take us farther in, enough to enable the boarding
parties to row ashore, to reach those burning ships, to save
something, surely!
From all the ships' sides as we ran up as far as we could toward where
they lay, came now the hoarse grating of the ropes running through the
blocks as the boats were lowered. Into those boats leaped swarms of
men, their cutlasses ready, their pistols in their hands, their eyes
inflamed with the lust of plunder, wild oaths and jokes, curses--and,
sometimes, prayers that we were not too late--upon their lips.
And in our cutter I went, too--appointed to the command of her in
place of the lieutenant who should have taken that command, but who
now lay dead upon the _Pembroke's_ deck, a dozen balls in his body.
Jostling one another--for there were scores of boats lowered by now,
and all making their way, under either sail or the seamen's brawny
arms, to where those burning galleons lay--we rushed through the half
mile of water that separated us from them, all eager to board and be
amongst the spoil. And woe, I thought, to him or them who, when we
were there, should strive to bar our entrance! Our blood was up,
fevered by the carnage of the earlier hours; woe to them who
endeavoured to prevent our final triumph! Through wreckage of all
kinds we went, spars, yards and masts, military tops floating like
tubs, dead men face upward, living men clinging to oars and overturned
boats and shrieking to be saved, while ever still, in front of us, the
galleons burned and blazed--one blew up as we neared it, another,
spouting flames from port and window and burning to the water's edge,
sank swiftly and in a moment beneath the water.
But at last we were up to them, were beneath their bows, could see
their great figureheads and read their names--most of them so terribly
sacred that one wondered that even Spaniards should so dare to profane
those holy words by using them for their ships!
And now some orders were issued by a grey-haired officer to those
close by. The boarding parties were told off in boats of twos and
threes to the different vessels flaming before our eyes. The one which
I commanded was directed to a great vessel of three decks, having
above her upper one a huge poop-royal, and named--heavens, what a name
for a ship!--_La Sacra Familia_. And as we swept toward them all we
saw that one mercy was now to be vouchsafed. There would be no further
slaughter here; no need for more shedding of blood. The vessels were
not defended; those who had set fire to them had undoubtedly fled.
Yet up on the poop-royal of that galleon, to which we now clambered by
aid of rope and ladder--with cutlass in mouth and pistol in belt--as
well as by chains and steps, we saw there was still some human life
left. We saw a tall monk standing there, gazing down curiously at us,
his shaven crown glistening in the autumn sun. Also, it seemed as
though he smiled a welcome to us, was glad to see us; perhaps regarded
us as men who might save him from that burning mass.
We rushed on board, and first, before all other things, except a
salutation which I made to the monk by a touch of the finger to my
hat, I directed those under my command to endeavour to stifle the
fire, which seemed at present to be entirely confined to the after
part of the ship. "For," said I to those of my own following, and also
to those who had come in the other boats under the command of two
bo'suns, "if this is not done there will be no getting at the goods
whatever. Where generally is the storage made?" I asked, turning to
one of these officers.
"Faith, sir, I know not," he said, with a harsh laugh. "My account has
been ever with the king's--and now the queen's--ships. We sailors know
little of such things as stored treasure. Yet," and he again laughed,
"we have our opportunity now. If we can but quench this fire, we may
learn something."
"Perhaps," said a voice behind me, musical and deep, and greatly to my
astonishment--when I turned round and saw who its owner was, namely,
the monk--speaking in very good English, "I may be of some service
here. I have been a passenger in her since she loaded at Guayaquil,"
and his eyes met mine boldly.
They were large, roving eyes, too, jet-black and piercing, and looked
out from a dark, handsome face. A face as close-shaven as the crown,
yet with the blue tinge all over upper lip and chin and cheeks which
showed where there grew a mass of hair beneath.
"I am obliged to you, sir," I answered, touching my hat again--for his
manner proclaimed that this was no common peasant who had become a
monk because the life was easier than that of a hedger and ditcher;
but, instead, a man who knew something of the world and its
courtesies. Then, he having told me that all the plate and coin was in
the middle of the ship, and the merchandise, such as skins and
leather, Campeachy wood, quinquina, silks, indigo and cochineal in the
after part, I sent off all the men to endeavour at once to extinguish
the flames below; to cut off communication between the atmosphere and
that part of the ship which was already in flames; to close all
hatches and bulkhead doors; to stop up the crevices by which the air
could pass to the burning part, and, if possible, to separate the one
half of the vessel from the other, as well as to pour down water on
the flames.
And, half an hour later--while still I stood gazing down on the men at
their work, and still by my side stood the monk, uttering no word, but
regarding with interest all that was doing--one of the bo'suns called
up to me, saying:
"We have scotched it now, sir. There is no more fire left."