"Señor Marcial," she began, with increased indignation, "if you choose
to go to sea again and lose your other hand, you can go if you like;
but my husband here, shall not."
"Very good," said the sailor who had seated himself on the edge of a
chair, occupying no more space on it than was necessary to save
himself from falling: "I will go alone. But the devil may take me if I
can rest without looking on at the fun!"
Then he went on triumphantly: "We have fifteen ships and the French
twenty smaller vessels. If they were all ours we should not want so
many. Forty ships and plenty of brave hearts on board!"
Just as the spark creeps from one piece of timber to the next, the
enthusiasm that fired Marcial's one eye lighted up both my master's,
though dimmed by age. "But the _Señorito_" (Lord Nelson), added the
sailor, "will bring up a great many men too. That is the sort of
performance I enjoy: plenty of timbers to fire at, and plenty of
gunpowder-smoke to warm the air when it is cold."
I forgot to mention that Marcial, like most sailors, used a vocabulary
of the most wonderful and mongrel character, for it seems to be a
habit among seamen of every nation to disfigure their mother tongue to
the verge of caricature. By examining the nautical terms used by
sailors we perceive that most of them are corruptions of more usual
terms, modified to suit their eager and hasty temperament trained by
circumstances to abridge all the functions of existence and
particularly speech. Hearing them talk it has sometimes occurred to me
that sailors find the tongue an organ that they would gladly dispense
with.
Marcial, for instance, turned verbs into nouns and nouns into verbs
without consulting the authorities. He applied nautical terms to every
action and movement, and identified the ideas of a man and a ship,
fancying that there was some analogy between their limbs and parts. He
would say in speaking of the loss of his eye that his larboard
port-hole was closed, and explained the amputation of his arm by
saying that he had been left minus his starboard cat-head. His heart
he called his courage-hold and his stomach his bread-basket. These
terms sailors at any rate could understand; but he had others, the
offspring of his own inventive genius of which he alone understood the
meaning or could appreciate the force. He had words of his own coining
for doubting a statement, for feeling sad; getting drunk he always
called "putting on your coat" among a number of other fantastical
idioms; and the derivation of this particular phrase will never occur
to my readers without my explaining to them that the English sailors
had acquired among the Spaniards the nickname of "great-coats," so
that when he called getting drunk "putting your coat on" a recondite
allusion was implied to the favorite vice of the enemy. He had the
most extraordinary nicknames for foreign admirals; Nelson he called
the _Señorito_, implying a certain amount of respect for him;
Collingwood was _Rio Calambre_, (Uncle Cramp) which he believed to be
an equivalent for the English name; Jervis he called--as the English
did too--The old Fox; Calder was known as _Rio Perol_ (Uncle Boiler)
from an association of the name Calder with _caldera_, a kettle, and
by an entirely different process he dubbed Villeneuve, the Admiral of
the united fleets, with the name of _Monsieur Corneta_, borrowed from
some play he had once seen acted at Madrid. In fact, when reporting
the conversations I can recall, I must perforce translate his
wonderful phraseology into more ordinary language, to avoid going into
long and tiresome explanations.
To proceed, Doña Francisca, devoutly crossing herself, answered
angrily:
"Forty ships! Good Heavens! it is tempting Providence; and there will
be at least forty thousand guns for the enemies to kill each other."
"Ah! but _Monsieur Corneta_ keeps the courage-hold well filled!"
exclaimed Marcial, striking his breast. "We shall laugh at the
great-coats this time. It will not be Cape St. Vincent over again."
"And you must not forget," added my master eagerly recurring to his
favorite hobby, "that if Admiral Córdova had only ordered the _San
José_ and the _Mejicano_ to tack to port, Captain Jervis would not now
be rejoicing in the title of Earl St. Vincent. Of that you may be very
certain, and I have ample evidence to show that if we had gone to port
the day would have been ours."
"Ours!" exclaimed Doña Francisca scornfully. "As if you could have
done more. To hear these fire-eaters it would seem as if they wanted
to conquer the world, and as to going to sea--it appears that their
shoulders are not broad enough to bear the blows of the English."
"No," said Marcial resolutely and clenching his fist defiantly. "If it
were not for their cunning and knavery...! We got out against them
with a bold front, defying them like men, with our flag hoisted and
clean hands. The English never sail wide, they always steal up and
surprise us, choosing heavy seas and stormy weather. That is how it
was at the Straits, when we were made to pay so dearly. We were
sailing on quite confidingly, for no one expected to be trapped even
by a heretic dog of a Moor, much less by an Englishman who does the
polite thing in a Christian fashion.--But no, an enemy who sneaks up
to fight is not a Christian--he is a highwayman. Well now, just fancy,
señora," and he turned to Doña Francisca to engage her attention and
good-will, "we were going out of Cadiz to help the French fleet which
was driven into Algeciras by the English.--It is four years ago now,
and to this day it makes me so angry that my blood boils as I think of
it. I was on board the _Real Cárlos_, 112 guns, commanded by Ezguerra,
and we had with us the _San Hermenegildo_, 112 guns too, the _San
Fernando_, the _Argonauta_, the _San Agustin_, and the frigate
_Sabina_. We were joined by the French squadron of four men-of-war,
three frigates and a brigantine, and all sailed out of Algeciras for
Cadiz at twelve o'clock at noon; and as the wind was slack when night
fell we were close under Punta Carnero. The night was blacker than a
barrel of pitch, but the weather was fine so we could hold on our way
in spite of the darkness. Most of the crew were asleep; I remember, I
was sitting in the fo'castle talking to the mate, Pepe Débora, who was
telling me all the dog's tricks his mother-in-law had played him, and
alongside we could see the lights of the _San Hermenegildo_, which was
sailing at a gun-shot to starboard. The other ships were ahead of us.
For the very last thing we any of us thought of was that the
'great-coats' had slipped out of Gibraltar and were giving chase--and
how the devil should we, when they had doused all their lights and
were stealing up to us without our guessing it? Suddenly, for all that
the night was so dark, I fancied I saw something--I always had a
port-light like a lynx--I fancied a ship was standing between us and
the _San Hermenegildo_, which was sailing at a gun-shot to starboard.
'José Débora,' says I, 'either I saw a ghost or there is an Englishman
to starboard?' José Débora looks himself, and then he says: 'May the
main-mast go by the board,' says he, 'if there is e'er a ship to
starboard but the _San Hermenegildo_.' 'Well,' says I, 'whether or no
I am going to tell the officer of the watch.'
"Well hardly were the words out of my mouth when, rub-a-dub! we heard
the tune of a whole broadside that came rattling against our ribs. The
crew were on deck in a minute, and each man at his post. That was a
rumpus, señora! I wish you could have been there, just to have an idea
of how these things are managed. We were all swearing like demons and
at the same time praying the Lord to give us a gun at the end of every
finger to fight them with. Ezguerra gave the word to return their
broadside.--Thunder and lightning! They fired again, and in a minute
or two we responded. But in the midst of all the noise and confusion
we discovered that with their first broadside they had sent one of
those infernal combustibles (but he called it 'comestibles') on board
which fall on the deck as if it were raining fire. When we saw our
ship was burning we fought like madmen and fired off broadside after
broadside. Ah! Doña Francisca, it was hot work I can tell you!--Then
our captain took us alongside of the enemy's ship that we might board
her. I wish you could have seen it! I was in my glory then; in an
instant we had our axes and boarding-pikes out, the enemy was coming
down upon us and my heart jumped for joy to see it, for this was the
quickest way of settling accounts. On we go, right into her!--Day was
just beginning to dawn, the yards were touching, and the boarding
parties ready at the gangways when we heard Spanish oaths on board the
foe. We all stood dumb with horror, for we found that the ship we had
been fighting with was the _San Hermenegildo_ herself."
"That was a pretty state of things," said Doña Francisca roused to
some interest in the narrative. "And how had you been such asses--with
not a pin to choose between you?"
"I will tell you. We had no time for explanations then. The flames on
our ship went over to the _San Hermenegildo_ and then, Blessed Virgin!
what a scene of confusion. 'To the boats!' was the cry. The fire
caught the _Santa Bárbara_ and her ladyship blew up with loud
explosion.--We were all swearing, shouting, blaspheming God and the
Virgin and all the Saints, for that seems the only way to avoid
choking when you are primed to fight, up to the very muzzle...."
"Merciful Heavens how shocking!" cried my mistress. "And you escaped?"
"Forty of us got off in the launch and six or seven in the gig, these
took up the second officer of the _San Hermenegildo_. José Débora
clung to a piece of plank and came to shore at Morocco, more dead than
alive."
"And the rest?"
"The rest--the sea was wide enough to hold them all. Two thousand men
went down to Davy Jones that day, and among them our captain,
Ezguerra, and Emparan, the captain of the other ship."
"Lord have mercy on them!" ejaculated Doña Francisca. "Though God
knows! they were but ill-employed to be snatched away to judgment. If
they had stayed quietly at home, as God requires...."
"The cause of that disaster," said Don Alonso, who delighted in
getting his wife to listen to these dramatic narratives, "was this:
The English emboldened by the darkness arranged that the _Superb_, the
lightest of their vessels, should extinguish her lights and slip
through between our two finest ships. Having done this, she fired both
her broadsides and then put about as quickly as possible to escape the
struggle that ensued. The two men-of-war, finding themselves
unexpectedly attacked, returned fire and thus went on battering each
other till dawn, when, just as they were about to board, they
recognized each other and the end came as Marcial has told you in
detail."
"Ah! and they played the game well," cried the lady. "It was well
done though it was a mean trick!"
"What would you have?" added Marcial. "I never loved them much; but
since that night!... If _they_ are in Heaven I do not want ever to go
there. Sooner would I be damned to all eternity!"
"Well--and then the taking of the four frigates which were coming from
Rio de la Plata?" asked Don Alfonso, to incite the old sailor to go on
with his stories.
"Aye--I was at that too," said Marcial. "And that was where I left my
leg. That time too they took us unawares, and as it was in time of
peace we were sailing on quietly enough, only counting the hours till
we should be in port, when suddenly---- I will tell you exactly how it
all happened, Doña Francisca, that you may just understand the ways of
those people. After the engagement at the Straits I embarked on board
the _Fama_ for Montevideo, and we had been out there a long time when
the Admiral of the squadron received orders to convoy treasure from
Lima and Buenos Ayres to Spain. The voyage was a good one and we had
no mishaps but a few slight cases of fever which only killed off a few
of our men. Our freight was heavy--gold belonging to the king and to
private persons, and we also had on board what we called the 'wages
chest'--savings off the pay of the troops serving in America.
Altogether, if I am not much mistaken, a matter of fifty millions or
so of _pesos_, as if it were a mere nothing; and besides that,
wolf-hides, vicuña wool, cascarilla, pigs of tin and copper, and
cabinet woods. Well, sir, after sailing for fifty days we sighted land
on the 5th of October, and reckoned on getting into Cadiz the next day
when, bearing down from the northeast, what should we see but four
frigates. Although, as I said, it was in time of peace, and though our
captain, Don Miguel de Zapiain, did not seem to have any suspicion of
evil, I--being an old sea-dog--called Débora and said to him that
there was powder in the air, I could smell it. Well, when the English
frigates were pretty near, we cleared the decks for action; the _Fama_
went forward and we were soon within a cable's length of one of the
English ships which lay to windward.
"The English captain hailed us through his speaking-trumpet and told
us--there is nothing like plain-speaking--told us to prepare to defend
ourselves, as he was going to attack. He asked a string of questions,
but all he got out of us was that we should not take the trouble to
answer him. Meanwhile the other three frigates had come up and had
formed in such order that each Englishman had a Spaniard to the
leeward of him."
"They could not have taken up a better position," said my master.
"So say I," replied Marcial. "The commander of our squadron, Don José
Bustamante, was not very prompt; if I had been in his shoes.... Well,
señor, the English commodore sent a little whipper-snapper officer, in
a swallow-tail coat, on board the _Medea_, who wasted no time in
trifling but said at once that though war had not been declared, the
commodore had orders to take us. That is what it is to be English!
Well, we engaged at once; our frigate received the first broadside in
her port quarter; we politely returned the salute, and the cannonade
was brisk on both sides--the long and the short of it is that we could
do nothing with the heretics, for the devil was on their side; they
set fire to the _Santa Bárbara_ which blew up with a roar, and we were
all so crushed by this and felt so cowed--not for want of courage,
señor, but what they call demoralized--well, from the first we knew we
were lost. There were more holes in our ship's sails than in an old
cloak; our rigging was damaged, we had five feet of water in the
hold, our mizzen-mast was split, we had three shots in the side only
just above the water line and many dead and wounded. Notwithstanding
all this we went on, give and take, with the English, but when we saw
that the _Medea_ and the _Clara_ were unable to fight any longer and
struck their colors we made all sail and retired, defending ourselves
as best we could. The cursed Englishman gave chase, and as her sails
were in better order than ours we could not escape and we had nothing
for it but to haul our colors down at about three in the afternoon,
when a great many men had been killed and I myself was lying half-dead
on the deck, for a ball had gone out of its way to take my leg off.
Those d----d wretches carried us off to England, not as prisoners, but
as _détenus_; however, with despatches on one side and despatches on
the other, from London to Madrid and back again, the end of it was
that they stuck for want of money; and, so far as I was concerned,
another leg might have grown by the time the King of Spain sent them
such a trifle as those five millions of _pesos_."
"Poor man!--and it was then you lost your leg?" asked Doña Francisca
compassionately.
"Yes, señora, the English, knowing that I was no dancer, thought one
was as much as I could want. In return they took good care of me. I
was six months in a town they called _Plinmuf_ (Plymouth) lying in my
bunk with my paw tied up and a passport for the next world in my
pocket.--However, God A'mighty did not mean that I should make a hole
in the water so soon; an English doctor made me this wooden leg, which
is better than the other now, for the other aches with that d----d
rheumatism and this one, thank God, never aches even when it is hit by
a round of small shot. As to toughness, I believe it would stand
anything, though, to be sure, I have never since faced English fire to
test it."
"You are a brave fellow," said my mistress. "Please God you may not
lose the other. But those who seek danger...."
And so, Marcial's story being ended, the dispute broke out anew as to
whether or no my master should set out to join the squadron. Doña
Francisca persisted in her negative, and Don Alonso, who in his wife's
presence was as meek as a lamb, sought pretexts and brought forward
every kind of reason to convince her.
"Well we shall go to look on, wife,--simply and merely to look
on"--said the hero in a tone of entreaty.
"Let us have done with sight-seeing," answered his wife. "A pretty
pair of lookers-on you two would make!"
"The united squadrons," added Marcial, "will remain in Cadiz--and they
will try to force the entrance."
"Well then," said my mistress, "you can see the whole performance from
within the walls of Cadiz, but as for going out in the ships--I say
no, and I mean no, Alonso. During forty years of married life you have
never seen me angry (he saw it every day)--but if you join the
squadron I swear to you ... remember, Paquita lives only for you!"
"Wife, wife--" cried my master much disturbed: "Do you mean I am to
die without having had that satisfaction?"
"A nice sort of satisfaction truly! to look on at mad men killing each
other! If the King of Spain would only listen to me, I would pack off
these English and say to them: 'My beloved subjects were not made to
amuse you. Set to and fight each other, if you want to fight.' What do
you say to that?--I, simpleton as I am, know very well what is in the
wind, and that is that the first Consul--Emperor--Sultan--whatever you
call him--wants to settle the English, and as he has no men brave
enough for the job he has imposed upon our good King and persuaded
him to lend him his; and the truth is he is sickening us with his
everlasting sea-fights. Will you just tell me what is Spain to gain in
all this? Why is Spain to submit to being cannonaded day after day for
nothing at all? Before all that rascally business Marcial has told us
of what harm had the English ever done us?--Ah, if they would only
listen to me! Master Buonaparte might fight by himself, for I would
not fight for him!"
"It is quite true," replied my master, "that our alliance with France
is doing us much damage, for all the advantages accrue to our ally,
while all the disasters are on our side."
"Well, then, you utter simpletons, why do you encourage the poor
creatures to fight in this war?"
"The honor of the nation is at stake," replied Don Alonso, "and after
having once joined the dance it would be a disgrace to back out of it.
Last month, when I was at Cadiz, at my cousin's daughter's
christening, Churruca said to me: 'This French alliance and that
villainous treaty of San Ildefonso, which the astuteness of Buonaparte
and the weakness of our government made a mere question of subsidies,
will be the ruin of us and the ruin of our fleet if God does not come
to the rescue, and afterwards will be the ruin of the colonies too and
of Spanish trade with America. But we must go on now all the
same....'"
"Well," said Doña Francisca, "what I say is that the Prince of Peace
is interfering in things he does not understand. There you see what a
man without learning is! My brother the archdeacon, who is on Prince
Ferdinand's side, says that Godoy is a thoroughly commonplace soul,
that he has studied neither Latin nor theology and that all he knows
is how to play the guitar and twenty ways of dancing a gavotte. They
made him prime minister for his good looks, as it would seem. That is
the way we do things in Spain! And then we hear of starvation and
want--everything is so dear--yellow fever breaking out in
Andalusia.--This is a pretty state of things, sir,--yes, and the fault
is yours; yours," she went on, raising her voice and turning purple.
"Yes, señor, yours, who offend God by killing so many people--and if
you would go to church and tell your beads instead of wanting to go in
those diabolical ships of war, the devil would not find time to trot
round Spain so nimbly, playing the mischief with us all."
"But you shall come to Cadiz too," said Don Alonso, hoping to light
some spark of enthusiasm in his wife's heart; "you shall go to
Flora's house, and from the balcony you will be able to see the fight
quite comfortably, and the smoke and the flames and the flags.--It is
a beautiful sight!"
"Thank you very much--but I should drop dead with fright. Here we
shall be quiet; those who seek danger may go there."
Here the dialogue ended, and I remember every word of it though so
many years have elapsed. But it often happens that the most remote
incidents that occurred even in our earliest childhood, remain stamped
on our imagination more clearly and permanently than the events of our
riper years when our reasoning faculties have gained the upper hand.
That evening Don Alonzo and Marcial talked over matters whenever Doña
Francisca left them together; but this was at rare intervals, for she
was suspicious and watchful. When she went off to church to attend
vespers, as was her pious custom, the two old sailors breathed freely
again as if they were two giddy schoolboys out of sight of the master.
They shut themselves into the library, pulled out their maps and
studied them with eager attention; then they read some papers in which
they had noted down the names of several English vessels with the
number of their guns and men, and in the course of their excited
conference, in which reading was varied by vigorous commentary, I
discovered that they were scheming the plan of an imaginary naval
battle. Marcial, by means of energetic gymnastics with his arm and a
half, imitated the advance of the squadron and the explosion of the
broadsides; with his head he indicated the alternate action of the
hostile vessels; with his body the heavy lurch of each ship as it went
to the bottom; with his hand the hauling up and down of the signal
flags; he represented the boatswain's whistle by a sharp sibilation;
the rattle of the cannon by thumping his wooden leg on the floor; he
smacked his tongue to imitate the swearing and confusion of noises in
the fight; and as my master assisted him in this performance with the
utmost gravity I also must need take my share in the fray, encouraged
by their example and giving natural vent to that irresistible longing
to make a noise which is a master passion with every boy. Seeing the
enthusiasm of the two veterans, I could no longer contain myself and
took to leaping about the room--a freedom in which I was justified by
my master's kind familiarity; I imitated with my head and arms the
movements of a vessel veering before the wind, and at the same time
making my voice as big as possible I shouted out all the most
sonorous monosyllables I could think of as being most like the noise
of a cannon. My worthy master and the mutilated old sailor, quite as
childish as I in their own way, paid no attention to my proceedings,
being entirely preoccupied with their own ideas.
How I have laughed since when I have remembered the scene! and how
true it is--in spite of all my respect for my companions in the
game--that senile enthusiasm makes old men children once more and
renews the puerile follies of the cradle even on the very brink of the
tomb!
They were deep in their discussion when they heard Doña Francisca's
step returning from church.
"She is coming!" cried Marcial in an agony of alarm, and they folded
up the maps and began to talk of indifferent matters. I, however, not
being able to cool down my juvenile blood so rapidly or else not
noticing my mistress's approach soon enough, went on, down the middle
of the room in my mad career, ejaculating with the utmost incoherence,
such phrases as I had picked up: "Tack to starboard! Now Port!
Broadside to the leeward! Fire! Bang! bom! boom!..." She came up to me
in a fury and without any warning delivered a broadside on my
figure-head with her right hand, and with such effect that for a few
moments I saw nothing but stars.
"What! you too?" she cried, battering me unmercifully. "You see," she
added, turning on her husband with flashing eyes, "you have taught him
to feel no respect for you!--You thought you were still in the
_Caleta_ did you, you little ne'er do weel?"
The commotion ended by my running off to the kitchen crying and
disgraced, after striking my colors in an ignominious manner, before
the superior force of the enemy; Doña Francisca giving chase and
belaboring my neck and shoulders with heavy slaps. In the kitchen I
cast anchor and sat down to cry over the fatal termination of my
sea-fight.