Caribbean: a novel Part 7

'Somehow the Spaniards learned that they were the sons of Protestant ministers-'

'But so were you,' Hawkins interrupted, and the young sailor said: 'Yes, but no one revealed that to the Spaniards.'

'Tell him what happened to the three ministers' sons,' Drake said, his hands clasped so tightly that no blood showed beneath his fair skin.

'All of us, we who were headed for the hulks, even those to be released, were led to the great square in Sevilla. There, before the cathedral and the beautiful tower-I shall always remember them-stakes were driven into the ground, bonfires were built about them, and Weed and his two fellows were lashed to the stakes and burned alive. One of our men standing near me shouted: "For love of Christ, shoot them!" but they let them burn. To teach the rest of us a lesson.'

Grimly, Drake said: 'You may leave us!'

When the two seamen were alone again, Hawkins said harshly: 'Francis, when I see the blazing hatred in your eyes I have no wish to take you with me.' Then he sighed, and said reluctantly: 'But I think for various reasons I may have to. The ships I'll be taking belong to the queen and must be protected. Two-thirds of the slaves we capture will belong to her, and two-thirds of our profits, all hers. This is her expedition and she has ordered me to take along only the most trusted men, for she cannot afford to lose the great wealth this adventure might bring. Desperately she needs the money.'

'Why?'

In reply, Hawkins, trusted friend of the queen, gave an explanation which revealed the curious state of affairs in Europe: 'You remember that our Queen Mary of sacred memory,' and he crossed himself,' took as her husband King Philip of Spain, and even though Mary is dead, Philip still wants to be King of England. He begs Elizabeth to marry him ... bring England back to Catholicism. She needs money to fend him off, every penny we can earn on this slaving voyage.' He paused, broke into a mischievous smile, and added: 'Do you see the humor, Francis? You and I stealing from King Philip in order to do him harm ... with his own money?'

'And if we return to Ro Hacha, will I have your permission to bombard that wretch who stole my slaves?'

'No! And now I want to show you why I need you.'

Leaving the naval headquarters, the two men walked to an anchorage where Drake saw for the first time the great vessel Queen Elizabeth had recently purchased with her own money to serve as flagship for her slaving ventures. It was the Jesus of Lbeck, a ship to gladden the heart of any sailor, especially one who might have to be aboard as she sailed into battle. Built in Germany some thirty years earlier, she had been intended from the start to be a mighty man-of-war.

'Look at her!' Hawkins said as Drake's eyes widened. 'More than seven hundred tons, those four masts each twice as thick as any you've known. That long bowsprit, the great fortresslike towers soaring high into the air, fore and aft. And the flags!'

From various protuberances eight flags of England flew and at the deck level another ten, but Drake was noticing other aspects: 'Look at these monster guns and the h.o.a.rd of smaller ones ... the room below for sleeping soldiers as well as sailors ... that clean deck s.p.a.ce for swordplay if we have to repel raiders. That's a ship that's crying to be fought properly, and we can do it.'

He then indicated to Hawkins that he would be honored to sail in her, but his kinsman shook his head: 'No, Francis, you're not to sail in the Jesus,' and when Drake scowled, Hawkins added: 'I want you always on my starboard, in your own ship, as captain,' and he pointed to a handsome little fighting ship, the Judith, in which Drake, after he had purchased her, would sail to both glory and shame.

Hawkins, placing his arm about Drake's shoulder, said: 'From the start I knew I had to take you. The queen is so eager that her expensive new toy be protected that she gave me orders: "Hire your nephew Drake, a real fighting man I'm told, to sail at your elbow to safeguard my purchase." So you sail at her command and my wish,' and it was agreed.

In the weeks that followed, Drake was busy visiting ship's chandlers in Plymouth and ordering supplies for the long voyage. A list in his handwriting of purchases indicated the level of his rough education and his freedom to spell as he wished: 'vi pynazzes, bysket, beare, bieff, chiese, rieze, vyneger, sweete oyle, hamars' (6 pinnaces, biscuit, beer, beef, cheese, rice, vinegar, sweet oil, hammers), but purchase was also made of 'Caste ordenanunce, forged same, and divers munytions mownts,' for Drake insisted that his little Judith be prepared for battle.

On 2 October 1567, Hawkins headed his little flotilla for the coast of Africa, where it would pick up some five hundred slaves to be carried into the heart of the Caribbean, where they would be peddled from one Spanish island to another. But wherever Hawkins and Drake sailed as partners, one vast difference would separate them: Hawkins, the cautious older man, wanted peace; Drake, the impetuous younger, sought vengeance against Spaniards wherever and however he met them.

In the spring of 1568, while Hawkins was heading westward from the African coast, the holds of his vessel crammed with slaves, Governor Ledesma of Cartagena was listening to an ugly report from the captain of a small Spanish trading vessel out of Sevilla: 'Esteemed Excellency, when I left Spain I was directed to enter the Indies by the extreme southern route to report on conditions on our island of Trinidad, and as you well know, for it lies within your territory, there has been no serious Spanish settlement there, nor any other that I could detect. Trinidad was empty and safe.

'But some seven leagues after we had sailed west along the coast of America, we came to our great salt pans of c.u.mana, and it was fortunate for me and my crew that we were comfortably out to sea, because a horde of some dozen ships, which I took from their build to be Dutch renegades, had deposited their teams of thieves onto our salt beds and were stealing a fortune.'

When Don Diego heard this distressing news, he did not reveal his dismay. Controlling his emotions, which were in turmoil, he asked quietly: 'And what did you do when you saw the Dutch thieves?' and the captain said honestly: 'Glad that my ship was fast and theirs slow, I fled,' and Don Diego said with equal candor: 'Wise man. Even two Dutch ships would be an overmatch if their crews were determined to get salt-and you say there were at least a dozen working there?' When the captain nodded, Don Diego said: 'I think we must drink a toast to your successful trip ... and your prudence.'

The apparent ease with which Ledesma received this report of Dutch incursions into the salt flats masked the considerable fright the news had caused, and after the captain left, Don Diego hurried to his wife, his face flushed: 'Darling, walk with me on the battlements. I want no one to hear,' and they paced for some time atop the defensive wall that protected the center of their city.

'Ugly news. The Dutch have trespa.s.sed on our salt flats again.'

'c.u.mana?'

'Yes. This time they've come in force.'

'How do you know?'

'A ship captain, just out from Sevilla. He saw them robbing us. And if he's warned me, he'll certainly warn the king, and Philip will expect me to act ... to drive the scoundrels off.'

'Isn't c.u.mana a long way from here?'

'It is. More the reason why we must keep the Dutch away,' and as they walked he spoke briefly of this treasure spot, so important to Spanish trade: 'A long hook of land starting east and running west cuts off a shallow bay. This happens often along seacoasts. Remember the handsome one we saw when we laid over in the island of Jamaica, southern sh.o.r.e?' And Doa Leonora nodded.

'The gulf at c.u.mana looks the same, but is different. It's shallow, and every summer when the sun is high the water evaporates, leaving an enormous deposit of salt. There's so much salt there, you can sc.r.a.pe it up with shovels.'

'But don't we station soldiers to protect the flats?'

'Because it is so hot, no one can stay around c.u.mana for long. The heat beating back from the white salt is incredible, not like any other known, and the saline air corrodes nostrils and makes breathing difficult. Men work with huge flat-bottomed shoes tied to their feet so as not to break up the salt deposits on which they walk, and a merciless glare shines back from the intensely white surface. A season in c.u.mana is a season in h.e.l.l. But the Dutch sea captains who creep onto the flats enjoy an unusual advantage. Judges in Holland tell criminals: "Death or work in c.u.mana," so the salt is collected by men who have to work there, the ships are loaded, and salted herring is made available to large parts of Europe.

'What I must do,' Ledesma told his wife, 'is take a fleet out there before the king orders me to do so.'

'Can't you send one of your captains?' she asked, and he replied honestly: 'I suppose I could, but would it not look better ...' He hesitated, because as the father of three unmarried daughters and the uncle of two nephews with limited futures, he faced what could be called 'The Spanish Problem': 'How can I protect and extend the interests of my family?'

In the Spanish society a man like Don Diego acknowledged tremendous obligations to four ent.i.ties: G.o.d, G.o.d's church, the king, his own family, though in reverse order if he was a prudent Spaniard. One could argue as to whose claims were greater, G.o.d's, the church's or the king's, but any sensible man would have to admit that first came his family's. And Don Diego had a most demanding one. His three daughters needed husbands of wealth and importance and his wife's two able nephews deserved jobs. Then there were his three brothers, who had no t.i.tles but did have ravenous appet.i.tes for good things, and Doa Leonora's inexhaustible array of cousins. If he played his cards cleverly and retained his governorship for another fifteen or twenty years, he would have a reasonable chance of placing all his relatives in profitable positions, and no man could discharge his family obligations more honorably than that.

So it was advisable that he conduct in person this campaign against the Dutch interlopers, for in doing so he might be able to connive two promotions for his wife's nephews and at the same time ingratiate himself with a young captain of troops, a man of excellent family in Saragossa whom Doa Leonora had settled upon as a proper husband for their eldest, Juana. If, during action, Don Diego could find an opportunity to promote the young man, and then commend him in his report to the king, a marriage might very well be attainable. Getting the nephews started young in the naval service could mean that he might later be justified in placing them in command of one of the treasure galleons that sailed each spring from Cartagena for Havana and Sevilla. In fact, the more Don Diego thought of this expedition to the salt flats, the more attractive it became. A man could kill a chain of doves with one arrow well shot.

It was for these personal reasons, plus a desire to knock the insufferable Dutch renegades in the head, that Governor Ledesma a.s.sembled in late February 1568 a fleet of seven ships, well armed and manned, and set sail for distant c.u.mana, a town most governors would never see but to which they would send troops on occasion to monitor the valuable salt flats. As self-appointed admiral of the fleet, he rode in the largest vessel, one with the biggest guns, and after the ships had sailed for some days on a northeast heading so as to clear the jutting peninsula protecting Maracaibo, he turned them due east for the long run to c.u.mana. And he placed his nephews in charge of the port and starboard wings of the fleet.

These a.s.signments were shocking, for as one of the captains who had to surrender his post grumbled: 'Those whelps aren't past the age of twenty-five and know nothing of the sea.' But the answer from another old sea dog touched reality: 'True, but you must remember they're his wife's nephews, and that does count.'

Satisfied that he had made two judicious moves, Don Diego now attended to the young n.o.bleman who had been courting Juana Ledesma, and for him he created a wholly new position, vice-regent to the admiral; no one knew what it entailed, but it did evoke in the young man a feeling of great warmth toward Don Diego and his entire family. When one of the old-line captains asked: 'What are the vice-regent's duties?' Don Diego replied without hesitation: 'He relays my orders to my vice-admirals.' When he went to sleep that night, with three more members of his family taken care of, he felt not even a wisp of shame at having abused his position so blatantly. If the truth were known, the long-dead bearers of the distinguished names he bore had probably gained their high places in history by similar attention to the promotions of their sons, nephews and cousins, for that was the Spanish way.

Toward the end of March, the fleet approached c.u.mana from the west, and found at the mouth of the salt lagoon a group of three big renegade Dutch traders, each protected by heavy guns. Without the least hint of indecision Don Diego attacked, and in forty minutes the Battle of c.u.mana, as the Spanish scribes would name it in their enthusiastic reports, was over, with one enemy ship sunk, one smoldering on a reef, and the middle one a captured prize.

Aware, even in the heat of battle, that he was a Spanish gentleman bound by the rules of honor, Don Diego directed his interpreter to shout in Dutch to the survivors: 'You may keep that ship you have and seek what port you can. But we'll chop down your masts so you can't chase after us in the night.' But as his own men watched the defeated Dutchmen begin to climb aboard the surviving ship, a stout one, they protested: 'Why give them that fine ship, while we must do with this poor one of ours?' and he called to his men who were about to destroy the masts: 'Stop! Don't touch that mast!' And without a moment's reflection he directed his men to cut down the mast of one of his own ships and turn it over to the Dutchmen.

When his crew climbed aboard their prize and all the Dutchmen had been crammed into the leaky old craft, Don Diego called down: 'What's the name of this ship?' and they pointed to the stern where the words had been neatly carved in oak: STADHOUDER MAURITZ. While the Dutchmen argued about which way to head, a horde of bright yellow b.u.t.terflies seeking land saw the captured ship and alighted upon her rigging, clothing it in gold.

'An omen!' Don Diego cried, and before nightfall carpenters had fashioned a new board with the lovely new name MARIPOSA. When it was in place, each member of the crew was issued a bottle of captured Dutch beer with which he toasted the admiral when he poured his bottle over the new name and shouted: 'We christen thee Mariposa!'

That night, flushed with victory, Don Diego directed his scribe to compose a letter informing King Philip of the capture of the Dutch ship, adding in his own handwriting: 'Without the exceptional bravery and shrewd military judgment of the vice-regent and the two vice-admirals, this victory over three huge Dutch ships would not have been possible. They did their fighting on the decks of the enemy and deserve both commendation and promotion.'

During a spell of fine weather on the homeward voyage, when the Caribbean rolled in those long, graceful swells which made it famous, Don Diego told his future son-in-law: 'Notice what a fine ship we got for ourselves. When she rolls to port or starboard, doesn't matter which, she always returns to the upright position and holds it for a long moment. Doesn't wallow continuously from side to side like a drunken Frenchman.' He pointed out another feature of even greater significance: 'Look at the structure. Clinker-built with her strakes overlapping for strength. Not like so many Spanish ships, carvel-built with the boards ab.u.t.ting against each other and liable to split apart in a storm.' But the feature he seemed to like best was one rarely seen in Spanish ships: 'Her hull is double-planked.' Clicking his tongue, he said with great warmth: 'When you and I captured this one, we got ourselves a real ship.'

Suffused with this euphoria, Ledesma completed his long run westward, then headed south for home, and as he coasted down the western edge of Cartagena's island and saw on the cliffs above him the safe, solid town which he commanded, he was inspired to discharge seven salvos to inform the citizens of his victory.

But as he was luxuriating in his defeat of the Dutch and the capture of their fine ship, his future son-in-law, the vice-regent, showed what a perceptive young man he was by asking permission to address the admiral, and when Don Diego gave a.s.sent, the young man said: 'You know, Excellency, that my great-uncle was once governor of Peru?'

'Of course! That's one reason why Doa Leonora and I have been so proud to think of you as a possible member of our family. Don Pedro, one of the finest.'

'Then you also know what happened to him?'

Don Diego's easy smile turned into a frown: 'Terribly unfair. Enemies brought all sorts of base charges against him. Reports to the king were biased ...'

'And he was hanged.' There was silence in the cabin, after which Don Diego asked: 'Why do you remind me of that sad affair?' and the young man said: 'Because you must not boast about your victory at c.u.mana. Neither in your report to Spain nor in your comments here in Cartagena.'

'What would be the peril ... if I did ... which I certainly won't?'

'Envy. The envy that your enemies here and in Spain will feel.' In the silence that followed, the young man mustered his courage, then continued: 'You have promoted me to high office. Same with your two nephews. And before we sailed you did likewise with two of your brothers. Tongues will wag. Spies, even aboard this ship, will begin framing their secret reports to the king.'

How well Don Diego knew and appreciated the truth of this warning. Any Spanish governor in charge of a territory far from home ran the constant risk of being summoned back to Spain to refute charges of the basest sort, and the nature of his commission made this inevitable, for he was a.s.signed a position of enormous authority, in charge of riches beyond the imagination even of rapacious men, but given almost no remuneration. The kings of Spain were a penurious lot, grasping for every gold or silver piece their colonies produced but unwilling to pay a decent wage to their overseers. The Spanish viceroys and governors were expected to steal, allowed ten or fifteen years to enrich themselves, and it was supposed that they would return to Spain with wealth great enough to last them and their voluminous families the rest of their lives.

But at the same time the suspicious kings encouraged a constant chain of spies to report on the misbehaviors of their viceroys and governors, with the result that after a man-like, say, Columbus-had been in one of those offices for a dozen years, he was almost certain to be visited by an official audiencia whose members might spend two years looking into his behavior and inviting his enemies to testify in secret against him, with the result that repeatedly an official who had enjoyed extraordinary powers in some far place like Mexico, Panama or Peru finished his ill.u.s.trious career by sailing home in chains, to languish in jail after he got there. The unlucky ones were hanged.

Don Diego felt driven to recall the mournful list of Spain's great conquistadores who had met bitter ends, and as he recited their fates, his son-in-law nodded grimly: 'Cristbal Coln? Home in chains. Cortes in Mexico? Chains. Nuez de Balboa? One of our finest. Beheaded. The great Pizarro of Peru? Slain by jealous underlings.'

These two good men, one a governor who kept his stealing within reason, the other the scion of a splendid family and himself destined to become a colonial governor, had identified the fundamental reasons why Spanish lands in the New World would fail, during the next four hundred years, to achieve any simple, responsible system of governance, democratic or not, in which good men could rule without stealing and alienating the riches of their countries.

A fatal tradition had already been codified during the rule of Diego Ledesma in Cartagena: provide reasonably good government for the time being, steal as much as decency and the envy of others will allow, and then, because your own position is tenuous, place every relative in the richest position possible so that he, too, can acc.u.mulate a fortune. This will mean that even if you are dragged home in disgrace, the members of your family will be left in positions of power, and after a few years they can ease their way back into Spain laden with wealth and t.i.tles, to become the new viceroys and governors or to marry into the families who do, and thus find new opportunities to steal new fortunes.

It was a system that provided swings of the pendulum so wide that men became dizzy, and a form of government that wasted the tremendous resources of the New World. With far fewer natural riches, both France and England would establish more lasting forms of good government than Spain with its superior holdings ever did. On that day in 1568 as Don Diego sailed home in triumph, Spain had already been in control of the New World since 1492, more than three-quarters of a century, whereas both France and England would not start their occupancy until the 1620s and 1630s, another half-century later. But the seeds of Spain's deficiencies had already been sown.

However, neither of these reflective men perceived the lasting damage their philosophy was creating: First, if it was known and condoned that their governor was appropriating public funds, officials on the next tier down were justified in doing the same, although to a more restrained degree. Then those on the third tier were invited to try their luck, and on down to the lowest functionary. All had their hands out and all levels of government proceeded by theft and bribery. Second, and equally destructive, if thousands of men like Don Diego returned each year to Europe with their booty, they left the New World colonies increasingly impoverished.

At about this time a Cartagena poet summarized such rules of conduct in six sardonic lines: 'My Spain against all other countries. / Her religion against all other religions. / My part of Spain against all other parts. / My colony against their colony. / My big family against all other big families. / And my wife and children against my brother's wife and children.' As one of the most congenial pract.i.tioners of this art of personal and familial self-protection, the governor of Cartagena applied nine-tenths of his energies to finding jobs for his family and treasure for himself, one-tenth defending his Caribbean against intruders. But his victory against the Dutch proved that when aroused, he could be valiant. For in the Spanish society a man could be a peculator but not a coward.

On the day that John Hawkins and Francis Drake loaded the Jesus of Lbeck with the maximum number of slaves, Don Diego de Guzman, a Spanish spy at Queen Elizabeth's court, drafted a note in code and hurried it to the Thames waterfront, where a swift ship was waiting to depart for Spain. At the Escorial Palace, a monstrous pile of dark rock near Madrid, King Philip's scribes made rushed copies of the orders he had drafted in cold fury, so that six hours after Philip received the news, a horseman was galloping down to Sanlcar de Barrameda near the mouth of the Guadalquivir River. From there three small boats set sail on the tide for the island of Espaola, where the messages were delivered to the governor at Santo Domingo. He promptly dispatched a swarm of small, swift coastal frigates to speed the news to seven different Caribbean capitals, so that by 3 February 1568, when Hawkins left Africa, his target islands in the Caribbean were about to receive news that he was coming.

One of the Espaola frigates put into Cartagena's well-protected harbor, where the messenger hurried to inform Ledesma: 'Excellency, I hand you an ominous message. John Hawkins is heading this way, and Guzman in London has heard on the best authority, someone close to the queen, that he is heading for Puerto Rico, Ro Hacha and Cartagena, with permission to land and destroy each place if we oppose him.'

Don Diego listened, nodded several times, and waited till he himself had read the instructions, then said in a judicial voice that betrayed no fear: 'There are ways to handle Englishmen. They're not like French pirates who slay and burn with no questions asked, nor the Dutch who flourish on sheer pillage.'

But then the messenger disturbed this tranquillity by revealing privileged information which had come by word of mouth: 'Hawkins is sailing in a very powerful ship, the queen's own Jesus of Lbeck,' and as the name of the famous warship hung in the air, Admiral Ledesma, as a well-informed navy man, could visualize that terror of the seas. To have the Jesus with its many guns bearing down upon smaller and poorly defended Spanish ships was not a happy prospect, but it was what the messenger added as his last bit of information that caused the governor his greatest worry: 'Hawkins will bring with him a second major warship, the Minion, impossible to sink, and five lesser ships. Swallow, one hundred tons; Judith, fifty tons; Angel, thirty-three tons,' and as he ended the recitation he added: 'In command of the Judith will be young Francis Drake, a kinsman of Captain Hawkins, on whom Hawkins will depend if fighting becomes necessary.'

At the mention of this name Ledesma flinched, for he had heard about the threat Drake had uttered when the Spaniards at Ro Hacha stole the forty slaves from him the year before: 'When I return to these waters I will demand full payment for my slaves and burn Cartagena.'

That afternoon Ledesma issued a host of instructions for the further fortification of his capital. In the following days three more ships were sunk across Boca Grande to make it totally impa.s.sable and additional guns were emplaced to protect the entrance to Boca Chica. Each headland the Hawkins fleet would have to pa.s.s if it were to threaten the small inner harbor was given additional firepower, and troops were trained in tactics for driving English a.s.sailants back if they attempted to scale the battlements.

'Cartagena cannot be taken,' Ledesma announced when the work was finished, but a few weeks later a small boat scurried in from Ro Hacha with the appalling news that not only had Hawkins returned to the Caribbean, but he had indeed brought the tough little fire-eater Drake with him.

'Excellency, my crew of three and I escaped miraculously from under the English guns, and I report only the truth, as these men will testify. On the fifth day of June, this year, Captain Hawkins, with a fleet of seven English vessels and some French acquired along the way, pa.s.sed the salt flats of c.u.mana without stopping, but he did sell some of his slaves at the pearl island of Margarita and at Curaao, from where he sent ahead two of his smallest ships, the Angel and the Judith, the last under the command of Captain Francis Drake, to clear the way for his big ship, the Jesus of Lbeck.

'Drake was a reasonable choice for this mission, since he had visited Ro Hacha last year, as you will remember. Immediately upon arriving he started hostilities, capturing the dispatch boat from Espaola and making the officials thereon his prisoners, something never done before. He then fired two shots at the town, not over the rooftops as the English are supposed to do when trading, but right at the house occupied by his great enemy, Treasurer Miguel de Castellanos, who took the slaves from him last year. And I am ashamed to say that one of Drake's broadsides ripped right through the treasurer's house and would have killed him had he been dining.'

'What did Castellanos do?' Ledesma asked, and the messenger replied: 'For five days all he did was glare at those two little ships in his harbor, powerless to do anything against them but also strong enough to prevent Drake from landing with his soldiers.'

'You mean the a.s.sault on Ro ended in such a stalemate? Doesn't sound like Drake.'

'Oh no! On the sixth day Captain Hawkins arrived, bringing his great Jesus of Lbeck into the harbor. Now all was different. First thing Hawkins did, according to his custom of never making Spain angry, was give back the dispatch boat and its pa.s.sengers as warrant of his peaceful intention. Then, to prove that he meant business, he marched two hundred armed men ash.o.r.e, but as you know, the treasurer had long ago decided that if ever the English returned, he would oppose them to the death, and this he did, or rather, tried to do.

'A serious battle ensued, with two English dead, but their attack was so relentless that Castellanos' troops fled, and Hawkins found himself possessor of a town containing no women, no gold, silver, pearls or objects of value. Hawkins gave the obdurate treasurer three days to bring back his people and his treasure, and when the man refused, Hawkins threatened to burn the place. Heroically, Castellanos said: "Rather than give in to you, I'll see every island in the Indies ablaze," whereupon Drake, who heard the vain boast, started setting houses afire, but Hawkins stopped him, saying: "There must be a better way."

'After five days of patient waiting, an escaped slave showed Hawkins where the treasure was hidden. And so Hawkins won everything he wanted.'

'What do you mean, he won everything?'

'He sold us two hundred fifty slaves at fair prices. He made us give him extra money for the families of the two English soldiers who were killed. And then he asked us to produce the women belonging to homes that Francis Drake had burned, and when they stood before him, tired and dirty from their time hiding in the jungle with our treasure, he said: "Englishmen do not make war against women. I give you each four slaves to recompense you for your loss," and he turned over sixty additional slaves at no charge.'

'Very generous!' the governor said sardonically. 'But he did have our treasure, didn't he?' and the messenger said: 'Yes. All of it.'

'And how did Captain Drake behave when Hawkins did these things?' Ledesma asked, and the man said: 'He bit his tongue and obeyed, that's what he did. But I was at the sh.o.r.e when he departed, and he growled at me: "When I come back as captain of my own fleet, I shall burn every house in this G.o.dforsaken town." '

The governor reviewed the humiliation that had been visited on one of his towns, the great loss of treasure and the peculiar behavior of his Spaniards: 'Our treasurer, he seems to have played the man.' The messenger nodded. 'But our soldiers on the scene. Despicable.'

'Excellency, when the Jesus of Lbeck is in your harbor, a.s.sisted by six other English ships and two French, all guns pointed ash.o.r.e, it can be terrifying.' He was about to add: 'As you will learn in the next few days when Hawkins and Drake come into your harbor down there,' but he thought better of it and said merely: 'As the English ships left us Drake shouted from the Judith: "On to Cartagena." '

On 1 August 1568 the English fleet swept down upon Cartagena. Hawkins wanted only to sell his remaining fifty slaves at customary profit and trade his ordinary goods for such food and pearls as the Spaniards might have, but Drake hoped to invade the town and hold it for ransom. But though the English had a horde of sailors, they had only three hundred and seventy trained fighting men, while up on his hillside Governor Ledesma had five hundred Spanish infantry, two companies of highly skilled cavalry and not less than six thousand trained and armed Indians. So when Captain Drake dispatched a messenger under a flag of truce to inform Ledesma of the terms under which the English proposed dealing with Cartagena, the governor refused even to open the letter, advising the messenger to tell Drake that no one in Cartagena cared a fig what the English did or did not do, and that the sooner they hied themselves off, the better.

When Drake heard this insulting reply, he sailed as close in as he could and ordered his guns to pepper the town, but since he was still not close enough, the cannonb.a.l.l.s fell harmlessly and rolled about the streets. Ledesma, chuckling at the impotence of the braggadocio Englishman, signaled his heavy guns to fire back, not in salute but in earnest, but he too missed.

Hawkins, distressed that things were going so badly, landed on the barren islands south of the city, where nothing was found but some large casks of wine, which Hawkins ordered his men to leave untouched, saying: 'We're not pirates or thieves.' Thereupon Ledesma sent word that they should feel free to take the wine, since it was of such poor quality that only Englishmen would drink it.

Actually, the wine was a good vintage from Spain and the English reveled in it-Drake refused to touch it-and when Hawkins realized that he must leave Cartagena with nothing accomplished, he ordered his men to place beside the empty wine casks enough fine English trade goods to match the value, 'to prove that we follow the custom of gentlemen.' But as they took the ships back out of the big southern basin, Drake could hear Spaniards in the guard forts laughing at their departure, and his men had to restrain him from firing parting shots at them.

Ledesma and Drake had now had two confrontations without ever seeing each other, and although the rugged little Englishman was bold, the austere Spaniard was resolute and not easily frightened. His fort.i.tude, and that of his agent in Ro Hacha, had enabled the Spaniards to rebuff Drake, but the two adversaries knew that the next meeting could be b.l.o.o.d.y and decisive, though neither could guess where it might occur. Ledesma warned his men: 'Drake will be back, of that we can be sure,' and Drake told his sailors: 'One day I shall humiliate that arrogant Spaniard.'

Now that English ships roamed the Caribbean with impunity, trading where and how they willed, this body of water could no longer be considered a Spanish lake. It had become a public thoroughfare, but Don Diego, who had been commissioned to keep it Spanish, believed that if Drake and Hawkins could be lured into some major sea battle, English power might be broken, and he directed his waking hours to that strategy. He was therefore pleased when a dispatch frigate sped in from Sevilla and Espaola with these orders: To Governor Ledesma Paredes y Guzman Orvantes, Greetings. A major fleet of my vessels, twenty in all, will sail from Sevilla to San Juan de Ula to load the fall shipment of silver from Mexico. Since Captain Hawkins is known to be in the Caribbean, move the maximum possible fleet from Cartagena to ensure the safe arrival of my fleet at Ula, the safe loading of our silver thereon, and the safe departure of my ships for Havana and home. I am aware that you have given yourself the t.i.tle of Admiral. You should not have done this. But because of your bravery at c.u.mana and your good management at Cartagena, I convert your courtesy admiralcy to a permanent appointment as Admiral. King Philip II, his hand at Madrid.

Swiftly a.s.sembling nine vessels led by the Mariposa, Admiral Ledesma sailed out of Cartagena with sails set to catch the wind that would speed him, he hoped, to Ula before Hawkins and Drake reached there, if that was indeed their secret destination. Once again his two Amadr nephews were in charge of the port and starboard wings and his new son-in-law served beside him in the rugged Mariposa as vice-regent, a position still undefined. With these reliable aides, Ledesma was confident that he would be able to control the English pirates if they ventured into his lake.

On the voyage north to Mexico the newly empowered admiral a.s.sembled his captains and invited an officer acquainted with Ula to instruct the men as to what they would find when they reached that vital harbor.

The island of Ula, situated about a half-mile from the land-based Vera Cruz, served as protection for the mainland, where the riches of Mexico's silver mines were brought together to wait for the king's galleons from Sevilla to pick them up. Composed of solid rock and defended from the open sea by big reefs, Ula was also famous for its dungeon caverns where mutinous sailors and workers were imprisoned.

It was an exciting moment when Admiral Ledesma realized that he had beaten Hawkins north and brought his vessels into the s.p.a.cious harbor of Ula: 'There's the great fort, absolutely impregnable. Out there, the protecting reef. Over there, the warehouses of Vera Cruz, crammed with silver bars, and gold ones too. And dead ahead the six ships from Spain always based here to fight off any pirates that might attack.' With Ledesma's nine Cartagena vessels, the harbor now contained fifteen ships of war, but anchorages were so plentiful that the harbor seemed almost empty. Even so, innumerable cannon mounted on sh.o.r.e kept the various ships in their sights in case of unexpected trouble. Ula was invincible, and Admiral Ledesma, as the senior officer present, would be expected to a.s.sume command of its defenses until the empty treasure ships from Sevilla arrived.

Within minutes of anchoring the Mariposa, he was in a small boat heading for the fort, and even as he climbed its stone stairway he was giving orders: 'These guns to be kept permanently aimed at the entrance to the harbor, in case Hawkins or Drake tries to slip in. And to be manned around the clock, always primed.' When he toured the land installations, almost a mile of trenches and protective structures for the guns hidden there, he gave similar orders, and later, when he inspected the three companies stationed permanently in Vera Cruz, he handed them new a.s.signments: 'This company to be ready at a moment's notice to run to protect the guns along the sh.o.r.e, this company to rush to the fort, this one to defend the entrance to Vera Cruz itself.'

Ledesma went to bed that first night satisfied that as commander in chief of the defenses of San Juan de Ula, he had done everything possible to protect the anchorage, so that when he received the surprising news that another Spanish fleet would soon be arriving from Nombre de Dios, a rich depot on the Caribbean side of the Isthmus of Panama, bringing additional treasure from Peru, he was elated. 'When it arrives, this will be the richest port in the world,' he boasted to his subordinates, 'and the best defended.'

Next day a battered Spanish ship limped into port with news of a horrendous hurricane to the south. Its winds had been so violent that everyone a.s.sumed that if Hawkins and his English ships had tried to breast the same storm, they must have either sunk or fled home to England badly damaged.

Ledesma was therefore appalled when, two days later, a lookout shouted: 'Ships approaching!' and the first vessel into the harbor turned out to be the famous Jesus of Lbeck, except that one of her identifying castles was missing. There she came, a misshapen thing though still a formidable warship, followed by the stout Minion and five smaller vessels. The invading English ships had so intermingled themselves with the Spanish that the sh.o.r.e batteries dared not fire for fear of sinking their own vessels, and Ledesma's own Mariposa was overawed by the powerful guns of the Jesus of Lbeck, which pointed directly at it from a distance of yards. Hawkins and Drake, without having had to fire a shot, had occupied the harbor of San Juan de Ula, and there was nothing Ledesma could do to eject them.

When he looked out from his headquarters in the fort, Don Diego saw that infuriating Jesus riding arrogantly in his anchorage with Drake's insolent Judith alongside, and his choler rose to a point that nearly disrupted his reason and certainly obliterated many of the normal compunctions dictated by the sense of honor which is supposed to govern gentlemen in battle. His consuming motivation became 'Death to the English invaders,' but which tactics would produce the destruction, he did not know, so he played for time until possibilities became clearer.

First, displaying his unquestioned courage, he had himself rowed out to the Jesus and climbed onto the deck as she rolled gently despite the fact that she was lacking her towering aft castle. Escorted with due ceremony to Hawkins' cabin, he found the great English captain dressed as if about to attend a court levee: Italian pumps with silver buckles, breeches of finest gray linen, silken shirt with ruffles, heavily brocaded jacket, kerchief also of silk, and c.o.c.kaded hat.

'We face each other at last,' Hawkins said graciously, indicating where his guest might find comfort in a padded chair.

Ledesma wanted to know why the Englishmen had dared to enter into a harbor of such importance to Spain, and Hawkins replied frankly: 'Storms drove us here.'

'A greater storm will drive you away,' Ledesma said, and then, with either exquisite guile or aimless stupidity, he added: 'Because very shortly the powerful plate fleet of twenty armed vessels will arrive from Spain to carry Mexico's silver back to Sevilla. They will destroy you in minutes ... if you are still here.'

'English ships can carry silver as easily as Spanish,' Hawkins said, to which Ledesma replied sneeringly: 'If they can get their hands on it.'