Caribbean: a novel Part 8

The verbal sparring was interrupted by the unannounced appearance of Hawkins' first a.s.sistant, a short, stocky mariner with a bullet head and a close-cropped beard. As soon as Don Diego saw him he rose from his chair, pointed a finger, and cried, almost with delight at meeting a man so famous: 'You're Drake!' and for the first time the two duelists stood face to face, nodding like gentlemen, each waiting for the other to speak.

Drake broke the silence: 'Your people stole forty slaves from me at Ro Hacha,' at which Ledesma smiled: 'But we gave you the free wine at Cartagena ... when you couldn't get into our city.'

Without revealing his anger at this insult, Drake said: 'That time we didn't try to force our way in. But next time, beware.'

Hawkins broke the tension by saying gently: 'That was good wine you let us have at Cartagena, Don Diego, but you must remember that we did pay for it,' and at last the three broke into the comradely laughter which often characterized seafaring men. Encouraged by this, Ledesma asked, sailor to sailor: 'How did you lose your aft castle?' and Hawkins replied honestly: 'These d.a.m.ned top-heavy ships do toss about in a hurricane. We had to chop down the superstructure to keep from capsizing.' He added: 'When I'm in charge of building ships, no more castles, fore or aft. Low and swift.' He paused: 'Your Mariposa out there is more to my taste,' and Ledesma said: 'It was Dutch. They know how to build. Your Jesus is German. All heavy show.'

Now Hawkins laid down the reasonable terms under which he and Drake would leave Ula: 'I have fifty remaining slaves to sell, and you must buy. Then you must sell us at decent prices adequate food for my seven ships for their return to England. Finally, you must instruct your gunners up in the fort to allow us free pa.s.sage out of here, and all will be well.'

Gently, almost in a whisper, Ledesma said sardonically: 'And the scores of my gunners along the sh.o.r.e where you can't see them. I suppose I must instruct them, too.' Then he said more firmly: 'As my men surely told you at Ro Hacha and as I did at Cartagena, my king has forbidden trade with Englishmen. What food we have we require for the incoming plate fleet. And you must realize, Captain Hawkins, no matter how brave you are, our gunners are never going to allow your Jesus to leave this harbor. You say she's the property of your queen. Well, Elizabeth will never see her again.'

In the silence that followed these words the three seamen bowed, and Ledesma left the ship.

When Ledesma returned to his fort he began to lay his traps. Secretly he moved a hundred sh.o.r.e-based soldiers into positions overlooking the anch.o.r.ed ships, and when they were in place, he imported another hundred to the island to strengthen the fort. He selected one of the big Spanish ships already in the harbor, and instructed her captain: 'Convert her secretly into a fire ship,' and when the man asked in amazement: 'You mean we set her ablaze?' Ledesma said coldly: 'We shall, and she must be so filled with inflammables that she will burn herself to the waterline within the hour.' He then held long sessions with his two nephews and the vice-regent, during which they laid the most careful plans for a.s.saulting the English vessels when the time came, so that at the end of the plotting each young captain knew the role he must play in destroying the English.

But just as the opening moves of this well-devised plan were to begin, a fleet of thirteen huge Spanish ships arrived from the south, bringing not only a vast cargo of gold and silver from the depot at Nombre de Dios, but also the incoming viceroy of Mexico, Don Martn Enriquez, a devious man always ready to take charge of any complex predicament, which was why the king had appointed him to Mexico where bold talents were needed.

Enriquez now found himself in a most delicate situation. Three fleets contested the occupancy of Ula: fifteen Spanish warships, including Admiral Ledesma's inside, thirteen other big Spanish ships outside, and John Hawkins' seven English ships blocking entrance and exit. Cool nerves were required in this impa.s.se, and the three commanders had them.

Hawkins initiated maneuvers by sending his longboat to Viceroy Enriquez's ship with a formal invitation to dinner, and when the Spaniard entered the Englishman's cabin, he was astounded to find Hawkins dressed in his customary well-tailored costume. The Englishman's words were blunt: 'Honorable Viceroy, instruct Admiral Ledesma's men ash.o.r.e to meet the demands I made, and I'll depart in peace ... no guns fired.'

'Now, isn't that ridiculous!' the viceroy replied, almost contemptuously. 'You're not in a position to demand anything.' Hawkins did not flinch. Instead, he pointed out: 'Excellency, your thirteen ships carry treasure and many lives, none so precious as your own but still of some value to King Philip. Your ships lie out there unprotected. If a storm like the one which tore away my aft castle blows up, your ships will be smashed to pieces on those rocks we can see even from here. You know you're in mortal peril and must do something.'

Calmly the viceroy began to count aloud: 'One, two, three ...' When he reached sixty, he shifted his chair and continued: 'Sixty-one, sixty-two ...' on to a hundred. Then he turned again till he faced the spit of land, and the count came to more than a hundred and thirty. 'That's how many Spanish guns are pointed at you right now, Admiral Hawkins.'

'It's Captain Hawkins. I shall resist the guns, most of which are too far away to reach me, block this harbor entrance, and watch your ships break to pieces in the coming storm.'

Since it was clear that no agreement of any kind could be reached that day, the viceroy returned in anger to his fleet, but in the late afternoon he had his boatmen quietly slip him ash.o.r.e to the fort for a meeting with Admiral Ledesma, and the plan he proposed so shocked Don Diego that he listened aghast and for some moments did not respond: 'I have waiting outside a young officer of extraordinary bravery and skill. You will insert him in the negotiating party you are sending to parley with Hawkins, and as the meeting progresses ...'

He brought his young a.s.sa.s.sin into the room, and the rogue showed Ledesma how a poisoned stiletto had been hidden in the left sleeve of his jacket in a way that no one could detect. With a flash of his right hand, so swift that Ledesma could not follow, the stiletto was out and poised at Don Diego's heart. 'Hawkins is dead,' the murderer cried.

'The other members of the team will protect our man,' Enriquez explained, 'and our little boats will dart in to rescue all when they leap into the bay.'

For a long breathless moment Don Diego reflected on the plot, and he recalled that only a few days past in this very room he had said in anger: 'I will adopt any stratagem to destroy that pirate.' But now he was being presented with one that his sense of family honor would not allow him to consider, and he felt he must, as a gentleman, reject it: 'a.s.sa.s.sination? Under a flag of truce? A Ledesma flag of truce? Oh no!'

The viceroy, without raising his voice, pointed out in silky tones: 'The king has sent me to protect his empire, his gold and his ships. Can you imagine what he might do if I had to tell him that you prevented me from ending the life of that pirate Hawkins?' Then, with the harsh cry 'Seize him!' he directed his men to pinion Ledesma: 'Shoot him if he tries to hinder us in any way.'

Immobilized in a corner, Ledesma heard the young a.s.sa.s.sin ask: 'If I have but one try, which of the two pirates?' and after some hesitation the viceroy said: 'Drake's our perpetual enemy. Hawkins we know how to deal with,' and the killer said with confidence: 'Drake it shall be.'

Ledesma, straining against his captors, cried: 'No! Let us deal with him decently ... in battle,' but he was silenced.

The young officer, posing as a member of the admiral's negotiating team, was rowed to the Jesus of Lbeck under a white flag, and partic.i.p.ated in the discussions with Hawkins. The latter, always alert, had noticed that when the young stranger was introduced to him, the arrogant fellow paid no attention, but when Drake joined the company, the Spaniard became all attention and continued to hover near him. Thus it was that when the young man with a cry of 'Muerte!' whipped out his poisoned stiletto and leaped at Drake, Hawkins was prepared to grab his arm before he could strike.

Ashen-faced, Hawkins now spoke: 'They came to us under a flag of truce. Return them so, to the perpetual shame of those who sent them.'

With the sham formalities ended, the three fleet leaders, Ledesma, Enriquez and Hawkins, realized that this was now a duel to the death. No more negotiations, no more naval pleasantries conducted by supposed gentlemen, only heavy gunfire and ships maneuvering for their lives. On the afternoon of 23 September 1568, Ledesma and Enriquez unleashed a furious barrage which sank three English ships-Grace of G.o.d, Swallow, Angel-while Ledesma's nephews braved English muskets to board the fire ship, set it ablaze, and hoist the sails so that it bore down directly on the Jesus of Lbeck. Blazing like an angry volcano, the ship crashed into the Jesus and within a minute set ablaze the dried timbers of the stunted castle.

Soon the great vessel, proud flagship of the queen's navy and her personal possession, was ablaze in all quarters and burning uncontrollably toward the waterline. Still she might have fought her way out of the harbor had not Admiral Ledesma, once more in command of the Mariposa, dogged the burning Jesus and poured in a shattering broadside which penetrated the waterline. With no chance of saving his flagship, Hawkins shouted to his loyal sailors: 'Sauve-que-peut!' the time-honored French cry 'Save yourself if you can.' Over the side of the historic ship piled the sailors, dropping onto the deck of an English ship maneuvering alongside. The last sailor leaping down shouted: 'Captain Hawkins! Jump!' and as the rescue ship drew away, Hawkins made a wild leap from the Jesus, barely reaching the deck of the other ship, from which he would have slipped into the water had not alert seamen seen his plight and grabbed him just as he started to fall backward.

In the lurid light provided by the flames, the few surviving Englishmen who had made it to their two ships still afloat, the big Minion now commanded by Hawkins, and the little Judith with Drake as captain, watched in anger and futility as the Mariposa stood off and continued to pound their Jesus, n.o.blest ship ever to have ventured into the Caribbean. It burned until all its timber vanished in smoke. Then, almost as if issuing a final sigh of despair, the flames hissed as they met the sea and the remains of the hulk slipped beneath the waves.

What happened next remains a mystery to English sailors and a permanent blot on the history of the English navy, for Francis Drake, commanding the still-seaworthy little Judith with its usual complement of men and adequate supplies, took the phrase 'Sauve-que-peut' too literally and fled the scene of battle. John Hawkins was left unprotected in his savagely overcrowded, bigger ship, lacking even minimum supplies. In the slang of that day, Drake, the future hero of English seamanship and as notable a hero as Nelson, cut and ran, leaving his uncle to the mercy of the Spaniard.

Under Drake's able guidance, the Judith completed an uneventful pa.s.sage home to Plymouth, arriving unscathed on 20 January 1569 with mournful news of the defeat at San Juan de Ula and the loss of Captain Hawkins and all his other ships. There was deep mourning, for England could not easily absorb such a total defeat and the death of a captain like Hawkins and so many of his men. Queen Elizabeth, still suffering relentless pressure from Spain, had neither ships nor mariners to waste.

And then, five days later, on 25 January, an outlook on a headland near Plymouth sighted an English ship, battered and barely moving, striving to approach land, with no success. Hastening to Plymouth, the watchman alerted the town, and rescue ships were sent out to intercept the Minion, whose crew was in such pitiful condition that they could no longer man the yards. When the rugged ship, veteran of a score of battles, finally limped into harbor, John Hawkins, without ever naming his kinsman, gave his report on the defeat at Ula, concluding with the bitter condemnation which still rankles in the English navy when men speak of Drake: 'So with the Minion only and the Judith (a small barke of fifty tunne) we escaped, which barke that same night forsooke us in our great miserie.'

Of the hundred who had left Ula that flaming night in the Minion, only fifteen survived the terrible, starving pa.s.sage back to Plymouth, but in Drake's Judith, with its adequate supplies, all made it. Of the fifty slaves that Hawkins took with him to Ula, half drowned, for they were in chains in the hold of the Jesus and went down with her as the sailors were leaping to safety. The remaining twenty-five reached England in the surviving ships and were sold at considerable profit to householders in Devon.

When Admiral Ledesma brought his seven ships home to Cartagena he announced erroneously that both Hawkins and Drake had perished in the tremendous Spanish victory at Vera Cruz, and that the Caribbean was once again a Spanish lake. He even sent a boastful dispatch to the king: Imperial Majesty, with the death of the two princ.i.p.al English pirates, Hawkins and Drake, your Caribbean is now visited only by Spanish ships, and your treasure armadas from Nombre de Dios now sail to Havana and across to Sevilla without fear of attack.

He was crestfallen when the king replied acidly that 'apparently the ghosts of men as daring as Hawkins and Drake must be feared, for they have been spotted by our spies in Plymouth, Medway and London,' and later information reached Cartagena that Drake had been seen prowling the Caribbean, but since he landed nowhere, attacked no land settlements, and bothered no Spanish shipping, the rumors were discounted.

In 1571 these rumors were repeated, but if Drake actually did visit his favorite sea, he did not behave characteristically, for again he attacked nothing Spanish. This shadowy behavior did have one curious effect upon the Ledesma household, whose three daughters had provided the family with several grandchildren, and when their play became rowdy their nurses disciplined them by warning: 'If you don't behave, El Draque will s.n.a.t.c.h you and take you away on his big black ship.' And Ledesma noted that even adults mentioned El Draque in their ordinary conversation: 'That is, if El Draque doesn't come' or 'I think the season's past for El Draque.'

This nebulous period of 'He's still alive, he's definitely dead' confused even Don Diego, who found himself telling the vice-regent: 'I almost hope he is alive! To grapple with him once more. To drive him from our sea forever.' And then, in June 1572, the king sent Ledesma intelligence which provoked a surge of excitement: On 24 May inst. Captain Francis Drake, who is very much alive, supported by his brother John sailed from Plymouth with the warship Pasha, 80 tons, as his admiral and the Swan, 30 tons, as his vice-admiral. An ugly whisper current in London says that he may be planning to march across the isthmus and burn Panama, hoping thereby to capture our silver coming up from Peru and our gold coming down from Mexico. To accomplish this, Drake is taking with him a crew of seventy-three, only one of them past the age of thirty.

Do you therefore hasten to La Ciudad de Panama and ensure safe pa.s.sage of our gold and silver to our collection port at Nombre de Dios.

If Drake's ships were not large, they were extraordinarily st.u.r.dy and they must have provided more cargo s.p.a.ce than was apparent, for the king added a postscript about a detail which obviously fascinated him: One English sailor, when put to the torture, confided that Captain Drake had built, on sh.o.r.e at Plymouth, three complete pinnaces of some size, numbered each board, then taken them apart and stowed them in the bowels of the admiral, to be rea.s.sembled upon reaching the target area. Be warned.

Each item of the king's intelligence was correct, for after a swift pa.s.sage of only five weeks, the two little ships reached Dominica again and entered quickly into the Caribbean, where they sped swiftly to the far western sh.o.r.e at a spot not far from their target town of Nombre de Dios. Here they intended capturing King Philip's gold and silver awaiting shipment to Sevilla.

But a skilled mariner other than Drake had also been laying careful plans, for when the king's directive reached Admiral Ledesma, he sprang into action, and now the value of having members of one's own family in positions of importance proved itself, for when he rasped out orders to his many relatives, he could trust they would be followed. To his son-in-law the vice-regent he said crisply: 'Fly you to Nombre de Dios and put everything in readiness.' To his two Amadr nephews he said: 'Plunge into the jungle and erect barricades to block the route between Panama and Nombre.' To a trusted brother he said: 'Hasten to Ro Hacha and man its defenses. He might stop there for sheer revenge.' To another brother and three cousins he handed over the defenses of Cartagena itself, while he, in obedience to the king's commands, hastened to the city of Panama, where he a.s.sumed overall management of the defense system. When Drake reached the western Caribbean, his purported target, he would find not less than sixteen members of Ledesma's immediate family defending the Spanish interest.

On 12 July 1572, Drake was ready to strike. At a safe harbor some distance from Nombre de Dios, a name that would forever be a.s.sociated with him, he brought the stacks and spars up from the hold of the Pasha and rea.s.sembled the three pinnaces he had built back in Plymouth. That night he convened ash.o.r.e a council of the men who would attempt the great adventure. When one of the young sailors-a boy, really-asked timorously: 'How will we know what to do when we reach Nombre?' he turned to the lad and asked softly: 'What do you think I've been doing the last two summers when I scouted the Caribbean? Wasting my time?'

And with a stick he outlined in the white sand on which the three pinnaces rested a diagram of the treasure town he had spied upon during his two secret trips: 'We row to here, ignore the big ships staring down at us ... they'll be asleep. We come ash.o.r.e here, speed directly to the governor's house here. We'll capture silver bars for all ... and take the governor prisoner. Then rush down here to the Treasure House, strongly built and guarded, which holds what we're really after-great stores of gold and precious stones.'

'And then?' a small voice asked, and without pausing to discern who had spoken, Drake said: 'Then we throw our treasure aboard our pinnaces, and row back here to the protection of our big guns on the Pasha and the Swan.' He paused, chuckled, then added: 'We row very fast.'

It was, like any Drake enterprise, perfectly planned and resolutely carried out. In fact, during the first stages of the a.s.sault on Nombre de Dios it seemed as if the Spaniards were playing parts in which they had been rehea.r.s.ed by Drake. The sailors in the big ships guarding the port were asleep. Citizens in the plaza did step aside to let the English raiders pa.s.s. And the first part of the strategy worked, for at the governor's house, Drake's men did find well over a million pesos' worth of silver bars awaiting transshipment.

But they also found something they did not expect. In the bedroom above the fortune had been sleeping Admiral Ledesma's valiant vice-regent. Awakened by the noise below, he leaped from bed, strapped on his sword, grabbed two pistols, and walked calmly down the stairs, asking in easy tones: 'What goes on here?' Then he recognized Drake from events at Ula: 'Ah, Captain Drake! You survived the great defeat at Vera Cruz?'

'I always survive,' Drake said, pointing his pistol directly at the young intruder. The vice-regent displayed no fear, keeping his two pistols aimed directly at the Englishman's heart, so the confrontation was a stand-off. With each man comporting himself with extreme courtesy, Drake said: 'I've come to collect payment for the slaves your people stole from me at Ro Hacha,' and pointed to the stacked silver ingots.

'The king would be most unhappy if you touched his silver,' the vice-regent said, and Drake responded by telling his men: 'Each free to carry as many ingots as you can manage, then we're off to the Treasure House, where real riches await,' but all became so engrossed in stealing samples from the great h.o.a.rd that they allowed the vice-regent to dash off to freedom.

Irritated, Drake shouted: 'Forget this minor booty! Capture the Treasure House, now!' But as the Englishmen sought to rejoin their companions in the plaza, the vice-regent, running ahead at great speed, shouted: 'Fire! Fire!' and a bullet cut into Drake's left leg, bringing much blood, which he stanched by keeping his hand in his pocket and pressing its cloth against the wound.

In this way he reached the Treasure House, where another group of his men attempted to blow off the doors. Meanwhile, the vice-regent had rallied his troops and launched a counterattack, which might have annihilated the small English force had not a sailor seen that Drake was bleeding profusely from the leg, and urged him to abandon the scheme.

When Drake hesitated, infuriated by being so close to untold wealth but unable to touch it, four of his soldiers dragged him bodily away from the attacking Spaniards and took him to the safety of the pinnaces.

To the astonishment of the Spaniards in Nombre de Dios, the arrogant Englishmen retreated slowly to an island in the middle of the bay, where they established headquarters with the implied challenge: 'Dislodge us if you dare.'

The Spaniards then dispatched one of their small boats to the island under a white flag. It bore the vice-regent, who came ash.o.r.e and addressed Drake as if they were diplomats meeting in formal session at some court. 'And when will you be departing, Captain?' the Spaniard asked, and Drake replied: 'Not until we capture the gold and precious stones in your Treasure House,' and the Spaniard said without changing his tone: 'I'm afraid that will be a long time coming, since our guns will destroy you if you move in that direction.'

'Only a lucky shot prevented me from ransacking your Treasure House yesterday,' said Drake. And the Spaniard replied: 'Our men are given to lucky shots.'

Then, to rub salt into Drake's wound, the vice-regent said: 'I am, as you may remember, son-in-law to Don Diego, governor of Cartagena. He sent me here to forestall you, which I have done, and I'm sure he would want you to know that if you had taken with you the silver you had already captured at my house, you would have had ten million pesos at least, and if you'd broken open our Treasure House, you'd have another hundred million.' When Drake did not flinch, the vice-regent added: 'Four times now Governor Ledesma and I have frustrated you. Why don't you sail back to England and leave us alone?' and Drake replied without rancor: 'I shall accept your counsel and sail back soon, but you and your father will be astonished at what my men do before we go.'

The visit ended in such apparent amiability that one English sailor who had waited on them whispered: 'You'd think they were cousins,' and when the vice-regent reached sh.o.r.e he told the people awaiting him: 'A splendid meeting. I was never treated with more civility in my life.'

What Drake did as a first step in achieving his revenge was as amazing to his own men as to the Spaniards, for he left Nombre de Dios with its treasure intact, regained his two ships, and with the three little pinnaces trailing behind, crossed back to Cartagena, fired a few insolent shots over the city walls, and came brazenly in through Boca Chica, where he captured several trading ships carrying just the supplies he needed.

Then, in a daring gesture unequaled at the time, he himself sank his little English ship as too small to bother with, a.s.suring his men: 'We'll find a better.' And he did, capturing a big, fine Spanish merchant ship which promptly became his vice-admiral for the incredible feat he was about to try.

Throwing a few final farewell shots into Cartagena, whose citizens sighed with relief to see him go, he escaped just in time to avoid meeting a very strong Spanish fleet coming in from Spain with hundreds of well-armed soldiers. Once free of that danger, he headed west toward the Isthmus of Panama, where he revealed his. .h.i.therto secret plans to his astonished men: 'We're going to march across the isthmus to the city of Panama, intercept the mule train laden with gold and silver, and earn each man his fortune.' There were sixty-nine young men and boys on whom he would depend to accomplish this bold attack against a city of thousands.

The isthmus was a terrible place to cross, filled with mortal vapors, unknown animals, deadly snakes, polluted water, and some of the most obdurate Indians in the New World, armed with poisoned arrows. They were a breed apart, not Caribs from the east, nor Arawaks from Hispaniola, nor Incas from Peru, nor Aztecs from Mexico; they were formidable and made their isthmus one of the most perilous stretches of land in the known world, but it was the link between the silver mines of Peru and the safe harbor of Nombre de Dios. It was this lifeline that Drake now proposed to sever.

But in the months since he had received the latest intelligence on Panama, a significant change had taken place: Governor Ledesma of Cartagena had arrived to take personal responsibility for the acc.u.mulation of treasure in Panama and its safe transfer by mule train to Nombre de Dios, where his son-in-law was awaiting it.

He had taken all practical steps, having his nephew install forts along the jungle path and training both the muleteers and their protecting soldiers in procedures for frustrating English attacks. The mule train that Governor Ledesma would be leading might be a.s.saulted but it would not be surprised.

On the dark night of 14 February 1573, Drake, having hacked his way through uncharted jungle to avoid the blockades guarding the normal path, secreted his pitifully small contingent at the western outskirts of a little jungle village only a few miles from Panama, each man dressed in white to avoid confusion in the night fight ahead. His orders were strict: 'No man to move until the mule train has pa.s.sed well beyond us. So that when we attack, it cannot scamper back to Panama but must stand and fight us. Remember-if we take it, thousands for all!'

His daring plan would have worked except for the wise foresight of Governor Ledesma, who himself was in the lead, tall and silent and resolute.

Just before his mules started into the jungle he had a brilliant idea: 'Commander! Move six of our reserve mules bearing nothing to the front, with three peons who will look like soldiers.' A stop was made to accomplish this, but as the decoy mules were about to move out, he had a second good thought: 'Place bells about their necks,' and when this was done the six mules sounded like sixty.

The name of the Englishman they fooled, Robert Pike, has come down in infamy through the annals of the English navy. He heard the spurious mules approaching with their bells tinkling and their attendant soldiers marching cautiously ahead. Eager to play the hero, Pike leaped up as the mules reached him and began a.s.saulting the three peons with loud cries of: 'For St. George and England!'

Ledesma heard the strange cry, heard the mules twist in confusion, and heard a shot fired either by Pike or one of the terrified peons. In less than three seconds he uttered his command: 'About! Flee!' And there in the darkness Robert Pike's intemperate action and Governor Ledesma's judicious one deprived Captain Francis Drake of more than fifteen million pesos.

There was nothing he could do. By the time he regrouped his men, Ledesma and his mule train were galloping back to Panama, with swift hors.e.m.e.n spurring ahead to mobilize a force so large and well trained that it would have annihilated the Englishmen had the latter tried to follow. In despair at having been defrauded yet again by Ledesma and his team, Drake could do nothing but retreat through that steaming jungle to find refuge in his waiting ships.

And then, in the depth of a self-inflicted misery over his failure, he proved himself to be one of the most remarkable men of his age. He had not yet performed those feats which would make him immortal-his circ.u.mnavigation of the globe, his raid on Cadiz, and his humbling of the Spanish Armada-and so, what he did now in this remote corner of the world with only a handful of men seems all the more incredible.

First, he returned to Nombre de Dios, not boldly as before but creeping like an animal through the jungle. Then, so close to town that his men could hear its citizens at work, he waylaid the next mule train from Panama, gaining his men a small fortune. But now he had to get his men many miles back to their ships, through that pathless jungle beset by snakes and swamps and insects and hunger, and when he returned to his ships-the original Pasha and the one captured earlier from the Spaniards-he realized that they were not seaworthy enough to get him back to Plymouth with his treasure. So, with a defiance that was unbelievable, he sailed back to Cartagena, where a great Spanish fleet rested in the tight inner harbor. Trusting that none of the larger ships could maneuver in time, he sailed right into the large southern harbor, negotiating the narrows of Boca Chica in full sail, spotted the kind of huge ship he needed, boarded it, fought off its sailors, and sailed insolently out of Cartagena-in one fine new ship in place of his two leaky old craft. Firing a final salute at the city which had tormented his dreams, he repeated the oath he had taken long ago at Ro Hacha: 'I'll be back, Cartagena.' And off he sailed for England and the great adventures that awaited.

But when Diego Ledesma Paredes y Guzman Orvantes returned to Cartagena, he could claim the greater victory, for as he reported to his king: By following the instructions Your Majesty prudently issued, we have been able to frustrate Captain Francis Drake at every turn. He stole no gold at Nombre de Dios. He did not reach Panama. He did not capture the richly laden mule train that I organized. And he failed three times to a.s.sault Cartagena. Furthermore, we caused him to lose both his Pasha and his Swan, forcing him to flee home in whatever mean ships he could muster.

Admiral Ledesma was not obligated to tell his king the whole truth-that Drake himself had sunk the Swan because her smallness was holding him back and, as a gesture of extreme decency, had given his Pasha to a group of Spanish prisoners he had been forced to detain. Nor did he explain that what he dismissed as 'whatever mean ships he could muster' was really one of His Majesty's finest galleons.

But Ledesma was careful in his letter to point out that the notable victories over Drake had been made possible only by the remarkable performances of several members of the Ledesma family. The king in his next instructions to Cartagena promoted seven of them.

Now came those watershed years when in the lives of great nations some begin to ascend, others to decline. At first none is aware that the shift in power is under way, for the signals are so slight that only a speculative genius could detect their significance. Six men in a small town in the Netherlands finally dare to oppose their Spanish governor and are executed. In the distant Celebes a sultan acquires unexpected power and decides to trade with whatever European ships struggle into his domain. In a small German town a man devises a better way to cut type, and at his press books are printed faster.

In the 1580s, Spain and England were involved in this shift of power, for in the dark, gloomy rooms of the Escorial, King Philip II slowly, patiently conceives and perfects a ma.s.sive operation which he calls only 'The Enterprise of England.' By it he intends to settle once and for all his decades-long compet.i.tion with his sister-in-law, Queen Elizabeth.

But she is not idling away her time, waiting for the enemy to strike. Under the inspired direction of John Hawkins, she is a.s.sembling a fleet of swift, small ships of a radical new design, and a.s.sembling the great heroes of England to man them: Howard, Frobisher, Hawkins and, above all, Drake. Every nation in Europe who had spies in either Spain or England knew that an immense confrontation between Spain and England, between Philip and Elizabeth, was imminent.

Governor Ledesma, safe within his walled capital of Cartagena, received news of crucial events that were about to determine the fate of Europe via two ways: reports from Spain alerting him to this possible danger, or warning him about real ones, or simply conveying empire gossip; he also entertained travelers making their way from one Spanish possession to another, and often these men and women provided insights that not even the king in Madrid would have had, or would have listened to if he did have them.

In early January 1578, one of King Philip's swift postal frigates arrived in Cartagena with a copy of the somewhat confused instructions which were being delivered to all Caribbean cities: Some things we know for certain, others are obscure. On 15 November 1577, Captain Francis Drake sailed from Plymouth with five ships, the Pelican, 100 tons as admiral, the Elizabeth, 80 tons as vice-admiral. Exact complements are unknown, but among his five ships he can have no more than 160 men, sailors and all.

Where he is heading and what his mission is we have been unable to determine. Our men in Plymouth trapped one of his sailors and shipped him to Cadiz, but protracted tortures revealed nothing and his jailers believe he and the other sailors were not instructed as to their destination. But from the size and care with which the fleet was put together we must a.s.sume that he is heading for some major target in your domain. Espaola? Puerto Rico? Cuba? Cartagena? Panama? Beware.

The timetable of reaction was identical in all the sites mentioned. First month: keen apprehension. Second month: some relief in knowing that if Drake was in the Caribbean, at least he wasn't attacking our city. Third month: total perplexity, with everyone asking: 'Where can that El Draque be?'

It was almost a year before intelligence from Spain finally dispelled the mystery: We now know for certain that Captain Francis Drake has taken his fleet into the Pacific Ocean, but in pa.s.sing the Strait of Magellan he seems to have lost all but one of his ships, his admiral originally christened Pelican but now renamed the Golden Hind.

Drake caused considerable disruption along the coasts of Chile and Peru but seems to have spared Panama. No man knows where he will head next, but several of our loyal servants he took prisoner and then released say that while he held them in his power he talked much and freely of sailing either far north to find the lost pa.s.sage, or far west to China and the Spice Islands, or back through Magellan for a major attack upon the Caribbean. Be alert.

But in early 1579 there came to Cartagena from Panama via one of the treasure ships sailing from Nombre de Dios, a Seora Cristbal, sister-in-law of the famous shipowner San Juan de Anton, merchant and government official of Lima in Peru, and she was talkative. As a friend of Don Diego's wife, she naturally stayed at the residence of the Ledesmas, and while there, she spoke incessantly of great events along the west coast of South America, reporting on diverse incidents about which King Philip apparently did not know.

'Contradictions! Contradictions! You, Admiral Ledesma, know better than most what a cruel monster El Draque is supposed to be, how he burns and slays, so that Spanish children are warned to be obedient lest El Draque come for them. A thousand tales are told at night about his evil acts. But I can tell you as a princ.i.p.al authority, for I was there and I met scores who had dealings with him, that in neither Chile nor Peru did he burn or slay. Two hundred sailors and merchants will testify that when they and their ships were captured on the high seas or while dozing in some hidden port, he gave them back their ships after valuables had been transferred to his and saw to it that they had ample food to reach home. Of course, he sometimes chopped down their masts, and on one occasion he wrapped all their sails around their anchor chains and tossed the whole to the bottom of the sea lest they try to follow him or speed ahead to warn others of his coming. He is a terror, no question about that, but he is not a brutal savage like a Frenchman and he does obey the established laws of the sea.'

Prompted by Don Diego, she went on to relate her version of what happened at Santiago in Chile: 'All official reports about what happened there are filled with lies. Out of the blue, Drake in his Golden Hind arrived at Valparaso, the port city near Santiago, and within a few minutes had captured the place, which is not surprising, since at the first sight of the strange English ship, everyone in the harbor town, and I do mean everyone, for later I talked with many of these people, fled into the hills. Valparaso was completely sacked but not burned, and no lives were lost. But what has been kept secret so far is that from Valparaso, and the settlements leading to Santiago, Drake took a fortune in wealth of all kinds. One English sailor told my brother-in-law while he was a captive on Drake's ship: "We took so much loot at Valparaso that we could have turned back at that spot and gone home wealthy men, all of us," and as a joke Drake allowed Don San Juan to go down into the hold of the Golden Hind and see for himself the great bales of stolen wealth loaded at that port. My brother-in-law said it was tremendous, enough, as he expressed it, "to adorn a dozen cathedrals." And remember, Valparaso was only one of his many stops along the coast. Heaven knows what he stole at other towns I haven't even heard of.'

Admiral Ledesma, leaning forward in his chair, was mesmerized by what his visitor was saying, for he could not hear enough about the behavior of his mortal enemy: 'Tell me, what happened when Drake captured your family's ship, the Cacafuego?' At the mention of this famous vessel, Seora Cristbal threw up her hands and chortled: 'It was, as I'm sure you know better than me, properly christened Seora de la Concepcin, a name singing with piety and grace. It was a n.o.ble ship, still is, because although Drake captured it, he handed it back to Don San Juan. It was known, still is, I believe, as the Glory of the Pacific, none bigger, none grander. I sailed on it several times, Lima to Panama and back, and my cabin was better equipped than my bedroom at home. The name by which it became vulgarly known, Cacafuego, is such a terrible embarra.s.sment that I am ashamed even to say it. Who knows how it got such a disgraceful name, I'm sure I don't. Our beautiful ship, besmeared so horribly.* But that's what they call it and that's what Drake called it when he dogged it for five days on its way to Panama with riches ...'

Here Seora Cristbal broke down, but after sniffling for a while, resumed with this information: 'A fair portion of what that d.a.m.ned Drake stole from the Cacafuego ... I mean, it took him three full days to move the stuff from our ship to his ... I call it our ship because certainly a fair part does belong to my husband and me. Our sailors have told me, because as you may know, Drake set them all free to sail the Cacafuego back to Panama after the cargo was transferred from our ship to his. One sailor told me that when the Golden Hind broke away to resume its exploration for the Northwest Pa.s.sage, its cargo of stolen treasure was so great that the ship rode perilously low, and that he had heard one of Drake's sailors remark: "If we manage to get this leaky basket back to Plymouth, we can all buy estates in Devon"-because the tremendous treasure would be shared by less than a hundred and thirty men. That's all there were on Drake's ship, and to think that these few stormed so many of our seaports, captured so many of our ships, stole so much of our wealth!'

When she composed herself Seora Cristbal continued: 'Did you know, Don Diego, that when Drake captured the Cacafuego he first gave its owner, my brother-in-law, a fine cabin aboard the Golden Hind, with instructions to his crew that Don San Juan was to be given exactly the same amenities that they would give Drake? And that later he allowed him to return to his more s.p.a.cious quarters on the Cacafuego, where the two men conversed, night after night? Did the reports say that? And when the time came for the two ships to part, Drake gave every sailor on the Cacafuego a present of some kind, and he was thoughtful enough to take the presents from the loot he had taken at Valparaso and not from what he had stolen from their own ship. Some of the presents were quite valuable, tools and things like that which men prize. When he gave Don San Juan three lovely pieces of jewelry for his wife, my brother-in-law said: "I have a sister-in-law, part owner of this ship you could say, and she adores pretty things," and Drake sent me these two emerald brooches, also from Valparaso.'

Seora Cristbal's prolonged monologue had contradictory effects upon Don Diego. On the one hand he was relieved that Drake was demonstrating his demonic power in other parts of the Spanish empire: 'Now maybe those governors will appreciate what we had to put up with. Maybe they'll recognize what we did in holding him within bounds.'

But then, perversely, he felt a sense of deprivation to think that Drake was performing these daring raids and gigantic thefts in a new area, and he felt deprived of an additional opportunity to frustrate this greatest of the English pirates: 'In our ocean we never allowed him to steal a Cacafuego.' It was as if he and Drake had been destined to duel in the Caribbean, and to change suddenly the definitions of the contest was unfair. Sometimes, when caught in these confusions, he visualized Drake and himself as medieval jousters, himself the designated hero of a great king, Drake the champion of a beautiful queen, but such imaginings fell apart when he remembered what a mean-spirited king Philip was and how epically ugly Elizabeth was to be a queen.

Don Diego was fascinated when he learned from Madrid that Drake had completed his journey around the world. 'Proves he's as obdurate a man as I said in my dispatches,' he told members of his government. And to himself he said: I must be the only man in the world who has defeated Drake four times.

He was further pleased in 1581 when broadsheets from Europe arrived in the Caribbean, showing Queen Elizabeth in great lace ruffs about her neck standing on the deck of the Golden Hind while Drake knelt before her to receive his knighthood. That flamboyant act, a thumbing of the English nose at the Spanish king, as if she were saying: 'See, Philip, how I honor your princ.i.p.al enemy!' seemed to make Drake and Ledesma equal, the former now an English knight, the latter a Spanish admiral.

But Don Diego was not altogether happy when the lisping grandchildren in his family began chanting in the gardens of Cartagena the Spanish version of a new nursery rhyme honoring Drake's promotion: 'This man will make The oceans quake When he comes to take Our Spanish Lake ...'

At this point one of the children would shout: 'What man?' and the others would reply in screaming unison: 'SIR FRANCIS DRAKE!'

And then, in late August 1585, King Philip's postal frigates again darted through the Caribbean with ominous dispatches: Admiral Drake in command of twenty-one ships, nine above 200 tons, including two owned by the queen and manned by practiced seamen like Frobisher, Fenner and Knollys, preparing for some great adventure, we know not what. But from what our spies inform us about the provisioning of said ships, we conclude they must be headed for your seas and your capital cities.

The guess was a shrewd one, for at the end of January 1586 a young Spanish officer arrived with an incredible tale, which he revealed in stammering syllables as he sat with Don Diego in the governor's quarters: 'On the first day of the New Year, Drake's fleet sailed arrogantly into our harbor at Santo Domingo on Espaola, and this time everything was different, for he landed not adventurous sailors but a real army clad in armor. I'm ashamed to report that time and again our troops took one look at those fierce Englishmen, fired their muskets, mostly in the air, and fled, the leaders of our city having done so earlier. By nightfall, Santo Domingo lay completely open to Drake, who came ash.o.r.e on 3 January to stake his claim to the town and everything in it.'

Ledesma was shaken by this appalling news concerning a city he had often visited and with whose governor he had cooperated: 'It was no meager town of wooden buildings and gra.s.s shacks that Coln and Ocampo knew at the beginning of the century. This was a city of carved stone, broad avenues. If Drake could subdue it, what might he do here at Cartagena?' His lips dry, he asked the messenger: 'You mean that after only one day of fighting ...'

'More like one morning, Excellency.'

'And Drake was in control of everything-buildings, homes, churches?'

'Everything. He was especially hard on the churches. Carted away anything of value, and raged when he learned that the priests had sequestered the jewels and other treasures deep in the surrounding woods.'

'But why? I know this man. He's not like that.' Ledesma was not so much protecting Drake's reputation as he was striving to escape the painful realization that Drake, if he was so changed, represented a much graver danger than before, and the stuttering messenger added fuel to that thought: 'To a group of military officers engaged in negotiation with him, he sent his reply in the hands of a little black boy, but one of our officers shouted scornfully: "I do not accept communications from n.i.g.g.e.rs," and in his rage he ran his sword clean through the boy's body. The wound was fatal, but the boy did not die before crawling back to Drake, where he gave the officer's answer and died.'

'And what did Drake do?'

'On the spur of the moment he grabbed from a holding cell filled with Spanish prisoners two of our monks and had them hanged on the spot. He then sent a prisoner to inform the officers that unless they produced the man who had slain the black boy, he would hang two more monks every morning and afternoon.'