Trafalgar: A Tale. Benito Pérez Galdós
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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