Part 24

He spoke the few words. Then with the shovel he began to fill in the grave, from the foot. He placed many heavy stones among the earth, so that the rats might be foiled. When he had levelled the surface he heaped a cairn of stones at the head, and laid the lilies there. He went to a neighbouring garden, and dug up an arnotto rose-bush, to plant upon the grave. When this had been planted, the rites were over, he could do no more. They stood looking down at the grave for a moment, before they left the graveyard. The singing was loud behind them. In front of them, darkening under the breeze, was the bay, with the ships and sloops running in, distant some two or three miles.

“Come, West,” Margaret said. “I must see after the wounded.” He took a last look at the grave, at the already drooping lilies and dejected rose-bush. “Good-bye, Stukeley,” he murmured. He stooped, and picked some rose-buds, and a little scrap of stone from the grave, putting them carefully in a pocket-case. “Now smoke, West,” he said. “And rub tobacco on your hands.”

He reproached himself for having neglected his wounded for so long; but he knew that Tucket and Pain would look to them. He wished that the singing and shouting would stop. “Old Rose” and “The green grass grew” were not songs which the army in his mind had sung. Thermopylæ was not possible to an army which sang such songs. Pistol-shots marked the singing of each stanza; there were yells and cries. He thought he heard the screams of women. He saw two men come from a house with their arms full of plunder. “My God,” he said to himself bitterly. “Is Stukeley to check me even in death?” He drew his pistols again. “Come on, West,” he cried. He ran to the two looters.

“What are you doing?” he said. “Take that stuff back where you got it.”

“Get ter hell,” said the men. “You ain’t our captain. Who in hell are yer talking to?” Both men were drunk. One of them had been wounded in the head.

“I been doing your dirty work all morning,” said the wounded man, with drunken gravity. “I’m a free man, and I’m getting a little for myself. You ain’t my cap. Wot d’yer talk to us for? Go and see ’em in the Plaza,” said the other man. “Git ter the swamps and shove yer ’ed in.” They rolled off shouting. The noise in the Plaza became louder at each moment. It was useless to shoot the looters; two-thirds of the whole force were looting. Pain himself was looting.

Indeed, the sight of the Plaza haunted Margaret like a nightmare till he died. Of the two hundred men gathered there, hardly thirty were sober. These stood aloof under Tucket, guarding the wounded and laughing at the antics of the rest. A heap of loot was piled under the cotton tree. At every moment a buccaneer added to the pile. Wine casks lay open about the square, with drunken men lying near them, in the sun, too drunk to stir. Other drunkards, with linked arms, danced and sang, making catcalls and obscene noises. A half-conscious girl lay against a wall, gasping, shaken by hysteria. Her wild eyes were hard and dry, her hands clutched the dress across her bosom. Parties of drunken men hacked at doors with axes, and tossed household gear through the windows on to the heads of other drunkards beneath. Some had been torturing a Spaniard with woolding. The man lay dead with the cords about him, his face in the sands. Others, in wantonness, were now firing the church, dancing obscenely about in the priests’ robes. Women were screaming in an upper room. A dozen savages pursued one shrieking woman. They bawled filthy jests to each other as they ran. Margaret stood over her, as she fell, moaning, unable to run further. He drove the ruffians back, threatening them with his sword.

“It’s the cap,” they said. “If the cap wants ’er he must ’ave ’er.” He placed the woman in a house which had been sacked; it seemed the safest place in that lost city. Pain came by him, drunk, dragging a silver tray.

“No looting,” the drunkard called. “Strictly college gents. No looting ’tall. None. Won’t have it. No.” He passed on, crying drunken catcalls. The eastern side of the town, fanned by the breeze, was fast spreading to a blaze. The dry wood crackled as the flame caught. The church roof was pouring smoke. Little flames were licking out from the eaves. “My God. My God,” said Margaret. “And this is my act and deed. My act and deed.” He went to Tucket, who stood with the wounded, grimly watching it all. He could not speak. He could only shake his head, white to the lips.

“How’s this for hell?” said Tucket. “This is Captain Pain.”

“Are the guards at the gates still?” Margaret answered.

“Some of ’em are. Your own men are. Mine are. I never saw men like these, though.”

“Let’s get the wounded to the boats. How many have we? How many men are steady still?”

“Sir,” Tucket answered, “I’ve twenty-five men by me. We lost fourteen killed. There’s nineteen hurt here. That’s fifty-eight. Say there’s twenty at the gates still. That leaves a matter of a hundred and seventy like what you see. Get them hurt into the carts, boys, and start ’em to the boats. Gently does it. That’s you.”

They laid the wounded men in litters and carts, and wheeled them down gently to the canoas. Margaret walked by the side of the carts, talking to the men about their wounds, fanning them with his handkerchief, getting drink for them, wetting their brows with water whenever they passed a cistern. The ships were then coming to anchor within half a mile of the town.

“You won’t be long in the boats,” he told the wounded men. “You’ll soon be in bed on board. You can see the ships. There they are. Do you see?”

He spoke to Tucket, urging that they should withdraw the guards from the east and north gates, lest the Spaniards, guessing what had happened, should attack suddenly, and overpower them.

“I’ve already sent,” said Tucket. “I ain’t goin’ to lose good men because these swine choose to raise hell. This was Captain Pain’s piece. The sooner we’re off the better.”

“I’d sound the assembly,” Margaret said. “But the trumpeter’s drunk.”

“Could we ring the church bell or something, sir?” said one of the men.

“The church is on fire.”

“Beg pardon, sir. But we’d oughtn’t to wait,” said Tucket. “We’d ought to get these fellers on board. The sun’s strong. And we got to make two journeys as it is.”

At the boats they were joined by the north-gate guards, about a dozen men in all.

“We can only send away six canoas at a time,” Margaret said. “That’ll mean twenty-four oars. Two wounded men in each canoa. You can’t put more, comfortably.”

“That’s so,” said Tucket. “Get ’em in, sons. Ask Captain Cammock to fire guns.”

They manned six canoas, and laid the worst cases in the sternsheets. The one sober doctor went with them. He was a clever surgeon, pretty well known all over the Indies as Doctor Glass Case. He had left England under a cloud; it was not known why. No man knew his real name.

“Take them aboard the _Broken Heart_,” Margaret said. “And then come back for the rest. Tell Captain Cammock how things stand here.”

The boats shoved off from the shore below the water-gate. Boat-covers propped on oars made awnings for the wounded. Margaret and Tucket watched them quartering on each other, stringing out into line, some of the stroke oars splashing, so as to spatter water, by request, into the faces of the wounded.

“Gully-shooting,” Tucket said.

“They’re racing,” said Margaret. He thought how strongly these men resembled boys. They never lost a chance of competing. Now, in that hot sun, after seven hours of exertion, they were making the broad oars bend, driving the canoas through it, racing to the ship.

Men came straggling to the water-gate, asking if they were to go aboard. Margaret and Tucket told them to tend the wounded, while they returned to the Plaza to try to bring off the rest of the hands. There was no question of holding the town. The east side was a roaring bonfire. All that they could hope was that the Spaniards would not attack.

“There are three garrisons only twelve miles away,” Margaret said.

“Yes,” Tucket answered. “And them we fit this morning must be in the woods.”

“I thought I could have trusted Pain,” said Margaret. “They would have ransomed the town. It’s a merchant town. Look at all the balsam sheds. And now they’ve thrown it away.”

“That was Captain Pain,” said Tucket. “He said as all he wanted was for you to help him take the town. He’d do the rest, he said. He’s deceived you, sir. Deceived you all along. He was telling his hands just now, he was going to seize your ship, as soon as he got the stuff aboard.”

They were entering the Plaza as Tucket said this. They were just in time to see the church roof fall in, with a sudden uprush of fire. Many of Pain’s men were dragging the loot out of the heat. They were stripped nearly naked. They tossed the heavy silver from hand to hand. Sometimes a piece was flung at a man’s head, and then a fight would begin. At least thirty men lay drunk about the square, too drunk to move. About thirty others formed a rank across the eastern side, firing and clubbing at the rats which ran from the burning houses. They turned and fired at the rats which broke through them. The Plaza hummed with flying bullets. Bullets were chipping the adobe walls. Splintered tiles of a soft warm redness lay in flakes below each house. Whenever a rat was killed, the slayers yelled and screamed, swinging the corpse by the tail, hitting each other in the face. Tears ran down Margaret’s cheeks. He had never before seen a sight like this. He had never seen a mob at work. And these were the men he had led; these were the men who were to found a new nation with him.

A sudden roar of cannon made them turn to look seaward. The _Broken Heart_ was wreathed in smoke from a broadside; but as the smoke blew clear they could see the danger signal; the foretopsail dropping to the cap, and a red weft dipped at the peak. Two musket-shots followed from the fo’c’s’le.

“Danger from the south,” said Margaret. “Here are the garrisons.”

Pain lay in the sand, propped against a wine cask, with his hat tilted over his eyes. Margaret ran to him and shook him. “Up,” he cried. “Wake up, man.”

A man came running from the south gate shouting, “The Dagoes. The Dagoes.” He was bleeding from his mouth. He was gasping his life out as he ran. “Dagoes,” he gurgled. “Dagoes, you.” He stood for a moment, swaying, pointing half round the compass behind him.

“Right, son,” said Tucket. “Take a rest. You’re hit. Lie down.”

The man stared at him stupidly, groping with his hands. “Take. These feathers. Off my teeth,” he gasped, and sank forward gently from his knees, dead.

Tucket kicked Pain savagely.

“Wha’s a marrer? Wharrer hell’s the marrer?” said Pain, struggling to his feet.

“We’re attacked,” said Margaret, shaking him. “Get your men. Lord, man, get your men to the south gate.”

“Hands off, you damcarajo,” he answered angrily. “Why the hell couldn’t you look out? Hadn’t you sense enough to set a sentry? I’m awake. You Port Mahon fiddler. What in hell are you looking at me for? Get the men.”

The guns of the _Broken Heart_ opened fire in succession, blowing white rings over the trucks. Heavy musket-fire was breaking out at the south gate. Some of the rat-catchers ran towards it.

“Don’t talk to me like that,” said Margaret. “You drunken little boor. See what you’ve done. You and your gang of thieves. Look at your work. Look at it. Answer me again and I’ll run you through.”

“Lord’s sake,” Tucket cried. “They’re on to us. Here they are. Cuidado, sons.”

“I’ll talk t’you later,” Pain said. “Up with her, sons. Rally an’ bust ’em.” He unslung his piece, and ran, followed by the others, to the south road. They reached the mouth of it in time to see their fellows scattering towards them from the breach. All the wall was covered with clambering Spaniards, hundreds of them. They came swarming on like a wave of bodies, firing and dropping down to load, firing again, ever firing, till the air was full of fire. Margaret saw privateers running up to support him. They came from all sides, fifty or sixty men in all, enough to make a rough double rank across the street. They made a stand here, at the corner of the Plaza, fighting steadily and well, but losing heavily. Margaret picked up a gun and fired with them, praying only that a bullet might find him soon. He had no thought of anything save that. He had failed. Now he would die unpitied in a hopeless fight against odds. There were several hundreds of Spaniards coming up, and the privateers’ ammunition failed. They were searching the dead for cartridges. Men were running back to the Plaza to search the drunkards for cartridges. A few men climbed to the roof of a house, and fired above the smoke into the enemy. Margaret climbed up with them, so that he might order the battle. He lay on the tiles with the rest, firing and cheering. For ten minutes they lay there, firing till they had no more powder. Then, as the smoke cleared away, he saw that a troop of horse was coming up. He saw the Indian lances swaying like boat-masts in a sea. He climbed down from his perch, at that, and gave the word to retire, fighting, to the boats. He knew that the fight now was only a matter of moments.

The men fell back, losing heavily. The Spaniards pressed on, cheering, trying to flank them. At the boats was a mob of flying drunkards, struggling with the boat-guard. They were trying to get the canoas for the loot. The beach was littered with loot. A couple of thousand pounds’ worth of plate was lying in the sands. Seventy or eighty men were fighting in the water, shouting and damning, tugging the canoas to and fro. They left the canoas when the fight ranged down to the beach. They ran to save the plate from the sands, to snatch the loot from under the feet of the fighters. They shrieked, with tears in their eyes, to the fighters. They struck at them with fists and guns and candlesticks, telling them to save the loot, damn them, save this precious gear, never mind the Dagoes. The fighters struck back at them, clubbing their guns. That was the end of the fighting. The ranks broke. Fighters, drunkards, boat-guard, all the wreck of the force, were jumbled in a mob among the boats, knee-deep in water. Margaret, Tucket, and a few more, managed to keep clear of the mob, and fired at the sallyport as the Spaniards pressed through to end them. Tucket’s mate cooly filled their pockets with cartridges, helping himself from the men about him. Two canoas upset; a third, with only three men in her, drew clear and pulled for the ships. Spaniards were on the walls above them, firing into them from the platform. The dead and dying men were beaten down and stamped on by the herd of wild beasts in the water. Margaret was careless how it ended for him. He had no wish to live. He felt only the horror of having mixed with men like these, of having led them, of having soiled his honour for ever with them. His gun was shattered with a bullet; the wound in his shoulder had broken out again; he could feel his shirt, sized with blood gluing to his skin. He drew his sword, and waited, looking at the walls, watching the heads of the Spaniards showing in glimpses among the smoke. As he looked there came a rush above him. A yard of the wall shattered into dust with a burst. Cammock had opened on the town with his broadside. That saved them.

He was in the water still. Some loaded canoas were pulling clear. The last canoas were loading. A dozen steady men, calmed by the gun-fire, were covering the retreat. One by one they climbed into the canoas, firing over the gunwales, standing up to fire, anxious to have the last word. A canoa which had pulled clear backed up to Margaret, and a voice shouted in his ear. Looking round, he saw that it was Pain, a grimed and bloody scarecrow, still savage with drink.

“You Portuguese get,” the drunkard screamed. “You called me down just now. Did you, by God. You junk-laid carajo. Now I’m even. See?” He swung his knobbed pistol on to Margaret’s brow with a smash, knocking him senseless. “Give way,” he shouted. “Give way. That’s what I give to college gents what gets gay with Captain Pain.”

When Margaret recovered consciousness he was in the last canoa, a hundred yards from the shore. One of the Indians was mopping his brow with water. Tucket, who was steering, was uncorking a rum-flask with his teeth.

“You’ll be all right,” Tucket said. “Take a rinse of this.”

“I’m all right,” he answered, with a little, hysterical laugh. “Where is that man? The man who hit me?”

“Gone aboard your ship,” said Tucket.

“My God,” he answered. “Give way then, quick.”

He sat up, fully roused, splashing water over his head. He felt ill and stupid; but the thought of possible danger to Olivia roused him. Looking back, he saw Tolu blazing above the palm-tree tops, the flames sucking at the forest, scorching the boughs. Looking forward, he saw the _Broken Heart_, with men struggling on her gangway amid the flash of pistols.

“Captain Pain,” Tucket said. “Up with her, boys.”

“I cain’t row no harder,” said one of the men petulantly, like a child about to cry. “I see old Jimmy shot, as I owed the dollar to. It ain’t my fault, cap.”

“If I put any more weight on,” said another rower, “this oar’ll go in the slings. It’s got a chewed slug through the service.”

Margaret noticed then, for the first time, that the canoa had a foot of water in her. There were seven men in her. Tucket, himself, an Indian, and four rowers, all of them wounded.

“Let me take an oar,” he said. “Give me your oar, bowman. You’re hit.”

“I ain’t goin’ to lay up,” the bowman answered. “A sailor don’t lay up, nor he don’t take medicine, not till he’s dying, and then he don’t need to.”

“Let me double-bank the stroke then.”

“You stay still,” Tucket said. “You been as near it as most. We’re the last canoa. D’ye know what that means? We five got an upset boat and righted her. The Spaniards were riding after us finishing the wounded. Robin there, the Indian, saved you. He swam a matter of thirty yards with you before we picked him up. Then we’d to lie-to and bale her out before she sank, with the Dagoes blazing hell at us. As it is, we’re only crawling.”

“Robin,” said Margaret, “I shall tell Don Toro to call you by my name.”

The Indian sucked in his golden nose-plate, and cringed upon his hams, grinning. He was the only happy man in the force, this Indian “sin razon.” Tucket added to his happiness by hailing him with his new name, in his own speech of San Blas pigeon, a jumble of Spanish and Indian, spoken as English.

“You Captain Margaret now, Robin. Sabe? You Capitano. Capitano sobre tula guannah anivego. Mamaubah. Eh? Shennorung Capitano. Muchas mujercillas. Eh?”

Five hundred yards further on the rowers had to rest. They splashed themselves with water, took a drink of spirits, and lay back in the stern-sheets. They were worn out. Margaret was worn out, too. He had no strength left in him. He lay back, dully, watching the ship; noting, though with no intellectual comprehension, an array of men passing down the gangway, making a great noise. It was still, after the roar of the battle. The cries and oaths came down the wind to him, clearly, across the water. He saw three long canoas, full of men, pull clear from the ship’s side, with one man, not very big, standing in the sternsheets of the largest, shrilly cursing at the ship. “That’s my note,” were the only words which he could catch. “That’s my note.” He wondered whose note and what note it could be. But his head was reeling; he didn’t really care.

“There’s a woman in the canoa there,” said one of the rowers.

“My God,” he said, rousing up, as the beaten boxer rises, though spent, at his second’s cheer. “It’s not Mrs. Stukeley? It’s not Mrs. Stukeley?”

“No, sir,” said a rower. “The other lady.”

“Yes,” he said, looking intently. “The other. Mrs. Inigo. What’s happened?”

“Pain’s got your crew,” Tucket answered. “He’s leaving you to the Spaniards.”

Dully, as they passed about the rum-flask, they saw the boats draw up to Pain’s ship. They saw sail made upon her, the sprit-sail for casting, the topgallant-sails in the buntlines. Soon she was under way, lying over to the breeze, sailing a point or two free, bound past the Mestizos to the southward. Her men, gathered on her poop to hoist the mizen, cursed the _Broken Heart_ from the taffrail, firing a volley of pistols at her in farewell. Two of the three sloops sailed at the same time. As they passed away, crowding all sail, foaming at the bows with their eight-knot rush, Margaret heard the chanties at the halliards, a broken music, coming in the gusts of the wind.

Tucket took one of the oars, and sat at the thwart wearily, searching for a helper among the sternsheets. Captain Margaret, the Indian, could not row. The other five were exhausted. “Boys,” he said, “if we don’t get a gait on us, we’ll be sunstruck. We’re losing way, too. The breeze is setting us ashore.”

Margaret rose up wearily, like a man in a dream, and sat down to row at the thwart. They pulled a ragged stroke together. They were too tired to do much. They pulled a few strokes, and paused, to look round. Then pulled again painfully and again paused. One of the men took up a pistol and fired into the air. “We’ll never make it,” he said. He fired again and again, till some one in the ship caught sight of them and fired in reply. A boat manned by half a dozen men put off to them, veering out line astern, so that those aboard might heave them in at the capstan. Cammock and Perrin were two of the rowers, the only two who could pull an oar; the negro steward steered. The rest of them rowed like marines on pay-day going through the platoon. The wounded and weary smiled to see them; they had never seen such rowing. Slowly they drew up. Margaret saw Perrin and Cammock glancing over their shoulders at him. They cheered and waved when they saw him. He waved his unhurt arm to them. The canoa swung round and backed alongside. Cammock, laying in his oar, shifted his towing-line to the bow, and bent to it the painter of Tucket’s canoa, so that the boats might tow together. “Let your oars swing fore and aft, boys,” he said. He lifted his voice, and yelled to the ship to heave in. “Well, sir,” he said, coming aft alongside Margaret. “And how are you? I’m glad to see you alive. The men said you were killed.”

“I’m all right,” he said. “But we had. We had enough, over there. What has happened in the ship?”

“Well, sir,” said Cammock. “Pain’s gone off with most of what were left to us. That’s what happened.”

“Tell me,” Margaret said. “How was it?”