A Signal Victory (21 page)

There were only one or two who doubted his loyalty, for to those one or two, Nachancan was dead, and loyal only to particular men, they could not believe that anyone could be loyal merely to a principle.

Perhaps it was not a principle. But on the other hand loyalty need not stop with death.

Davila had moved up country, to Bacalar, in an effort to put down the revolt. He did not yet realize that for once it was too widespread for him. He was on his way to Hoya.

That soldier Guerrero’s son had cut down, though he might never walk again, had at least told Davila what he had seen, and messengers said that the Captain was trying to find out if Guerrero was still alive.

Guerrero gave them orders to say that he was dead. It was almost true. Only he and Nachancan any longer remembered what he had once been, and that past had died with the old man. From now on he would never remember it again.

He sent his wife and daughter to a place of safety, a fishing village half hidden away on the relatively uninhabited coast, between Chetumal and Tulma. Then he set off across country, with his son, towards Hoya. It was right to say he was dead. To the Spanish, he was. They had destroyed a world, and he would serve anyone against them. About that, he had no doubts. It did not even matter whether or
not the Maya won, so only the Spanish might suffer.

Hoya was a small town, on the borders of Cochuah which before the murder of the messengers had been of importance to no one. It seems the fate of such anonymous places always to be the scene of some famous but futile last stand.

A few of them have even been the scene of great victories, as for example, Issus. As soon as he had arrived, Guerrero or rather Ah Ceh as he would always be now, immediately began to plan both the campaign and his defences, but in a day or two learned that the reason for that surprise and disastrous raid upon Chequitaquil was that Davila had marched swiftly on Hoya earlier, from Bacalar, only to be dismayed at signs of rebellion on the way, and to turn back to Villa Real de Chetumal.

In order to lure him into ambush it would therefore be necessary to trick him, and that soon, if the concentrations of troops round Hoya were to be held together.

Fortunately Davila tricked himself. He was worried now, and also very angry. He sent out more messengers, in an effort to reach Montejo, and these also Guerrero intercepted and killed, so that Davila found his position untenable, and decided upon a punitive expedition against Hoya. That would sound well, and whether he could punish Hoya or not, he did not intend to stay there, but to push on rapidly to the west coast and Montejo, before the Indians realized what he was doing and could rally in enough numbers to stop him.

He did not tell even his men what he planned to do, for it would be necessary to leave some of them at Villa Real, to keep up the fiction that he was not leaving for good. If he told them, they would not stay, and unless he got through to Montejo, they might all be slaughtered. As it was, those left behind stood a chance of being picked up by boat later.

He had an easy enough conscience about that.

Having decided what he was going to do, he next sent out
messengers to all the caciques of the supposedly conquered provinces. They were to assemble at Villa Real de Chetumal. Surprisingly enough they complied, first because their priests and advisers told them to, and second because the Spanish, whatever their present condition, had enormous prestige. One could never tell what they might be able to do next.

Davila gave them an harangue. It did not occur to him as ridiculous that they should meekly listen to him in the ruins of their own capital, a force of noblemen who by themselves alone outnumbered his own troops two to one, and who had never even entered such hovels as those which the Spaniards had built to live in, against the white plaster of buildings more complex to construct than they could have understood. It did not impress the noblemen as being ridiculous either, but they were not so docile as before.

Davila sensed that. As it happened, he did not even know that Nachancan, his chief opponent, was dead, but with Guerrero out of the way he felt much better. There was only one way to treat these men, and that was with a bluster of force.

The bright sunlight made him squint, but he had washed and trimmed his beard.

He told them briskly that he intended to avenge the murder of his messengers by the destruction of the Hoya. Those chiefs who had sworn fealty to the Spanish could best prove their loyalty by falling in behind. Apparently he had not even heard of the destruction of his latest attempt to get through to Montejo.

It was exactly what the nobles wanted to hear, and they had their instructions. They fell in behind in such numbers that Davila became suspicious, and whittled their number down to six hundred, and those mostly chieftains and their retainers. His official excuse was that there would not be enough water or food along the way to keep such an army going. That sounded sensible enough. In actuality he feared a trap.

It was one.

As soon as he received word, Guerrero began to make his final plans. He would need a great many men. And here again the priests helped him. They were eager to help now, for they too had received news. They always received such news first, for unlike the caciques, who were always at each other’s throats, they maintained a sodality which seldom if ever failed or gave way.

Far to the north, across the border from Mani, lay Chichen Itza, one of their oldest and most sacred cities. It had been abandoned several times, in response to the prophesies and katun cycles, the last time in 1185, at the third return of the fatal Katun 8 Ahau. But it was still holy. It was still kept up. It was the city of the Sacred Well, and the city of ultimate prophecy, the home of Kukulcan, the saviour, and of the magic books of Chilam Balam, by which they foretold everything.

It was used only once a year, but they could not do without it. Once the Spanish had marched through it, to find even the ruins of this world a little too big for them. Now they were back, under the Montejo, the younger one, for like their own incomprehensible god, the Christians seemed to have three persons.

The books of Chilam Balam stated that eventually white-skinned saviour gods would appear from the sea, to impose a new age. But no one wants a saviour to appear, for his appearance would disturb the established order. What is wanted is only the hope that one will appear, which allows the established order to go on undisturbed and at the same time gives it something to wait for.

Besides, these men were not gods, and though the people might not recognize that at once, the priests had, instantly.

Now they had seized the city with two hundred men, defended it with cannon, and turned its most sacred shrines into a bivouac and a stable for their horses. They had subdivided the land among themselves, though it was not theirs, announced the levying of taxes, and informed the natives
that though they were not slaves, still, each Spaniard owned 3,000 of them. Their new masters were the King of Spain and God.

The natives had heard of both and accepted neither. Even the local lord, Nacon Cupul, who had helped the Spanish for his own reasons, now for the same reasons helped them less. It was time to put the invaders in their place. They were ignorant and overweaning. “We already have kings,” Nacon Cupul told them, when the
requerimiento
was read to him, and with some sarcasm, “O noble lords,” and named lords far nobler than they, the Kings of Sotuta, of the Pechs, the Chels. Had these invaders never heard of the Itza?

They had not, but Nacon Cupul could do nothing about it for the moment except wait, pretend obedience, and follow his own plans. The Xiu might follow the invader, for their own advantage, but few men would follow the Xiu, given the chance to do otherwise. The Spanish had one weakness. In their arrogance they took the word for the deed. They thought men loyal because they said they were. There might be some future advantage in that.

But the priests knew the Spanish could not be put in their place because, quite clearly, they had none. They could only be destroyed. And a priest can go anywhere. Guerrero soon found that he had a large force gathering, and many of the detachments appeared led by priests who knew how, and were armed, to fight. For the priests were the brains of the country. They married, they had children, they were interrelated with everybody of secular importance, and though they knew how to worship, they also knew when to kill.

There are advantages, it seems, to a theocracy, if everyone in it is a theocrat. Of his younger son he had heard nothing. He might be dead, but if he was, it was because, like all novices, he had taken the forms for the fact. His superiors clearly intended to keep instead the fact of the forms.

For the moment they allowed Davila to advance.

He did so, with amazing foolishness, but their plans almost went wrong at Chable. The caciques at Chable could not
hide their contempt, even though their part in the plot was to reassure Davila of their loyalty. Davila seemed to hesitate. It was an anxious moment. But then, as they had hoped he would, he came on, and crossed the border into Cochuah. His native auxiliaries and their lords seemed restive, but he could not very well put them in chains. For one thing he did not have enough chains. For another, it would slow his march.

The first resistance to the Spanish was organized at Cochuah, behind a series of woven and disguised screens, called albarrada, which lined the road and were thick with warriors. Guerrero did not seriously expect to stop the Spanish there, but he did hope to disrupt them, and to give the Maya with them a chance to escape.

The albarrada was discovered by the advance party, and Davila soon came up to inspect for himself. He then tried to lead his men around the barrier, in order to attack it from the rear.

It was Guerrero’s first sight of this particular leader of the enemy. He stared out pitilessly, and found that he felt nothing at all. He had seen Spaniards before. Clearly Davila was nervous. It would be a pleasure to tease such a man until he fell apart. It was a thought his visible arrogance evoked and deserved.

He gave orders for the Maya to put up a defence, but fall rapidly back. At the first volley of arrows, the Maya with the Spanish deserted into the forest, with a rustle of foliage and feathers, and the little party was left alone out there, confused by the absence of a path. The Spanish had crossbows. That meant some of his own troops were killed. But three of the Spaniards were wounded.

Guerrilla warfare was something at which Guerrero was astute. He told his men to fall back, and had already had the
pueblo
behind the albarrada gutted and its wells filled with earth and stones. It would make a good place for Davila to spend the night and think things over. The town itself, once the Spanish were in its ruins, he surrounded with
warriors instructed to make their presence known, but not to attack.

Next morning, when Davila marched forward, two wounded men were strapped to the horses. That meant that the third had died in the night. It was at least a beginning.

The second albarrada was a well-concealed ambush, in the form of a hidden maze, whose perfectly camouflaged walls allowed the maximum of cross-fire. Davila could be seen advancing to the attack, towards that outer and poorly hidden stockade which was to act as a lure.

He was seen talking to the cacique of Uaymil, who had deserted him the day before, but had been hauled back by the two Spanish whom he had been unfortunate enough to stumble across in his flight.

He knew about the ambush of course, wanted to save his life, and was now obviously doing it. Guerrero had hoped the man dead, and if they won, he would be, but for the time being Davila deflected his troops, and circled around the maze, making camp in the town on the other side.

It was a setback, but Guerrero was not unduly worried. There are always traitors, and he had allowed for that. He called off his men and fell back on his third plan, which was to force the Spanish to attack. Indeed they would have no choice but to do so, for they had had no supplies for days, and must be hungry. He had also had his spies tell Davila that the Maya had risen to arms everywhere behind them. Therefore they would have to come on.

This they were forced to do, the next day, before the strong palisades and defences he had erected in front of Hoya.

Guerrero watched. The Spaniards came on again and again, Davila well in front. But by afternoon eleven of them had been wounded, and the others were worn out. To their evident humiliation they were forced to turn back. They now had only eleven able men and three horses. Guerrero ordered his men to shoot one of the horses, and it fell belly up, pawing the air and screaming.

He would have sent the Maya out to destroy them, but he did not dare. Maya wars consisted of one battle and then flight or loot. It was not that they were cowards, but that that was their method of fighting. If the Spaniards rallied, anything might happen.

Instead he planned to pick off the invaders slowly, as they had to retreat. But the Maya had other plans. They streamed out over the barricades and across the field, in the direction the Spaniards had taken, the priests well out in front, with a great roaring and yelling.

Guerrero shrugged. Perhaps it was better that way.

Unfortunately Davila had managed to make his retreat. Knowing he had no chance of getting through, he had decided to fall back on Villa Real, by secret or little known paths, and as a reward to the cacique who had told him of the hidden maze, threatened him with torture unless he showed him where such paths were.

The cacique showed him. To make sure of that, Davila kept him bound, guessing correctly he was not the man to lose his own life, by leading them into another ambush. There was also a captive merchant in the company, and merchants do what is expedient. In the end it was the merchant who got them through.

Darkness was falling. It was not until next morning that search parties managed to find Davila.

The Spanish floundered in swamps, lost another horse, cut their way through the brush, and had to scramble over huge trees overturned by a hurricane. The jungle was dense. If that hampered the Spanish, it also prevented the Indians from reaching them. They could only follow, loudly challenging them to fight.