Caribbean (25 page)

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
, noblest 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 passage home to Plymouth, arriving unscathed on 20 January 1569 with mournful news of the defeat at San Juan de Ulúa 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 Ulúa, 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 Ulúa that flaming night in the
Minion
, only fifteen survived the terrible, starving passage 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 Ulúa, 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:

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 snatch 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:

If Drake’s ships were not large, they were extraordinarily sturdy and they must have provided more cargo space than was apparent, for the
king added a postscript about a detail which obviously fascinated him:

Each item of the king’s intelligence was correct, for after a swift passage 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 shore 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 Amadór nephews he said: “Plunge into the jungle and erect barricades to block the route between Panamá and Nombre.” To a trusted brother he said: “Hasten to Río 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 Panamá, where he assumed 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 associated with him, he brought the stacks and spars up from the hold of the
Pasha
and reassembled the three pinnaces he had built back in Plymouth. That night he convened ashore 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 ashore 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 assault on Nombre de Dios it seemed as if the Spaniards were playing parts in which they had been rehearsed 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 pass. 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 Ulúa: “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 Río 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 hoard 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 ashore 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 shore 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, assuring 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.