The Portuguese Affair (23 page)

At the three first deaths, the column of march halted, while the leaders consulted over what to do. We could not carry the dead with us. Nor could we leave them lying unburied on the barren ground, prey to scavenging animals and birds. So we halted in the unforgiving heat, while a resentful burial party was named and set to digging a grave to accommodate all three. At that point we still carried spades and mattocks, intended for simple mining under the walls of Lisbon, if the garrison should attempt to hold the city against us.

The men dug a pit of reasonable size and the men were laid to rest, with the burial service spoken reverently over them by one of the army’s padres, as we stood, sweating and bareheaded, at the side of the grave.

Later, attitudes hardened. A shallow groove would be scratched out, the body rolled into it, and a few handfuls of dirt scattered over, to the accompaniment of a few a hastily gabbled words. One of the padres had died by then. Finally no one even bothered to look round at the dying, for each man struggled to put one foot in front of the other and had nothing left to spare for the dead. As for those who simply sat or lay at the roadside, refusing to go further, I do not know what became of them.

Never had the land of my birth seemed so alien to me. As I rode on, light-headed under that merciless sun, I was haunted by thoughts of my sister, trapped, perhaps forever, in a cruel servitude of body and soul. Until now I had kept at bay the thought of my grandmother, dead in a prison of the Inquisition, and my grandfather, who would be alive today but for this ill-conceived and disastrous expedition.

In my state of dumb misery and feverish imagination, I found my mind dwelling on London. Despite the secrecy and danger of my life there, it seemed a cool green haven, compared with the hellish land over which we crawled, as insignificant as a column of ants, awaiting the annihilation of some gigantic boot. What would my father be doing now? Was he well enough to minister to his patients in the hospital? I wondered whether my dog Rikki still accompanied him there every morning, and whether Joan was yet reconciled to him. What would the players be performing now, in the summer season at the playhouses? Their light-hearted companionship seemed a world away from this dark company moving forward across a foreign land in shared misery. Would Simon come to visit my father in my absence? Did he ever think of me? Or would he be too preoccupied with some new drama in the playhouse and his friendship with his new companion Marlowe? I dashed stupid tears from my eyes, making a pretence of wiping the sweat from my forehead. It was useless to think of London, for I might never see it again. I might not even survive the march to Lisbon.

Chapter Fifteen

T
hat was the first three days. With a well-trained army, accustomed to long marches, fit and healthy, properly provisioned, it should have been possible to cover the sixty-five mile distance from Peniche to Lisbon in about three days. We should have been there by now. With our poor shambling creatures, unfit from the start of the expedition and growing weaker by the day, with very little food and almost no clean water, it would take us at least two or three times as long. If, indeed, we ever reached Lisbon. Like many of the soldiers I had begun to feel that our slow crawl across the Portuguese countryside would never come to an end. Although I was one of the privileged few on horseback, I still suffered the same heat, thirst and hunger as the foot soldiers. The horses too were growing weak. We could usually find them some grazing, however poor, but they too were desperate for water. Because of their failing condition, they plodding along as if half dead, their heads hanging, yellowish drool hanging from their lips as they gasped for breath in the heat.

The Earl of Essex had chosen to accompany the army, no doubt hoping for military glory when we reached
Lisbon, although his past record in battle was no very great recommendation. This time it might be different, if the people of Portugal did indeed rise in support of Dom Antonio. On our journey so far, there had been no sign whatsoever of any such support. Apart from a few men who joined us in Peniche, no one had come to swell the ranks of the army since we had landed. Whether people were frightened by the summary execution of the nobles like my grandfather, on the merest suspicion, or whether they had little faith in the Dom himself, I could not tell, but by now I had little hope that the expedition’s supposed main goal – to put the Dom on the throne – would ever be achieved. It might be, too, that the Catholic people of Portugal were reluctant to be rescued from Spain by an invading army of heretic Protestants from England. The looting of churches in and around Coruña would not have gone unnoticed. In fact, on first setting out from Peniche, the army had looted some Portuguese churches before Norreys put a stop to it.

As for what the Earl of Essex believed or expected, who could tell? I do not suppose he cared two groats for Dom Antonio, though I am sure he thirsted for glory. He was not, however, a leader to inspire the men of this army. We had seen little of him. His particular party, consisting of his own officers, servants and cronies, kept to themselves. Naturally, he insisted on leading the march, so he was away at the head of the column, while I generally rode somewhat close to the rear, keeping a watch on the laggards who trailed along in danger of being left behind. Unlike the rest of us,
Essex came equipped with sumpter mules and considerable baggage, amongst which I suspected that he had ensured an adequate supply of food and wine. At any rate, on the few occasions when I caught sight of him or his men, they did not appear to be suffering like the rest of us.

On the evening of the fourth day I lay down as soon as it was dark, for I was bone weary. It had been a bad day. Several more men had died and two of the horses. The ranks of the army had also grown thinner through desertions. There were those who simply collapsed at the roadside and refused to move, however much the junior officers kicked and swore at them. Then there were others who slipped away when they thought no one was looking. Raised up on horseback, I would sometimes see a solitary man, or perhaps a group of two or three, hiding in a patch of scrub, waiting for us to pass. They must have hoped for help from the local cottagers, but we never knew what became of them. Perhaps they found a life there in Portugal, perhaps they died, starving and alone, perhaps the Spanish discovered them and either executed them as spies or handed them over to the Inquisition as heretics. The remaining soldiers in our army seemed not to care, seeing how our numbers were dwindling. The fewer mouths to feed, the larger share for each of those men who were left.

The death of the two horses had at least meant some food that day. The Englishmen soon overcame their squeamish resistance to eating horsemeat and grabbed their share almost before it was cooked, roasted on spits over the campfires. I had little inclination to eat, certainly not the half-raw horsemeat, for I had passed beyond normal hunger to a dazed and abstracted state, in which I seemed almost detached from my body. I feared I was becoming feverish, and privately treated myself with a febrifuge tincture. I was sparing of it, for I had not a great deal left and was uncertain how much Dr Nuñez and Dr Lopez might have with them. Many of our medical supplies had been left aboard the
Victory
and as a result had been carried away when the fleet sailed before the two older physicians could remove them. As a bird might fly, over to the west, to the ocean, the fleet was not indeed very many miles from us, but it might as well have been on the moon.

We carried some crude tents with us, but the nights were warm and most of us were too exhausted to erect them that night, so we slept in the open air. After my only meal of the day, some stale bread and a lump of cheese from which I had to scrape long whiskers of mould with my knife, I curled up under a withered bush, with my horse hobbled nearby and my satchel as a lumpy pillow. I never let it out of my sight, for I feared some of the soldiers might steal the poppy juice and other soporifics to send them into an everlasting oblivion. Apart from my medical supplies, all it contained were the carved seal
made for me by Paolo and my two books, very battered now: the small New Testament given me by the rector of St Bartholomew’s church and Simon’s gift of Sidney’s poems. I had been too tired and too dispirited to open them for days now. The ground was baked hard and stony, the night troubled with the sounds of the army, but despite the discomfort a heavy sleep came over me quickly.

I woke suddenly with a pounding heart, unsure for a moment where I was or what had roused me. There was shouting and the clash of sword against sword, then heavy bodies colliding and crashing through the bushes near me. Men were yelling in English and Spanish. All this way from Peniche we had been untroubled by Spanish forces, but it seemed our luck had run out. Clouds which might have given us some protection from the unrelenting sun during the day had built up during the night and obscured all light from moon and stars. Apart from a watch fire some distance away, everything was as black as the inside of a chimney. I could see nothing at all.

I scrambled to my feet, caught up my satchel, and groped about in the dark for my horse. He whickered in alarm and I found him, first by the sound, then by the bulk of thicker darkness. The noises were coming nearer as I tried desperately to free the horse from his hobble. My saddle and bridle were somewhere on the ground, but there was no time to find them. I had ridden bareback often enough in my childhood.

Before I could scramble on to his back, one of our soldiers heaved up out of the darkness. Somewhere another fire or a flare had been lit and silhouetted against its distant glow I could just make out a big fellow I recognised, one of those who had helped the man with snake bite keep on the march, one of Norreys’s professional soldiers from the
Low Countries. He peered at me, reaching out to grope for my arm.

‘Dr Alvarez? It is you! Get back here. That’s Spanish soldiers attacking. Our men will see them off, but you’re best out of the way.’

He tugged at my arm. He was breathing heavily. I could smell sweat and fear. His words were confident, but the hand on my arm was shaking.

‘Wait,’ I said, ‘I need my horse’s tack.’

‘This’ll be your b’yer lady saddle, then, that I nearly fell over.’ He gave a brief bark of nervous laughter.

He grabbed something from the ground, just as I caught my feet in the bridle and sprawled flat on my face. Between us we gathered up both saddle and bridle, and I wound my fingers in my horse’s mane to lead him with us. I had been sleeping a little distance away from the main body of our army, for I had an irrational fear that if I slept amongst the men, I might give myself away by talking in my sleep.

The soldier led the way in a long curve round the main part of the camp, where we could see more and more men staggering to their feet, drawing their swords and looking about them in confusion. It was still so dark it was impossible to understand quite what was happening. Torches were flaring here and there amongst the scattered English forces, but it was clear where the attack had been concentrated, on the side where, carelessly, no sentries seemed to have been posted.

My companion pointed this out with contempt.

‘If we had set up camp like this in the Low Countries,’ he said, ‘without proper sentries, I wouldn’t be here today, tramping and starving across this God-forsaken country. We’d all have had our throats cut long ago. Though the Don Juans aren’t making a very good job of it tonight themselves. They should have wiped out more of us by now.’

He spoke in a tone of professional criticism which would have made me laugh at another time.

I was having difficulty keeping up with him and persuading the horse along, for the shouting and the black shapes leaping in the firelight had frightened him. He kept trying to pull away from me.

‘Why had Sir John not seen to it that we were better guarded?’ I was incredulous.

‘Oh, he gave his orders, did the Old Man. But most of this scum pay no heed to orders, unless they have to fight to save their own skins. There aren’t enough of us real soldiers to hold this rabble together. Can’t call it an army. It’s no better than the sweepings off the streets of London.’

‘You speak the truth,’ I said, ‘but what’s to be done?’

I could sense him shrugging. The horse tried again to jerk away and I gripped his mane more firmly. ‘Come along, lad,’ I said soothingly.

‘Just try to survive until we reach
Lisbon,’ the soldier said. ‘But what will happen then? Do you think they’ll surrender to us? I don’t. We can’t attack or carry out a siege. We’ve no artillery. We can’t starve them out. We’re more likely to starve ourselves first. They’ll have laid in provisions, and made sure there’s nothing in the country round about for us to eat. There’s more ways than one for a siege to fail.’

‘I don’t know what will happen,’ I said. ‘I really don’t know. But if Drake sails up the Tejo from Cascais, he has cannon on the ships–’ I let my voice trail away. Could we rely on Drake?

He gave a disbelieving snort. It was clear that his opinion of Drake was no better than mine. At home in England, Drake was fêted as a hero for his actions against the Spanish and for the treasures he carried home to the Queen and the others who financed his voyages, but those of us who served with him saw a different side to the man – the ruthless, self-serving pirate, whose first aim in life was to hurt the Spanish as much as he could, and whose second aim was to make himself the richest man in England. Or perhaps that was the first of his goals.

By the time we reached the campfires, the sounds of fighting had dwindled into the distance. Men were milling about in confusion, bumping into each other, tripping over bundles on the ground. I hardly knew whether to laugh or cry.

‘Thank you,’ I said awkwardly to the big soldier. ‘It was good of you to come for me. How did you know where I was?’

‘Saw you go off there. The lads, they’re grateful for what you done for ’em.’ He gave a wicked grin. ‘Wouldn’t rate to lose our doctor, would it? More important that Earls or Kings. That’s what the lads think, anyways.’

He went off, either to join in the fight against the attackers or to help restore some order amongst the disorderly mob. I hobbled my horse again and sat down cross-legged by one of the fires. There would be little more sleep for anyone that night and it was certain my medical skills would be needed. After some time, a jubilant group of soldiers returned, having driven off the attackers with little damage to themselves apart from a few slashes – or so we thought – which I attended to, while Norreys and his senior officers rounded up men to stand sentry, after a thorough tongue-lashing to the ill-disciplined crew who had failed to keep to their duty. In any normal army, those who had deserted their posts would have been executed on the spot, but this was no normal army and our numbers were dwindling dangerously. We could not spare even the men who disobeyed orders. It was a dangerous situation for any army. Once discipline breaks down, an army becomes a violent rabble which is as likely to turn against its officers or each other as readily as against the enemy. I saw that all the victorious men who had chased off the Spaniards came from the experienced Low Countries troop.

I sent for more flares to be set up near me, and by their light I unpacked my satchel and set about seeing to the wounded. There had been no arrows or crossbow bolts, no musket shot, presumably the Spaniards thought they were too risky to use in the dark. They must have feared they would shoot their own men. Some of the sword cuts were superficial, needing no more than salving, but two needed to be stitched, difficult to do by the poor flickering light of the flares. Dr Nuñez joined me, but I saw no sign of Ruy Lopez. Together with the Dom and Norreys he occupied one of the few tents which had been erected, but I could not believe he had slept through the disturbance. Either he was too cowardly to show his face or else he was soothing the nerves of his patron. There was no sign, either, of
Essex’s party. I was surprised he had not seized the chance for some heroics, but perhaps he was a heavy sleeper.

As so often on this campaign, I lacked bandages, but I made do with strips torn from the shirts that the men themselves were wearing, in order to bind their own wounds. There was little spare clothing amongst us, for it had been discarded along the march.