Having tasted Toledo steel the day before, Díaz understood why the Indians were avoiding hand-to-hand combat and preferred to harm the Spaniards from afar. Moreover, the strategy was working, since half a dozen men already bore minor injuries and one, knocked senseless by a stone, had to be carried by his comrades, slowing everyone down. Making a virtue of necessity, Davila brought the square to a halt, had ten of his twenty musketeers move to the flanks and ordered them to fire on the enemy. Every bullet found its mark but what was noticeable, and worrying, was that the flash and roar of the heavy muskets had nowhere near the same terrifying effect on the circling horde as it had yesterday. To be sure ten fewer Indians were now on their feet, but that still left nine hundred and ninety of them, none of whom were running away as Díaz had hoped!
Further volleys from the muskets and crossbows produced no better results and the arrows, spears and slingstones continued to pour in.
‘Damn,’ Díaz heard Davila mutter. ‘We should have brought a pack of hounds.’ Indeed the idea had been discussed and turned down in favour of mobility. Too often the dogs would stop to eat their prey and it took time, and kicks and blows from their handlers, to call them off.
‘Let us be the dog pack,’ Mibiercas yelled to Davila. ‘Let me take a flying squad and get in amongst them.’
Davila nodded and, moments later, after another crashing volley from the muskets, Mibiercas, Le Serna, and ten others drew their swords and sprinted towards the mass of Indians. Too slow for such a mission because of his thigh wound, Díaz felt faintly guilty as he watched his friends go.
Since Davila’s squad had marched south, Alvarado reconnoitred towards the east. He passed for about a mile along the same forest track he’d used to enter the town the day before, but where it looped back towards the south he left it and continued, as Cortés had ordered, in an easterly direction. For some hundreds of paces his men had to cut a passage through heavy bush with their swords. By the time they emerged into the open again Alvarado was itching to impale a few Indians with his new Nuñez rapier, which he’d strapped on today for the first time since besting Zemudio back in Cuba.
Annoyingly, however, there seemed no immediate prospect of running anyone through. Extensive fields of young maize stretched ahead, vanishing in the distance into the morning haze, with not a single enemy formation visible anywhere.
Alvarado yawned with frustration. Overnight he had removed the splint and cast from his left arm and confirmed to his relief that he could move the limb, though it was somewhat wasted from a month of inactivity. He made a fist. God’s blood! He was weak! But he had sufficient grip to hold the reins of Bucephalus for the cavalry attack that Cortés had promised for this afternoon.
And just as well, he thought, since there was no action to be had here. After advancing a further mile through the fields he was so thoroughly bored that he decided to do his reconnoitring in force elsewhere and turned his men back the way they had come.
Where the falconets fired ball or grapeshot weighing about a pound, the lombards fired ball or grapeshot weighing up to seventy pounds. Not for nothing, thought Cortés, were these heavy smoothbore cannon called ‘wallbreakers’! He had brought three of them as the main artillery of the expedition, and of these two now stood in Potonchan’s main square. Alongside them were the eighteen falconets that had already seen service against the Maya the day before, but whereas the latter could be fired, and even moved if necessary, by their own two-man crews, the lombards were so unwieldy that each required teams of thirty bearers to haul their massive carriages and transport their prodigious ammunition and bags of gunpowder.
‘I’d stick to the falconets if I were you,’ Mesa was saying. ‘This country’s too broken with irrigation ditches to move the big cannon – especially with bearers as reluctant as these.’ He jerked his thumb towards the sixty Taino slaves, who were sitting under the silk-cotton tree in their loincloths looking sullen and stupefied.
‘I know,’ said Cortés, ‘it’s going to be difficult, but my mind’s made up on this. We’ll be badly outnumbered today, and the Indians have already seen the falconets in action. I want something that’s really going to surprise them and I expect the lombards to do that.’
‘Ball or grapeshot?’ asked Mesa without comment.
‘Oh … both I think,’ said Cortés. ‘You know, horses for courses …’
Mibiercas’s flying squad hit the circle of Indians in wedge formation and Díaz saw his friends start the work of killing: Mibiercas, the angel at the east of Eden with his flickering, whirling espadón, La Serna beside him, his gleaming broadsword licking out to taste the enemy. A huge Indian, transformed into a piebald demon by the striped paint of his face, came at Mibiercas with a long two-handed weapon, one of those batons edged with sharp flakes of obsidian that Díaz had encountered the day before. They seemed equally matched in size and strength but Mibiercas was a master of the longsword, a man who had made this weapon his lifework, and he fell upon his foe like a landslide, split his skull from crown to chin with a single blow, snatched out the glittering blood-smeared blade and cut down two more men before the first yet knew he was dead.
In this way the twelve valiant Spaniards, confronting the enemy hand to hand at last, wrought havoc amongst them, while the archers and musketeers of the main squad reloaded and let fly another devastating volley. Yet Díaz saw that the Indians had courage and determination in no smaller measure than the Spaniards, and they did not fall back, despite their losses, but rather rallied and pressed all the harder around Mibiercas and his men, who all of a sudden seemed like rocks hemmed in on all sides by a rushing, roaring murderous tide.
Seeing that they would soon be engulfed, Davila yelled, ‘Santiago and at them’, and led the whole squad pounding across the field to their rescue. Díaz’s thigh pained him as he ran, the ground beneath his feet rough and uneven, filled with the brittle stalks of young corn. ‘Santiago and at them!’ he bellowed raising his sword. ‘Santiago and at them.’
Melchior hauled Pepillo up in front of him and, with a click of his tongue, set the huge stallion to a walk. Unnerved by the peculiar, rocking gait, Pepillo looked down. The ground seemed very far below!
‘Hold on,’ said Melchior as they passed beneath a tree. Pepillo sensed his friend’s heels knock once, twice, against Molinero’s sides and suddenly the animal’s progress became even stranger, bumpy and uncomfortable, nearly jolting Pepillo from the saddle as its back dropped between steps, rose rapidly with the next, and dropped again. ‘That’s called a trot,’ Melchior said, ‘nice for the horse; not so nice for the rider.’ His arms extended forward on either side of Pepillo, his hands loosely holding the reins. ‘Now we’ll try a canter.’ His heels urged Molinero’s flanks again and at once they were moving much faster, Molinero’s hoofs hitting the ground in a staccato three-beat rhythm, Pepillo clinging tight to the pommel at the front of the saddle, feeling nervous but at the same time excited, wanting to laugh. They’d crossed to the side of the orchard during the trot and there was now a clear avenue ahead of them between the wall and the trees as far as the river. ‘Want to try a gallop?’ said Melchior.
‘Yes!’ shouted Pepillo, for the wind was already whipping past his ears.
Melchior moved his hands, still holding the reins, and lifted Pepillo a little. ‘Then here we go,’ he said. The horse surged forward and all at once they were flying.
Flying!
All the jolting unevenness went out of the ride and the great destrier tore towards the river at unbelievable speed, so fast that the trees and the wall blurred as they shot by, so light and free and boundless that joy bubbled up in Pepillo’s chest and he couldn’t stop himself whooping and yelling his excitement to the wind. Then before he knew it the muddy brown expanse of water lay ahead and he thought for a moment they would soar across it like winged Pegasus, until he felt Molinero hesitate a fraction, lean into an exhilarating, sweeping turn, then straighten again in the wonderful mile-eating four-beat gait
of the gallop, the river flashing past beside them. In what seemed no more than seconds, the other wall loomed up; Melchior gently twitched the reins, letting Pepillo drop back into the saddle, and the horse slowed its pace through canter and bumpy trot and came to a halt.
‘My goodness!’ said Pepillo after a moment to catch his breath. ‘So that’s riding!’
Melchior was stepping down. ‘It is what I who was a slave truly call freedom.’ Holding the reins he began to adjust the stirrup. ‘Stay in the saddle if you like.’
Pepillo’s heart, already thudding, beat a little faster. ‘On my own?’ he asked.
‘Yes, silly mammet. Is anyone else up there with you?’ Melchior moved round to the horse’s other side and adjusted the second stirrup. ‘Use these. I’ll lead you for a bit.’
Pepillo lodged his small feet in the huge iron stirrups and found that by pushing down he could raise himself up in the saddle as Melchior had done for him when they galloped. Whispering encouraging, gentle words to the stallion, Melchior moved to the front of the enormous animal and began to lead him forward by the reins.
Looking down at Molinero’s great head, ears twitching, long chestnut mane flapping a little with each step, Pepillo felt a tremendous rush of excitement and pride. He was riding! The smell of the horse was in his nostrils and he thought there was no finer scent in all the world. He reached forward to pat the animal’s powerful neck and suddenly, offering no explanation, Melchior thrust the reins into his hands and stepped away.
‘What?’ asked Pepillo, as the horse continued to amble forward. ‘Why?’
Melchior grinned. ‘Stay on as long as you can,’ he said, and slapped Molinero on the rump.
Blood ran freely from a deep cut in Mibiercas’s face, he and La Serna were desperately holding off a mob of Indians who sought to capture and draw away a fallen man, and the rest of the small group of Spaniards were struggling to form a defensive circle when Davila’s full squad reached them at a run, rapidly absorbed them, reformed as a square and turned back towards Potonchan, which lay four miles to their north, concealed behind the range of low hills they had passed. The Indian attack did not cease but pressed on all the harder, hundreds – it seemed thousands – howling their monstrous war cries, vicious spears jabbing at exposed faces and legs, obsidian-edged swords slashing, while the pikemen fought mightily to thrust them back and the musketeers and crossbowmen at the centre of the square hurriedly reloaded.
Díaz was in the front rank, buckler defending the man next to him, broadsword arching down over the shield of the man to his right, his muscles aching with the strain of the unrelenting effort, sweat soaking his shirt and breeches beneath his armour as he hacked and stabbed at foes so close that the alien odour of their dusky bodies filled his nostrils. The square continued the fighting retreat towards Potonchan, but it was slowing with every pace, losing momentum like a carriage mired in thick mud, when all the muskets crashed again at point-blank range. Discouraged by this, or perhaps at some command from their captain, the Indians seemed to lose their taste for the close melee and broke away to a safer distance, where they began to put up a great din of drums, trumpets, whistles and shouts and at once resumed their barrage of slingstones, arrows and wicked fire-toughened darts, launched with great force from spear-throwers.
More of the enemy could be seen across the fields, flocking to reinforce the attackers, and it seemed to Díaz the worsening odds made it impossible for the Spaniards to fight their way back to Potonchan. There was a real danger they would all lose their lives here unless Cortés came out to relieve them – a prospect made improbable by the stunted hills that blocked the view and a strong breeze blowing steadily from the north carrying the sounds of battle away from the town. Because they were fully encircled, there was no question even of sending a fast runner to summon help, but a large, barn-like structure standing in the fields to their east at a distance of six or eight hundred paces seemed to offer some hope of respite. Although somewhat in ruins it was built of stone, its thatched roof was still largely intact and it looked defensible, so it was with a renewed sense of hope that Díaz heard Davila shout the order and the whole square wheeled ponderously and charged towards it under the unceasing and implacable hail of missiles.
The next ten minutes – it could not have been much longer – passed like an hour for Díaz, the agony of his injured leg slowing him, his breath heaving in short hot gasps as the square fought a running battle against the massed foe, forcing every footstep through the rough impeding growth of the young maize. Three times, large companies of Indians swung in towards them, making concerted efforts to close and stop their flight, but Davila had the shooters working in continuous relays, five musketeers and five crossbowmen along each flank now, moving in and out to fire and reload, fire and reload, so although the attacks hindered their progress, they could not stop them, and at last, all winded, two score at least bleeding from flesh wounds, they reached the shelter of the building. A few dozen Indians had already occupied it, but the Spaniards ignored their spears and arrows, crashed in on them and slaughtered them in a frenzy of pike and sword thrusts.
It was a large, bare rectangular structure they’d taken possession of, twenty paces in length and ten wide with an earthen floor and transverse rafters supporting the thatched roof at about twice the height of a man. The walls were of stone, badly broken on the north and south sides, offering good cover for the shooters but unfortunately dilapidated enough to allow sufficiently determined attackers, should they choose to come on in overwhelming numbers, to break through. There were also many window slits, the remnants of ten each amongst the rubble on the north and south sides, five more to the east side and a wide, unprotected gap where a door had once stood on the west side.
All in all, a good, naturally defensible position. It would have served, Díaz thought, as an excellent fortress when it was intact, and still offered the Spaniards a refuge that they might hope to hold for many hours at little cost to themselves and great cost to the enemy. Davila had already ordered musketeers and crossbowmen to take up positions at every breech in the masonry, through which it could be seen that all around, just out of range, the Indians had drawn to a halt. Díaz found Mibiercas and they joined Davila at the doorway while Le Serna with two musketeers and crossbowmen and a few others climbed up into the rafters, cut through the thatch and forced their way onto the roof.
Reinforcements had been joining the foe all morning. ‘How many do you see?’ Davila called up.
‘Counting,’ La Serna shouted back. They heard him moving around over the thatch.
‘Still counting,’ he said a moment later.
‘How many?’ Davila insisted.
‘Two thousand,’ said La Serna finally, ‘and you know what? Absent a miracle, we’re all dead men.’
Even as he spoke the drums of the enemy, which had fallen silent, began beating again, their trumpets and whistles blew in a violent cacophony and the front ranks surged forward with blood-curdling screams.
Davila ordered a volley fired, ten muskets, ten crossbows, and the men began to reload feverishly as the second volley crashed out.
Potonchan was seven miles north of Cintla and fast messengers, who could run that distance in less than an hour, had been scurrying back and forth all morning to keep Muluc and Ah Kinchil fully informed. For some perverse reason of his own, Muluc seemed to want Malinal to witness the humiliation of the white men, whom he insisted on calling ‘your precious so-called gods’, so he kept her in attendance in the main audience chamber of the palace.
She knew as a result that no all-out attack had yet been ordered. During the night, ten thousand warriors had been camped in an arc less than a mile south of Potonchan, but around dawn Ah Kinchil had drawn them back to Cintla, leaving only a few thousand skirmishers in place to harry the white men should they attempt to push along the sacbe towards the regional capital.
Malinal couldn’t help thinking, with so dangerous an enemy as these ‘Spaniards
’, that she herself might have suggested a different strategy – for example, massive, overwhelming force right from the start. But Muluc, for all his bravado, was cautious, even cowardly, and Ah Kinchil was old, indecisive and deeply afraid of the white men, whom he still in his heart believed might be gods, despite the advice Cit Bolon Tun had given him.
So their decision was to wait and see what the Spaniards would do.
What they did was surprising and contradictory.
On the one hand they had released prisoners, captured during the battle for Potonchan, and sent them to Cintla in the night with a message of peace for Ah Kinchil, to whom it appeared they wished to offer immortal life.
On the other hand, an hour after dawn, a tight, disciplined unit of the white men, a hundred strong, had marched out of Potonchan along the sacbe obviously spoiling for a fight. They had been engaged by skirmishers about four miles south of the town – just three miles north of Cintla itself! – where the Xaman hills concealed them from the Spaniards’ main force.
‘Do these hundred have the weapons called “guns” that make a great noise and kill men at a distance?’ Ah Kinchil had asked the messenger. The answer was yes, but not, it seemed, the terrifying big guns on wheeled carriages deployed the day before. Even so, the white men had defended themselves well with their smaller guns and their long metal knives. The skirmishers, for their part, had kept their nerve and called in reinforcements. When the messenger had left the scene, the hundred Spaniards had been fought to a standstill and were completely surrounded in open fields by two thousand Mayan warriors.