“This is the place,” he says.
“And there are no gabachos on the other side?” asks his brother-in-law.
“The nearest French are at the mouth of the creek that leads to the mill. We’ll be safe here.”
He crawls down the short slope to the water’s edge, followed by the others. When he reaches the muddy shore, he stops to check the short sword slung over his shoulder is still secure and that the six-inch pocketknife tucked into his belt will not hamper his swimming. Then, slowly, he wades into the dark water—so cold it takes his breath away. When he can no longer feel the bottom, he begins to move his arms and legs, keeping his head high, kicking out toward the far shore. The distance to be swum presents no difficulty, but the high wind swelling the water, and the tide which has just begun to turn, sweep him off course. He must not get out of breath. Behind him, he hears Cárdenas splashing. His brother-in-law is the least able of the four—Panizo and his son both swim like fish—but he has taken the precaution of tying two hollow gourds to himself so that he will not go under. In other circumstances, they would have had to make sure his energetic splashing did not alert the French; fortunately tonight, everything is drowned out by the gale.
It has proved to be a good day for Felipe Mojarra and his companions. When the east wind blows hard across the salt flats, it shrouds everything in a pall of sand and dust. Some time ago, on one of his first reconnaissance missions with Virués, Mojarra overheard the captain attempting to persuade an English officer that it would not be a good idea to use traditional fascines to surround the San Pedro gun battery. It would be better to use sisal, Virués insisted—something farmers in Andalucía used to fence in their gardens. The Redcoat refused to budge and, following orders, built defenses round the camp using fascines. By the time the east wind had been blowing for five days, the trench was filled with sand and the parapet buried under it. The English officer having finally been persuaded of the effectiveness of sisal—an old salter knows more tricks than the devil himself, Virués remarked, giving Mojarra a wink—the fence around the San Pedro battery now looks like more of a garden than a fortress.
Mojarra crawls out of the channel, shivering as he slithers like a snake across the muddy bank, where he is joined by the others. Some six hundred varas away, framed against a faint blue light, a hill, dark with pine groves, rises up to Chiclana. Following the bank of the channel, the village, now heavily defended by the French, is a little more than half a league away.
“Single file,” whispers the salter. “And keep it slow.”
He goes first, clambering over the low ridge of earth, then crawling on all fours through the freezing water of the salt marsh. A little further on, when they are sure they will not be seen in the dawn light, the four men wade, up to their waists in water. The muddy terrain makes progress difficult. From time to time, there is a sudden splash or a muttered curse, and they have to free each other from the treacherous mire. Fortunately they are facing into the gale, so any sound is carried downwind, away from prying ears. The tide ebbs; water drains into the channel and out into the bay, exposing the salt marsh, from which no one has harvested salt since the French arrived. Mojarra knows they are running late. Between the clouds of sand and dust whipped up by squalls of wind, he can see that the narrow band of sky is already veering from murky blue to ocher, the dawn emerging behind the pine groves of Chiclana. We’ll get there only by the skin of our teeth, he thinks. But with a bit of luck we’ll make it.
“They’re over there,” hisses Curro Panizo. “By the mouth of the little creek, next to the wooden jetty.”
Mojarra crawls up the bank and carefully pushes aside fronds of saltwort and wild asparagus. A faint silvery light reflects on the maze of tidal creeks, like rivulets of molten lead, marking out the mouth of the Alcornocal channel where it widens near the mill at Santa Cruz—which, though still in shadow, he knows is nearby. To his left, where it joins the channel that runs down from Chiclana, beside the little jetty and the boathouse Mojarra knows well (they were here before the war), he sees the long, flat outline of the gunboat.
“Where is the guard?” Panizo asks.
“At the far end of the jetty … We can creep closer to the boat, following the salt banks. The rest of them will be asleep in the boathouse.”
“Let’s go then. It’s getting late.”
The shape of the nearby pine grove is beginning to emerge as the four men cross the last salt bank and wade into the thick mud. In the grayish-yellow light the wooden boathouse is now visible, as well as the little jetty and the gunboat moored alongside. Mojarra breathes a sigh of relief when he sees it is not grounded in the mud but floating, its mast tilted slightly toward the bow and the sail furled around the lateen yard. This will make things easier; they can ride the stiff easterly wind and sail out into the main channel, instead of having to row like hell with the gabachos on their tail.
“I can’t see the sentry.”
Panizo pops his head over the ridge and looks round, then scuttles back.
“On the right, next to the jetty. Sheltering from the wind.”
Mojarra finally picks out the dark, stationary figure—with a bit of luck, the man’s asleep, he thinks. He has untied the sword slung over his shoulder and listens as the others do likewise. Panizo has a boarding ax, while Cárdenas and young Currito have cutlasses. He feels a shudder run through him, up from his groin—a feeling he always gets when carrying a knife.
“Ready?” Three whispers of assent.
Mojarra takes three deep breaths. “It’s all in God’s hands now.”
The four men scrabble to their feet, make the sign of the cross and advance cautiously, stooping slightly so as not to be seen, listening to the crunch of dry salt beneath their bare feet. Twenty thousand reales if we can get the gunboat across the Spanish lines, Mojarra thinks again. That’s five thousand for each one of us, if we make it back alive. Or for our families. The faces of his wife and daughters flash through his mind, only to be swept away by the pounding of his heartbeat, a rush of blood hammering in his ears, drowning out the howling wind that chills his damp clothes.
Thock … The sentry does not even have time to cry out. He was asleep. Not stopping to think about the dark figure he has just run through with his sword, Mojarra walks on to the boathouse, finds the door and kicks it open. The four men are silent. Jostling each other, they rush inside; all that can be seen in the faint light that filters in from outside are five or six figures lying on the floor. The room smells of mildew, sweat, stale tobacco, wet clothes and grime. Thock, chsss, thock, chsss. Methodically, as though lopping branches off a tree, the four men slash and hack. The last of the figures, awake now, does have time to scream. He lunges brutally at them, scrabbling for the door, letting out a desperate howl of terror. Thock, thock, thock. Chsss, chsss, chsss. Mojarra and his companions get it over with quickly. Who knows if there are others nearby, others who might have heard the screams? Then they pile out of the boathouse, greedily sucking in lungfuls of air, all but collapsing on the sand, brushing from their clothes the blood that stains their hands and faces.
They run down to the jetty without looking back. The French gunboat, still afloat, bobs in the wind. The tide is ebbing more quickly now, laying bare the muddy banks of channels and creeks in the harsh dawn light. Unless something goes wrong, they still have time. Only just, Mojarra thinks, but they have time.
“Go and take any weapons you can find, kid.”
Currito Panizo sets off for the boathouse like a cannonball while his father, Cárdenas and Mojarra leap aboard the gunboat. They untie the lateen yard and pull on the halyard to raise the yard, having taken in the reefs of the sail which unfurls in the wind with a crack; the boat lists toward the side of the channel just as young Currito is running back, carrying four rifles and two gun belts complete with cartridges, bayonets and swords.
“Hurry up, lad! We’re leaving!”
A slash of the saber to prow and another to stern as the bo
y jumps aboard, and his cargo clatters noisily on to the deck of the boat. It is a long, narrow, shallow-draft vessel, ideally suited for a war waged by gunboats in the maze of tidal creeks around the Isla de Léon. It must be about forty feet in length, Mojarra calculates. It is a fine boat. There is a cannon in the bow—a 6-pounder by the look of it, a handsome piece—mounted on a sliding gun carriage, and there are two small brass pedreros in the stern, one on either side. This guarantees that they will get a reward of at least 20,000 reales. Possibly more. Assuming, of course, they make it home.
With the mooring lines cut, and urged on by the wind, the sail swelling on the right side, the gunboat pulls away from the jetty; it glides slowly at first, and then with unsettling speed it sails down the middle of the Alcornocal channel. In the stern, manning the tiller, careful to keep the vessel in the deepest part of the narrow channel—all would be lost if they were to run aground—Mojarra tries to calculate the ebb of the tide and how best to take the bend where the Alcornocal joins the main channel. Currito and Cárdenas are hauling the sheet and adjusting the sail while Panizo steers in the prow. It is light enough now for the men to see each other’s faces: unshaven, dark circles under their eyes, their skin streaked with mud and gabacho blood. They are all on edge, knowing what they have done, but they have no time to think about that.
“We did it!” Cárdenas yells, jubilant, as if he has only just realized.
“We’re going to be rich!” Panizo echoes from the bow.
Mojarra is just about to tell them not to count their chickens, when the enemy does it for him. A shout in French comes from the shadows that still shroud the bank of the channel, followed immediately by two dazzling flashes. Bang. Bang. The shots do not reach the gunboat, which is at the mouth of the Chiclana channel. More shots ring out from the opposite bank—a few bullets, fired blind, sending up jets of spray—while Mojarra leans all his weight on the tiller to tack westward into the current of the big channel. The weight of the cannon in the bow makes it easier to hold a straight course, but difficult to maneuver. Wind and tide finally converge; the boat speeds into the current with the wind behind and the lateen yard almost horizontal. Anxiously, Mojarra surveys the flat landscape and the low banks. He knows that there is a French advance post by the next confluence, and that the ashen light filtering through the clouds of dust will make it easier for the enemy to aim as they pass. But they have no choice but to carry on and hope that the poor visibility will thwart the gabachos.
“Get the oars ready. We might have to use them when we get to the San Pedro channel.”
“We won’t need them,” protests Panizo.
“Best to be prepared. There’s going to be a lot of mud around the islets. I don’t want to take any risks, what with the current and this wind … We might have to row through that section … Where’s the flag?”
While Panizo senior and Cárdenas set the oars into the rowlocks, Currito Panizo takes a folded scrap of cloth from his belt. He shows it to Mojarra with a wink, setting it down between the breeching ropes that secure the cannon. His mother sewed the flag two nights ago by the light of a tallow candle. Since they had no yellow fabric, the middle band is white, cut from an old bedsheet, while the red bands came from the scarlet lining of an old cape that belonged to Cárdenas. The finished flag, which measures about three feet by two, looks very like those flown by the gunboats of the Royal Armada; when they run it up the mast, it will ensure the Spaniards and the English do not fire on them when they see the boat appear out of the Chiclana channel. For the moment, it is better to leave it where it is, since the only people likely to fire are the French—and they will fire for all they’re worth, thinks Mojarra anxiously, watching as they speed toward the mouth of the creek. Once they have passed the enemy’s advance post, there are still 1,500 varas of no-man’s-land to cross before they emerge into the main channel near the Spanish front lines, the gun batteries of San Pedro and the Isla de Vacario. But that will all come later. First they will have to run the gauntlet. Alerted by the shots, the French gunners up ahead will be ready and waiting to fire—at almost point-blank range.
“Hit the deck!… We’re nearly there!”
The French post is barely visible from this part of the creek, but in the gray light filtering through the eddies of dust that swirl along the bank, Mojarra can see ominous figures peering through the undergrowth. He leans on the tiller, trying to steer the gunboat toward the other side of the channel, as far as possible from the shore, keeping an eye on the bank of thick mud now uncovered by the fast-receding tide.
The French are already firing. The bullets whistle through the air above the gunboat, or fall short, sending up plumes of spray. Plop. Plop. A harmless splashing that sounds like stones being skimmed across a river. Clinging to the tiller, Mojarra keeps his head as low as possible, careful not to lose sight of the black mudbank. For all he knows, there could be twenty soldiers in the gabacho post. That would mean that in the sixty long seconds the gunboat is within firing range—assuming they don’t run aground and end up riddled with bullets—the French will have enough time to fire off fifty rounds. It sounds like they’ve made a good start. There’s too much firing, Mojarra thinks gloomily; this is how a wild duck must feel as it flaps desperately, trying to outdistance the shooting party. Too terrified even to quack.
“Watch out!” Curro Panizo yells.
This is it, thinks Mojarra. The gunboat is now directly opposite the advance post; the French are adjusting their aim. The bullets hammer all around like hailstones while the wind whips away the smoke from the rifle shots. The chorus of ziaang and plop grows louder, but now there is another, more menacing, sound: the dull crack of bullets hitting the boat’s wooden hull. One shot splinters the gunwale barely inches from Mojarra. Others rip through the sail or bury themselves in the mast above the crouching figures of Panizo, Cárdenas and Currito. Gripping the tiller, doing his utmost to prevent the wind from taking the boat off course, all Mojarra can do is grit his teeth, keep as low as possible—his every muscle aches as he waits for a bullet to strike home—and pray that none of these lead slugs has his name on it.
Crack, crack, crack. The hail of bullets is coming thick and fast. Mojarra pops his head over the gunwale, checks how far they are from the right bank, how deep the water is; he adjusts the tiller and, turning back, sees Cárdenas, his brother-in-law, on the deck of the gunboat, clutching his head in his hands while blood gushes through his fingers and trickles down his arms. Cárdenas has let go of the sheet—the sail is whipped around by a sudden gust of wind, the boat sheers and almost crashes into the bank.
“The sheet! F’Christ’s sake, haul aft the sheet!”
Gunfire crackles all around. Leaping over the injured man, Currito tries to grab the rope, which flails in the air as the sail flaps wildly. Mojarra leans his full weight on the tiller, turning it first one way, then the other, desperately trying to keep it from running aground on the mud-banks. Eventually, Curro Panizo manages to grab the rope; he hauls the sheet astern and the sail—by now riddled with a dozen bullet-holes—catches the wind again.
The last shots go wide and are left behind as the gunboat speeds away from the French post and into the gentle double-curve that leads to the San Pedro channel. One last bullet hits the sternpost and buries itself in the rudder, sending up a shower of splinters that hit Mojarra in the neck—without causing any damage, but giving him a terrible shock. Damn those fucking Frenchies, mutters the salter, still gripping the tiller; damn Napoleon and all his dead. Suddenly, he remembers the boathouse, the whistle of sword and ax, the stench of butchery, the blood that has since dried on his hands and under his fingernails. He tries to think about something else. About the twenty thousand reales to be divided between the four of them. Because, if nothing else goes wrong, all four will make it home: Curro and Currito Panizo are tending to Cárdenas, who is sprawled on his back on the gun carriage, his face pale and covered in blood. “Just a flesh wound,” Curro informs him. “It
doesn’t look too serious.” Picking up speed now, the gunboat glides down the middle of the channel; already Mojarra can see the little islands of mud left by the ebb tide at the mouth of the creek. In another hundred yards or so, the gunboat will come into view of the English battery on the far bank. Mojarra yells to Currito to get the flag ready. “We don’t want the Redcoats firing on us from San Pedro.”
From this distance, he can see that there is still enough space to sail between the muddy islands. They won’t need the oars just yet. He shifts the tiller, pointing the bow toward the stretch of open water rippled by the wind and the current, between the two flat banks of black mud emerging inch by inch as the tide drops. Mojarra glances back one last time at the flat landscape, the channels and the tidal creeks on both sides. A flock of avocets—they seem reluctant to fly north this year, as if they too are scared of the gabachos—wade along the muddy shore on spindly legs, flapping black-striped wings, sheltered from the wind by a high ridge covered with shrubs.
“Raise that flag now, lad … We need the Redcoats to see it.”
By now the sail will be visible from the gun battery, he thinks, and the English must have heard the shots. But better to be safe. In a flash, Currito Panizo, who has already attached the flag to a halyard, hoists it above the lateen yard to the top of the mast. A moment later, with a firm tug on the tiller, Mojarra steers the gunboat between the islands, then changes tack, heading north into the mouth of the main channel.
“Haul down the sails!… Get to your oars!”
Slumped against the gun carriage, clutching his injured head, Cárdenas moans from time to time. Ay, mamá, he whimpers. Ay, ay, ay … Curro and Currito Panizo scrabble to slacken the sheet, lower the lateen yard and make fast the sail. Then each grabs an oar and, facing the bow, feet wedged against the thwarts in front, they begin to row frantically. Between their heads, in the distance, Mojarra can already see the sisal parapets, the low walls and the cannon embrasures of the English stronghold. Just at that moment, there is a gust of wind from the east, the haze of dust lifts and the first ray of sunlight illuminates the red and white flag fluttering fiercely on the mast of the captured gunboat.