Читать книгу Trafalgar & Saragossa - Benito Pérez Galdós - Страница 8

Table of Contents

“Señor Marcial,” she began, with increased indignation, “if you choose to go to sea again and lose your other hand, you can go if you like; but my husband here, shall not.”

“Very good,” said the sailor who had seated himself on the edge of a chair, occupying no more space on it than was necessary to save himself from falling: “I will go alone. But the devil may take me if I can rest without looking on at the fun!”

Then he went on triumphantly: “We have fifteen ships and the French twenty smaller vessels. If they were all ours we should not want so many. Forty ships and plenty of brave hearts on board!”

Just as the spark creeps from one piece of timber to the next, the enthusiasm that fired Marcial’s one eye lighted up both my master’s, though dimmed by age. “But the Señorito” (Lord Nelson), added the sailor, “will bring up a great many men too. That is the sort of performance I enjoy: plenty of timbers to fire at, and plenty of gunpowder-smoke to warm the air when it is cold.”

I forgot to mention that Marcial, like most sailors, used a vocabulary of the most wonderful and mongrel character, for it seems to be a habit among seamen of every nation to disfigure their mother tongue to the verge of caricature. By examining the nautical terms used by sailors we perceive that most of them are corruptions of more usual terms, modified to suit their eager and hasty temperament trained by circumstances to abridge all the functions of existence and particularly speech. Hearing them talk it has sometimes occurred to me that sailors find the tongue an organ that they would gladly dispense with.

Marcial, for instance, turned verbs into nouns and nouns into verbs without consulting the authorities. He applied nautical terms to every action and movement, and identified the ideas of a man and a ship, fancying that there was some analogy between their limbs and parts. He would say in speaking of the loss of his eye that his larboard port-hole was closed, and explained the amputation of his arm by saying that he had been left minus his starboard cat-head. His heart he called his courage-hold and his stomach his bread-basket. These terms sailors at any rate could understand; but he had others, the offspring of his own inventive genius of which he alone understood the meaning or could appreciate the force. He had words of his own coining for doubting a statement, for feeling sad; getting drunk he always called “putting on your coat” among a number of other fantastical idioms; and the derivation of this particular phrase will never occur to my readers without my explaining to them that the English sailors had acquired among the Spaniards the nickname of “great-coats,” so that when he called getting drunk “putting your coat on” a recondite allusion was implied to the favorite vice of the enemy. He had the most extraordinary nicknames for foreign admirals; Nelson he called the Señorito, implying a certain amount of respect for him; Collingwood was Rio Calambre, (Uncle Cramp) which he believed to be an equivalent for the English name; Jervis he called—as the English did too—The old Fox; Calder was known as Rio Perol (Uncle Boiler) from an association of the name Calder with caldera, a kettle, and by an entirely different process he dubbed Villeneuve, the Admiral of the united fleets, with the name of Monsieur Corneta, borrowed from some play he had once seen acted at Madrid. In fact, when reporting the conversations I can recall, I must perforce translate his wonderful phraseology into more ordinary language, to avoid going into long and tiresome explanations.

To proceed, Doña Francisca, devoutly crossing herself, answered angrily:

“Forty ships! Good Heavens! it is tempting Providence; and there will be at least forty thousand guns for the enemies to kill each other.”

“Ah! but Monsieur Corneta keeps the courage-hold well filled!” exclaimed Marcial, striking his breast. “We shall laugh at the great-coats this time. It will not be Cape St. Vincent over again.”

“And you must not forget,” added my master eagerly recurring to his favorite hobby, “that if Admiral Córdova had only ordered the San José and the Mejicano to tack to port, Captain Jervis would not now be rejoicing in the title of Earl St. Vincent. Of that you may be very certain, and I have ample evidence to show that if we had gone to port the day would have been ours.”

“Ours!” exclaimed Doña Francisca scornfully. “As if you could have done more. To hear these fire-eaters it would seem as if they wanted to conquer the world, and as to going to sea—it appears that their shoulders are not broad enough to bear the blows of the English.”

“No,” said Marcial resolutely and clenching his fist defiantly. “If it were not for their cunning and knavery … ! We got out against them with a bold front, defying them like men, with our flag hoisted and clean hands. The English never sail wide, they always steal up and surprise us, choosing heavy seas and stormy weather. That is how it was at the Straits, when we were made to pay so dearly. We were sailing on quite confidingly, for no one expected to be trapped even by a heretic dog of a Moor, much less by an Englishman who does the polite thing in a Christian fashion.—But no, an enemy who sneaks up to fight is not a Christian—he is a highwayman. Well now, just fancy, señora,” and he turned to Doña Francisca to engage her attention and good-will, “we were going out of Cadiz to help the French fleet which was driven into Algeciras by the English.—It is four years ago now, and to this day it makes me so angry that my blood boils as I think of it. I was on board the Real Cárlos, 112 guns, commanded by Ezguerra, and we had with us the San Hermenegildo, 112 guns too, the San Fernando, the Argonauta, the San Agustin, and the frigate Sabina. We were joined by the French squadron of four men-of-war, three frigates and a brigantine, and all sailed out of Algeciras for Cadiz at twelve o’clock at noon; and as the wind was slack when night fell we were close under Punta Carnero. The night was blacker than a barrel of pitch, but the weather was fine so we could hold on our way in spite of the darkness. Most of the crew were asleep; I remember, I was sitting in the fo’castle talking to the mate, Pepe Débora, who was telling me all the dog’s tricks his mother-in-law had played him, and alongside we could see the lights of the San Hermenegildo, which was sailing at a gun-shot to starboard. The other ships were ahead of us. For the very last thing we any of us thought of was that the ‘great-coats’ had slipped out of Gibraltar and were giving chase—and how the devil should we, when they had doused all their lights and were stealing up to us without our guessing it? Suddenly, for all that the night was so dark, I fancied I saw something—I always had a port-light like a lynx—I fancied a ship was standing between us and the San Hermenegildo, which was sailing at a gun-shot to starboard. ‘José Débora,’ says I, ‘either I saw a ghost or there is an Englishman to starboard?’ José Débora looks himself, and then he says: ‘May the main-mast go by the board,’ says he, ‘if there is e’er a ship to starboard but the San Hermenegildo.’ ‘Well,’ says I, ‘whether or no I am going to tell the officer of the watch.’

“Well hardly were the words out of my mouth when, rub-a-dub! we heard the tune of a whole broadside that came rattling against our ribs. The crew were on deck in a minute, and each man at his post. That was a rumpus, señora! I wish you could have been there, just to have an idea of how these things are managed. We were all swearing like demons and at the same time praying the Lord to give us a gun at the end of every finger to fight them with. Ezguerra gave the word to return their broadside.—Thunder and lightning! They fired again, and in a minute or two we responded. But in the midst of all the noise and confusion we discovered that with their first broadside they had sent one of those infernal combustibles (but he called it ‘comestibles’) on board which fall on the deck as if it were raining fire. When we saw our ship was burning we fought like madmen and fired off broadside after broadside. Ah! Doña Francisca, it was hot work I can tell you!—Then our captain took us alongside of the enemy’s ship that we might board her. I wish you could have seen it! I was in my glory then; in an instant we had our axes and boarding-pikes out, the enemy was coming down upon us and my heart jumped for joy to see it, for this was the quickest way of settling accounts. On we go, right into her!—Day was just beginning to dawn, the yards were touching, and the boarding parties ready at the gangways when we heard Spanish oaths on board the foe. We all stood dumb with horror, for we found that the ship we had been fighting with was the San Hermenegildo herself.”

“That was a pretty state of things,” said Doña Francisca roused to some interest in the narrative. “And how had you been such asses—with not a pin to choose between you?”

“I will tell you. We had no time for explanations then. The flames on our ship went over to the San Hermenegildo and then, Blessed Virgin! what a scene of confusion. ‘To the boats!’ was the cry. The fire caught the Santa Bárbara and her ladyship blew up with loud explosion.—We were all swearing, shouting, blaspheming God and the Virgin and all the Saints, for that seems the only way to avoid choking when you are primed to fight, up to the very muzzle. …”

“Merciful Heavens how shocking!” cried my mistress. “And you escaped?”

“Forty of us got off in the launch and six or seven in the gig, these took up the second officer of the San Hermenegildo. José Débora clung to a piece of plank and came to shore at Morocco, more dead than alive.”

“And the rest?”

“The rest—the sea was wide enough to hold them all. Two thousand men went down to Davy Jones that day, and among them our captain, Ezguerra, and Emparan, the captain of the other ship.”

“Lord have mercy on them!” ejaculated Doña Francisca. “Though God knows! they were but ill-employed to be snatched away to judgment. If they had stayed quietly at home, as God requires. …”

“The cause of that disaster,” said Don Alonso, who delighted in getting his wife to listen to these dramatic narratives, “was this: The English emboldened by the darkness arranged that the Superb, the lightest of their vessels, should extinguish her lights and slip through between our two finest ships. Having done this, she fired both her broadsides and then put about as quickly as possible to escape the struggle that ensued. The two men-of-war, finding themselves unexpectedly attacked, returned fire and thus went on battering each other till dawn, when, just as they were about to board, they recognized each other and the end came as Marcial has told you in detail.”

“Ah! and they played the game well,” cried the lady. “It was well done though it was a mean trick!”

“What would you have?” added Marcial. “I never loved them much; but since that night! … If they are in Heaven I do not want ever to go there. Sooner would I be damned to all eternity!”

“Well—and then the taking of the four frigates which were coming from Rio de la Plata?” asked Don Alfonso, to incite the old sailor to go on with his stories.

“Aye—I was at that too,” said Marcial. “And that was where I left my leg. That time too they took us unawares, and as it was in time of peace we were sailing on quietly enough, only counting the hours till we should be in port, when suddenly—— I will tell you exactly how it all happened, Doña Francisca, that you may just understand the ways of those people. After the engagement at the Straits I embarked on board the Fama for Montevideo, and we had been out there a long time when the Admiral of the squadron received orders to convoy treasure from Lima and Buenos Ayres to Spain. The voyage was a good one and we had no mishaps but a few slight cases of fever which only killed off a few of our men. Our freight was heavy—gold belonging to the king and to private persons, and we also had on board what we called the ‘wages chest’—savings off the pay of the troops serving in America. Altogether, if I am not much mistaken, a matter of fifty millions or so of pesos, as if it were a mere nothing; and besides that, wolf-hides, vicuña wool, cascarilla, pigs of tin and copper, and cabinet woods. Well, sir, after sailing for fifty days we sighted land on the 5th of October, and reckoned on getting into Cadiz the next day when, bearing down from the northeast, what should we see but four frigates. Although, as I said, it was in time of peace, and though our captain, Don Miguel de Zapiain, did not seem to have any suspicion of evil, I—being an old sea-dog—called Débora and said to him that there was powder in the air, I could smell it. Well, when the English frigates were pretty near, we cleared the decks for action; the Fama went forward and we were soon within a cable’s length of one of the English ships which lay to windward.

“The English captain hailed us through his speaking-trumpet and told us—there is nothing like plain-speaking—told us to prepare to defend ourselves, as he was going to attack. He asked a string of questions, but all he got out of us was that we should not take the trouble to answer him. Meanwhile the other three frigates had come up and had formed in such order that each Englishman had a Spaniard to the leeward of him.”

“They could not have taken up a better position,” said my master.

“So say I,” replied Marcial. “The commander of our squadron, Don José Bustamante, was not very prompt; if I had been in his shoes. … Well, señor, the English commodore sent a little whipper-snapper officer, in a swallow-tail coat, on board the Medea, who wasted no time in trifling but said at once that though war had not been declared, the commodore had orders to take us. That is what it is to be English! Well, we engaged at once; our frigate received the first broadside in her port quarter; we politely returned the salute, and the cannonade was brisk on both sides—the long and the short of it is that we could do nothing with the heretics, for the devil was on their side; they set fire to the Santa Bárbara which blew up with a roar, and we were all so crushed by this and felt so cowed—not for want of courage, señor, but what they call demoralized—well, from the first we knew we were lost. There were more holes in our ship’s sails than in an old cloak; our rigging was damaged, we had five feet of water in the hold, our mizzen-mast was split, we had three shots in the side only just above the water line and many dead and wounded. Notwithstanding all this we went on, give and take, with the English, but when we saw that the Medea and the Clara were unable to fight any longer and struck their colors we made all sail and retired, defending ourselves as best we could. The cursed Englishman gave chase, and as her sails were in better order than ours we could not escape and we had nothing for it but to haul our colors down at about three in the afternoon, when a great many men had been killed and I myself was lying half-dead on the deck, for a ball had gone out of its way to take my leg off. Those d——d wretches carried us off to England, not as prisoners, but as détenus; however, with despatches on one side and despatches on the other, from London to Madrid and back again, the end of it was that they stuck for want of money; and, so far as I was concerned, another leg might have grown by the time the King of Spain sent them such a trifle as those five millions of pesos.”

“Poor man!—and it was then you lost your leg?” asked Doña Francisca compassionately.

“Yes, señora, the English, knowing that I was no dancer, thought one was as much as I could want. In return they took good care of me. I was six months in a town they called Plinmuf (Plymouth) lying in my bunk with my paw tied up and a passport for the next world in my pocket.—However, God A’mighty did not mean that I should make a hole in the water so soon; an English doctor made me this wooden leg, which is better than the other now, for the other aches with that d——d rheumatism and this one, thank God, never aches even when it is hit by a round of small shot. As to toughness, I believe it would stand anything, though, to be sure, I have never since faced English fire to test it.”

“You are a brave fellow,” said my mistress. “Please God you may not lose the other. But those who seek danger. …”

And so, Marcial’s story being ended, the dispute broke out anew as to whether or no my master should set out to join the squadron. Doña Francisca persisted in her negative, and Don Alonso, who in his wife’s presence was as meek as a lamb, sought pretexts and brought forward every kind of reason to convince her.

“Well we shall go to look on, wife—simply and merely to look on”—said the hero in a tone of entreaty.

“Let us have done with sight-seeing,” answered his wife. “A pretty pair of lookers-on you two would make!”

“The united squadrons,” added Marcial, “will remain in Cadiz—and they will try to force the entrance.”

“Well then,” said my mistress, “you can see the whole performance from within the walls of Cadiz, but as for going out in the ships—I say no, and I mean no, Alonso. During forty years of married life you have never seen me angry (he saw it every day)—but if you join the squadron I swear to you … remember, Paquita lives only for you!”

“Wife, wife—” cried my master much disturbed: “Do you mean I am to die without having had that satisfaction?”

“A nice sort of satisfaction truly! to look on at mad men killing each other! If the King of Spain would only listen to me, I would pack off these English and say to them: ‘My beloved subjects were not made to amuse you. Set to and fight each other, if you want to fight.’ What do you say to that?—I, simpleton as I am, know very well what is in the wind, and that is that the first Consul—Emperor—Sultan—whatever you call him—wants to settle the English, and as he has no men brave enough for the job he has imposed upon our good King and persuaded him to lend him his; and the truth is he is sickening us with his everlasting sea-fights. Will you just tell me what is Spain to gain in all this? Why is Spain to submit to being cannonaded day after day for nothing at all? Before all that rascally business Marcial has told us of what harm had the English ever done us?—Ah, if they would only listen to me! Master Buonaparte might fight by himself, for I would not fight for him!”

“It is quite true,” replied my master, “that our alliance with France is doing us much damage, for all the advantages accrue to our ally, while all the disasters are on our side.”

“Well, then, you utter simpletons, why do you encourage the poor creatures to fight in this war?”

“The honor of the nation is at stake,” replied Don Alonso, “and after having once joined the dance it would be a disgrace to back out of it. Last month, when I was at Cadiz, at my cousin’s daughter’s christening, Churruca said to me: ‘This French alliance and that villainous treaty of San Ildefonso, which the astuteness of Buonaparte and the weakness of our government made a mere question of subsidies, will be the ruin of us and the ruin of our fleet if God does not come to the rescue, and afterwards will be the ruin of the colonies too and of Spanish trade with America. But we must go on now all the same. …’ ”

“Well,” said Doña Francisca, “what I say is that the Prince of Peace is interfering in things he does not understand. There you see what a man without learning is! My brother the archdeacon, who is on Prince Ferdinand’s side, says that Godoy is a thoroughly commonplace soul, that he has studied neither Latin nor theology and that all he knows is how to play the guitar and twenty ways of dancing a gavotte. They made him prime minister for his good looks, as it would seem. That is the way we do things in Spain! And then we hear of starvation and want—everything is so dear—yellow fever breaking out in Andalusia.—This is a pretty state of things, sir—yes, and the fault is yours; yours,” she went on, raising her voice and turning purple. “Yes, señor, yours, who offend God by killing so many people—and if you would go to church and tell your beads instead of wanting to go in those diabolical ships of war, the devil would not find time to trot round Spain so nimbly, playing the mischief with us all.”

“But you shall come to Cadiz too,” said Don Alonso, hoping to light some spark of enthusiasm in his wife’s heart; “you shall go to Flora’s house, and from the balcony you will be able to see the fight quite comfortably, and the smoke and the flames and the flags.—It is a beautiful sight!”

“Thank you very much—but I should drop dead with fright. Here we shall be quiet; those who seek danger may go there.”

Here the dialogue ended, and I remember every word of it though so many years have elapsed. But it often happens that the most remote incidents that occurred even in our earliest childhood, remain stamped on our imagination more clearly and permanently than the events of our riper years when our reasoning faculties have gained the upper hand.

That evening Don Alonzo and Marcial talked over matters whenever Doña Francisca left them together; but this was at rare intervals, for she was suspicious and watchful. When she went off to church to attend vespers, as was her pious custom, the two old sailors breathed freely again as if they were two giddy schoolboys out of sight of the master. They shut themselves into the library, pulled out their maps and studied them with eager attention; then they read some papers in which they had noted down the names of several English vessels with the number of their guns and men, and in the course of their excited conference, in which reading was varied by vigorous commentary, I discovered that they were scheming the plan of an imaginary naval battle. Marcial, by means of energetic gymnastics with his arm and a half, imitated the advance of the squadron and the explosion of the broadsides; with his head he indicated the alternate action of the hostile vessels; with his body the heavy lurch of each ship as it went to the bottom; with his hand the hauling up and down of the signal flags; he represented the boatswain’s whistle by a sharp sibilation; the rattle of the cannon by thumping his wooden leg on the floor; he smacked his tongue to imitate the swearing and confusion of noises in the fight; and as my master assisted him in this performance with the utmost gravity I also must need take my share in the fray, encouraged by their example and giving natural vent to that irresistible longing to make a noise which is a master passion with every boy. Seeing the enthusiasm of the two veterans, I could no longer contain myself and took to leaping about the room—a freedom in which I was justified by my master’s kind familiarity; I imitated with my head and arms the movements of a vessel veering before the wind, and at the same time making my voice as big as possible I shouted out all the most sonorous monosyllables I could think of as being most like the noise of a cannon. My worthy master and the mutilated old sailor, quite as childish as I in their own way, paid no attention to my proceedings, being entirely preoccupied with their own ideas.

How I have laughed since when I have remembered the scene! and how true it is—in spite of all my respect for my companions in the game—that senile enthusiasm makes old men children once more and renews the puerile follies of the cradle even on the very brink of the tomb!

They were deep in their discussion when they heard Doña Francisca’s step returning from church.

“She is coming!” cried Marcial in an agony of alarm, and they folded up the maps and began to talk of indifferent matters. I, however, not being able to cool down my juvenile blood so rapidly or else not noticing my mistress’s approach soon enough, went on, down the middle of the room in my mad career, ejaculating with the utmost incoherence, such phrases as I had picked up: “Tack to starboard! Now Port! Broadside to the leeward! Fire! Bang! bom! boom! …” She came up to me in a fury and without any warning delivered a broadside on my figure-head with her right hand, and with such effect that for a few moments I saw nothing but stars.

“What! you too?” she cried, battering me unmercifully. “You see,” she added, turning on her husband with flashing eyes, “you have taught him to feel no respect for you!—You thought you were still in the Caleta did you, you little ne’er do weel?”

The commotion ended by my running off to the kitchen crying and disgraced, after striking my colors in an ignominious manner, before the superior force of the enemy; Doña Francisca giving chase and belaboring my neck and shoulders with heavy slaps. In the kitchen I cast anchor and sat down to cry over the fatal termination of my sea-fight.