The Portuguese Affair

by Ann Swinfen

  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.

  We never discovered why we had been attacked by the isolated troop of Spanish soldiers during that particular night. Perhaps word had been carried by one of the peasants, betraying us. Or perhaps they had simply spotted our sprawling, disorganised army tramping along in the direction of Lisbon. They were indeed driven off, but we discovered with the coming of the daylight that – what with the dark and the surprise and our inexperienced soldiers’ lack of skill – a number of our men had been badly wounded and killed. It seemed that a few of the better men amongst the inexperienced recruits had tried to join the regulars, but they had been surrounded by some of the Spaniards and cut down. They lay where they had fallen just beyond the camp and we stumbled upon them in the dawn. Mile by mile, our army, instead of growing by the addition of Dom Antonio’s loyal subjects, was dwindling away.

  I did what I could for the wounded, assisted by Dr Nuñez, but many were far gone with existing weakness and the long hours they had lain bleeding before we found them. Four died. The march was halted, except for Essex’s squadron, which set off without us. The dead were buried and Dr Nuñez insisted that the wounded who could not walk should not be abandoned. Unlike so many of their fellows,
they had shown courage and initiative. There were five of them. Carrying slings were contrived out of some of the remaining tents. A few of the stronger soldiers would be able to carry these, if they took it in short snatches of an hour or two. Some of the junior officers volunteered to walk part of the way, taking it turn about to ride and using a pair of their horses to carry one of the slings. At last, after some two hours’ delay, we set off in the wake of Essex. Norreys was clearly angry that the Earl had divided the army, exposing us to greater danger, should there be another attack. He sent off a messenger to ride on to Essex and order him to wait for the rest of the army to catch up with his men.

  That day was the hottest we had endured. There had been no springs for many miles, and the cheap rough wine bought from the peasants with promises of later payment made the soldiers thirstier than ever. When we came upon a stinking, marshy pond, they rushed towards it in a mindless mob, pushing and elbowing their fellows out of the way.

  ‘Stop!’

  I heard Dr Nuñez shouting and rode ahead to see what was happening. The men were crowding round the greenish stagnant pool, fighting each other to reach it.

  ‘Stop!’ I echoed the command and elbowed my way in amongst them, trying to pull them away. ‘This is filthy standing water,’ I cried. ‘You must not drink it, however thirsty you are. It isn’t safe. It will carry sickness.’

  Even from a distance I caught the rank odour of it, rising out of the pond like the stinking breath of a diseased man. It was surrounded by bog plants, many of them unfamiliar to me, but others I recognised as noxious herbs. The surface was covered with a yellow-green scum, not healthy water-weed but a kind of aquatic mould. Here and there, patches of the surface were clear and it was these, catching the sun with the winking temptation of some witch’s fatal brew, which had drawn the men in, driven by their almost insupportable thirst.

  I might as well not have wasted my breath. Maddened with their desperate need for water, they would not listen. They threw themselves on their stomachs, those who had managed to push their way to the front, and began to drink from it, scooping up handfuls of the tainted liquid, even thrusting their heads below the surface and emerging crowned with the olive-tinted slime. I noticed a group of soldiers I recognised – the man who had hustled me away from the fighting the previous night and two of the regular soldiers who had been wounded in the skirmish. They were arguing with some of the unskilled recruits, warning them against the water. One of these was the man who had been bitten by the snake. As I watched, I saw that they were successful in persuading a few of the men, more successful than I was. As experienced soldiers, they would know they must avoid polluted water, however thirsty they were, but most of the men ignored them, as they ignored Dr Nuñez and me. I knew very well what the consequences would be.

  It proved as I had expected, that we were right to fear the stagnant water, for by that evening, cholera had seized the army. It is a terrible disease at any time, but on the march under unrelenting sun in a waterless land, it can be as fatal as the plague itself. Its victims raved with fever. A form of violent flux seized them, so they vomited repeatedly and vented profuse watery diarrhoea studded with white matter like grains of rice and stinking of dead fish. There was no mistaking the signs. The loss of the body’s fluid leaves its vital elements desperately unbalanced so that the body craves water, but clean water was the one thing we did not have to give them. The victims’ very skin shrivelled, so that the hands of young men looked like those of aged crones. Those who had friends to help them along staggered onward with us, though they were so weak they must be half carried. Others collapsed in the ditches and did not move. They were simply left behind, for we had no carts to carry them, and even if we had, most would have died within a few hours, for the fever of cholera will burn a man up from inside, consumed by an inner fire. Fortunately the wounded men carried in the slings had been unable to reach the foetid water, for they would have been the first to succumb.

  ‘It was the honey,’ the whisper went round from mouth to mouth. ‘The honey that peasant gave us, the one who had an ear cut off and watched us with an evil look. The honey was poisoned.’

  And any who had eaten the honey (which was pure and good, I had eaten it myself) began to fancy themselves poisoned. They would not listen when we told them that they had caught cholera from the dirty water. They had not been poisoned by someone else, they had poisoned themselves, but it is always easier to blame another man, rather than accept the blame oneself. The whole army, even the men from the Low Countries, took hold of the idea that the Portuguese peasants were trying to poison them. It was perhaps fortunate that the local peasants had taken to hiding from the army, otherwise they might have suffered some undeserved vengeance. As it was, there was whispering amongst the men, and evil glances cast at Dom Antonio and the other senior men amongst the Portuguese.

  For some reason, I escaped this mistrust, having become something of a mascot amongst the men, ever since they had seen me suck the snake’s venom out of the soldier’s ankle with my own mouth. Even so, I was aware that the mood was dangerous and could flare up into something more serious at any time.

  On the second day after the cholera had begun its attack, our numbers had been reduced again by deaths, but some of those who had been infected, by some fluke of bodily strength, were gradually recovering. By now we knew that we were no more than perhaps a day’s march from Lisbon. It was with some difficulty that Norreys managed to restrain Essex from riding ahead again, in some madcap scheme of arrogant display.

  That evening we set up our usual makeshift camp, though by now even the most inadequate of our soldiers understood the need for sentries to keep watch at night. There was, as usual, little to eat. The further we travelled on this seemingly endless journey, the less willing had the peasants become to sell us food in return for scraps of paper bearing the Dom’s scratched signature, so that by now we saw no sign of them. Either the people of this area were more suspicious or word had run ahead of us, so that the villagers had hidden their food supplies. Had we been able to find any of them, they could claim an inability to supply us with provisions.

  We were sitting slack-jointed around the watch fires as it grew dark, when we became aware of a disturbance in one quarter of the camp. It first it was no more than a murmur of sound, like a distant thrumming of bees. Then it was punctuated by shouts and what sounded like a kind of laughter, not a cheerful sound but the kind of laughter that escapes from men who are afraid or ashamed, a sort of nervous burst of hysteria. I rose to my feet and peered toward that part of the camp, trying to make out what was amiss.

  ‘It is nothing but some horseplay amongst the men,’ said Ruy Lopez.

  For once, perhaps, he had grown weary of constantly dancing attendance on Dom Antonio and had joined Dr Nuñez and me, sharing our lumps of rock-hard stale bread, which we could barely break with our teeth, and what promised to be the very last scraps of the mouldy cheese.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I said.

  ‘Let it be, Kit,’ said Dr Nuñez. ‘You can care for their bodies. There is little else you can do for them.’

  I sat down again, but kept my eye on a growing tumult in that quarter of the camp. Gradually it began to roll toward us, a cluster of men, shouting. At the front was a pale, gaunt figure, stark naked. I knew the man by sight, one of the recruits who had joined us at Plymouth, but I had had no dealings with him. He was older than most of the men, probably in his middle forties, his dull brown hair touched with grey and his beard – as may sometimes happen – entirely grey, almost white. This beard had grown long and straggling since we had left England and hung now halfway down his chest, so that with his nakedness and his matted hair and long beard he seemed like some half-crazed prophet from the Old Testament. He was grown so thin that there seemed to be no flesh on his bones, only the knotted outline of wasted muscle and sinew. His joints at knee and ankle and elbow bulged grotesquely out of proportion to his limbs, and his feet were as prehen
sile as a monkey’s.

  In my profession I am familiar with men’s bodies, but I had never seen one so wasted as this, not even amongst the London poor or the starved survivors of the siege of Sluys. It came to me that, under the rags that were all that remained of their clothes, the other men must look the same. My own body would be wasted. I had already noticed how thin my arms had become, the skin faintly traced with a quilting of fine lines where the layer of flesh beneath the surface had shrunk away.

  The naked man stumbled in our direction, pursued by the crowd, who had begun to bay like a pack of hounds, shouting and jeering and giving way to that unnatural laughter I had heard before. The man’s eyes were wild as a hunted animal’s, and there were flecks of foam on the parched skin about his mouth. It crossed my mind that it was strange he should have even that much of the element of water in him, for we were all become as dry as the sands of the desert.

  ‘The Day of Judgement is come!’

  He raised a withered arm and pointed at Dom Antonio’s tent.

  ‘The Lord God of Israel has brought down his curse upon you, yea, and all you sinners who are gathered here! He has laid upon you the plague of starvation, yea, and the plague of thirst such as those who dwell in the wilderness! Ye shall perish of fevers and your guts shall burn within you until ye be consumed utterly in the fire!’

  His eyes glowed with madness as he staggered toward the tent which flew, even at the end of this exhausted day, the royal standard of the house of Aviz. From within the tent there came nothing but a listening silence. Reaching the tent, he tried to drag down the standard, but it was too high for him to reach.