Chapter 107 – Under fire
When the pirates delivered their first full broadside, Diego could finally grasp why Ulloa had suffered that atypical, nervous breakdown in his cabin, because it served as a glimpse of what naval battles on board a Man-O'-War were really like: hell. However, this initial attack was quite mild compared to the ones the captain had endured in his youth. Looking at the devastation ten cannons could cause in only one go, Diego couldn't help but wondering how many broadsides of fifty or more cannons a warship and her crew could endure before they would all be blown apart to smithereens.
As they got hit, the Santa Eulalia's gunners also fired their two cannons for the second time, but they only caused minor harm to their enemy in comparison. Unfortunately, with the foremast top already broken, the damage sustained to the spars and the hull after that first broadside from the Burla Negra at close range, put the merchant brig in a great disadvantage.
Despite Ulloa's navigational skills to get away from the pirates, as the battle went on, it became more and more difficult to manoeuvre the Santa Eulalia efficiently. The pirates made the most of it, chasing their prey relentlessly, reaching its side with ease multiple times, firing at will any chance they had, little by little destroying the merchant brig and her crew.
As the cannon balls and other kind of shells kept coming in, annihilating anything in their path, including the bodies of the unfortunates that got caught in their wake, Diego tried his best firing his rifle, praying to God none of the projectiles would hit the boom he was perched over. His usual weapons of choice, the sword and the whip, dangled from his belt, totally useless at that point, but at least he had finally got used to firing from that awkward position, hitting several pirates with his last few shots.
From the heights of the main mast, Diego could see how puddles of blood and water mixed over the planks of the Santa Eulalia's deck, washed away down the scuppers as the ship lolled over the waves. It looked exactly like the dauting image Ulloa had described during his breakdown.
To deal with the carnage, in between broadsides, while the Burla Negra continued giving chase, Diego always climbed down to help Almeida with the injured men, but it seemed like a totally hopeless, lost cause.
ZZZ
Early into the battle, the cockpit got full of wounded men, some with horrific injuries Almeida had no way to treat successfully. Dismembered bodies accumulated in that small space, and he worked as fast as he could to "patch them up", as the captain had ordered. Before long, the sand covering the wooden floor was soaked in blood, the same as his clothes. As he walked on those boards, tending for his multiple patients, he fully understood at last why the captain had insisted so much he spread sand all over the place: to contain the spills and avoid slippering with the sticky, warm fluid. The place looked and stunk like a bloody abattoir.
At some point, Diego helped García into the cockpit. The experienced sailor was bleeding profusely from a deep cut in his left arm, caused by a large splint of wood. Luckily for him, it was one of the few injures the contramaestre could patch up quickly, so he could continue manning one of the cannons as soon as possible.
"I should have stayed at Puerto Deseado with those pretty little Indians…" García said, drinking brandy while Almeida sutured that wound. "One girl grew quite fond of me, you know? Did you try any, Bos'an?"
"No. I'm married, remember?"
"So am I! God, who's going to take care of María, and my kids, if I die here? This is a blooming disaster! Why did we engage those bastards instead of avoiding them? Who decided to do that? The captain? I thought he knew better than that!"
Diego cleared his throat, uncomfortable, feeling responsible, but knowing deep down, the pirates would have finally catch up with them no matter what they tried. He left the cockpit, but he soon returned with Sánchez, carrying between them another injured man, one with a horrific open wound in his abdomen, spilling his guts, and missing half on his left arm. It was kind of a miracle that man was still conscious.
García got up from the operating table, glad his own injury looked so minor in comparison.
"Kill me, please!" the injured sailor cried as he howled in pain on that bloody table. "Kill me now, because I'm done!"
Almeida swallowed hard, looking at Diego, who shook his head slowly. They could amputate the damaged limb, but there was no way they could repair that mess in the abdomen. That man was right: he was going to die, no matter what, and Almeida could only put him out of his misery quickly to alleviate his suffering. With shaky hands, the contramaestre got a gun and aimed at the man's forehead. He tried to shoot him, but the gunpowder was wet, and the gun misfired. As the injured sailor continued crying in pain, begging to be put down, Almeida covered the man's nose and mouth to suffocate him, holding him down. However, despite his pledge to be killed, when he could no longer breathe, the survival instinct took over and that man struggled, tapping on Almeida's arm with his only hand, asking to be released. Diego nodded then, reassuring Almeida, and held the man's arms for a few more seconds until he gave up and stopped struggling, accepting his fate. Terrance watched the whole scene from a short distance, speechless and horrified.
I just sold my soul to the devil, Almeida thought as the man stopped breathing, going limp. But he didn't have much time to dwell on it, because he immediately redeemed himself by saving the life of another injured sailor, amputating his bleeding, mangled leg.
ZZZ
Ulloa tried hard to keep out of reach from the pirates, but every time they got hit, the Santa Eulalia got more and more damaged and difficult to handle. Time after time, the round shots battered the wooden hull, and the chain and canister shots slashed through the rigging and the sails, making the ship increasingly awkward to manoeuvre, and very unresponsive.
As more and more men got injured, directly hit by the projectiles or by the wooden splints that flew away everywhere around them, the captain thought it was kind of a miracle he was still standing at the helm, with only a few scratches on his body. Two hours into the battle, many of his officers and crew had already fallen, like Cárdenas, who got beheaded by a cannon ball right in front of him; a gruesome vision that would haunt Ulloa forever in hair-raising nightmares, if he managed to survive.
Somehow, he felt his ship looked like an injured whale relentlessly pursued by a whaling ship, struggling to get away. However, still a dangerous animal despite the harm sustained, ready to deliver a powerful blow with its mighty tail if it had the chance. Like right then.
As the Burla Negra boldly and carelessly reached their side again to deliver the next windward broadside, Ulloa saw a chance to sting, taking advantage of that wide approach. He ordered the gunners to stay put for the next round, not returning fire. Then, as the enemy ship overhauled them, underestimating the force of the incoming wind, Ulloa edged away quickly. As a result, the damaged Santa Eulalia delivered the almost perfect, always dreaded stern rake, with their two precious projectiles breaking havoc along the whole length of the Burla Negra, from stern to bow, in a gesture of defiance the pirate captain didn't appreciate in the slightest.
"They raised the red!" Ojeda cried when he spotted a new flag flapping away at the top of their mast. The chief officer was still standing, close to the captain, delivering his orders while ignoring a nasty looking gash on his side.
"Bastards!" Ulloa cried, looking back, as the Burla Negra turned to prepare a new attack. By then, they had been manoeuvring the ships and exchanging shots for nearly three exhausting hours, heading away from the storm.
"What does it mean?" Diego asked, now also at the bridge. After the last broadside, the main sail got so damaged he had given up his firing spot for good, fearing the whole thing would break down under his weight. As the captain, he was truly amazed he had so far got away with only minor scratches from the flying pieces of wood and splints.
"No quarter," Ojeda said while taking a hand to his side to press on his bleeding wound.
"As if we were expecting anything different…" Ulloa mumbled, turning the helm again.
"Sin cuartel…" Diego said, pensive for a few seconds. "All right, we must hoist our own red flag then. We shouldn't look afraid of them."
"We don't have any!" Ojeda said, looking somehow offended by that suggestion. Of course, they didn't have a red flag. Why would they?
"Any red cloth will do. And I know where to get one."
Diego disappeared below deck for a short while. Then, he returned with one of Victoria's red tops.
"Here. That would do."
He handed the blouse to Ojeda, who looked at it, and then at the captain, hesitant.
"Yeah, why not? Hoist that. We have nothing to lose," Ulloa said. "Let them know they're all going to die as well if they come near us."
As if that threat will fly!
ZZZ
Down at the cargo hold, Victoria held onto the lamp with shaky hands. That flickering flame was the only illumination the distressed women had in that dark, uninviting space. It lit up the anguished faces that surrounded her, as they cried and prayed while hearing the terrible sounds of the cannon blasts and the screams of the injured men every time the ship got hit.
Mary-Jo desperately tried to comfort her little girl as she sobbed in her arms, wondering about her father's fate. Marta held onto her husband's hand while embracing the anxious Katie, the three of them immensely worried about Terrance. In contrast, as she travelled alone, Doña Margarita worried about everybody and nobody in particular.
Agonizing about Diego's safety, Victoria had to make a titanic effort to stay put, clutching that lamp, hoping with all her heart and soul her husband would be the one to survive and show up to release the group of women, so she would never have to use that flame to blow them all up.
After the second broadside, Doña Margarita produced a Bible. She got closer to Victoria's light, selected a page, and started to read out loud with a rather trembling voice:
"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me…"
That gesture had an instant, soothing effect in the small group. Other women joined her in pray, encouraged by those words, and so did Victoria.
Doña Margarita kept reading passages from the Bible, until one of the heavy cannon balls impacted low on the hull as the ship heeled to port, hitting the cargo deck. The women cried all at once, horrified, with Ojeda's words in mind: if this deck floods, the whole ship will sink, eventually, so we'll all die, no matter what.
"We have to get out of here!" one of them cried as water rushed in every time that part of the ship got under the water line. "This deck will flow!"
"No!" Victoria said. "Let's repair it! We have plenty of wood down here to patch the broken boards before that happens!"
"We don't know how to do that!" another woman complained.
"Here. Hold this," Victoria said, handing that woman the candle. "Please, stay away from the wick."
Marta Hidalgo unlocked the door, and a group of brave women got out of their hiding place, willing to fix the defect on the hull. They rummaged the cargo hold, looking for tools, and used their bare hands to rip some boards and nails from the numerous crates that surrounded them, helped by José Hidalgo.
When a couple of sailors in charge of repairing the hull came down to survey and fix the damage, they found the women already at work, fitting boards to that smashed side while fighting with the incoming water, in a truly heroic effort.
In the end, when the leak got contained, the women returned to their hideaway, soaked and exhausted but with a huge sense of accomplishment. Then, with nothing else better to do, they continued praying as more projectiles kept obliterating the upper decks and the rigging.
ZZZ
"The bastards also hoisted the red!" Bustamante said, once again looking at their prey with the spyglass. "But wait, that's not a flag… That looks like…"
"Let me see!" De Soto barked, very annoyed for his naïve mistake, taking a rake. He snatched the catalejo to look at the red piece of cloth waving at the top of the still standing, but badly battered main mast. "You're right: that's not a flag; it's a blouse!" He laughed then, greatly amused. "Do you know what that means?"
Bustamante shrugged his shoulders, until it he figured it out.
"Women! They definitely have women on board!"
"Yes! Sassy ones!"
They laughed again while drinking more rum from their bottle. That last broadside directed to the stern had caused a lot of damage to their ship, killing many of their men, even damaging a couple of their guns, but it was too late: that merchant brig looked mortally wounded, and it would not hold on for long. Soon, all those bastards playing pirates would float dead in the water before they sank to the bottom of the ocean with their throats sliced open. All, except the dames, of course. Then, it will be a meat fest!
ZZZ
At the Pueblo de Los Angeles, nobody had seen Zorro for months. Not at the pueblo, nor anywhere else in California —or the whole of America, for that matter. Zorro had vanished, like a bad dream, and the last person to see him was the new alcalde, Ignacio De Soto, when he got thrashed by the masked bandit at his private quarters, and then got taken to his lair.
Such humiliating events happened right before Diego de la Vega left for Spain, a notion that had haunted De Soto for a while, after it dawned on him if he didn't catch Zorro, he would be stuck in that dusty little pueblo for years to come, unable to add any significant merits to his service record, spoiling his chances of returning to Madrid a hero. And it could all be down to his former colleague mate, that pompous prick, "oh my God, so perfect", Don Diego de la Vega, his prime suspect to fit the bandit's description.
One sunny afternoon, despite the lack of solid proof for his suspicions, De Soto decided to confront Don Alejandro about his son.
"Buenas tardes, Alcalde," the old don said politely when De Soto wandered into the hacienda through the gate. Don Alejandro was outside, at the patio, tending for his precious geraniums with the help of his young servant, Felipe. "To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit?"
"Your son."
"My son? What about him?" Don Alejandro said, looking suddenly alarmed, leaving the watering can on the ground. "Do you know something I don't?"
"No, I think you do know already, but please, Don Alejandro, would you invite me in? This matter should be discussed in private with a glass of Rioja, and not here in this heat, by the front door of your hacienda."
"Of course. Come on in, por favor."
At the library, Felipe served them both a generous glass of a delicious red wine and then hung around, as if waiting for the news, pretending to be busy. For a deaf boy, De Soto thought the young lad seemed to be very interested to learn what he had to say. Of course he would, because if Diego is Zorro, he must have helped him in the past, maybe pretending to be deaf.
"So, tell me: what do you know about Diego?" Don Alejandro said after taking a sip of the Rioja wine. "I got a letter from him last week, one he posted at Valparaíso, about three months ago. That's the last thing I know. By now, they should be on the last stretch of their journey, across the Atlantic, probably at the Canary Islands already."
"You know that, since my arrival at this pueblo, I've been busy reading the files my predecessor kept on all the citizens of Los Angeles. I have to say it: that man was meticulously thorough in the details. Actually, he had the makings of a great fiction writer," De Soto said, pausing briefly to snigger. "Many times, he described Zorro as a cultivated man with plenty of skills and with knowledge of science, art, history, politics… You name it. It doesn't matter the subject, that man seemed to know about it. And specially, he was a master with the sword, defeating a famous swordman like Sir Miles Thackery." As he talked, De Soto was delighted to see how the old don grew more and more nervous with the exposition of the facts, while waiting for the conclusion. "That masked bandit exceeded the knowledge of the average Californian, and that extensive wisdom could have only been acquired at university, like I did, in Madrid, where all the caballeros studied fencing to some degree with Sir Edmund Kendall, the swordmaster. All the caballeros, including… your son."
De Soto paused again, this time for effect, with a poker face, and waited for Don Alejandro to break the silence with an evasive reply, as he expected.
"So? What are you getting at, Alcalde? I thought you had news about my son, not about Zorro."
"Your son married Zorro's girlfriend. Don't you think that's a bit odd?"
"My son married Victoria Escalante, a long-time friend of the family, as a matter of honour. You know that!" Don Alejandro cried, struggling to control his volatile temper, increasingly upset. "You know perfectly well what happened, exactly right here, in this very room! As I wasn't here to see it —and I thank God for that—, I can't tell you the details, but Sergeant Mendoza was here, saving the day. And for that, I will be eternally grateful. If you wish, Mendoza can relay to you the regrettable incident that resulted in that marriage, first hand."
"If it was a matter of honour, and Zorro was the honourable person most people in this pueblo say he was, why didn't he marry her instead?"
"Because that was an impossible relationship, that's why! They couldn't get married because she could not have a public life with him, thanks to the kind of alcaldes we recently had over here!"
"No. Zorro didn't marry his girlfriend, not because of my predecessor, who was already dead at the time, but because…" De Soto was enjoying so much torturing Don Alejandro, he had to make another pause to watch him simmer. "Come on, Don Alejandro, the evidences are there, you can't deny it: your son, Diego de la Vega, is Zorro."
Felipe dropped the tray he was holding, and the bottle of wine smashed in pieces on the floor.
"And you can hear! You are behind me, boy, so you couldn't read my lips!"
Embarrassed by his blunder, Felipe rushed to clean the mess of wine and glass fragments, ignoring De Soto.
"Are you out of your mind? My son cannot possibly be Zorro! That's ridiculous! Preposterous!"
"Diego left for Spain and Zorro disappeared! What do you call that?"
"A bloody coincidence!"
"I don't think so," De Soto said, standing. "I'm pursuing this matter, sending notice to Madrid to have Diego arrested."
"What?" Don Alejandro cried, also standing. "You can't make this kind of serious accusation without any proof!"
"Of course I can, and I've done it already. And by the way, the ship carrying my letter left San Pedro four days ago. You'll have to wait another month to send yours, but don't bother, because it will be too late."
De Soto sniggered while Don Alejandro refrained himself from punching his face. When the alcalde left, the old don slumped on one of the armchairs.
"What are we going to do?"
Pedro, now fully recovered from his injuries, entered the room.
"I heard what the alcalde said, Boss. Is there anything I can do to help?"
"I don't know," Don Alejandro said, sulking. "He's right: if I send letters to warn Diego, and also to the authorities to complain about those ridiculous accusations, they will arrive too late. The damage will already be done."
Felipe tapped on his chest, then made a sign, pushing with his hands.
"You want to ride?" Don Alejandro said. "Where?"
Felipe got a map, and showed him.
"Veracruz? From Los Ángeles? That would take you at least a month, and it's too dangerous!"
"No, I think Felipe is right," Pedro said. "If someone gets there by land and gets those letters on a ship at that port, they will arrive at Cádiz ahead of a brig sailing around the Horn."
Felipe nodded, pointing at the map, and then tapping his chest again.
"I could go with him. I owe your son this much and way more."
"All right. You could take Azabache and Zeus. Now, if we are going to do this, we have no time to lose: get packing while I write those letters!"
ZZZ
"This is it," Ulloa said, giving up the helm of the unresponsive Santa Eulalia, that with the damage sustained on the rigging and the rudder, hardly advanced anymore in the desired direction, especially not under that wind. "They'll board us next."
"Yes," Ojeda said, looking back to the incoming ship with the spyglass. "They have the hooks ready."
The two experienced marinos looked at each other then. There wasn't much left to say.
"It was an honour sailing with you, Sir."
Ulloa puffed, resigned, with a wry, half-smile, placing a hand on his sabre's pommel, and the other on Ojeda's shoulder.
"It's not over yet, and we won't give up without a last fight. Get the passengers waiting on the lower deck with the blades. They should come out now to give it all, with the rest of the men still standing."
While Ojeda went below deck, the captain left the bridge to join his men and Diego de la Vega, who was waiting in the middle deck, close to the main mast.
"It's time to use that fancy sword of yours, De la Vega."
"I'm ready," the man in black replied, preparing his rifle for a last shot.
They watched impotently how the Burla Negra made her final move, approaching them on the starboard side. The blood thirsty pirates threw the hooks, yelling and howling like a pack of rabid wolves.
As the pirates and the sailors exchanged a few more shots at close range, part of the damaged rigging of the main mast gave way. Diego pushed the captain out of harm's way, but he was a bit too slow to save himself. The whole structure holding the ragged top sail, including the boom he had perched on, came crashing down on top of him, and he got buried under that chaotic jumble of canvas, rope, and wood.
"De la Vega!" Ulloa cried, quickly getting back on his feet. He tried to help Diego, but as the first pirates boarded the Santa Eulalia, he gave up and turned to face them, drawing his sabre.
ZZZZZ
A.N. – Yep, yet another chapter of this never-ending story that ends up in a cliffy! (Sorry for that, but I need more time to write the final battle). And yes, I should know better than adding even more complications for Diego, including Alcalde De Soto getting clever, with a new tangent of the plot that involves Felipe.
I also included a bit of heroics for the women in this chapter, as some readers thought they should come out with the men and help with the fight, which was a no-no, anyway.
More on the way, but I don't know when. Soon, I hope. In the meantime, as usual, thanks for reading and reviewing.