The Portuguese Affair by Ann Swinfen Page B

poignant than the derelict buildings. The air was thick with dust and the stench of gunpowder, trapped between the walls of the crowded houses by the heat. There had been a lull in the cannon fire when we came ashore, but now it started up again, so that instinctively we ducked and the soldiers hurried us on, past a church whose doors gaped open on a rubble-strewn interior, where the tower had collapsed into the nave. That was certainly not damage done by us. It could only be the result of heavy artillery.
    At last, after a steep climb up through the rubble-strewn streets that left Dr Nuñez breathless, we reached the English outpost, securely placed close under an overhanging rock face, protected from the line of fire raining down from above. A group of soldiers came in just ahead of us, their faces patched with dirt, their clothes torn, and their eyes blank with exhaustion and a kind of dumb resignation. They knew that it was impossible for them to take the citadel by force against such superior fire power. All they could do was to try to wear down the garrison by making constant attacks and cutting off their supplies of food. Some of the soldiers carried muskets, the rest crossbows, and I saw that in one corner of their makeshift camp fletchers and smiths were at work making more arrows, quarrels and musket balls. Otherwise, their only attack artillery was some small ordnance the soldiers had sweated to carry up the hill to within the necessary close range of the citadel. Too close for safety. To be sent to man these guns was a death sentence, for the Spaniards could easily pick off the gun crews.
    As we had expected, there were wounded men here who had not been able to return to the ships and Dr Nuñez and I were soon at work dealing with direct injuries from arrows and shot, and the many indirect, peripheral wounds from shattered stone flying from the impacts of cannon fire. There were several broken limbs as well, mostly caused by rocks falling from the walls, dislodged by shot, which we were not equipped to treat here in this makeshift camp. Dr Nuñez organised a relay of men to carry the more seriously injured to the harbour, though they would have a hazardous time of it, exposed in places, as we had been, to the guns of the citadel, and not easily able to dart out of the way.
    The injuries I dealt with in the camp were similar to those of the soldiers brought back from the fall of Sluys, though, kneeling on the stony ground, with the sound of the cannon overhead, I felt that the crowded ward at St Bartholomew’s was a haven of peace compared with this. My head rang with the constant explosions of cannon fire, so I understood how the sheer unremitting noise must exhaust men in battle and leave them without the will to carry on fighting. At least the wounds we found here were fresh and had not had time to become infected or gangrenous.
    When we were done, and had passed the less seriously injured men as being able to continue on duty, Dr Nuñez and I started down through the shattered streets of the town again, accompanying the last stretcher carrying a man with a broken leg. As we drew near the harbour, I stopped. I had caught the sound of sobbing from one of the few quayside cottages which was still partly intact. I laid my hand on Dr Nuñez’s arm.
    ‘There is someone in trouble there,’ I said. ‘It sounds like a child. I am going to see.’
    ‘Nay , Kit! You must not! It could be a trap.’
    ‘There are no Spanish soldiers here,’ I said. ‘They took care to flee to safety. And very few people. How can I come to any harm? When our soldiers have delivered the injured man to the boats, they can come back and protect me.’
    He hesitated, uncertain. We could all hear the desolate crying. It was certainly a child.
    One of the soldiers, one of the trained men from the Low Countries, said, ‘We’re not barbarians, like that rabble who wrecked the town. We don’t make war on children.’ He turned to me.