roster of duties established, whether it be guard duty or keeping the small colony clean. Within a week the place was stinking and the men grew more accustomed to wandering down to the villages or sleeping out in the jungle. Disputes broke out, particularly over women, who seemed fascinated by these new arrivals, ‘the men from Heaven’. Matthias objected but de Harana just shrugged.
‘Oh Englishman!’ De Harana filled his wine cup and glanced bleary-eyed at Matthias. ‘We have food, we have water. The natives are amenable.’
‘We should send out scouts,’ Matthias replied.
‘Oh yes.’ De Harana slurped from the cup. ‘Your friends the Caniba. Pity about poor Baldini, eh?’ He lurched to his feet, breathing wine fumes into Matthias’ face. ‘You are our master-at-arms,’ he slurred. ‘You are a good runner. We saw that the day Baldini was killed.’
‘It wasn’t my fault!’ Matthias snapped.
‘Well, it’s not mine either!’ de Harana jibed. ‘As I said, you are the master-at-arms and I’m your superior officer. Go out and scout!’
Later that day Matthias took a water bottle, some food wrapped in a ragged cloth, a war belt, an arbalest and slipped out of the stockade. He kept to the coastline.
Matthias was more pleased to be by himself than intent on spying out possible dangers. He sensed something was about to happen but accepted there was little he could do. He continued walking, keeping the sea to his right.
When night fell he camped out in the open, finding a small cave on the edge of the trees overlooking the sea. Matthias collected some dried wood, struck a tinder and sat staring out into the darkness. That night he dreamt once more of Barn wick and, when he awoke, he felt stiff and slightly cold, for the fire had gone out. Matthias went to the cave mouth, stretched, then gasped. Last night the sea had been calm, the waves breaking like a dull thunder on the rocks of the coral reef below him. Now it shimmered in the early morning sun and seemed to be full of long, high-beached canoes streaming towards the shoreline. Matthias crouched, straining his eyes. He counted and reckoned there must be at least 60 canoes; each bore 20 to 3 °Caniba warriors, their gaudy headdresses flapping in the morning breeze. They were moving past him, turning in towards the shore somewhere to the north. Others followed and Matthias realised this was not some raid but a war horde on the move. He hurried back and reached Natividad late in the afternoon and demanded a meeting with de Harana and Guitirres. Both men listened contemptuously.
‘They know Columbus has left,’ Matthias concluded. ‘The ships have gone. I think they had been invited here. The men must be brought back, the fortress prepared. With a stout defence we could drive them off.’
‘A stout defence could drive them off,’ Guitirres slurred. ‘I agree, Englishman, there’s nothing the natives fear more than Spanish steel or a bombard stone tearing them limb from limb. I am taking a troop of men out of the stockade tomorrow morning. De Harana here agrees the men need to be kept busy. We need supplies and the natives have said there’s gold.’ His eyes gleamed in their creases of fat. ‘There are mines further inland. We’ll pile the treasure so high the Captain General will have no need for a beacon when he returns.’
Matthias protested but de Harana and Guitirres were adamant. They were bored: it might be months before Columbus returned and, like their Captain General, the officers were determined to return to Spain as wealthy men.
The following morning Guitirres led forty of the men out. Matthias was ordered to accompany him. The Englishman’s heart sank at the lack of organisation. The troops straggled out in a line. They were even allowed to bring their native women, and he strongly suspected that many of the water bottles contained wine. No scouts or flankers were sent out ahead. Guitirres left just after dawn. Matthias kept to the rear of the column. Now and again he would leave the track and go off into the jungle. He found nothing to confirm his fears that the Caniba were following them.
Just before noon they stopped at the mouth of a small valley, a pleasant open space, the land cultivated by a nearby village whose smoke they could glimpse. While the men rested, Matthias went ahead, following the small brook which wound its way along the valley floor. The fields were deserted. Matthias stopped and studied the dark line of the jungle on either side. He could see nothing untoward. The march continued. Matthias expected to be greeted by some of the villagers but the valley remained silent. Even Guitirres became slightly suspicious.
‘For the love of God!’ Matthias snarled. ‘At least send scouts out ahead!’
Guitirres shrugged, glanced bleary-eyed, turned his back and went after his men. Matthias stopped by the brook, opened his jerkin and began bathing his face and neck with cool water. He heard a cry and glanced up. The column had stopped. From the line of trees on their right had appeared a long column of Caniba. Silent, menacing, they advanced down the slope towards the valley floor. More of them followed. The Spaniards gazed in as tonishment as this phalanx of warriors, so unlike the natives they’d met, marched slowly towards them. Their chiefs preceded them; warriors armed with clubs and axes, their headdresses adorned by the brilliant plumage of parrots and other wild birds. Matthias stood up, slipping a bolt into the arbalest. Guitirres was shouting orders but the men appeared stunned. Some of the Indian women were screaming, tugging at their would-be protectors, pointing back down from where they had come.
‘Fall back!’ Matthias screamed.
To his horror he heard a loud ululating war cry come from the trees behind him. He whirled round. A second horde of Caniba were now streaming from the jungle on their left. As they did so, the column of Caniba to Matthias’ right shouted their war cry and raced towards the small, chaotic Spanish force. All order and any hope of defence broke down. Guitirres tried to form his men into a circle but this proved fruitless, and the men streamed back towards Matthias. They pushed and shoved each other, splashing through the small brook, some even dropped swords and spears in their haste to get away. Matthias drew his sword and tried to stop the deserters but they pushed by him. The group which had stayed round Guitirres were soon overwhelmed. The Caniba burst amongst them, axe and club falling, their short stabbing spears thrusting in and out. Matthias watched in horror as a Caniba took one of the young Indian girls away from the group and, with one quick cut, slashed her throat and, kneeling down, burrowed his face into her bloody neck.
Some of the Spaniards were also not being killed but were clubbed and pulled away, hands and feet tied. A few Spaniards broke through, fighting coolly with sword and spear whilst others kept firing their arbalests, yet the Caniba seemed to have no fear. These, too, were overwhelmed and already the Caniba were in hot pursuit of those who had fled. Matthias stood his ground. He loaded the arbalest and, taking shelter behind a palm tree, loosed whenever he could. A few Spaniards joined him in an attempt to protect their fleeing comrades, yet it was a desolate fight. Matthias looked to his left and right: the Caniba were now entering the jungle in an attempt to outflank and encircle him, whilst others pursued the rest of the small force back to the stockade which, Matthias knew, despite the bombard, would soon be overrun.
The massacre in the middle of the valley now ended. The Caniba reorganised and streamed up to where Matthias and a few Spaniards still maintained their futile defence. Matthias kept loading and firing his arbalest. As he did so, Caniba broke out from the trees on the left and right, engulfing Matthias and his small party in a ferocious hand-to-hand fight. Matthias, his back to a tree, sword and dagger in his hand, cut and thrust. His body was soaked in sweat, his arms ached yet he felt cold and composed. The fight seemed to represent his entire life but now he could see his enemy and give blow for blow, thrust for thrust. The air rang with the screams and groans of his dying companions. They had seen what had happened to the rest; no man wished to be taken alive.
Matthias noticed something extraordinary. The Caniba now surrounded him, a party of at least thirty, but he had received no wound, though they could have killed him easily. Time and again warriors came in, their fierce faces gaudily painted in red and white. They seemed more determined to disarm him than deliver any killing blow. Eventually, Matthias, by sheer power of numbers, was forced away from the tree. In one wild rush the Caniba surrounded him, catching at his arms and legs. Matthias lashed out. He felt a blow to his head: the branches of the palm tree above whirled and he lapsed into unconsciousness.
When he awoke, Matthias was lying in a small glade. A Caniba, his ferocious face daubed in war paint, was bathing the wound on his head, talking to him softly, though the words were guttural and harsh. Matthias tried to rise but others appeared and pressed him gently back on to the ground. Matthias stared to the left and right. Through the trees he could just about glimpse the valley, and saw Caniba warriors dragging away the dead. He sniffed the breeze, his stomach curdled, he caught the smell of woodsmoke and, beneath that, burning flesh, a sickly sweet odour. He stared up at the warrior.
