One by one they said an emotional goodbye to Muñosa, then followed Wake into a small square hole in the wall where a section of the surrounding stone block had been pushed away. Once inside they descended rough steps into complete darkness as the stone block thudded shut behind them.
The tunnel was completely different from the one at the fortress. It was wet and rough-hewn and very small; in many places they had to walk bent over for quite a distance. Wake went in front with the light, examining the tunnel as he went. It dated from the Inquisition and, outside of a few Jesuits, no one knew of its existence, according to Muñosa.
When they reached the end they found the small boulder the priest said would be there. Grunting with the effort, the men moved the rock and stepped back as a landslide rained down, filling the entrance with white sand to within a foot or two of the top. Clawing their way through it, they emerged into the night, Wake extinguishing the flame and all of them listening for any alarm. There was none.
Allen spotted the boat first, fifty yards away. It was a short wherryman’s skiff, probably used for taking people across the river, and large enough to carry all of them. Better yet, it was tied up to a short wobbly-looking dock on their bank of the Guadalquivir. Allen started out for it after telling Wake, “Don’t worry, Royal Marines know how to get out of trouble as well as into it, Peter. Please let me arrange our transportation, old son. Really, it’s the least I can do.”
Wake watched as his friend ran crouched across the sand and down through the slimy mud, climbed up onto the dock and crawled out to the boat. Then he was down in it and unlashing the line. Once free, the boat drifted downriver a short way and grounded at the bank, the Marine waving for them to join him. When they got there he shook his head and said, “Now I know why the owner left his boat in the water. He took the oars.”
Wake looked at the eastern sky. The Giralda Tower was beginning to be silhouetted. They needed to go, immediately.
“Forget them. We’ll ride the current, paddle and steer with our hands. Get in now, it’ll be light shortly.”
No one hesitated and they shoved off into the fast-moving cold waters of the Guadalquivir, flowing hundreds of miles from the snows of the Sierra Morena, west to the Atlantic Ocean.
***
An hour after the sun rose Wake woke up from a dream, but the nightmare around him was still real. Floating past the village of Trebujuena, he thought the reality preposterous, a situation that was beyond the power of any dream to conjure up. Here he was, floating on a boat with no oars, with three other fugitives, two of whom were leaders of a treasonous group and all of whom would be shot on sight, on a river flowing through a country in a civil war, totally against his naval regulations—and all because a man he really barely knew talked him into taking a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see an old building.
Manuel had been steering while the others rested, paddling with his hands to turn the boat and keep it in the current of the main channel. Wake estimated they were moving at four knots and with Manuel’s information about the geography of the area estimated they would reach Sanlúcar in a few hours. No one had tried to stop them or even paid any attention, which Wake didn’t understand. Then he remembered what day it was—Sunday. He realized that, ironically, the fishermen and bargemen of the river would probably be in church, maybe even some of them in the great cathedral at Sevilla.
***
His watch said one o’clock when they paddled their way to the opposite bank, just upriver from the town of Sanlúcar. Manuel took charge after they trudged up the bank, saying that he knew the area and where to get a carriage. Carmena explained that she had some money. The two officers walked along behind them, Wake wondering how he could get the two aboard the Trinidad. For some reason he didn’t even know himself, it no longer occurred to him to not try and help them escape the country.
Slipping him some extra money and promising more, Manuel told the driver of an enclosed carriage at a livery to hurry, that they were enroute to a wedding in Jerez, an hour and a half away, and already late. Pocketing the money in one smooth motion, the driver never said a word about the wet and disheveled appearance of his passengers, who obviously were not going to a wedding. The jarring ride that followed stopped any plans of rest, but it did get them to Jerez by midafternoon, where they started to walk across the town to the train station.
When Wake heard English accents among the crowd in the main square and asked about them, Carmena explained that there were many immigrant residents from Great Britain there, Allen adding that some of the very best sherry wine came from the region. Carmena agreed, saying the name of the wine came from the inability of the British to pronounce Jerez correctly, Anglicizing it to sherry. By the time that conversation had ended, the foursome had completed their walk to the station. Manuel arranged the tickets while the others waited, Carmena eyeing Wake but saying nothing. As the shadows began to lengthen around them, the train left the station, bound for Cadiz, two hours away.
***
The wharf was jammed with people, cargo, wagons, carriages, and draft horses—a cacophony of sounds and smells and swirling motion. They stood a distance away, studying the Trinidad while her booms swung up and inboard as her loading was finished, passengers walking aboard, deck crew starting to secure her for sea. No chance for a
