Rob Jones
The Lost City
For R
PROLOGUE
With the blazing tropical sun moving rapidly toward the west, Capitan José Fernández de Santillán of the Spanish galleon San José raised a telescope to his eye and watched the horizon with a growing sense of dread. He knew the British were in the area off the coast of Cartagena, sailing in a squadron under the command of the daring Englishman Charles Wager, but where exactly was still a mystery.
But what they wanted was no mystery.
The gold.
But the British had no right to the gold because the Spanish had found it first. They had fought the Incans for it, and won. The hoard he was transporting across the oceans back to Spain was not intended for British coffers. King Philip V had been very clear in his proclamation. Santillán had heard rumors about the depressed king, and his penchant for being sung to sleep every night by the Italian castrato Farinelli, but while that was hearsay confined to the royal court, the orders about the treasure couldn’t be any clearer. He was to return to Spain with the Lost Treasure of the Incas in his hold as fast as the prevailing westerlies could carry the San José, and no mistake.
And then he saw them, sailing directly toward his flotilla. He removed the scope to rub his eye and then levelled it once again at the foreign ships on the muggy horizon. For a moment he wondered if Wager had changed his strategy and was preparing to turn his ships, but then it became clear they were simply moving into battle formation and approaching his flotilla as fast as the wind would take them.
Lieutenant Commander Martinez de Medina walked up beside him and hoped his face was not conveying the fear he felt rising in his stomach. “How long, sir?”
“We should have put to sea earlier,” Santillán said calmly, aware the eyes and ears of his men would be keener than ever today.
He pocketed the brass telescope and walked up the steps to the ship’s forecastle. He was trying to show his men how a calm, measured commander dealt with an enemy action at sea, but inwardly he was less certain. The British enjoyed a fierce reputation at sea, inherited from centuries of dominance by the English Royal Navy. Now they were rounding on him en masse and it was time to act or he would lose everything from the gold to his reputation, and maybe even his life.
“Divide the fleet!” Santillán ordered. The swell was growing as fast as the gap between him and the British was narrowing.
The lieutenant commander looked at him nervously. “Is that wise, sir?”
“Follow my orders, commander!” the captain snapped. Moments later the order was obeyed and carried out by the helmsman. He watched with a stony, impassive glare as his small flotilla of galleons broke apart in the sultry ocean and fanned out in a defensive position.
Dividing the fleet was a questionable tactic, but Santillán knew that many of his ships were laden to the brim with the Incan treasure hoard and the British were much more powerful. Even if they suffered a defeat, at least this way some of the Treasure Fleet would get away and perhaps some small part of the lost Incan gold would stand a better chance of getting back to Madrid.
Friar Lorenzo rushed to the captain, his face a mess of tortured uncertainty. “You cannot let them get the hoard, Captain!”
“I do not intend to, Friar. Now get below decks before you get your head shot off with a cannonball.” He turned away from the religious man and yelled another order as the British ships came within range. “Bring her about, Helmsman! We’ll fire at her stern and rip through her that way. The planks are thinnest on her arse.”
Before he could give the command to fire, the British beat him to it, and they fired with all their might and fury. Their cannonballs flew through the air and struck the San Joaquín, one of the Spanish ships to their starboard, smashing the top of her foremast clean off and tearing the rigging to shreds. Men scrambled on the deck as they struggled to contain the fire and control their vessel but Capitan Villaneuva managed to turn his ship and flee into the gathering dusk.
Santillán was pleased, but now it was their turn. “Fire!” Santillán yelled, and held on tight as the mighty cannons below fired their vengeance across the tropical waves. A second later they smashed into the starboard bow of one of the British ships.
Santillán held his telescope calmly at his eye and scanned the chaos on the British deck with amusement, but his mirth was quickly taken away when he saw them fire a renewed volley. The flash of the cannons and the rise of the smoke came first, and then a second later the thunder-deep roar as the sound raced across the ocean and struck his ears.
And then the cannonballs struck another ship in the Spanish flotilla, smashing into the stern and blasting the officers’ quarters into matchwood. The destruction rained down over the water in a cloud of sea spray and smoke and men scrambled wildly on the deck to put out the fires. A second later the British fired another volley, this time punching a hole through the fore just under the portside hawsehole. It was followed a second later by an enormous explosion that blew the foredeck into the air and ripped off the bow of the ship.
“They hit the ammunition store!” Santillán said, his mouth turning downwards in a hurry. He carelessly wiped the sweat from his forehead with the silken sleeve of his shirt and took a step back toward the helm. “We need to go to their assistance at once!”
All around them now the cannonballs were smashing into their ships and exploding into enormous fireballs. A look of uncertainty flashed across the face of Lieutenant Commander Martinez de Medina. “The British outnumber us massively, sir — and it looks like they want to board us!”
Santillán turned to face him, and raised his voice. “We have men in the water so hold your tongue, man! If you think for one moment that I would abandon…”
Before he could complete his sentence, a deep, terrifying explosion roared from below their own decks and seemed to shake even the sea around them. “Oh my God!” Santillán said. “They’ve hit the powder magazines!” A second later the front of the galleon was consumed in a gigantic fireball. Smoke billowed everywhere and now the flames of the explosion were licking up the mainmast and had caught on the studding sail. It was true carnage and Santillán gasped as he beheld the nightmare unfolding before him, and all under his command.
A young officer ran to him, breathless, and the panic clear on his tar-streaked face. “Sir, we’re taking on water!”
Santillán stared at him for a moment and then the San José began to list badly to port. He turned to Medina. “Give the order to abandon ship!”
“Yes, sir!”
As the commander ordered sailors to prepare the skiffs and the pinnace and have the men quit the ship, Friar Lorenzo waddled up to him, his hands in a knot and his round, sweaty face a study of confused panic.
“What is it, Friar?”
“You have ordered the men off the ship!”
“Indeed, I have.”
“But what about the treasure, sir?”
“The treasure shall go to the bottom of the ocean and enrich only the sharks, Friar. You will be joining it if you do not get to one of the skiffs.”
“But, sir! The King has promised the church much of the treasure!”
“Then the King may swim down to the seabed and fetch it for himself!”
With the British sailing fast toward them, and the San José slowly sinking beneath the warm waves of the Caribbean Sea, Santillán’s eyes crawled over the smoking, burning carnage as the ship went down, Inca gold and all. For a moment he wondered if these treasures would ever be recovered, and then he raised his eyes to the sky and offered the heavens a silent prayer.