A Wind From the North (16 page)

The fleet set sail in the last week of August, 1437. The north-erlies were blowing, the same wind that had taken them to Ceuta, to Madeira, to the Azores, and down the coast of Africa. It was late in the year, though, to start a sea-borne invasion. Unless Tangier fell to them quickly, they were in danger of finding the Atlantic spiked with autumn gales when they turned for home. But the wind stayed fair for the passage, and the fleet was anchored off Ceuta four days after leaving Portugal.

The sight of the Christian armada bearing down upon the coast caused a panic among the nearby Moors. The garrison of Ceuta, however, lost heart when they saw how small was the army, and how few the ships. Count Pedro de Menezes, who was still governor after twenty-two years on African soil, welcomed Prince Henry and his brother Fernando. Menezes, the veteran of many African campaigns, was now an old and sick man, unable to lead out his forces in company with Prince Henry. But he and his advisers were the only ones present who could claim to a real knowledge of the Moorish forces and their dispositions. Their immediate advice was to postpone the expedition against Tangier until King Edward could follow up with reinforcements. In the meantime Henry’s forces would be a useful addition to the garrison, and could be of service in Morocco as raiding parties. Prince Henry would not listen to the suggestion. Now that he was back in Africa again, with an army under his command, nothing would content him but to get to grips with the enemy.

“Our forces are small, I know,” he said. “But even if they were smaller we should have to attack! It is the will of God!”

Against such fanaticism, a fanaticism reinforced by the Prince’s great reputation, Count Pedro de Menezes and the veterans of Ceuta could find no more to say. The Prince possessed the magnetic quality of leadership that compels men to follow into any danger and to fight against the most unequal odds.

Tangier is only about 40 miles by sea west from Ceuta. The plan of attack was for the main body of the army under Prince Henry to strike overland toward the city, while the ships with their supply parties went round and anchored in Tangier Bay. Henry’s aim was to capture Tetuan, another Moorish stronghold inland from Ceuta, and proceed from there by the valley road that led to Tangier. At first all went well. On September 10 his forces entered Tetuan, whence the Moors had fled and destroyed the gates of the city. Wasting no time, they moved on again next day and encamped on the outskirts of Tangier on Friday the thirteenth. If the day seemed ill-omened to some of the troops, their fears were strengthened when a gust of wind carried away Prince Henry’s banner as it was being unfurled.

Deciding that even if the men were tired, it was better to commence the assault at once than wait for dawn, Henry gave the order to advance. A rumor had reached the Portuguese that the city’s gates had been left open and the population fled. They were to be sadly disillusioned. As the first horsemen spurred down through the orange groves above the city, clattering through the Roman ruins of ancient Tangier, they found the gates closed, the wall ominous and strong, and lined by a determined garrison. Even so, in the first wild rush of the assault they managed to burst open two of the gates. No sooner were they inside than the spearhead found itself fiercely opposed and driven out. This was no Ceuta.

Realizing that the city could not be taken by a simple frontal assault, the Portuguese began to draw off to their base. Skirmishes took place as the Moors came out of the stronghold and followed up the retiring horsemen. Alvaro Vaz de Almada, a nobleman who had fought with Henry V at Agincourt, was wounded by an arrow. A number of men and horses were killed, and there were casualties among the foot soldiers. Sobered by their reception, but not disheartened, Prince Henry’s forces gathered round their campfires and reviewed the situation. It was clear that Tangier was likely to resolve itself into a protracted seige. They would have to strengthen their own positions, and make use of the fleet to bring up whatever arms and ammunition were necessary to reduce the city’s walls.

Next day Prince Fernando came ashore to confer with his brother. He was ill with a fever, which was the reason he had gone round with the reinforcements by sea. He concurred with all that Henry said, for he trusted implicitly in his judgment: “We must prepare for a long siege.” Cannon must be brought from Ceuta, scaling ladders for the walls, and mantelets— movable covers under which troops could advance to break down the gates.

A week went by in preparations, and in ferrying reserves by sea from Ceuta. On Friday, September 20, the assault for which they had waited so impatiently began. This was the first major attack on Tangier, and it proved a disaster. Despite the gallantry of the Portuguese—Prince Henry leading the attack on the citadel, Fernando besieging the main gate, and the warlike Bishop of Ceuta leading a scaling party against the walls—the Moors held firm. Henry, clad in black chain mail, was like the war god himself, always in the forefront of the battle. But bravery is not enough to win victories, and the planning of the assault had been inadequate. There were insufficient ladders, the artillery was too light, and (the decisive factor) they were faced by a determined garrison of about seven thousand men protected behind thick walls. The Moors were equally inspired by their determination not to yield Tangier, and to avenge the capture of Ceuta. With the loss of over five hundred men, Prince Henry called off the attack.

Ships were sent back to bring up two large cannon and longer scaling ladders. While the Portuguese army sat down to wait, Sala-ben-Sala could afford to relax. Every day that the Portuguese spent in front of Tangier gave his reinforcements more time to gather in the hinterland of Morocco. A week later, when the second attack was made, the Portuguese were again driven off. But this time they were fighting on two fronts, for the first of the Moorish reinforcements had begun to strike down from the hills behind them. Henry found himself compelled to fight a rear-guard action with half his army, while the other half went to the assault on the city’s walls.

At this stage of the campaign a more cautious man would have decided to retire and wait at Ceuta until the spring. As September drew to a close, the weather was worsening, Henry’s troops were tiring, and the supply of food and ammunition by sea was proving a difficult piece of logistics. But the qualities of perseverance and obstinacy (which were the secret of his success in the realm of discovery) were to prove fatal in the art of generalship.

King Edward in his instructions had laid down that if Tangier was not taken in three attempts, the army was to withdraw to Ceuta at once. “Do not remain there another hour,” he had written, “but leave for Ceuta and await me there.” It was his plan that if this should happen, he would come down from Portugal with a large army in the spring.

In any event, Prince Henry had no idea of giving up the campaign until he had attempted the third assault. More scaling ladders were constructed, and a wooden tower from which it was hoped the attackers would be able to swarm over the walls. While they went ahead with their preparations, the hills behind them began to fill with the enemy. Night and day the pressure on the Portuguese camp increased. There were skirmishes, cavalry charges, flights of arrows in the night—all the signs that, with every hour, the force that was building up against them was gaining heart from the steady influx of new troops. Prisoners reported that the kings of Fez and Morocco were on their way to the relief of Tangier. It was under these conditions that the third assault on the battered walls of the city took place. It was another failure.

Now the besiegers became the besieged. They had waited too long while the tribes gathered in the mountains behind them, and had expended too much energy in fruitless assaults on the city. The camp, which through Prince Henry’s disobedience of his brother’s orders had been pitched a few miles inland, gradually lost its lifeline to the sea. With a hostile city on one flank and Moorish troops to the rear, they found that the tide had encircled them. Like men standing on an offshore rock, they had kept their eyes fixed too long in one direction. To their fear and dismay, they found that they were cut off.

“Keep one flank on the sea!” King Edward had urged, and Prince Henry had neglected this salient piece of advice. In the first great Moorish attack, when the enemy horsemen swept right up to the city’s walls, he had lost his cannons, ladders, and bombards. His horse was killed beneath him, and he himself was saved only by a stroke of luck. His troops, wearied by over a fortnight’s campaigning and unrelenting work, were now being wom down by the continuous pressure of fresh foot soldiers and cavalry.

The siege of Tangier was over, the siege of the Portuguese had begun. The sailors from their anchored ships watched impotently as the wild horsemen and the flickering robes spilled round the Portuguese camp. The enemy swirled up and dashed like spray against the improvised defenses. But still Prince Henry’s men held firm.

The few thousand troops under his command were now surrounded by tens of thousands of Moors—forty thousand horsemen and thirty thousand infantry, says one contemporary historian. Another estimated that half a million tribesmen gathered out of Morocco to relieve Tangier. From the moment that the enemy had re-established contact with the city and had cut off his camp from the sea, Prince Henry’s position was hopeless. Despite the gallantry with which he and his men defended their barricades, they were doomed. It was only a question of time before their supplies ran out, and—worst of all—there was no fresh water in their encampment. They killed and ate their horses. When showers of rain swept up off the Atlantic, the men drank from the puddles or sucked the brackish sand and mud of Morocco. Henry decided that the only solution was to make a withdrawal by night. Under cover of darkness they would hack their way out of the camp and back to the beachhead.

It was while they were preparing for their midnight dash that their plans were betrayed in an astonishing way. It was astonishing because the traitor was none other than a Portuguese priest, Martim Vieyra by name. A traitor among the rank and file might have been conceivable, but that a priest should betray his Christian fellow countrymen to the infidel still seems almost inconceivable. Martim Vieyra was Prince Henry’s own chaplain, a fact that in itself makes one pause. Could it have been some personal animosity that made him betray the Prince’s plans? What words, what confession, perhaps, had he heard from his master that made him play the Judas? Had he detected in Henry the deadly sin of pride—a pride that would have preferred to see all the Portuguese go down fighting in their efforts to reach the sea rather than surrender? History tells us no more of Martim Vieyra, nor what became of him in after years. A Christian renegade serving in the Moorish army was so disgusted when he learned of the betrayal that he deserted that night and warned the Portuguese that their plan to escape had been revealed. Their only chance of success had lain in the element of surprise, and now that this was gone, they abandoned their attempt.

The next day was the nadir of Prince Henry’s life. The sun came up over the desert, and the vultures were wheeling in the sky above the battlefield. The Moorish army was encamped all round. On every side of the Portuguese defenses, though, the great piles of dead told of the high cost to the victors. It may have been these losses, but more likely it was the thought of being able to conclude a favorable armistice, that prompted Sala-ben-Sala and the Moorish kings to propose a truce. Their messengers were admitted through the Portuguese defenses, and Prince Henry learned the harsh terms of peace. He and his army would be permitted to regain their ships only on three conditions. They must give back Ceuta to the Moors. They must leave all their arms behind them. They must exchange hostages—either Prince Henry or Prince Fernando—and in return Sala-ben-Sala would give them his own son as a surety of faith.

Abandon Ceuta! Lay down his arms! Deliver himself or his brother as a hostage! The terms were as bitter as death, but the alternative was unthinkable. There was no doubt that since his small force was short of food, water, and weapons, and exhausted into the bargain, it was only a question of time before it would be overrun and annihilated. It seemed as if God had failed him.

While Portuguese emissaries were discussing the terms with Sala-ben-Sala, the truce broke down. Neither the Governor of Tangier nor the Moroccan kings could control the wild desert tribesmen who had ridden so far to avenge Ceuta, to kill Christians, and to enrich themselves with plunder. Once again the great wave of horsemen and soldiers rolled round the Portuguese barricades, and once again they were repulsed. Prince Henry was at every point where the fight was thickest. Alongside him, cross in one hand and sword in the other, the indomitable Bishop of Ceuta gave absolution to the dying Christians while he spread death among the infidels. Throughout the long hot day, while the desert shook under the sun and the old tawny walls of Tangier mocked their lost hopes, the Portuguese fought off the attack. After seven hours the tide of battle ebbed, leaving behind it mounds of dead that were already beginning to swell and stink in the Moroccan heat.

This second reversal confirmed the Moorish leaders in their decision to conclude an armistice, and next morning Sala-ben-Sala sent word that his terms remained unaltered. This time no further attacks followed the truce. The Moorish tribesmen had lost heart before the indomitable courage of the beleaguered Christians.

Prince Henry accepted the inevitable. Only one point remained to be settled: should he or his brother be the hostage? The disaster, he realized, must be laid at his own door, and it was only right, therefore, that he should be the one to be delivered up to the Moors. But this was something that neither Prince Fernando nor Henry’s advisers would permit. It was bad enough that they had failed to take Tangier and had been compelled to accept Sala-ben-Sala’s terms. How much worse it would be to hand over their commander in chief! Prince Henry learned that day not only the bitterness of defeat, he learned the utter loneliness of high command.