The Last Crusade: The Epic Voyages of Vasco Da Gama by Nigel Cliff Page A

toward the horizon, questions were being asked. How could the king have permitted such rejoicing while his wife’s body was barely cold? Was it the influence of young Henry, whom the king had always held to be more of a man than his brothers? Hunting wild boar in the royalforests was one thing, but slaying armed warriors was quite another. Did the young princes think the looming battle would be yet another joust in which no one dared unhorse them? Perhaps, after all, it would come to a bad end.
    The doubters’ fears soon seemed to be confirmed, because the great mission quickly turned into a desperate fiasco.
    Two days out of port, King John ordered the fleet to anchor and finally let the troops in on their destination. The king’s confessor preached a stirring sermon and read out a new papal bull that reiterated Portugal’s right to crusade against the Infidel and granted absolution to all who died in battle. Many among the ranks were so confused that they thought it was another trick.
    The army had barely been exhorted to glorious savagery when the winds dropped. For a week the fleet bobbed around off Portugal’s southern coast. Finally, on August 10, it headed into the Strait of Gibraltar, to the consternation of the Muslims who still controlled Ceuta’s opposite pillar. Boats set out toward the king’s ship bearing all manner of costly gifts. He accepted them, and flatly refused to promise peace.
    The vast armada had equally astonished the Castilians who lived on the islet of Tarifa, just along the coast. According to one report they went to bed believing the ships were phantoms, woke up to a misty morning in which nothing could be seen at sea, and were only shaken out of their reveries when the sun suddenly illuminated the fleet as it drifted before their walls. When the Portuguese anchored outside the nearby Castilian port of Algeciras, the governor appeared on the shore with a sizable herd of cows and sheep and sent his son to offer them to the Portuguese king. John professed himself well pleased, but explained that his ships were well provisioned. Feeling the need to make a display of his own, the governor’s son leapt on a horse and galloped along the beach stabbing the animals to death. John politely praised the effort and thanked him for his deed.
    After that dramatic interlude, the king gathered his council andresolved to attack Ceuta the following Monday. They set sail just as a dense fog bank rolled in from the Atlantic. Worse was to come. Strong currents and high winds had always made the strait notoriously difficult to navigate, but the Portuguese sailors’ dearth of experience made it all but impossible. The troopships commanded by Peter were swept off toward Malaga, the main port of Muslim Granada, while the royal galleys were blown straight to Ceuta, only to be forced by a sudden change of wind to weigh anchor and beat their way around to the opposite side of the peninsula. The city’s banners streamed from the hilltop citadel, their two keys symbolizing Ceuta’s control of the entrance to the Mediterranean and the exit to the Ocean Sea. Cannonballs hurtled from the walls, but the ships managed to stay out of range.
    When the rest of the armada failed to appear, the king sent Henry off on their trail. He found half his brother’s crews in the grip of the plague and the others groaning with seasickness. Between that, the fog, and the tricky currents, they appeared ready to give up. Henry gave out his father’s orders, and eventually the troopships made it to Ceuta.
    Immediately a storm blew up and drove the entire fleet back to Spain. The king and his commanders took to their boats, waded up a Castilian beach, and held a council of war on the sand. Many of John’s advisers argued that he should heed the warning signs and head for home; others suggested launching a face-saving raid on nearby Gibraltar. He would rather choose certain death, the king stoutly replied, than abandon his Christian