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

duty. In reality he had no choice: he had made such a big noise that to pull out at the last minute would have made him the laughingstock of Europe.
    Finally the fleet made it back to the African coast.
    From their observation posts, the bemused defenders had watched the first Portuguese ships approach and quickly vanish. The elderly governor had decided something at least was afoot, and as a precaution he had sent to the mainland for reinforcements. Plague and famine had been sweeping Morocco, and the city’sdefenses were badly undermanned. Yet since the Christians seemed incapable of steering in the right direction and had apparently retreated across the strait, he had sent many of the new troops home. For the Portuguese, the bad weather turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
    That night the people of Ceuta set lamps in every window to make believe that the city was defended by a great multitude. Out at sea, the light of more torches and lanterns spilled across the water as the army made ready for the assault. At sunrise the Portuguese sprang into action, sharpening their swords, riveting their heavy plate armor, taking practice swings with their axes, confessing their sins to the priests, and breaking open barrels to tuck into the choicest food. The day had arrived for Europe’s first colonial war since the time of the eastern Crusades.
    The fleet’s flounderings had revealed how little King John knew about navigation, but he had a lifetime’s experience of fighting on land. His unintended sojourn outside Ceuta had given him ample time to form a plan. Its outline was simple. The objective was to take the fortress. Without it, the Portuguese would be exposed to attack, but with it, the town would be at their feet.
    The king moved the main body of his war fleet in front of the city walls. It was a decoy: the attack would begin with an assault on Monte Hacho. A smaller group of ships sailed around the hill and anchored off the beach at its foot. Among them was Henry’s royal galley. Long before the armada had set out, he had begged his father to let him lead the first action, and the king had given in to him as usual.
    As they sweated in the hot sun and their enemies taunted them by waving their weapons on the shore, several hotheaded knights took to the boats without waiting for the order to attack. To his intense annoyance Henry was left watching from his galley as they waded to land and the fighting began. He leapt into a boat, commanded the trumpets to sound, and threw himself into the melee.
    The Portuguese quickly pushed the defenders back to the wallthat encircled the base of the hill and swarmed after them through a gate. Amid the confusion Henry suddenly saw his brother Edward fighting ahead of him. When he caught up, the two reportedly found time to exchange niceties. He thanked God, Henry beamed through his disappointment, for giving him so good a companion. “And to you, Lord,” Edward replied, rubbing in his brother’s late arrival: “I thank you a thousand times for your goodwill in coming thus to our aid.”
    One Muslim warrior, a head taller than anyone, was making mincemeat of the Christians; he was armed only with stones, but he threw them with the force of a catapult. A Portuguese chronicler noted, picturesquely, that he was naked and “black as a crow, and he had very long and white teeth, and his lips, which were fleshy, were turned back.” Altogether he made a terrifying figure, but he fell, pierced by a lance, and his cornered comrades backed through a second gate that led into the city itself.
    Five hundred Portuguese shouldered after them into the narrow alleys. Soon they were hopelessly lost, and to get their bearings Henry and his brother climbed what looked like a little hill and turned out to be the city dung heap. As the defenders closed in on them, they stood on their mountain of ordure, fending off attacks and waiting to be rescued. No one came. A large group of Henry’s men had