Free The Conquistadors by Hammond Innes

any case, the wind was fair now for continuing along the coast, and the safer anchorage off the Grijalva river was only three days’ sailing away.
    They reached it on March 12, the larger ships anchoring off at sea as before, the smaller vessels, filled with soldiers, moving into the shelter of what is now called Isla Ballitzia. Here, in calmer water, they transferred to the boats and rowed up-river to land on the same headland covered with palm trees where Grijalva’s expedition had gone ashore. They were then about a mile from the Indian town of Potonchán, later called Tabasco after the cacique of that region. But the Tabascans, who had been friendly to Grijalva and had given him gold, were now hostile. The river bank and the mangrove swamps were crowded with armed warriors, many in their canoes, and there were some twelve thousand more assembled in the town of Tabasco itself. Cortés sent Aguilar in to try and persuade the Indians to let his men land for water and to trade for food, but they had been so taunted by the people of Champotón for their failure to fight off Grijalva’s men that they were determined to prevent a landing.
    So we come to the first of the many battles Cortés’ small force was to fight. On the morning of March 13 mass was said and the men embarked in the boats. Ávila was sent with a hundred men to attack the town, whilst Cortés and the rest forced the estuary. The canoes came out to meet them, and again Cortés stopped to parley, appealing through Aguilar to be allowed to trade peacefully, speaking of God and the king he served, and making certain that Diego de Godoy, the Royal Notary, recorded his peaceful overtures. But it was no good, and when they tried to land, they were met by showers of fire-hardened arrows. The battle cry of Santiago was answered by Indian war cries of
Al calachioni,
which was an incitement to kill Cortés himself. But the fire power and sword play of the Spaniardsgradually prevailed, and with the town finally taken, Cortés halted his men in a great courtyard where there were large halls and three idol-houses. Here, with his soldiers and the Royal Notary to witness the act, he took formal possession of the land in the king’s name.
    Fourteen Spanish soldiers had been wounded in this little skirmish, but throughout the campaign that was now just beginning the conquistadors seem to have regarded wounds as little more than a temporary inconvenience. Only the dead were casualties. The rest marched and fought, and if they didn’t die their wounds healed.
    It was here at Tabasco that Melchior, an Indian interpreter, defected. Encouraged by him, the Indians launched a large-scale attack on the Spanish beach-head. But by now Cortés had got his horses ashore. They were stiff and almost scared to move after being confined on board ship for so long. Nevertheless, they were fitted with their steel breastplates all jangling with bells, and the knights put on their steel armour and equipped themselves with lances. This small cavalry force was the most potent weapon Cortés possessed, the sixteenth-century equivalent of an armoured squadron, since the trained horse was unknown to the Indians. The Spaniards were outnumbered three hundred to one, arrows and sling-stones fell like hail, and when Mesa, the artillery man, fired his guns, the Indians threw dirt and straw into the air to hide the havoc they wreaked. ‘In this battle there were so many Indians to every one of us that the dust they made would have blinded us, had not God of his unfailing mercy come to our aid.’ There is nothing sententious about this. The Spaniards were still fighting a crusade, believing implicitly that they were soldiers of Christ and that God was on their side.
    Five Indians were captured, including two of their war chiefs. These Cortés released and sent back into the town with gifts to explain to their caciques that he came in peace. He knew by now