They sailed from Springer’s Key three hundred strong, packed in the two ships and three sloops. Fifty men remained behind to garrison the key. A party of Indians, under Don Toro, followed the fleet in a large periagua. Each ship in the fleet towed a bunch of canoas in which the attacking force would go ashore. They were very gay with flags when they left the anchorage. They fired guns, and sang, glad of the battle. In a few days a score at least of the singers would be dead in the sand, others would be stricken down, perhaps maimed. Margaret asked Cammock if they ever thought of this before a fight; but he answered, “No.” “No one would ever fight if he thought,” he said. “I’ve been, now (with other fellows), in three big fights. We’d not got a chance in any one of ’em, if you’d asked before. I was at Panama, where we were all starved and worn, while they’d a fresh army, with a city to fall back on. I was at Perico, and five or six boats of us fought three big ships full of troops. I was at Arica, where about a hundred of us fought what was really a brigade of an army. I don’t think once I heard any say, or even think, as some would be killed and shot.” “I was in the Low Countries,” said Margaret. “It was the same there. Each man thinks and hopes that it will be the other fellow. Sometimes I feel that if a man thinks with sufficient strength he really makes a sort of intellectual guard about himself. I mean, as faith saved the men in the furnace. What do you think?” “Yes?” said Cammock. “A man who goes in thinking about himself like that isn’t going to do much with his gun. Besides, he couldn’t.” “You see them sometimes.” “Ay,” said Cammock. “You see ’em swaying from side to side to touch their next-hand man. For company. You see ’em all swaying in a row. Like this. Side to side. But the first shot locks the ranks. When they begin to fire they forget it all. They’ve got to manage their guns. And they get all hid in smoke. That’s another comfort. And they can shout, ‘Give ’em hell. Give ’em hell. Give it the hijos del horos.’ But afterwards. What about afterwards?” “The dead and wounded? Yes,” said Margaret. “Poor wretches lying out without water. Ammunition carts going over them. Camp followers. The night after a battle. I remember my first. It was all still after the firing. Then one heard cries in the stillness, from all round one. Awful cries. Like wild beasts.” “I never heard that, sir. But I’ve seen blood really running out of a ship’s scuppers. That gives you a turn. That was at Perico. She was coming past us full tilt, under all sail. Her decks were full of men; full. We were only eighteen of us in the long-boat. So we gave her one volley. It was like a deer dropping dead, sir. The ship broached to. There was scarcely a man left standing in her. Their matches set her on fire. I was aboard her afterwards. I never see such a sight.”