The troops went into Winter quarters on their return from Cyprus, and Cervantes trod the streets
CERVANTES.
of Naples for more than a year, while the allied fleets were being mobilised. On September 15th, Don Juan of Austria found himself in command of the squadron of 208 galleys, 7 galleons, and 24 sailing ships, which sailed from Messina with a complement of 26,000 soldiers to give battle to the Turkish fleet. The enemy were discovered within the Gulf of Lepanto, where, on October 7th, was fought one of the greatest sea-actions of all times. The Turkish ships, though more numerous than those of the allies, were smaller in design, inferior in their armaments, and less skilfully navigated, while the wind, veering suddenly at the crisis of the struggle, gave the advantage to the united fleet. Though the result was not the beginning of the end of Moslem supremacy, the victory of the Holy League was complete and emphatic. The power of the Turk was arrested, and all Christendom rang with the glory of the achievement.
The story of the Battle of Lepanto does not call for special description in these pages; its personal and peculiar interest for us lies in the fact that the two names that are associated with the victory in the most notable prominence are those of Don Juan of Austria, the generalissimo of the forces, and Miguel de Cervantes, the private soldier on the Marquesa—the one for his skill and generalship, the other for his personal heroism. Of Cervantes’ share in the battle, we have ample and detailed evidence. On the morning of the action he was, according to Martin Fernández de Navarrete, stricken with fever, and ordered to remain in the safety of his cabin. But on the representations of the young soldier, who protested that he would rather die fighting for God and his King than tend his health in security, his captain gave him a command of twelve men, and stationed him in a boat on the fighting side of the galley. Opposed to the Marquesa was the flagship of the Turkish right squadron, commanded by the Captain-Pasha of Alexandria, and floating the royal standard of Egypt. The duel between the two galleys was fought with the utmost gallantry on both sides, but the Turk was captured after the loss of 500 of her crew, and her surrender involved the rout of the entire right squadron.
That Cervantes’ share in this encounter was of material service in contributing to its successful issue, is evidenced by the fact that in an army of 26,000 soldiers and sailors he won the most distinguished measure of individual renown. That he held the post of greatest danger, that he was the first to board the galley, and bore himself with intrepid gallantry, we know on the sworn testimony of Mateo de Santisteban and others of his comrades. The evidence is supported by the unusual interest and concern that Don Juan evinced in him, raising his pay by five or six escudos, and visiting him in the Hospital of Messina. For Cervantes had not come through the battle unscathed. In his breast he received two arquebus wounds, while his left hand was injured by a ball, which rendered it useless for the remainder of his life. In Sola’s bronze statue of Cervantes, at Barcelona, “El manco de Lepanto,” as his countrymen have proudly styled him, is represented with his maimed hand hidden beneath his cloak; although, during his lifetime, he carried with pride the wounds received in “the most memorable of all occasions past, present, or to come”—“wounds that show like stars, lighting us on to heaven and to fame”—and declared that his useless left hand was crippled “for the greater glory of the right.”
Between 1571 and 1575 Cervantes lived the strenuous life of a private soldier, taking part in two campaigns, fighting with enthusiasm, enduring wounds and hardships with stoical fortitude, and acquiring that knowledge of men and things which he was afterwards to employ to such good purpose. His injuries were tended at Messina, but he returned to his duties before they were properly healed; and two years later, when he went to Tunis in the army of Don Juan, he writes to Mateo Vasquez that his wounds were “yet dripping with blood.” After his discharge from the hospital, he was transferred to the tercio de Figueroa, commanded by Don Manuel Ponce de Leon; and, as a soldado aventajado, or select soldier, in the most famous infantry regiment of Spain, he was on the high road to promotion and a distinguished career. In the story of “The Captive,” in Don Quixote (Part I., Chapter xxxix.), Cervantes has left us a graphic account of the ineffective and inglorious second campaign of the allies in the Levant, which was followed by the dissolution of the Holy League. Cervantes repaired with his regiment to Naples, and, after the Tunis expedition, he was for some time in garrison in the Island of Sardinia, before being sent to Genoa by the order of Don Juan.
The inadequacy of the Spanish garrison left for the protection of Tunis, and the growing boldness and activity of the combined Moors and Turks, called for prompt measures; and, in 1574, Don Juan held himself in readiness with a fleet to restore Spanish prestige in Africa. But the delays, caused by the procrastination of Philip, proved fatal. Before the squadron received the supplies and materials required for the expedition, the allies, after a desperate military and naval engagement, captured the Goletta, and obtained possession of Tunis. With this last prospect of active service dispelled, Cervantes, weary of inaction, disgusted with the unchivalrous termination of the Crusade which had commenced so gloriously at Lepanto, and eager for the sight of his native land, obtained leave to return to Spain. The high opinion in which he was held by “men of state and of might” with whom he had come in contact, is shown by the fact that this private soldier received from the Commander-in-Chief, Don Juan, a letter to the King, strongly recommending him as “a man of valour, of merit, and of many signal services,” while the Viceroy of Sicily, the Duke of Sessa, provided him with letters to Philip, and to his Council, in
