On that day they landed at Yqueque, a mud-flat, or guano island, off a line of yellow sand-hills. They found a few Indian huts there, with scaffolds for the drying of fish, and many split and rotting mackerel waiting to be carried inland. There was a dirty stone chapel in the place, "stuck full of hides and sealskins." There was a great surf, green and mighty, bursting about the island with a continual roaring. There were pelicans fishing there, and a few Indians curing fish, and an abominable smell, and a boat, with a cask in her bows, which brought fresh water thither from thirty miles to the north. The teeth of the Indians were dyed a bright green by their chewing of the coca leaf, the drug which made their "beast-like" lives endurable. There was a silver mine on the mainland, near this fishing village, but the pirates did not land to plunder it. They merely took a few old Indian men, and some Spaniards, and carried them aboard the Trinity, where the godly John Watling examined them.
The next day the examination continued; and the answers of one of the old men, "a Mestizo Indian," were judged to be false. "Finding him in many lies, as we thought, concerning Arica, our commander ordered him to be shot to death, which was accordingly done." This cold-blooded murder was committed much against the will of Captain Sharp, who "opposed it as much as he could." Indeed, when he found that his protests were useless, he took a basin of water (of which the ship was in sore need) and washed his hands, like a modern Pilate. "Gentlemen," he said, "I am clear of the blood of this old man; and I will warrant you a hot day for this piece of cruelty, whenever we come to fight at Arica." This proved to be "a true and certain prophesy." Sharp was an astrologer, and a believer in portents; but he does not tell us whether he had "erected any Figure," to discover what was to chance in the Arica raid.
Arica, the most northern port in Chile, has still a considerable importance. It is a pleasant town, fairly well watered, and therefore more green and cheerful than the nitrate ports. It is built at the foot of a hill (a famous battlefield) called the Morro. Low, yellow sand-hills ring it in, shutting it from the vast blue crags of the Andes, which rise up, splintered and snowy, to the east. The air there is of an intense clearness, and those who live there can see the Tacna churches, forty miles away. It is no longer the port it was, but it does a fair trade in salt and sulphur, and supplies the nitrate towns with fruit. When the pirates landed there it was a rich and prosperous city. It had a strong fort, mounting twelve brass guns, defended by four companies of troops from Lima. The city had a town guard of 300 soldiers. There was also an arsenal full of firearms for the use of householders in the event of an attack. It was not exactly a walled town, like new Panama, but a light wooden palisade ran round it, while other palisades crossed each street. These defences had been thrown up when news had arrived of the pirates being in those seas. All the "plate, gold and jewels" of the townsfolk had been carefully hidden, and the place was in such a state of military vigilance and readiness that the pirates had no possible chance of taking it, or at least of holding it. When the pirates came upon it there were several ships in the bay, laden with commodities from the south of Chile.
On the 28th of January, John Watling picked 100 men, and put off for the shore in boats and canoas, to attack the town. By the next day they had got close in shore, under the rocks by the San Vitor River's mouth. There they lay concealed till the night. At dawn of the 30th January 1681, "the Martyrdom of our glorious King Charles the First," they were dipping off some rocks four miles to the south of Arica. Here ninety-two of the buccaneers landed, leaving a small boat guard, with strict instructions how to act. They were told that if the main body "made one smoke from the town," as by firing a heap of powder, one canoa was to put in to Arica; but that, if two smokes were fired, all the boats were to put in at once. Basil Ringrose was one of those who landed to take part in the fight. Dampier, it is almost certain, remained on board the Trinity, becalmed some miles from the shore. Wafer was in the canoas, with the boat guard, preparing salves for those wounded in the fight. The day seems to have been hot and sunny—it could scarcely have been otherwise—but those out at sea, on the galleon, could see the streamers of cloud wreathing about the Andes.
At sunrise the buccaneers got ashore, amongst the rocks, and scrambled up a hill which gave them a sight of the city. From the summit they could look right down upon the streets, little more than a mile from them. It was too early for folk to be stirring, and the streets were deserted, save for the yellow pariahs, and one or two carrion birds. It was so still, in that little town, that the pirates thought they would surprise the place, as Drake had surprised Nombre de Dios. But while they were marching downhill, they saw three horsemen watching them from a lookout place, and presently the horsemen galloped off to raise the inhabitants. As they galloped away, John Watling chose out forty of the ninety-two, to attack the fort or castle which defended the city. This band of forty, among whom were Sharp and Ringrose, carried ten hand-grenades, in addition to their pistols and guns. The fort was on a hill above the town, and thither the storming party marched, while Watling's company pressed on into the streets. The action began a few minutes later with the guns of the fort firing on the storming party. Down in the town, almost at the same moment, the musketry opened in a long roaring roll which never slackened. Ringrose's party waited for no further signal, but at once engaged, running in under the guns and hurling their firepots through the embrasures. The grenades were damp, or badly filled, or had been too long charged. They did not burst or burn as they should have done, while the garrison inside the fort kept up so hot a fire, at close range, that nothing could be done there. The storming party fell back, without loss, and rallied for a fresh attack. They noticed then that Watling's men were getting no farther towards the town. They were halted in line, with their knees on the ground, firing on the breastworks, and receiving a terrible fire from the Spaniards. Five of the fifty-two men were down (three of them killed) and the case was growing serious. The storming party left the fort, and doubled downhill into the firing line, where they poured in volley after blasting volley, killing a Spaniard at each shot, making "a very desperate battle" of it, "our rage increasing with our wounds." No troops could stand such file-firing. The battle became "mere bloody massacre," and the Spaniards were beaten from their posts. Volley after volley shook them, for the pirates "filled every street in the city with dead bodies"; and at last ran in upon them, and clubbed them and cut them down, and penned them in as prisoners. But as the Spaniards under arms were at least twenty times as many as the pirates, there was no taking the city from them. They were beaten from post to post fighting like devils, but the pirates no sooner left a post they had taken, "than they came another way, and manned it again, with new forces and fresh men." The streets were heaped with corpses, yet the Spaniards came on, and came on again, till the sand of the roads was like red mud. At last they were fairly beaten from the chief parts of the town, and numbers of them were penned up as prisoners; more, in fact, than the pirates could guard. The battle paused for a while at this stage, and the pirates took advantage of the lull to get their wounded (perhaps a dozen men), into one of the churches to have their wounds dressed. As the doctors of the party began their work, John Watling sent a message to the fort, charging the garrison to surrender. The soldiers returned no answer, but continued to load their guns, being helped by the armed townsfolk, who now flocked to them in scores. The fort was full of musketeers when the pirates made their second attack a little after noon.
At the second attack, John Watling took 100 of his prisoners, placed them in front of his storming party, and forced them forward, as a screen to his men, when he made his charge. The garrison shot down friend and foe indiscriminately, and repulsed the attack, and repulsed a second attack which followed a few minutes later. There was no taking the fort by storm, and the pirates had no great guns with which to batter it. They found, however, that one of the flat-roofed houses in the town, near the fort's outworks, commanded the interior. "We got upon the top of the house," says Ringrose, "and from there fired down into the fort, killing many of their men and wounding them at our ease and pleasure." While they were doing this, a number of the Lima soldiers joined the citizens, and fell, with great fury, upon the prisoners' guards in the town. They easily beat back the few guards, and retook the city. As soon as they had taken the town, they came swarming out to cut off the pirates from their retreat, and to hem them in between the fort and the sea. They were in such numbers that they were able to surround the pirates, who now began to lose men at every volley, and to look about them a little anxiously as they bit their cartridges. From every street in the town came Spanish musketeers at the double, swarm after swarm of them, perhaps a couple of thousand. The pirates left the fort, and turned to the main army, at the same time edging away towards the south, to the hospital, or church, where their wounded men were being dressed. As they moved away from the battlefield, firing as they retreated, old John Watling was shot in the liver with a bullet, and fell dead there, to go buccaneering no more. A moment later "both our quartermasters" fell, with half-a-dozen others, including the boatswain. All this time the cannon of the fort were pounding over them, and the round-shot were striking the ground all about, flinging the sand into their faces. What with the dust and the heat and the trouble of helping the many hurt, their condition was desperate. "So that now the enemy rallying against us, and beating us from place to place, we were in a very distracted condition, and in more likelihood to perish every man than escape the bloodiness of that day. Now we found the words of Captain Sharp to bear a true prophecy, being all very sensible that we had had a day too hot for us, after that cruel heat in killing and murdering in cold blood the old Mestizo Indian whom we had taken prisoner at Yqueque." In fact they were beaten and broken, and the fear of death was on them, and the Spaniards were ringing them round, and the firing was roaring from every point. They were a bloody, dusty, choking gang of desperates, "in great disorder," black with powder, their tongues hanging out with thirst. As they stood grouped together, cursing and firing, some of them asked Captain Sharp to take command, and get them out of that, seeing that Watling was dead, and no one there could give an order. To this request Sharp at last consented, and a retreat was begun, under cover of a fighting rear-guard, "and I hope," says Sharp, "it will not be esteemed a Vanity in me to say, that I was mighty Helpful to facilitate this Retreat." In the midst of a fearful racket of musketry, he fought the pirates through the soldiers to the church where the wounded lay. There was no time, nor was there any conveyance, for the wounded, and they were left lying there, all desperately hurt. The two surgeons could have been saved "but that they had been drinking while we assaulted the fort, and thus would not come with us when they were called." There was no time for a second call, for the Spaniards were closing in on them, and the firing was as fierce as ever. The men were so faint with hunger and thirst, the heat of battle, and the long day's marching, that Sharp feared he would never get them to the boats. A fierce rush of Spaniards beat them away from the hospital, and drove them out of the town "into the Savannas or open fields." The Spaniards gave a cheer and charged in to end the battle, but the pirates were a dogged lot, and not yet at the end of their strength. They got into a clump or cluster, with a few wounded men in the centre, to load the muskets, "resolving to die one by another" rather than to run. They stood firm, cursing and damning the Spaniards, telling them to come on, and calling them a lot of cowards. There were not fifty buccaneers fit to carry a musket, but the forty odd, unhurt men stood steadily, and poured in such withering volleys of shot, with such terrible precision, that the Spanish charge went to pieces. As the charge broke, the pirates plied them again, and made a "bloody massacre" of them, so that they ran to shelter like so many frightened rabbits. The forty-seven had beaten off twenty or thirty times their number, and had won themselves a passage home.
There was no question of trying to retake the town. The men were in such misery that the march back to the boats taxed their strength to the breaking point. They set off over the savannah, in as good order as they could, with a wounded man, or two, in every rank of them. As they set forward, a company of horsemen rode out, and got upon their flanks "and fired at us all the way, though they would not come within reach of our guns; for their own reached farther than ours, and out-shot us more than one third." There was great danger of these horsemen cutting in, and destroying them, on the long open rolls of savannah, so Sharp gave the word, and the force shogged westward to the seashore, along which they trudged to the boats. The beach to the south of Arica runs along the coast, in a narrow strip, under cliffs and rocky ground, for several miles. The sand is strewn with boulders, so that the horsemen, though they followed the pirates, could make no concerted charge upon them. Some of them rode ahead of them and got above them on the cliff tops, from which they rolled down "great stones and whole rocks to destroy us." None of these stones did any harm to the pirates, for the cliffs were so rough and broken that the skipping boulders always flew wide of the mark. But though the pirates "escaped their malice for that time," they were yet to run a terrible danger before getting clear away to sea. The Spaniards had been examining, or torturing, the wounded pirates, and the two drunken surgeons, left behind in the town. "These gave them our signs that we had left to our boats [i.e. revealed the signals by which the boats were to be called] so that they immediately blew up two smokes, which were perceived by the canoas." Had the pirates "not come at the instant" to the seaside, within hail of the boats, they would have been gone. Indeed they were already under sail, and beating slowly up to the northward, in answer to the signal. Thus, by a lucky chance, the whole company escaped destruction. They lost no time in putting from the shore, where they had met with "so very bad Entertainment." They "got on board about ten a Clock at night; having been involved in a continual and bloody fight ... all that day long." Of the ninety-two, who had landed that morning, twenty-eight had been left ashore, either dead, or as prisoners. Of the sixty-four who got to the canoas, eighteen were desperately wounded, and barely able to walk. Most of the others were slightly hurt, while all were too weary to do anything, save sleep or drink. Of the men left behind in the hospital the Spaniards spared the doctors only; "they being able to do them good service in that country." "But as to the wounded men," says Ringrose, "they were all knocked on the head," and so ended their roving, and came to port where drunken doctors could torture them no longer. The Ylo men denied this; and said that the seven pirates who did not die of their wounds were kept as slaves. The Spanish loss is not known, but it was certainly terrible. The Hilo, or Ylo people, some weeks later, said that seventy Spaniards had been killed and about 200 wounded.