A Column of Fire

by Ken Follett

  ‘We’ll fly no flags as we enter,’ Drake said. ‘They won’t know who we are until it’s too late.’

  ‘We have no idea what ships may be in the harbour,’ Borough countered.

  ‘Merchantmen, according to those Dutch captains.’

  ‘There may be warships too.’

  ‘They’re all in Lisbon – which is why we’re going to Cádiz.’

  Borough found Drake’s insouciance maddening. ‘Then what is our battle plan?’ he demanded angrily.

  ‘Battle plan?’ said Drake heedlessly. ‘Follow me!’

  He immediately began shouting orders to his crew. Barney and the rest of the captains hastily scrambled over the side to their boats, laughing with pleasure at Drake’s boldness, eager for action themselves. An imp of anxiety in the back of Barney’s mind whispered that Borough was right to be wary, but Drake’s fighting spirit was infectious.

  As soon as Barney was back aboard the Alice, he ordered the crew to set the sails. There were six, two on each mast, all of them square-shaped. The sailors climbed the masts like monkeys, and in less than a minute the breeze was filling canvas, the ship’s prow was ploughing the waves, and Barney was happy.

  He gazed forward. A smudge appeared on the horizon and gradually revealed itself to be a fortress.

  Barney knew Cádiz. It was near the mouth of the Guadalquivir river eighty miles downstream from Seville, where he had lived with Carlos and Ebrima almost thirty years ago. A few miles inland was Jerez, source of the strong wine the English called sherry sack. The city of Cádiz, with its fort, stood at the end of a long peninsula that enclosed a large natural harbour. Two rivers emptied into a wide bay fringed with waterfront villages and settlements.

  The ships of the fleet deftly eased into line behind Drake’s flagship, warships first and merchantmen after. Without orders, they adopted the formation known as ‘line ahead’, or single file, so that an enemy directly in front – which was where the Spanish were for the moment – could fire at only one of them at a time. It also meant that if Drake found the correct passage through the shallows, they all would.

  Barney was scared, but his fear had an odd effect: it excited him. It was better than sherry sack. In danger he felt more alive than at any other time. He was no fool: he knew the agony of wounds and he had seen the terrified panic of drowning men as a ship went down. But somehow none of that diminished the thrill he felt going into battle, getting ready to kill or be killed.

  There was an hour left before sunset, he reckoned, when the Elizabeth Bonaventure entered the harbour of Cádiz.

  Barney studied the fortress. He could see no movement around the guns, no hefting of cannonballs into muzzles, no scurrying to fetch gunpowder and swabbing buckets and the long screw-shaped cleaning tools called gun-worms. All he could make out was a handful of soldiers leaning on the battlements, gazing at the unidentified approaching fleet with mild curiosity. Clearly no alarm had sounded.

  As the Alice entered the harbour behind the leading ships, Barney switched his gaze to the town. He could see what looked like a main square crowded with people. There were no guns there, for the obvious reason that they would have hit the close-packed ships moored side by side along the waterfront.

  He was puzzled to notice that some of the ships had had their sails removed, leaving their masts naked. Why would that have been done? Sails needed repair now and again, but not all at the same time. He recalled Ned’s saying that King Felipe had commandeered dozens of foreign ships for his armada, regardless of the wishes of their owners. Perhaps, Barney speculated, those vessels had to be prevented from sneaking away to freedom. But now they were immobilized, unable to flee from the English guns. They were doubly unlucky.

  Peering in the evening light, Barney thought he could see that most of the people in the square had their backs to the water. They were in two groups and, as the fleet drew nearer, he saw that one crowd seemed to be watching a play being performed on a stage, and the other surrounded a troupe of acrobats. Cádiz had not seen battle in Barney’s lifetime, nor for many years before, as far as he knew, and he guessed the people here felt safe. They were not going to turn around to look at the everyday event of ships arriving.

  In the next few minutes they would suffer a horrible shock.

  He looked around the bay. There were about sixty craft in harbour altogether, he reckoned. About half were large cargo ships; the rest were an assortment of smaller vessels, all moored at the quayside or at anchor offshore. Most of their crews would be ashore, eating fresh food and drinking in the taverns and enjoying female company. No doubt many of them were among the crowd in the main square. The English ships were foxes in a henhouse, about to pounce. Barney felt a leap of elation: what a devastating blow it would be to King Felipe’s invasion plan if the English fleet could destroy them all!

  He had turned almost a full circle, and was looking north, when he saw the galleys.

  There were two of them, coming out of Port St Mary at the mouth of the Guadalete river. He knew what they were by their narrow profile and the lines of oars slanting from their sides, dipping into the water and out in perfect unison. Galleys would capsize in an Atlantic storm, but they were much used in the calmer Mediterranean. Manned by slaves, they were fast and manoeuvrable, and were independent of the wind, a big advantage over sailing ships.

  Barney watched them speed across the bay. Their cannons were mounted at the front, so they could only fire ahead. They usually had a pointed iron or brass prow for ramming, after which their complement of pikemen and arquebusiers would board the crippled enemy ship to finish off the crew. But no one would send two galleys to attack twenty-six ships, so Barney concluded that these had an investigative mission. They intended to question the leader of the incoming fleet.

  They never got the chance.

  Drake turned the Elizabeth Bonaventure towards the galleys in a perfectly executed manoeuvre. He might have been in trouble if there had been little or no wind in the bay, for sailing ships were helpless when becalmed, whereas galleys did not need wind. But Drake was lucky.

  The other warships followed Drake with precision.

  The merchantmen stayed on course, filing through the deep-water passage past the fort, then fanning out across the harbour.

  Barney watched the galleys. Each had about twenty-four oars, he reckoned. One oar was manned by five slaves. Such men did not live long: chained to their benches, scorched by the sun, wallowing in their own filth, they were constantly afflicted by infectious diseases. The frail lasted a few weeks, the strong a year or two, and when they died, their bodies were unceremoniously thrown into the sea.

  As the galleys approached the Elizabeth Bonaventure, Barney waited for Drake to act. Just as he began to fear that the vice-admiral might be holding his fire a little too long, a puff of smoke arose from the flagship, and a moment later the sound of a cannon boomed across the bay. The first ball splashed harmlessly into the water, as the gunner measured his range; artillery was an inexact art, as gunner Barney knew well. But the second and third missed, too, so perhaps Drake’s man was incompetent.

  The galleys did not return fire: their smaller guns were still out of range.

  Drake’s gunner was not incompetent. His fourth ball smashed into a galley amidships, and a fifth struck its prow.

  They were deadly shots with heavy ammunition, and the galley began to founder right away. Barney could hear the screams of the wounded and the panicky shouts of those fortunate enough to remain unhurt. The soldiers threw their weapons away, jumped into the water, and made for the second galley, those who could not swim grasping pieces of floating timber. Within moments the crew were doing the same. A chorus of cries and pleas arose from the ranks of oarsmen as they begged to be unchained, but no one had time for them, and they were left, screaming piteously, to sink with the wreckage.

  The second galley slowed and began to pick up survivors. Drake ceased firing, perhaps out of gentlemanly consideration for the helpless men
in the water, but more likely to conserve ammunition.

  Almost immediately more galleys appeared from Port St Mary, their oars dipping and rising with the repetitive grace of racehorses’ legs. Barney counted six speeding across the calm harbour water. He gave credit to whoever was in command: it took a brave man to send six ships against twenty-six.

  They came on line abreast – side by side – as was their normal tactic, for that way each protected the vulnerable sides of the two adjacent vessels.

  The warships turned again, and all four began to fire as soon as the galleys were in range.

  As battle was joined, Barney saw that a few of the ships in the bay were weighing anchor and setting their sails. Their crews had not yet gone ashore, Barney presumed, and their quick-thinking captains had realized Cádiz was under attack and decided to make a run for it. But most of the ships were stuck: they did not have time to round up their crews from the taverns and brothels, and a ship could not sail without a crew.

  In the town square the people were panicking, some heading away from the waterfront to their homes, most running to the fortress for protection.

  Barney was interested in the ships that did not move from their anchorages in the bay. They were probably guarded by only one or two nightwatchmen. He began to study them, and fixed his gaze on a smallish round-ended three-masted ship that looked built for freight rather than battle. He could see no activity on deck.

  He directed his crew to reduce sail, slowing the Alice, and steer for the freighter. As they did so, Barney saw two men abandon the freighter: they scrambled down a rope to a boat, untied it, and rowed energetically for the shore. That confirmed his instinct. The ship would now be deserted.

  He looked again across the bay to the warships, and saw that they had forced the galleys to retreat.

  A few minutes later, the Alice was close enough to the freighter to drop its sails, becoming almost motionless. Barney’s crew drew the two vessels together with boathooks and ropes. Finally, they were able to leap from one ship to the other.

  There was no one aboard the freighter.

  Barney’s first mate, Jonathan Greenland, went down into the hold to investigate the cargo.

  He came back looking woebegone, carrying strips of wood in one arm and metal hoops in the other. ‘Barrel staves,’ he explained disgustedly. ‘And iron reinforcement rings.’

  Barney was disappointed. As plunder this was not worth much. On the other hand, destroying this cargo would impair the invasion by creating a shortage of barrels for the armada’s provisions. ‘Fire the ship,’ he said.

  The crew brought turpentine from the Alice and splashed the inflammable liquid over the freighter’s deck and below. Then they set fire to it in several places and hastily jumped back to their own vessel.

  It was dark, but the blazing freighter lit up the ships nearby, and Barney chose a second target. Once again the Alice approached to find that the watchmen had fled. The crew of the Alice boarded, and this time Jonathan Greenland came up from the hold looking happy. ‘Wine,’ he said. ‘From Jerez. Lakes and oceans of sack.’

  English sailors were given beer to drink, but the lucky Spaniards got wine, and the invasion fleet would need thousands of gallons of it. But here was a cargo the armada would never receive. ‘Take it all,’ Barney said.

  The crew lit torches and began the heavy work of bringing the barrels up from the hold and transferring them across to the Alice. They worked cheerfully, knowing that each of them would get a share from the sale of this costly cargo.

  The enemy ship was fully stocked for a voyage, and Barney’s crew also took all its salted meat, cheese, and ship’s biscuit for the stores of the Alice. It was armed, and Barney took its gunpowder. The shot was the wrong size for his guns, so he had the crew throw the cannonballs into the water, so that they would never be fired at English sailors.

  When the hold was empty, he set fire to the ship.

  Looking around the harbour, he could see another five or six vessels blazing. On shore, torches had been lit along the waterfront, and he saw guns from the fortress being towed, by teams of horses, to the dockside. The English raiders would still be out of range, but Barney figured the purpose was to discourage the attackers from coming ashore. He thought he could see troops being mustered in the square. He guessed that the townspeople presumed the attack on ships was only a prelude to an invasion, and had shrewdly decided to look to their landside defences. They could not know that Drake’s orders were to destroy Spanish shipping, not to conquer Spanish cities.

  But the upshot was that there was almost no resistance. Barney could see a massive ship firing back at several attacking English vessels, but it was exceptional: there was otherwise little gunfire, and mostly the raiders were able to loot and burn unhindered.

  Barney looked around for another ship to destroy.

  *

  ENGLAND REJOICED at the news of Drake’s sneak attack on Cádiz, but Margery’s husband, Earl Bart, did not join in the celebrations.

  Reports varied, but all said that around twenty-five major ships had been destroyed, and thousands of tons of supplies stolen or sent to the bottom. The Spanish armada had been crippled before it had even set out. No English sailors had been killed and only one wounded, by a lucky shot from a galley. Queen Elizabeth had even made a profit on the expedition.

  ‘It was a day of infamy,’ Bart raged at the dinner table in New Castle. ‘No warning, no declaration of war, just outright murder and theft by a group of barefaced pirates.’

  Bart at fifty reminded Margery painfully of the father-in-law who had raped her, except only that Bart was more red-faced and even fatter than his father had been. Now she said waspishly: ‘Those ships were on their way here to kill us all – including both my sons. I’m glad they were sunk.’

  Young Bartlet took his father’s side, as usual. At twenty-three, Bartlet bore a resemblance to Margery’s father, being tall and freckled, but he had all Bart’s attitudes, unfortunately. She loved him, but he was hard to like, and that made her feel guilty. ‘King Felipe only wants to return England to Catholicism,’ Bartlet said. ‘Most English people would welcome that.’

  ‘Many would, but not at the price of being conquered by a foreign country,’ Margery countered.

  Stephen Lincoln was shocked. ‘My lady, how can you say such a thing? The Pope approved the plan of the Spanish king.’

  Stephen had proved a poor friend to Margery, but all the same she had some sympathy for him. He had spent thirty years as a secret priest, holding furtive services after dark and keeping the sacramentals in undignified hidey-holes as if they were shameful. He had dedicated his life to God but had spent it as a criminal, and that had left his face lined and gaunt and his soul bitter. But he was wrong about this, and so was the Pope. ‘I think it’s a mistake,’ she said crisply. ‘An invasion would actually turn people away from Catholicism, by linking it with foreign domination.’

  ‘How can you know that?’ Stephen meant you, a mere woman, but he did not dare to say it.

  Margery replied: ‘I know because it’s what has happened in the Netherlands. Patriotic Dutch people fight for Protestantism, not because they care about doctrine, but because they want independence from Spain.’

  Roger joined in. He had been such a pretty baby, Margery thought, but now he was seventeen, with a rapidly growing curly dark beard. Margery’s impish look was reinterpreted, in her son, as a lively bantam confidence that made people smile. He had the golden-brown eyes of his biological father, Ned. It was fortunate that Bart, like most men of his type, never noticed the colour of people’s eyes, and that anyone else who suspected Roger’s parentage would never say it for fear of being run through by Bart’s sword. Roger said: ‘So, Mother, how do you think we could return our country to Catholicism?’

  She was proud to have a son who could ask such a thoughtful and challenging question. He had a lively intellect, and was planning to go to Kingsbridge College, Oxford. Roger was a staunch Ca
tholic and took an active part in the smuggling of the priests. All the same, Stephen, who was his tutor, had been unable to suppress the independence the boy had inherited from Ned.

  She answered him: ‘Left alone, English people will slowly and quietly make their way back to the old faith.’

  However, the English were not destined to be left alone.

  There was no Spanish armada in 1587 but, as summer turned to autumn, Margery and everyone else realized that they had celebrated too soon. They had imagined that Drake had prevented the invasion. But the raid on Cádiz had only postponed it. King Felipe was so rich that, to the consternation of the English, he simply started building new ships and buying replacement supplies.

  Queen Elizabeth and her government began to prepare for a fight to the death.

  All along the coast, defences were repaired that winter. Castles were reinforced, and new earth ramparts were thrown up around towns that had not seen battle for centuries. The walls of Kingsbridge were rebuilt, the old ones having long ago disappeared into a suburban sprawl. The rusting old cannons at Combe Harbour were cleaned and test-fired. Chains of hilltop beacons were built, from the coast to London, ready to transmit the dreadful news that the galleons had been sighted.

  Margery was aghast. Catholics were going to slaughter Protestants, and vice versa. But being a follower of Jesus Christ was not supposed to be about cannons and swords, killing and maiming. In the gospel story only the enemies of Jesus shed blood.

  Margery could not help brooding over the fact that Ned believed as she did, that Christians should not kill one another over doctrine. He claimed that Queen Elizabeth believed it too, even though he admitted that she had not always been true to her ideals.

  Margery suffered agonies in the early months of 1588, as details trickled through of the size and strength of the new armada. It was rumoured to have more than one hundred ships, a figure that terrified the English, whose entire navy consisted of thirty-eight vessels.