by Bill Napier
'And what do you believe, Thomas?' Sir Richard's tone was dangerous, but my master seemed not to notice - or chose not to notice.
'That on this matter at least he is correct.'
'In the minds of the simple, such ideas are dangerous,' Anthony Rowse complained.
'The man is a Neapolitan heretic!' cried Marmaduke. 'He was expelled from the Dominican order. Some day the fool will burn at the stake.'
'I too heard him at Balliol,' said Rowse. 'He spoke well of the heresy of Copernicus, that the earth spins and the stars stand still. In truth it was his own head which turned round, and his brains which did not stand still.'
All this was too much for Sir Richard, who, furious at such extravagant heresy and equally drunk, roared like a bull and fired a pistol in the air. The ball bounced off a beam, sending a splinter flying, and struck the hand of one of the musicians, who fled howling from the room, blood spurting, while the captain's roaring transformed itself into raucous laughter.
'But it is mathematics which allows you to traverse the globe, Sir Richard.' This bravely from a young man, Abraham Kendall, who was fresh from Oxford University. 'Where would you be without the navigational skills of John Dee and Thomas Harriot?'
Anthony Rowse, the parliamentarian, had a face purple with drink. He waved a scornful arm in the air. 'To hell with the School of the Night and your occult heresies and your hellish triangles. Give me a bear pit and a brothel any day.'
'Much good would those do you out here, Anthony.' Harriot was now refilling his smoking-bowl.
'There is too much fancy in your reasoning, Thomas,' Rowse persisted. 'Planets orbiting the sun! Men on other worlds! You cannot believe these things.' He took a big gulp of aqua vitae, his eyes bulging.
'But Anthony, I do.'
Rowse sneered derisively. 'You will tell us next that one day men will fly like birds across the oceans.' He flapped his arms like the wings of a bird.
'Or fly to the moon!' Sir Richard roared, his face also turning purple in the process. I thought he would slide off his chair. He bit his wine glass, crunched the glass and spat out the shards, glaring angrily at Mr Harriot. He wiped a trickle of blood from his chin, and at that moment I believed I was in the company of lunatics. The musicians had not yet recommenced their screeching; the three still in the cabin were cowering in a corner.
And yet, in the midst of this bedlam, I was becoming aware that the roll of the ship was steepening, and that the sound of the wind in the sails and ropes was becoming angry. I drew comfort from the fact that none of the gentlemen seemed to notice or care.
The night brought gloom and squalls, and the Tiger wallowed up and down in waves as tall as itself, rolling from side to side like a pendulum, in a manner to make me want to vomit once again. As usual I followed Mr Harriot on to the deck, carrying cross staff and lantern. I had to clutch at rigging more than once to save myself from a fall, and once I stumbled and almost dropped the cross staff, with what outcome for myself I did not dare to think.
We planted our feet on the afterdeck, the lantern swinging and our bodies swaying to counter the movement of the ship. Whenever we broached the crests of the waves I could see little pinpricks of light all around, from the other ships of the fleet, but then we would plunge down and there was nothing but black water and a blacker sky. We stood on deck for a good half-hour, the rain penetrating our garments and soaking us to the skin, without sighting a single star. Finally Mr Harriot, his long black garment clinging to his sodden legs, said, 'Very well,' and we gave up.
I climbed into my hammock in my sodden clothes and lay shivering while sleep tried to overcome me. The Tiger creaked and grumbled from all directions, all but drowning out the snores and dream-mutterings of the men. Listening in the dark, as the waves crashed against the hull, and the wind howling Wheel in the riggings, my mind tried to grasp the reality that we were in some vast, swirling ocean which could swallow us up like a morsel. And as I slipped into that strange other-world between wakefulness and sleep, I wondered what God's purpose had been in creating so vast a kingdom of salt water, and how far down it went, and what creatures might lurk in its greatest depths. It was easy to feel fear.
I was awakened by the sound of a crash. Disoriented, in the near-dark, I did not recognise my surroundings, and it was a moment before my eyes penetrated the gloom and I saw that the berth was on its side, the deck timbers having turned to form a near-vertical wall while my hammock stayed horizontal. I thought that the ship was about to founder, and turned in terror, anticipating that a great wall of water would pour through the gratings and into the ship. None came, but the Tiger was groaning loudly, as if she was in pain. The long table, chairs and two chests were heaped up against the hull. As my eyes adapted I could make out that a chest had burst open and its contents -clothes, mainly - were sloshing in water. Almost immediately they began to slide in the opposite direction. To my dismay I was alone in the berth-deck.
I rolled out of my hammock and was instantly half-thrown, half-rolled along the wet deck timbers towards the side of the hold, where my ribs struck the corner of the long table and I cried out in agony. There was a Bang! and I swear that the hull flexed inwards, as if struck by a great hammer. I rolled aside as the ship began to level and the table threatened to right itself on me. I stood up, my side aflame with pain, gripped the table for balance and half-ran, half-stumbled to the ladder and scrabbled up. Halfway up I had to hang on or I would have fallen back.
I thought it was still a pitch black night before I saw that the hatch was battened down. The door was tightly shut and refused to move. I had to force it against a powerful wind. After the dark of the lower deck the grey light made me screw up my eyes. Driving spray stung my face like sharp glass. I found myself looking straight down into black foaming water and had to grip the handle for my life while my legs dangled over the sea. Then the ship rolled over to port and the door slammed shut and I wrapped my arms around a hand rail.
Low, black clouds were rushing past, barely higher than the waves, which were now like small mountains, taller by far than the Tiger.
Seamen were aloft from jib to spanker, while Mr Salter, gripping rigging on the deckhead, bawled obscenities and orders which I did not understand nor, I am sure, did they hear above the cacophony. His eyes were black with fatigue.
A wave tall as the hill behind our Tweedsmuir farm rose up. I looked up at it stupidly, convinced it was going to break over us, smash us to pieces. But the Tiger rode it like a bobbing seagull, rising up its steep side.
From the top of the monster wave I glimpsed a sea of yet more white-capped monster waves, stretching to the horizon and overlain by horizontally driven spray and rain. There was a solitary mast in the distance. But then the Tiger was sliding down into a black trough and tilting steeply as it did.
Four men on the bowsprit, gripping it with hands and legs, were pulling at lashings. As the Tiger gained speed the mast went under water, and when it next surfaced only three men were gripping it. It was some seconds before a head bobbed up, and an arm waved frantically, but then the ship was rising again on the next wave and the man was drifting sternwards. I recognised Mr Treanor, the Irishman. He passed yards from me, shouting, gulping water, eyes full of terror, but his words were lost in the storm. There was nothing to be done and the crest of the next wave took him from my sight.
A sudden gust of wind tore at the ship and she veered to port, tilting almost on her side. 'Get aloft, d'ye hear me?' Salter was roaring at me, pointing up at men clinging desperately to the foremast yardarm. 'Get up there, ye Scotch bastard! Release the foreshroud!' His voice was high and close to hysterical. I had no idea what the deck master meant but he was approaching me, bent double against the wind, with an axe in his hand, and the expression on his face told me it would be better to jump into the sea than disobey. He thrust the axe into my hand and I timed the sway of the deck to run towards the main mast, clutching it with arms and legs when it leaned over open water and the sea rose
to within inches of me. Another brief run, slithering on the deck, racing a wave to a ratline, and then I was scrambling up the flapping rope ladder with the master's obscenities barely heard above the wailing EEEEE! of the wind from all around.
Aloft, the Turk, his bald head glistening and veins throbbing in his neck, snatched the axe from my hand and began to chop at a line which was snarling the corner of the sail. It took all my strength to grip the wet spar with both arms, and it was a miracle that the Turk, gripping with one hand while the other wielded the axe, was not thrown clear of the ship by the violent sway of the mast. The wind was stronger here and the water hitting my face like little stones was salt even at this height, and so was spray as much as rain. I could now see several masts scattered around a massive white sea.
Mr Salter was yelling something. The ship plunged until, even on the foremast yardarm, I found myself looking up at a huge wave. It broke over the deck, catching Salter at waist height and snatching him from the line he was gripping. He was swept across the deck and banged his head against the port side. He lay dazed, and seemed unable to stand up. But now there was another wave. The deck of the Tiger tilted towards it. Mr Salter was trying desperately to get to his feet, but the big wave would be on him in seconds. I clambered down at speed, racing the approaching monstrous wall. The wave reached him first, and for a moment he vanished in the swirling water. Then, as it receded, he was gripping the deck rail, his body dangling out over the ocean. There was a large purple swelling on his forehead. I tried to heave him on board but with his sodden clothes he must have been twice my own weight. How he held on I do not know. But then Manteo, the savage, appeared and was heaving at the man's dead weight, and we dragged him onto the deck. By now water was pouring out of his mouth and his eyes were rolling. By the grace of God and brute force we reached the hatch, pulled it open and managed to ease his now unconscious form down the ladder and into the berth-deck, where we heaved him into my hammock.
I stumbled back towards the gentlemen's quarters, stepping over some grey-faced soldiers, in search of the physician, Mr Oxendale. I found him, snoring, tied in his bunk bed by wrappings of sheet, his head banging off the bulkhead as the ship swayed. Two empty flagons of wine rolled back and forth across the cabin floor. His cabin companion, Anthony Rowse, was standing silently, gripping an overhead beam. He watched me without a word said; he had the eyes of a hunted animal. I could not help a feeling of contempt. I left him.
I do not know how long we stayed in that dark and swaying place, holding on to the timbers. At times Mr Salter seemed not to be breathing and I wondered if he was dead. The savage, from time to time, would put his finger under the mariner's nose and give a reassuring grunt. Presently I began to feel nauseous and my teeth began to chatter. At first I thought it was the motion of the ship, but my symptoms became worse and I began to feel hot and cold in turn.
It was, I think, an hour before light and spray flooded in from above, during which a dull ache in my belly slowly grew into a sharp pain. I thought at first that the door had blown open, but then the captain was coming down, gripping the ladder. Water was pouring off his clothes. He staggered hand over hand towards us, gripping timbers and overhead beams, and looked at Mr Salter silently. I wondered whether I should dare to speak, but then said, 'He is alive, sir.'
Sir Richard, both hands gripping the side of the hammock, stared at me with his intense blue eyes. 'You are coming down with some fever, laddie. Since you have seen fit to put Mr Salter in your hammock, find his bunk and tie yourself into it.' He turned and clambered back up the ladder on all fours.
The savage seemed to understand. He nodded and waved me away. I clambered back towards the gentlemen's quarters, past the still-sleeping physician and the terrified Mr Rowse, towards the cabin which Mr Salter shared with Simon Fludd, the architect.
Simon Fludd was in his cabin. He was on the floor. His face was a deep purple and his tongue, sticking out of his open mouth, was almost black. His eyes were so wide they looked as if they would jump out of his head. They were black, and it was a moment before I saw that this was because the pupils were so distended that they almost filled the eyeballs. His arms and legs were stretched out like those of a child in a tantrum, and they were trembling violently. He was scarcely able to breathe, the sound coming from his mouth being that of a man who was choking.
I knew then that the murderer, or Satan, had not finished his business with us. And as the Tiger began to heel over, groaning and crashing, and Mr Fludd wheezed and choked, and I shivered, and the sweat poured down my face and the bile rose in my mouth, I thought that I too had become his victim. And I thought that it no longer mattered: poisoner and victims, captain and gentlemen, soldiers and ship were about to sink under the waves, taking their secrets and their conspiracies down to depths beyond measure, obliterating all.
CHAPTER 12
Later, they told me that I had been in a fever for three days. I have vague memories of my mouth and gullet being on fire, and my face and brow being mopped, and I remember opening my eyes to see Manteo, the savage, raising a cup to my lips, and warm goat's milk trickling down my throat.
On the morning of the fourth day I awoke in my hammock, weak as a girl, but knowing that whatever had ailed me, whether poison or fever, had passed from my system. Two sailors interrupted their backgammon to help me out of my hammock and lead me to the stairs, which I climbed slowly. On deck, the sails were billowing in a fresh wind, and although there were still clouds, they were high and light and the air was warm. The sea was calm. Mr Chandler, the man from Devon, gave me a friendly wave,
'There have been hangings. Two of them. Aye, we have had a busy time while you have been ill.'
'Hangings?'
'Two soldiers. They tried to start a mutiny, declaring that the ship was cursed and nobody would reach the New World alive. They at least will not.'
I went down to Mr Harriot's cabin. Fernandez and he were looking at a chart.
'Are you ready to resume your duties, Ogilvie?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Good. We have need of you this afternoon.'
As the day progressed it became clear that some extraordinary meeting was to take place. All the captains came on board the Tiger by longboats. Their faces were agitated, stern, hard. The kitchen had been warned, and the smell of roasting pig was drifting along the galleys, up and down ladders, and through all the hatches and berth-holds of the ship.
Five captains. Sir Richard Grenville of the Tiger, of course. George Raymond, captain of the Lyon, had come aboard first. Then John Clarke of the high-sterned Roebuck, a square-rigged flyboat of Dutch design. It was almost as grand as the Tiger, but I had heard Master Fernandez tell the Turk that he would not wish to sail it in a storm. Mr Clarke was small and round and had a mean mouth which put me in mind of my stepfather.
But then I was summoned to the kitchen and missed the arrival of both Arthur Barlowe, from the little bark Dorothy, and the red-faced Thomas Cavendish, captain of the Elizabeth.
Another six gentlemen shared the table with the captains: John White the artist, a quiet man; next to him was Philip Amadas, whose sudden tempers rivalled those of Sir Richard and made him a man to avoid. On Sir Richard's left was Mr Ralph Lane, the commander of the soldiers and as hard a man as I ever saw outside Drumelzier. I could hear his two huge mastiffs under the table, gnawing and cracking bones. On Sir Richard's right was Simon Fernandez, the Portuguese sailor and a man of huge arrogance: out of his hearing, the mariners called him 'the swine'. And then there was the man who was becoming my guide and teacher, Thomas Harriot, and next to him Marmaduke StClair.
My role in the meeting was modest enough, to keep the officers and the gentlemen supplied with wine and aqua vitae. It still gave me a thrill to be part of this inner counsel, even as a humble servant.
As to the purpose of the meeting, this became clear with Sir Richard's first words, when all were seated in the great cabin: 'First Holby, then the carpenter. Once is misfort
une - maybe Holby fell overboard drunk. Twice is suspicious, even though I cannot understand how the barrels came to be on top of the carpenter. But three times? Three mysterious deaths? Mr Fludd's death by poisoning puts the matter beyond dispute. There is a murderer on board the Tiger. What do you say, Harriot? Is he a Jesuit or a witch?'
'Or both,' Raymond suggested, pointing at his goblet. I moved forward in haste to fill it, and then went slowly around the table with a flagon of the red wine, trying to appear as a servant should, invisible, and yet lingering to hear every word.
'I smell a Jesuit behind this,' Ralph Lane declared, without allowing Mr Harriot time to answer.
Sir Richard growled from the depths of his chest; to me he sounded like a dog. 'And behind him, the hand of the Spanish throne. Am I truly forced to believe there is an assassin in our midst? Someone whose purpose is the failure of the expedition? Perhaps a man at this very table?' Sir Richard's icy blue eyes went around everyone, as if he was trying to peer into the soul of each man. There was a long, embarrassed silence. Marmaduke StClair's cheeks were flushing.
John White broke the silence. 'But the carpenter's body was squashed under the weight of the barrels. No Jesuit - or anyone else for that matter - could have raised such a weight and lowered it on to the man's body. It required a supernatural force. I say there is a witch at work. One with the ability to summon up diabolical powers.'
'But our goal was a closely guarded secret,' George Raymond said. 'How could it be discovered?'
Sir Richard stood up and stepped over to a cabinet. He produced a large brass key from within his tunic, took a flintlock pistol from a rack, along with a box, and sat back down with them, placing box and pistol next to his goblet. I felt a twinge of apprehension. 'Don't be a fool, Raymond. Mendoza's nest of spies—'
'But Richard, Her Majesty expelled Mendoza just before—'
'The viper is gone, yes. But will you tell me that amongst all the workers on Plymouth harbour, and the victuallers and vintners who came and went on the dock, there was not one agent of the King of Spain? And that they would not see the chests of dried beans, and the hessian bags of peas and other seeds for planting? What fool could fail to see that we intended to establish a colony for Elizabeth?'