At that moment, the first of the guns on the fireships exploded and they heard the boom of roundshot bounce off the water around the boat.
As Luke held the boat moored to the cable up which the Captain had disappeared, he gazed anxiously towards the deck far above their heads while Beth added sickness to her other discomforts. Not the queasy sickness brought about by a rolling sea, but the sickness of fear.
As the sides of the ship were splintered with shot, she realised they were the target of the Spanish patrol boat, and every second that the Captain lingered increased their peril.
Hours seemed to pass since he went aloft.
"Cap'n, come quickly, or we will be taken," called Luke into the darkness above his head. There was no reply although his voice might have been lost in the din of firing around them. "Cap'n—answer me, if you please." Tensely he waited and Beth held her breath.
"Something must be amiss—" she began.
"Ay, lad. I fear the worst. Hold you this rope, whatever happens—do you understand?—or we'll all have to swim for it." He stared up at the dark silent ship. "I am going after him."
Lithely, monkey-fashion, he climbed the cable and his feet were far above her head, when he gave a great cry. Then like a huge bird out of the sky, he plummeted down past her and landed heavily on the floor of the boat, almost capsizing it. She did not need to see the trail of splintered wood on the ship where he had been. It was enough to see the back of his head, a sticky mass in the risen moonlight. No second glance was needed to know that he was dead as he lay spreadeagled and still.
Grimly clutching the mooring line, she stared at the dark hull of the ship, each moment expecting the Captain's face to stare down at her. The rail remained ominously empty. Surely the roundshot, the splintering wood, Luke's death cry, must have attracted his attention— Surely—
Unless…
"Captain," she called, "Captain, please come quickly. We are pursued—and Luke is killed—"
There was no reply, only the sound of heavy firing. She saw that the Spanish patrol boat was now in action with one of the Queen's boats, while yet another ship, too dark to recognise, raced across the waters.
Unable to await the outcome of the duel and expecting the same fate as had befallen Luke, she began to row around the ship until she found the rope ladder. Thanking God that it was still there, for she could never have attempted the cable, she began to climb.
What would happen if she found the Captain dead on the deck? What madness had deprived her of the little senses she had left - and what heroics? She had one leg over on the deck when she realised that she should have left the Captain to his fate and tried as best she could to row back to the safety of the Queen's ships, or to one of the patrolling boats.
As she stared along the moonlit deck, she saw that her worst fears were realised. The Captain was indeed there, a motionless figure crumpled near the barrels of powder. His face was white, his eyes closed and he looked dead. She knelt beside him and tried to raise his head and shoulders, and was vastly relieved to hear him groan.
"Are you bad hurt, Cap'n?"
He shook his head as a man who shakes off evil dreams. All around them the fireships blazed and they too were outlined in the fierce crimson glow. Far away to the right, on the ship next to them, the guns began to explode, and the deck alongside them was peppered with roundshot, and with the fiery branches of wood from falling masts.
The Captain groaned again, and tried to rise to his feet.
"Can you walk, sir?"
She supported him towards the rope ladder although she had little hope of getting him down it into the safety of the boat. She looked behind and saw that every second counted now, for the fuse that the Captain had failed to light, was already being approached by a trail of fire, a writhing crimson snake slithering across the deck.
"What have you done, Master Perkins?" The Captain was pointing to the sea.
Beth looked down and saw to her horror that the boat had gone. In her anxiety she had left it insecurely fastened. Now it bobbed far across the waves, carrying the still form of Luke.
"Why did you not stay where you were?"
"Luke was killed."
"I see that, poor devil. But you, Master Perkins, were under my orders."
"I was afraid."
"Afraid. You tell me that!" He seized her arm, his angry face inches away from her own. "Afraid is it, Master Perkins. You will be more afraid when I am done with you, for we will take up this matter of your disobedience and your cowardice—with a rope—if and when we ever reach safety. You will have good cause for fear before this night is over. Look—"
She saw to her horror that the fireships were carrying them helplessly into the path of the Armada. The seas around them were already full of panic-stricken sailors steering small boats, illuminated in the fierce light, as they tried helplessly to avert the disaster racing towards them on the tide. Their only chance now lay with grappling irons, in an attempt to isolate the terrible raging inferno.
To Beth it was like being in hell itself, the thunder of exploding guns hammering the night, throwing up spumes of water. The air was rent with one explosion upon another, the deafening angry cannons' roar. Then the double-shotted guns played their part, spraying their shot at random over the water, the force of recoil sending up fountains of angry red sparks to be blown down among the boats leaping towards them across the waves, carrying the frantic Spanish crews whose only hope lay in cutting the fireships adrift before they reached their fast-approaching target.
The only darkness in the growing inferno was the ship on which they stood. Then suddenly the Captain turned looked along the deck, and Beth saw that the glowing red trail had almost reached the gunpowder barrel.
"Over the side. Quickly."
Either by the force of the explosion or the Captain lifting her bodily, Beth found herself clinging to the rope ladder, shielded by the Captain's body.
"God be praised," he said as they clung together. "We have succeeded."
Ahead, in the fire that had turned night into day and had doused the moonlight to a candle's glow, they could see the Armada fleet clearly, the tiny shapes of men racing across decks, climbing rigging. Suddenly one of the galleons began to move, but not in their direction. It was turning away from the fireships and Beth learned afterwards that this ship set the pattern, cutting its anchor cables, anything to escape the hell that came across the sea, at the instigation of El Draque, Devil incarnate.
"Look below," whispered the Captain.
The Spanish patrol ships were moving in, still swaming helplessly around the fireships. They were coming fast now, trying to find a place on which they could use the grappling irons. They did not expect humans to be aboard the fireships and fortunately Beth and the Captain were concealed, as they hung upon the rope ladder, by the smoke belching forth from above.
"We will have to swim for it. Jump, lad, and pray that you land near one of our boats."
Beth hesitated.
"Go on—what do you wait for?"
"I cannot—I cannot swim."
"Then I suggest that this is the time to learn." And he gave her a great push, so that she fell screaming. As she hit the water, she thought: This then is death. For it seemed she went on for ever, falling, falling, falling, straight as an arrow to the bottom of the sea. When at last she shot up to the surface again, shaking the water from her eyes, choking, gulping, she saw only the bright burning ships speeding past her.
She was alone in the sea.
Suddenly a head bobbed up beside her, with hair plastered against the skull, its colour unrecognisable as tawny. Strong arms she was beginning to know well grasped her.
"I have you safe. Do not fight, or we shall both drown."
She had no strength left to fight. She could see to the right of them the Spanish ships, to the left and far distant the Queen's ships.- And between was an inferno of flame and exploding guns, burning rigging and masts -the fireships.
"Do y
ou hear me?"
"Yes," she choked.
"Then hold on to my shoulders as I turn."
"I cannot," she said, but to herself.
"We must try to swim for it. Have no fear, but hold tight. You will not drown."
Hold tight. But for how long? Already chilled by the water, exhausted beyond human endurance, Beth longed to let go of the Captain, to sink back into the green oblivion she had glimpsed below the waves.
"Hold on. I have you safe."
And for a moment, Beth smiled. Smiled as she thought of fate's final irony, that she, Beth Howard, should die in the arms of James Danyell after all her attempts to escape him.
"I have you safe."
And time ceased to exist. There was only peace and eternity.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Heaven, it seemed, had rough hands, a rougher voice. Beth was painfully aware of both, as she was hauled into a passing boat, with no more consideration than the men would have employed to land a large fish.
"Ay, Cap'n, lucky we saw the Sea Queen's boat and the dead man drifting past, for we are far off our course, and stayed only to be able to give a full report of the damage done by the fireships to the Spaniards."
"Are you from the flagship?"
"Nay, from Drake's Revenge." And Beth heard the pride in the man's voice. "We came as fast as we could when we saw you struggling in the sea." There was a pause. "Cap'n, are you wounded?"
"Naught but a scratch."
"The lad there. He has a sickly look."
Through half-closed eyelids Beth saw them watching her, the Captain frowning as he replied: "He is no more than a child. This is his first taste of action. How goes it with the fireships?"
"They were last seen flying towards the enemy on a brisk wind. We are successful, Cap'n," said the man jubilantly.
"Ay," said another, "God has given us victory over our enemies."
The Captain smiled grimly. "Nay, lads, I fear we speak of success too soon. I doubt if we are yet done with the Spaniards. They might flee before the fireships but we cannot tell until morning what death and destruction we laid at their decks."
Although Beth had temporarily lost interest in the fate of the Spanish ships, she noticed from her seat huddled in the bows that the almost solid mass of ships which had made up the great Armada was now disordered, and the dying embers of the fireships illuminated a scene of stately galleons scattering into the night.
She closed her eyes. Why had the Captain not left her to drown in peace, so cold and miserable that she thought she could never be warmed again?
When at last the Sea Queen hovered above them, Beth could barely stand, feet and legs numbed, hands trembling on the rope ladder. The Captain gave one glance and picking her up bodily, flung her over his shoulder neatly and expertly as a farmer with a sack of oats, and scrambled up the rope ladder.
They were met eagerly by the anxious crew who knew better than ply their Captain with the questions that buzzed in their heads and Beth saw the cabin door reeling towards them as he hurried across the deck, telling them briefly how Luke had met his end.
Hours later, it seemed, she awoke to hot liquid being poured down her throat. The Captain held a goblet to her lips but her fingers trembled so that she could hardly retain it, teeth chattering against the rim.
"Drink. It will put warmth into your bones. It is but a hot posset."
She noticed that a blanket had been thrown around her shoulders and the Captain, adjusting it, shook his head sadly.
"Most of my crew take a soaking and allow the wet clothes to dry upon their backs, and take no harm of it. But you, Master Perkins, seem made of softer flesh and by the looks of you will only end with a fever." He pointed to a small pile of clothes upon the bed. "Take those, put them on—but drink that posset first."
Thankfully she watched him leave the cabin, seizing a chart from the table as he went. She noticed that his garments were dripping sea water, but the strange man had taken little regard for his own discomfort by tending first to Master Perkins Rapidly she changed into the dry clothes, a fine cambric shirt and handsome breeches. Although they were too large for her, they had never belonged to James Danyell, but to a much smaller man.
She had no sooner buckled on the belt than the Captain returned. For a moment he stood with his hand on the door, regarding her in the lantern's glow, his look so intense that she knew a moment's fear that perhaps she was betrayed, that somehow he knew she was a girl—
"Thank you, Captain," she mumbled.
But when he came nearer, she was surprised by the pain naked in his eyes. He turned quickly away and said gruffly, "Take heed of your new clothes. The boy who wore them before you did so with honour. Perhaps his courage will be catching." Replacing the chart, he said: "Now, Master Perkins, get what sleep you can, for at dawn we fight the Spaniards!" Suddenly he put out both hands to steady himself, leaning heavily, head down, against the table. Even in the lantern's glow, his face was ashen.
"Captain," she began awkwardly, "is there something I can get you?"
Straightening his shoulders with considerable effort, he looked down at her. "Ay, Master Perkins, there is. I need your assistance. Are you strong enough to help me disrobe, for I fear it is a matter I cannot accomplish myself this night."
"Are you wounded, sir?"
He nodded. "Ay, and it is painful." As he lifted his arms, she saw that the shirt under the light cuirass was soaked with blood.
"Please sit down, sir." He leaned in the chair exhaustedly while she removed cuirass and jerkin. "Was it the Spanish patrol boat, sir?"
"Ay. It is but a scratch." However, as he flexed his arm muscles he grimaced. "Bring water and bathe it, for I cannot reach. There are unguents in the press."
The wound was thankfully not embedded roundshot, Beth discovered, but rather a jagged tear, since the leather jerkin under the cuirass, which was also torn, had broken its full force. Nevertheless, it was an ugly wound.
"It will be well by morning," said the Captain cheerfully.
"I trust so, sir," said Beth, keeping her doubts to herself. It was on his right side, and she guessed that by morning it would be swollen and stiff and that he would be unable to raise his arm to fight off any Spaniards. Before applying the bandage, she said: "Shall I get Master Bo'sun, Captain?"
"How can he help matters? He has no skills in attending wounds—"
"Nay, sir—I mean to let him see it," she said lamely, "for I too have little experience."
"I do not wish anyone to know of my little scratch. It will only alarm the crew, and they will not be in their best spirits for the fighting that is to come tomorrow if they learn that their Captain is wounded before the action is begun—"
"But, Captain," she began, knowing that he would be fully incapacitated by morning.
"I am sure your treatment is most effective, Master Perkins, and I am most grateful to you." He was smiling at her, that rare gentle smile at variance with the cold stern lines of his face.
"I am grateful also. You did save my life, for I cannot swim." And against all her better judgement, Beth's face softened as she looked up at him.
He put a hand on her shoulder and laughed. "Master Perkins, that is the first time, before God, that I have seen you smile."
"I have had little to smile over," she reminded him sourly.
He nodded. "In truth, you are a clumsy incompetent lad, but you have strangely gentle hands. You should perhaps be a physician."
"I hope you will sleep well, sir," said Beth nervously, rising from her knees and gathering together the soiled, bloodied linen.
The Captain was watching her, his eyes gentle. "Have you brothers and sisters, Master Perkins?"
"Nay, Captain. I was orphaned long ago."
" 'Tis a lonely life—often cruel."
Beth said nothing and turned away from him, fearing any personal conversation which would drive her into deeper lies to conceal her identity.
Taking her silence for agreement, he
said: "I too was left an orphan at an early age, with naught but a stepsister who was removed to Yorkshire by her remaining relatives; but my cousin, Sir Francis Drake, was kind. He took me into his home, then prenticed me to the sea-trade. He was like a father—nay, an elder brother, but I was old enough to remember the days of solitude and loneliness before he became my guardian." He sighed, regarding her with compassion. "It seems that I was more fortunate than you have been, Master Perkins. Perhaps if God spares us and gives us victory, when we reach England I can find some position for you."
Beth looked at him, biting back her anger. How dare he aim to be her benefactor and earn her gratitude, when the whole hideous situation in which she found herself was his fault! Had he been an attentive suitor, had he shown enough interest to meet the girl who was his betrothed, she, Beth Howard, might at this moment have been safe in England awaiting his arrival as her bridegroom—
"Perhaps you would wish to remain at sea," the Captain mused. "In truth, you have little aptitude for it—"
"Nay, Captain—thank you. But put me on to dry land and I will make my own way in the world. I need no man's help, but can forge for myself a place in this life. All I request is every man's right to live according to his own needs and desires—"
The Captain was smiling again; damn him, she thought, damn him. He nodded approval. "Independent, too. I am glad to hear it." He laughed. "D'you know, Master Perkins, that is the longest speech you have ever made aboard this ship?" He regarded her thoughtfully. "You are indeed a strange lad. Fourteen years old, eh?" He shook his head. "My son, had he lived, would have been fourteen years old this Lammas-tide."
There was silence and she felt the question must be asked: "When did he die, sir?" Although the answer was known to her.
"He never lived, Master Perkins," said the Captain bitterly. "He breathed but a little of the world's air and died. My wife too, God rest her, she was but eighteen." He stood up and stretched his arms, wincing at the pain. "But that was long ago."
She followed him to the canopied bed, and pulled back the covers for him.
The Queen's Captain Page 9