The Queen's Captain

by Margaret Hope

  "Are you comfortable, sir? Is there anything I can get for you?"

  He smiled at her from the pillows. "Nay, Master Perkins. Sleep well and God bless you—and all of us."

  But Beth slept ill, full of apprehension for the day ahead, with its promise of battle. She did not care to brood upon the details. She did not like what she was learning about brave men and their ships. Nor did she like what she was learning about Captain James Danyell in particular.

  Tossing upon her trestle bed, she decided she prefer-red to hate him with any good qualities he possessed remaining hidden from her. Resisting compassion for his loneliness, for his dead wife and stillborn son, she knew that each day it became more difficult to blow on the embers of her dislike and keep the flame of anger healthily ablaze, the flame which had burned so fiercely in her uncle's home at Hythe. Tenderness and pity were weaknesses which revealed Captain James Danyell as a real man who could suffer, be wounded and possibly die. She preferred not to think of him in such terms but remember the creature her imagination had invented, harsh, cold and unloving, her hated, repellent bridegroom, and party to the marriage arranged by Uncle Ephraim.

  It seemed she had hardly closed her eyes and escaped from an uneasy present into welcome dreams of Will Robb, before he vanished and his place was taken by one of the crew, shaking her into wakefulness.

  A messenger had arrived from the Revenge with news of the Spanish ships.

  "The Queen's ships had remained at anchor in the darkness, watching the fireships burn themselves out, while on the Armada the ships' light scattered to leeward. We awaited the return of our patrols to bring the full extent of the damage. It appears that panic seized the Spaniards when they saw the fireships approaching. Every man who had served at Cadiz, or knew of it by repute, also realised that they had but ten minutes before the fireships would be upon them. We were most fortunate in capturing an enemy pinnace which was somewhat tardy in following the main fleet. Its captain told us that in their anxiety to escape, cables had been cut and one hundred and fifty anchors were abandoned in the sands off Calais harbour. Sails were hastily set to catch the wind and every ship trying to avoid its neighbour and at the same time escape from the devil ships sent by the demon, El Draque."

  "It puts good cheer into my heart this morning to have such news," said the Captain.

  "Ay, sir, it was a case no longer of the Most Holy Armada, of every ship to her own need, but in the end of each man, each captain, trying desperately to save himself. An ignoble sight, indeed," concluded the messenger. "But we are not yet done with them, Captain, for my instructions are to tell you from Sir Francis, that you are to hold your ship in readiness for the Lord Admiral's signal. We follow the Spaniard and we fight them to the death, to the glory of God and our Queen." And, bowing, the man was gone, hastily to prepare the neighbouring ships.

  The Captain had received the messenger sitting up in his bed, and growled at Beth that she should not have allowed him to oversleep. After the man's departure, he politely requested that Master Perkins should help him prepare for battle.

  Beth was alarmed by his appearance; his face deathly white, he was hardly able to stand.

  "My steel cuirass and helmet, if you please."

  "Ay, Captain, but first—what of your wound?"

  "It can wait. I have more important matters this day than trifling wounds. Listen—"

  The heard the gun fired from the Ark Royal followed by trumpets calling the men to action.

  "Help me buckle on my sword," said the Captain, biting his lips as she did so. Swaying unsteadily upon his feet, he reached the door. "About your business, Master Perkins."

  She followed him on deck and looking over the ships' rail, saw that the anchors were being taken up and, all around them, sails shaken out and banners hoisted. A sight for a feast day rather than battle to the death, with all the Queen's ships, from stately galleons to tall heavily armed merchantmen, like the Sea Queen, down to the smaller craft used for patrols and carrying supplies, moving into their battle order so that they faced the Spanish ships.

  Beth's heart misgave her at the sight of the Armada. She had expected the fireships to have taken their toll, but the great ships seemed unscathed and had certainly reassembled their order with great promptitude. Now lined up for battle they stood, banners flying, the five royal galleons to the fore, close-hauled and under light canvas. She looked around and could see little of the Queen's ships except for the other members of Drake's squadron close by the Sea Queen. To her inexperienced eyes they seemed hopelessly outgunned. She feared that not even skilled seamanship could extract them from the menace of Spain before them.

  Helplessly she stared beyond the ships to the horizon where the sun had newly risen. The day was but hours old and it promised to be warm and sunny. The sea was calm and she thought of the endless procession of other summer days like this one, alike in each detail, which she had witnessed from her bedroom window in Hythe. With a cold chill of terror, she knew deep within her heart that she would never see another dawn in Craighall.

  "A fine day, is it not?" said one of the crew.

  "Let us trust that it grows not too hot," said another.

  "Ay, for there will be not enough work upon these decks."

  "Too hot for comfort, I fear."

  And Beth almost leaped from her own skin at the gun which exploded to the right of them.

  "Is that it—has battle begun?" she asked.

  "Ay, lad," said the sailor. "That is the signal that the Lord Admiral has given Sir Francis Drake, our leader, the privilege of first exchange with the Spaniard." And Beth, to her astonishment, realised that sea battles were fought as a series of duels would be conducted on land, with rank fighting rank. Only a flagship could seek to engage another flagship.

  Already the magnificent San Martin, flagship of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, was weaving round to present her broadside to the Revenge, sailing towards her. She lay to, while the distance between them lessened and both ships held their fire until they were half a musket shot away from each other. Only then did the Revenge fire her bow guns, followed briskly by broadsides, to be answered by the thunder of the San Martin's guns.

  The rest of Drake's squadron followed, each ship loosing off broadsides and risking the more powerful San Martin's reply. The Sea Queen was fifth in line and Beth learned later that five hundred rounds had been fired from their culverins in that first volley. As they moved close to the Spanish flagship she saw the faces of the soldiers upon the decks, close-packed in ranks and ready for action. Here and there a man bent over a wounded companion. She could have called out to the Spaniards, they were so close, and it seemed that they must leap upon the Sea Queen's decks. She was certain something had gone amiss, and they would collide, but a moment later they were free and with the rest of Drake's squadron were veering north-east and reassembling for the next engagement.

  As they waited while the other English ships engaged the enemy, they saw that the San Martin had remained almost impregnable. For all their extravagant use of roundshot, little damage had been sustained by her except to masts and rigging.

  "Master Perkins!"

  The Captain called down to her from his deck. "Find out what casualties we have suffered. And what damage to the ship."

  She knew that he would never have entrusted to her such a task had he been capable of performing it himself.

  "Be brisk, lad. Why do you wait?"

  "Because—Captain, how fares it with you?"

  She had almost forgotten for a while in the heat of the battle that he was injured, but looking at his pain-racked face, she marvelled that he managed to remain standing on his deck, giving orders.

  "That is not your concern, Master Perkins. Your task is to obey my orders. I believe you heard them—or are you stupid as well as lazy?"

  Oh, in that moment, how she hated him, wounded or whole. And turning, she stamped off along the deck to find out how the crew and the ship had fared.

  Ten
derness and pity, she thought. What an idiot I have made of myself! He was right to call me stupid. But never will I be so again on his behalf.

  Never, she vowed.

  CHAPTER NINE

  If being seized in Folkestone by the pressers, then discovering herself on board James Danyell's ship, had seemed like some nightmare, then it grew hourly in complexity. Beth's sojourn in the crows'-nest, her shared experience with the Captain on the fireships, the near-drowning afterwards, all these events terrifying as they were, faded into pale insignificance before the Battle of Gravelines.

  For seven hours now the two fleets had been engaged at close quarters, the only advantages so far to the English, in that they were superior in handling their ships in difficult waters. All day long they had pounded the Spaniards, the cannons had roared back and forth as the great ships swept to and fro firing at each other, until the very air was a screaming torrent of noise.

  Sometimes Beth thought that her head must burst asunder, her ears ached, her throat smarted with gunpowder fumes, her eyes red-rimmed. The pounding heart that was fear to begin with, she now dismissed as matter-of-fact. Fear was something that had been with her from the moment she was born, she could not imagine life without fear, any more than she could seriously believe that she could ever escape to live out life peacefully in a woman's world. As for this sea on which they fought, and the air that they breathed, impossible that it should ever fold back into the silence of bird flight, of sunset or pale evening stars.

  Gravelines was to Beth Howard what purgatory—that element now forbidden by the new religion—was to devout Catholics. She saw clearly why they feared it and sought to remain there as short a while as devout prayers and supplications would secure their release. Gravelines was worse, ay—a day out of hell itself.

  Even the sun's heat became an added torment, and she was surprised afterwards how speedily, as a mere woman, she adapted to this urgency of battle, performing mundane duties at the boatswain's command, running errands, carrying messages from one part of the ship to the other—often under deafening fire from enemy guns—holding her balance on the swaying deck as the Sea Queen despatched its broadsides and turning, wove splendidly back into the ranks of Drake's waiting squadron. Sometimes the grudging admiration she had known for Captain James Danyell extended to his ship and to the men who sailed her. For she knew that if history recorded the events of this day then there were many heroes who had fought and died nameless, their brave deeds for ever unsung.

  And not only, she had ruefully to admit, upon the English ships. For there were brave men and true among their enemy. Sometimes the Sea Queen was near enough to the Spanish ships for Beth to hear the crew calling orders to one another. Sometimes, shuddering, she heard cries and groans as shot reached its unlucky target. Sometimes the cries turned into prayers and ended in a gurgle of death. The sights the dead presented to her were worst of all. Grotesque, twisted figures that had once been men on the close-packed decks of the Spanish ships became so commonplace that her stomach no longer turned.

  Only the upper works were musket-proof, and after a few hours these had been reduced to bloody flinders. The slaughter of the soldiers waiting a chance to board the English ships and therefore exposed on the decks to the full measure of English fire was a hideous massacre, and the gundecks ran thick with their blood. As the great guns fell silent, they realised that the Spanish ships were indeed short of roundshot and were using muskets and aquebuses at close quarters. Still they fought on gallantly, struggling vainly to board the Queen's ships.

  There was a rousing cheer from Drake's squadron as the San Martin passed by, listing heavily, badly mangled but nevertheless intent upon her destination: the rescue of a small Spanish galleon which was in difficulties.

  Beth saw that many of the Spanish ships had their sails in shreds, the rigging cut to pieces. Once a great galleon swung past, its decks a shambles, the battery guns silent with blood spilling out of the scuppers. But as it heeled to windward, the muskets barked their final defiance from the tops and on the quarter-decks.

  And the nightmare pattern of death continued. For as each man fell, another replaced him, becoming in his turn the perfect target for English guns.

  As for the Sea Queen, her sparsely manned decks were less vulnerable, and there was shelter afforded to the gunners by the hull. There were fewer losses, since fewer men were visible to the enemy.

  "Master Perkins! Over here—a bucket of water." And Beth ran to put out a small fire which threatened a powder barrel.

  "Master Perkins. Here—bring bandages." She rushed to the side of a man who had fallen with a musket shot, another, then yet another. As she knelt beside each victim, she forgot she was a cabin boy and became Beth Howard, a woman tending the wounded with the age-old compassion of her kind, in the role of man's comforter. She bathed wounds, bandaged, gave drink and gentle words to the afflicted, and if her stomach turned over at the sights she witnessed, then she worked grimly on, her hands unfaltering in their tasks, knowing that however she felt, those she tended were in far worse extremes.

  Occasionally she paused in her duties to look up towards the quarterdeck at the lonely figure of Captain James Danyell directing the Sea Queen under fire. It was hard to believe, as she tended other men, that the Captain too had an ugly wound in his side. That instead of leaning on the rail shouting orders, he should have been resting in the canopied bed in his cabin.

  The crew, made bold by battle, were encouraging the wounded men with tales of how the English ships could outflank and worry the Spaniards any time, ay, and keep to the weather-gauge and choose their own range, being sure to disengage at will. Such significant details were beyond Beth's comprehension, for looking up she saw the Captain swaying against the bridge. She ran up the steps and reached his side.

  "Take cover, take cover!" He dragged her down to the deck, sheltering her with his body, and she was suddenly aware of the grim rattle 'of splintering wood above their heads. "Lad, did you not see that you were running before their musket fire?" Raising her head she looked out, and as the Spanish ship disengaged and veered away to the north, he added: " 'Tis well you are small and run like the wind, for I fear you presented a target that no right marksman could ignore." He groaned, and she saw that his face was ashen.

  "Captain, sir, you should be resting."

  Struggling to his feet, he said: "Unbuckle me, if you please, Master Perkins. This cuirass is the very devil! I would do better without it."

  As Beth did as she was bid, she saw to her horror that his side was soaked in blood where the wound had reopened. At her shocked expression, he tried a grin, but it was unsuccessful.

  "Someone can take over for you, Captain. Shall I get the bo'sun?"

  He struggled away from her. "Be damned to you, Master Perkins, for an interfering puppy. No one takes over my command while I live. While there is breath in my body, I am master of my ship and of my men."

  He lolled inert, breathing heavily, and she ran down the steps and seizing wine brought it to him. As she reached his side, the Sea Queen discharged another salvo at an approaching Spanish ship which, again peppered with musket fire, swung around to re-enter the battle formation.

  The Captain opened one eye. "How now, Master Perkins! Are there not enough occupations for you?" But he seized the wine gratefully and drinking, staggered once more to his feet. "How many wounded have we?"

  "Six, sir—and one who has just died."

  "Poor devils."

  "I brought you biscuit and beef, sir. You have not eaten today."

  In answer he took another swig of wine. "Very thoughtful of you. I appreciate your efforts to take care of me, Master Perkins." He regarded her through heavy-lidded eyes half-closed with pain. "I do appreciate it—but wine will suffice. You eat the biscuit and beef."

  "Nay, sir. I could not."

  "You could and will. Do as you are told. You are young and need strength. Now, off you go about your duties."

  "Shall I not s
tay with you, Captain?"

  "Nay, lad, I need you not. And do not wear that woebegone face for me—I forbid it. And remember, if any ask you how does the Captain, you are to say he is well and in good spirits." He smiled. "Do you understand?"

  "Ay, Captain."

  "No one is to hear that I am wounded. That is an order, Master Perkins," he added sternly.

  "Ay, Captain."

  But Beth resolved to keep him in sight, ready in case he should need her. As long as he continued to shout orders—to fire or cease from firing, to shorten or lengthen sail—there was enough smoke, noise and confusion on the decks of the Sea Queen for her crew to fail to observe that their Captain leaned heavily upon the wooden rail above them.

  At one stage, she learned that the ship too had been hit, and according to the sailors who sent her to deliver the message to the Captain, the Sea Queen leaked like a sieve below decks.

  "Then men must be spared from the fighting to repair the damage," said the Captain. "And you, Master Perkins, can accompany them - lend a hand." He frowned. "Nay, wait—you are needed to deliver my orders to them. For I wish none to approach and see how ill the day fares with me now." He smiled with difficulty. "That is a secret best kept between us, is it not, Master Perkins?"

  And Beth left him with his words ringing hollowly in her ears. For the first time she wondered if she had looked upon the face of a dying man, and realised that if Captain James Danyell died, then she would be free.

  Free of the hated arranged marriage, since no respectable man of quality would care to marry such a wanton who had gone into battle against the Armada, disguised as a cabin boy on a fighting ship. What were womenfolk coming to these days? they would ask themselves. For among mortal women only Queen Bess was free to live as she pleased, in a manner which defied convention, taking lovers—so rumour whispered—and perhaps even married to Robert Dudley, since his poor wife had died in mysterious fashion.