Raleigh's Page

by Alan Armstrong

  “Yes!” he shouted again, weaker, as he heard screams and felt the sear of his own burns.

  Amidst yells and gunshots, Pemisapan fled in the confusion of frantic men, women, and children. No one stayed behind to fight; the Indians disappeared into the forest as their village went up like an immense bonfire. The flames cast evil shapes over the cornfields. It was like the painting of hell in the Queen’s gallery.

  Andrew’s foot was agony now, cooked like a sausage. He tried to walk. He couldn’t. He pulled off what remained of his boot.

  His foot was blistering up in large white welts when Captain Lane and the other English scouring the village for holdouts began whistling and cheering. Andrew’s mouth dropped open as one of the soldiers appeared in the awful firelight, holding something away from his body.

  It was Pemisapan’s head, dangling crooked from his hair knot, the face ghastly, torn, smiling.

  The boy retched as he saw Tremayne following, holding up the breastplate of wassador.

  Mr. Harriot found Andrew. He was on the ground, his shoulders shaking like one sobbing. It wasn’t just pain.

  “Better him than us,” Mr. Harriot muttered.

  “Two injured, not one Englishman lost,” the captain bellowed, looking around as he kicked at the smoking ruin of Pemisapan’s lodge. “They won’t be back!”

  “I guess not,” Tremayne said quietly. “We just burned up the last of their saved corn.” He buttoned the plate of wassador inside his shirt.

  Mr. Harriot and Tremayne helped Andrew back to their boat. At the fort, Mr. Harriot gave him a drop of Sir Walter’s opium tincture. The boy went down like the Frenchman at Marseilles.

  38

  ATTACK OR RESCUE?

  The next morning, Sky returned from his home island. He knew everything about the attack. He brought Andrew a paste he’d made from the stems and roots of a large-leaved plant with white flowers. It calmed the burn enough that Andrew could hobble.

  “I snared two rabbits for us,” Sky said. “We’ll roast them in the gully. No one will smell and ask to share.”

  He’d showed Andrew the snares. They were hoops of grass so slight they barely made a shadow.

  When they got to the gully, Sky gutted the rabbits. As he flicked out the innards, Salt snapped and swallowed them in midair. Sky pulled his needle from the cord around his neck and a strand of silk grass from the pouch at his waist. He sewed the belly skins back tight. “We roast them in their skins,” he said. “Saves the juice!”

  As the two boys ate, Salt munched the bones to nothing, then settled happily to gnaw the heads.

  “We killed him,” Andrew said slowly. He pinched his lips together. “We were going to be friends and make them Christians. For a while he did what he could for us….”

  “You had to,” Sky replied. “You heard what Skiko said.”

  “We made him do it,” Andrew said. “If the Tyger hadn’t sunk, it would all be different.”

  Sky looked at his friend. “It’s not your fault. What could you do? And if you’d been the captain, would you have done different?”

  “That’s about what Mr. Harriot said,” Andrew replied. “I asked him if Sir Walter would have done the same. ‘To keep us safe he would. He’s a soldier above all’ was his answer.”

  May in that land was like spring in Devon, with wild white roses scenting the air, the green shading darker with every rain, and overnight new leaves sprouting on the brush like mouse ears. In a sunny place, a square-stemmed mint put forth a fist of red flowers. Birds no larger than English moths came hovering to sip them. There were mats of moss thick and soft as velvet pillows. Green scum formed on the ponds; in shallow places frogs laid eggs.

  Every day, Captain Lane sent teams of scouts and hunters to the mainland, looking for food and signs of Indians gathering to attack. “No people,” they reported back. “Little game.”

  Andrew and Sky spent most of their time hunting food too. Sky showed Andrew new shoots to eat and tubers of something he called groundnuts. They gave Andrew the cramp, but he fed better than some.

  The captain worked the men harder than ever to keep them from despair. The moat was dug deeper, the fort strengthened, huge piles of wood were gathered along the shore for bonfires to welcome the relief he assured them would arrive any day.

  “All will be well,” he said. “The supply will come and you’ll grow fat again. You will tell your children and grandchildren about this place. Some of you will come back to stay!”

  He ordered the watch kept day and night for Indians and Spaniards. Relays of scouts checked the mainland. They saw no one.

  Since his first visit to Pemisapan’s village, Andrew had been curious about the medicine root the priests placed on the beds of their dead in the burial lodges and chewed for food on their long trips.

  “We gather it now,” Sky explained. “When the hot days come, the leaves die off and you cannot find it.”

  They had just dug a clump in the woods along the shore when they heard hollering.

  “We are discovered!” gasped a half-dead runner from the farthest watch. His legs were bloody from falls and scrapes. “Many sails! Spaniards come to clear us out! Run! Warn them!”

  Andrew and Sky raced to the fort.

  The captain ordered all the bonfires lit to make the Spaniards think the English had a great force on the island. He had the signal mirrors flashed and the fort’s bell rung to call folks in.

  The boys ran to their tree house and hauled up. The line of ships stretched longer and longer as they watched.

  “If they’re Spanish, I’ll take you to my village,” Sky murmured.

  “If they’re Spanish, we’ll fight them off or die rolling in our blood!” Andrew replied.

  A half hour later the second of the three watchers staggered up to the fort, his boots gone, his face torn from stumbling into brambles.

  “They show the flag of St. George! They are English or pirates pretending to be English!” he said, panting.

  The third watchman followed soon after, crying as he stumbled, “English! Admiral Drake’s ensign! His fleet!”

  By now the captain could make them out through Mr. Harriot’s glass.

  “Flash the mirrors to signal welcome!” he ordered. “Row us out!”

  “I can’t take you along,” Andrew whispered to Sky.

  “I know,” the Indian said with a wry smile.

  Andrew looked at him, then looked away.

  The flagship’s name was carved on her stern, Elizabeth Bonaventure. At her prow she bore a great golden figure representing the Queen.

  As Captain Lane and his people rowed up, the Elizabeth’s pilot yelled, “Where are your harbor marks?”

  “There is no harbor!” bellowed Captain Lane. “Stay deep or you’ll go aground!”

  Sir Francis stood on the deck to greet them, a burly, smiling, round-faced man with a broad red beard.

  “I’ve come at Sir Walter’s request to find how you do,” he said by way of greeting. His voice was strong and clear. Andrew liked him from the start!

  “On our way here, we sacked the Spanish fort to the south at St. Augustine,” the admiral continued. “They will do you no mischief now.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Captain Lane as he clambered aboard, “but our present enemy is hunger. The promised resupply has failed us, and things do not go well with the Indians. We need to move but we have no fit vessel.”

  Sir Francis was not one to hesitate.

  “I will supply you,” he said with a firm nod. “Food for a year and the Francis, a vessel small enough to manage your shoals and bars yet large enough to move you to a better place on the Chesapeake.”

  “This is Christmas, truly!” said the captain with a bow.

  “Ah!” said Sir Francis, beaming. “Perhaps you and your best people will join me tonight in my cabin for supper? We’ll toast the Queen and her explorers!”

  “We’d be honored,” said the captain. “I’ll send out a crew to trans
fer supplies and bring in the Francis.”

  The guests went back to wash and put on their finest. Andrew unfolded his page’s outfit. He hadn’t put it on since leaving Durham House. There were moth holes in the jacket. It was tight. The sleeves were short.

  Sky watched him dress. “You are not Andrew now,” he said quietly.

  “Who am I, then?” Andrew asked with a surprised laugh.

  “Allegiance man to Sir Walter.”

  “Perhaps you will become one too?” Andrew said, looking closely at his friend.

  “No,” said Sky, shaking his head. “I am an Indian. I cannot become a Raleigh English, just as you cannot become one of us.”

  “Andrew! To the boat!” Tremayne yelled.

  Andrew avoided Sky’s eyes as he left.

  Everyone wore such finery as he had, except Mr. Harriot. He wore what he always wore: his long black coat.

  Admiral Drake’s cabin smelled of clove and glowed with polished rosewood, bright rubbed brass, beeswax candles, decanters of gold-colored wine, platters of roast pork. The food was served on shining plates. The party stood and cheered the Queen, Sir Walter, Sir Francis, and Captain Lane.

  “And Virginia!” called Mr. Harriot. “A toast for her! She’ll outlast all!”

  Folks yelled and drummed their boots. Andrew sat still; his burned foot was still sore.

  39

  HURRICANE!

  “There will be a great storm,” Manteo warned.

  “How can you tell?” Mr. Harriot asked.

  “No fish come in. I feel a strange rising in my hair.”

  Captain Lane’s picked crew was out on the Francis, transferring supplies from the Elizabeth Bonaventure. There was no time to warn them. The freak weather came up fast under a yellow sky, with thunder, lightning, tearing winds, and jagged pieces of ice large as grapes. As the winds gained force, branches and small trees shot past like cannon fire on the hailing winds.

  They’d had gales and storms on the island before, winds that had laid the marsh reeds flat and chewed up trees straggling to grow along the water’s edge. This was different: the spears of lightning were huge and lingering. The winds blew fierce from one quarter, then turned to attack from another. There was no safety anywhere.

  “Woe for the ships out there!” Mr. Harriot yelled as sheets of rain and hail whipped through Drake’s fleet, tossing vessels like leaves.

  “Woe for us!” Tremayne shouted back as part of the log wall they were huddled against gave way.

  Andrew and Sky clung to each other, shivering in Andrew’s coat. Salt lay buried in the boy’s blanket.

  It raged wind and rain all that day and night, the water sounding like the sea coming down on them, the wind screaming and making eerie whistles as it caught in corners. At one moment the air blew warm, the next cold.

  With a thundering crash, the huge tree they’d hung with bags of gunpowder at Christmas toppled into the fort. It was open to Spaniards now. Spaniards they could fight; there was no defending against the killer storm. All was chaos, noise, and wet. The moat was frothing foam and whitecaps.

  Toward dawn it grew still, then cleared to cloudless blue. Birds sang. The air was pungent with the smell of shredded cedar.

  The boys helped Mr. Harriot climb up to their tree house. He searched the water with his glass.

  The ships were scattered.

  “Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen…”

  He got to twenty-two.

  “One’s missing!” he exclaimed.

  He was scanning the coast for wreckage when he picked up a dot on the horizon.

  It was the Francis, making for England under all the sail she had left—their exploring ship with Captain Lane’s picked crew, the resupply of food and necessities—gone!

  40

  THE RUSH TO LEAVE

  The wind had calmed, but the sea was running high—roiling, ugly water with branches and whole trees smashing against the bank.

  Captain Lane ordered a crew to row him out to Admiral Drake. He sat gray-faced in the small boat as the rowers pulled hard and Andrew, Tremayne, and Mr. Harriot waded alongside, pushing it off against the pounding waves. Once the boat was launched, they pitched themselves in, soaked like a pack of wet dogs. The captain didn’t look much better. He wore no finery.

  The Elizabeth Bonaventure’s deck looked like the Tyger’s after her grounding. Teams of sailors chopped and slashed away wreckage of masts, spars, jibs, booms, and tackle as others hurried lumber and fittings to the sweating carpenters. Coils of rope and mounds of canvas lay by the hatches.

  “We have nothing to sail with,” the admiral muttered. “We’re stuck here like a molting grub until these men grow us our new wings. The hull is sound, though, and the pumps are working. With luck she’ll be rigged and ready before the next storm hits,” he said, looking up.

  The morning’s blue sky had turned dull pewter.

  “But for the skill of my sea captains, we’d all have wrecked onshore,” said Sir Francis. “As it was, we took more cuts, bruises, and broken bones than we got storming St. Augustine!”

  “We lost the Francis,” the captain said, pointing. “I’ll have those people hanged for mutiny!”

  The admiral shook his head.

  “Given that storm, no jury in England will convict. It was the sea captain’s order. He’ll say he left these waters to save his ship.”

  As Captain Lane went “Pfft,” Sir Francis looked up sharply. “I would not vote to convict them, sir!”

  Andrew and Tremayne exchanged glances as the captain stiffened, his face darkening. Before he could say anything, the admiral pointed at the sky. “More weather threatens, Captain. We must be off too!

  “I can leave you supplies and another vessel. She’s bigger, though. Not so handy for exploring. Or I can return you all to England.

  “Answer within the hour! We depart in two,” he yelled as he hurried forward to direct the stepping of a new mast.

  The sky was low and ugly again. “A sign from an angry God,” one of the rowers muttered as they worked their way back to shore. Andrew watched to see what the captain would do. Ordinarily, Captain Lane would have slapped the man or given worse for that. As it was, he sat unseeing, hearing nothing.

  Once onshore he called an assembly. Everyone knew about the Francis’s escape.

  “Admiral Drake offers more supplies and a larger vessel—though not so good for exploring,” he announced. “We may take them and stay, or he’ll carry us all back to England. Do we leave or stay?”

  “Leave!” was the shout. There was not one voice for staying, not even Andrew’s. He looked at Tremayne, then looked away.

  Captain Lane signaled the admiral’s flagship.

  “Sound trumpets and ring the bell to call in all,” he ordered. “We leave within the hour.”

  Soon the fleet’s small boats could be seen dropping into water like eggshells to collect the explorers. All was uproar and disorder as men scurried to gather the few things they could save.

  Sky stood watching as Andrew helped Tremayne and Mr. Harriot stuff a trunk willy-nilly with papers, specimens, dried plants, the journal of the year’s exploring, and a string of pearls for the Queen.

  “Will you go with us?” Andrew asked his friend.

  Sky nodded slowly.

  “He goes with us,” Andrew said, pointing to Sky.

  Mr. Harriot shook his head. “No!”

  “He can’t stay,” Andrew cried. “To the Indians he is no longer an Indian. They will not trust him. He can’t go back to his village any more than Manteo can.”

  Tremayne and Mr. Harriot stared, silent.

  “If he stays, I stay,” Andrew said, sitting down.

  Mr. Harriot put up his hands. “If you can get him aboard, so be it,” he said. “I can do nothing for you.”

  Manteo helped the boys drag the trunk to the beach. Already a fleet of small boats was heading out with explorers.

  Andrew was afraid Captain Lane would try to keep Sky b
ack when it came time to muster. To his surprise, there was no muster.

  He shoved Salt into his saddlebag. The dog was heavy and protesting. In with him went flute, music, and the drug root he’d dug with Sky the day before. He wrapped a clay pipe in his cap for America and hurried with Sky to join Mr. Harriot and Tremayne as they loaded the trunk and climbed into one of the last boats.

  The wind had turned. As they pushed off, the sea fought them with drenching waves and whitecaps.

  The sailors were scared. “That last storm nearly did for us, and here’s another!”

  Their boat rode low. Waves lapped in as it pitched and rolled, taking on more water than they could bail.

  “Throw off your trunk!” the chief rower called. “Heave it or we’ll swamp.”

  No one moved. The sailor closest to Andrew raised his oar. “It goes or you do!” he bellowed.

  The boat lurched wildly as Andrew and Sky hove the trunk.

  As they boarded the flagship, they heard the whisper: “We left three behind—the scouts and hunters on the mainland.”

  Andrew turned to Mr. Harriot. “How can we leave our people?”

  “You heard Admiral Drake,” he said. “He told the captain he would not take another storm here. He gave us a choice: stay or go. There wasn’t time to fetch the others. It was leave them or we all got left.”

  That’s why there was no muster. There was no need to count.

  41

  A BRIEF AND TRUE REPORT

  They fed well on board—fresh bread, eggs, roast goat, apples, pork pies, suet pudding. Sir Francis saw to it they got fresh clothes—Spanish things from his raid on St. Augustine. The pioneers barbered each other and grew cheerfuller as they checked the admiral’s chart marking their progress home.

  Forty-one days after they’d lifted anchor off Roanoke Island, the Elizabeth Bonaventure hove into Plymouth harbor. She was expected. Since the Francis’s arrival days before, messengers had ridden day and night to get word to London. All of Plymouth was alert for Drake’s return with his shipload of explorers. Word got to Stillwell Farm. Andrew’s parents hurried to the port, collecting Rebecca on the way.