The Queen's Bastard

by Robin Maxwell

  Still, as he called his secretary in to seal the letter, the King of Spain found himself in a state of great annoyance. Things were not at all working as God had so carefully designed. Men dared to question his orders and offer “better” solutions to the task at hand.

  Philip had thought when the opinionated old Santa Cruz died it had been a blessing. The man he chose to replace him, Medina Sidonia, would accede unquestioningly to all royal commands. But from the moment the Armada left Lisbon Harbor, the King had been challenged. Rendezvous points had been disputed, warnings about attempts to join land and sea forces in the presence of the enemy had been issued, requests for reinforcements, which all knew did not exist, had been presented. Medina Sidonia had complained about fighting with no harbor behind him, and harped on the Duke of Parma’s unending silence. This troublesome communication had flowed onto Philip’s desk in a foul and unceasing torrent.

  And Parma had proven worse yet, begging for more and more time for the building of his fleet of low, flat boats, claiming that anything but the most perfect weather would rule out the rendezvous with the Armada, prohibit the crossing, and quash the invasion altogether.

  It was this lack of support from the men upon whom he most depended that had forced him to author the Secret Orders — the one document in his long career that Philip regretted having written. The thought of that parchment, now lying in a sealed box in Medina Sidonia’s cabin, caused the King to rise suddenly from his chair. He must move, despite the pain in his knees, must walk the thought of that dreadful letter out of his mind. He left his council chamber and made for the Church of San Lorenzo el Real where he would pray once again for forgiveness, beg for understanding. For the Secret Orders were nothing less than an affront to God.

  He must hold fast to his faith, thought Philip. Surely, despite this lapse, the Almighty would reward him for his devoted service. The invasion would succeed as planned, and the letter would never have to be opened at all. Its contents were to be revealed to the Duke of Parma only in the event that by some awful miracle the English gained the advantage, and the invading army found itself stymied or stalemated on the heretic queen’s island. If that happened, read the orders, Parma should negotiate three points with Elizabeth. Religious freedom for English Catholics. The return of his cities in the Netherlands. And reinstatement of the English exiles. A cash payment would be nice if it could be arranged, but it was less important.

  It was a dreadful document, a shameful capitulation, he knew. Parma would probably say that if Philip would settle for so little, no invasion had been needed in the first place. And damn Medina Sidonia! If the two of them had simply abided by God’s divine plan, had had faith in his Great Enterprise, the Secret Orders would never have been necessary. And he would not, every day of his life till he died, be forced to his knees seeking forgiveness for his humiliating lapse of faith.

  The King of Spain could only pray, and pray he did, that his great Armada would overcome all worldly obstacles and human fallibility, bring glory to his kingdom, to Rome, and to God Himself.

  Fifty-three

  “Hellburners!”

  “Jesus save us!”

  These were shouts and cries I heard from sailors and soldiers of the San Martín, and from ships surrounding us, and in eerie echoes from vessels at the far tips of the Spanish crescent, still anchored off Calais. Men were falling to their knees, clutching at the robes of priests as they scurried to tend to their flock. No one could tear their gaze from the line of English fire ships, masts and sails ablaze, now heading slowly towards the central bulge of the Armada.

  I saw Medina Sidonia stride to the rail, calm and braver than he had a right to be. That very morning, I learnt from a livid Jorge, he had had confirmation that Parma would never meet him, in deed could never meet him. That the flat bottomed barges he had been bound to build and provision were nowhere near ready. That Parma had never bothered to oversee the work done on the boats, thus allowing the Dutch shipbuilders he had hired to sabotage their own efforts. Such bad news, of course, was allowed no circulation amongst the Spanish troops, for morale was already very low, and mutiny a hairs breadth away. Instead, from the time of the message ships arrival, I had heard rumors that Parma was already on his way with one hundred and fifteen vessels to add to our own.

  As night had fallen the Armada had found itself trapt tween the Calais shore and the English fleet, upwind and uptide of them. The Duke and every man under his command had known without a doubt that the enemy would turn fire ships against them. There was nothing new in such a strategy. Twas the very device used against Drake at Cadiz. Medina Sidonia had in deed been so confident that the English would attempt using fire ships, that even now several of his own patrol vessels with grapnels were rowing out to meet the enemy before they reached the Armadas first line. But now the Duke and the men of his fleet could see that the fireships were more in number and very much larger than they had imagined. And the real terror that gripped them came not from the mere sight of eight tar and pitch covered vessels, flames licking their masts and rigging, but from a terrible knowledge — for some a memory — shared by them all.

  In Antwerp not three years before, the Dutch had especially refitted a fire ship with all cannon double loaded with shot, and all holds filled to brimming with gunpowder. Then they had turned it on the Spanish trapt on shore. The flames had reached the powder, and an unimaginable explosion had blown burning wreckage a mile round the harbor, slain one thousand Spaniards in an instant. Now it was rumored that Giambelli, the very same engineer who had designed this monstrous “hellburner,” was in the service of the Queen of England.

  The fully engulfed fire ships — gun ports spouting flames, fountains of red hot embers from each of them rising high into the night sky — flowed inexorably with the tide and wind towards our giant mass of timber and canvas vessels. I heard prayers and hopeful murmuring round me as we watched our patrol boats with their grappling hooks and lines, divert one ship on either end of the mile long line. Then with a terrible and sudden volley of blasts, red hot cannon began exploding, scattering shot in all directions.

  Shrieks of terror. These were the dread hellburners! And the patrol boats had failed to stop them. Here on the front line I stared openmouthed to think that death by burning had, for the second time in one month, become my probable fate. As the cannonade grew louder and the glow of the fire ships brightened the sky and water before us, as the cries of panic rose all round, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, still calm, began to call his orders.

  “Slip your anchors and buoy them! Ride out clear of the fire ships path and reassemble with the change of tide at your buoys at morning light!”

  But the vessels, so tightly crowded, could barely turn. Sailors scrambled up rigging in the dark to make sail. Ships collided with ships. On one vessel I saw a frenzied mob gathered round a sailor trying to slip the anchor cable as ordered — the crowd screaming at him to cut the thing and be done with it! Finally he was shoved aside and a soldier with an axe severed the cable with a few blows. Within moments the ship was moving. I wondered as I clutched the rail, watching clusters of vessels round me leave their anchorage, how many of them had cut the cables in their panic, and wondered, too, if we on the San Martín would escape before the boats from hell blew us into oblivion.

  Suddenly the wind took our sails. The way had come free and we tacked away at a good speed. Twas only then, with a cool wind on my face and the six monstrous balls of fire drifting towards the now empty anchorage, that it occurred to me — the ships could not possibly have been hellburners, for fully engulfed in flames as they were they would by now have certainly exploded. They were simple fire ships and from the looks of things, not one Spanish vessel had suffered damage.

  But something else had. The Armadas protective crescent formation, for the first time since its assemblage, had been dispersed. We had scattered, lost the awesome strength of our tight bound phalanx. I knew little about warfare on the sea, but logic told me th
at the Spanish fleet, finally broken apart, was a better target for the English captains. So I fixed my mind on the morrow and prayed with all my heart that dawn would see the battle which would banish these God obsessed creatures from our shores, and that I would live to tell the story.

  Six great galleons straining hard against their anchors in the bright windy dawn were all that was left of the once mighty crescent. None of the soldiers or sailors of the San Martín had slept below, but out on deck or at their posts. Some had been lulled to sleep where they sat, exhausted from terror of the fire ships which, in the light of day, showed as smoking skeletons scattered on sandbanks and the southern Flemish shores. The other Spanish ships — one hundred and thirty of them — lay studded like far flung pearls in the moving fabric of greyish green water, some as far as ten miles to the north, others as far out to sea. We saw dozens of hulks and galleons carefully skirting the dangerously shallow Dunkirk banks. The vice flagship of Moncado, the San Felipe, lay stranded upon Calais Beach, her oars and cannon poking helplessly skyward, her men at the ready to defend her against all comers.

  I rejoiced to see the English fleet strong and altogether intact, lying southwest of us where they had last been anchored at the time of the fire ships. Medina Sidonia had spent this desperate night in the high lookout. I can scarce imagine the torment he felt to see his great Armada so sundered, weakened by distances and the panic which had caused them. Most ships, he now knew, had in deed cut both their anchors and with a south westerly wind blowing, would find it impossible to reassemble round their Admiral.

  Finally the Duke descended from the nest, allowing Jorge to help him down the last rung, and they passed by me on the way below. Since the wind would not allow the Armada to come to the Duke, he had decided the San Martín and five other nearby galleons would go to the Armada. Perhaps thirty of their number were sailing hard to join us when the English, not wishing to let their advantage slip away, charged.

  Medina Sidonia spoke quietly to his pilot. Then trumpet blasts rent the air, and the six warships came into a line side by side. As I hurried to my own post high in the castle I saw the other Spanish vessels sailing hard to overtake us. More warships came up to flank the line, and the weaker craft fell in behind. Astonishingly, the captains had recreated a semblance — diminished tho it was — of the original crescent formation.

  The English were coming with the wind and coming fast. A pretty flagship raced towards the San Martín. We held our fire — we were on our last day’s supply of heavy shot and could not afford to miss — till the ship was at such close range I could read its name, Revenge. I felt like cheering. This was Drake, I knew it was!

  He opened fire and so did we. Twas a cannonade to shake the Heavens! Thunderous explosions. Cannonballs flying and crashing, tearing into rigging and deck, holing the sides of both ships. The barrage of small artillery made a fearsome noise, and in this melee I shot wild, or shot down at the deck of the San Martín, picking off what sailors and soldiers I could without detection. Once delivered of its load, the Revenge swooped away and another ship took its place. And another. Their lengthwise attack formation levied formidable consequences upon us, the men of the Armada now recognizing with growing alarm that this, the English captains original and most daring maneuver, would be used again and again as morning dragged on into afternoon.

  Our ship was a shambles, and the English had a clear advantage, yet I found my self urgently thinking there was more I must do! The San Martín’s heavy shot was still coming hot and fast, and I worried at the damage it was doing to the English ships. Several arquebusiers round me lay dying or dead. With a loud cry I fell back, and dipping my hand in another mans blood, smeared it heavily on my forehead. No one saw me or cared, but thus disguised as a badly injured man, I stumbled down the castleworks and made my way — dodging bullets and falling debris — to the lower gun deck.

  That dark and deafening place was a Hell, but I aimed to make it more of one. All gunners were either hard at work at their posts, dead or wounded. A man lay sprawled halfway out a great gaping hole in the hull where a fifty pound ball had crashed thro. Another sat, back to the wall, alive but noise maddened and entirely paralyzed but for his chattering jaw. I grabbed a handful of powder and kneeling low, strewed it behind the gunners. Another handful and another. I was forced to suddenly slump against the wall and play dead as several new gunners came to replace those downed on the gun deck. They shoved away the fallen, began their tasks, and I renewed my surreptitious efforts. Now I found splinters of wood, bits of canvas and dry rope, and tossed them amidst the powder. Then I set it alight and it burst into smokey flame.

  “Fire, fire in the gun deck!” I shout. Gunners turn to see a wall of flame behind them, never knowing how brief a conflagration it will be, and run for their lives. I have no time to lose. Grabbing hammer and half a dozen iron posts I race to the first culverin and pound the post into its touch hole. When it is firmly imbedded I break it off low, move to the next cannon. The next and the next. I have thus spiked five big guns rendering them useless when I hear angry shouts behind me. The fire quenched, the gunners have returned to find their mate in an act of outrageous sabotage.

  They rush me shrieking Spanish curses. I bolt, the door blessedly clear. I fly up the steps to the deck. Thick smoke. Screaming. A stray bullet parts my hair, pings off an iron fitting. No time to stop, think, plan. The gunners at my heels. I run aft, dodge a falling sail, shards of the castle wall. I slow to grab a rope which uncoils as I quickstep across the deck, alive with sound and fury. Pull taut the rope. Hear the angry grunts of gunners tripping, cursing. “Traitor!” they scream. “Kill him!” Come face to face with Jorge, eyes hurt and unbelieving. Shove him aside. Stand frozen, back to the rail. See them coming thro the smoke, coming. Death at the hands of my enemy . . . or else the sea. A choice from Hell. Tis not my moment to die. I vault the rail, am suddenly airborne. Flying. Tumbling. Falling towards the maw of the great churning beast of my blackest nightmares.

  How long have I been floating in terror, the thick of the battle raging all round and above me? Half drowned, clinging to a raft of broken hull, deafened by the cannons roar. Helpless, praying that I not be crushed amidst the hulking galleys, battered by wild swinging oars, bombarded by cannonade and potshots leveled by English small armsmen.

  It seems for ever, that ocean siege. I have floated away from the San Martín, amidst some other fights. I see scuppers running with blood. Bodies by the dozens thrown overboard into the sea. Two ships, Spanish and English, sail so close to one another they crash together, two shuddering wooden behemoths. Out of large shot, only their arquebusiers and musketeers can carry on. I see an Englishman, puffed with some insane bravado, actually leap upon the Spanish galleons deck, only to be hacked to death in an instant.

  Is it wishful thinking? The English vessels appear somehow less damaged. How can that be, fired upon at such close range? The Armada is battered. Every sail in tatters. Masts toppled, rudders smashed. Badly holed between wind and water. Once I call up to an English sailor, “Help me! I am an Englishman!” He cannot hear me over the roar. But he sees my uniform. A moment later a musketeer appears at the rail. Fires at me. Shatters the corner of my makeshift raft.

  Then suddenly the weather changes. A squall. Violent. Fierce wind. Chop becoming churning waves. Higher, louder. The English turn and sail away. “No, don’t leave me!” I cry but they cannot hear, disappearing into the distance leaving me to clutch my raw ark, rise with the crests and drop into the troughs. Waves crash down upon my back. I choke and spit. My hands bleed as I claw at the slippery, splintering wood. O God, is this how I shall die? Is this how I shall die!

  It ends suddenly, as it began. The sea flattens. Tis night still. A moon flits in and out of clouds. I am dead exhausted. Lying face up staring at the stars. The stars. Those heavenly orbs which rule our destiny. They glitter down on me, a poor dying man.

  Something bumps the raft, drags a corner down. I turn to shove it awa
y. But what I see stays my hand. Tis an English uniform! A headless body wearing an English uniform!

  I somehow heft the gruesome corpse aboard. I strip my self naked. Pull off the Englishman’s clothes. Struggle into his shirt, breeches, jacket. Say a prayer for his soul. Push him off the raft. I am sick with pain and fatigue. There is nothing to do but wait for the dawn. But I am again in the uniform of an English soldier and I am content with that blessing.

  When day comes I am greeted by a sight more beautiful than I could hope to dream. The ships of the Spanish Armada, mangled and limping, are strung out along the Flemish shores. Closer and closer are they driven to their doom on the sandy shoals. Finer still is the sight of the English fleet, smart and tidy and entirely intact. Now with the wind at their backs they are making for the Spaniards to harry them from their waters altogether. And God be praised, on their present course they will easily intercept me. I feel my rescue close at hand.

  But I am weak, battered, and in questionable circumstances. I know no details of the English fleet except what I have seen from a distance, nor whom I should claim to be. I fear I may blunder in my weariness. Still, I have not come so far and suffered so greatly to be denied acceptance by my own.

  When I believe they are within hailing distance I cry out in my native tongue, wave my arms, determine I have been spotted, then feign a collapse into unconsciousness. In good time I feel my body gently lifted aboard ship, and still pretending to be dead to the world, celebrate the sound of my countrymens voices. I swear, the swoon is half real, so overcome am I with grateful relief that I will live to see England once again. I am going home. I am going home.