The galleon's grave hg-3

by Martin Stephen

  In the end there was no plan. No order. Drake simply led a mad, frontal assault on the Spaniards. It was pure folly. And it caught Spain completely by surprise.

  The sun was shining from a cloudless sky over Cadiz. A decent wind kicked over the surface of the sea, making it seem busy and useful. The heat of midday had passed, and the better folk were emerging in the late afternoon to take the air and to be seen. Down at the waterfront a troop of actors were playing to a large crowd whose hoots, cheers and jeers were faintly audible on the wind. The wine shops were busy servicing the needs of the sailors, but it was too early for them to have become troublesome.

  In the town there was music, laughter. 'Look!' said the pretty wife of a Cadiz merchant, 'More ships!' Then she giggled, as if ashamed that a woman should notice such things. The merchant turned his gaze out to sea. Ships, indeed. A line of ships, fourteen or fifteen great ships standing in for the harbour, the spread white sails of galleons with smaller vessels in front and behind, like so many hounds after the hunt. Every day new vessels for the King's great enterprise came to Cadiz, yet no convoy was due to land. The best bet was that it was Juan Martinez de Recalde, one of Spain's bravest admirals, returning to port with his squadron. Well, if was all good for trade, even if the King was taking over a year to pay some of his bills. There was a shout from one of a group of sailors who had been standing by a jetty, waving and shouting at the men of their round little merchant ship to send a boat out to them and save them the cost of a ferry. What was it? The merchant craned his head? Dark? Duke?

  Drake. DRAKE!

  The sailor had recognised the fine, sheer bow at the front, hardly any stern castle. English ships. Lean ships, sharp like greyhounds in comparison to high-sided Spanish galleons. The word cut through the crowds like a river of acid; people were turning, running, scattering as the terrible word reached their ears.

  There were officials of the town shouting orders now. 'To the castle! Take refuge in the fortress!' Some soldiers were bellowing back trying to shout down the officials, turn the crowds round, but it was pointless. A river of humanity fled up to the fortress, screaming, jostling, half blinded by the dust kicked up in their maddened rush. The street that led to the main gate was little more than a passageway, the seething mass of people funnelled into it. Screams, yells. A mother was caught, trampled, her little girl knocked out of her arms, sent bowling along the ground in a pathetic little flurry of lace and linen, howling until the noise cut off, suddenly, ominously. A man was spun round by the pressure of the flesh and bone of bodies forced against him, and cannoned into the rough stone wall, crushing his head. The press was so great that he could not even reach his hands up to grasp his wound. His head was visible, distinctive with the great red gash against the white of his skin. It spun round and round, like a top whipped by a child, as the mob roared their fear, until it dropped below the level of vision, dashed to its death on the rough cobbles.

  'Open the gate! Let them in!' screamed the guard.

  'Idiots!' the fortress commander screamed back. 'Fools! How can I fight a battle over a carpet of babies, old men and women! How am I to despatch my messenger to call for help when these people are in my way?' he cried in desperation. 'A message must be sent to Don Pedro de Acuna. Get out of the way!'

  The fortress commander's actions had at least reduced the number of civilians he had to worry about. When he finally opened the gate, bowing to the inevitable, twenty-five pathetically still bodies lay at odd angles, crumpled flotsam in the street. Don Pedro de Acuna, captain of the galleys, was indeed their only hope. He was to be addressed by the brave messenger that set forth through the throng of desperate townsfolk only by his full title. Would his six galleys, powerful ships with twin banks of oars and able to manoeuvre even in the flattest of calms, which had arrived from Gibralter only a few days earlier, be able to defend the harbour? How much help could the town's soldiers be in covering the Puental, the rock-strewn area of wasteland that divided the outer and inner harbour, the most likely place for the pagans to land?

  The English boats swept in to Cadiz harbour with as much confidence and bravado as if they were a squadron of ships under the command of the King of Spain. The galleys, apparently the only warships in Cadiz, came out to meet them, the water sparkling in the sun as it cascaded off the rising and falling oars. The English guns belched iron, and the galleys turned away, oars smashed. Like predators with no natural enemy, the buzzing hordes of English boarded, burned and moved cargo. Waste, thought Gresham, war was about waste. Terrible, dreadful, maniacal waste. They had boarded a fine merchantman, no more than five years out of the dock by the look of her. Men with skills that had taken decades to learn had built her, and in a sane world she would have plied the trade routes of Europe for years, doing no harm to man or beast, and feeding the blood of trade through the arteries of Europe's growing population. Wood and oil, salt and wines, olives and cloth would have filled her ample hold, her needs would have kept a fine captain and his crew in work and their wives and children with their bellies filled and made even more fortunes to rich, fat merchants. And now?

  The fire took hold immediately. A wooden ship, kept alive by tar and hemp, was a fire waiting to happen. It was getting dark now, and the bay was filled with the hellish glitter and roar of ships aflame. Everywhere small boats were rowing frantically, transferring cargo and in a few cases taking prize crews from the great English galleons back to the vessels Drake had decided to send home. The shadows flickering on the dark waters looked like demented gods of war dancing to the music of destruction. Few of Drake's men slept. There was too much to do.

  'You! You there!' Drake was barking hoarsely at Gresham. It was the first contact they had had since the counsel in Drake's cabin. 'Let's see your mettle. Let's see if you can fight! There's a bridge links Cadiz with the mainland. Take two boats and secure it for me. Earn your keep!'

  The inactivity, the waiting to be shot at had cauterised Gresham and George. They both leapt into the waiting boat, the sailors accepting their authority simply because they were dressed as gentlemen. 'Action at last!' breathed George, his craggy features lighting up with excitement. If he had any fear in him it failed to show. Probably there was none, reflected Gresham. His friend was not a complicated creature, and above all not a deceiver, for all he relished trying to understand the deceptions of others.

  Why not a bigger force?' gasped Gresham. 'Isn't the bridge the only link with the mainland? It's crucial if he wants to capture Cadiz.'

  'He doesn't want to capture Cadiz,' said George excitedly. Even in a relatively large boat his weight was making it slew over to one side. 'What would he do with it if he had it? Send an army he hasn't got to hold it indefinitely against every soldier in Spain? Think, ninny! He wants to raid and burn the ships in the harbour. That's all he wants, the ships and their cargo! If he puts token force on the bridge all it does is disrupt the Spanish communications, make them think twice about sending reinforcements from the mainland until dawn. He only needs until dawn.'

  They threw caution to the wind, heading straight for the bridge. As a result of their headstrong, uselessly youthful courage, there was no way they could hide when their nemeses appeared from behind a sand bank. The galleys leaped out at them from the flickering gloom, heading straight for them like an arrow. They had been hiding in the shallows, waiting for just such an assault. Mannion clutched Gresham's arm. Alarming. This was a display of emotion, a revelation of feeling. Even a sense of panic. Mannion never panicked. Mannion was a rock.

  'Master!' That word. Mannion hardly ever called him that. After all, Mannion was his father. His brother. His friend. He turned to him, pushing down the new feeling of seasickness that the motion of the small boat caused him, intending to tell him to stop fawning. Mannion's expression stopped him dead.

  'Master!' Mannion repeated. 'We're dead meat. D'ye hear me? Dead meat. Those galleys…' he motioned to the shadows bearing down on them, 'they ain't got ship-killing guns. They've go
t man-killing guns! They'll carve us dead. Get us out of here!’

  Gresham had never heard that pleading tone from Mannion before. But he suddenly saw that the galleys were even nearer than Mannion had thought. George was gaping, open-mouthed at them, realising even before Gresham that to all intents and purposes they were dead. As if on cue, the leading galley opened fire on the English boats. A gout of angry red and orange flame shot out from the bow. The twenty-five-pounder hit lucky. Appalled Gresham-saw the second boat dissolve in a welter of timber, blood, flesh and bone, all fragmented into nothingness by the massive impact of the iron ball. Cries, screams from the water.

  'Out of here!' barked Gresham, and the tiller swung round and the oars bit desperately into the water. A fighting madness seemed to overcome Gresham, a dizzy excitement at the prospect of death. 'We're dead!' he said to his astonished crew, and saw the oars fumble, fall out of time. 'We're dead by all accounts, because a feeble little boat like ours can't match the oars of that beast!' He motioned backwards with his head to the second galley, which he could hear and feel bearing down on them. 'Or to be more exact,' he propounded, holding himself upright in the bow of the boat as if he was delivering a lecture to his Cambridge students, 'we're dead unless we can row like devils and fuck these Spanish bastards back to Hell!'

  There was a cheer from the men, and the boat leaped forward as if it had been struck by lightning. They could smell the galley now, that same raw stench of human defecation that he had caught on the wind earlier. How did those on these ships survive this stench? Or did they simply become inured to it? Gresham turned. It was possible for an intelligent man to admire Spain. It was difficult for him to do at this particular moment. The second galley had pulled round, was heading away from them, chasing two pinnaces who had come too close. The first galley was bearing down on them, like an evil, dark gull, its wings the outspread oars lifting and falling to the rhythm of the drumbeat that Gresham could now hear on the night air. Their relatively small longboat had started faster, being the more nimble. Yet the galley was picking up speed all the time. Would they fire again? Of course they would. Gresham remembered how long it had taken the men aboard the Elizabeth Bonaventure to reload their cannon. An equivalent time for the Spaniards? The galleys were crack vessels, front-line ships. What had Mannion said? The bow guns were on brass rails, easily slung back for reloading. So knock seconds off the time for the English crew. His brain was computing loose mathematics at a frantic pace, figures of timing that started from conjecture and vague memory and whose ending could be complete fantasy. From somewhere in his brain came a count-down, a vision of the Spanish seamen heaving their gun back, flushed with pride and excitement at a direct hit on the first boat, and with their first shot! Scour the barrel. Sponge out the gun. Ram the powder charge down the barrel. Pack it tight. Choose the ball, the one that looked most round and perfectly formed — a bad gunner might force the ball through the iron circles he was issued with to test its calibre, a good one would simply judge with his eye — ram it down the barrel, forcing it snug against the powder charge. Prime the pan with loose powder now, or wait 'til the gun was run forward? Wait, of course, in case hurling the gun forward on its brass rails dislodged the fragile powder base in the priming pan. Settle the gun. Aim it, yanking out the iron pins crudely positioned under the brass barrel, lowering the muzzle so that it bore down on the insolent longboat full of men with the impudence to think that they could capture and sack Cadiz. Then, wait for the roll of the ship to bring the gun to bear, guess the exact timing of that roll, allow for the time it takes to apply the burning fuse to the priming powder the time it takes for the powder to ignite and send its flaring message into the barrel of the cannon and its major powder charge…

  Now, his brain said. At this very moment the Spanish gunner would be applying the slow match to the priming powder in his great cannon. Gresham lunged for the tiller and yanked it round to starboard. The oarsmen on that side found their blades digging deeper into the water, throwing them off balance. It helped the boat slew round even faster. A second later, the burning flare of the cannon was followed by the bellow of its rabid rage. The ball skipped into the water no more than three feet from their side, three feet from where they would have been if Gresham had not instinctively hurled his craft round when he did. A great spout of water drenched the boat, soaking the men. They cheered! The idiots cheered, as if escaping death by seconds was a matter for celebration!

  Gresham was counting down the loading process in his mind again. He was too far from shore to beach the boat and run. He could jink to left or right, of course, but his tighter turning circle would bring him inside the range of the Spaniards and their massed ranks of marksmen. He felt a tap on his arm. 'There!' said one of the crew. 'Captain! There!' Captain? Where had Gresham earned his commission, he thought? Ninety. Ninety seconds before the gun fired again. Why hadn't they opened fire with the other two bow guns? Because the target was so derisory? Because they were concentrating the best gunners on the main weapon? Eighty-five. The crewman was pointing to a line of water rippling in the reflected light from the burning ships in the harbour. Rippling? That must mean the water dragging over shallow ground. Too shallow for their boat? Too shallow for the pursuing galley? Would the galley's helmsman see the shoal from the height of his post, the slight ripples so much clearer the lower down and closer the watcher was? Seventy-five.

  Life was a gamble. Death was a gamble. Gresham half closed his eyes, took a deep breath. Sixty. He commandeered the boat again, this time hurling it round to run over the shallows. If they grounded they were all dead. Would the galley follow them? Perhaps it would just stand off, try to get close enough to rake them with musket fire or send two, three of its own boats to board their own. Fifty-five. A musket ball smashed into the side of their boat, sending fine splinters into the nearest crew. Gresham stumbled, regained his balance and touched his shoulder briefly. The crew cursed, but left the tiny spears of wood sticking from their flesh, keeping rowing, rowing, rowing. Lucky shot, Gresham registered. They were fifty or sixty feet out of range still. A musketeer or two risking a double charge of powder? Forty-five.

  The galley was turning to follow them! The graceful beat and slap of the oars in the water could now be heard clearly, the sheer beauty of the lithe creature pursuing them at total odds with its threat of death. Twenty. Something in Gresham's brain rang a warning, some dark and buried instinct. Now! His brain told him. They were going to fire now!

  The sharp crack of the cannon came just as the tiller bit into his hand. He saw the flash before he heard the noise, half turned round to check his dread instinct. He would swear for the rest of his days that he felt the passing of the ball above his head, smelled its hot breath as it brushed over them, landing beyond with a great splash of water. The gunner had fired too much on the up-roll, sent the ball high. And it was off-line too, some eight or nine feet to port. The galley's turn had foxed the gunner.

  Something scraped, a noise of wood on gravel. Gresham looked over the side. Little wavelets skittled over the surface of the dark water, yet even in that dark Gresham could sense a difference in the texture of light reflecting back from the waves. The shoal! They were over it! The noise had been an oar suddenly hitting shingle, only a foot or two below the surface. He felt the slightest of drags on the hull, and then their boat shot forward, as an arrow released from a bow. Gresham turned to look at the Spanish ship, bearing down on them, now almost within musket range. As if on cue, pinpricks of light started to show from its side galleys, and the air was full of tiny whistlings and the plop of musket balls falling into water. A man cried out, flung an arm away from the double-manned oar as if the wood had suddenly caught flame. Musket ball, on or near his elbow.

  Out in the bay several hulks were still burning fiercely, the fierce yellow and orange of the flames clouded by the thick black smoke.

  The rising, falling flickering light revealed ships moving, frantic activity. Ashore, the port commander ha
d ordered barrels of pitch to be set at strategic points, and these were adding to the light and the smoke, some trick of the wind taking the smoke from the burning ships and that from the shore to a point in the middle of the bay, and sending a huge column spiralling up towards the moon, as if all the devils in Hell were cooking a mighty meal with damp wood. Gresham stood at the stern of the boat, not scorning to drop to the deck to avoid the musket fire but simply not realising it as a danger. Head flung back, an expression of total concentration on his face, not a muscle moving without it being ordered to do so, he looked like a dark, young god manning a vessel on the Styx. In the boat, in front of him, fifteen men were flinging themselves at their oars, sweat glistening on their filthy brows, breath hoarse and gasping. The wounded man was writhing in agony in the belly of the boat, clutching his arm, the wet, sticky flow of blood staining his tunic and tingeing the water swilling around in the bottom.

  There was a gasp from two or three of the men, staring aft over Gresham's shoulder, and with no order given they stopped rowing, the boat rapidly losing way and starting to bob in the slight waves. They sensed the galley shiver as her keel brushed over the shoal. The captain must have realised the danger only at the last minute, ordered the helm hard over, because she was swinging round even as she struck. It was not a dramatic thing. Rather the graceful length of the galley heeled over as it started to turn, but instead of righting itself once the new course had been set, the heel became more and more extreme, the bow and then the whole hull rising up as it was pushed onto and over the shoal. The oars on her starboard side, so beautiful in the rigid orchestration of their movement, started to flail pathetically in the air as the side rose up too high for them to bite into the water. Soon the great, long timbers began to bang and crash into each other, dropping tiredly to smash against the hull like flopping fish too long out of water. With a grinding, wrenching noise the galley finally came to a halt, slewed round on its side, stranded.