The galleon's grave hg-3

by Martin Stephen

  By now Sidonia was exhausted, and a film of dust covered him from top to toe. It would never do. A commander had to be seen to be the part, as well as to do it. He turned to a meagre house and waited for its screeching inhabitants to be evicted by his men. They would come to no harm, and afterwards would become the talk of their friends because the great Duke had changed in their hovel. He wrinkled his nose at the stench inside, but allowed himself to be changed and put into new clothing, more resplendent than his riding garb, more slashed and jewelled. Let the people see the King's representative glitter a little in front of them. It would do no harm.

  Could he do anything about the outrageous arrogance of the English ships in the harbour? Very little, he suspected. Fireships must be tried to drift down in the English vessels, but with so little wind the English could easily divert them, if their discipline and control held. Sidonia never underestimated Spain's enemies, as did so many other of his aristocratic colleagues. Heathen devils though they were, they were professionals. Yet the fireships would boost the morale of the garrison and the inhabitants, even if they failed.

  He paused to take food and wine, rationing himself to half an hour before riding off to inspect the result of his day's arrangements. In a matter of hours chaos had been transformed into order. His face was calm, composed, showing sign neither of the fact that he was not displeased with his efforts, nor of the fierce anger he felt at the English impudence. For the first time he felt the desire to launch a great fleet in revenge.

  The call went out for men to man a boat. Drake wished to know if any unseen problems had arisen now that the ships had left Cadiz harbour and were at sea, and subject to the full stress of wind and wave. As they scudded round the fleet, aided by the brisk wind and the tiny sails they carried, they became more and more amazed. The first shot fired from the great culverin the Spaniards had mounted in Cadiz had pierced the hull of the Golden Lion and carved off the leg of its master gunner, but after that, and despite the at times frantic cannonades from the shore, hot a single ship reported a single hit nor a casualty. Far from being exhausted by hauling the cables to bring broadsides to bear on the lurking galleys, the crews were becoming increasingly jovial and confident, beginning to think themselves invulnerable.

  Mannion was giving Gresham a lesson in gunnery as they bounced over the choppy seas to yet another English galleon. 'How can they miss so often?' Gresham had asked.

  'Well, it's like this…' Mannion was breathing easily, despite his rowing.

  'It's 'cos all gunners are stupid bastards! Pissed out o' their minds!' One of the sailors guffawed. There were no private conversations on a small boat.

  'Apart from that,' said Mannion, 'powder costs a fortune, so you ain't exactly encouraged to practise. They'll have fired off more shots this morning than they've done all year.'

  'Silly buggers still haven't learned much, 'ave they?' said the sailor, clearly setting himself up as the boat's chief entertainer.

  'Then there's the ball. Hardly any of 'em's perfect. It's called windage. Gap between the ball and the inside o' the barrel. If it's big, the ball gets less of a push. If the fit's snug, the ball goes further.'

  'Windage, is it? I thought 'as 'ow with gunners it were all piss and wind!'

  'Then there's the powder,' Mannion continued, ignoring the running commentary made on his every word. 'It's all different, burns differently. Even the same batch can change from one day to the next.'

  'End result,' said the sailor, 'is no gunner can 'it a piss-pot even if 'is dick's in it at the time!'

  There was no real supply of saltpetre in England. Laborious applications of human urine were the only way to remedy nature's deficit. Every gunner in the fleet knew his powder was composed in no small part of piss. It affected their humour.

  Anna had never been so bored in her life, nor so terrified. They had brought books on board, of course, even though there was a current debate over whether or not reading was likely to overtax the weaker female brain and bring on the vapours. And most of the books were sermons or edifying texts, though she had ploughed through them once, twice even, rather than face the prospect of nothing at all to engage her brain. She could walk on the quarterdeck at certain times, provided she was well protected from the sun, and feel the eyes of such men as could see her boring into her back. Well, that had been quite exciting initially, and a little thrill of a shiver had gone down her spine when she had realised how much she was the centre of attention. Then she had turned unexpectedly one day, caught sight of raw lust in a man's eyes before he could properly turn away, and she had felt sick. Her father had tried to breed horses in Goa, as much to pass the time as for any profit, but the venture had largely failed. Yet she had been brought to the field once, by accident, when they had also brought the stallion to the mare. She remembered the little foals she had been allowed to caress and give her easy love to. The end product might have been lovable, defenceless, sweet beyond belief. The process that led to it was brutal, sharp and short, a functional exercise in need and power. Would her French merchant take her like that, she thought?

  It did not stop her walking the deck. She was too proud for that, and her young body demanded the exercise. Yet it reduced her pleasure in the vista of the great, rolling sea, with its permanent hint of danger, of worlds yet to be discovered and of the total magnificence of nature. She learned the names of the birds that swooped around them even far out at sea, envying their freedom to fly where they wished, their careless abandon as they found a firm footing on a rolling yard arm, looking down their beaks at the dots who manned the decks below them. They had fired a cannon, once. That had been exciting. Truth be told, most of the cannon on board could not be moved, never mind loaded and fired, because cargo was piled in their way. Yet they had kept one or two ports open and hurled a broken barrel into the sea as a target, laboriously putting the ship round so as to allow the cannon to bear. The men had huffed and puffed, put slow match to cannon one, two and then three times. The thing had bellowed its noise, and Anna had seen the tiny splashes either far beyond or far to the side of the bobbing barrel. So much for battle practice.

  That left reading and sewing — not practical sewing, but the highly decorative tableaux that ladies were meant to produce — and practising her languages. At least they had a plentiful supply of books with them, in Spanish, English, Italian, Latin and Greek, their bindings only partly ruined by the damp heat of Goa. Her father had believed that girls should be educated and speak different languages.

  Her mother, that unfailing mainstay of her life, was clearly ill. At times she sank into a delirium so deep that for all the world she appeared as if she were dead. At other times she could talk, but was so pale that even Anna's impetuous spirit was restrained from asking her things that might increase her suffering. The ship's doctor came and made noises, but he was better suited to hacking off the legs of men who had fallen from the masthead and mangled their limbs beyond redemption.

  Anna knew her mother was dying. She knew it deep down, though her mind and body had decided to cope by not letting her admit the fact even to herself. Not yet. Not just yet.

  The days had seemed to pass in a blur. From Cadiz to a sun-blasted hole off Cape St Vincent called Sagres, for no obvious reason. Eleven hundred men put on shore and marched under fire for fifteen miles, and turned round again with many injured and many more angry and semi-mutinous. One Captain Borough had written to complain to Drake. Drake had court-martialled him, placed him under lock and key aboard his own ship! Sent a Captain Marchant to take charge of his ship. Then he had gone back and reduced Sagres castle to a smouldering ruin. 'Lisbon!' Drake announced before his weary crews had wiped the powder stains off their faces, or the dust off their feet. Was this the way Drake managed men? By ensuring they had no time to think? He turned to his Secretary, standing glumly by him as ever.

  ‘We have pulled the King of Spain's beard,' said Drake quietly to him. He looked inquisitively at the Secretary, who looked back, s
hook his head ever so slightly, and mouthed a word. 'Swinged?' hissed Drake incredulously. 'Swinged' was a slang word used for a man having sex. An even more tired expression came over the Secretary's face, and he mouthed the word again. Drake's brow furrowed, then his bushy eyebrows shot up in delight. He turned to the crew, his voice cutting through the rigging now. ‘We have singed the King of Spain's beard!' he announced, historically.

  'Santa Cruz is in there,' said Gresham quietly. Now Drake had anchored off Lisbon, the home port of Spain's greatest admiral. Gresham asked again to be put ashore, to be met by a curt refusal. This time no reason was given.

  'He'd better be bloody glad he ain't out here in front of me,' muttered Mannion.

  Were they going to attack Lisbon? The men were starting to mutter. The ships were foul now from their time at sea, Lisbon heavily defended, fewer than a thousand men fit and able to march. Then the wind blew from the north, and Drake was up and away, heading back south to Cape St Vincent. Men were falling sick. Drake sent them ashore, organised two vessels to take the worst affected home. His fleet pillaged up and down the coast, destroying hundreds of small coastal vessels, the vessels Cecil had so dearly wanted sunk, the vessels carrying the barrel staves and hoops for the Armada. And Drake gave Cecil a bonus, virtually removing the Spanish tuna fishing fleet from the seas, destroying the hamlets where the fishermen lived and their nets as well as sinking their craft. The fish they caught, when dried, were a staple part of the diet for all seagoing Spanish vessels.

  The release of the small, contained and ordered world of the Elizabeth Bonaventure was starting to pale. He was desperate to be landed to complete the task Walsingham had asked of him, paltry though it still seemed. He fretted about College, about London, starting to feel himself alienated from the only world he really knew. And he could not control his strange sense of dread, a sixth sense of unidentified danger. Did some of it come from the tall, lugubrious figure of Robert Leng, a supposed courtier to whom Drake had given passage and announced as his biographer? 'At least one man will tell the truth about my voyage!' he had announced. Gresham was learning that Francis Drake saw enemies everywhere, particularly where they probably did not exist.

  And then everything changed.

  Five days later, Drake took his fleet out to sea, despatched the vessels with the sick and injured on board back to England, and set off due west into the wide ocean. The Secretary made no appearance. The seamen rubbed their hands together with glee. That's it! 'E's seen a Spanish ship in his great glass! We're off to find some real treasure at last, lads!' one proclaimed. Two or three of the other crew muttered approving comments, circling lengths of rope carefully round so that when paid out in a hurry they would run smooth and not snag.

  'Have you ever seen this "great glass"?' asked George, cynically. He had grave doubts that Sir Francis did actually have a magic glass showing him the position of every Spanish ship at sea. 'Course not,' one replied, pityingly. 'Everyone knows it loses its magic if anyone else other than 'im looks into it.'

  Well, that was that, thought Gresham. What the hell was he to do? Drake was showing no sign of landing him, and his swimming ability did not run to jumping off the Elizabeth Bonaventure and managing the five miles to the Portuguese shore, even if he knew what direction it lay in.

  'Land-ho, two points off the bow!'

  What came next surprised them. 'Land-ho!' the lookout repeated, not in a normal voice but in a tone that had more than enough of a plain squawk in it, 'Two points off the bow… and a fucking great portuguese straight in front of it!' There was a clattering of men to the deck and clambering up the lower stages of the rigging, and a bellow from Drake.

  'Belay that language, d'ye hear?'

  'Aye aye, sir. Sorry, sir.' The reply came from on high. Long pause. 'But it is truly, fuckin' big!'

  There was a roar of laughter from the crew, part compounded of excitement. Drake chose to stand impassive, saying nothing.

  'My God!' said Gresham beginning to think after two months at sea that he had lived all his life in the same position on the main-deck of the Elizabeth Bonaventure. 'She's vast! I've never seen anything so big!' Drake's ships were impressive, but the great Portuguese carrack's tonnage was probably equal to three or four of the Queen's galleons. 'Will she fight?' She towered over the English ships, making them look puny, and there was a row of potentially lethal gun ports piercing her side.

  'For a bit,' said Mannion, very calm by the guardrail. 'As long as that thing you're so keen on, honour, isn't that what you call it, tells 'em to fight. She's back from the Indies, Goa probably. Packed to the gills with spices.' Mannion retreated into his own private world of sensual satisfaction. 'Pepper, cinnamon, cloves, spices. Spices!' He recited the names as if they were those of past lovers, which in a way they were. Mannion had a lifelong capacity to fall in love with delicately-spiced food, as well as with women. Spiced or plain. And to eat meat that was near rotten, if that was all there was. 'Silk, calico, ivory,' he added, with less enthusiasm. 'Plenty o' those. And a fair bit of jewellery. Not to mention some gold and silver — not as much as you'd get from a treasure galleon from Panama, mind, but a tidy bit all the same.'

  'And women?' asked George wistfully. He had propped his great shaggy head on the guardrail, cupped in his hands like a small child.

  'Mebbe,' said Mannion. 'Passengers, few servants. God help 'em! The captain'll fire a few cannon at us,' said Mannion. 'Aimed to miss, o' course, in case he gets Drake too angry. Then he'll haul down his flag, honour preserved. There'll be a lot of sick aboard. Long haul home from Goa. Few passengers. Decks piled high with cargo, so most o' the gun ports won't open, even if they wanted 'em to. Not used to pirates, these boats. Used to an easy ride 'ome.'

  They looked at the vessel that they later learned was named the San Felipe. Drake ordered four cannon fired. Strange, thought Gresham. They were bow-on to the San Felipe, so the four guns they fired discharged harmlessly into the empty sea on either side of them. Three cannon replied almost immediately from the San Felipe. If they had been aimed, it did not show. All three splashed harmlessly into the sea, several hundreds of yards from damaging any of the English fleet rapidly closing round the vessel.

  Drake responded by hauling the Elizabeth Bonaventure round so that her full broadside could have smashed the San Felipe's hull into splinters. He waited courteously until the great carrack had passed by the very last cannon, and then ordered the ship to fire. The sea behind her was torn to shreds, but failed to sink. The San Felipe was left miraculously unharmed. In return, she fired a cannon into the only bit of remaining sea free from an English vessel, now that Drake's squadron was gathering in on her. A short while after, her flag fluttered down to her deck.

  'Easy as that?' said Gresham to Mannion, flushed as was every other member of Drake's crew with their painless success.

  'Easy as that,' responded Mannion, 'if you've got the luck of the Devil. Drake doesn't want her damaged, and 'er captain knows 'e can't win.' Privately Mannion was beginning to wonder whether Drake was God's vengeance or the Devil's revenge.

  Drake snapped his fingers at George. 'You! This is your father's return on his investment. Come in the boat. Now.'

  'May I beg leave to bring my friend?' It was a stupid, foolhardy gesture. Yet Drake hardly seemed to pause, waved a hand in aquiescence. Mannion was left behind, fuming.

  As they boarded the San Felipe, a single, sad trumpeter had been mustered to mark the arrival of El Draco. He managed, in his abject fear, to blow a passing imitation of a cow's very loud fart. Nothing and no man could stand against Drake, could it? Drake was man enough to recognise the intention of the trumpet salute, rather than to judge it on its actual quality. He approached the Captain of the San Felipe, bowed to him and spoke a few words in broken Spanish. The Captain replied in equally broken English.

  'Did you give your permission for your men to rape me? Or are they allowed to do what they will with innocent passengers anyway?' The voice was young,
female, the English accented but perfectly clear. The tone was ice cold, controlled. She was tall and overwhelmingly beautiful, and was holding, with delicate, long-fingered hands, a shred of her dress to her shoulder where an attempt had been made to tear it off. An English seaman, one of the advance guard, was standing beside her, panting, eyes swivelling from the girl to Drake. Or one eye at least. The other was bleeding from what looked like a heavy blow.

  The simple, erotic power of this creature hit Henry Gresham as if it had been a kick to his stomach. Gresham hated beautiful girls. He loved their bodies, hated the power that love gave them over him. They knew the power they exercised over men, and used it ruthlessly. As a result, and revelling in their power, they became proud, ruthless and arrogant in equal measure.

  'So? Will you rape me now? Or later?'

  For the first, the last and the only time in his life Sir Francis Drake was stunned for words. 'Take that man and put him in chains!' he shouted eventually, pointing to the seaman. *You have taken this ship by farce… by force,’ she said, correcting herself and going red, which made her look even more beautiful, as the sailors started to laugh. Right first time, thought Gresham. It had been a farce. 'And these cowards of Spanish sailors here…' there was a venomous hatred in her voice. In fact,

  Gresham guessed, there was a lot of hatred in this girl. For whom and for what? What was her history, he wondered?