The galleon's grave hg-3

by Martin Stephen

  Good God! Gresham was aware. It was the system whereby a man had to grasp a red hot bar and walk with it a number of paces. If the wound healed clean, he was deemed innocent. If it festered, guilty. Was Drake going to brand him?

  'The theory is that man decides the action,' Drake continued, 'God decides the outcome. So I will place you in God's hands. One of my pinnaces has sprung some of her seams. She has been patched up on the island, but one of the many decisions of command facing me was to decide whether to destroy her, or risk trying to take her home. I had decided to destroy her.' Drake looked to his second in command. 'Captain Fenner. You will ready the Daisy for the voyage back to England. Starting tomorrow. Provision her as best you can. And choose me a crew for her. Start with that mutinous dog from Dreadnought the one we had decided to hang. I think her present Captain will do very well.' He stood up. 'You will go to the Daisy, now. I will send men to pick up whatever belongings you have on board the Bonaventure. If you make it home, God will have declared you innocent. As He will have declared you guilty if you do not.'

  'The girl?' Gresham asked.

  'I said I would honour the mother's wishes. They were that her daughter be protected. She will be. And that you were her guardian. I am happy for that to be the case. It is merely that for a few weeks you will be aboard the Daisy, while I act in your place here on the San Felipe. You will be reunited in England, God willing.'

  If I return, thought Gresham. He felt a wild stirring in his heart. A leaking ship, a mutinous crew — Drake was clearly taking the opportunity to scour his decks of all human filth — and a perilous journey home. Well, it was a chance. A real chance. Better than choking to death, swinging from a yard arm.

  Yet Drake had not finished. He turned to Robert Leng.

  'Have you finished your account?' asked Drake.

  'I have just this moment finished my account of your glorious capture of the San Felipe,' said Leng. 'The full copy is with your Secretary.' He looked sideways at Gresham, nervous, half expecting Gresham to leap at him.

  Then your job is done, is it not.?' said Drake. 'You may leave your manuscript with me. You will be keen to get back home. I have decided to provide you with a fast passage. On board the Daisy. You can act as guard to this young man.'

  'Sir! This is unjust! I have merely carried out my duty…'

  The knife moved so fast through the air that it seemed just a shimmering flicker of silver metal. It bit deep into the bulkhead, quivering, half an inch from Leng's ear.

  'I smell treachery!' said Drake bitterly. 'My own vanity. It was my own vanity, the need to have this voyage recorded that overlaid my sense of smell. But now I smell it in my nostrils. So shall it be between you and my young friend here. Guilty? Innocent? Let God decide. And the Daisy.’

  With that Drake let out a roar of laughter, continuing it as he left the cabin and mounted the quarterdeck. Leng had time to grab the letter before half running to catch Drake up.

  They could have spent all day comforting a stricken George, to no avail. He pleaded to be allowed to come with them. After one look at the Daisy, Gresham flatly refused. Their last sight of the Elizabeth Bonaventure was the mournful half-moon of George's face, watching them as they bobbed away and out of sight. Would Gresham ever see that cheerful face again? They had managed only a few snatched moments of conversation.

  Tm sure someone asked or ordered Drake to keep me on board, not to land me ashore. No skin off Drake's nose, if the price was right. He could always give some tissue of lies to Walsingham to explain why. I think what surprised him was when someone quite clearly tried to get him to kill me as well — he hadn't bargained for that.'

  'You're lucky Drake felt sorry for you,' said George.

  'Sorry? Don't be stupid!' said Gresham. 'Drake isn't giving me this chance because he feels sorry for me. He's giving a reprimand to whoever he takes his orders from, sending a signal that you don't deal with Drake unless you tell him the whole story. If whoever's working with Drake had told him to kill me, and paid the right price, Drake'd have me executed quicker than a blink.'

  The Daisy was a depressing prospect. Her Captain was a notorious drunkard, and had this last voyage not beckoned he would certainly have been relieved of any command. There were only fifteen crew members now, all minor criminals and one of them suspected of murder, and too small-a crew to properly handle and set even the paltry sail area the Daisy carried. The pinnaces were often much smaller versions of the great galleons that bobbed over the waves instead of ploughing through them, but with three tiny masts and some popguns on the side. The Daisy's third mast had snapped in the recent storm, and all that remained of it was the stump embedded in the deck. Even though it only carried a small lanteen sail, its absence threw the whole delicate balance of the ship out of true, forcing her bow lower in the water than seemed safe. Gresham knew that the masts on their own could not support the weight of the sail they were required to bear, and that the rigging tensioned them crucially. Was the rigging interdependent, Gresham asked himself? Were the three masts linked together in any significant way? If so, the balance of the other two masts must be out of kilter, subject to unusual strains and stresses… He decided there were some aspects of knowledge that were best not pursued.

  They found the Captain snoring, drunk in his tiny cabin aft, florid face flat on the table, outflung hand still grasping a pewter mug. A thin dribble of saliva hung from his mouth, staining the crude chart on the table.

  'Falmouth,' said Mannion, looking down at it. 'Chart o' the entrance to Falmouth. Bloody load of good in the Azores.'

  There were four really quite decent, high-backed chairs in the cabin — loot from some earlier escapade? — and Gresham sat down on one of them, motioning Mannion to sit as well. It was close in the small room, but it was private. The four sailors Drake had set to guard them were happy enough to wait outside. There was only one door into the cabin, and no window big enough to take Gresham, never mind Mannion. Gresham did not think the drunken Captain counted as a listener.

  'Well?' he asked Mannion.

  'I've 'ad better odds,' said Mannion. 'I've been 'aving a chat with the carpenter. The hull's shot some seams, but they've recaulked 'em. In decent weather they'll hold up long enough, probably. Losing the mast's a bugger; it'll make her sail like a crab. But they're fast these pinnaces. The real problem's rot. Carpenter reckons some of the timbers below the bilge 'ave got rot in 'em. Difficult to say 'ow many.'

  Some sailors feared it more than drowning. Rot was inevitable in a wooden ship, giving a natural limit to any vessel's life. The English used gravel as ballast, whilst the Spanish and Portuguese tended to go more for large rocks or even scrap metal. The gravel tended to shift less in bad weather, but it made it impossible to pump water out and increased the incidence of rot, as well as making it more difficult to spot. It tended to affect the central members, well below the water line, and particularly the crucial keel timbers under the bilges. Taking out the ballast to get at these timbers was a filthy, stinking job, and took time as well as energy. On the smaller vessels there came a time when repair was simply not cost-effective, particularly as even a tiny piece of rotten timber could infect any new, sound timber placed by it. The fear of rot came from the stealth with which it tore out the heart of a vessel. Every sailor knew stories of ships that had simply come apart in a storm without warning, crucial and hidden load-bearing timbers with the texture of crumbling clay suddenly giving up the ghost.

  'Why have the crew agreed to come?' asked Gresham. 'They must know what the odds are.'

  'They didn't exactly agree. They was told. By Drake. The choice was sail with the Daisy, or be put ashore.' Putting ashore would in all probability have meant the galleys, or even facing the Inquisition.

  'They're either all troublemakers or they ain't made themselves popular with 'is 'Ighness,' said Mannion. 'Apparently half of 'em were set to bugger off with the Golden Lion, but bumped into the Dreadnought who threatened to blow 'em out of the water u
nless they turned round and stuck with us. It's a toss-up whether Drake hangs a few of them as an example and sticks the rest in jail, or whether he says good riddance to bad rubbish and packs 'em off home. We come along. Makes it easier to pack every one off 'ome.'

  There was a particularly loud snort from the Captain. Something yellow was dribbling from his nose now.

  'What about stores?' asked Gresham.

  'Good, as far as I can see,' said Mannion. 'Picked up a lot of stuff in Cadiz, didn't they, so they can afford to be generous. Problem is, you never really know what you're going to get until you broach the barrel.' He was to remember that phrase a short while later.

  They had gone to the funeral, conducted with dignity and as much ceremony as they could muster, burying some of their own dead a few hundred yards off. Unusual for sailors, whose final resting place was a roll of canvas weighted with lead shot and fathoms of sea water above their heads for eternity. Afterwards, on board the San Felipe, Gresham had talked to the girl. Drake had allowed them a few minutes, though he had not dismissed the guard — She looked thinner than when he had first set eyes on her, but seemed even more beautiful. Her suffering had deepened her cheek bones, given her eyes an even greater intensity and depth. None of that intensity reflected affection. The girl's modest gown was designed to cover rather than accentuate the charms of the wearer, yet she moved like an athlete. Gresham could not banish the image of her naked body from his mind. Damn! This was not what the mother had wanted when she made him pledge his honour.

  'I'm sorry that I can't remain with you on San Felipe for your voyage home,' he said to her, trying to appear calm. 'I've been banished, in effect, by Sir Francis. But immediately you land in England I'll be there. I propose to house you at my home in London,' the vast Gresham property on the Strand, known simply as The House, stood largely empty, 'where there are some excellent female servants.' Dear Lord! He was sounding like the most pompous type of father. 'I'll also attempt to find a suitable lady to act as your chaperone.' And how the hell did a young man with no family left alive and a scorn for the Court do that, he wondered? He suspected his guardianship would require that he acquire rather too many new skills. God, she was beautiful!

  She looked up at him, fire in her eyes. 'Do you know what it is like to be treated as a packages?'

  'Pardon?' said Gresham, startled.

  'To be packed up, despatched, sent here and sent there. Treated like a packages!'

  'It's "package", actually…' said Gresham.

  'Something with no mind, no will of its own, no desires.' She ignored Gresham. 'Just an object. Well, do you?' Her voice was soft, husky, surprisingly low-pitched, but with a hint of steel in it.

  'Er… well, no. Actually.'

  'It would seem that God has a strange sense of humour.' This conversation was rapidly going away from Gresham. 'He gives His creation the capacity to love, and then rips the people we love out of our lives for his amusement.' There was no sign of excessive moisture in her eyes. 'But at least he has a sense of humour, and he recognises that we care. Men, it appears, simply think women are a packages. I am to be delivered to you. You will deliver me on.' She stood up. 'I hate you!' she said. The quiet control of her voice was more frightening than it would have been had she shouted. 'I hate you and all your kind. You who treat people like objects, who take away their freedom and their right to exist as themselves.'

  I think I could very easily hate you, thought Gresham. I really do not need you as a complication in my life at this present time.

  'Yeah, well,' said Mannion, picking his hollow tooth, 'you're not alone in that. Most people hate him, actually.'

  The girl gave a slight tremor. Was it the comment or perhaps the fact that it was a servant who uttered them? Such freedom was not afforded servants in the best-run Spanish households. Nor, now Gresham came to think of it, in the best English ones either.

  'Let's see…' Mannion poised for a moment's theatrical thought. 'Drake hates him. His bosses at home hates him. Both of those are trying to kill him, actually. The Spaniards had a good attempt at killing him, so they must hate him. The son of the Queen's Chief Secretary hates him. If you believe everything he says — and I tries to, 'cos I'm a good servant — the Queen, the Earl of Leicester and the Earl of Essex could all be trying to get 'im killed. Oh, and I forgot. His College in Cambridge, England, they all hates him as well.'

  Mannion gave up excavating his tooth. He had carried on throughout his little speech, causing some problems with comprehensibility.

  'And now it turns out you hates him as well. Fancy that, join the club. Funny thing, now as it comes to mind, I've had nothing but trouble since I met him. I hate the bugger too. Shall we all take turns in trying to kill 'im?'

  Anna looked from Mannion to Gresham, and back again. Gresham was looking at Mannion with an expression which intimated that he thought Mannion's colliding with a very heavy object would be a good thing.

  'Why did God give you a mouth to match your belly!' he thundered. 'Why did he put your brain somewhere lower down and feeing aft than your belly! I swear…'

  He turned. The girl had left, silently.

  'That could 'ave been better,' said Mannion. 'If you'd left it to me…'

  'If I leave a girl like that to you I'd be like a shepherd giving the flock over to a lion while he has a rest.'

  'Me?' said Mannion incredulously. 'Me a lion? Give over! I'm the donkey. Problem is, sometimes a donkey 'as more common sense than a lion!'

  Gresham had become used to the easy motion of the Elizabeth Bonaventure. The Daisy seemed to fight the water instead of working with it, recoiling when the light waves slapped her thin hull, seeing them as an insult rather than a caress. They left harbour with no fanfares, skulking out at sunset in the hope that the gathering gloom would mean that no one would notice. But even a crew such as this could set sail with a kind westerly directly behind them.

  God knew how good a navigator the Captain was, in the rare moments when he was awake that is, but Gresham was gambling on his survival instinct. And if they headed west, they were sure to hit the coast of Europe, he comforted himself. Surely the coast of Europe was too big for even the Daisy to miss? Then all they would have to do was coast-hop back to England. Dodging angry Spanish ships, of course, bent on revenge for Cadiz. And supposing the beer and biscuit in their barrels was sound. And hoping the rot did not break the hull open at the first sign of a real sea, or the jerry-rigging collapse the masts. But of all the problems Gresham had anticipated, the one that first arose, barely half a day into their voyage, was one he had not dreamed of.

  The Daisy had a planked-over waist, unlike many of the pinnaces which left their apology for a gun deck open to the elements. Because it was covered, they put stores there. It was Mannion who heard the tapping. A frail noise, coming from one of the barrels, marked as containing beer. Mannion patrolled the tiny ship as if haunted by the Devil, two throwing knives stuffed openly into his belt, a dagger there as well as a prohibited sword. Not the rapier of gentlemen, more the cutlass of a pirate. Mannion emanated threat, though this did not stop him from calling Gresham to witness the act as he broached the barrel. By then, the tappings had ceased.

  So, nearly, had Anna's life. Half an hour more and she would not have been gagging her life up on the deck of the Daisy, but communing with her mother. The tiny portion of stores assembled for the Daisy had been put on the main deck of the San Felipe before they were lugged over to their final destination and left overnight. She had spotted them, seen the barrel of beer left by the chute designed to take sea water from the deck and back into the ocean. Somehow, using the last of the coin her mother had given her, she had persuaded her servant and the sailor she was sleeping with to knock two holes in the barrel so the beer leaked gently over the side and into the sea. Then, with more coin and the last of the wine in her mother's store, she had persuaded them to broach the barrel, replace its cover and nail her into it. Unfortunately, the holes that were sufficient
to drain the beer were insufficient to let enough air in. The stench inside the barrel and the heat were beyond belief. For a moment they thought the pathetic, bedraggled, stinking and limp thing they hauled out of the barrel was dead. There was a mutter from the group of sailors as a long, slim leg emerged from under a tattered dress as they lay her body on the deck. Vulnerable. Defenceless. A strange compassion and pity filled Gresham's heart as he watched Mannion cradle the girl's head, turning it to one side to allow her to vomit.

  'I will not leave this boat!' she declared firmly as soon as she came to, despite her voice being little more than a harsh croak.

  'But this is madness!' said Gresham. 'Madness! We have no room on this sinking hulk for a… woman! And what could have prompted you to leave everything behind, your clothes, your jewels, your mother's jewels?'

  'The San Felipe was a prize of war, was it not? Since when do passengers on a prize of war keep their jewels?'

  She had a point, Gresham had to admit. A very small point.

  'But I'm sure if you had approached Sir Francis Drake he would have listened to your pleadings…'

  'I will not be brought back to England in triumph as a prize,' she declared, 'displayed like a Roman Emperor displays his captives.'

  So it was pride that this was all about, thought Gresham. 'I must turn the boat around,' he muttered, deeply worried.

  'You will not turn this boat round!' she hissed at him.

  'And why not? You must understand one thing. Your beauty holds no allure for me. There are many beautiful women. Your hiding aboard will infuriate Drake and bring down even more trouble on my head. If you stay you are the only woman on board a ship whose crew think rape no more special than drinking off the contents of a mug. We have no clothes for you, except that ruined article you now wear. Your bodily functions will have to be performed behind locked doors…'

  She gazed at him with scorn.

  'You are my guardian. You will just have to protect me. I repeat, you will not turn this boat round.'