by J. D. Davies
‘Ho, Mark Willis!’ cried Jack. ‘What’s afoot here?’
‘Cap’n Stannard. You’ve not heard, then?’ Willis looked suspiciously at Cabral.
‘I’ve been on the road from London these four days.’
‘Aye, well, the two Portingals have vanished. Killed, some say, but the admiral says they’ve fled.’
At the mention of the English word for his countrymen, Cabral looked up. ‘Portuguese? Which Portuguese?’ he demanded.
But Jack knew.
‘The two who proposed the expedition in the first place?’
‘Aye,’ said Willis, ‘them.’
‘These Portuguese,’ said Cabral. ‘What were their names?’
Jack had passed on to his new companion as much information as Walsingham had told him, namely that the Hawkins expedition had been instigated by two Portuguese merchant adventurers, who’d come to England with a scheme for trading upon the Guinea coast in contravention of the monopoly granted to Portugal by the treaty of Tordesillas. Walsingham never mentioned their names, and despite Cabral’s curiosity, Jack could tell him no more.
‘One was Luis, I think,’ said Willis. ‘The other had a strange name – started with H, though.’
Cabral shook his head. ‘Antonio Luis and Andre Homem,’ he said. ‘These were the men responsible for this expedition? These?’
Willis nodded.
‘Filho da puta. Then I must see your Admiral Hawkins. At once, Jack Stannard.’
An hour later, in the great cabin of the Jesus, John Hawkins listened in silence to Cabral’s words.
‘Luis and Homem,’ said the Portingal. ‘I met them, what, five, six times? Yes, they were merchants, but not men of good reputation. They made enemies in Lisbon, and were forced to leave there. They claimed to know the Guinea coast – above all, to know where to find gold mines. They took their story to the regent, the Cardinal Enrique, but he laughed them out of court. Then they went to the French, who sent out an expedition, but that got no further than fighting a feeble battle with the garrison on Madeira. So they went to the court of King Philip, where again they got short shrift. So, at last, they came to England. Is that the tale they spun to you, Admiral Hawkins? The tale of the gold upon the Guinea coast?’
The normally confident John Hawkins was quiet and glum.
‘I always suspected them,’ he said, slowly. ‘I’ve sailed to Guinea twice, and talked to enough men there to know that these tales of gold mines somewhere just beyond the coast are naught but dreams. But to some of our merchants in London, and to some of those about the court – even to the queen herself – a tale like that was irresistible. They needed an admiral who knew the coast, so behold, your humble servant.’
‘More fool England, then,’ said Cabral, sharply.
Hawkins, normally so vocal in defence of his native land, was silent, even shamefaced.
‘There’s no trace of them?’ said Jack.
‘None,’ said Hawkins. ‘They don’t know the land, and would be found easily upon the roads. But they were flush with gold generously advanced them by some of our sponsors, so I reckon they paid some shipmaster or fisherman to take them over to Brittany. I always sensed they never wanted to come on the voyage, and now I see why.’
‘Their bluff would be called,’ said Jack.
‘As you say.’
‘Then surely the voyage can’t proceed?’
Hawkins looked at Jack, then at Cabral. For the first time during the interview, there was a ghost of a smile upon his lips.
‘Oh, it can proceed, all right. Not with the same purpose, it’s true. There’ll be no gold mines, for sure. But there’s another purpose that might yet satisfy all those so-great men who’ve invested money in this. More than satisfy them, God willing. But if that’s to happen, gentlemen, I must write a difficult letter. Aye, a very difficult letter. A letter to the queen.’
* * *
The beginning of autumn in Dunwich was heralded by another great storm, which swept in from the east, rattling window shutters, blowing down a crumbling wall in the ruins of Blackfriars, and taking another few inches from the cliff in St Peter’s parish. Meg de Andrade sat in her cottage in its hollow upon the heath, listening to the wind howling, moving a little nearer to her fire, and praying that her thatch held. It was markedly difficult to concentrate on reading In Praise of Folly. In any case, she had one ear alert for the elusive sound that some swore they heard on nights such as this, and that she was convinced she had heard often in her childhood, and even sometimes since. It was the sound of distant bells, tolling a lament. Every man, woman and child in Dunwich would swear upon the Bible that they had heard them, and that they were the bells of the town’s drowned churches, still ringing out beneath the waves that had overwhelmed them long ago.
But that night, Meg could not hear even the faintest trace of a toll upon the storm. Perhaps, in the heretical realm of the usurper Elizabeth, the submerged bells of Catholic Dunwich no longer rang out. Instead, she stared into her fire, and began to reflect upon other things.
It had been the strangest of summers since that day at Bungay fair. Her stepmother had said nothing to her. Was Ned really so stupid that he had accepted her unlikely tale of a clandestine meeting with Philip Grimes, and then acceded to Meg’s entreaties not to tell his mother? Was he even privy to the knowledge that Jennet Stannard had met with Stephen Raker, the sworn enemy of both the Stannard family and the borough of Dunwich? True, in recent weeks there had been angry looks and barbed remarks aplenty from her stepmother and her familiar, Meg’s half-sister Mary, but there was nothing new or strange in any of that. Ned had continued to make a half-hearted effort to learn about the Stannard accounts, presumably at Jennet’s insistence, for he gave no sign of it being of his own volition.
Meg had written of all this to her father, but he seemed to show little interest, even in the strange meeting between his wife and his murderous half-brother. But then, Jack Stannard would not be returning to Dunwich, as Meg and the entire town had expected. Instead, he would be setting out on a lengthy and perhaps dangerous voyage to distant lands, by way of unknown seas, and Tom would be going with him. God knew how long they would be gone. Meg de Andrade prided herself that she depended upon no man, but even so, she felt a certain unease that her father and her brother would be so far away, and for such a time.
There was an even louder gust of wind. Meg laid aside In Praise of Folly, tightened her grip on her rosary, and began to mutter the Ave Maria again.
Her father had left clear instructions that in his and Tom’s absence, the management of the family affairs would devolve upon her. This was all well and good, she thought, but with the two of them gone for many months, if not longer, that management might become uncertain. Ned was no threat, but his oldest brother George was a very different case; almost since the day of his birth, he had been a ferociously intelligent but devious little cub, so it was no surprise that he had shown a considerable aptitude for the law, and was even now completing his studies at the Middle Temple in London. If George needed a strong arm, it might be provided by his other brother, Harry, a soldier and member of the Yeomen of the Guard, the personal escort to the queen. Add to the mixture Goodwife Jennet’s mysterious dealings with Stephen Raker, and Meg sensed the brewing of a particularly noxious potion.
A thought struck her. It was laughable and immodest, perhaps even treasonable, but once it entered her head, she could not drive it out.
Were Mary of Scotland and her bastard cousin Elizabeth really so very different from Meg herself? Of course, their stations were far more exalted – better skirts, for one thing – but they, too, were solitary women, contending against the schemes of other women and above all of men, many of whom believed that it was unnatural for a mere woman to bear any authority at all.
Meg recalled that, when she was a child, she had often imagined herself as a queen. Well, in one sense, perhaps that was exactly what she had become.
As the wind rose hi
gher still, she began to laugh at the thought. She laughed louder and louder, as though in competition with the storm, and finally tears of mirth flowed, emulating the torrents of rainwater spilling from her roof.
* * *
The easterly storm that battered Dunwich was no more than a strong breeze by the time it reached Plymouth, making it an ideal wind to carry the fleet to sea. The Jesus of Lubeck led the way, her profusion of flags and pennants making a proud show as she sailed out through the Cobbler Channel. Her fore- and aftercastles towered high above the water, and with all sails set upon her four masts, she gave at least an outward illusion of raw power. Immediately astern of her was the Minion – older, smaller, but still warlike enough. Then came the William and John, the largest of Hawkins’ own ships; or rather, his family’s ships, for it bore the names of himself and his trusted brother. The Swallow was not long returned from the Guinea coast, and was now returning there, with the smallest of the Hawkins ships, the bark Judith, following in her wake. Whatever John Hawkins had written to the queen, and whatever her reply had been, the expedition was under way at last.
Last of all, the Jennet of Dunwich edged out of Cattewater. As she caught the breeze off the land, Tom Stannard ordered more and more sail set. His father was well content to leave such decisions and commands to his son, for in many respects, Tom was the better ship handler, as he had demonstrated during the storm off Ushant, and Jack was shrewd enough to admit it. Bruno Cabral stood alongside Tom, learning the feel of the ship in anticipation of the distant waters where he would be in charge of her navigation.
For his part, Jack leaned on the starboard rail, watching the familiar sights of Plymouth falling away one by one. There were tiny, distant figures upon the Hoe, too far away to be distinguishable, but Jack knew their number would include Catherine and his two grandsons. He wondered whether he would ever see them, or England itself, again. Once again, he felt the nagging doubt that came to him often in his dreams, and almost as often in his waking hours. Were it not for Francis Walsingham’s secret instructions, there would be no need at all for Jack to be on this voyage. Tom was more than capable of commanding, especially with Cabral at his side; and Jack knew that if he really wished not to sail, it would be an easy matter for Will Halliday to convince Walsingham that Tom Stannard would make just as dependable an informant as his father. Jack was an old man, nearly fifty, with aches in his bones that had not been there three or four years before, and although he could still stand a watch, so could a dozen or more younger men in the Jennet’s crew, especially Hal Ashby, who was likely to be a shipmaster in his own right in three or four years’ time. Jack would be consuming victuals and occupying space, essentially out of nothing more than vanity – his urge to see the strange, fabled shores of Guinea and the Americas.
Then there was the other issue, the one he had spent weeks attempting to dismiss from his mind: Meg’s intelligence that his wife had met with Stephen Raker. A part of Jack chided himself for not returning to Dunwich to get to the bottom of the matter, but he could not believe it amounted to anything. Jennet might be many things, but surely not even she would dare to conspire with Jack’s greatest enemy against the interests of their family. Besides, Meg was clever – by far the cleverest woman Jack Stannard had ever known – and resourceful, and more than capable of handling her stepmother.
Whether she was capable of handling Stephen Raker might be another question entirely, though. A notion suddenly occurred to Jack. Had he dismissed the problem of his errant wife and Stephen Raker because his urge to be upon the voyage overrode all other things? Was it a form of madness, which had made him ignore what should have been his principal concern? Had he made the most dreadful mistake of his life?
That was the troubling thought in Jack Stannard’s mind as his very last sight of England’s distant shore disappeared below the horizon.
Nine
The storm blew up when they were four days out of Plymouth. In its duration and intensity, it made that which the Jennet had encountered on her return from France seem like a gentle summer breeze. Worse yet, it arrived very suddenly, little more than a half-glass separating relative calm from a potentially ship-killing gale. Sheets of water lashed across the deck. The ship pitched, yawed, and rolled, the timbers screaming and creaking in protest. Thunder that was surely loud enough to herald the apocalypse shook the skies, and jagged bolts of lightning rent the heavens. The wind played the shrouds like the strings of an impossibly loud, shrieking lute, the sails beating like its accompanying drum.
‘Reef the foresail!’ barked Jack, his face stung by the howling wind and dagger-like rain. ‘Take in all other sail! Faster, lads, in the name of God! Make all fast! Make fast, I say!’
As he shouted his commands, he tied a rope around his waist and secured the other end to the mizzen mast. Instinctively, but very quietly, he began to murmur the Ave Maria, confident that Cabral, the only man near him, would not be able to hear. But even in such extremity, it would be better to be careful. He fell silent, but still said the prayer in his mind.
* * *
Below decks, Tom ran backward and forward, bawling commands to double-lash the guns, ordering spare men to man the pumps. All along the hull, on both sides, he knelt down, feeling the caulking, checking for any leaks. The Jennet was a fairly new ship, well built by Dunwich men whom he had known since his childhood. God willing, she was secure, and would remain so.
Confident that all was in order below decks, he returned above. The moment he emerged from the hatch, he was knocked from his feet by a brute of a wave. The roll of the ship sent him sprawling across the sodden deck. He could see the wale approaching, and beyond it the grey wall of the sea and oblivion…
He reached out with both arms, but there was nothing – then his right hand caught a rope that had not been made fast, and he clung to it for dear life. The hull began to roll the other way, and Tom lifted himself, catching the horrified expression on his father’s face as he did so. The son had barely escaped the fate that the father had only just avoided off Ushant.
‘The boats, Father!’ cried Tom as he reached Jack.
‘I know. But great God, what can we do?’
Tom looked astern. The Jennet’s longboat and pinnace, being towed behind the ship, were being tossed like corks upon the fearsome waves. One moment they rode high upon the crests, as though they were trying to leap into the sky like seabirds; the next, they plunged down into the depths. Every wave threatened death to the two men that each boat contained. The storm had struck so suddenly that there had been no time to haul them in, especially when the priority had to be securing the ship itself.
Tom stared out. The four men in the boats were good men. Dunwich men. Philip Holt, the coxswain of the longboat, was a friend from his childhood. Tom had courted his sister and might well have asked for her hand, had she not died of griping of the guts, aged eighteen, despite Meg’s best efforts to save her.
‘Starboard the helm, two points!’ he cried, although whether the Jennet really would come two points closer to the wind, God alone knew. ‘Watch on deck, ease foresail, then stand by to come aft!’
The men huddled under a tarpaulin in the waist, just forward of Tom’s position, emerged from their cover, grabbed the lifeline that led forward, and adjusted the foremast yard and running rigging. While Tom shouted orders for other men to come up from below, Jack remonstrated with his son.
‘If we’re too beam-on,’ he bawled against the gale, ‘then just one great wave—’
‘I know, Father. I know as well as you. But I have faith in the Jennet, and in God.’
As the Jennet turned, even by the very slight amount that Tom had ordered, the waves crashed principally against her side, rather than the bow. While this made the ship roll even more violently, it created more of a lee, giving slightly calmer water to the two boats. That, in turn, gave the watch on deck a chance to haul on the tow ropes, Hal Ashby screaming ‘Heave!’ even as towering waves broke over them all.<
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Tom and Jack watched from the stern rail. The pinnace was nearer, and minute by minute, she came nearer still. The two men aboard, brothers named Garwood, waved their arms desperately, shouting words that were instantly carried away by the storm. But still the pinnace came closer. Tom took hold of a rope, secured one end to a stanchion, and braced himself to throw the line.
The first effort fell agonisingly short.
The second touched the bow of the boat, but the elder Garwood, scrambling forward, just failed to catch it.
The third throw was taken, and the rope made fast. The brothers, looking like a pair of creatures from the deep, hauled themselves up, and were helped aboard by their shipmates.
The longboat, though, was a different matter. Further astern to begin with, she was also less weatherly than the pinnace. With the latter cast loose, more men grabbed the longboat’s tow rope, but the wind suddenly veered. Tom saw Philip Holt raise both arms heavenward, as though reaching out for some invisible lifeline, or else to implore God to welcome him into Heaven. In that moment, a wave crashed into the longboat, fully beam-on, and overturned it. Tom thought he caught one last glimpse of Holt’s hand, grasping desperately above the water, but then it was gone.
Tom gripped the ship’s rail tightly. His father put a hand on his shoulder, then turned to shout to Hal Ashby and the men on the tow rope the order that Tom was incapable of giving.
‘Belay!’
* * *
The fleet had scattered as soon as the storm began, its ships deliberately increasing the distance between each other to reduce the risk of collision. For a while, the lofty hull of the Jesus was still visible, swaying drunkenly upon the great waves. Jack could easily imagine the scene aboard: the chain pumps working incessantly, the carpenter’s crew toiling to seal the gaps as her caulking failed and leaks burst through the hull, the soldiers and gentlemen volunteers spewing copiously over the lower decks. She was a very old and very high ship that had never been built for seas such as these, and she rode them like a pig. As the last sight of the maintop of the flagship disappeared behind the towering waves, both Stannards wondered whether they would ever see her, or John Hawkins, again.