Battle’s Flood

by J. D. Davies

  Jack looked on with some amusement. His son’s expression was one he had often worn in childhood, when his older sister Meg chided him for some real or alleged misdemeanour. Tom, abashed, turned and looked out to sea, toward the endless coast of Africa, and pondered Bruno Cabral’s words.

  * * *

  The English attacked two hours before dawn. The longboats cast off from the ships, their oars muffled. From the Jennet’s boat, Jack and Tom could see the white flag flying from the stern of Hawkins’ barge, the signal for the rest of the flotilla to follow. Like the men in all the other boats, the Dunwich crew were clad in warlike fashion in leather jerkins and helmets, and were heavily armed with arquebuses and crossbows. Cabral had been left behind to command the ship; in the unlikely event of a surprise attack, his superior knowledge of the local waters might pilot the Jennet to a safe haven.

  They had sailed down the coast from Cabo Blanco, where they had seized three small Portuguese caravels that had been abandoned by their crews after an attack by French raiders. Then they continued their voyage, passing the mouth of the Senegal river, constantly sending boats out to look for possible landing places. At last, just to the north of Cape Verde, they seemed to have found the ideal location: a broad beach bordering a sheltered anchorage with twelve fathoms of water. It was this beach that the Englishmen now stormed.

  The boats grounded upon the strand and the men leapt ashore, every one of them obeying Hawkins’ order to maintain complete silence. The men of Jennet came ashore next to Edward Dudley and his contingent of soldiers, and Tom exchanged a nod with the old warrior, now unshakeable in his loyalty to John Hawkins and evidently intending to make the most of his reprieve. He also caught a glimpse of Francis Drake, but the two men did not acknowledge each other. The two hundred or so Englishmen, nearly half the entire manpower of the fleet, formed up in good order and began to march into the hinterland.

  ‘It seems too good to be true,’ whispered Jack to his son.

  ‘Hawkins is confident. He says he knows where the village is, that we simply surprise it at dawn, then just carry off the people. He says he did such things many times on his previous voyages.’

  Jack made no reply. He was not complying with Hawkins’ order to stay silent; rather, he was thinking of his own shore in Suffolk, of how unlikely it would be for a landing party of enemies to surprise one of the villages a few miles inland. But he knew how Hawkins would respond to that, for he had heard him say the like several times in the great cabin of the Jesus, echoing the words of Bruno Cabral. These people are not like Englishmen. They are savages, little better than brute beasts.

  At dawn, though, he was lying upon a slight ridge among sand dunes, looking down upon the native village that stood exactly where John Hawkins had said it would. The place was a rough affair of small huts, standing in the shade provided by a grove of palm trees. It was entirely silent, with not a living soul to be seen.

  Thus far, at least, it was both good and true, as Hawkins had predicted.

  The white flag was waved from the admiral’s position, and the English charged, screaming and bellowing as they ran down the slope into the village. Jack felt the old thrill of battle’s blood rush as he lifted the sword in his hand and cried, ‘for God, for Dunwich and for England!’ But as he came into the village, he slowed, then stood stock still and looked around him, as did Hawkins, Drake, Dudley and the rest. The huts were empty, but there were still warm embers in the fires—

  There was a whistling sound, and Jack was aware of a man crying out near him. He turned, saw it was Tom, saw the arrow protruding from his upper arm, and in the same moment heard the cacophony of rage as hundreds upon hundreds of near-naked natives burst out of their cover among the trees and dunes, shooting arrows and slinging short spears against their assailants. Intent on aiding his son, he barely noticed an arrow bounce off his jerkin.

  ‘Tom…’

  The younger man pulled the arrow out of his arm and flung it to the ground.

  ‘A scratch, Father, no more. Come on, we’ve a battle to fight!’

  Hawkins, too, had been struck by an arrow in the arm, albeit just a glancing blow that had not entered his flesh. As with Tom, the wound was not impeding him in the slightest. He and Dudley were barking orders, and the English were rapidly taking up a rough defensive formation to meet the onslaught. The first arquebuses gave fire, and crossbow quarrels struck the chests of unclothed natives with terrible results. Still the villagers came on, yelling their war cries. One reached Jack and thrust his spear forward with more hope than skill or force. Jack swung his sword nearly from his shoulder and cut deeply into the man’s neck, causing a torrent of blood to spurt out onto the sand. Now more and more of the formidable English weapons were firing, and the momentum went out of the native advance. Hawkins raised his sword and shouted an order to charge.

  ‘Remember our purpose, men!’ he cried. ‘If you can, capture them instead of killing. God for England!’

  The Englishmen pressed forward, firing all the time, but the natives were now more cautious of their enemy’s weapons, and kept themselves close to the limit of both sides’ range.

  ‘Damnation!’ cried Hawkins to Dudley, and to Jack, who had come to their side. ‘They’ll not stand and fight like good Christian foes!’

  ‘If we keep up this sort of attack,’ said Dudley, ‘we’ll exhaust our ammunition.’

  ‘Whatever we do,’ said Jack, ‘we won’t much reduce their advantage in numbers. And if we take captives, we’ll have to detach men to guard them.’

  ‘Aye, that’s so,’ replied Dudley. ‘It’s only a matter of time before some of our men start to fall, and if they weaken us enough, they’ve the numbers to overwhelm us, no matter how skilfully we wield our swords, bows and guns.’

  Hawkins cast a quick glance around the scene, then nodded.

  ‘Aye, well, I don’t fancy my story ending here, at the hands of these sorts of fellows. Signal the retreat – we fight our way back to the boats!’

  In truth, it was as easy a journey as it could be with hundreds of natives screaming abuse every step of the way but staying at too great a distance to do much damage to the English force, and vice versa. Long before Hawkins’ men reached the beach, many of them were laughing, shouting prime Anglo-Saxon obscenities back at their assailants, and even baring their arses. By the time they got to the ships, many of them were singing, as though they had won a great victory over Frenchmen or Spaniards. But as they met in the great cabin of the Jesus to take stock and lay fresh plans, Hawkins and his officers, including the two Stannards, knew that the expedition had been an utter failure. They had taken only nine captives, a pitiful number. Worse, every village along the coast for many miles to the south, and probably far inland too, would now be alert to their presence on the coast, as the constant sound of distant drumming suggested. But the gloom among the English commanders would undoubtedly have deepened had they known the sequel to the failed attack on the nameless village.

  * * *

  The sickness took hold two days later. Aboard the Jennet, Tom had the watch upon deck. Jack and Cabral were below, dozing upon their sea-beds, when one of the ship’s boys, Bradlow, burst into the cabin, bawling that Captain Stannard was unwell. Jack sprinted to the upper deck, followed closely by Cabral. Tom was leaning hard upon the starboard rail, gripping his throat and making strange gulping noises. He was sweating even more profusely than all the other men upon the upper decks.

  ‘Tom, lad!’ cried Jack, running to him and taking hold of his shoulders. ‘In Jesu’s name, what’s the matter?’

  Tom could evidently say nothing, simply pointing to his mouth, which he seemed unable to open.

  ‘I have seen this upon this shore,’ said Cabral, calmly. ‘The savages’ arrows must have been poisoned. It brings on spasms where men cannot open their mouths or swallow.’

  But Jack had already come to the same diagnosis through observation. He snatched up a small belaying pin, told Cabral to hold Tom
, and began to try and force his son’s jaws apart. All the while, men of the watch on deck looked on, horrified.

  ‘Come on, lad,’ said Jack. ‘Alice, intercede for me. Mary, Mother of God, intercede for me!’

  Tom’s face was turning purple. Jack no longer cared what any might make of the prayers he uttered, and despite Cabral’s warning glances, he began to recite the Ave Maria. At last, the Virgin and all the saints seemed to hear him, and Tom’s jaws parted sufficiently for Jack to be able to thrust the belaying pin between them. Tom gulped in air, and Jack and Cabral slowly led him below, finally laying him upon his sea-bed in the stern cabin.

  Perhaps a half-glass passed before Tom reached up and removed the belaying pin from his mouth. ‘Will it return?’ he asked.

  ‘It will,’ said Cabral bluntly.

  ‘And will I die?’

  Jack looked intently at the Portuguese, waiting for his answer. But Cabral simply stood and said, ‘I shall go to the flagship.’

  As Cabral left the cabin, Tom gripped his father’s hand, as he had done so often when he was a little boy.

  ‘Oh Christ in heaven, Father, it returns – I can feel it…’ Without another word, he took up the belaying pin himself, and thrust it between his teeth.

  * * *

  Tom had two more attacks before Cabral returned from the Jesus some hours later. By now, word was all over the fleet: more than a dozen men were sick, including John Hawkins and Edward Dudley, both of whom had been scratched by arrows. The natives, whose weapons had seemed so feeble, were far from being the lambs to the slaughter that most of the Englishmen had assumed they were. Although the arrows were pitiful things, incapable of penetrating a stout leather jerkin, the slightest touch to flesh made them deadly. The spasms, which made the victims choke, would get progressively worse, and within days, if not sooner, they would die.

  Jack spoke to Cabral on deck, out of his son’s earshot. The fleet was continuing southward under an easy sail, the unending featureless coast well away to larboard.

  ‘Well?’ he demanded.

  ‘I spoke with one of the captives,’ said Cabral. ‘He had a little Portuguese, and I know a few words of some of the tribes on this coast. There is a cure.’

  Jack grasped his hand and kissed it fervently.

  ‘Thanks be to God! Deo gratias!’

  ‘But it is not certain, Jack Stannard. It depends on how much poison is on the arrowhead, how strong the mixture is, how deeply the arrow has penetrated…’

  Jack’s face fell. He recalled Tom standing there in the village, the arrow buried deep in his arm. Hawkins, Dudley and some of the others had only been scratched.

  ‘I must try,’ he said.

  ‘Of course. It is garlic, nothing more. Rub a clove of garlic deep into the wound. God willing, it will draw out the poison, and your son will be well. If not…’

  Jack was already gesturing for young Bradlow to go below to search the ship’s victuals, and an hour later, he was at Tom’s side, pressing a clove hard into the arrow wound in his arm, quietly murmuring all the old Latin prayers as he did so. Tom seemed calmer at once, less feverish, but then his face went into spasm once more, and Jack hastily resorted to the belaying pin.

  This was his moment of deepest despair. The garlic had failed. Tom would die, and they would heave his body over the side, weighted down by a cannonball, to lie for ever in this strange, hostile sea, so very far from Dunwich or his wife and young sons in Plymouth. With Tom gone, Jack would be a dead man too, although he might still live and breathe for whatever remaining time God had allotted him.

  By the next turn of the glass, though, Tom’s spasm had subsided. By the one after that, he had not had another, and word had come from the Jesus that both Hawkins and Dudley lived, and were well. By dawn of the following day, Tom Stannard was standing his watch, and his father was lying upon his sea-bed, weeping unashamedly.

  Thirteen

  The Jennet, at anchor off the shore of Sierra Leone

  Christmas Day, the year of Our Lord 1567

  Meg, my dearest child,

  A Portingal ship here is sailing for Madeira, and then intends for Nantes and Bridport, so I have convinced her master to take letters for me, trusting in God that they might reach the intended recipients. First, I wish you joy of the season, remembering it is twenty-three years now since you were mercifully spared when John’s church of Dunwich was consumed by the sea. I know the season will be long past by the time you receive this, if ever you do, but consider my blessing a promise of many joyous Yuletides yet to come before our fireplace in the old house. It is hard to think of fireplaces here, where we seem to live every day in the very heart of a furnace, the heat lying like a great weight upon the land. Every day of this voyage persuades me further that it was folly for me to sail upon it, and that, God willing, when I finally return to England, my seafaring days will be behind me.

  I pray you have received my last letter, which told you of your brother’s sickness and recovery, Deo gratias. Since then, we have continued south along the coast of this benighted place. The eight deaths from poison that we sustained at Cape Verde put fear into the hearts of all men, and whatever Hawkins says to them, most remain persuaded that the native people have witchcraft and necromancy on their side; they are thus reluctant to undertake other attacks ashore. This fear has been reinforced by the reports of scouting parties, who talk of seeing the remains of men who have been eaten by other men. Kyrie eleison, daughter.

  At the mouth of the great river called Gambia, we encountered some French ships under letters of marque, and persuaded them to part with a prize they had taken from the Portuguese, a good ship of 150 tons and eight guns. Hawkins has named this the Grace of God, and has placed his kinsman Francis Drake in command of her. Perhaps Tom has spoken or written to you of this man, who is kin to Hawkins on the other side of the family from Tom’s Catherine. They do not agree well, this Drake being a proud and brash fellow, but he is a great favourite of Hawkins, and I have told Tom that he should tread carefully. You will know in the fullness of time whether he does or not.

  Our fleet has undertaken several expeditions in search of slaves. The coast is a maze of muddy channels and swamps, and none of our ships have been able to go inshore, so we have sent out parties in boats. I have gone out twice, Tom thrice, but it is a thankless business, with not one captive to show for it. These expeditions are commanded by a fellow called Robert Barrett, sailing master on the Jesus, a man much in Hawkins’ confidence. Only one of his efforts is worthy of record. Hawkins sent him with three boats to examine a place called Cacheo, some distance up a mile-wide river, where we had certain intelligence of three Portuguese caravels laden with slaves for the Indies. Barrett attacked with only forty men, but somehow secured the ships, the Portingals fleeing ashore, although they had no slaves aboard them. Hawkins sent three ships upstream under Drake and Dudley to support Barrett – I volunteered the Jennet, but was refused – but their men were attacked by a great host of savages recruited by the Portingals, six or seven thousand against two or three hundred of our men. But no matter the numbers, Meg, naked men against trained Englishmen with arquebuses and no shortage of ammunition are akin to naught but chaff. Barrett and his men, covered by Dudley’s soldiers, made their way back to their boats, their wounds no worse than scratches – and thanks to God, these people seem not to know of the poisons that their kind further north employ.

  Now, Meg, it is true that Barrett, Drake and Dudley got their men safe away, but as in our first expedition ashore, a retreat can never be termed a victory, no matter how men brag. What is more, we have no commission to take Portingal ships, and our country is not at war with Portugal. Your half-brother George can tell you better than I that our seizing of these Portingal hulls makes us pirates, and no fine words can clothe that. I said this to our admiral, but he laughed. I find it far from a laughing matter, for I am loath to have the odious appellation of pirate spoken in the same breath as the name of Stannard.
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  Since the action at Cacheo, we have sent parties up more rivers, negotiated with native kings who despise their neighbours and wish nothing more than to see them taken by us as slaves, and by one means and another obtained a hundred and fifty of these wretches. In truth, daughter, it has all been a tedious business upon this vile shore, where the heat is nearly unbearable, the swamp presses in on all sides, and insects swarm by day and night. To amuse you, then, I enclose a drawing of the great beast, the hippopotamus, which I have now seen many times, and which the more credulous of the men fear as some sort of demon. Indeed, I witnessed one of them come up under a pinnace, drive in the planks and timbers, and sink the boat in an instant. We saved most of the men, but two perished. So the hippopotamus is clearly not a beast to trifle with, and I have done my best to record its likeness, though I know your friend Grimes would have done much better.

  Meg, do not, I implore you, show this drawing around Dunwich and claim it as an image of your stepmother.

  No man can deny the truth that thus far, our voyage is a failure. Perhaps the gold mines that the Portingal adventurers spoke of never existed, and even if they did, perhaps we would never have found them. But since Plymouth, Hawkins has boasted of the money to be made from slaves, how easy it will be to find them upon this shore, and how much gold we will be paid for them in the Carib. Thus far, though, as I say, we have taken only a hundred and fifty, and that will be insufficient even to recoup the expenses of the voyage, let alone turn a profit for all those great folk who have invested in it. As yet, none of these slaves have been placed aboard the Jennet, and I pray that they will not be for some little time yet, as the captains of the other ships are telling me what trouble they are put to in guarding and feeding them.

  Meg, it is a strange business, whatever Cabral and Hawkins say, which is that if we did not take and sell slaves, the Portingals or French certainly would, as they have been doing for many years. I have seen enough already to know that they are not wrong in this. But they also say that by this means, profit will accrue to England, and thus to the righteous causes of Queen Elizabeth and the Protestant faith. You may imagine my thoughts upon this matter, daughter, for truly, some may be slaves of the body, but others are slaves of the soul. Still, mayhap profit will yet accrue to the name of Stannard, and to Dunwich, which may still rise once more in consequence. Yet for this to be so, we must take far more than a mere hundred and fifty slaves, and we must take them here or hereabouts, for otherwise we will be forced into what Cabral calls the Bight of Benin, where the Portingals have impregnable castles and where the winds are so contrary that we might never be able to beat back for the Indies. I fear, then, that upon this matter, God has turned his face against us, and that we shall return to England, if we ever return at all, in ignominy and failure.