The roar of the wind through the rigging, the banging of blocks and sails, the lurch of the ship, the groaning of its timbers as though not for one moment longer could they hold together, the flash of guns out of the darkness, the crash of rending wood as the shot struck home, set Robin’s blood racing and throbbing in his veins, and fired him to so high an exhilaration of his spirits that he had much ado not to laugh aloud in the face of the ship’s master.
But there was more to be done that night if God — not Philip’s God, nor the Pope’s God, nor Henri of Valois’s God, if he had one, which was more than doubtful, but the God of Elizabeth and Drake and Protestant England — would forward his endeavours. Below the high poop was the castle crowded with its soldiers, riflemen and pikemen and gunners. Below the castle Oquendo himself, with his staff, sat late in his great cabin over his wine. And below Oquendo’s cabin lay the ammunition store, with its kegs of powder and its pyramids of shot. Robin was savouring the plan he had made — what a lad he was for plans! Cynthia had cried half in mockery and half in admiration — when, to his dismay, the wind fell. It fell quickly and as quickly fell the sea, and strain his eyes as he might, Portland Rock was still lost in the darkness ahead.
Robin climbed down the ladder past the small minions of the castle, set there in their loopholes to clear the deck of boarders, past the passage leading back to Oquendo’s cabin. A soldier with a loaded arquebus and a match stood on guard. But in the cabin the air was hot, and Oquendo’s door stood open. Robin could see him sitting at the table, a map out before him — a map of England — his glass at his elbow, his doublet unbuttoned, a smile upon his face.
“Hasta mañana, Your Excellency,” said Robin under his breath. “You must land me as close to my house as you can.”
He found Anthony Scarr asleep on a mat under the bulwarks. He squatted beside him, covered his mouth with his hand and shook him gently till he woke. For a little while the two talked in whispers. The deck was strewn with men sleeping heavily. Every now and then one of them cried out in his dreams and turned over and continued to sleep. Every now and then the groans of a wounded man or the prayers of a priest broke the silence.
“Tomorrow will be better,” Robin whispered. “Another day’s harrying and fighting, and they’ll sleep so hard it’ll take the Day of Judgment to waken them.”
“All the more reason, then, that we should ourselves sleep now,” said Anthony Scarr.
When they woke it was broad daylight, and the Invincible Armada was becalmed in the West Bay with Portland Rock dimly ahead like an island in the clouds.
CHAPTER XXXI. Robin Pays His Fare
“NOW?” ANTHONY ASKED impatiently.
“Not yet,” Robin answered.
It was after midnight. All the day the calm had lasted. The soldiers had stood to their guns; here and there a stray flaw of wind or a faster current had brought an English and a Spanish ship within gunshot of another. But the two fleets had lain apart, unable to manœuvre, the Spaniard heading up-Channel, the Englishman behind him and, if only the southwest wind sprang up again, with the windward advantage. Medina-Sidonia had called his lieutenants to a conference on his flagship, and Oquendo had gone off in his barge.
The conference had been long, and all through it the fate of England trembled in the scales. The great Armada was still a fleet in being; a few ships had been shorn off, but the vast bulk of it still lay unbroken, keeping its formation orderly and using this calm weather to plaster its wounds and repair its spars. Oquendo and De Leyva and Pedro de Valdes and the younger spirits wanted the bold policy — to run up the Solent, seize Southampton, land the fifteen thousand soldiers and march on London, raising their friends in the country as they marched. Parma would cross with what ships he had to protect him, and England would be caught between two fires. It was the dangerous plan for the realm. The Spaniards would have a base upon the sea and an unfortified country in front of them.
“It was Santa Cruz’s plan,” cried Oquendo.
But Medina-Sidonia was not a Santa Cruz. He had his master’s orders, and he was too timid and too inexperienced a general to know the moment when he must be unable to read his instructions. He was bidden to join Parma, so he overruled the lieutenants and thus drove on outside the Isle of Wight to Calais and the fire ships, to the sands of Dunquerque and the gales of Cape Wrath, to the murderous coasts of Western Ireland and the homeward struggle of the remnant. Oquendo returned to his ship in a rage and shut himself up in his cabin. But with the fall of night the wind rose again, and the battle was renewed. It was now past midnight. Robin had finished his trick at the tiller. He was crouching with Anthony Scarr under the bulwark.
“Now,” said Anthony eagerly.
In the waist of the ship about the deck men were lying sunk in the deep sleep of exhaustion. There was a lull in the running battle, the English short of powder, the Spanish hurrying for Calais.
“No, not yet,” answered Robin. With the time for action had come once more the cool spirit, the cessation of anxiety and doubt, the unity of fibre and mind.
A hundred yards ahead the Bill of Portland with its shattered rocks stretched into the water under the lee of the Lady of the Rose. Above, the ridge of Portland Rock stood out against a wild moonlit sky.
“We must wait till we are through the Race,” he said. “No swimmer could live in Portland Race on a night like this.”
Already the ship was beginning to lurch and plunge in that welter of broken water. The Race was up that night, and the clash of waves flung a sheet of spray over the deck. Oquendo’s ship, on the extremity of the flank, got the worst of it. Medina-Sidonia, in the centre, hardly felt it at all. But here from every angle a short tempestuous sea shook and buffeted the Lady of the Rose till she dipped the muzzles of her broadside guns under the water and flooded her lower deck. Then, with an extraordinary abruptness, the strife and turmoil of the water ceased. The ship was through the Race and the Bay of Weymouth open.
“Now,” whispered Robin.
He shook Anthony Scarr by the hand.
“There will be no time afterwards for a word. It’ll be each one for himself. You know where to make for?”
“Abbot’s Gap.”
“Yes. So it’s Godspeed for both of us now.”
They crawled along the deck towards the companion. They were both stripped to the waist and with no shoes upon their feet. If a sleeper stirred they waited, holding their breath. If a man lifted his head they crouched. At the top of the companion Robin looked up. The passage to Oquendo’s cabin was at the head of a few steps above him. The sentinel was leaning against the passage wall, asleep on his feet; his arquebus had fallen across the doorway, the match was out. When they had crawled to the companion they both looked down.
A sailor was seated on the third step, and his body was sprawled across the step above, his face resting upon his arms. He was snoring. But three steps below him the stairway turned upon itself. Robin listened, thrusting his head down. Beyond the turn the steps, he knew, led straight back to the door of the magazine. And there night and day a pikeman was on duty. Robin would have given one of his fine ships to hear that sentry snoring as heartily as the sailor on the stairs. But he heard nothing. He made a sign to Anthony Scarr and cautiously stepped down across the sailor. At the turn he squatted, and a few seconds afterwards Anthony was at his side. From their position they could not see what awaited them at the bottom of the companion. But a light shone up. Whatever they did must be done in the light and without a sound. Robin laid his face to the floor of the stair and peered round. At the bottom a soldier squatted on the ground, his back to the partition wall, his knees drawn up to his chin.
He was not asleep, for the butt of his pike was on the floor between his thighs, and he was holding the weapon at the perpendicular with his hands. But he was not looking up the companion. Robin had that in his favour. He was staring at the wall in front of him, dreaming, perhaps, of some village in Castille, but most probably thinking of noth
ing at all. A horn lantern with a candle burning in it was hung up on a bracket on the wall facing him. He was looking up at it, and Robin could see his dark eyes glittering in the light and an open mouth between his beard and his moustache.
During the minute which followed, Anthony Scarr was the more tried of the two. At a gesture from Robin he crawled up the stairway to the side of the sleeping sailor. He knelt there with his dirk in his hand. He must hold the stairs, and his eyes moved from the sailor to the head of the companion, where a patch of moonlit sky showed silvery bright. If the sleeper beside him woke, if some dark figure blocked out that patch of sky, he must hold the stairway whilst Robin did his work. A few minutes and there would be one galleon the less on the left wing of the Armada. He prayed that those few minutes would be given them with his heart beating as though it would burst.
At the turn of the companion Robin gathered himself up to his full height and sprang. The sentry saw the flash of a half-naked body. But his mind was slow. He was aware only of a swift movement, and before his brain could flash an order along his muscles, Robin had dropped upon him. One foot slid upon the steel corselet of the sentry, the other struck the side of his head. The pike clattered against the wall, and both sentry and sailor were in a heap on the floor. But the sentry was stunned. Robin’s hand sought his mouth and closed over it like a vise. He saw the man look up at him with the dark eyes whose glitter in the light had so alarmed him less than a minute ago. Now they gazed at him in bewilderment and with a sort of sheeplike fear, which made Robin hate himself. But the bewilderment would not last and fear would lend him strength, and this was Oquendo’s ship in the Enterprise of England. Robin, with the dagger clutched in his right hand, felt under the soldier’s armpit for the lace of his corselet and, finding it, drove the dagger in between steel and steel, and pressed upon the hilt with all his strength. The soldier’s body arched up underneath him and almost threw him off; he gasped, and in his agony his tongue came out horribly from his mouth. Then it was over.
Upon the higher part of the companion Anthony Scarr heard the rattle of the pike, the muffled crash of the bodies — and afterwards nothing more. Nothing more for an intolerable eternity. The sailor, sleeping with his head upon his arms, stirred, but only to smooth his face over onto the other and cooler sleeve. And no black form obscured the patch of sky.
But disaster had befallen Robin — Anthony Scarr had not a doubt of it. So long a procession of minutes had loitered by since that rattle of the pike. Robin had been caught upon it and tossed like a matador. And now? Anthony’s imaginings ran riot. He remained at his post, his eyes fixed upon the stairway above him: that was his charge. But he had a conviction which made his blood run cold that behind him the sentry was quietly standing at the turn of the companion and poising his pike for the thrust at his back. Anthony died a thousand deaths whilst he watched. He felt the chill of the steel against his skin, the grating of the point on bone, the snap of his spine. The soldier was playing with him, amusing himself. The sweat broke out upon his forehead and fell in beads on his cheeks. Let him strike, he prayed, and have done with it; and as he so prayed, a hand touched his shoulder.
Scarr turned his head with a gasp and saw Robin’s face ghostly white and dreadful to look upon. All its beauty, its very humanity, was gone. An evil grin disfigured his mouth, a savage exultation twisted his features and glittered in his eyes.
“Quick!” he whispered.
Robin had broached a cask of powder and poured out its contents amongst the kegs, the matches, the pyramids of cannon balls; he had laid a train to it and set up at the end of the train a long cannon match; he had lit the match, and all the while he had heard through the planks above his head Oquendo laughing with his officers. He and Anthony had just time before the match burned down to the powder.
They crawled quickly up the companion. It seemed to them both that so long a time had elapsed since they crept down it that the whole aspect of the deck must have changed. But it was still encumbered with men in every attitude of fatigue, and at the entrance of the passageway to the great cabin the sentry still slept upon his feet, with his arquebus across the doorway. They separated as they had agreed to do. Robin crept forward, Anthony Scarr to the side of the ship nearest him. Both of them doubled a rope about a stanchion, crawled over the bulwarks and slid noiselessly down into the sea.
Robin dived and swam under the water till his lungs were bursting. When he came up he was astern of the Lady of the Rose. But he was still too near the ship for concealment. For, though the sea was rising, the moon was now bright as day, and a swimmer must leave a silver track behind him. He dived again, and rising on the crest of a wave, saw the lanterns of the Armada like a town at night. But the lights were diminishing. In a veritable agony of disappointment he watched them go. Had his match blown out? Had an officer gone the round and discovered the dead sentry at the door of the magazine? But the moment fear seized upon him it fled.
He lifted his body up with a cry of joy, which rang out above the noise of the wind and the water. The Lady of the Rose became a rose, a flaming rose with petals of fire scattered far and wide.
The great ship split with a roar of thunder, and with a rending of timber and a crashing of masts and spars she drifted in a hurricane of fire and smoke out of her line to leeward. From the ship next in the line boats were being lowered. Robin lay on his back and paddled with his hands. He could see men in the bows of the boats searching the sea. A spar drifted to his side and he clung to it. It would hide as well as support him. But the boatmen were busy dragging the survivors into them, and alas! Anthony Scarr was one of those survivors.
Robin went shorewards with the tide, hiding behind his spar. The rescue boats were recalled by the boatswain’s whistle. The cries died down. Away in the east the great fleet swept on, and the Lady of the Rose, deserted by her comrades, tossed this way and that, the incandescent relic of a ship fighting her last battle against the moonlight.
Robin was under the lee of Portland now and less buffeted by the waves. Floating and swimming and resting upon his spar by turns, he reached the Chesil Beach towards morning and felt with an inexpressible joy the shingle draw away beneath his feet. He climbed out of the sea and, falling upon his knees, humbly thanked his Maker for his homecoming. Then, scooping out a little shelter amongst the pebbles, he lay down and, naked as he was, slept untroubled by a dream.
CHAPTER XXXII. Thursday
NOW THIS WAS the morning of Thursday.
He slept for an hour, and then, after labouring along that painful beach, he came in the grey of the dawn to the house of the shipwright who had built for him the Grace of God. He was pressed to stay and rest and eat and tell of his adventures and hear of the place his ships had taken in Lord Howard’s battle line, but he was in haste and would not. He was hungry and thirsty for his home, and nothing must stay him. He borrowed money and clothes and a horse, and at ten o’clock in the morning, by the side of the still smouldering beacon on the Purbeck Hills, he gazed downwards at the woods of Abbot’s Gap and the sea glittering in the sunlight. His heart was full, and the tears in his eyes drew a mist across the scene. There should have been another riding with him at that moment — George Aubrey — but underneath his grief a sort of sober ecstasy possessed him. So many hours there had been when he had hardly dared to dream that he would ever see again this valley of enchantment.
It seemed to him that he was expected. For as the shoes of his horse sounded on the round of gravel before the gatehouse the door was thrown open and Dakcombe, with a smile ready upon his face, stood in the doorway. But it was not he who was expected. For Dakcombe, after standing for a moment like a man turned into stone, uttered a loud whoop of joy, tugged at the bell as though the house were on fire, and then rushed back into the courtyard shouting:
“Kate! Kate! ’Tis Master Robin home again.”
Robin gave the horse to the groom and passed through the gatehouse into the court. He had expected to see it a little neg
lected and dishevelled, as must be with an empty house, and he stood surprised. For never had he seen it so spick and span, so gay with flowers. Kate, his old nurse, came running down the steps with tears of joy coursing down her face. He kissed her, and one moment she thanked God and the next she lamented. He was thin and he was tired, and he was as dirty as a tramp. Robin was hustled up to his room and left to steam himself clean in a hot bath whilst Kate hurried the cook in the kitchen and exchanged a good many secret whispers and cunning smiles with Dakcombe and laid out such clothes and such linen in his dressing room as Robin had not worn for many a day. When he came, shaved and trim, into the room in his dressing robe, she was still at this work.
“Why, Kate,” he exclaimed. “That’s the best suit of clothes that ever I had. I bought it for the party at Hilbury Melcombe and never wore it at all.”
“And when should you be wearing your best clothes, Master Robin, except upon this blessed day?” she said obstinately. “It’s Thursday.”
“Thursday? What does that mean?”
“It’s not for me to say, Master Robin. Put your clothes on at once.”
He was being treated like a little boy whose perils and adventures had all happened in dreams, and it melted him.
“Very well, Kate,” he said humbly. “You shall see such a coxcomb come down to his dinner as would set the queen’s court on fire. But I shall need my long boots and a homelier dress afterwards.”
Kate chuckled.
“So you’ll be riding out, Master Robin, after your dinner?” said she.
“I certainly shall,” said Robin.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 686