Armada

CHAPTER 15

5 a.m. 2nd August 1588. The English Channel, off Portland Bill.

Evardo lay in his cot, his head propped up on his enfolded arm, his eyes locked on the single shard of orange light on the cabin wall. It grew with each passing second and Evardo traced it across the cabin to the corner of a window, his focus shifting to the rising sun that was its source. With a deep groan he raised himself from the cot and ran his hands through his dishevelled hair before putting on his wide-brimmed hat. He had slept lightly over the previous hours, a part of his mind remaining alert to every sound on board. But he felt completely refreshed, gathering up his sword belt as he left the cabin to go aloft.

Pausing on the main deck to get his bearings, he quickly took in the horizons off the larboard and starboard sides. He glanced up at the masthead banners and then looked aft. The enemy fleet were arrayed in battle formation over three miles astern. The semblance of order amongst the English ranks was in marked contrast to dawn on the previous day and Evardo smiled sardonically. Such an impressive display. While yesterday such a formation might have given Evardo cause for immediate concern, this morning there was little the English could do to harass the Armada.

During the night the westerly wind had completely fallen away, leaving both fleets becalmed. The result was an eerie standoff. Soon after midnight Evardo had finally persuaded himself that it was safe to go below to his cabin, leaving strict orders with Mendez that he was to be notified of the slightest change in conditions.

‘The Isle of Portland,’ Mendez indicated as Evardo came up to the quarterdeck.

He turned to look at the rugged low-lying promontory taking shape off the larboard beam. Before sailing from Lisbon every comandante had been given a set of maps from the cartographer Ciprián Sánchez. On these Portland was shown to be a land-tied island shaped like an inverted teardrop with its point jutting out into the sea. To the immediate west of it, beyond the return curve of its shoreline, lay the port of Weymouth.

‘Ahoy Santa Clara, Comandante Morales!’

Evardo looked over the side to the patache approaching under oars.

‘Compliments of Don Alonso de Leiva, Comandante. You are invited to join him on board his ship.’

Evardo called for the longboat to be launched and he was rowed across to La Rata Encoronada. He climbed up the towering hull and was directed to the fo’c’sle where a table had been erected under a canvas awning. The comandantes of the vanguard were seated around it.

‘Ah Comandante Morales,’ de Leiva called from the head of the table. ‘Come and join us for some food.’

Evardo nodded gratefully to de Leiva and sat down. A conversation had already begun about what the next days might bring.

‘Medina Sidonia dispatched another patache to Flanders yesterday evening,’ one man said. ‘It sailed out just before dusk.’

‘And still none has returned,’ another remarked.

‘So we have yet to have any communication with Parma. We’ve no idea if the Army of Flanders is ready to embark or even whether Parma knows the Armada has reached the Channel.’

‘He must know, surely one of our pataches has got through.’

‘There’s no way to be sure. To reach Parma a patache has to run the gauntlet of any English ships that might be ahead in the Channel and the Dutch flyboats that we know are blockading the coast of Flanders. It’s possible that none of them have reached Flanders.’

A shadow passed over Evardo’s thoughts as he listened. He recalled the conversation he had had months before with his brother, Parma’s aide-de-camp. Allante had said that Parma doubted the possibility of close coordination between two disparate forces, particularly where one, the Armada, would be constantly in motion. At the time, nearly a year before, Evardo had dismissed those doubts, believing them to be ill-founded, but now in the fluid battlefield of the Channel they could no longer be ignored. The pace of the Armada’s advance was strictly dictated by the weather and the intensity of the English attacks. A scheduled rendezvous could only be achieved through constant communication with Parma.

‘Don de Leiva,’ one of the comandantes asked, ‘how exactly are we to rendezvous with Parma’s invasion fleet? We possess no secure port on the coast of Flanders deep enough to accommodate the capital ships of the Armada. Are we planning to send our smaller ships forward to escort Parma’s transports past the Dutch blockade?’

‘We cannot,’ another comandante interjected. ‘With the English fleet hard on our heels such a division of forces would be madness.’

‘So if the Armada cannot detach ships to run the Dutch blockade and Parma cannot sally out alone in unarmed transports, how and where are we to meet?’

All eyes turned to de Leiva.

‘The King has ordered us to “join hands” with Parma, so that is what we shall do,’ he said reassuringly. ‘How this is achieved will be resolved when we reach Calais.’

‘Perhaps his grace, the duke, should order the fleet to a safe anchorage on the English coast,’ Evardo suggested. ‘Weymouth perhaps. We could wait there until a line of communication has been established.’

Others around the table voiced their agreement.

‘The King’s orders to the Duke of Medina Sidonia are very clear on this matter,’ de Leiva replied, levelling his gaze at Evardo. ‘We can only seek to gain a safe anchorage on the English coast after we have rendezvoused with Parma. In all these matters we must adhere to the plan outlined by his majesty. His will is guided by God.’

Evardo nodded solemnly, resolving to place his faith in the wisdom of his King.

Evardo registered the gentle kiss of air on the back of his neck. He turned around but it was gone and as he began to believe he had imagined the sensation a tiny gust of wind dried the moisture on his lips. Spinning around he looked aloft to the masthead banners of the La Rata, his right index finger pointing north as he orientated himself. The banner stirred in a lacklustre attempt to unfurl. Evardo held his breath. It stirred again, and Evardo smiled as the banner started to dance. The rigging groaned. A ripple ran across the main course and everyone around the table stood up. The wind was rising, but not from the west. It was blowing from the north-east. It was a light breeze, no more than a couple of knots, but it was enough. The Armada had the weather gauge.

Evardo turned to the flagship in the distance. The Armada’s primary mission was to secure Parma’s crossing, not defeat the English fleet, but surely, Evardo thought, the duke would realize that the easterly wind was a gift granted by the divine. He silently compelled the duke to act. A plume of smoke shot out from the side of the San Martín and the boom of single cannon rolled across the Armada. The pace of Evardo’s heart quickened, and he didn’t dare to believe his eyes. The duke was lowering the topsails of the San Martín. It was the signal to engage the enemy.

‘All hands, battle stations!’

A dozen voices repeated the command in half as many seconds, shattering the pre-dawn calmness of the Retribution. Men ran to the shrouds and rigging, pushing past each other on the narrow decks, their frantic pace hastened by the strident calls of the officers. A deep rumble permeated the air and the decks trembled as the cannons were run out, the gun crews shouting as one as each was made fast and ready.

Robert was on the quarterdeck, his hands on his hips, his eyes narrowed slightly against the wind blowing into his face. The frustration of the previous twenty-four hours was forgotten. Now there was only focus. The enemy had the weather gauge, granted to them by a trick of the wind. They were coming about, the ships of the fighting wings making the turn with a pace that spoke of their eagerness to take advantage of the conditions. Whatever action needed to be taken to counteract the threat had to be taken fast. Robert turned to his sailing masters.

‘Options.’

‘We should come about north-north-easterly,’ Seeley said first. ‘Sail close-hauled to the wind and try to outflank them on the landward wing to regain the weather gauge.’

Robert nodded. ‘Mister Miller?’

‘No signal yet from Howard, Captain. But I agree with the Master. The bastards might take this opportunity to make a play for Weymouth.’

Robert contemplated the course change for a second.

‘So ordered, Mister Seeley, lay close. Helm to north-north-east.’

‘Aye, Captain.’

Seeley moved to the fore rail of the quarterdeck and shouted a string of commands, the crew responding swiftly as thousands of hours of sail-craft guided them. Robert took a moment to observe Seeley’s handling of the manoeuvre. Sailing a square-rigged ship close-hauled was a delicate task, requiring a touch that could not be taught or imitated. It was an intuitive ability, granted only to the best sailing masters and Robert nodded with satisfaction as Seeley quickly struck the perfect balance between wind and sail.

He turned his attention to the gap between the enemy’s landward wing and the coastline. At the leading edge of the Isle of Portland was the headland, Portland Bill, but beyond that, some three miles to the south-east and below the surface of the sea was a sandbank known as The Shambles.

‘Captain,’ Miller called. ‘The Ark Royal is coming about.’

Robert looked to the distant flagship. Howard had come to the same conclusion and the ships closest to the Ark Royal were already falling into her wake as it turned to outflank the enemy. Half a dozen ships closer inshore, including the Retribution, had pre-empted Howard’s command. The Triumph was leading the pack, Martin Frobisher’s 1,100 ton galleon, the largest in the English fleet. Robert called for Seeley to bring the Retribution up closer to Frobisher’s galleon.

Evardo felt his spirits soar as the squall of cannon fire erupted. There would be no escape for the English. Through the gathering clouds of gun smoke half a mile away he tried to see whether any of the English ships had finally been boarded in the close quarter fighting.

Thirty minutes before almost every fighting ship of the Armada had turned simultaneously north-north-west to cut off the enemy’s attempt to outflank the Armada to landward. Most of the English ships, and Evardo recognized their flagship amongst them, had quickly gone about to opposite tack, reversing their tactic by trying to force the seaward flank. With the wind to command the galleons and Levanters of de Leiva and de Bertendona had cut across their path and were now heavily engaged with the enemy.

But not every English ship had turned and the Santa Clara and a number of other warships had been ordered to hold the landward flank at all costs. Beyond dividing his forces to allow the transport ships to remain a safe distance from the fighting, Medina Sidonia had done little to organize a coherent attack and the skirmishes that were rapidly developing were a confusion of individual duals and ripostes.

‘Comandante,’ Mendez called and indicated off the starboard bow.

Under blood red sails and oars de Moncada’s four Neapolitan galleasses were forging a path to the headland. They had the bit between their teeth. A small group of English ships, no more than a half dozen, were trapped on the far side of Portland Bill. They had cut their course to the flank too finely, and close inshore, in the lee of the headland, they were becalmed and completely cut off.

Evardo ordered the Santa Clara to pursue the galleasses, eager to share in the spoils. Like the wind, this gift was surely heaven sent. He clasped the crucifix around his neck as the deck tilted beneath him.

The wind was light, but it filled the sails and bore the Santa Clara on. Four other galleons of the Squadron of Castile slipped into her wake and within a dozen ship-lengths they formed into a rough echelon behind her. Evardo gave them only scant attention. His focus was firmly fixed on the fearsome galleasses a quarter-mile ahead and the hapless prey beyond them.

Robert flinched as the muzzles of the galleasses’ heavy bow chasers disappeared behind billows of smoke. The air screeched with passing round shot and from fifty yards away he heard a scream of pain from a crewman of the Golden Lion.

‘Steady boys,’ he shouted.

The Spanish galleasses advanced at speed, their blunt-nosed rams surging with every pull of the oars, their decks crammed with heavily armed soldiers.

‘Frobisher has led us into a death trap,’ Seeley cursed quietly so only Robert could hear.

‘Fear not, Thomas. Frobisher is no fool.’

When it became obvious that the Spaniards would cut off the English fleet’s attempt to outflank them to landward, and Howard had gone about to the opposite tack, Frobisher had signalled the galleons sailing behind the Triumph to stay on course and follow him. Robert had complied, deferring to Frobisher’s seniority, quickly figuring out the commander’s plan. Along with four other galleons Frobisher had led them into the lee of the headland. The Retribution could barely make steerage speed in the flat calm and so close to the coastline Robert had dropped anchor, transforming his nimble, mobile warship into a vulnerable target, ripe for boarding.

Initially their presence had gone unnoticed and Robert had felt the first sliver of uncertainty that Frobisher’s plan might not work. That feeling had turned to shame when he watched Howard engage the enemy while his galleon skulked idly out of the enemy’s range. A lookout’s call had ended those misgivings. They had been spotted, by four galleasses and a troop of galleons. There was nowhere to run. The Triumph and her consorts were hamstrung by the breathless air and Robert carefully estimated the range as the galleasses sped onwards.

‘Mister Miller,’ Robert called. ‘Orders to Mister Larkin; tell him to give the Spaniards a taste.’

‘Aye, Captain.’

‘Mister Seeley. Prepare to weigh anchor and present the larboard broadside.’

‘Will I order the men to make ready to repel boarders?’

For a moment Robert did not reply. He looked to the Triumph.

‘I believe Frobisher would tell you that won’t be necessary.’

Seeley hesitated for a moment, puzzled by the captain’s response, but the urgency of the moment compelled him to move. He shouted his orders as Larkin let fly with his longer range cannon.

Robert’s hand went to the hilt of his sword and he drew the blade an inch from the scabbard. The Spanish galleasses were less than twelve hundred yards away and were still coming on apace. Their course was steady, their hulls slicing through the calm waters with Portland Bill off their starboard beams.

Again Robert estimated the range. The Spaniards had passed The Shambles. The underwater ridge lay a mile behind them in their wakes. The enemy should be in position. They had taken the bait, but Frobisher’s plan relied not only on location, but on timing. As the galleasses consumed the distance between them and the English galleons, Robert began to pray that Frobisher had indeed judged the conditions correctly.

Evardo drew his sword and twisted the weapon slowly in his hand, examining the keen edge as the sunlight reflected off the long narrow tapered blade. He glanced up at the galleasses two hundred yards ahead, marvelling at their sleek, spear-like hulls and the hypnotic glide of the oars as they rose and fell in seemingly effortless grace. The stranded English galleons would be helpless against such predators. Evardo became acutely aware of the weight of the sword in his hand, knowing he would soon have a chance to wield it on the deck of an English ship.

Evardo checked the line of his galleon. He nodded, confident that Mendez was garnering every knot of speed he could from the light breeze. The galleasses would certainly reach the English first. Their lead was increasing fractionally with every draw of the oars, but once the galleasses engaged at close quarters the Santa Clara and the galleons behind her would be upon the enemy in minutes.

Then Evardo noticed that some of the starboard oars of de Moncada’s flagship, the San Lorenzo, seemed to be out of sync. The entire bank of oars lost their cohesive tempo. The bow of the San Lorenzo skewed violently and almost hit one of her sister ships. The galleasses slowed, their once arrow-straight trajectories falling foul of some unseen force that defied their purpose.

‘Rip tide,’ Evardo whispered, recognizing the consequences of the dreaded phenomenon.

‘Mendez, shorten sail,’ he shouted, his command coinciding with the sailing captain’s own instinct to slow the pace of the Santa Clara.

Within minutes the floundering galleasses had steadied their hulls, but they were no longer advancing. The rip tide was holding them fast. Evardo balled his fist in anger and sheathed his sword, unsure of what he should do next. He could try to go around the galleasses, but he had no idea how far the tidal race extended. With such an insipid wind there was little chance he could forge a path through the rip. The tantalizingly close enemy slowly turned their broadsides to the struggling galleasses.

‘Give ’em hellfire,’ Robert whispered a heartbeat before Larkin’s voice was drowned by the tremendous boom of the broadside cannonade. The Retribution shuddered from the recoil, the decks trembling as if in fury, its firepower marking the galleon as a warship born for the maelstrom of battle.

‘Hard about, Mister Seeley. Chasers to bear,’ Robert called coldly, drawing on his loathing for the mongrel galleasses and their fearful rams.

Seeley called for the change, his focus locked on the calamity that had befallen the Spaniards.

‘Portland Race,’ Robert explained, seeing Seeley’s expression.

‘Of course.’ He had heard of the tidal race but had never encountered it and knew little of its power. It had never occurred to him that this was Frobisher’s stratagem —to use the massive disturbance caused by the tide flowing between The Shambles and the tip of Portland Bill.

At five hundred yards Larkin’s guns were having little effect on the structure of the galleass in the Retribution’s line of fire, but the round shot had torn bloody swathes across her open decks and the crimson hull could not conceal the devastating effects of the broadside. The Retribution continued to turn in an agonizingly slow figure-of-eight, the gun crews poised expectantly behind their charges, while near at hand the broadsides of the other galleons fired off in uncoordinated salvos, the ships firing as they could. As bait they had held their nerve and kept their fire in check. As aggressors they would let fly with all the wrath they could muster.

‘Neapolitan cobardes,’ Evardo shouted, unable to contain himself. ‘Why don’t they pull through?’

The galleasses were still arrayed before the Santa Clara, unable or unwilling to advance. It appeared that de Moncada had lost his nerve for the fight. Where initially the galleasses had been clapped in the irons of a rip tide they were now paralysed by their indecisive commander. If only the galleasses were commanded by Spaniards. They would not shirk. The Spaniards were warriors, not whore-bred traders like the Neapolitans. While Evardo’s own ship was a slave to the wind, the galleasses’ oars should allow them to break through and take the first prizes of the campaign. The strength of a ship needed only the courage to wield it. For a moment Evardo was tempted to close and board the nearest galleass and take command of its crew.

The boom of a full broadside washed over the deck, followed an instant later by the whistle of round shot, many of them missing the galleasses to tear holes in the air around the Santa Clara. Evardo had ordered his gunnery captain to return fire with the bow chasers if any targets presented themselves but with the galleasses under their sights the guns of the Santa Clara had remained quiet, robbing Evardo’s crew of the satisfaction of fighting fire with fire.

‘Comandante,’ Mendez called.

‘What is it?’

‘The wind, Comandante,’ the captain replied, alarm registering in his voice and expression. ‘It’s shifting.’

Evardo’s gaze shot up to the masthead. The banners were thrashing in the breeze but they were no longer pointing away from the north-east. They had spun around to the call of a new wind, a stiff southerly breeze that mocked Evardo even as he watched it take hold of the sails.

In his heart Evardo knew it was God’s punishment. He had lost patience with the Armada. He had granted them a favourable wind, a divine force to allow them to bring the fight to the enemy, only to see it squandered through uncertainty. Now He had given the weather gauge back to the English.

‘So be it,’ Evardo said quietly. Before the day was through he would prove that the Spanish were worthy of God’s favour.

‘Captain Mendez, bring us about.’

‘Si, mi Comandante,’ Mendez replied, seeing in his superior’s face the ferocity he had witnessed when he ordered the Santa Clara into the breech before the San Juan.

Robert wiped the sea spray from his face, his hand lingering over his mouth as he tasted the salt water, his nostrils filled with the smell of the sea-borne breeze. He was standing on the bowsprit, leaning out over the surging bow, his hand tightly gripping a foremast stay. To windward the English fleet was redeploying, taking immediate advantage of the weather gauge, their earlier fighting withdrawal swiftly becoming a vigorous counter attack.

From the moment the wind had changed the flotilla around the Triumph had headed away from Portland Bill to link up with the main body of the fleet. Howard had set a convergent course with Frobisher’s cohort, but only those galleons closest to the Ark Royal had taken their lead from the admiral. Further south Drake, in the gaudily painted Revenge, was attacking the Spanish seaward flank with upwards of fifty English ships.

The Retribution was sailing close-reach to the southerly wind. Howard’s centre was directly ahead but over a dozen enemy warships were beating towards the Ark Royal in an obvious effort to oppose Howard’s course. Robert quickly assessed the situation. The English had the weather gauge but the Spanish were desperately trying to retain the initiative.

‘Let them try,’ Robert muttered as he left the bowsprit. He ordered Seeley to maintain their heading, a course that would take them right into the developing storm of battle in the centre.

‘Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis,’ Evardo whispered in awe as he watched the San Martín sail into the maw of the English centre, the deafening roar of enemy cannon shaking the very heavens as the flagship was consumed by a cloud of gun smoke that concealed the terrifying conditions within. The Santa Clara was beating against the wind, trying to claw its way back into a battle that had little shape and strategy. Like bare-knuckle prize fighters each side was pummelling away at each other, searching for weaknesses that could be exploited.

To the south-west the seaward flank of the Armada was being hard pressed. Medina Sidonia had engaged the English centre. The duke had evidently decided that the seaward flank was in greater danger and several warships bore away from the San Martín to sail in support of the rearguard. Now the duke was alone in his attack. Evardo shouted to Mendez to lay on more sail and speed their approach.

‘Bear away!’ Robert roared above the thunderous thump of cannon and the concussive sound of musket fire.

The air around the quarterdeck was alive with the sounds of passing shot, an invisible predator that gave no warning to those it took. Robert’s eyes were everywhere at once. The Retribution was one of a cadre of galleons supporting Howard in his attack on the Spanish flagship, their close formation sailing testing every master’s skill as the galleons wove in and out of each other’s wakes, laying on their fire in turn upon the Spanish foe, before sailing upwind to reload their guns and returning to the fray.

The enemy flagship was almost invisible in the gun smoke, the cannons’ disgorgement holding sway over the breeze that tried in vain to clear the air. Only the muzzle blasts of heavy Spanish weapons could be seen, fiery sparks spurting out of the gloom as the enemy answered defiantly to every attack run.

‘Quart—ho!—off—quarter!’

Robert was unable to comprehend the lookout’s call above the din of battle but he followed his outstretched hand and saw a second enemy warship emerge off the bow of the Spanish flagship. She was a behemoth, a towering merchantman, her decks crammed with soldiers. She erupted in smoke, firing off a single broadside that sliced through the rigging of the Elizabeth Jonas not thirty yards off the Retribution’s bow.

‘Mister Miller, orders to the Master Gunner; new target off the flagship’s bow. Mister Seeley, steady as she goes. Look to your helm.’

The Retribution completed its turn to larboard, her hull cutting cleanly through the swell. Robert felt the tilt of the deck beneath his feet, sensing the movements of his ship; the response of the Retribution to the wind in her sails and the bite of her rudder in the blue-green sea. The sensation steeled Robert’s every nerve. He was master of a creature that knew no fear, a warship that obeyed his every command and he would match her will ounce for ounce. As his galleon swung into range of the Spanish he roared a command to set loose the wrath of Retribution.

‘¡Fuego!’

The Santa Clara shuddered at the ferocity of her broadside cannonade. Evardo called for an immediate course change, turning his galleon in as tight a circle as possible as they came in under the stern of the San Martín. At almost twice her tonnage and ordnance the flagship towered over the Santa Clara but they stood shoulder to shoulder, taking the enemy’s punishment as they denied them leave to advance.

Evardo checked the line of his ship, ignoring the firestorm that swept his decks. On the far side of the flagship a Guipúzcoan merchantman was holding station. Beyond them Evardo recognized another galleon of the Castilian Squadron, the San Juan Bautista or the San Pedro, he could not be sure which. For nearly thirty minutes the San Martín had been alone, now she had allies and with each arrival the flagship was spared more of the English fire.

On the fo’c’sle Nathaniel stood behind the wall of Spanish musketeers lining the gunwale. He had no weapon to wield against the distant English warships. Alvarado stood close by, yelling orders to his men, urging them on, to increase their rate of musket fire and speed the loading of the falcon pedreros.

The fight was hopelessly one sided, with the English warships advancing individually to within three hundred yards before firing their cannons and sailing away again almost unscathed. The Spanish could only reply with side arms and the smaller, more easily serviced guns on the fore and aft castles. Their main guns were silent.

In the midst of battle Nathaniel could not quell his blood lust and he echoed the gutter curses of the Spaniards, cries that fuelled the conflict that raged within him. The Spanish were firing on his countrymen but if Nathaniel was to return to England then the English navy would have to be defeated.

Dice-shot cut a swathe through the ranks close to Nathaniel, striking down the soldiers manning a swivel-mounted 3 pound falconete. He rushed to take command of the gun, taking hold of the trailing handle, pointing it at the nearest English ship. He hesitated. For him the Northern Rebellion had been a bloodless uprising. Never before had he wilfully drawn English blood.

A Spanish soldier ran to Nathaniel’s side, a lighted taper in his hand. He glanced at Nathaniel, checking to see if his aim was set. For a moment Nathaniel could not move. He nodded. The soldier dropped the taper to the touchhole. The falconete bucked in Nathaniel’s hand, spewing out a cloud of smoke that engulfed him.

‘Reload!’

Men rushed to Nathaniel’s command. A war cry rose to his throat, born from the depths of his hatred for the Protestant monarch, but he could not cry out. Were the men on the English warships truly his enemy? For all he knew his son was amongst them and Nathaniel stepped back from the gun before angrily silencing his remorse. His path was set; he had to see it through. Victory for the Spanish was crucial.

Another English ship sailed into position opposite the Santa Clara, her bow chasers firing in unison. Shouted warnings of incoming fire were lost to the smash of timber and the cries of the wounded. Alvarado called for a volley of fire, his command followed by the cackle of muskets. Suddenly his strident voice ceased and Nathaniel turned to see Alvarado fall. The rate of fire from the fo’c’sle fell away as more men looked to their stricken captain. In the distance the English warship turned broadside.

‘Back to your stations, resume your fire,’ Nathaniel shouted. ‘Ready the pedreros. Fire as they bear.’

The soldiers reacted to the voice of command.

‘You men, get below. We need more power and shot.’

Nathaniel drew his sword. ‘¡Apunten, Fuego!’

The two pound pedreros fired as the English ship let fly with the heavy guns of its first broadside. More men fell around Nathaniel and he began to shout the words of encouragement he had heard Alvarado call.

Off the stern quarter the San Martín was withdrawing towards the centre of the Armada as more Spanish trouble-shooters completed the shield around her. The English rate of fire was falling. Denied their prize many of the enemy warships were disengaging. Only a few were continuing the fight but they remained out of reach, deftly using the advantage of the wind and their faster ships to dictate the pace of the battle.