The galleon's grave

Chapter 4

May-June 18th, 1587 The Netherlands; The Capture of the San Felipe

Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma and Governor of the Netherlands, read the letter from his kinsman Philip II of Spain with total concentration. His aides waited silently by his side. He was a handsome figure. He had been called from sitting for his portrait. As a result he was extravagantly dressed, with no bonnet or cap but a vast, fashionable ruff angled forward so that its back was halfway up the back of his head. The doublet was picked out with gold lace inlays, the puffed sleeves of a different colour. Yet despite all the finery it was his face that commanded attention: angular, the nose straight,' the fine head of close-cropped dark hair, the beard and moustache perfect of their kind. It was the eyes that drew one to him: dark, yet with a mysterious depth to them, the eyes of a man who had seen and felt too much. Strange, newcomers thought. Here was a man, a grandson of King Charles V of Spain, a nephew of King Philip II, born not so much with a golden spoon in his mouth as born with the world at his feet. To add to his birth came striking good looks, a high intelligence and the body of a fine, wild animal. Why did his eyes speak of such sadness? The head of the House of Farnese commanded respect in Europe, not just in Italy. Yet from the start the Duke of Parma had chosen the military life. At twenty-six years of age he had been an aide-decamp at the Battle of Lepanto. Many young men had died in that epic battle. Those who had survived had an honour no man could ever take away from them and no man equal. Was it not at Lepanto that the infidel hordes had been stopped in their tracks, a victory won not for man but for God?

And then at the ridiculous age of thirty-eight years he had been placed in command of the King of Spain's Army of Flanders, that most troubled of provinces where the local Dutch were not only fighting Spain, their temporal master, but fighting God with their Protestant heresy. He had recaptured most of Flanders by his wits, his unconventional tactics and by his capacity to command the fierce loyalty of his soldiers. They had said Antwerp was a general's grave, crowed in advance at the humiliation the young Duke of Parma would meet there. They had swallowed their words when Antwerp had fallen. If Drake was a god of evil to many Spaniards, a man whose success could only have been achieved by the sale of his soul to the Dark Lord, then Parma was the equivalent to the English.

He finished reading the letter, carefully folding it and handing it back to his secretary. 'We are to invade England,' he announced to his men. They looked at each other, questions on their brows. 'The King will send a great Armada, is assembling it even now. It will occupy the English fleet while we sail over the Channel to England.' His tone was flat, giving nothing away. He had thirty thousand men under his command, the finest army in Europe, in the world. No one doubted that if they could be landed in England they would cut through its heart like a crossbow bolt through paper. There was silence. Finally, one of his aides found the courage to speak. He had served the Duke from the days of Lepanto, was the most trusted of all. He often acted as spokesman for the others.

'We have no deep water port,' he said. 'The Dutch have shallow-draft vessels that can patrol the coast, vessels that can come inshore in a manner that no great Portuguese galleon can.' It was no secret that the recent conquest of Portugal meant that the core of any Spanish navy would be the fine seagoing vessels of Portugal. Spanish galleys were designed for the calm waters of the Mediterranean. Portugal's empire, now subsumed to Spain, had been built on ocean-going galleons, some said the strongest and most durable in the world.

Silence. Parma gazed at the man, but said nothing.

'Those Dutch fly-boats could blast our shallow barges out of the water before we came within sight of a Spanish armada,' the aide continued.

'And we would never take Antwerp,' Parma said, after another long pause. Yet they had taken Antwerp. The implication was clear. They did the impossible.

'How?' It was a senior officer, another man Parma had total trust in. He had been stranded with him for hours behind enemy lines — Parma shared the dangers and rigours of his men. He was as often in the front line with his men as he was found at base. It was one reason why they loved him so much.

'How did we take Antwerp?' Parma replied. 'I thought you knew. Actually, I thought you planned most of it.' There was laughter round the table, an easing of the tension.

‘Not Antwerp, my Lord,' said the man with a smile and a deferential bow 'of his head, acknowledging the joke. 'How to get our soldiers over to England and past the Dutch?'

'There are canals, old and new,' said Parma dreamily. He had shown a savage capacity to cut new canals through the flat lands of the Netherlands in days, getting his men where no one had expected them to be. 'There are empty boats to be sent to the coast, drawing off the damned Dutch in the face of their real enemy. There are embarkations at night-time when not even the Dutch can see what is happening, if it happens fast enough.' He stood up, unexpectedly. His men bowed their heads. 'But most of all, we have an army. What say we take Sluys? Ostend? All of Flanders? Even Walcheren?'

The men stiffened, drawing themselves unwittingly to attention.

Their General was suggesting a smashing, final blow to end the war, that endless haemorrhage of Spanish money and blood in the Netherlands. Parma held out his hand to his Secretary, clicking his finger to demand the letter from the King of Spain back. Parma did not open it again. He held it between his thumb and forefinger, away from his body.

'I will have time to think over these matters. I will not be visiting Parma. The King has suggested my duties lie here.'

So permission had been refused for the Duke to visit the Dukedom he had only inherited that year! He had formally requested leave of absence. Leave of absence in the winter, when campaigning was impossible and the opposing armies settled into quarters.

It had been refused. But evidently he was too valuable in the Netherlands, Philip too concerned perhaps that if he left there for his ancestral homeland, changed the mist-clinging, cold and damp Netherlands for the hot beauty of Parma, he might never return. The men gathered round the Duke gave a collective sigh. They, the privileged inner cabinet, knew more than any their General's yearning to see his homeland. He had not even been educated there, sent instead to be brought up and educated in Spain.

'Well,' said Parma, We have one country still to conquer, here in Flanders. Now let us set about conquering another.'

Gresham could not sleep. They had been becalmed in Cadiz just as Drake was preparing to leave. Miraculously, Drake's luck had held. The two vast cannon hauled on to the beach by the Spaniards had missed the English fleet with virtually every shot, and no Spanish vessels had arrived to block them in the harbour. The Spanish troops marshalled in good order in the town, had no way of reaching the English ships. The Spaniards had tried to send fireships down on the English fleet at night, but the absence of wind meant that they had been easily hauled aside by small boats. Drake strode the quarterdeck, appearing to be in high spirits despite the perilous nature of his position. His Secretary, lugubrious as ever, was trying to run through figures of captured goods. Drake was clearly bored.

The Secretary sighed and looked out over the bay to ten or fifteen flaring points, burning or burned-out Spanish fireships.

‘Well, my Lord,' he said, 'at least the Spanish seem to be doing your job for you.'

Drake stopped his pacing, looked down at his Secretary, and then went to the front rail.

'Look you there, boys!' he shouted at the top of his voice. Most of the crew had gathered in the cool of the night on the open deck, few were asleep. Drake waved his hand to point at the burning ships. 'The Spaniards are doing our job for us!' There was a great cheer and wave of laughter from the men. In no time a boat was being launched to check if any of the fireships still posed a danger. Or was the real reason to take the joke around the fleet, Gresham wondered?

It was stalemate, until a fine wind blew up in the morning and sent Drake out to sea a significantly richer man than when he had first sailed into Cadiz harbour.

'Well,' George said, surveying the wreck of the harbour, 'that won't help King Philip invade!'

‘Will it stop it?' asked Gresham. -

‘No,' said George, thinking for a moment. ‘Not if the King of Spain keeps his nerve. But it will delay it. For months.'

George was snoring loudly now, his arm thrown part over Gresham, giving him pins and needles. He gently removed George's arm, sat up. It was Mannion, shaking him.

'We're on the move. Thank God I can't smell Spaniards any more.'

'They can't smell worse, than you,' Gresham yawned. 'Why do you hate Spain so much?' he said, more to pass the time while his brain reconnected with his aching body than for any real interest in the answer. 'I know I ought to hate it. I'm English. But I can't believe total ill of a country that builds such beautiful buildings. And there's an appalling beauty in the Mass; just listen to Byrd's music. And they saved Europe from the Turks at Lepanto. It's not a country without honour. Why do you hate it so?

'I don't hate Spain as much as I hate that bloody Don Alvaro de Bazan, 1st Marquis of Santa Cruz,' said Mannion. He spoke the name of Spain's High Admiral of the Seas perfectly, with what seemed to Gresham to be an excellent Spanish accent. There was a tone of venom in his servant's voice Gresham had never heard before.

'Why so much hatred of a man you've never even met?' asked Gresham his curiosity aroused now.

'Well, there you're wrong. I have met him, see.' Mannion was refusing eye contact, watching the sway of the rigging.

'Tell,' said Gresham, simply, sitting down with his back to the rail, knees clasped in his arms, boat cloak wrapped round him to ward off the chill of dawn. He knew if he pushed Mannion the man would retreat. Mannion did what he wanted, not what he was told. It was why he respected him and valued his friendship so much.

'Well,' said Mannion, after what was clearly for him some troubled thought, 'suppose there's no 'arm in your knowing. Particularly if it stops you sellin' out to Spain, not as you'll listen to anything I say, o' course. 'Cept for one thing. This stays between me and you, right? No blabbing of it to one of those fine girls you take to bed with you. No blabbing when you're in drink at College. If they ever let us back, that is.' Mannion looked at the prone figure of George, reassuring himself that he was truly asleep.

Who would I tell your secrets to, thought Gresham? I have no one else I trust, except this other lump of a man asleep by my side. Would I break your confidence, you, the oldest, the best and the only friend I have? ‘No blabbing,' he said simply. Mannion looked at him, nodded, and sat down beside him. All the action was up in the bow or at the stern, the waist of the vessel for once surprisingly deserted.

'You see, I were a ship's boy. Never known who me parents were. All I know was that the man who brought me up — a cobbler, he was, and a bloody bad one judging by the number of customers who came back to complain — told me that I were a bastard, and a charge on his good nature. That was in between thumpin' me, o' course. Thumping me was about the only fun 'e had. So as soon as I was big enough, and I always were big, he packed me off, sold me to a captain sailing out of Deptford.'

Ship's boys performed a variety of lowly jobs on board ships. If they survived they picked up enough knowledge to get a decent berth as a swabber, the lowest rating. From there was the path to becoming a seaman proper. It was a rough, dangerous way to learn a trade, and there were dark whispers in every port of sailors turning to the boys for sexual satisfaction, of boys who objected ending their lives as an anonymous splash overboard in a lonely sea.

‘ ‘E weren't a bad man, Captain Chicken, though it warn't the best name for a sea-going Captain.' Mannion's accent, never refined, was slipping back, Gresham noticed. Was he talking to Gresham, or talking to himself? 'Anyway, I stuck with 'im five or six years, 'til I were ready to take on a job as real seaman. Surprised, weren't you, when I knew so much about ships?' He turned to Gresham, who nodded, fascinated, gripped by the unfolding human drama. 'I know more than half these buggers 'ere,' said Mannion gesturing dismissively to the crew gathered fore and aft. 'Then the Captain, 'e got a new ship. Off to Cadiz we was, takin' fine cloth from England and bringin' back fine wine.'

'Cadiz?' Gresham sat up, turned to look Mannion in the face. 'Here? This port? Where we are now?'

'The very same,' said Mannion, 'fuckin' awful hole that it is. We'd arrived, taken the cargo off and were waitin' for the wine to be loaded. Some delay or other, don't know why. Crew went ashore — not me, I was waitin' on the Captain and his good wife — and the crew ashore got into a fight with some Spaniards. Next thing we know, fifty soldiers are clamberin' up the side o' the old Deptford Rose, and before we can think we're all of us ashore and clapped in a Spanish jail, God help us! They treat their animals better than they treated us!'

Mannion paused. Gresham sensed that the years had rolled back, and that he was, in his mind, actually back there, in the foul, stinking cell they had thrust him into.

'Any road, once they've roughed us up a bit, me and the crew, and 'ad their fun, we're hauled in front of what they call a court. Sir Francis Fucking Drake 'ad just knocked off a load of Spanish ships, so the English were really popular in Cadiz. And guess who the senior naval officer is, in charge of this Court and running the whole show?'

The Marquis of Santa Cruz,' whispered Gresham. 'Was it really him?'

'Oh, it was 'im alright. His bloody galleys had come out o' the Med for some reason, were staying in Cadiz — just like those bastard galleys that nearly did for us yesterday. They do it a lot, send the galleys out, just to prove they're sea-going vessels, not just right for the Med. Rarely get further north than Lisbon, tell the truth. They're not sea-going vessels, really, you see. Not North Sea vessels, at any rate.' Mannion paused.

'What happened? asked Gresham, caught up in the drama of the story.

'We were 'eathen pirates, apparently. Funny, I'd thought we were just God-fearing Englishmen trying to earn an honest living. The 'eathen pirate was Lord Fuckin' Drake, but they hadn't captured 'im. They'd captured us, so we were sentenced in 'is place.'

'Sentenced?'

'Sentenced. In the case of the Captain, to burn as a heretic. We were all mustered to watch it. Includin' his wife, of course. God wants good women to stand by and see their God-fearing 'usband burned to a crisp, apparently. Or at least, that's Spanish religion. After that, those of us with any muscle were sent to the galleys. It's the smell I'll never forget. That burnin' smell. That smell of a human bein' burned.'

'You were a galley slave?' asked Gresham, incredulous. 'But that's

… awful! It's unbelievable…' He was lost for words. Gresham knew that, incredibly, some of those working the oars in Spanish galleys were 'volunteers', forced by poverty and imminent starvation. Yet he also knew how many were common criminals, in effect condemned to death by their service.

'Not as unbelievable as it was for me,' said Mannion. 'Santa Cruz, 'e was eatin' his dinner when he sentenced us. Three types o' wine, I remember. They chain you to a bench,' he said bitterly, 'all the time you're at sea. You sit at the bench, you sleep at the bench, you eat what crap they give you at the bench, you piss and shit at the bench. And once you get chained there, you expect to die at the bench. 'Cept it's not all bad.' He turned, and grinned at Gresham. 'It's a padded bench, y'see. Otherwise you'd have the skin stripped off your arse in half an hour. Food's alright, really. Surprising. They need to keep you fit, you see. And all because of 'is Highness the Marquis of Santa Cruz. I'll never forget it. 'E couldn't give a shit. We was just dirt, flies to be stamped on by 'is fine leather boot! They called it a court but they'd made their minds up long before we was ever dragged before 'em. It were a farce. Men's lives at stake, and it bein' treated halfway between a joke and when a farmer decides to kill an' eat a chicken.'

'So how did you get out?'

'Luck. Pure luck. The bloody Spaniards talk about Lepanto as if it wiped the bloody Turks off the face of the water. Well, it didn't. We were sent — our boat, that is — to sort out some bloody Turkish corsairs, 'cept they sorted us out. Rams. These galleys have bloody great rams on their front, lined with brass. Our captain must 'ave got it wrong. Any road, we was rammed. Three benches in front o' me. I can see that brass end shinin' now, straight through the 'ull. Pulped those men. Then, as we were still movin' forward, their ram splintered the hull, like it were paper, crashin' on down to us. Man on the right o' me, caught by the ram, smashed to bits. Man on the left 'o me, bloody great splinter, straight into his gut.'

'And you?' said Gresham.

‘Not a mark on me. Ram broke the bench exactly where the ring was sunk to hold the chain. Result? I'm free — 'cept I've got half a ton of loose chain and a ring bolt round me knees, even if it ain't attached to the ship any more. And, of course, the galley's sinking, isn't she? Water flooding through the deck, already at me knees.'

'So what happened?' asked Gresham, like the child he had never been asking for the end of a story from the mother he had never known.

'The water's comin' towards me in waves, gettin' higher all the time. And then, on top of one of them, I see the key to the padlocks round our feet. The overseer kept it in a leather wallet — 'e must have dropped it. I grab it. By this time the water's at waist height when it's at its lowest, but slappin' me in the face when it's high. So I take a deep breath, and I ducks down underneath the water, tries to get the key into the locks.'

'What then?'

'I does one, and then the ship lurches over. I lose the key. I lose the key! I'm cryin', cryin d'you hear, cryin' underwater. An' I just want to breathe, don't care if it's water or air, I just got to open me lungs. And I'm clenching my fist, without thinking. And when I clench it for the last time, there's something in it.'

'The key?' Gresham breathed.

'The key! So I shove it in the second lock, thinkin' I'm dead so what the Hell. And it opens. My legs are free.' 'And then?' Gresham asked.

'Don't know,' said Mannion. 'All I know is that I'm floating on the surface. And breathing. Breathing.'

'But how did you get home?' asked Gresham.

'Well, now,' said Mannion, clearly deciding that he'd made enough of a confession, 'that's a different story. Save it for another day. Ended up in England. Your father gave me a job. Gardener!' Mannion barked a short, savage laugh. 'Can't tell you how good that word sounded. Gardener. Feet on God's earth for evermore. Catch me if you can wi' me feet on anything that moves ever again!' He made as if to stand up, then thought better of it, returned to Gresham's side. 'But I'll tell you one thing. When I 'eard we was goin' to Cadiz, I thought Christ! When I 'eard it was with Drake, I thought Christ Almighty! And when I saw those galleys, ain't no words no Christ ever 'eard passed through my brain. I was about to ask you to kill me if it ever looks like we're goin' to be captured by those bastards.'

'Why didn't you?'

'Thought it was daft- Thought we was dead anyway. Thought it was kind of poetic justice, someone like me being blown to bits by a bloody Spanish galley. Didn't like it, though. Never given up on anything before.'

Gresham looked deep into Mannion's. eyes. He was beginning to realise what this journey must have cost Mannion in courage.

'Why did you come with me on… this?'

"Cos people like me can't choose what 'appens to them. If they're lucky, they can choose who it 'appens with. I chose you. So the rest follows, don't it? Fall in love with Spain, if you like and you're that stupid. Me, I don't choose countries. I choose people.'

It had been chaos when Sidonia arrived at Cadiz, guided as he had feared by the plumes of smoke. Troops were milling around the town, each under their own command. Some were drunk, and it would only be a matter of time before one or more of them went out of control and started to loot or rape. Yet with relief he saw the smoke was coming from ships in the bay, not the town. 'My Lord, what are your orders?'

The militia officer was respectful, but forceful. He knew Sidonia's reputation. A hard taskmaster, but fair. As for Sidonia, he had no training as a General, but the necessary actions seemed obvious to him. He took fifty of the best mounted troops, and rode through the town, grabbing the disorganised men as he found them, sending the drunkards off to the dungeons in the Castle and organising the remainder into detachments of mixed horse and foot. Small enough to be mobile, yet powerful enough to hurt seriously a landing party, he placed the detachments all along the shoreline, defined a command structure. He gave the command to men who he either knew, or simply those officers with natural authority. Next he ordered such few light cannon as the city could muster and placed them in hurriedly constructed batteries along the shoreline. Now let the enemy land by boat! He had Cadiz scoured for powder and shot, placing it in the cellars of the stoutest brick and stone houses, within reach of his shoreline detachments but out of range of the English guns. Messengers were sent to the galleys, apparently his only effective fighting force afloat, and a line of communication set up. There was no escape from the harbour for any Spanish vessel, so a rider was sent to the next fishing village along the coast, with enough gold to send the entire fishing fleet out to sea to search for Recalde's squadron to tell it to return to Cadiz.

By now Sidonia was exhausted, and a film of dust covered him from top to toe. It would never do. A commander had to be seen to be the part, as well as to do it. He turned to a meagre house and waited for its screeching inhabitants to be evicted by his men. They would come to no harm, and afterwards would become the talk of their friends because the great Duke had changed in their hovel. He wrinkled his nose at the stench inside, but allowed himself to be changed and put into new clothing, more resplendent than his riding garb, more slashed and jewelled. Let the people see the King's representative glitter a little in front of them. It would do no harm.

Could he do anything about the outrageous arrogance of the English ships in the harbour? Very little, he suspected. Fireships must be tried to drift down in the English vessels, but with so little wind the English could easily divert them, if their discipline and control held. Sidonia never underestimated Spain's enemies, as did so many other of his aristocratic colleagues. Heathen devils though they were, they were professionals. Yet the fireships would boost the morale of the garrison and the inhabitants, even if they failed.

He paused to take food and wine, rationing himself to half an hour before riding off to inspect the result of his day's arrangements. In a matter of hours chaos had been transformed into order. His face was calm, composed, showing sign neither of the fact that he was not displeased with his efforts, nor of the fierce anger he felt at the English impudence. For the first time he felt the desire to launch a great fleet in revenge.

The call went out for men to man a boat. Drake wished to know if any unseen problems had arisen now that the ships had left Cadiz harbour and were at sea, and subject to the full stress of wind and wave. As they scudded round the fleet, aided by the brisk wind and the tiny sails they carried, they became more and more amazed. The first shot fired from the great culverin the Spaniards had mounted in Cadiz had pierced the hull of the Golden Lion and carved off the leg of its master gunner, but after that, and despite the at times frantic cannonades from the shore, hot a single ship reported a single hit nor a casualty. Far from being exhausted by hauling the cables to bring broadsides to bear on the lurking galleys, the crews were becoming increasingly jovial and confident, beginning to think themselves invulnerable.

Mannion was giving Gresham a lesson in gunnery as they bounced over the choppy seas to yet another English galleon. 'How can they miss so often?' Gresham had asked.

'Well, it's like this…' Mannion was breathing easily, despite his rowing.

'It's 'cos all gunners are stupid bastards! Pissed out o' their minds!' One of the sailors guffawed. There were no private conversations on a small boat.

'Apart from that,' said Mannion, 'powder costs a fortune, so you ain't exactly encouraged to practise. They'll have fired off more shots this morning than they've done all year.'

'Silly buggers still haven't learned much, 'ave they?' said the sailor, clearly setting himself up as the boat's chief entertainer.

'Then there's the ball. Hardly any of 'em's perfect. It's called windage. Gap between the ball and the inside o' the barrel. If it's big, the ball gets less of a push. If the fit's snug, the ball goes further.'

'Windage, is it? I thought 'as 'ow with gunners it were all piss and wind!'

'Then there's the powder,' Mannion continued, ignoring the running commentary made on his every word. 'It's all different, burns differently. Even the same batch can change from one day to the next.'

'End result,' said the sailor, 'is no gunner can 'it a piss-pot even if 'is dick's in it at the time!'

There was no real supply of saltpetre in England. Laborious applications of human urine were the only way to remedy nature's deficit. Every gunner in the fleet knew his powder was composed in no small part of piss. It affected their humour.

Anna had never been so bored in her life, nor so terrified. They had brought books on board, of course, even though there was a current debate over whether or not reading was likely to overtax the weaker female brain and bring on the vapours. And most of the books were sermons or edifying texts, though she had ploughed through them once, twice even, rather than face the prospect of nothing at all to engage her brain. She could walk on the quarterdeck at certain times, provided she was well protected from the sun, and feel the eyes of such men as could see her boring into her back. Well, that had been quite exciting initially, and a little thrill of a shiver had gone down her spine when she had realised how much she was the centre of attention. Then she had turned unexpectedly one day, caught sight of raw lust in a man's eyes before he could properly turn away, and she had felt sick. Her father had tried to breed horses in Goa, as much to pass the time as for any profit, but the venture had largely failed. Yet she had been brought to the field once, by accident, when they had also brought the stallion to the mare. She remembered the little foals she had been allowed to caress and give her easy love to. The end product might have been lovable, defenceless, sweet beyond belief. The process that led to it was brutal, sharp and short, a functional exercise in need and power. Would her French merchant take her like that, she thought?

It did not stop her walking the deck. She was too proud for that, and her young body demanded the exercise. Yet it reduced her pleasure in the vista of the great, rolling sea, with its permanent hint of danger, of worlds yet to be discovered and of the total magnificence of nature. She learned the names of the birds that swooped around them even far out at sea, envying their freedom to fly where they wished, their careless abandon as they found a firm footing on a rolling yard arm, looking down their beaks at the dots who manned the decks below them. They had fired a cannon, once. That had been exciting. Truth be told, most of the cannon on board could not be moved, never mind loaded and fired, because cargo was piled in their way. Yet they had kept one or two ports open and hurled a broken barrel into the sea as a target, laboriously putting the ship round so as to allow the cannon to bear. The men had huffed and puffed, put slow match to cannon one, two and then three times. The thing had bellowed its noise, and Anna had seen the tiny splashes either far beyond or far to the side of the bobbing barrel. So much for battle practice.

That left reading and sewing — not practical sewing, but the highly decorative tableaux that ladies were meant to produce — and practising her languages. At least they had a plentiful supply of books with them, in Spanish, English, Italian, Latin and Greek, their bindings only partly ruined by the damp heat of Goa. Her father had believed that girls should be educated and speak different languages.

Her mother, that unfailing mainstay of her life, was clearly ill. At times she sank into a delirium so deep that for all the world she appeared as if she were dead. At other times she could talk, but was so pale that even Anna's impetuous spirit was restrained from asking her things that might increase her suffering. The ship's doctor came and made noises, but he was better suited to hacking off the legs of men who had fallen from the masthead and mangled their limbs beyond redemption.

Anna knew her mother was dying. She knew it deep down, though her mind and body had decided to cope by not letting her admit the fact even to herself. Not yet. Not just yet.

The days had seemed to pass in a blur. From Cadiz to a sun-blasted hole off Cape St Vincent called Sagres, for no obvious reason. Eleven hundred men put on shore and marched under fire for fifteen miles, and turned round again with many injured and many more angry and semi-mutinous. One Captain Borough had written to complain to Drake. Drake had court-martialled him, placed him under lock and key aboard his own ship! Sent a Captain Marchant to take charge of his ship. Then he had gone back and reduced Sagres castle to a smouldering ruin. 'Lisbon!' Drake announced before his weary crews had wiped the powder stains off their faces, or the dust off their feet. Was this the way Drake managed men? By ensuring they had no time to think? He turned to his Secretary, standing glumly by him as ever.

‘We have pulled the King of Spain's beard,' said Drake quietly to him. He looked inquisitively at the Secretary, who looked back, shook his head ever so slightly, and mouthed a word. 'Swinged?' hissed Drake incredulously. 'Swinged' was a slang word used for a man having sex. An even more tired expression came over the Secretary's face, and he mouthed the word again. Drake's brow furrowed, then his bushy eyebrows shot up in delight. He turned to the crew, his voice cutting through the rigging now. ‘We have singed the King of Spain's beard!' he announced, historically.

'Santa Cruz is in there,' said Gresham quietly. Now Drake had anchored off Lisbon, the home port of Spain's greatest admiral. Gresham asked again to be put ashore, to be met by a curt refusal. This time no reason was given.

'He'd better be bloody glad he ain't out here in front of me,' muttered Mannion.

Were they going to attack Lisbon? The men were starting to mutter. The ships were foul now from their time at sea, Lisbon heavily defended, fewer than a thousand men fit and able to march. Then the wind blew from the north, and Drake was up and away, heading back south to Cape St Vincent. Men were falling sick. Drake sent them ashore, organised two vessels to take the worst affected home. His fleet pillaged up and down the coast, destroying hundreds of small coastal vessels, the vessels Cecil had so dearly wanted sunk, the vessels carrying the barrel staves and hoops for the Armada. And Drake gave Cecil a bonus, virtually removing the Spanish tuna fishing fleet from the seas, destroying the hamlets where the fishermen lived and their nets as well as sinking their craft. The fish they caught, when dried, were a staple part of the diet for all seagoing Spanish vessels.

The release of the small, contained and ordered world of the Elizabeth Bonaventure was starting to pale. He was desperate to be landed to complete the task Walsingham had asked of him, paltry though it still seemed. He fretted about College, about London, starting to feel himself alienated from the only world he really knew. And he could not control his strange sense of dread, a sixth sense of unidentified danger. Did some of it come from the tall, lugubrious figure of Robert Leng, a supposed courtier to whom Drake had given passage and announced as his biographer? 'At least one man will tell the truth about my voyage!' he had announced. Gresham was learning that Francis Drake saw enemies everywhere, particularly where they probably did not exist.

And then everything changed.

Five days later, Drake took his fleet out to sea, despatched the vessels with the sick and injured on board back to England, and set off due west into the wide ocean. The Secretary made no appearance. The seamen rubbed their hands together with glee. That's it! 'E's seen a Spanish ship in his great glass! We're off to find some real treasure at last, lads!' one proclaimed. Two or three of the other crew muttered approving comments, circling lengths of rope carefully round so that when paid out in a hurry they would run smooth and not snag.

'Have you ever seen this "great glass"?' asked George, cynically. He had grave doubts that Sir Francis did actually have a magic glass showing him the position of every Spanish ship at sea. 'Course not,' one replied, pityingly. 'Everyone knows it loses its magic if anyone else other than 'im looks into it.'

Well, that was that, thought Gresham. What the hell was he to do? Drake was showing no sign of landing him, and his swimming ability did not run to jumping off the Elizabeth Bonaventure and managing the five miles to the Portuguese shore, even if he knew what direction it lay in.

'Land-ho, two points off the bow!'

What came next surprised them. 'Land-ho!' the lookout repeated, not in a normal voice but in a tone that had more than enough of a plain squawk in it, 'Two points off the bow… and a fucking great portuguese straight in front of it!' There was a clattering of men to the deck and clambering up the lower stages of the rigging, and a bellow from Drake.

'Belay that language, d'ye hear?'

'Aye aye, sir. Sorry, sir.' The reply came from on high. Long pause. 'But it is truly, fuckin' big!'

There was a roar of laughter from the crew, part compounded of excitement. Drake chose to stand impassive, saying nothing.

'My God!' said Gresham beginning to think after two months at sea that he had lived all his life in the same position on the main-deck of the Elizabeth Bonaventure. 'She's vast! I've never seen anything so big!' Drake's ships were impressive, but the great Portuguese carrack's tonnage was probably equal to three or four of the Queen's galleons. 'Will she fight?' She towered over the English ships, making them look puny, and there was a row of potentially lethal gun ports piercing her side.

'For a bit,' said Mannion, very calm by the guardrail. 'As long as that thing you're so keen on, honour, isn't that what you call it, tells 'em to fight. She's back from the Indies, Goa probably. Packed to the gills with spices.' Mannion retreated into his own private world of sensual satisfaction. 'Pepper, cinnamon, cloves, spices. Spices!' He recited the names as if they were those of past lovers, which in a way they were. Mannion had a lifelong capacity to fall in love with delicately-spiced food, as well as with women. Spiced or plain. And to eat meat that was near rotten, if that was all there was. 'Silk, calico, ivory,' he added, with less enthusiasm. 'Plenty o' those. And a fair bit of jewellery. Not to mention some gold and silver — not as much as you'd get from a treasure galleon from Panama, mind, but a tidy bit all the same.'

'And women?' asked George wistfully. He had propped his great shaggy head on the guardrail, cupped in his hands like a small child.

'Mebbe,' said Mannion. 'Passengers, few servants. God help 'em! The captain'll fire a few cannon at us,' said Mannion. 'Aimed to miss, o' course, in case he gets Drake too angry. Then he'll haul down his flag, honour preserved. There'll be a lot of sick aboard. Long haul home from Goa. Few passengers. Decks piled high with cargo, so most o' the gun ports won't open, even if they wanted 'em to. Not used to pirates, these boats. Used to an easy ride 'ome.'

They looked at the vessel that they later learned was named the San Felipe. Drake ordered four cannon fired. Strange, thought Gresham. They were bow-on to the San Felipe, so the four guns they fired discharged harmlessly into the empty sea on either side of them. Three cannon replied almost immediately from the San Felipe. If they had been aimed, it did not show. All three splashed harmlessly into the sea, several hundreds of yards from damaging any of the English fleet rapidly closing round the vessel.

Drake responded by hauling the Elizabeth Bonaventure round so that her full broadside could have smashed the San Felipe's hull into splinters. He waited courteously until the great carrack had passed by the very last cannon, and then ordered the ship to fire. The sea behind her was torn to shreds, but failed to sink. The San Felipe was left miraculously unharmed. In return, she fired a cannon into the only bit of remaining sea free from an English vessel, now that Drake's squadron was gathering in on her. A short while after, her flag fluttered down to her deck.

'Easy as that?' said Gresham to Mannion, flushed as was every other member of Drake's crew with their painless success.

'Easy as that,' responded Mannion, 'if you've got the luck of the Devil. Drake doesn't want her damaged, and 'er captain knows 'e can't win.' Privately Mannion was beginning to wonder whether Drake was God's vengeance or the Devil's revenge.

Drake snapped his fingers at George. 'You! This is your father's return on his investment. Come in the boat. Now.'

'May I beg leave to bring my friend?' It was a stupid, foolhardy gesture. Yet Drake hardly seemed to pause, waved a hand in aquiescence. Mannion was left behind, fuming.

As they boarded the San Felipe, a single, sad trumpeter had been mustered to mark the arrival of El Draco. He managed, in his abject fear, to blow a passing imitation of a cow's very loud fart. Nothing and no man could stand against Drake, could it? Drake was man enough to recognise the intention of the trumpet salute, rather than to judge it on its actual quality. He approached the Captain of the San Felipe, bowed to him and spoke a few words in broken Spanish. The Captain replied in equally broken English.

'Did you give your permission for your men to rape me? Or are they allowed to do what they will with innocent passengers anyway?' The voice was young, female, the English accented but perfectly clear. The tone was ice cold, controlled. She was tall and overwhelmingly beautiful, and was holding, with delicate, long-fingered hands, a shred of her dress to her shoulder where an attempt had been made to tear it off. An English seaman, one of the advance guard, was standing beside her, panting, eyes swivelling from the girl to Drake. Or one eye at least. The other was bleeding from what looked like a heavy blow.

The simple, erotic power of this creature hit Henry Gresham as if it had been a kick to his stomach. Gresham hated beautiful girls. He loved their bodies, hated the power that love gave them over him. They knew the power they exercised over men, and used it ruthlessly. As a result, and revelling in their power, they became proud, ruthless and arrogant in equal measure.

'So? Will you rape me now? Or later?'

For the first, the last and the only time in his life Sir Francis Drake was stunned for words. 'Take that man and put him in chains!' he shouted eventually, pointing to the seaman. *You have taken this ship by farce… by force,’ she said, correcting herself and going red, which made her look even more beautiful, as the sailors started to laugh. Right first time, thought Gresham. It had been a farce. 'And these cowards of Spanish sailors here…' there was a venomous hatred in her voice. In fact,

Gresham guessed, there was a lot of hatred in this girl. For whom and for what? What was her history, he wondered?

Drake was clearly out of his depth. Gresham's decision to move forward took less than a second. He knew how to handle beautiful women. 'Your ladyship,' Gresham said, bowing deeply to her, 'there cannot be a man in this English fleet of heroes who would not see the conquering of you as worth more than the conquering of any Spanish fleet that had ever set sail!'

The Englishmen cheered. It broke the ice, the ludicrous overstatement of the courtier here on this crowded, stinking deck. The girl stiffened at this new threat, held her chin even higher. It made her look even more beautiful.

'Yet we English are gentlemen, gentlemen above all.' Gresham turned to the sailors from the Elizabeth Bonaventure who had clambered aboard with him. They roared in his support. They liked him, didn't they? The toff who'd beaten off the galley? The one who didn't mind taking a rope with them? And anyway, this was turning out to be far more fun than usual. He'd have that Spanish bitch, they knew. Good luck to 'im! They cheered again.

'My commander is the legendary Sir Francis Drake, scourge of the seas!' Had he overdone that bit, thought Gresham? The roar from the sailors encouraged him. 'You have nothing to fear from him, nor from his men.' Another roar from those same men, every single one of them with a voracious lust for this girl. She had had everything to fear from these men. You took whatever was on board a captured ship, didn't you? 'I merely implore you to treat Sir Francis with the same respect with which he will undoubtedly treat you.' Gresham retired, still bowing, behind the figure of Drake.

Drake turned to him, scowling. He spoke in a low tone, vicious, hissing. 'If I can manage fucking Cadiz harbour I can manage a fucking Spanish whore without your help!' he said caustically, though he could not hide a slight sense of relief. And, evidently, the girl was no whore, but rather a gentlewoman.

The girl stood her ground. After all, she had nowhere else to go. Gresham would not expect Drake to realise that he had saved his day. Beautiful girls were a threat. They forced a man to love them for more than their bodies and the blessed relief of sex. They gave physical supremacy to the man, and in exchange demanded mental slavery.

'Madam,' Drake said solemnly, bowing as low to Anna as Gresham had done, and perhaps even a patch lower. He learned very quickly, this pirate. Or perhaps he had known it all along and just not bothered to use it. 'You are now on board an English ship.'

More cheers from the crew. They were already working out how much the San Felipe would be worth. Over a hundred thousand pounds, surely?

'We English respect our women,' Drake continued grandly. 'We are not savages, to violate them in conquest.'

Oh no? thought Gresham thinking back to what he had heard of some of Drake's earlier voyages. Ah, well, it sounds good, he thought. *You are free to retire to your cabin while I discuss details of surrender with your captain here. As for your safety, I give you my word. There will be an armed guard at your door.' It was a grand gesture, and grandly Drake offered her his ringed hand to kiss.

What followed was so different, so startling that Gresham never forgot it. The girl was defenceless, captured goods, yet she had stood up to the man most feared on the oceans of the world and secured her virginity, if indeed it had not already been claimed by some lucky man on a clandestine meeting. Now all she needed to do was to retire gracefully. Instead she drew herself to her full height. Five foot eight? Five foot nine? It wasn't really a great height at all. No taller than Sir Francis Drake himself. For a brief moment on the deck of the Son Felipe it could have been seven foot.

'I do not kiss the hand of my conqueror!' she said. There was a hiss of indrawn breath from the English boarders, and from the Spanish crew. 'I offer the obedience to no man.' It was said simply, in her faltering English, yet with great authority. 'I accept your promise of safe conduct,' she announced, 'for myself and for all the other innocent womens on board this vessel.' The Spanish crew grinned. There were a surprising number of 'womens' aboard the San Felipe. Very few of them could accurately be described as innocent. 'You have care of all the poor souls on board the San Felipe, women, girls, crew. And officers.' She directed a withering gaze towards the Captain of the ship.

If she'd been in charge, thought Gresham, they'd have sunk before they dared surrender. What was it with beautiful women, he wondered? Why did they think they owned the world?

'Yet you do not own us!' she announced finally, gathering up her long skirts and heading for her cabin. She actually headed for the wrong door, and had she gone through it would have fallen to the bottom of the hold. It was an English seaman who, rather apologetically, directed her to the right one.

Drake's excitement at his booty was far more potent than any concerns over a damned woman. He demanded a tour of the vessel. Before leaving with the Captain and four armed sailors, he turned to the other men on the deck.

'There's money here to buy you any woman in Devon!'

Sir Francis Walsingham gagged as the pain hit him, the stones in his kidney cutting into his flesh at its most basic level, making him cry out and clutch the table edge. He knew what the pain was, knew where it would end. The Spanish, his spies told him, now put it about that he was suffering from a 'terrible corruption of the testicles'. Well, there had been pain and trouble enough for the products of his loins, but nothing like this from his testicles.

It passed, as all pain passed, as life itself passed, and Walsingham settled back into the hard wood of his chair. He looked again at the stained sheet of paper in his hand. His agent had rammed it into the hand of one of the sick sailors Drake had sent home, though the only sickness this particular man had was the illness of wanting to take Walsingham's money. The report made interesting reading. So Drake had done damage in Cadiz and hit the coastal shipping. So much the better! Yet he had steadfastly refused to land young

Gresham. Why disobey such a request? Walsingham was still powerful, and for Drake to refuse to send Gresham ashore meant that the order to keep him on board, if indeed it had ever been issued and was not simply some madness of Drake's, had to come from someone with higher authority. Who was higher than Walsingham? Who was important enough to risk offending Walsingham? The Queen, of course. Perhaps Leicester, or even Essex. Burghley, certainly. And if Burghley, then his son Robert Cecil.

Just as worrying as not knowing who the order came from, he did not know why. Knowledge to Walsingham was as blood to other men, the stuff of life. Someone was thwarting his orders to one of his agents. As of now, finding out who it was and why they were doing it was his top priority.