The rebel heart

Chapter 5

1 July, 1598 At Sea

They rigged and lit the running lights as night came on, one at the stern and one at the bow. Then, unusually, two bright lights at the mast head, one to port, one to stern, hung from the widest yard of the mainmast. A landsman would have thought it routine. For someone like Gresham, who had sailed with Drake, it was extraordinary. Was it his imagination, or were the shadowing sails catching up on them?

Mannion thought so. 'What's it look like to you?' Gresham asked him. There was complete trust between them at moments like these.

'Well,' said Mannion, 'I ain't seen this many lights outside of a Palace. Must want someone to see us. As for that ship, they're smaller than us, but faster.' Mannion paused to collect his thoughts. 'Smuggler's sails, probably not heavily armed.' Smugglers tended to favour the darkest possible sails to avoid recognition at night, even darker than the traditional dun sails that a number of the London vessels favoured. What was following them was a smuggler's boat — large enough to take a decent cargo, but small and nippy enough to make the Channel crossing at speed, probably with a few popguns to discourage boarders. 'Room for lots o' men on board, mind.'

'If you were them and you wanted to do us damage…' asked Gresham.

'I doubt they want to do us damage, at least not right off. It's what you're carrying they wants, and that means keepin' you alive, at least until they've found it. After that…' Mannion needed to say no more on that count. When Gresham had been milked of his information, he and the rest of them would tell no one of the assault, pursue no vengeance, provided of course they were at the bottom of the Channel. 'I'd wait till it's real dark, pull up on us, grapple and board. They could have ten, fifteen men, easy, spare for a boarding party. Mebbe more, God help us. There's two of us, and fer all they know we've only got a couple o' piss-pant servants with us, 'stead of four trained men. The crew 'ere, most of them'll be asleep. And any road, they ain't goin' to shed too much blood for us, are they? Even if they haven't got their own men among 'em, which they probably have. Like 'im up there.'

A thick-set sailor with a villainous low forehead was crouched in the tiny crow's nest. The vessel behind them could simply crack on sail and overtake them within the hour if it so chose, but that would give Gresham an hour to prepare if a suspicious look-out called the alarm. If it could be managed, it would be far better to creep up on the Anna, the look-out and whoever was in command bribed to silence. As if to echo their thoughts, the master came up to them, touching his forelock in the traditional salute.

'I'll be taking myself off for a while now. The ship's in good hands.' He motioned to the sailing master, a surprisingly young man with a shock of fair hair under a woollen cap and a ready grin.

'Could be coincidence,' said Gresham.

'Yeah?' said Mannion.

They gathered their four men in the tiny space of Gresham's cabin, bent almost double, and gave them instructions. If anything, the four of them looked more excited than frightened. Jack and Dick were both dark-haired, well-built men, the difference being that Jack had twenty years on Dick, most of that spent at sea. Tom was the man with the broken nose Mannion had brought along to knock some respect into Cecil's messenger: no great brain, but brilliant fists. Edward was thin, lugubrious, and the best oarsman on the Thames.

The Anna carried four small brass cannon on either side, but the one addition Gresham had made to her when he had bought the ship were four swivel cannons on the stern, two on either side of the upper deck. The for'ard pair could cover the tiny main deck as well. Such a gun was usually designed to sweep grapeshot across an enemy's deck, but its size was limited by the fact of it being more often than not simply secured to a strengthened guard rail. Too powerful a load, and the recoil would smash the wood and unseat the gun, making it useless. On the Anna, each gun was secured on a metal rod that passed down through the deck and was secured deep within one of the main frames of the ship. As a result, the guns could take and fire quite a sizeable ball, as well as grapeshot.

'Do we tell the girl?' asked Mannion.

They knocked on her cabin door. She had not undressed, but was clearly about to. Gresham felt stupid, bent low under the deck timbers, the girl sitting on the crude bed that jutted out from the side of the hull.

'We think we might be being followed, by another boat. There's a chance it might try to board us. Things could get violent, I'm afraid.'

'Why should they want to board us?' asked Jane, outwardly reasonably calm. Gresham had been terrified she would get the vapours, or whatever women did.

'I… I'm carrying… material that could be of advantage to any number of people.' He found this very difficult, but anyone successfully taking the Anna would be likely to take her and her maid, before dumping them over the side. It seemed unfair not to tell her as much as possible, given what would happen to her if they lost. 'But the truth is, we don't really know who they are. It's what I do. I live in a world where… where for a lot of the time we know very little, particularly where the threat comes from, or even why it comes.'

He was impatient to get back on deck. There were things to do.

'Here, take these.' He handed her two pistols, expensive flintlocks primed and half cocked. They were part of the extra supplies he had ordered at the last minute from The House. 'Bar the door when we leave. Do you know how to use these?'

'I've watched others do so,' she said, looking distastefully at the gleaming, oiled weapons.

'Check the flint is here.' He motioned to the firing mechanism. 'And that there's powder there. See? The metal cover lifts back if you do… this.' He tossed a small, oiled, canvas bag onto the bed. 'There are spare flints and four separate charges of powder. The guns are on safety now, the hammer pulled back, so it won't fire unless you pull back a little further, until you hear the second click and it locks. Then it'll fire when you pull the trigger. Hold it with both hands. The recoil is vicious. Aim at the middle of the body, then you'll have more chance of hitting something.'

Her face turned white, and for a moment he thought she was going to be sick.

'I'm sorry about this,' he said lamely. 'I'd no idea it would happen, or that it would happen this early.'

She was pale, but in control. 'Perhaps the other boat isn't following for a reason,' she said gamely. 'Perhaps it's just a coincidence.'

'I'd hoped so, for a while. But the other boat is faster than us, designed for speed in fact. No one spends longer at sea than they have to, even in high summer. She's holding back, using only half her sail. If she'd other business, she'd be about it by now and long out of our sight. Sorry.'

It was nearly dark now, and if the other vessel was an enemy it would be loosening out the remainder of its sails, surging through the heavy swell to catch up, the sound of her bow pushing through the water lost in the wider noise of the sea. The enemy vessel reminded Gresham of a hawk, gliding silently through the air, the fat thrush in its sights. The Anna ploughed contentedly on, dipping into the waves and then rising in an easy steady motion. She was no greyhound, but she was still a sturdy, long-legged creature, gobbling up the miles.

Timing. It was all about timing. He placed himself casually on the quarterdeck, as any grand noble might do on board what was in effect his private yacht. He noted a thin sheen of sweat over the sailing master's face, despite the rapidly increasing chill of the evening, and felt the change that came over his body when he knew he faced action. He fixed the enemy sails — they had become the enemy now, guilty until proved innocent — with his eye, and measured the distance. How long for her to catch up?

So many variables! There was her speed, which he could only estimate: in open sea, there was a tidal drag for or against each boat which affected speed. An hour. That was his guess. An hour between the moment when he lost sight of the shadowing sails in the dark and the moment when the other vessel could be expected to be alongside.

The sailing master was looking at him now, worriedly. Owners did not pace the deck when light had gone, and there was nothing to see except for the occasional flash of white as a wave broke.

It was time.

Mannion appeared on the main deck, a flagon in his hand. He was swaying slightly, and not with the buck and heave of the deck. He looked up at the main mast, where Lowbrow was still crouched in the crow's nest. Mannion hailed him, clearly to offer him a drink, and made for the stays, starting to climb the mast.

'Stupid bugger!' said the sailing master, at the wheel. He looked at Gresham. 'If that man o' yours falls in, he's a dead 'un. We'll never find him in this dark.' Rather ominous thick cloud covered the moon and stars. This on its own had interested Gresham. Without the stars there was no aid to navigation except an ancient compass. A ship within sight of the shore should have hove-to, put out a sea anchor, strove to remain where it was until dawn showed it its path again. Yet the sailing master had made no effort to halt the Anna. Perhaps he knew by intuition where they were. Or perhaps a moving vessel would cloak the sound of another vessel coming alongside, homing in on their stern light. And why was the sailing master handling the helm? Traditionally on a reduced night watch, he would give the orders, and a seaman would take charge of the wheel.

Gresham decided to play the aristocrat.

'Serve him right!' he said grandly, and with a laugh. 'Drowning'll teach him not to get drunk at sea!' It was a comment that could have come very easily from numerous of the chinless wonders who spent their time pomping around Court.

Gresham retreated to the stern rail, directly behind the wheel. The sailing master's attention was distracted by the sight of Mannion, apparently clumsily climbing into the crow's nest, despite the protestations of Lowbrow which were whipped away by the wind before they could properly reach the deck. Mannion was half in and half out of the vantage point when he raised the flagon he still clutched in his hand in what appeared to be a salute. Except the salute turned into something else as he brought the flagon crashing down on the skull of the look-out. The man collapsed forward, hanging half in and half out of the wooden structure, arms dangling faintly ludicrously.

If they had known for certain that the look-out had been bought by an unidentified enemy, Mannion would simply have hurled him overboard and left the sea to do its job. But what if this was a false alarm? Were their suspicions worth the life of a possibly innocent man? Gresham had reckoned not, so Mannion tied the fiercest of gags round the unconscious man's mouth, and produced twine firstly to bind his hands, then his arms to his side and finally his feet. Finally he bound him to the mast, so it looked as if he were still on duty. One thing was certain. If the Anna sank tonight, she would be taking its erstwhile look-out along with her.

The sailing master looked aghast as the blow struck, and started as if to move from the wheel when his sailor's instinct told him what happened to sailing vessels whose helmsman suddenly left their station; the wheel and the helm as a result swinging wildly in the wind. Still grappling the wheel, he turned with open mouth to remonstrate with Gresham when suddenly more stars than there were in the sky exploded in his head, and he fell unconscious. Gresham pocketed the short wooden club and grabbed the helm, the Anna already having started to swing head to wind. Jack appeared as from nowhere, and dragged the sailing master to one side, binding him as effectively as Mannion had done the look-out. Then he came to the wheel, taking it over with a nod from Gresham.

There were flittering shadows on the deck now, moving quietly with shoes removed so as not to wake the rest of the crew sleeping in the forecastle. The extra chests that had been brought from The House were opened, some of their contents removed. This was the tricky part. The Anna's guns were not on her lower decks, firing through ports cut into the hull. They were rather on the upper deck, firing through the guardrail. The result was that their snouts barely projected over the side, but under any normal circumstances they would still have been rolled back to muzzle load. Yet even these light brass guns would send noise and shuddering pounding through the hull if they were rolled back on their wheeled mountings, and if that did not wake the crew and the master nothing would.

Could they load the guns without rolling them back? The men had assured Gresham they could. It was devilishly difficult, though. They were under half sail, and a ship moving through the sea under sail is never a steady platform. One man had to lean out over the bulwark and push the powder charge down to the end of the barrel using a shortened rammer. A second man held onto his legs for all he was worth. The charges brought from The House, were in the finest of linen bags. The loader had to ram a metal spike down the touch hole of the gun, piercing the linen and exposing the powder. He would then pour a charge of powder down the touch hole. He could then light the powder directly with a slow fuse, or use the new-fangled flint-and-wheel mechanism on the gun to fire it. In the meantime, the loader had taken the ball, and rammed that down the barrel as well, while leaning out over the side. Except in this case, it was not a ball the loader was ramming down the barrel, but another, more coarsely bound package — grapeshot: loose, sharp pieces of metal, lethal at short range to any crowded deck. While Mannion and three of the men sweated to load the cannon, Gresham and Dick loaded the swivel guns. Here again convention was being denied. Just as the main deck cannon were for ball, so the swivel guns were for grape. Yet Gresham was opening packages from The House that contained not one but two small cannon balls, linked by chain. Chain shot. Designed to wrap itself round masts, bringing them crashing down. There was some satisfaction for Gresham in the recognition that these had been part of the original stores he had brought to the Anna for this journey. The first thing he had done when he had bought the ship was to have ball and grape cast for her cannon. Many did not bother. You could fire almost anything out of the mouth of cannon, including balls far too small for its bore. If you did, you simply increased to ludicrous proportions windage, the effect the air had on a cannon ball that was not perfectly round, or the ball ricocheted round the inside of the barrel as it was fired to the vast detriment of any capacity to aim it.

They were hampered by the need to load on both sides. If the enemy came, which side of the Anna would they come alongside? There was no way of knowing. In three quarters of an hour it was finished.

Gresham remembered to ask Mannion to go down and brief Jane on what was happening. He then had a sudden feeling of panic. Would she fire through the door and kill him?

They had shifted the allocation of men in the light of what they were expecting. Jack had taken the helm, even putting on the sailing master's stupid little woollen cap that had covered his blond hair, and trying to shrink himself in size. Gresham and Dick crouched behind the bulwark, two pistols each in their belts, both clutching boat axes with a cutting blade on one end and a sharp spike on the other. Gresham had his sword, despite the extraordinary ability of the sword and scabbard to get between the legs and trip up the owner. Mannion and the others huddled under the lee of the quarterdeck. A slow match in a tub of sand was burning between each of their cannon.

The Anna ploughed on, gently plunging her bow into the slight swell, the whoosh and swish of the waves strangely regular and set-ding. The dim light of the stern lantern showed nothing clearly, but cast a faint luminosity over the quarterdeck, the angle changing and rolling with the motion of the sea.

Who was master and who was servant now, thought Gresham? They were simply six men, with the same skin to feel pain, the same skull to be broken and the same heart to be pierced, six men united by the intensity of risk and fear. The fear that none of them would admit, but which ate away at their guts like a worm eating its way through flesh.

They strained to hear a change in the noise of the waves, a change that would signal another vessel pounding alongside. The minutes dragged on. Had it all been imagination? It was over an hour now since darkness had closed down on Gresham's last sight of the sails. He was about to convince himself that a look-out and a sailing master had been given seriously unnecessary headaches when he heard the noise. A different sound of water being pushed aside, one that did not match the motion of the Anna.

Without conscious thought on Gresham's part the other person who shared his soul took over. This person is calm, icy calm, and does not feel fear. This other person has heightened senses and awareness, can smell every tang of salt in the air, actually hear the wind as it passes through the rigging. This person views the world as if everything has slowed down. This person, back pressed against the upright of the guard rail, seated low on the deck so no head was visible, felt able to twist round and look out into the noisy gloom of the sea. Yes! He had guessed right: put himself on the port side, assuming the enemy vessel would come at them from the land side.

They were carrying stern and bow lights, and two lights hung at the masthead. They cast a ghostly, flickering light onto the deck, and for a surprising distance on either side of them. It was a shock when the enemy vessel suddenly appeared as if it had surfaced from under the very waves, sweeping up from astern, low, lean and menacing, like a sharp-beaked sea monster. Dark as it was, the dim light meant that Gresham could see the men packed onto its deck. Damn! There must be nearer to twenty of them, and a bundle of seamen. Twenty against six. Well, it was time to lessen the odds.

Scrabbling along the deck like comical tortoises, still invisible to their attackers, Mannion, Dick, Tom and Edward moved to each of the four cannon. On the other vessel, two men were swinging grappling hooks, preparing to throw them over the rapidly diminishing gap between the two ships. Half the remainder were already climbing onto the rail, holding with one or both hands to the rigging, waiting to jump across to the other ship. They were good, give them their due, no noise, no excited chatter. All very businesslike.

Hell can be replicated here on earth. Just as the grappling hooks were about to be thrown, Mannion put his fuse to the touch hole of his cannon. Dick, Tom and Edward were a second behind him, if that. The sharp, eye-burning, red and orange tongues of flame that leapt out across the void were more startling than the crashing noise of the explosion. Gresham, his eyes firmly closed, desperate to preserve his night vision, hoped the others had heeded his instruction to do likewise. The glare of the light cut through his eyelids, determined to sear and scar his memory.

The impact of the grapeshot was appalling. It was as if a massive scythe, Death himself, had cut through the men standing on the rail, the nails and metal shards tearing into flesh, gouging and spoiling. There were shouts and screams, but as always they were from those left relatively unscathed. Those scoured and stripped red by the cannons were either dead in an instant, or their bodies forced into instant shock. One man looked in silent horror at where his right leg had been a moment before, and toppled over the side in silence. Yet the irony of war was still in charge, the terrifying random nature of death. One man stood still on the guard rail, unmarked, while those around him were blasted to butcher's meat. He looked to left and to right, uncomprehending, too stunned to realise the nature of his luck. Bodies, still or trembling and in spasm, littered the deck, covered now in sticky blood and human debris.

The men on the Anna were not finished yet. As soon as they had fired the cannon, before the attackers could react from their shock, all four men and Gresham on the quarterdeck bent down and picked up fragile jars, pilfered to great complaint from the stores of the cook at The House. Filled now with lamp oil, oily rags stuffed in their necks, Gresham and all except Jack, glued to the wheel, touched the fuses to them and lobbed them over the gap and onto the deck of their attacker. One, infuriatingly, bounced on the deck but did not break, and a seaman kicked it through the scuppers and over the side. The other four burst into flames, which licked satisfyingly at the deck timbers of the attacking vessel. Two spread their oil over bodies, one dead and one wounded. Gresham swore that the flame of one of them was soused out by the blood pumping from a wounded man. As the fire bit into his clothing and over his hand, the man started to scream. Suddenly it was easy to spot the sailors who were the normal crew of the attacking vessel. For sailors in a wooden vessel held together by tar, fire is second only to water as an enemy. Three or four men broke away and started to stamp out the flames, one of the four clearly in charge, giving orders. He was a small man with a goatee beard.

A surprising number of men had survived the withering blast of grapeshot. How many? Difficult to say in the dark, despite the flickering light of the lamp oil still eagerly seeking to turn the deck to ashes. Certainly ten men, not less, perhaps a few more. Shock. Then anger. And a fierce desire for vengeance. Gresham had seen it so many times. Men either broke when faced with a sudden shock, or became consumed by blood lust. These men would have been hired because they were fighting men. As such, they were responding the only way fighting men knew how. Blood for blood.

A life for a life. Heartbreak for heartbreak. It was the oldest plaint in the world.

Gresham had always known they would be outnumbered, could not rely on the four cannon doing the job for them. The oil was a diversion, dangerous but within the compass of any competent crew to stamp out, literally, before it became a real threat.

He moved to the swivel gun and, as if on an order, Jack slung a loop of rope over the wheel and secured it. It would steer the ship for a minute or more, but if luck turned their way a minute was all they would need.

The wheel of the attacking vessel was manned by one man. The deck of the Anna was still rising and falling, the sea refusing to change its habits simply because men were killing each other.

Earth and Water, Fire and Air,

Which nothing know of human fears.

Earth and Water, Fire and Air,

Which bore hemlock for Socrates.

Earth and Water, Fire and Air,

Which held a cup for Christ's blood tears.

Earth and Water, Fire and Air,

Will hold your cup of death and years.

For some reason the doggerel he had written years earlier came to Gresham's mind. The sea would not mourn the men who had died, or the men who were going to die. In the great scheme of things, no man or woman could be said to matter.

Waiting until the upthrust of the waves, Gresham aimed the swivel gun as carefully as he could at the enemy's wheel, Jack firing at almost the same moment. There was a double-tongued explosion of flame, and caught in it was the helmsman, open-mouthed. One ball ploughed into the deck two foot away from the wheel, cutting a furrow and sending lethal splinters flying through the night air. The other caught the wheel housing at its base, shattering it to pieces and filling the helmsman with so many splinters that he looked like a human porcupine. The ropes in the wheel housing disintegrated, and the rudder of the attacking vessel was no longer under control.

What should have happened then was that the attacker, its steering blasted to hell along with half its complement of crew, should have sheered away uncontrollably, unable to follow the Anna even if the spirit of its men had not been broken.

But war is not an exact science, as Gresham knew to his cost. Seconds before the wheel housing was shattered, a grappling iron arched through the air and hooked into the Anna's guard rail. One man had kept his head amid the panic and bloodshed, and bound the two ships together. It was the same man who had ordered the sailors to stamp out the flames, the small man with the strange beard. For a moment those hauling on the grappling iron were distracted by the carnage unleashed on the wheel housing, but then they renewed their efforts.

Damn! If that one throw had missed, the other ship would be careering away, by now, its steering ropes broken, the Anna free to make her escape. One throw. One stupid throw. The difference between life and death. He must cut that rope.

The two hulls came together with a grinding crash.

Sails full set, the attacking ship tried to veer away, helmless, but met the resistance of the Anna's hull, its wheel still set for the wind. For the moment the greater mass of the Anna took charge, and the two intertwined hulls charged on through the dark.

The remaining men on the attacker raised an exultant cheer. There were no prisoners taken at sea. And this had become personal. There were eleven of them left, a couple of them wounded but not seriously so, and only four men on the main deck of the Anna, two on the quarterdeck. What was there left to lose?

Gresham knew that in an instant the remaining enemy would launch themselves onto the deck of the Anna. They would do so to the accompaniment of the awful, shrieking and grinding sound of two hulls bound unwillingly together, — and the frantic banging on the hatches that secured the forecastle and the hold. Mannion and the others had thoughtfully battened both of them down, as one would when securing for a storm. The result was that the normal crew of the Anna and her captain were locked in below, just in case they might decide to take the side of the attackers.

The defenders had one surprise left. Those attacking had to step up onto the deck of the Anna, exposed. Men expecting to board a ship, where those on the receiving end had no warning, armed themselves with axes and sabres, cutting weapons for close work. Pistols were heavy, cumbersome, and tended to lose their priming powder if joggled. There was less hindrance for those who stood waiting for an assault.

As eleven men launched themselves onto the deck of the Anna, six pistol shots rang out. One missed completely. Dick had been shown how to load and fire such a weapon, but at the last nerves had overcome him. One other ball caught a glancing blow to the shoulder of an attacker, tearing his jacket but only nicking his flesh. He swore vociferously but swept on. One, obscenely, caught an attacker full in the mouth, and blew his head into a foul red jelly.

Unlike a rifle bullet, a pistol ball leaves the barrel at a relatively low velocity. This has many consequences that reduce its lethalness as a weapon. The recoil is more blunt and savage, reducing aim. The short barrel means that the ball receives less sense of direction from its carrier, and is freer to decide where it goes. The ball travels less far. Its accuracy is in part a function of the speed with which it leaves the barrel.

But the pistol ball has one, great advantage. The far faster rifle bullet hits the body at high speed and passes through it, there being little difference in size between the entry and the exit wounds. The lead pistol ball does not have the speed to pass through the body. It flattens as it meets its first impact with flesh, and even more so if the first impact is with bone. So much of the human body is fluid, and the slow pistol ball sets up a shock wave as it first hits and then settles into living flesh. Fire a pistol with a lead ball into a lump of clay, modelled to have the same constituency as human flesh and the exit wound will be six times larger than that on entry.

Thus a pistol bullet does not have to kill a man to incapacitate him. It can, quite literally, knock him out, deliver such a shock to his body that it shuts down and goes into total shock.

Of the six pistol shots fired by Gresham and his men, one killed a man instantly, three condemned men to lingering, gangrenous deaths, blowing flesh out of their bodies for which nature could not compensate. More importantly for the defenders, the odds were reduced: eleven functioning men reduced to seven. Seven against six. Except for the four upright seamen on board the attacker, still stamping out flames but capable of joining the attack at any minute. One of them, the small man with the goatee beard, seemed in control.

Seven men leapt on board the Anna. Seven men who a short while earlier had been in a company of twenty. Seven men who had seen two thirds of their companions diced into bleeding red meat. Seven men crazed by combat, by the loss of their fellow men, by sheer blood lust. Seven men who had nothing to lose.

Gresham and Jack vaulted the front rail of the quarterdeck, landing hard on the deck. Two of the attackers veered towards Gresham, seeing in his finer clothes his status as captain. There was a shout, a command. It was the small man with the beard. His first words were strange. Then he shouted again, more clearly, 'Not him! Not him! Keep him alive!' Was it accented? The faintest hint of something unusual in the inflexion?

The two men backed off, sabres pointing warningly towards Gresham. On either side of him, fierce, hand-to-hand fighting was skidding across a deck slippery now with blood. Mannion was locked in a gut-wrenching exchange of blows with a man as big as he was, the clang of their blades something primeval. Jack seemed to have the better of his man, probing at him thoughtfully, deflecting his enemy's wilder and wilder blows with almost intellectual precision, forcing the man back further and further, with occasional feints with his boat axe confusing his enemy even more. Edward, as thin and lugubrious as ever, was dancing across the deck, showing the agility of a dancer, drawing the tail, thin man on, attacking him, tiring him out. He had noticed the thin stream of blood flowing from the man's leg, where the grape must have brushed against him. Young Dick, dark hair matted against his forehead, was losing ground, out of breath, on the edge of panic, flailing out widely and wildly. He was being played with, as a cat plays with a mouse, as Jack was playing with his opponent. Dick's opponent, the one whose shoulder had been nicked by the pistol ball, was showing no sign of any serious injury, and was eyeing Dick with the same predatory caution with which Jack was eyeing his man. It was only a matter of time. Tom… where was Tom? He was nowhere to be seen. The seventh attacker, his cap ripped off his head to reveal a startlingly bald pate with a diagonal scar across it, had seen Dick as the weakest of the opposition, was turning to attack him. At the same time, the two men who had been called off Gresham had retreated enough to leave a gap through which Gresham could see the grappling iron, cutting deep into the wooden side of the ship. Cut them free? Or help Dick?

Gresham's sword was out, the boat axe in the other hand. He turned as if to head for the grappling iron, and his two guards instinctively turned with him. With extraordinary agility Gresham swung round the other way, and in the brief moment that one of the men exposed his chest Gresham plunged his sword directly under his ribcage, twisting and turning the blade as he did so and ripping it back out with a savage downward heave. The man screamed, more in anger and fear than in pain — and dropped his sabre to clutch at the gaping wound through which blood was now pouring. The other man backed off, fear in his eyes. Gresham had turned in a moment, impossibly, the blade a mere flicker. There was no time for finesse. Dick had seen bald pate coming towards him, and was almost crying now. His first attacker chose not to wait for bald pate, and suddenly leapt forward, smashing Dick's blade aside and raising both hands to bring his heavy edge down on Dick's skull. An expression of surprise came over his eyes, and he looked down to see a sword blade protruding from his chest. Gresham had pirouetted round in one seamless movement and lunged forward again. As the man gaped and blood began to dribble from round his mouth, Gresham put his foot firmly in the man's back and pushed with all his strength. With a sad, sucking, sighing noise the blade pulled out of the man's body, as he was hurled forward onto Dick, who screamed and half scrabbled out of the way of the descending body. Dick's face was a mass of blood now. Not his blood. The blood of the man who had so nearly killed him. Gresham faced up to bald pate, who suddenly halted his onward rush. Gresham saw something in the man's eyes, and started to turn.

The man behind him, one of the two who had been told not to kill him, was about to make a last brave effort and disobey orders. Scarface. He had a scar down one side of his face, a scar which had closed off his left eye. Whether the eye was still there or not, God only knew. Scarface had seen Gresham's skill, knew there would be no prisoners from this fight, knew it was kill or be killed. He was experienced enough, whoever he was, to see that this was his one chance, even if he had only one eye left to see it.

Gresham had lunged at one man, then turned and skewered the other man, but it had taken time to kick the body off his blade. He had then turned a third time to face the bald-headed man. Reacting to three opponents was miraculous. Reacting to four was simply impossible. For a brief moment Gresham was unbalanced, exposed. Scarface wielded his crude blade like a scythe aimed at Gresham's neck. Gresham turned his head to see it heading inexorably for him. Even as he brought his own aching sword arm up he knew he would be a fraction too late, even as he tried to spring back away from the gleaming steel. He had killed two men, and parried a third. The fourth would kill him. He greeted the prospect with something approaching relief.

There was a clang that could have come from Titan's armoury, and the swinging blade hung in mid-air, stopped. Mannion and his opponent had been exchanging blows of vast force with monotonous regularity, almost taking turns, when for no apparent reason one of Mannion's massive strikes did not stop at his enemy's sword, but seemed to carve down straight through it, snapping the defending blade as if it was glass and carrying on to split the man's skull, grey brain matter and blood spurting out like a newly constructed fountain in a noble's garden. Mannion had not waited to see the man's body drop to the ground, but had turned just in time to cover the four paces to Gresham and stop his attacker's blow. Gresham, half on his knees, looked for a brief moment into Mannion's eyes, a moment in which both men said all they needed to say to each other, and thrust up at his exposed attacker. The shock of Mannion's block had sent a stinging blow up the blade and hilt. The cheaper the weapon, the more likely it was to let its user feel every hit in nerve-tingling detail. Slightly off balance, Gresham would have compensated for his awkward position, half kneeling and half falling, had his foot not slipped on a patch of blood and skidded out from under him. The sword thrust he had intended to go up and under the ribcage of his assailant instead went low, the superb steel slicing straight into the man's genitals. The scream was as if someone had rubbed razors across the man's eyes, a screech of pure agony. Almost pityingly, Mannion brought his heavy blade down on the man's head, mercifully cutting short the inhuman noise.

'Bet that hurt,' he said, turning to face the bald-headed man, who was looking nervously from Gresham to Mannion and back again, unsure as to who was his opponent. Gresham leapt to his feet, a throbbing, burning pain in his head, and the man's eyes swivelled to him. Mannion leapt forward and enacted an exact replica of the blow that had just been intended to kill Gresham, a scything, sweeping cut of sheer brute force. There was no one to help bald pate, and the blow half severed the man's neck. Perhaps he wanted to scream but all that emerged from his mouth was a frothy, red, bubbling gurgle.

Jack had been aiming blows at his opponent, swinging them at head height, forcing the man to raise his arms, tiring him even faster. Suddenly and without warning he swung low, breaking the man's knee with the force of his blow. His enemy sank to the deck, gargling, face up, pleading. Jack centred his blade, and pushed it hard into the man's neck. Dick had scrambled out from under the body of the man Gresham had killed, and was standing wild-eyed on the deck, looking for someone to kill. Edward was still dancing around his man, who suddenly looked up and saw that he was alone on the deck, five blood-stained men facing him. He stepped back, dropped his blade, put up his hands palms outwards to his attackers. There was no mercy in their eyes. Before any of them could move, he jumped onto the guard rail, dropping his hands. The Anna gave a sudden lurch, and the two hulls started to pull apart, opening a three-foot gap between the two vessels. The man began to slip, paddling his arms ludicrously to try and keep his balance. He fell between the two hulls just as the wind and the waves forced them together with a grinding crash, mellowed by the sound of something soft being crushed, like eggshells being trodden on.

There was screaming from the other boat. The small bearded man was shouting at the three seamen left on board his vessel, pointing with a sword to one of the two small cannon on his deck. He was yelling at the men to fire the guns, but they were huddled under the forecastle, clearly scared out of their wits and mutinous.

The man stopped yelling, realising it was a lost cause. He turned, and looked at Gresham. Then, remarkably, he gave a brief bow.

It was simply business. A gesture of recognition from one professional to another. He laid his sword blade across the rope of the grappling hook that still tied the two ships together. The blade must have had the sharpness of a razor. With only two or three strokes, the rope was cut, and the enemy vessel veered away, vanishing in seconds into the gloom.

Damn! thought Gresham, not for the first time in the past few hours. There went his last real chance of finding out who had decided to try and take the Anna. Then an awful recollection dawned on him.

'Where's Tom?' asked Gresham. 'Did anyone see what happened to him?'

'Yeah,' said Mannion. ‘I saw. That bald-headed bastard came straight at 'im, and 'e forgot where the rail was, backed into it 'e did, and fell straight over. No point in looking. He caught his 'ead a right crack as he went over. Must 'ave been unconscious as 'e 'it the water. Stupid bugger.'

'God help him,' said Gresham, a part of him starting to die alongside the man he had lost. 'He was my responsibility. He was only here because of me.'

'It's bad,' said Mannion, 'but don't fret yourself too much. We all of us know the odds. Loved a fight, did Tom. Knew what 'e'd signed up to. Best way for man like 'im to go. 'E'd never have made old bones.'

There was the crash of a pistol from below deck. Gresham looked up, the burning pain in his head getting worse by the second, and a shockwave went through his body as he saw that the sailing master was no longer tied up by the wheel, strands of rope suggesting he had somehow found a knife and cut himself free.

Gresham started to run for the door that led into the cabins, but fell back as it was kicked open.

The master was dragging the sailing master on deck. The sailing master's left shoulder was a mass of blood and pulp where the master had clearly fired one of Gresham's pistols at him.

'You bastard! You bastard! Betray me would you? Betray me and my crew? I'll kill you! I'll fuckin' kill you!'

The master kicked the sailing master hard in the groin, his muted groan a measure of the pain overload he was already in. There was a seaman's knife in the sailing master's belt, the one that had cut him free, and the master reached for it, and was about to plunge it into the sailing master's neck when something cold touched his temple.

Jane was holding the second pistol at his head. Her hair was streaming in the wind and she was barefoot. She looked insane, the intensity in her eyes the hallmark of the truly mad. As if to emphasise her insanity and the insanity of life, the bodies of those killed by Gresham and his men littered the deck, surrounded by dark brown pools. The deck of the Anna would never be the same again.

‘I heard him talking to the sailing master,' she hissed, the pistol rock steady. 'There's a hatch from the hold through to the cabin space. You can only unlock it from the cabin side. That man there let the master out, and they started to argue. When there was that terrible noise of fighting.' Some hint of the agony she had undergone from the moment the cannons crashed out came into her voice.

'They were accusing each other. Then the sailing master said they should take me hostage, use me to bargain with you, force you to put them ashore and take the rowing boat. Then they broke into my cabin, and the master here shot his friend. Without warning.'

'Now why would he do that?' asked Gresham softly, starting to edge towards his ward.

'Because he must have thought that if he could blame this man he could pretend to be innocent. Keep himself on a big boat. Not have to trust himself to a rowing boat.'

It was the girl's icy calm that was more frightening than any display of emotion would have been.

'Good thinking,' said Gresham conversationally. 'What do you intend to do now?'

'I think I very much want to pull this trigger,' said Jane, with an intensity that would have cut through ice-hardened rigging. 'I want this man to know that I am no one's property, that I am not owned by anyone, that I am not something to be used.'

'And you think shooting him will let him know that?' asked Gresham. He was nearly by her side now, but if she knew of his approach she was showing nothing of it.

'Perhaps,' she said, 'and perhaps not. But it will help me know that I am a person. It will help me to have fought back. Not to have been passive. Not to have been a… victim. I am so tired' — and there was the faintest crack in her voice now — 'of being… nothing.'

'Please give me my gun,' he said gently.

'Why?' she said calmly, and he saw her finger start to tighten on the trigger.

Because it cannot be good for a young girl to blow a man's head off. Because if you did kill this man it might leave more scars than it healed. Because there is something awful, something terrifying about the cold dedication of your voice. Because girls cried or got the vapours, or came over all feeble. Or spread their legs to the invaders. Girls were defenceless. 'Because I would like you to.'

He put out his hand, very, very slowly, and laid it gently over the barrel. It was cold under his fingers. She had not looked at him at all, and did not do so now. There was the briefest of flickering moments when he felt sure she would pull the trigger. Then, as slowly as he had put his hand out, she started to lower the pistol, looking fixedly all the time into the eyes of the master.

'Know I could have done it,' she said to him, as if they were the only two people left in the world. 'Know that I would have done it.'

No one who heard her doubted her words.

Gresham closed his hand over the barrel, and very carefully removed the pistol from her grasp. The butt was warm where she had held it. It was at full cock.

Gresham swung round, making all the watchers except Jane jump. Suddenly the pistol was jammed against the master's breast.

'I rate loyalty above all other virtues,' he said simply, and pulled the trigger.

The lock came forward, the pyrite sparks fell down into the now open priming chamber. There was a dull click. He ignored the expression on the master's face, and spoke conversationally to Jane.

'The powder's fallen out of the priming pan. Happens a lot. Next time, check it before you mean to fire. You're probably right to carry out a threat like that, if you can.'

The girl's face was white in the darkness. Was there the faintest hint of a passing smile on her lips? Not in her eyes, certainly.

'Take her below,' said Gresham to Mannion, still speaking softly. 'She's cold. Jack, get back on the helm. And you…' he turned to the master. 'Drop that rubbish.'

Mannion took Jane under his wing, and with an arm round her shoulders led her below, muttering something that no one else could hear. She went uncomplainingly, suddenly docile.

She has courage, Gresham thought. Real courage. He was not used to it in a woman, other than the Queen of course, and he had never thought of her as a woman. But where did Court ladies have a chance to grow or show courage? Perhaps only in fighting the mysteries and pain of childbirth.

The master let go of his grip on the sailing master, who was in a swoon, and crumpled to the floor. With a quick nod to Edward and Dick, Gresham stepped back. Dick was potentially as unhinged as Jane. Some action would help him.

Take him,' he said.

'Over the side?' asked Jack, mildly.

'Over the side,' confirmed Gresham. The master watched in horror as his sailing master was dragged to the rail and rather unceremoniously hurled into the sea.

'He can't swim!' said the master stupidly.

'Well, there's never been a better time to learn,' said Gresham casually. There was a faint splash, hardly audible amid the noise of the sails and the sea. 'Now, tell me. Where are we?'

'We're bein' driven up the Channel. Shore's about two maybe three mile off. We're safe enough, unless the wind veers. Which it hardly ever does here.' Desperate to please. Now, at least. A short while ago he had been willing to sell Gresham to the highest bidder.

'Final question. How many others of your crew were suborned?'

'None of them, I swear!' The man was shouting now, pleading. 'It was jus' the sailing master and that look-out there.' Lowbrow was still strung to the mast, showing no signs of returning to consciousness. The flagon Mannion had crowned him with had not broken, despite the force of the blow, and could be heard rolling around the bottom of the crow's nest. 'It warn't my fault!' The toughness Gresham had noted on their first meeting had gone, replaced by a wheedling sycophancy. 'They threatened my family! They made me do it.'

'Who is "they"?'asked Gresham, quietly.

'Dunno. I really dunno. Small man, with a beard like… didn't talk at all, got his 'enchman to do it, man was a sailor… just wanted to know when we were goin' to sail. We had to let 'em board. Said they'd be no harm to anyone. All they wanted was the package they reckoned you were carrying. That's all.'

Gresham looked pityingly at the master. He nodded to Jack and Dick. Without warning, they stepped forward and grabbed him.

'No!' he screamed.

There was a second splash, and silence. Mannion had come back up on the deck. 'Pity if 'e can swim,' said Mannion.

'He can't,' said Gresham. 'I asked him when we hired him. He said it was a good thing if the master couldn't swim, meant he took more care not to sink the ship.'

They released the crew, but not before they had reloaded the two forward swivel guns with grapeshot, and pointed them down at the well of the ship where the crew gathered. They seemed more con-fused than mutinous.

'Your master and your newly acquired sailing master betrayed me,' said Gresham factually, trying to pretend that white-hot iron bars were not beating against the inside of his skull. 'The noise you heard' — and which had clearly terrified them — 'was a vessel manned by those who had bribed him to allow it to intercept us, to rob me and then to dispose of my men and my ward over the side.'

Had they known? Gresham doubted it. The master had seemed to Gresham not only a man who liked to keep things close to his chest, but to keep as much money as possible as well. Sharing the truth meant sharing the spoils, and he only needed the sailing master and the look-out to be in the know.

'They were both killed in the action.' Let them work out the detail. 'An action that fought off around twenty armed men, as it happens and cost the life of one of my own men.' The odds shocked them. Somehow they knew this man was not boasting, that he was telling the simple truth.

'I need to know who was family among you. You have my word that I will not harm you, but put you ashore in the morning. But I must know who you are, because I cannot trust any blood relation of your master. I must and will place them under guard until they are landed. If you do not tell me,' he said calmly, 'I may have to torture you to find out.'

Would he have done so? With his head hurting as it was… He need not have feared. At the mention of torture there was a collective gasp of horror, and the three crew members who were family to the late master owned up seconds before the rest of the crew pointed them out. One of them was the little ship's boy. Family they may have been, but they were not showing any remarkable sadness for the loss of their relative.

Did Gresham realise the impact he made? Probably not. A dark, menacing figure, he stood casually on the quarterdeck, one hand holding a superb sword, the other on the firing mechanism of the swivel gun. In the dim light, he could have been the Devil, and several of the crew were persuaded that he was.

The three family members were taken to the hatch that led to the hold. Suddenly, without warning, the older of them kinked left, right, and ran for the side. Vaulting the side rail, he put his arms out before him and made a perfect dive into the blackness of the night.

'Bugger!' said Mannion under his breath.

'I think we can assume that one can swim,' said Gresham. It was a good distance to the shore. The other two were put back in the hold and the hatch battened down again, the door from the hold to the cabins securely locked and a spare piece of timber nailed over it for good measure.

'Who among you is the best sailor?' A middle-aged man stepped forward. 'Is there someone who can sound the depth?' The man nodded. 'Then get him to do it now.'

The chosen sailor stood at the bow, and swung a lead weight easily in his hand. The bottom of the lead was stuffed with tallow, so that when it touched the bottom it would come up with sand or gravel or whatever lined the sea at that point, telling the experienced mariner where they might be. The rope onto which the lead was tied had cloth or small metal items attached to it at regular intervals. Even in the dark the leadsman could sense when the lead had touched bottom, draw up the line and by feeling the item woven into the rope know how far down it had stretched.

Three times he flung the lead forward, three times found no bottom.

Gresham turned to the sailor who had nominated himself as the most experienced. 'Can you and the remaining men rig a sea anchor? Take in the sails?'

'Best thing to do,' said the sailor, knuckle to his brow. 'We're in deep water, and the sea anchor'll keep us there. Can't be more'n four or five hours to dawn…'

At dawn they would put in to the nearest port, find or send for someone to pilot the ship to Scotland.

'How's the girl?' asked Gresham. They were sitting on the stern rail each clutching a pewter tankard full of wine. Mannion always packed the essentials. The wind, which had threatened to get up at one point, had settled to something not quite strong enough to whip up the white horses on top of the waves, and seemed to be easing even more. Action always left Gresham exhausted, and with the same burning headache. Sleep was impossible, and he was haunted by the image of the broken-nosed Tom, and the girl, standing on deck with the pistol in her hand like some awful goddess who had been spirited up from the deep.

'The girl?' said Mannion. 'Asleep. I thought she'd pop 'im, you know,' he said in a tone of wonderment, and no small admiration, ‘I really did.'

'I think she did too,' said Gresham. 'And I'm damn sure he did.'

"Well, watch out next time you and 'er have a row,' said Mannion, 'and make sure she ain't near a gun.' He thought for a moment. 'I 'ate fuckin' people who try to kill us,' he said finally, taking a pull on his tankard and smacking his lips. There was something special about food, drink and, for that matter, sex, after a man had looked death in the eye and beaten it. For this time, at least.

'More than you hate fucking Scots?' said Gresham. The drink would not help his head the next morning, but it was helping to dull things now, which was what mattered.

'Depends if the fuckin' Scots try to kill us. What a right bloody mess!' Mannion said. 'Everyone thinks you're plotting against everyone else. Cecil would kill you at the drop of a hat — if you don't deliver that bloody letter. The Queen'll reduce you to rags — and me as well, come to think of it — and probably have you knocked off in the Tower while she's at it, if you don't deliver her bloody package. Essex — God knows what 'e'll do, 'cept I wouldn't trust him as far as I can spit and he ain't goin' to like it if 'e 'ears you've carried messages gettin' Cecil off the 'ook. And now we've got someone else — or mebbe one 'o them trying to kill us.'

'Not trying to kill us exactly,' said Gresham wearily, 'though they would've done, I'm sure. All this business tonight was about getting what we carried. But which one? Cecil's message? Or the Queen's? Did Essex get wind of a message that would stop his campaign with James? Or have we walked into plots from the Pope, from Spain or from France, without realising it? And how did whoever it is know about either package? Has someone infiltrated Cecil's household? Or the Queen's? The Court leaks like a sieve, but when it really matters, both Cecil and the Queen are past masters at keeping secrets.'

'I'll tell you somethin',' said Mannion.' 'Ooever organised that boat that attacked us… it's not someone used to dealing with you.'

'How so?' said Gresham. Mannion's mind was clearly working on a different track to his own.

'Tailing us like that. How often does another ship weigh anchor and leave a mooring at exactly the same time as another? Why would a faster ship like that one stay just so far behind us? A courtier wouldn't notice it. We would. That boat, and the man who ran it, it's someone who don't really know you, someone who's got you down as just another stupid messenger.'

The miscalculation had cost twenty men their lives. Gresham tried to get his aching brain around the problem. Who was trying to kill him? Was it just for the messages he carried? And if it was, why were they so important? Whoever it was had access to real money. Hiring a decent boat and the men to sail it did not come cheap.

'What about 'im up there?' asked Mannion. The look-out had regained consciousness now, could be seen straining at his bonds.

'We'll decide about him in the morning,' said Gresham tiring suddenly of the killing. 'Your watch or mine?' he asked, aching from the core of his soul for Mannion to take over.

'I reckon I'll manage the first two hours,' said Mannion. 'You get your head down for a bit. But there's summat we 'ave to do before that.'

They could have just heaved the dead bodies over the side, would have done so without a moment's thought in the heat of the battle. But now it seemed different. After the red mist of battle something like sanity returned. Or was it simply a different form of madness? They would give each man a cannon ball tied round his ankles, and Gresham, who they had been trying to kill a short while earlier, would say a few words he did not believe over them as they slid off the plank into the sea. We cling to these rituals, thought Gresham, and where there is clearly no meaning in life we try to give it some significance in death. It was a necessary farce. He moved wearily, needing to check that the stiffening bodies had indeed been laid out with their legs and their arms straight. It did not do to have the sickening crack of an outstretched elbow in the middle of a funeral service as the body slid down the smoothed wood.

The Council Chamber seemed empty, but much of the power of England was there — the Queen, Essex, Lord Admiral Howard of Effingham, now Earl of Nottingham, Robert Cecil and the Clerk of the Signet, Thomas Windebank.

They were standing, the great men, as they often did. Essex was red in the face, almost shouting. The other men were pale-faced, nervous, sensing something wild and uncontrollable in Essex. The Queen was impassive, her head bent low. No smiles now between her and Essex, no sparkling eyes or fine compliments.

It was Ireland, of course. The need for a new Lord Deputy in Ireland was beyond pressing, was now a dire necessity. Elizabeth had decided on Essex's uncle, Sir William Knollys. Essex had started to argue passionately against his uncle, one of his greatest allies in Court, and was forcibly putting the case for Sir George Carew. It was transparent. Carew was one of Cecil's men, and his absence from Court would aid Essex greatly and inconvenience Cecil to the same extent. In addition, Ireland had a wonderful habit of either killing its Lord Deputy or ruining their political future.

Elizabeth raised her head, interrupting Essex's tirade.

'I thank you, my Lord Essex,' she said imperiously, 'for your wise counsel. But I am Queen.'

Essex did not have the sense to shut up. He tried to interrupt her. Mercifully, she chose to ignore him, and carried on. 'Sir William Knollys will go as my Lord Deputy to Ireland. It is decided.'

Essex's fists were clenching and unclenching, the colour rising higher and higher in his face. With an expression of sheer contempt and a gesture that would have been more suitable for a man rejecting the advances of a whore, he turned his back on her.

He turned his back on her.

It was an inconceivable insult to turn one's back on the monarch, unthinkable, unspeakable.

Elizabeth's head jerked upright, and what little control she had left she lost. With one swift move she leant forward and delivered a stinging box on his ears. The sharp smack of her slap echoed in the appalled silence of the stone-vaulted chamber. One might deliver such a blow to a silly lady-in-waiting, or to an idiot servant. To do so in public to an Earl, at a Council meeting, in the full panoply of state business, was unprecedented, unbelievable.

Essex turned and shrieked at Elizabeth. And worse, inconceivably worse, he clapped his hand to his sword hilt, and pulled perhaps two or three inches of the steel out of its scabbard.

There was a gasp from the other men. To make to draw one's sword on the monarch was high treason. It was not an insult that would have the perpetrator banished from the Court. It was a gesture that would have the culprit kneeling on the block at Tower Hill.

This is an outrage!' screamed Essex, apparently oblivious to the dual outrage he had just committed. ‘’I will not bear this!' He took his hand off his sword hilt, more in the manner of someone making a great concession than of a man recognising a great error. 'I would not have borne this from your father, and I shall not bear it from you, a woman.'

The men were transfixed, gazing in horror at the sword hilt. It was Nottingham who stepped forward, put himself between the Queen and the errant Lord, pushed him back. Nottingham said nothing.

There was silence in the Chamber.

Essex was flushed, standing at his full height. He looked round the room, saw no help from the other men there, looked in the eyes of the Queen and saw what Anne Boleyn must have seen in Henry VIII's eyes at the very last.

He rushed from the room. Had the first two or three steps been an attempt to retire gracefully, facing the Queen? Or had it taken him that long simply to turn?

All eyes were on Elizabeth. She gazed in silence for a moment at the door through which Essex had left. Then, without another word, she swept past the other men, and left.

Essex stormed down the corridors of the Palace, oblivious to where he was. Suddenly he came to a dead end, a dark, brick-built avenue ending starkly where what had once been a door had been filled in. He paused, as if waking from a dream. It was the dark, narrow tunnel that had been the stuff of his dreams. Here. Now. Real. What had he done? What had he done!

He had always been obsessive, prone to swings of mood. Yet always before he had been able to pull back, a deep instinct warning him in time to allow his charm to work its wonders. Always, until… What was the figure forming in his imagination in the pattern of the brickwork? Was it the pensive face of a small boy?

Alone, with no servants and certainly no Queen to see and hear him, Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex, sank to his knees, and sobbed. Sobbed almost like a little boy.