Traitor

Chapter 46

SHAKESPEARE ROSE TO his full height. He had no cover. He raised one of the pistols in his right hand, the wrist supported by his clenched left hand, then pulled the trigger. One of the attackers crumpled. Shakespeare dropped the pistol, fell to one knee, raised the other loaded pistol and fired again. The recoil knocked him back momentarily, as flame and smoke belched from the gun. A Spaniard moaned and doubled up as though he had been punched in the belly. The other Spaniards stopped. Shakespeare leapt down the steps from the rampart and dashed for Andrew and the two others.

‘Fair shooting, Mr Shakespeare,’ Pinkney said. ‘You are full of surprises.’ He nodded towards Andrew. ‘And see what a pleasant surprise I have for you here.’

Shakespeare threw himself down beside Andrew. This was no time for greetings. Their eyes met, then he set about powdering his weapon.

To their left, a detachment of English pikemen, their eighteen-foot poles raised in the attack position, drove forward into the Spanish trenches. It was a sight to strike terror into the stoutest of hearts, but the defenders merely drew their swords and fought hand to hand, at close quarters. The main gate had now been opened and English marines and soldiers were pouring through. The Spanish were hugely outnumbered, but fought with desperate courage. Even though their captain was dead, no white flags of misericord were raised; no lives were pleaded for.

The fighting raged for five hours. It was slaughter. Blood lay thick, like a coating of red, sticky paint, daubed across the compound and ramparts. Every inch was hard won for the English and the French.

By late afternoon, Norreys and Frobisher had control of the fort. Both the general and the admiral were wounded, but continued to lead their men.

As soon as the way was clear, Shakespeare grasped Andrew by the arm. ‘Come with me. You have done enough here.’

Andrew hesitated. He was under military command now. He looked at Pinkney for orders, for approbation.

Pinkney merely nodded. ‘Take him, Shakespeare. I had thought to leave him to the wolves when I discovered his connection to you, but I tell you this: I have never met a better soldier.’

Shakespeare looked hard into his eyes. ‘What are you, Pinkney? Norreys says you are loyal and strong, but I saw you kill a bound and unarmed man in cold blood. It was simple murder.’

‘He was a traitor, an enemy of England. I saved him from a worse fate on the scaffold.’

‘He should have had a trial. Every man deserves that.’

‘A trial arranged by Mr Topcliffe, perchance? And execution, too … the bowelling, the cutting out of the living heart, the quartering of the body. I tell you, I did Mr Lamb a kindness.’

Pinkney’s eyes were ruthless and cold: the unremitting eyes of a soldier who had survived battles through hard brutality, who would never surrender, never give quarter. When Shakespeare looked at Andrew, he saw something of the same. He had to get him away from this before he was lost for ever.

In the distance, from below the cliffs, there were gunshots and shouting.

‘I still have Spaniards to kill.’ Pinkney shook Andrew by the hand, then led his men forward to the cliffs, where the last of the defenders had fled.

Boltfoot sat at the back of a cockboat as the mariners rowed hard for land. Other ship’s boats were all around them, heading for the shore at the bottom of the cliffs.

Dozens of Spaniards were diving and jumping from the rocks into the sea. They bobbed in the surf, struggling to rid themselves of their armour and helmets as they waded away from the English onslaught, fleeing like hares before hounds. Shots peppered the waves around them. Now and then a man cried out, then sank into the boiling red water.

Boltfoot watched grimly. The mariners in the boats leapt out as they reached the exhausted Spaniards in the shallows, then grappled with them, holding their heads under water, drowning them one by one until the sea was awash with sixty or seventy floating bodies. Frobisher arrived on the rocky shore, supported by two men.

‘That is enough. No more killing,’ he said.

There are no more to kill, thought Boltfoot. Never had he seen a crueller day.