Armada (32 page)

After the morning’s action, as the fleet was redeploying to windward of the Armada, Howard had sailed alongside in the
Ark Royal
to pass his compliments to Captain Varian on his handling of his ship during the first engagement. Varian had sailed the
Retribution
into the thickest part of the fight and had remained in the battle long after others had withdrawn. He had stood squarely on the quarterdeck and made sure every shot fired was sorely felt by the Spaniards. These were not the actions of a traitor.

But on the other hand, Varian had never fully supported Seeley’s attempt to find Young. He had not hindered the investigation, but he had not assisted in it either. If the
Retribution
had been Seeley’s ship he would have taken her apart timber by timber until he found the treasonous rat. Suddenly a thought struck him. Perhaps Varian was trying to protect a fellow Roman Catholic from exposure, or maybe, Seeley thought in horror, Varian was Young. Perhaps it was his real name, changed to conceal his true faith.

Seeley laughed abruptly. There was no logic to this. If Varian was a Roman Catholic traitor, why was he fighting the Spanish? There was no such thing as a loyal recusant. If there were any English papists fighting in this war, it was those who were widely rumoured to be sailing with the enemy fleet, seditious outcasts who had betrayed their countrymen and forfeited their souls for a foreign cause. The captain couldn’t be Roman Catholic. His actions in Sagres, his maniacal charge on the
Halcón
, his aggressive tactics in the morning’s action; everything spoke of his loyalty to the Crown and England.

Yet Seeley could not ignore the sliver of doubt that remained. He had often thought the captain lacked the religious fervour that he himself possessed in the fight against the Spanish. Perhaps Varian did not think of the war against Spain as a religious matter, and was more ambivalent towards Roman Catholics. Men had different motives for fighting the Spanish. Miller, the master’s mate, had often expressed his hatred of the Spanish stranglehold on trade in the New World. Perhaps Varian’s only motive was to keep England safe from foreign invasion, regardless of any enemy’s faith.

Seeley shook his head to put an end to his deliberations. His lack of success in his search for Young had affected him deeply. Clearly his suspicions were now feeding on themselves, creating enemies where none existed. Their captain was not a traitor. Seeley looked to his charts, his attention returning to the coastline, but all the while his lips moved without conscious thought, mouthing a prayer he could not forget:
Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis
.

In the soft glow of lantern light Evardo stepped over the prone bodies of the wounded, his boots grinding the sand underfoot that had been strewn there to soak up the blood of the maimed. He looked down at each man in turn. Many of them returned his gaze silently, their eyes neither accusing nor accepting. The orlop deck was quiet. The screams of the most grievously injured had ceased, and beyond the pall of light cast by the lanterns Evardo could hear the creak and squeal of the whipstaff and rudder in the dark recesses of the aft section.

Evardo knelt down beside one of his men. The sailor was lying on a filthy blanket, his head propped up on some coiled rigging. His eyes were closed, his head jerking from side to side as if trapped in some horrible nightmare. He was soaked with sweat. Evardo looked down the length of the sailor’s body. A wave of nausea swept over him. The man’s arm had been blown off below the elbow. The flesh was horribly mangled and the wound had been cauterized to stop the bleeding. Huge bluebottles were already settling to feast on the charred flesh and pools of blood, their incessant buzzing rising angrily as Evardo tried to wave them away.

The combination of smells was overpowering; the stink of burn, like meat left too long on the flame, the tang of fresh blood, the acrid smell of sweat, and the stench of faeces. The sailor had soiled himself, and for a brief moment Evardo wondered if the pain or the sight of the red-hot iron used to seal his wound had caused the sailor to lose control. The thought made Evardo stand up abruptly and he looked away from the injured sailor, quickly turning his focus to the huddled figures at the other side of the deck.

Padre Garza was kneeling beside a dying soldier, solemnly reciting the Last Rites. The man was holding desperately onto the priest’s hand, biting down on a leather thong to silence his cries. Blood trickled from the side of his mouth, a visible sign of his terrible internal injuries. Evardo found himself staring into the soldier’s eyes. They were wide with pain, and something more terrible. Fear. The soldier’s eyes darted from the priest kneeling over him to the two shroud-covered bodies lying near at hand; the fate that would soon be his. Again Evardo looked away, this time to preserve the man’s dignity. The consequences of the morning’s action had been sharp, but not severe. Two men had been killed instantly during the battle. Padre Garza’s charge would be a third. Twelve men had been wounded, two badly so, including the sailor who had lost his arm.

‘
Comandante
.’ Evardo saw Captain de Córdoba approach. ‘I did not realize you had come below.’

‘I wished to check on the wounded,’ Evardo replied.

De Córdoba nodded appreciatively. He looked beyond Evardo to the shroud-covered bodies and the dying soldier under the padre’s care.

‘López,’ he said quietly. ‘He and the other two were manning a
falcon pedrero
on the fo’c’sle when it was hit.’

Evardo nodded and looked back to the young soldier. ‘What were the names of the others?’

‘De Arroyo and Garrido.’

Evardo memorized the names. It was common for
comandante
s to issue false casualty lists to the paymaster in order to draw ‘dead men’s pay’ but Evardo would record them faithfully. The men deserved nothing less.

‘Your company fought well today
Capitán
de Córdoba.’

‘Thank you,
Comandante
. They would have fought all the better if the English had closed and we were afforded the chance to board.’

Evardo nodded. He couldn’t fathom what the English hoped to achieve with their artillery attack runs. Despite the incredible rate of fire the enemy had maintained in the morning’s action the
Santa Clara
had suffered only minimal damage and even this was confined to the superstructure, sails and rigging. The hull, although it had taken over a dozen direct hits from round shot, was still sound. The
Santa Clara
had weathered her first fire storm under Evardo’s command. He reached out to touch the hull, his fingertips feeling the tiny vibrations in the timbers caused by the pounding of the waves and the pull of the wind.

‘I suspect the English were probing for weaknesses this morning, perhaps to ascertain where the fighting ships lie in our formation.’

‘If they plan on stopping our advance they will have to engage in a proper battle,’ de Córdoba said. ‘They will have to board and fight as we do in the Mediterranean, ship to ship, man to man.’

‘I pray to God it will be so.’

Suddenly Evardo felt the deck shudder and the air was filled with a massive explosion, a noise that spoke of some terrible inferno. Evardo started running, keeping his head down in the low-ceiling deck. Aloft the crew were lining the starboard bulwark. He pushed through them. A quarter of a mile away, one of the Armada’s bigger ships was engulfed in thick black smoke. An order to bring the men to battle stations rose to Evardo’s lips but he stopped himself short. This was no attack. It was something far worse.

‘It’s the
San Salvador
of the Guipúzcoan squadron,’ a crewman shouted. His call was met with a chorus of agreement.

The boom of a single cannon caused Evardo to turn and he saw a puff of white smoke issue from the larboard side of the
San Martín
. It was the signal for the Armada to stop. Evardo shouted the order as he went to the quarterdeck. For a moment he was tempted to come about and go to the aid of the
San Salvador
but he knew he could not. After the morning’s action and the retreat of the warships of the rearguard wing,
sargentos mayors
had been dispatched in pataches to every ship in the fleet with a message from Medina Sidonia. Henceforth, no
comandante
, on pain of death by hanging, was to retreat from his designated position in the fleet. For men of honour it was a stinging rebuke and although Evardo knew such an order was not meant for him directly, as a
comandante
he was tainted by association.

A call went out from the masthead, alerting Evardo to the approach of a felucca off the starboard beam. She carried orders for half a dozen ships, the
Santa Clara
amongst them, to break formation and assist the
San Salvador
. Evardo called for the course change and ordered extra lookouts to the fighting tops and bowsprit, wary of the English fleet not four miles away. The
Santa Clara
turned neatly through the chop, her deck heeling over under the press of the wind.

Evardo’s concern mounted as they neared the stricken galleon. Cries of alarm and command mixed on the wind with screams of agony and despair. The aft decks and stern castle of the
San Salvador
had been completely annihilated. Her steering and mizzen masts were gone and already the wind and tide were beginning to turn her broadside to the weather. Feluccas and pataches were milling around her towering hull, picking men out of the churning sea, while others took secured tow lines to the attending galleons nearby. The
Santa Clara
sailed past the
San Martín
and Evardo answered the hail of the flagship to bring his galleon astride the stern of the
San Salvador
and hold station there.

Evardo ordered the longboat launched. Despite being from the Basque region, the men of the
San Salvador
were fellow Spaniards and the crew eagerly responded to Evardo’s bidding. The longboat descended into the choppy sea. Evardo gave command of the quarterdeck to Mendez and went forward to the fo’c’sle in time to see the longboat reach the outer edge of the halo of debris surrounding the
San Salvador
. They pulled a charred, blackened body from the water, only to throw it overboard again. Evardo focused on the larboard quarter of the galleon thirty yards away.

The entire aft section of the
San Salvador
had been torn open by the explosion, exposing her inner decks and cabins. The dead lay everywhere, many burned beyond recognition, others horribly mutilated by the blast, spared their savage injuries by the merciful hand of death. Smoke billowed from a dozen open wounds in the hull. Pataches were lashing on to the
San Salvador
, their crews clambering up onto the main deck to fight the fires that were still raging.

For every man who climbed on board, others were abandoning ship, many carrying the heavy coin chests of the Armada’s paymaster who was sailing on the
San Salvador
. The walking wounded were also being taken off and while Evardo could see that many would be fit to fight again, the galleon herself was perilously close to sinking and was surely beyond salvaging.

The sudden sound of collision caused Evardo to spin around. Not two hundred yards away the flagship of the Andalusia squadron, the
Nuestra Señora del Rosario
had slammed into her sister ship, the
Santa Catalina
. Earlier that morning, as the
Rosario
had sailed to support the
San Juan
, she had accidentally collided with one of the Biscayans and had damaged her bowsprit. This had badly affected her steering and she had been forced to drop out of the fight. Now that compromising damage had caused her even greater misfortune, crippling the
Rosario
further. Her foremast rigging was in complete disarray. Evardo uttered a prayer, watching in horror as the foremast bowed under the press of the wind, threatening to snap at any moment.

He glanced back at the
San Salvador
. The longboat of the
Santa Clara
had reached its hull and was helping with the evacuation. It was dangerous work, the pitiless sea foaming, and more than once the men in the longboat were thrown from their feet as rogue waves slammed their small craft against the hull of the galleon. Many of the pataches and feluccas were cutting loose to go to the assistance of the latest casualty, the
Rosario
, and Evardo went back to the quarterdeck, his attention turning once more to the enemy.

The evening was swiftly closing in. The English still commanded the weather gauge. Only the inconsistency of the wind and sea and the Armada’s unbroken formation was keeping them at bay. But how long would those protective forces hold? With two badly wounded ships hampering their progress the Armada was significantly exposed. Evardo could only hope that the experienced commanders advising Medina Sidonia would find a way to achieve an effective running defence of the
San Salvador
and the
Rosario
. Like wolves, the English were silently observing their prey.

John Cross pounded on the wooden door and stepped back into the middle of the street. The imposing limestone façade of the four-storey civic building was in darkness. He pounded again.

‘In the name of the Queen, open up,’ he bellowed.

An angry voice shouted at him from the down the street to be silent but Cross ignored the tirade and hammered on the door once more, the noise sparking further anger from another quarter.

It was nearly thirty-six hours since Cross had begun his search for the officer named Seeley. From the outset he had been beset by delays and frustration. Almost immediately after he left the tavern the town had ignited with the news that the Spanish had been sighted nearing Plymouth Roads. The local population had quickly taken to the streets, many packing up their meagre belongings to flee to the surrounding countryside while others simply milled around in chaotic fear of the foe that was suddenly on their doorstep.