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The Turk said, 'Have you not heard of the Hawkins expedition?'

'No,' I said into the dark.

Somebody laughed. Someone else said, 'Ha!'

'It was a disaster.' I recognised the Hog's voice. 'English mariners were captured by the Spaniards in Mexico. The seamen were Lutherans. They were first imprisoned in a pigsty and made to eat pigs' food. For liquid they were given vinegar wine. Then they were made to dress in yellow cloaks, and carry green candles, and led to a marketplace with ropes around their necks where their sentences were read out to a howling crowd. Some of the mariners were burned to ashes. Others were flogged for hour after hour until the flesh was gone from their backs. Others had their limbs broken. This is the
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Scotch. It is the Christian charity of the Inquisition, and it is what you must expect if you are captured by the Spanish.'

'At last you can see why the dregs of prisons sleep around you, Scotch,' the Turk said. 'It is the only way Raleigh could man this voyage.'

'Thank you, Turk, for inviting me to join it.'

The Turk laughed quietly in the dark.

Over the next few hours I watched the Crown drift out of my oblong of sky and the mighty Hercules take its place. There was much to mystify me. I wondered about the beauty I saw in the celestial vault overhead, and the unfathomable depths of the abyss on which I floated. I wondered about the cruelty which men inflict on each other in the name of a God of love. I lay in my own sweat and smelled the filth and listened to the creaking of the ship and the coughing and snoring of the tavern dross around me. And I wondered, not for the first time, whether I would have been better to spend my days in ignorance, tending sheep in the cool, silent valley of Tweedsmuir.

By the eighteenth day after the storm, the weather had become unbelievably hot. According to Mr Harriot, we were now approaching hostile Spanish territory. The lookouts were more alert, and Sir Richard and Fernandez spent more time on deck, peering at the empty horizon.

On the morning of the nineteenth day, there was an excited cry from aloft. A sailor was pointing to the sky. There was a solitary bird, far larger than any I had ever seen. It approached the ship and circled lazily around the masts. There was an outburst of shouting and cheering. Shortly afterwards the musicians came on deck and struck up some tune to which several of the sailors began to dance, leaping grotesquely around the deck.

'We'll soon sight land!' Mr Bowler was grinning happily.

For a moment I allowed myself the sin of pride. 'Of course, just as Mr Harriot and I expected from our observations of the stars.' I felt my face going red at my own arrogance, but Mr Bowler just laughed and slapped me on the back.

Presently more large birds joined the first, and then we saw a tree trunk bobbing on the waves, near-submerged. There was a buzz of excitement on the ship: sails were trimmed with more enthusiasm; more energy went into the scrubbing of the decks; conversation in the galley was livelier. Even Mr Salter, I thought, was in danger of smiling.

On the twenty-first day, a long, low irregular shape appeared on the horizon: 'Land withall!'

The next day, Sir Richard turned us north-west. The turquoise water was broken by white thundering surf, and there was an island thick with green trees, with a long stretch of beach. We dropped anchor. I was tingling with anticipation, but then to my disappointment Mr Salter instructed me to stay on board. While the mariners were allowed ashore to enjoy the feel of land under their feet, I was required to carry out an inventory of the food. I spent the day scrabbling and sweating in the stinking, dark hold, while all around me was the squeaking and scurrying of rats. The stench was almost unbearable. The cheese had long since turned rancid and the biscuits had a thick layer of fur on their surfaces. Little white worms were swimming in the barrels of water and indeed I swear there was more worm than water. The rats had picked holes in the sacks and were clearly gorging themselves on the seeds and multiplying at a great rate. I counted the barrels and sacks as quickly as I could, trying not to retch in the vile air. That night I slept on deck, catching the whiff of wood-smoke from bonfires on the beach, and listening to the musicians.

The following day we made sail, heading for a bay where Sir Richard expected to find his other ships at anchor. But there was nothing. We dropped anchor again, and Ralph Lane spent a week constructing a fort in case of a surprise appearance by the Spanish. In all that time I did not leave the ship, having this or that task to perform: it was clear that Mr Salter bore a grudge against me. But the
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incident was long in the past. I began to wonder if Mr Bowler had been right, that the man resented my ability to read and my learning, little though it was.

Shortly after the fort was built, the lookouts saw a mast appearing over the horizon. Soldiers hastily returned to ship, we weighed anchor and set off in pursuit. It turned out to be the Elizabeth. We fired cannon and discharged muskets in celebration.

Shortly, we chanced upon another Spanish ship whose captain was so terrified of us that the crew immediately fled in longboats. The ship was full of cloths but had little in the way of food or water. By now, the shortage of provisions was becoming desperate. Without fresh fruit and livestock it did not seem that we could reach our destination. Finally, on the first of June, we arrived at an island known to the mariners as Hispaniola. It was said to have a strong garrison of Spanish soldiers, and only desperation could have driven Sir Richard to anchor at this place.

We dropped single anchor about a half-mile offshore, tense with anticipation. We could smell the land. The older men muttered about fever coming in on the wind, and Mr Bowler tried to frighten me with stories of boils, yellow jaundice and deadly contagions blowing in from the shore, but I was too excited to care, and all that assailed my nose was the rich, fetid vegetation of the Tropic. Crowds of people lined the shore, some of them waving. We must have been a fearsome site to the Spanish, with our ten cannon and two demi-culverts, and the sun glistening off the armour of a hundred soldiers.

Presently a boat appeared, rowed by ten sailors. As it approached, I saw that the man standing to the rear of the craft had dark, leathery skin, no doubt a combination of sun and natural colour. He had a dark grey beard and held himself erect in spite of the swaying of the ship. It was my first sight of a Spaniard. He seemed as proud and haughty as I had heard the mariners describe his people.

Fernandez and Grenville appeared at the side of the ship. There was an exchange of conversation in loud Spanish. Then our own longboat was manhandled over the side of the Tiger and several of the officers climbed on board. To my surprise, Grenville snapped his fingers at me. I climbed down a rope ladder and joined the gentlemen in the rocking boat. I guessed that my knowledge of livestock was to be put to use.

It was strange indeed to feel solid ground once again under my feet. Stranger still were the faces which met us. Many were black. Some were, I think, Chinese.

'What are you thinking of, boy?' Marmaduke asked me, grinning, as we walked along the quayside.

'Sir, I'm thinking of solid land, and cabbages and cauliflowers, and melons and oranges, and clean fresh water without worms. I'm also thinking that we're at the mercy of these people, and from what I have heard of the Spaniards—'

'We are under a flag of truce, laddie,' interrupted Mr White.

'Aye,' said Sir Richard. 'And I have a few cannon to back it up.'

I did not for a second think that the ship's cannon would save us if the Spaniards decided to burn some heretics, but it would have been folly to say so.

We were escorted - I think that is the word - by about a dozen heavily armed Spanish soldiers. Goats were running loose in the crowded street. A priest made the sign of the Cross as we passed, a gesture which gave me no comfort at all. Many of the gaping spectators were strikingly dressed, with bright red and yellow coats and colourful handkerchiefs around their necks or tied round their heads. We were taken to the steps of a church. There was an awning, and underneath it a small, burly Spaniard with an air of authority was waiting for us, surrounded by soldiers and civilians. An exchange of civilities took place, and there followed a long conversation in Spanish, with Fernandez translating for Sir Richard. I was not privileged to be in the shade of the awning, and stood thirsty and sweating in the glaring sun, embarrassed by the grinning and giggling of two young girls, who seemed fascinated by my jacket and breeches.

At last Mr White beckoned me forwards. 'Go with this boy,' he said. 'Pick out two bulls and ten of the best cows you can find, and bring them to the quayside.'

I walked with a boy younger than me through dusty streets lined with brightly painted wooden houses. Some of them were quite grand, with balconies from which men and women looked down and shouted comments which I did not understand, but which I am sure were not complimentary. At the edge of town there was a wooden stockade, and in it about a hundred white cattle of a type which I had never seen. In truth I could not tell which cattle were -the best and which the worst, and so I chose the largest, since these would have more meat. The boy and I punched our way through the cattle, avoiding sharp horns, until I had chosen ten which we then led back along the street towards the quayside. It was a task not without difficulty, since the cattle were as stupid as those of Tweedsmuir but a good deal wilder. A Spanish pinnace was waiting, and we steered them up a broad gangplank onto it. We returned to another pen for the bulls. This second transport proved a much more hazardous business.

It was a long, hard day, but at the end of it I had the satisfaction of having twelve white cattle, twenty pigs, as many sheep, and about a hundred chickens, complete with feed for a month, on board the Tiger. I worked overnight by the light of lanterns, coralling and organising my animals, while from the shore came the sounds of laughter and music as the gentlemen were entertained on long tables set up on the beach. Other seamen were heaving fresh water and beer and beautiful green vegetables and wonderful fresh fruit onto the ship, and risking punishment by sampling the wares. I too tasted sin, in the form of a melon so delicious that it must have come straight from God. By dawn I had completed my task, and went to my hammock exhausted but with a feeling of great satisfaction.

We stayed in Hispaniola for three days. I found it difficult to reconcile the horrific stories of
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which the mariners had told me with the hospitality which I met during several trips ashore. The two girls who had laughed at my clothes were Isabelle and Regina de Angulo, the daughters of the military governor of the island. They knew no English, but in the governor's great house, filled with fine furniture and paintings which I cannot even describe, such was their beauty, they taught me games with painted cards, and also a strange game in which a ball was hit with a bat over netting. It was exhausting in the heat, but it was a happy time for me. I must admit that when I left Hispaniola it was with some regret, and I thought that a life spent tending sheep in Tweedsmuir would have been rather limiting after all.

On the seventh of June, the Tiger and the Elizabeth set sail from Hispaniola. Two weeks later we sighted the great continent and sailed up its coastline with care. Amadas and Barlowe had been before us, and the coastline was known. It was dangerous in the extreme, with a line of sandbanks lying between the ocean and the land like a barricade. This was also part of the Atlantic where storms could arise quickly. Being close to land, Master Fernandez became the navigator of the ship. His aim was to sail over the sand bars and reach the calmer waters between the sand and the mainland.

Unfortunately the navigator made a great error, misjudging the depth of the sea. The Tiger became grounded on the sand and would not be moved off. The captain of the Elizabeth and another two prize ships were also stuck fast. And now a storm suddenly sprang up. The waves were huge and the Tiger, being broadside to them, was pounded without mercy for two hours. It looked as if the great ship would break up. We all thanked God that when the tide came a huge wave lifted her clear.

When the fierce storm had subsided, the damage became clear for all to see. My livestock had plunged into the water and had swum ashore. But the ship's keel had been so battered that seawater had flooded the hold. Our biscuits, rice, corn, seeds for growing, all were ruined. Far from growing crops and feeding ourselves, the colony of over a hundred souls would now depend for its existence on the charity of the savages.

After much repair work, we were able to refloat the Tiger. Our fleets being restored, we boarded the ships again and sailed ten leagues to the north, to a deep gap in the Outer Banks. This time the ships stayed a safe distance at sea while we emptied them, rowing our supplies first to a depot on the Outer Banks before landing on the island of Roanoke where we would construct our settlement. This island was fertile, protected from prying Spanish eyes by the sandbars and separated from the mainland by a league of calm water, giving us some protection from attacks by savages. We were within sight of their villages, across this stretch of water.

At this point Ralph Lane became governor of the new colony. He constructed a house on the Outer Banks and supervised the continuing transfer of our supplies from the ships to Roanoke island. A fort was built on the north of the island, which was about two leagues long and half a league wide. The fort was a poor thing of sand and timbers, nothing like the castles I knew of in my native Scotland. When this was done, we began working on our houses. The gentlemen built themselves fine structures, but the mariners, colonists and soldiers created houses for themselves even more primitive than those of Tweedsmuir.

I will not describe the troubles which we had. The gentlemen would not work, being busy with exploring, sketching and measuring. The other colonists refused to work for them. Many of the soldiers behaved like wild animals. It was not long before Ralph Lane introduced severe discipline, and more than one soldier was left to rot, hanging from a tree. Overhanging all of this was hunger, a dwindling food supply and a relationship with the savages which, although it started well, soon became uneasy.