Armada

ball before he fell to the floor.

‘You men,’ Seeley roared near at hand. ‘Tear down those statues.’

Robert spun around, his rage threatening to slip its bonds. The men quickly desecrated the church, pulling down the ornate statues and smashing them underfoot, while the air resounded with the clang of metal as the sailors attacked the tabernacle doors with their weapons.

‘Blasphemous idolaters,’ Seeley cursed.

Robert was possessed by the urge to run the man through but he turned and walked out, unable to trust himself in the face of such destruction. He stood with his back to the church and looked out over the square. Suddenly he became conscious of the pistol in his hand and he stuck it back in his belt. He had thought nothing of the destruction of the town and the massacre of the population; the Spanish were enemies. But the threat against the church and the priest had driven him to the brink of drawing English blood.

He had not, but the shame of witnessing such an attack and doing nothing to prevent it began to consume him. He walked away, anxious to get back to the Retribution and find solitude to calm the rancorous voice of his conscience. In his heart he was already convinced it was a hopeless cause.

Seeley watched the captain leave from inside the church doors. He was breathing heavily and his heart raced from the righteousness that had taken hold of him. He was cleansing the church for God, ridding it of its idols and graven images. Although he knew many of his men sought only plunder, others had responded instantly to his order to tear down the statues, answering the call of their faith.

The captain too had answered that call and Seeley remembered the haste he had witnessed when they first encountered the church, the aggressive way Varian had pushed through when the door had been breeched and how he had raised his pistol to shoot the priest. But then the captain had hesitated. His furious expression had been a sight to behold, an outward sign of his religious ardour yet, Seeley marked, he had not taken command of the men, nor stayed to watch the faithful propagation of God’s will. Seeley had also heard the accounts of the captain’s fearless charge on the Halcon, but again of how he had spared the Spanish captain. While he had no doubt that his captain was committed to the cause of defeating Spain, Seeley could not help wondering if Varian’s religious convictions matched the depth of his nationalist loyalties.

It was a deficiency Seeley had witnessed in others, an imbalance that placed the Queen above God and put the needs of England ahead of those of the Divine. Varian’s actions bore witness to the tenets of his Protestant beliefs which triggered his impulse to attack the idolaters’ church and shoot the priest, but for Seeley such religious instincts ran deeper.

When Seeley had first entered the town he had been sickened by the depravity he had witnessed in the streets and it had taken all his will not to vomit up the bile that had risen in his throat. But then he had remembered the defeat at Lagos. The Spaniards deserved no mercy. In the fight against the scourge of Roman Catholic heresy there could be no hesitation, no half-measures. He turned once more to look upon the ruin of the church interior and realized it was his duty to instil in every man he could influence the will to wage unconditional holy war against the papist foe.

CHAPTER 5

6th July 1587. Plymouth, England.

The crew cheered as the anchor splashed down and the Retribution came to rest, her hull swinging around gently with the pull of the incoming tide. The last of the sails were hauled in and with all able hands on deck the galleon was quickly made secure, the men using their last reserves of strength with an alacrity born of hunger and impatience. Robert was on the quarterdeck and as he looked out over the port he smiled. ‘Home,’ he whispered, drinking in the sight of Plymouth docks

The town looked inviting in the warm July sun. The long sweep of the teeming wharfs was crowned by columns of wood smoke from the cooking fires of the houses beyond, while further back the tower of Saint Andrew’s church gazed over all. The babble of daily activity was borne on the light wind, its timbre and pitch unchanged despite the arrival home of the fleet. Robert glanced at the eight other ships surrounding the Retribution, the remnants of the original fleet that had sailed from this port ten weeks before.

After the sack of Sagres, Drake had ordered the fleet to take station off Cape Saint Vincent. They had intercepted dozens of supply ships bearing all manner of materials for the Armada at Lisbon; timbers for ship- building, oars for galleys and galleasses, and hoops and barrel staves for provisioning the enemy fleet. It had been fruitful labour but as the weeks dragged on an enemy more deadly than the Spanish had begun to attack the fleet; pestilence.

The morale of the fleet had died with the first fatality and as more and more fell ill, Robert, like every other captain, had found it increasingly difficult to keep his crew in check. A sudden violent storm precipitated the first flights towards home, with the smaller ships, under the pretence of necessity, turning for England while they still had sufficient crew to sail them. Even the news of a rich prize approaching the Azores, a trading carrack bound for Lisbon from Genoa, could not stem the tide. Men who had rushed fearlessly into battle cowered before the dreaded ship-fever. The crew of the Golden Lion, with the fleet’s second officer, Borough, on board had turned her bow northwards despite the entreaties of their captain.

Where lesser men might have succumbed, Drake had rallied, persuading the remaining crews to sail west to San Miguel. His resolve had been rewarded and a dawn attack by the last nine ships had yielded an enormous prize – the Sao Phelipe, a Portuguese carrack that was one of the Spanish King’s own vessels. After this enormous coup, Drake had been content to end the expedition and the Elizabeth Bonaventure had finally led the bedraggled fleet home.

Of Robert’s command, seven men had been lost to sickness while another thirty were isolated below decks, the men shivering in their hammocks, crying out in delirium, their bodies racked by fever. Some would survive, God would choose who, and Robert murmured a prayer for all. He wondered, like all sailors, what cursed element triggered the dread disease.

‘The ship is secure, Captain,’ Seeley said, coming up to the quarterdeck. His frame was lean and drawn from the rigours of the previous weeks.

‘Very well,’ Robert replied. ‘Have the men stand down. Mister Powell will need to see each of them before any can disembark to make sure none of them have ship-fever.’

The master nodded. He ordered the ship’s surgeon to the main deck, then called the boatswain to come aft.

‘Captain,’ Seeley began, as Shaw arrived, ‘I would like to question the men one last time before they disembark.’

Robert tried to hide his irritation, but he saw the master’s expression change to a frown of annoyance and knew his own face had betrayed him.

Since the discovery of the idols, Seeley’s search for the Catholic on board had been relentless. Every crewman had been subjected many times to Seeley’s questions while Shaw had assisted his efforts, watching the crew in their unguarded moments below decks when off watch. Many of the crew had reacted with fury when they had first heard of the traitor amongst them. They had vowed to help the master hunt him down but Seeley had refused to trust anyone on board. His obstinate suspicion had eventually put the entire crew on edge, exacerbating the fleet-wide scourges of disease and short supplies.

Robert had been on the cusp of ending the hunt many times, but on each occasion he had hesitated, unsure if his motivation was to guard the dwindling morale of his crew or his own safety. The responsibilities of his rank had continually decided the issue, but at the cost of his patience at Seeley’s ever increasing obsession to cleanse the Retribution of treachery. This final request to question the exhausted crew could not be countenanced.

‘This is our last chance,’ Seeley said. ‘Once the traitor goes ashore he is bound to disappear.’

‘We might still catch him, Captain,’ Shaw added, his own enthusiasm for the hunt fuelled by frustration.

‘No,’ Robert said, ‘there will be no further questioning.’

Seeley was about to protest but Robert held up his hand.

‘You are dismissed, Mister Shaw,’ he said to the boatswain. ‘Inform the men of the morning and fore-noon watches that they may go ashore.’