Armada

50 ton bark. He uttered a silent prayer that the fleet at Plymouth would be ready to sail upon his arrival. The situation there had been critical when he had sailed out days before. The fleet was shackled to the port by the shortages in rations, unable to sally out until sufficient victuals were secured, and in the confines of the inner harbour, they would be easy prey should the Spanish attempt a blockading attack.

The Golden Hind sailed on. Over the horizon the Armada pursued in her wake, the south-westerly bearing all towards their fate. On the eve of battle in an undeclared war all uncertainty had now been banished. The Armada, so long in coming, had arrived. The future of one nation and the ambition of another would be decided by the chosen sons of each realm. Faith against faith, ship against ship, man against man, they would fight. Two naval powers set in opposition, their strength distilled and fed into the hearts and souls of men ready to die for their cause. God’s will was unfolding, and the day so long prayed both for and against, was at hand.

CHAPTER 13

2 a.m. 31st July 1588. Plymouth, England.

The crewmen of the Retribution grunted and strained through the pull, their backs bent against the bars of the capstan, shoulders bunched and muscles trembling as inch by inch, foot by foot, the anchor rope snaked in through the hawsehole. Seawater streamed from the rope, each drop catching and reflecting the dull lantern light that illuminated the low ceilinged gun deck. The air was musky with the smell of sweat and the bare-chested men cursed and cajoled the dead weight they pulled against as they slowly marched in a fixed circle.

Robert watched them without comment, studying each man, searching for signs of weakness. He indicated one of the men to Shaw and the boatswain tapped the sailor on the shoulder, signalling him to step out from the bar. Another rushed forward from the waiting ranks to take his place, maintaining the strength of the whole. Robert glanced at the relieved man. He was doubled over, breathing heavily and Robert acknowledged his hard work with a curt nod. On all sides the crew continued to shout encouragement to those men at the bars. They laboured on, not to lift the anchor, but to haul the entire weight of the 450 ton Retribution.

Like a lighted taper cast into an arsenal, the arrival of the Golden Hind in Plymouth harbour the evening before had set the English fleet ablaze with frenetic activity. Every ship had immediately cleared their decks for action but the order to sally out could not be given. The tide had been in full flood, rushing against them through the outer headlands and the English crews had been forced to wait in agonizing dread of a Spanish blockading attack. By God’s grace it had never materialized. When the tide finally turned before midnight the crews had cheered the order to make all haste out of the lethal confines of Plymouth harbour.

Without an assisting wind the ships were warping out of the harbour with the ebb tide. It was a laborious and excruciatingly slow process. The ship’s anchor was carried forward in the longboat to the full extent of the line before being dropped overboard. Once secured, the line was then hauled in, dragging the ship forward using the strength of the crew. More than half the fleet had already completed the task and were now waiting in the lee of Rame Head.

Robert sensed the Retribution shift beneath him and the men at the capstan moved more swiftly as the anchor gave way from the seabed below them. The galleon continued to move slowly with the current of the tide. The anchor cleared the surface and Seeley was immediately on hand with the longboat. Robert looked through the hawsehole. ‘Veer away the line!’

The men lowered the anchor slowly into the small boat. The rope slackened and as Seeley urged the rowers to pull away, Robert went aloft to the quarterdeck.

‘This should be the last time, Captain,’ Miller said in the darkness.

Robert scanned the four points of his ship. ‘Keep a firm hand on her, Mister Miller.’

The risks of manoeuvring a ship in the midst of a fleet at night were significant. The older man nodded reassuringly. So far the fleet had come out in good order, without a collision, and Miller would be damned if his charge should suffer such a humiliating fate.

Robert heard the call from Seeley in the black waters ahead and the Retribution steadied on her outward course as the men took the strain in the anchor line once more. Dawn was not four hours away and in the near darkness Robert could see the silhouettes of the ships gathered in the cusp of Rame Head. Once a sufficient number were gathered Howard would order them to sea. The wind was blowing west-north-west, abaft the stern castles of the Armada, giving them the weather gauge, the advantage, should any ship attempt to stand before them. The English had to wrestle that advantage back.

Evardo listened in the night to the calls and commands from the ships surrounding the Santa Clara. In the glow of running lights men were working feverishly on final preparations. The Armada was now firmly in hostile waters. Earlier that day a fishing boat from Falmouth had been captured and under pain of torture the crew had revealed that the English fleet commanded by Howard and Drake was poised to sail from Plymouth. The enemy were nigh and all suspected that dawn would see the English fleet arrayed in battle formation before them.

Barefooted sailors rushed past Evardo under the whip crack of Mendez’s voice. On the poop and fore decks Alvarado and de Cordoba were assigning positions to their musketeers, ensuring that all would be ready when the call to arms was given. The captains were standing apart from their men, commanding them without lending assistance. They were gentlemen and would not engage in physical labour.

Evardo watched his crew with pride. They were strong and eager for the fight, replenished by the supplies loaded at La Coruna and inspired by the righteousness of their cause. Hours before, at dusk, Padre Garza had led the ship’s boys in a recital of the Ave Maria on the main deck. All the crew had attended, and many had sought absolution, while afterwards the padre had conducted a private mass for the senior officers and guests on board. On the eve of certain battle, in the comandante’s cabin of his own galleon, it was one of the most beautiful services that Evardo had ever attended. Now, standing on the quarterdeck, he felt the power of God’s favour.

Evardo prayed for that favour to be extended to the entire fleet. Strong winds had carried the Armada swiftly across the Bay of Biscay, but the fleet had been subjected to the lash of one last storm as it approached the English coast. That tempest had cost the Armada the four Portuguese galleys sailing under the command of Don Diego Medrano. Their shallow draft, which allowed for close inshore support of a landing, secured their place in the fleet, but it was their undoing in heavy seas. Although Medina Sidonia had sent pataches to stand by and assist the galleys during the storm, they had disappeared during the night.

A more mysterious casualty had been the 768 ton carrack, Santa Ana, the lead ship in the Biscayan squadron. With 30 guns and more than 400 men, she was one of the most heavily armed fighting ships of the fleet. She was a stout vessel with an experienced crew and her disappearance during the storm had been seen as a bad omen by many of Evardo’s crew. He had tried to quell their unease, enlisting the help of Padre Garza, but the unnerving fact remained that before a single shot had been fired in anger, the Armada had lost five valuable fighting ships.

‘Comandante Morales …’ Nathaniel Young approached. ‘I wanted to thank you for inviting me to mass in your cabin.’

‘You are welcome, your grace,’ Evardo replied genially.

Over the previous weeks Evardo had remained true to his conviction to see past the English duke’s nationality and treat him as a fellow Catholic. Their initial terse conversations had swiftly given way to mutual respect.

‘Truly God’s hand is upon us this night,’ Nathaniel said, gazing at the myriad lights that surrounded the Santa Clara.

‘But I pray that from hereon the weather will be our ally,’ Evardo remarked.

‘On the wicked he will rain fiery coals and burning sulphur; a scorching wind will be their lot,’ Nathaniel quoted from the psalms. ‘The heretic Queen’s fleet will know a tempest far deadlier than any born of the sea.’

Evardo nodded in agreement and looked along the length of his galleon, checking her position in relation to the surrounding ships.

The fleet was sailing in ‘line of march’ formation. To the fore was the vanguard of fighting ships under Don Alonso de Levia, including the Santa Clara. Medina Sidonia commanded the centre, the