Evardo spun around and began shouting commands before the end of the message was delivered. The Santa Clara heeled hard over as the felucca sailed on to deliver Medina Sidonia’s order to the other warships of the vanguard.
The Santa Clara fell into the wake of de Leiva’s massive carrack, quickly closing the initial gap and overtaking her on the lee. A dozen other ships had detached from the vanguard wing and they sailed swiftly with the wind abeam as Moncada’s galleasses closed in on the intense fighting around the San Juan. Evardo went to the fo’c’sle. Less than a mile away, the San Juan was enveloped in gun smoke. The noise of cannon fire was all consuming, making it almost impossible to think. The sound filled Evardo’s mind, fuelling his aggression and cutting all threads of restraint and reason. Abrahan was in danger, the San Juan was in peril and with a galleon to command Evardo knew that God was giving him his first opportunity to regain his reputation.
He turned to go back to the quarterdeck when a sudden concern made him go below to the gun deck. The English were still firing at the San Juan from a distance. Even with their initial overwhelming numbers, they had not closed to board the isolated galleon and it was clear the enemy were hell bent on destroying the San Juan with cannon fire alone. Until they gained the advantage of the weather gauge the Santa Clara and every other Spanish sailing warship would have to fight using English tactics and return fire with fire.
Evardo’s initial concern increased as his eyes adjusted to the gloom of the low ceilinged gun deck. One of the ten-pounder media culebrinas was athwart the centre of the deck. It had been unlashed from its gun port and brought inboard. Because of the length of its trail the gunners had been forced to turn it diagonally to give them space to reload it. All eight gunners were working on the single cannon.
‘Capitan,’ Evardo called. ‘How many guns have you reloaded?’
‘Two, Comandante.’
‘Where are the soldiers who are assigned to help you?’ Evardo asked, a hard edge to his voice.
‘They’re aloft,’ Suarez replied perplexed, surprised by his comandante’s question and tone.
Evardo stepped forward angrily when realization struck him like an open cuff. Before the battle Suarez would have enlisted the assistance of thirty or more soldiers, assigning a group to each skilled gunner who would oversee the loading of their cannon. Thereafter these soldiers, who had only a rudimentary knowledge of cannonry, would have returned to their designated place in the fighting tops and castles to make ready for a boarding attack.
In ordering a broadside fired at the Retribution Evardo had expended that preloaded shot. The soldiers had never thought to return to the gun deck after the cannons had been fired, for there was no precedent for such a thing. Likewise Suarez would not think to ask for such valuable fighting men to be brought below decks in the midst of battle, so was reloading the cannons using his own meagre crew of gunners.
Evardo urgently explained to Suarez the need to change tactics to match the English, then went back to the quarterdeck, ordering de Cordoba to send men below to assist the gunners.
The Santa Clara was now less than a half-mile from the fight. The sea was rising, the galleon crashing through the crest of each wave, and the rhythmic thud transported Evardo back to his captivity in the black hold of an English galleon. He did not shirk from the memory. Instead he let it fill his heart.
Sweat ran in dark rivulets down Larkin’s face, washing away the soot stains, giving him a grotesque, demonic visage. His mouth was opened wide, exposing his blackened teeth as he roared his commands, trying to override the deafening din of battle. The gun deck of the Retribution had become the crucible of a foundry, a place of unremitting toil and savage heat, of dark shapes and shattering noise, sounds that numbed the senses and stripped the men of every thought but the one to go on; to heave, sponge, load, ram, prime, heave. To stand clear as the touchhole was kissed with fire, the cannon roaring in anger, gun powder exploding within its tempered walls, propelling out the shot.
Above this hellish place, the crew of the Retribution toiled in the rigging and on the decks, seemingly oblivious to but constantly aware of the fire of the enemy, their eyes stinging from gun smoke, their throats dried by the wind and their buried fear. They climbed the ratlines and footropes, the Retribution responding to their every touch and adjustment as sail and rudder combined to bring the guns of the warship to bear on the cursed enemy.
Robert stood in the centre of the quarterdeck, his eyes restless. The ragged line of attack had long since disintegrated, the battle descending into a chaotic brawl, with each English ship acting as an independent command, swooping in to fire their guns before sailing away to reload. The lone Spanish galleon was off the starboard bow. She was a massive ship, at least a thousand tons and the Retribution had already twice given her the fire of her every cannon.
Spanish reinforcements were beginning to arrive. The first of these had been four galleasses. The sight of their blood red hulls and crowded decks had brought every man on board the Retribution to a standstill. Only the rising sea and wind had thwarted these mongrel ships from closing. Robert remained wary of their position, fearing their blunt nosed rams and heavy bow cannons.
‘Quarterdeck, ho! Enemy ships approaching off the stern.’
Robert looked aft as the cannons beneath him boomed once more. His vision was spoiled for a moment by smoke and he coughed violently. Larkin was keeping up a tremendous rate of fire; Robert estimated just under three shots-per-gun-per-hour. He glanced at the target of their heavy guns, the lone Spanish galleon that still sailed defiant and unbroken. Her rigging and canvas was lacerated but the galleon showed no signs of mortal injury and her crew seemed far from the brink of surrender as her small calibre deck guns continued to fire sporadically.
Over the stern more than a dozen Spanish warships were descending rapidly on their beleaguered comrade. Robert studied their line of advance. The wind was holding firm. There was little danger the Spanish would be able to outmanoeuvre the English galleons but they were poised to deprive the English of their first prize.
‘Hard about,’ Robert called over his shoulder, the Retribution turning her bow towards the oncoming threat.
Three ship lengths away an English galleon was unleashing bow chasers on the audacious Spanish galleon. Even from four hundred yards, Robert could see Spaniards fall. Parts of the superstructure had shattered under the onslaught. The Retribution would be given one last chance to inflict such a blow on the 1000 ton behemoth but Robert already knew it would not be enough to slay the galleon. He prayed that the English fleet might instead take a prize from the smaller ships coming to her aid.
‘Two points to starboard.’
Mendez repeated Evardo’s order and the helmsman responded with alacrity, the Santa Clara’s bow turning slightly to larboard. The San Juan was now directly ahead, three hundred yards. Two English galleons had just sailed across her stern, raking her decks with a withering fire, but now they were withdrawing in the face of the Santa Clara and the dozen ships behind her, bringing themselves back to windward of this new threat.
Off the larboard side, the sea was alive with English warships. The Santa Clara had already taken erratic fire from their long range cannon, but Evardo had not responded, knowing he would need every shot in his arsenal.
‘Capitan Mendez. Make ready to take in the courses and lay to. Set your helm to take us between the San Juan and the English. We must go directly to her aid.’
‘But Comandante …’
‘I mean to draw the English fire from the San Juan and give her a chance to withdraw.’
Mendez made to argue again but seeing the comandante’s expression, he swallowed his retort. With grim resignation he nodded his assent.
The San Juan was two hundred yards ahead. The fire directed at the Santa Clara began to concentrate, her ever increasing proximity to the centre of the maelstrom drawing the attention of the more heavily engaged English warships. At one hundred yards the San Juan filled Evardo’s vision, his mind oblivious to the English jackals and the increasing storm of fire. Fifty yards. Mendez called for a final touch on the whipstaff and the furling of the courses, the Santa Clara swooping in like a bird of prey under the larboard beam of the
