Armada

In the darkness Robert had sat down to wait. When they had returned to the Retribution Seeley had walked away from him without a word. Robert had not seen him again and as the hours passed he had surmised that Seeley had gone to the commander’s flagship to report what he had discovered. Robert had the patience of a career sailor, built over a lifetime of long hours on watch, but every minute spent waiting for the authorities to storm into his cabin had felt like an eternity. He had been consumed by hopelessness. If he could not convince Thomas of his loyalty, a man whom he had fought with side by side, then he had no hope of persuading others. At dawn one of the crew had knocked on the cabin door.

‘Message from the sailing master, Captain. Enemy in sight.’

Robert had been stunned by the message and had gone aloft to find Seeley on the quarterdeck. As before not a word was exchanged and Robert had taken up his duties as if nothing had happened.

From the corner of his eye Seeley surreptitiously watched the captain. He didn’t know how he should feel about him. Seeley’s admiration for Robert had grown over the year since the captain had come on board. Now he felt like a fool. The captain’s deception had left him with a deep sense of betrayal, and yet the respect he had had for the captain was based on what he himself had witnessed, the bravery and determination Robert had shown in every encounter with the Spanish.

He was plagued with doubts, uncertain as to whether he had made the right decision in deferring the captain’s arrest. The Armada’s defensive formation had been broken. The enemy were vulnerable. If the English navy struck with sufficient speed and depth then the battle could finally be won. There could be no half measures and Seeley feared that at a crucial moment the captain might show mercy to his fellow Roman Catholics. Seeley resolved to watch him closely. He would ensure that the captain was taking the fight to the Spanish at every turn. Then, after victory had been secured, he would fulfil his duty and hand the captain over to the authorities.

The call of a yeoman caught Seeley’s attention and he shouted the order to bring the Retribution full about with the wind abaft. Despite the conditions a small group of Spanish warships had gathered in a loose formation to leeward. The Spanish flagship and her escorts, the ships that had taken the initial brunt of the English attack, had already weighed anchor and were sailing west to join the centre of a reforming Armada.

Robert cursed their fortune. Two hours before, at dawn, the English fleet had swooped down on the small group of Spanish warships that had somehow managed to regain their anchor points. They had quickly engaged them from three sides, punishing the Spaniards for their tenacity, but before any real damage could be inflicted Howard had suddenly broken off the engagement, leading his ships in pursuit of another prize, a galleass that had run aground off Calais. That the prize was significant was not in doubt, nor was the danger of leaving such a powerful ship to their rear, but Howard’s diversion had given the Spanish flagship and the rest of the scattered Armada a respite, one they were now taking advantage of.

The Retribution and a dozen other warships had stayed on station, keeping the flagship under sporadic fire, but the shape of the battle was rapidly changing. A running battle was about to begin along the coast off Gravelines. Robert called for the Retribution to bear away as the English fleet began to gather anew to windward. The weather was changing. Squalls of rain swept across the distant seascape, obscuring the far reaches to the horizon. Seeley called for shortened sails, straightening the trim of the hull as the fleet began to pursue the enemy.

The Spaniards swiftly formed a rough crescent, similar to the defensive formation that had seen them through the Channel. But now that formation consisted only of warships, a fighting rearguard to protect the scattered transport ships to leeward. The English fleet closed in, passing four hundred yards, their guns remaining silent, the experiences of the past week and the dwindling supplies of ammunition causing every master gunner to hold his fire. At three hundred yards the English fleet began to dissipate, their already loose formation breaking up as individual ships sought targets amongst the weathermost ships of the trailing horns.

On the quarterdeck Robert marked his target and Seeley brought the Retribution to bear, the crew swarming over the rigging. The galleon plunged through the trough of a roller, sea spray blasting over the bowsprit.

‘Stand ready, men!’ Robert roared. ‘For God, Elizabeth and England!’

The crew cheered at the call, their war cries interspersed with the continued orders of the yeomen and officers. The warship surged through another swell, shaking off the sheet of seawater that washed over the fo’c’sle.

‘Tops’ls and sprit ho!’

One hundred yards. The Retribution raced onwards, her cutwater slicing through the crests. Seeley called for another change to the sheets, determined to steady the hull and give Larkin’s gunners every advantage. Robert stood beside the master on the quarterdeck, his eyes on the target. The Spanish warship was dead ahead, eighty yards, the bow of the Retribution pointing amidships of her starboard side.

‘Steady, Thomas,’ Robert said, loud enough that only Seeley could hear.

Seventy yards. The Spanish cannons erupted in defiance, the round shot searing towards the Retribution, raking the fo’c’sle with fire. A falcon took a direct hit, the burning fragments of its mounting cutting down two of the crew, their cries sending men running to their aid.

Sixty yards. The Spanish ship filled Robert’s vision, its towering castles bristling with soldiers, their musket fire a rising crackle of deadly shot that punctured the air, cutting down another man, and another, and another.

‘Steady, steady —.’

Fifty yards.

The thunderous boom of the bow chasers fractured the air.

‘Hard a larboard,’ Robert shouted in the same instant.

‘Hard a larboard,’ Seeley roared. ‘Mizzen ho! Veer sheets to the main course! Prepare to lay aboard!’

Like a scythe the Retribution cut through the turn, sweeping parallel to the Spanish warship. The broadside guns fired in sequence, each retort fuelling the growing din and smoke of battle. Across the narrow gap Robert witnessed the hammer blow of each round shot, the appalling devastation wrought by the close quarter salvo. On all sides the soldiers in his crew were firing their muskets and arquebuses. Seeley bore away, the galleon beginning the turn that would present the second broadside. Robert stood transfixed, his gaze locked on the Spanish warship and the gaping wounds in her hull. Larkin was right, at such a close range nothing could withstand the firepower of an English galleon.

The solid ball of forged iron blasted through the heavy oak timbers, the wood disintegrating into a hail of lethal splinters in a span of time no eye could observe, cutting men down before they could scream their last. The round shot smashed into the barrel of a media culebrina, tossing the 2,500 pound gun from its mounting, the force of the blow throwing men across the deck like chaff before the wind. Another round exploded across the gun deck of the Santa Clara, slaying all in its path before punching out through the hull, leaving only destruction in its wake.

On the deck above Evardo felt the vibrations of the strikes ripple through his body. He roared in anger at the English galleon sweeping past his ship, her cannon inflicting deep and terrible wounds on the Santa Clara. The enemy were engaging at an incredibly close range, never more than a hundred yards. At the outset of the battle, for the briefest of moments, Evardo had thought the English galleons were finally closing to board. De Cordoba’s men had massed expectantly at the gunwales, urging the English on, willing them to fight hand-to-hand, but the enemy had pursued their previous tactics, the wind giving them every advantage as their nimble galleons swooped in like birds of prey, each attack drawing more and more Spanish blood.

The crew of the Santa Clara stood their ground at the gunwales, the proximity of the English galleons finally allowing the soldiers a change to effectively fire their small arms. The air was thick with the harsh crackle of gunfire. The man-killing falconetes and falcon pedreros were being fired almost continually, their barrels blistering to the touch, but for every Englishman that fell on the opposing galleon, many more were being lost among Evardo’s crew.

The English were firing their main cannon at an unbelievable rate and already the decks of the Santa Clara were awash with blood from the injured and dying. The air was rank with the smells of battle, of blood and viscera, voided bowels, gun smoke and fire, a fetid miasma that clung to the back of