so most o' the gun ports won't open, even if they wanted 'em to. Not used to pirates, these boats. Used to an easy ride 'ome.'
They looked at the vessel that they later learned was named the San Felipe. Drake ordered four cannon fired. Strange, thought Gresham. They were bow-on to the San Felipe, so the four guns they fired discharged harmlessly into the empty sea on either side of them. Three cannon replied almost immediately from the San Felipe. If they had been aimed, it did not show. All three splashed harmlessly into the sea, several hundreds of yards from damaging any of the English fleet rapidly closing round the vessel.
Drake responded by hauling the Elizabeth Bonaventure round so that her full broadside could have smashed the San Felipe's hull into splinters. He waited courteously until the great carrack had passed by the very last cannon, and then ordered the ship to fire. The sea behind her was torn to shreds, but failed to sink. The San Felipe was left miraculously unharmed. In return, she fired a cannon into the only bit of remaining sea free from an English vessel, now that Drake's squadron was gathering in on her. A short while after, her flag fluttered down to her deck.
'Easy as that?' said Gresham to Mannion, flushed as was every other member of Drake's crew with their painless success.
'Easy as that,' responded Mannion, 'if you've got the luck of the Devil. Drake doesn't want her damaged, and 'er captain knows 'e can't win.' Privately Mannion was beginning to wonder whether Drake was God's vengeance or the Devil's revenge.
Drake snapped his fingers at George. 'You! This is your father's return on his investment. Come in the boat. Now.'
'May I beg leave to bring my friend?' It was a stupid, foolhardy gesture. Yet Drake hardly seemed to pause, waved a hand in aquiescence. Mannion was left behind, fuming.
As they boarded the San Felipe, a single, sad trumpeter had been mustered to mark the arrival of El Draco. He managed, in his abject fear, to blow a passing imitation of a cow's very loud fart. Nothing and no man could stand against Drake, could it? Drake was man enough to recognise the intention of the trumpet salute, rather than to judge it on its actual quality. He approached the Captain of the San Felipe, bowed to him and spoke a few words in broken Spanish. The Captain replied in equally broken English.
'Did you give your permission for your men to rape me? Or are they allowed to do what they will with innocent passengers anyway?' The voice was young, female, the English accented but perfectly clear. The tone was ice cold, controlled. She was tall and overwhelmingly beautiful, and was holding, with delicate, long-fingered hands, a shred of her dress to her shoulder where an attempt had been made to tear it off. An English seaman, one of the advance guard, was standing beside her, panting, eyes swivelling from the girl to Drake. Or one eye at least. The other was bleeding from what looked like a heavy blow.
The simple, erotic power of this creature hit Henry Gresham as if it had been a kick to his stomach. Gresham hated beautiful girls. He loved their bodies, hated the power that love gave them over him. They knew the power they exercised over men, and used it ruthlessly. As a result, and revelling in their power, they became proud, ruthless and arrogant in equal measure.
'So? Will you rape me now? Or later?'
For the first, the last and the only time in his life Sir Francis Drake was stunned for words. 'Take that man and put him in chains!' he shouted eventually, pointing to the seaman. *You have taken this ship by farce… by force,’ she said, correcting herself and going red, which made her look even more beautiful, as the sailors started to laugh. Right first time, thought Gresham. It had been a farce. 'And these cowards of Spanish sailors here…' there was a venomous hatred in her voice. In fact,
Gresham guessed, there was a lot of hatred in this girl. For whom and for what? What was her history, he wondered?
Drake was clearly out of his depth. Gresham's decision to move forward took less than a second. He knew how to handle beautiful women. 'Your ladyship,' Gresham said, bowing deeply to her, 'there cannot be a man in this English fleet of heroes who would not see the conquering of you as worth more than the conquering of any Spanish fleet that had ever set sail!'
The Englishmen cheered. It broke the ice, the ludicrous overstatement of the courtier here on this crowded, stinking deck. The girl stiffened at this new threat, held her chin even higher. It made her look even more beautiful.
'Yet we English are gentlemen, gentlemen above all.' Gresham turned to the sailors from the Elizabeth Bonaventure who had clambered aboard with him. They roared in his support. They liked him, didn't they? The toff who'd beaten off the galley? The one who didn't mind taking a rope with them? And anyway, this was turning out to be far more fun than usual. He'd have that Spanish bitch, they knew. Good luck to 'im! They cheered again.
'My commander is the legendary Sir Francis Drake, scourge of the seas!' Had he overdone that bit, thought Gresham? The roar from the sailors encouraged him. 'You have nothing to fear from him, nor from his men.' Another roar from those same men, every single one of them with a voracious lust for this girl. She had had everything to fear from these men. You took whatever was on board a captured ship, didn't you? 'I merely implore you to treat Sir Francis with the same respect with which he will undoubtedly treat you.' Gresham retired, still bowing, behind the figure of Drake.
Drake turned to him, scowling. He spoke in a low tone, vicious, hissing. 'If I can manage fucking Cadiz harbour I can manage a fucking Spanish whore without your help!' he said caustically, though he could not hide a slight sense of relief. And, evidently, the girl was no whore, but rather a gentlewoman.
The girl stood her ground. After all, she had nowhere else to go. Gresham would not expect Drake to realise that he had saved his day. Beautiful girls were a threat. They forced a man to love them for more than their bodies and the blessed relief of sex. They gave physical supremacy to the man, and in exchange demanded mental slavery.
'Madam,' Drake said solemnly, bowing as low to Anna as Gresham had done, and perhaps even a patch lower. He learned very quickly, this pirate. Or perhaps he had known it all along and just not bothered to use it. 'You are now on board an English ship.'
More cheers from the crew. They were already working out how much the San Felipe would be worth. Over a hundred thousand pounds, surely?
'We English respect our women,' Drake continued grandly. 'We are not savages, to violate them in conquest.'
Oh no? thought Gresham thinking back to what he had heard of some of Drake's earlier voyages. Ah, well, it sounds good, he thought. *You are free to retire to your cabin while I discuss details of surrender with your captain here. As for your safety, I give you my word. There will be an armed guard at your door.' It was a grand gesture, and grandly Drake offered her his ringed hand to kiss.
What followed was so different, so startling that Gresham never forgot it. The girl was defenceless, captured goods, yet she had stood up to the man most feared on the oceans of the world and secured her virginity, if indeed it had not already been claimed by some lucky man on a clandestine meeting. Now all she needed to do was to retire gracefully. Instead she drew herself to her full height. Five foot eight? Five foot nine? It wasn't really a great height at all. No taller than Sir Francis Drake himself. For a brief moment on the deck of the Son Felipe it could have been seven foot.
'I do not kiss the hand of my conqueror!' she said. There was a hiss of indrawn breath from the English boarders, and from the Spanish crew. 'I offer the obedience to no man.' It was said simply, in her faltering English, yet with great authority. 'I accept your promise of safe conduct,' she announced, 'for myself and for all the other innocent womens on board this vessel.' The Spanish crew grinned. There were a surprising number of 'womens' aboard the San Felipe. Very few of them could accurately be described as innocent. 'You have care of all the poor souls on board the San Felipe, women, girls, crew. And officers.' She directed a withering gaze towards the Captain of the ship.
If she'd been in charge, thought Gresham, they'd have sunk before they dared surrender. What was it with beautiful women, he wondered? Why did they think they owned the world?
'Yet you do not own us!' she announced finally, gathering up her long skirts and heading for her cabin. She actually headed for the wrong door, and had she gone through it would have fallen to the bottom of the hold. It was an English seaman who, rather apologetically, directed her to the right one.
Drake's excitement at his booty was far more potent than any concerns over a damned woman. He
