us and take this campaign by the throat! It is our golden opportunity!'
Sidonia sat impassively, his mind racing beneath the quiet and dignified face he presented to his senior commanders. Who was he, a land-locked noble, to take decisions on behalf of these men with their infinite knowledge of the sea? Why had Parma not responded to his increasingly urgent letters? It was two months since he had received his last communication. The fast pinnaces could take and return messages within days. Soon he would have no option but to halt the Armada, perhaps off the Isle of Wight, until he could ensure that Parma's army was ready and waiting to embark.
It was not the risk that scared him. Warfare was all about risk. It was the fear that a simple change of wind, or finding that Plymouth was better defended than they believed, could mean he had thrown some of his best ships away almost before the campaign had started.
'The entrance to Plymouth is narrow and dangerous,' he said finally. 'We have the strictest orders from the King to sail to meet the Duke's army and not simply to seek a sea battle. Our prime task, our only task, is to rendezvous with the Duke of Parma's army.'
True, except he was already proposing to disobey the King's orders by stopping off the Isle of Wight.
'We will proceed in defensive formation to the Isle of Wight and, if needs be, await communication with the Duke of Parma.' He turned to one of his admirals, who bore the scars of sixty years of fighting, with a half smile, if we have to halt our fleet there, then you will have your sea battle. With that possibility in mind, I cannot risk depleting our strength so early on in our campaign.'
The Admiral grunted his agreement, grudgingly recognising the logic. Others were tight-lipped, edgy. Yet they were good men, thought Sidonia, good and brave men who had proved themselves as soldiers and as patriots time and time again. Surely God in whose name they fought would recognise what they were? Surely He would recognise the justice of their cause?
From half a mile away, Gresham's eyes strained to see through the rain squalls that sent needles of spray into his eyes. There! The boats were leaving the San Martin. Slowly the bobbing dots crept across the sea, back to their own ships, and slowly the Armada began to adopt a new formation. A half-moon shape, the best fighting ships on each wing, and in the centre guarding the pathetically slow urcas and a vanguard of the swiftest and most heavily-armed vessels, ready to race in support of any endangered vessel. A defensive formation! Sidonia had decided not to take the gamble on Plymouth but to keep the Armada together.
'Are you rememberin' Cadiz?' asked Mannion drily. The mad-cap dash into a harbour Drake had hardly scouted, the throwing of caution to the winds, captains huffing and puffing and desperately trying to catch up with their commander. 'Bit different, innit? Maybe the Duke does need your advice after all. Or maybe the Spanish need Drake on their side.'
The captain of the barque Golden Hinde did not know whether his excitement at sighting the vast fleet of Spanish ships was greater than his terror at the sheer size of their enemy. Flushed and badly out of breath, he poured out his news to Drake. He had finally tracked him down on the bowling green.
Drake turned away, looking out to sea. From land there was no sight of the Spanish as yet. Shit! Shit! The wind was pinning the English in harbour, the tide pushing them further in. What if the Spanish were even now sending ten or fifteen of their best galleons to crush the English fleet before it could move? Shit! They would have to start warping as many vessels as possible out of harbour, a laborious, back-breaking job of cables and longboats. And a job that took time. Time they didn't have. He turned, ready to give the orders, run down to the quayside to supervise the business himself, praying every minute that the horizon would not darken with Spanish sails.
His Secretary came up beside him, whispered in his ear. 'My Lord, they will act as quickly without your presence.' Even quicker, thought the Secretary privately, without you yelling and bawling at everyone. 'You have the chance to go down in history, to establish the morale of your men, if you show you have time to finish the game and beat the Spaniards. Because, in truth, there is nothing you can usefully do.'
Drake's brow darkened. He turned to the gathering crowd of men. 'Warp the ships out of harbour. Pull in every able-bodied man on shore if you have to. As for myself,' he raised the volume of his voice to a near-shout, 'There's time enough to finish the game and beat the Spaniards!'
The roar of approval was the first good thing he had heard all day.
'Good God!' said the young English sailor as the mist and driving spray parted for a moment and he saw a sight that took his breath away. A hundred, two hundred sails, spread out across the ocean as if they owned every single drop of water. 'Holy Mary Mother of God!' He crossed himself, the unsure cockiness he had professed to his mates replaced by a sick feeling of fear.
The explosion was the most terrible thing Gresham had ever seen. They had sighted the Lizard through heavy squalls and scudding cloud, the Armada's desperately slow pace set by the unwieldy freighters. Then they saw the English sails, a: small squadron to their left, between the Armada and the shore, the main fleet behind them. Damn! The English had the wind-gauge. There was a gasp from a Spanish seaman as an English ship skidded across the waves, appearing to be sailing almost directly into the wind. A tiny English boat was sent to within extreme range, fired a popgun and turned away.
'Bloody stupid officers!' grunted Mannion. 'Makin' heroic gestures and risking good men's lives.'
'What's he doing?' asked Gresham, incredulously. A group of seven or so English ships had approached one wing of the Armada. The Spanish had immediately tried to lay alongside the English ships and grapple, the English intent on ducking and weaving, firing ragged cannonades all the while. A faint popping noise came to them over the waves, the wind whipping the smoke away. It was a skirmish, like wrestlers dancing round each other, trying to get the measure of their opponent before going in for the throw. Yet whoever was in command seemed to have taken his ship directly into the English fleet, allowed himself to become surrounded, cut off, only one other vessel in support.
'I reckon he's doing it on purpose,' said Mannion, sucking at a hollow tooth. 'If the English think they've got 'im, they'll come in close and maybe he can board one. If that happens, the other ships'll have no choice but to try and board him, and he'll get a melee — just what the Spanish want!'
The incessant cannonade the Spanish ship was receiving seemed to be doing remarkably little damage. Once, twice Gresham gasped as it seemed as if she might get close enough to an English ship for its grappling irons to bite, but each time the vessel ducked away. Finally Sidonia took his own great flagship heeling out of line to join the embattled galleon, drawing it back into the main body of the fleet as the English retreated. By late afternoon it was over.
'So who won that one?' asked Gresham, confused. Mannion shrugged.
'It's a draw. The Spanish can't get at the English, but the English can't get near most of the Spanish.' The bulk of the Armada was sailing with no more than fifty metres between each ship. Any English vessel getting in between them would face overwhelming fire and the certainty of being boarded. 'Bit like a hedgehog,' said Mannion. 'Clever way to fight, you've got to grant them. Though you can flip a hedgehog over and I can't see 'ow you'd flip this bloody fleet over.'
They both turned at the sound of the bell calling the crew to prayer. Both men saw the Dutchman grapple with the powder barrel, heaving it down from the stern where it was parked with three others, a gunner going about his job, ignored by the others. They witnessed the quick look round, the slow match smoking gently stuck to the side of the barrel, watched the man duck over the rail and into the water. An officer caught the motion, turned round with his mouth open to yell… what? A query? An order? No one would ever know, because in that precise moment Hell came to the after-deck of the Spanish galleon San Salvador. There were three separate flashes, half a second between. The first, fiery-orange explosion of the single powder barrel, followed in the flicker of an eyelid by the deep red and yellow of the three other barrels parked on the stern castle and then the brilliant, eyeball-piercing explosion of the powder stored in the deck below. Gresham was looking back, he and Mannion right at the ship's forecastle. The split second warning the sight of the Dutchman had given them forced them instinctively to hurl themselves over the side. As if in slow motion Gresham felt the sinking in the pit of his stomach as they started their plunge into the sea, caught a vast flash of red and yellow even through his tightly-closed lids and then, extraordinarily, felt as if a giant had shoved hugely at his feet and legs, spinning him over and over and over before they hit the sea. His eyes forced open in shock, Gresham felt a savage pain in his eardrums as they were pushed in to implosion, and saw tiny little fountains of white water spring up out of the sea as fragments of debris and men were flung out by the power of the explosion.
For too long the green water passed upwards in front of his eyes. Kicking out and up, he finally surfaced, spluttering. Momentary panic. He could hear nothing. He placed a thumb and forefinger over his nose, swallowed
