readily comprehensible. So he had understood all along… 'They seek only to delay us. I cannot fight and I cannot stand, and must drive on to my… rendezvous.'
'I am sure the Duke of Parma will await you there,' said Gresham, conscious how weak his riposte sounded.
‘It may be so,' said the Duke. 'Yet fifty men will not be alive to see it.' Fifty had died on board the San Martin in the day's engagements. The Duke's desire to be at the centre of the fighting, to grapple with the English, meant the brave, tough Portuguese-built ship had been by far the most fiercely engaged of the Spanish ships. The transports and their escort had taken a pounding but the English had been driven off. The Spanish had shown extraordinary discipline throughout the day, keeping their formation despite the ferocity of the cannonade they had been subjected to. The reports coming in suggested remarkably little damage to the Spanish ships.
'You may sleep on the deck here,' said the Duke. It was an honour. The command deck was kept clear, even gentlemen allowed on it were there only through direct command of the Duke. For the first time in weeks Gresham might be able to stretch out on the deck. 'The galleasses and my other vessels confirm your warning. Had we sent more ships they would have been dragged on to the shoals.'
The Duke nodded to Gresham and walked off, presumably to his great cabin. Ten minutes later a fine linen shirt and a boat cloak appeared in the hands of a servant, who mouthed something at Gresham.
'What did he say?' Mannion asked Gresham. 'He said, 'From the Duke. From his own private store of clothing.'
Would Cecil have sent a boat cloak to an underling? There were some commanders men would die for, Gresham reflected, and others they would simply wish to kill.
Wednesday 3rd August. Had Gresham slept at all? It felt as if he had been awake all night. His eyes were glued together, his feet felt like lead and there was an ominous ache in his gut. Was his stomach responding to the near-rotten food which was all they had to chew on?
Gresham supposed that there were men who did not feel fear. He had known from an early age that he was not one of them. For him, true courage lay in defeating fear, not pretending it did not exist And this morning he felt real fear. Could he bear another day of standing on a deck waiting to feel the crushing weight of cannon or musket ball tear into his flesh, maiming before it killed? It was different when one fought a man. It took far greater courage to stand and be shot at, and he was beginning to fear that it was courage he did not have.
He would have prayed then, for courage, if he had not felt so hypocritical. What God could respect a man who only prayed when he needed something? In any event, the prayer that lay fallow in his heart was answered that day. The English ships seemed unwilling now to close with the Spaniards and loose off shot, staying out of cannon range. Yet clearly they had been little damaged by the fire they had received from the Spaniards. What an irony it would be if the entire stock of cannon balls on the San Martin had come newly-foundered from the Lisbon armoury. Perhaps God did have a sense of humour.
'Near out of powder, that'd Be my guess,' said Mannion. He had rapidly become Gresham's military interpreter. 'Government's too stingy to give 'em enough, or always used to be, and these towns along the coast, they want to hang on to their powder and shot in case it's them as gets invaded. Problem with the English firing so fast,' he added, 'they-use up too much powder and shot.'
Then the wind died. The two fleets lay within sight of each, motionless, useless, the entrance to the Solent and the Isle of Wight creeping up with paralysing slowness as the current moved both fleets at perhaps half a mile an hour.
Thursday 4th August. An English squadron had been placed by the entrance to the Solent, to resist any attempt at a landing. A few puffs of wind off the shore were enough to send it moving down on the northern wing of the tightly-huddled Spanish ships. More firing broke out, and with so little wind the smoke hung ghost-like in the rigging, seeming sometimes to ripple and re-settle as two or three guns fired together.
'Oh God,' said Mannion. 'Here we go again.' Was he feeling the same strain? Was even Gresham's rock starting to shake and quiver?
The wind was fitful, playing with them, teasing one minute with its strength and then dying away to nothing. Somehow the San Martin was standing opposite a great English ship, the largest in their fleet. For a moment the Spaniards thought they had cut her off. Cheering broke out from the masts, mocking laughter as the English ship broke out her boats and tried to haul herself past the Spanish. A hail of musket fire swept from the Spanish ships, and down below the Gun Captains were hoarse at shrieking to their men to reload. Yet the great cannon spoke with tantalising infrequency, for all that the men's hands were slipping with the sweat that poured off their bodies. Men fell in the boats, but none gave in, and suddenly the English ship let her full panoply of sails fall from her yards and swept ahead of the Spanish ships, whose pursuit in the face of her speed was derisory.
The fighting was now sporadic, across the whole front, an engagement here, an engagement there, the sullen thunder of guns insistent, unrelenting.
'Is it planned?' Gresham yelled to Mannion. They had both acquired an arquebus from a pair of dead soldiers, though they could have been firing into a vacuum for all that they had been able to see amid the smoke. 'Look, we're being pushed past the Solent, past any chance of mooring.'
'Next stop Calais!' grinned Mannion. There was nowhere else for the Armada to rest and anchor past the Solent except Calais, and that was a French port whose outer roads were notorious for currents, shoals and freak storms. 'I reckon it's accident as much as anything else. If there'd been a half decent wind he could have sailed in there and stuck regardless. It's the bloody wind that's done for the Spaniards. For Christ's sake, look 'ow much damage we haven't had after half an hour up opposite a bloody great English ship.'
It was extraordinary how much punishment a ship such as the San Martin could take. Her main timbers were immensely thick, and the lighter cannon simply failed to penetrate. The upperworks were splintered and smashed, and a cannon had been upturned when an English ball had gone through a gun port, but as a fighting vessel the San Martin was still highly effective, despite having stood off and traded fire with a series of great English ships.
'Ere,' said Mannion, 'Do you want history to repeat itself? Or do we really want these bastards sunk?' Mannion yelled into Gresham's ear, and he went to the side, straining his eyes to look ahead. What Gresham saw made him leap up onto the command deck, bow low before the Duke, who was standing without a cloak, his face revealing nothing. There were tiny, thin lines over it now, Gresham noticed, lines that had not been there before. Between his feet the deck planking was gouged, white splinters sticking up. A musket ball must have missed the Duke by inches. Had he flinched? Or hadn't he even noticed? Had the Duke taken any sleep? Was the slight swaying the motion of the sea, Gresham wondered? Or was it tiredness? *We're drifting east, my Lord,' said Gresham. 'In front of us is what the English call the Owers, hidden rocks and shoals that can rip the heart out of a boat. The English are shepherding us towards them.'
The Duke went to the side, strained to look ahead. There, to leeward, was a stretch of water of an angry green, its surface troubled with sharp, choppy waves unlike those around it.
Their pilot had been hit in the engagement with the San Martin. As Pilot on the flagship he would have been experienced, and have his own routier, a collection of compass courses, landmarks for entering various harbours and danger points, compiled from what other mariners had written. Many pilots scorned routiers, their scorn a cover for the fact that they could not read. Would the pilot have known about the Owers? Realised their proximity? Would another pilot have spotted the danger? Even if they had communication between ships, it was so slow and primitive that they might never have got warning out.
The Duke nodded, a strangely formal gesture, to Gresham. He ordered a gun sounded to attract the attention of the fleet, and the San Martin pulled round, leading the fleet to the south and away from the danger.
'Do you wish to become our pilot?' he asked Gresham. Was the man making a joke? Could he have even a vestigial sense of humour left after the pounding, the incessant strain? 'After all, this is the second time you have performed this service.'
'My Lord, the knowledge isn't mine. My servant here sailed these waters as a child. Alas, his knowledge ceases with this stretch of the south coast.'
The engagement had virtually ceased now, but boats were flocking to the flagship. Yet there had been no summons from the Duke. Two men were led up on to the deck, bowed low and spoke volubly to the Duke.
'They're out of shot,' Mannion translated to Gresham.
'It needn't be a real problem yet,' thought Gresham out loud. 'Some ships have been heavily engaged, others haven't fired a shot. If they distribute what's left they'll be alright for two or three days. After that…'
'Three more days,' said Mannion, 'and this shirt'll be so hard you could fire it at the Ark Royal and blow 'er
