The galleon's grave hg-3 Page 30

  The sound of the water lapping against the hull was gentle, the ringing in Gresham's ears after the day's combat nearly gone.

  'You will have no place in the new England,' said the Duke after a while, 'if indeed that conquest ever happens. However well it is exercised, power will be in the hands of those with Spanish blood flowing in their veins. You will be thanked, and forgotten. Sidelined. Is that the word?'

  'I think so, my Lord,' said Gresham. 'That it is the word, and that it is what will happen. But I've never valued life much, and I value its honours even less.'

  'I have an estate in Andalusia,' said the Duke, dreamily. 'A fine estate, with a grand house and peasants who have worked the land for centuries, and think of me and my family as God if they think of God at all. It is pure Spain, sun-drenched yet harsh, proud, certain of its history. It loses me money, every year, despite its fields bursting with growth, its orange groves so full of the smell of fruit that a man might die drawing it into his lungs. The man I pay to run my estate is corrupt and clever in his corruption.' The Duke of Medina Sidonia sat on the stern rail, the gesture revealing a decade of exhaustion. 'Would you run such an estate for me? In time, there would be access to the Court, introductions. Oh, they would deny you access to the top tiers, of course. Yet you would live in a country at peace, an ancient country, be able to rise in the morning and hold rich earth between your fingers.'

  Across the boundaries of race and culture, of age, of warring humanity and a flawed creation, something of elemental, simple humanity had been said.

  Why were there tears in Gresham's eyes? Why did his body continually try to let him down? 'I thank you, my Lord,' Gresham responded, finally. 'With all my heart. But before I allow myself to think of the Heaven of Andalusia I cannot help but wish to deal first with the Hell of the English Channel.'

  The Duke laughed, a full, strong laugh that showed Gresham yet another side of this most complex man. 'You are right to correct me, right for youth to stop an old man dreaming impossible dreams.' The Duke stood up from the stern rail, rubbing his ungloved hands to warm them in the chill of the night.*We cannot beat your English ships, can we?' he asked blankly.

  ‘No, My Lord,' said Gresham bluntly. 'You cannot. They are faster and nimbler before the wind. You can only win if you close with them, and they have the power not to let you do so, however courageously you pursue them. Yet you can meet with the Duke of Parma, and stand between his transports and the English fleet,' said Gresham.

  'I hope to God that we may,' said the Duke bitterly, turning away to look astern. 'Yet why has he not responded to my messages.’

  One hundred and sixty-seven men killed, two hundred and forty-one wounded, the manifest stated to the Duke the next morning. A mere pinprick in the Armada's strength. Only two vessels lost, neither of them disabled as a result of enemy action. The Spanish ships had survived four assaults, their discipline holding, the damage even to the heavily-engaged San Martin quite minimal. So why did Gresham have such an overwhelming sense of defeat?

  On the Friday morning the Duke despatched yet another pinnace to Dunkirk, begging Parma to send him heavy shot and some shallow draft vessels to get in close among the English. Begging him most of all to name a rendezvous, a meeting point for the Armada and his army. At five o'clock on the Saturday evening, in a strengthening wind, the Armada sighted Calais. The Pilot hastily brought over from one of the great Portuguese galleons demanded that they anchor in the broad, open roadstead outside the Calais breakwater. If they kept on, the Pilot swore, the currents would carry the Armada through the strait and out into the North Sea, sweeping them away from England. The Armada dropped its anchors, the metal flukes seeking to bite into the shallow holding ground.

  The English fleet took station, just out of range, reinforced by another thirty vessels from the Channel, lurking, watching, threatening.

  Chapter 10

  August 7th — August 9th, 1588 The Battle of Gravelines

  Was Anna in Calais? Gresham hoped so. The Duke had made it quite clear that neither he nor Mannion could leave the San Martin, though the Duke had consented to him sending a messenger to enquire after her safety and whereabouts. 'Was she always part of your plans to cover up your allegiance?' the Duke had asked. 'No, my Lord,' Gresham had answered. 'She was… an accident.' Which was one way to describe her, he thought.

  'Well,' said Gresham, holding a by now habitual dawn council of war with Mannion, the both of them gazing from the bow towards the distant port of Calais, 'what're the odds now?'

  'Difficult,' said Mannion, "cos it all depends on Parma, don't it? As far as your Duke's concerned this is shit creek and we're moored in it.' Mannion had taken to referring to Medina Sidonia as "your Duke" as Gresham's comments on the man had become increasingly full of admiration for the Spanish Commander's quiet courage and dignity. 'Currents here are terrible, and if you wants my opinion this bloody place 'as got "fireship" written all over it. But if I've got it right,' said Mannion, 'Parma could get loads of boats with his troops down through those canals, with the Dutch able to do sod all about it. Or he could get 'em to Dunkirk and give us pilots to take enough of the smaller ships up into the harbour to protect the transports. Or, best of all, you say Parma's got Antwerp?'

  'He's got enough of it to shelter a fleet in the approaches to Antwerp, on the Scheldt,' said Gresham.

  'So all it needs is for 'im to send a few pilots over here, and get enough of this lot moored off Antwerp. Nothing I've seen of that lot,' Mannion motioned dismissively out to the English ships, 'is telling me they can stop 'em.'

  A cold wind came at dawn, from the south, dragging sharp showers in its trail. If the Armada was flushed out of Calais, it would have to drive north and leave England behind.

  Gresham's body shuddered involuntarily, and once again he cursed it for its refusal to obey orders. Something terrible was going to happen here, he knew. A deep instinct in him sensed that somehow in this place and in this time the fate of nations would be decided, the prophecy of Regiomontanus come to pass. Or was it simply the cold, the hunger of a young stomach and the insatiable desire, like a terrible itch always just out of reach, to drink gallons of cold, clear water and let it rinse the salt off his red-raw skin?

  The translator had to descend into the gloom to find Gresham. For want of anything to do, he had gone to watch the carpenters plugging the holes in the side of the San Martin. To their amusement he had got himself holding a block of wood against a wooden plug, with a huge Spaniard ramming the plug home with savage blows of a mallet.

  'Don Rodrigo Tello de Guzman's pinnace will be alongside in minutes,' was the whispered message. It was he who had been sent with messages to Parma a fortnight ago. 'You have met the Duke of Parma more recently than any except Don Rodrigo. The Duke wishes you to hear his report.'

  From the moment Don Rodrigo stepped on board they knew something was wrong. He was both excited and flustered, a sweat on his brow, a nervousness in his manner, almost an irritation. Then it happened, only briefly, for a moment. As it had happened once before to Gresham. The world and time froze, yet there was still movement and sound in it. Don Rodrigo was poised, fixed in a clumsy half-bow as he leaned forward, his startled eyes fixed on the fractured and smashed upperworks of the flagship. The Duke stood on the deck where he had seemed to take root since they had sighted England, frozen also in a stiff, formal greeting. The rigging flapped and slapped against the tall masts, the suck and plop of the waves still soothed. The rhythmic blow of the mallet suddenly took on the timbre of a funereal bell, and all the while the soggy clanking and tired hiss of the pumps reached the upper decks. Then the people and their surroundings became synchronised again, and moved in harmony. Don Rodrigo was troubled, his eyes shifting to Gresham, Sidonia's advisers, those on the deck. The news he brought could not be communicated on the open deck. It took an age for the Duke to realise the problem.

  'We shall move into my cabin,' he said finally, nodding to Gresham and several of the Spa
nish commanders to follow him.

  There were perhaps ten of them in the great cabin, and Gresham was reminded of the meeting in Drake's cabin off Cadiz. Three times as many could have fitted into the Duke's centre of operations. The stern windows were intact, remarkably, or had been mended, and they let in the brisk but almost wintery light of Calais. Down one side there was a neat hole where an English ball had pierced the hull, two or three feet on a jagged wrench of splintered timber where a heavier ball, at the end of its trajectory, had smashed into the timbers. One or other of the hits had reduced the top of a fine, carved chest to splinters.

  'My Lord,' said Don Rodrigo. 'The Duke of Parma sends his warmest greetings. He is delighted that the power and might of Spain has reached thus far, feels that England is already trembling beneath the feet of the true Faith.' Then Rodrigo stumbled, fell silent.

  'And?' said the Duke, prompting him gently, 'And our rendezvous?'

  The translator seemed to think he had a duty, and was whispering the translation into Gresham's ear.

  'The Duke… the Duke…' Rodrigo was gulping, finding difficulty with his words. 'The Duke states that his troops will be ready for their sortie within six days.'

  Spanish noblemen and senior commanders did not hiss or gasp in amazement and horror. Centuries of breeding, centuries that Henry Gresham envied with all his heart, forbade the outward display of such emotion. Instead there was a sudden silence of bodies as well as voices, as the men gathered there became immobile.

  Six days? Six days for one hundred and twenty-eight ships to remain moored in a treacherous anchorage, nearly out of powder and shot, an ever-growing hostile fleet snapping at them?

  'My Lord…' Rodrigo was speaking like a woman in childbirth. The pain was extraordinary, the burden unavoidable. He looked round the room, eyes stopping briefly at Gresham and Mannion, moving on. Apart from their strange presence, the men gathered around their commander were true Spaniards. Most had birth and breeding, and even those who had less of either commodity had experience with which to compensate. 'My Lord,' there was a new strength in his voice, 'when I left Dunkirk a day ago I saw no sign of his troops. The Duke has not been seen at Dunkirk, nor at Nieuport, this many a day. He moves between Antwerp, Ghent and Bruges, with no seeming pattern in his movements.'

  Well, thought Gresham, it's good to know other people had the same problem as we did on our visit.

  'The vessels I saw in both places were paltry things, few in number, rotten in construction. They had no stores loaded, not even sails or oars.' He paused, not for effect, but because the enormity of what he had seen he had only now allowed to hit him. 'My Lord, the troops are not ready! The boats, if they exist, are not ready. It is as if my Lord the Duke of Parma had only today received notice that your vessels were leaving Lisbon.'

  'How long?' asked the Duke quietly, gently.

  Rodrigo looked around the cabin walls, almost in despair, hating what he knew he had to say. 'For the troops to embark… My Lord, it can only be my opinion. I may be wrong. A fortnight. Two weeks. At least Possibly more. Even if the transports exist, will bear the weight of men. A fortnight to gather the men and load the stores. I say nothing about crossing the shallows, reaching us in the face of the damned Dutch and their fly-boats.'

  'Thank you,' said the Duke. 'You have done well.' He smiled at Don Rodrigo, reaching forward for the package that he now knew would contain the fulsome welcome of the Duke of Parma and a meaningless promise to assemble an army. An army that should already have been assembled and waiting. The smile was addressed to all those in the cabin now, understanding, forgiving. 'Leave me now. And you, Rodrigo, report to my steward and claim from him some of my very best wine. And then offer it to my friends and fellow officers here. We shall reassemble in the turning of a glass. Please leave me to consider the Duke of Parma's letter.'

  The Duke's eyes paused on Gresham's, commanding him to remain. The Spanish officers and nobles bowed formally, unconcerned about who remained, not realising the figure and his manservant who remained behind. There was a strange glint in their eyes, Gresham realised. These were not fools, these men. They knew. The Duke broke the ornate seal on the letter, as if Gresham was not there. He read quietly, occasionally holding the paper up to the light coming through the stern windows where he found a particular line hard to decipher. Then he turned to Gresham.

  'I have waited so long for these words, and now I have them, that is all they are. Words.'

  'The words are not… helpful?' asked Gresham.

  ‘I need an army, an army of trained men to take over England. I need powder, and shot. And I have… words.'

  The Duke placed the letter from Parma on the ornate table, and stood up, stiff, clearly in pain. He turned to gaze out of the stern windows, onto the ornately decorated stern walk.

  'A fortnight? Perhaps. If I could sail up the Scheldt, sail up even to Dunkirk, present my fleet before that army and shame them into embarkation. Yet with no pilots, and no promise of pilots, my ocean-going fleet can make no such inland journey. I must await the Duke's army here, in a treacherous anchorage off a neutral country. And I know that the army will not come, as I know my fleet's survival in this place will be lucky to last one night.' The Duke's face seemed to have sunk in on itself, his eyes hollows in his face, the tightness of his skin almost a death mask. 'Well, my dreaming young Englishman? Am I right?'

  All the horror, all the pathos, all the stupid idiocy of the world seemed to come together in that cabin.

  'You are right,' said Gresham, as an extraordinary, unprecedented and burning hot tear welled up in both his eyes. He dare not blink, in case it scalded his cheek. 'You have lost.'

  Around him, hundreds of men went about their business: mending, making, living, filling the hours with the tasks that stop us thinking; talking to God, pleading with God or hoping with all their hearts that God heard what their poor brains could never put into words. Trusting in God, and the Duke of Medina Sidonia and perhaps even in the memory of the kiss their wife or sweetheart had given them as they set out, trusting in all of these or maybe even just in luck to see them through. Using the one thing God had given them, the belief in each man we are immortal, that death will not really come to us and the hope that we alone will be saved. Unaware that men and events hugely beyond their power to control or influence had condemned so many of them to a lottery of death.

  'You'll be blown out of this harbour by storm, or by the English,' said Gresham inexorably. This time the tears would accept no boundary, betraying him by cascading from his eyes down his face. 'And you will fight, won't you, my Lord?'

  The exhausted face of the Duke of Medina Sidonia was incredulous. 'Fight? But of course I will fight!' There was emphasis in his voice, but the tone was kind. Almost paternal. 'For hundreds of years my country has stood between the rule of Christ and the Ottomans. When Rome and then Constantinople fell to the infidel, did we measure the odds? Did we count the numbers against us? No! We fought. And we won. And saved Europe for Christianity.'

  'But now you'll lose,' said Gresham.

  'Sometimes, young man,' said the Duke, 'men must believe in miracles. And sometimes, those older and wiser men who doubt miracles recognise a truth of human history. Men may have to lose now in order for their children to win later. Men who are willing to die become stronger because they lose all fear. It is the fear of death, not death itself, that weakens us.'

  'And your… reputation?' Gresham hated himself for asking the question but some Devil within him could not refuse to do so.

  'They will blame me for this, of course. My family, my children will suffer. So I come to the ultimate problem for a true man. The problem I have faced many times now in my life. And the problem I am amused to see you are struggling to face for the first time.'

  How could this man adopt this lightness of tone when at any moment the most important military mission his country had ever mounted could be smashed apart and he be held responsible? 'What problem is that?' Gresha
m found himself saying.

  'Of course the reputation the world affords me matters greatly. But I learned long ago that for all its importance such a reputation is fickle, perhaps even false. When all else fails, and all seems dark and bleak, it is not the judgement of the world I believe will matter to me when I pass into the vale of death. It is my judgement of myself. Do I believe I did everything in my power to make things right? Did I dirty my actions by cowardice, by self-interest, by vanity, greed, lust or avarice? I would love the world to judge my actions as worthy. Yet when all else is done, the judgement that must matter most to me, the crucial, the most scrupulous, the testing judgement must stand as my own judgement on myself.'