Martin Stephen - The rebel heart

Gresham's men started to edge the boat into the vacant space; the jetty overflowing with boats and people, the boatmen concerned about their fine paint, the men and women far more concerned about their fine velvets, silk and satins. Amid the chaos, a ragged-arsed little boy stood gawping at all the fine folk, thumb in his mouth, one of the human flotsam and jetsam of the river. Half an hour either side of this particular rush hour and a guard would have moved him on, but now no one had time or energy.

There was a shout from behind them, and Gresham and Mannion turned instantly. A huge boat, eight oars a side and more like a royal barge than a private vessel, was charging full ahead into the space reserved for Gresham, seemingly oblivious to the smaller boat that was already halfway to the spot. At its stern and on its mast flew the proud pennant of the Earl of Essex, the rowers dressed in the tangerine-coloured livery that the family favoured. The Earl himself sat languidly on a throne at the stern, talking to a man whose appearance would have made a peacock feel underdressed, oblivious to the chaos his men were about to cause.

'CLEAR THE WAY THERE! CLEAR THE WAY FOR THE EARL OF ESSEX!'

The man at the front of Essex's battleship was yelling at the top of his voice, and smaller boats were scurrying out of his way like ants, Essex's oarsmen not letting up as they raced to the jetty; if anything seeming to row even harder. It was a neat trick, if you could do it, to row for home as if chased by the Devil and then dig the oars in hard at the last moment and halt the boat before it splintered itself and the landing stage. Whether this lot were good enough to do it remained to be seen.

There was an outward civilisation in Elizabeth's England, but it ran only skin deep. The place at the jetty was clearly Gresham's. Essex was equally clearly trying to take it. Duals were fought for less. Honour was at stake, and reputation. Essex chose that moment to look up, casually, as if by accident, and his eyes locked on to Gresham's. He smiled, and waved a hand. It was a clear challenge.

He is enjoying this, thought Gresham. He has no need to fight for this poxy little mooring, except that it is a battle of wills and more exciting than the river on a normal day.

Gresham's men had not yet shipped their oars. There was time enough, just, for them to dip the blades into the muddy water and reverse out of the path of the Goliath heading at speed towards them. Most men would have done just that, if only to save their skins. Few who used the river, and even fewer sailors could swim. But Gresham's men were different. The river was a dangerous place, and they had to do more dangerous things on it following his orders than many liveried servants would have dreamt of.

Ramming. For all the social niceties of this situation, this was ramming. It was the best way of making a quick kill on the river. Head for the enemy, smash into their side, hole their boat, jump on board, grab whatever you wanted and back off to leave the evidence to sink behind you. Gresham's men were trained for this. He did not need to look at Mannion, or speak to him. It was at times like this that their intuitive understanding paid dividends.

'Fend off to stern.'

Gresham spoke in what seemed a quiet voice, but it carried to his men, to whom it was a familiar order, and somehow cut through the babble on the jetty, increased now by the excitement over what seemed to be a major collision.

The slight signs of uncertainty that had been visible among his men as they looked up in a moment of relaxation and saw a vast vessel bearing down on them at speed vanished, to be replaced by military order. The two men seated at the bow lowered their oars into the water, leaving them motionless for the moment, ready to give the vessel direction one way or the other as was needed. The next pair reached up the mast, where two vast boat hooks, stout timber with iron hooks at the business end, were strapped to the mast, almost equalling its height. Effortlessly they swung down the lengths of timber, so smoothly as to hide the difficulty of the act on a bobbing boat, and passed them forward for the stern pair of men. As if they were puppets, the men rose to their feet just as those behind them sat down to balance the boat, and the boat hooks were suddenly held like levelled pikes. This was the crucial moment. The two men at the stern had to direct the boat hooks, the two men behind them had to grab the end of the timber shafts as the impact threatened and give more strength to the lead man. Yet the seat of a pole has no point on which to fix, if it is to receive a big impact. The two men at the rear reached down into the lockers at their feet, and slipped a strange, leather contraption on their arms with a pouch slung beneath it. Into the pouch went the end of the boat hook.

'Secured!' the two men yelled in unison. This was what had taken the time in training, endless hours when the boat hook seemed to have a life of its own, when in securing it the rear man had swung it so widely as to knock the front man off the boat. How many hours of men splashing and swearing in the water had they undergone to produce this situation, whereby in seconds a small tree had been unslung from a mast, placed securely in the hands of a strong man ready to guide it and secured from behind by another man waiting to absorb the shock on contact?

They had the time, just. Momentum, that was the key. For all the fearsome strength and weight of the Earl's boat, like all boats it was surprisingly easy to push aside. Essex's boat was bearing down on them from almost directly astern. To Gresham's left was a motley collection of craft, mostly professionals delivering their human cargo. To his right was a rather splendid, gilded royal boat, too small to be a barge but still very grand. It was no choice.

'Fend off right,' he ordered, as calmly as before, but his pulse racing as if this was a real battle rather than a stupid battle for honour.

If it worked, Essex's boat would skitter off down their right-hand side. The bow oarsmen on that side shipped their oars and checked that those of the two stern men, wielding the boat hook, were flush along the side. It was all they had time to do.

The man was still yelling at the bow of Essex's boat, rather more frantically now. He was used to people getting out of his way, and the significant obstacle in their path had not moved. His eyes opened wide in startlement as the two huge boat hooks swung out and pointed at him.

'CLEAR…' he shrieked, his voice in danger of going falsetto, before he felt the deck shift under him, lost his footing and, in rather stately fashion, fell into the Thames.

The boat hooks caught Essex's barge just to one side of the bow. The men took the strain, actually took the one step back that the boat allowed them, and then pushed with all their strength. A sudden snag, the sinews straining and then Essex's ship started to slew round. One more heave, and the job was done.

Then the men wielding the boat hooks did something they had not been trained for. In a real fight, they would have awaited the order to fend off again, or stowed the boat hooks and gone off after their attacker. In this case, they simply raised the boat hooks to head height, dipping them down again as the rigging swept by. The careering weight of Essex's boat was unstoppable. It drove it through. The heavy boat hooks crashed into the pates of one, two, three and four oarsmen, flattening them in the bottom of the boat, their oars flying, before those behind realised and ducked. As they did so they forgot their oars, which smacked in contact with Gresham's boat and whipped back, smashing the men on the chest or on their hurriedly lowered heads. At one moment a boat hook seemed to be headed straight for the Earl of Essex and the fine bonnet he wore; he glided aside at the last second and the hook passed through empty air. Was he still grinning, Gresham had to ask himself?