Martin Stephen: The galleon's grave

'What in God's name are you doing here?' asked an astounded Gresham, his heart lifting already.

'My father's got contacts with Drake. Helped fund one of his voyages five years ago. I asked him to call in some favours. Plus, no doubt the old man'll have landed the bill for half of Drake's powder! Who cares? It's only money, and it worked.'

'But why?' asked Gresham, grinning at his friend. 'Why choose to come?'

'Too much theoretical politics, dear boy!' boomed George. 'The fate of the nation's being decided here.' There was a sense of excitement in his voice, a burning in his eyes. 'Do I want to be one of those who comments on what's happened? Or do I want to be the one who tells the girls of my first-hand acts of derring-do against a horde of Spaniards?'

He had a point, Gresham thought. Every young man with fire in his belly had sought to sail with Drake, the eternal rite of passage where men have to prove their courage. And George Willoughby was no coward.

'Will you shout as loudly at them as you're shouting at me?' asked Gresham, noticing an increasing number of the rabble gathering round for this free show.

'Sorry!' George clamped a hand theatrically over his mouth. Well, thought Gresham, the Elizabeth Bonaventure was going to seem a lot smaller with this man's bulk on it, but somehow he sensed the horizons would seem a lot wider.

The twenty English vessels were strung out over a vast expanse of ocean so blue that its glittering surface bit into the eyes, white sails looking like dainty seagulls dipping in and out of the waves. So peaceful, so calm in the mild wind driving them to Cadiz. So deceptive. Each patch of white on the blue of the sea was a heaving, straining, iron-fastened box of wood entombing the men who crawled like so many maggots on their deck and up their masts. Fragile things, for all the serenity they showed from afar, built from tension. The tension of straight wood forced to curve and hug a hull. The tension of the huge pressure of sail pitted against a thin wooden mast and the taut pull of infinitely complex rigging, checking and balancing all to keep that sail full of the ferocious and fickle power of the wind. And those tensions broke easily. The savage, ripping, tearing noise of a sail suddenly shredding itself as a tiny weakness opened up into shreds. The crack as a rope snapped, whipping viciously across the deck and then through the body of any man unlucky enough to stand in its way. The seam between planking forced open as the ship plunged and drove time and time again into a heavy sea, the caulking being driven out in what the sailors called a boat spewing its oakum, burying its prow in the» water and only after what seemed like minutes rising up and shaking the water from its bow. Those picturesque dots on the ocean were a fragile challenge to the power of the elements.

Gresham and Mannion were munching their midday meal companionably in the waist of the ship, George alongside. All three were now used to the easy rise and fall of the deck. Gresham was surprised at how he felt. Three or four days of dreadful sickness and intense misery had passed, to be replaced by a life confined, simplified. There was hardly room to move on board the Elizabeth Bonaventure, crammed to the hilt as it was with 'gentlemen adventurers' such as George, and the extra crew needed to replace those lost by sickness and combat. Luxury was to find room to stretch out to the full on the deck at night, huddled under one's cloak, the rough timbers cutting in to each toss and turn of the body. Even the longing for his bath in the morning was a dull ache rather than an active stab of pain. He had become accustomed to his own rancid smell and that of those alongside him. Seafaring, he was finding, was largely about fighting the elements. It left him with far less time to fight himself.

On English ships even a commander such as Drake would lend a hand with a rope when the need arose. So Gresham had offered himself for some of the simpler tasks on board. It was strangely soothing. There was a task before him — a rope to be secured just so. Barrels and stores to be moved from here to there as they were emptied and the balance of the ship needed to be kept. And at the end of the task, there was a simple measure of achievement. The line no longer flapped in the wind, the stores were in the right place. He felt inordinately proud when he tied his first knot and it held, and a seaman clapped him on the back. The challenges of this world were clear, success easily measured. Was he in danger of relaxing too much?

Sir George Willoughby had bought most of Drake's wine as well as most of his powder for the voyage, as the price for the carriage of his son, and as a result George had been invited to Drake's cabin to share some of that wine.

Too many ships in Lisbon,' George had reported back to Gresham excitedly. Too many even for Drake to take on board, and strong harbour defences. So it's off to Cadiz, Bursting with ships apparently, and far more weakly defended. We'll have our battle after all!'

Gresham had asked to see Drake. 'Sir Francis,' he had asked with a deference he did not feel, as Drake pored over a chart of Cadiz harbour and ignored him. 'The rumour is that we're leaving Lisbon, yet I need to be put ashore there. Will you grant me a small boat to take me ashore?'

Drake gave him the merest of glances. 'We're already too far away. I doubt a boat would find its way back to me in time. And it's not in my interests for you to be captured at this time, as might well be the case if I granted your demand.'

It had been a request, thought Gresham, not a demand.

'It's essential for this expedition's success that the Spaniards do not know I'm at sea until I've got them by the throat.'

'Sir,' said Gresham, trying and failing to hide his impatience, 'my only reason for being here is to land where I can report on the Spanish fleet.'

'If I have my way you'll land in Cadiz on this vessel,' said Drake flatly, 'and get a very close view indeed of some Spanish vessels. Or will that view be too close for your comfort? Do you wish to be taken ashore before to avoid the battle that might take place there?'

The accusation of cowardice was clear, the insult sufficient for a gentleman to fight and die for. Yet Gresham sensed he was almost being tested.

‘I’m not sure, Sir Francis,' said Gresham with a calmness at total odds with his fast-beating heart, 'whether your comment was a challenge to my honour or an insult to my intelligence.' Now came the risk. Yet the blood was hot in Gresham, and would not be resisted. 'As it is,' Gresham continued, 'I propose to reject both propositions, and interpret your words as an insult to your intelligence.'

It was a standard rhetorical procedure as taught in the University, the first two comments comprising the defence and the third the attack. Suddenly Gresham realised how silly the intellectual gymnastics of the University seemed here, at sea, in the face of a man who could order his death in an instant Drake looked at him then, without the angry outburst Gresham had expected and with dark, expressionless eyes.

'I care less than a fart for your interpretation of anything,' Drake said. 'I'll let you ashore in Cadiz, where I have no doubt they will find you and hang you from a tree within hours, if it pleases me to do so. Your masters on shore may control what happens there. At sea, I am in command. Now you may leave.'

Gresham could not think of a riposte. He left. A stink of sewage hit him as he left the great cabin. Strange. He was used to no longer smelling the stench of life at sea. Those who wanted to piss and shit were meant to go to the bow of the ship, where there were crude facilities for them to deposit their waste matter hanging over the side. Many did not bother to make the journey, particularly in rough or cold weather or if they woke in the middle of the night. A bucket, or a barrel cut down to half its height, stood at each end of the deck and in the middle of the main deck, slopping over even in decent sea conditions. In time everything gathered in the bilges of the ship where the stone and gravel ballast was stored, the lowest level of all. Just as the piss descended, so its stench ascended after a long voyage, filling the decks with its sulphurous tang, and the rank smell of solid waste.