Martin Stephen - The galleon's grave

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 apart.' Gresham had taken the Duke's shirt for himself, telling Mannion that it would be wrong for such a refined piece of clothing to go to a mere peasant From somewhere Mannion had acquired a rough tunic to replace his salt-hardened one, but it was made out of hard canvas and had rubbed parts of his back raw. He bore the pain, aggravated by salt water, phlegmatically.

There is a survival mode for combatants. Broken sleep, periods of intense boredom enlivened by moments of sheet terror, unhealthy food grabbed whenever possible all become normal. For the lucky ones, the mind learns to concentrate simply on the essentials, cutting or filtering fear, pain and worry. For those less lucky, the trembling hands, the haunted eyes, the endless threshing of the body in sleep told their own story. Such, men died in their minds several times every hour, each new dawn leaving them like a leaking ship, sinking inexorably deeper and deeper into the water.

'Funny,' said Mannion as the darkness settled over the San Martin, 'I didn't know which way you'd go, you bein' a thinker and such like. Wondered if you'd tip over the edge.'

'The only thing that might make me tip over the edge,' said Gresham, 'is smelling you for longer than I have to.' He turned over, his body used to the hard deck, offering the other half of the cloak for Mannion to climb under. 'It was bad enough in Cadiz. Now it's even worse. And try not to breathe on me until I'm asleep.'

Friday 5th August and Saturday 6th August Men had been working all night, and already a new sail had been hoisted on the mainmast of the San Martin. The divers, thin, shivering creatures with immense reserves of strength, had been over the side, plugging holes beneath the waterline, securing the ship. The ceaseless squeak and heave of the pumps was their litany now. Gresham had been woken in the small hours by Mannion's stentorian snoring. He had walked to the bow to relieve himself, then back down the deck where the sailmakers were at their work, eerily silent. There was a tap on his shoulder. It was one of the Duke's servants, motioning him to follow.

There were four or five officers on the deck with the helmsman, and the Duke was standing directly by the stern, gazing back to where he knew the English fleet was shadowing him. Did he ever sleep?

'You possibly saved this ship today,' said the Duke quietly. He had an extraordinary manner. He rarely raised his voice, yet it carried a massive authority, and even the most surly seaman seemed genuine in the bow he offered the Duke. Would Gresham ever command such respect, he wondered, respect that was offered without it ever seeming to be asked for?

‘I am grateful you think so,' said Gresham, 'but not sure it is so.' He was too tired to prevaricate. ‘I suspect your watchman at the bow or the masthead would have seen the Owers in time, or another ship read its routier properly.'

'Your modesty does you credit. I do not trust you, you realise?' The tone was soft.

'No one trusts a spy, my Lord,' said Gresham, 'and you cannot know if all this while I am working out who will win this battle, keeping my options open for a return to England, seeking to give you ill advice the moment I think your cause is lost.'

'And are you?' asked the Duke.

'I believe I'm working neither for England nor for Spain,' said Gresham. 'I believe I'm working for peace.'

'A grand claim,' remarked the Duke. 'And even if it were true, on what grounds do you claim peace as our right? Do we not scream when we are first brought into this world? Does not the plague, unrequited love, the pain of a foul tooth, the sickness at the loss of a wife or a son affect rich and poor alike? Surely God in His wisdom placed us in a world where to live is to suffer pain? And the only measure of a true man is to be willing to risk death for a just cause?'

'I'm sure that's true, my Lord,' said Gresham, 'for those of us with a brain between bur ears, for whom starvation is not an issue, those of us who have the luxury of time to think about why we are here on earth. And we reach, perhaps, for the sanctity of Christ, the purity and meaning that His vision offers.'

'You talk of "us",' said the Duke, not outwardly alarmed at his ancient lineage being grouped with that of the bastard son of a London merchant.

'Because as a bastard I was left to wander the streets of London and mix with those who do not have the luxury of time for thought, and because I've spent time on my father's country estates, sometimes even been asked into the filthy hovels of those my father deemed peasants, a sub-human species to be worked and used, but never known.'

The Duke of Medina Sidonia had no problem with recognising that not all humankind were born equal. 'God did not make all his creatures equal in their sight. He made them equal only in the sight of God,' said the Duke with finality. 'It is easy to be sentimental about the poor.'

The thousands of peasants under the Duke's command were not necessarily people, to him, thought Gresham. They were souls. Souls demanded respect, to be treated to a certain code, but not to be treated necessarily as people, as fellow humans, it is easy to forget that the poor wish to live as much as we do, that if you prick them they bleed as much as any human. Even easier to use them as pawns in monstrous games of power. I've lied to my Spanish masters. I've told them that I've acted for my faith. It's not true. I do not really care that Queen Elizabeth is a heretic'

He saw the Duke draw back slightly. Had he revealed too much?

‘I care that she has no heir, will have no heir. The Virgin Queen knows that while she is all that stands between England and civil war her advisers will do everything in their power to keep her alive. Elizabeth has opted to preserve herself while she lives, and doesn't care for what happens to her country when she dies.' He paused for a moment, ‘I think there'll be civil war when she dies. The contenders for her throne? A clutch of rapacious nobles with a pinch of royal blood and an overweening ambition. The warped King of Scotland, son of the Mary Queen of Scots we executed…' He had almost said I instead of 'we’. 'Scotland is, of course, England's oldest enemy. A stupid, vapid woman called Arabella Stuart whose blood gives her a claim and whose brains do not exist. And the King of Spain, our oldest enemy of all.' Gresham turned to look back to where the English ships were gathered in the dark. 'So I chose Spain. I chose Spain because I believe that Spain has the power to conquer those rapacious nobles, to conquer the impoverished King of Scotland, the pathetic Arabella Stuart. That it is so powerful that its success is inevitable. Spain will win. And will it matter to the peasant in the field and the woman striving to fill her children's bellies whether it is a Protestant Queen or a Catholic King who holds the final authority over them? I think not. I think what matters to them is that they are left in peace to scrape a bare living out of the earth, left without soldiers trampling down their crops and sticking their babies on the end of pikes as trophies of war. I decided Spain would win that war. And when I had decided that, the other decision was inevitable. Why go through with the war in the first place? Why not work to achieve the inevitable and cut out the need for war? Why not work to install Spain in England without the ritual of yet more senseless death? That is why I chose Spain, my Lord.' He bowed to the Duke. 'I did not choose my path for religion. I chose my path, I always choose my path, because I thought that in so doing fewer people would die.'