John Stack - Armada

Young spun around and smiled as he recognized Don Rodrigo de Torres, one of King Philip’s closest advisors. He was dressed in austere clothes, a black embroidered doublet and gown and a high necked jerkin that accentuated his height. It was a style made popular by the King and Young wondered if any man in Spain now dared to dress differently.

‘They are indeed a blessed sight before God,’ he replied, his Spanish still heavily accented even after nearly twenty years. Young was shorter than de Torres and at fifty he was older by some ten years, but he looked younger, his constant travels throughout the dominions of Europe keeping him fit and trim.

‘Come, your grace,’ de Torres said. He led Young from the dockside into the civic building, taking him to his office on the second floor.

The shutters of the room were open and from the height of the balcony, Young was afforded an even greater view of Lisbon’s immense natural harbour. Beyond the anchored warships and merchantmen, the harbour mouth was protected by formidable forts and gun emplacements. Between the headlands Young could just make out the darker blue of the boundless Atlantic. He turned around to his host.

‘You are smiling, Don de Torres,’ he said. ‘Is there good news?’

De Torres nodded. ‘The arch-fiend El Draque has been driven from the walls of Lagos with heavy losses,’ he said expansively. He walked behind his desk to sit down. He stretched out his hand, indicating for Young to be seated.

‘That is good news,’ Young replied, taking consolation from the report. The past few months had been the most anguished of his life. The death of Mary Stuart had dashed so many of his hopes. He had found peace through prayer and an almost constant vigil on the assembling Armada. Its gathering strength had reaffirmed his belief that his long exile would soon be over and his country would be brought once more into the bosom of its true mother church. Then Drake had attacked Cadiz.

‘It is a significant victory, your grace,’ de Torres continued, ‘and one which will show Drake for the inconsequential pirate he is.’

De Torres’s words caused Young to glance once more out the open window to the few ships already gathered for the Armada. Drake’s raid on Cadiz had taken place over a week before and a pall of uncertainty now hung over the entire enterprise. The loss of supplies was catastrophic and with Drake now commanding the sea lanes to Lisbon, the squadrons from Seville, Biscay and Italy were indefinitely delayed. Drake, he concluded, was anything but inconsequential.

Young’s innards burned with bitter frustration. Elizabeth had the devil’s own luck. How many attempts on her life had she escaped? How many uprisings, in England and Ireland, had withered and died on the vine after showing such promise? Her reign was now entering its thirtieth year whereas Mary Tudor, her Catholic predecessor, had ruled for only five years, not nearly enough time to reverse the tide of reformation. Now one of her minions, Drake, was in a position to unravel the delicate plans to assemble an Armada to sail against the heretic Queen.

‘What do you believe he will do next?’ de Torres asked, twisting one end of his moustache with the tips of his fingers, his gaze level and penetrating.

Young considered the question, amused as always how many Spaniards thought he naturally held some insight into the workings of every English mind simply because he was English himself. He had not set foot in his native country for a shade over eighteen years. He kept an exact tally of the months and days, and the ever so brief thoughts of his exile set the door to his bitterness ajar. He slammed it shut, focusing his mind on the problem at hand.

‘His defeat at Lagos is a setback, but Drake is tenacious. He will not retreat.’

De Torres nodded sagely, although he knew little of military tactics. He was a master of statecraft and the chief liaison between the Spanish court and men like Nathaniel Young.

‘I would counsel caution,’ Young continued. ‘The garrisons in the area should remain on alert.’

‘Thank you, your grace,’ de Torres said. ‘I will ensure your advice is passed on to the relevant commanders.’

He stood up and walked to the window, clasping his hands behind his back.

‘Drake’s surprise attack on Cadiz has cost us dearly,’ he said after a pause.

Young noted the implicit censure in de Torres’s words.

‘I sent your request to the Duke of Clarsdale over a month ago,’ he replied in his own defence. ‘He is a trusted and capable man and, in future, I am sure we will know of the English fleet’s plans in advance of any attack.’

In future , de Torres thought scornfully, although he could not openly criticize the duke. He needed the Englishman’s access to the elaborate network of contacts and couriers that existed between the remaining Catholics in England and their supporters on the continent. In recent years, however, with the escalation of hostilities between Spain and England, de Torres was finding it increasingly difficult to separate his hatred for the English pirates and their Queen. Men like Young, whose faltering command of Spanish and insistence that he be addressed by his meaningless title only exacerbated de Torres’s animosity.

When Young and his fellow exiled English noblemen first arrived in Spain after their failed rebellion against Elizabeth in 1569 they had been openly welcomed as victims of the heretical Queen’s oppression. Patronage and support had flooded in from many of the noble families of Spain, allowing the exiles to live in a fashion befitting their titles. But now that support had all but dried up as the rising national enmity towards England stemmed the flow.

De Torres returned to his seat and looked across his desk at this English duke who remained so important to Spain’s invasion plans. When Parma’s army landed in England, it was vital that men such as Young be amongst the vanguard, Englishmen who could be trusted implicitly to act as guides and negotiators. So de Torres hid his aversion behind a benign expression and the courteous words of diplomacy. With God’s grace there was still a chance the Armada might yet sail this season and when it did, it was de Torres’s task to ensure that Young and his fellow English noblemen sailed with it.

Robert leaned back in his chair and adjusted his right leg, massaging his thigh above the wound. It hurt appallingly, but it was clean and he thanked the Lord, all too aware of the dread fate of infection. He shuddered as he vividly remembered waking after the battle in the surgeon’s room on board the Retribution .

It was a hellish place, an enclosed compartment on the orlop deck where the air was saturated with panic and echoed with the cries of the wounded and dying, a nightmarish cacophony that still haunted Robert’s dreams. He had been lying on the crude treatment table, a series of planks atop some upended water barrels, the timbers already soaked through with the blood of others. His breeches had been cut away and Powell, the surgeon, had been standing over his leg, his bloodied hands deftly probing the wound. The surgeon had worked fast, a testament to his skill, but his every touch was like the lash of a whip, a searing pain that drenched his body in acrid sweat.

Robert’s vision had swirled before him, the headiness of blood loss and the heaving lantern light robbing him of the ability to focus. There were too many injured, there hadn’t been time to dull each patient’s senses with alcohol, and as Powell prepared to close the wound an unseen crewman behind where his head lay on the table had forced a bit between Robert’s teeth.

Through the mists of pain he had seen the white-orange glow of the cauterizing iron, his eyes staring wildly in terrified anticipation. He had bit down with all his might, stifling his screams as the searing metal touched his skin while strong hands held him fast. His nostrils had filled with the smell of his own burning flesh, a sickening stench that engulfed his senses before unconsciousness mercifully claimed him once more.