John Stack - Armada

Seeley laughed abruptly. There was no logic to this. If Varian was a Roman Catholic traitor, why was he fighting the Spanish? There was no such thing as a loyal recusant. If there were any English papists fighting in this war, it was those who were widely rumoured to be sailing with the enemy fleet, seditious outcasts who had betrayed their countrymen and forfeited their souls for a foreign cause. The captain couldn’t be Roman Catholic. His actions in Sagres, his maniacal charge on the Halcón , his aggressive tactics in the morning’s action; everything spoke of his loyalty to the Crown and England.

Yet Seeley could not ignore the sliver of doubt that remained. He had often thought the captain lacked the religious fervour that he himself possessed in the fight against the Spanish. Perhaps Varian did not think of the war against Spain as a religious matter, and was more ambivalent towards Roman Catholics. Men had different motives for fighting the Spanish. Miller, the master’s mate, had often expressed his hatred of the Spanish stranglehold on trade in the New World. Perhaps Varian’s only motive was to keep England safe from foreign invasion, regardless of any enemy’s faith.

Seeley shook his head to put an end to his deliberations. His lack of success in his search for Young had affected him deeply. Clearly his suspicions were now feeding on themselves, creating enemies where none existed. Their captain was not a traitor. Seeley looked to his charts, his attention returning to the coastline, but all the while his lips moved without conscious thought, mouthing a prayer he could not forget: Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis .

In the soft glow of lantern light Evardo stepped over the prone bodies of the wounded, his boots grinding the sand underfoot that had been strewn there to soak up the blood of the maimed. He looked down at each man in turn. Many of them returned his gaze silently, their eyes neither accusing nor accepting. The orlop deck was quiet. The screams of the most grievously injured had ceased, and beyond the pall of light cast by the lanterns Evardo could hear the creak and squeal of the whipstaff and rudder in the dark recesses of the aft section.

Evardo knelt down beside one of his men. The sailor was lying on a filthy blanket, his head propped up on some coiled rigging. His eyes were closed, his head jerking from side to side as if trapped in some horrible nightmare. He was soaked with sweat. Evardo looked down the length of the sailor’s body. A wave of nausea swept over him. The man’s arm had been blown off below the elbow. The flesh was horribly mangled and the wound had been cauterized to stop the bleeding. Huge bluebottles were already settling to feast on the charred flesh and pools of blood, their incessant buzzing rising angrily as Evardo tried to wave them away.

The combination of smells was overpowering; the stink of burn, like meat left too long on the flame, the tang of fresh blood, the acrid smell of sweat, and the stench of faeces. The sailor had soiled himself, and for a brief moment Evardo wondered if the pain or the sight of the red-hot iron used to seal his wound had caused the sailor to lose control. The thought made Evardo stand up abruptly and he looked away from the injured sailor, quickly turning his focus to the huddled figures at the other side of the deck.

Padre Garza was kneeling beside a dying soldier, solemnly reciting the Last Rites. The man was holding desperately onto the priest’s hand, biting down on a leather thong to silence his cries. Blood trickled from the side of his mouth, a visible sign of his terrible internal injuries. Evardo found himself staring into the soldier’s eyes. They were wide with pain, and something more terrible. Fear. The soldier’s eyes darted from the priest kneeling over him to the two shroud-covered bodies lying near at hand; the fate that would soon be his. Again Evardo looked away, this time to preserve the man’s dignity. The consequences of the morning’s action had been sharp, but not severe. Two men had been killed instantly during the battle. Padre Garza’s charge would be a third. Twelve men had been wounded, two badly so, including the sailor who had lost his arm.

‘ Comandante .’ Evardo saw Captain de Córdoba approach. ‘I did not realize you had come below.’

‘I wished to check on the wounded,’ Evardo replied.

De Córdoba nodded appreciatively. He looked beyond Evardo to the shroud-covered bodies and the dying soldier under the padre’s care.

‘López,’ he said quietly. ‘He and the other two were manning a falcon pedrero on the fo’c’sle when it was hit.’

Evardo nodded and looked back to the young soldier. ‘What were the names of the others?’

‘De Arroyo and Garrido.’

Evardo memorized the names. It was common for comandante s to issue false casualty lists to the paymaster in order to draw ‘dead men’s pay’ but Evardo would record them faithfully. The men deserved nothing less.

‘Your company fought well today Capitán de Córdoba.’

‘Thank you, Comandante . They would have fought all the better if the English had closed and we were afforded the chance to board.’

Evardo nodded. He couldn’t fathom what the English hoped to achieve with their artillery attack runs. Despite the incredible rate of fire the enemy had maintained in the morning’s action the Santa Clara had suffered only minimal damage and even this was confined to the superstructure, sails and rigging. The hull, although it had taken over a dozen direct hits from round shot, was still sound. The Santa Clara had weathered her first fire storm under Evardo’s command. He reached out to touch the hull, his fingertips feeling the tiny vibrations in the timbers caused by the pounding of the waves and the pull of the wind.

‘I suspect the English were probing for weaknesses this morning, perhaps to ascertain where the fighting ships lie in our formation.’

‘If they plan on stopping our advance they will have to engage in a proper battle,’ de Córdoba said. ‘They will have to board and fight as we do in the Mediterranean, ship to ship, man to man.’

‘I pray to God it will be so.’

Suddenly Evardo felt the deck shudder and the air was filled with a massive explosion, a noise that spoke of some terrible inferno. Evardo started running, keeping his head down in the low-ceiling deck. Aloft the crew were lining the starboard bulwark. He pushed through them. A quarter of a mile away, one of the Armada’s bigger ships was engulfed in thick black smoke. An order to bring the men to battle stations rose to Evardo’s lips but he stopped himself short. This was no attack. It was something far worse.

‘It’s the San Salvador of the Guipúzcoan squadron,’ a crewman shouted. His call was met with a chorus of agreement.

The boom of a single cannon caused Evardo to turn and he saw a puff of white smoke issue from the larboard side of the San Martín . It was the signal for the Armada to stop. Evardo shouted the order as he went to the quarterdeck. For a moment he was tempted to come about and go to the aid of the San Salvador but he knew he could not. After the morning’s action and the retreat of the warships of the rearguard wing, sargentos mayors had been dispatched in pataches to every ship in the fleet with a message from Medina Sidonia. Henceforth, no comandante , on pain of death by hanging, was to retreat from his designated position in the fleet. For men of honour it was a stinging rebuke and although Evardo knew such an order was not meant for him directly, as a comandante he was tainted by association.

A call went out from the masthead, alerting Evardo to the approach of a felucca off the starboard beam. She carried orders for half a dozen ships, the Santa Clara amongst them, to break formation and assist the San Salvador . Evardo called for the course change and ordered extra lookouts to the fighting tops and bowsprit, wary of the English fleet not four miles away. The Santa Clara turned neatly through the chop, her deck heeling over under the press of the wind.