John Stack - Armada

Then Evardo noticed that some of the starboard oars of de Moncada’s flagship, the San Lorenzo, seemed to be out of sync. The entire bank of oars lost their cohesive tempo. The bow of the San Lorenzo skewed violently and almost hit one of her sister ships. The galleasses slowed, their once arrow-straight trajectories falling foul of some unseen force that defied their purpose.

‘Rip tide,’ Evardo whispered, recognizing the consequences of the dreaded phenomenon.

‘Mendez, shorten sail,’ he shouted, his command coinciding with the sailing captain’s own instinct to slow the pace of the Santa Clara .

Within minutes the floundering galleasses had steadied their hulls, but they were no longer advancing. The rip tide was holding them fast. Evardo balled his fist in anger and sheathed his sword, unsure of what he should do next. He could try to go around the galleasses, but he had no idea how far the tidal race extended. With such an insipid wind there was little chance he could forge a path through the rip. The tantalizingly close enemy slowly turned their broadsides to the struggling galleasses.

‘Give ’em hellfire,’ Robert whispered a heartbeat before Larkin’s voice was drowned by the tremendous boom of the broadside cannonade. The Retribution shuddered from the recoil, the decks trembling as if in fury, its firepower marking the galleon as a warship born for the maelstrom of battle.

‘Hard about, Mister Seeley. Chasers to bear,’ Robert called coldly, drawing on his loathing for the mongrel galleasses and their fearful rams.

Seeley called for the change, his focus locked on the calamity that had befallen the Spaniards.

‘Portland Race,’ Robert explained, seeing Seeley’s expression.

‘Of course.’ He had heard of the tidal race but had never encountered it and knew little of its power. It had never occurred to him that this was Frobisher’s stratagem – to use the massive disturbance caused by the tide flowing between The Shambles and the tip of Portland Bill.

At five hundred yards Larkin’s guns were having little effect on the structure of the galleass in the Retribution ’s line of fire, but the round shot had torn bloody swathes across her open decks and the crimson hull could not conceal the devastating effects of the broadside. The Retribution continued to turn in an agonizingly slow figure-of-eight, the gun crews poised expectantly behind their charges, while near at hand the broadsides of the other galleons fired off in uncoordinated salvos, the ships firing as they could. As bait they had held their nerve and kept their fire in check. As aggressors they would let fly with all the wrath they could muster.

‘Neapolitan cobarde s,’ Evardo shouted, unable to contain himself. ‘Why don’t they pull through?’

The galleasses were still arrayed before the Santa Clara , unable or unwilling to advance. It appeared that de Moncada had lost his nerve for the fight. Where initially the galleasses had been clapped in the irons of a rip tide they were now paralysed by their indecisive commander. If only the galleasses were commanded by Spaniards. They would not shirk. The Spaniards were warriors, not whore-bred traders like the Neapolitans. While Evardo’s own ship was a slave to the wind, the galleasses’ oars should allow them to break through and take the first prizes of the campaign. The strength of a ship needed only the courage to wield it. For a moment Evardo was tempted to close and board the nearest galleass and take command of its crew.

The boom of a full broadside washed over the deck, followed an instant later by the whistle of round shot, many of them missing the galleasses to tear holes in the air around the Santa Clara . Evardo had ordered his gunnery captain to return fire with the bow chasers if any targets presented themselves but with the galleasses under their sights the guns of the Santa Clara had remained quiet, robbing Evardo’s crew of the satisfaction of fighting fire with fire.

‘ Comandante ,’ Mendez called.

‘What is it?’

‘The wind, Comandante ,’ the captain replied, alarm registering in his voice and expression. ‘It’s shifting.’

Evardo’s gaze shot up to the masthead. The banners were thrashing in the breeze but they were no longer pointing away from the north-east. They had spun around to the call of a new wind, a stiff southerly breeze that mocked Evardo even as he watched it take hold of the sails.

In his heart Evardo knew it was God’s punishment. He had lost patience with the Armada. He had granted them a favourable wind, a divine force to allow them to bring the fight to the enemy, only to see it squandered through uncertainty. Now He had given the weather gauge back to the English.

‘So be it,’ Evardo said quietly. Before the day was through he would prove that the Spanish were worthy of God’s favour.

‘Captain Mendez, bring us about.’

‘Si, mi Comandante ,’ Mendez replied, seeing in his superior’s face the ferocity he had witnessed when he ordered the Santa Clara into the breech before the San Juan .

Robert wiped the sea spray from his face, his hand lingering over his mouth as he tasted the salt water, his nostrils filled with the smell of the sea-borne breeze. He was standing on the bowsprit, leaning out over the surging bow, his hand tightly gripping a foremast stay. To windward the English fleet was redeploying, taking immediate advantage of the weather gauge, their earlier fighting withdrawal swiftly becoming a vigorous counter attack.

From the moment the wind had changed the flotilla around the Triumph had headed away from Portland Bill to link up with the main body of the fleet. Howard had set a convergent course with Frobisher’s cohort, but only those galleons closest to the Ark Royal had taken their lead from the admiral. Further south Drake, in the gaudily painted Revenge , was attacking the Spanish seaward flank with upwards of fifty English ships.

The Retribution was sailing close-reach to the southerly wind. Howard’s centre was directly ahead but over a dozen enemy warships were beating towards the Ark Royal in an obvious effort to oppose Howard’s course. Robert quickly assessed the situation. The English had the weather gauge but the Spanish were desperately trying to retain the initiative.

‘Let them try,’ Robert muttered as he left the bowsprit. He ordered Seeley to maintain their heading, a course that would take them right into the developing storm of battle in the centre.

‘ Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis ,’ Evardo whispered in awe as he watched the San Martín sail into the maw of the English centre, the deafening roar of enemy cannon shaking the very heavens as the flagship was consumed by a cloud of gun smoke that concealed the terrifying conditions within. The Santa Clara was beating against the wind, trying to claw its way back into a battle that had little shape and strategy. Like bare-knuckle prize fighters each side was pummelling away at each other, searching for weaknesses that could be exploited.

To the south-west the seaward flank of the Armada was being hard pressed. Medina Sidonia had engaged the English centre. The duke had evidently decided that the seaward flank was in greater danger and several warships bore away from the San Martín to sail in support of the rearguard. Now the duke was alone in his attack. Evardo shouted to Mendez to lay on more sail and speed their approach.

‘Bear away!’ Robert roared above the thunderous thump of cannon and the concussive sound of musket fire.

The air around the quarterdeck was alive with the sounds of passing shot, an invisible predator that gave no warning to those it took. Robert’s eyes were everywhere at once. The Retribution was one of a cadre of galleons supporting Howard in his attack on the Spanish flagship, their close formation sailing testing every master’s skill as the galleons wove in and out of each other’s wakes, laying on their fire in turn upon the Spanish foe, before sailing upwind to reload their guns and returning to the fray.