The Grove of Eagles

by Winston Graham

“It was when I went away.”

  Arthur Lavelis had been on his way back from Exeter when the news reached him of the Spanish landings. He had ridden through the night, collecting as he went a dozen other riders so that the number now in the courtyard of Trewoofe was twenty. As they rode rumours had flown to meet them that a second Armada twice as great as the first was on our shores and landing soldiery by the thousand, that all Penwith had already been burned and put to the sword.

  Coming closer he had had official word with Godolphin, who last night had encamped on the hills above Market Jew. Four or five hundred men, Lavelis said, had by now flocked to Godolphin’s standard, and numbers were increasing hourly and breeding greater courage. All the same they were an undisciplined company to meet any concerted attack. Skirting the embers of Penzance, Lavelis had come home without, falling foul of invaders. It remained to be seen he said, what sights the day would bring.

  By now Sue, utterly calm and possessed, was out on the landing, and Tamblyn rubbing his eyes had come into the hall. Old Mrs Lavelis was sleeping peacefully so she was not disturbed.

  We breakfasted at once. Lavelis said if he ever found his three servants again he would hang them. A blustering moustached bachelor of forty with a roving eye that lighted with appreciation on Sue, he held a council of war over his cold mutton and galantine sauce. With him was a regular soldier called Captain Poor who had ridden from Liskeard overnight. Poor said Drake and Hawkins had been on the point of leaving for their expedition to the West Indies, with seasoned troops standing by to go aboard at the last minute. These troops under Sir Thomas Baskerville, Colonel General of Drake’s soldiers, would probably now be thrown into Cornwall to meet the attack while Drake and Hawkins sailed to take the Spaniards at sea. Until the full weight of the invasion was known no one could do more.

  Poor said, that as soon as he had broken his fast he would ride back to try to rejoin Godolphin. That way he would be performing a valuable reconnaissance and at the same time reinforcing the main army of resistance. He suggested that the force at present at Trewoofe should split, ten remaining to guard the house and the women, but the younger and the more active to go with him.

  I knew then I must part from Sue. I had no claim to a special concern for her; her husband was near, and if I made an excuse I should look a coward.

  Before we left I tried to get private word with her, but she was much with Mrs Lavelis and avoided conversation with me. I think she was still unawake from the heady drugs of the night and trying to find some balance within herself. That also was true of me: I wanted talk with her, yet if I had got it it would have seemed superfluous. What had happened had happened and nothing would ever be the same again; but nothing was solved by it, rather greater problems made. One’s mind needed time to absorb them.

  Just as we were leaving I went to her in front of the old lady and said: “I must go, Sue. If this is over soon, I shall be back. In any case if I am alive I’ll come back. Remember that this time.”

  She looked sidelong at me. “ I’ll remember.”

  We rode away, Lavelis with us. The weather had changed, and it was a grey lowering day with a stiff south-easterly wind blowing off the sea. Landing from small boats would be less easy than yesterday.

  We came round a sharp shoulder of rock, and the whole of the Mount’s Bay was visible. The town of Penzance was in ruins; you could see the roofless walls, but there was no sign of life about it, either English or foreign. The top of the great rock of St Michael’s Mount was shrouded in misty rain; in front of it, in the green plain of Marazion, was a large body of men perhaps five hundred strong, scattered irregularly in groups with here and there a tent and a wagon. Close in to the Mount rode four Spanish galleys. The rest of the sea to the low horizon was empty.

  Captain Poor said: “ It’s hard to tell if the battle is over or not yet joined. At least let us go down and bury either them or ourselves.”

  But I had seen too much of Spanish discipline to suppose that a landed army would be in the casual array of the groups of Marazion Green. This was Godolphin’s mixed assembly.

  We found Sir Francis in better spirits. The forces of the Spanish had been exaggerated, and at worst this was not yet a large scale invasion. Indeed, although other vessels had been reported off the coast, it was from these four galleys only that the landings had been made. Yesterday the Spanish troops had burned Penzance and then had attended a mass celebrated by three priests on the hill above the town. As darkness was falling, and perhaps fearing a counter-attack during the night, the bulk of the force had retired to the safety of their galleys, and there they still were. No one knew if garrisons had been left ashore, but Godolphin would not spare any part of his force to discover this. He saw it as the best strategy to keep his men together to watch the galleys and if need be to follow them and try to prevent any repetition of yesterday.

  One or two seamen in our army were watching the weather with experienced eyes. The galleys were mobile so far as oaring took them, but this dead on-shore wind would make it difficult for them to get clear away. If it strengthened they would be pinned within the bay and if any English force appeared to windward of them they would be trapped. But of course no one knew what superior Spanish forces hovered below the horizon: if Drake suddenly appeared and engaged the galleys he might himself be trapped in turn.

  Meantime to wait. We camped on the grass, making the best of the thin driving rain and the lack of food and shelter. Twenty women who had come in were sent to scour the countryside for bread and bare necessities. In the evening some sheep and chicken were slaughtered and roasted over spits, and enough ale was found to keep the damp at bay.

  About seven with the fine rain still falling and the wind coming firmly out of the south-east, the leading galley was seen to move. Its oars lapped the water and it turned its snout towards the shore west of us where the inlet of Penzance lay. At once the near-finished meal was abandoned, men cried to each other, horses were saddled, calivers and muskets and pikes were shouldered, swords buckled. The galley slid through the water followed by its three lesser creatures, and the motley band of men kept company with them along the shore.

  Short of the Penzance inlet the first galley turned inshore. The pinnaces were lowered. At that moment Captain Poor on the flank and Sir Francis Godolphin on the other gave the order to open fire. There was an intermittent rattle of guns, and some of the men on the first ship retreated from the rail to less exposed positions. The galley replied with small arms fire. We could see a consultation going on on the poop. If the galleys employed their cast pieces they could of course clear the shore while the first wave of troops were landed. It all depended whether they considered they could spare the powder and shot.

  In the meantime the half-dozen men ashore who were armed with modern muskets continued to fire, and another half-dozen with long bows climbed down on a projecting point and strove to outdo the musketeers.

  While this issue was in the balance I noticed an old man and an old woman a hundred yards farther along the beach. He was digging in the sand for bait and she was shovelling seaweed into a basket. I do not know if they were unaware of the imminent conflict or if they were deaf to the sound of gunfire but it seemed they were indifferent to both. They reminded me of the man of whom I had asked the way yesterday. The struggle to exist had reduced them so low that they cared nothing for larger and more general dangers. They had no enemy greater than hunger, no fear beyond an empty belly.

  The wind was strengthening and wavelets were breaking all along the shore. Then a man in the crowded bows of the first ship crumpled and fell among his fellows. It was one of the bowmen who had made his mark. Within five minutes of the soldier’s fall the galleys began to move away out of range.

  A straggling cheer broke out and ran along the groups of defenders.

  “They’d best go if they be going,” said the man next to me. “Tis blowin up dirty.”

  But once out of range the four ships anchored again in line
astern. They were not giving up.

  We posted sentries along the beaches, and the main body retired to the grassy slopes behind. Dark fell and two bonfires were set upon the beaches, to give light and comfort. I dozed off for a time leaning back against a dank and mossy boulder. I dreamed about Sue, nothing else, not Spaniards, nor war, nor burning churches, just Sue. The strength of my desire for her kept waking me and I would start up and shake myself, trying to throw off the fancies. I do not know what alchemy gets to work in a man that one woman’s face and lips and hands and body alone will satisfy him and no other. Beauty is an ingredient but not the main one.

  In the middle of the night I went along to the tent where Sir Francis Godolphin sat writing a despatch. After two nights without sleep he was looking his sixty-odd years. I offered to write the despatch for him, and this he agreed to and leaned back in a chair speaking the rest to me. It was a straightforward account of his actions and of the movements of the enemy, destined for the Privy Council at Westminster. Added was a calm appraisal of the future. I realised as I wrote why the Privy Council set more store by the counsel of Sir Francis Godolphin than that of Mr John Killigrew.

  We had finished and he had sealed the report when there were shouts in the distance, and one of his servants came running across the grass with news that it was reinforcements from Plymouth at last.

  Into the tent came a tall vigorous young man called Sir Nicholas Clifford. He brought with him, he said, 200 troopers under the command of two experienced captains, and reassurances from Drake that a portion of his fleet would be off the Lizard by dawn. It remained only to concert action here to meet any emergency which the day would bring.

  Captain Poor was wakened, and the two new captains came into the tent for a counsel of war: Because I had been in the tent when they arrived they did not question my presence.

  Nicholas Clifford’s plan was different from Francis Godolphin’s: it was a strategy stemming from strength instead of weakness. If the force of the enemy were no more than four galleys, they should be encouraged to land not prevented. Although they had got fresh water on Wednesday, they had had none since and might now be in need of more. The whole camp should be moved in the night.

  By three we were in transit. By five we were in our new positions. About thirty men armed with pikes and bows guarded the beaches on which the Spanish had tried to land yesterday, the remaining seven hundred of us, including the mounted troopers who had arrived overnight, were out of sight in the valleys of Gulval and Ludgvan. If the enemy landed they could land almost unimpeded. If they ventured into the green country behind the beaches they would be attacked from all sides.

  Clifford reckoned that Drake’s fleet would be in Mount’s Bay by noon or soon after. Seven hours to go.

  From a vantage point in the hills we watched the four black smears offshore grow into the warships we now knew so well. The sky was lightening with more than the dawn. It was to be a better day.

  For a time there was no movement apparent, then the longest galley shook out a sail or two as if trying them against the wind. They were quickly furled. Except by oar, the four warships were incapable of moving out of Mount’s Bay, and unless the slaves were flogged until they died, they would not make open water at all.

  No fires were lighted in our camps, but we saw the men left on the beaches gathering round their fires, and though the morning was not cold we munched bread and cheese and shivered in the wind.

  About eight three small companies which had been sent out to test conditions to the west of us reported that no Spanish remained at Penzance or Mousehole and that the inhabitants were drifting back. Because they had fled at the first alarm casualties had been few.

  By now the day was bright and I watched the sky suspiciously. In this sea-surrounded peninsula changes of weather can be rapid. The wind which had blown from the south-east for twenty-six hours was still strong but was becoming hesitant, lifting and falling in gusts. Broken blue sky let through a fitful sun. The horizon, which had been misty from one cause or another ever since the invasion began, was showing as a hard rim. Complete surprise was now impossible, but if the wind would only hold, the Spaniards were still caught.

  At nine Clifford and Lavelis and four others of whom I was one, rode down the valley to within half a mile of the beach. Where we stopped it was sheltered and Clifford transferred his attention from the galleys to the horizon. Just then I felt a breath of wind on the back of my neck.

  The others must have noticed it a few minutes later for they all looked up, and then Clifford spurred his horse away from the shelter of the trees. The south-east wind had quite dropped and a breeze was springing up from the north-west.

  We galloped cursing to the sea, Clifford near bringing his horse down in his annoyance. By the time we reached the sand three of the galleys were already unfurling their sails. The fourth, the leader, put out its oars and began to nose in towards the land.

  “By God!” muttered Lavelis, “don’t tell me our luck is yet in!”

  The warship came within musket shot. Men were in her bows and one or two of our defenders took aim at them but Clifford sharply held up his hand.

  “Do not for pity’s sake discourage them.”

  The galley swung round and shook out her sails. As she did so about a dozen men dived off her bows and began to swim for shore. Clifford still refused the order to fire, and by the time the first man stumbled shouting upon dry land, the galley was moving out to sea in the freshening breeze. The voices that called to us were English and besought us not to fire. The Spanish captain had chosen to jettison some of his captives, seamen and others taken on his cruise and judged of no further value.

  Their joy on being released was the only reward we had. By eleven all four Spanish ships were hull down on the horizon. It was not until an hour later that the first sail of Drake’s fleet showed.

  Chapter Eight

  From then on the weather set in foul. Through devious sources we heard of the further adventures of the raiding galleys. In mid-channel they came on a fleet of seventy unescorted ketches, hoys and cargo vessels freighting towards Plymouth, and ran amok, scattering the little ships all ways. But one galley which caught five found that even ketches have teeth when cornered, and a bitter fight ensued. Three of the ketches were sunk but the galley was so mauled that as the weather grew steadily worse she was glad to call off the fight and limp away into the mist of the next squall. As night fell her condition grew worse and by morning she was sinking. Her crew were taken off and only three warships returned to Blavet.

  The shock of the landings were great through the country. My father received weekly letters from the Privy Council directing his energies to the training and better equipping of his musters. Drake and Hawkins had word from the Queen that their new adventure must wait until the risk of invasion was past.

  My father and Hannibal Vyvyan jointly replied to the Privy Council that whatever they might do with their musters, such force as they constituted would be little use without powder and shot, and Hannibal Vyvyan went to the length of demanding a new culverin, four demi-culverin and three sakers, He did not get them, but in early August a supply of new muskets arrived together with some powder and ball, and these were sparingly shared out. Then there was a great parade held in one of the fields above Arwenack at which some 250 men, the levies of five parishes, appeared. A motley band, a quarter of them unarmed, the rest no better than those who had met the Spaniards at Penzance. My father was in a fine temper. He had words with Hannibal Vyvyan, and then blew off like a powder magazine at a group of four Penryn burghers who came to complain that his musters were stripping their parish of any defence at all.

  That evening Meg said to me: “I’ve scarce seen you since you come home, Maugan. Does the war fret you s’much?”

  “Enough.”

  “There would—I think there’d be a chance tomorrow. Dick’ll be gone till midnight. If you’ve the mind …”

  “It’s not possible tom
orrow, Meg. I must be beside my father all day.”

  She looked at me searchingly. “You’re not tired of me? Tell me if it be so.”

  “No. No, of course not. Perhaps Saturday. Is Saturday a chance?”

  “I believe Dick’ll be around, but I’ll see.”

  In me end I avoided her until one howling stormy night a week later when, with the thatch nearly lifting over our heads and the tiny window rattling in its socket, I took her in the old upstairs room where we most often met.

  When it was over she said: “I asked if you was tired of me. Maybe I should’ve asked if you hated me.”

  “Hated you? Dear Meg, how could I ever hate you?”

  “Well, what else d’you mean by this sort of love? Tisn’t love with tenderness. Tis love with anger in your heart.” She began to weep.

  I hugged her to me, trying not to weep myself, for all the pleasure I had had with her had turned to ashes because between one meeting and another I had known the girl I loved. I had tried to hide the change in my feelings for Meg by forcing them to a greater intensity, and the outcome had only been to show her the more clearly that my pleasure in her was gone.

  We sat there long, dangerously long, while with all the desperate hypocrisy of someone who is trying to avoid hurting a person they care for, I comforted and cozened her and talked her into half-believing that nothing had changed. Perhaps it would have been kinder over all to have told the truth, to have made a clean break; instead I exerted all the wiles of a professional seducer to save her pride and her love. In the end I all but persuaded myself into believing it.

  But the following day I took horse and rode back to Paul.

  “You shouldn’t have come, Maugan. How did you know where to find me?”

  “You couldn’t live in the shell of your own house: my next call was Trewoofe. Where is your husband now?”

  “In the village. Most of the villagers have nowhere to live, though some are finding shelter at the Keigwins’, whose house was not burned. Jenkin Keigwin, as you know, was killed but his wife and two sons are safe. The rest of the villagers are in tents or in cottages farther afield.”