Raleigh's Page

by Alan Armstrong

  It was a warm afternoon. The tide was flowing. The water moved like a huge brown snake, hissing as it pushed and frothed past Mr. Raleigh’s water gate. It smelled of dead plants, old rope, rot, dead fish. Andrew’s skin crawled at the thought of going in, but Pena was determined.

  They took off their clothes. The steps were moss covered and slippery. Pena went into the water ahead of Andrew. It was cold. It grabbed at the boy’s knees as he balanced on the last step.

  “Fall toward me now,” Pena ordered. “I will catch you.”

  A surge of water knocked Andrew in. He coughed and thrashed as the burly Frenchman made to hold him. He felt himself going down. He couldn’t breathe. The panic of drowning gripped him like a bear crushing its victim.

  “Easy! Easy!” the Frenchman yelled. “You are not so heavy in the water! Now you will lie on your back. I will hold you up. Lie still!”

  Andrew couldn’t. He was howling and flailing, shivering from cold and fear as Pena half-lifted him and turned him over. The boy’s legs and hands were churning and kicking. He couldn’t help himself.

  “No need! No need!” Pena yelled. His hands were under Andrew’s back. “You see, you float, non?”

  “No!” Andrew screamed. “No! No!”

  “Draw your breath and arch your back. Let your hands and feet flutter,” the Frenchman yelled. “Now you float! You do not sink! Look!”

  Laughing, Pena held up his hands. Andrew was almost floating as he gagged and spat out mouthfuls of the awful water. He was struggling, choking, screaming. But he got the trick of it.

  Pena showed him how he could lie steady in the water by flapping his feet and making half circles with his open hands. With Pena’s help, he made it back to the stairs. He was shaking. His feet slipped. He fell back and went under, swallowing a mouthful.

  As Andrew retched and gasped, Pena pushed him onto the worn steps.

  “Now fall in on your own and roll over,” Pena ordered.

  Andrew hesitated. Pena pulled him in.

  “Now kick like the duck,” the man said. “Let your feet work like ducks’ feet.”

  He used a small log floating by to buoy his student as he kicked. Andrew was able to get back to the steps on his own.

  They clambered out.

  Pena made Andrew stand over the cistern again, cold and miserable, his stomach heaving.

  “Observe the frog,” the man said as he dropped a frog into the tank. “Watch how he pulls himself forward with his fronts as he kicks with his rears. You see how he positions his rear legs, drawing them up, out, and in together.

  “You will do this now. I will hold you. Back into the water.”

  They practiced until the skin on Andrew’s fingers was puffy and wrinkled.

  “You do not want to paddle like a dog,” Pena said. “That is too tiring. The way a frog swims, he can rest as he goes. So can you, with the turning over on your back.

  “Give a dog a long distance to swim and he will drown, which is how geese and ducks defend themselves—they let the dog get close and then paddle on, drawing him out and out, and then, voilà! No dog!

  “Today perhaps I save your life.”

  21

  APPEAL TO THE QUEEN

  It was a warm afternoon. The air was sweet with blossoms and the first downed leaves. Durham House was mirrored in the river.

  Andrew was working with Pena, harvesting some of their Spanish seedlings, trying to figure out what they might be good for.

  “First we crush a leaf and a root for smell,” said Pena. “Some of these I know as herbs for seasoning. Too bad we keep no goat here: she could tell us what’s good to eat. A cow, even better; the cow is a more delicate feeder,” Pena explained.

  “Ah! This is good,” Pena said, holding up a root. “Ginger. And this one, sarsaparilla. They flavor their drinks with it. But these—” he said, waving his hand over a pile of wilting plants, “I can make nothing of them. Next year their blooms and fruits will tell us more, yes?

  “There is a tree I look for,” he said. “I hear the Indians in New Spain treat fever with the bark of a tree—but what tree?”

  On his way to bathe, Andrew met Mr. Harriot in the hall.

  “Mr. Raleigh’s just summoned Mr. Hakluyt and your friend Tremayne to come help write an appeal to the Queen to let our expedition sail.”

  “I thought she was for it,” Andrew said.

  “It hangs in the balance. Her advisors fear war with Spain if we go; for her part, she frets at the expense. Many hands reach out; few realize how little she has to give.

  “‘When people arrive at my age,’ she said sourly to Mr. Raleigh, ‘they take all they can get with both hands and only give with the little finger.’

  “‘Your little finger, madam,’ he replied, ‘will do very well for us!’

  “She smiled at that—a good sign. Now we must persuade her to twitch that finger in our favor.”

  When the others arrived, Andrew was called to the turret. Mr. Raleigh’s writing board was awash with books, maps, and papers.

  “Arrange that mess under three trumpets,” Mr. Hakluyt ordered. “‘Riches,’ ‘Faith,’ and ‘Safety.’ Our Queen loves those horns best, so we’re going to blow her such a tune she’ll dance her way to the New World!

  “The first—the loudest—will play to her nose for riches. People in the colony will send her strings of pearls, and perhaps there is gold. We’ll hint but make no promise.

  “We can promise profit in the trade as those people buy our English products and provide the things we now trade with others for—sugar, silk, and emeralds.

  “Our second trumpet will proclaim her chance to bring Reformed Religion to the natives—gentler and kinder than what the Catholic Spaniards practice. They rob and murder their natives and torture to convert; ours will be the true Christian way.

  “The third—the trumpet Safety—will announce a place for vagrants, petty criminals, and enclosure men.

  “Do you know about enclosure men?” he asked.

  “I do,” Andrew muttered. His tone made Mr. Hakluyt look up.

  “Good,” he said drily. “Few at Court seem to.

  “Once you’ve got our papers arranged, you’ll write as Mr. Harriot, Pena, and Tremayne direct—a list of everything the expedition will require. The Queen is England’s frugal housewife. She’ll want to know the quantity and price of everything. Check your addition carefully, for she will!”

  Andrew wrote as the men directed—so many kegs of nails, so many shovels and axes, so many barrels of flour and stockfish, two hundred wool hats, five hundred blankets. They worked for days going over old expedition records and provisioning logs.

  “But what about toys?” Andrew asked suddenly.

  “Toys?” Tremayne and Mr. Harriot exclaimed together. “We’re taking no children. What will the explorers want with toys?”

  “We’ve got gifts for the chiefs and grown people we meet,” Andrew answered. “We’ll want to make their children our friends too. Tops and puzzles, dolls to dress, whistles, toy animals on wheels with strings to pull, hobbyhorses…”

  “But they don’t know horses—or pigs or cattle, for that matter,” Tremayne said.

  Pena looked at Andrew and nodded. “Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “The children might become our first friends and bring the others along.”

  “Perhaps,” said Mr. Harriot after a pause. “Add toys to the list.”

  The next day, they finished drafting and polishing. Their appeal to the Queen—including the list of supplies and toys—ran sixty-three pages.

  Tremayne hurried back to Plymouth.

  William was called to help Andrew write the final copies. Their backs and necks ached as their fingers stained black with ink and the fine sand they used for drying got up their noses and in their hair. They both had cuts where their penknives slipped as they sharpened the quills.

  Mr. Raleigh composed the title page: “A Discourse of Western Planting: Certain reasons to induce Her Maj
esty and the State to take in hand the western voyage and the planting therein.”

  That afternoon, he and Mr. Hakluyt went to Whitehall Palace to present their appeal to the Queen. Mr. Harriot went along in case she had questions about what the explorers might require.

  Late in the day, against all orders for secrecy, in his high excitement Mr. Harriot sent a messenger from the palace with a note for Andrew:

  “It goes! The Queen adventures the ship Tyger and four hundred pounds of the Irish spice—gunpowder from the Tower. More, she lends her name. In an inspiration of flattery, Mr. Raleigh proposed naming the place ‘Virginia’ after her celebrated condition. It is said she smiled, so it is allowed. With her name attached, the colony is more than his venture, it is hers as well, and indeed all England’s. In her pleasure he is now Sir Walter. He has ordered a seal struck with new arms and title, ‘Sir Walter Raleigh, Lord and Governor of Virginia.’ Her Lord Treasurer fought against it all until the Queen in fury told him, ‘I have been strong enough to lift you out of the dirt, and I am still able to cast you down again.’

  “Burn this.”

  Andrew’s hands shook as he folded the note into his pocket. He didn’t burn it. In his excitement he forgot what that news might mean to the Spaniards. He forgot all about Sir Walter’s orders for secrecy. He couldn’t stand still! He had to tell someone! That night, he sent Mr. Harriot’s note on to his father with this scribbled on the outside: “We’re going to Virginia! Get this to Tremayne!”

  Days later, Andrew was dirty and sweating, hoeing squashes with Pena, when he was ordered to the turret. There was no time to wash or change.

  Mr. Harriot was there, ghastly pale, rubbing his hands together, his eyes wide when they met Andrew’s. Sir Walter was darker than the boy had ever seen him.

  “Where is it?” Sir Walter demanded.

  Andrew knew what he meant. His weakness clutched at his chest. He had difficulty getting breath.

  “What, sir?” he stammered at last.

  “The letter Mr. Harriot sent you.”

  A lie flickered. It died on the boy’s tongue.

  “I sent it home,” he panted.

  “So you did,” said Sir Walter, holding up a sheet of paper, “and here’s the copy made by a Spanish agent at Plymouth. Interesting reading for the Spaniards!

  “Why did you do this against my orders?”

  All was over anyway. Andrew spoke his heart, even though it was pounding so hard he thought it would jump out of his chest.

  “Pride, sir. Pride in what we’d done persuading the Queen.”

  Sir Walter gave him a long look. “‘Pride goeth before a fall’ is the maxim,” he muttered.

  Andrew stood straight, his eyes held to Mr. Raleigh’s as he waited to hear him say, “Go!”

  Mr. Raleigh turned away and walked to the window. “Of course they knew it already,” he said. “But out of pride you might someday give them the bit they don’t have, the piece that works as the key.

  “Maybe now you will believe how good their taps are, how thoroughly we are watched.

  “Enough,” he muttered. “You both spoke truly. You’re valuable to the cause. Get back to it, but study to be quiet. And, Andrew,” he added, “this shortness of breath you suffer. It is like your blush. Every actor knows it. When you feel it coming, force yourself to breathe deep before you speak.”

  22

  THE WELL

  Late that fall there were record tides on the Thames. The well at Durham House turned brackish. Sir Walter ordered his engineers to dig it deeper.

  Pena and Andrew were working in the orchard mulching fruit trees. The well was fifty yards away, as large around as a stout man. The engineers were working in shifts, one pumping with a bilge pump, one at the bottom digging and putting his spoil in a bucket, which another raised and lowered when the digger tugged at his line. The fourth man worked perched above the digger, sealing the stonework with mortar. It was dank, dark work.

  Andrew didn’t like tight places. It made him giddy to look down that hole.

  Suddenly he felt the earth tremble. There was a rumbling noise, then shouts. The well had caved! The men on top were hauling the sealer out, his head gushing blood. The bottom-most man was trapped, and the narrowed hole was filling with water. The engineers were rushing about, screaming for help.

  “Reset your pipes!” Pena ordered. “Pump! Pump hard!”

  He looked at Andrew. “No one else is thin enough to get down. You must go see if he is alive. If he is, dig him out!”

  “Me?” Andrew whispered. He had no voice.

  “You!” roared Pena. “Be quick!”

  The boy was lowered in harness with a trowel. The spoils bucket followed overhead. As he sank into darkness, he struggled to gulp air.

  The man below him was stuck in a weight of clay and stone. Andrew could hear his groans, but it was too dark to make out his face.

  “I…can’t…breathe,” the man panted. “My chest, my shoulder…”

  “Courage!” Andrew called. He was acting now, playing at being someone else, someone brave.

  “Courage!” the man gasped as Andrew reached him and began scraping away the mass at his chest. The man’s right arm was twisted at an odd angle.

  For hours the boy dug and loaded stone and wet clay. The space was so close he could make only small movements. His arms grew numb, but the cheers from above that greeted every bucket he sent up inspired his working.

  The men on top lowered mugs of beer in the empty spoils bucket. The pumpers kept the water down.

  At last the man was clear almost to his waist, but he was still in too deep for the men above to draw him out without tearing his joints. It had gone from dark to black in the hole.

  Suddenly a small circle of warm orange light staggered down. The light revealed Andrew and the trapped man to each other for the first time. They tried to smile at each other through sweat and grime. Mr. Harriot had ordered a fire built and rigged his mirrors and lenses to cast a beam. It was not large, but it was everything.

  When Andrew had cleared the man to his knees, he gave the signal that they should try to lift him. The man screamed as the rope pulled at his hurts. The muck gave him up with an ugly sucking noise. As they hoisted Andrew clear, he followed.

  Mr. Harriot helped unhitch Andrew’s harness and wrapped him in a blanket. After seeing to the engineer, Sir Walter joined them.

  “Will he be all right?” Andrew asked.

  “I snapped his shoulder back in place,” Sir Walter said. “He’s bruised and cut, but, yes, he’ll be all right. I gave him a drop of Doctor Dee’s opium tincture to ease his pain. He’s sleeping now.”

  He gave Andrew a long look. “I was sixteen when I first killed a man,” he said slowly. “I was twenty before I saved one. You’re earlier at saving.

  “Your father once saved me from drowning. Did you know that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Sir Walter nodded. “You do well keeping to yourself. Few learn to. Mr. Harriot has remarked that about you.

  “He says he needs your help getting ready for Virginia and writing his reports when he gets there. We all know about his writing, so I’ve agreed you may serve him as secretary, beginning now. In Virginia you will go with him everywhere he goes and write as he directs—gathering notes for our advertisement for Virginia. He’ll pay you a wage and supply your kit.”

  Sir Walter must have noticed a change in Andrew’s face.

  “Your work for him as secretary counts for more than being my page,” he said gently. “Do you understand that?”

  “Yes…sir,” Andrew stammered. How could he explain that while he was glad for the promotion, Sir Walter was the man he admired most in the world and he didn’t want to leave his service?

  He didn’t need to explain. Sir Walter smiled and gave him a friendly pat. “We’ll do things together again when you get back. I promise!”

  23

  THE TWO INDIANS

  Late that night Mr
. Harriot came to the dormitory and shook Andrew awake.

  “Sir Walter calls us,” he whispered, his voice charged. “It’s the exploring captains to America. They’ve arrived with two Indians!”

  William heard. He sat up and waved as Andrew went out.

  James was lighting torches in the main hall, where sailors trundled in crates and trunks. Sir Walter’s turret was bright with candles. The two sailing captains, dressed in their best silks, sat beside Sir Walter. Two Indians wearing deerskin capes squatted on the bare floor. They were not tied. There were no guards.

  As he slipped in behind Mr. Harriot, Andrew caught the eye of the closer Indian. There was worry and curiosity in it, but no fear.

  “We found a secret island, thick with trees and overgrown with grapes,” the older captain was saying. “The people are gentle and so eager to trade; one copper pot buys ten fine deerskins. They have pearls,” he said, handing a string to Sir Walter.

  “The chief we met wore it to show his wealth and power. We traded a small copper kettle to get it for the Queen.”

  “Large as berries, they are,” Sir Walter said as he weighed it. “This will please her—pearls are her favorite jewel. But go on—the island…”

  “Roanoke is well hidden, with rough shallows all around,” the man continued. “We left a fort for your use—a frame of wood and earth behind a good ditch.”

  Andrew barely heard as he stared at the Indians. They sat motionless. They looked to be about eighteen, the color of rubbed bronze. Their heads were shaved clean, save for a ridge of stiff black hair that ran from forehead to neck. They were well muscled, not tall. Were they prisoners?

  Their eyes were on Sir Walter. Their stares drew his.

  “Mr. Harriot, you and Andrew will learn their language,” he ordered. “See to their comforts as you help them understand how we live. Ask what they find strange. Ask every question you can think of: Is there gold? Do they know a way to the Pacific Sea? What do they eat? What are their medicines? What is their religion? Learn about their people, how they live. Andrew will write down their answers.”