“I do wonder,” said Billy, “what those clothes and sacks of food might be for.”
“Do you, indeed?” asked Drake. “And well might you. Well might you indeed.”
Drake grinned, mockingly applauding Billy, and said nothing else. Then he winked, and Billy carefully framed a half-smile back. Clearly, he was supposed to know what Drake was talking about. Equally clearly, he did not.
Billy learned quickly, about sails, trims, and a clean deck, and about the loading and unloading of cannon, which they practiced incessantly until Hawkyns was satisfied they could launch a broadside in short order. Many of the sailors muttered at this. “We’re here to trade, not to fight,” grumbled William Cornelius. “What the bloody hell are we training like soldiers for?”
“There’s Spaniards everywhere,” pointed out Morgan Tillert. “We’ll need to act like soldiers if one of those Papist bastards sets his ship on us.”
While they grumbled, Billy learned every line and curve on his own Bloody Mary, and she took it upon herself to burn his fingers in three places and his arm in two before they eventually reached a common understanding.
Hellfire and damnation were much in mind on board the Jesus. Every morning, the men would gather on the deck for a service of half an hour, and Hawkyns or the ship’s master, Robert Barrett, would read from the prayer book. Every evening the crew would gather again to kneel around the mainmast while psalms and prayers were read out, normally by the quartermaster, William Sanders, a vicious Lutheran who would whip those not kneeling in good time with a thick rope. The master, Barrett, was almost as full of religion as Sanders, carrying his prayer book with him everywhere he went. Billy, who took religious instruction from his wife and father-in-law and whose learned Protestantism was mixed with a good deal of remembered Catholic instinct, remained practical—he followed the accepted rituals, and kept to himself whatever Roman impulses might remain within him. There were Catholics onboard, including among the gentlemen accompanying Hawkyns, but they kept quiet about their religion, and the old Hanseatic ship burned with Protestant fervor as it cut its way through the waves.
Three days out from Plymouth, Billy learned a great deal more about life at sea, and quickly too, when a huge storm came out of the northeast and battered the Jesus for an entire night, the waves higher than the castles fore and aft. Many of the men were convinced that the top-heavy vessel would tip over just as the old Mary Rose had done and send them tumbling into the wild Atlantic off Finisterre. The night passed in a freezing, sodden blur of activity, fear, and exhaustion. The following morning, the Swallow had disappeared from the fleet. The inexperienced sailors kept an informal watch over the sea to try to find them, while the more experienced turned back into the ship and kept busy, muttering to themselves. A loss so early. Dark theories were voiced about Hawkyns’s apparent lack of luck, a commodity which admirals were commonly held to need in abundance.
What remained of the fleet drew itself together and continued, out into the Bay of Biscay and down the coast of France. The following night the mood lifted again when the Swallow was rediscovered, thirty miles off Finisterre, and the mutterings about Hawkyns’s luck ended. To find the Swallow again so soon after losing her felt like a divine benediction, as Mr. Barrett made clear in his peroration from the mainmast the following morning. Days later, the fleet stopped for supplies and post-storm maintenance in Ferrol, in Galicia. Billy stepped ashore with Drake after two days of scrubbing and more counting of supplies on the Jesus. When Billy’s tired feet did make it onto the Ferrol quayside his dull, lifeless head took a few moments to recognize two salient facts: that the land now felt more wobbly than the sea; and that this land was Spanish—was foreign, was not England.
A momentary panic set in, as he looked around the little harbor (little by Plymouth standards, in any case), expecting conquistadores in dagger-like helmets to emerge from the surrounding stores and bars and boardinghouses. Wasn’t Spain the enemy? Wasn’t the King the former husband of Bloody Mary, killer of Protestants and hounder of, among others, his father? Shouldn’t he be killing Spaniards?
Drake, smiling at the world as ever and smiling particularly cruelly at the obviously perplexed Billy, found them a bar and sat them down. He sipped from a jug of local wine, squeezed the buttock of the young girl serving them, and settled down for a history lesson.
“We hate Spaniards,” he explained. “The Spaniard is a cruel, low-to-the-earth creature of base appetites and gargantuan ambition. We will singe their beards and steal their gold, we will make merry with their riches and lay their beautiful olive-skinned lasses over our legs. But while we make merry in this way, our Queen must play her own, very different part. She must dine and drink and flirt with the Spanish ambassador in England. She must at all times give the impression that England wants nothing more than to be stroked by her Spanish masters.
“While the Spaniard thinks that, we are safe. But if the Spaniard is roused, if he once organizes himself into a fighting force, it will be a fearsome thing. But it will also be idiotic. The Spanish control everything from Madrid. They run the place on fear and on a rigid rulebook. No Spanish commander can so much as sneeze without having orders in triplicate from his King in Madrid. As if a king could know how to stop a ship from going down, or a company of soldiers from running away! We English are allowed a sight more leeway, thank the Lord. Our Queen does not wish to be a naval captain. She has men like Hawkyns to do that for her. Men with initiative, with brains and with ambition. Men who will slice you up without hesitation, but only if slicing you up is more rewarding than keeping you in one piece.
“So for now we lead the Spaniard a merry dance. Some of us hound their ships, but never officially, always in such a way that Elizabeth can flutter her glorious eyelids at the Spanish hound who attends her court, and can simper her innocence into his stinking unclean ears. While Spain believes England is fuckable, they will forgo fucking her. If you get my meaning.”
Initiative, brains, ambition.
Billy felt a sense of excitement, even entitlement. Didn’t he have all those qualities, and in abundance? Didn’t he thus deserve everything that was coming to an adventuring Englishman with his eye on the horizon and on the main chance?
Drake enjoyed his days in Ferrol, and Billy enjoyed being his companion. Drake had an inexhaustible capacity to charm barmaids and find small change to pay for drinks. Once, Billy caught Drake smirking to himself and tossing a small handful of coins in his hand, just after they had passed through a crowd of well-to-do Spanish traders. A man of high skill and flexible morality, was Francis Drake.
“Hawkyns is a master of action and exploit,” Drake said one day, while the two shared yet another bottle of Galician wine (Billy had developed a taste for wine in only a few days of trying—the tankards of cider and ale seemed a long way behind him). “But his genius for adventure is exceeded only by his self-regard. He is motivated solely by greed and the desire for self-aggrandizement. He will come to a sticky end, mark my words, young William.”
Drake had taken to calling Billy “young William,” even though they were the same age, but Billy accepted it, in recognition of Drake’s higher social standing and his obvious experience as a seaman. In any case, Drake’s elaborate, dramatic language, which made everything he said sound like it was being readied for immortality within the form of a sonnet or perhaps one of the new dramas, demanded he adopt such arch conventions of speech.
Drake took little interest in Billy’s reasons for being on the trip, other than recognizing that Billy seemed solely motivated by money. Billy’s questions always returned to this subject: what were they to trade? How much return could be expected? Drake just smiled when this question was asked, and gently mocked Billy for his stupidity and lack of imagination. Wasn’t it obvious what they were going to trade? And as for the return, who could possibly tell, given that they were the first Englishmen to try it?
The ships left Ferrol and sailed out into the Atlantic, leaving Po
rtugal on their larboard. They sailed south-southwest almost a thousand miles, and Billy began to find both his sea legs and his sense of distance. They passed Madeira off to starboard, and almost two weeks after leaving Ferrol, at the end of the first week in November, they were off Tenerife.
The little fleet anchored off the harbor of Adeje, and Hawkyns was lowered in a boat from the Jesus and rowed to the shore. A group of men could be seen waiting for him there, and after some shouting between the boat and the men on the shore the admiral was rowed up onto the beach. Drake and Billy watched them, and Drake pointed toward the eastern horizon. “Africa,” he said. There was nothing visible, but just the sound of the word caused an immensity to shimmer just over the brim of the world, as if Drake had conjured the continent into reality just by saying its name.
There followed another hiatus, seven days of fixing and repairing but also of exploration. Billy and Drake continued their drinking sessions, discovering the local wine was even more palatable and sun-drenched than that of Galicia. They also discovered the girls of Tenerife, who seemed at once terrified and fascinated by the English interlopers. Drake fucked his way around three different girls in a week, but Billy was happy to just sit with them up on the hillside and listen to them giggle as he told them about Kate and Stanton St. John, using words they didn’t understand, his face lit by the fires in the harbor below and by the Atlantic starlight.
During the stay, one man from the island was a frequent visitor to the Jesus, a wealthy individual who came onboard when they’d first arrived in Adeje and whose welcome from Hawkyns was warm and familiar. “Pedro de Ponte,” said Drake when Billy asked while they rested on the hillside. “He’s Hawkyns’s agent on the island. They go back years. De Ponte’s got his fingers all over this island: sugar plantation, fort, position on the council. His position here’s much like the one the admiral holds back in Plymouth.”
“But why does Hawkyns need an agent in Tenerife?”
“Well, perhaps agent isn’t quite the way to describe him. He’s a contact, a friend. Maybe even a little bit of a spy. There’s talk that Hawkyns has been schooling de Ponte in the new religion. And de Ponte’s the one who put the idea of going to Africa into Hawkyns’s head in the first place. He’s got some experience of finding and harvesting African treasure.”
“Treasure?”
“Really, young William. You are quite the biggest idiot I have ever encountered. Now, pass that wine, and let’s go and find some girls.”
After a week, the fleet sailed to Santa Cruz, and de Ponte sailed with them as a guest in the admiral’s cabin. No explanation of his presence on the Jesus was given, nor was there any apparent reason for sailing sixty miles north from Adeje, where all the supplies needed for the trip were readily available. On the first night in Santa Cruz, Hawkyns and de Ponte and several other gentlemen from the ship were rowed ashore with half a dozen mysterious boxes which Billy hadn’t seen before, and which did not come back with them when they returned to the ship. Even Drake didn’t pretend to know what might be in those crates.
The next day, a shout went up from the watch, and Hawkyns came out on deck, with de Ponte, to see what had raised the alert. A pinnace was approaching the Jesus, and in it were a group of dark-robed figures which glided straight out of the Protestant tales English mothers told their misbehaving children. The Inquisition had arrived.
There were six of them (one for each of those mysterious crates, Billy thought to himself), and they climbed up onto the deck with some difficulty, their heavy robes an impediment to movement on the ship. Hawkyns came forward to greet them, and the crew watched sullenly as this unwelcome intrusion played out, their bones tingling with a fierce but anxious Protestant energy. The dark-robed figures were introduced and spoke to Hawkyns, with de Ponte acting as interpreter. The crew could hear very little of what was said. For Billy the worst part of the whole episode was the tense expression on Drake’s face. Billy had never seen him look so worried.
A document was left with Hawkyns, served upon him by one of the black-robed figures with a good deal of threatening ceremony. Then the black-robed figures spread out and began to search the vessel. Hawkyns stepped up to the quarterdeck and spoke to the crew.
“Leave these creatures to do their work,” he said, and his voice, like Drake’s face, was tight. “We are accused of smuggling religious materials from England onto the island. There are no such materials on this ship, and thus none will be found. Let these inquisitors do their searching, and then they will be gone. I wish to have no fight with the officials on this island. Our mission is too important to allow us to be distracted by the interruptions of such as these.”
Beside him, de Ponte followed the black-robed figures with his eyes. Billy thought again of the crates on the boat the night before. The inquisitors passed through the ship, and in most cases the crewmen gave them plenty of room, as if they were leprous and infectious. Morgan Tillert, though, stood his ground against one, forcing the inquisitor to go around him. Tillert’s fierce wide Welsh face paled as the inquisitor whispered some Latin mysteries into his ear as he passed.
After a half-hour the inquisitors regrouped on the deck and waved de Ponte to come to them. The supposedly all-powerful merchant and politician scurried toward them like a small boy caught stealing apples. One of the inquisitors spoke to him in the local language, and de Ponte looked even more worried, if such a thing were possible. Then the inquisitors turned and climbed down to their pinnace, which was soon heading back to land, the black robes within like a pool of oil crossing the surface of the waters. Within minutes, de Ponte had climbed down into his own boat, and the order to weigh anchor was given. The Hawkyns fleet sailed away from Santa Cruz, like a dog which had been slapped by its angry owner. The incident was never spoken of again.
10 DECEMBER 1811
Charles Horton chooses a seat at the back for the coroner’s inquest, within the dark wood shadows of the Jolly Sailor. The upstairs room of the alehouse is appropriately gloomy for the purpose to which it is now being put, and its unlit edges mean it is a simple matter for Horton to slip in unnoticed by the people already there—the Shadwell magistrates, along with a few other officials and the witnesses. There are already a number of local people, some of whom Horton recognizes, though he does not approach them.
He is here to watch proceedings rather than to participate in them. He has a great capacity for watching, does Waterman-Constable Charles Horton. It can drive his wife Abigail to distraction, those times when they are out walking and she catches his eye straying across the faces of those around them, taking them in, filing them away, apparently not listening to her but nonetheless still attentive. She can never catch him out. What was I saying? she will demand with mock asperity, and he will turn his eyes back on her and tell her just precisely what she was saying, a smile at the edges of his mouth.
There is a low but excited chatter inside the room. A man in old-fashioned breeches and tailcoat wearing an ancient powdered wig which makes him look like Dr. Johnson (he could be, thinks Horton, an impoverished relation of Magistrate John Harriott) is preparing the table for the coroner, and he glances nervously at the growing number of local people filing in. His bovine, jowly face makes it clear what he is thinking: Don’t let any more of those people out there in here. Those people are not like us. They do not recognize the sanctity of officialdom.
This much is true—the people of Wapping are certainly not behaving as if a great evil has been perpetrated in their midst. Or rather, their reaction is not that which is approved of or desired by the official agencies, which have only the shakiest of grips on the teeming little streets around both the Gravel Lanes and the Highway. Outside the Jolly Sailor the atmosphere is wild and excitable, and Constable Horton understands that the murders have, for these people, offered a break from the mundane. There is something of a party spirit in the air, the vast crowds chattering and laughing even while women turn pale and cry on each other’s shoulders.
/> Horton has seen something much like this before. Not here in Wapping, but out on the Nore, the ancient estuary mustering point for the navy. 1797, and the crowds were gathering then, too, this time to watch the establishment take its just and timely revenge on the mutineer Richard Parker, leader of a small fleet of navy vessels which, for a few weeks, had appeared to have their callused hands around Great Britain’s windpipe. The Wapping crowd milling outside looks much like that crowd had looked to Horton when, as second lieutenant on the Sandwich, he had stood standing on deck, his gut filled with guilt and fear and remorse, as they hanged Parker from the yardarm on a specially built platform protruding out from the cathead. The ship’s crew—or rather, what was left of it once the mutiny’s ringleaders had been identified and taken away based on information from their shipmates (thus, the remorse in the young Charles Horton)—had come out on deck into the June sunshine, and Horton had looked toward the Sheerness shore to see the ramshackle scaffolds that had been put up to allow people to sit and watch the execution. They were heaving with humanity, those scaffolds, gentlemen and ladies jostling with watermen and dockers and sailors and farmers’ wives, all craning their necks to get a glimpse of the monstrous Parker, who must have been little more than a stick figure to them, such was the distance. But, Horton now knows, people need to feel a part of something, of some common undertaking, and the execution of a miscreant feels like an act of social commonwealth. Look at him, and look at us, the crowds seemed to say then. He is not like us. He is not one of us.
Parker hadn’t disappointed them. His wife, delayed by the tide, had pulled alongside the Sandwich in a rowing boat just as the moment of execution arrived, and she had called out to him. Somehow her clear voice had carried across the water, perhaps thanks to a romantically inclined God who had changed the direction of the wind. The hanging hood had not yet been pulled over Parker’s eyes, and at the sound of her voice he had shouted something guttural and imprecise and had sprung forward and out from the cathead, before the final signal for his hanging had been given, before the crowd on the shore was ready. It was a final act of defiance which made the seamen on the mutinous ships look down at their respective decks and silently, sullenly applaud this final act of pointless yet somehow marvelous rebellion.
The English Monster Page 7
