The Enterprise of England

by Ann Swinfen

  ‘Well, Dr Alvarez, not long now.’

  The captain came to stand beside me. He looked exhausted, but calm. ‘See that glow over there?’ He raised his arm and pointed over the starboard bow. ‘That’s the old Roman lighthouse at Dover. They keep a brazier burning there as a signal. We’ll be there in an hour. Two at most. And the wind is slackening. It often does at dawn.’

  To me the wind seemed to blow as fiercely as ever, and the rain was falling more heavily, but I fixed my eyes on that distant watch-fire. We had come through battle, storm, and sea. We were nearly home.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I stayed at Dover only long enough to change into dry clothes, eat a hearty soldier’s breakfast and bespeak a post horse. Andrew and his men had already received their orders. As soon as they were equipped and mounted, they were to ride to the Essex coast and stand guard in case the Spaniards, moving north, attempted a landing at one of the ports there. I could have waited to have their company on the way to London, but using post horses I would travel faster and I was anxious both to report to Sir Francis and to go home to my father.

  Andrew and I parted in the castle stables.

  ‘Next time you plan one of your dangerous ventures,’ he said, ‘give me fair warning, so that I can ride in the opposite direction.’

  I laughed. ‘I do not choose them.’

  He gave me a wry smile. ‘They seem to seek you out.’

  ‘I am going back to the quiet, calm work I am trained for. Mending the bodies of the sick and injured.’

  ‘Aye, I have reason enough to be grateful for that. How is our injured sailor?’

  ‘Well enough. I have left him in the hands of the army physicians. They think no harm has come to the limb, for all the tossing we took on the way home.’

  ‘I hope I never have to make a sea journey like that again.’

  He groaned and shook his head. ‘I thought the ship would break in half.’

  Secretly I’d had much the same thought myself, but I mocked his fears and we parted with laughter.

  I stopped about ten miles south of London for the night and reached Seething Lane early the next morning, where I was called immediately into Sir Francis’s office together with Phelippes, to give an account of all that had happened in Amsterdam and of my small part in the sea battle off Gravelines. They had already received the report I had sent ahead from Amsterdam, and Sir Francis had spoken to Sir John Norreys about the treason of Parker and van Leyden, but I was able to answer their questions about such details as were unknown to Sir John.

  When at last I was free to go, I decided to take a wherry upriver, to save time. There was the usual cluster of boats at the Custom quays, and I picked a wherryman I knew to be a speedy oarsman, who kept his boat upstream of the Bridge. As he rowed, we spoke of the Armada. He was one of those wherrymen who had volunteered to serve in our scratch navy and had been at Gravelines, but his ship had lost its mainmast and returned to Gravesend for repairs.

  ‘I’m not sorry to be back in London,’ he said. ‘Those sailors live like pigs. If our ship hadn’t been damaged, I’d still be sleeping on some gundeck out in the German Ocean, eating pig swill. And never a farthing of pay yet.’

  The London wherrymen are known for their gloom and grumbles, but I had some sympathy with this.

  ‘Surely they will pay you soon,’ I said, ‘once the Spanish ships are finally seen off and the ships stood down.’

  He gave a sarcastic snort and made a few pithy comments about fine gentlemen who used their ships to plunder and make their fortunes, while others endured enemy fire – a remark aimed at Drake’s latest exploits.

  After landing at Blackfriars Stairs, I made my way quickly to Duck Lane. The sun beat down on the nearby shambles in Smithfield, sending the stench of blood and ordure wafting over this whole part of London, even smothering the more delectable odours from Pie Corner of fresh-baked pastry and good beef gravy.

  The door of our house stood open to admit a little air, for it could become very close at the height of summer, and I was still some yards away when a tawny shape of fur and solid muscle flew down the steps and hurled itself at me so hard I fell backwards onto the packed dirt of the street. Before I could stop him, Rikki had bathed my face with a loving and very wet tongue.

  ‘Get down, you mad creature!’ I said, struggling with some difficulty to my feet.

  My father was standing in the doorway, his face alight with laughter.

  ‘He has missed you.’

  ‘As I have missed all of you. Over a month it has been.’

  ‘Aye.’ He put his arm around my shoulders and drew me inside, Rikki weaving about our legs and nearly tripping me up again.

  I took up once again my divided life between the hospital and Phelippes’s office. It was as though I was two completely different people – the quiet physician, going about a worthy calling, and the ambiguous agent in Walsingham’s service. Even in the office I could hardly reconcile either persona with a reckless house-breaker and adventurer. The events in the Low Countries began to take on the atmosphere of a dream. At Seething Lane we were the first to receive all the intelligence relating to the Spanish fleet, as the scattered ships hobbled northwards. The Spaniards made no attempt to land in Essex or elsewhere along the east coast.

  The reports of their retreat moved even that cool and imperturbable man Walsingham to tears.

  ‘Almighty God sent a great wind from the southwest which broke and scattered that arrogant Armada to the four winds,’ he said. ‘Victory at last is ours.’

  Soon it was on everyone’s lips: ‘He blew with His winds, and they were scattered.’

  God, it seemed, was on our side. The Enterprise of England had become England’s victorious enterprise.

  I could not quite trust the victory, although Sir Francis seemed convinced of it. For weeks afterwards word came in – and was discussed eagerly in the hospital and on the streets – that limping and broken Spanish ships had been sighted in the German Sea off the Wash, then far to the north rounding the top of Scotland, and finally wrecked in the wild Atlantic waters off Ireland. I do not know how many survived to return home, but the bodies of the Spanish dead and the wreckage of their ships washed up on our shores for months. Stories from Ireland were wildly different. Some said that the Irish had cut down the Spanish sailors as they struggled ashore from their wrecked ships, so that the very breakers of the Atlantic turned crimson with their life blood. Other stories, more worrying to Sir Francis, held that the Irish had welcomed their Catholic brothers with open arms and were mustering an army with them to attack England across the Irish sea. Whatever the truth of it, no invasion seemed imminent, as far as the agents in Ireland reported.

  Our ships returned to their ports once the Armada had vanished into the north, but hidden behind the general rejoicing a grim shadow lurked. The men of our fleet had sustained the usual battle injuries, but the gods of war had laid a different curse on the victorious soldiers and sailors. A man would come ashore from his ship, join his friends for a drink at an inn, then collapse in the street and die within hours. There was no warning. No visible symptoms marked out those who were doomed from those who were untouched. Two men might share the same meals, fall asleep in adjacent hammocks. In the morning one would wake, the other lie stiff and cold. Whispers of witchcraft ran darkly through the streets. Others saw the hand of God in this. Had we become too arrogant in our victory? Or – whispered amongst those who still inclined to the old faith – was the Pope’s blessing upon the Spanish attack bringing down on us a righteous punishment? Witchcraft, retribution or natural disaster, the outcome was the same. Men were dying, and dying in large numbers.

  The morning after a number of the ships were reported to have berthed at Deptford, my father received a message from the authorities at St Bartholomew’s.

  ‘You must pack your satchel, Kit,’ he said. ‘We are sent to Deptford to treat the sickness which is spreading amongst the men. Bring all we have of febrif
uge medicines and tincture of poppy for the relief of pain.’

  He was packing his own satchel as he spoke.

  ‘What are the symptoms?’ I asked, as I secured cork stoppers with wax and then wrapped the glass bottles in rags for safety.

  He shook his head.

  ‘From all I have heard, no one can be sure. Only that those afflicted are seized with raging fever as if they would catch on fire, and the pains they suffer are acute, so severe that some have leapt into the river to seek death, as the only way to escape.’

  I shuddered. ‘I heard that some have simply been found dead and cold in their beds, with no sign of illness at all.’

  He nodded. ‘Whether these are two different forms of the sickness, or two completely different afflictions, who can tell? It cannot be the plague, for there are no marks of the plague on them.’

  That was one hopeful sign, for the plague could sweep through London in days, mowing down all before it.

  ‘And it is only the men from our fleet who are affected?’

  ‘Aye. Sailors and soldiers both.’

  ‘Gentlemen and officers as well?’

  ‘I have not heard so.’

  ‘Could it have come from the common men’s food?’

  ‘Perhaps. Yes, that’s well thought of, Kit. It might be wise to take vomitories and enemas as well. Though I have not heard that there have been signs of food poisoning.’

  I reached down the additional medicines from the cupboard. If it was food poisoning, surely all of the men would have been seized with the illness. Still, best to be prepared.

  He took out a handkerchief and mopped his face. ‘Are you ready?’

  I nodded and shouldered my satchel. We left Joan instructions for the next few days, not knowing when we might return, and I warned that I would expect Rikki to be fed and cared for. If he was not, she should answer for it. We turned our backs on our house and made our way down to the river.

  The summer heat had continued stifling in Duck Lane and on the wherry the slight breeze over the river brought welcome relief. My father wiped his face again.

  ‘Are you well, Father?’

  He did his best to smile. ‘I find the heat more trying as I grow older. I will soon feel better in this cooler air.’

  I frowned. I had never known him mind the heat before. Indeed England’s weather was far milder than the summer’s heat we had left behind in Portugal. He was more apt to complain of the cold in an English winter. Whatever was afflicting the men at Deptford, I hoped it would not be infectious, for my father did not look well.

  All too soon the trip down river was over and we found ourselves amongst the ships moored five or six abreast along the quayside. The quays themselves were eerily deserted and at first we could find no officer, but at last an elderly man in clerical dress, disembarking from the nearest ship, directed us to a small building, hardly more than a shed, where we found a harassed-looking junior officer who appeared to be the only person in charge.

  ‘Physicians from St Bartholomew’s? The Lord be praised,’ he said. He had removed his ruff which lay, grubby and creased, on a table amongst a pile of documents. He has loosened his shirt strings and his hair was unkempt as a neglected birds’ nest. He looked as though he had not slept for many nights.

  ‘Not that there is much you can do,’ he said. ‘They are dying almost before we know they are sick. Even on the few ships still patrolling the coast, in case of further attack, men are dying. Every day we have word of men buried at sea. With these crews berthed here at Deptford I am trying to send as many home as can walk.’

  He gestured towards the documents. Discharge papers, I guessed.

  ‘But some of those who are well will not leave until they are paid, and no pay has come for them yet.’

  ‘What? They defeated the Spaniards, but they have not been paid?’ My father was incredulous.

  The man shrugged. He looked at though it did not surprise him. ‘Quarrels amongst those who must find the coin, I suppose,’ he said. ‘No one gave thought to pay when we were mustering for war.’

  ‘But if you send sick men out into the country,’ I objected, ‘you may spread this disease even further. It could ravage every village and town in England.’

  He shrugged again. ‘I cannot help that. We cannot feed them and I’ve been ordered to dismiss them.’

  It sounded as though these men were being treated as mere parcels of inanimate goods. They had served their purpose, and now there was no more need of them.

  ‘Where are they, the sick men?’ my father asked.

  ‘Sick and well, they’re still on board the ships. We have nowhere else to put them.’

  And so began our grim task of treating the heroes of the Armada. The sick men were lodged in hammocks strung between the cannon on the gun decks; those not yet struck down squatted anywhere they could find space, playing cards, dicing or throwing the knucklebones.

  It quickly became clear that we were dealing with two illnesses. It addition to the mysterious affliction, there were many obvious cases of the bloody flux.

  ‘The wisest course,’ my father said, ‘would be to separate the cases.’ He looked about him in despair at the men all crowded together, sick hugger-mugger with well. His shoulders sagged defeatedly. We were standing on the gundeck of a large warship, a galleon carrying forty demi-culverins.

  ‘I’ll talk to the men who are yet unaffected,’ I said.

  For years I had followed my father, taking my lead from him, but I realised now that I must act for myself. My father was simply too tired to confront what seemed a task far beyond our capabilities. I had noticed a big man of middle years to whom the others seemed in some ways to defer. He had a broad, sensible countenance and a quiet manner. I asked his name.

  ‘Tom Barley at your service, Doctor.’ He gave me the ghost of a smile. ‘Not that there is much service I can do you.’

  ‘That is where you are wrong,’ I said. ‘We need to separate the men. Move those with the flux aside to separate them from those with this other sickness. And I want the men who are well kept away from those who are sick.’

  ‘There’s nowhere else for us to go, Master.’

  ‘Why not up on deck? It’s summer weather. It’s cooler up there and you will be in less danger of the sickness. Is there spare canvas? You could rig up a shelter to protect you from the sun.’

  He grinned. ‘The officers won’t allow that. This is where we must stay. Orders.’

  ‘There are no officers,’ I said bluntly. ‘They have taken themselves off.’

  ‘No wonder. They’ll not be wanting the sickness, and no blame to them.’

  ‘Then I will override their orders,’ I said. ‘Can you and the others here,’ I gestured towards the men playing cards, ‘help me move the men with the flux? They can probably walk, but they will be weak. And I’ll need some to help to clean this place.’

  The stench from vomit and diarrhoea was overpowering. I could not understand how they had endured it so long. Why had they not taken some action themselves?

  With Tom Barley’s help and the eventual, if reluctant, assistance of the others, I managed to move the flux victims to the far end of the gun deck, so that there was at least some space between the two groups. The men fetched buckets and mops to swab the deck and I persuaded them to open the gun ports so that the cleansing breeze could flow through, although some swore they would be punished for acting without orders from their officers. When the gundeck was clean, Tom Barley and another sailor found some spare sails and set the men to erecting a canvas shelter up on deck.

  While my father began to treat the flux victims and to give what relief he could to the others, I went with Tom and three other fit men to visit ship after ship, to try to create some order out of the hellish chaos. On some ships the men were willing, on others there was hardly a man left standing, and the sick stared at me with the dull hopeless look of those who can see Death coming, his sickle already glinting in the corner of their eye
s.

  And so began our long exhausting days at Deptford. It was fruitless and dispiriting, for the illness, whatever it was, sprang up without apparent cause and we could do little except relieve the terrible fevers which affected the patients and comfort their dying moments. One moment a man would be raging at the heat, throwing aside any bedding, begging for water, the next he would be shaking, crying out that his limbs were frozen. Though his teeth chattered, sweat poured off his brow. The ships echoed with their howls of pain and their hacking coughs. Some imagined they saw snakes dropping from the beams above them, others screamed that monstrous spiders were crawling all over them. Those who lived more than a half a day began to develop a rash, though most died within hours. The worst was the pain they suffered. Headaches which seemed to blow their brains apart, agony in all their joints.

  On the third day, as we paused briefly to drink some small ale and eat a pasty which had been sent down to us from the hospital, my father said, ‘I think it is a form of typhus, though it is far worse than any I have seen before.’ He looked resigned.

  The diagnosis was not much help to us, for there was no cure. Either the body was strong enough to fight it off or – more often – it succumbed. However, separating the patients may have helped check the spread of the illness. As those with less serious cases of the flux recovered, we sent them to lodge with the fit men up on the open deck. Those who were weaker either died of the flux or contracted the typhus. Tom Barley had appointed himself our lieutenant, helping with some of the treatments, going with us from ship to ship to ensure the men obeyed orders. He also went with me to the shed on the quayside, where I demanded better rations for the men, who were down to maggot-ridden ship’s biscuit and rancid water. No help was forthcoming there, but I sent a letter to Walsingham, begging him to use his influence, and gradually some better stores arrived – fresh bread, ale, some cheap cuts of meat, and a couple of barrels of salted herrings.