The Silver Skull

by Mark Chadbourn

  “Is Swyfte out there, somewhere, aboard one of those enemy ships, I wonder?” Carpenter said as he watched the dense fleet begin to attack. “What irony to be blown to pieces by your own countrymen after risking so much.” He struggled with his conflicted emotions and then said, “Let us go below deck. It will be safer there, until we are needed.”

  “Are you sure?” Launceston asked with an odd tone.

  Flushed, his eyes blazing, Drake was consumed by the moment. As the Revenge raced towards the fray, it seemed to Carpenter that the fleet’s vice admiral was overcome by a religious fervour.

  On the gun deck, the master gunner watched tensely as the vessel clipped across the swell into position. His hand held high, he waited, and then released it with a bellow. Carpenter was not prepared for the shock of the devastating noise as the gunfire rolled in continuous thunder from the bow chasers, to the broadside cannon, to the stern chasers, and finally to the windward guns, flash after flash of red flame, acrid black smoke rolling out of the gun ports. He staggered back, clutching his ears at the pain of the volume.

  From outside the stifling world of smoke and fire came the shriek of the shot tearing through the air, and the splash where it fell short or the thunderous boom and crack of disintegrating wood where it met its target. There were screams, too, louder and more shocking than the destructive boom of the cannon fire.

  As each cannon fired, it was hauled back in and prepared for the next shot. With all the ships in the fleet, the noise never stopped. On the gun deck, it seemed to Carpenter that there was mad confusion as men ran back and forth with shot, stoking powder, cursing as they burned themselves on red-hot metal, diving out of the way of the recoil.

  “This is hell …” Carpenter choked, motioning for Launceston to follow him out.

  In the open air, his ears still rang and he wondered if he would be permanently deaf. Staggering to the rail, he saw the Spanish return fire, but their response was leaden and they released only one shot for every three that came from English ships.

  Launceston indicated movement among some of the ships. “They are fleeing downwind,” he said. As some of the ships broke rank, they caused confusion among the others, crowding them as they tried to continue their attack.

  Drake saw his moment and sent the Revenge to attack the wing where the squadron’s flagship was unsupported. Drake was joined by another ship, the Triumph. “Frobisher,” Launceston said with an approving nod.

  The Spanish flagship faced the attack alone and saw its rigging and forestay and part of the foremast disintegrate under Drake’s attack. As the San Martin continued to hold its ground, Drake marched by and announced loudly, “It tries to draw us in. It is a trap, but we Englishmen are too clever for that!”

  “He acts as if he is taking the air along Plymouth harbour,” Carpenter bellowed above the roar of cannon fire. “Does this madness not trouble him in the slightest?”

  Leaning on the rail, Launceston studied the bodies floating in the water, some so blackened and torn they could barely be identified as human. In one area, near the Spanish ships, they were so thick it seemed possible to walk across them without getting wet feet.

  For the next three hours, the English taunted the Spanish, attacking then sailing out of reach of a response, before both fleets continued eastwards. The slow speed of the Armada, barely more than that of a rowboat, was a source of amazement to Carpenter, until Launceston pointed out that the fleet had to move at the speed of the slowest ship to keep the formation intact.

  Beside them, observing through his tele-scope, Drake said, “They appear to be protecting a grey-sailed ship. Why is that so important they would risk the loss of so many other vessels?”

  “That ship must be vital to their strategy in some way,” Launceston replied.

  Drake mulled over this puzzle for a moment before pacing the deck to check on his crew, but Launceston and Carpenter both remained focused on the mystery of the grey-sailed ship, and in their hearts they knew who was aboard.

  “That ship may have sustained some damage,” Launceston said, “but if the Spanish continue to protect it, then its threat remains. What is it they plan? And when will they strike?”

  HAPTER 51

  xhausted and cold, Will struggled to stay afloat as the world exploded in fire and thunder around him. Fragments of shattered hulls and broken masts had been his support for hours as he was caught up in the fleeing ships, but his legs had grown numb with the cold and his fingers could barely grip. Acrid smoke drifted continually across the water so it was impossible to tell the time of day, with flashes of flame seen dully here and there through the dense bank.

  In that twilit place, his existence was reduced to surviving from one moment to the next. Hulls cleaved out of the smoke, the currents pulling him under, dragging him along in the wake, so he moved continually with the Armada. Sizzling English cannonballs crashed into the water all around with a hiss and a cloud of steam. Body parts washed by, white hands reaching dismally, boots and hats, sodden letters to loved ones, never to be read. How he still lived was beyond him.

  After he had noticed the grey-sailed ship limping away, his concern for Grace had kept him going in the maelstrom that began the moment the battle started. The shore was tantalisingly close—sometimes he even thought he could see the people of Devon lined along the cliffs watching the battle—but every time he struck out the ferocity of the fight drove him back. And so he had been sucked into the churning heart of the conflict.

  Nearby the Revenge and the Triumph attacked the stricken flagship of the Spanish squadron on the Armada’s wing. Through the heavy smoke generated by the English guns, a carrack swept towards Will en route to aid the flagship. For a second, he remained frozen by the familiar outline: it was the Rosario, bearing down on him like death.

  With drained limbs, he searched for the reserves of energy to swim out of its path, but at the last he faltered and the ship struck him a glancing blow. Dazed, he went down, swallowing water, and for a moment he was back in Edinburgh, dying slowly.

  As the dark reached up for him, he finally found enough strength to strike out for the surface. Gulping air, he clawed onto some flotsam, his head still dull and drifting from the blow. The thunder of the gunfire receded, became muffled, disappeared, and there was only the sound of his ragged breathing and the blood in his head. Half-seen images faded in and out of the smoke.

  The confusion of Drake’s attack, Spanish ships careering recklessly. The Rosario colliding with another ship, shattering her crossyard and spritsail, the carrack losing all control and slamming against another, destroying her bowsprit, halyards, and forecourse.

  Nearby, a tremendous explosion blasted Will from his stupor. On the San Salvador, a ship Will had helped reprovision, the stern powder store had exploded upwards through the poop deck and the two decks of the sterncastle. Amid the plume of smoke, timbers were driven up to the mast-tops before cascading down on the closest ships. Will dived down as the wreckage rained all around, streaming trails of white bubbles plunging within inches of him where the timber fell.

  Surfacing with a gasp, he saw bodies raining down too, limbless, blackened. In the background, the San Salvador blazed like the sun, thick black smoke turning the day into night. Men on fire dived into the sea; others chose drowning over the conflagration. At least two hundred were lost, Will estimated.

  In the middle of the confusion, a sudden squall hit the flailing Rosario. As her foremast shattered, men with axes ran to cut it loose from the rigging, but it was too late: the carrack was crippled.

  In the chaos of the listing vessel, men plunged overboard, fighting to stay afloat amid the bodies and the burning wreckage. Clinging on to his pathetic pieces of timber to stay afloat in the tossing sea, Will watched many drown.

  One sailor struck out strongly for a section of broken crossyard. Another reached it first, but as he struggled to climb across it, the other dragged him off and held him under until he drowned. The act of brutalit
y came as naturally to the survivor as breathing, and as he turned his head, Will saw the heavy-lidded, lizard expression of Barrett. Shock flared briefly when he recognised Will, but then a sly glance told Will all he needed to know as the swell brought them towards each other.

  With the flames burning all around and the black smoke heavy on the water, there was only the two of them, locked on a course of destruction. Grinning, Barrett drew his knife.

  In a surge of grey-green water, they clashed like the waves breaking against the Eddystone Rocks. Barrett stabbed wildly. His strength ebbing, Will avoided the first blow and caught Barrett’s wrist at the second. In their struggle, they were dragged off their respective supports and splashed into the rough water. They went down quickly as they wrestled for advantage.

  Cheeks and eyes bulging, Barrett’s face was a mask of fury, but the water impeded his attempts to stab, and instead he tried to grip Will’s throat. The water grew black around them, the shimmering grey light far above.

  Back and forth they rolled, ineffectually, sinking ever deeper, until Will’s lungs burned and he knew his last moments were upon him. A deep clarity descended. He thought of Grace, of Jenny, and knew he could not die there.

  Pressing his forearm against Barrett’s throat, he triggered the hidden blade. Blood gouted out in a black cloud. In a frenzy, Barrett gulped mouthfuls of seawater. The last thing Will saw as he struck out for the surface was Barrett’s eyes rolling up white as he sank down into the depths.

  On the surface, Will filled his lungs and found the crossyard that Barrett had abandoned. His fingers slipped on the wet wood and he could only hold on weakly. All around, the gunfire gradually dimmed as the battle came to an end for the day, and he knew he would have to seize the chance to escape the madness or he would not survive the night.

  On every side, the sea was thick with bodies and wreckage. Will eyed the carnage and death for a moment, and then with resignation dragged the nearest corpse towards him. Once he had fished some of the rigging out of the water, he drew another corpse and bound the two together. Looping the rope around, he caught three more corpses and fastened them tightly with the last of his strength. Once the makeshift raft was complete, he crawled on top of the cold bodies and, with one arm trailing in the water, paddled slowly away from the burning ship.

  The urge to close his eyes and sleep was powerful. Half aware, he realised Medina Sidonia had given the signal to leave the Rosario, and the Armada sailed on, leaving Will’s former shipmates lost to despair that they had been abandoned so easily. Will knew why: compared to the grey-sailed ship, the rest of the fleet was dispensable. It was a harsh message to broadcast to the Spanish ships, and would be bad for morale. It also revealed how effectively the Unseelie Court had mesmerised the Spanish commanders: the Enemy was more valuable than the thousands of human beings under Medina Sidonia’s command.

  On the heaving seas, the Armada eventually faded from Will’s view. As the smoke gradually dispersed, he slipped in and out of consciousness, and eventually realised night had fallen.

  Overhead, a crescent moon shone brightly. It took him a while to realise ships were once again all around him, just silhouettes against the night sky. They were under battle conditions—no light shining. In the gloom, he could just make out the pennants festooning the vessels and the Cross of Saint George, dark against the white background.

  Home, he thought weakly.

  Hailing the ships, his voice was frail at first, but eventually found its strength. He was answered by a booming cry, and when he responded in English and identified himself, there was rapid activity on deck.

  That was all he remembered.

  For a time he swam through darkness to an island where grey figures slowly drew towards him. They whispered terrible things that filled him with dread, but on awakening he could recall none of the words, only the sickening way it made him feel.

  “Ho! You have slept the sleep of the dead! Or the just! One or the other, I cannot recall.” The booming voice filled the cabin the moment Will’s eyes flickered open.

  His wild hair and beard a fiery red, Captain John Courtenay strode around the cabin, passionate and intense. Will sensed he was the least thing on the captain’s mind.

  “I am on the Tempest?”

  “For two days now.”

  “Two?” Will replied incredulously.

  “You were plucked from the water by the Triumph aboard a merry raft you had constructed, and Frobisher delivered you here.”

  “Then, it is … August second?” Will struggled to rise.

  Courtenay eyed him askance and said, “It might do well to rest longer after your ordeal.”

  “There is no time to rest. I have much to tell, and there is much we must do. The Enemy plots—”

  “As always.”

  Almost falling backwards, Will steadied himself before taking a step. His legs felt like lead, his head light. “The Armada?”

  “There have been victories, small perhaps, but each one adds to the pile. The capture of the Rosario and all the riches it contains. We drove the Spanish fleet past Torbay, and yesterday held them off from Weymouth in a fight more vehement than ever has been seen at sea. The San Martin itself was riddled with gunfire, the royal standard in tatters, and was only saved at the last by a line of Spanish galleons.”

  Breathing deeply, Will staggered to the door, acutely feeling every ache and pain. “And today?”

  “Today is Wednesday.” Courtenay clapped his hands loudly. “Today is the defence of the Isle of Wight and the Solent.”

  “You are in the vanguard of the attack?”

  “My orders were to stay away from engagements, unless our firepower was desperately needed. We have greater business than a few Spanish bastards. The Enemy has not yet shown their colours. But you and I know they will, and then we must be ready. But first, if you are insistent upon putting your feeble limbs to the test, come and meet old friends.”

  Courtenay led him out of the cabin and onto the deck, bright in the morning sun. On the blue sea all around, the English fleet were becalmed amid a flourish of coloured pennants and flags, while across the Isle of Wight and the Hampshire coast trails of black smoke drifted high, beacons summoning the militia to the defence of the nation. Watching the activity at the foremast were Launceston and Carpenter.

  Trying to disguise the weariness in his face, Will left Courtenay and lurched over. Carpenter scowled when he saw Will, looked away, and then marched over to meet him. Will was surprised when Carpenter shook his hand, although his expression showed no warmth.

  “We will never be friends, but I understand you more,” Carpenter said. “I am glad you survived the perils of the damned Spanish. Hiding out among our bitter enemy is the kind of bravado that will carve your name into history.”

  Will was puzzled by what might have led to this change in attitude, but did not question it. “I would thank Medina Sidonia personally for his hospitality some time.”

  They joined Launceston, who nodded in his usual aloof manner as if it had only been an hour since he saw Will last. “This weather ensures there will be little more fighting this day. We drift slowly eastwards.” With a faint air of disappointment, he added, “It is quieter here. On the Revenge, there was action aplenty. And death too.”

  “Why did you return to the Tempest, then?” Will asked.

  “Courtenay may be mad, but he is a haven of sanity after the Revenge,” Carpenter growled. “Any more of Drake’s bragging and I would be heading for Bedlam, and lock the door myself.”

  “Then the fighting begins again tomorrow.” Will looked towards the eastern horizon. “But our task is harder even than that faced by Howard’s brave band. Somewhere in that sprawling fleet lies a grey-sailed ship, which purports to be the architect of all our misery. The Enemy will be working hard to repair the damage I wrought, and soon it will be brought into play. The Spanish seek to hold out until it is ready, for they know it could mean victory for them and destruction for E
ngland. We must prepare ourselves, for this business is only going to get more dangerous.”

  HAPTER 52

  n a red glare, the last of the setting sun illuminated the forest of masts of the Spanish ships at anchor just off Calais, tightly packed into their defensive crescent formation. In the middle of that mass, there was no chance of Will identifying the grey-sailed ship, even with its distinctive outline, but he studied them with Drake’s tele-scope nonetheless.

  “Why do you fear this ship so?” Drake asked. “It is only more Spanish rabble, yes?”

  “No. These allies of Spain have Dee’s wit and cunning, and the information I have gathered suggests they hold a great weapon.”

  “Great enough to threaten us?” Drake said with gently mocking disbelief. “Time and again our tactics have shown the Spanish up to be the children they are. We drove them away from the English coastline and their last chance for a bridgehead or a haven, where they could replenish their diminishing supplies of food, water, and munitions. Pursued them across the Channel, where they were at the mercy of the open seas, and now they wait for Parma’s aid. If they had a great weapon, surely they would have used it by now.”

  Will was not convinced. The Unseelie Court was expert at misdirection and subtle manipulation, and when they seemed least of a threat was when they were at their most dangerous. With the plans Howard, Drake, and the other commanders of the English fleet had concocted for that night, he expected the sleeping beast to be woken.

  “And if we do see that ship, it will be blown out of the water by good English cannon.” Drake sniffed as he reclaimed the prized tele-scope that had been such an aid in marshalling his strategy over the last week.

  Will showed no reaction, but his dilemma consumed him. Drake’s suggestion was the correct one, but how could he stand by and watch Grace die, even if it meant victory? Ever since she had been taken, he had swung between the old Will, who had existed in study and good humour before the Unseelie Court had entered his life, who would put the survival of his friends above any abstract notion of loyalty to country; and the man he had become, corrupted by a world where there appeared to be no right or wrong, only survival in the face of unspeakable threats, and where terrible things had to be done for good ends.