The Voyage of the Destiny

by Robert Nye

  Then Wat said he heard him say:

  ‘His hatred for Ralegh is amazing. Do you think it can all be attributed to tobacco?’

  While (Wat said) high above them on the dais, King James leered at Uttamatamakin, and the Indian glared back from under a coronet of stuffed snake and weasel skins, and Pocohontas coughed blood into her hand.

  Wat liked to tell good stories. It may all have been untrue.

  What I know for certain is that the set piece of that tomfoolery of profligate flame was gigantic: a fireworks lion rampant, in honour of James Stuart’s 50 years as King of Scotland. (He inherited the Scottish throne at the age of one year and one month.) I can say this without fear of contradiction because it was still visible from London Bridge when two gentlemen strolling from different ends of that bridge met in the middle as if by accident and paused briefly to admire the show. I was one of the two gentlemen. The other was Sir Ralph Winwood, his Majesty’s Secretary of State and my good friend; the prime mover, in fact, in the intricate business of obtaining my release from the Tower some 10 months previous.

  I said: ‘The Scotsman’s disbelief in the gold is what interests me. Why am I being allowed to sail if he thinks that it’s all for nothing?’

  ‘You have a certain standing,’ Winwood said, ‘a value in the public eye. He’s using you in the game he plays with Spain.’

  ‘Dangerous,’ I said.

  ‘Very dangerous,’ Winwood said. ‘For you.’

  ‘For the country,’ I said. ‘It could lead in the end to war. And I can’t believe that our fireworks lion wants that.’

  Winwood said: ‘You are right, of course. War - outright war - is the last thing he wants. But it suits him at the moment to flirt with the skirts of it. You’re being used to snap the Spanish Match. The Scotsman was forced into a corner where that suddenly loomed very likely. It still does. But if you light a keg or two of powder under Spaniards in Guiana then the marriage of Prince Charles and the Infanta will be impossible.’

  ‘That is his real policy?’ I said. ‘The Scotsman’s?’

  ‘Who knows what his real policy is?’ Winwood muttered. ‘Certainly not his Secretary of State. It is even quite probable that he doesn’t know himself. He sees all sides of every question. He delights in debate. Coming up with an answer is a different matter. He detests decisions. They remind him of his mother on the block.’

  I said: ‘Which makes me no more than a pawn in his chess with the Spaniard ‘

  Winwood smiled. ‘Hardly a pawn, sir. Your movements were always complicated, as much sideways as forwards.

  Shall we say that you must be a knight at the least?’ ‘Knight or pawn,’ I said, ‘you reckon I’m used by him?’ ‘Certainly,’ Winwood agreed. ‘But I think that you knew that. You must consider your position quite clearly. For the

  Scotsman there is everything to gain from your voyage. For

  you there is only everything to lose.’ ‘Except the gold,’ I said.

  ‘The gold makes little difference,’ Winwood said. ‘He doesn’t believe in it’ ‘Do you?’ I said.

  Winwood looked down at the dark Thames. ‘I was waiting for that one,’ he admitted. ‘Well, to be plain with you, the gold isn’t all that important to me either.’

  ‘What is then?’ I said.

  ‘Empire,’ Winwood said. ‘Your name still lives on among the Indians. I hear every year of Dutch vessels that have been trading up the Orinoco. Everywhere they drop anchor the Indians come aboard hoping that non-Spanish white men means you. You need only inspire them and they will rise against Spain.’

  I said: ‘And then?’

  ‘Then we will rule them,’ Winwood said. ‘Rather, we shall guide them. Be their partners in trade, and their educators. It means an honest profit to England, and a great loss to Spain. Even if there’s no gold, there’s still tobacco.’

  I said: ‘I agree about the Indians to some extent. The Spaniard rules the New World with a sword in one hand and a crucifix in the other. We could take the whole continent with a few fair words and a dozen kept promises.’

  I watched a scatter of fireworks like diamonds over the Tower.

  ‘All the same,’ I went on, ‘my voyage is more modest and specific. The gold is there. And I aim no higher than to bring some of it back.’

  Winwood said: ‘Without fighting Spain?’

  ‘I earnestly hope so,’ I replied.

  Winwood said: ‘To be blunt again, sir, I have supported your venture from the start because I see war with Spain coming out of it, sooner or later, one way or another. Such a war is necessary if we are to keep a foothold on the south American continent. Such a war is also necessary to maintain the balance of power in Europe, and discourage any notion the Pope might have of ever getting England back into his fist. How can you believe that you will be able to avoid precipitating such a thing? The Spanish have been adamant on the point. They think they own the Orinoco. There are bound to be hostilities.’

  ‘No doubt,’ I said. ‘But they will not spring from me. I shall be as peaceable as any Pocohontas. Just you see.’

  Winwood took three sharp steps away. Looking over his shoulder, I observed my cousin Sir Lewis Stukeley emerge from the Southwark end of London Bridge. He was being escorted by Robin, my page, who was succeeding in distracting his attention with the aid of a billygoat on a lead.

  ‘Money?’ Winwood said.

  ‘No more problems,’ I said. ‘I owe Pett. He will wait. But there’s one important thing you might do for me.’

  ‘Name it.’

  ‘Convince the Scotsman I no longer need a keeper.’

  ‘Your cousin is dangerous?’ Winwood said.

  I laughed. ‘Not at all. The man is an idiot. But I have fish to fry which can’t be fried with Stukeley in the kitchen all the time.’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ Ralph Winwood promised.

  The city crier passed two distinguished gentlemen going their separate ways. ‘And so goodnight,’ he called, ringing his bell. ‘And so goodnight.’

  The stick of a final rocket fell on the Bridge at my feet.

  Mr Secretary Winwood’s best was always pretty damned good. By the end of that month of January last I was relieved of the need to be accompanied wherever I went by my cousin Sir Lewis Stukeley. By the end of February I had established via Captain Faige the connection with Montmorency, Grand Admiral of France, which gives me permission to seek refuge in any French port if I so choose. And on March the 7th I entertained his Excellency the Count Des Maretz, the French Ambassador to London, on board the Destiny where she was lying in the Thames, and had his assurance that his patron Richelieu looked favourably upon my venture.

  But the French contingent never turned up to join my fleet as promised. And neither was Queen Anne allowed to do the fashionable thing.

  *

  This evening I called my remaining captains together to dine on the Destiny in my cabin. I put it to them, over a well-grilled but still scarce congenial dolphin, that as I see the situation we have three possible courses of action left open to us.

  ‘First,’ I said, ‘we could set sail either for Virginia or Newfoundland. In either place we could clean and re-victual and trim our ships, before returning to Guiana to justify this voyage by getting the gold that Keymis missed.’

  There was silence. It was plain that not one of them has any surviving confidence in the gold. Then John Chudleigh said: ‘That would be suicide. We know now that the citizens of San Thome were forewarned of our coming. The documents found in the Governor’s house spoke also of troops from New Granada and the Main being sent to repel us. We should count ourselves lucky that the Spaniard is lazy. By now the whole Orinoco will be swarming with them.’

  ‘Not to speak of the Spanish fleet ordered up from Brazil,’ said Sir Warham St Leger.

  The other captains concurred with these judgments. I considered them cowardly, but said nothing.

  Instead, I went on: ‘Very well then, how would it be if we pur
sued the same initial course - for Virginia or Newfoundland - but that then when our ships are refurbished we lie off about the Isles of the Azores.’ I paused, enjoying the puzzlement on their faces. ‘There,’ I said, ‘we could wait for Spanish plums to fall into our laps. I mean, gentlemen, say a straggler or two of the homeward-bound Plate Fleet.’

  You could have cut the dolphin-odoured air with a knife.

  At last, Charles Parker said: ‘I can’t believe this. I never thought I’d live to see the day Sir Walter Ralegh calmly announced his intention of turning pirate.’

  The others kept their eyes down, looking at their dishes.

  I took up an orange and began to peel it with my dagger. I said: ‘Was Drake a pirate?’

  No answer.

  ‘Drake took the prime carrack of Spain,’ I went on, ‘the Cacafuego. She was laden with twenty-six tons of pure silver. Worth about half a million English pounds. Was this piracy?’

  Sir John Ferne cleared his throat. ‘No,’ he said carefully. ‘Privateering, rather.’

  I nodded. I finished peeling the orange.

  ‘Letters of marque,’ Parker mumbled. ‘To play the privateer one has to hold letters of marque. It’s legitimate then.’

  ‘Drake had no such letter from the Queen,’ I pointed out. ‘But he was never a pirate. He sailed under an English flag. He brought the silver back to England and the Queen took her share.’ I split the orange into segments and popped two into my mouth. When I had finished eating them, and no one had disputed what I had said, I went on: ‘The distinction between piracy and privateering is a fine one, but as I see it clear-cut. Piracy is theft for personal gain. Privateering is justifiable war at sea by a merchant ship against the trade of an enemy.’

  ‘But England is not at war with Spain,’ Captain North said.

  I swallowed another segment of the orange. ‘Spain is at war with us,’ I replied. ‘Spain has ignored the peace-treaty of 1604 as far as the New World is concerned. Spain has resisted peaceful Dutch and English vessels, traders and settlers alike, in these waters. Spain has deliberately and treacherously broken the peace with regard to our present voyage. Consider, gentlemen. Their spy Gondomar instructed his masters in Madrid regarding the very tonnage of our vessels. They were not men enough to send word back to England that if we sailed up the Orinoco they would fire on us. Instead, they planned - as Mr Chudleigh just now told us - to march troops overland to take us by surprise. And - as Sir Warham St Leger just reminded you - a fleet to cut off our retreat if they could. It is Spain that has broken the peace.’

  ‘By killing three men?’James Barker burst out.

  I turned to him, crushing the rest of the orange in my clenched fist.

  ‘By killing two men and a boy,’ I said. ‘And the boy was a relative of mine.’ Barker blushed.

  Then Samuel King said: ‘The Admiral is right. It is the

  Spaniard who has broken the peace. We could go for the Plate Fleet under English flags and bear any spoil back to King James and no man would dare call us pirates.’ He hesitated. When he continued his voice was almost apologetic. ‘But the Plate Fleet never sails without a powerful escort. We have just seven ships and a pinnace. The odds against our success would be astronomical.’ I nodded.

  ‘Quite so. We would have about as little chance as we had against the Spanish Armada.’

  There was a shamed and embarrassed silence when I reminded them of that. But I could see that the prospect of attacking the Plate Fleet filled all of them with fear.

  ‘You began by saying that we had three alternatives,’ Chudleigh murmured at last. ‘What is the third?’

  ‘To go home,’ I said.

  ‘We could sail for a French port,’ Sir John Ferne said. ‘You have Montmorency’s word—’ ‘To go home,’ I said.

  I stood up. I emptied my hands of the juice of the orange. It trickled on the crisp white cloth like blood. ‘Think about it, gentlemen,’ I said.

  *

  Carew, I am weary. But I want to set down here a word about Wat. To keep your brother’s memory before you. To delineate his image. I would not idealise or idolise it He would not have wanted that. Not your elder brother. Not my younger self

  Two stories.

  The first you may know already? I will tell it here anyway. You will not have heard its aftermath, for Wat told me that only when we were moored at Kinsale last June, weatherbound by contrary winds.

  But first the part you may already know. Five years ago, when I was still in the Tower, Wat journeyed to Paris in company with his tutor Ben Jonson. Jonson was always a great drinker. It was no difficult matter for Wat to get him so drunk that he neither knew nor cared what he was doing. Then, when your brother had made the poet ludicrous with wine, he had that corpulent body loaded on a cart, and he paid some labourers to draw the cart through the streets of Paris. Wat walked alongside it, making the labourers stop at every corner, and especially outside churches. Then he shouted: ‘Roll up, roll up! Roll up and see the living image of the Crucifixion! Jonson as Jesus! The Poet Laureate in his best masque yet! Roll up! Roll up!’

  He was fortunate that no officer of the law could understand his English. Such blasphemy may be a burnable offence in France for all I know. At all events, he carried this jape off without arrest. When the story got back to your mother she laughed it off, saying that I was much the same when young. It annoyed me when first I got wind of it in the Tower. Now it neither angers nor amuses me. It is Wat to the T. I beg leave to doubt that it was ever me, but then Bess may know me better than I know myself.

  At any rate, the aftermath. And this is curious. Know then that on the day that I was released from the Tower -which was the 19th of March two years ago - Wat was not at your mother’s house in Broad Street to welcome me home. When I asked Bess where he was, she whispered three words in my ear so that cousin Stukeley (my keeper) should not overhear them. ‘Sowing wild oats.* That was what she said.

  I was furious at this. I was especially annoyed because again your mother saw fit to compare Wat’s disgraceful absence with my own behaviour when I was young. However, I said nothing to him when he did at length come home that very evening. Indeed, the subject was never mentioned until he brought it up one afternoon at Kinsale.

  We were sitting on top of the Old Head gazing out to sea. I was foolishly shading my eyes with my hand to scan the horizon for Faige and the promised French ships. Wat was blowing a dandelion clock. There was a something awkward and hangdog in his aspect. Suddenly he said:

  ‘Surely you see why?’

  ‘See why what?’ I said.

  ‘Why I was not there to greet you at the house in Broad Street,’ he said.

  His tone was most pathetic. It touched my heart. I could not bring myself to look at him, so I went on with the performance of examining the horizon.

  ‘Tell me,’ I said. ‘I would like to understand.’

  ‘I suppose I know him better than I know you,’ Wat muttered. ‘Know who?’ ‘Ben Jonson,’ Wat said. ‘You were with Ben Jonson that day?’ ‘All of it,’ Wat said. ‘Drinking?’ I said. ‘Whoring?’

  Wat tossed away the dandelion stalk. ‘I don’t drink,’ he said. ‘Any more than you do.’ There was a moment’s silence, then he went on: ‘As for the other item, I daresay I’m not so very unlike you in that regard either.’

  I remember scowling at the light on the water and saying nothing.

  Wat said: ‘You are incalculable. He isn’t. You are unfathomable. But I know how deep he is to the very pint!’

  I said: ‘Ben Jonson, rare as he may be, is not sailing to the New World to find gold. Let me hear no more about it.’

  But Wat wanted to confess. I don’t know why. He had to tell me how he had spent that bleak March day of my release from the Tower. And it was curious, what he told, because it was an almost exact repetition of the adventure in Paris which he knew had annoyed me.

  They started drinking in the morning, Wat reported. He even took pleasure in rem
embering the names of the taverns where they had drunk. The Boar’s Head, the Poultry, the Rose, the Three Cranes, the Mermaid, the Mitre which was next door to the Mermaid, the Nag’s Head M the corner of Friday Street, the Razor and Hen, the Leg and Seven Stars, the Eagle and Child. He reeled off the names like a penitent listing his separate sins. Wat shared my liking for lists. The names of those taverns seemed burned on his memory. And now they are burned here on mine. As if I took his sins from him in that moment of confession in Ireland, and made them my own.

  (Yet I make it sound too grim. There was relish in his recitation also. Just reeling off the tavern names seemed somehow to serve to raise his spirits.)

  Jonson had drunk beer and wine and brandy. Wat drank only water. Jonson was dead drunk by late afternoon, and Wat was stone-cold sober. This, he assured me, was the usual pattern of their escapades.

  Strange dissipation! But, yes, I can see myself in this. I did the same with Ben Jonson in my day. And, before him, with a better poet, a wilder spirit: Christopher Marlowe.

  Anyway, Wat said, he eventually took a wheelbarrow from the yard of a tavern called the Goat in Boots. He needed it because poor Ben was no longer capable of walking. So his former tutor and surrogate father lay sprawled in the wheelbarrow while Wat pushed his way through Eastcheap. He kicked his mustard-coloured boots in the air, Wat said. He clasped a bottle of Canary wine in each fist, and there was another bottle of it plugged between his lips. Still staring out to sea, I could picture the scene vividly enough. Ben has a belly like a hill and a face like a map of the Indies, all boils for islands and pox-marks for sea-currents. His hair is red, his beard a rustier red.

  I can picture Wat too, for you. He would no doubt have been wearing his favourite white cloak. He always looked every inch a brazen dandy. His beard turned up naturally, as mine did long ago. He wore one ear-ring dangling from his left earlobe. His shoulders (remember, Carew, the day I caught you imitating this in the mirror?) - Wat’s shoulders always looked as if he had just shrugged them and forgotten to bring them down.