The Voyage of the Destiny

by Robert Nye

  Let your servants be such as you may command, and entertain none about you but yeomen to whom you give wages. For those that will serve you without your hire will cost you treble as much as they that know your fare. If you trust any servant with your purse, be sure you take his account ere you sleep. For if you put it off you will then afterwards, for tediousness, neglect it. I myself have thereby lost more than I am worth. And whatsoever your servant gains thereby, he will never thank you, but laugh your simplicity to scorn. And besides, ‘tis the way to make your servants tHicves, which else would be honest.

  *

  CHAPTER VII

  Brave rags wear soonest out of fashion

  Exceed not in the humour of rags and bravery, for these will soon wear out of fashion. But money in your purse will ever be in fashion. And no man is esteemed for gay garments, but by fools and women.

  *

  CHAPTER VIII

  Riches not to be sought by evil means

  On the other side, take heed that you seek not riches basely, nor attain them by evil means. Destroy no man for his wealth, nor take anything from the poor. For the cry and complaint thereof will pierce the heavens. And it is most detestable before God, and most dishonourable before worthy men, to wrest anything from the needy and labouring soul. God will never prosper you in aught, if you offend therein. But use your poor neighbours and tenants well, pine not them and their children to add superfluity and needless expenses to yourself. He that has pity on another man’s sorrow shall be free from it himself. And he that delights in and scorns the misery of another shall one time or other fall into it himself. Remember this precept: He that has mercy on the poor lends unto the Lord, and the Lord will recompense him what he has given. I do not understand those for poor which are vagabonds and beggars, but those that labour to live, such as are old and cannot travail, such poor widows and fatherless children as are ordered to be relieved, and the poor tenants that travail to pay their rents and are driven to poverty by mischance and not by riot or careless expenses. On such have you compassion, and God will bless you for it. Make not the hungry soul sorrowful. Defer not your gift to the needy. For if he curse you, in the bitterness of his soul, his prayer shall be heard of Him that made him.

  *

  CHAPTER IX

  What inconveniencies happen to such as delight in wine

  Take especial care that you delight not in wine, for there never was any man that came to honour or preferment that loved it. For it transforms a man into a beast, decays health, poisons the breath, destroys natural heat, brings a man’s stomach to an artificial heat, deforms the face, rots the teeth, and to conclude makes a man contemptible. Remember my words. It were better for a man to be subject to any vice than to this. For all other vanities and sins are recovered, but a drunkard will never shake off the delight of beastliness. For the longer it possesses a man, the more he will delight in it; and the older he grows, the more he shall be subject to it. For it dulls the spirit and destroys the body as ivy does the old tree, or as the worm that ingenders in the kernel of the nut.

  Take heed therefore that such a cureless canker pass not your youth, nor such a beastly infection your old age. For then shall all your life be but as the life of a beast, and after your death you shall only leave a shameful infamy to your posterity, who shall study to forget that such a one was their father.

  St Augustine describes drunkenness in this manner: Drunkenness is a flattering devil, a sweet poison, a pleasant sin; which whosoever has, has not himself; which whosoever does commit, does not commit sin, but he himself is wholly sin.

  When Diogenes saw a house to be sold, whereof the owner was given to drink, I thought at the last, quoth Diogenes, he would spew out a whole house. Sotebam, inquit, quod domum tandem evomeret.

  *

  CHAPTER X

  Let God be your protector and director in all your actions

  Now, for the world, I know it too well to persuade you to dive into the practices thereof. Rather stand upon your own guard against all that tempt you thereunto, or may practice upon you in your conscience, your reputation, or your purse. Resolve that no man is wise or safe but he that is honest.

  Serve God. Let Him be the author of all your actions. Commend all your endeavours to Him that must either wither or prosper them. Please Him with prayer, lest if He frown, He confound all your fortunes and labours, like the drops of rain on the sandy ground. Let my experienced advice and fatherly instructions sink deep into your heart. So God direct you in all His ways, and fill your heart with His grace.

  **********

  FINIS

  **********

  30

  22 May

  Not finis. Not all over. Not in the least. Not ended, not yet determined, barely begun….

  This book, I see now, is the log of three voyages.

  The first: The voyage of the Destiny. Set in the present time. Immediate. Actual. A day by day record of my long journey home to die.

  The second: The voyage of my history. The tale of my life and fortunes. Descriptive. Expository. My confessions, if you like. Made for my son.

  The third voyage is the most difficult to define. In setting out, at my beginning, I was not aware of it. I was merely a mariner on two seas, I thought. The sea of my past life and the sea of the present. My task, as I saw it originally, was simple enough: to relate the one voyage to the other, and make sense of both. But, increasingly, as I’ve gone on, this feeling, this knowledge of a third voyage has grown in me. By hints and glimpses, at first, by shapes looming out of the fog, by shouts in the storm. (And I mean the fog of memory, the storm brewed where past and present waters meet only to make a whirlpool in the mind.) Now the shapes come together, the shouts form a sort of a sentence. What sentence? ‘The Voyage of the Destiny: That’s my third voyage. The true task.

  Not my ship. Not my life. Something more than either present or past, or both together. I sail on a sea without a name, an unfathomable ocean. There’s no crew but myself. I can offer no ‘position reports’. All I have is this sense that in seeking to go two ways at once I have lit (quite by chance) on a third way. Not backwards. Not forwards. Perhaps inwards? Yet the passage seems out—

  Out! Out! And beyond—

  Beyond all this babble?

  (I should hope so! But I speak of something real— More real than that salt there on the rigging. More real than my own headful of times past.)

  *

  O for a dish of hot beef collops! With onions fried in butter! A slice of fresh bread!

  *

  My first voyage, at any rate, is all but ended. This morning I woke to see Mizen Head, the south-west extremity of Ireland. Now (midnight) we lie a mile off from Galley Head, so as to clear the Dhulic Rock. Miserable tides, rain falling, winds stammering and contrary. We have limped a mere 34 miles since that first sight of land. Our course must be from Galley Head to Seven Heads (91 miles), from Seven Heads to the Old Head of Kinsale (7 miles), from the Old Head into Kinsale Harbour (a further 6£ miles). My Destiny need only hold together for a final three leagues to make landfall at last at Kinsale

  If the men feel any excitement they do not show it. Most are sick, all are starving. Our crossing has taken its toll of every one. Truth to tell, none has energy left to feel anything, let alone express it. They go about their work like ghosts, sailing a phantom ship. Ghosts with lustreless eyes in sunken sockets. Spent men, hollow men, men too burnt-out and exhausted to shed even a few tears of relief.

  The Indian betrays little emotion also. He kept to his cabin for three days and nights after eating his abominable dinner, yet seemed to have suffered no ill effects when emerging this morning to climb up to the crow’s nest and get his first sight of what is (to him) a new world. When he came down his face was as impassive as ever.

  ‘This land has no smell,’ was all he said.

  Since then he has passed the time staring at it, but politely, without much curiosity.

  It is true. All day we have in
ched along under the cliffs and beside the rocky outcrops of a bleak, a barren, an inhospitable coast. For weeks my eyes have been sore for a prospect of trees, and my nostrils have itched for the kind comfortable scent of grass. The Irish shore does not just disappoint those desires. It mocks them. Even where there are trees they seem blasted or dwarfish. Even where there is grass, its green seems false, too green, a lush sentimental lie, more like a child’s picture of grass than grass itself. And the land is quite odourless. Neither fragrance nor fetor wafts over the waters that separate us from this island. Schuil, Toe Head, Dirk

  Bay - the very names sound outcast and accursed. Of course (or so I tell myself) these are not the trees and the grass which I long for. This is not home. This is some other place.

  But then darker thoughts come. Perhaps I have no home. And the whole world is now some other place.

  *

  Essex got most of the credit for Cadiz. And the booty from sacking the town. I lay on a litter and watched him. I was wounded. I was shot in the leg. Essex, Howard, and Vere -they did well that day. I did most of the fighting for them. They cleaned up. It’s my opinion Essex went mad at Cadiz. He made 66 knights of his followers. What a joke! To be a ‘Knight of Cadiz’ was to be a laughing-stock. He was always a little mad, my sad friend Essex. Of course, by this time he was dancing the dance with the Queen. I was out in the cold. I was next to nobody. After Fayal, Essex tried to have me court-martialled. What for? For winning the battle before he turned up. I wore a white scarf and white breeches. They were riddled with bullet holes. Howard told me to apologize to the lunatic. I did. The court-martial was dropped. He was mad, but there was method in his madness. He got all the best ransoms at Cadiz. I got £1,769 and a Spanish bishop’s library. Essex danced high. She made him Earl Marshal. I got this wound in my leg.

  I knew he was mad after that tournament. He found out the colours of my men. Then he swept onto the field in front of her ahead of a vast retinue - twice the size of my band - all dressed in the very same colours I had chosen! Right down to the orange-tawny feathers in the helmets! To swamp my show, to make us look his followers! She wasn’t amused. The whole thing was a shambles. What did she expect? She was 34 years older than him! O glorious feather triumph.

  She packed him off to Ireland. What did he do? Instead of fighting Tyrone he went and made friends with him. I played cards with Mr Secretary Cecil. Little Cecil in his paned black hose. The triple chain of gold about his neck. He trotted up and down. He always won. I never caught him cheating. Clever Cecil. He was the one who told me that Essex must die. His spies had provided him with copies of letters the madman had written from Ireland. I saw them. Essex was promising James the support of a huge private army! Why wait for the old woman to turn up her toes? he said. James could have England now

  But Scotch James was cannier. He bided his time. The Queen was a crab-apple. It would fall in his lap. He knew that. He waited. James didn’t need mad dogs. Lap dogs were more his line. Still are, in fact. Good boy, Steenie.

  Essex came back to London. Cecil had him arrested. The Queen set him free again. Why did she do that? Because he said that if he was brought to trial he’d teach his jury the Queen’s dance, that’s why. Elizabeth knew what that meant. Cecil was told to assassinate him. First-rate at assassination, Robert Cecil.

  Before it could be decently done, my Lord Essex rode out. He rode out of his house and into the streets of London at the head of his men. It was a Sunday. His conspirators numbered 2000. My cousin was one of them, Sir Ferdinando Gorges. I tried to save the fat idiot. We met earlier that same Sunday. In boats on the river, by Milford Stairs. I came alone. Gorges had men with him. There was no persuading him. It was a trap, besides. Blount was hiding on the river bank, Essex’s stepfather. He fired four shots at me. None of them connected.

  Essex shouted in the streets. Say! Say! Sa! Sa! That’s all he shouted. He’d gone completely mad. The crowds stood and stared at him. None rose to join him. Say! Say! Sa! Sa!

  We shut the gates of the City. He rode back to his house. His men themselves were silent now. They saw the froth on his lips. They marched in silence through the streets of London. The crowds didn’t even jeer. Essex House was soon surrounded. Howard turned our cannon on it. Essex surrendered.

  That great boy died like a calf. He stood and bleated on the scaffold. He stamped. He cried. It was his mother’s fault, he said. Then it was his sister’s. Then it was his sister’s lover. Then it was his stepfather. Her Majesty played the virginals.

  She didn’t stop playing. The Queen knew the stroke he died. She didn’t stop playing. There were six executions. It was my duty to attend them. I was Captain of her Guard again. I got £14 a year. That was for the uniform. The tawny medley cost 13 shillings and fourpence a yard, the fur of black budge came extra. I wore the uniform. I did my duty. But when it came to Essex’s turn, I came down from the scaffold. I didn’t think he’d want me there. I went up to a window. I couldn’t believe he’d want me there. We’d danced the same strange dance. Later, they said he’d asked for me. By then it was too late.

  *

  Why go on? How go on? I mean: with this, the second voyage. This raking over the ashes of my past. Of my burning days, my burnt-out heart, the ashes.

  It is too late.

  It is all too late.

  It’s over.

  *

  Like the Spanish Armada? Like my part in the defeat of that great enterprise?

  Carew, I took no part.

  I wasn’t there!

  Drake -I have sneered at Drake, may God forgive me -Drake finished his game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe. You’ll know the story. ‘Gentlemen, there is time to finish our game and beat the Spaniards, too.’ Drake knew what he was doing. He was only waiting for the tide to turn, you realise that? But at least he played bowls, then sailed out into Calais Roads to send a few fire-ships to worry and enliven King Philip’s Pope-blessed argosy. The wind did the rest. The wind’s a Protestant.

  And what did your father do?

  Your father did nothing.

  Your father was safe on land. He didn’t even play a game of bowls.

  Not likely. I rode about. I ‘organised’ our land forces. We didn’t need any land forces. I think I knew it all along.

  But, later, I wrote about it. The defeat of the Armada. Wrote as if I had been there. One long and crowing sentence!

  ‘Their navy’, I wrote (and I’m copying now from my Report of the Truth of the Fight about the Isles of the Azores, 1591, which lies open on my cabin desk in front of me)—

  Their navy, which they termed invincible, consisting of 240 sail of ships, not only of their own kingdom, but strengthened with the greatest argosies, Portugal carracks, Florentines and huge hulks of other countries, were by thirty of her Majesty’s own ships of war, and a few of our own merchants, by the wise, valiant and most advantageous conduction of the Lord Charles Howard, High A dmiral of England, beaten and shuffled together, even from the Lizard in Cornwall, first to Portland - where they shamefully left Don Pedro de Valdes, with his mighty ship - from Portland to Calais, where they lost Hugo de Moncado with the galliasse of which he was captain - and from Calais, driven with squibs from their anchors: were chased out of sight of England, round about Scotland and Ireland,

  where, for the sympathy of their barbarous religion, hoping to find succour and assistance, a great part of them were crushed against the rocks, and those other that landed, being very many in number, were notwithstanding broken, slain and taken, and so sent from village to village, coupled in halters to be shipped into England,

  where her Majesty, of her princely and invincible disposition disdaining to put them to death, and scorning either to retain or entertain them, they were all sent back again to their countries, to witness and recount the worthy acHicvements of their invincible and dreadful navy,

  of which the number of soldiers, the fearful burthen of their ships, the commanders’ names of every squadron, with all their mag
azines of provisions, were put in print, as an army and navy unresistible and disdaining prevention:

  with all which so great and terrible an ostentation, they did not in all their sailing round about England so much as sink or take one ship, bark, pinnace, or cockboat of ours, or ever burned so much as one sheepcote of this land.

  I was proud of that sentence. Five paragraphs long! 312 words! Such verbal puissance, such rich irony. (You notice my artistry, Carew? The colons like cannon shot? The internal rhyming in the reference to the Queen: disdaining, retain, entertain—? An Armada of a sentence, eh? A literary trumpet blast?)

  That sentence was my only active service.

  At least I knew about the sheepcotes.

  I commanded the sheep.

  *

  That sentence gives the game away. What game? Why, the game I have played all my life, and not unskilfully. A game of poses, disguises, masks, assumed identities. I have worn as many false faces as a whore of Turnbull Street. As an actor at the Globe or at the Fortune. I have always filled a part.

  Take that serpent of a sentence. What is it, in fact? An exercise in style. A conceit. A soliloquy. No man of action wrote it. No hero. No protagonist. It is the speech of a poet desiring to be mistaken for a master of war. As usual, I overdid it. Conduction, indeed! (All I meant, I suspect, was that Howard employed my own vessel, the Ark Ralegh, as his flagship.) If I had fought the Armada, I could have said less. Because I didn’t— Because I didn’t, I took 312 words to sink 240 ships! Not warfare. Not literature. A grammar of self-deceit! An essay in folly!

  I was trying on a voice in that stupid sentence. (Stupid because splendid, and the splendour quite foreign to me.) I did the same thing just two days ago, with those wretched Instructions. Great stuff! The accumulated wisdom of a Machiavel! Sir Walter Ralegh, a son unprodigalled, trying to play father Not satisfactory.

  An old voice, a worn-out style, a deliberate attempt to sound like history.