by M. J. Trow
All the way across the ford and into the still-sleeping streets of Newport, Carey was not single-handed. At least three hundred men marched behind his banner, swirling over his head in the stiff breeze of the darkness. Lights sparked to life behind lattice windows, doors were flung wide and bleary-eyed townsfolk stumbled on to the cobbles. ‘It’s the Armada,’ various militiamen shouted to them. ‘The dons are here. Arm yourselves!’
No one had rehearsed this moment. For all he had brought the Militia and the feudal levies up to a reasonable fighting quality, George Carey had made no provision for civilians. And nobody was listening as they grumbled among themselves as the soldiers tramped past their front doors. ‘The castle. We’ve got to get to the castle. It’s our only hope.’ … ‘Well, I’m going to die here if I have to.’ … ‘Nobody’s getting me to get off my backside, least of all some bloody dago. We’re staying put.’
The more realistic said nothing. They quietly dug into their hidey holes for the old Latin Bibles, long banned, and hid rosaries in their jerkins. ‘George Carey? He couldn’t knock the skin off a blancmange, he couldn’t.’
They reached the quay before the Captain of the Wight decided to have it out with his dubious command. With the black hulk of the Bowe behind him, George Carey ordered his men to halt. There was an odd silence now, stranger still after nearly an hour of noise and thunder and the rattle of an army on the road. He looked at the faces in front of him, the men who would have to stand against Philip of Spain.
‘Gentlemen,’ he shouted so that everyone heard him. ‘Here we are. The time has come. But after the events at the castle, I fear we are not as united as we should be. I will take my sailors here and hunt the seas for the dons. We may not make much of a dent in their formation, but we’ll see the enemy face to face and make them rue the day they ever left Lisbon.’ He drew his sword, brandishing it high. ‘Those who are with me,’ he said, ‘stand by me now.’
At first, no one moved. Then Kit Marlowe stepped forward, smiling at the governor. ‘I still have your sword here, Sir George,’ he said. ‘I’d like to return it to you, after it’s been baptized in some Spanish blood, that is.’
‘Good man!’ Carey beamed and slapped him on the shoulder. Nicholas Faunt followed. No mere field agent was going to upstage him; besides, he was there as the representative of the Queen – how could he stay behind? Tom Sledd was next, still picking bits of painted plaster off his sleeves.
‘Tom,’ Marlowe murmured. ‘Are you sure about this?’
‘Me? Miss a punch-up? Come on, Kit. It’ll be the best fun I’ve had in … ooh … hours.’
One by one, the others followed – Henry Meux, Robert Dillington, Henry Oglander, Turney, Norris, Burley. Carey’s beam grew broader with every arrival, until his eyes were bright with tears. In five minutes, there were only two men still standing on the quayside.
‘Martin,’ George Carey said, frowning. ‘You’re with me.’
The man scuttled over to him. ‘I’d be no use on board a ship, George,’ he said. ‘I’ll get back to the castle, organize a defence.’
‘Do as you’re told, sir!’ the governor snapped at him. He looked across at the last man standing. ‘Well, well, Master Vaughan,’ he said. ‘No stomach for a fight?’
‘On the contrary.’ Vaughan brazened it out. ‘I will be right behind you, Sir George. On the Bowe.’
‘Very well.’ Carey reluctantly gave the man the benefit of the doubt. He turned to his officers. ‘Burley. Get yourself west. It may be Yarmouth is under fire already. God speed.’
‘Sir George.’ The big man saluted and went off to find his horse.
‘Norris. Turney. To your posts, please. Turn your guns to seaward and the first Spaniard you see, I want him blown out of the water. Understand?’
‘Sir!’ Both men saluted and barely acknowledged each other as they parted to ride up the opposite banks of the Medina.
‘I’ll take a hundred men of the Militia,’ Carey shouted. ‘Sergeant Wilson, there’s a Captaincy for you if you choose the best you’ve got.’
‘Sir.’
FIFTEEN
For the next three hours, every man under Carey’s command found himself hauling on ropes, heavy and wet, that cut hands and would not give. Slowly, inch by inch, the Commander, newly painted in the Queen’s colours of green and white, slid out of her makeshift berth. Men from the town had come along to lend a hand, even the miserable vicar of St Thomas’s, although he was so shocked by the language he heard from the sweating, grunting soldiery that he soon retreated and chanted prayers for everybody’s safe return instead.
At last, the sails were unfurled with a roar of canvas and the wind took them, billowing wide. There was a clatter of boots as the company assembled on deck, the Militia in the centre with their pikes piercing the sky. The gunners hauled their demi-culverins into position below the planking and the gunports flew upwards. The Commander swung away from her moorings and Carey’s banner streamed from the stern, snapping in the wind.
Avis Carey was leaning on the wall of the keep, wrapped in a blanket and staring out to sea. Dawn was beginning to lighten the sky to the east but she shielded it from her eyes with her hand. She could just see Georgie’s stern lights, but couldn’t tell what was going on; the light jigged and jounced around and she feared that the ship may capsize at any minute. She knotted her fist in the blanket and held it under her chin, muttering the rosary she had learned as a child. It calmed her a little, but even so her eyes kept unfocusing with fear and her foot tapped ceaselessly.
Bet had watched her for some time from the courtyard below. In the growing light, she could see the mess that the stage and the seating were in; planks of wood, splinters and sagging swags of flowers were all over the cobbles. Hats were scattered here and there as well as playbills with George Carey’s name seeming to shout from the page. She picked one up and smoothed it out, tucking it into her bodice. One day, when the world was back to normal, they would want one of these, to remind them of the Masque and happier days. She dashed a tear from her cheek. She wasn’t quite sure who it was for. Looking up again at her sister-in-law outlined against the grey sky, she lifted her skirts and began the long climb up the worn steps to try to persuade her down. It was a long drop from the keep and Bet was not at all certain that Avis would not be tempted to seek oblivion that way, should anything happen to George. Better to get her down to ground level, if she could.
Finally, panting a little, she reached the woman’s side. She looked out to where the mouth of the Medina yawned into the Solent.
‘Avis,’ she said quietly. ‘Come down with me. Come and eat something. You will need your strength for the day to come, I think. We all will.’
Avis Carey turned dull eyes on her sister-in-law. She dragged her focus to bear on her and seemed surprised to see her there. ‘Bet?’ she murmured in a voice rusty with disuse and the dryness of her throat. She licked her lips and when she spoke again her voice was stronger and more harsh. ‘Still here? I thought you might have gone off with the men.’
Bet looked at her, her own eyes wide. ‘What do you mean, Avis? Why would I go off with the men?’
Avis raised a sardonic eyebrow and looked out to sea again. She turned her head frantically left and right. In the moment she had looked away, Georgie’s ship had disappeared behind the trees. But no, there it was, beyond the trees, turning west at the mouth of the river. She leaned on the parapet and peered closer, greedily taking in the last view of the Commander before she got too far away for Avis’s short sight. She gave a sob that went right to Bet’s heart.
‘Avis.’ She put a hand on the woman’s arm. ‘I know what we can do. We can go down to the quay and ask the men left there what is going on. Better that than staying here, always wondering. What do you think?’
Avis froze for a moment and then gave herself a shake. She turned away from the distant view and looked at Bet almost as if seeing her for the first time. ‘You’d do that?’ she asked.
> ‘Of course. I do love your brother, you know, Avis. And you.’ Bet could hardly believe the words coming out of her mouth and yet, amazingly, she knew them to be true.
The big woman stood there irresolute for two more heartbeats, then threw off her blanket and made for the stairs. From the first stopping place, she looked back at the mistress of Carisbrooke and shouted, ‘What are you waiting for, Bet? The tide won’t be right forever, you know!’ And with a whirl of skirts, she was gone.
John Vaughan sat on the bridge of the Bowe, a lantern at his elbow. The dawn was rising, but he was totting up rows of figures and he needed the light. Some of his men had been a little mutinous, wanting to go and fight the dons. He had chosen them for their bellicose nature in the first place, he thought to himself, so now he had to ride that particular storm. He also had quite a lot of information on most of them – information that could have them twirling from a rope before they could say knife – so, muttering, they had continued their normal morning tasks on board while he assessed the damage that having the mouth of the river blocked by the Commander had done to his business. Finally, he drew two straight lines under the figure he had arrived at and, blowing out the lantern, pushed himself back from the table, a half-smile on his face. He was still all right. He could rebuild Mead Hole in a twinkling and soon be back in business. With the dons or with the governor, it didn’t really matter which.
He hadn’t heard her approach, but suddenly Bet Carey was standing opposite him, a hand on either side of his reckoning table, forearms taut, breasts almost bursting out of her bodice. Her chest was heaving and for a moment he wondered if he was asleep and dreaming. Like most men on the Island who had not actually sampled her charms, he had often spent time there in his sleep. ‘Master Vaughan,’ she snapped. ‘Why is your ship still in harbour?’
He looked up at her and put on his most winning expression, which dripped off his chin when he looked further and saw Avis Carey standing behind her. He knew he was beaten, but tried an excuse nonetheless. ‘I fear the Bowe is not seaworthy at the moment, my ladies,’ he said. ‘She has barnacles on her bottom and I would not risk her out to sea.’
A sailor popped his head out of a nearby hatch. ‘No, sir,’ he said, sketching a salute to the women. ‘She just bin scrubbed below for foulin’. We’re fit to set sail any time you like.’
Vaughan turned on him but Avis was quicker.
‘Excellent, my good man,’ she said. ‘Call your crew, Master Vaughan, and have them do whatever is necessary to get this ship out of this river. We must follow the Commander. She may need our help.’
The sailor was ready with his opinion again. ‘Beggin’ your pardon, Mistress,’ he said. ‘We can’t overhaul the Commander. The Bowe, she ain’t built for that kind of running. But we could wait in the Solent, watch for’n, if she should need our help.’
Avis opened her mouth, but this time Vaughan was the quicker. ‘He’s right, Mistress Avis,’ he said. ‘We can heave to, to help your brother’s ship if she comes to harm, but we could never catch her in a month of Sundays.’
Avis was reaching over the table, ready to haul the man to his feet, but Bet, expert at reading men in any weather, knew he was speaking the truth. ‘Let’s settle for that, shall we, Avis?’ she said. Then, turning to Vaughan, ‘Where do we sit? Is there some kind of viewing platform? I doubt I can keep Avis below decks, you know.’
Vaughan looked at her with a worried frown. Lined up on the quay he could see other women there, the wives of his fellow conspirators who, not hours ago, had done their level best to topple George Carey. ‘You can’t come with us, ladies,’ he said. ‘The sailors won’t have women on board ship. It’s bad luck.’
Avis and Bet folded their arms in unison. They planted their feet on the deck and looked at Vaughan under their brows. It was clear he would have more luck moving Carisbrooke Castle than these two.
‘But, on the other hand,’ he said, standing up and gesturing for his crew to start hauling the ship into sailing rig, ‘luck is just a state of mind. Lean on the rails, ladies, for the best view. Master Page!’
The captain sprang to attention on the lower deck.
‘Haul sail and make for Mead Hole.’
‘That’s bad luck, you know,’ Tom Sledd said as he caught sight of Benjamin, still in his farthingale. ‘A woman on board ship.’
‘Stow you!’ the lad snarled at him and pulled off his wig, kicking himself free of the skirt. Judging by the wolf-whistles that followed, he began to wish he had kept it on.
It had been still dark as the Commander slid past Richard Turney’s fort at Cowes and the little garrison there saluted as the stern lanterns flickered past them and swept on into the open sea. There was that bloody wind again, Tom Sledd moaned to himself as they butted free of the river. Why was the damn thing always blowing in his face, whichever way he stood and whatever direction he was coming from? The little ship churned and rolled as the cables creaked and groaned. The low headland of the island was dark to their larboard, the curve of Gurnard Bay and Thorness. Soon they were slicing the sea beyond Newtown and running with the tide along Hamstead Ledge. The dawn was lighting the sky behind them as the ship buffeted below Edmund Burley’s guns at Yarmouth. No firing yet. The dons had not got this far east and that was a good sign. Kit Marlowe stepped down from the quarterdeck where all the officers and gentlemen had gathered. The main deck was solid with militiamen, leaning on their pikes and watching as Colwell Bay snaked to larboard.
‘That’s Hurst Castle,’ Marlowe heard Sergeant Wilson say. ‘Narrowest point to the mainland, that is. Reckon we could hold the Armada here all by ourselves!’
There was a ripple of laughter. Marlowe wondered if it was like this on board the Spanish ships, anxious men making small talk, cracking feeble jokes, moaning about the weather. Or were they all kneeling in fervent prayer, kissing their rosaries while their black-robed priests sang Te Deum, pro nobis?
‘Shit!’ the helmsman at George Carey’s elbow hissed. Carey had seen it too, the sea mist like a wall that so often cloaked the Island and made it invisible. It was seeping into their nostrils already, smelling of salt, but it hadn’t quite reached them yet. Totland should be to larboard and the coloured cliffs of Alum beyond that. But there was nothing, just grey above the rolling sea, whispering and restless. The fog moved stealthily towards them, like an animal stalking its prey, glowing with a fantastic magick that could be hiding anything in its coils. There was a stir from the men on deck and everyone gritted their teeth, ready for whatever may come.
‘Steady, rudder,’ Carey murmured. The last thing they needed was the weather to be against them when they could almost hear the roar of Medina Sidonia’s guns. The wind had dropped and the sails were not so full now, but the momentum of the sea kept them surging forward, into the unknown.
‘Dear God, no!’ No one knew who said it, who saw it first. The single voice came, not from the crow’s nest where the sailor there was drenched in mist and shivering with cold. It came from the main deck, from a foot soldier who had never been this far out to sea in his life, a lad from Essex, from dry land.
For a long electric moment, there was silence on board the Commander. The mist was clearing as though a man was drinking smoke and blowing the rings away. And beyond the mist came the Armada, a vast crescent of timber, canvas and iron, more ships than any man on the Commander had ever seen in his life before. As sea mists will, the one that had shrouded the ship moments before had gone now and the sun shone bright on the sails and brass and gold of the Spanish galleons. The sky behind them was as black as pitch, rolling clouds coming in from the west, thunderhead anvils building and collapsing, then building again, each time bigger and blacker than before. In the depths of the cloud, beyond the ships, lightning flickered but there was no thunder that the men on the Commander could hear. Their ears were filled with the snapping of the canvas as the wind got up again and the roar of their own blood.
George Carey let his eye roam o
ver the wall of ships that filled his horizon. He knew their banners; so did Nicholas Faunt and Kit Marlowe. The blood-red bars of Aragon, the rampant lions of Castile, the chains of Andalusia: all the panoply of the greatest power in the world was bearing down on the Wight, churning forward like an unstoppable juggernaut for the narrows. And in his heart of hearts, George Carey knew that he had nothing in the Wight to stop that. They would bat aside Burley’s cannon at Yarmouth, blow Turney and Norris off their perches at the Medina estuary. Nothing could stop them. Nothing.
‘Hard a starboard!’ Carey was suddenly galvanized into action. ‘Bring her round, Master helmsman.’ The man wrenched the wheel, hauling the ship round, and the Commander swayed and swung, militiamen slipping and colliding with each other against the deck rail.
‘Are we in range, Master gunner?’ he called down to his artilleryman.
The man looked at him as if he was mad. At best he could bring ten guns to bear against that great and terrible fleet. Ninety pounds of iron smashing into any one of those galleons would hardly leave a scratch.
‘Barely, sir,’ the man shouted. There was a vicious wind rising from the north-west and it brought a sudden squall of rain. It stung the faces of the men clinging to the Commander’s rail and lashed the billowing sails. The Armada was changing course, whether to combat the wind or by design was impossible to tell. The leading ships were dipping to starboard, veering south, away from the Solent and the wind was behind them.
‘Fire!’ Carey commanded. He could see the whole Armada slipping away from him if he did not hurry and although the pinnace could easily outdistance the big galleons, he had no wish to sail in too close. The militiamen scattered as the guns along the Commander’s hull roared and bucked, their carriages sliding back. Below decks, the gunners toiled and sweated, stripped to the waist for action, hauling on ropes to check the recoil.
