The Rage of Fortune
Page 22
The Earl of Ravensden:
‘If the Queen had a hundred Griff Ruggs, England would rule the entire world,’ I said to Tom Carver as I watched the Halcyon sail into the narrow channel of Castlehaven harbour.
The Spanish batteries ashore, and those on their outermost ships, were blazing away, but my old teacher was undaunted. His own guns fired from both sides at an astonishing rate, transforming his pinnace into a veritable Ark Royal.
And now it was our turn. The Merhonour moved forward, followed in line by Matt Bredgate in the Swiftsure, then the Crane and Defiance. The crosses of Saint George streamed from our mastheads. Streamed rather too vigorously, and rather too much toward the north –
‘Wind’s strengthening, My Lord,’ said Carver, ‘and coming round more southerly with each turn of the glass. We’re going to be on a lee shore.’
‘So I observe, Master Carver. Let us deal with that after we’ve killed Spaniards, shall we?’
We came to the Spanish battery on the west bank of the harbour mouth. The eight guns fired at a formidable rate, or at least, formidable for the Dons. At such close range, they could not fail to hit. Shot tore through our sails, cut up the standing rigging on the mizzen near me, lacerating halliards and shrouds, and I felt the impact of at least three balls striking our hull. By now we were even within musket range, and the Spanish must have had five or six hundred musketeers massed on the bank. They volley fired in the grimly efficient way of the tercios, in three ranks, the first firing and retiring to the rear to reload, and so on.
‘Very well,’ I said as the musket balls flew about us like gnats, ‘time for the Don to taste a little of England’s mere honour! Master gunner! Upon my command – give fire!’
Our larboard demi-culverins, minions and sakers roared defiance as the Merhonour found her voice. Truly, there is nothing as pleasant as the feel of a ship’s battery firing upon the Spanish. The hull shudders, the flames erupt from gun barrels, the smoke swirls over the deck, the smell of powder fills the nostrils, and if you are very fortunate, as I was that day, you will see Castilian heads and limbs being torn from their bodies as your shot hits home.
Ahead of us, the Halcyon was taking an almighty pounding, her maintop now hanging at a crazy angle, but she was still giving as good as she got. I prayed that Griffin Rugg and young Iles – that is to say, young Musk – still lived. Then I returned to bawling encouragement at my gun crews.
Nicholas Iles:
There was still a part of me that thought, now I can write a play about Hell, for I have been there.
The deck of the Halcyon was red with blood. Pieces of men were scattered among the guns, the broken wood, and the fallen rigging. The sails were in shreds. Yet still Griffin Rugg stood there, roaring like a lion, firing his pistols at the Spaniards. For we were at small arms range now, with musket fire pouring down from the high-hulled ships on either side of us, as well as from the shore.
‘See, boy,’ the old man cried, ‘our fire’s too hot for them, by God! They’re moving aside, and that’s making a channel for the fleet! Keep it up, my brave lads! Keep—’
A ball struck him in the neck, and spun him round. Rugg fell to the deck. I ran over and lifted him. I tore a piece of clothing from the corpse of the ship’s carpenter, which lay next to him, and used it as a bandage to stop the spurt of blood. But it did little good, and Griffin Rugg knew it.
‘Fight the ship, lad,’ he said. ‘Officers all dead. Only you can take command. Only you—’
The lifeblood of Griffin Rugg flooded out, over the bandage, over my hands. The good old man had gone to meet whichever gods would receive him.
I looked up, and saw half-a-dozen men staring down at me. I was an actor, a forger, a poet and a coward. But the Spanish guns were still firing upon us, and now I could be none of those things. Or, perhaps, just one: the actor, playing the role of his life. After all, had I not played Hector, Tamburlaine and Hotspur upon the boards of Southwark, to popular acclaim?
I stood and raised my sword.
‘To your stations, men!’ I declaimed, as a Babbage or an Alleyn might have done. ‘For God and the Queen, this day we avenge Griffin Rugg!’
Several nodded, two echoed my cry, and one said, ‘Aye, aye, Captain Musk’.
The Earl of Ravensden:
‘Four of them running ashore, My Lord!’ cried Tom Carver.
It was a most glorious spectacle. Four Spanish galleons, two on either side of the haven, were putting themselves beyond the reach of our murderous gunfire and the likelihood of being boarded in the only way they could, by using a combination of their sails, towing longboats, and warping cables slung around great trees ashore, to run themselves into shallow water and thence onto the shore itself. But there was still one great Spanish ship in the middle of the haven, and we were closing it rapidly.
‘I fancy it’s a fair day for boarding a Spanish flagship, men!’ I cried.
The crew in the ship’s waist cheered. Carver steered the Merhonour directly for the great galleon, Admiral Zubiaur’s Maria Francesca.
‘He’s cutting his cables,’ said Carver. ‘Seeking room to manoeuvre.’
‘Let him try,’ I replied. ‘Hold your course for her beakhead, Master Carver!’
‘Aye, aye, My Lord!’
I ran down from the quarterdeck, through the ship’s waist, up to the forecastle, grabbed hold of a shroud, and hauled myself onto the rail. Behind me massed five score Merhonours, armed with swords, daggers, half-pikes and halberds. The Spanish admiral greeted us with a volley from his lower battery, and although I felt shot strike our hull, low down, I did not fear serious damage. The Dons’ shot was lighter than ours, and unlikely to cause much hurt. But if Zubiaur managed to take the advantage of the wind from us, that would be a very different matter –
The Spaniard’s bows were edging further to the east, to try and avoid our grappling hooks as we came in to board. But that brought him dangerously close to the wind, now a stiff onshore gale – Zubiaur had to try and come round onto the other tack – but the chart of Castlehaven harbour was clear in my head –
I ran back to the quarterdeck, shouting as I did so.
‘Master Carver! Helm hard a-larboard!’
But Carver knew the chart as well as I, and had already given the order. The bow of the Merhonour came round. But the Maria Francesca was not so fortunate. The sheet of the foresail was flying, but despite the best efforts of the men at the mizzen and the helmsman, the great ship was missing stays. And given where she was, according to my chart, that could have only one outcome. There was a great noise, like the roaring of some submerged sea-monster. The bow of the Spanish flagship rose into the air, and for a moment, the keelson itself was exposed. There were several great cracking sounds.
‘She’s broken her back’, said Carver. ‘They’ll never get her off the rocks. She’s finished, My Lord.’
Nicholas Iles:
From the quarterdeck of the Halcyon, I watched the death throes of the Spanish flagship. The men cheered, but only feebly: exhausted from their efforts, they were slumped against gun carriages or tackle. We had come to an anchor past the last of the Spanish ships, and Captain Nicholas Musk finally had the leisure to take a long draught of Pembroke ale.
Captain Nicholas Musk. What a part to play that had been! Waving a sword, admonishing shirkers, screaming defiance at King Philip, the Inquisition and all things Spanish. Finally I understood why, all those years ago, the young nobleman Matthew Quinton, born and bred so very far from the sea, took to that strange element under the tutelage of Griffin Rugg, whose corpse lay under a tarpaulin a few feet from where I stood. I thanked God that I had not been called upon to play the more difficult elements of the role – say, setting a course, or deciding which guns should fire upon which target, or boarding and testing my inadequate actors’ swordplay against a Castilian veteran – but in the circumstances, my performance seemed to have been adequate enough.
Moreover, I had spent enough time at
sea to realise what every real ship’s captain, and every seaman in our fleet, now knew. True, we had beaten the Spanish. Their flagship was wrecked, and four of their ships were ashore. But the wind was onshore, and strengthening all the time. The Spanish still had guns in batteries ashore, and could still bring to bear those on the grounded ships. They still had scores of those same Castilian veterans. And while the wind stayed as it was, we could not get out of the harbour.
We were trapped.
The Earl of Ravensden:
By the third day, the fleet was no longer worthy of the name. The Merhonour was peppered with the marks and holes of over three hundred great shot, had lost her bowsprit and foremast, and had a score of dead. The Swiftsure, directly astern of us, had lost her mainmast. Defiance was holed below the waterline, and listing to starboard. The Crane, the sternmost of our ships, had taken damage, too, but was too far away for me to judge how badly. The Halcyon, at the head of the harbour, was taking relatively little new punishment, but had taken so much during the initial forcing of the haven that she was little better than a wreck.
The wind remained stubbornly brisk and from the south, bringing in frequent squalls of driving, freezing rain, so there was simply no prospect of us being able to get out of Castlehaven. It was equally impossible to summon a council of war, because rowing between the ships was out of the question. The Spanish kept up a relentless bombardment, by day and night, from both their batteries and musketeers ashore and from their grounded ships. None of us had slept for three nights. Our own fire was becoming ragged, the damage to our hull and tackle increasing by the hour. And one thought was growing upon me with the speed and force of a death-fever.
So much for your restoration to the Queen’s favour, Matt Quinton, if you lose her four galleons and a pinnace. So much for the integrity of your neck, My Lord of Ravensden.
The one saving grace was the thought that there would be ample time to repair the ships before the summer’s campaign; ample time, that is, if we could get them out of this infernal haven at all. And in the afternoon of the third day, that proposition seemed a very long way away.
‘The Dons have reinforcements, it seems,’ I said. ‘Get me an Irishman!’
A round shot passed close to my head and severed a shroud behind me, but I gave it no thought. Instead, I focused on the sight of a column of fresh troops coming along the road from the west, cheered by the Spanish manning the battery.
Dunne, a Dubliner who served as caulker’s mate, came onto the poop deck and knuckled his forehead.
‘My Lord.’
‘Those fellows yonder, Dunne. The impudent ones, laughing and cheering upon the shore as though they had not a care in the world. Who might they be, do you reckon?’
The Irishman screwed up his eyes, looked at the oncoming host, then nodded knowingly.
‘O’Sullivans, My Lord, and O’Driscolls. The traitorous rebel scum of these parts. Villains to a man.’
‘Well-armed villains, by the looks of them.’
‘That they would be, My Lord. King Philip is most generous to his friends, so they say.’
I looked at the pitifully depleted piles of shot next to each gun on our upper deck, and thought would that Queen Elizabeth were as generous to hers.
‘Very well, then. I think we should give a special greeting to King Philip’s friends! Master Gunner, there! Master Skipworth! It strikes me that these O’Sullivans and O’Driscolls have but a very poor idea of demi-culverin range. Would you not say so, Master Gunner?’
Skipworth frowned. ‘Even so, they’re a fair way beyond point blank, My Lord.’
‘True. But with a fair volley of case and langrel, we don’t need to be at point blank. Two guns of your choosing, Master Gunner, to fire upon my command!’
‘Aye, aye, My Lord.’
The O’Sullivans and O’Driscolls continued to strut merrily upon the shore, gesturing obscenely toward the Queen’s ships and waving to their Spanish friends.
Skipworth gave me the signal.
‘Give fire!’
For what seemed like the thousandth time there in the harbour of Castlehaven, the Merhonour roared defiance against Spain and Popish superstition. The smoke cleared, and Skipworth and I beheld the scene.
‘Satisfactory, Master Gunner. My commendations to your gun captains and their crews. I’d reckon, what, two dozen slaughtered?’
‘So I’d say, My Lord. And that fellow staggering around with his right arm shot off won’t be long for the world.’
‘The rest of them scattered and cowering. Most satisfactory indeed. Perhaps now the O’Driscolls and O’Sullivans will give a little more respect to the Queen’s ships.’
But it was the kind of victory the ancients called Pyrrhic. In truth, we were still trapped; and within the hour, the surviving Irishmen were joining their fire to those of the Dons. As darkness fell, I offered up the fifty-ninth psalm. O my God, deliver me from mine enemies; defend me from them that rise up against me… A Spanish shot struck the mizzen, tearing a great splinter from the truck that missed me by inches. But I will sing of thy power, and will praise thy mercy in the morning: for thou hast been my defence and refuge in the day of my trouble.
Thy mercy in the morning.
The torn strips of cloth that had once been flags had been hanging limp overnight, but now, as yet another grey, damp dawn came up over that infernal dungheap named Ireland, I thought I observed a change.
‘What think you, Master Carver?’ I demanded.
‘Nor’-westerly, My Lord. Freshening. With God’s grace, we may be able to warp out of this place by noon.’
And so we did, exhausted men hauling upon hawsers attached to the kedge anchors of each ship of the squadron. All the while, the Dons kept up their fire from the shore, and we replied with our ever-diminishing stock of powder and shot; but, little by little, the Queen’s ships edged out of Castlehaven harbour and back into the open sea, where we were able to make sail.
Despite all the carnage that had befallen us, it was clear that we had won a great victory. The Spanish squadron was broken. All the stores that squadron had brought for the army ashore were reduced to cinders. Above all, General del Aguila’s only line of retreat was cut off, unless more ships came from Spain – and that they were hardly likely to do in December. So now the issue of the entire campaign hinged upon Kinsale, and the battle that had to be fought there.
Nicholas Iles:
The Halcyon, the first ship into Castlehaven, was the last out. The men in the tops, and the helmsman at the whipstaff, seemed to know their business, and worked in that strange way which, I believe, the old Greeks termed a ‘democracy’. This was as well, for their nominal captain had not the first idea of what orders to give. The men seemed perfectly content with this. Thus as I stood there upon the quarterdeck, watching the crippled Merhonour make her way slowly out to sea under the makeshift masts and sails that the seamen term jury rig, I pondered whether ships really needed captains at all.
I chided myself, for in that heretical way of thinking lay the felling of the entire chain of being. If ships had no need of captains, then perhaps nations had no need of kings –
The Spanish battery at the mouth of the harbour fired. I saw the flash from the muzzle and the cloud of powder smoke, then heard the blast, then witnessed the fall of shot, a small waterspout off the starboard bow. A perfunctory effort, I thought, no more. The Spanish gun crews would be as exhausted as we were, and with all of the Queen’s galleons now safely out of the harbour, they had little cause to assail us.
I reckoned without the damnably heightened sense of honour of the Dons. A second gun fired – again I saw the flash, and the smoke, and heard the blast – and heard the whistle of a shot flying through the air, nearer and nearer –
I felt myself thrown through the air, and had a glimpse of our mizzen mast upside-down. There was a moment of searing pain. Then all was dark.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Earl of Ravensden:
‘The Irish will attack, as soon as they finish their New Year feasting,’ said the Lord Deputy.
‘New Year, Charles? The morrow’s but Christmas Eve, man!’
‘For good English Protestants, perhaps. But the Irish keep the same papist calendar as the Spanish.’
‘Great God, what barbarians!’
‘As you say, Matt. But our scouts report advance guards are already on the march from their camp in Coolcarron Wood. The Irish are going to attack tomorrow, mark my words. And in that event, My Lord Ravensden, I’ll need every good man I can get.’ He took a long draw on his pipe, and exhaled a great cloud of noxious smoke. ‘You’ve led cavalry before, as I recall.’
‘Christ, yes, but not for many years – I rode with Philip Sidney at Zutphen—’
‘Which more than amply qualifies you, I think. If you’re willing, Matt, you can ride alongside Wingfield and Clanricarde, leading the van. Besides, having the famous Earl of Ravensden, the White Devil himself, riding at their head will inspire the men beyond measure.’
‘Sir Richard might object,’ I said.
‘Oh, I doubt it. After all, am I not merely obeying the Queen’s injunction to place you as much in harm’s way as possible?’