Armada (35 page)

Evardo felt his spirits soar as the squall of cannon fire erupted. There would be no escape for the English. Through the gathering clouds of gun smoke half a mile away he tried to see whether any of the English ships had finally been boarded in the close quarter fighting.

Thirty minutes before almost every fighting ship of the Armada had turned simultaneously north-north-west to cut off the enemy’s attempt to outflank the Armada to landward. Most of the English ships, and Evardo recognized their flagship amongst them, had quickly gone about to opposite tack, reversing their tactic by trying to force the seaward flank. With the wind to command the galleons and Levanters of de Leiva and de Bertendona had cut across their path and were now heavily engaged with the enemy.

But not every English ship had turned and the
Santa Clara
and a number of other warships had been ordered to hold the landward flank at all costs. Beyond dividing his forces to allow the transport ships to remain a safe distance from the fighting, Medina Sidonia had done little to organize a coherent attack and the skirmishes that were rapidly developing were a confusion of individual duals and ripostes.

‘
Comandante
,’ Mendez called and indicated off the starboard bow.

Under blood red sails and oars de Moncada’s four Neapolitan galleasses were forging a path to the headland. They had the bit between their teeth. A small group of English ships, no more than a half dozen, were trapped on the far side of Portland Bill. They had cut their course to the flank too finely, and close inshore, in the lee of the headland, they were becalmed and completely cut off.

Evardo ordered the
Santa Clara
to pursue the galleasses, eager to share in the spoils. Like the wind, this gift was surely heaven sent. He clasped the crucifix around his neck as the deck tilted beneath him.

The wind was light, but it filled the sails and bore the
Santa Clara
on. Four other galleons of the Squadron of Castile slipped into her wake and within a dozen ship-lengths they formed into a rough echelon behind her. Evardo gave them only scant attention. His focus was firmly fixed on the fearsome galleasses a quarter-mile ahead and the hapless prey beyond them.

Robert flinched as the muzzles of the galleasses’ heavy bow chasers disappeared behind billows of smoke. The air screeched with passing round shot and from fifty yards away he heard a scream of pain from a crewman of the Golden Lion.

‘Steady boys,’ he shouted.

The Spanish galleasses advanced at speed, their blunt-nosed rams surging with every pull of the oars, their decks crammed with heavily armed soldiers.

‘Frobisher has led us into a death trap,’ Seeley cursed quietly so only Robert could hear.

‘Fear not, Thomas. Frobisher is no fool.’

When it became obvious that the Spaniards would cut off the English fleet’s attempt to outflank them to landward, and Howard had gone about to the opposite tack, Frobisher had signalled the galleons sailing behind the
Triumph
to stay on course and follow him. Robert had complied, deferring to Frobisher’s seniority, quickly figuring out the commander’s plan. Along with four other galleons Frobisher had led them into the lee of the headland. The
Retribution
could barely make steerage speed in the flat calm and so close to the coastline Robert had dropped anchor, transforming his nimble, mobile warship into a vulnerable target, ripe for boarding.

Initially their presence had gone unnoticed and Robert had felt the first sliver of uncertainty that Frobisher’s plan might not work. That feeling had turned to shame when he watched Howard engage the enemy while his galleon skulked idly out of the enemy’s range. A lookout’s call had ended those misgivings. They had been spotted, by four galleasses and a troop of galleons. There was nowhere to run. The
Triumph
and her consorts were hamstrung by the breathless air and Robert carefully estimated the range as the galleasses sped onwards.

‘Mister Miller,’ Robert called. ‘Orders to Mister Larkin; tell him to give the Spaniards a taste.’

‘Aye, Captain.’

‘Mister Seeley. Prepare to weigh anchor and present the larboard broadside.’

‘Will I order the men to make ready to repel boarders?’

For a moment Robert did not reply. He looked to the
Triumph
.

‘I believe Frobisher would tell you that won’t be necessary.’

Seeley hesitated for a moment, puzzled by the captain’s response, but the urgency of the moment compelled him to move. He shouted his orders as Larkin let fly with his longer range cannon.

Robert’s hand went to the hilt of his sword and he drew the blade an inch from the scabbard. The Spanish galleasses were less than twelve hundred yards away and were still coming on apace. Their course was steady, their hulls slicing through the calm waters with Portland Bill off their starboard beams.

Again Robert estimated the range. The Spaniards had passed The Shambles. The underwater ridge lay a mile behind them in their wakes. The enemy should be in position. They had taken the bait, but Frobisher’s plan relied not only on location, but on timing. As the galleasses consumed the distance between them and the English galleons, Robert began to pray that Frobisher had indeed judged the conditions correctly.

Evardo drew his sword and twisted the weapon slowly in his hand, examining the keen edge as the sunlight reflected off the long narrow tapered blade. He glanced up at the galleasses two hundred yards ahead, marvelling at their sleek, spear-like hulls and the hypnotic glide of the oars as they rose and fell in seemingly effortless grace. The stranded English galleons would be helpless against such predators. Evardo became acutely aware of the weight of the sword in his hand, knowing he would soon have a chance to wield it on the deck of an English ship.

Evardo checked the line of his galleon. He nodded, confident that Mendez was garnering every knot of speed he could from the light breeze. The galleasses would certainly reach the English first. Their lead was increasing fractionally with every draw of the oars, but once the galleasses engaged at close quarters the
Santa Clara
and the galleons behind her would be upon the enemy in minutes.

Then Evardo noticed that some of the starboard oars of de Moncada’s flagship, the San Lorenzo, seemed to be out of sync. The entire bank of oars lost their cohesive tempo. The bow of the San Lorenzo skewed violently and almost hit one of her sister ships. The galleasses slowed, their once arrow-straight trajectories falling foul of some unseen force that defied their purpose.

‘Rip tide,’ Evardo whispered, recognizing the consequences of the dreaded phenomenon.

‘Mendez, shorten sail,’ he shouted, his command coinciding with the sailing captain’s own instinct to slow the pace of the
Santa Clara
.

Within minutes the floundering galleasses had steadied their hulls, but they were no longer advancing. The rip tide was holding them fast. Evardo balled his fist in anger and sheathed his sword, unsure of what he should do next. He could try to go around the galleasses, but he had no idea how far the tidal race extended. With such an insipid wind there was little chance he could forge a path through the rip. The tantalizingly close enemy slowly turned their broadsides to the struggling galleasses.

‘Give ’em hellfire,’ Robert whispered a heartbeat before Larkin’s voice was drowned by the tremendous boom of the broadside cannonade. The
Retribution
shuddered from the recoil, the decks trembling as if in fury, its firepower marking the galleon as a warship born for the maelstrom of battle.

‘Hard about, Mister Seeley. Chasers to bear,’ Robert called coldly, drawing on his loathing for the mongrel galleasses and their fearful rams.

Seeley called for the change, his focus locked on the calamity that had befallen the Spaniards.

‘Portland Race,’ Robert explained, seeing Seeley’s expression.

‘Of course.’ He had heard of the tidal race but had never encountered it and knew little of its power. It had never occurred to him that this was Frobisher’s stratagem – to use the massive disturbance caused by the tide flowing between The Shambles and the tip of Portland Bill.

At five hundred yards Larkin’s guns were having little effect on the structure of the galleass in the
Retribution
’s line of fire, but the round shot had torn bloody swathes across her open decks and the crimson hull could not conceal the devastating effects of the broadside. The
Retribution
continued to turn in an agonizingly slow figure-of-eight, the gun crews poised expectantly behind their charges, while near at hand the broadsides of the other galleons fired off in uncoordinated salvos, the ships firing as they could. As bait they had held their nerve and kept their fire in check. As aggressors they would let fly with all the wrath they could muster.

‘Neapolitan
cobarde
s,’ Evardo shouted, unable to contain himself. ‘Why don’t they pull through?’

The galleasses were still arrayed before the
Santa Clara
, unable or unwilling to advance. It appeared that de Moncada had lost his nerve for the fight. Where initially the galleasses had been clapped in the irons of a rip tide they were now paralysed by their indecisive commander. If only the galleasses were commanded by Spaniards. They would not shirk. The Spaniards were warriors, not whore-bred traders like the Neapolitans. While Evardo’s own ship was a slave to the wind, the galleasses’ oars should allow them to break through and take the first prizes of the campaign. The strength of a ship needed only the courage to wield it. For a moment Evardo was tempted to close and board the nearest galleass and take command of its crew.

The boom of a full broadside washed over the deck, followed an instant later by the whistle of round shot, many of them missing the galleasses to tear holes in the air around the
Santa Clara
. Evardo had ordered his gunnery captain to return fire with the bow chasers if any targets presented themselves but with the galleasses under their sights the guns of the
Santa Clara
had remained quiet, robbing Evardo’s crew of the satisfaction of fighting fire with fire.

‘
Comandante
,’ Mendez called.

‘What is it?’

‘The wind,
Comandante
,’ the captain replied, alarm registering in his voice and expression. ‘It’s shifting.’

Evardo’s gaze shot up to the masthead. The banners were thrashing in the breeze but they were no longer pointing away from the north-east. They had spun around to the call of a new wind, a stiff southerly breeze that mocked Evardo even as he watched it take hold of the sails.

In his heart Evardo knew it was God’s punishment. He had lost patience with the Armada. He had granted them a favourable wind, a divine force to allow them to bring the fight to the enemy, only to see it squandered through uncertainty. Now He had given the weather gauge back to the English.

‘So be it,’ Evardo said quietly. Before the day was through he would prove that the Spanish were worthy of God’s favour.

‘Captain Mendez, bring us about.’

‘Si, mi
Comandante
,’ Mendez replied, seeing in his superior’s face the ferocity he had witnessed when he ordered the
Santa Clara
into the breech before the
San Juan
.

Robert wiped the sea spray from his face, his hand lingering over his mouth as he tasted the salt water, his nostrils filled with the smell of the sea-borne breeze. He was standing on the bowsprit, leaning out over the surging bow, his hand tightly gripping a foremast stay. To windward the English fleet was redeploying, taking immediate advantage of the weather gauge, their earlier fighting withdrawal swiftly becoming a vigorous counter attack.

From the moment the wind had changed the flotilla around the
Triumph
had headed away from Portland Bill to link up with the main body of the fleet. Howard had set a convergent course with Frobisher’s cohort, but only those galleons closest to the
Ark Royal
had taken their lead from the admiral. Further south Drake, in the gaudily painted
Revenge
, was attacking the Spanish seaward flank with upwards of fifty English ships.

The
Retribution
was sailing close-reach to the southerly wind. Howard’s centre was directly ahead but over a dozen enemy warships were beating towards the
Ark Royal
in an obvious effort to oppose Howard’s course. Robert quickly assessed the situation. The English had the weather gauge but the Spanish were desperately trying to retain the initiative.

‘Let them try,’ Robert muttered as he left the bowsprit. He ordered Seeley to maintain their heading, a course that would take them right into the developing storm of battle in the centre.

‘
Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis
,’ Evardo whispered in awe as he watched the
San Martín
sail into the maw of the English centre, the deafening roar of enemy cannon shaking the very heavens as the flagship was consumed by a cloud of gun smoke that concealed the terrifying conditions within. The
Santa Clara
was beating against the wind, trying to claw its way back into a battle that had little shape and strategy. Like bare-knuckle prize fighters each side was pummelling away at each other, searching for weaknesses that could be exploited.

To the south-west the seaward flank of the Armada was being hard pressed. Medina Sidonia had engaged the English centre. The duke had evidently decided that the seaward flank was in greater danger and several warships bore away from the
San Martín
to sail in support of the rearguard. Now the duke was alone in his attack. Evardo shouted to Mendez to lay on more sail and speed their approach.

‘Bear away!’ Robert roared above the thunderous thump of cannon and the concussive sound of musket fire.

The air around the quarterdeck was alive with the sounds of passing shot, an invisible predator that gave no warning to those it took. Robert’s eyes were everywhere at once. The
Retribution
was one of a cadre of galleons supporting Howard in his attack on the Spanish flagship, their close formation sailing testing every master’s skill as the galleons wove in and out of each other’s wakes, laying on their fire in turn upon the Spanish foe, before sailing upwind to reload their guns and returning to the fray.