Ship of Fire (15 page)

Sixty vessels.

Our crew was quiet, and I tried hard to disguise my fear.

Chapter 36

Trouble did not take long in seeking us out.

A bank of oars flashed in the late afternoon sun.

A galley separated from the tangle of merchant ships, and sped toward us. She was followed by another very like it in appearance, trim, sleek, oar-powered vessels able to race easily against the wind. They skimmed the water in a breathtaking show of swiftness, maneuvering deftly around a stout merchant ship anchored in the middle of the harbor.

The nearby merchant freighter had caught the admiral's eye. “She's an argosy,” Drake said—a rich merchantman. “Look at her stern, painted scarlet and blue,” he laughed. “And the gilded frames around her gunports. She's Genoese, Sam, and heavy in the water with something rich!” The Genoans were world renowned as among the most successful sea traders.

It was the first time I had heard the admiral use the captain's Christian name, and Captain Foxcroft gave an appreciative if strained smile, humoring his ambitious admiral. “She'll have us in range soon,” said the captain, running a calculating eye over the handsome Italian ship. “By my count, she's carrying forty guns.”

“She'll need every one of them,” said Admiral Drake.

Immediately our attention was distracted by the rapidly approaching galleys, as quick and silent as two driving water-snakes, their wakes cutting wide of the treasure ship. Their white oars gleamed, the skilled oarsmen making easy work of halving the distance to us, and halving it again.

Guns gleamed in the prow of the foremost galley, twin cannon being primed as we looked on. The bronze guns were on swivels, meaning that they could be aimed with accuracy. Armed men gathered amidships, official-looking in their dark armor and slashed silk sleeves. Sir Robert rested his hand easily on the hilt of his rapier, and I made every effort to look as carefree.

The galley began to back oars, slowing her darting approach. The swivel guns were elevated and swung from side to side, the gunners letting us take in the implication of their choice of targets—first the mainmast, then the mizzen, and then the cluster of officers on our quarterdeck.

Our own gunners shielded the fuming wicks in their hands, our soldiers swarming below-decks.

A galley officer, with a shining breastplate and scarlet-slashed sleeves, stepped to the rail of his ship. The speaking trumpet in his hand gleamed.

The port official's voice was clear in the calm late afternoon, his words projected by the implement in his hand, and made all the clearer by the continuing, slowing approach of the galley. He called to us in a tongue I could not name—Flemish, perhaps. And then in French, a language I had heard in the London streets.

Captain Foxcroft made every effort to act the harmless visiting sea captain, eager to understand but not quite able to comprehend the query, one hand to his ear. The exchange was normal and proper so far—royal customs men were seeking to verify the origin and intent of an arriving vessel. It was not the first time that day that I wondered at the handsomeness and peaceful dignity of the Spaniards, well appointed in clothing and in arms, expecting to carry out their duties without violence.

One of the darkly bearded officers must have seen something that alarmed him. He stepped briskly to the side of the port official.

Whatever was murmured into his ear froze the officer at the rail, speaking trumpet halfway to his lips.

Admiral Drake could not disguise his red beard and blue eyes any longer. The famous sea fighter gave an order. A single pennon was run up along the mast, snapping straight in the wind—Drake's personal insignia, the dragon with its sharpened talon claiming the round world.

The admiral spoke again, his voice quiet and steady. The captain raised a hand, like someone greeting a friend. Ross Bagot, the master gunner, standing in the ship's waist—the main deck directly before the quarterdeck—turned to his mates and his lips moved, calling out the command relayed to the gunners below.

I never caught the words.

Sooner than the thought can be formed our starboard gun-ports were opened all along the gun deck below with a surprising clatter. The cannons ran out, carriage wheels squealing.

Then a few heartbeats of silence were broken by commotion from the galley, excited Spanish commands, oars thrashing the water.

I wished I could hang on to a rail, or hurry forward and fling my arms around the mainmast. Fear kept me where I was, alive to what was about to happen. I wanted only to stop the great wheel of days, and reverse every hour.

Our guns fired, and the ship shuddered under my feet.

Chapter 37

The smoke burned my eyes.

It was too thick to breathe, a thick atmosphere of yellow and black fumes. As the breeze dispersed the clouds, the wreckage on the galley deck was clear, the mess that had been officers and men strewn across the deck. The galley's swivel guns fired just then, but with no apparent damage to our ship as soldiers swarmed out from our hold, English fighting men taking their positions.

Harquebusses were aimed and discharged, and archers climbed into our top castles. Soon arrows crisscrossed the deck of the galley. The galley resembled an insect stunned and unable to command her many limbs. Then her oars dug into the water, and the galley began a slow turn.

Her men loosed every variety of weapon at us, harquebus fire clawing the air, pistol shots adding their smoke to the general obscurity, arrows and even leaden slingshot rattling across our deck. Spanish officers shielded wounded men with their bodies. I could not suppress a feeling of sharp compassion for these warriors, and I was aware of the stark unfairness of our sudden attack.

The galley's stern guns came into play, shot from the two cannons howling high overhead, missing us entirely and skipping out across the water beyond. The oared vessel retreated, bits of timber strewn across the water. Her sister ship joined her in speedy flight, and our gunners cheered, their chorus of voices thin after the din of gunfire.

But we had barely begun.

An entire fleet of oared warships darted forward through the water. The retreating, battered galleys forced their way through this deploying fleet, some ten sleek manpowered vessels. The
Golden Lion
maneuvered, turning her starboard guns in the direction of the advancing Spaniards, and despite my misgivings the sight made me proud—an English ship spewing fire, her shot skipping across the water.

Our own gunners, too, splashed shot among the galleys, and a well-aimed round shattered a row of oars. The galleys tangled with one another, rowing implements angled uselessly in the air. At last they managed to turn about and race back toward the shelter of the wharf, as our men cheered once again.

The Genoese ship had weighed her anchor, seamen tiny at this distance scurrying about her deck, clambering upward and shaking out her great white sails.

Our ship closed on her, the big merchant ship low in the water and slow to respond to her rudder. As the handsome vessel opened her gunports, other merchant vessels were in plain view beyond, in the waters near the wharf. It seemed to me that this cargo ship was not laboring to escape, after all, but working deliberately to bring her guns to bear.

“She's too heavy to flee,” Admiral Drake remarked to me. “And she's got some spleen in her—she's going to make a fight of it.”

“She's protecting her fellow merchantmen,” I suggested.

“How very brave of her,” said Drake with a brisk smile. He turned to Captain Foxcroft. “Give her some shot in the belly, Sam,” he said, in the tone of a man deciding a cheerful wager, “but be careful our gunners don't sink her.”

It seemed like days ago that our shipmates had been tidy-looking mariners, pretending to be harmless and lazy, fresh-faced and calm. Now they were sweaty devils, grinning with enthusiasm as cannon thrust forward through the ports, aimed, and answered the command to fire with another deafening broadside.

The Genoese returned the fire, salt spray dousing the quarterdeck. Our ship maneuvered closer, the Genoese mariners no longer small, scrambling figures but broad-shouldered men, ramming charges down the throats of their maindeck guns.

This time one of the enemy shots struck our ship, a resounding blow that shook the rigging. The admiral gave a glance upward. Warships like ours were famous for their stout timbers, but the gaunt expression on our captain's face told me that another volley or two would begin to cripple our vessel.

Color in his cheeks, the admiral gave the order, “Pay them back in kind, Captain Foxcroft.”

The battle that followed could have taken a few minutes or it could have consumed many hours. The sun, which had been retiring toward the sea behind us, stopped in its descent, and the wind ceased, our sails and the canvas of our enemy hanging slack.

The Genoese gunports spouted fire, and our own gunners vanished in the poisonous, lung-searing smoke. At times there was silence, except for the gasping of the gunners, swabbing the gun barrels, jamming home a charge of powder, working round lead shot down the muzzles of our cannon.

Then, once again, the near-silence was obliterated by the thunder of gunfire.

When the smoke lifted from time to time, the Genoese treasure ship was stripped of rigging, ropes dangling, scraps of clothing and flesh sown across her maindeck. Her gunwales gaped, and bloody men wrestled a gun back into its port. Pistol shots whipped our deck from her fighting tops—the firing positions high on the masts—answered by muskets and longbows of our own.

It took so long to reload a firearm or a cannon, so many deliberate well-rehearsed steps, that for long moments the fight seemed to take place underwater, mates slowly reaching for their powder scoops, gunners bending down to use their bronze reamers, singed fingers cradling another round shot, all performed with a sodden rhythm.

Everything else we had ever accomplished in our lives was far off and colorless, now. We could barely remember any other place but this calm, suddenly windless late day. Our ship rocked with yet another broadside.

I had heard of ships weakened and sunk during battle without suffering an enemy blow, planks and pegs loosened by the recoil of their own guns. The Genoese ship was holed now, three ragged shot-wounds near the waterline.

And more damage was exposed as the water lifted and fell away, an ugly stitching of bright wounds along her hull. As she let loose another uneven broadside the recoil rocked the treasure ship gently back, and predictably forward again. Each time this happened the ragged punctures in her hull dipped downward, into the brine.

At last water began to flow through her gunports and then up, over her gunwales, tide stretching across her deck.

Chapter 38

“Board her before she sinks!” cried Drake.

But as our stern swung slowly toward the freighter, the merchant guns continued to bark fire at us, and men in our ship's waist ducked involuntarily as some new variety of shot shrilled through the air, an ugly, stomach-turning sound.

“It's chain shot,” remarked the admiral to me. “Meant to cut our men to pieces.”

The big cargo ship was burning now, the lapping, rising harbor water kissing flames, white steam lifting. Gun smoke mixed with the reek of burning cargo, some distinctive odor the admiral recognized. “Raw silk!” cried Admiral Drake in anguish, striking the rail with his fist. “Tons of the stuff.”

At last the ship sank. There was nothing to be done. The battle-hewed cargo ship went down, a swirl of water over her masts, and the fume of smoke lingering, slowly spinning, over the tangle of cordage and splinters that belched up out of the water.

I had heard of such disasters, but had always imagined survivors, clinging to spars and drift-planks, men swimming to assist their shipmates. Plenty of useless wreckage burst to the surface, and a single, floating human arm, but no human struggle, triumphant or otherwise, played out across the water. Our nearness to such great loss of life, scores of men drowning while we stood, gave me a pang of nausea.

“This is a grievous waste,” said Drake. “And yet—as our Lord Jesus decides.” He turned to me with a smile. “We'll get our hands on treasure yet.”

Night fell.

Anne and her mother were safe in their cabin, the door fastened shut. Anne would open it only after questioning me, saying she did not believe I was Thomas Spyre—the young man she had known would not have participated in such a thunderous battle.

“It's me, in truth,” I insisted earnestly. “Wanting only to see you.”

Anne held the pistol as she opened the door. “I keep it primed and bent,” she said, answering the question I had not brought myself to ask.

Loaded and cocked, she meant. “There's little danger to you and your mother,” I said. The ringing in my ears made me unsure whether I spoke too loudly, or too softly. Mariners who had been to war were often half deaf for the rest of their lives.

“You speak of danger,” said Anne, her eyes friendly even as her tone was cool. “You stood on deck, as I imagine, with timber fragments cutting off heads all around.”

“I believe heads remained attached to bodies,” I responded. “On our ship.”

Her mother was sitting up in her bunk, a blanket drawn up to her chin. Her eyes were bright with fear, and I put a hand to her forehead. It was cool. I had feared that the percussive force of so much gunfire might have done her harm.

She spoke so quietly I could barely hear her. I thought I made out the words, “I am the picture of terror.”

“When is Admiral Drake,” Anne demanded, “going to turn this ship about and back to sea?”

“He does not confide his every thought to me,” I responded. I was trying to make light of the matter, but I sounded—I realized too late—dismissive.

“Is our admiral mad?” Anne asked. “Has he shared his madness with his officers and his crew like a kind of plague?”