A Column of Fire (102 page)

Rollo’s heart leaped in hope. Could it really all be over that quickly?

Medina Sidonia was dubious. ‘We have strict orders from his majesty King Felipe,’ he said. ‘We’re to head straight for our rendezvous with the duke of Parma and the Spanish army of the Netherlands at Dunkirk, and not get diverted. The king wants an invasion, not a sea battle.’

‘All the same, we know we’re going to encounter English ships,’ Recalde argued. ‘They will surely try to prevent us making our rendezvous. Given a perfect opportunity to devastate them, it would be foolish to ignore it.’

Medina Sidonia turned to Rollo. ‘Do you know this place?’

‘Yes.’

Many Englishmen would now regard Rollo simply as a traitor. If they could have seen him, on the flagship of the invading force, helping and advising the enemy, they would have sentenced him to death. They would not understand. But he would be judged by God, not by men.

‘The mouth of Plymouth harbour is narrow,’ he said. ‘Only two or three ships can pass through abreast, no more. And the entrance is covered by cannons. But, once inside, a few galleons could wreak havoc. The heretics would have nowhere to run.’

Spanish ships were armed with heavy, short-barrelled cannons, useless at any distance but destructive at close range. Furthermore, the decks of the armada were teeming with soldiers eager for action, whereas English warships were manned mainly by sailors. It would be a massacre, Rollo thought eagerly.

He finished: ‘And the town of Plymouth has a population of about two thousand – less than a tenth of our manpower. They would be helpless.’

Medina Sidonia was thoughtful and silent for a long moment, then he said: ‘No. We’ll wait here for the stragglers to catch up.’

Rollo was disappointed. But perhaps Medina Sidonia was right. The Spanish were overwhelmingly stronger than the English, so Medina Sidonia had no need to take risks. It hardly mattered when or where they engaged Elizabeth’s navy: the armada was sure to win.

*

B
ARNEY
W
ILLARD
was at Plymouth Hoe, a park on top of low cliffs that overlooked the entrance to the harbour. He was one of a small crowd of men accompanying the admiral of the English fleet, Lord Howard. From the Hoe they could see their fleet, many of the vessels taking on supplies of fresh water and food. The few warships of the royal navy had been augmented by smaller armed merchant ships, including Barney’s two vessels, the
Alice
and the
Bella
, and there were now about ninety craft in the harbour.

The breeze was from the south-west. It smelled of the sea, which always lifted Barney’s spirits, but its direction was, unfortunately, perfect for the Spanish armada coming into the Channel from the Atlantic and heading east.

Queen Elizabeth had taken a huge gamble. In a meeting with her naval commanders – Lord Howard, Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Hawkins – she had decided to send most of her navy to meet the Spanish armada at the western end of the Channel. The eastern end – the ‘Narrow Sea’, where the duke of Parma planned to cross with his invading army – was left weakly defended by a few warships. They all knew how risky it was.

The atmosphere on Plymouth Hoe was tense. The fate of England was in their hands, and they faced an overwhelmingly stronger enemy. Barney knew that in a sea battle all expectations could be upset by the unpredictable weather; but the odds were against them, and they were worried – all but one: the vice-admiral, Drake, whose famous insouciance was on display now as he joined a group of local men in a game of bowls.

As Barney looked anxiously across the water, a pinnace appeared in the Sound. A small ship of about fifty tons, she had all sails raised, and flew across the water like a bird. Barney knew the ship. ‘It’s the
Golden Hind
,’ he said.

There was a murmur of interest among the assembled company. The
Golden Hind
was one of several fast vessels assigned to patrol the westernmost approaches to England and watch for the invaders. There could be only one reason for her to dash back here, Barney thought, and apprehension prickled his skin.

He watched the ship enter the harbour, drop her sails, and moor at the beach. Before she was even tied up, two men disembarked and hurried into the town. A few minutes later, two horses moving at a brisk canter came up the slope to the park. Drake left his game and came across the grass, limping from an old bullet wound in his right calf, to hear what they had to say.

The senior man of the two introduced himself as Thomas Fleming, captain of the
Golden Hind
. ‘We met the Spaniards at dawn,’ he said breathlessly. ‘We’ve been running before the wind ever since.’

The admiral, Charles Howard, was a vigorous fifty-two-year-old with a silver-grey beard. ‘Good man,’ he said to Fleming. ‘Tell us what you saw.’

‘Fifty Spanish ships, near the Scilly Isles.’

‘What kind?’

‘Mostly big galleons, with some supply ships and a few heavily armed galleasses with oars as well as sails.’

Suddenly Barney felt possessed by a bizarre sense of calm. The event that had been threatened so often and feared so long had at last happened. The most powerful country in the world was attacking England. The end of doubt came as a strange relief. Now there was nothing to do but fight to the death.

Howard said: ‘In what direction were the Spaniards moving?’

‘None, my lord. Their sails were struck, and they seemed to be waiting for others to catch them up.’

One of the attendant noblemen, Lord Parminter, said: ‘Now, my man, are you sure of the numbers?’

‘We did not get close, for fear we might get captured and be unable to bring you the news.’

Lord Howard said: ‘Quite right, Fleming.’

Barney reckoned the Scilly Isles were a hundred miles from Plymouth. But Fleming had covered the distance in less than a day. The armada could not make the same speed, but they might get here before nightfall, he calculated anxiously, especially if they left behind their slower supply ships.

Parminter was thinking along the same lines. ‘We must set sail at once!’ he said. ‘The armada must be confronted head-on before it can make landfall.’

Parminter was no sailor. Barney knew that a head-on battle was the last thing the English wanted.

Lord Howard explained with courteous patience. ‘The tide is coming in, and the wind is in the south-west. It is very difficult for a ship to get out of the harbour against both wind and tide – impossible for an entire fleet. But the tide will turn at ten o’clock this evening. That will be the time to put out to sea.’

‘The Spaniards could be here by then!’

‘They could. What a good thing their commander seems to have decided to wait and regroup.’

Drake spoke for the first time. ‘I wouldn’t have waited,’ he said. He was never slow to boast. ‘He who hesitates is lost.’

Howard smiled. Drake was a braggart, but a good man to have alongside you in a fight. ‘The Spanish have hesitated, but they are not yet lost, unfortunately,’ he said.

Drake said: ‘All the same, we’re in a bad position. The armada is upwind of us. That gives them the advantage.’

Barney nodded grimly. In his experience, the wind was everything in a sea battle.

Howard said: ‘Is it possible for
us
to get upwind of
them
?’

Barney knew how difficult it was to sail into the wind. When a ship was side-on to the wind with its sails at an angle, it could travel briskly in a direction ninety degrees to the direction of the wind. So, with a north wind, the ship could easily go east or west as well as south. A well-built ship with an experienced crew could do better than this, and travel north-east or north-west with sails trimmed in tightly, or ‘close-hauled’. This was called sailing close to the wind – a challenge, because a slight error of judgement would take the ship into the no-go zone where it would slow down and stop. Now, if the English fleet wanted to head south-west into a south-westerly head wind, it would have to sail first south and then west in a zig-zag, a slow and tiresome process known as tacking.

Drake looked dubious. ‘Not only would we have to tack into the wind, we’d also have to stay out of the enemy’s sight, otherwise they’d change course to intercept us.’

‘I didn’t ask you if it would be difficult. I asked if it’s possible.’

Drake grinned. He liked this kind of talk. ‘It’s possible,’ he said.

Barney felt heartened by Drake’s bravado. It was all they had.

Lord Howard said: ‘Then let’s do it.’

*

F
OR MUCH OF
Saturday, Rollo stood at the port rail of the
San Martin
as it sailed before a favourable wind along the English Channel towards Portsmouth. The armada formed a wide column, with the best fighting ships at the front and back, and the supply ships in the protected middle.

As he watched the rocky shores of Cornwall pass, Rollo was swamped by conflicting feelings of exultation and guilt. This was his country, and he was attacking it. He knew he was doing God’s will, but a feeling at the back of his mind said that this might not bring honour to him and his family. He did not really care about the men who would die in the battle: he had never worried about that sort of thing – men died all the time, it was the way of the world. But he could not shake the fear that if the invasion failed he would go down in history as a traitor, and that troubled him profoundly.

This was the moment that English lookouts had been waiting for, and beacons burst into flame on the distant hilltops one after another, sending a fiery alarm along the coast faster than ships could travel. Rollo feared that the English navy, duly warned, might sail out of Plymouth harbour and head east to avoid getting trapped. Medina Sidonia’s cautious delay had lost him an opportunity.

Whenever the armada sailed closer to the shore, Rollo saw crowds on the cliffs, staring, still and silent as if awestruck: in the history of the world no one had ever seen so many sailing ships together.

Towards evening, the Spanish sailors observed the shoal water and menacing black rocks of the dangerous reef called Eddystone, and veered away to avoid it. The famous hazard was due south of Plymouth. Soon afterwards, a few distant sails in the east, reflecting back the evening sun, gave Rollo his first heart-rending sight of the English fleet.

Medina Sidonia ordered the armada to anchor, to ensure that his ships remained to windward of the English. There would surely be battle tomorrow, and he did not want to give the enemy an advantage.

Few men slept aboard the
San Martin
that night. They sharpened their weapons, checked and re-checked their pistols and powder flasks, and polished their armour. The gunners stacked balls in lockers and tightened the ropes that lashed the cannons in place, then filled barrels with seawater for putting out fires. Obstacles were moved from the sides of the ships so that the carpenters could more quickly reach holes in the hull to repair them.

The moon rose at two a.m. Rollo was on deck, and he stared into the distance, looking for the English navy, but saw only vague shapes that might have been mist. He said prayers for the armada and for himself, so that he might survive tomorrow’s battle and live long enough to become bishop of Kingsbridge.

The summer dawn came early, and confirmed that there were five English ships ahead. But as daylight brightened, Rollo looked back and suffered a frightening shock. The English navy was
behind
the armada. How the devil had that happened?

The five ships in front must have been decoys. The main body had somehow tacked around the armada, defying the wind, and now stood in the position of advantage, ready to do battle.

The Spanish sailors were astonished. No one had realized that the lower, narrower new design of English ships made such a difference to their manoeuvrability. Rollo was disheartened. What a setback – and so early in the battle!

To the north, he could see the last of the English fleet making its way along the coast to join the rest, with painfully short tacks to the south and north in the narrow passage available. To Rollo’s astonishment, when the leading vessel reached the southernmost point of its zigzag, it opened fire on the northern flank of the armada. It emptied its cannons then quickly tacked north again. None of the Spanish ships was hit, so the English had wasted their ammunition; but the Spanish were doubly amazed, first by the seamanship then by the audacity of the English captain.

And the first shots of the battle had been fired.

Medina Sidonia commanded the gun-and-flag combination signal for the armada to come into battle order.

*

I
T WAS THE TURN
of the English to be astonished. The Spanish ships, heading east away from Howard’s fleet, moved into defensive formation with a precision that no English navy had ever achieved. As if guided by a divine hand, they formed a perfect curve several miles across, like a crescent moon with its horns pointed menacingly back at the English.

Ned Willard watched from the deck of the
Ark Royal
. Ned was Walsingham’s man on the flagship. The
Ark
was a four-masted galleon a little over a hundred feet long. The explorer Sir Walter Raleigh had built it, then sold it to Queen Elizabeth, though the parsimonious queen had not paid him but instead had deducted five thousand pounds from the money she said he owed her. The ship was heavily armed, with thirty-two cannons ranged on two gun decks and a forecastle. Ned did not have a cabin to himself, but he did have the luxury of a bunk in a room with four other men. The sailors slept on the decks, and the crew of three hundred plus more than a hundred soldiers struggled to find places on a ship only thirty-seven feet across at its widest point.

Watching the near-magical Spanish manoeuvre, Ned observed that the supply ships were in the middle and the fighting galleons either front-and-centre or at the tips. He saw at once that the English could only strike at the horns of the crescent, for any vessel entering within the curve would be vulnerable to attack from behind, with the wind taken from its sails. Every vessel but the last was guarded by the one behind. It was a carefully thought-out formation.