The Enterprise of England (35 page)

And it was a fierce wind indeed, for as we turned head into it, the
Good Venture
shuddered like a frightened horse, trying to leap sideways on to the blast, while the sailors struggled to keep her on her new course. Despite the jury rig, our own mainsail was but partially serviceable. We must depend for the most part on the foresail and staysail. To add to our difficulties, the tide, having ebbed during the battle, had turned again and was flowing up the Channel in the same direction as the wind. Against these two implacable forces of nature, the
Good Venture
, fine ship that she was, could make but slow progress.

As it was growing dark, the crew began to light lanterns and hoist them aloft, fore and aft, to make our presence clear to the remainder of the English fleet, which loomed around us in the gloom. Lights were being raised on other ships as well, and soon a constellation of nautical stars was dancing above the waves while the stars overhead appeared and vanished as the clouds continued to roll eastwards on the high winds of heaven. For the most part the English fleet was hove to, but a few, like us, were fighting their way south and west – some, no doubt, also making for
Dover, others heading further, for Plymouth or Portsmouth. Either they were damaged or the commanders of the fleet had sent them home bearing despatches or wounded men.

‘It’s a wild night we’ll have of it.’

Andrew was standing beside me, grimly clutching the lee rail with both hands. Each wave that rolled past, as we dipped and rose again, sent a slap of spray over the gunwale that doused us both.

‘There’s little we can do on deck,’ I said. ‘I want to see how my sailor with the broken leg is faring. He may have woken now. Where are your men?’

He grinned. ‘Lying low on the gundeck and trying to keep out of the way of the sailors’ feet. Those who aren’t puking over the side.’

‘Still? I thought they had found their sea legs during the battle.’

‘They had other things on their mind then. A marvellous cure for sea sickness. Besides, we were sailing with the wind then. Not like this.’

Even as he spoke, a larger wave crashed over the gunwale, soaking him from shoulder to hip and calling forth worse language than I had ever heard from his lips. It was cold, too. It might be high summer, but the sea was cold, cold.

‘Come,’ I said, curbing my laughter at his look of disgust, like a night-prowling cat who has had a bucket of slops poured over it. ‘We can surely take refuge in the captain’s cabin. He will be too much occupied with sailing the ship . . . in . . . this.’

I had nearly lost my footing as the ship climbed another great wave, then plunged suddenly down the other side. Staggering, and grabbing a handhold of any spar or rope or rail that offered, we made our way to the stern and the sanctuary of the captain’s cabin.

Someone had lit a lantern here and hung it from one of the low overhead beams that supported the raised poop deck above us. The injured sailor was stirring as we came in, blinking in the light like a confused owl.

‘How are you feeling now?’ I asked, perching on the captain’s bunk on the side away from the broken leg.

‘What happened?’ he said. ‘By the cross, my head hurts.’

‘I’ve some sympathy with that,’ Andrew said..

‘A Spanish cannon ball tore our rigging when you were halfway up the mast,’ I said. ‘You fell and hit your head. And broke your leg.’

He managed to raise his head and shoulders far enough to peer down at his leg splints in bafflement.

‘Don’t you remember?’ I said. ‘You woke before and I gave you to drink, something to ease the pain.’

He shook his head, then groaned and clasped it in his two hands.

‘Is there more of it? My head feels as though it’s being used as a blacksmith’s anvil.’

I got up to prepare more of the poppy juice in wine, but I would not make it so strong this time. Battling as we were against those great waves, we might have more casualties. It was difficult to keep on my feet and I must clutch at the edge of the captain’s table to stop myself falling over.

‘You’re the army captain, an’t you?’ He was squinting at Andrew, as though keeping one eye shut made the pain in his head less.

‘Aye, Captain Joplyn, come from
Amsterdam.’

‘I remember that. Picked you up and rowed down the canal. There was Hell’s own wind out on the Channel. By God! The Spanish!’ He started half out of the bed, but was held back by the weight of his splints. ‘What’s become of the bastards?’

‘Run away,’ Andrew said complacently. ‘We shot ’em to pieces. That Hell’s wind, as you call it, was Heaven’s own wind. Drove the bastards away and gave us the weather gage. Those that didn’t founder are hurpling away into the German Ocean.’

The two men grinned at each other. Well, let them glory in the victory. I couldn’t but rejoice that the Spanish, my ancient enemies since childhood, had been driven away, but there kept flashing before my eyes a vision of men being dragged down into the cold green waters to where their limbs would tangle in forests of slimy weed and the crabs come scuttling to pick their bones clean.

‘Here,’ I said briskly, ‘drink this. It will help with the pain. Once we are back in Dover we can make a better job of that leg.’

He drank the wine gratefully and I poured a beaker each for Andrew and me, thinking I would have been glad of the addition of some poppy juice to help me sleep through this violent tossing. It felt as though we were being thrown first to starboard and then to port, while making no progress forward. The cabin was above the waterline, for which I was grateful, for below decks you could hear the cruel sea just on the other side of the thin planks of wood which were all that stood between us and death. Yet even in the cabin we could hear the slap when one of the larger waves crashed high against the side of the ship. These seemed to be coming more frequently.

‘They’ll be baling out,’ the sailor said. ‘With this sea running, she must be taking water over the side. You’re sure we an’t holed?’

Andrew shook his head. ‘It was only the rigging that was damaged, and a small tear in the mainsail.’ He glanced at me. ‘I’d better go and make sure my lads are lending a hand with the baling out. No point in them sitting idle.’

After he was gone, the sailor lay back and looked as though he was dozing. I went over to the window let into the rear of the cabin. There was little enough to see. No lights from other ships showed. Black clouds raced past over the face of the moon, which peered out fearfully from time to time. The lantern hoisted over the poop deck cast a semi-circle of light on the water below the stern, illuminating the swirling wake cutting through the black water and the foam-crested waves which rose and fell behind us. The whole ship was speaking, her timbers groaning, her canvas slapping, her ropes whining through pulleys. The
Good Venture
was a stout ship, but she hated this treatment as much as I did.

I was still looking out at the demon-dark night when Andrew returned.

‘I’ve managed to find some food,’ he said.

Until that moment I had been ignoring my aching stomach, but now I realised than no one on board ship had eaten for many hours. What Andrew brought was unappetising enough in the normal way of things – rock hard ship’s biscuit, some strips of dried meat of unknown origin, and some small wrinkled apples – but at that moment I believe I could have eaten anything. We sat opposite each other at the captain’s table, greedily tearing at the food with our teeth. At least we showed enough restraint to set a portion aside for the sailor when he woke. After chewing up the apples, cores and all, we washed it down, recklessly, with the last of the captain’s wine. Andrew caught my eye and winked.

‘I’m sure he has more, stored away. In any case, we need him to keep a clear head.’

‘What is it like, out there on deck?’ I said.

‘Rough. We’re just off the Goodwin sands, one of the sailors told me.’

I shuddered.

‘I’m going to see for myself.’

I thought, if we were likely to go aground, I wanted to be out there to see it coming.

The sailor groaned and raised his head.

‘Go if you must,’ Andrew said. ‘I’m staying here. There’s rain coming down now. I’ll give the man his food. You’ll not stay long, I’ll warrant you!’

I opened the cabin door, and the wind thrust it against me so that I nearly lost my balance. I had to lower my head like a charging bull to make my way into it, and I struggled to close the door behind me. After the lantern light in the cabin, it took time for my eyes to adjust to the darkness on deck, for the high-riding ship’s lamps cast little light down here. A small stinging rain smarted my face like flung sand, so that I screwed up my eyes as I picked my way carefully forward. The ship climbed each oncoming wave as if it were a mountain, balanced on the top, so that it seemed it must slip backwards. Then it tilted and plunged downwards so that the bows were buried in the trough of sea between one wave and the next. For a painful moment it felt as though the ship would plough directly into the next wave, drowning us all, then slowly it tilted and began to climb again. I was thankful that I had been spared the sight of this while I had been in the cabin. For hours now the ship had ploughed on against these great seas and the wind that tore at her canvas, but steadily she was making her way forward. If we were indeed off the Goodwin Sands, we had not much further to go.

Clutching the railing at the side of the short companionway that led down into the cabin, I turned slowly to look behind. The change in position made my head swim for a moment, as the ship pitched forward and at the same time rolled over to starboard then back again. A bout of queasiness stirred in my stomach, and I thought I was going to succumb to the pervasive sea sickness, but I closed my eyes and it passed.

When I opened them again, I tried to make out where the Sands were, but I could see nothing. Astern, however, on the far horizon, there was a lightening in the blackness of sky and sea. A band of paler darkness was forming, dividing the two. Dawn was coming.

I turned back to look along the deck, where I could now make out the figures of sailors, some trimming the sails, some passing buckets up from below decks in a chain of men, baling out the seas as they washed over the gunwales and poured down below decks.

‘Well, Dr Alvarez, not long now.’

The captain came to stand beside me. He looked exhausted, but calm. ‘See that glow over there?’ He raised his arm and pointed over the starboard bow. ‘That’s the old Roman lighthouse at
Dover. They keep a brazier burning there as a signal. We’ll be there in an hour. Two at most. And the wind is slackening. It often does at dawn.’

To me the wind seemed to blow as fiercely as ever, and the rain was falling more heavily, but I fixed my eyes on that distant watch-fire. We had come through battle, storm, and sea. We were nearly home.

Chapter Fifteen

I
stayed at Dover only long enough to change into dry clothes, eat a hearty soldier’s breakfast and bespeak a post horse. Andrew and his men had already received their orders. As soon as they were equipped and mounted, they were to ride to the Essex coast and stand guard in case the Spaniards, moving north, attempted a landing at one of the ports there. I could have waited to have their company on the way to London, but using post horses I would travel faster and I was anxious both to report to Sir Francis and to go home to my father.

Andrew and I parted in the castle stables.

‘Next time you plan one of your dangerous ventures,’ he said, ‘give me fair warning, so that I can ride in the opposite direction.’

I laughed. ‘I do not choose them.’

He gave me a wry smile. ‘They seem to seek you out.’

‘I am going back to the quiet, calm work I am trained for. Mending the bodies of the sick and injured.’

‘Aye, I have reason enough to be grateful for that. How is our injured sailor?’

‘Well enough. I have left him in the hands of the army physicians. They think no harm has come to the limb, for all the tossing we took on the way home.’

‘I hope I never have to make a sea journey like that again.’

He groaned and shook his head. ‘I thought the ship would break in half.’

Secretly I’d had much the same thought myself, but I mocked his fears and we parted with laughter.

I stopped about ten miles south of
London for the night and reached Seething Lane early the next morning, where I was called immediately into Sir Francis’s office together with Phelippes, to give an account of all that had happened in Amsterdam and of my small part in the sea battle off Gravelines. They had already received the report I had sent ahead from Amsterdam, and Sir Francis had spoken to Sir John Norreys about the treason of Parker and van Leyden, but I was able to answer their questions about such details as were unknown to Sir John.

When at last I was free to go, I decided to take a wherry upriver, to save time. There was the usual cluster of boats at the Custom quays, and I picked a wherryman I knew to be a speedy oarsman, who kept his boat upstream of the Bridge. As he rowed, we spoke of the Armada. He was one of those wherrymen who had volunteered to serve in our scratch navy and had been at Gravelines, but his ship had lost its mainmast and returned to
Gravesend for repairs.

‘I’m not sorry to be back in
London,’ he said. ‘Those sailors live like pigs. If our ship hadn’t been damaged, I’d still be sleeping on some gundeck out in the German Ocean, eating pig swill. And never a farthing of pay yet.’

The
London wherrymen are known for their gloom and grumbles, but I had some sympathy with this.

‘Surely they will pay you soon,’ I said, ‘once the Spanish ships are finally seen off and the ships stood down.’

He gave a sarcastic snort and made a few pithy comments about fine gentlemen who used their ships to plunder and make their fortunes, while others endured enemy fire – a remark aimed at Drake’s latest exploits.

After landing at Blackfriars Stairs, I made my way quickly to
Duck Lane. The sun beat down on the nearby shambles in Smithfield, sending the stench of blood and ordure wafting over this whole part of London, even smothering the more delectable odours from Pie Corner of fresh-baked pastry and good beef gravy.

The door of our house stood open to admit a little air, for it could become very close at the height of summer, and I was still some yards away when a tawny shape of fur and solid muscle flew down the steps and hurled itself at me so hard I fell backwards onto the packed dirt of the street. Before I could stop him, Rikki had bathed my face with a loving and very wet tongue.

‘Get down, you mad creature!’ I said, struggling with some difficulty to my feet.

My father was standing in the doorway, his face alight with laughter.

‘He has missed you.’

‘As I have missed all of you. Over a month it has been.’

‘Aye.’ He put his arm around my shoulders and drew me inside, Rikki weaving about our legs and nearly tripping me up again.

I took up once again my divided life between the hospital and Phelippes’s office. It was as though I was two completely different people – the quiet physician, going about a worthy calling, and the ambiguous agent in Walsingham’s service. Even in the office I could hardly reconcile either persona with a reckless house-breaker and adventurer. The events in the Low Countries began to take on the atmosphere of a dream. At Seething Lane we were the first to receive all the intelligence relating to the Spanish fleet, as the scattered ships hobbled northwards. The Spaniards made no attempt to land in Essex or elsewhere along the east coast.

The reports of their retreat moved even that cool and imperturbable man Walsingham to tears.

‘Almighty God sent a great wind from the southwest which broke and scattered that arrogant Armada to the four winds,’ he said. ‘Victory at last is ours.’

Soon it was on everyone’s lips: ‘He blew with His winds, and they were scattered.’

God, it seemed, was on our side. The Enterprise of England had become England’s victorious enterprise.

I could not quite trust the victory, although Sir Francis seemed convinced of it. For weeks afterwards word came in – and was discussed eagerly in the hospital and on the streets – that limping and broken Spanish ships had been sighted in the
German Sea off the Wash, then far to the north rounding the top of Scotland, and finally wrecked in the wild Atlantic waters off Ireland. I do not know how many survived to return home, but the bodies of the Spanish dead and the wreckage of their ships washed up on our shores for months. Stories from Ireland were wildly different. Some said that the Irish had cut down the Spanish sailors as they struggled ashore from their wrecked ships, so that the very breakers of the Atlantic turned crimson with their life blood. Other stories, more worrying to Sir Francis, held that the Irish had welcomed their Catholic brothers with open arms and were mustering an army with them to attack England across the Irish sea. Whatever the truth of it, no invasion seemed imminent, as far as the agents in Ireland reported.

Our ships returned to their ports once the Armada had vanished into the north, but hidden behind the general rejoicing a grim shadow lurked. The men of our fleet had sustained the usual battle injuries, but the gods of war had laid a different curse on the victorious soldiers and sailors. A man would come ashore from his ship, join his friends for a drink at an inn, then collapse in the street and die within hours. There was no warning. No visible symptoms marked out those who were doomed from those who were untouched. Two men might share the same meals, fall asleep in adjacent hammocks. In the morning one would wake, the other lie stiff and cold. Whispers of witchcraft ran darkly through the streets. Others saw the hand of God in this. Had we become too arrogant in our victory? Or – whispered amongst those who still inclined to the old faith – was the Pope’s blessing upon the Spanish attack bringing down on us a righteous punishment? Witchcraft, retribution or natural disaster, the outcome was the same. Men were dying, and dying in large numbers.

The morning after a number of the ships were reported to have berthed at Deptford, my father received a message from the authorities at St Bartholomew’s.

‘You must pack your satchel, Kit,’ he said. ‘We are sent to Deptford to treat the sickness which is spreading amongst the men. Bring all we have of febrifuge medicines and tincture of poppy for the relief of pain.’

He was packing his own satchel as he spoke.

‘What are the symptoms?’ I asked, as I secured cork stoppers with wax and then wrapped the glass bottles in rags for safety.

He shook his head.

‘From all I have heard, no one can be sure. Only that those afflicted are seized with raging fever as if they would catch on fire, and the pains they suffer are acute, so severe that some have leapt into the river to seek death, as the only way to escape.’

I shuddered. ‘I heard that some have simply been found dead and cold in their beds, with no sign of illness at all.’

He nodded. ‘Whether these are two different forms of the sickness, or two completely different afflictions, who can tell? It cannot be the plague, for there are no marks of the plague on them.’

That was one hopeful sign, for the plague could sweep through
London in days, mowing down all before it.

‘And it is only the men from our fleet who are affected?’

‘Aye. Sailors and soldiers both.’

‘
Gentlemen and officers as well?’

‘I have not heard so.’

‘Could it have come from the common men’s food?’

‘Perhaps. Yes, that’s well thought of, Kit. It might be
wise to take vomitories and enemas as well. Though I have not heard that there have been signs of food poisoning.’

I reached down the additional medicines from the cupboard. If it was food poisoning, surely all of the men would have been seized with the illness. Still, best to be prepared.

He took out a handkerchief and mopped his face. ‘Are you ready?’

I nodded and shouldered my satchel. We left Joan instructions for the next few days, not knowing when we might return, and I warned that I would expect Rikki to be fed and cared for. If he was not, she should answer for it. We turned our backs on our house and made our way down to the river.

The summer heat had continued stifling in Duck Lane and on the wherry the slight breeze over the river brought welcome relief. My father wiped his face again.

‘Are you well, Father?’

He did his best to smile. ‘I find the heat more trying as I grow older. I will soon feel better in this cooler air.’

I frowned. I had
never known him mind the heat before. Indeed England’s weather was far milder than the summer’s heat we had left behind in Portugal. He was more apt to complain of the cold in an English winter. Whatever was afflicting the men at Deptford, I hoped it would not be infectious, for my father did not look well.

All too soon the trip down river was over and we found ourselves amongst the ships
moored five or six abreast along the quayside. The quays themselves were eerily deserted and at first we could find no officer, but at last an elderly man in clerical dress, disembarking from the nearest ship, directed us to a small building, hardly more than a shed, where we found a harassed-looking junior officer who appeared to be the only person in charge.

‘Physicians from St Bartholomew’s? The Lord be praised,’ he said. He had removed his ruff which lay, grubby and creased, on a table amongst a pile of documents. He has loosened his shirt strings and his hair was unkempt as a neglected birds’ nest. He looked as though he had not slept for many nights.

‘Not that there is much you can do,’ he said. ‘They are dying almost before we know they are sick. Even on the few ships still patrolling the coast, in case of further attack, men are dying. Every day we have word of men buried at sea. With these crews berthed here at Deptford I am trying to send as many home as can walk.’

He gestured towards the documents. Discharge papers, I guessed.

‘But some of those who are well will not leave until they are paid, and no pay has come for them yet.’

‘What? They defeated the Spaniards, but they have not been paid?’ My father was incredulous.

The man shrugged. He looked at though it did not surprise him. ‘Quarrels amongst those who must find the coin, I suppose,’ he said. ‘No one gave thought to pay when we were mustering for war.’

‘But if you send sick men out into the country,’ I objected, ‘you may spread this disease even further. It could ravage every village and town in
England.’

He shrugged again. ‘I cannot help that. We cannot feed them and I’ve been ordered to dismiss them.’

It sounded as though these men were being treated as mere parcels of inanimate goods. They had served their purpose, and now there was no more need of them.

‘Where are they, the sick men?’ my father asked.

‘Sick and well, they’re still on board the ships. We have nowhere else to put them.’

And so began our grim task of treating the heroes of the Armada. The sick men were lodged in
hammocks strung between the cannon on the gun decks; those not yet struck down squatted anywhere they could find space, playing cards, dicing or throwing the knucklebones.

It quickly became clear that we were dealing with two illnesses. It addition to the mysterious affliction, there were many obvious cases of the bloody flux.

‘The wisest course,’ my father said, ‘would be to separate the cases.’ He looked about him in despair at the men all crowded together, sick hugger-mugger with well. His shoulders sagged defeatedly. We were standing on the gundeck of a large warship, a galleon carrying forty demi-culverins.

‘I’ll talk to the men who are yet unaffected,’ I said.

For years I had followed my father, taking my lead from him, but I realised now that I must act for myself. My father was simply too tired to confront what seemed a task far beyond our capabilities. I had noticed a big man of middle years to whom the others seemed in some ways to defer. He had a broad, sensible countenance and a quiet manner. I asked his name.