Armada

CHAPTER 16

8 p.m. 3rd August 1588. The English Channel, off the Isle of Wight.

Robert moved slowly back along the cramped gun deck, ducking his head beneath the smoke-stained beams as he stepped over the ordnance arranged behind each cannon. The men were gathered between the guns, chatting aimlessly as they tucked into their first hot meal of the day. The tinny smell of stewed beef overrode the stench of burned gun-powder and the musky odour of men crowded together below decks in the mid-summer heat.

One of the crew had a fife and was playing an ancient sea shanty, a traditional tune that prompted many to hum along. There was laughter but Robert marked its brittle tone and he saw how exhausted his men were, weighted down by the low ebb often experienced after the blood rush of battle. But the hot meal and a double ration of beer were beginning to raise their flagging spirits, and an animated game of dice had begun amidships in the space between two culverins.

Robert reached the aft section and stood silently for a moment as he watched the surgeon make one of the wounded comfortable. He reached out and touched the breech of a cannon. Following the battle the day before off Portland Bill, when the Spanish had been denied Weymouth, there had been further skirmishes earlier that morning and although many hours had passed since then the cannon was still warm. He removed his hand and looked to the crewman under Powell’s care. He was no more than a lad, one of the quarter gunner’s mates who fetched and carried on the gun deck. His chest was heavily bandaged. Two more crewmen lay supine beyond him.

Powell had brought all of the seriously injured up from his surgery on the orlop deck. At night the smell of blood would draw rats from the depths of the lower hold and, left unattended, the unconscious wounded would be easy prey for the scavengers. Robert caught the surgeon’s attention and Powell rose stiffly, arching his back as he stepped forward.

‘Well?’

‘The lad should be fine, Captain. I’ve sealed his wounds with boiling elderberry oil and the cauterizing iron. As for the other two, I’m fairly sure I got all the splinters out of Gray’s arm. But Ellis? There’s little I can do with a head wound like that beyond bleeding him. I fear he won’t last the night.’

Robert looked beyond Powell to the injured crewman. Dark viscous blood had soaked through the bandages around his head, attracting a host of flies that buzzed and settled. His flesh was deathly pale and in the lantern light it looked like God had already taken him. One more for the butcher’s bill, Robert thought grimly.

The rising sun that morning had revealed a Spanish straggler, an armed merchantman, El Gran Grifón, trailing behind the seaward flank. Drake had immediately attacked, with those closest, including the Retribution following in her wake. They had hammered the broad-beamed, sow-bellied hulk from as close a range as they dared, with broadsides and raking fire to the stern. The El Gran Grifón had been heavily armed with at least three dozen light and medium guns and she replied with dice and round shot, killing two of Robert’s crew in the opening salvoes before her rate of fire fell away.

A melee had quickly ensued with Spanish reinforcements beating up to support the lone merchantman. The Armada had been abreast of the western approaches to the Solent, the safe anchorage between the Isle of Wight and the mainland. From the outset it had seemed unlikely the enemy would try to breech this more difficult side, but Howard had fed more warships into the fray to put the matter beyond doubt.

By midday the wind had pushed the battle leeward of the western approach and Howard had ordered the fleet to withdraw. The action, although short, had been very sharp with the Retribution continually engaged in the shifting heart of the battle, a tenacity that had cost Robert another crewman dead and a dozen injured. The Armada had been badly mauled, particularly El Gran Grifón, but as before the Spaniards had continued on, with every ship taking its place in the defensive formation. Despite another massive expenditure of shot, the English fleet had still not managed to cripple or destroy one Spanish ship in action.

Although it was warm below decks Robert’s hands were cold and he felt frustration tingle under his skin; an itchy, grating feeling that set his nerves on edge. He thought back to the battle the day before. The San Martín had been under near continuous fire for almost thirty minutes as one English ship after another had sailed up to fire its cannon at her. She had been struck hundreds of times and yet she had survived, withdrawing into the centre of the Armada’s defences without assistance.