Peril on the Sea (14 page)

Evenage prepared Sherwin in other ways, too, explaining that bomboes, as he called them, could be set alight and hurled into the face of an enemy. These were iron balls stuffed with flammable cloth—called bombast—along with soft wax and gunpowder, all topped off with a fuse.

Each iron bomb weighed more than a pound, and hurling one any distance would be a challenge. “One of these,” said Sherwin, “would be as dangerous to the man throwing it as it would be to his enemy.”

“Of that, sir,” said the sergeant, with a brisk cheerfulness—as though mayhem was both inevitable and regretted— “there can be but little doubt.”

Sir Gregory joined them. He had, willingly or not, signed on for a percentage of the ship's earnings, and would be as well compensated as Sherwin. His financial prospects, and his chance at glory, apparently did much to assuage his chagrin at being captured. He appeared, in fact, to be willing to adapt to this new life, practicing now with the butt of an arquebus, hammering down a phantom opponent.

He glanced at Sherwin and offered, “The time I had to kill a man with one of these, this is how I did it.” Sir Gregory was putting on a show of masculine vigor, but his cheeks were hollow.

“Ah,” said Sherwin, trying to appear occupied with his pistol—without daily polishing, it was true, it became tarnished.

Sir Gregory gave Sherwin a challenging smile, and asked, “How about you, lad?”

“Surely,” said Sherwin, trying to make a joke of the conversation, “you are not offering to kill me?”

“No, I've forgiven you your triumph over me, for as long as we are shipmates,” replied Sir Gregory. His words were polite enough, but his tone was hard and dismissive. “Tell
me,” insisted Sir Gregory, “how many men have you slain?”

“My master, Sir Gregory,” joined in Bartholomew, “killed a hundred in one day.”

“River smelt, that is,” said Sherwin with a laugh. Indeed, the net fishing on the upper Thames had been rewarding, and the fried fish delicious.

“Well,” said Sir Gregory, with a dry laugh, “perhaps soon you will have your chance.”

F
OR TWO ENTIRE DAYS and nights the
Vixen
tacked westward, sailing hard against the wind. The vessel labored her way past the west country port of Plymouth, her decks awash with water, compelled westward by the desire to intercept the
Rosebriar
.

Sir Gregory came on deck again a few times, only to fall down, and Lockwood and his mates had to seize the knight and hang on to keep him from washing overboard in the heavy seas that increasingly punished the vessel.

Sherwin spent time on the quarterdeck, clinging to a rail and shivering, soaked through his heavy mantle, as the captain took no great effort in keeping his own balance.

“When you are wealthy,” sang out the captain, “dear Sherwin, when you are happily rich from writing about my life, not to mention from your portion of our prizes, you can pay mariners to breathe in this wet salty air. You will smirk to yourself how dry you are in some lady's chamber, lace upon your sleeve.”

“I wish the day would hasten,” acknowledged Sherwin.

“When you decide which actor should portray me in your rhyming epic,” said Fletcher, “make sure he resembles me in leg and bearing, but he should be younger.”

Salt water flying through the air stung Sherwin as he answered, “But surely a younger man could don a gray wig, sir, and learn to speak as you do.”

“Yes, but I want to live on as a younger man, year after year kept in life's springtime by you.” He asked, meaningfully, “Have you any new ones?”

“Sir?”

“New verses regarding me.”

“A few,” said Sherwin, “but they are sparse.”

“Speak them to me now.”

Sherwin blinked against the salt spray and recited,

“But had life no date, and wish no need,

You would not treasure What my quill could breed.

You would be golden, free from all decay,
And your unfaded spirit
Freshen dusk each day.”

Fletcher considered and at last gave a thoughtful laugh. “All too smooth, Sherwin, and too philosophical. Fire is what the penny-payers demand. Give them fire.”

But Sherwin wondered if the subjects of mortality
and ambition were too close to the truth for Captain Fletcher's pleasure.

 

SHERWIN PAID a visit to Tryce, whose stump was bandaged in clean crasko linen, the sort used for towels and surgeons' bindings. Sherwin was aware that Katharine was the person to thank for such fresh surgical dressing.

“Did you dine on my leg,” Tryce asked, “in the gentlemen's quarters?”

“No, we had mutton and herring,” said Sherwin, “and wine as red as your blood, though not as brave.”

“Oh, you gentlefolk,” said Tryce with a weak sneer. “Always shaping words to do the duty of a manly deed.”

But he put his hands out to soften any offense his manner might cause, taking Sherwin by the arm before he departed the crowded, creaking hole of a surgeon's den.

“Don't fear for the captain's ship, sir,” said Tryce. “She's the finest I've ever sailed. If she has to claw off the shore against a furacane, she can.”
Furacanes
were the spinning storms of the West Indies, notoriously destructive.

Sherwin smiled. He appreciated the reassurance, but he had the bleak certainty that Tryce would not survive to see many more mornings.

 

KATHARINE WAS SUFFERING from sea-sickness and kept to her cabin. Sherwin missed her companionship very much, and marveled at his own luck at possessing—quite by good luck—a mariner's constitution.

With the sea far above the vessel one instant, and plunging far below the next, so that the bottom fell out of the world in a feeling like sick drunkenness, Sherwin could not be surprised at the sight of Cecil Rawes bawling into a bucket or Sir Gregory too feeble to crawl upon the deck before he spewed empty heaves.

Highbridge caught Sherwin's sleeve as the two of them clung to the manrope down the center of the deck.

“Speak to the captain of honor,” Highbridge called into Sherwin's ear. “Say how much you look forward to setting eyes on the Spaniards fleeing English waters, and how much you love your country.”

Sherwin, who had no doubt the
Vixen
would battle the Spaniards if duty and necessity demanded, did as Highbridge suggested, and in response the captain only shook his head and gave a dry laugh. “Honor,” he said, “was the first word Highbridge learned to gum as an infant.”

 

SHERWIN, wet to the skin, dried out happily over a brazier of sea coals in the soldiers' quarters, and consoled Sir Gregory and Cecil that no one died of the spinning gyres the ship was describing, sailing, as it seemed, down a whirlpool.

Evenage waxed his belt and oiled his pistol, and spoke of the demon of Ely, a naked, biting creature caught by a bishop and hung up in a cage—a tiny devil dropped from his master's pocket one All Saints' Eve. For his part,
Bartholomew juggled pistol balls, dark, shining orbs like stone eyes, and he could make them vanish, too, to the worried amazement of Cecil.

“What scamp taught you that?” asked the squire.

“Ah,” said Bartholomew with an air of nostalgia striking in a child, “my former master taught me more wonders than this.”

 

JUST BEFORE DAWN on the fourth day out, the cry
sail-ho
sang from the lookout.

A warship
was the lightning rumor throughout the ship.

Every human being who was able crowded the deck, pointing and exclaiming as they caught sight of her, her furled sails now visible, now eclipsed by a wave the size of Canterbury Cathedral.

Only after a long moment of patient coaxing by the captain did Sherwin see a flash of anything dark and solid enough to be a vessel. She appeared and vanished—naked masts, a stern galley painted red and black, the vessel heeling with the west wind.

Or that was what he thought he saw—she was a glimpse too fleeting to be certain. And the early dawn was still too dark. Shipmates speculated among themselves, loudly enough to be heard from the quarterdeck.

She was the
Ark Royal
, Lockwood guessed, Lord Howard's flagship. Howard was Lord of the Admiralty, and in charge of coordinating Her Majesty's naval defenses. Sherwin gathered that no one on the
Vixen
wanted to encounter the admiral, and he had a fairly good idea why.

If the Crown was becoming disillusioned with Captain Fletcher, or if the admiral, on his own initiative, decided to examine Fletcher's accounts, the ship and its cargo could be impounded, along with each crew member's share.

No, it was not the admiral's vessel after all, Lockwood surmised at length. Then she was surely the
Dainty
, Hawkins's ship, or a ship packed with gunpowder, made to look alive and manned but waiting for the Armada to draw near, so it might explode and kill two shiploads, or three—or a dozen—of the Spanish intruders.

Or perhaps it was a Spanish decoy, a hulk crammed with gunpowder meant to seduce an unwary privateer.

T
HE STERN LIGHTS of what turned out to be an English vessel swung before them through the stirring dawn.

She was the
Roebuck
, a ship owned by the courtier and poet Sir Walter Raleigh, and captained by Sir John Burgh. The
Vixen
drew alongside, and the sea fell and filled, the rigging of the two vessels close to tangling.

“Good Captain Fletcher,” called Captain Burgh through a speaking trumpet made of brass, the metal gleaming in the hint of morning light. “What a pleasure it is to see you! Lord Howard said Her Majesty could not rely on you, but I told his lordship you were an Englishman to the bone.”

Sherwin was proud to hear Captain Burgh's approving, if optimistic, opinion of Fletcher's allegiance.

Fletcher accepted a speaking trumpet of his own from a seaman. He put the instrument to his lips, looking like a man called upon to play a tune and happy to do his best.
Sherwin recognized that any occasion that involved talking pleased Captain Fletcher well.

“You are generous,” called Captain Fletcher in return, “in your estimation of my devotion. But tell me—where is Hawkins now?”

“Captain Hawkins is many leagues to the west, off Scilly,” came the response. “But Lord Howard himself will be sailing these waters soon, God willing,” said Burgh. “I will be pleased to tell him of the eager spirit of your brave crew.”

Sherwin was aware that Captain Burgh might well be one of Fletcher's admirers, but he might also be gifted in subtle manipulation. Sherwin was also conscious of how vast the waters were, and how few the sea captains with enough experience to defend them.

Sergeant Evenage said, to no one in particular, “I fear the Lord Admiral would just as soon see us hang like cats.”

The captain of the
Roebuck
put his hand to his ear in a pantomime of deafness as the wind rumbled through the furled sails of both vessels, and for the moment Fletcher made no additional remark.

“Have you seen any sign,” came the question at last from Burgh, “of the Armada?”

The crew of the
Vixen
stirred. They were troubled by this indication of ignorance on the part of a captain who was in a position to know.

“We had to put to shore for repairs,” explained Fletcher, “and we know but little.”

Burgh was authentically unable to hear this last remark, and Fletcher repeated the statement all the more clearly, in the tones of a man who in years past had addressed the Admiralty regarding the cost of everything from spun hemp to spruce-wood masts.

The captains knew well that everyone aboard both vessels heard every word and so they spoke as diplomats might, or as cordial but circumspect lawyers. The crew of the
Vixen
, it was clear to Sherwin, loyally supported Fletcher, but it was also apparent, judging by the looks of determination, that the thought of fighting the Spanish gave no one any qualms.

“No ships,” called Captain Burgh, “aside from Drake's fleet, have come from the west these last several days.”

He paused to let this message penetrate, like a town crier with important and complex tidings.

Then he added, “Our own warships are trapped in Portsmouth by this wind and only work their way out slowly. A scattering of sentry ships mans the Channel, and we are pleased that you have joined us.”

Fletcher turned his head as a spray of salt water drenched him.

“Does the Armada even exist?” he called. The speaking trumpet made his voice piercing and metallic. “I have doubted King Philip's fighting spirit all this while.”

He had to ask the question twice, word for word, and the answer was a laugh, followed by, “I fear it is true. The Spanish have taken refuge in ports all along the way.”

Fletcher did not seem to notice as still another upsurge of water soaked him. The seas lifted high and fell away again, and the
Vixen
dropped momentarily far below the level of the
Roebuck
, only to be swelled skyward again as the seas grew heavier by the instant.

“How many,” called Fletcher, “ships do the Spanish have?”

“One hundred, by some estimates,” was the answer, “or even more, with dozens further in the Low Countries, under the command of the Duke of Parma. They have galleons and galleasses, along with urcas and merchant ships packed with soldiers.”

The crew of the
Vixen
stirred, excited and dismayed at this confirmation.

“But,” added Captain Burgh, “the Armada has vanished.”

Sherwin was quietly amazed to hear this, and the crew members around him jostled each other.

Fletcher shook his head privately, unhappy at the news, or skeptical.

“Are you well supplied,” came Burgh's query through the wind, “with shot and powder?”