The Blast That Tears the Skies (2012) (22 page)

Penn, his gout briefly in remission, stood and looked about him. ‘The fleet will sail upon the ebb tomorrow morning,’ he said. This was urgency indeed! I prayed that my makeshift crew could make the
Merhonour
ready for sea in such an unconscionably short time. ‘With the wind remaining thus, north-easterly, there is a danger that if we remain in this place they will trap us with the sands behind us. Therefore, Her Royal Highness and her retinue are to be landed at Harwich immediately, lest the enemy attempt anything upon the yachts.’ I closed my eyes in relief and offered up a silent prayer of thanks: the means to be rid of my good-sister had been found for me. ‘The fighting and sailing instructions remain as issued previously, nor is there any amendment to the signal book. However, thanks to Downing we have a new list of the enemy fleet. Study it well, gentlemen.’

One of the Duke of York’s attendants circulated the simple printed broadsheet headed
Esquadres van de vloot, die onder den Lieutenant Admirael Generael, Heer Jacob van Wassanaer, Heer van Obdam, uyt Texel in Zee sullen gaen
. Later, in the boat carrying me back to the
Merhonour
, I had time to peruse it. There, Obdam himself in the
Eendracht
, eighty-four guns; there, Tromp the younger in
De Liefde
, eighty-two. Seven squadrons, five of Holland, one of Zeeland, one of the Maas, thus retaining their perverse multiplicity of flagmen. The ships generally smaller than those in our fleet, with even the greatest mounting many fewer guns. And so I continued on down the names until I reached the one I sought, in the list of ships of the Admiralty of Zeeland:
Oranje
, seventy-five guns, four hundred and fifty men; captain, Cornelis van der Eide. Thus it seemed I would be exchanging the embrace of my good-sister for that of my – perchance equally deadly – good-brother.

I returned to the
Merhonour
as dusk was falling, to be met at once by an urgent address from Francis Gale. The reply to the letter he had addressed to the Archbishop of Canterbury was finally come, and he wished to act upon its contents at once, before the ship sailed on the morning ebb. I weighed the time that we would lose against the possible efficacy of the remarkable course of action that Francis was proposing, and decided that nothing was to be lost by humouring my friend. After all, I reflected, every man in the fleet from the Duke of York downwards would expect the
Merhonour
to be tardy in sailing.

Thus it was that an hour or so later, with the Gunfleet in darkness, that an astonishing scene was played out upon the deck of the
Merhonour
. The entire ship’s company was crowded into every vantage point in the waist and forecastle. Torches and lanterns had been lit and affixed to the ship’s rail on both sides to illuminate the spectacle, although it was nearly time for the night watch to be set. I stood upon the quarterdeck, resplendent in my breastplate, best jerkin and hat, alongside Gideon Giffard, Kit Farrell and Roger d’Andelys, all similarly attired.

Francis Gale emerged from the steerage to gasps and murmuring. He was attired in his usual surplice, but over it he wore a vivid purple stole, a garment previously unseen on his person and unknown in any parish church in the land. Upon his head was a square black catercap, a vestment that Francis usually eschewed. The chaplain of the
Merhonour
strode confidently through the throng and pulled himself up onto the main hatch, at the heart of his congregation.

The hubbub diminished. Francis looked around, not speaking until he was attended by complete silence.

‘In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.’

The crew amened dutifully, if a little uncertainly.

Then came something perfectly unexpected – at least, perfectly unexpected by the ship’s captain. Ieuan Goch, standing upon the forehatch, intoned the same words in his own tongue: ‘Yn enw’r Tad, a’r Mab, a’r Yspryd Glân, Amen.’ The Welshmen in the crew amen’d more loudly.

In a particularly strong and confident tone, even for him, Francis began a prayer that was entirely new to every man aboard the ship, her captain included. ‘Saint Michael the Archangel, illustrious leader of the heavenly army, defend us in the battle against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of darkness and the spirit of wickedness in high places!’

Simultaneously, Ieuan Goch translated: ‘Mihangel Sant, arweinydd enwog o’r fyddin nefol…’

I smiled. I still had no inkling of what Francis was about, but it was clear that he had recruited Ieaun Goch to his cause. An unlikely but formidable alliance indeed, I reflected as the prayer continued. ‘Entreat we beseech thee the Lord God of battles to cast Satan down beneath our feet, so as to keep him from further holding man captive.’ In the flickering torchlight, I could see men looking curiously at each other, then, spellbound, at their chaplain. ‘Michael, bearer of the fiery sword, carry our prayers up to God’s throne, that the mercy of the Lord may descend and lay hold of the beast, the serpent of old, Satan and all his demons, casting him in chains into the abyss, so that he can no longer seduce mankind!’

Roger whispered, ‘I have heard these prayers, I think. In Latin, naturally, and cast in a very different way – when our priest in Andelys was dealing with some poor peasant girl, said to be possessed by the devil. But it is the same rite, I think.’

‘Rite? What rite?’

He looked at me in surprise. ‘A rite of exorcism, Matthew. You did not know?’

No, I did not; but even as I gawped in astonishment at Roger, the purpose of Francis’s correspondence with the Lord Archbishop was finally made clear. Only from Sheldon himself, the fount of authority for all naval chaplains, could Francis Gale obtain the special licence necessary to perform such a ceremony.

‘Let God arise,’ cried Francis, ‘and let his enemies be scattered! Let them also that hate him flee before them!’

The sixty-eighth psalm, then, familiar enough to every man aboard for the responses to be uttered lustily. Ieuan Goch’s translation ensured a pious and emphatic echo from the Welsh. The psalm concluded, Francis embarked upon the dread climax of the ritual, his voice rising ever louder, his arms and eyes becoming ever more animated.

‘We cast thee out from this ship, every unclean spirit, every satanic power, every legion and onslaught of the infernal adversary, in the name and by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ! We command thee, begone!’

Now even the dullest man in the crew knew the purpose of this astonishing communion. Everywhere I looked, I saw tension, excitement and fear writ large across men’s faces. The more devout had their eyes closed and were intoning their own prayers. Others urged Francis on, like spectators in an ancient amphitheatre supporting their favourite gladiator.

The Reverend Gale was equal to it all. Arms raised aloft, he circled upon the spot where he stood, speaking with all the authority that an archbishop could bestow, striking down the curse of the
Merhonour
and the dark force that lay behind it.

‘Begone, Satan, father and master of lies, enemy to the good of mankind! Bow down before God’s mighty hand, tremble and flee as we call on the holy and awesome name of Jesus, before whom the denizens of hell cower, to whom the Cherubim and Seraphim praise with unending cries as they sing: Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth!’

A sudden breeze made the torches flicker. I felt my bones chill; was there truth in all of this? Could that be a sign of a departing malignity?

I chided myself: Quintons should be made of sterner stuff.

Francis nodded to Stockbridge, one of the ship’s boys, who stepped forward and presented him with a large phial. Francis took up a brush, dipped it into the phial, and sprinkled a clear liquid over the men nearest to him. Then he stepped down and strode through the crew, purifying every man and every quarter of the ship. Not a brush, then, I realised: an aspergilla, sprinkling holy water to drown any remaining evil aboard the ship. Some men wept. Others raised their hands in supplication to receive the divine fluid.

‘Impressive,’ said Roger. ‘No cardinal could have done it better.’

‘Let us hope that it has put paid to the curse of the
Merhonour
– or for the men’s belief in the curse, at any rate,’ I said, hoping that my rapid breathing and racing pulse were not evident to my interlocutors. ‘And that, gentlemen,’ I said, looking at my officers, ‘we shall have to leave in the hands of God.’

As I turned to leave the quarterdeck, a thought clad in my grandfather’s unexorcised voice whispered,
Aye, boy. God, or the Dutch
.

 

 

 

Noon: the first day of June in the year of grace, Sixteen Hundred and Sixty Five.

Yardley and his mates were already in place upon the quarterdeck, adjusting the Master’s quadrant. I brought out a much smaller and altogether more curious instrument that resembled a small golden ball, but which, once unlocked, revealed a multiplicity of dials and gauges. This had been my grandfather’s pride and joy, accompanying him on all his voyages across the oceans of the world. I lined up the eighth Earl of Ravensden’s dial to the sun, and at the horizon. I read off the numbers on the gauge, then repeated the process as a failsafe. Finally, I consulted my waggoner, examined the chart, and announced authoritatively, ‘Fifty-two degrees, thirty minutes north.’ I said, ‘Virtually due east of Southwold by three leagues. Or thereabouts.’

Giffard, Yardley and Kit Farrell, who had all taken their own independent observations, nodded in agreement, and the
Merhonour
duly had her noon position. This was one aspect of the sea-trade in which I felt increasingly confident, having practised it daily during my previous commands. After some early disasters, such as when lying in the harbour of Messina and establishing to my own short-lived satisfaction that we were several hundred leagues up the Amazon, I had reached a condition where my observations were rarely even a minute or two out from those of the most expert navigators.

Prayers and the noonday observation ushered in a new ship’s day, and with it the crew’s main meal. But messes had barely begun queuing at the cook’s pot when our lookout cried out.

My officers and I all lifted our eyepieces and looked out toward the east, where Prince Rupert’s White squadron formed the van.

‘The prince is hoisting and lowering the Ancient,’ said Giffard. ‘The enemy fleet’s in sight.’

The intelligence was around our fleet in the blinking of an eye. It was almost possible to sense the new resolve that only the prospect of imminent battle can bring.

I turned to my lieutenants. ‘Very well. Mister Giffard, Mister Farrell, I think it is time to clear the decks for action.’

Kit grinned in return. ‘Time indeed, sir.’

The distant sounds of trumpets and drums provided evidence that the process had already begun on other ships of the fleet. Now the
Merhonour
joined them, the off-duty larboard watch joining their brethren of the starboard in making the ship ready for action. I had given the same order several times aboard lesser ships, but had never before witnessed it aboard such a great man-of-war. I went below and took in the scene. My cabin was already vanishing before my eyes: the bulkhead that kept me private from the rest of the ship was coming down, the legs were being removed from my table, and my sea-chest was being manhandled into the hold. Roger d’Andelys seemed to have forgotten his lordly dignity and was cheerily assisting the men in demolishing every partition in their way; but perhaps tearing down the structures of the English fulfils some ancient, deep-rooted need within every Frenchman. The men were content and determined, all still in awe of the previous evening’s performance from Francis Gale, most convinced that the curse of the
Merhonour
was well and truly despatched to the infernal regions whence it had sprung.

Forward, gunport after gunport snapped open in succession, admitting the bright daylight, and I saw the upper gundeck in all its splendour, to either side the nine bronze culverins that had so impressed my good-sister. Gun captains and their crews were vigorously polishing their weapons, competing with each other to achieve the brightest shine upon their barrels; a strange conceit, as a dull gun will kill as effectively as a shining one, but such things have ever mattered greatly to the English mariner.

I returned to the quarterdeck and levelled my eyepiece once again upon the horizon, straining to spot what the van could already see, irritated beyond measure when some of our own ships passed in front of my lens and blocked my view. There was our scouting frigate, returning toward the fleet with her topgallants flying, the signal that the enemy was in sight. There, behind her – a speck – was that the top of a mast? Another speck, to northward? A moment later, there could be no mistake. Upon the horizon at east-north-east, bearing down upon us, borne upon the wind blowing from that direction, a tiny band of specks grew and merged into a broader band of wood and canvas. The headmost were now recognisable as ships; hulls and sails became distinguishable. Not long afterwards, it was possible to tell two-deckers and three-deckers apart, with reassuringly fewer of the latter than were present in our fleet. Another turn of the glass, and I could just glimpse the unmistakeable horizontal bars, red-white-blue, of the Dutch ensign. Only a little longer and I could confirm with my own eyes the word that had already come back from the scouts of the van: one hundred ships, more or less, almost identical to our strength.

‘Well, gentlemen,’ I said with as much levity as I could muster, ‘it seems Lord Obdam has us at a disadvantage. He has the wind.’

Giffard and Kit nodded gravely. This was dire: Penn’s confident plan of battle had been founded on the assumption that we would have the weather gage, upwind of the enemy, and could thus choose the moment and the method of our attack. Yet we had lingered too long at the Gunfleet, in part thanks to the Duchess of York’s untimely sojourn, and a strong north-easterly had given the Dutch fleet the advantage. At any moment, the enemy would press down against us and we would have to attempt to form our line-of-battle defensively, into the teeth of the wind and the Dutch.

I turned my glass upon Lawson’s
Royal Oak
, alert to any sign of an untoward movement by her, and then upon the other ships commanded by former Commonwealths-men: Jordan’s
St George
, Smith’s
Mary
and in the distance the likes of Myngs’
Triumph
. Nothing: no unexpected movement out of the sailing order, no putting on or slackening of sail. Nothing. The navy of England remained united.

The glass turned and the ship’s bell rang. No doubt like every other captain in the fleet, I stood rooted to my quarterdeck, the telescope at my eye until the socket hurt. Another turn of the glass, another ring of the bell, and still the Dutch stood upon the horizon. Still no English ship made an unexpected move.

‘What in the name of Heaven is Obdam waiting for?’ I complained in the middle of the afternoon. ‘He has the advantage. Why does he not attack?’ I did not utter my still darker thought: that any treachery within our own fleet was not likely to reveal itself until, or if, the Dutch admiral made his move.

Roger d’Andelys had come on deck. ‘Cowardice,’ he said. ‘A French fleet holding the wind would be engaged by now. Perhaps the Dutch seek courage in the only way they know, and even now their decks are awash with gin.’

Kit Farrell shook his head. ‘Madness more like, My Lord. The longer Obdam delays, the greater the likelihood of the wind changing, or of our fleet regaining the weather gage.’

And indeed, that was precisely what we were endeavouring to do: all through the afternoon, our fleet edged slowly southward and eastward, seeking to restore the advantage to ourselves. The Dutch must have known what we were about, and yet they made no attempt to stop us. Still they refused to engage.

Understanding, when it came to me, was a kind of epiphany. I lowered my telescope, looked at Roger and Kit, and said calmly, ‘Not quite cowardice and not quite madness, but perhaps a little of both. He does not trust his fleet.’ I thought back to our first council-of-war, to the intelligence that had been presented to us, and felt increasingly confident in my assessment. ‘They’ve had almost no sea-time compared to us, he has a hierarchy beneath him that not even a madman would conceive, and enough jealousies between them to make the House of Commons resemble a harmonious congregation of saints. Obdam has to give himself time to ensure that his fleet obeys his will – and though an east wind gives him the advantage now, it will also cut off his retreat if he loses. So he waits for a still more favourable wind – and to convince himself that his fleet will obey him.’

All of my concern, and perhaps that of the Duke of York too, had been with the possibility of disloyalty in our own fleet; we had forgotten that Obdam had perhaps even greater cause to suspect it in his.

Confident now that no battle was imminent, I went below for a meal of herrings, salt-beef stew and bread.

* * *

Through the evening and night, and then through the whole of the next day, the picture remained the same. The Dutch stood off to the east, some three leagues away, and came no nearer. For our part, we continued to edge further to eastward, especially in the afternoon when the wind came round more to the south-east. At noon we were some four leagues south-east of Lowestoft, eight hours later some seven leagues due east of it. I slept through a fair part of the afternoon on that second day of June, albeit on a blanket upon the deck where my cabin had been, anticipating that I would soon need every waking hour I could muster. Yet sleep was elusive. A man-of-war is always a place of noise and bustle, and when battle threatens, it is doubly so. What seemed to be a herd of stampeding bulls upon the deck above my head turned out to be men rigging the protective canvas ‘fights’ upon our bulwarks: the feeble barriers that were intended to give the men on the upper deck (the captain included) some protection from small shot if it came to close fighting.

At about midnight I was summoned to the quarterdeck, bathed in the light of our vast stern lanterns and by a sharp moon. Kit pointed triumphantly to our swallow-tail pennant at the maintop.

‘Wind’s changed, Captain. South-south-west. We have gained the weather gage, sir. And look yonder. One of the Dutchmen is ablaze – probably a fireship that’s taken light accidentally.’

Off to the north-east, bright flames lit the horizon. Through my eyepiece I could see a black hull and masts, all alight. Occasionally the hull of another Dutch ship passed in front of the burning wreck, seeming for all the world like a ghost ship upon the fiery ocean of Hell.

‘Perhaps they’ll do our work for us, Kit,’ I said lightly. ‘We need only another hundred or so to do the like!’

Dawn broke at four. At once, it was clear to every man in our fleet that the Dutch had awoken from their torpor: Obdam had ordered his ships to tack, and they were bearing down upon us, stemming westward. The signal to form line-of-battle broke out upon the
Royal
Charles
, and I prayed that this time, the
Merhonour
would not be disgraced. I strode impatiently from starboard to larboard and back again, then down to the forecastle and back again, watching as Yardley and Giffard conned us toward the stern of the
Royal Oak
in the van division of the Red Squadron, with Prince Rupert’s White ahead of us and the remainder of the Red, followed by the Blue, stretching away astern. This time, I had no cause for fear. We fell in immaculately, half a cable astern of Lawson, who stood at his stern rail and nodded appreciatively.

But in truth, it was the mirror image of the practice manoeuvre. The
Merhonour
was in her allotted place, but faced with a real enemy, many of our other ships had luffed up too far to windward. Rather than an immaculate line, we had little bunches of three or four ships almost abreast, obstructing each other’s lines of fire. And all the while, the Dutch approached us on the opposite tack.

It was the first time I ever saw the approach of an enemy fleet, and I marvelled at the sight. I had seen one battle of great armies, that on the dunes before Dunkirk seven years before, and although the approach of the enemy on land is a terrible prospect, it is as nothing to his approach by sea. Soldiers are but men, and thus an army is only as tall as men, with horses, flags and pikes alone giving it greater height. Yet a great fleet fills sea and sky alike with timber and canvas, each of the larger ships carrying more cannon than many an army. Young Barcock and Castle brought me my martial paraphernalia – my grandfather’s sword, my father’s breastplate, Cornelia’s kerchief tied to my scabbard – and as I put on the garb of a warrior, I prayed both that I would be equal to the task ahead, and that the Will stored safely in my sea-chest would not need to be read for many a day.