Armada

De Leiva waved the question away irritably. ‘He claims they only reached him yesterday. Right now that is not our concern – the next six days are. The English have anchored to windward but it is unlikely they will leave us unmolested while we wait for Parma. We must prepare ourselves for an attack. If we can hold them off for six days, by the seventh day the Army of Flanders will be marching on London.’

Murmured conversations began at de Leiva’s words, with some voices raised in anger. Evardo remained silent. Six days, he repeated to himself. It was a lifetime for a fleet so precariously positioned as the Armada. When he had been summoned to La Rata Encoronada thirty minutes ago he had presumed it was to discuss the logistics of supporting Parma’s imminent arrival. He had never suspected that such devastating news awaited them all.

What was equally serious was the fact that Parma was requesting an escort from the harbour of Dunkirk itself. The Dutch were blockading the port with armed flyboats. Parma had only a handful of small warships to oppose them and he feared his slow moving, flat-bottomed troop transports would be easy prey for the Dutch. The Flemish shoals that guarded the approaches to Dunkirk could only be traversed during high tide, and even then only by ships with a very shallow draught. The Armada possessed such vessels, chief amongst them the galleasses, but with the English fleet threatening them to windward Medina Sidonia was unlikely to divide his forces. King Philip’s meticulous plan was rapidly unravelling and Evardo felt the palpable anxiety of his fellow comandantes in the crowded space, an infectious dread that sapped his previous confidence.

‘Enough,’ de Leiva shouted, returning the cabin to silence once more. ‘We have confirmed reports that a second fleet has joined the English from Dover. The enemy now outnumber us in sail, but the Duke of Medina Sidonia is confident, and his advisors and I concur, that the English cannot hope to defeat us while we hold our formation.’

There was a murmur of agreement from the room. ‘The cobardes are afraid to approach us and fight like men,’ one man shouted and the tone of agreement rose.

‘The English must know that breaking our formation is vital to their success,’ de Leiva continued, his voice overriding the cacophony. ‘Given our exposed anchorage, the swiftness of the incoming tide, and the prevailing westerly winds it is believed the English might try a fire-ship attack to break up our defence and drive us onto the Banks of Flanders.’

De Leiva maintained the silence with a raised hand.

‘We have one other reason to suspect the English will use this stratagem,’ he said. ‘The arch-fiend Frederigo Giambelli is known to be in England.’

The name elicited an audible gasp from every man in the cabin.

‘Merciful Jesus. Hellburners,’ one of them said. The cabin erupted.

Evardo felt a prickle of fear at the back of his neck at the mention of hellburners. The infernal devices were not merely fire-ships, they were floating bombs, designed by the Italian Giambelli to explode on impact with their prey or with a delayed fuse that would ignite the charges without warning.

Three years before in the war against the Dutch Republics, Parma had built an 800 yard pontoon bridge across the Scheldt River, cutting off Antwerp from the sea in a bid to force the city to surrender to his forces. It had taken over six months to build the massive structure and, armed with over two hundred gun emplacements, it was further protected both up and down stream by booms. Against this impregnable barrier the Dutch had sent Giambelli’s hellburners.

The Spanish soldiers manning the bridge had been prepared for a fire-ship attack, but no one had before devised such a weapon as the hellburners. The first ship, with a delayed fuse, exploded almost harmlessly in the middle of the river, creating a sight that actually drew more soldiers to the bridge. The second ship exploded on impact, instantly killing over eight hundred men on the bridge and injuring countless others. It was a devastating attack and Evardo could only imagine with horror the impact such devices would have on the massed ships of the Armada. As the noise in the cabin began to ebb, all eyes turned once more to de Leiva.

‘In preparation for this attack your crews must be ready to slip and buoy their anchor cables at a moment’s notice. Every comandante is given leave to lay off as they see fit, but let me be clear – the Duke of Medina Sidonia expects every ship to regain their anchors and their position once the threat has passed.’

De Leiva’s eyes ranged across the cabin. Every man nodded his assent.