Armada

Robert was possessed by the urge to run the man through but he turned and walked out, unable to trust himself in the face of such destruction. He stood with his back to the church and looked out over the square. Suddenly he became conscious of the pistol in his hand and he stuck it back in his belt. He had thought nothing of the destruction of the town and the massacre of the population; the Spanish were enemies. But the threat against the church and the priest had driven him to the brink of drawing English blood.

He had not, but the shame of witnessing such an attack and doing nothing to prevent it began to consume him. He walked away, anxious to get back to the Retribution and find solitude to calm the rancorous voice of his conscience. In his heart he was already convinced it was a hopeless cause.

Seeley watched the captain leave from inside the church doors. He was breathing heavily and his heart raced from the righteousness that had taken hold of him. He was cleansing the church for God, ridding it of its idols and graven images. Although he knew many of his men sought only plunder, others had responded instantly to his order to tear down the statues, answering the call of their faith.

The captain too had answered that call and Seeley remembered the haste he had witnessed when they first encountered the church, the aggressive way Varian had pushed through when the door had been breeched and how he had raised his pistol to shoot the priest. But then the captain had hesitated. His furious expression had been a sight to behold, an outward sign of his religious ardour yet, Seeley marked, he had not taken command of the men, nor stayed to watch the faithful propagation of God’s will. Seeley had also heard the accounts of the captain’s fearless charge on the Halcón, but again of how he had spared the Spanish captain. While he had no doubt that his captain was committed to the cause of defeating Spain, Seeley could not help wondering if Varian’s religious convictions matched the depth of his nationalist loyalties.

It was a deficiency Seeley had witnessed in others, an imbalance that placed the Queen above God and put the needs of England ahead of those of the Divine. Varian’s actions bore witness to the tenets of his Protestant beliefs which triggered his impulse to attack the idolaters’ church and shoot the priest, but for Seeley such religious instincts ran deeper.

When Seeley had first entered the town he had been sickened by the depravity he had witnessed in the streets and it had taken all his will not to vomit up the bile that had risen in his throat. But then he had remembered the defeat at Lagos. The Spaniards deserved no mercy. In the fight against the scourge of Roman Catholic heresy there could be no hesitation, no half-measures. He turned once more to look upon the ruin of the church interior and realized it was his duty to instil in every man he could influence the will to wage unconditional holy war against the papist foe.

CHAPTER 5

6th July 1587. Plymouth, England.

The crew cheered as the anchor splashed down and the Retribution came to rest, her hull swinging around gently with the pull of the incoming tide. The last of the sails were hauled in and with all able hands on deck the galleon was quickly made secure, the men using their last reserves of strength with an alacrity born of hunger and impatience. Robert was on the quarterdeck and as he looked out over the port he smiled. ‘Home,’ he whispered, drinking in the sight of Plymouth docks

The town looked inviting in the warm July sun. The long sweep of the teeming wharfs was crowned by columns of wood smoke from the cooking fires of the houses beyond, while further back the tower of Saint Andrew’s church gazed over all. The babble of daily activity was borne on the light wind, its timbre and pitch unchanged despite the arrival home of the fleet. Robert glanced at the eight other ships surrounding the Retribution, the remnants of the original fleet that had sailed from this port ten weeks before.

After the sack of Sagres, Drake had ordered the fleet to take station off Cape Saint Vincent. They had intercepted dozens of supply ships bearing all manner of materials for the Armada at Lisbon; timbers for ship-building, oars for galleys and galleasses, and hoops and barrel staves for provisioning the enemy fleet. It had been fruitful labour but as the weeks dragged on an enemy more deadly than the Spanish had begun to attack the fleet; pestilence.