The Thunder and the Flame, page 6
Strong’s voice was as surly as his expression. “My orders are to take off the chirurgeons, sir, and their mates. Even those’ll more than fill the boat.”
For a moment no man spoke. Then Grenville said quietly, “Lord Howard judges rightly that Englishmen doomed to Spanish dungeons can have no need of physic… Ay, take ’em, then! And – Captain Middleton—”
“Sir?” Middleton’s face was pale, his lips tight.
“Captain Middleton. I have a personal favour to ask of you. You may, if you wish, refuse.”
The pinnace Captain bowed slowly. “I’m your servant, sir.”
“Thank you: be pleased to inform Lord Thomas Howard that on the squadron’s return to England I shall declare his cowardice and expect to fight him.”
Middleton’s eyes never left Grenville’s. He nodded, but didn’t speak.
“Tell him also that I shall do my duty here, and afterwards follow him to sea, as he’s commanded—”
“Sir!” Langhorne was pointing seawards, towards the still anchored ships. All four of them turned to stare out across the water, and at once saw the drifting, dissolving cloud of smoke at the flagship’s side even as the late sound of the gun’s firing reached their ears: a second cauliflower of black smoke, and again the percussion followed: no more guns fired, but now Defiance had shaken loose her main-topsail, and now was clewing it again; while they watched, that sail was lowered and raised almost a dozen times; as it was clewed-up for the last time, topmen on the yard working to replace the gaskets, the flagship’s standard ran fluttering up the halyards to the maintop where it flew lazily in the gentle breeze.
Grenville coughed. “The Spaniards are in sight of your Admiral, Captain Strong. You’d be advised to return to him without delay, for I’ve enough deserted men to carry…”
* * *
Sir Richard stood alone on the shore, watching the longboat take Captain Langhorne back to Revenge, to carry out his orders, which were several.
First they were that the long-boat should return at once with as many mariners and younkers as she’d hold – and then go back for more. Drawn in close against the shore here were nine Azorian fishing-boats; strong, broad-beamed, clumsy craft which the squadron had taken from the islanders – mainly from the village of Santa Cruz – and used in the last weeks during the work of rummaging and watering. Each of those fishing-boats would need four men to handle her with those awkward, heavy sweeps the Azorians favoured; thus manned, each boat would take at least eight of the prostrate sick on the stretchers they already lay on beneath their shelters. The delay would be mostly here ashore, moving the men down into the boats, and then alongside the Revenge, getting them aboard.
Langhorne was to prepare the ship to receive them: tackles were to be rigged at the ship’s side, for hoisting the stretchers in. (There’d be some of the sick men who could walk or crawl from their shelters to the boats; precious few with strength to climb a ladder.) More tackles to be set up for lowering the stretchers down through the hatches to the lower hold, where the men would lie atop the ballast where they’d be safe from flying shot and out of the way of those who handled the ship and served her guns. And, to an extent, their weight in the ship’s bottom would assist her stability; lacking stores, she was higher in the water than she was designed to float.
Langhorne was to remain aboard Revenge, seeing to her readiness for sea and battle, and the spirit of her men. He was to send young Gawdy ashore in the long-boat’s first return trip, to act as aide here to the Vice-Admiral…
“Sir Richard!”
Grenville turned: damp with exertion, pale and bright-eyed as if perhaps the fever had begun its work in his own blood, Chirurgeon Martin Willoughby, the Revenge’s surgeon, was trotting towards him from the tents. Scarecrow thin, and taller than most Englishmen but oddly crooked into a stoop that had become permanent perhaps from bending over his patients, perhaps from the necessity of moving about below decks during his years as a ship’s surgeon, Willoughby cut a strange figure with his arms so long and hands over-large where they dangled almost at his knees: shambling to a halt as if his legs responded to his wishes only loosely, the surgeon told Grenville, “They’ll not believe me, sir. They swear they’re left to Spain and – and beg me to allow them poison!” His great hands flapped like useless wings, and his deep-sunk eyes glowed in hot despair. “As if I had poison, when my purpose is to heal!” His speech was cultured, strangely so, and his manner quite at odds with his tradesman’s station. “Sir Richard, will you speak with them? A word from you, sir—”
“Ay.” Grenville dropped a hand on his surgeon’s bony shoulder as he strode past him towards the tents. This was a man he’d chosen for his own service in the Revenge, a man who’d sailed with him before when both of them were younger. But Sir Richard had no complaint to make of the other chirurgeons of the squadron; they’d not wanted to go with Strong, some had even questioned Lord Howard’s order until Grenville had backed it with his own present authority.
The Vice-Admiral walked purposefully between the lines of tents, nodding cheerfully at the drawn, anxious faces of the sick as he passed the first ones and headed for a slightly higher place, towards the centre, from which he could address them all.
But suddenly he stopped; so suddenly that Martin Willoughby, floundering close behind, almost knocked into him before he’d first observed the halt and then induced his limbs to respond to it.
Grenville was looking down fixedly at a grey-bearded man whose fevered eyes returned his stare of recognition.
“Treganyon,” he said slowly. “Thomas Treganyon.”
“Yea, Sir Richard.” The sick man’s voice was little more than a whisper. The head and beard moved almost imperceptibly as the fellow tried to nod. “Treganyon, sir.”
Grenville went down on one knee beside the stretcher’s head. That whisper came again, strangely like sea on shingle close at hand.
“To say farewell, Sir Richard? You’ll say it for me, in Kilkhampton?” Treganyon’s eyes flickered up and past Grenville to glance at the tall bent figure of the surgeon who hovered like some awkward, apish spectre behind the crouched Vice-Admiral. Treganyon whispered, “My wife’s dead, sir, and the lad; but the girl’s there, sir, Farmer Renlynn’s wife and mother of my grandchildren—”
“You sailed with me, to Virginia.”
“Yea, sir!” The whisper rose, crusty in excitement. “In the Tiger, sir, and me a Boatswain’s Mate. Why, sir, there was—”
“I’ve passed here before, looked at you and not known you.” He spoke bitterly, seeing himself pass by, these eyes looking up and watching for recognition: he said quietly, “Thomas Treganyon, I ask your pardon—”
The Cornishman’s eyes were still on his, it seemed, but focused as if they saw through him and beyond. “Yea, Sir Richard, I went with you into the Santa Maria, when we captured her on our way homeward. You remember, when we entered her, I was behind your shoulder? Sailed her here – Flores, that October, and – your orders – we hid ourselves below decks, allowing only Spaniards to be seen so they’d send out victuals from the island? Then – five men in a boat, and we held ’em as hostage and they refused us still – until that Portuguese, a passenger, knowing we’d hang ’em all if they held out against us, went ashore and coaxed ’em to give us victuals?”
The whisper broke into a chuckle, but that became a cough that racked the sick man’s body and brought tears running from his closed eyes into the greyness of his beard; Grenville turned, glancing up at the surgeon, who only closed his eyes and slowly shook his head. The coughing faded, but the man’s eyes stayed shut and Grenville was about to leave him when the lips moved under that tangled beard and the whisper came again but much quieter than before.
“You paid ’em for it, sir, and that I never understood, although it were in Spanish money, taken from the passengers… But Sir Richard – you were a little boy when first I saw you, and me a lad that tended your grandfather’s lawns. In the prize, the Santa Maria, I wanted to speak to you of that, and dared not. So now—”
“My father. You knew him?”
“Ay, sir. I knew Roger Grenville.”
“I was a babe when he drowned at Spithead… But you knew him, and served my grandfather, and sailed with me – and yet, Treganyon, you believe that I, a Grenville, would leave Englishmen at Spain’s mercy?”
The eyes were open, now, cloudier than before, but fixed on his. He told Treganyon, “Listen now with care, for I must speak to all of you. While I speak, will you remember what you know of Grenvilles?”
As he rose, he turned to Willoughby. “Give this man your greatest care. Let him go in the first boat that leaves.”
“Yea, sir.” Willoughby watched Grenville’s back as he strode quickly up that incline behind the central block of tents. He saw the Vice-Admiral watching intently seawards, and the surgeon, turning, saw Revenge’s long-boat on its way back to the shore, crammed with men.
The sick, in their wall-less tents, mostly lay inert and listless; but eyes opened and some dragged themselves up on to their elbows as Grenville’s first words boomed out above their heads.
“Hear me, Sir Richard Grenville, Vice-Admiral of this squadron and Commander of her beloved Majesty’s ship Revenge! Now hear me!
“Ships of Spain, some of them galleons of war, are near us in the east. Lord Howard puts to sea—” Grenville paused, scowling as he hesitated over the next words… “And charges me, Sir Richard Grenville, to do my natural duty and then to follow him. So now you’ll be carried, all of you, aboard my ship Revenge, and laid below, and tended by my Chirurgeon…
“Hear me! Revenge shall not sail from Flores until every man, however sick, is in her!”
Cheers rose all along the shore; Sir Richard told them to rest easy, to wait their turns without impatience; he repeated that no man would be left, swearing that he himself wouldn’t quit the shore until the last of them had gone aboard.
He found Willoughby still kneeling beside Treganyon’s stretcher. But the surgeon’s hat was in his hand; the old Cornish sailor’s eyes were closed and his hard, rope-creased hands had been folded across a breast that no longer rose or fell.
The surgeon said quietly, “He heard you, sir.”
* * *
The long-boat had landed a dozen men, and pushed off to return to the Revenge for more. Now some of them were hauling the first of those fishing craft to lie alongside a low shelf of shoreline convenient for the embarkation of the sick; a few others stood in a group behind John Creed, a Boatswain’s Mate whom Langhorne had sent to take charge of the work on shore.
Philip Gawdy, either nervous or impatient, fidgeted at Grenville’s elbow; and Willoughby, bent nearly double, stood close behind the Vice-Admiral as he gave his orders to the men.
The surgeon was to see to the well-being of the sick during their transportation; when he was sure that all was right for them at this end, perhaps half-way through the operation, he was to go aboard Revenge and see to their disposal in the holds. Creed and his party of younkers were to bring the stretchers down to the sea’s edge and load them directly into any boat that waited for them; or, if the boats were all away, place them ready for quick loading when the craft returned for more.
Grenville nodded in dismissal; the Boatswain’s Mate touched his hat and hurried up the slope with three men following and the Chirurgeon shambling ahead, making for the first tent in the line. Grenville turned to Gawdy.
“Philip, you’ll remain here, if you please, and see that all goes swiftly.” He pointed inland and upwards, towards the crown of that hill he’d climbed earlier in the day. “I shall climb up there, but remain in sight so you may signal to me in case of need. From there I may see the Spaniards, how they sail—”
His eye had noted that the other men had two boats ready and now were lounging by them, four men to each, waiting idly for the sick to be brought down. The Vice-Admiral bellowed, “You there! Leave two men to each boat: the rest assist your fellows!” Turning back to Gawdy, he said, “Let none stand idle, Philip. There’s little time to waste.”
Gawdy glanced seaward, then back at his Commander. “The Spaniards are in sight of the Defiance, Sir Richard. Shall we have time to embark all these sick, and still escape them?”
“Escape them?” The Vice-Admiral’s tone of voice made Philip Gawdy start, his eyes widen. “Escape, you say? Your choice of words offends me, Philip!”
Gawdy reddened; he was used to kinder tones than this from Grenville… But Sir Richard’s expression softened, now, and he spoke gently, carefully, as if he addressed a child.
“We do not escape, Philip. When these fellows are aboard, we shall put to sea—” he coughed, and paused: then continued, “to join with Lord Howard. If the Spaniards show sense, they’ll give us room enough. If they do not – well, we’ll see: and so, by God, will they!”
Philip Gawdy nodded dumbly. He would have liked to have matched the Vice-Admiral’s shout of laughter; but it wasn’t in him. He looked away, towards Revenge again; that long-boat was on its way back with another load of men. Here, the first of the fishing-boats was already loaded, and pushing off, four men struggling with the heavy oars while there was hardly room for their feet between the stretchers with which the boat was filled. Two more of the sick were being carried down to go into the second boat.
Gawdy turned back, to find that Grenville watched him closely. “What, you’re afraid they’ll catch us here? Keep us from that flota, Philip?” He laughed again, and clapped a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Well now, see this. From Lord Howard’s maintop they’ll have seen the Spaniards’ topsails. Eh? And this wind’s no more than light airs. Well, light… So there’s two hours before they can be in culverin shot – and we’ll be done with all this in an hour at most. Eh?”
“Ay, sir.” Gawdy was ashamed of his fear, yet not truly reassured. The long-boat was just touching shore; he looked that way, then glanced uncertainly at Grenville.
“Ay, set them moving!” Abruptly Grenville turned and moved away up the slope, striding swiftly and determinedly towards that same track he’d gone up a few bare hours ago, only then in no haste or urgency except for the urgency that had been a part of his state of mind, which had been a kind of climactic surge (as he’d known before: oh, known well, even lived with off and on over periods of years!) to that much-tasted hatred of inaction which he’d been born with and was perhaps the mainspring of his character and being: and which, those few hours ago, had turned into a mood of crystal-gazing. And now he climbed the same track and there was no longer any need for crystal, only for shrewd assessment and fast action.
Gawdy, he thought. Had I misjudged him? Was that thing I took for pure enthusiasm and which I thought could be nurtured as the eagerness (to be conditioned, but not too much, by the experience he needs) I’d want in a useful lieutenant, only a bubble of youthful naïvety which has now, in the face of danger, been pricked, and vanished? He frowned, half knowing already and for sure that he’d been wrong in thinking that he’d discovered a spirit to match his own, a man he could mould into his own outlook and, thereafter, service… knowing too that his own eagerness to find such a lieutenant was as much to blame as any quality or falsity in the boy.
Half-way up, he stopped and scanned as much of the sea as was visible to the east. But there was still more land than ocean, and no ship in sight. He turned, and looked back, down that slope he’d come up so fast that now his breath was short, his heart hammering; he saw boats moving in that strip of water between the shore and the Revenge, the ant-like figures of the men moving the sick out of their tents; they were well along the line – so the work went well…
One boat lay alongside Revenge’s waist, a stretcher hoisted in mid air as it was slung aboard; another boat was just leaving the ship’s side, making way for a third that lay off, its oars spread above the water, waiting its turn to slide alongside and unload.
That went well; and beyond Revenge, the others of the squadron still lay at anchor.
He turned again and hurried on up the slope, steeper now, towards the summit. It would not be necessary to gain the very top, however; where this track flattened along the final ridge, from there he’d have a wide command of the island’s eastern side. Not far to go…
Breathless, he turned again to view the squadron. Defiance was under way, topsails and fore-sail flattened to the wind as she beat out north-eastwards, her stern to the land. The others, too, had broken their anchors out of ground and were swinging now as their sails filled, to follow their Admiral to sea. Grenville’s chest rose and fell like a bellows from the exertion of the climb as he watched the flagship gather way, her standard at the main, streamers and banners flying gaily from the fore and mizen and from the topsail yards. The course Howard had set, if he held it, would take the squadron out to clear the east coast of Corvo, but only by sailing as close to the wind as he could go. The wind was just south of east; sailing six points off it – and none of the squadron could sail closer than that without being put aback – there was the necessary margin, and no more than that, to clear the land. If the wind shifted by as much as one point, to due east, they’d be forced to put their helms up and run down on Corvo’s westward side…
West of Corvo; glancing there, the Vice-Admiral stiffened in surprise not far from shock. Sails, that could be only Spanish – and in the north! North! Sir Richard strained his eyes to make them out, to tell how many… certainly not fifty-three. Seven – eight – ay, and a ninth astern of that – two smaller ships that might be pinnaces—
The explanation struck suddenly through initial bafflement. It was, could only be, that the Spanish Admiral, approaching from the east, had detached and sent in advance one squadron to round Corvo on the north and come down from there to block the English path downwind; that squadron which he could see (and whose topsails must have been sighted from the Defiance some little while ago), and the main force of the enemy, were intended to close like pincers upon a helpless English squadron still at anchor.
