Armada. John Stack

He gathered his wits as Powell advanced further and looked down at the blood stained pieces the surgeon slammed onto the table.

      ‘Papist icons,’ Seeley breathed. He rounded on Powell. ‘Where exactly did you find them?’

      ‘Under my table. They were hidden under a pile of bloodied rags.’

      ‘Who dropped them?’ Seeley took a step towards the surgeon, his hand falling to the hilt of his sword.

      ‘I don’t know.’ Powell glanced at the master’s sword hand but remained unperturbed. A lifetime of serving aboard ship had made him immune to young men like Seeley. ‘Dozens of men have been in and out of my surgery over the past twenty-four hours, both the injured and those who carried them. Where I found those,’ he looked to the icons, ‘hidden away like that, well, they could have been there since Cadiz.’

      ‘A traitor,’ Seeley said vehemently, turning to Robert, ‘a Roman Catholic spy, Captain, on board the Retribution.’

      Robert held out his hand to quieten Seeley. He focused on keeping it steady. He looked again at his father’s icons, furious with himself for not thinking of them earlier. Perhaps it was the pain of his wound or the pace of events since Cadiz, but whenever he had recalled his time in the surgery, he had failed to register the significance of his breeches being cut away and discarded.

      He glanced at Seeley and Powell.

      ‘Who else knows of this?’

      ‘Only you and Mister Seeley here, Captain. I came straight to your cabin when I found them.’

      Robert nodded. His best chance of suppressing any hunt was now, before it began.

      ‘Then we will keep it that way,’ he said.

      ‘What? Why?’ Seeley’s eyes narrowed.

      ‘Because, Mister Seeley,’ Robert replied authoritatively, ‘I do not wish to have my ship rife with suspicion until we are clear on the facts. Indeed, there may be a simpler explanation as to why Mister Powell found these icons on board. They may have been taken as plunder from a Spaniard.’

      Seeley made to speak but the surgeon interjected. ‘I thought that too, Captain, but then I discovered that both of these icons are inscribed with an English name.’

      ‘Why didn’t you say before, you fool!’ Seeley rounded on the surgeon angrily. ‘You mean to say that the traitor’s name is on the icons?’

      ‘No, Mister Seeley,’ Powell said. ‘For the name inscribed is not of any man on board. See here.’

      He picked up the crucifix and, turning it over, rubbed his thumb along its length to remove the film of blood.

      ‘There is the name: Young.’

      Evardo kicked out in the darkness at the creature. The scurrying sound stopped. The rat was close, maybe inches away, and he kicked out again. The rat screeched and scuttled away. Evardo sat up. His mind was dull with fatigue but still he was unable to sleep. His skin crawled as he felt the cockroaches scurry beneath and around him. He rubbed his hand over his face, massaging his forefinger and thumb into his eyes. When he opened them again he focused on the thin shafts of light that penetrated through the cracks in the door of the cell.

      He was not alone. There were four other men held captive with him in the forward section of the orlop deck of the English flagship. He listened intently as one murmured incoherently, trapped in some horrible nightmare that would not be relieved by waking. Evardo licked his lips. His mouth was dry and scummy and he reached out for the pail of water, his hand swinging through a slow arc in the darkness until he touched its rim. He picked it up and scooped his hand in, bringing the foul brackish liquid up to his mouth. It did little to quench his thirst. For a moment he was tempted to toss the pail away in anger before thinking better of it, knowing how severely the precious liquid was rationed.

      When he had first been brought to the Elizabeth Bonaventure he had been formally welcomed by the captain of the English flagship. El Draque, disappointingly, had not been on deck, and Evardo had listened bitterly as the captain explained in halting Spanish the terms of his capture. He was to be brought back to England where he would be held until a ransom was paid for his release. It was an ignominious fate, one that would be shared by the four other men of noble birth who shared his quarters in the ship’s bowels.

      Evardo kept his gaze locked on the shafts of light. They swung slowly with the roll of the ship, sweeping across the near pitch darkness of the cell. He held out his right hand, his sword hand, to allow the feeble light to catch it. He vividly recalled that moment on the Halcón after he had handed over his weapon to the Englishman, Varian. Since then, and with a deep sense of shame, he had asked himself if he should not have fought on and accepted the price of death for his honour.

      After Varian had walked away from him, he had been jostled, along with the rest of his crew, into the fo’c’sle. His first reaction had been to look for Abrahan. When he saw the older man push through the throng to approach him, he had begun to smile, glad to see his old friend safe. That smile had died on his lips when he beheld the murderous look on Abrahan’s face.

      ‘You cursed cobarde,’ he had hissed, and Evardo had recoiled from the accusation of cowardice.

      ‘I was bested, there was nothing I could do, the fight …’

      ‘You surrendered your ship like some Portuguese hijo de puta and betrayed your command and your crew!’

      ‘Betrayed?’ Evardo had hissed back, dropping his hand to clasp the sword that was no longer by his side. ‘After the English counter-attacked, there was nothing we could do, you know that.’

      ‘Then you should have paid for the loss of the Halcón with your blood, not your sword.’

      Evardo had made to reply, but Abrahan had turned his back on him, pushing through the surrounding crewmen who had heard every word of the exchange. Evardo had looked at them, and while many had averted their gaze, others had stared back with accusing eyes, persuaded by Abrahan’s words that their captain had indeed betrayed the Halcón and its crew.

      In the quiet of the cell Evardo pictured his mentor in his mind’s eye. The image brought a flash of anger to his heart but then he thought of the years of comradeship and support that Abrahan had given him. Under his tutelage he had crossed the world, making the leap from boy to man. In many ways Evardo had come to consider Abrahan as the father he had lost to war. As a comandante he was accustomed to a solitary existence but for the first time he felt very alone. The feeling sickened him.

      In the darkness he closed his hand into a tight fist. The shame of his defeat threatened to overwhelm him, to unman him in that black space, but with savage determination he crushed his regret. Evardo gave his mind over to the boom of the waves striking the hull and the creak of timbers. The journey ahead would be long, but eventually he would return to Spain, and he focused his thoughts on that day. Using the powerful influence of his family he would seek another galleon command. His honour demanded nothing less. Only then would he be able to take the first step in fulfilling the vow that had now become the centre of his being: revenge.

      Above the swirling mists of gun smoke surrounding the English fleet in the waters off Sagres, a lookout on the Elizabeth Bonaventure spotted the raising of a white flag. He shouted it down to the quarterdeck and across the fleet the order was given to cease fire. In the quiet that followed, Robert looked out across the untroubled waters to the town’s castle. The bombardment had lasted a mere two hours, a savage cannonade that had pierced the battlements in several places and silenced the garrison’s return of fire. Black smoke was rising from within, billowing past the crude flag of surrender, and on the gentle breeze Robert could hear the desperate cries of a cornered populace.

      ‘Ho quarterdeck, Cygnet approaching on the starboard beam.’

      ‘Ahoy, Captain Varian.’

      ‘Ahoy, Captain Bell,’ Robert shouted back, raising his arm.

      ‘Orders