Armada. John Stack

      ‘Who’s inside, men?’ Seeley asked, stepping forward.

      ‘Some shit stinkin’ priest,’ one of the sailors replied. ‘We saw him close the door as we came into the square.’

      ‘We want into that strong box that papists have in their churches,’ another said, referring to the tabernacle, and the others voiced their agreement, one of them taking up the shout again for the priest inside to open the doors.

      Seeley took charge, ordering two men to find something to ram the door. They returned moments later with a stout wooden bench. The men attacked the door with unbridled aggression and the boom of the battering ram brought more men from around the square. The timbers of the door gave way under the onslaught and the sailors cheered as they pushed their way through. Robert tried to shoulder his way in with the leading edge of the charge, anxious to protect the priest inside, believing that he could somehow excuse his mercy later.

      The sailors spilled into the church, the original group in the lead. Their anger and haste were heightened by the dozens of men at their rear, knowing the spoils they sought were under threat. Robert stumbled in. His eyes searched frantically in the gloom of the interior for the priest. The Spaniard was running up the centre aisle, sailors on his heels. Robert watched in horror as one of them raised his arquebus. He swung up his own pistol, bringing it to bear on the sailor’s back. He hesitated and the pistol shook in his hand. A second later a blast rang out. The sailor had shot the priest at near point-blank range. His head snapped forward under the hammer blow of the lead ball before he fell to the floor.

      ‘You men,’ Seeley roared near at hand. ‘Tear down those statues.’

      Robert spun around, his rage threatening to slip its bonds. The men quickly desecrated the church, pulling down the ornate statues and smashing them underfoot, while the air resounded with the clang of metal as the sailors attacked the tabernacle doors with their weapons.

      ‘Blasphemous idolaters,’ Seeley cursed.

      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.

      The morale of the fleet had died with the first fatality and as more and more fell ill, Robert, like every other captain, had found it increasingly difficult to keep his crew in check. A sudden violent storm precipitated the first flights towards home, with the smaller ships, under the pretence of necessity, turning for England while they still had sufficient crew to sail them. Even the news of a rich prize approaching the Azores, a trading carrack bound for Lisbon from Genoa, could not stem the tide. Men who had rushed fearlessly into battle cowered before the dreaded ship-fever. The crew of the Golden Lion, with the fleet’s second officer, Borough, on board had turned her bow northwards despite the entreaties of their captain.

      Where lesser men might have succumbed, Drake had rallied, persuading the remaining crews to sail west to San Miguel. His resolve had been rewarded and a dawn attack by the last nine ships had yielded an enormous prize – the Sao Phelipe, a Portuguese carrack that was one of the Spanish King’s own vessels. After this enormous coup, Drake had been content to end the expedition and the Elizabeth Bonaventure had finally led the bedraggled fleet home.

      Of Robert’s command, seven men had been lost to sickness while another thirty were isolated below decks, the men shivering in their hammocks, crying out in delirium, their bodies racked by fever. Some would survive, God would choose who, and Robert murmured a prayer for all. He wondered, like all sailors, what cursed element triggered the dread disease.

      ‘The ship is secure, Captain,’ Seeley said, coming up to the quarterdeck. His frame was lean and drawn from the rigours of the previous weeks.

      ‘Very well,’ Robert replied. ‘Have the men stand down. Mister Powell will need to see each of them before any can disembark to make sure none of them have ship-fever.’

      The master nodded. He ordered the ship’s surgeon to the main deck, then called the boatswain to come aft.

      ‘Captain,’