An Introduction To The Eternal Collection Jubilee Edition (24 page)

The mist was thick and the sea was rough. The roll of the
Santa Perpetua
as she ploughed through the grey water was a very different movement from that of the
Sea Hawk
and Rodney found himself regretting that he was not on the smaller ship.

They were still eight days out from home and now every man’s mind was racing ahead at the thought of harbour and the excitement of setting foot on English soil again. There was an urgency and an impatience about the seamen which showed itself in everything they did. Even the sound of their voices raised in chorus or whistling as they worked, seemed to be accelerated and imbued with impatience.

It was not only the thought of the share of the prize which would be theirs when they got ashore. Although all of them would be rich until the money was spent and they were forced back to sea again in hopes of other gains, there was something deeper and more fundamental in their minds than money. Perhaps a part of it was the unexpressed fear that even now their spoils might be snatched from them.

They were in dangerous waters. There was not a man on board who was so stupid as not to realise that fact, except perhaps the native volunteers, and they, poor devils, were too preoccupied with the change of weather to feel anything but physically miserable.

It was not only the cold that was affecting them. The
Sea Hawk
had ten cases of yellow fever aboard soon after they left the Canaries.

Barlow had reported the matter to Rodney, who had said little about it aboard the
Santa Perpetual,
for he knew that, if Lizbeth heard of it, she would insist on trying to nurse the men. There was little that could be done for yellow fever, as Rodney well knew. The ten men had died and there was every likelihood that the rest of the natives would succumb before they reached Plymouth.

The crew of the
Santa Perpetua
had been extraordinarily lucky to date. Only five Englishmen and seven natives had died since they had captured her. The proportion was exceedingly small compared with the usual death rate on such a voyage as they had undertaken. But luck could change overnight and Rodney had the feeling that he was hanging on by the skin of his teeth to his good fortune and that he must not relax his grip on it for a single second until they were safely into the English Channel.

There was a keen wind blowing this morning. It was welcome, for they were making a good speed, but Rodney felt himself shiver as it whipped its way through his thin doublet. No wonder the natives were cold, he thought, used as they were to the warm tropical temperature they had now left behind them.

They would not linger long in England. He would pay them well and they would doubtless run amok in Plymouth for a week or so and then find a ship sailing west, if they were not unfortunate enough to be pressed into the Navy in the meantime.

The mist was lifting a little. He could see now that the skies were dark and lowering. There would be rain later in the day. He spoke to the man at the tiller telling him to set his course two points to larboard, and then, as he moved away, anxious to exercise his shivering limbs, he heard a sudden wild yell from the main mast.

“Sail in sight – two of them, sir. It’s, it’s the enemy!”

There was hardly any need for the look-out, for, as the mists lifted, Rodney had himself seen the ships at the same moment not more than five miles away and sailing straight for them. They were Spanish galleons as large as, if not larger than, the
Santa Perpetua
, and Rodney guessed that they were heading for the Canary Islands.

More than likely they were merchantmen on their way back to Havana, in which case, Rodney’s brain calculated quickly, they would be empty and of no value from the point of view of plunder, but they were Spanish and that was enough to make him square his chin and set his lips in a hard line of determination.

“Spaniards, sir, Spaniards!” Master Gadstone was saying at Rodney’s elbow, his eyes dancing with excitement, his feet hardly able to keep still.

“Yes, I know, Master Gadstone. Clear for action!”

There was hardly any need to give the word the men were already running out the guns, laughing and joking as they did so.

The mist was moving low over the sea in clumps so that one moment the ships would be quite clear and the next moment they would be blotted out completely. In a moment of clearness Rodney saw that the nearest galleon was flying her ensign in friendly innocence, dipping it again and again. He was thankful then that he had placed no pennant upon the
Santa Perpetua
. She was flagless. They would wait until the last moment before running up the red cross of St. George and leaving the Spaniards in no doubt to what nation they belonged.

“Keep her steady, Master Gadstone,” Rodney said sharply.

“Aye, aye, sir!” Gadstone replied with a lilt in his voice as if Rodney had given him a bag of gold rather than an order.

Rodney had taken Master Gadstone on board the Santa Perpetua purposely feeling that he was better able than Barlow to keep the young man’s exuberance in check. Now he was glad of his enthusiasm. In Gadstone’s opinion there was only one thing to be done with Spaniards – attack them whatever the risk, whatever the odds against success.

Rodney knew without looking or asking the look-out that the
Sea Hawk
was not yet in sight. She had hove-to for some slight repairs and although with her superior speed she would catch up with them later in the day, it was no use waiting for her now. If they were going to grapple with the Spaniards, it was now or never. He set himself to plan the manoeuvres of the encounter which would be upon them all too shortly.

The wind was with the
Santa
Perpetua,
the galleons were having to tack into wind. He saw one of them broadside on now and realised that he had underestimated her size. She was much larger than the Santa
Perpetua
and her guns would be correspondingly more deadly. The other was about the same tonnage. They were lying as close to each other as was possible, as was the habit of the Spaniards. He would go between them he decided and he gave his orders accordingly.

“Man the braces, Master Gadstone, and every man is to hold his fire.”

The men at the guns could hear him and they knew what he intended. They knew as well as he did that a premature broadside would ruin the whole operation. Rodney called the men with the arquebuses and the archers on deck. They came running up just as the mist swept down again and he told them to crouch down behind the heavy bulwarks and not to be seen till the last moment.

He had a good look at the galleons a few minutes later as the mist lifted. They carried four-storied deck-houses which gave them a unique and very impressive appearance. Like many of the Spanish ships they were almost as high as they were long. with netting over their half-decks to prevent boarding. This would have been a deterrent had Rodney intended to hoard them, but he knew there was no chance of capturing the galleons as there were two of them. There was only one thing he could do for the glory of England and that was either to sink them or make them so unseaworthy they would sink by themselves in the storm which lay ahead.

Galleons were hard to manage in rough weather, slow of pace and almost helpless against a head wind, but that did not make Rodney underestimate the deadliness of their cannon at close quarters. They also carried an armoury of curious catapults and the Spanish men-at-arms were notoriously accurate with their arquebuses.

The ships were growing nearer to each other and the mist was blowing away at the same moment. Rodney could see the glitter of the Spaniards” armour as they crowded towards the bow. They were getting curious, Rodney guessed, as to why the
Santa Perpetua
did not reply to their signals. She was approaching the two galleons unwaveringly.

Rodney gave the order and the men sprang up the rigging. They were hauling up the cross of St. George and in a few seconds there would be no doubt to whom the
Santa Perpetua
belonged.

“Hold your fire!” he shouted warningly to Master Gadstone.

In the course of the next few seconds the Santa Perpetua’s bow-chasers would begin to bear. They were bow to bow now, and moving as brightly as a girl at her first dance, she slid between the two galleons.

Rodney could see the Spanish officers pointing at the Santa Perpetua’s main mast. He heard orders being yelled, a note of panic in their voices. The men on the fo’c’sle cannon were stooping to look along the sights. Then Master Gadstone gave the order. The Santa Perpetua’s broadsides burst into thunder, flame and smoke.

“Keep her at it, men!” Rodney shouted.

And now those hours of drill under the gruelling sun in the Caribbean Sea were justified. The very second the sponges were withdrawn the powder, rammer and shot were ready for insertion down the muzzles of the guns. The crews flung themselves on the tackles and the guns roared out again.

The men with the arquebuses and the archers had picked their men. The cannon, too, were sweeping the decks and thundering low against the galleons’ sides.

As the smoke cleared, Rodney could see that the galleon on the starboard side had suffered the most. She had been nearer than the other. Her main mast was tipping forward like a broken wing, the deck was a swirling mass of spars and canvas, with dead men lying in heaps beneath them.

The other galleon had lost her mizzen mast and there were several ugly, gaping holes in her hull; but her crew was the quicker of the two and now the
Santa Perpetua
was jarred by the impact of the shot from her cannon. The rigging parted in several places above Rodney’s head. There was a shower of splinters which were more deadly than the shot from the Spanish muskets, then they were out of reach.

“Starboard!” Rodney roared to the helmsman. “Stand by your guns on the Starboard side!”

It was a difficult manoeuvre to bring the
Santa Perpetua
round and to train her guns on the galleons great over ornamented sterns, but they managed it. A few seconds later, raked from astern, the second galleon was as helpless as her companion. Her mizzen mast was down, the sails trailed over her sides and down into the sea; and though her stern guns were still firing, the shots were wild and quite ineffectual. Rodney guessed that the crew was demoralised, as so often happened with the Spaniards when one came to grips with them.

“Stand by to go about!” he commanded, and the crew cheered as they realised that the battle was over and the Santa Perpetua was homeward bound again.

But the victory had not been achieved without casualties. The deck was splintered and the ornamental woodwork which must have been the pride of those who carved it was battered and slashed in a thousand places, the sails were split and holed and amongst the debris on deck lay the men who had fallen beneath the Spanish fire.

There were a number of them. Rodney thought, and with an exclamation of horror he saw that Gadstone was amongst them. He was sitting propped against the taff’rail with his legs crumpled under him, and a great crimson stain spreading over his doublet above his heart told its own story.

Lizbeth was kneeling beside him. It was only later that Rodney learned that she had been on deck during the whole action. She had gone to the side of the first man who fell, only to find, as she touched him, that he was dead.

It was then above the roar of the guns that she realised that a seaman was speaking to her.

“Master Gadstone, sir! He’s fallen.”

She ran across the deck to Gadstone’s side. As she went, a splinter struck her shoulder, but was prevented from hurting her by the slashed puffing of her sleeve. She felt it prick her skin, but she paid no heed. It was Master Gadstone of whom she was thinking.

She crouched down beside him, instinctively keeping her head below the bulwarks.

“We’ve beaten them, haven’t we?” Gadstone asked weakly.

“Yes, of course,” Lizbeth answered.

“’Tis a victory!” He tried to cheer, but his voice croaked in his throat. “A victory against those damned Spaniards – ”

His voice trailed away before the end of the words. As he slumped forward against her, Lizbeth knew that he was dead; but she held his head against her breast, not knowing what else she could do. She was deafened by the noise and din and dazed by the sight of death all around her.

She found herself praying, praying out loud as she held Master Gadstone’s dead body to her. It was a long time after, when she opened her eyes to find Rodney standing beside her, that she realised it was for him and not for herself that she had been praying.

The quiet now was almost painful after the roar of the guns. Her eyes were smarting from smoke; it caught in her throat and made her cough; and then despite her every resolution she knew she was crying. She felt Rodney pull her to her feet, heard him give the order for Gadstone’s body to be carried away, as he half-supported, half carried her into the after cabin.

Everything was in confusion. Pictures had fallen, gold ornaments were scattered over the floor, chairs were overturned.

“Drink this wine. Rodney said quietly, and there was something in the calmness of his voice which pulled Lizbeth together far more effectively than the wine he forced between her lips.

“ Sit here,” he commanded. “I must go on deck. There is much for me to do.”

He was gone almost before he finished speaking, and in a few minutes Lizbeth had followed him.

“Fifteen men killed and thirty wounded, sir,” the Master Gunner told her.

Here was her task and she set herself to do it, realising as she worked that the conditions on the
Santa Perpetua
were much better than those she had encountered on the
Sea Hawk.

She had inspected the surgeon’s cabin after they had captured the ship and had marvelled at what she found there. There was no need to ask Rodney this time for
aqua vitae,
for the Spaniards had a special vinegar which they used to clean and cool wounds and Lizbeth had already proved its efficacy on men who had cut or injured themselves while in the execution of their duties.