Traitor (45 page)

Suddenly, a huge explosion shook the ground and the air. He knew instantly what it was. The besieging pioneers had detonated a mine beneath the western bastion wall. For a moment there was silence, then a shouting of orders in Spanish, and men ran towards the scene of the blast. Shakespeare carried on along the course he had set, towards the eastern end of the interior trenchworks.

Shakespeare was relieved. There seemed to be only two Spanish guards at the picket door, inside the arch of the gatehouse. Both of them wore steel breastplates, brigantines and morions.
They carried crossbows, one with bowstring drawn and bolt set in place, the other unloaded. The man with the drawn bow held it loosely in his hand, the other had it perched over his right shoulder. They were both smoking pipes, casually, as if a battle wasn’t raging. With the swagger of a senior officer, Shakespeare strode up to them. They looked at him questioningly, as though trying to place him, though they must have seen the
inglés
about the fort. Shakespeare smiled, raised his pistol and shot the guard whose bow was drawn.

The deadly ball hit him in the face, just beneath the lip of his steel helmet. The guard’s head snapped back and he fell against the wall, his knees buckling beneath him, dying as he slid to the ground. The second guard dropped his pipe and reached for his sword, but Shakespeare hammered the spent pistol against his head. The man lurched sideways, but did not lose his footing.

Shakespeare had Gomez’s curved fighting knife in his left hand. It was a terrible weapon, more like a butcher’s blade than a man’s dagger. With a backward sweep of the hand, he slashed out with all his strength, catching the man’s throat on the left side, cutting deep into his windpipe. Blood leapt from the wound as if it were an underground spring.

Quickly, Shakespeare looked around. No one had seen him. They were either above him on the ramparts, or ferrying munitions. Everyone had a task, hunched over rampart guns or feeding cannon with ball and powder and tamping it home. The only person who could see him was Eliska, huddled inside the lee of the central passageway into the compound. She had seen what he had done and nodded to him. He nodded back and she turned away, walking towards the stable block, the sword-pennant concealed beneath her black velvet cloak. Shakespeare gasped as a guard stopped her. He could see her smiling, then the guard nodded and she walked on. At the
stables, she suddenly vanished behind a wall. Shakespeare breathed again.

Their fate was sealed. And the fate of hundreds of English and French soldiers and marines. If they attacked now, at her signal, and there was no breach, then they would be massacred by the defenders on the ramparts above. It would be bloody butchery.

Shakespeare opened the door into the picket house, set into the wall. He pulled the dead guards away from immediate sight. The main gates would resist any battering ram or shot. They were held shut by two heavy bars, slotted into steel fittings driven deep into the thick stone walls at either end. One of the bars was at a height of eight feet, the other at ground level. Opening them was a task for more than one man.

He stepped through the picket door, which was no more than five feet high, its base about a foot from the ground. Inside the little guardroom, there were more weapons, a table, a chair, a ledger. Most importantly, there was another small, heavy door – an iron door to the world outside the fort. It was secured by two bolts. He pulled them back, then cursed. There was a padlock, too. He looked out of the inner door at the bodies of the guards. One of them had a large ring at his belt, with three keys. Shakespeare cut the belt with the man’s own dagger, then returned to the padlock and tried a key. It fitted, and turned.

He pulled it open, and prayed that the breach would hold and be enough. He prayed, too, that Eliska had managed to make her way to the unmanned southern ramparts. And that he would see her again.

Boltfoot squinted through the perspective glass. He knew what to expect, but it still astonished him that things in the distance could seem so close. High on the cliffs, above the fortress parapet,
through the belching smoke of burning gunpowder, he was almost certain he could see a figure. Was that a woman? She seemed to be dancing in the air, like a tiny sprite, visible one moment, gone into the acrid mist the next. For a few seconds, he just watched, amazed at what he saw, and almost forgot his discomfort at being so high in this swaying mast-top.

He looked harder. His eyesight was good, very good, but not as keen as a falcon-eyed man like Ivory. Boltfoot screwed up his eyes again. He was almost certain. Against the grey-dark sky and smoke, there was a splash of yellow, a summer butterfly, just discernible.

He shouted down to the deck, ‘Fire away, Mr Ivory. Fire away.’

Ivory blew on the glowing match in his right hand and touched it to the fuses of the three enormous firework rockets supplied by the Queen’s firemaster and, until this day, kept in Admiral Frobisher’s own cabin.

‘That’s the signal, lads. We’re moving forward. Do not rush, keep your bucklers raised and your helmets on.’

Pinkney held a pistol in one hand and a short sword in the other. Ranged alongside him were the men he had brought from England along with as many men again, all assigned to him by Norreys.

‘If in doubt, follow me. And if I’m dead, follow Admiral Frobisher: he’s the devil with the pirates over yonder, at the right flank. Be tigers for Elizabeth and England! Trumpeter Baylie, blow your horn. Advance! Advance!’

As the trumpet sounded and the company moved forward with the marines, a withering fire from muskets and calivers rained down on them. The ramparts were lined with Spanish soldiers throwing everything at them – bullets, stones, bolts, arrows, like lethal hailstones. Andrew gritted his teeth and ran
through the mud and storm of lead until he had scaled the counterscarp and jumped into the mud-thick ditch. All around him men were falling. The only thing that separated the quick from the dead was chance, or the will of God.

Three Spanish soldiers were crossing the compound with petronels hard against their mail-clad chests. One let off a shot. Shakespeare ducked, instinctively. The shot smashed into the solid oak behind him and sent splinters flying.

To the north of the fort, brilliant against the glowering sky, the three rockets of fire seemed to hang in the air, raining showers of golden specks. Shakespeare felt a surge of hope. He grabbed one of the crossbows, the loaded one. He was breathing heavily, but his hand was steady. He pulled the trigger and loosed the bolt. He aimed for one of the attackers, high for the body, but the bowstring was not drawn tight enough and the bolt fell short. Damn the guard for his laziness. He scrabbled around for another weapon. He found a bolt in the dead guard’s quiver and tried to slot it in place. Another gunshot smacked into the ground, close at his side.

He was cornered here. He could not get through the gate for there was no way of knowing what or who he would meet on the other side. There would be no time to explain to an English soldier that he was one of them, a friend, not an enemy, before the bullet took him or the falchion cleaved his skull. Besides, he had to hold this door as long as possible. He glanced up, wishing he could see the seaward ramparts and Eliska. The powder smoke swirled and eddied.

He wound the bowstring taut and released the bolt. This time it sped true with almost point-blank trajectory, catching the first of the Spaniards in the shoulder, then shearing away. The soldier twisted sideways, his arm savagely cut, even with the protection of chain-mail. But it was too little, too late.
They were almost on him now; he was at their mercy and he knew none would be given.

And then the first of the English soldiers pushed through the open picket door …

Shakespeare immediately put his hands in the air and shouted, ‘English, I am English!’

The first man had a wheel-lock pistol in each hand and two more thrust in his belt. Shakespeare recognised him immediately as Martin Frobisher. He pointed the guns at Shakespeare and his finger seemed about to pull the trigger, then suddenly relaxed.

‘So you are. God’s teeth, it is you, Mr Shakespeare. Well done!’

A shot cracked and Frobisher spun around. He had been hit. Blood spilt from a wound at his hip. Immediately behind him, three, four, then more marines poured through the gate and shot at the advancing Spaniards, who stopped in their tracks and dived for the shelter of the fort’s inner earthworks.

As the English marines burst through the picket door, so more Spaniards raced to the trenches to reinforce their brothers-in-arms and hold the invaders at bay. The English held the gatehouse now and quickly lifted the bars, to throw wide the main gates.

‘Get a surgeon, get a stretcher!’ Shakespeare shouted. ‘Your admiral is wounded.’

‘Dog’s bollocks, Mr Shakespeare, I am going nowhere until this fort is ours.’ Frobisher lifted his head and loosed off two pistol shots in the general direction of the enemy.

Shakespeare, hunched low, bowed his head to Frobisher. ‘Forgive me for leaving you like this. Your men will look out for you. If you would give me two of your pistols, there is something I must do.’

Without hesitation, Frobisher thrust two pistols into Shakespeare’s sweat-slippery hands. He handed him a horn of powder and a small box of touchpowder, along with a pouch of balls. Shakespeare quickly primed the guns with powder and loaded them, tamping the bullets home hard with cartridge paper.

There was a roar. A cannonball blew past them into the incoming wave of marines, taking one man clean off his feet and carrying him away. Frobisher turned to an adjutant. ‘Do for that cannoneer and take control of his machine, sir.’

‘Yes, admiral.’

The air was blistered by gunshots, crossbow bolts, the screams of men and the whisper of arrows. Shakespeare broke cover and ran deep into the fort, to the eastern side of the Spanish trenches towards the chapel and the stables. He sensed balls whip past him. Keeping his head low, weaving this way and that, he made it to the stable block where panicked horses were whinnying and stamping, straining to break free from their stalls. A haybarn was ablaze.

Then he saw her. She was standing on a powder keg on the seaward rampart, waving her yellow chemise flag. Surely she must have seen the rocket flares? She must know her work was done. He wanted to shout to her:
Get down, it has worked, make your escape
. He saw Captain Paredes, too. He was striding along the seaward ramparts. His pistol – Norreys’s pistol – glinted in the flames of the burning hay. Shakespeare shouted out, but she did not seem to hear. Paredes pulled the trigger, driving a bullet deep into Eliska’s back. She had not even seen him coming. She toppled forward, still clutching the hilt of her sword. The flag fluttered down with her.

Shakespeare ran up the steps.

‘Murderer! Dog!’

He shot Paredes with the first pistol and the captain went
down. Shakespeare, closer now, pulled the trigger of the second pistol – and Paredes was dead. The first ball had entered his chest and must have ripped into his heart; the second tore into the side of his skull.

Careless for his own safety, Shakespeare went to Eliska and knelt at her side. A squadron of five Spaniards had detached itself from the main fighting force at the landward end of the fort and had followed him. Shakespeare realised in horror that both his pistols were discharged. He tried to powder one, but his hands were shaking now and all he did was spill the black powder on to the stone beneath his feet.

‘Eliska …’

Her breathing was shallow. He feared she did not have much time; he had to get her to safety. He looked up. The Spaniards were no more than thirty yards away. But instead of coming forward, they stopped and turned to the east for they were now coming under fire themselves, from three English marines with petronels, who had broken through from the gateway contingent and formed a defensive pocket behind a low stable wall.

Their arrival bought him time. He took a deep breath, steadied himself and tried again to load his pistols. This time the shaking had gone. He pushed them into the belt of his breeches, then lifted Eliska in his arms. She was as light as he remembered from their night in the wilds of Lancashire. Her fair hair hung loose, her eyes were open. Was she breathing? He was no longer certain.

From the rampart, steps led down into the side of the cliff where, he knew, there were more storerooms and emplacements. He carried her down. The going was steep and rugged, overgrown and tangled with briars and vines and sharp gorse. Halfway down, he found a room carved into the rock, nothing more than a man-made cave. There was little light in the
gloomy room. It was cool in here and the sound of battle was muffled. He placed her gently on the ground, on her side, with her blood-soaked velvet cloak splayed beneath her. He put his ear to her breast and listened for breathing but could hear none; he felt for her pulse in vain. He talked to her, urged her to live. Seconds passed, minutes. Nothing. There was no more any man could do for her. He held her face, kissed her and made supplication to God for her soul.

Suddenly he was riven with anger. Why had she continued to wave the flag after the rockets went up? Why had she still been there, offering herself up as a target when her work was done?

With his thumbs, he closed her eyes.

He turned away and stepped out into the grey daylight. He began to climb back up to the fort, through the thorny undergrowth. At the top he saw that the squadron that had saved him was, itself, in difficulties. The Spanish troops had been heavily reinforced and were raining gunshots and crossbow bolts at them.

Crouching, he loped along close to the parapet. He was getting nearer to the English contingent. He looked up and his heart felt as though it would stop in his chest: Andrew. Andrew was there in helmet and armour, with another he recognised: the pitted face of Provost Marshal Pinkney.

The terror of it was that the powerful Spanish force – a dozen or more men, with pike and shot – was advancing. The English position was about to be overrun.