Page 290 of A Column of Fire

‘What kind?’

‘Mostly big galleons, with some supply ships and a few heavily armed galleasses with oars as well as sails.’

Suddenly Barney felt possessed by a bizarre sense of calm. The event that had been threatened so often and feared so long had at last happened. The most powerful country in the world was attacking England. The end of doubt came as a strange relief. Now there was nothing to do but fight to the death.

Howard said: ‘In what direction were the Spaniards moving?’

‘None, my lord. Their sails were struck, and they seemed to be waiting for others to catch them up.’

One of the attendant noblemen, Lord Parminter, said: ‘Now, my man, are you sure of the numbers?’

‘We did not get close, for fear we might get captured and be unable to bring you the news.’

Lord Howard said: ‘Quite right, Fleming.’

Barney reckoned the Scilly Isles were a hundred miles from Plymouth. But Fleming had covered the distance in less than a day. The armada could not make the same speed, but they might get here before nightfall, he calculated anxiously, especially if they left behind their slower supply ships.

Parminter was thinking along the same lines. ‘We must set sail at once!’ he said. ‘The armada must be confronted head-on before it can make landfall.’

Parminter was no sailor. Barney knew that a head-on battle was the last thing the English wanted.

Lord Howard explained with courteous patience. ‘The tide is coming in, and the wind is in the south-west. It is very difficult for a ship to get out of the harbour against both wind and tide – impossible for an entire fleet. But the tide will turn at ten o’clock this evening. That will be the time to put out to sea.’

‘The Spaniards could be here by then!’

‘They could. What a good thing their commander seems to have decided to wait and regroup.’

Drake spoke for the first time. ‘I wouldn’t have waited,’ he said. He was never slow to boast. ‘He who hesitates is lost.’

Howard smiled. Drake was a braggart, but a good man to have alongside you in a fight. ‘The Spanish have hesitated, but they are not yet lost, unfortunately,’ he said.

Drake said: ‘All the same, we’re in a bad position. The armada is upwind of us. That gives them the advantage.’

Barney nodded grimly. In his experience, the wind was everything in a sea battle.

Howard said: ‘Is it possible forusto get upwind ofthem?’

Barney knew how difficult it was to sail into the wind. When a ship was side-on to the wind with its sails at an angle, it could travel briskly in a direction ninety degrees to the direction of the wind. So, with a north wind, the ship could easily go east or west as well as south. A well-built ship with an experienced crew could do better than this, and travel north-east or north-west with sails trimmed in tightly, or ‘close-hauled’. This was called sailing close to the wind – a challenge, because a slight error of judgement would take the ship into the no-go zone where it would slow down and stop. Now, if the English fleet wanted to head south-west into a south-westerly head wind, it would have to sail first south and then west in a zig-zag, a slow and tiresome process known as tacking.

Drake looked dubious. ‘Not only would we have to tack into the wind, we’d also have to stay out of the enemy’s sight, otherwise they’d change course to intercept us.’

‘I didn’t ask you if it would be difficult. I asked if it’s possible.’

Drake grinned. He liked this kind of talk. ‘It’s possible,’ he said.

Barney felt heartened by Drake’s bravado. It was all they had.

Lord Howard said: ‘Then let’s do it.’

*

FOR MUCH OFSaturday, Rollo stood at the port rail of theSan Martinas it sailed before a favourable wind along the English Channel towards Portsmouth. The armada formed a wide column, with the best fighting ships at the front and back, and the supply ships in the protected middle.

As he watched the rocky shores of Cornwall pass, Rollo was swamped by conflicting feelings of exultation and guilt. This was his country, and he was attacking it. He knew he was doing God’s will, but a feeling at the back of his mind said that this might not bring honour to him and his family. He did not really care about the men who would die in the battle: he had never worried about that sort of thing – men died all the time, it was the way of the world. But he could not shake the fear that if the invasion failed he would go down in history as a traitor, and that troubled him profoundly.

This was the moment that English lookouts had been waiting for, and beacons burst into flame on the distant hilltops one after another, sending a fiery alarm along the coast faster than ships could travel. Rollo feared that the English navy, duly warned, might sail out of Plymouth harbour and head east to avoid getting trapped. Medina Sidonia’s cautious delay had lost him an opportunity.

Whenever the armada sailed closer to the shore, Rollo saw crowds on the cliffs, staring, still and silent as if awestruck: in the history of the world no one had ever seen so many sailing ships together.