I thought often of writing to my father, but could not find the words. I could not beg him to change his mind without betraying my own. I could not write that I had thrown in my lot with Spain and was glad he had done the same. I could not write without mentioning these terrible decisions, for such a letter would have been without meaning and content. Nor could I bring myself to write to Sue: the main issue was impossible to speak of yet too great to ignore.
Gradually in settling down one came to appreciate currents of opinion which made themselves felt in the town. The foreign captains were in no hurry to sail. Memories still existed of the battle in the Channel nine years ago; and there were fresher memories of the storm which had defeated them last autumn; they had not so much to gain from a Spanish victory; their own countries lived in uneasy alliance with, or subjugation to, Spain. They would gladly see the Catholic faith triumphant but would have preferred others to play the leading role.
Then there were the fanatics like de Soto who lived only for the day, who smarted everlastingly under the defeat of ‘88, and the sacking of Cadiz last year, and knew that their destiny and their only fulfilment was to launch another Armada at Eingland’s throat. Such men predominated in the leadership. But His Excellency Don Martin de Padilla, Conte de Gadea, supreme Adelantado of Castille, steered a middle course. A sober general with the weight of the whole campaign on his shoulders, he was not to be hurried. Not for him the obloquy which was heaped on the name of Medina Sidonia. He did not underestimate England or the hazards ahead. So every preparation must be made down to the last detail. Then and only then, when the time came, whether it be August or even September, he would issue the orders and the great Armada would sail.
In that first month it built gradually. Three more of the ‘Apostle’ galleons arrived: San Bartolomeo, and the smaller San Marcosand San Lucar; Almirante from Ivella, the biggest of all; Misericordia, the flagship of Portugal; ten German and Flemish ureas; and a dozen other galleons of various sizes. By now the fleet was more powerful than the English one which had taken Cadiz; and in the next week another 3,000 infantry arrived, with some 500 cavalry and field artillery, and mules and oxen and a great quantity of ammunition and stores. Here I perceived the Adelantado to be in a dilemma. Such great forces as he now possessed were self-consuming. If he waited for even greater forces, what he had would likely eat itself away.
That week it was the last in July and the summer at its greatest heat several important councils were held and there was dissension at them. De Soto came away from the last of them in a towering rage. That day an English fleet was sighted off Coruffa.
If any testimony had been needed to the impression made by last year’s capture of Cadiz, it was manifested now in the consternation which ruled in El Ferrol. Orders and counter-orders flew about, ships were manned, batteries mounted, regiments assembled. A screen of flyboats was thrown out to report on the imminence of attack. On the second morning from a high rock above the biscuit manufactory I could count a dozen sail. I stood in the hot morning sun talking quietly to Enrico Caldes and silently praying to my Protestant God.
He did not ~hear. The flyboats reported twenty ships: five royal galleons,‘including Due Repulse and Hope, thirteen other big vessels and two flyboats. Due Repulse had been Essex’s flagship at Cadiz but the Spanish said she was not flying his pennant. The fleet was sailing provocatively backwards and forwards between El Ferrol and the Sisargas Islands, west of Coruffa, as if challenging the Spanish to come out. Already half a dozen small vessels had been captured as they came unsuspectingly round Cape San Adrien.
The Adelantado had received orders ~ from the King that week to prepare his Armada for immediate sailing; to this he had replied that his fleet was as yet far from complete stores, further military reinforcements, more ships, had all been promised; in particular the thirty-two ships of the Seville squadron under Admiral Don Marcos de Arumburu, another veteran of the battle with Grenville, with the division of the Andalusian guard aboard; and Prince Andrea Doria was making his way round from Italy with a fleet of galleys and a strong force of seasoned Italian soldiery; it would be madness to move without all these.
So the Adelantado had argued. Now with the appearance of an English fleet at his very door he might change his mind. Would he be right to do so? Hrochero urged an immediate attack, as did most of the captains. But Bertendona was against it, and so in the end was Don Martin. His view was that the English fleet was not big enough. To sail out of harbour at this stage, losing perhaps ten ships in destroying or disabling twenty, giving a fair picture of one’s strength and wasting valuable stores and ammunition, would be playing the English game …
So for nearly a week we waited in great tension. Once or twice in every day the look-outs reported the English fleet in sight off Betanzos Bay. Then the alarm would abate as they bore away again. On the sixth day they did not appear. They had left us in peace. El Ferrol began to return to its normal routine of unorganised preparation.
In the first week of August Captain de Soto left for Madrid. On the same date I was transferred to the galleon San Bartolomeo, which I was rowed out to daily. There fifty Irish were working on alterations and repairs. None of them spoke Spanish; they had come over in a shallop from Cork as volunteers for Spain, and I was used as a go-between translating the overseer’s orders. In the same week Captain Pedro de Zubiaur, perhaps the greatest living expert on galley warfare, was dispatched for Blavet with seven galleys, two supply ships and 2,000 infantry, where they could wait for the coming of the Armada. It helped in a small way to ease the supply problems of El Ferrol. That week a Spanish spy, an Englishman called Pennell, arrived in Coruna aboard a Danish ship and came to report to the Naval Council in El Ferrol. He spoke little Spanish, and I was told to be present to interpret. There were four other men at this interview: Don Martin himself, Father Sicilia his confessor, Admiral Brochero and General de Guavara.
Pennell had been in Plymouth a week ago, and knew all that had been happening there. The English fleet which had cruised off Betanzos Bay for five days had been commanded by Lord Thomas Howard, and had been part of a much larger expedition as great as the one of last year which had been scattered by a terrible storm off Ushant. Sir Walter Ralegh had turned back to Plymouth with his squadron badly damaged. The Earl of Essex, with his flagship Mere Honour almost sinking under him, had put in to Falmouth with some thirty or forty other of his fleet in like trouble. (Merciful God, that gave me a twinge!) The Dutch admiral had also given up. Only Howard’s squadron, missing the greatest intensity of the storm, had ridden it out and made for the arranged rendezvous. There he had stayed, as we had seen, sailing up and down waiting for the others and daring the Spanish fleet to emerge. Now he was back in Plymouth again, refitting with the rest.
Did they intend another expedition this year? Assuredly, Pennell replied, if the Queen continued her permission. Their intention when they came? It was to attack El Ferrol, possibly with fire ships, and then go on to the Azores to await and capture the Treasure Fleet. One result of the Spanish non-emergence to fight, Pennell said, had been to give the impression that they were still far from ready to sail and indeed would not come out this summer.
Pennell was a well-spoken man who had been a seaman all his life and at some time must have commanded a craft. But his hands trembled now, and one could watch how only the drink steadied him. The questions came near home and I dreaded to hear the name Killigrew mentioned. Once or twice I was tempted to give some wrong emphasis to a reply, for Pennell’s information had a ring of truth about it, but I decided it was not a justifiable risk. This was as well, for the next time I saw Father Sicilia he was talking a passable English to the Irish priest who had come over with the volunteers…