Captain Bonifaz was a tight-lipped soldier whose manner was formal and his discipline harsh. I felt some other military man would better have been chosen to lead the invasion if diplomacy must come before conquest.
“St Mawes fort could hardly do more than throw an occasional shot at a landing inside the river-mouth, but it could make entry up the river difficult.. What action will you take against it?”
“A second force guided by your Captain Burley will land on the sand beach to the east of the river-mouth and cross the isthmus to silence this other castle. If it is done by surprise it will soon be over.”
“And my part?”
“Your part will be to go in the first landing boat launched from this ship. With you will go a sergeant and twenty soldiers. Your business will be to establish contact with your father and to arrange that he should formally surrender the castle to me.”
“And then?”
Captain Bonifaz looked me over contemptuously. “Then when the first operation is complete, your part and the part of your father will be over. But I understand you will both be employed in pacifying the country after its conquest.”
“What is your plan for the conquest?”
“It is not my plan, Killigrew; I accept and obey orders, and I would advise you to do the same. That is what you are here for. That is what I presume you have been preserved and cherished for.”
Bonifaz got up and went to the looking-glass to put on his muffler; for him the interview was ended. But Captain Quesada said: “As soon as all military and equipment are landed and the landing consolidated, a screen of flyboats will be thrown out to give warning in case the English fleet should return. It is an axiom of conquest by sea, which Don Martin well grasps, that an enemy fleet must not be left undestroyed. As soon therefore as we have news, our fleet under Admiral Brochero will sail from Falmouth to intercept and defeat it. In the meantime the Adelantado will advance on Plymouth overland.”
When I got back to the cabin Enrico Caldes was strumrning on his lute, and for the first time for weeks my mind went back to Victor Hardwicke, his body long since rotten in its prison grave.
Enrico clearly wanted to talk about what he had heard. “What do you feel, Maugan, to be so near your home again?”
“I persuade myself against it, but some inner knowledge tells me the air smells different.”
“I find it hard to understand what you feel, looking forward to being home but yet coming in company with a conqueror.”
I bent to untie my shoes; the Irish priest, Father Donald, was listening, but I was glad he could not understand.
“I think I know you moderate well by now,” Enrico said, “and I would have said you are not of the stuff of which traitors are made.”
I kicked off a shoe. “It depends how you define a traitor.”
“Oh, yes, that’s true. I ask your pardon if I have offended by using that name. I mean that it is hard to envisage myself as leading in an English force against Spain. I have hard things to say of my own country you have heard me say them; against the obstinacy of the King, against the corruption of the army and navy commissioners, against the tyranny of the Holy Office all complaints it is not safe to air as I air them. But when it comes to the point, I would sooner die than fight against my own country. And, knowing you, I should have thought you were much the same.”
I put my shoes in a corner. The ship was lurching more tonight.
“A hundred years ago,” I said, “that or a little more, a king of England had usurped the throne in place of his own nephews, and later he murdered them. His rule when established was an enlightened one, but men’s hearts were against him. They could not forget. So another man with a much poorer claim, our present Queen’s grandfather, landed at Milford Haven to dethrone the other. Men flocked to his standard and the King was killed in battle and Henry was crowned in his place. I feel maybe no better and no worse than those who landed with Henry. They did not look on it as treason for they believed their cause just.”
“Ah yes,” said Enrico. “No doubt in Spain’s history there would be something the same, but I am no historian and judge only by the day before yesterday.” He sighed and stretched. “Now we are all taking part in history does that weigh heavy with you? On the success of this Armada will depend the future of generations.”
Father Donald crossed himself and began to intone a prayer in Latin for the preservation and success of the soldiers of Christ. He was a hairy man, hair sprouting from his nostrils and ears and sitting like a black halo around his tonsure. He hated the English passionately and utterly, and only spoke to me when forced by occasion. Yet I had seen him joking with his own men and kind and fatherly to the sick. There was something in his attitude towards England that I had only seen in a Dutchman towards Spain.
Enrico’s talk of treason had disturbed me, for though I had long since fought all this out, now it was in the open and there was no going back. I still had no plan to meet the situation. Co-operation such as I had accepted so far was like boarding a coach that did not stop when one wanted to get out. There was nothing to do until we landed, and by then I was stamped for ever before my own people as a traitor along with my father. To throw away my life in a gesture would benefit no one. Yet to die usefully would need enterprise and resource.
Dawn, and we broke our fast with a mug of wine, some crumbling biscuit and salt fish. The fanfare of trumpets was late today. No parade of ships but a grim preparation for the last lap. Stumble on deck shivering and feeling sick. Dry Mass.
“Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, DominusDeus Sabaoth, Pleni sent caeli et terra gloria tua.”
Wind had shifted a point since yesterday; from a guess it was now north by east. By noon tomorrow we should be off the Scillies, but it would make beating up the Channel more difficult.
“Laudamus te, benedicimus te, adoramus te, glorificamus te.”
We were kneeling on the quarter-deck, just abaft the mainmast, below us in the galleon’s waist were the soldiers in tight ranks, behind them the sailors and the gunners, then, back of all, the fifty Irish volunteers under a corporal and a masterat-arms. Two frigates close by were waving their masts out of unison.
“Quondam tusolus. Sanctus tu soles, Dominus tu solus, Altissimus lesu Christe …”
Men’s voices chanting across the ring of ships; they rose above the wind; 20,000 at prayer.
We rose, still sleepy, stiff with the night, cold and damp with sea wind. The last conference aboard San Pablo; I was to go, and when I climbed up the side of the flagship Captain Elliot and Captain Burley were already there. With them were a dozen other Englishmen; some red-eyed, shifty and shabby, sweepings of the sea come to help the Spanish and reconquer England for gain; others plainly gentlemen exiled for their faith and hoping to return to a Catholic England; I looked for Thomas Arundel1 but he was not there.
We did not go below but were addressed by Richard Burley who seemed for all his uncouthness most inward of us all with the Spaniards. After it was over we stood about eyeing each other, one or two speaking but for the main part distrustful, more suspicious of each other than if we had been of different race.