While we were waiting the sky clouded over, and by the time the conference in the Adelantado’s cabin had broken up it was blowing hard. With the peculiarly unstable nature of an easterly wind, it had whipped up the sea into small whiteflecked waves which broke as they moved among the ships and cast a drifting spray before them. San Pablo was not so much wallowing as leaning over.
We were rowed back to San Bartolomeo and clambered wetly aboard, but I could see that other captains going to galleons in more exposed positions were having hard work to make headway. At once sails were let go, and we dipped towards the open sea. Our two galleons led the way, followed by the galleass Santiago, four of Zubiaur’s galleys, two ureas, Aguila and Grifo, six large flyboats and seven supply ships. We were officially the advance guard of Diego Brochero’s squadron but had instructions to consider ourselves selfcontained and to wait for no one.
As we made away from the lee of the land our ship heeled over, tucking her high bows into the water and throwing out great fans of spray. We were now passing the last ships of the Armada, near the island of Groix.
We were carrying too much sail, and from the quarter-deck Enrico and I watched the sailors swarming up through the ratlines to the main topsail yard to take in the sail and then to unclamp the yard itself and lower it to the deck. Others were trimming the foresail, so that presently the galleon settled more comfortably on a northerly course, reaching across the wind. San Marcos was behind us, but Santiago and the two ureas were well up.
Towards noon a cold rain fell. Later the clouds broke and, although the wind persisted strong and cold, it was not gusty and we were making rapid progress. As the horizon cleared we saw the rest of our squadron on the sky line with Admiral Brochero’s yellow flag streaming like a snake.
There was much sickness between decks: the soldiers lay about vomiting, and the swabbers soon gave up their task. By now the whole ship was damp; sea had leaked in through the scuppers and the ports, and the lower gun-decks were running with water that had come down the hatchways. It had been the same on the way out in Warspite, but then the weather had been consistently warm; now the damp struck a heavy chill. As soon as we left the shelter of the coast the galley fires had been doused, so there was no warm food or drink.
About four I went below: there was nothing to do on deck, but the tiny cabin was already almost dark, and Father Donald was lying in his hamaca telling his beads and being sick. Enrico came in to say that evening hymns would be in half an hour, but I made an excuse of feeling unwell and remained below. Then I prayed to my own God to increase the wind and scatter and destroy this fleet and if necessary me with it. Twentyfour hours more would be too late. By then the conquest would have begun and at least a part of the invading force landed. Also the act of treason would have been committed. Prom there on there was no retreat.
An uneasy night. Of the five of us in the tiny cabin three were sick, and it was not possible because of the sea to have the porthole open, so the air grew ever more stuffy and foetid. The big ship lurched and plunged, its timbers groaning, ropes and locks creaking and straining, water slopping in the bilges, and above all the high scream of the wind. I dreamed I was in Captain Buarcos’s chamber and that he was alive and sitting across the table from me and I had to kill him over again.
Morning broke in low cloud. The wind had eased but there was a short-pitched smoking sea and San Bartolomeo lurched and ducked and trembled like a wild horse tied three ways by ropes. I made a bruised and unsteady way up to the main gun-deck and looked out on a grey waste, with no land in sight anywhere. Three of our ships only had kept with us, the galleass Santiago, one of the ureas, Grifo, and a flyboat. We were under storm canvas, a reefed foresail and clewed mainsail only.
I climbed up the four ladders to the poop and found Captain Quesada there while a sailor studied the skyline. Another sailor moved to cut me off, but Quesada motioned him to allow me through.
I bade him good morning. “We have been scattered, sir.”
“It is not to be wondered at. We shad re-assemble in due time.”
For all his calm words he did not look as if he had slept; he was wearing a skull-cap instead of his usual high black hat; his beard was grey from the salt in it.
“Has the wind changed?”
“Yes, it is south and therefore more to our advantage.”
“Where are we, sir?”
“Our calculations put us at ten or fifteen leagues south of the Scilly Islands. If we need the shelter of the Islands we shall wait there until the others come up.”
“When did we lose touch with San Marcos?”
“Early in the night. Captain Chagres was falling behind at dusk: his ship was never fleet.”
“So we should perhaps reach Falmouth tonight?”
“Not tonight, Killigrew. Have patience. At dawn tomorrow.”
We made the Scillies at noon, but as by then the weather had moderated Captain Quesada decided his ships did not need the shelter of the roads. One would not hazard one’s ship among the many small rocky islets if the need for shelter were not pressing. By four the whole of our advance squadron had caught us up, with the exception of one transport. Before this we had been passed by Dolphin who stayed to exchange a shouted word and then moved on to carry secret news of our coming.
At five we supped, on oatmeal, salt beef, biscuits and a can of sack. As the light was fading Admiral Brochero with the rest of his ships came up through the evening clouds, and the squadron spent half an hour in chanting and in prayer. In the afterlight, when ship and sail and spar and gun took on a brief flush of colour, the fifty ships in that tossing sea were like some new vision of creation, seed cast by a hand upon the waters to be swept along by the wind to carry a new life to an alien shore.
We sailed at seven, Brochero allowing a lapse of four hours to the advance squadron before he followed.
As I lay in the pitching cabin one more night the last night I thought that by now surely some news of the invasion would have reached England. We had likely been seen from the Scillies: they could send a fast pinnace to rouse the country. Even if no one knew where the Armada would strike they must by now know it was coming.
I thought and hoped quite wrongly. No one throughout the length of England had yet any idea at all.
… The land slept in complete security. It was accepted everywhere that a part of the Adelantado’s fleet was in the Azores and the rest skulked in El Ferrol unable to make any move before the spring. All information from Essex downwards confirmed this. The last despatch from him had told that he was still seeking the Spanish ships and the treasure fleet. By now some great and glorious victory was likely to have been won and only waited the telling. Indeed, orders were then on the way to Essex not to hurry home if advantage could be gained by staying.
The day that Admiral Don Diego Brochero with his great fleet joined his advance squadron in the Scillies, the old Lord Admiral Howard at the age of 61, having crowned an illustrious career with the capture of Cadiz, was receiving his patent as Earl of Nottingham; and our Queen had just summoned Parliament to discuss what measures might be taken to meet the threat of next spring. The battleships not in the Azores were out of commission at Chatham; Sir Henry Palmer commanding the Channel squadron was ill; Sir Ferdinando Gorges ruled at Plymouth with a small garrison of trained soldiers; the other western ports were undefended.
In the Atlantic in stormy weather a disorganized English fleet, leaking, full of sickness and preoccupied with its own failure, was steadily gaining on the Spanish. Most of the battleships had stowed away their big guns in the hold to ease their strained timbers after all the storms.