And at Falmouth John Killigrew added up his debts.
Towards midnight the plunging and yawing of the galleon grew worse, yet there was no increase in wind. In after years I have sailed these waters again, and I know how, off the Land’s End, seas can build up. Conflicting tides and currents meet here and lurch together as if compelled by submarine upheavals. In the cabin we could feel the galleon climbing up and up as if on a mountain-side, and then, as the rudder came out of the water, the whole ship twisted and strained and she lurched down into the trough in a panic slide that seemed to have no end.
I endured it until three and then crawled out past the crowded huddled figures of sleeping men. The decks were surprisingly dry: the waves were not breaking and they were too big to be split by the ship in her course. A broken ragged sky showed a few stars and the sickly light of an obscured half moon. Behind us our escort of twenty ships was in close attendance, where they could be seen among the lunatic waves. The wind was abeam and the waves going at twice our speed, so that we were constantly being overtaken by them and sailing like a helpless cork along their ridges before falling into the following trough. It was this which was straining the ship’s timbers past endurance; three men hung on to the helm struggling to keep her on course; Captain Quesada was beside them.
I did not go up to join them but went for’ard, slipping and sliding along her low waist, past a group of exhausted sailors hauling on a rope, climbed over the wooden bulkhead and mounted to the high square forecastle, slithered past the foremast as we yawed down into the next chasm, and fetched up against the rail beside the bowsprit.
From here the scene was a terrifying one, and I stayed fascinated until dawn, shivering and misted with spray, watching each climb and plunge.
As the sky reluctantly lightened I saw land six or seven miles off on our larboard bow. It was England, the long dark line of the Lizard Peninsula. If the wind held in its present quarter there was danger that we should not clear the head: in which case there would be little shelter or comfort for us in Mount’s Bay. But the wind was freshening with the prospect of dawn and seemed to be shifting a point or two north. If this continued and we rounded the cape we should in four hours be in the protection of Falmouth Haven. I looked back and counted fifteen of our twenty ships in sight. A substantial part of this force could be put ashore before dark: veteran soldiers, supplies, cannon, horses. Brochero would arrive during the night, and his troops, sure of their landing, could be brought in and fully deployed before dawn. By the time the Adelantado dropped anchor the whole of the first stage would be complete.
I looked up at the sky. It was a wild and ghostly dawn. Inkblack clouds mounted one on another in the north-west. The moon had set, but there was a metallic slash of light where the sun would rise and some stars winking in a patch of clear sky. The Spanish must have read the signs more accurate than I did for I saw a group of sailors swarming up the shrouds to shorten sail. They had hardly done so before the wind struck us like the blow of a fist.
I have heard it claimed by Puritan preachers that the winds which scattered the Armada of 1588 were the work of Divine Providence moving to the aid of a godly and righteous cause; if that were so they did not come to sweep the Armada away until it had been damaged and disabled in battle. Fewer have claimed the great gale of October 1597. A menace seen and an ensuing battle make so much more impress on the mind and the memory than a greater menace that is struck down just as the battle is about to begin.
San Bartolomeo had stripped her yards just in time. One of the clouds coming up out of the north-west burst over us, streaming hail before it in a stinging horizontal cloud, leaping and rattling where it struck, cutting out view of sea and sky so that the ship heeled over as if under the impact of a load of fine shingle flung in a gale. When we came through it the only sail we had carried was in cracking ribbons, one of the yards had snapped, men clung to rail and bulwark and stay, while a livid sun just risen cast a sinister light of brilliance and shadow among the mountains of the sea.
Thereafter in the space of an hour we were struck by three such storms. By then our mainmast was aslant and we were leaking fortard. Through glimpses of torn cloud we could see twelve of our escort in like straits. Santiago, which had stayed close with us all through, being not so high charged as ourselves, had not suffered so severely, but both ureas were in trouble and one of the supply ships was low in the water and green seas were breaking over her.
Many of the soldiers had tried to struggle on deck for fear of drowning; bugles were blowing between decks; Captain Bonifaz and three other officers were on the poop with Captain Quesada; groups of men clustered in the lee of bulkheads, now knee-deep in water, now drenched with angry spray. Once or twice men lost hold and slithered across the decks to fetch up against some other obstacle and cling for life.
By now we had cleared the Lizard and its dangerous reefs, but were likely to be driven ever deeper into the Channel. Our mainmast had torn away part of the shrouds and the main yard pointed half to the sky. Quesada ordered some sailors to cut all away that they could, and men with axes in a lull in the wind, slithered for’ard and began to climb. It was a wickedly gusty gale, and as they climbed they were sometimes unable to stir, pinned like flies against the ropes, then a step at a time they’d go.
Once the sun shone brightly on them through a rent in the storm wrack, and their wet clothes glistened against the abysmal darkness of the clouds.
They cut through a mass of rigging, and the main yard swung wide, knocking one of the sailors with it. He writhed on deck before the tangled rigging netted him, then all were caught by a wave and crashed overboard; other figures leaped forward in a smother of sea and hacked at the ropes to free them and let them go.
I was stiff with cold, fingers freezing, stomach contracting. About twelve sailors were huddled on the forecastle near by. Father Donald and another priest had made their way to the poop and were trying to get the men to pray with them.
The supply ship was going. She was filling by the head, and the rolling combing seas toppled over her, burying her ever deeper. Once too often the water held her down; poop high in the air she plunged, masts and rigging lying sideways on the water for a few seconds; then she was gone, men swimming, scattered debris bobbing with them. The flyboats did their best, but were themselves concerned with survival. I saw a few men swarming up ropes but the rest were left. One rope had five men on it when it was overtaken by the sea; after the wave had passed the rope was clean.
In another hour there were only four of our squadron in sight. The wind had backed more westerly again, so that between squalls the land was still in sight. I thought, there’s Arwenack, somewhere on that low dark land, perhaps I shall never see it now, and I ought to thank God if I drowned. (But what if the Adelantado and his main fleet escaped the worst of the storm and still arrived?)
“Holy Mary Mother of God,” said a voice beside me. It was a big Irishman, his teeth chattering with fright. “Holy Mary, we’re sinking. In the name of the Father and of the Son …” His words were whipped away by the gale.
A mountain range of sea came out of a cloud which was already lying on the water. It foamed and bubbled and lifted us, but partly broke aboard; there was a rending sound and I thought we had gone the way of the supply ship. Between the forecastle and the poop there was no deck, only a few spars and struggling screaming men. The galleon heeled and dipped as if her back were broken, then heavily shook the water off her so that the main deck reappeared like a rock in a waterfall.