“The days draw in as we go south,” he said. ‘A fancy if there is one disadvantage to the lower latitudes, it is this. D’you feel homesick for England yet, Killigrew?”
“I have felt so often seasick that there’s been hardly room for the other.”
“Yet you must recall those English June nights when the sun seems barely to set at all; it stays in a blue cloud under the horizon reflecting light until it is time to rise again. There’s a harshness about tropical skies that I find less alluring. Perhaps all Englishmen, wherever they may settle, have an enduring picture in their hearts of soft summer cloud and blossomscented wind and the night skies of midsummer.”
“I wonder how MrKeymis fares in Guiana.”
“I wish we knew. Now there is a rich and lovely country where I would gladly see Englishmen settle … Yet perhaps he is the happiest man who moves no distance from his birth-place or only travels often enough to return and appreciate it the more.”
We climbed up to his cabin. He seemed to want me to go in, so I did so, and he poured two cups of canary. The sea was slight tonight and the creak and dip of the ship, now one was used to it, was not displeasing. Out of the stern windows you could count the lights on the waters; the stars above were like reflections of them.
“Medina Sidonia is Captain-General of Andalusia,” Ralegh said, “and so responsible for the defence of Cadiz. I wonder if he will show a greater capacity for command than he did of the Armada of ‘88. Though sometimes I fancy he has not been fairly judged … Well, we shall soon know …”
“When is the attack planned?”
“If this weather holds we should double Cape St Vincent tomorrow and be off Cadiz by Thursday. I hope the attack will begin on Friday morning, though with caution so much prevailing one can never be certain.”
“Is Lord Essex cautious?”
“Oh, by no means: he is more forward than I. But while we are at sea Lord Admiral Howard’s word is the final one; and I know it is the Queen’s express wish that Lord Essex should not put himself into danger. So the Lord Admiral has a dual and difficult responsibility, to bring off a victory without losing his ships and at the same time to see that his second in command and near equal runs no personal risk.”
One of the lanterns had blown out and another had smoked its glass, so the room was now in semi-shadow. On the table with my cup was Sir Walter’s pipe and a small Guiana idol made of copper and gold which he usually carried in his pocket and which he had been showing to Wingfield. He seldom missed an opportunity of advancing his ideas of Empire.
He said abruptly: “Time was, and not so long since, when the Queen was concerned for my safety, when I was called back to Court each time I adventured away. There were times when I was beside her in all things and this headstrong stripling kept at a distance or disregarded. I confess they are times I look back on with pleasure and regret. They were times … of comradeship with Her Majesty and inwardness with her such as few men have ever known. She is one of the greatest women who have ever lived and at the same time one of the most exacting.”
I said nothing.
“This talk, this scandal, this poison breath that goes about telling of inwardness of person between a woman of 62 and a boy of 29; these late nights together: they are nothing. I know the Queen. I know her well … Of course she permits liberties; I know that even intimacies but never the final intimacy, nor never would. She is the bride of England …”
He walked to one of the lattice windows. His back was bent to look out. The green and gold satin of the cloak drooped like a flag.
“The Court is a cesspool of intrigue and vice. Brother is against brother, friend will cut down friend. But she rides above it in a delicate equipoise. To the outsider it may seem insecure; yet she is firmly held and preserved there by the admiration and trust of five million people. Nor will she ever be dethroned except by …” He paused.
“Except by?”
“Except by Him who can never be denied. She will be 63 this September. Her father died at 57, her grandfather was 53. May the Living God preserve her for many years yet.”
“Amen.”
“D’you know,” he turned from the window, “the intrigue rages about her and grows with each year. Since I came upon this voyage I have been approached by two … gentlemen I’ll not otherwise name them to discover my opinions and whom I will support if the Queen should die. I said thank God Her Majesty still lives and while she has breath in her body I am no other’s servant. She lives, I said, and enjoys health and still dazzles the day so brightly that all rivals look sick beside her! And so they do … James of Scotland, Arabella Stuart, Lord Beauchamp, even the Infanta is suggested, even Henry of Navarrel Faugh, I’d as soon see England a commonwealth without a king as have any of them!”
His shadow flickered across the table as he moved to his bookshelves and began venomously thrusting back the books.
After a while I thought he had forgotten me so I quietly put down my cup and went to the door.
He said sharply, without turning: “The Court is rotten, Maugan,but I would return to it for all its rottenness. Someday you shall go with me.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Though you’ve great-uncles there securer placed than I ever was … I wonder they never take you. It will be my first care to place young Wat at Court when he is of age and if I live to see that day.”
“Even despite the rottenness.”
“Even despite that. For once tasted there is no other flavour. I serve the Queen, if she will have me. But over and above that, even though it may be evil, there is at Court the flavour of power, the smell of government; once having been at the centre of the wheel, life on any outer part is empty and void. If this venture goes well I shall resume my old place and perhaps move into a better. God grant us a good fightl …”
On the Tuesday morning we rounded Cape St Vincent, standing close into the land to make the most of the light easterly airs which were stirring there. In Lagos Bay the wind quite dropped and we were hard put to it to make any way at all. Much of the afternoon Sir Walter spent scanning the distant shore for sign of life, for ours was the squadron closest in; but he detected none.
Unknown to us, however, we had at last been seen. At some moment late that forenoon, two families living in caves in the cliff had sent their men into Albufiera with news. From that village officials came to the cliff edge and counted eighty sail moving slowly south towards Faro. Then, on donkeys and mules, over the rough tracks, they sent messengers east, north and west: to Faro and Cadiz, to Lagos and Portimao, to the Duke of Medina Sidonia at Castilnova, to Seville and Xeres and all the towns of Andalusia.
In the meantime we made scarcely measurable progress, creeping towards Cape Santa Maria, the last landward point before the bay of Cadiz. The weather had set in too fair.
On Wednesday the sea was glassy; tiny white clouds gathered about the sun and were sucked up in the heat. Warspite’s water was rancid by now, the beer salt and foul smelling, much of the butter had putrefied and three hundredweight of cheese had to be thrown overboard. More than thirty men were already down with febrile and stomach ailments. In the morning and evening a mist haze gathered and was thick in patches, so that sometimes another ship would appear near us its hull invisible and its great spread of dead sail like a mirage floating on still air. Sounds carried far and echoed and were distorted. A gentleman soldier playing a lute on a transport two furlongs away might have been beside us. After dark, for safety’s sake, an instruction against music and singing was issued, and even shouting was discouraged except for the issue of orders.