XVII. THE SPANIARDS ON THE SEA
Day had not yet dawned when Nigel was in the chamber of Chandos
preparing him for his departure and listening to the last cheery
words of advice and direction from his noble master. That same
morning, before the sun was half-way up the heaven, the King's
great nef Philippa, bearing within it the most of those present at
his banquet the night before, set its huge sail, adorned with the
lions and the lilies, and turned its brazen beak for England.
Behind it went five smaller cogs crammed with squires, archers and
men-at-arms.
Nigel and his companions lined the ramparts of the castle and
waved their caps as the bluff, burly vessels, with drums beating
and trumpets clanging, a hundred knightly pennons streaming from
their decks and the red cross of England over all, rolled slowly
out to the open sea. Then when they had watched them until they
were hull down they turned, with hearts heavy at being left
behind, to make ready for their own more distant venture.
It took them four days of hard work ere their preparations were
complete, for many were the needs of a small force sailing to a
strange country. Three ships had been left to them, the cog
Thomas of Romney, the Grace Dieu of Hythe, and the Basilisk of
Southampton, into each of which one hundred men were stowed,
besides the thirty seamen who formed the crew. In the hold were
forty horses, amongst them Pommers, much wearied by his long
idleness, and homesick for the slopes of Surrey where his great
limbs might find the work he craved. Then the food and the water,
the bow-staves and the sheaves of arrows, the horseshoes, the
nails, the hammers, the knives, the axes, the ropes, the vats of
hay, the green fodder and a score of other things were packed
aboard. Always by the side of the ships stood the stern young
knight Sir Robert, checking, testing, watching and controlling,
saying little, for he was a man of few words, but with his eyes,
his hands, and if need be his heavy, dog-whip, wherever they were
wanted.
The seamen of the Basilisk, being from a free port, had the old
feud against the men of the Cinque Ports, who were looked upon by
the other mariners of England as being unduly favored by the King.
A ship of the West Country could scarce meet with one from the
Narrow Seas without blood flowing. Hence sprang sudden broils on
the quay side, when with yell and blow the Thomases and Grace
Dieus, Saint Leonard on their lips and murder in their hearts,
would fall upon the Basilisks. Then amid the whirl of cudgels and
the clash of knives would spring the tiger figure of the young
leader, lashing mercilessly to right and left like a tamer among
his wolves, until he had beaten them howling back to their work.
Upon the morning of the fourth day all was ready, and the ropes
being cast off the three little ships were warped down the harbor
by their own pinnaces until they were swallowed up in the swirling
folds of a Channel mist.
Though small in numbers, it was no mean force which Edward had
dispatched to succor the hard-pressed English garrisons in
Brittany. There was scarce a man among them who was not an old
soldier, and their leaders were men of note in council and in war.
Knolles flew his flag of the black raven aboard the Basilisk.
With him were Nigel and his own Squire John Hawthorn. Of his
hundred men, forty were Yorkshire Dalesmen and forty were men of
Lincoln, all noted archers, with old Wat of Carlisle, a grizzled
veteran of border warfare, to lead them.
Already Aylward by his skill and strength had won his way to an
under-officership amongst them, and shared with Long Ned
Widdington, a huge North Countryman, the reputation of coming next
to famous Wat Carlisle in all that makes an archer. The men-
at-arms too were war-hardened soldiers, with Black Simon of
Norwich, the same who had sailed from Winchelsea, to lead them.
With his heart filled with hatred for the French who had slain all
who were dear to him, he followed like a bloodhound over land and
sea to any spot where he might glut his vengeance. Such also were
the men who sailed in the other ships, Cheshire men from the Welsh
borders in the cog Thomas, and Cumberland men, used to Scottish
warfare, in the Grace Dieu.
Sir James Astley hung his shield of cinquefoil ermine over the
quarter of the Thomas. Lord Thomas Percy, a cadet of Alnwick,
famous already for the high spirit of that house which for ages
was the bar upon the landward gate of England, showed his blue
lion rampant as leader of the Grace Dieu. Such was the goodly
company Saint-Malo bound, who warped from Calais Harbor to plunge
into the thick reek of a Channel mist.
A slight breeze blew from the eastward, and the highended,
round-bodied craft rolled slowly down the Channel. The mist rose
a little at times, so that they had sight of each other dipping
and rising upon a sleek, oily sea, but again it would sink down,
settling over the top, shrouding the great yard, and finally
frothing over the deck until even the water alongside had vanished
from their view and they were afloat on a little raft in an ocean
of vapor. A thin cold rain was falling, and the archers were
crowded under the shelter of the overhanging poop and forecastle,
where some spent the hours at dice, some in sleep, and many in
trimming their arrows or polishing their weapons.
At the farther end, seated on a barrel as a throne of honor, with
trays and boxes of feathers around him, was Bartholomew the bowyer
and Fletcher, a fat, bald-headed man, whose task it was to see
that every man's tackle was as it should be, and who had the
privilege of selling such extras as they might need. A group of
archers with their staves and quivers filed before him with
complaints or requests, while half a dozen of the seniors gathered
at his back and listened with grinning faces to his comments and
rebukes.
"Canst not string it?" he was saying to a young bowman. "Then
surely the string is overshort or the stave overlong. It could
not by chance be the fault of thy own baby arms more fit to draw
on thy hosen than to dress a warbow. Thou lazy lurdan, thus is it
strung!" He seized the stave by the center in his right hand,
leaned the end on the inside of his right foot, and then, pulling
the upper nock down with the left hand, slid the eye of the string
easily into place. "Now I pray thee to unstring it again,"
handing it to the bowman.
The youth with an effort did so, but he was too slow in
disengaging his fingers, and the string sliding down with a snap
from the upper nock caught and pinched them sorely against the
stave. A roar of laughter, like the clap of a wave, swept down
the deck as the luckless bowman danced and wrung his hand.
"Serve thee well right, thou redeless fool!" growled the old
bowyer. "So fine a bow is wasted in such hands. How now, Samkin?
I can teach you little of your trade, I trow. Here is a bow
dressed as it should be; but it would, as you say, be the better
for a white band to mark the true nocking point in the center of
this red wrapping of silk. Leave it and I will tend to it anon.
And you, Wat? A fresh head on yonder stele? Lord, that a man
should carry four trades under one hat, and be bowyer, fletcher,
stringer and headmaker! Four men's work for old Bartholomew and
one man's pay!"
"Nay, say no more about that," growled an old wizened bowman, with
a brown-parchment skin and little beady eyes. "It is better in
these days to mend a bow than to bend one. You who never looked a
Frenchman in the face are pricked off for ninepence a day, and I,
who have fought five stricken fields, can earn but fourpence."
"It is in my mind, John of Tuxford, that you have looked in the
face more pots of mead than Frenchmen," said the old bowyer. "I
am swinking from dawn to night, while you are guzzling in an
alestake. How now, youngster? Overbowed? Put your bow in the
tiller. It draws at sixty pounds - not a pennyweight too much for
a man of your inches. Lay more body to it, lad, and it will come
to you. If your bow be not stiff, how can you hope for a twenty-
score flight. Feathers? Aye, plenty and of the best. Here,
peacock at a groat each. Surely a dandy archer like you,
Tom Beverley, with gold earrings in your ears, would have no
feathering but peacocks?"
"So the shaft fly straight, I care not of the feather," said the
bowman, a tall young Yorkshireman, counting out pennies on the
palm of his horny hand.
"Gray goose-feathers are but a farthing. These on the left are a
halfpenny, for they are of the wild goose, and the second feather
of a fenny goose is worth more than the pinion of a tame one.
These in the brass tray are dropped feathers, and a dropped
feather is better than a plucked one. Buy a score of these, lad,
and cut them saddle-backed or swine-backed, the one for a dead
shaft and the other for a smooth flyer, and no man in the company
will swing a better-fletched quiver over his shoulder."
It chanced that the opinion of the bowyer on this and other points
differed from that of Long Ned of Widdington, a surly
straw-bearded Yorkshireman, who had listened with a sneering face
to his counsel. Now he broke in suddenly upon the bowyer's talk.
"You would do better to sell bows than to try to teach others how
to use them," said he; "for indeed, Bartholomew, that head of
thine has no more sense within it than it has hairs without. If
you had drawn string for as many months as I have years you would
know that a straight-cut feather flies smoother than a swine-
backed, and pity it is that these young bowmen have none to teach
them better!"
This attack upon his professional knowledge touched the old bowyer
on the raw. His fat face became suffused with blood and his eyes
glared with fury as he turned upon the archer. "You seven-foot
barrel of lies!" he cried. " All-hallows be my aid, and I will
teach you to open your slabbing mouth against me! Pluck forth
your sword and stand out on yonder deck, that we may see who is
the man of us twain. May I never twirl a shaft over my thumb nail
if I do not put Bartholomew's mark upon your thick head!"
A score of rough voices joined at once in the quarrel, some
upholding the bowyer and others taking the part of the North
Countryman. A red-headed Dalesman snatched up a sword, but was
felled by a blow from the fist of his neighbor. Instantly, with a
buzz like a swarm of angry hornets, the bowmen were out on the
deck; but ere a blow was struck Knolles was amongst them with
granite face and eyes of fire.
"Stand apart, I say! I will warrant you enough fighting to cool
your blood ere you see England once more. Loring, Hawthorn, cut
any man down who raises his hand. Have you aught to say, you
fox-haired rascal?" He thrust his face within two inches of that
of the red man who had first seized his sword. The fellow shrank
back, cowed, from his fierce eyes. " Now stint your noise, all of
you, and stretch your long ears. Trumpeter, blow once more!"
A bugle call had been sounded every quarter of an hour so as to
keep in touch with the other two vessels who were invisible in the
fog. Now the high clear note rang out once more, the call of a
fierce sea-creature to its mates, but no answer came back from the
thick wall which pent them in. Again and again they called, and
again and again with bated breath they waited for an answer.
"Where is the Shipman?" asked Knolles. " What is your name,
fellow? Do you dare call yourself master-mariner?"
"My name is Nat Dennis, fair sir," said the gray-bearded old
seaman. "It is thirty years since first I showed my cartel and
blew trumpet for a crew at the water-gate of Southampton. If any
man may call himself master-mariner, it is surely I."
"Where are our two ships?"
"Nay, sir, who can say in this fog?"
"Fellow, it was your place to hold them together."
"I have but the eyes God gave me, fair sir, and they cannot see
through a cloud."
"Had it been fair, I, who am a soldier, could have kept them in
company. Since it was foul, we looked to you, who are called a
mariner, to do so. You have not done it. You have lost two of my
ships ere the venture is begun."
"Nay, fair sir, I pray you to consider - "
"Enough words!" said Knolles sternly. "Words will not give me
back my two hundred men. Unless I find them before I come to
Saint-Malo, I swear by Saint Wilfrid of Ripon that it will be an
evil day for you! Enough! Go forth and do what you may!"
For five hours with a light breeze behind them they lurched
through the heavy fog, the cold rain still matting their beards
and shining on their faces. Sometimes they could see a circle of
tossing water for a bowshot or so in each direction, and then the
wreaths would crawl in upon them once more and bank them thickly
round. They had long ceased to blow the trumpet for their missing
comrades, but had hopes when clear weather came to find them still
in sight. By the shipman's reckoning they were now about midway
between the two shores.
Nigel was leaning against the bulwarks, his thoughts away in the
dingle at Cosford and out on the heather-clad slopes of Hindhead,
when something struck his ear. It was a thin clear clang of
metal, pealing out high above the dull murmur of the sea, the
creak of the boom and the flap of the sail. He listened, and
again it was borne to his ear.
"Hark, my lord!" said he to Sir Robert. "Is there not a sound in
the fog? "
They both listened together with sidelong heads. Then it rang
clearly forth once more, but this time in another direction. It
had been on the bow; now it was on the quarter. Again it sounded,
and again. Now it had moved to the other bow; now back to the
quarter again; now it was near; and now so far that it was but a
faint tinkle on the ear. By this time every man on board, seamen,
archers and men-at-arms, were crowding the sides of the vessel.
All round them there were noises in the darkness, and yet the wall
of fog lay wet against their very faces. And the noises were such
as were strange to their ears, always the same high musical
clashing.
The old shipman shook his head and crossed himself.
"In thirty years upon the waters I have never heard the like,"
said he. "The Devil is ever loose in a fog. Well is he named the
Prince of Darkness."
A wave of panic passed over the vessel, and these rough and hardy
men who feared no mortal foe shook with terror at the shadows of
their own minds. They stared into the cloud with blanched faces
and fixed eyes, as though each instant some fearsome shape might
break in upon them. And as they stared there came a gust of wind.
For a moment the fog-bank rose and a circle of ocean lay before
them.
It was covered with vessels. On all sides they lay thick upon its
surface. They were huge caracks, high-ended and portly, with red
sides and bulwarks carved and crusted with gold. Each had one
great sail set and was driving down channel on the same course at
the Basilisk. Their decks were thick with men, and from their
high poops came the weird clashing which filled the air. For one
moment they lay there, this wondrous fleet, surging slowly
forward, framed in gray vapor. The next the clouds closed in and
they had vanished from view. There was a long hush, and then a
buzz of excited voices.
"The Spaniards!" cried a dozen bowmen and sailors.
"I should have known it," said the shipman. "I call to mind on
the Biscay Coast how they would clash their cymbals after the
fashion of the heathen Moor with whom they fight; but what would
you have me do, fair sir? If the fog rises we are all dead men."
"There were thirty ships at the least," said Knolles, with a moody
brow. "If we have seen them I trow that they have also seen us.
They will lay us aboard."
"Nay, fair sir, it is in my mind that our, ship is lighter and
faster than theirs. If the fog hold another hour we should be
through them."
"Stand to your arms!" yelled Knolles. "Stand to your arms - !
They are on us!"
The Basilisk had indeed been spied from the Spanish Admiral's ship
before the fog closed down. With so light a breeze, and such a
fog, he could not hope to find her under sail. But by an evil
chance not a bowshot from the great Spanish carack was a low
galley, thin and swift, with oars which could speed her against
wind or tide. She also had seen the Basilisk and it was to her
that the Spanish leader shouted his orders. For a few minutes she
hunted through the fog, and then sprang out of it like a lean and
stealthy beast upon its prey. It was the sight of the long dark
shadow gliding after them which had brought that wild shout of
alarm from the lips of the English knight. In another instant the
starboard oars of the galley had been shipped, the sides of the
two vessels grated together, and a stream of swarthy, red-capped
Spaniards were swarming up the sides of the Basilisk and dropped
with yells of triumph upon her deck.
For a moment it seemed as if the vessel was captured without a
blow being struck, for the men of the English ship had run wildly
in all directions to look for their arms. Scores of archers might
be seen under the shadow of the forecastle and the poop bending
their bowstaves to string them with the cords from their
waterproof cases. Others were scrambling over saddles, barrels
and cases in wild search of their quivers. Each as he came upon
his arrows pulled out a few to lend to his less fortunate
comrades. In mad haste the men-at-arms also were feeling and
grasping in the dark corners, picking up steel caps which would
not fit them, hurling them down on the deck, and snatching eagerly
at any swords or spears that came their way.
The center of the ship was held by the Spaniards; and having slain
all who stood before them, they were pressing up to either end
before they were made to understand that it was no fat sheep but a
most fierce old wolf which they had taken by the ears.
If the lesson was late, it was the more thorough. Attacked on
both sides and hopelessly outnumbered, the Spaniards, who had
never doubted that this little craft was a merchant-ship, were cut
off to the last man. It was no fight, but a butchery. In vain
the survivors ran screaming prayers to the saints and threw
themselves down into the galley alongside. It also had been
riddled with arrows from the poop of the Basilisk, and both the
crew on the deck and the galley-slaves in the outriggers at either
side lay dead in rows under the overwhelming shower from above.
>From stem to rudder every foot of her was furred with arrows. It
was but a floating coffin piled with dead and dying men, which
wallowed in the waves behind them as the Basilisk lurched onward
and left her in the fog.
In their first rush on to the Basilisk, the Spaniards had seized
six of the crew and four unarmed archers. Their throats had been
cut and their bodies tossed overboard. Now the Spaniards who
littered the deck, wounded and dead, were thrust over the side in
the same fashion. One ran down into the hold and had to be hunted
and killed squealing under the blows like a rat in the darkness.
Within half an hour no sign was left of this grim meeting in the
fog save for the crimson splashes upon bulwarks and deck. The
archers, flushed and merry, were unstringing their bows once more,
for in spite of the water glue the damp air took the strength from
the cords. Some were hunting about for arrows which might have
stuck inboard, and some tying up small injuries received in the
scuffle. But an anxious shadow still lingered upon the face of
Sir Robert, and he peered fixedly about him through the fog.
"Go among the archers, Hawthorne," said he to his Squire. "Charge
them on their lives to make no sound! You also, Loring. Go to
the afterguard and say the same to them. We are lost if one of
these great ships should spy us."
For an hour with bated breath they stole through the fleet, still
hearing the cymbals clashing all round them, for in this way the
Spaniards held themselves together. Once the wild music came from
above their very prow, and so warned them to change their course.
Once also a huge vessel loomed for an instant upon their quarter,
but they turned two points away from her, and she blurred and
vanished. Soon the cymbals were but a distant tinkling, and at
last they died gradually away.
"It is none too soon," said the old shipman, pointing to a
yellowish tint in the haze above them. "See yonder! It is the
sun which wins through. It will be here anon. Ah! said I not
so?"
A sickly sun, no larger and far dimmer than the moon, had indeed
shown its face, with cloud-wreaths smoking across it. As they
looked up it waxed larger and brighter before their eyes - a
yellow halo spread round it, one ray broke through, and then a
funnel of golden light poured down upon them, widening swiftly at
the base. A minute later they were sailing on a clear blue sea
with an azure cloud-flecked sky above their heads, and such a
scene beneath it as each of them would carry in his memory while
memory remained.
They were in mid-channel. The white and green coasts of Picardy
and of Kent lay clear upon either side of them. The wide channel
stretched in front, deepening from the light blue beneath their
prow to purple on the far sky-line. Behind them was that thick
bank of cloud from which they had just burst. It lay like a gray
wall from east to west, and through it were breaking the high
shadowy forms of the ships of Spain. Four of them had already
emerged, their red bodies, gilded sides and painted sails shining
gloriously in the evening sun. Every instant a fresh golden spot
grew out of the fog, which blazed like a star for an instant, and
then surged forward to show itself as the brazen beak of the great
red vessel which bore it. Looking back, the whole bank of cloud
was broken by the widespread line of noble ships which were
bursting through it. The Basilisk lay a mile or more in front of
them and two miles clear of their wing. Five miles farther off,
in the direction of the French coast, two other small ships were
running down Channel. A cry of joy from Robert Knolles and a
hearty prayer of gratitude to the saints from the old shipman
hailed them as their missing comrades, the cog Thomas and the
Grace Dieu.
But fair as was the view of their lost friends, and wondrous the
appearance of the Spanish ships, it was not on those that the eyes
of the men of the Basilisk were chiefly bent. A greater sight lay
before them-a sight which brought them clustering to the
forecastle with eager eyes and pointing fingers. The English
fleet was coming forth from the Winchelsea Coast. Already before
the fog lifted a fast galleass had brought the news down Channel
that the Spanish were on the sea, and the King's fleet was under
way. Now their long array of sails, gay with the coats and colors
of the towns which had furnished them, lay bright against the
Kentish coast from Dungeness Point to Rye. Nine and twenty ships
were there from Southampton, Shoreham, Winchelsea, Hastings, Rye,
Hythe, Romney, Folkestone, Deal, Dover and Sandwich. With their
great sails slued round to catch the wind they ran out, whilst the
Spanish, like the gallant foes that they have ever been, turned
their heads landward to meet them. With flaunting banners and
painted sails, blaring trumpets and clashing cymbals, the two
glittering fleets, dipping and rising on the long Channel swell,
drew slowly together.
King Edward had been lying all day in his great ship the Philippa,
a mile out from the Camber Sands, waiting for the coming of the
Spaniards. Above the huge sail which bore the royal arms flew the
red cross of England. Along the bulwarks were shown the shields
of forty knights, the flower of English chivalry, and as many
pennons floated from the deck. The high ends of the ship
glittered with the weapons of the men-at-arms, and the waist was
crammed with the archers. From time to time a crash of nakers and
blare of trumpets burst from the royal ship, and was answered by
her great neighbors, the Lion on which the Black Prince flew his
flag, the Christopher with the Earl of Suffolk, the Salle du Roi
of Robert of Namur, and the Grace Marie of Sir Thomas Holland.
Farther off lay the White Swan, bearing the arms of Mowbray, the
Palmer of Deal, flying the Black Head of Audley, and the Kentish
man under the Lord Beauchamp. The rest lay, anchored but ready,
at the mouth of Winchelsea Creek.
The King sat upon a keg in the fore part of his ship, with little
John of Richmond, who was no more than a schoolboy, perched upon
his knee. Edward was clad in the black velvet jacket which was
his favorite garb, and wore a small brown-beaver hat with a white
plume at the side. A rich cloak of fur turned up with miniver
drooped from his shoulders. Behind him were a score of his
knights, brilliant in silks and sarcenets, some seated on an
upturned boat and some swinging their legs from the bulwark.
In front stood John Chandos in a party-colored jupon, one foot
raised upon the anchor-stock, picking at the strings of his guitar
and singing a song which he had learned at Marienburg when last he
helped the Teutonic knights against the heathen. The King, his
knights, and even the archers in the waist below them, laughed at
the merry lilt and joined lustily in the chorus, while the men of
the neighboring ships leaned over the side to hearken to the deep
chant rolling over the waters.
But there came a sudden interruption to the song. A sharp, harsh
shout came down from the lookout stationed in the circular top at
the end of the mast. "I spy a sail-two sails!" he cried.
John Bunce the King's shipman shaded his eyes and stared at the
long fog-bank which shrouded the northern channel. Chandos, with
his fingers over the strings of his guitar, the King, the knights,
all gazed in the same direction. Two small dark shapes had burst
forth, and then after some minutes a third.
"Surely they are the Spaniards?" said the King.
"Nay, sire," the seaman answered, "the Spaniards are greater ships
and are painted red. I know not what these may be."
"But I could hazard a guess!" cried Chandos. "Surely they are the
three ships with my own men on their way to Brittany."
"You have hit it, John," said the King. "But look, I pray you!
What in the name of the Virgin is that?"
Four brilliant stars of flashing light had shone out from
different points of the cloud-bank. The neat instant as many tall
ships had swooped forth into the sunshine. A fierce shout rang
from the King's ship, and was taken up all down the line, until
the whole coast from Dungeness to Winchelsea echoed the warlike
greeting. The King sprang up with a joyous face.
"The game is afoot, my friends!" said he. "Dress, John! Dress,
Walter! Quick all of you! Squires, bring the harness! Let each
tend to himself, for the time is short."
A strange sight it was to see these forty nobles tearing off their
clothes and littering the deck with velvets and satins, whilst the
squire of each, as busy as an ostler before a race, stooped and
pulled and strained and riveted, fastening the bassinets, the
legpieces, the front and the back plates, until the silken
courtier had become the man of steel. When their work was
finished, there stood a stern group of warriors where the light
dandies had sung and jested round Sir John's guitar. Below in
orderly silence the archers were mustering under their officers
and taking their allotted stations. A dozen had swarmed up to
their hazardous post in the little tower in the tops.
"Bring wine, Nicholas!" cried the King. "Gentlemen, ere you close
your visors I pray you to take a last rouse with me. You will be
dry enough, I promise you, before your lips are free once more.
To what shall we drink, John?"
"To the men of Spain," said Chandos, his sharp face peering like a
gaunt bird through the gap in his helmet. "May their hearts be
stout and their spirits high this day!"
"Well said, John!" cried the King, and the knights laughed
joyously as they drank. "Now, fair sirs, let each to his post! I
am warden here on the forecastle. Do you, John, take charge of
the afterguard. Walter, James, William, Fitzallan, Goldesborough,
Reginald - you will stay with me! John, you may pick whom you
will and the others will bide with the archers. Now bear straight
at the center, master-shipman. Ere yonder sun sets we will bring
a red ship back as a gift to our ladies, or never look upon a
lady's face again."
The art of sailing into a wind had not yet been invented, nor was
there any fore-and-aft canvas, save for small headsails with which
a vessel could be turned. Hence the English fleet had to take a
long slant down channel to meet their enemies; but as the
Spaniards coming before the wind were equally anxious to engage
there was the less delay. With stately pomp and dignity, the two
great fleets approached.
It chanced that one fine carack had outstripped its consorts and
came sweeping along, all red and gold, with a fringe of twinkling
steel, a good half-mile before the fleet. Edward looked at her
with a kindling eye, for indeed she was a noble sight with the
blue water creaming under her gilded prow.
"This is a most worthy and debonair vessel, Master Bunce," said he
to the shipman beside him. "I would fain have a tilt with her. I
pray you to hold us straight that we may bear her down."
"If I hold her straight, then one or other must sink, and it may
be both," the seaman answered.
"I doubt not that with the help of our Lady we shall do our part,"
said the King. "Hold her straight, master-shipman, as I have told
you."
Now the two vessels were within arrow flight, and the bolts from
the crossbowmen pattered upon the English ship. These short thick
devil's darts were everywhere humming like great wasps through the
air, crashing against the bulwarks, beating upon the deck, ringing
loudly. on the armor of the knights, or with a soft muffled thud
sinking to the socket in a victim.
The bowmen along either side of the Philippa had stood motionless
waiting for their orders, but now there was a sharp shout from
their leader, and every string twanged together. The air was full
of their harping, together with the swish of the arrows, the
long-drawn keening of the bowmen and the short deep bark of the
under-officers. "Steady, steady! Loose steady! Shoot wholly
together! Twelve score paces! Ten score! Now eight! Shoot
wholly together!" Their gruff shouts broke through the high
shrill cry like the deep roar of a wave through the howl of the
wind.
As the two great ships hurtled together the Spaniard turned away a
few points so that the blow should be a glancing one. None the
less it was terrific. A dozen men in the tops of the carack were
balancing a huge stone with the intention of dropping it over on
the English deck. With a scream of horror they saw the mast
cracking beneath them. Over it went, slowly at first, then
faster, until with a crash it came down on its side, sending them
flying like stones from a sling far out into the sea. A swath of
crushed bodies lay across the deck where the mast had fallen. But
the English ship had not escaped unscathed. Her mast held, it is
true, but the mighty shock not only stretched every man flat upon
the deck, but had shaken a score of those who lined her sides into
the sea. One bowman was hurled from the top, and his body fell
with a dreadful crash at the very side of the prostrate King upon
the forecastle. Many were thrown down with broken arms and legs
from the high castles at either end into the waist of the ship.
Worst of all, the seams had been opened by the crash and the water
was gushing in at a dozen places.
But these were men of experience and of discipline, men who had
already fought together by sea and by land, so that each knew his
place and his duty. Those who could staggered to their feet and
helped up a score or more of knights who were rolling and clashing
in the scuppers unable to rise for the weight of their armor. The
bowmen formed up as before. The seamen ran to the gaping seams
with oakum and with tar. In ten minutes order had been restored
and the Philippa, though shaken and weakened, was ready for battle
once more. The King was glaring round him like a wounded boar.
"Grapple my ship with that," he cried, pointing to the crippled
Spaniard, "for I would have possession of her!"
But already the breeze had carried them past it, and a dozen
Spanish ships were bearing down full upon them.
"We cannot win back to her, lest we show our flank to these
others," said the shipman.
"Let her go, her way!" cried the knights. "You shall have better
than her."
"By Saint George! you speak the truth," said the King, for she is
ours when we have time to take her. These also seem very worthy
ships which are drawing up to us, and I pray you, master-shipman,
that you will have a tilt with the nearest."
A great carack was within a bowshot of them and crossing their
bows. Bunce looked up at his mast, and he saw that already it was
shaken and drooping. Another blow and it would be over the side
and his ship a helpless log upon the water. He jammed his helm
round therefore, and ran his ship alongside the Spaniard, throwing
out his hooks and iron chains as he did so.
They, no less eager, grappled the Philippa both fore and aft, and
the two vessels, linked tightly together, surged slowly over the
long blue rollers. Over their bulwarks hung a cloud of men locked
together in a desperate struggle, sometimes surging forward on to
the deck of the Spaniard, sometimes recoiling back on to the
King's ship, reeling this way and that, with the swords flickering
like silver flames above them, while the long-drawn cry of rage
and agony swelled up like a wolf's howl to the calm blue heaven
above them.
But now ship after ship of the English had come up, each throwing
its iron over the nearest Spaniard and striving to board her high
red sides. Twenty ships were drifting in furious single combat
after the manner of the Philippa, until the whole surface of the
sea was covered with a succession of these desperate duels. The
dismasted carack, which the King's ship had left behind it, had
been carried by the Earl of Suffolk's Christopher, and the water
was dotted with the heads of her crew. An English ship had been
sunk by a huge stone discharged from an engine, and her men also
were struggling in the waves, none having leisure to lend them a
hand. A second English ship was caught between two of the Spanish
vessels and overwhelmed by a rush of boarders so that not a man of
her was left alive. On the other hand, Mowbray and Audley had
each taken the caracks which were opposed to them, and the battle
in the center, after swaying this way and that, was turning now in
favor of the Islanders.
The Black Prince, with the Lion, the Grace Marie and four other
ships had swept round to turn the Spanish flank; but the movement
was seen, and the Spaniards had ten ships with which to meet it,
one of them their great carack the St. Iago di Compostella. To
this ship the Prince had attached his little cog and strove
desperately to board her, but her side was so high and the defense
so desperate that his men could never get beyond her bulwarks but
were hurled down again and again with a clang and clash to the
deck beneath. Her side bristled with crossbowmen, who shot
straight down on to the packed waist of the Lion, so that the dead
lay there in heaps. But the most dangerous of all was a swarthy
black-bearded giant in the tops, who crouched so that none could
see him, but rising-every now and then with a huge lump of iron
between his hands, hurled it down with such force that nothing
would stop it. Again and again these ponderous bolts crashed
through the deck and hurtled down into the bottom of the ship,
starting the planks and shattering all that came in their way.
The Prince, clad in that dark armor which gave him his name, was
directing the attack from the poop when the shipman rushed wildly
up to him with fear on his face.
"Sire!" he cried. "The ship may not stand against these blows. A
few more will sink her! Already the water floods inboard."
The Prince looked up, and as he did so the shaggy beard showed
once more and two brawny arms swept downward. A great slug,
whizzing down, beat a gaping hole in the deck, and fell rending
and riving into the hold below. The master-mariner tore his
grizzled hair.
"Another leak!" he cried. "I pray to Saint Leonard to bear us up
this day! Twenty of my shipmen are bailing with buckets, but the
water rises on them fast. The vessel may not float another hour."
The Prince had snatched a crossbow from one of his attendants and
leveled it at the Spaniard's tops. At the very instant when the
seaman stood erect with a fresh bar in his hands, the bolt took
him full in the face, and his body fell forward over the parapet,
hanging there head downward. A howl of exultation burst from the
English at the sight, answered by a wild roar of anger from the
Spaniards. A seaman had run from the Lion's hold and whispered in
the ear of the shipman. He turned an ashen face upon the Prince.
"It is even as I say, sire. The ship is sinking beneath our
feet!" he cried.
"The more need that we should gain another," said he. "Sir Henry
Stokes, Sir Thomas Stourton, William, John of Clifton, here. lies
our road! Advance my banner, Thomas de Mohun! On, and the day is
ours!"
By a desperate scramble a dozen men, the Prince at their bead,
gained a footing on the edge of the Spaniard's deck. Some slashed
furiously to clear a space, others hung over, clutching the rail
with one hand and pulling up their comrades from below. Every
instant that they could hold their own their strength increased,
till twenty had become thirty and thirty forty, when of a sudden
the newcomers, still reaching forth to their comrades below, saw
the deck beneath them reel and vanish in a swirling sheet of foam.
The Prince's ship had foundered.
A yell went up from the Spaniards as they turned furiously upon
the small band who had reached their deck. Already the Prince and
his men had carried the poop, and from that high station they beat
back their swarming enemies. But crossbow darts pelted and
thudded among their ranks till a third of their number were
stretched upon the planks. Lined across the deck they could
hardly keep an unbroken front to the leaping, surging crowd who
pressed upon them. Another rush, or another after that, must
assuredly break them, for these dark men of Spain, hardened by an
endless struggle with the Moors, were fierce and stubborn
fighters. But hark to this sudden roar upon the farther side of
them
"Saint George! Saint George! A Knolles to the rescue!" A small
craft had run alongside and sixty men had swarmed on the deck of
the St. Iago. Caught between two fires, the Spaniards wavered and
broke. The fight became a massacre. Down from the poop sprang
the Prince's men. Up from the waist rushed the new-corners.
There were five dreadful minutes of blows and screams and prayers
with struggling figures clinging to the bulwarks and sullen
splashes into the water below. Then it was over, and a crowd of
weary, overstrained men leaned panting upon their weapons, or lay
breathless and exhausted upon the deck of the captured carack.
The Prince had pulled up his visor and lowered his beaver. He
smiled proudly as he gazed around him and wiped his streaming
face. "Where is the shipman? he asked. "Let him lead us against
another ship."
"Nay, sire, the shipman and all his men have stink in the Lion,"
said Thomas de Mohun, a young knight of the West Country, who
carried the standard. "We have lost our ship and the half of our
following. I fear that we can fight no more."
"It matters the less since the day is already ours," said the
Prince, looking over the sea. "My noble father's royal banner
flies upon yonder Spaniard. Mowbray, Audley, Suffolk, Beauchamp,
Namur, Tracey, Stafford, Arundel, each has his flag over a scarlet
carack, even as mine floats over this. See, yonder squadron is
already far beyond our reach. But surely we owe thanks to you who
came at so perilous a moment to our aid. Your face I have seen,
and your coat-armor also, young sir, though I cannot lay my tongue
to your name. Let me know that I may thank you."
He had turned to Nigel, who stood flushed and joyous at the head
of the boarders from the Basilisk.
"I am but a Squire, sire, and can claim no thanks, for there is
nothing that I have done. Here is our leader."
The Prince's eyes fell upon the shield charged with the Black
Raven and the stern young face of him who bore it. "Sir Robert
Knolles," said he, "I had thought you were on your way to
Brittany."
"I was so, sire, when I had the fortune to see this battle as I
passed."
The Prince laughed. "It would indeed be to ask too much, Robert,
that you should keep on your course when much honor was to be
gathered so close to you. But now I pray you that you will come
back with us to Winchelsea, for well I know that my father would
fain thank you for what you have done this day."
But Robert Knolles shook his head. "I have your father's command,
sire, and without his order I may not go against it. Our people
are hard-pressed in Brittany, and it is not for me to linger on
the way. I pray you, sire, if you must needs mention me to the
King, to crave his pardon that I should have broken my journey
thus."
"You are right, Robert. God-speed you on your way! And I would
that I were sailing under your banner, for I see clearly that you
will take your people where they may worshipfully win worship.
Perchance I also maybe in Brittany before the year is past."
The Prince turned to the task of gathering his weary people
together, and the Basilisks passed over the side once more and
dropped down on to their own little ship. They poled her off from
the captured Spaniard and set their sail with their prow for the
south. Far ahead of them were their two consorts, beating towards
them in the hope of giving help, while down Channel were a score
of Spanish ships with a few of the English vessels hanging upon
their skirts. The sun lay low on the water, and its level beams
glowed upon the scarlet and gold of fourteen great caracks, each
flying the cross of Saint George, and towering high above the
cluster of English ships which, with brave waving of flags and
blaring of music, were moving slowly towards the Kentish coast.
