If God was smiling on King Philip's Enterprise of England it was at best an ironic gesture. Within hours the fleet was facing weather that would not have disgraced a December storm. Then, when more and more stores were opened the water was found to be nothing more than green slime, and the cheese and dried meat infested with rot whose stench made men gag. Drake's rampaging on the Spanish coast had borne a dividend, but so had a fleet kept too long in harbour. Soon the seas were dotted with discarded, rotting foodstuffs, the trail left by the Armada, such sea birds as were brave enough to venture out feeding frenziedly. Three weeks out of Lisbon several ships had been battered to such an extent that they could not dream of entering a battle, sickness was soaring and the fleet had hardly reached Corunna, still just off Spanish land.
"E'll 'ave to take us into Corunna,' said Mannion, continuing his uncanny ability to predict the actions of the Spanish. It was inevitable: Sidonia ordered the fleet into Corunna for repairs and to take on new supplies, sending the sick ashore so as not to infect the healthy. As if in final revenge, a savage gale scattered two-thirds of the ships through the length and breadth of the Bay of Biscay.
'Bugger this for a lark!' said Mannion, with religious intensity, gazing longingly at the shore line as they were blasted by the ferocious wind out to sea, every rope and spar complaining, water cascading along the length of the deck, jagged splinters where the top tier of the after-castle had once been.
He was more cheerful when the San Salvador finally made it into Corunna and for the first time in weeks he could set foot not only on shore but in a tavern. "Bout bloody time!' he muttered darkly. 'Thought you wanted to get on the flagship?' he asked Gresham, back against a rock as they looked out at the mass of shipping. A full wineskin was clutched firmly in both hands, like a mother hanging on to its newborn baby.
'I've got to meet Sidonia first,' said Gresham. 'Spanish nobility make the English look like democrats. He's a proud man, and he won't like speaking to an Englishman of no real birth, and I don't imagine he's much time for spies either. Yet I've got to persuade him to let me advise him, use my special knowledge.'
'So what if he doesn't want to come out to play?' asked Mannion, who was starting to let the wine talk for him.
'Then I've risked losing everything I love for nothing,' said Gresham bleakly.
'Spaniards could give you a bit more help in all this,' said Mannion, eyelids starting to droop in the welcome sun. 'After all you're meant to have done for them.'
'I get about as much help from them as I did when I was meant to be working for England,' replied Gresham. 'No one loves a spy.'
Yet meeting Medina Sidonia was easier than expected. Gresham presented the Duke of Parma's warrant to the servants guarding the door of the villa the Duke had taken ashore. A day later the summons came.
The room was cool and dark, the wine excellent, and the Duke courteous. Of medium build, the Duke's compact figure exuded authority, and a sense of calm. Gresham imagined that people would instinctively lower their voices when talking to him. A secretary sat in a corner before a small lectern, ready to record or write as instructed. A sallow, thin-faced man in a cheap doublet waited respectfully at the Duke's side.
'I am His Grace's English translator,' the man said proudly.
'The Duke of Parma writes well of you,' said Sidonia, his voice low. The man had an aura of dignity, in part due to his having come from a long line of men for whom the obedience of others was automatic, no doubt, but also emanating from his personality. 'He states that you have been fighting our cause with courage and guile these three years past, at great risk to yourself. As is confirmed by letters from the Escorial. You have met with the Duke of Parma? Recently?’ The Duke was speaking in Spanish, the translator speaking fluently and with almost no accent.
'As recently as March, my Lord,' answered Gresham.
'And his view of matters?'
How strange and worrying for Spain, thought Gresham, that in the tangled hierarchy of King Philip's Spain the Commander of the Armada and the Commander of Philip's army had not corresponded directly, but only indirectly through the person of the King.
'It is as you gathered, my Lord. He has assembled boats and transports in the canals. He has no deep-water port, but expects to be able to slip his troops out from the canals through Dunkirk under cover of darkness and with a feint to the north. There are two key issues. Firstly, the Dutch fly-boats are heavily armed and can navigate the shallowest of waters. Yet they are relatively few in number and the Dutch are disaffected. Also there is a faction among the Dutch that wishes him to invade England, believing the rebels' chance of victory is greater if the Duke is away in England. The Duke believes he can deceive the Dutch, that indeed they may wish to be deceived, particularly if Your Lordship would agree to detach some of your lighter and smaller craft to assist him.'
'That would seem hopeful’ said Sidonia. 'And the second key issue?'
'If you can place yourself between his transports and the English fleet for the crossing, the Duke of Parma believes all that's necessary is for your ships to block the English from his ships, not even to sink or defeat them.'
The Duke paused for thought, drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair. 'And you say that you sailed with Drake to Cadiz?'
Gresham gave a brief summary of his part in the raid.*No one knows the English fleet, its commanders and its operating procedures better than I,' said Gresham. 'I offer that knowledge to your Lordship, as and when you may care to use it.'
'Should I trust a man who betrays the land of his birth?' asked Sidonia. There was sudden steel in the voice, a sharp snap of authority. This was a man who lived his life by a strict moral as well as religious code, Gresham realised.
'No,' said Gresham, honestly. 'Probably not. Yet I've never done what I do for money, of which. I have no need. I've done it in part for my faith, which I've carried as a secret for many years, a secret that could have burned my flesh and ruined me at any time.'
'And why else have you done it? Why else have you served Spain?'
Gresham paused. This man would accept no easy answers. There were no easy answers for Gresham to give. 'Because the land of my birth has never accepted me, the bastard son of a rich man. For years it reviled me as a cast-off. Now it pays me lip service because of my wealth yet reviles me still. The land of my birth is defended by pirates who plead patriotism, led by a Queen who preaches service to England but is incapable of serving any except herself, a woman so selfish as to deny her country an heir and therefore condemn it to civil war on her death. Taking their colour from her, its ^leaders are men such as Robert Cecil, whose God and morality revolve around his own self-interest. Cecil, the Queen, Walsingham, Burghley… these people expect me to die for them. They would never live for me.'
‘You are very young,' said Sidonia, 'to harbour such bitterness. And when you find in your adopted country of Spain that leaders are not selfless, that the true faith has men observing and sometimes leading its worship who are truly corrupt, then will you become as bitter towards Spain as you are to England?'
'I didn't choose England,' said Gresham. 'It was a choice made for me. I chose Spain.'
There was a long silence, Sidonia's eyes resting on Gresham's, Gresham's startling blue eyes returning the gaze without flinching.
'I may call on your advice,' said Sidonia, 'but not yet. God willing, it will be a week or more before we sight England, and the San Martin is grievously overcrowded.'