All the horror, all the pathos, all the stupid idiocy of the world seemed to come together in that cabin.
'You are right,' said Gresham, as an extraordinary, unprecedented and burning hot tear welled up in both his eyes. He dare not blink, in case it scalded his cheek. 'You have lost.'
Around him, hundreds of men went about their business: mending, making, living, filling the hours with the tasks that stop us thinking; talking to God, pleading with God or hoping with all their hearts that God heard what their poor brains could never put into words. Trusting in God, and the Duke of Medina Sidonia and perhaps even in the memory of the kiss their wife or sweetheart had given them as they set out, trusting in all of these or maybe even just in luck to see them through. Using the one thing God had given them, the belief in each man we are immortal, that death will not really come to us and the hope that we alone will be saved. Unaware that men and events hugely beyond their power to control or influence had condemned so many of them to a lottery of death.
'You'll be blown out of this harbour by storm, or by the English,' said Gresham inexorably. This time the tears would accept no boundary, betraying him by cascading from his eyes down his face. 'And you will fight, won't you, my Lord?'
The exhausted face of the Duke of Medina Sidonia was incredulous. 'Fight? But of course I will fight!' There was emphasis in his voice, but the tone was kind. Almost paternal. 'For hundreds of years my country has stood between the rule of Christ and the Ottomans. When Rome and then Constantinople fell to the infidel, did we measure the odds? Did we count the numbers against us? No! We fought. And we won. And saved Europe for Christianity.'
'But now you'll lose,' said Gresham.
'Sometimes, young man,' said the Duke, 'men must believe in miracles. And sometimes, those older and wiser men who doubt miracles recognise a truth of human history. Men may have to lose now in order for their children to win later. Men who are willing to die become stronger because they lose all fear. It is the fear of death, not death itself, that weakens us.'
'And your… reputation?' Gresham hated himself for asking the question but some Devil within him could not refuse to do so.
'They will blame me for this, of course. My family, my children will suffer. So I come to the ultimate problem for a true man. The problem I have faced many times now in my life. And the problem I am amused to see you are struggling to face for the first time.'
How could this man adopt this lightness of tone when at any moment the most important military mission his country had ever mounted could be smashed apart and he be held responsible? 'What problem is that?' Gresham found himself saying.
'Of course the reputation the world affords me matters greatly. But I learned long ago that for all its importance such a reputation is fickle, perhaps even false. When all else fails, and all seems dark and bleak, it is not the judgement of the world I believe will matter to me when I pass into the vale of death. It is my judgement of myself. Do I believe I did everything in my power to make things right? Did I dirty my actions by cowardice, by self-interest, by vanity, greed, lust or avarice? I would love the world to judge my actions as worthy. Yet when all else is done, the judgement that must matter most to me, the crucial, the most scrupulous, the testing judgement must stand as my own judgement on myself.'
'And what will that judgement be?' asked Gresham, fascinated.
'Ask me when I know if I met my death fighting. We cannot control how we are born. We have some control over how we die.'
Gresham spoke softly,
'" Go you gently unto death? Is what you are so little worth? We enter screaming into life, And death hurts more than birth.'"
'What is that?' asked the Duke.
'Childish verse,' said Gresham. He made a massive effort to pull himself together. ‘My Lord,' he said, 'I hope you don't die. I hope justice prevails.'
'I am not such a fool as to hope to die,' responded the Duke, an ironic smile on the edge of his lips. 'It is merely that I fear I have little control over it, and even less control over justice. You may leave. It would not be good to have an Englishman here for the conference 1 must hold now.'
'That's it, then,' said Mannion once back outside. 'Fine mess you've got us into. Tonight there's a spring tide right near its top, and the wind's been freshening all day. If our lads can get enough fireships together, they'll come down on this anchorage like shit off a shovel.'
'The Spanish fireships did nothing at Cadiz,' said Gresham. 'That's 'cos there was no wind to speak of, and hardly any tide. And there was three times as much space as there is 'ere.' 'So what should the Duke do?' asked Gresham. 'Piss off and go 'ome,' said Mannion. 'Like us.' 'But he'll fight,'said Gresham
'Then 'e's a stupid bastard,' said Mannion, 'who ought to know better. If he wants to do it for his honour, let him. I've given serious thought as to whether I want to do it for mine, and I don't. But I bet you he won't let us piss off and go home. So it's the same old place, isn't it? The one people like me 'ave been in for centuries. I have to pop me clogs so fie can keep his honour.'
They stood watching the small boats scuttle between the ships of the Armada, the deliveries of food from shore to ship which the essentially friendly, one-legged Governor of Calais had allowed.
He had lost the leg in retaking Calais from the English fifty years earlier and felt no love for Queen Elizabeth. The tension was tangible. Every sailor on board could sense the tide and wind, and even now, well before sunset, they were looking out to sea and towards the English. That tension had spread to the soldiers, dispirited now, convinced that they had no role in this campaign except to die. For the first time that morning Gresham had seen spots of rust on three or four breastplates, spots that the soldiers concerned had not ferociously rubbed away at the first sign. Somehow everyone on board San Martin was moving more slowly, as if there was a deep ache in their bones and a heavy pack on their back. Gresham had caught one of the gentleman adventurers, a young, fresh-faced lad no more than seventeen years old, standing by the bow, crying. He had turned, horrified, determined to hide his face. Gresham had put out a hand, then dropped it helplessly to his side.
'It's a cruel thing, facing your death, when you're that age,' said Mannion drily. Over these past few weeks his master had taken on an extraordinary strength and inner resilience. Only a few years in age separated the young Englishman and the young Spaniard before them, yet there was a decade between them in experience.
Devil ships. That was the fear of every sailor on board the Armada. Three years earlier the Dutch had sent specially-constructed fireships down the Scheldt to try and lift the Spanish siege of Antwerp. Three tons of explosive had been crammed into brick chambers on board. One had fetched up against a fortified bridge, killed eight hundred men in the explosion and inflicted horrific injuries on thousands of others. Of the bridge nothing remained. Federigo Gambelli was the name of the designer. He was known to be in London, working for the English.
'Your job's done, now, you know that, don't you?' Mannion prompted. 'This 'as gone beyond advice. If our lads… sorry, if the English do their jobs, this lot's going to be burned to buggery, whether you want it to 'appen or not. You ain't going to influence anything any more. That girl's waiting for you in Calais, more as like, and half the girls in England are waiting for me in London…'
'So why not swim ashore?' Gresham finished Mannion's words. 'You go,' he said suddenly. He reached out, grasped Mannion's arm, looked into his eyes. 'This has never been your fight, only mine. You've done enough, lost enough. Go on. Leave me. It's only right.'