Armada Read Online Free Page A

complacency with treachery. He had slept in the lee of the quarterdeck, snatching fitful hours while Seeley took the watch. He had quickly come to trust his younger mate. Seeley’s hand and nerve were as steady as his own.
    The wind shifted and ebbed slightly and Robert looked again to the line of his ship.
    ‘Steady the helm!’ he shouted, his voice carrying through the open hatch to the helmsman, Price, on the main deck beneath him. Price tightened his grip on the whipstaff and braced his powerful legs against the increasing press of the sea against the rudder. The tiller, attached to the other end of the whipstaff two decks below him, remained steady and the bow of the
Retribution
held firm.
    Robert smiled despite the gnawing fatigue he could feel permeating his every sense. The galleon was a breed apart from any ship he had ever sailed on before and he marvelled at the genius of her design. Even in such heavy weather her longer, slimmer hull and lower fore and aft castles improved her handling and manoeuvrability beyond measure. He squinted through the driving rain to the sea ahead, searching for other ships of the fleet, but visibility had dropped to less than three miles and the towering grey-backed waves hemmed the
Retribution
in on all sides.
    Over the roar of the wind Robert heard, ‘Report, Mister Varian,’ and he turned to see the captain approach.
    ‘As before, Captain,’ Robert shouted, his hand cupped over the side of his mouth, ‘wind holding south-west, at least thirty knots. I estimate we are forty-five degrees north, over a hundred miles north-north-east of Cape Finisterre, in the Bay of Biscay.’
    Robert could not be sure, for it had been impossible to accurately sight the sun at noon over the previous days to determine their exact latitude, while their longitude could only be determined by dead reckoning, an inaccurate task in such a storm. Captain Morgan nodded regardless, trusting his new master.
    ‘Any other ships in sight?’ he asked, wiping the airborne spray from his face.
    Robert glanced at the lookout at the top of the main mast. His head was darting from side to side, covering the points of the ship but he showed no signs of having sighted any other sail.
    ‘Nothing,’ Robert shouted. ‘Not since the
Dreadnought
near dawn. We lost sight of her over three hours ago.’
    ‘And no sign of survivors from the
Deer
?’ Morgan asked, his voice betraying his anticipation of the answer even as Robert shook his head.
    The
Deer
, a pinnace, had been lost early in the storm, the smaller vessel floundering under the first savage blows as the front overtook the English fleet. Robert, with the rest of the crew of the
Retribution
, had observed her sinking, the ship slipping beneath the waves not four hundred yards off the starboard beam. Many of the men on board the
Retribution
had called out in vain to the few survivors they could see in the water, urging them to make for the galleon or to cling on to whatever debris they could find, to hold fast until the storm abated and the longboat of the
Retribution
could be launched to rescue them. But the wind had never eased, had never backed off, and in desperation they had seen the men disappear one by one, some carried away by the tempest, while others slipped beneath the torrid surface of the sea.
    Movement at the top of the main mast caught Robert’s eye and he looked up to see the lookout shouting down to the quarterdeck. His cry of alarm was lost in the wind but the direction of his arm pointed out the danger. Robert slipped his safety line and ran up to the poop deck to stare out over the aft gunwale. The approaching wave filled his vision, its wind torn crest standing twice as tall as the waves before it.
    ‘Look out for’ard,’ he roared in warning to the crew and he jumped back down to the quarterdeck. The wave crashed over the starboard quarter. A wall of water surged over the ship, engulfing the men on the main deck, carrying one of them