Part 27 (1/2)
”'Tis men such as Jeff that have won England her glory on the main,”
declared Hartop, as he watched the man striding along the deck. Even as his eyes rested upon him, he saw Dimsdale stagger and fall, with an arrow, fired from the tops of one of the Spaniards, piercing his temple.
A youth, hastening forward, stumbled over the fallen man, rose to his feet, looked into Dimsdale's face and pa.s.sed on. The youth was Gilbert Oglander, who with grimy, powder-stained countenance, had come up on deck, utterly tired out by his hard work below. He entered the forecastle and waited his turn for a drink of water.
”What, art stationed below decks, Master Oglander?” questioned Jacob Hartop. ”Methinks your better place were up here where there be boarders to repel. There be many who can carry powder on board, but few who have the skill to wield a sword or shoot an arrow as thou hast, my master.”
”In truth, 'twas that very thought that brought me hither,” said Gilbert. ”And with the more reason, in that the powder is not now so plentiful or the gunners so many that those I have left below cannot be quickly enough served by the s.h.i.+p's boys. Hast seen aught of Timothy Trollope, Master Hartop?”
Jacob shook his head, but Robin Redfern, hearing the question, answered, as he pointed outward along the upper deck to where, under the larboard bulwarks, a half-dozen of Sir Richard Grenville's men were fighting amid a clash of arms with some score of Spaniards who had made an entrance upon the _Revenge_:
”So please you, sir, he is yonder, where, as I have seen with my own eyes, he hath slain a full dozen Spaniards.”
Without waiting for his much-needed drink of water, Gilbert s.n.a.t.c.hed up a morion that lay at his feet, clapped it upon his bare head, unsheathed his sword, and ran out to join in the fray. Jacob Hartop, smiling at the lad's impetuous eagerness, turned to the water-b.u.t.t and took the proffered dipper from Robin Redfern's hand.
Robin's face was very pale, and there was a strange light in his grave, gray eyes. He glanced quickly round the cabin, and presently darted into the further corner, went down upon his knees in the dark, and after a moment emerged gripping a little sword in his right hand, and strode to the door. Jacob Hartop stretched out his hand to stop the boy, guessing his purpose, but Robin escaped him and ran out, mingling with the fighting crowd.
Very soon afterwards Hartop was again at his gun on the starboard side of the forecastle deck. At the moment there was a slight lull in the battle. A galleon that had been grappled to this side of the _Revenge_ for an hour or more, and was now almost a total wreck, was being drawn off to give place to a mighty s.h.i.+p which had stood by from the time of the opening of the battle, and whose decks were crowded with soldiers.
Glancing out through the gap thus made, Hartop saw at some distance away a little s.h.i.+p flying the flag of St. George. She seemed to be hovering near, either to see the success of the fight, or else, which was more probable, to do what she might to rescue the _Revenge_ from the grip of her overpowering enemies. Hartop knew the little s.h.i.+p. He had seen her many times during the voyage out from England and also at the anchorage at Flores. It was Jacob Whiddon's _Pilgrim_.
The great galleon which now closed in to the attack was the _St. Paul_, the flag-s.h.i.+p of Don Alonzo de Ba.s.san, a brother of the renowned Marquis of Santa Cruz, and King Philip's chosen admiral. Already the _Revenge's_ bowsprit had been shot away, her foremast had fallen by the board, and her main topmast was lying across her main-deck with two Englishmen and seven Spaniards crashed under its weight. Her sails were in ribbons, and her riggings were in a hopeless tangle of broken rope; her bulwarks had great yawning gaps in them, yet still her gallant flag waved gloriously, albeit with many shot-holes in it, over her p.o.o.p. And now the _St. Paul_ opened fire upon her, first from her chase-guns that shot out their great stone b.a.l.l.s, and then, as she swung round, from her full broadside. Sir Richard Granville's mizzen-mast, which had beforetime been sorely hacked and splintered, fell with a crash. And now she lay heaving lazily on the swell of the ocean, with but the ragged stumps of her three masts showing above the level of her shattered hull, and her s.h.i.+p's company in their sadly reduced numbers showing still a st.u.r.dy and dauntless front, and ever persistently fighting on. The sea round about her was so strewn with wreckage that the galleons could not now come close to her as they had done at the first, but lay round her in a ring, firing into her or sending out their boats crowded with soldiers to board her, the beams of the setting sun s.h.i.+ning on their morions and body armour, and glancing on the blades of their drawn swords.
As Don Alonzo's s.h.i.+p hove near, and when the cloud of smoke from her discharged guns had lifted, the archers in her fighting-tops fired down their arrow shafts in the endeavour to pick off such of the English officers as presented themselves on the p.o.o.p-deck. Sir Richard Grenville was struck many times, but his body armour was well forged, and although he indeed had received many slight wounds on hands and neck and face, yet he was practically unhurt, and his hoa.r.s.e voice could be heard amid the battle's thunder cheering his men and bidding them fight on.
His son Roland had been wounded by a musket-shot in his right arm, but, like Sir Richard, he cared not so long as he had breath in him to fight; so he took his sword in his left hand, and ever when any Spaniards attempted to make an entrance upon the decks he was ready to repel them, with Timothy Trollope and Gilbert Oglander shoulder to shoulder with him, forming a human barrier through which no Don, howsoever bold, might pa.s.s.
Gilbert Oglander became conscious that as Don Alonzo's galleon came near, there was one archer in her mizzen-top who had, as it seemed, singled him out from among his companions. Arrow after arrow struck with a sharp ring upon his breastplate; and as he moved along the deck to encounter new foes, again and again an arrow would buzz past him, always from the same direction.
The Spaniards, secure in the knowledge that the _Revenge_ was helpless, went about the fighting more slowly as evening drew upon them. It was as if they thought to prolong their victim's life, and wished only to see for how much time the little _Revenge_ would hold out against them.
During a lull in the fight Sir Richard Grenville ordered his men to clear the decks of wreckage, and to cast overboard the bodies of the slain. Water was served round, together with bread and onions. As Gilbert Oglander was carrying a flagon of water to one of his wounded comrades who lay in the scuppers, an arrow struck the flagon and dashed it from his grasp. He picked the empty vessel up and returned to the water-b.u.t.t to refill it. Again as he pa.s.sed aft an arrow struck him, this time making a deep dent in his morion. And at that moment young Robin Redfern, with a kerchief bound round his bleeding head, came up to him and touched him on the arm.
”Master,” the lad cried, ”I pray you have a care how you expose yourself to the aim of the archer who hath just fired at you. His arrows have pursued you this long while past. And--and--prithee, Master Gilbert, dost know who 'tis?”
”Nay, how should I know one Spaniard from another?” Gilbert asked, pa.s.sing on towards the wounded man. But Robin held him.
”Hark you, my master,” cried the lad, ”I have seen his face. I saw it but a few moments ago, and, as I live, 'tis the face of your own cousin, Master Philip Oglander!”
Now Gilbert, despite the excitement of the battle had not forgotten Drusilla's letter that was nestling within his doublet under the protection of his breastplate. His thoughts had gone more than once to his home and to the remembrance of his uncle's trickery, and this had increased by an hundredfold his hatred of all friends of Spain, and he had fought with a spirit of personal vengeance as well as with the desire to help his fellow-countrymen and his Queen in this battle against their dread enemy. For an instant he doubted the truth of what Robin had told him, and when he had served the wounded man with his drink of water, and helped him down to the crowded c.o.c.kpit, he looked out through one of the portholes in search of his cousin in the galleon's tops. But the place where his enemy had stood was now cleared of men, and Philip Oglander was nowhere to be seen.
As he was mounting the ladder-stairs to regain the deck, he came upon a man climbing painfully upward with a sword between his teeth. Putting his arm about the man's body to a.s.sist him, he said:
”Art wounded, my master?”
The man looked round at him. It was Red Bob.
”Not I,” he answered. ”But I can no longer lie and listen to the groans of my friends down there, nor to the booming of the guns, and think that, ill though I am, I have not yet fired a shot or drawn a weapon in defence of this good s.h.i.+p. A score of the sick men have already gone up to fight, Master Oglander, and 'tis my intention to join them, and do what little I can.”
”May the good G.o.d put strength into your arm, then!” returned Gilbert, and, stepping upon the deck, he drew the man with him, and gave him a loaded pistol and a bag of powder and shot. Jacob Hartop encountered them as they moved aft.
”My good gun hath been dismounted at last,” said he. ”Yet 'tis of little account, methinks, for I do hear that the powder hath well-nigh given out.” A cheer from the after-deck broke in upon his words. ”Ah, here be work for us!” he added, s.n.a.t.c.hing his sword from his side and limping towards the quarter-deck, followed by Gilbert and Red Bob.
A boat-load of Spanish soldiers had put out from the admiral's galleon, and had come alongside the _Revenge_. Fresh and eager they clambered up from her chains and over her broken bulwarks--two score of them at the least. Sir Richard Grenville and Captain Robinson rallied their men to their sides. They quickly drew together in a line, a gallant little company of twelve, not one of whom was without a wound, saving three who had come up from their hard beds on the ballast, and these were so weak that it was a labour even to raise their swords.