OUTSIDE, guncrews of half a dozen men stood round the cannon in positions of readiness, in their shirts or bare-chested. The gun ports were open. The air was stifling, thick with the stench of unwashed bodies. Each member of the guncrews stood in a fixed place: one holding a long ladle; another with a wooden linstock and smouldering taper, ready to light the powder; a third with an iron gunball at his feet, ready to load. The master gunners stood behind the guns, watching an officer in doublet and hose, sword at his waist and a whistle round his neck, pacing up and down between the double row of guns. The men lifted tired, strained faces to stare at us. The officer stepped forward, glaring at me. ‘Who the hell are you? Who put you in there?’
‘Assistant-Purser West. He—’
A whistle sounded loudly from the top of the ladder. The officer thrust out his arm to stop us moving. ‘Stay back! Wait here!’
The whistle had been a signal. The officer blew his own whistle and I watched as another practice followed, the crews swinging smoothly into motion, moving with speed and grace. The iron cannon were loaded with shot from the back, the bronze ones, which had been hauled back for the purpose, from chambers at the front. Vents on top of the guns were filled with powder and the bronze guns were rolled forward, the ropes binding them to the walls slackening. The movement made the deck tremble again. Each master gunner placed the taper next to a hole at the back of each gun, into which another man had already mimed pouring in a dob of powder from a flask. Then everyone stopped and waited, still as a tableau for half a minute, until another whistle sounded. The guns were hauled inboard again, and the gunballs removed. Everyone took up their former positions. The officer said, ‘Good enough. We’ll give them a hot cannonade!’ He inclined his head at us. ‘Get out, quick!’
We passed between the guncrews. I remember one man holding a linstock staring at me as I went by. He was shirtless, with a short, scarred, muscular body, a square bearded face. He looked at me as though I were something from another world, an apparition.
We walked to the ladder. At the bottom Leacon said quietly, ‘Can you make it up?’
‘After all I’ve been through to get here? Yes.’
I climbed after him, though the effort sent pain slicing through my shoulders. Fresh, salt air wafted down from above, making my head swim for a moment. Leacon reached the deck and helped me up. Again, through the stout netting, I saw the great masts rearing up into the blue sky of another hot July day. The sails were still furled, but on deck and up in the rigging sailors stood in position, ready to release them on command. The deck was more crowded than ever, everyone at battle positions. As below, guncrews had taken up positions of readiness beside the cannon. Half the blinds were open, giving me a view of the Great Harry and the other warships beyond on one side, and on the other the Isle of Wight, where, away in the distance, I saw smoke rising from several large fires.
I looked along the deck. Archers stood at some of the open blinds, and perhaps fifty pikemen stood together, nine-foot-long halfpikes raised with tips poking through the netting, ready to thrust up at boarders. An officer with a whistle round his neck stood watching; he glanced up at the fighting top in the topmast where lookouts stood, the only ones with a clear view of what was happening.
Near us, on the opposite side of the deck, three officers were arguing. One I recognized as the purser. The second was Philip West. He looked haggard as he spoke to the third man, a tall officer in his forties, richly dressed. He had a dark brown beard framing a long, frowning face, a pomander as well as a sword at his waist. Round his neck he wore a massive whistle on a long gold chain. He was examining what looked like a tiny sundial. He looked up as West finished speaking.
‘If the beer’s bad,’ he said impatiently, ‘they’ll just have to do without.’
The purser answered, ‘The men are parched. And starting to murmur – ’
‘Then give them what there is!’
‘They won’t drink it, Sir George,’ West said impatiently. ‘It’s bad—’
Sir George Carew shouted back, ‘Don’t talk to me like that, knave! God’s death, they’d best behave, all of them. The King is watching at South Sea Castle, and he’ll have a special eye on this ship!’