Heartstone

She did not answer, but sat with head bowed. I looked ahead again. The four galleys were close now, I saw their sides were richly gilded with the arms of France. They circled round, still in their square formation, bringing their guns into position to fire on the Mary Rose. I said, as steadily as I could given my thudding heart, 'It's coming.'

'Let it,' Emma answered without looking up.

I said, 'If we get out of this, Hobbey will pass your wardship to me. Then you can decide what you want to be.'

She looked up, her face set hard again. 'If we live I'll find another company. Fight the Scots, perhaps.'

'I risked all to try and save you.'

'Why?' she asked. 'Why did you? I never wanted—'

'To give you a chance. A choice—'

I broke off at the sound of a cracking boom. Dark grey smoke billowed out from the front of the galley facing us. There was an odd silence lasting perhaps twenty seconds, then one of the sailors said, 'That was close.'

Then from below came a shout of 'Give fire!' followed by the loudest noise I have ever heard, as all the cannon on the starboard side of the Mary Rose

fired on the galleys, one after another after another, a series of tremendous crashing roars. I felt the impact travel up through my legs, making my very bones shake, and a dreadful pressure on the inside of my ears. The decks trembled and creaked. I turned to Emma; she had looked up, her eyes alight with excitement.

As the smoke cleared I saw the galleys were undamaged. The Mary Rose began turning to port, fast and steeply. I heard a cracking of sails. Then, through the doorway, I felt a sudden strong gust of wind.

'That's too fast,' one of the sailors said.

The ship heeled to starboard. I thought it would be like the earlier manoeuvre and she would right herself, but she tilted more and more. The soldiers on the port side, which rose high as the starboard side dipped lower, clung to the side of the portholes; their guns began slipping back through them and crashing down the decks. Looking through the doorway I saw a man fall off the topmast into the web of rigging, swivel guns fall from the topdeck railing, into the sea. I heard crashing and shouting below the netting enclosing the weatherdeck as men and equipment slid and fell. All this took only seconds, but the time seems to stretch out in my memory, detail after terrible detail. All the soldiers on our deck, and their guns, were now tumbling and crashing against the starboard side. The long cannon on the port side, too, began slipping from its mount.

'Get out of here!' the sailor beside us shouted to his fellow. They went down on hands and knees and began crawling rapidly out onto the walkway above the netting, grasping the sides for the ship was tilted at such an angle now it was impossible to walk. Under the netting men were screaming. I saw hands reaching up through the mesh.

'Come on!' I shouted to Emma. I began crawling after the sailors, gritting my teeth against the pain in my shoulders. For a second I thought she might stay behind, but I heard her shuffling after me. We got out onto the walkway. Men were hacking frantically up at the stout netting with their knives. A hand reached up and grasped my arm, a frantic voice shouted, 'Help us!' but then water crashed over us, the cold a sudden shock, and I felt myself carried outwards. In the seconds I rode the top of the onrushing water I saw dozens of soldiers falling from the aftercastle through open or broken blinds. I saw the red of Pygeon's heavy brigandyne as he fell past me like a stone, eyes wide with horror, and Snodin's plump form, arms windmilling frantically, mouth open and screaming. The men threw up great splashes as they hit the sea, then disappeared, the weight of their clothing and helmets taking them at once to the bottom. All those men, all of them. And from the hundreds trapped below the netting, and on the lower decks, I heard a terrible screaming. Then the cold waters came over my head and I thought, this is it, the end I feared, drowning. And suddenly all the pains in my body were gone.

* * *