Armada

Part One: SAFEGUARD THE TREASURE FLEET

CHAPTER ONE

The sea flashed green, a bright opal beneath the sun, and gliding across it like towering trees of sail, a galleon, the San Felipe, sailed for Spain. The waters south of the Florida Keys may have assured safety from coast-hugging pirates, but gales threatened even greater dangers.

The warship served the perilous duties of protecting a treasure fleet across endless miles of ocean, and with its bristling armament of forty-two cannons, appeared ready to destroy any foe in its path.

Onboard the galleon, Diego, a mestizo carpenter, stood below the main mast. Behind him, a triangular sheet of cloth, the lateen sail, billowed in the breeze above a lofty sterncastle of slanting decks, while ahead of him, at the bow, loomed another wooden forecastle, not as towering, supporting a mast for two square sails.

Diego sported the liveliest of bronze faces amongst his crew. His slick black hair gave him a spirited look of such youthful gaiety—he won over mortality with a grin. As the sun rose, bleeding through the mainsail, he picked up his carpenter’s saw, felt its teeth, pricked a finger, and, content with its sharpness, set the tool on a table. His thoughts raced over completed jobs: repairs on floorboards below decks, another table built for the officers’ mess, and a cask of foul-smelling meats thrown overboard to feed the fishes. Contemplation of the last task upset his stomach.

A day for a carpenter consisted of rigorous repairs, plugging up holes busted out from long months at sea, or the more demanding jobs below, requiring the ability to work in darkly lit confines and amidst horrendous stenches. The greatest dangers were the unpredictable and sudden catastrophes which could beset a vessel: the ravages of a storm and running aground, yet Diego felt content these troubles would not harass him. Plugs and oakum ensured a days survival, not the life-giving force of a ducat, or even gold and silver for that matter—stubborn weights earned through seaboard labors.

"Ho there, carpenter! Art thou ready for another chair?"

The request came early. A dark-bearded captain in a close-fitting black doublet bent over Diego’s workbench. His costume, adorned with spiteful metals, glared beneath the sun.

"Ay, my captain. You desire another?" Diego replied. “Thy will be done.”

"May God bless it with sturdiness as thy last works. Yet a chair hath chipped and I am in need of another."

"Thou shalt have it," Diego replied, and after crossing himself, went to work. He had labored harder on previous tasks, his craftsmanship resulting in wonderful creations. He finished the chair by midday, and while weighing his achievement, a lookout in the crow’s nest hollered out a sighting.

“Warship flying English colors!”

A boatswain in a white shirt and trousers gazed up at the lookout. “How many guns?”

“Cannot say,” replied the lookout. “But they’re English, and they have the weather gauge.”

"God willing," said the captain, standing proud upon the quarterdeck. "We shall rise from the fray victorious. We must guard the Madre de Dios."

The captain referred to a carrack trailing the San Felipe, a merchant vessel with towering stern and bow castles. Its deep holds carried a priceless cargo of gold bullion, silver, and other treasures from the Americas.

“I pray their Queen has only sent one,” the captain said, turning to his officer on watch. “They have the wind at their backs. Ready the cannon.”

“Aye, captain,” answered an armor-plated officer. Diego lugged his chair up to the quarterdeck. He ran downstairs, sprinted between tiers of cannon to the bow, and leaned over a castle-like bulwark to shiver over the sight of a closing danger.

The English warship, bearing down with three towering foresails, struck the seas nearby, firing shot. Iron balls smashed against hulls. Smoke swept the decks of both vessels. The San Felipe groaned under the onslaught. Musket fire racked the prow, killing a sailor, who, with a fateful clutch at his belly, went overboard.

Diego ran downstairs to the main deck finding, to his horror, a chewed-up lateen sail.

The high-backed stern of the retreating enemy, replete with carved decorations and an overhanging balcony, bobbed upon a wave, firing shots from rear ports. Impacting rounds shook the quarterdeck.

“It’s sailing for the Madre De Dios,” warned a lookout, pointing at the English warship, its open sails like white clouds fronting a storm. It drifted for the doomed carrack, firing its guns.

A cannonade shot through the calm. Flashes and smoke erupted from broadside ports. The attacker kept its distance, using heavy artillery. Great shot smashed out the sides of the Madre De Dios and sent sections of its forecastle plunging into the sea. It amazed Diego to see such ruin.

The menacing sails then sliced a larboard turn, tacking the wind, and came out for another approach. The San Felipe swung around to intercept.

A breeze carried the galleon over choppy waters for the enemy, its bowsprit rising upon a wave. Diego’s anticipation for an ambush materialized when, looking to his right, he saw the gun ports of the Madre De Dios open, and then, with a glance forward, the three foresails of the doomed assailant barreling into the trap.

“We have the wind gauge,” an officer said, referring to the galleon’s favorable position in the breeze. “The English do not stand a chance!”

A fish caught in its momentum is fated to swallow the bait, and like the fish, the English warship, driven by wind, fell victim to its own propulsion. As its bowsprit drifted toward the invisible hook, bombarding cannon from both sides pummeled its hull. The English fired their broadsides. Gun smoke arose, masking the firefight as iron shot smacked and tore up decks.

Diego, noticing the guns' accuracy, ducked below the bow railing, and from his position, looked below at gun crews struggling to fire their cannon. A sudden calm in the action caused him to stand and spy upon the warship, yet as he rose, the nearby bulwark bucked him into an accompanying wall. Breathless from the impact, he got up, heard iron shot slamming against the forecastle, and the hull groaning beneath him. He suspected the worst.

As Diego glanced behind him, he saw a lateen sail teetering on a broken masthead break off under its own weight. His gaze then shifted to the English warship, which crept away from battle, its shattered hull sinking low in the water. The ship drifted further into the carrack’s blasting culverins, and above its muzzle flashes, Spanish soldiers boarded, clashing with remaining English belligerents. Knights raced about decks, a flood of steel, slashing through sailors with battle axes. They overwhelmed the quarterdeck, took the crew captive, and brought the battle to a quick finish.

“It appears our riggers have been eased of their labors, carpenter,” an armor-clad soldier said to Diego, pointing at their severed mizzenmast stump, then out to sea. “They have sent longboats.”

Two longboats, their beams weighed down by a mast, rowed toward the San Felipe.

Diego, searching for topside damages, went for the stern, constructed a makeshift platform of wooden planks, anchored it to the forecastle railing with pulleys, and reeled himself down to inspect holes. Wounds torn into topside chambers stared at him like a pockmarked face. He hammered in wooden plugs to cover them. Splashes below distracted his work, and during brief interludes, he looked down to watch divers, stripped to their loins and secured by ropes, sink beneath the waves to plug the damages. He knew accompanying sailors, working below decks, would assist their efforts.

Memories of home invaded Diego’s efforts. As his mallet pounded a wooden plug into a hole, the tavern of Seville returned to him. His mouth watered at the remembrance of his sea-dried lips touching a wine-filled cup, and his tongue, a dying barnacle, trying to writhe out for its watery deliverance. The desire quickened his swing against a plug. He felt the release.

“Diego! Word is we sail on,” hollered down his carpenter’s mate, a sun-baked fellow in a floppy shirt. His fingers tapped against a black chest pocket, then went through his dark hair, arising out of the motion to return for the dark blot stitched into gray cloth. “We will drop anchor in the Azores. Will the saints bring us through?”

“What words thou speak, Rodriguez?” Diego looked up at his friend in astonishment. “Our ship will never make the Azores. Dost our captain not worry about gales? Only the blessed Mary could get us through with a leaking keel. It would be our undoing.”

“But these ports are infested with English pirates! They will sink us to the bottom if we drop anchor.”

“And chance a battered ship against a gale? I would rather spar with the English.” Again, Seville invaded Diego’s thoughts, with its wine-smelling casks assuring him of safe passage across the Atlantic. “I pray we do not hit the Florida gales. Remember our last voyage?”

“The reefs! The saints be with us. If it wasn’t for our expert pilot, we would have been split upon the rocks, all hands lost! We would have grown wings to fly for the Virgin Mother.”

“Ay, a tragedy, but we sailed quickly for Spain with our feet on steady planks.”

“Thou should sway the captain to turn back, but I know him. When his mind is set, one must have the golden key to unlock his chest.”

“Nay, I trust his decision,” Diego said.

“So, will thee come for dinner, or sit here to swallow the plug?”

Diego laughed at his mate’s words and dropped his mallet to feel a tense bicep. His labors had toughened his arms. He felt an onrush of fatigue and laid down on the platform, stretching out his sinewy body on the planks.

Underneath a beating sun, his eyes stared above him, and in contemplation, he tried guessing what meal was being served. Hardtack? No, such a bitter bread had been swallowed for breakfast. Then he remembered the salted fish. He climbed onboard and ran below to satisfy a ravenous hunger made more intense by an afternoon clash.

On the gun deck: rot, smoke, and powder smells made for an unpleasant rubbing against sweaty shoulders. Diego ran by sailors to steal a plate, slapped down three servings of fish from an open cask, and went for a table between cannons.

“So it’s still sturdy after a three-month voyage?” Diego felt the table’s edge, ending his test with a fist slam.

“Sí,” Rodriguez said, tapping his black pocket before returning his hand to the plate, to fork out a fish. “And in battle or storm, it has not shattered against bulkheads. Amazing!”

Diego stared out of gun portals at the pink sky, then looked back amongst an aisle of planks. “How is the flooding?” He remembered divers swimming below to make repairs. “Has all the water been pumped out?”

“Ay, all out. I’ve seen worse in the gale off Santo Domingo.” Rodriguez forked out another fish.

“And we will see more of the gale with our sailing for Spain.” Diego swallowed down a fish. “So, what of thy game of cards? Have thee beaten Montoya?”

“Montoya, heh. He owes me many ducats! Thou know my heart when it comes to money.” Rodriguez tapped against the black pocket on his breast again. “My heart beats black blood for ducats! It can keep a secret for any price, but Montoya, I must say, is in a shameful way. He has nothing.”

“And how will he repay?”

“Bind his hands and throw him overboard. I was thinking with a fight against thee! If victorious, he owes me double earnings; if he wins, forfeit all, unless thou would like to wager against him.”

“To fight Montoya?” Diego laughed at the challenge. The Castilian stood as a competent fighter. He had beaten black-bearded Hernandez, who had killed many Barbary pirates in hand-to-hand combat during Tunisian campaigns. “It would be a tough fight. If I faltered, would thee save me?”

“I could never survive the likes of a beast.”

A cask fell, releasing a putrid slime onto the decks. Its watery fright splashed against Diego’s feet. He looked up to find Montoya, the robust sailor, struggling to reseal it. His sweaty head of hair, gunpowder black, shone curly in the sunlight. Fountains of discolored wash spat from cut staves, and as he poked into openings, desperate efforts to plug the flood, spouts gushed out to soak nearby sailors.

“Look at the loser fight!” Rodriguez spun around to watch Montoya stumble with his dripping load. “He loses not only his game of cards but his dinner.”

Sailors gathered around to throw fermenting piles of fish out of gun ports. The smelly chore caused unrest amongst the crew. A sailor broke out in aggression against Montoya. He tossed a fish outside a gun portal, spun around, and swung a fist at him. He missed. Montoya ducked behind a barrel, shot out, and slammed the thrower into a cannon. The stunned victim got up, his ascent met by knuckles, and a perfect hit between the eyes knocked him out.

“An easy win,” Diego said, confident in a successful approach. He shot out of his chair, hunching low in hopes of catching Montoya by surprise, and then lunged for his opponent to launch an uppercut. The fist slammed into the sailor’s lower jaw. He spat out blood and threw a hand against Diego’s face, but the carpenter ducked in time and threw a jab at his chest, a crippling blow. The muscle-bound Montoya became a wreck before the eyes of the crew, staggering in his attempts to keep his feet steady. He lost balance and fell unconscious against a gun carriage.

A thrown joker card, flung by Rodriguez, landed on the fallen sailor's chest, an adieu to his fate.

~

The windy night screamed a gale. Breezes attacked the San Felipe, blowing wisps of whitewater off cresting swells onto its top decks. Sailors, swallowing the salty sprays, tasted a tempest, and in tenacity, ran to and fro adjusting sails, while others lowered the storm canvas on the top mast.

Below, on the gun deck, hammocks strung between cannon swung with the galleon’s seesawing motions, waking Diego from his sleep. He looked outside a nearby gun portal to find a gray sky blotting out the early light of dawn. Diego, fearing a squall, launched himself from his hammock and ran into three approaching soldiers armed with swords. He darted past them, but they grabbed his arm. With frantic jerks against their restraining hands, he tried to escape, only to be wrestled to the floor. Why had they detained him? Diego remembered his fight with Montoya. He gave up, feeling pressure against his wrists as a soldier bound them with rope. The soldiers directed him aft.

Diego recognized one of the flanking men, Alfonso, with his pointy black beard and square-jawed face, tucked beneath the projecting brim of a morion helmet. The carpenter tried to think up an alibi for yesterday’s fight, but couldn’t come up with an excuse. Alfonso looked at him with a disconcerting gaze.

“Diego, I say you knocked out the wrong man,” he said. “We need Montoya more than anything in this bad weather.”

“But he threw at me first,” Diego replied, trying to explain. “I was only defending myself.”

“I still think the wrong man hast suffered. The captain agrees with me and is in a rage over the incident. His best hand, demobilized in these unpredictable seas. Thou should have reconciled with him.”

“Reconcile with a brute, Alfonso? He threw at me first. I gave him a just return.”

Alfonso, grimacing above his chest plate of armor, escorted Diego past racing sailors. He stopped the carpenter amidships at a wooden hatch between cannons. Soldiers pried open a lid with swords, tossed a rope down into a chute, and took off Diego’s bindings. The well, a square-cornered descent, held a small compartment in one of its walls: the brig. It could be seen, even under the dank candlelight, and the small door on it stood open, awaiting a fresh prisoner for its hellish confines.

“Two hours in the brig,” Alfonso said, frowning at Diego’s predicament. He handed him a key. Although pitch darkness had always been the frightful aspect of such a descent into an abyss, other terrors, like suffocation under nauseous stenches rising from rotten casks, made such a climb an excruciating ordeal.

“I will climb down there,” Diego said, holding the key in his mouth, accepting his doom. He wrapped his body around the rope, eased himself down into the well, and felt a knot in its length with his feet. He steadied his heels against it. The pitching deck threw him against the walls of the enclosure, but his hold kept, and he looked up to see a lantern lighting a soldier bent over the hatchway.

“I’m down,” Diego said. He inserted the key into the door, turned it to lock, then, looking up, he took the key out and threw it at the soldier above him.

“Do not worry, Diego,” Alfonso hollered. Diego could only see him in shadow. “These troubles will be over soon. And again, thou will live like us, one amongst civilized men.”

A horrible remark, the carpenter thought, as he felt his way into the swollen chamber. The brig, a claustrophobic nightmare, measured the size of a crate, allowing space for a prisoner to kneel or lie down beneath a low-lying beam of rotten oak. A hole drilled into the door acted as the only source of breathable air. It allowed toxic fumes rising from the hold to vent into the chamber, causing a prisoner to choke on a miasma. He smelled the rot now, coughing against its miserable stench. He remembered the soldiers above him, awaiting confirmation of a shut door, and he closed it, hoping they had started their count.

The wait began. To avoid overexertion and undue suffering, Diego curled into a ball on the damp floor, beating time with rest. Sweat poured down his brow and chest. He took off his shirt. Even in the pitch darkness, he could not fall asleep—too many harassing elements. He hoped to be knocked out by a gruesome fume, but as he lay, breathing in short mouthfuls of the awfulness, each intake brought usable, rather than toxic clouds into his lungs. It would take an hour, maybe just another brief moment, before one of his breaths blackened his senses.

He tried thinking up revenge against Rodriguez for causing his strife. The card shark, with his black pocket and dark heart, had only brought trouble with their kinship. He envisioned Rodriguez forgiven of his sins. If only the seas had been blessed by a priest, Diego thought, transforming them into holy water, its watery deliverance would tear open Rodriguez’s black heart and cleanse it. It would take death to forgive, but to witness Rodriguez struggling amongst the swells, his body pummeled by crashing waves, and the light of God shining down on his sins, the Holy Mother would surely float down and give him pardon. Yes, even the saints, in their merciful accord, would spirit his soul away and cast his black heart into the depths.

Diego prayed not only for his mate but for the saints and Virgin Mother to ensure his own protection, for as the minutes went by, and the heat and air got to him, turning his body into a sweaty pulp, he felt he, not Rodriguez, would be the first to drown.

Thoughts of his brother, Antonio, a lawyer in the high courts of Seville, also plagued the carpenter’s reflections. Not even the lawyer could save him. Those thousands of miles of ocean separating Diego from his brother’s deliverance were like the nonsense of those countless reams of paper he worked through every day, edicts saving people from imprisonment. All of those law books, bound in stitched cloth, crowding a bookshelf in a tiny office—a sepulcher of knowledge—would drown under the clammy realities of a brig, and his brother’s desk, a fountainhead of oak, would burst open with its gushing spouts of moisture, a torn floodgate.

Diego shifted his body but only got as far as sitting in a bent position, his head tucked into his chest, for the surrounding walls, hugging him like a catacomb, prevented movement. He felt buried alive. The wood behind him, bulging into his back, groaned in distress, and the chamber, leaning to the other side, threw him against the opposite wall. He fell, spat out wooden bits, when again, the galleon heeled into a swell and threw him back.

Stormy seas, he thought. His cell, a mayhem of clamorous timbers, shoved him back and forth. Minutes sped by, and the jolts increased in intensity. Shivers wracked his body. His mind kept telling him, “The sands of the hourglass on the gun deck had run out long ago, and the soldiers had forgotten him.”

A sudden knocking hit against his door.

The cell door flew open, throwing in gusts of air. The sudden outburst smacked Diego unconscious. He awoke moments later, gasping. He felt a tug against his arm. Someone dragged him outside into the chute, forcing his hands around a braided coil. The carpenter glanced up, found Alfonso clinging to the higher end of a rope, his bearded face lit dimly by overhead lanterns, and then discovered himself dangling on the same thread. With the last of his aching strength, Diego pulled himself up the rope, following his deliverer’s lead, and got onto the gun deck. He collapsed on the floor, splaying his sweaty body on the planks, and the onboard lanterns, splashing soft light on his knotted sinews, showed the ravages it had suffered below.

Alfonso helped him to his feet.

“The squall has us,” Alfonso shouted, pointing at shut gun ports. He had traded his armor and helmet for soaked woolen garments. “We’re fighting it strong, but it’s blowing wild. The men are struggling to keep us afloat. I saw a tidal wave carry a sailor overboard. He vanished in a ripple of foam! Mother of God, bless his soul. He clung to the wave, and it swallowed him.” With a quick gesturing nod, he took up a canvas jacket, pressed it against the freed prisoner, who navigated burly arms into its sleeves. The task seemed futile, for the jacket, slippery wet, slipped off the carpenter’s tanned skin, but with further thrusts of his hands into openings, he got the wet mess on and buttoned it.

A roll from the galleon threw Diego against a cannon. He held onto the carriage, but his grip slipped away, and he fell, smacking his back against a bucket.

Anger swelled within the carpenter. He blamed Rodriguez for his plight. He got to his feet, shook off the hurt, and looked around for the card shark. Only wet faces of sailors flashed by him. He guessed the culprit had gone into hiding.

“Rodriguez?” Diego asked, hiding his fury with a curt nod. “Have you seen him? Where is he?”

Alfonso returned a blank stare.

“Topside!” screamed Diego. He ran down the aisle, clambered up a ladder, and got onto the top deck.

Chaos reigned above. Windy blasts, howling in the masts, halted Diego’s strides. He clung onto a belaying pin, a prisoner to the powerful gusts. Sailors, crowding around him, their bodies cowering under ferocious winds and hands wrapped around ropes, appeared like many lumps of exhaustion.

Others, who had found refuge amidships, their canvas jackets drenched with spray, kept a close watch on the rigging. The galleon rode the tumult with bare poles. The hungry sea, a jagged dance of foam and whitecaps, devoured the surrounding waters with colossal swells.

“It hit us like cannon!” A sailor hollered at Diego, cupping his hand for amplification, but his voice came out strained over the sea’s thunderous crash and shrieking winds. “The clouds piled high, there came lightning, and now, look,” the sailor, pointing at a wall of water, became wide-eyed when it shot to even higher climbs. “The devil take us. The English brought this bad sea!”

The galleon, dunking into a swell, threw Diego off balance. He caught himself against a belaying pin, and as he got back up, sailors assailed him.

“Flooding! Flooding!” They hollered in fright, shoving him out of the wind and down a stairway to the decks below. Sailors forced a path for the carpenter through crowds of hunkering soldiers and then led him down even more stairs. After only a few steps, Diego's feet vanished underwater. Soon, he found himself wading waist-deep in seawater amongst a dimly lit room stacked with wooden barrels.

“The Virgin Mother!” He swore between his teeth. In desperation, he pushed himself through the floods, finding a shadowy figure at the farther end of the room, his body pressed against a gushing waterfall.

When he recognized Rodriguez standing there as the sufferer, a scoundrel turned hero, Diego came up to offer more body weight against the outflow. Splashes, salty and briny, hit him cold in the face. He spat them out.

“You got a hammer!” Diego screamed, knowing they hadn’t time to lose.

“Sí, sí! In my left hand. Ay, it’s a big one.” Rodriguez cursed with a glance at the gash wetting them.

“I’m going to stuff my jacket into it. Stay!” The carpenter moved away, took off his canvas shirt, and stuffed it into the break. He knew it wouldn't be enough, but it did lessen the outflow. “Hammer!”

Both of the men, frantic, stood in wait struggling to keep their stance amid the floods. The galleon pitched into a swell, the hull buckling under the sea's pressure. Water kept pouring in around them, waist-deep, as they pressed against the hole.

Rodriguez, hesitant to move, kept hold of the hammer.

“Give me it!” Diego shouted with urgency.

The water splashed through the breach.

Rodriguez nodded, took a wedge from his trousers, plugged it into their gushing hole, and swung the hammer with a grunt. He wasn’t ready to be mourned by its tears, not when he still had some life in him. The struck wedge shifted under the force of the water between the planks, but it wasn’t enough. They needed more.

“Get oakum! More wedges!” Diego barked at the sailors who had gathered around them. He took a handful of oakum from a new arrival, his fingers numb, and stuffed it deeper into the crack, trying to push back the sea.

Rodriguez worked feverishly beside him, hammering in the wedge. The galleon pitched again, sending Diego stumbling, but he caught himself and redoubled his efforts.

“Keep it steady!” Rodriguez grunted, water splashing around them. The ship creaked and groaned, the sound of the storm blending with the roar of water pouring in. A soreness spread through Diego’s muscles, but he couldn’t stop.

With a swift motion, Diego stuck another piece of oakum into the widening crack. The water kept coming in, relentless, but the gap got narrower. The wedge Rodriguez hammered in began to settle deeper, pushing back against the pressure. Sailors continued to rush in to aid them, bringing more buckets to bale water out.

The ship rolled again, harder this time, and Diego lost his grip, slipping in the water. A sailor grabbed his arm and pulled him up.

"Faster!" Diego shouted. "We're losing time!"

Rodriguez kept silent, but his face showed determination. He swung the hammer again, driving the wedge deeper, his muscles straining against efforts. They needed something more, something stronger to fight back the sea, but the storm didn’t relent.

The galleon pitched again, this time with enough violence to throw a sailor off his feet, sending him splashing across the room. Diego’s heart sank, but there was no time to think. He took the hammer and grabbed more oakum shoving it into the gap. His muscles ached, his hands felt sore, but still he didn’t stop. Each swing of the hammer, each driven wad of oakum felt like a victory.

“Steady! Keep it steady!” Rodriguez shouted.

Diego nodded, gritting his teeth. Every second went by slow. The ship groaned again, and for a moment, it seemed like the entire hull might collapse. But then, with a final swing of the hammer, the oakum sealed the gap. Water flows fell to a trickle, then cutoff, leaving their room with sizeable fills that gave off acrid smells of brine and sweat.

Diego let out a gasp, his hands shaking as he dropped the hammer into the water. His heart still pounded in his chest, and his body ached from struggles, but for the first time in what felt like hours, he knew he'd saved everyone.

The sailors, tired and wet, continued to bale water out, but the worst had past. Diego and Rodriguez shared a grim look, neither of them speaking, but both knew it wasn't over. The storm raged on, but for now, they had won a clash against it.

Diego wiped his brow, still struggling to catch his breath. His thoughts went back to Spain, to his brother, the lawyer of the high courts behind his desk, but the storm brought him back to his senses. The San Felipe wasn’t out of danger. But for now, they had got control over a problem.

The creaking hull, as if vying against a respite, made the stagnant pools surrounding them a lot more menacing and dangerous. How horrible if the floor gave out and he got stuck underwater, he thought. The flood levels, though less turbulent, still swirled around his waist. There could always be that chance! He decided to ignore such horrors—it wouldn't help in their survival.

Rodriguez grabbed a bucket, sank it into the water, and made his way toward the stairway. He wiped his face with the back of his hand, grinning through exhaustion. “Well, if the sea wants to swallow us, it’s going to have to work a lot harder, eh?”

Diego gave a half-hearted laugh, his body still tense. “It’s not done with us yet, mate.”

Rodriguez clapped him on the shoulder. “Ah, but what a fine thing it would be to die in a gale’s embrace. No one’d ever be able to say we went out quietly.” He chuckled and reached for another bucket, handing it to the carpenter. “You know, Diego, I’ve heard it said that the storm’s a castellana. All fury and fire, but once you’ve had her, you never forget.”

Diego shook his head, lips curling into a wry grin as he scooped up a bucketful. “And I’ve heard it’s best to keep away from women like that, eh?”

Rodriguez laughed, a sharp, raspy sound that barely reached over the storm’s howl. They made it onto the gundeck. He swung the bucket toward the scuppers, tossing water overboard with an ease born of repetition. “Ay, you might be right, but I reckon this one's got her claws in us now.”

The ship groaned again, this time with more ominous sounds. The carpenter flung his bucketful into the scuppers and followed Rodriguez topside, hauling an empty as he went. The stairs were slippery, thick with a slick layer of seawater, and Diego had to grip the railing to steady himself. When they reached the upper deck, the storm’s fury slammed into them. The sky hung black, sheets of rain slashing across the decks. Winds howled like a banshee amongst the bare masts, and the sea rose and fell with violent symmetry.

Diego stood, staring at wave crests crashing against the galleon, their sprays high enough to make him worry. The ship rode another tidal wave, its deck pitching at such a tilt that he had to brace himself against a mast to keep from falling.

Sailors rushed by, carrying buckets of water.

“No peace up here, is there?” Rodriguez shouted over the wind, his voice loud with humor. “Like a bull in a butcher’s shop, eh, this sea!”

Diego gripped his bucket tighter, watching in awe as the ocean tossed waves higher and higher. The swells seemed to stretch before him into the sky like monstrous hills of water. “By the saints!” he shouted, his voice rising against the storm’s roar. “What is this madness? Is the sea angry enough to devour us?”

Rodriguez laughed again, his expression wild but defiant. “Ah, let it come! Let the storm rage as it will. We’re sailors, Diego—this is our fate!”

Diego’s voice broke in his chest. He wanted to shout, to curse the storm, to challenge it, but instead, he did what sailors do—he fought back. He found pools of wash forming nearby and went to work, hauling his next bucketful and tossing it over the side. A comber hit against the bulwarks, throwing spray across the deck.

For a moment, it felt as though the sea might rise up and drown them, but then, just as quickly, the waves began to subside.

Rodriguez slapped him on the back, nearly sending him sprawling. “Ha! You see? We’re still here. The sea’s no match for a good sailor and a stubborn heart.”

Diego couldn’t help but smile, despite fatigue gnawing at him. “Si, Rodriguez. Still here, for now.”

The galleon pitched again, and their work went on below decks. But Diego, though worn out, felt something stir within him—a grim kind of hope. For all its fury, the storm had not broken them. Not yet. And as long as they could keep the water from rising, they would fight and win. They would survive.