I was lying on the hard wet planks of the deck of a ship that was heaving up and down sickeningly. I smelled the salt tang of the sea and the stench of vomit and human sweat. Our little cockleshell bobbed in the choppy waters of the Channel so hard that we were all soaked to the skin from the spray coming over the gunwales.“Up! Wake up!” a clear tenor voice called. “All hands to their stations!”Scrambling to my feet, I saw my crewmates staring across the water at the awesome procession of Spanish men-of-war heading through the Channel for Gravelines, on the Belgian shore.“There they are, lads,” said our skipper, pointing. “Take a good look at the Pope-kissing bastards.”He was young to be a ship’s captain, but then our ship was just an unarmed riverboat, wallowing in the swells of the heaving sea. As I looked around at the rest of us, I saw that they were all barely old enough to start their beards.How or why I was here I didn’t know. My last memory was of Arthur and his victory over Aelle and his Saxon host at Amesbury fort.
