A short story by Colin Myles-Hook, based on a previously unexplained shipwreck

Dingle Peninsula with Blasket Islands and Stromboli Rock

The young man lay curled up in a corner of his cell, huddled under a blanket which he had been given. He could not stop shivering, but whether this was due to fear, delayed shock, or the damp cold, would have been anyone's guess. Probably all three. Nearby a hunk of bread and a flagon of water lay untasted - except by rats. He did not feel like eating.

Occasional sounds reached him from outside his cell: odd voices in a strange tongue, or the tramp of soldiers' boots. Now he heard marching feet approaching, the bang of a wooden bolt being slid back, and the rattle of a key in the lock. The door creaked open.

'Come here' said a man, with a gesture which conveyed a clear meaning to his foreign prisoner. The lad got to his feet and limped forward. He had been marched about three leagues after his capture the previous day, and his bare feet had been cut and bruised by the rough, stony road.

The small party climbed stairs and emerged into a room which was sparsely furnished with a rough table and a few broken chairs. A fire smoked in a sulky manner in a hearth in one corner. It looked as though it had but recently been lit, and was still coming to terms with the damp turf sods which were piled upon it.

From behind the table a nobleman glowered fiercely at the prisoner. His mud stained clothes and flushed face showed that he had been riding hard in the recent past. On either side of him sat a clerk, who twirled his quill in his fingers, and two other gentlemen.

Sir William Herbert was not in a good mood. He had risen before dawn and endured a ride of some forty miles over boggy lanes and mountain tracks in order to reach this town of Dyngle from his home in the Castle of the Island.

He was still new to the country, having been granted an estate only the previous year, and he had not yet come to terms with its accursed climate and the obduracy, deviousness and doubtful loyalty of his new tenants. And his thirteen thousand acres (purchased at fourpence an acre), which had initially seemed just reward for his loyal service to his sovereign, had proved on nearer acquaintance to contain a deal of marshy fens and upland bogs. Conditions in this dilapidated old castle, confiscated from the traitor Earl of Desmond three years since, did not improve his temper.

'Who is this?' barked Sir William.

'He sayeth his name to be John Antonio, your honour' replied the captain of the guard, respectfully pulling on his forelock.

'Dost speak the Queen's English, boy?' The prisoner looked confused.

'Entiende usted el inglés?' asked one of the other men at the table, in halting Spanish.

'Si, yes, I speak little the English,' the lad replied, giving a shy smile. No one growing up on the waterfront of Genoa, as he had, could but be acquainted with the languages of many nations. These men, of course, were not to know that Spanish was not his mother tongue.

His questioner looked very relieved. He had been roped in as interpreter on the basis of his boasts in the past that he spoke Spanish but, truth to tell, his knowledge of it was very fragmentary.

Although it was a slow process no threat of torture was needed to get the prisoner to tell his story; in fact, he seemed only too glad to unburden himself of it.

September 1588. A few battered remnants of the Invincible Armada of Spain lay sheltering from a nor'westerly gale in a quiet anchorage between the White Strand and Beg-Inish, in the lee of the Great Blasket. A shower of bitterly cold rain swept in from the ocean and passed on over the mountains to the eastward, leaving the sun to light the red and purple heather on their slopes. As the sky cleared to the north, a ship's topsails appeared. Sailors, who have been interested in other vessels since the first man floated down the Euphrates on a tree trunk, watched with interest as she drew closer, rolling heavily and almost vanishing in the troughs of the swell.

'Is she one of ours?' was the question which everyone asked.

At last the ship soared skywards on the back of a heavy roller and came clearly into view. A cry went up around the small fleet, 'She's the Santa Maria de la Rosa, lads.' Everyone's heart was lightened. Here was another survivor. His Magnificence the Prince of Ascule was aboard her; a fine commander, a man you could trust. He would get her home.

Home. Those aboard the old Santa Maria hardly dared to think about it. Blue skies and warmth in the sun. To hell with these cold, wet, stormy, Godforsaken islands on the rim of the civilised world. Why, in the name of God, would anyone want to invade them anyway? Fierce, savage inhabitants: Madre de Dios, a man would have to be drunk all the time to exist in such a climate! At the end of this trip they would go ashore and buy farms, or marry widows who owned bodegas.

But, for a change, the wind was on the quarter and there was open water ahead. True, their Pilot was a bit vague as to exactly where they were, but then he had never really recovered from the shock of an incident earlier in the voyage. They had rounded the north west corner of this land, and he had announced that there was now clear water, a point to the west of south, all the way to Spain; then, two days later, a line of cliffs, stretching west as far as the eye could see, had appeared out of the murk ahead. They did not exist, he insisted; it was a trick of the light, he cried - a mirage, a bank of fog. They could not exist; they were not shown on his chart, which was the most up-to-date one available. It was accurate to the smallest detail; state of the art.

But they must by now be somewhere near the south west extremity of Irlanda. Once through the calmer waters of this wide sound they would be on the pig's back.

Captains and Dons on the Santa Maria de la Rosa exchanged courtesies with their counterparts aboard the anchored vessels, as she swept past on her southerly course. They knew one of the ships well: the St John of Lisboa, under the command of Almirante don Martin di Ricalde, at 1100 tons only slightly larger than their own galleon. There was another vessel of about 400 tons anchored near her, a small bark also. The seamen of the three ships were busy filling water barricoes from streams which trickled off the hill slopes and onto the sandy beach of the island.

The ships passed too far apart for humorists to shout their customary witticisms. 'We're all from Santander on deck here, but we have Christian Officers!' Two or three seamen trailed ropes' ends over the side in sight of their weatherbound colleagues in the internationally recognised signal for 'Do you want a tow?' and men turned to their mates and said things like 'José Miguel from Gijon is on that one. We sailed together to the Indies in '85. What a man for the women! Why, I tell you . . . . '

The anchored fleet was left astern. Beside the helmsman stood Fransisco de Monona, the Pilot, a small harassed man. Near him his son, John Antonio, was memorising every detail of the passing coast - as he must if he was to become a pilot like his father. He was aware of the hurtful remarks passed amongst the crew about the way his beloved father had nearly run them ashore on a rocky coast further north. But what could those peasants know about the vagaries of magnetic variation in these latitudes? They had not sighted the Pole Star for weeks. How could they check it?

The coastline was flying past: the tide must be running south. Ahead, in the centre of the strait, a line of breakers marked a tide rip.

'Watch your steering,' advised the Pilot, 'her head may fall off one way or another in those rips.'

A grunt from the helmsman, a tall gaunt man, with big black whiskers. He had no need of such orders, particularly from this fussy Genoese incompetent - Columbus as the hands called the pilot behind his back, with some irony. He had steered ships through heavier rips than those trifles ahead. His horny toes curled slightly, as though to dig themselves into the wooden deck, and a gust of wind ruffled the black chest hairs which escaped in profusion from his ragged shirt. A miraculous medal on a bit of tarred string was almost lost amongst them. He was not watching the swinging compass, but was keeping the bow in line with a high, bold headland in the far distance.

The galleon's forefoot was in the rips now. She suddenly shuddered and stopped dead in the water. Everyone on deck was flung forward. From below came a splintering sound, as though from a falling tree, shortly followed by high-pitched screams. She spun rapidly to starboard, as the wind and tide pivoted her stern round whatever was holding her forward. She was already down by the bow. Now she lay over on her beam ends. Rumblings and heavy thumps came from below as guns broke loose and careered across the rapidly canting decks. The starboard shrouds started to carry away. Men were swept into the sea by falling gear; they clutched desperately at ropes' ends, gratings, and whatever might float. Those below were overwhelmed before they could scramble up companionways to the deck.

The Prince had come up from his quarters to see the anchored vessels. For a few seconds the group clustered round him on the starboard side of the quarterdeck was stunned, then a man cried, 'The boat, gentlemen, the boat! Save the Prince!' and they raced towards the maindeck, where the boat was lashed down. The Pilot had remained rooted to the spot, eyes and mouth open in horror. As they passed him, one of the Prince's companions, Mantua, the Captain of the Infantry, turned on the hapless man. 'You treasonous Genoese bastard, Monona' he roared, 'you've done it this time!' There was a flash of sunlight on a Toledo blade, then the Captain was kicking the body away. It rolled and tumbled across the listing deck, looking no more aghast at death than it had done at life.

The sea is no respecter of rank. A prince, even though he may be the base son of the King of Spain himself, may drown as quickly as a humble grummet*. The dons and gentlemen were still hacking at the ropes which held the boat as the sea swirled over their heads. The Prince, a pale, handsome, slender man of 28 years, swallowed water while praying to the saints to save him; Don Pedro was drowned like a rat in his cabin; Don Diego was swept away on the tide and never seen again until his body was washed ashore onto the rocks of Glanleam Bay in Valentia Harbour. He was buried on the steep, wooded hillside above his landing place, a worn stone cross marks his grave to this day.

Don Francisco swam strongly for the distant shore until his strength gave out; Michael Ocquendo, the Governor of the ship, was a sick man and went to his damp grave with quiet dignity; and so the litany of the dying went on - 70 gentlemen of account; 100 gentlemen; John Rice, an Irish captain; Francis Roch, an Irishman; and some 400 other wretches, their names unrecorded by history.

Away to the north west, many eyes were still on the Santa Maria. To the horror of those watching she disintegrated as suddenly as though her powder magazine had blown up. Within minutes all that remained of her was a scatter of wreckage being carried off by the tide into the wide bay to the southward.

Out of nearly 600 souls on board only the Pilot's son, John Antonio de Monona, survived. He managed to find a couple of planks which had torn loose from the ship; these he paddled to shore. There he was captured, and was marched across country to captivity at Dingle, where he told his story.

Sir William Herbert dined but indifferently that evening, on a pair of boiled salt mackerel, and a roast from a cow which had evidently spent much of its miserable existence clambering about the mountains. There was, however an excellent bottle of wine to accompany the meat - Spanish, he had judged, but there were times when questions were best left unasked.

The meal concluded, he commenced a study of his clerk's notes by the smoky light of a couple of cheap candles. He had liked the informant, young John Antonio. An open, honest fellow. He would plead for leniency for him. He checked the nib of his pen, flattened a parchment with his left hand, and started to write:

'On Tuesday the 10th September 1588, there was wrecked in the sound of the Blasquets, a ship called Our Lady of the Rosary, of 1000 tons, (one of the Spanish Armada, which was sent to invade England) . . . .'

For almost four centuries there was controversy about this shipwreck. The vessel had obviously hit one of the Stromboli Rocks, but Admiralty charts showed a least depth of 1½ fathoms; even had it been low water, the Santa Maria de la Rosa should have cleared them - just.

Then, c.1960, an underwater expedition was mounted to search for her remains. The divers found cannon and many other artifacts, but they also found something else. On the summit of the pinnacle which forms the outermost Stromboli rock, stood a further needle of rock about a metre high. It was not a very dramatic feature, but it had meant the difference between life and death to the crew of the Santa Maria de la Rosa: one corpse for every 1.7mm of rock.

Stromboli Rock is named after hms Stromboli which struck the rock when surveying in 1858. Little damage was sustained.

© C. Myles-Hook, 1995