Spanish Arms

Tue 3-Jun-1603 continued...  (23-May)

Roma [Chris] stuck his head over rail.

"They want us all on board," he yelled.

So, each one came up on the bosun's chair: Art [Jeff], Sean [Shane], Ab Siddy [Darryl], Elrick [Ian], Thomas [Kevin], Baron [Deacon] and Patrick (the O'Neill agent).  Elrick [Ian] then secured the shallop to the stern of the Santa Clara - the name of the Spanish frigate - and then he joined them on board.

Captain Augusto Gonzales Corrida gave each of them a big wet kiss, then a bottle of wine.

Roma's gypsy mate was called Matias Garcia Lopez, and everything they said was translated from English through Roma into Romany, spoken to Matias who translated it into Spanish.

"Si!"

Art solemnly gave the order to Roma: "Execute Order 66."

Roma solemnly repeated: "Executați comanda șaizeci și șase."

Matias then repeated to the Captain: "Ejecute el orden sesenta y seis."

"Si!"

Order 66 was given to the group by the O'Neill rebels and it was the secondary landing spot for the arms that the Santa Clara was carrying. This was the village of Fallis.

They spent the night on-board.

Wed 4-Jun

Back in the shallop, they headed to the river Stick and to Fallis.

There was an English packet [small ship; this is the origin of the word "packet"] sailing down the coast. So, they waited out at sea a bit, until it was out of sight - Roma climbed the mast and made a rope harness so he could stay up there - and then entered the Stick's mouth. Fallis was "around the corner", so the packet passing on the open sea could not see up the river. Although the Santa Clara had too deep a draught and could not tie to the Fallis wharf, it could make it up the river a fair way on a high tide. This would allow it to be unloaded into Fallis using jolly boats and tenders.

The group reconnoitered Fallis and Patrick made contact with the O'Neill representative there. The whole village would help with the unload. (There were no English here).

But there was not enough time to do the delivery today, so they left Fallis and headed back out to the Santa Clara.

They stayed on board that night.

Thu 5-Jun

There were storm force winds in the morning and mountainous seas. They were glad they were in a large ship rather than in the shallop (or even a dory).

It was too rough to contemplate anything, so they stayed at sea all day.

Fri 6-Jun

The seas were still mountainous, so they took the risk that the packet would not be sailing today and headed in to the mouth of the Stick, and anchored there late afternoon. The intent was to head up the river in the morning.

Sat 7-Jun

The seas had dropped, so with the help of the shallop and a good sounding-man, the Santa Clara edged up the river and dropped anchor near Fallis. Here, they unloaded the supply of weapons, gunpowder and two bronze cannons.

While this was going on, Elrick and Art stayed out in the mouth of the Stick on the shallop, and watched for the English packets to sail past. They needed to time to gaps between packets - there were two - and the tide, to make sure that the Santa Clara was not seen by the English when it was to leave.
(The risk was, of course, the two English warships at the mouth of the Corke harbour, which could be sailed down to this point in half a day.)

Snaphance mechanism

It all proved successful, the Spanish said their good-byes, and the Santa Clara left undetected. Captain Corrida presented each party member with another bottle of wine.

They stayed the night in Fallis.

Sun 8-Jun

Catriona and a band of O'Neills arrived. She paid the party their agreed reward. Which was a powder keg of gunpowder and 100 musket balls. Art was lent a snaphance (precursor to a flintlock) musket to replace his aged match-lock. The Shallop was now theirs too.

Help the Rebels

Sat 31-May-1603 (21-May)

The group was assembled in the Terryhaven barn, and being addressed by Catriona O'Neill: Art [Jeff], Elrick [Ian], Ab Siddy [Darryl], Baron [Deacon], Roma [Chris], and the new chap Sean Gallagher [Shane]

The shallop "Urchin"

The party agreed to become mercenaries and to work for the O'Neill rebels. Catriona's group recently had two sailors, but these men had been killed a few days ago. Since the party had a sailor (Elrick), the plan was that he would take his group and sail the O'Neill's shallop "Urchin" out to sea to intercept a Spanish ship. Here they would pass on a message about the loss of the two Spanish ships yesterday, and then tell the Spaniards to "execute order 66". The theory was that this ship had the arms and munitions destined for the O'Neill rebels, and that they could still be delivered.

Catriona had been reliably told by Thomas that the party had a fluent Spanish speaker among them (him), but this turned out to not be the case. And it was doubtful that there were any English speakers on board. However, she happened to know that the Spaniards had a pikey in their crew, and Roma could speak Romani. So, communication would be possible, albeit through double-translation.

As a reward for success, the group could have a powder keg with 100 shots' worth of gunpowder (five quid) and the shallop itself (worth maybe three pounds).

While Elrick was away, Art asked Catriona to write (and to eventually deliver) a letter to Esther in Corke, to hold on to the Pig Peeker until they returned one day (and not to feed the delicious pickled pork to house guests, pig tongue being a Corke delicacy).

Elrick and three O'Neill rangers traipsed over the north headland to the next bay north and to the shallop Urchin which was moored there. He then sailed back to Terryhaven.

Catriona then gave Elrick a crude map and pointed to the area of ocean where she would expect the Spanish to be waiting. Elrick's innate navigational sense would prove to be useful in this case.

Then she assigned one of the O'Neill rangers to the party, a fellow called Patrick O'Shaughnessy, they boarded the shallop, and headed out into the great Corke harbour.

At the head of the harbour, the two English warships were still there, but they didn't pay any heed to the party's shallop. So the party headed south, keeping close to the shore, which was all cliffs along this coast.

As it was dusk, they headed to the only viable spot which was a narrow bay cut of out the cliffs, with a little stony beach. But there were already two jolly boats here.

It was a group of English sailors and ten marines from one of the warships at the heads, and they were filling up water barrels from the stream here.

The party had no choice but to pull their shallop along side.

The English lieutenant and two marines came over. Thomas got in a word first and told the soldiers that they were a travelling troupe of entertainers called "TTTT: Thomas's Travelling Troupe of Tempests". The lieutenant was impressed, and they got to chatting. Thomas was "the molly", Roma "the chaddy knife-thrower", Ab "the Abomination" ("that is one good mask, sir"), Sean "the Dwarf", Elrick "the Dancer", and Art "the Archer".  The lieutenant expected a show, and in return the party could have some rum.

The show went over pretty well. Thomas managed to not muck up his flageolet. Art and Sean's shooting was impressive. Art even borrowed a musket from one of the marines and shot an apple out from between Sean's legs. Sean them repeated the trick on Art with his heavy crossbow. [ "One of these days you are going to roll a -4." ] Ab's hideous leering managed to scare the sailors. Roma's knife throwing was adequate. Elrick's dancing was appalling. But the Lieutenant had ordered extra rum rations during the show, so the audience was in a happy mood, and took any stuff-ups in good grace.

After his performance session, Ab camouflaged and sneaked into the sailors' area and rolled the rum barrel out up the stream and hid it behind some rocks and shrubbery. Then he filled his bottle with the 120 proof rum and drank himself into an unconscious stupor (back on the beach), after soiling himself par excellence.

There was a great hue and cry when the rum was discovered missing. The Lieutenant obviously suspected the entertainers, so he threatened the party: "If the rum doesn't turn up by morning, I'll have you all shot."

So, they spent the next uncomfortable few hours searching in the dark. Sure enough, they found the rum around midnight. And peace was restored.

Sun 1-Jun 

The English left early in the morning, and headed north back to their ship.

The party headed south. Elrick did his Weather Sense ability: there was a big storm coming, so they made for another tiny bay further to the south to wait it out.

Mon 2-Jun

Storm. Hunkered down, safe in the bay.

Tue 3-Jun

The wind and the rain had subsided. There was still a big sea, but Elrick thought it would be fine "waves only two storeys tall". So he sailed south. Most of the group were sick. Thomas, hunched at the prow, sang Fierce Raged the Tempest as the huge waves broke over the shallop.

After many hours, skillful navigation and superb dead-reckoning, Elrick got to the spot where he thought the other ship ought to be. It wasn't, so he started circling.

They were at the point where they needed to make the decision to return to land (which was a dark smudge on the distant horizon), when eagle-eyed Roma spotted a sail. So they hoisted the Irish flag [see the green flag in the shallop picture], and Elrick turned the shallop and headed to it.

It was indeed a Spanish ship, drifting with a sea anchor out, so they pulled along side.

"Hello?!" shouted Art.

A head popped up.

"¡¿Quién coño eres?!" he shouted.

"Speaky ze Engleesh?" ventured Ab.


"¡¿No sabes que hay una tormenta?!"

Roma shouted in Romani to see of the Romani speaker was there.

But only "¡Yo cago en la leche de tu puta madre!" was replied.

Eventually, after more streams of mocking Spanish, another bunch of heads popped up, and eventually one spoke in Romani: "Sar shan?"

A bosun's chair was lowered, and Roma was hauled on board.