Hostile Shores (48 page)

One mile of separation, and the Spaniard began to brail up his main course against the risk of catching fire from the discharges from his own guns.

Half a mile between them, and it appeared that both warships would pass each other, starboard-to-starboard, at about two or three hundred yards’ distance. Lewrie looked to his guns, drawn up to the port sills and ready to be run out as soon as the gun-ports opened, their elevating quoins drawn back from underneath the breeches for a high angle. Could they elevate high enough to savage the Spaniard’s sails and cripple her?

“A point free, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said, his mouth as dry as dust, of a sudden.

“Point free, aye, sir.”

“Just before we open upon her…,” Lewrie further said, having a last-minute inspiration, “haul in the lee braces and flat the sails to the wind. That’ll lay us over t’loo’rd a few degrees more.”

“Aye, sir,” Westcott replied, sounding mystified.

“Once the last gun fires, ease ’em again.”

“Ah! I see. Aye, sir!” Lt. Westcott answered.

A quarter-mile apart, and the Spanish frigate at last began to swing up her gun-ports. Lewrie counted twelve of them down her starboard side, rapidly calculating. Twenty-four great-guns on her main deck, two bow chasers, perhaps two stern chasers, and at least six lesser guns on her quarterdeck …
She’s a thirty-four?
he thought.

“Mister Spendlove!” Lewrie roared to
Reliant
’s waist. “Open yer ports and run out! Stand by to fire as you bear, at the highest elevation! Mister Simcock? You can stand up, now!”

She
won’t
wheel cross our bows, not now, she’s left it too late!
Lewrie thought; And,
the Dons don’t have carronades!

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

“We will be haulin’ our wind, as soon as the last gun is fired, Mister Spendlove!” Lewrie cautioned. “Serve the larboard battery, and have spare hands re-load the starboard guns with solid shot!”

“Aye, sir!” Spendlove shouted back, and Lt. Merriman raised his hat in sign that he had also heard the order and would comply.

“It looks like we’ll pass within a cable’s range, sir,” Lt. Westcott pointed out, his voice gruff. “Perhaps
less
than two hundred yards. Any moment, now.”

“Stand ready!” Lewrie shouted to his gun crews, and the brace-tenders on the gangways.

He’s a proper little Spaniard, at least. He’ll do things the honourable way,
Lewrie thought;
Religious, too
!

That false British flag the enemy frigate had flown was struck down, and the horizontally-striped red-gold-red flag of Spain with the royal coat of arms in the centre of the middle gold stripe was soaring up in its place. At the same time, a large wooden crucifix was being hauled up to rest against the front face of the frigate’s fore course.

“Haul taut, the lee braces, Mister Westcott,” he barked.

“Haul taut, lee braces … ease weather braces!” Lt. Westcott yelled forward with a speaking-trumpet. and the yardarms of all three masts, linked together on each mast, were swung more fore-and-aft to point their larboard tips toward the larboard stern quarter, flattening the courses, tops’ls, and t’gallants against the wind. The deck heeled over to leeward, only a few degrees, but …

Maybe just enough!
Lewrie thought.

“As
you
bear … Fire!”
he roared, and the world exploded.

The 12-pounder bow chaser barked, then the 18-pounders down the starboard side went off with louder roars, each about a second after the first, thundering back from the gun-ports with their carriage trucks squealing, followed mere seconds later by the deep booms from the 32-pounder carronades and the sharper cracks from the quarterdeck 9-pounders, amid an instant bank of sour-reeking powder smoke, almost so thick that it was hard to make out the bulwark next to him. The frigate juddered and trembled under his feet, not just to the recoil of her own guns, but to the slamming impacts of Spanish roundshot in reply.
Reliant
was punctured! He could hear the scream of wood!

“
Wear,
Mister Westcott!” Lewrie yelled, finally spotting his First Lieutenant as the clouds of powder smoke thinned a bit.

“Hard up your helm!” Westcott told the helmsmen. “Stations to wear ship! Ease lee braces, haul taut weather braces, and get some drive back on her as we fall off!”

Lewrie looked out-board for the Spanish frigate, but she, too, was all but invisible in her own drifting cloud of spent powder, and that was wafting down-wind toward
Reliant.
At least he could see his own decks, noting that Spendlove had shifted the bulk of his gunners to larboard, leaving a few men from each gun under Lt. Merriman to see to re-loading the starboard battery. A stream of ship’s boys dashed past Lewrie, bearing the fire-proof leather cartridge cylinders to feed the muzzles of the quarterdeck guns. Jessop was among them, saddled as a “new-come” with the heavier charge for a 32-pounder carronade, his feet bare for greater traction on the sanded decks and ladderways, and a neckerchief bound over his ears to save his hearing. He gave Lewrie a brief grin as he whisked by.

Reliant
was coming round, pointing her stern to the smoke bank from her own guns, and the Spaniard’s, the wooden balls strung together in the parrels crying out as the yards were swung round. With a loud whoosh, the spanker over the quarterdeck swung over to starboard as the frigate completed her wear.

“Starboard battery re-loaded and ready, sir!” Lt. Merriman reported from the waist. “Spare hands, tail onto the run-out tackle for the larboard guns!”

“Prime your guns!” Spendlove insisted. “Open the ports, and run out!”

“There she is, sir!” Westcott cried, pointing off the larboard quarter, coughing a bit on the rotten-egg fumes that still lingered from the guns’ discharges.

The Spanish frigate had run on for a time after her broadside, slower to begin her turn off the wind. To re-engage, though, she did not have to wear but merely alter course Sou’easterly. That put both ships twice as far apart, with
Reliant
on a course almost the reciprocal of her original heading, now bound almost Due East. They would converge again in another minute or so.

“I think we chewed her rigging up a fair bit,” Lewrie said after a quick look, going to the binnacle cabinet for his telescope.

“I see pieces missing, sir,” Mr. Caldwell, the Sailing Master, said with a chortle. “Her fore t’gallant’s gone, her main tops’l’s shot to ribbons, and her main top-mast shrouds appear half-shot through.”

“Good Lord, we’ve be-headed Jesus!” Westcott exclaimed.

A piece of grape shot or some other bit of ironmongery which they had fired had decapitated the figure on the crucifix hung aloft in her rigging! The rest of it was still swinging like a pendulum.

“Half her stays’ls are gone by the board, too,” Lewrie said, lowering his telescope. “She’s about three hundred yards off, now? Almost too far for the carronades, but … we’ll make things hot for them.” He went forward to look down into the waist. “The larboard guns, Mister Spendlove! Serve her a broadside, ’twixt wind and water!”

“Cock your locks! By broadside … Fire!” Spendlove roared.

Every larboard gun lit off in a spectacular bellowing, rattling the air in Lewrie’s lungs and making his heart flutter, and causing a ringing in his ears despite the plugs of wax he’d inserted. Once more, the enemy frigate was blotted out by a fresh fog bank of reeking greyish-yellow powder smoke.

Three shots every two minutes,
Lewrie grimly thought, sure of his gunners’ proficiency, gained through un-ceasing drill and live-fire practice. He’d loved the guns, from his first exposure to them as a raw Midshipman, loved the thunder, the power, and the very stink of them! As harsh as the sour reek was that wafted back on him, he could almost think it as bewitching as a lover’s cologne!

More guns slammed, and his ship trembled and shook as Spanish roundshot struck home. The anti-boarding nets hoisted on the larboard side twitched and thrashed, a section of bulwark and hammocks stored in the stanchions were flung apart, and two Marines were shot from their posts on the gangway to land like tossed-aside dolls on the planking in the waist. There was a
Rawrk!
of rivened wood as one ball struck between two 18-pounders, flinging a cloud of splinters at sailors re-loading their pieces. Something heavy hummed over the quarterdeck like a gigantic bumblebee, thankfully missing high. The cloud of smoke from the Spanish frigate was punctured by quick amber and red flashes as her guns fired, now as blind as Lewrie’s.

“Loblolly men, here!” Spendlove was yelling. “Clear those men away! Run out! Prime! Cock your locks! Wait for the smoke to clear, and … on the up-roll …
Fire!
”

Before his view was blotted out, again, Lewrie got a quick impression of their foe’s condition which allowed him a brief twitch of a smile. The Spanish frigate’s weakened top-mast stays had given way, and her brailed-up main royal and her main t’gallant sails had swung over like a felled pine tree onto her starboard tops’l and yard, fouling her lee braces and the work of the men in her main mast fighting top, in a jumble of spars, canvas, and rigging.

They’ll have t’chop all that away,
Lewrie thought, pleased at how that would slow her down. In his head, he sketched their convergence—
Reliant
going East and the Spaniard going Sou’east—anticipating that his own ship could be at least one hundred yards ahead of the enemy when they closed. Could he be faster, he could contemplate bow-raking her by turning up-wind a few points.

Or, she could haul her wind near Due South and rake
us
right up the arse!
he realised with a shock; This
Spanish captain is eager enough for a fight, more so than most of ’em!

The early morning wind was cause for fretting, too. It hadn’t been all that fresh a breeze to start with, and after a few minutes of gunfire, it could be reduced by half, or so his experience told him. He could feel the change on his face and cheeks, and up from below his feet;
Reliant
was wallowing much less livelier than before.

“Cast of the log!” he shouted aft.

“Aye, sir!” Midshipman Shannon replied, taking his own fumbling time to cast the triangular drag and line over the stern, time it with his pocket watch, then nip it at the one-minute mark. “Five and one half knots, sir!” he finally reported.

Reliant
had gotten another broadside off, by then, and her labouring gun crews were running out for another by that time, the hands streaked with sweat and powder smut, and the powder monkeys scampering like panting hounds to keep the supply of propellants timely. Idlers who assisted the Surgeon and his Mates down below in the orlop cockpit were scurrying with a mess table for a carrying board which bore a savagely wounded man, bound for a hatchway. Fresh sand was being scattered onto pools of spilled blood where the Spanish roundshot had penetrated the ship’s side between two guns.

There came a stuttering series of booms from within the smoke cloud, and more flashes of red and amber as the Spanish ship fired a ragged broadside.

“Gun-captains!” Lt. Spendlove ordered. “Aim for the flashes! On the up-roll … by broadside …
Fire!
”

It was utter cacophony; their guns erupting, the Spanish guns roaring, with shot splashes close aboard and rising in feathers of spray and foam, balls thudding into the hull, followed by distant thuds and parroty
Rawrk
s of punctured planking and shattered timbers as their own shot struck home!
Reliant
’s guns were hot, now, leaping back in recoil, even the 18-pounders leaving the decks six inches or more, and staggering down to slue almost sideways before being snagged by their stout breeching ropes, making their gun crews hop for their lives. One 18-pounder, the anchoring ring-bolt of her breeching rope weakened by the earlier hull puncture, swung completely round to face fore-and-aft, and rolled amidships, crushing its loader!

“Secure that gun! Chock it, lash it to the foremast trunk!”

“Loblolly men, here! Quickly!” Lt. Merriman called.

Bosun’s Mate Wheeler knelt by the loader, gave him a shake or two, slapped his face, then shook his head. He waved another sailor from the idle starboard battery to come help, then together they bore him to an open gun-port and put him over the side. It was bad for the crew’s morale to leave dead men strewn on the decks, or piled up like a day’s rabbit hunt round the foot of a mast. It was best to dispose of them quickly, if the surgeons could do them no good, to be mourned by their mess-mates later. If wounded so badly but still awake, it was a mercy to knock them out with a maul before disposal.

Lewrie jerked his attention away from that scene, and looked out-board, searching for a clear view of their foe. The thick smoke thinned a little as their own bank wafted alee, and the smoke from the Spanish frigate that was blown down on them didn’t seem quite as thick as before.

There she was, still half-indistinct, no more than two hundred yards off, a bit ahead of
Reliant
’s beam!

“How the Devil’s she out-footin’ us?” he spat. “Half her sails are shot away! Give us a point free, helmsmen!”

“Carpenter’s sent a runner, sir,” Lt. Westcott said, “he says there’s nigh a foot of water in the bilges, and we’ve taken some hits on the waterline. He asks for spare hands to plug them.”

“Aye, give him four, if ye can spare ’em,” Lewrie agreed. “I wish t’God I’d served that bastard a
second
broadside in his rigging, just t’slow him down a bit more.”

“By broadside … on the up-roll …
Fire!
” Lt. Spendlove was screeching, his voice gone harsh and raspy, and the guns erupted with a roar, leaping back from the ports once more. Thuds and
Rawrk
s were heard distinctly from the Spanish frigate, and ragged star-shaped holes blossomed down her starboard side before powder smoke made her disappear.