Текст книги "Hostile Shores"
Автор книги: Dewey Lambdin
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Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 27 страниц)
“Sir!” Midshipman Rossyngton cried from his perch halfway up the larboard mizen mast shrouds. “She’s almost hull-up!”
Lewrie gave him a wave in recognition, then went to the forward edge of the quarterdeck and the cross-deck hammock stanchions. “Mister Spendlove?” he called to the Second Officer, whose post when at Quarters was between the two batteries of guns. “Run in the guns and load, but do not prime … both batteries.”
“Load, but do not prime, aye, sir!” Spendlove called back.
He tried to peer at the enemy warship—for that was what she had revealed herself to be by hoisting false colours—from the larboard corner of the quarterdeck, but the fore course and billowing jibs were in the way. He crossed over to his proper place to windward, and got a better view. She was almost bows-on to Reliant, all of her sail plan now visible above the horizon, and perhaps only nine miles off. She seemed to be hardening up to the wind a point or so, trying to sneak up and steal the wind gage, intending to pass close aboard and deliver her first broadside from her starboard guns into Reliant’s starboard side.
Lewrie collapsed the tubes of his telescope, hunched into his coat, and pondered, frowning in concentration. How would he fight her? The slant of wind limited how far to starboard he could turn and surprise her by wheeling “full and by”. That morning wind was fresh enough at the moment, but could weaken before both ships got within gun-range. Serving her a broadside from his larboard guns and bow-raking her would be too chancy.
It was a given for Royal Navy captains to gain the weather gage, upwind of a foe where one’s ship could steal wind from the foe’s sails, and command when one fell down alee to musket-shot or pistol-shot. Sometimes, though, the leeward ship, heeled over to larboard in this instance, could elevate her guns higher, whilst the enemy’s guns were depressed, even with the elevating quoins fully out.
It’ll be a passin’ engagement, Lewrie stewed, pursing his lips and gnawing on the lining of his mouth; one, maybe two broadsides if we’re quick about it, and then we’re past each other, and swingin’ about t’re-engage. Once she’s past us, it might be best t’haul wind and wear alee, with the larboard battery ready for ’em that instant. The Spaniard will, too. It’d make no sense for them to turn up into the wind.
Lewrie used both forefingers to sketch out the manoeuvring on the wood of the cap-rails, supposing that the Spaniard would want to stay close enough for his further broadsides to be fired at a range of less than one hundred yards, giving his gunners surer chances of hits.
Christ, we’ll end up spirallin’ round each other like “country dancers”, Lewrie thought; but, I’ll have the pre-loaded larboard guns, and he’ll be re-loadin’ his starboard battery … and the Dons ain’t all that well drilled, in the main, at gunnery or ship-handlin’, both!
At least the Spanish were slower and clumsier back in Europe, he had to caution himself. With the Royal Navy’s incessant blockades of enemy harbours, it was rare for French, Dutch, or Spanish warships to get much sea time, or chances to practice live firing. This Spaniard, though, based out of the Argentine, or some other Spanish possession the other side of Cape Horn, might have been free to drill his crew to deadly competence.
He raised his telescope for yet another look at the approaching enemy warship, and made a decision.
“A point to windward, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie ordered. “We are stupid, weak, and civilian … or so the Dons imagine. It’s only natural for us t’get to speakin’ distance and say hallo to another British ship, hey? I want us to pass starboard-to-starboard, damned close, so our first broadside’s a blow to the heart.”
“Aye, sir,” Lt. Westcott replied.
Might he haul his wind before then, cross our bows and rake us with his larboard guns? Lewrie had to consider; Or recognise us as a frigate, and decide t’bugger off South?
He shrugged that off, deeming that the Spaniard’s move could be spotted soon enough, and even at longer range, he still had time to turn up higher into the wind and present his larboard battery. Once the Spanish captain did that, he’d surrender the wind gage, and who in his right mind would give that advantage up, once seized?
Well, I have, Lewrie confessed to himself with a wry grimace; Hell’s Bells, I’m plannin’ on givin’ it up, this minute!
Another decision made; he would hold course.
“Mister Spendlove, my apologies to your gunners,” Lewrie called down to the weather deck and the waist, “but, I wish for roundshot to be drawn from the starboard great-guns, and replaced with chain, star, and bar shot, and double-loaded with grape canisters atop those. The twelve-pounder bow chaser, carronades, and quarterdeck nine-pounders will retain solid shot. We will pass close, and I want her rigging cut t’pieces, and her quarterdeck pummeled!”
“My, sir,” Lt. Westcott said in a whisper near his shoulder, “but how very un-British.”
“He’ll be expectin’ our usual ’twixt wind and water broadside, t’punch holes in his hull and dis-mount his guns,” Lewrie said with a wee snicker, “and, he may be plannin’ t’fire high and cripple us with his first broadside, but, I s’pose now and then we can emulate the customs of the French Navy, and his. And, there’s the biter, bit.”
“Deck, there!” a lookout sang out. “Chase is a … frigate!”
“Hull-up, sir!” Midshipman Rossyngton yelled, now standing on the starboard sail-tending gangway, having left his former perch on the shrouds.
Lewrie and Westcott could see the enemy as clear as day, by then, too, bows-on to Reliant with her entire hull in plain sight; not a now-and-then thing which depended upon the rise and scend from an active sea to shove her higher for a time. The seas were fairly calm with few cat’s paws, and any apparent waves no higher than one foot or so. The fully-risen early morning sun had brightened those waters to a brilliant dark blue, too, with no more sign of the muddy coloured outflow from the Plate River and its estuary.
Atop that brilliant blue sea, the Spanish frigate stood out starkly, a dark brown hull with a faint band of pale yellow paint, and her sails the colour of weathered parchment, Lewrie could take note after a long look with his telescope. The enemy looked a bit worse for wear, as if she had been at sea for months on end, which made him feel a touch of uneasiness that she might be that rare Spaniard who had had time to make herself hellishly efficient, and would be quicker off the mark than he had hoped, or expected.
Devil take it, he grimly thought; we’re committed.
He lowered his glass and looked aloft to the streaming commissioning pendant. “Another point to windward, Mister Westcott.”
“A point more to windward, aye, sir,” Westcott replied.
“Once our first broadside is delivered, we will haul our wind as quick as dammit, take the wind fine on the quarter, even wear if we have to, t’keep her in close gun-range. Be ready for it.”
“Aye, sir,” Westcott said, nodding and smiling. “Chomp down on her, and hang on like a bulldog.”
“That’s my good fellow!” Lewrie congratulated him.
He raised his glass once more to watch the enemy ship close the distance between them. She was altering her course slightly, hardening about one more point to windward, and baring a bit more to see of her starboard side.
Dogged, and implacable, Lewrie thought.
“Spanish frigates, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie mused aloud. “How many guns do they mount? I can’t make a count of her ports, yet.”
“Uhm, anywhere from twenty-eight to fourty, I read somewhere, sir,” Westcott told him, after a long moment to dredge that information up. “We haven’t had much dealings with them, as we have had with the French. Anything from nine– to eighteen-pounders, or their equivalents. This one doesn’t appear all that large, so…,” he said with a shrug.
Lewrie judged the range to the Spaniard at about five miles or less, by then, and wondered just how much longer their enemy might be mis-led as to their nature, or whether the Spanish captain would stand on, thinking he would soon seize a British merchantman.
Surely, he must realise we’re a frigate, sooner or later! he thought, worried that the Spaniard would haul off and begin to flee long before they came into decent gun-range, and all his preparations would be for nought.
Why, why do I trust to my cleverness! Lewrie bemoaned; Every time, I come a cropper! Clever, me? What a sour joke that is!
“Last cast of the log?” Lewrie asked.
“Just under eight knots, sir,” Westcott reported.
“Let’s run up the main top-mast, middle, and main t’gallant stays’ls,” Lewrie ordered of a sudden. “Do we have to wheel round at short notice, we’ll need that extra canvas aloft.”
“Aye, sir,” Westcott said, raising his brass speaking-trumpet to bellow the order forward.
“Mister Simcock?” Lewrie called to the Marine officer, who was idly pacing the starboard sail-tending gangway behind his men posted at the bulwarks and hammock stanchions. “That Don yonder still thinks we’re a merchantman, so it’d be best were your Marines not visible to him ’til the last moment. Have ’em squat down, if you will.”
“Squat, sir?” Simcock asked, aghast.
“You, too, sir! Kneel, or hunch … or, as the Yankee Doodles say, hunker down, ’til we spring our surprise,” Lewrie ordered with a laugh. “Your men in the fighting tops should lie down out of sight, as well. I don’t wish your splendid red coats t’give ’em the squits!”
The gun crews and powder monkeys, who had been sitting or standing idle, and the portion of the crew assigned at Quarters to tend to the braces, sheets, and fighting tops and yards, had themselves a good, tension-relieving laugh at the “lobster back’s” expense.
“We’re closing rather fast, sir,” Lt. Westcott reported to him. “About three miles off now, she is. Both of us making the same rate of knots. The next ten minutes will tell.”
“I expect you’re right,” Lewrie said, nodding soberly. “He is either still gulled, or he’s recognised us for a frigate and doesn’t give a damn. Either way, it’s of no matter.”
He raised his telescope again to study the Spanish frigate, to try to count gun-ports down her starboard side. Closer to, she gave the impression that she had been at sea longer than most. That pale yellow hull stripe was bleached by sun and time to almost white, but her gun-ports were still closed, and the same outer colour as the hull stripe.
Lewrie crossed to the helm, and stowed his telescope away; it was no longer necessary. The Spaniard was close enough to trust his own eyes. He paced back to the weather side of the quarterdeck, and planted his feet, clasped his hands in the small of his back to seem stoic and confident, and waited.
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 Rawrks 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 Rawrks were heard distinctly from the Spanish frigate, and ragged star-shaped holes blossomed down her starboard side before powder smoke made her disappear.
“She’s flying her fore and middle stays’ls again, sir!” Caldwell exclaimed. “They’ve re-roved. And, she’s bared her main course!”
“You sure, Mister Caldwell?” Lewrie asked, turning to face him.
“Sure, sir!” the Sailing Master insisted.
“Well, no wonder she’s out-footin’ us!” Lewrie groused, trying to peer out to confirm that with his own eyes. “If she gets far out ahead of us, that bastard Don could bow-rake us. Or—!”
If we can fall back far enough t’harden up t’windward, we can just squeak the jib-boom and bowsprit short of her stern and shoot her up the arse, Lewrie schemed. He looked aloft at the commissioning pendant, which was streaming towards the starboard side, a point or two abaft of abeam.
No, that won’t work, he sadly told himself.
Their course was still Due East, or a point off to East by South. The pendant showed that the wind was from the Nor’-Nor’east, and they would end up in-irons if they turned up to windward much further. He would have to continue slugging it out on this heading, with the foe slowly creeping further and further ahead towards the larboard bows.
“Mister Westcott! Soon as the next broadside is fired, haul our wind and come to Sou’east,” Lewrie ordered. “That’ll place her back abeam of us, and open the range a bit.”
And just keep poundin’ her, hopin’ that something aboard her will give way, sooner or later, Lewrie thought with a groan.
There were stabbing flames of discharge in the smoke as their enemy fired again, a very ragged and stuttering broadside. Feathers and shot pillars shot skyward, mostly ahead of Reliant’s bows, with very few shot actually striking her, for once.
“She can’t be sure of where to aim, with all this smoke, sir!” Lt. Westcott rasped out. “They think we’re still abeam of her!”
“Aim for the gun flashes! By broadside … Fire!” Spendlove cried from the waist.
“Helm up, Quartermasters!” Lewrie snapped. “Come about to the Sou’east! Hands to the braces, Mister Westcott!”
Reliant wheeled away Sutherly, wreathed in her own fresh fog bank of powder smoke, and sailing into the clouds of smoke from previous broadsides, which by now were taller than the mast-head trucks.
“Been at it for a full hour, now, sir,” Caldwell commented. “I do believe by the sound of it that the Dons are very slow to fire and load.”
“And our lads are just as tired as theirs, Mister Caldwell,” Lewrie told him, gesturing toward the ship’s waist, and Reliant’s gun crews who were streaming sweat despite the coolness of the morning, who were taking the short time between running out the guns and their firing to dash to the scuttle-butts for a sip of a water, or dip up handfuls of water from the swabbing tubs between the guns, now foul with the black nitres from spent gunpowder. “That’s not three rounds every two minutes any longer.”
“At least we haven’t taken much damage aloft, sir,” Westcott said, looking up at the masts and sails. “Our Spaniard’s playing the game fair, unlike the French.”
“And we’ve cheated, by tryin’ t’cripple his yards?” Lewrie asked with a brow up. “All’s fair, so long as we win.”
“Hold fire, hold fire, there!” Lt. Spendlove shouted.
“What’s the problem, Mister Spendlove?” Lewrie demanded from the forward edge of the quarterdeck nettings.
“Can’t see him, sir, for all this smoke,” Spendlove replied. “It’s so thick, I’m firing at his gun flashes, and I don’t wish to waste a broadside on thin air. Sorry.”
The sudden lack of ear-splitting thunder was eerie. Combined with the thickness of the masking powder smoke, it was eerier still, so when Midshipman Shannon called out a fresh cast of the log at the taffrails, everyone could make out his thin young voice. “Only five knots, now! Five knots even!”
“Ah, we’ve shot the wind to nothing,” Mr. Caldwell spat, “and whipped a fog of our own making. The air must be very humid, today.”
Boom-Boom … Boom, from out to larboard, more off the bows now, than abeam, as Lewrie had hoped his turn-away might place the Spanish frigate. It was yet another ragged, stuttering broadside, as if the Dons could see a target to engage as they bore, rather than the full weight of a co-ordinated broadside.
“I only count ten, not twelve,” Lewrie said, feeling a bit of hope. “We may have silenced two of his great-guns.”
“Speak of firing into thin air,” the Sailing Master scoffed.
All could hear the moaning of solid shot as it passed ahead of the bows, could hear the splashes as heavy iron balls slapped the sea and skipped off into the distance. Reliant wasn’t even touched!
“Mister Caldwell, the last clear sight you had of our enemy,” Lewrie posed, “you said they’d sheeted home their main course? Was it reefed, or drawn fully down?”
“Un-reefed, sir,” was the Sailing Master’s firm assurance.
“I’d hoped, by hauling our wind, t’keep her abeam, but it seems she’s sailin’ faster than our own five knots,” Lewrie plotted aloud. “She now lies more-like only three points off the larboard bows. Do you believe we have enough wind t’go back up to Due East, or East by North?”
“Aye, sir, but no higher, else we’ll almost be in-irons,” Mr. Caldwell allowed.
“Mister Spendlove!” Lewrie yelled down. “A water break for all your gunners, then man the starboard battery!”
“Aye, sir,” Spendlove replied, both weary and mystified.
“Put yer helm down, Mister Westcott, and lay us on the wind, East by North. Hands to the braces and sheets!”
If I can find you in all this, you Spanish bastard, I’ll bugger you, yet! he thought.
