“Steer small, blast you,” he growled at the quartermaster.

The Lydia lay over before the gale, the waves crashing and hissing overside, the rigging playing a wild symphony. Last night she had been stealing peacefully over a calm and moonlit sea, and now here she was twelve hours later thrashing through a storm with a battle awaiting her. The wind was undoubtedly increasing, a wilder puff almost took her aback, and she staggered and rolled until the helmsman allowed her to pay off.

“Natividad won’t be able to open her lower deck ports!” gloated Bush beside him. Hornblower stared across the grey sea at the enemy. He saw a cloud of spray break over her bows.

“No,” he said heavily. He would not discuss the possibilities of the approaching action for fear lest he might be too talkative. “I’ll trouble you, Mr. Bush, to have two reefs taken in those tops’ls.”

On opposite tacks the ships were nearing each other along the sides of an obtuse angle. Look as closely as he would, he could not decide which ship would be to windward when they met at the apex.

“Mr. Gerard,” he called down to the lieutenant in charge of the port side maindeck battery. “See that the matches in your tubs are alight.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

With all this spray breaking aboard the flint lock trigger mechanism could not be relied upon until the guns grew hot and the old-fashioned method of ignition might have to be used—in the tubs on deck were coils of slow-match to meet this emergency. He stared across again at the Natividad. She, too, had reefed her topsail now, and was staggering along, closehauled, under storm canvas. She was flying the blue flag with the yellow star; Hornblower glanced up overhead to where the dingy white ensign fluttered from the peak.

“She’s opened fire, sir,” said Bush beside him.

Hornblower looked back at the Natividad just in time to see the last of a puff of smoke blown to shreds by the wind. The sound of the shot did not reach them, and where the ball went no one could say—the jet of water which it struck up somewhere was hidden in the tossing waves.

“Ha-h’m,” said Hornblower.

It was bad policy, even with a well-drilled crew, to open fire at long range. That first broadside, discharged from guns loaded carefully and at leisure, and aimed by crews with time to think, was too precious a thing to be dissipated lightly. It should be saved up for use at the moment when it would do maximum harm, however great might be the strain of waiting inactive.

“We’ll be passing mighty close, sir,” said Bush.

“Ha-h’m,” said Hornblower.

Still there was no means of telling which ship would hold the weather gauge when they met. It appeared as if they would meet bow to bow in collision if both captains held rigidly to their present courses. Hornblower had to exert all his willpower to keep himself standing still and apparently unemotional as the tension increased.

Another puff of smoke from the Natividad’s starboard bow, and this time they heard the sound of the shot as it passed overhead between the masts.

“Closer!” said Bush.

Another puff, and simultaneously a crash from the waist told where the shot had struck.

“Two men down at number four gun,” said Bush, stooping to look forward under the gangway, and then, eyeing the distance between the two ships: “Christ! It’s going to be a near thing.”

It was a situation which Hornblower had visualised several times in his solitary walks on the quarterdeck. He took a last glance up at the weathervane, and at the topsails on the point of shivering as the ship tossed on the heaving sea.

“Stand by, Mr. Rayner. Fire as your guns bear,” he called. Rayner was in command of the starboard side maindeck battery. Then, from the corner of his mouth to the men at the wheel—“Put your helm a-weather. Catch her! Hold her so!”

The Lydia spun round and shot down the lee side of the Natividad and her starboard side guns went off almost simultaneously in a rolling crash that shook the ship to her keel. The billow of smoke that enveloped her momentarily was blown away instantly by the gale. Every shot crashed into the Natividad’s side; the wind brought to their ears the screams of the wounded. So unexpected had the manoeuvre been that only one single shot was fired from the Natividad, and that did no damage—her lower deck ports on this, her lee side, were closed because of the high sea.

“Grand! Oh, grand!” said Bush. He sniffed at the bitter powder smoke eddying round him as if it had been sweet incense.

“Stand by to go about,” rasped Hornblower.

A well-drilled crew, trained in months of storms under Bush’s eagle eye, was ready at sheets and braces. The Lydia tacked about, turning like a machine, before Natividad could offer any counter to this unexpected attack, and Gerard fired his battery into her helpless stern. The ship’s boys were cheering aimlessly in high piping trebles as they came running up from below with new charges for the guns. On the starboard side the guns were already loaded; on the port side the guns’ crews were thrusting wet swabs down the bore to extinguish any residual fragments of smouldering cartridge, ramming in the charges and shot, and heaving the guns up into firing position again. Hornblower stared across the tossing water at the Natividad. He could see Crespo up on her poop; the fellow actually had the insolence to wave his hand to him, airily, while in the midst of bellowing orders at his unhandy crew.

The Lydia had wrung the utmost advantage out of her manoeuvre; she had fired her two broadsides at close range and had only received a single shot in reply, but now she had to pay for it. By her possession of the weather gauge the Natividad could force close action for a space if resolutely handled. Hornblower could just see her rudder from where he stood. He saw it kick over, and next moment the two-decker had swung round and was hurtling down upon them. Gerard stood in the midst of his battery gazing with narrowed eyes into the wind at the impressive bulk close overside. His swarthy beauty was accentuated by the tenseness of the moment and the fierce concentration of his expression, but for once he was quite unconscious of his good looks.

“Cock your locks!” he ordered. “Take your aim! Fire!”

The roar of the broadside coincided exactly with that of the Natividad’s. The ship was enveloped in smoke, through which could be heard the rattling of splinters, the sound of cut rigging tumbling to the deck, and through it all Gerard’s voice continuing with his drill—“Stop your vents!” The quicker the touch holes of the muzzle loaders were plugged after firing the less would be the wear caused by the rush of the acid gases through them.

The guns’ crews strained at the tackles as the heave of the ship bade fair to send them surging back against the ship’s sides. They sponged and they rammed.

“Fire as you will, boys!” shouted Gerard. He was up on the hammock-netting now, gazing through the smoke wreaths at the Natividad rising and swooping alongside. The next broadside crashed out raggedly, and the next more raggedly still, as the more expert gun crews got off their shots more quickly than the others; soon the sound of firing was continuous, and the Lydia was constantly a-tremble. At intervals through the roar of her cannon came the thunderous crash of the Natividad’s broadside—Crespo evidently could not trust his crew to fire independently with efficiency, and was working them to the word of command. He was doing it well, too; at intervals as the sea permitted, her lower deck ports were opening like clockwork and the big twenty-four pounders were vomiting flame and smoke.

“Hot work, this, sir,” said Bush.

The iron hail was sweeping the Lydia’s decks. There were dead men piled round the masts, whither they had been hastily dragged so as not to encumber the guns’ crews. Wounded men were being dragged along the deck and down the hatchways to where the horrors of the cockpit awaited them. As Hornblower looked he saw a powder boy flung across the deck, dissolved into a red inhuman mass as a twenty-four pounder ball hit him.