"Yes, sir," Rand answered without enthusiasm or further comment as he turned and made his way back to Sir Lionel and Engersoll.
Just as the three men stepped to the rail, they saw the flash of powder long before they heard the reports of the large guns of Elizabethand Port Royal. Then, over the surface of the gulf, the loud popping came to Engersoll's ears. It was unlike what he imagined naval gunfire to sound like, even at this extreme distance.
"Both frigates have opened up their port-side guns. That means they must have caught the enemy off guard and crossed the T, a formation allowing them to bring the guns of both ships to bear," Rand explained as he watched. "A fatal error by the American, if that's who he is."
"But why can't we see the American ship?" Sir Lionel asked.
"Well, they are more than likely over our horizon. We should be able to see them--"
A sudden, tremendous explosion lit up the blue southern sky as HMS Elizabethvanished in a matter of a split second behind a solid wall of flame and smoke. All three men watched in astonishment as the sound finally reached them. Warlordshook beneath their feet as Rand started shouting orders. He spared a glance at Captain Peavey who stood stock-still, the spyglass slowly lowering to his side. Lieutenant Rand shouted to bring the ship about.
This order finally moved Peavey to action as he turned angrily toward his number one.
"Belay that order, make for the coast at all possible speed, we must--"
Without seeing the initial or even the second cataclysmic action, the sound wave of another explosion almost knocked Peavey from his feet. As he straightened and turned from his spot on the wooden deck, the mushroom-shaped cloud of red and black was rising from the spot where Port Royalhad been just a moment before. In a matter of two stunning moments of elapsed time, two Royal Navy frigates had vanished without having the chance to reload their guns. As Peavey regained his feet and raised his glass, he could see no sign of either ship save for the debris and smoke still rising in the clear air.
"We have movement aft at five thousand yards and closing!" The call was shouted from high above in the rigging.
Engersoll tried desperately to spy the enemy vessel, but he failed at first. He gripped the handrail and then raised his right hand to his brow and strained to see.
Peavey shouted out orders and reversed his earlier command to run for the coast.
"My God!" Sir Lionel cried. "Look at that!"
Engersoll turned to the spot Sir Lionel was pointing to as Warlordturned hard to starboard to bring her main guns to bear on the suddenly visible target.
At a mile away from Warlord, Engersoll finally spied the enemy that had just cremated three hundred men in a matter of moments. It truly wasa sea monster. The wave it created was spectacular as it charged the British warship. Three hundred feet into the air the wake rose, as water was pushed aside by a force no man aboard could have ever imagined.
"Come on, come on, turn, damn you, turn!" Captain Peavey pleaded with the slowly moving Warlordas she lethargically leaned over to bring her main armament to bear on the approaching juggernaut.
"God in heaven," Engersoll said as a massive gray tower rose from the sea, splitting the ocean like a sharp knife, sending foam and spray hundreds of feet into the air.
They all watched from the quarterdeck as the full view of the glistening tower came into sight. Engersoll's jaw clenched as two massive, semi-rounded bubbled windows appeared on either side of the great enclosure. Then he saw with dawning horror that rising from the streamlined tower's uppermost area and sloping to its monstrous round bow were large gleaming spikes, arrayed like the giant teeth of a great serpent in three long rows arching from bow to tower. As they watched, the beast accelerated to an incalculable speed.
The Royal Navy seamen watched slack-jawed as the strange apparition started to sink back beneath the sea.
Rand looked to his captain, who was standing in shock and not moving. His spyglass slipped from his hand and the lens shattered on the deck.
"Open fire as your guns come to bear!" Rand shouted, immediately taking command from the captain.
The massive thirty-two-pound rifled cannon started to open fire as they sighted on the strange monster. Rand was pleased to see the first three explosive rounds strike the beast before it went too deep. However, his joy was short-lived as this seagoing nightmare kept accelerating, shaking off the killing blows of the most powerful guns in the British fleet. Rand saw what was going to happen as clearly as if it were already history. He turned and grabbed for the ship's wheel, assisting the helmsman.
"Port, turn to port!" he cried.
It was an order that would never be carried out.
As the underwater creature approached, the swell of ocean rose around them, taking the great battle cruiser to a height that should have allowed the submerged giant to plow harmlessly beneath her. Instead, the 175-foot-long Warlordwas rocked violently from beneath, struck so hard that her main mast splintered and came crashing onto the deck, trapping and killing Captain Peavey beneath the broken tonnage.
As Rand fell back he saw a great geyser of water knock free the four main hatch covers below the quarterdeck, as the force of the collision gutted the great vessel from below, smashing her thick keel as if it were made of nothing more than twigs. The heavy cruiser heeled to her port side as the ship's wheel was still turned in that direction. Lieutenant Rand fought his way to his feet as the great ship lost her battle for survival.
Engersoll watched in horror as the impact sent Sir Lionel to his death when the stern of Warlordwas thrown into the air. Suddenly the ship rocked as the powder stores below erupted outward, splintering the oak ribs of the vessel out in a frenzy of destruction. Engersoll was thrown into the erupting sea.
Engersoll slipped under the water, trying to avoid one of the ship's spars as it crashed into the sea. All about him men struggled to stay afloat as Warlord, her back snapped like cordwood, broke in two with a death sound horrible to the ears of seamen. She quickly slipped under, dragging another fifty men to their deaths.
Engersoll felt a hand grab his long coat and pull him up from a death to which he had already resigned himself. As he spit out the warm water that flooded his mouth, he saw it was Lieutenant Rand pulling him free of the sea's grip.
As he turned away to grab for a piece of floating debris, Engersoll saw a sight that froze him into stillness. There, not two hundred feet away, rode the great metal monster. It surfaced with a loud hiss of escaping air and violent eruptions of water that rocketed skyward, creating a magical and terrifying rainbow effect.
As the metal ship centered itself in the middle of dead men and debris, Engersoll was shocked to see the giant tower sitting on the broad expanse of metal that made up the unimaginable sight of the iron hull. The great bubble window shaped like the eye of a demon was in front of him, and as he looked skyward, he saw a man standing in the spider-webbed framed glass. Engersoll saw a man with long black hair almost as wild as his blazing eyes as the seven-hundred-foot sea monster slowly gasped a great sigh of air, and enormous bubbles rose to the surface of the sea as the man and his metal monster vanished.
As Engersoll felt the suction of the vessel drag him down into the depths of the gulf, the last vision of the earthly world he would ever see were those eyes--those terrifying, hate-filled eyes.