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.