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.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
The decks tilted a bit, first coming upright and level from the slight heel to starboard as HMS Reliant swung back towards her original course. Her hull slightly groaned at the easing, the myriad pulley-block sheaves squeaked and chattered, and the yard parrels squealed as braces and sheets were tailed on to swing the yards to angle the sails for a close reach, more up-wind. Once the yards were trimmed, and the fore-and-aft jibs and stays’ls were drawn tauter to cup that scant wind, the decks took on a slightly greater heel to starboard, but nothing as dramatic as they would be when going close-hauled on a stronger wind.