“Five and three-quarter knots, sir!” Midshipman Shannon cried from the stern, as if thrilled by the improvement. Casting the log was a minor chore, one that Shannon’s limited experience at sea rated him, so he would perform it as best he could ’til given a better one.
“Tastes a bit healthier, anyway, sir,” Lt. Westcott commented after a deep sniff, then flashed one of his brief grins. “It hardly smells like rotten eggs any longer. We’ll be in clear air any second now.”
“The enemy’s ceased fire,” Lewrie fretted, going to the break of the quarterdeck by the starboard ladderway to peer out.
“Saving shot and powder ’til he can see, again, most-like, sir,” Westcott said with a shrug, after following him over. “Same as us.”
“Aye, but did he haul off more Sutherly t’find us, or hope to work ahead of us and wheel round t’bow-rake us?” Lewrie wondered out loud. “Or, did he come back on the wind, and sail clear of all this on the same tack as ours?”
I’ll either see his stern, open for the raking, or his larboard guns, which are fresh and un-damaged, Lewrie thought; and the range greater than before. We now have the wind gage, and can fall down on him, at the very least. Which, dammit? Show yourself!
He was too impatient to pretend to be implacable, or properly stoic; he left the quarterdeck and went forward up the starboard gangway to the main mast stays for a better view, shouldering two Marines out of the way. “Mornin’, sir,” one of them whispered.
“Ah, good mornin’, Private Dodd,” Lewrie replied without looking at him. “Enjoyin’ sea life, are ye?”
“Aye, sir!” Dodd said with a twinkle. “Most exciting!”
“Speak only when spoken to, Dodd,” Lt. Simcock warned.
“Thought I did, sir!” Dodd answered, stiffening his posture.
“Leg up,” Lewrie demanded, taking hold of the thick and tarry stays to scramble to the top of the bulwarks and the filled hammock stanchions. He swung out-board and began to climb the rat-lines for an even better view, ’til he was half-way to the cat-harpings.
He was in clearer air! Swivelling his head round, Lewrie saw sparkling sea to windward, ahead, and astern. They had sailed above the pall of battle, into bright blue morning skies and innocently white clouds. The only blotches of sour yellow and dirty grey smoke were to leeward, to the South, and with the suspension of fire from either frigate, that bank of smoke was thinning, and slowly scudding away.
“Mastheads!” the main mast lookout in the cross-trees shouted. “Deck, there! Mastheads, one point ahead o’ th’ starb’d beam!”
There she is, by God! Lewrie silently exulted; Her mizen and spanker … her main, and main course? She’s almost stern-on!
He quickly scrambled down to the top of the bulwarks, pointing to leeward. “There she is, Mister Spendlove! Almost abeam, and her stern open to us! There she is, lads! See her? A bit more than one cable off, but she’s there! See her?”
Gun captains, officers, and Midshipmen ducked down to peer out the gun-ports, then stood back up, shouting fierce “Ayes!” of comfirmation, growling lusty eagerness.
“Aim small, then, fire as you bear, Mister Spendlove, you lads, and tear her heart out!” Lewrie urged them, clinging to the stays with one hand and jutting his other like a pointer at the foe.
“Cock your locks!” Spendlove shrilled. “Aim for her stern … crow levers, there! As you bear … slow and steady does it, now! As you bear … Fire!”
Oh, sweet Jesus, yes! Lewrie thought as the enemy frigate came swimming from the thinning haze, becoming almost substantial, as the 18-pounders crashed and thundered below his feet, as a fresh, thick pall of smoke, bright amber stabs of explosions, left those cruel iron muzzles, and firefly sparks swirled in the new smoke. In the scant seconds between discharge and the masking of their target, he could see the Spanish frigate’s spanker boom shatter, her proud ensign go flying free of its halliards, and great holes and showers of broken stern windows be smashed into her transom!
“Pound her! Go, my bully lads, and murder the bastards!” he yelled over the last echoes of his guns. A loud cheer from his men rewarded his urgings. With help, he jumped down to the gangway and quickly made his way back to the quarterdeck, beaming fit to bust.
“We’ve got them now, sir!” Lt. Westcott chortled.
“Damned right we do! We stern-raked her, by God, and I think ev’ry shot went home!” Lewrie crowed with glee. “That’s a killing blow! Let’s see what Señor Spaniard does, now! Mister Spendlove?” he shouted to the waist. “Hold fire ’til you can see her, again!”
“Aye, sir!” came a disappointed reply. Spendlove’s, and everyone’s, blood-lust was up, now “gun-drunk” enough to want to continue battering the foe ’til they could see chunks flying off her and bodies hurled aloft.
“There she is, again!” Lt. Merriman urgently pointed out to the gunners. “Her mizen’s gone by the board! Huzzah!”
The Spanish frigate was well and truly stricken, with her mizen mast damaged belowdecks, perhaps half-severed by the weight of metal shot up her wide-open stern. It lay over to starboard at a drunken angle, leaned forward onto her main mast. Gallantly, someone was on his way up her main mast with a fresh Spanish flag, perhaps to nail it to the top-masts in defiance.
She had swung up onto the wind, or was trying to, making barely a ripple of wake, in an attempt to expose her larboard guns and continue the fight, but it was a slow, crippled manoeuvre.
“As you bear … Fire!” Spendlove was ordering again.
“Two points free, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie snapped. “Let us close the range and hammer her t’kindling.”
“Two points free, sir, aye!” Lt. Westcott echoed. “Helmsmen, up helm, and steer East by South.”
“She’s not gotten her larboard gun-ports open, yet!” Caldwell exclaimed, a second before sight of their foe was blotted out, again.
“Fine with me!” Lewrie said with a laugh.
When a ship was brought to Quarters, all interior partitions were struck, all mess-tables hinged to the overheads, leaving a long alley on her gun-deck. When she was stern-raked, there was nothing to prevent solid iron shot from ravening from her transom planking to her forecastle galley and livestock manger, snapping carline posts and dis-mounting guns, and massacring her sailors, wholesale. There was a very good chance that that stern-rake had killed and wounded so many of her crew that those still on their feet were too stunned for a proper response!
“There’s her larboard quarters!” Lt. Westcott shouted as the smoke thinned again, wafting down past the Spanish frigate. “Two, three … she’s opening her larboard gun-ports, now. About one hundred and fifty yards off?”
“As you bear … Fire!”
The Spanish frigate’s crippled mizen mast split, its top-masts splintering free from the thicker trunk of the lower mast, and tearing her main course and main tops’l apart like a butcher’s carving knife! The gallant fellow with the fresh flag was ripped free of her upper stays and was flung into the sea to her dis-engaged side!
“Does that constitute her striking, I wonder, sir?” Mr. Caldwell hooted.
Fresh gun flashes erupted down the enemy’s larboard side, and roundshot howled over Reliant’s decks, one or two slamming into the side with shuddering thuds.
“Beg pardon, sirs, but the Carpenter, Mister Mallard, says the waterline shot holes in the larboard side ’re mostly plugged,” a sailor reported, knuckling his brow. “When we come about, they didn’t suck water no more, but they’s still a foot and a half o’ water in the bilges, and he says t’tell ya the pumps’ll be needed t’be rigged and manned, soon.”
“Very well, but tell him it may be a while yet before we can,” Lewrie told the man. “Tell him I know he’s doin’ his best.”