“Sounds like gastric distress,” Captain Pomfret japed with his smaller pocket telescope to his eye, again. “Egad, Captain Lewrie, I don’t think those soldiers are there any longer!”
Just before the guns delivered their second broadsides, Lewrie snatched a quick view of the headland and the battery, and saw that Pomfret was right; he could not see any Spanish casualties, but could espy a whole host of them running away, up towards the semaphore tower, in hopes that it might be out of range, or haring off along the rutted and dusty tracks to the East or West of the headland. Those lancers on their fine horses were galloping straight North into the foothills of the Sierra Alhamilla and the main road that led to Almeria, bent over their mounts’ necks and looking back in terror.
The upper-deck 12-pounders roared again, followed long seconds later by the massive 24-pounders, and the view was blotted out, again. By the time Sapphire had sailed past the battery and the guns could no longer bear, they fell silent, and the ship was put about for another run, after a full three broadsides.
“Mister Westcott, bowse the larboard guns to the sills, and be ready with the starboard battery,” Lewrie ordered in a too-loud shout in the sudden relative silence. “Stations for stays, and prepare to tack.”
Steering Due West and following the six-fathom line, Sapphire pounded the Spanish battery with another three broadsides, turned out to sea to tack, then went Due East, again, hammering the place with yet another three salvoes. They repeated the manouevre for the better part of an hour. On the next Due East run, before the battery came abeam, Lewrie went up to the poop deck for a better view, joined by Captain Pomfret.
“Those soldiers are back,” Pomfret, said. “Look to the right and above the semaphore tower. They’re on a high knoll, just standing and watching. They seem to be in the same numbers as before.”
“Now they’ve changed their breeches, aye,” Lewrie said with a chuckle. “Too far off to interfere when you land your troops?”
“I imagine that once they see the boats going in, they’ll find their courage and try to defend the place,” Pomfret shrugged off, “but they’ll also realise that they’re out-numbered, and won’t do much more than pestering us. I don’t think they’ll get too close, either, else we might direct all our cannonfire on them, hah hah!”
“Well, it looks as if we’ve done all we can to damage the battery,” Lewrie said, leaning his elbows on the cap-rails of the bulwarks to steady his heavy day-glass. “And, as I feared, that ain’t much.”
The slope up to the parapets was so gouged with heavy iron shot that it appeared as if many tribes of badgers had dug their lairs, replete with several openings to each. The wooden barracks behind the battery had been turned to kindling, and the rooves had fallen in on the shattered walls. Several wild shots had even reached the semaphore tower, severed one long timber leg, and lopped off the platform at the top. The stone battery itself, though … the thick base wall had been undermined, and several of the massive stone blocks had been shifted. One upper section between openings for gun-ports was chipped and downed. All that expenditure of powder and shot, with little to show for it.
“We’ve accomplished nothing that the Spanish couldn’t repair in a month,” Lewrie sourly gravelled, lowering his telescope. “With no store of powder in their magazine, your men might have to take all our mauls and crow-levers and try t’tear the bloody thing down!”
“Iron mauls?” Captain Pomfret asked in sarcasm.
“Wood,” Lewrie told him.
“Hah!” Pomfret barked in mirthless humour.
“Do you think it’s worthwhile t’land the troops?” Lewrie asked.
“Well … we might set fire to what’s left of the tower and the barracks,” Pomfret allowed with a grimace, lifting his telescope for a another look. “There are some heavy waggons to haul the stone blocks left behind, and there are the hoisting frames. They’d burn well, too.”
“Mister Westcott?” Lewrie called down to the quarterdeck. “Do you secure the guns. We’ve no more need of ’em. Hands to the braces and sheets, and prepare to fetch-to.”
“Aye aye, sir!” Westcott replied.
“Fetching-to,” Pomfret asked. “Is that like anchoring?”
“No, we cock up into the wind with the fore-and-aft sails trying t’keep us moving, and the forecourse laid a’back so she can’t,” Lewrie explained. “We’ll slowly drift alee, but won’t go anywhere all that fast. Of course, I’ll want more sea-room ’fore we do, ’fore we drift into the shallows.”
“Deck, there!” one of the lookouts in the mainmast cross-trees shouted. “Two … strange … sail! Two points off th’ larb’d bows!”
“Mine arse on a band-box!” Lewrie barked in astonishment. “They managed t’get out?”
“The Spanish frigates your mentioned before we left Gibraltar?” Captain Pomfret asked.
“They very might be,” Lewrie said, lifting his head and cupping hand round his mouth to shout aloft. “How far away?”
“Hull-down, sir! T’gallants an’ royals is all I kin make out!” was the reply.
“Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said from the top of the poop deck’s larboard ladderway, “we will not fetch-to. Nor will we land the soldiers. Alter course to Sou’east and make more sail.”
“Aye, sir!” Westcott replied, looking wolfish at the prospect of a sea-fight.
“Mister Fywell?” Lewrie instructed the Midshipman aft by the flag lockers and log line. “Fetch out and hoist ‘Discontinue The Action’. Mister Westcott? Load and fire two of the six-pounders of the starboard battery for the General Signal.”
He looked aloft at the commissioning pendant, noting that the winds had altered during the course of the morning, and it was now more from the South; Sapphire could not steer Sou’east, and even driving at the closest “beat” to weather, could only make East-Sou’east. She’d clear Cabo de Gata easily, and might gain enough sea-room to get to windward of the two approaching strangers and hold the weather gage against them should they turn out to be Spanish.
“East-Sou’east is the closest she’ll bear, sir,” Lt. Westcott told him.
“Good enough, then. Lay her close-hauled on that course, and let’s get the old scow plodding into action,” Lewrie said, japing at his ship’s slowness.
“To glory we steer, sir!” Westcott replied, quoting a snippet from Arne’s famous song.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Captain Hedgepeth aboard Harmony had gotten his ship under way as soon as the signal guns were fired off, and the flag hoist soared up Sapphire’s halliards. The six heavy 36-foot landing boats were led astern to be towed, but, if they proved too much of a drag, he could cast them loose. Lewrie suspected that Hedgepeth would, and that Captain Middleton would never get them for his desired gunboats. With all to the t’gallants and all jibs and stays’ls set, Harmony galloped off West, slightly canted over to starboard on larboard tack and an easy beam reach, spreading an impressive and broad white bridal train wake. She, the soldiers of the 77th detachment, and the sailors from Sapphire’s crew, would be safely out of it.
“Eight and a quarter knots, sir!” Midshipman Fywell reported.
“Damn’ near enough t’take your breath away,” Lewrie scoffed at that news, recalling how swift his Reliant frigate had been, hard on the wind. His Fourth Rate trundled, her larboard shoulders set to the sea, canted over from horizontal only about fifteen degrees, stiffer than he expected since the winds were not all that strong this late morning. He reckoned that if Sapphire could be gotten far enough up to windward of the two strange sail, and he had time to come about to larboard tack to engage them, she’d only be pressed over from level by about ten degrees or less, once the large main course was brailed up against the risk of fire from the discharge of her guns, and that would turn her into a very steady gun platform.