He felt a tiny flicker of doubt, worried that the Spanish had picked among the officers of their navy blockaded in Cartagena, among their best gunners and most experienced seamen, had supplanted the two frigates’ complements for one special mission … to rid their coast of one particular British pest, el diablo negro.
Oh, goat shit, he thought with a scowl; There’s not a navy in the world that’d do that! Certainly not the Spanish! Too many prides t’be hurt. It makes more sense that they were sneaked out to deliver supplies to Ceuta, or sneak their way into Cádiz, t’concentrate what’s left of their fleet.
He reckoned that they might be special, chosen to make that sort of effort, their captains the boldest available, but Sapphire’s very presence had scotched those plans, and they’d stumbled upon them by mistake, by a fluke of bad luck.
He pursed his lips and heaved a silent snort, deriding himself, then looked out to starboard to see what the Spanish were doing, and how they were placed. They had worked their way up to within three points abaft of abeam, and would be up even with Sapphire in another quarter-hour. And, they were just a little over a mile off.
“Mister Westcott? Take two reefs in the main course,” Lewrie snapped, back to business. “We’ll not brail up all the way ’til we’re closely engaged. And, alter course … give us a point free.”
“Aye aye, sir!”
As topmen scrambled out the main course yard, bare feet juddering on the foot-ropes for balance with arms over the yard for their lives to haul the heavy, taut sail to the first reef line, the helm was put up one point, and other hands on deck and sail-tending gangways tailed onto braces and sheets to ease the set of the sails. The angle of the deck eased a few degrees more upright as Sapphire sagged off from full-and-by to more of a close reach as she began her slow descent upon the Spanish. With the huge main course reefed, she lost speed, too; the quick cast of the log-line showed only seven and one half knots.
“Hmm, they’re not brailing up their main courses, sir,” Mister Yelland commented. “Do you think they wish to get beyond us, first?”
“No tactical advantage in that, Mister Yelland,” Lewrie said, “unless … they have somewhere else they need to be. They’re under a mile off, d’ye make ’em? Mister Westcott, I’ll have another point free. Once we’re steady, we’ll open upon them. Whether they wish a fight or not, we’re going t’give ’em one!”
Sapphire fell off the wind even further, to West by South, and angling more acutely towards the Spanish frigates which were still on a course of Sou’west by West. If all ships continued on, Sapphire would eventually cross the lead frigate’s bows.
“Steady on West by South, sir,” Westcott reported.
“Pass word to Mister Harcourt and Mister Elmes,” Lewrie said, “my compliments to both, and they are to open gun-ports and concentrate their broadsides upon the lead ship.”
“Am I in the way?” Captain Pomfret whispered to the Sailing Master.
“You could stand by the door to Captain Lewrie’s cabins, sir,” Yelland told him, “aft of the helm, and under the poop overhang, but you couldn’t see much. For a good view, you could go up and aft by taffrail lanthorns. The signalmen have nothing to do, and you could sit on the flag lockers. Though, it may get a bit ‘windy’ up there, mind,” he suggested with a wink.
“Windy?” Pomfret asked, wondering what he meant.
“With the odd enemy roundshot, sir,” Yelland said, chuckling.
HMS Sapphire rumbled and thudded as the ports were swung up and the great guns wheeled up to the port sills. Gun-captains crouched behind the breeches, hand-signalling for crewmen with crow-levers to lift the truck carriages to shift aim left of right, and drawing the wood-block quoins from beneath the breeches to lift the muzzles to their maximum elevation.
“Ready, sir!” Midshipman Ward breathlessly shrilled as he dashed up from the waist to the quarterdeck and knuckling the brim of his hat.
“Open fire, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie ordered.
“By broadside … fire!” Westcott shouted.
Gun-captains waited for the scend of the sea, to the point of the up-roll when the ship was at her steadiest, before jerking their taut trigger lines. The starboard side of the ship erupted in smoke, jutting flame, and swirls of sparks amid the sudden, thick bank of powder smoke. Frustrated, Lewrie trotted up the starboard ladderway to the poop deck for a slightly clearer view.
That’s just bloody magnificent! he thought in joy.
It was one of the prettiest sights he ever hoped to see. The sea was a most marvellous and striking blue, the sky mostly clear with only a few wispy white clouds. The leading Spanish frigate’s ebony hull with that broad red gunwale paint, and her relatively new white sails was a lovely bit of perfection of the shipbuilders’ art, and she stood out starkly against the high mountains of the Andalusian coast.
And she was surrounded by a sleet-storm of iron roundshot that raised great, and rather pretty, feathers and pillars of spray where shot hit the sea short and caromed up from First Graze, skipping into her hull the last few hundred yards to thud into her planking. Some shot bracketed her bow and stern, wide of the mark but not all that much mis-directed. He even thought that he could see her courses and tops’ls twitch, collapse, then re-fill with wind.
“That’s damned good shooting!” he yelled to encourage his crew. “Now, serve her another!”
“By broadside, on the up-roll … fire!” Lt. Westcott roared.
An instant later, and Sapphire’s starboard guns bellowed once more, hurling solid iron shot at 1,200 feet per second, wreathing herself in yellow-tinged, dingy smoke reeking of sulfur.
“Yes, by God!” Lewrie said with a laugh. As that smoke wafted alee, he avidly sought signs of damage through his telescope as gouts of disturbed water near her waterline leapt upward, as sails twitched again as they were holed, and bits of the Spanish frigate’s bulwarks and hammock-filled stanchions were smashed away. “Best gunners in the entire Navy, the best in the world, indeed!”
As he watched, the frigate’s large main course was clewed up, and enemy topmen scooted out the yard to brail it up. She was readying to return fire. A signal hoist went up her after halliards, and the trailing frigate began to take in her main course, as well. They would fight. “Now, it gets int’resting,” Lewrie muttered.
The lead frigate endured two more broadsides from Sapphire before her side erupted in smoke and jets of flame. The range had been closing all along, and she was only half a mile off when she opened upon the British ship. Heeled over to the press of wind and still on a beat to weather, her guns would reach further, their maximum elevation aided by the cant of her decks. Shot moaned overhead as Lewrie fought the natural inclination to duck, crouch, or cringe. One ball hummed over the poop, between the bulwarks and the lower spanker boom, creating a sudden gust of air that shoved him against the bulwarks, and came near to sending his hat overboard. There were several loud thuds and crashes as enemy shot hit home. Lewrie peered over the side and saw the hazes and swirls of splinters rising where some shot had hit, flinging engrained dust and paint or tar from the wounds.
“On the up-roll, by broadside … fire!” Lt. Westcott yelled, his voice gone raspy from the effort, and the ever-present smoke.
In the heat of the moment, some of Lewrie’s gun-captains had forgotten to re-insert the quoin blocks under their guns’ breeches, too intent on re-loading, priming, over-hauling tackle, and running out as the range shortened. While most of Sapphire’s broadsides were aimed at the Spaniard’s hull, some shots went high. Unwittingly they emulated French or Spanish practice, which was to cripple an enemy’s speed and manouevrability by taking down masts and rigging before closing for a slug-fest at musket-shot.