“By broadside, fire!” and Sapphire roared out her fury once more. Her guns were hot, now, and when they discharged, they did not slam back in recoil, but leapt clear of the deck by several inches, slewing off-centre and straining breeching ropes, making the stout iron ring-bolts groan, and making gunners dodge aside to keep from being hit, or their feet caught in the tackles.
When the smoke cleared from that broadside, Lewrie whooped in glee, pointing to the Spaniard and yelling, “Just look at that!” Those shots from the guns with the quoin blocks fully out had pummeled the frigate’s rigging. Her fore royal mast and yard, her fore t’gallant mast and yard above the cross-trees, had been shot away, falling like a hewn pinetree to leeward, and dragging her outer flying jib with it. A moment later and her main t’gallant stays’l parted from the foremast to swirl back against the main mast. All that wreckage hung for a long moment as Spanish sailors scrambled up from the foremast fighting top to chop or slash it away, but it all broke free and fell, the yards of her topmasts spearing into the frigate’s fore tops’l to rip it open like a gutted fish before finally falling clear into the sea!
“Another point free, Mister Westcott!” Lewrie ordered. “Close the range on her!”
And make the angle too great for the trailin’ frigate t’shoot at us, he grimly told himself; Just take ’em on one at a time!
With her foremast sails ravaged and short a jib, the Spanish frigate slowed, though she still was at least two knots faster than the two-decker, still steering Sou’west by South while Sapphire was now sailing Due West, the angle of approach greater, and drawing together. Gamely, her side lit up with a broadside of her own. Roundshot moaned or shrieked past the bows, past the stern, above the decks, punching holes in Sapphire’s sails, and slamming into her side, making her planking squawk parrot-like as thick, seasoned oak was stove in.
“By broadside … fire!” and Sapphire gave as good as she got, crushingly so. Her lower-deck 24-pounders hulled the Spanish frigate, and Lewrie could see fresh, star-shaped shot holes blasted into that former loveliness, could see her masts sway and quiver from the force of the blows. Something had shattered the frigate’s main tops’l yard and the windward half collapsed onto the brailed-up main course yard, jerking the brace-line for the main t’gallant apart, and both sails winged out alee, the tops’l fluttering like a shirt on a clothesline, and the upper t’gallant angling out almost fore-and-aft, flattened by the winds and making the frigate heel leeward.
“We’re almost close enough, now, to employ the carronades and six-pounders, sir!” Westcott shouted up to Lewrie.
Lewrie looked forward and found his cabin-servant, Jessop, at one of the quarterdeck carronades, promoted from powder monkey to a gunner. Jessop was hopping from one bare foot to the other in impatience. He looked aft at Lewrie as if pleading.
“Aye, Mister Westcott, serve ’em with ev’rything!” Lewrie called back. “Woo-hoo!” Jessop could be heard yelling.
“All guns, by broadside … fire!” Westcott shouted.
With the addition of the 24-pounder carronades, it was an avalanche that struck the Spaniard, even as she got off a ragged broadside of her own. Both ships blanketed themselves in powder smoke and blotted out any chance of a view for long moments before being blown alee. The damaged tops’l, the un-controllable flatted-out t’gallant, had drawn the frigate over several more degrees of heel, forcing her fire to dash high above Sapphire’s decks, but the two-decker’s fire, aimed “’Twixt Wind And Water”, smashed into her side, gun-ports, bulwarks, and her waterline. Lewrie could see the frigate’s underwater coppering, tinged and streaked algae-green, exposed for a foot or more, as several heavy roundshot punched ragged, dark holes through it. If she rolled upright, the frigate surely would begin to flood!
Spanish sailors were high aloft in her rigging trying to control her t’gallant, slashing and hacking at any line that held the sail taut to the wind. At last, it was freed to flutter leeward, horizontal to the sea, and the frigate righted herself, those shot holes now smothered in foamy, disturbed seawater. She lost more speed due to all her damage aloft, and finally fell a point off the wind to bring her guns to point abeam at Sapphire, but she was limping, by then.
“By broadside, fire!”
That was the stroke that did her in. When the smoke cleared, all could take delight in seeing her entire foremast above the fighting top falling, taking her fore tops’l and the last of her jibs and stays’l over her starboard side, pressed by the wind. The sudden drag in the sea jerked the frigate’s head downwind, reducing her to a crawling cripple. Sapphire’s sailors erupted in taunts, jeers, and loud cheering, and the fifer and fiddler struck up a lively jig in celebration.
“Oh, the poor bastard!” Westcott shouted, pointing off at the trailing frigate. She had been following in her leader’s wake, about one cable astern, and was turning leeward abruptly to avoid collision!
“Cease fire, Mister Westcott!” Lewrie ordered over the loud din of his crew. “Pipe the Still. We’ll let ’em celebrate when the work’s finished. A water break for the gun crews, but put the hands to the sheets and braces, and get us back on the eye of the wind ’til we see what this’un intends to do.”
“Aye, sir,” Lt. Westcott replied. “Bosun, pipe the Still, then hands to sheets and braces!”
That call, the Still, was rarely heard aboard Sapphire, though there were some severe disciplinarians in the Royal Navy who ran their men and their ships in silence by day and night, with all orders passed by Bosun’s calls.
“I thought you’d finish her, sir,” Captain Pomfret said as the crew’s cheers fell away, and sailors fell to their required duties.
“She is finished, for now,” Lewrie told him, intently peering leeward at the trailing frigate, which was now masked by her crippled leader. “Her foremast’s gone by the board, and without jibs, she can’t keep anywhere close to the wind. They might rig something up sooner or later, but, she’s out of the fight, with her fore tops’l and her fore course gone. If her captain has any sense, he’ll turn and sail into Almeria for shelter, with ‘both sheets aft’. That’s what’s called a ‘soldier’s wind’,” he added with a wry expression. “No slur intended.”
“You’re turning away from the second?” Pomfret asked.
“Aye,” Lewrie cheerfully admitted, “we’re gettin’ back hard on the wind, so we stay above her, same as we did the first. Once she’s clear of her consort, and comes back on the wind herself, she’ll never be able t’claw out a yard closer to us. She’ll be about half a mile to loo’rd, or thereabouts, in easy gun range. Her captain might consider takin’ shelter in Almeria, too, goin’ about and runnin’ back to Cartagena, or continuin’ the fight, beatin’ his way West and hopin’ to out-run us. We’ll have to see what his intentions are before committing.”
“Her captain might hope that his greater speed will allow him to get ahead before taking too much damage,” Lt. Westcott chimed in, “though what a lone frigate hopes to do to the Westward is anybody’s guess.”
“So, they didn’t come out after us, specifically?” Pomfret enquired, shaking his head in wonder. “Curiouser and curiouser.”
“Once we take the second, we’ll have t’ask him, sir,” Lewrie said. “How’s your Spanish? Mine’s abysmal.”
“There she is, sir,” Lt. Westcott said in rising excitement at the prospect of further action. “Just getting clear of the first one.”
“Hard on the wind, again, hmm,” Lewrie speculated. “For now, that is. Fire one six-pounder from the foc’s’le, Mister Westcott. We might goad a proud Spanish hidalgo into a fight, after all. Challenge him!”