Tregembo had reloaded the swivel and the moon disappeared behind a cloud as it roared.
The concussion wave of a terrific explosion swept the two vessels, momentarily stopping the combatants. Away to the south six hundred men had ceased to exist as the seventy-gun San Domingo blew up, fire reaching her magazine and causing her disintegration.
The interruption of the explosion reminded them all of the other ships engaged to the southward. Drinkwater reloaded the musket. Enemy balls no longer whizzed round him. He looked up levelling the barrel. The Spanish frigate's mainmast leaned drunkenly forward. Stays snapped and the great spars collapsed dragging the mizen topmast with it. Cyclops drew ahead.
Hope and Blackmore stared anxiously astern where the crippled Spaniard wallowed. Wreckage hung over her side as she swung to starboard. If the Spanish captain was quick he could rake Cyclops, his whole broadside pouring in through the latter's wide stern and the shot travelling the length of the crowded decks.
It was every commander's nightmare to be raked, especially from astern where the comparative fragility of the stern windows offered little resistance to the enemy shot. The wreckage over her side was drawing the Spaniard round. One of her larboard guns fired and splinters shot up from Cyclops's quarter. Certainly someone appreciated the opportunity.
Cyclops's helm was put down in an attempt to bring Cyclops on a parallel course but the spanker burst as the Spaniard fired, then the mizen topmast went and Cyclops lost the necessary leverage to force her stern round.
It was a ragged broadside compared with that of the British but its effects were no less lethal. Although nearly a quarter of a mile distant, the damaged enemy had fought back with devastating success. As Captain Hope surveyed the damage with Devaux a voice hailed them:
'Deck there! Breakers on the lee bow!'
Although the British frigate had started her turn the loss of her after sails deprived her of manoeuvrability. There were anxious faces on the quarterdeck.
The officers looked aloft. The lower mizen mast still stood, broken off some six feet above the top. The wreckage was hanging over the larboard side, dragging the frigate back that way while the gale in the forward sails still drove the ship inexorably downwind to where the San Lucar shoal awaited them. Axes were already at work clearing the raffle.
Hope saw a chance and ordered the helm hard over to continue the swing to port. Devaux looked forward and then at the captain.
'Set the cro'jack, bend on a new spanker and get the fore tops'l clewed up!' The captain snapped at him. The first lieutenant ran forward screaming for topmen, anyone, pulling the upperdeck gun crews from their pieces, thrusting bosun's mates here and there…
Men raced for the rigging… disappeared below, hurrying and scurrying under the first lieutenant's hysterical direction.
'Wheeler, get your lobsters to brace the cro'jack yard!'
'Aye, aye, sir!'
Wheeler's booted men stomped away with the mizen braces as the topmen shook out the sail. A master's mate unmade the weather sheet, he was joined by another, they both hauled as two or three seamen under a bosun's mate loosed the clew and bunt-lines. The great sail exploded white in the moonlight, flogging in the gale; then it drew taut and Cyclops began to swing.
Still in his top Drinkwater could see the shoal now, a line of grey ahead of them perhaps four or five miles away. He became aware of a voice hailing him.
'Foretop there!'
'Aye sir?' he looked over the edge at the first lieutenant staring up at him.
'Aloft and furl that tops'l!'
Drinkwater started up. The fore topsail was already losing its power as the sheets slackened and the clew and bunt-lines drew it up to the yard. It was flogging madly, the trembling mast attesting to the fact that many of its stays must have been shot away.
Tregembo was already in the rigging as Drinkwater forsook the familiar top. He was lightheaded with the insane excitement of the night. When they had finished battling with the sail Drinkwater lay over the yard exhausted with hunger and cold. He looked to starboard. The white line on the bank seemed very near now and Cyclops was rolling as the swell built up in the shoaling water. But she was reaching now, sailing across the wind and roughly parallel with the shoal. She would still make leeway but she was no longer running directly on to the bank.
To the south and west dark shapes and flashes told of where the two fleets did battle. Nearer, and to larboard now, the Spanish frigate wallowed, beam on to wind and sea and rolling down on to the shoal.
Drawn from the gun-deck a party of powder-blackened and exhausted men toiled to get the spare spanker on deck. The long sausage of hard canvas snaked out of the tiers and on to the deck. Thirteen minutes later the new sail rose on the undamaged spars.
Cyclops was once more under control. The cross-jack was furled and the headsail sheets slackened. Again her bowsprit turned towards the shoal as Hope anxiously wore ship to bring her on to the starboard tack, heading where the Spanish frigate still wallowed helplessly.
The British frigate paid off before the wind. Then her bowsprit swung away from the shoal. The wind came over the starboard quarter… then the beam. The yards were hauled round, the head-sail sheets hardened in. The wind howled over the starboard bow, stronger now they were heading into it. Cyclops plunged into a sea and a shower of stinging spray swept aft. Half naked gunners scurried away below to tend their cannon.
Hope gave orders to re-engage as Cyclops bore down on her adversary, slowly drawing the crippled Spaniard under her lee.
Cyclops's guns rolled again and the Spaniard fired back.
Devaux was shouting at Blackmore above the crash of the guns. 'Why don't he anchor, Master?'
'And have us reach up and down ahead of him raking him?' scoffed the older man.
'What else can he do? Besides there's a limit to how long we can hang on here. What we want is offing…'
Hope heard him. Released from the tension of immediate danger now his command was again under control, the conversation irritated him.
'I'll trouble you to fight the ship, Mr Devaux, and leave the tactical decisions to me.'
Devaux was silent. He looked sullenly at the Spanish ship and was astonished at Hope's next order: 'Get a hawser through an after port, quickly man, quickly!' At first Devaux was uncomprehending then the moon broke forth again and the lieutenant followed Hope's pointing arm, 'Look man, look!'
The red and gold of Castile was absent from the stern. The Spanish frigate had struck.
'Cease fire! Cease fire!'
Cyclops's guns fell silent as she plunged past the enemy, the exhausted gunners collapsing with their exertions. But Devaux, all thoughts of arguing dispelled by the turn of events, was once more amongst them, rousing them to further efforts. Devaux shouted orders, bosun's mates swung their starters and the realisation of the Spanish surrender swept the ship in a flash. Fatigue vanished in a trice for she was a war prize if they could save her from going ashore on the San Lucar shoal.
Even the aristocratic Devaux did not despise his captain's avarice. The chance of augmenting his paltry patrimony would be eagerly seized upon. He found himself hoping Cyclops had not done too much damage…
On the quarterdeck Captain Hope was enduring the master's objections. The only person on board who could legitimately contest the captain's decisions, from the navigational point of view, Blackmore vigorously protested the inadvisability of taking Cyclops to leeward again to tow off a frigate no more than half a league from a dangerous shoal.