“Steady on Due West, thus!” Westcott shouted. “By broadside, fire!”
The Spanish frigate still insisted on sailing close-hauled to the winds, and was spreading her main course to make up for the loss of her fore and main mast upperworks, but their course, and Sapphire’s course, would eventually result in an intersection.
Question is, who crosses whose bows first? Lewrie wondered.
“Carronades and six-pounders in the next broadside, Mister Westcott!” Lewrie snapped. “Shoot her to wood scraps! Pass word to aim to hull her!”
The Spanish frigate was swimming up to only one point abaft of abeam, out-footing Sapphire, and firing yet another broadside of her own, yet this one was very ragged; a pair of guns, several single discharges, another pair, then some more seconds apart. Lewrie reckoned that if Pomfret was right, it would be at least another full minute or longer before she could fire again.
“All guns, on the up-roll, by broadside … fire!” and their ship rocked as if gut-punched by the recoil. A vast fogbank of smoke blossomed into being, swept downwind by the breeze, smothering their view of the enemy, and rolling down onto the frigate.
“Make our head West by North, Mister Westcott!” Lewrie yelled. “Close the range!” He knew that he was getting “gun-drunk”, caught up in the fight to the point that fine tactics were abandoned, but Lewrie didn’t care, by then. The evil reek of spent powder and the titanic roar of his guns were too intoxicating for cool, detached thinking any longer.
“By broadside, fire!” and when the pall of gunsmoke drifted alee, there was the enemy frigate, with her bowsprit shot away and her jibs flagging to leeward, with her larboard-side main course yard a shattered stub that had ripped that great sail in half as it had fallen. There were more holes in her bulwarks, along her row of gun-ports. At last, she was beginning to haul her wind and bear away towards the coast, but that was many miles off, by then. She had come up fully abeam to Sapphire but she would not out-foot her any longer, and it was the two-decker which would do the over-taking, still holding the wind gage.
“By broadside, fire!” this time at about one cable’s range and above the smoke, everyone on deck could see her masts shiver and shake at the impact. The frigate’s return fire was no more a broadside but a feeble stutter. At such close range, Lewrie was surprised by how many roundshot moaned overhead, not into the hull, wondering if the Spanish gunners were even trying to aim any longer.
“Hit her again!” Lewrie demanded, pounding a fist on the caprails. “Cut her bloody guts out! Skin the bastards!”
“By broadside … fire!”
“Steer North-Nor’west, Mister Westcott,” he ordered, his ears ringing despite the wax he’d crammed into them. “Fetch her up close!”
The Spanish captain must have realised that he could no longer fight an equal fight against those heavy 24-pounders and the “Smashers”, the heavy carronades. The frigate was suddenly swinging away to Due North with the range down to two hundred yards or less, appearing as if she’d put completely about, wearing to the opposite tack to flee for Almeria and the safety of its harbour and shore batteries.
“Put the wind fine on the larboard quarters, Mister Westcott!” Lewrie shouted. “Hands to the sheets and braces and ease her! If she keeps on turnin’, we might get a chance to rake her!”
Sapphire hauled her wind, sagging off the wind and plodding at her slow, sedate pace to follow the Spanish frigate, which was starting to wear, and show her stern!
“Make it count! Slow and steady … on the up-roll, as you bear … fire!”
No, it would not be a perfect right-angled rake, the sort that tore through the transom and stern windows and concentrated roundshot down the full length of an enemy’s decks like a blast from a fowling piece, over-turning guns and slaughtering sailors by the dozens.
Sapphire’s gunfire took the frigate on her larboard quarters, shattering the lighter wood of her quarter-galleries, grazing through the stern transom, shattering and tearing away glass and window sashes, destroying her taffrails and both night lanthorns, punching into her captain’s and her officers’ quarters, and dis-mounting or over-turning guns and carriages. The frigate’s mizen mast swayed to the impact of heavy shot that hit its thicker lower section below the quarterdeck. A section of the quarterdeck’s larboard bulwarks was turned into a cloud of arm-length splinters, scything away men of her After-Guard, helmsmen, and her officers. She ceased her turn and sagged to leeward, as if no longer under control, The spanker, boomed out over the quarterdeck, was shot full of holes, but her proud flag still flew from its after-most lift line, as did another from a signal halliard.
“Lay us alongside, Mister Westcott!” Lewrie shouted. “Ready a boarding party!”
“Sir! Sir!” Midshipman Fywell called from the poop deck. “The first frigate is back under way, and is coming up astern of us!”
Lewrie dashed up the ladderway to the poop deck for a look-see, and was astounded to see that the Spanish had managed to get her back into action, with jury-rigged jibs stretched from her foremast fighting top to her forecastle, jib boom, and her figurehead. She barely crawled, her gripe and cut-water parting the sea with hardly a ripple of a foam mustachio. She heeled to larboard a few degrees, even with the wind pressing her from the Sou’east. Her un-damaged starboard gun battery was run out, though.
“Still a mile off, and it’ll take her a quarter-hour ’til she comes up with us,” Lewrie decided aloud. “If her captain had any sense, he’d make off for repairs, or strike his colours.”
But, he won’t, Lewrie thought; He’s going to atone for Trafalgar and win some glory for the Spanish Navy, even if it kills him!
“’Vast the boarding party, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie called down to his quarterdeck. “That first frigate’s back in action, and is makin’ for us. Lay us abeam of this ’un,” he said, pointing to the nearest frigate, “and continue firing.”
He stayed on the poop deck to make some quick calculations and decisions. The nearest Spaniard was headed North by West, driven by the wind and most-likely with her steering tackle damaged or shot away and unable to change course ’til it was re-roved, which might take a few minutes. Sapphire was steering North-Nor’west with the wind fine on her larboard quarters, slowly separating from her unless she wore to take the wind fine on her starboard quarters, and sailing at about the same pace as the Spaniard, going no faster than the wind blew.
A mile or so off to the Sou’east, that first Spanish frigate was limping back into the fight, bound Nor’west as if she hoped to get onto Sapphire’s stern for at least one rake.
“By broadside … fire!”
The range to their opponent, though slowly opening, was about a hundred yards, and it was simply devastating. They were close enough to hear the frigate’s hull scream in parroty squawks as her scantlings were shot clean through. Her gun deck was so ravaged that it was impossible to count her original number of gun-ports. Her response, when it came, was a meagre six or seven guns before her damaged mizen mast gave way to another hit or two, and it slowly toppled forward, swivelling, wrenching up deck timbers and planking through which it pierced, crashing against her main mast and taking down sails, yards, and running rigging, and spilling sailors and naval infantry from the tops to the decks. Both of the flags were dragged down with it, and it was a long minute before Lewrie could see an officer digging through her smashed-open flag lockers for another. At the same time, another officer came up from below with a bed sheet, and the two men began to argue as to which should be displayed! They tugged each others’ flags, swung fists, and one of them pulled a pistol on his fellow!
“Speaking-trumpet, Mister Westcott!” Lewrie demanded, and one of the Mids stationed on the quarterdeck ran it up to him.
“Hey!” Lewrie shouted across. “Hola! Make up your bloody minds what you’re going t’do! Strike, or fight? Uh, rendición, or … combato?” he yelled, not knowing if those were even Spanish words. “What is ‘broadside’ in Spanish? Anybody?” he called down his officers.