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“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 gu
“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 ru
“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.
“Try andanada, sir,” Captain Pomfret offered, looking as if he found amusement in Lewrie’s flummoxing in a foreign language.
“Andanada, muchos andanada, comprend?” Lewrie shouted over to the Spanish frigate, wondering if “comprend” was French. He pointed at the side of his ship and the two re-loaded and run-out gun batteries.
The two Spaniards had themselves a short palaver, then the one with the large national flag went to the stern and draped it over the shattered stern. The one with the bed sheet gave his to a sailor who went up the mainmast shrouds to the ravaged fighting top to bind it to the after-most stay.
“We … yield to you, señor!” a young Aspirante, the Spanish equivalent of a Midshipman, shouted back. “We strike!”
“Now, you can form a boarding party, Mister Westcott, and take possession of her,” Lewrie said, whooping in triumph. He looked aft to see how close the other Spanish frigate was, and caught sight of her as she began a slow turn alee. She was breaking off, now that her consort had surrendered. Whatever her captain had intended in bringing his ship back into action despite her parlous condition, it was evident that he’d seen the light, and recognised the futility of the gesture. She continued turning, performing a sloppy wear cross the eye of the wind, and began to limp Nor’east, possibly for Almeria.
“Should we go after her, too, sir?” Westcott asked from the foot of the starboard poop deck ladderway.
“Wish we could, but…” Lewrie said with a grimace. “Better we deal with the bird in hand. Fetch-to, sir, and fetch up the boats from astern. Somebody who knows the language tell our Spaniards to fetch-to, as well.”