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Four miles off, and quarterdeck and forecastle guns were cast overside, but that made little difference. The San Pablo had borne her ship’s boats on the boat-tier beams that spa
Three miles off, and Lewrie could see the tangle of ropes that bound spare sails that had been fothered over the shot holes, and the fothering patches seeming to breathe as air compressed in her orlop and bilges pressed out, and the sea dimpled them inward.
Two miles off, and the San Pablo’s bows were submerged up to the forecastle, and she suddenly roiled onto her larboard side and began to go down in a foaming welter of great air bubbles and flying spray shot out of her hull.
“Damme, damme, damme!” Lewrie muttered, closing the tubes of his telescope, thinking that he could hear the mortal groaning noises of a proud ship begi
Her masts slid under, ’til only the mizen stood above the sea, and a hint of her taffrails and her captain’s cabin windows, the red-gold-red flag of Spain still flying, and then even that was gone in a boiling froth of foam as she gave up her last exhale and headed for the bottom.
“Fetch-to, close as you can, Mister Westcott, and man all the boats,” Lewrie ordered, chiding himself for not going after her sooner. Even with aid so close, the long minutes required to bring up to the winds and bring the boats up from astern, then man them and get them off, was too long for many of the Spanish sailors. Some survivors clung to broken yards or the shattered ship’s boats, some hung on to floating hatch gratings, and some of the frigate’s walking wounded lay atop them. But Lewrie could see many bodies floating face-down and drowned, and what had become of her badly wounded who could not be moved from her belowdecks surgery did not bear thinking about. Many men who’d managed to escape her had gotten entangled in the confused masses of standing and ru
All he could do was pace the poop deck, head down so he didn’t have to watch any longer, with his hands clasped in the small of his back, trying to shut out the terrified shouts, screams, and prayers and play stern and stoic, and wait for the final report.
“Ah, Mister Westcott,” Lewrie said at last as his First Officer came to the poop deck after the last boat had been recovered. “What’s the count?”
“We only managed to save fifty-nine of them, sir,” Westcott said, lifting his hat in formal salute. “None of her officers or her Mids. Her captain … he was determined to go down with his ship, and those in command who’d survived the fight swore they’d do the same. Damned if they didn’t gather in his cabins for a last drink before she went. I’ve never heard the like!”
“Perhaps the Spanish treasury is so empty, he thought it likely they’d ask him t’pay t’replace her,” Lewrie said with a brief snort of the blackest of gallows humour. “Poor devils. Rig out boats for towing, and get us under way to rejoin our prize, Mister Westcott.”
“Aye, sir,” Westcott said, looking grim and disappointed with his best efforts to save more. “Shape course for Gibraltar?”
“Aye, Gibraltar,” Lewrie said, nodding gravely. He lingered on the poop deck for several minutes to savour the airs. It was getting on for November, and even the Mediterranean was turning brisk. The sun was lowering in the West, getting on towards dusk, and the skies in that direction were almost glowing amber, yellow, and red.
Red skies at night, sailor’s delight, he glumly thought, though far from delighted by then. At last, he descended to the quarterdeck, hoping that his cabins, which he had not seen since the ship had gone to Quarters that morning, might have been put back in some semblance of decent order, though he dreaded the idea that he would have to dine in his officers who remained aboard, along with Captain Pomfret and a few Mids; they’d be cock-a-whoop boisterous, too ready to celebrate, and he would have much preferred to dine alone, just him and Chalky.
“Too bad about the other Spanish frigate, ain’t it, sir?” Captain Pomfret commented. “All those poor, drowned men! Still, defeating two enemy ships in one day is quite a rare feat, I should think. Make all the papers and cheer folks back home something wondrous! My congratulations, Captain Lewrie … even if, as I understand the process of ‘to the victor go the spoils’, your ship will only reap prize money on the one, what?”
“You shall share in it, too, Captain Pomfret,” Lewrie assured him with a faint grin. “You were present upon our decks. Take joy o’ that. Dine with me tonight. With any luck, my cook, Yeovill, will prepare us something special.”
“Delighted to hear that I should prosper, even in a small way, and I would also be delighted to dine, and celebrate your victory,” Pomfret eagerly said.
“Yes, it was a victory, wasn’t it?” Lewrie mused, wanting no more than to go aft and get off his feet. “Not completely mine, though. If a grand victory it was, it’s Sapphire’s victory, their victory,” he said, pointing forward to the many sailors on deck. “It’s always theirs.”
EPILOGUE
I begin by taking. I shall find scholars afterwards to demonstrate my perfect right.
FREDERICK II, THE GREAT
KING OF PRUSSIA (1712–1786)
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, Bart., was having one of the worst mornings of his life. To say that he felt rowed beyond all temperance, to describe his mood of being betrayed, and as ill-used as if assailed by so many bears, would be an understatement.
He could not return aboard HMS Sapphire and indulge in a roaring, satisfying rage in the privacy of his great-cabins; that would result in a terrorised cat, a howling ship’s dog, and cringing cabin-servants, and possibly the abuse of his furniture, and stubbed toes. Quite possibly his officers, Mids, and sailors who could not help over-hearing a long, curse-laden tirade, and the gay tinkle of flung glassware, might imagine that he’d taken complete leave of his senses.
Lewrie could relate the wrenching circumstances to Lieutenant Geoffrey Westcott later, after he had drained off all his bile, but it was not yet time for that; he had to see straight, first, and, at the moment, he felt that if he looked in a mirror, his eyes would be red, like a Viking Berserker warrior of old!
I may laugh about this in future … but I rather doubt it, he fumed to himself.
Naturally, he would not go to his mistress’s, Maddalena Covilhā’s lodgings and burden her with it. She’d think him demented, and fear that she’d made a bad bargain with a raving lunatick, one she’d never know when he might go off, again, perhaps on her. Maddalena seemed intelligent enough a woman to understand, but it might be more than an hour, and three bottles of wine, before he completely vented.
No, the only person upon whom he could empty his spleen was Mr. Thomas Mountjoy, for part of his bad news affected that worthy’s operations, and if he hadn’t heard about it yet, Mountjoy would surely be as shocked as he was, and just as angry.
“Deacon,” Lewrie growled at the dangerous fellow as he entered Mountjoy’s lodgings, not caring how he took the curtness. “Is he in?”