An Eye of the Fleet (5 page)

The enemy was close on
Cyclops
's larboard bow. Below Drinkwater a chaser rang out and a hole appeared in the Spaniard's main topsail.

Devaux ran aft along the larboard gangboard. He was yelling orders to the lieutenants on the gun deck below. He joined Hope on the quarterdeck where the two men studied their enemy. At last the captain called one of the midshipmen over.

‘M'compliments to Lieutenant Keene, when his battery engages he is to cripple the rigging . . .'

The boy scrambled below. Hope wanted the Spaniard immobilised before both ships, distracted by the fury of battle, ran down to leeward where the low Spanish coast lay. Offshore the shoal of San Lucar waited for the oncoming ships of both nations.

‘Mr Blackmore,' Hope called over the sailing master.

‘Sir?'

‘The San Lucar shoal, how far distant?'

‘Three or four leagues, sir,' answered the old man after a moment's consideration.

‘Very well. Post a mate forward on the fore t'gallant yard. I want to know the instant that shoal is sighted.'

A master's mate went forward. On his way aloft he passed Drinkwater who stopped him with a question.

‘Old man's worried about the shoals to looard,' the mate informed him.

‘Oh!' said Drinkwater looking ahead of the frigate. But all he could see was a tumbling waste of black and silver water as clouds crossed the moon, the spume smoking off the wave crests as they tumbled down wind.

A squealing of gun trucks told where the men of the larboard gun battery were hand-spiking their carriages round to bear on the enemy. The Spanish frigate was ahead of
Cyclops
but when the British ship drew abeam they would be about two cables distant.

‘Make ready!'

The order was passed along the dark gun-deck. In his foretop Drinkwater checked the swivel. Under the foot of the topsail he could see the high Spanish poop. Tregembo swung the swivel gun round and pointed it at where he judged the Spanish officers would be. The other seamen cocked their muskets and drew beads on the enemy's mizen top where they knew Spanish soldiers would be aiming at their own officers.

The Spanish frigate was only two points forward of
Cyclops
's beam. In the darkness of the gun-deck Lieutenant Keene, commanding the larboard battery of twelve pounders, looked along the barrel of his aftermost gun. When it bore on the enemy's stern his entire broadside would be aimed at the frigate.

A midshipman dodged up to him touching his hat. ‘Captain's compliments, sir, and you may open fire when your guns bear.' Keene acknowledged and looked along the deck. Accustomed to the gloom he could see the long line of cannon, lit here and there by lanterns. The men were crouched round their pieces tensely awaiting the order to open fire. The gun captains looked his way expectantly, each grasping his linstock. Every gun was shotted canister on ball . . .

A ragged flash of fire flickered along the Spaniard's side.
The noise of the broadside was muted by the gale. Several balls thumped home into the hull, tearing off long oak splinters and sending them lancing down the crowded decks. A man screamed, another was lifted bodily from the deck and his bloodily pulped corpse smashed against a cannon breech.

Aloft holes appeared in the topgallant sails and the master's mate astride the fore topgallant yard had his shoes ripped off by the passage of a ball. With a twang several ropes parted, the main royal yard, its sail furled, came down with a rush.

Orders were shouted at the topmen to secure the loose gear.

Meanwhile Keene still watched from his after gun-port. He could see nothing but sea and sky, the night filled with the raging of the gale and the responsive hiss of the sea.

Then the stern of the Spanish frigate plunged into view, dark and menacing; another ragged broadside rippled along her side. He stepped back and waited for the upward roll:

‘Fire!'

Frigates varied in size and design but basically they comprised a single gun deck running the full length of the ship. In battle the temporary bulkheads providing the captain and officers' accommodation were removed when the ship cleared for action. Above the gun deck and running forward almost to the main mast was the quarterdeck from where the ship was conned. A few light cannon and anti-personnel weapons were situated here. At the bow a similar raised deck, or fo'c's'le, extended aft round the base of the foremast. The fo'c's'le and quarterdeck were connected along the ship's side by wooden gangways which extended over that part of the gundeck otherwise exposed and known as ‘the waist'. However the open space between the gangways was beamed in and supported chocks for the ship's boats so that the ventilation that the opening was supposed to provide the gun deck was, at best, poor.

When the larboard battery opened fire the confined space of the gun deck became a cacophonous hell. The flashes of the guns alternately plunged the scene from brilliance to blackness. Despite the season of the year the seamen were soon running in sweat as they sponged, rammed and fired their brutish artillery. The concussion of the guns and rumbling of the trucks as they recoiled and were hauled forward again was deafening. The tight knots of men laboured round each gun, the lieutenants and master's mates controlling their aim as they broke from broadsides to firing at will. Dashing about the sanded deck the little powder monkeys, scraps of under-nourished urchins, scrambled from the gloomier orlop deck below to where the gunner had retired in his felt slippers to preside over the alchemical mysteries of cartridge preparation.

At the companionways the marine sentries stood, bayonets fixed to their loaded muskets. They had orders to shoot any but approved messengers or stretcher parties on their way to the orlop. Panic and cowardice were thus nicely discouraged. The only way for a man to pass below was to be carried to Mr Surgeon Appleby and his mates who, like the gunner, held
their own esoteric court in the frigate's cockpit. Here the midshipmen's chests became the ship's operating theatre and covered with canvas provided Appleby with the table upon which he was free to butcher His Majesty's subjects. A few feet above the septic stink of rat-infested bilges, in a foetid atmosphere lit by a few guttering oil lamps, the men of Sandwich's navy came for succour and often breathed their last.

Cyclops
fired seven broadsides before the two ships drew abeam. The Spaniards fired back with increasing irregularity as the dreadful precision of the British cannon smashed into their vessel's fabric.

Even so they carried away
Cyclops
's mizen mast above the upper hounds. More rigging parted and the main topsail, shot through in a dozen places, suddenly dissolved into a flapping, cracking mess of torn canvas as the gale finished the work the cannon balls had started.

Suddenly the two frigates were abeam, the sea rushing black between them. The moon appeared from behind the obscurity of a cloud. Details of the enemy stood out and etched themselves into Drinkwater's brain. He could see men in the tops, officers on her quarterdeck and the activity of gun crews on the upper deck. A musket ball smacked into the mast above him, then another and another.

‘Fire!' he yelled unnecessarily loudly at his topmen. Astern of him the main top loosed off, then Tregembo fired the swivel. Drinkwater saw the scatter of the langridge tearing up the Spaniard's decks. He watched fascinated as a man, puppetlike in the bizarre light, fell jerking to the deck with a dark stain spreading round him. Someone lurched against Drinkwater and sat down against the mast. A black hole existed where the man's right eye had been. Drinkwater caught his musket and sighted along it. He focussed on a shadowy figure reloading in the enemy's main top. He did it as coolly as shooting at Barnet fair, squeezing the trigger. The flint sparked and the musket jerked against his shoulder. The man fell.

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 main-mast 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 buntlines. 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 buntlines 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 onto 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 onto the deck. Thirteen minutes later the new sail rose on the undamaged spars.