by Jay Worrall
“Where do you think she’ll be in, say, forty-five minutes, Connley?” Charles asked.
“’Bout two and a half, maybe three miles out from the fort, I’d say, sir. She won’t have cleared the reef,” the lookout replied.
“That’s what I think, too. Thank you for making space for me.”
“Yer welcome, sir. Did you see what you was looking for?”
“I did,” Charles answered.
“Are we goin’ to fight her again, sir?”
“Yes, and we’re going to have her this time,” he said, turning on the narrow perch. “It’s a sure wager.” He felt for a foothold with his shoe and started his laborious descent to the deck.
“Hang out the studding sails, Daniel,” Charles said, returning to the quarterdeck. “I want more speed; every fathom counts.”
Bevan slowly exhaled, expressing a displeasure that he clearly did not want to voice openly. “Aye aye, Captain.”
The Louisa bore slowly down on the Spanish frigate in the light air, her bow wave small curls of white and her wake an uneven trail across the swells. At four miles the Santa Brigida was fully visible, two and a half miles outside the Ferrol headlands, the black bulk of her hull emphasized by the white surf on the reef another mile or so beyond. As they watched, the Spaniard hove to, took in all but her topgallants, laid one against the mast, and waited broadside-on for the approaching smaller British frigate.
Charles nodded appreciatively. The Santa Brigida’s captain had little choice but to back her sails and wait. She couldn’t turn away without sailing onto the reef and couldn’t lie anywhere near close enough to the wind to stand toward him. If the frigate had stayed on her halting course westward, the Louisa could have timed her approach, laid off the Spaniard’s bow at the end of the reef, and raked her repeatedly. By heaving to she was demanding a broadside-to-broadside fight. In fact, her only options were to heave to and fight it out or reverse course and return to the bay. Charles didn’t think the Spanish captain had the courage to turn tail and run—it would be his pride as well as the knowledge that he had the larger, better-armed ship that forced him to gamble he could pummel the Louisa into submission before drifting down onto the reef. It was a reasonable assumption except for one thing, Charles considered: After the first few broadsides in this wind, the Santa Brigida wouldn’t be able to see him.
“This is crazy, Charlie,” Bevan said nervously. “We can’t maneuver here. She’ll batter us.”
Charles pulled his eyes away from the Spanish frigate to look at his lieutenant and friend. “I don’t intend to maneuver, Daniel. Her captain thinks what you think—that he can beat us in a straight gun-to-gun fight. But he can’t, not today. Lay us alongside at fifty yards, just off her bow quarter, and get every stitch of sail off her except for the fore and mizzen topsails. We’ll back and fill, same as the Spaniard.”
“All right, Charlie,” Bevan said, resigned.
Charles glanced at the black-hulled ship, now less than a mile away. There was still a little time before it would begin. He forced himself to relax and stifled his fingers before they could start tapping on the rail. After a moment he started forward, carefully made his way down the ladderway to the gundeck, and limped to a central spot forward of the mainmast. The gun crews fell silent one by one as they noticed his presence.
“You know we’re going to fight the Spanish frigate again,” he said in a loud voice so all around could hear. “I promise you we’ll beat her if we keep our heads. I expect you to run your guns in and out as quick as you can, but aim them. Lay every shot true for her gundeck. If you can’t see her hull in the smoke, look for her masts. They’ll tell you where she lies.” He saw heads nod in comprehension.
“Three cheers for the Louisa!” Charles shouted, and loud huzzas followed. “Three cheers for her crew!” They were still cheering when he saw the Spaniard’s gunports open and the black muzzles of her cannon run out.
“Pass the word for my steward,” Charles said to Midshipman Beechum after hurrying as best he could back to the quarterdeck. “Tell him I want my best uniform coat and hat.”
At three hundred yards the Santa Brigida fired a ragged broadside, gray-black smoke hiding her then drifting lazily with the breeze back over her decks. Balls splashed in the sea all around; one hit the Louisa’s bow with a crash, transmitting its impact through the frame of the ship.
“He should have waited until we were closer,” Charles said to no one in particular. He pulled out his watch and noted the time. Turning to Bevan, he said, “Start taking the sails off her and run out the starboard battery.”
Charles moved to the forward rail of the quarterdeck and called down to Winchester on the gundeck, “We’re going to come about. Fire as you bear.”
“Yes, sir,” Winchester shouted back.
Satisfied that he’d done everything that could be done, Charles made his way to the larboard rail, leaned back against it, and looked at his watch again. Attwater arrived and helped him change coats, fussing nervously at invisible dust on the lapel as he did so.
“I hope you know what yer doing, sir,” he said tensely. “She’s got an awful big bite.”
“I hope so, too.”
At seventy-five yards he looked to the quartermaster at the wheel and said, “Port your helm, hard over.” The unneeded sails were already being furled at lightning speed. Bevan yelled, “Back the main topgallant” to the men on the braces.
Louisa lost way as her head swung to port. Her broadside came a fraction before the Santa Brigida’s, the sounds of the combined guns at close range deafening in their thunderous roar. Charles felt the deck cant with the cannons’ recoil and shudder as a number of the heavy Spanish balls pounded the Louisa’s hull. A section of the bulwark exploded inward by the number-eight gun in the waist, killing or maiming four of its crew.
“Get those men below and replace them,” Charles ordered.
“Sponge out! Load with cartridge!” a young gunnery midshipman on the quarterdeck was shouting at the top of his lungs, but Charles saw that most of the gun crews were ahead of him.
“Home!” he heard one gun captain call, signaling that a powder cartridge had been pushed fully in. Charles watched as the shot and wad were forced into the muzzle and quickly rammed tight. The gun crew heaved on the rope tackle and the gun, trucks squealing shrilly, came up with a thud against the ship’s side. The sharper bark of the quarterdeck carronades sounded first. They were quicker to reload and run out on their slides than the heavier nine- and twelve-pounders.
“Clear!” the gun captain yelled as he yanked on the lanyard. The black beast exploded its charge, expelling a ball of orange flame, and lurched viciously back against its restraints. A rolling crescendo of explosions followed as the Louisa’s second broadside fired.
Charles looked for damage on the Spanish frigate, but the smoke from his guns drifted toward her on the easy wind, obscuring much of his vision. This satisfied him. The Santa Brigida spoke a moment later, the flash of her guns just visible here and there through the deepening haze. Shot screamed across the decks, tearing new holes in the lee rail, upsetting a gun, and sending up fountains of water where cannonballs aimed low found the sea. “Detail some men to replace any damaged guns with those from the port-side battery,” he said to Bevan.
Charles stared hard at the fort on the Ferrol promontory, trying to line its flagstaff with some landmark inland that he could remember later so he could judge Louisa’s leeway. The carronades fired nearly together, followed after a moment by most of the cannon in a rolling blast, then the last and slowest of the guns manned by newer hands. He saw a yard fall from the Santa Brigida’s rigging, the masts from her tops up being the only part of the Spanish ship he could see above the smoke. Both ships were soon firing nearly blind through the almost impenetrable cloud. But it was worse for the Spaniard, Charles knew. She had her own gunsmoke as well as the Louisa’s drifting slowly across her decks.
A loud crash forward accompanied by angui
shed screams told him that another of the twelve-pounders on the gundeck had been hit and dismounted from its carriage. A shot shrieked across the quarterdeck close enough that Charles could feel its passage. The ship’s bell gave a last clank, and when he looked the belfry had disappeared.
“Warm work, Charlie,” Bevan observed.
“Yes.”
Almost immediately the Louisa loosed her own increasingly drawn-out cannonade, and, after an eerie quiet punctuated only by the sounds of shouting sailors and the marines firing their small arms from the tops, the carronades and then the long guns fired again before the Spaniard answered. Four rounds to their three, and maybe five for the carronades, Charles thought—only marginally better than before.
CANNON FIRE SOON became general from both ships, without rhythm or meter, as the guns were loaded and emptied as fast as the crews could work them. Now and again, Spanish balls crashed savagely against the Louisa’s hull, reverberating throughout the ship. He couldn’t be sure of the toll from the Louisa’s fire, but he saw splashes in the water all around from the Spaniard’s efforts, including a goodly number that had been fired well high and landed in the sea a half a mile or more beyond. A more concentrated burst than usual came from the Santa Brigida and Charles watched as wooden blocks and pulleys clattered loudly to the deck, followed by silent snakes of rope.
“They’re aiming for our masts,” Bevan offered.
“Maybe, but I doubt they can see our masts, or anything else of us,” Charles answered. “It’s just luck. If they send enough balls, they’re bound to hit something.” The pall of cannon smoke hung like an impenetrable fog from the sea surface almost to the lower yards, and the Louisa belched flame and ball into it over and over again.
Charles looked back at the Ferrol fort. He saw a puff from a cannon disappear in the wind, and someone was frantically running the Spanish flag up and down on its staff. He smiled grimly. He knew what the fort was trying to communicate to the Santa Brigida’s captain. The reef would be as invisible as the Louisa in the heavy fog of spent gunpowder drifting onto and past the frigate. He doubted the Spanish captain was thinking about the reef now, or that he could see the signal.
From the position of the Spaniard’s masts, Charles saw that the distance between the two ships had gradually increased as the heavier frigate had drifted further to leeward than the Louisa. “Bring the yards around and close the gap,” he said to Bevan. “I don’t want too much space between us.” He looked again at the Ferrol fort, checking for the position of the landmark he had picked out earlier.
The incessant crash of cannons seemed to continue interminably; the Spaniard began to exact a toll with its repeated strikes to the Louisa’s masts, hulls, and men. Another gun upset, a twelve-pounder in the waist, and then a carronade on the quarterdeck reared backward with a loud clang as a ball struck its muzzle. Charles didn’t want to lose any of his carronades. “Get that gun remounted or replace it with one from the port-side battery,” he ordered, then saw that it was already being done. The topgallant mast snapped at its cap and came twisting down with its yard, through the stays and shrouds to land almost gently on the deck.
He heard a loud rending crack and saw the Santa Brigida’s entire foremast swing in a wide arc toward the sea, pulling the main top and topgallant masts with it. Ragged cheers broke out among the sweating gun crews on the Louisa’s decks.
“Silence,” Bevan bellowed. “Tend to your business.”
Whether from attrition or exhaustion or both, the gunfire on the Spanish frigate gradually began to slow to arhythmic bursts with lengthening silences in between. The Louisa’s own rate of fire wasn’t as intense as when they began, but it was noticeably stronger than the Santa Brigida’s. The breeze picked up and the murk of gunsmoke slowly lightened, allowing Charles to see occasional glimpses of his opponent. Her sides were battered, with numerous upended muzzles. In places two, three, and—just aft of midships—four of her gunports were beaten into one. Strings of rigging trailed limply in the water.
The Spaniard’s hull, deprived of the leverage of her foremast and most of her mainmast, rolled noticeably in the gentle swells. Still she fired from this gun and that as her few remaining gun crews reloaded them and heaved the beasts out against their bulwarks, but it was clear that the fight had gone out of her. Even with the clearing of the smoke, her guns were poorly aimed, firing high or short as she rolled.
Charles checked the Ferrol headland and then looked at the Spanish frigate again, cocking his head and listening.
“She’s done, Daniel,” Charles said.
A crash of three guns fired nearly together from the Santa Brigida. The Louisa’s foretopmast cracked and swayed down, hanging by its stays.
“Not yet, she isn’t,” Bevan said.
“Yes, she is. Listen.”
During a silence between the firing cannons, Bevan listened. “I don’t hear anything,” he said. “Her guns have slacked off, but she hasn’t struck.”
“Not that,” Charles said. “Listen to the surf, the reef.”
Bevan stood silent for a moment as a wave broke on the rocks close behind the battered frigate. Both men heard it clearly. “Oh, God,” he said.
Charles paused to consider that he had finally defeated the Santa Brigida. Her masts and hull were broken and battered and so many of her cannon were unserviceable that she was virtually disarmed. He had in his hands the means to avenge the brutal punishment the Argonaut had received from her guns at St. Vincent. But he felt little of the satisfaction he thought he would. He could sink her now if he wanted to. He could continue to pour shot after shot into her almost unprotected hull, or he could simply order the Louisa to put on sail and leave. For the Spanish frigate there was no escape. The reef was too close. Without her masts, she had no hope of clawing clear. If he wanted to, Charles could even order the Louisa to linger nearby, to discourage any boats from shore from coming out to take off the survivors. Even in this moderate sea, it would all be over in a few hours: The Santa Brigida would slowly break her bottom against the rocks, fill with water, and sink.
“What are you going to do, Charlie?” Bevan asked, reading his thoughts.
Charles watched the wiry Spanish captain with the mustache running back and forth on his quarterdeck, calling out orders, exhorting, trying to get the most from his dispirited crew. The man showed determination to fight to the end and no awareness of the all-too-rapidly approaching rocks.
“Cease firing,” Charles said. “Get me a speaking trumpet.” The Louisa fell eerily silent.
“Señor Capitán, Señor Capitán,” Charles yelled through the trumpet. No one on the Spanish frigate noticed and she fired two more guns, one striking the Louisa’s hull. “Señor Capitán, Santa Brigida!” Charles screamed as loud as he could.
The man looked up quizzically. Charles saw that his uniform and face were stained with powder smoke and there was blood from a cut on his cheek. “Strike,” Charles yelled. “Strike your colors.”
A gun went off on the Santa Brigida; Charles watched gratefully as her captain gestured for silence, then cupped his hand to his ear. “Qué?” he shouted back.
“Is there anyone on board who speaks Spanish?” Charles asked Bevan.
“Beechum, I think.”
“Fetch him.” To the Spanish captain Charles shouted, “Surrender, strike, give up! For Christ’s sake, the reef’s behind you!”
The Spanish captain shouted something back. Charles had no idea what he’d said.
Beechum arrived. “Do you speak Spanish?” Charles asked.
“Some, sir. My nanny was Castilian,” the midshipman answered.
“Ask him to strike. Do it politely,” Charles said, handing Beechum the speaking trumpet.
The midshipman puckered his lips in concentration, then shouted, “Háganos el favor de rendirse Usted.”
The Spanish captain clearly understood, frowned, and waved his hands in a gesture of dismissal.
“What did you say?” Charles
asked.
“I asked him to please do us the courtesy of surrendering,” Beechum said.
“That was polite,” Bevan observed.
Charles grabbed the trumpet back and raised it to his lips. “Behind you, behind you! Dientes del Diablo!” he screamed.
Someone on the Santa Brigida understood him and looked around. Charles could hear the shouts of warning and dismay among the crew. He was right when he’d guessed that the reef would be invisible and forgotten in the heat of battle. The Spanish captain looked behind him in time to see a churning cauldron of foam as a swell washed over the black rocks. He turned back to Charles with a look of horror on his face.
“Get a cable to her, Daniel. We’ll take her in tow.”
“Aye aye,” Bevan said and hurried off to organize the work.
“Keswick,” Charles called to the bosun standing near the wheel. “Get as many hands as you can aloft to repair the rigging. We’re going to need all the sail we can carry.”
“What’s the word for surrender?” Charles asked Beechum. “Just the word.”
“Rendición, sir,” Beechum said.
A lead line had already been heaved across to the Spanish ship, whose remaining crew were pulling it in as fast as they could. The small line would be attached to a larger rope, which would be tied to a cablet, eventually connecting to the anchor cable with which the Louisa would try to drag the Santa Brigida to safety.
“Rendición?” Charles shouted across at the Santa Brigida’s captain. “Rendición?”
“Sí, sí. Rendición,” the captain called back, gesturing his surrender with his hands and calling for someone to haul down the Spanish flag from its place above the taffrail.
Charles turned back to Bevan. “Send Winchester over with the marines and as many seamen as he thinks necessary to take possession of her.”
The cable was passed with some urgency and fastened securely to Louisa’s bitts. She took the strain as gently as Eliot could manage, given her wounded masts and stays. Slowly they pulled the Santa Brigida clear and then several miles out to sea, where they hove to in order to carry out repairs to both ships.
