An Eye of the Fleet by Richard Woodman Read Free Book Online Page A

itЧwe need their help.’
    Nathaniel Drinkwater thus received the surrender of the thirty-eight gun frigate Santa Teresa. He managed a clumsy bow on the plunging deck and as graciously as he knew how, aware of his own gawkiness, he handed the weapon back. The moonlight shone keenly on the straight Toledo blade.
    Devaux was shouting again: ‘Men! Men! Hombres! Hombres!’ The four-inch had arrived on board and the weight of the big hawser was already on it. Gesticulating wildly and miming with his body Devaux urged the defeated Spaniards to strenuous activity. He pointed to leeward. ‘Muerto! Muerto!’
    They understood.
    To windward Hope was tacking Cyclops. It was vital that Devaux secured the tow in seconds. The four-inch snaked in. Then it snagged. The big ten-inch rope coming out of the water had caught on something under Santa Teresa’s bow.
    ‘Heave!’ screamed Devaux, beside himself with excitement. Cyclops would feel the drag of that rope. She might fail to pay off on the starboard tackЕ
    Suddenly it came aboard with a rush. The floating hemp rose on a wave and swept aboard as Santa Teresa’s bow fell into a steep trough.
    Drinkwater was astonished. Where she had been rolling wildly the seas had been breaking harmlessly alongside. He sensed something was wrong. That sea had broken over them. He looked around. The sea was white in the moonlight and breaking as on a beach. They were in the breakers of the San Lucar shoal. Above the howl of the wind and the screaming of the Spanish officers the thunder of the Atlantic flinging itself on to the bank was a deep and terrifying rumble.
    Devaux sweated over the end of the ten-inch rope. ‘Get a gun fired quick!’
    Drinkwater pointed to a cannon and mimed a ramming motion. ‘Bang!’ he shouted.
    The sailors understood and a charge was quickly rammed home. Drinkwater grabbed the linstock and jerked it. It fired. He looked anxiously at Cyclops. Several Spaniards were staring fearfully to leeward. ‘Dios!’ said one, crossing himself. Others did the same.
    Slowly Devaux breathed out. Cyclops had tacked successfully. The hemp rose from the water and took the strain. It creaked and Drinkwater looked to where Devaux had passed a turn round Santa Teresa’s fore mast and wracked lashings on it. More were being passed by the sailors. The Santa Teresa trembled. Men looked fearfully at each other. Was it the effect of the tow or had she struck the bottom?
    Cyclops’s stern rose then plunged downwards. The rope was invisible in the darkness which had again engulfed them but it was secured and Santa Teresa began to turn into the wind. Very slowly Cyclops hauled her late adversary to the south-west, clawing a foot to windward for every yard she made to the south.
    Devaux turned to the midshipman and clapped him on the back. His face broke into a boyish grin.
    ‘We’ve done it, cully, by God, we’ve done it!’
    Drinkwater slid slowly to the deck, the complete oblivion of fatigue enveloping him.

Chapter Five
FebruaryЧApril 1780
    The Evil that Men doЕ
    л ^ ╗
    Rodney’s fleet lay at anchor in Gibraltar Bay licking its wounds with a sense of satisfaction. The evidence of their victory was all about them, the Spanish warships wearing British colours over their own.
    The battle had annihilated Don Juan de Langara’s squadron. Four battleships had struck by midnight. The Admiral in Fenix surrendered to Rodney but Sandwich had pressed on. At about 2 a.m. on the 17th she overhauled the smaller Monarcha and compelled her to strike her colours with one terrible broadside. By this time, as Cyclops struggled to secure Santa Teresa in tow, both fleets were in shoaling water. Two seventy-gun ships, the San Julian and San Eugenio, ran helplessly aground with terrible loss of life. The remainder, Spanish and British, managed to claw off to windward.
    In the confusion of securing the prizes one Spanish battleship escaped as did the other frigate. With the exception of the San