Then once more he was engulfed in the smoke and din of the Natividad’s broadside. He felt the wind of shot round him, and heard the scream of splinters. The cries of the man under the carronade ceased abruptly, and beneath his feet he could feel the crash as the shot struck home in the Lydia’s vitals. But he was mesmerised by the necessity of completing his task. The mizzen stay parted under his axe; he saw another rope draw up taut, and cut that as well — the pattern of the seams of the deck planking at that point caught his notice — felt another severed and flick past him, and then knew that the Lydia was free from the wreckage. Almost at his feet lay young Clay, sprawled upon the deck, but Clay had no head. He noted that as an interesting phenomenon, like the pattern of the deck seams.
A sudden breaking wave drenched him with spray; he swept the water from his eyes and looked about him. Most of the men who had been on the quarterdeck with him were dead, marines, seamen, officers. Simmonds had what was left of the marines lined up against the taffrail, ready to reply with musketry to the Natividad’s twenty-four pounders. Bush was in the main top, and Hornblower suddenly realised that to him was due the cutting of the mizzen top mast stay which had finally freed the ship. At the wheel stood the two quartermasters, rigid, unmoving, gazing straight ahead; they were not the same as the men who had stood there when the action began, but the iron discipline of the Navy and its unbending routine had kept the wheel manned through the vicissitudes of the battle.
Out on the starboard quarter the Natividad was wearing round again. Hornblower realised with a little thrill that this time he need not submit meekly to the punishment she was determined to administer. It called for an effort to make himself work out the problem of how to work the ship round, but he forced his mind to concentrate on it, comparing the proportional leverages of the fore and main topsails, and visualising in his mind the relative positions of the centre of the ship and the mainmast — luckily this latter was stepped a little aft.
“Man the braces, there!” he called. “Mr Bush, we’ll try and bring her to the wind.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
He looked back at the Natividad, plunging and heaving towards them.
“Hard-a-starboard!” he snapped at the quartermaster. “Stand to your guns, men.”
The crew of the Natividad, looking along their guns, suddenly saw the Lydia’s battered stern slowly turn from them. For a fleeting half minute, while the English frigate held her way, the quartermasters straining at her wheel were able to bring the wind abeam of her as the Natividad swept by.
“Fire!” yelled Gerard — his voice, too, was cracking with excitement.
The Lydia heaved again with the recoil of the guns, and the smoke billowed over her deck, and through the smoke came the iron hail of the Natividad’s broadside.
“Give it her again, lads!” screamed Gerard. “There goes her fore-mast! Well done, lads.”
The guns’ crews cheered madly, even though their two hundred voices sounded feeble against the gale. In that sudden flurry of action the enemy had been hard hit. Through the smoke Hornblower saw the Natividad’s fore-mast shrouds suddenly slacken, tauten again, slacken once more, and then her whole foremast bowed forward; her main topmast whipped and then followed it, and the whole vanished over the side. The Natividad turned instantly up into the wind, while at the same time the Lydia’s head fell off as she turned downwind despite the efforts of the men at the wheel. The gale screamed past Hornblower’s ears as the strip of grey sea which divided the ships widened more and more. One last gun went off on the main deck, and then the two ships lay pitching upon the turbulent sea, each unable to harm the other.
Hornblower wiped the spray slowly from his eyes again. This battle was like some long drawn nightmare, where one situation of fantastic unreality merged into the next. He felt as if he were in a nightmare, too — he could think clearly, but only by compelling himself to do so, as though it was unnatural to him.