“One hour and a half already,” said Bush, coming up rubbing his hands. “Glorious, sir. Glorious.”
It might have been no more than ten minutes for all Hornblower could tell, but Bush had in duty bound been watching the sand glass by the binnacle.
“I’ve never known Dagoes stick to their guns like this before,” commented Bush. “Their aim’s poor, but they’re firing as fast as ever. And it’s my belief we’ve hit them hard, sir.”
He tried to look through the eddying smoke, even fanning ridiculously with his hands in the attempt — a gesture which, by showing that he was not quite as calm as he appeared to be, gave Hornblower an absurd pleasure. Crystal came up as well as he spoke.
“The smoke’s thinning a little, sir. It’s my belief that there’s a light air of wind blowing.”
He held up a wetted finger.
“There is indeed, sir. A trifle of breeze over the port quarter. Ah!”
There came a stronger puff as he spoke, which rolled away the smoke in a solid mass over the starboard bow and revealed the scene as if a theatre curtain had been raised. There was the Natividad, looking like a wreck. Her jury foremast had gone the way of its predecessor, and her mainmast has followed it. Only her mizzen mast stood now, and she was rolling wildly in the swell with a huge tangle of rigging trailing over her disengaged side. Abreast her foremast three ports had been battered into one; the gap looked like a missing tooth.
“She’s low in the water,” said Bush, but on the instant a fresh broadside vomited smoke from her battered side, and this time by some chance every shot told in the Lydia, as the crash below well indicated. The smoke billowed round the Natividad, and as it cleared the watchers saw her swinging round head to the wind, helpless in the light air. The Lydia had felt the breeze. Hornblower could tell by the feel of her that she had steerage way again; the quartermaster at the wheel was twirling the spokes to hold her steady. He saw his chance on the instant.
“Starboard a point,” he ordered. “Forward, there! Cast off the cutter.”
The Lydia steadied across her enemy’s bows and raked her with thunder and flame.
“Back the main tops’l!” ordered Hornblower.
The men were cheering again on the maindeck through the roar of the guns. Astern the red sun was dipping to the water’s edge in a glory of scarlet and gold. Soon it would be night.
“She must strike soon. Christ! Why don’t she strike?” Bush was saying, as at close range the broadsides tore into the helpless enemy, raking her from bow to stern. Hornblower knew better. No ship under Crespo’s command and flying el Supremo’s flag would strike her colours. He could see the golden star on a blue ground fluttering through the smoke.
“Pound him, lads, pound him!” shouted Gerard.
With the shortening range he could rely on his gun captains to fire independently now. Every gun’s crew was loading and firing as rapidly as possible. So hot were the guns that at each discharge they leaped high in their carriages, and the dripping sponges thrust down their bores sizzled and steamed at the touch of the scorching hot metal. It was growing darker, too. The flashes of the guns could be seen again now, leaping in long orange tongues from the gun muzzles. High above the fast fading sunset could be seen the first star, shining out brilliantly.
The Natividad’s bowsprit was gone, splintered and broken and hanging under her forefoot, and then in the dwindling light the mizzen mast fell as well, cut through by shots which had ripped their way down the whole length of the ship.
“She must strike now, by God!” said Bush.
At Trafalgar Bush had been sent as prize master into a captured Spanish ship, and his mind was full of busy memories of what a beaten ship looked like — the dismounted guns, the dead and wounded heaped on the deck and rolling back and forth as the dismasted ship rolled on the swell, the misery, the pain, the helplessness. As if in reply to him there came a sudden flash and report from the Natividad’s bows. Some devoted souls with tackles and hand-spikes had contrived to slew a gun round so that it would bear right forward, and were firing into the looming bulk of the Lydia.