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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 gun-deck 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, puppet-like 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