Read An Eye of the Fleet for Free Online Page B

top. He was lightheaded with the insane excitement of the night. When they had finished battling with the sail Drinkwater lay over the yard exhausted with hunger and cold. He looked to starboard. The white line on the bank seemed very near now and Cyclops was rolling as the swell built up in the shoaling water. But she was reaching now, sailing across the wind and roughly parallel with the shoal. She would still make leeway but she was no longer running directly on to the bank.
    To the south and west dark shapes and flashes told of where the two fleets did battle. Nearer, and to larboard now, the Spanish frigate wallowed, beam on to wind and sea and rolling down on to the shoal.
    Drawn from the gun-deck a party of powder-blackened and exhausted men toiled to get the spare spanker on deck. The long sausage of hard canvas snaked out of the tiers and on to the deck. Thirteen minutes later the new sail rose on the undamaged spars.
    Cyclops was once more under control. The cross-jack was furled and the headsail sheets slackened. Again her bowsprit turned towards the shoal as Hope anxiously wore ship to bring her on to the starboard tack, heading where the Spanish frigate still wallowed helplessly.
    The British frigate paid off before the wind. Then her bowsprit swung away from the shoal. The wind came over the starboard quarterЕ then the beam. The yards were hauled round, the headsail sheets hardened in. The wind howled over the starboard bow, stronger now they were heading into it. Cyclops plunged into a sea and a shower of stinging spray swept aft. Half naked gunners scurried away below to tend their cannon.
    Hope gave orders to re-engage as Cyclops bore down on her adversary, slowly drawing the crippled Spaniard under her lee.
    Cyclops’s guns rolled again and the Spaniard fired back.
    Devaux was shouting at Blackmore above the crash of the guns. ‘Why don’t he anchor, Master?’
    ‘And have us reach up and down ahead of him raking him?’ scoffed the older man.
    ‘What else can he do? Besides there’s a limit to how long we can hang on here. What we want is offingЕ’
    Hope heard him. Released from the tension of immediate danger now his command was again under control, the conversation irritated him.
    ‘I’ll trouble you to fight the ship, Mr Devaux, and leave the tactical decisions to me.’
    Devaux was silent. He looked sullenly at the Spanish ship and was astonished at Hope’s next order: ‘Get a hawser through an after port, quickly man, quickly!’ At first Devaux was uncomprehending then the moon broke forth again and the lieutenant followed Hope’s pointing arm, ‘Look man, look!’
    The red and gold of Castile was absent from the stern. The Spanish frigate had struck.
    ‘Cease fire! Cease fire!’
    Cyclops’s guns fell silent as she plunged past the enemy, the exhausted gunners collapsing with their exertions. But Devaux, all thoughts of arguing dispelled by the turn of events, was once more amongst them, rousing them to further efforts. Devaux shouted orders, bosun’s mates swung their starters and the realisation of the Spanish surrender swept the ship in a flash. Fatigue vanished in a trice for she was a war prize if they could save her from going ashore on the San Lucar shoal.
    Even the aristocratic Devaux did not despise his captain’s avarice. The chance of augmenting his paltry patrimony would be eagerly seized upon. He found himself hoping Cyclops had not done too much damageЕ
    On the quarterdeck Captain Hope was enduring the master’s objections. The only person on board who could legitimately contest the captain’s decisions, from the navigational point of view, Blackmore vigorously protested the inadvisability of taking Cyclops to leeward again to tow off a frigate no more than half a league from a dangerous shoal.
    But the exertions of the night affected men differently. As Blackmore turned away in defeat Hope saw his last opportunity. Shedding years at the prospect of such a prize his