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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, heldtheir 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.
    â€˜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, puppetlike 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 moon disappeared behind a cloud as it roared.
    The concussion wave of a terrific explosion swept the two vessels, momentarily stopping the combatants. Away to the south six hundred men had ceased to exist as the seventy gun
San Domingo
blew up, fire reaching her magazine and causingher disintegration.
    The interruption of the explosion reminded them all of the other ships engaged to the southward. Drinkwater reloaded the musket. Enemy balls no longer whizzed round him. He looked up levelling the barrel. The Spanish frigate’s main-mast leaned drunkenly forward. Stays snapped and the great spars collapsed dragging the mizen topmast with it.
Cyclops
drew ahead.
    Hope and Blackmore stared anxiously astern where the crippled Spaniard wallowed. Wreckage hung over her side as she swung to starboard. If the Spanish captain was quick he could rake
Cyclops
, his whole broadside pouring in through the latter’s wide stern and the shot travelling the length of the crowded