accurate ranging. The shot was aimed for five hundred yards; she would have to measure with delicacy. She said she could do it.
He went back to Enders, who was delivering a continuous string of oaths. “We shall taste his bugger’s staff soon enough,” he said. “I can near feel that prickle upon the flower.”
At that moment, the Spanish warship opened fire with its bow cannon. Small shot whistled through the air.
“Hot as an ardent boy,” Enders said, shaking his fist in the air.
A second volley splintered wood on the aft castle, but caused no serious damage.
“Steady on,” Hunter said. “Let him gain.”
“Let him gain. Tell me how I could do other?”
“Keep your wits,” Hunter said.
“It’s not my wits at risk,” Enders said, “but my dearest bunghole.”
A third volley passed harmlessly amidships, the small shot whistling through the air. Hunter had been waiting for that.
“Smokepots!” Hunter shouted, and the crew raced to light the caskets of pitch and sulfur on deck. Smoke billowed into the air, and drifted astern. Hunter knew that this would give the appearance of damage. He could well imagine how El Trinidad appeared to the Spaniard a listing ship in trouble, now belching dark smoke.
“He’s moving east,” Enders said. “Coming in for the kill.”
“Good,” Hunter said.
“Good,” Enders repeated, shaking his head. “Dear Judas’s ghost, our captain says good.”
Hunter watched as the Spanish warship moved to the port side of the galleon. Bosquet had begun the engagement in classic fashion, and was continuing in the same way. He was moving wide of his target, getting himself onto a parallel course just out of cannon range.
Once he had lined up his broadside on the galleon, he would begin to close. As soon as he was within range - starting at about two thousand yards - Bosquet would open fire, and would continue to fire as he came closer and closer. That would be the most difficult period for Hunter and his crew. They would have to weather those broadsides until the Spanish ship was within their range.
Hunter watched as the enemy vessel pulled directly into a parallel course with El Trinidad, slightly more than a mile to the port.
“Steady on,” Hunter said, and rested a hand on Enders’s shoulder.
“You shall have your way with me,” Enders grumbled, “and so will the Donnish prickler.”
Hunter went forward to Lazue.
“She is just under two thousand yards,” Lazue said, squinting at the enemy profile.
“How fast does she close?”
“Fast. She’s eager.”
“All the better for us,” Hunter said.
“She is eighteen hundred yards now,” Lazue said.
“Stand by for shot,” Hunter said.
Moments later, the first broadside exploded from the warship, and fell splashing into the water off the port side.
The Jew counted. “One Madonna, two Madonna, three Madonna, four Madonna…”
“Under seventeen hundred,” Lazue said.
The Jew had counted to seventy-five when the second broadside was fired. Iron shot screamed through the air all around them, but none struck the ship.
Immediately, the Jew began to count again. “One Madonna, two Madonna…”
“Not as sharp as she could be,” Hunter said. “She should have gotten off in sixty seconds.”
“Fifteen hundred yards,” Lazue muttered.
Another minute went by, and then the third broadside was fired. This found its mark with stunning effect; Hunter was suddenly engulfed in a world of utter confusion - men screaming, splinters whistling through the air, spars and rigging crashing to the deck.
“Damage!” he shouted. “Call damage!” He peered through the smoke at the enemy ship, still closing on them. He was not even aware of the seaman at his feet, writhing and screaming with pain, clutching his hands to his face, blood spurting between his fingers.
The Jew looked down and saw a giant splinter had passed through the seaman’s cheek and upward through the roof of his mouth. In the next moment, Lazue calmly bent over and shot the man in the head with her pistol. Pinkish cheesy material was flung all over the wooden deck. With an odd detachment, the Jew realized it was the man’s brains. He looked back at Hunter, who was staring at the enemy with fixed gaze.
“Damage report!” Hunter shouted as the next volley from the warship pounded them.
“Foresprit gone.”
“Fore sail gone!”
“Number two cannon out.”
“Number six cannon out!”
“Mizzen top blown!”
“Out below!” came the cry, as the mizzen top spars came crashing down to the deck, in a rain of heavy wood and rope rigging.
Hunter ducked as spars crashed around him. Canvas covered him and he struggled to his feet. A knife poked through the canvas, just inches from his face. He pulled back and saw daylight; Lazue was cutting him free.
“Almost got my nose,” he said.
“You’ll never miss it,” Lazue said.
Another volley from the Spanish warship whistled overhead.
“They’re high,” Enders screamed, in insane jubilation. “Blimey, they’re high!”
Hunter looked forward, just as a shot smashed into the number five gun crew. The bronze cannon was flung into the air; heavy splinters of wood flew in all directions. One man took a razor-sharp sliver through the neck. He clutched his throat and fell to the ground, writhing in pain.
Nearby, another man took a direct hit from a ball. It cut his body in half, his legs falling out from beneath him. The stump of torso screamed and rolled on the deck for a few moments until shock brought death.
“Damage report!” shouted Hunter. A man standing beside him was struck in the head by a tackle block; it shattered his skull, and he fell in a pool of red, sticky blood.
The fore top spar came down, pinning two men to the deck, crushing their legs; they howled and screamed pitifully.
Still the broadside came from the Spaniard.
To stand in the midst of this injury and destruction and keep a cool head was almost impossible, and yet that was what Hunter tried to do, as one volley after another slammed home into his vessel. It had been twenty minutes since the warship opened fire; the deck was littered with rigging and spars and wooden splinters; the screams of the wounded blended with the sizzling whine of the cannon balls that snapped through the air. For Hunter, the destruction and chaos around him had long ago merged into a steady background so constant he no longer paid attention to it; he knew his ship was being slowly and inexorably destroyed, but he remained fixed on the enemy vessel, which moved closer with each passing second.
His losses were heavy. Seven men were dead, and twelve wounded; two cannon emplacements were destroyed. He had lost his foresprit and all her sail; he had lost his mizzen top and his mainsail rigging on the leeside; he had taken two hits below the waterline, and El Trinidad was shipping water fast. Already he sensed she rode lower in the water, and moved less smartly; there was a soggy, heavy quality to her forward progress.
He could not attempt to repair the damage. His little crew was busy just holding the ship on a manageable course. It was now a question of time before she became impossible to control, or sank outright.
He squinted through the smoke and haze at the Spanish ship. It was becoming hard to see. Despite the strong wind, the two ships were surrounded by acrid smoke.
She was closing fast.
“Seven hundred yards,” Lazue said tonelessly. She had been injured already; a jagged shaft of wood had creased her forearm on the fifth volley. She had quickly applied a tourniquet near the shoulder, and now continued
