The Commodore was shouting: the first lieutenant vanished: the main-topsail yard came round a trifle. Glancing up Peter saw the flashing of the muskets and swivel-guns in the tops; but he heard nothing.
Four. The fourth broadside. He had been waiting for it. Mr Blew was down. In the waist a gun was over and its crew struggling madly. The Commodore was beckoning. ‘My compliments to Mr Norris and we are going to run up. For’ard guns to be traversed.’
‘Aye-aye, sir.’
Peter dashed by the sentry at the hatch, raced along the gundeck, gave his message, shouting through the heavy swathes of inward smoke; dashed back. Mr Anson was standing with his hands clasped behind him, with his back to the galleon, looking keenly up into the sails. Mr Blew was gone. There was blood on Preston’s cheek.
Five. And between Keppel’s head and Peter’s passed a great hum and a hot blast of air. Keppel said something inaudible and winked: Peter blew his nose.
A gust of wind rolled the smoke slanting across the deck, starboard quarter to larboard bow. He saw the Spanish quarter-deck on his right hand, high, and the officers standing there: he could see their faces, dark, unmoved—swords, laced uniforms, long wigs. A young fellow was looking straight into his face. Clear in an instant’s lull between the Centurion’s guns came a snapping volley from the tops: the young Spaniard fell, disappearing behind the rail.
Now the Centurion was ranging up along the Spaniard’s side. The sixth broadside. And seven. A ball struck the quarter-deck. Where it had touched there was a deep furrow. Eight. Something rang on metal and he was down, staring at his foot. A six-inch splinter quivered in the heel of his shoe, which lay in the lee-scuppers—his foot untouched. ‘Dear me,’ he thought. As he wrenched the splinter and the heel away he had a moment’s glimpse of Sean carrying a man below.
Nine was coming. Wait for it, he said. Then nine. There was a terrible screaming somewhere forward, and a block with a great serpent of rope fell on the quarter-deck. ‘Preston. Palafox. Attend to that.’
For the tenth and eleventh broadsides they were in the mizzen rigging, knotting and making fast. He saw the Spanish deck, aswarm with men, and the officer who gave the signal for the guns. The Spanish tops, almost empty except for a few in the maintop. One of them fired at him as the Centurion’s mizzen came abreast of him. On the Spanish quarter-deck there were not many officers now. Their ensign had gone; but it had been scorched by gunfire, not struck.
‘Down with your helm. Brace up sharp. Forestays’l,’ cried the Commodore. One more broadside, a deep and wounding broadside, fired at the bottom of the roll into the Centurion’s gun-deck, and then the Centurion had forged ahead, out of the galleon’s lee, to lie on her larboard bow, with every gun traversed in the wide ports and bearing, while the Spaniard’s broadside thundered into the empty air.
On the galleon’s side a red glow showed amid the smoke. Then it was a sheet of flame blazing and racing all along. The mats in her boarding-netting were on fire. Her guns slackened. High Spanish voices could be heard. ‘If we fall aboard her,’ thought Peter, ‘that will be very bad.’ He glanced along the hammocks in their own netting. They were soaked, of course. The sanded deck was running with water, and the pumps were rimmed with full buckets. But the cordage was dry. And there was powder in the open magazines.
‘Fending poles,’ ordered the Commodore. ‘Stuns’l booms. There. Stand by.’ But before the order could be carried out the flaming mass went by the board, hissing in the sea.
It was a different note from the galleon now. Not a full broadside any more, but the crack of the chasers alone and the few fo’c’sle guns that could bear. The Centurion was firing her whole starboard double tier in an unending thunder, and the sound of cheers ran through the din. And once again Peter could distinguish the crackle of the muskets in the tops.
He could see the frightful damage in the galleon. The wind tore the smoke, and there were officers running between the guns. Four ports forward had gone. Amidships two guns lay asprawl. Only four men held the quarter-deck, and as he looked one sank to his hands and knees. The Centurion was firing grape, and the murderous hail swept the galleon’s deck: the unceasing deadly fire from the tops rained down.
‘But he’s no fool,’ said Peter, seeing the galleon’s yards brace round.
‘Ball,’ cried the Commodore, touching Peter’s arm.
Peter tore limping with one heel below. As he passed on the order the roar of the Spanish lower tier swallowed up his words. He pointed to the twenty-four pound balls by the nearest gun. ‘Hot work,’ said the lieutenant, grinning savagely out at the smoke-blackened galleon’s side through the shattered port of number 51—dismounted, but efficiently secured.
Going on deck Peter was stopped by men carried down to the cockpit, then by the racing stream of powder-boys. He reached the deck exactly in time of the galleon’s fire, the broadside once again. Then he was on his back and his mouth was full of blood. He could not see—only a redness before his eyes. But it is nothing, he said, shaking his head and crawling up. A splinter had hit his mouth and forehead, but only flatwise. He mopped away the blood and took his place on the quarter-deck. Preston was no longer there. It was bloody underfoot.
‘All right?’ cried Mr Saumarez, peering into his face. Peter nodded.
‘Graze,’ he shouted.
Now the galleon had come up and turned to the wind. They were side by side again, and although the Spaniard’s upper guns fired slow and few, her lower tier gave a crushing broadside yet, steady and determined.
‘Edge her closer,’ said Mr Anson to the wheel.
Yard-arm to yard-arm now: and the sky sent back the roaring of the guns. The galleon’s main-deck had men running. Peter could see a scuffle in the hatchway: an officer pistolled a man.
The freshening wind tore the smoke fast away, and where three midship ports were knocked into a gaping hole he could see into her lower-deck. An officer was there beating at the gun-crew with his sword.
Forward three of the galleon’s guns fired together: then a pause, a long pause. Two more guns, and three: all went home. Gordon of the Marines threw up his arms, moved two jerking steps and fell across the rail. A longer pause from the Spaniard: then two more guns, lonely, fore and amidships.
Now it was the Centurion alone, firing without cease, the jetting flame and smoke and iron. ‘Tops there. Tops,’ hailed the Commodore in a tremendous voice above it all. ‘Tops. ’Vast firing.’
On the galleon’s deserted main-deck, darting, dodging for cover among the shattered boats and spars and guns, leaping over the piled-up dead, a single figure raced for the windward rigging. He reached the maintop.
At the main-topgallant mast-head the royal colours of Spain jerked, poised again for an instant, streaming in the wind, and then ran down, faster and faster, down in a dizzying flight down, struck down to the empty deck.
‘Mr Saumarez,’ said the Commodore in the uncanny silence. ‘You will pull across in the longboat, if you please, and take possession of the galleon.’
Chapter Fifteen
‘JUNE 21ST, 1743,’ WROTE PETER, WITH SINGULAR PRECISION, ‘12° 40’ N. Cape Espiritu Santo bearing WSW. 6 leagues. Yesterday we took His Catholic Majesty’s galleon Nuestra Señora de Cobadonga after a brisk engagement lasting about 2½ hours. The Spaniards behaved very well: their admiral and 67 killed, 84 wounded—152 casualties out of a crew of 550. We lost Corless and Windrow, seamen, killed; Mr Norris and 16 wounded—19 casualties out of a crew of 227, counting me. She mounted 42 carriage guns, 28 patereros in her gunnels and a 4 pounder in each of her tops. She carried 1,313,843 pieces of eight and 35,682 ounces of virgin silver and plate, which is a hundred thousand pounds more than we hoped for. We were like to have lost her and ourselves, however, by the ship taking fire just abaft the open powder-room. Mr Brett whispered it to the Commodore when he came aft to congratulate him on the victory: but we put it out without fuss. Sean behaved exceedingly well—because, says he, hurling himself wet upon the
fire and rolling it out (though his head was in the powder itself) I will not be choused out of my glory for all the devils in hell. Poor Preston got stunned by a block. I was bowled over by a bit of a splinter. Keppel lost his best teeth, by gaping: they dropped out and were smashed by the next broadside. We are all somewhat deaf, but uncommon cheerful.’
Uncommon cheerful: indeed they were, in spite of the prodigious amount of work to be done, knotting, splicing and making good the battering the ship had received, as well as keeping the galleon afloat (she had a hundred and fifty shot, many of them clean through both sides of her, as the Commodore had promised, and between wind and water), getting her into sailing-trim—for it was impossible to transfer so great a weight of treasure on the high seas, and the galleon was to sail to China with the Centurion, as a post ship, R.N., with Mr Saumarez in command and a scratch crew to guard a multitude of prisoners who vastly outnumbered their captors—resentful prisoners who had supposed that they were surrendering to a ship of force, not a skeleton crew.
Uncommon cheerful, although immediately after the action Peter, Keppel and Pollock came down with a violent attack of the mumps, and yet could not be excused duty for a moment, but must keep their watches, armed to the teeth in case of surprise.
Uncommon cheerful in Macao again, and merrier still on the long, easy voyage through the Sunda straits—a single pause at Prince’s Island for gentle exercise, water and new varieties of fruit—and thence, with uneventful, easy sailing across the Indian Ocean, round the Cape of Good Hope, where their gaiety was increased by a large reinforcement of Dutch seamen. These men were permitted to do nearly all the work of the ship while the Centurions wandered about advising, watching and encouraging them—that is, whenever the Centurions could be prised away from their uncountable papers of sums and calculations, their precise estimates of their wealth and their varied plans for disposing of the same.
Uncommon cheerful through the South Atlantic, waving happily to St Helena as they flew past with a fresh breeze astern: outrageous cheerful when, after an incredibly rapid voyage up through the tropics, they reached the western forties and learned from an outward-bound English ship that they were at war with France: quite off their heads with delight when, after creeping through the chops of the Channel in a dense fog, they found that they had passed straight through the middle of the French fleet itself.
Uncommon cheerful. But not so Sean: not so Bosun’s Mate O’Mara in his new glazed hat. Black care and a crushing weight of responsibility had descended upon him from the moment Mr Saumarez had beckoned him to the poop of the galleon, where the blood still ran with the send of the sea and the smell of powder drifted up from the shattered deck. He had one million, three hundred and thirteen thousand, eight hundred and forty-three pieces of eight to guard, besides the raw silver, the gold bars, the plate, the treasure of Paita and the bullion from the other prizes: and he intended to finish the voyage with precisely one million, three hundred and thirteen thousand, eight hundred and forty-three pieces of eight, as well as the rest. Yet he had only two eyes, and sometimes he had to close them. It was dreadful. When he slept (which was seldom) it was embowered in the clinking canvas sacks, far down in the airless hold, surrounded by a choice armoury of razors, pistols, cutlasses and a mighty axe.
In China he never went ashore unless Ransome would relieve him. Ransome was the only man aboard that he would wholly trust. Peter was not allowed beyond the threshold: Mr Brett Sean could not abide—‘He does be laying a great compliment upon his speech, the creature: and his granddam was the serpent himself,’—this was because Mr Brett rarely swore at him; a most suspicious circumstance. Even the Commodore could only win the most grudging admittance, and then Sean’s anxious breath was upon his neck every minute. Any warrant officer, petty officer or rating was shot at, without distinction or warning; and after a while they gave up coming down to ask Sean how he did.
The peace of the South China Sea, the tranquil breadth of the Indian Ocean eased his lot: but the recruitment of the Dutchmen in Africa was a sore trial to Sean. They were obviously thieves, raparees, transported felons: he could tell by their furtive expressions and their evil little small eyes—hell-spawn, to the last ill-shaped mother’s son.
Then there was the landing, a perfect torment: and after that the culmination, the Centurions’ march to London, through Westminster, past St James’s, where the King beheld them, and quite through the City to the Tower, with drums beating, colours flying the galleon’s battle-singed honours and the Centurion’s old faded ensign, and the crew, white, brown, yellow, black and mulatto, dressed in their best and with idiot grins permanently fixed, marching by the thirty-two enormous creaking wagons of treasure, the officers at their head with swords drawn and gleaming. Sean smiled, though wanly, at King George II; but the close-packed citizens reawakened his ire. The false thieves stood there cheering the way they would have him believe they would not touch a spoke of a wagon if he took his eyes off them. But Sean was not to be deceived by the serpents of London: he knew all about them, the criminal toads, and he glared unceasingly from side to side, with his cutlass ready and poised.
Into the White Tower they came, and the clash of the portcullis was music to Sean. The Lieutenant of the Tower and the beefeaters met with his total approval—cautious, discreet men, who understood the value of locks—and as the last chest passed into their keeping, behind huge iron bars and twenty-five feet of stone, the weight of a million and a half silver pieces fell from his soul, which expanded, breathed for the first time in twelve months and fourteen days, and uttered its relief in a shriek that made the beefeaters turn deathly pale.
With his own money, however, Sean was singularly unconcerned. He carried it about, with inconsequential levity, in his side-pocket—for it was mostly in Bank of England notes. He was so illogically carefree, indeed, that Peter confiscated five hundred pounds of it until he should be in a better frame of mind, and allowed him only a pocketful of gold, which he instantly spent, and came borrowing groats at a time.
The effect on Peter was as different as it could very well be. He had been—the mumps aside—as cheerful as a cargo of grigs from Cape Espiritu Santo to Spithead and from Portsmouth to London. But the Admiralty behaved in a pretty handsome way, for once since its inception. It was slow in rewarding the Commodore, and some time passed before he found himself a peer, rear-admiral of the blue and a sea-lord; but it actually paid the Dutch sailors and sent them home with a gratuity, refrained from instantly pressing the returned Centurions, and expedited the paying out of the spoil. For Peter, attending at the office of the prize-court with the rest of the midshipmen’s berth, it was an awful moment when the clerk handed him a draft for one thousand, three hundred and seventy-eight pounds, four shillings and twopence halfpenny. And it was a still more awful moment (for gold is more real than any paper) when the cashier at the Bank of England casually scooped the last shovelful of guineas off the scales, tipped them into the sack and then, grunting, pushed the load across the counter.
It was a solemn task conveying this ponderous bag across London to Keppel’s father’s house. It was a solemn business sitting with it in the stage-coach to Holyhead, although it was lighter by then, for the enlargement of poor Elliot’s father from the Fleet had cost a good round sum—not nearly so round as it would have been, however, if Lord Albermarle’s man of business had not taken the matter in hand, buying up the unhappy curate’s debts at five shillings in the pound. This had been a wonderfully fortunate affair, because not only had Mr Anson come home to find one of the livings on his estate vacant, but Elliot’s sisters, who lived with their father in the Fleet, just managing to keep him in victuals by working fourteen hours a day at a milliner’s, were able to advise Peter in the article of Paris bonnets (which came across the water, war or no war) and ribbons, mantuas, pelisses, mittens, caps. From their new vicarage in Wiltshire, they sent up, by express, a bonnet for Mrs Palafox, a bonnet for each of Peter’s sisters—stupendous confe
ctions a good yard high, with birds, lace, fruit and unexpected flowers, as worn by the ladies of St James’s—in addition to the first three eggs their new hen had ever laid, and a guileless infant trout the first-fruit of their father’s eager rod.
A solemn business, the carrying it aboard the packet. So solemn that Peter scarcely noticed the hearty battle in which Sean was seized by the press-gang and had to be rescued from the few survivors of the group.
‘What the devil do you think you are doing with a Centurion’s petty-officer?’ he had snarled at the astonished midshipman in charge. ‘Who the—are you, you miserable little sloop’s snotty? What’s your seniority? Speak up. I thought so. You say sir when you speak to me. Cox’n, release that man. Strike me, you perishing lot of longshore half-baked slime-bound swabs, don’t you know a man-of-war’s man when you see one?’
‘Centurion?’ gasped the midshipman, ‘I beg pardon, sir.’
‘Centurion?’ murmured the press-gang. ‘Cor, love a duck.’
A solemn business, carrying it off the packet on to Irish soil: equally grave, the cunning burial of the main bag under the floorboards of the little cart.
‘You can’t have that horse,’ whined Peter for the third time, as Sean paraded a noble animal before him on Merchant’s Quay.
‘Crush me,’ said Sean, spitting into the Liffey, ‘and how will they know we are the glorious heroes of the world if we are not mounted up on high-bred horses?’
‘Never mind,’ said Peter doggedly. ‘You take that creature (which is spavined anyhow) right back again, and bring the little ass.’
‘I will not. Upon my soul I will not. To ride behind a little small ass is a fate I will not abide. Listen, your honour, honey, let me buy the pompous horse out of my own, will you, sir dear? There now, Peter a gradh, we will ride in triumph, and glory over the Leinstermen, will we not? and you will buy a laced coat, sure? And never go home in that horrible old blue, the way it never got well from the mildew in Paita?’