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 her sightings, oblivious to the blood that dripped onto the deck at her feet.
Another volley screamed at them, rocking the ship with multiple impacts.
“Six hundred yards.”
“Ready to fire!” Hunter shouted, bending to sight along the crosshairs. He was lined up for a midships hit, but as he watched, the Spanish warship moved forward slightly. He was now lined on the aft castle.
So be it, he thought, as he gauged the rocking of El Trinidad through the crosshairs, getting a sense of the timing, up and down, up and down, seeing clear sky, then nothing but water, then seeing the warship again. Then clear sky as El Trinidad continued her upward roll.
He counted to himself, over and over, silently mouthing the words.
“Five hundred yards,” Lazue said.
Hunter watched a moment longer. Then he counted.
“One,” he shouted, as the crosshairs pointed into the sky. Then the ship rocked down, quickly passing the outline of the warship.
“Two,” he called, as the crosshairs pointed into the boiling sea.
There was a brief hesitation in the motion. He waited.
“Three!” He called, as the upward motion began again.
“Fire!”
The galleon rocked madly, a crazy upward heave as all thirty of her cannon exploded in a volley. Hunter was thrown back against the mainmast with a force that knocked the breath from him. He hardly noticed it; he was watching for the downward movement, to see what had happened to the enemy.
“You hit her,” Lazue said.
Indeed he had. The impact had knocked the Spanish vessel laterally in the water, swinging the stern outward. The profile of the aft castle was now a ragged line, and the entire mizzenmast was falling in a strange, slow motion, sails and all, into the water.
But in the same moment Hunter saw that he had struck too far forward to damage the rudder and not far enough forward to hit the helmsman at the tiller. The warship was still under control.
“Reload and run out!” he shouted.
There was much confusion aboard the Spanish ship. He knew he had bought time. Whether he had bought the ten minutes he needed to prepare a second volley, he could not be sure.
Seamen were everywhere in the aft of the warship, cutting the fallen mizzenmast away, trying to get free. For a moment, it looked like the debris in the water would foul the rudder, but that did not happen.
Hunter heard the rumbling beneath his own decks as, one after another, his cannon were reloaded and run back to the gunports.
The Spanish warship was closer now, less than four hundred yards to port, but she was angled badly and could not get off a broadside.
One minute passed, then another.
The Spanish ship came under control, her mizzen with its sails and rigging drifting away in the wake of the ship.
The bow swung into the wind. She was coming about, and moving to Hunter’s weak starboard side.
“Damn me,” Enders said. “I knew he was a clever bastard!”
The Spanish ship lined up for a starboard broadside, and delivered it a moment later. At this closer range, it was miserably effective. Spars and rigging came crashing down around Hunter.
“We cannot take any more,” Lazue said softly.
Hunter had been thinking the same thing. “How many cannon run out?” he shouted.
Don Diego, below, peered up onto the deck. “Sixteen ready!”
“We will fire with sixteen,” Hunter said.
Another broadside from the Spanish warship hit them with devastating effect. Hunter’s ship was shattering around him.
“Mr. Enders!” Hunter bellowed. “Prepare to come about!”
Enders looked at Hunter in disbelief. To come about now would bring Hunter’s ship through the bow of the Spanish ship — and much closer.
“Prepare to come about!” Hunter shouted again.
“Ready about!” Enders yelled. Astounded seamen ran to the lines, furiously working to unsnarl them.