With Wellington in Spain: A Story of the Peninsula

by F. S. Brereton

Five minutes later Mr. Riley's voice was heard. "Stand by for another broadside," he bellowed. "Double shot your guns next time—ah!"

The frigate quivered from end to end; she seemed to have been struck by a cyclone. An iron hail beat on her sides, bursting them in in many directions, while splinters of iron and wood flew across the 'tween decks, striking men down in many directions. In one brief second the orderliness of the place was transformed to the most utter disorder, as the enemy had answered the frigate's broadside with one of her own. Tom looked about him wonderingly, dazed by the commotion and astounded at what he saw. For by now the wind blowing in at the open ports had cleared all the smoke away, and he could see all that was happening in the 'tween decks. There lay the gun on his right a wreck, turned on its side, its muzzle crushed out of sight, two of its wheels broken and half-buried in the deck. What had before been a square porthole was now an irregular, torn opening, through which a vast expanse of sea could be watched. But it was the poor wretches who had manned the gun who claimed his greatest attention. Five of them lay mangled upon the deck, with pools of blood accumulating about them and draining off towards the scuppers in trickles and streams. On the port side, opposite where the gun had stood, three men had been struck by the missile, and lay silent and motionless. Elsewhere there were rents in the side of the frigate, and men lay about in all postures, some moaning, others silent, nursing a wounded arm or leg. This was war; this was the treatment meted out by one nation to another.

But of loss of discipline there was none. If the 'tween decks was in disorder there was order amongst the men, and no flinching. Already the surgeon's mates and helpers were carrying the wounded away towards the ladder leading to the cockpit, while at every gun stood its crew, immovable and ready, waiting the word of the officer. As for the enemy, the shapely lines of the French man-of-war had changed wonderfully, for she was so near now that one could see distinctly. The white deck, still careened towards the frigate, was seamed and scarred and torn. One mast lay over her rail, the sails towing in the water, and her sides were marked by shot holes, two of her ports having been converted into one by an enormous rent that extended between them.

A dull cheer resounded through the frigate; the men in the 'tween decks took it up lustily, and then came again that commotion above. The vessel shivered, shot and flame and smoke belched from the ports on the upper deck, the roar being followed once again by the rumble of gun wheels on their metal runners.

"Fire!" Mr. Riley stood halfway up the ladder leading to the upper deck and waved his cocked hat at the crews under his own command. Crash! went the broadside. Tom watched the powder at the vent squirt upward in flame and smoke as on a previous occasion, and then sprang to the cables as Jim's husky voice called to his own crew to draw the gun in and reload.

"CRASH! WENT THE BROADSIDE"

"Double shot; don't forget," bellowed Mr. Riley, and obedient to the order the loaders thrust first one and then a second huge iron ball into the gaping muzzles. In the middle of the operation there came a resounding discharge from the enemy, while huge columns of smoke hid her sides. But the shot failed to strike the frigate, for a few seconds earlier the commander had put his helm up and had sheered off towards the Frenchman. It was a clever manœuvre, and made a wonderful difference to the fight in progress. For the enemy had received four successive broadsides now, and had returned only one effective one, and that not so effective as it might have been had the ships been nearer. Added to that, it was less than five minutes later when the gunners on the port side got their sights aligned on the enemy, and a simultaneous broadside was delivered by the guns of the upper and 'tween decks. Then the commander swung his helm again and made across the stern of the Frenchman.

"Stand ready," sang out Mr. Riley again, his eyes glued upon the man-of-war. "Layers concentrate on the stern. In one minute, men; in one minute we shall be there. Now! Fire!"