Down from the hills already the smoke was rolling fast, obscuring the beauteous morn by now; white smoke from the cannon in the fort--through which there leapt every moment great spits of flame from the big guns' mouths!--dun-coloured smoke from the grenades carried by Lord Shannon and Colonel Pierce's grenadiers; black, greasy smoke vomited forth from the fuzees. And it came down to the water and poured across it in clouds, enveloping the galleons in its wreaths and the great French ships of battle; clinging around our own topsails and masts, almost obscuring each of our vessels from the other.
Yet not so much, neither, but that--a breeze having sprung up after a calm which had enforced us to drop our anchors for a while--we, of the Pembroke, could see glide by us a great ship, with her men on yards and masts and in fighting tops, all cheering lustily, and some a-singing--a vessel that rushed forward as a tiger rushes to its prey. At first we thought it was the Royal Sovereign--that great, noble ship which transmits a name down from Bluff Harry's days--then knew we were mistaken. It was the Torbay, Vice-Admiral Hopson's own, in which he flew his flag, her sails all clapt on, her cable training at her side, where he had cut it, so as to lose no precious time, her course direct for the boom. And after her went ourselves, as hound let loose from leash follows hound. Captain Hardy had spoken true--'twas a day not to be missed!
We heard a snapping, a crashing--'twas awful, too, to hear!--we heard roar upon roar from hundreds of lusty throats in that great ship--we knew the boom was gone--cut through as a woodsman's axe cuts through a sapling. Amidst all the enemy's fire--fire from the French ships and those Spanish forts on shore--we heard it. And we, too, cheered and shouted--sent up our queen's name to the smoke-obscured heavens above. Some cried the old watchword of past days, "St. George and England"; some even danced and jumped upon the decks for glee--danced and jumped, even though the hail of ball was scattering us like ninepins, or a hundred pins!--even though some lay writhing on those decks, and some were lying there headless, armless, legless! What mattered? The enemy were there behind that boom, and it was broken. We were amongst them now. Let those die who must; those live who were to conquer.
Between the Bourbon and L'Espérance the noble Torbay rushed--to the jaws of death she went, as though to a summer cruise on friendly seas, her anchor cables roared through her hawse-holes--Hopson had anchored 'twixt those two great French ships! He was there; there was to be, could be, no retreat now; 'twas death or victory.
At first it seemed as though it could alone be the first. The cannon grinned like teeth through tier upon tier of gunboats in the Frenchman's sides; the balls crashed into the Torbay; they did the same with us and Vandergoes' ship, now ranged on the other side of the Bourbon--a French fireship had clapt alongside of her, and set her rigging alight; her foretopmast went by the board; her sails were all aflame; her foreyard burnt like a dry log; her larboard shrouds burnt at the dead-eyes.
Yet still she fought and fought--vomited forth her own flames and destruction; still from the throats of those left alive came shouts of savage exultation, for, all afire as she was, we saw that she was winning. And not only she, but all of us. We had sunk one Frenchman ourselves. Vandergoes had mastered the Bourbon--she was done for! The Association had silenced a battery ashore. And now a greater thing than all happened--Chateaurenault saw that he was beaten, set his flagship, Le Fort, on fire, and fled to the shore, calling on all his captains to follow him.
Yet still one awful dread remained! The Torbay was burning fiercely, charred masts and yards were falling to the deck--itself aflame--blocks burning like tarred wood crashed down, too. What if her powder magazine exploded! If it did, all in her neighbourhood would be destroyed, hurled to atoms, as she herself would be.
Almost it seemed as if that had happened now. There came a hideous roar, a belch of black, suffocating smoke; it set all sneezing and coughing as though a sulphur mine were afire. Yet that explosion, that great cloud of filthy blackness, those masses of burnt and charred wood hurled up into the air and falling with a crash on every deck around, amidst shrieks and howls and curses terrible to hear, though drowned somewhat by the booming of the cannon all about, was to be the salvation of the Torbay, of ourselves, and of the Dutchmen.
For it was the fireship itself that had exploded. It was, in truth, a merchantman laden with snuff, which had been hastily fitted up as one of those craft. And in so doing the density of the fumes which it emitted, and its falling débris when it was burst asunder, helped to put out the flames that raged in the Torbay and in us.
The firing began to cease even as this happened; the enemy began to recognise that 'twas useless. They would have been blind not to have so recognised. On shore 'twas easy Association; on the water the Bourbon was ours. The lilies were hauled down, in their place floated the banner of England; the fireship had vanished into the elements, the great boom lay in pieces on the water like some long, severed snake. Yet might one have wept to gaze upon the Torbay--the queen and victress of this fight--and upon ourselves.