Even as he spoke the four Portuguese warships, caught beating to windward, began to shorten sail and pay off to leeward to intercept the Resolve, their bows slowly crossing the wind as they turned.
"I've made a gamble, something a Portugal would never do," Hawksworth replied. "And now I have to do something no Englishman would ever do. Unless outgunned and forced to." Before the pilot could respond, Hawksworth was gone, heading for the gun deck.
The ring of his boots on the oak ladder leading to the lower deck was lost in the grind of wooden trucks, as seamen threw their weight against the heavy ropes and tackles, slowly hauling out the guns. The Discovery was armed with two rows of truck-mounted cast-iron culverin, and she had sailed with twenty-two barrels of powder and almost four hundred round shot. Hawksworth had also stowed a supply of crossbar shot and deadly langrel—thin casings filled with iron fragments—for use against enemy rigging and sail at close quarters.
Shafts of dusty light from the gunports and overhead scuttles relieved the lantern-lit gloom, illuminating the massive beams supporting the decks above. Sleeping hammocks were lashed away, but the space was airless, already sultry from the morning sun, and the rancid tang of sweat mixed with fresh saltpeter from the gunpowder caught in Hawksworth's mouth, bittersweet.
He walked down the deck, alert to the details that could spell victory or loss. First he checked the wooden tubs of vinegared urine and the long swabs stationed between the cannon, used for cleaning burning fragments of metal from the smoking barrels after each round. Fail to swab a barrel and there could be an unplanned detonation when the next powder charge was tamped into place. Then he counted the budge-barrels of powder, now swathed in water-soaked blankets to fend off sparks, and watched as Edward Malloyre, the man some called the best master gunner in England, inspected each cannon's touchhole as its lead plate was removed, assuring himself it had not corroded from the gases expelled during their last gunnery practice, in the Mozambique Channel.
"Master Malloyre."
"Aye, sir, all's in order. We'll hand the Spanish bastards a taste o' English iron." Malloyre, who had never troubled to differentiate Portugal from Spain, was built like a bear, with short bowed legs and a tree-stump frame. He drew himself erect, his balding pate easily clearing the rugged overhead beams, and searched the gloom. "The Worshipful Company may ha' signed on a sorry lot o' pimpin' apple squires, but, by Jesus, I've made Englishmen o' them. My sovereign to your shilling we hole the pox-rotted Papists wi' the first round."
"I'll stand the wager, Malloyre, and add the last keg of brandy. But you'll earn it. I want the portside battery loaded with crossbar forward, and langrel aft. And set the langrel for the decks, not the sail."
Malloyre stared at him incredulously. The command told him immediately that this would be a battle with no quarter. The use of langrel against personnel left no room for truce. Then suddenly the true implications of Hawksworth's command hit him like a blow in the chest. "That shot's for close quarters. We lay alongside, and the bastards'll grapple and board us sure. Swarm us like curs on a bitch."
"That's the order, Malloyre. Be quick on it. Set the starboard round first. And light the linstocks." Hawksworth turned to count the shot and absently picked up one of the linstocks lying on deck—an iron-plated staff used to set off a cannon—fingering the oil-soaked match rope at its tip and inhaling its dank musk. And the smell awoke again the memory of that last day two years before in the Mediterranean, with Turkish pirate galleys fore and aft, when there had been no quarter, and no hope . . .