An Eye of the Fleet

Chapter Three The Moonlight Battle

The battle that followed was one of the most dramatic ever fought by the Royal Navy. The waters over which the opposing fleets contended were to be immortalised twenty-five years later when Nelson was to conquer and die off Cape Trafalgar, but the night action of the 16th/17th January 1780 was to be known by no geographical name.

In an age when admirals were absolutely bound, upon pain of death, to the tactical concept of the unbroken line ranged against that of the enemy, Rodney's unleasing of his ships was an innovation of the utmost importance, and the manner of its doing in that wild Moonlight Battle was an act of daring unsurpassed by sailing warships in such large numbers.

Tregembo had been right. An hour after Bedford's sighting of eleven Spanish battleships and two frigates the sky had clouded over. The wind backed westerly and began to freshen.

At Bedford's signal Rodney had thrown out the 'General Chase' to his warships. Each captain now sought to out-do the rest and the vessels fitted with the new copper bottoms forged ahead. The two-deckers Defence, Resolution and Edgar began taking the lead. Officers anxiously checked their gear as captains, reckless as schoolboys, held on to sail. Still the wind rose. Telescopes trained with equal anxiety on the Spaniards who, faced with such overwhelming odds, turned away to leeward and the shelter of Cadiz.

Seeing the retrograde movement Rodney signalled his ships to engage from leeward, thereby conveying to his captains the tactical concept of overhauling the enemy and interposing themselves between the Spanish and safety.

It had become a race.

As the British ships tore forward dead before the wind, puffs of smoke appeared from their fo'c's'les as gunners tried ranging shots. At first the plumes of water, difficult to see among breaking wave crests, were a long way astern of the Spaniards. But slowly, as the minutes ran into an hour, they got nearer.

Aboard Cyclops Devaux stood poised on the fo'c's'le glass to eye as the frigate's long nine-pounders barked at the enemy as she lifted her bow. Almost directly above Drinkwater watched eagerly. His inexperienced eyes missed the fall of shot but the excitement of the scene riveted his attention. Cyclops trembled with the thrill of the chase and giving expression to the corporate feeling of the ship, O'Malley, the mad Irish cook, sat cross-legged on the capstan top scraping his fiddle. The insane jig was mixed with the hiss and splash of the sea around them and the moan of the gale as it strummed the hempen rigging.

Captain Hope had taken Cyclops across the slower Bedford's bows and was heading for the northernmost Spaniard, a frigate of almost equal size. To the south of their quarry the high stern of the Spanish line of battleships stretched in a ragged line, the second frigate hidden behind them to the east.

A sudden column of white rose close to the Cyclops's plunging bowsprit. Drinkwater looked up. Held under the galleries of a Spanish two-decker by the following wind a puff of white smoke lingered.

Tregembo swore. 'That's good shooting for Dagoes,' he said. It was only then that Drinkwater realised he was under fire.

As Cyclops crossed the stern of the two-decker in chase of the frigate the battleships had tried a ranging shot. Suddenly there was a rush of air and the sound of two corks being drawn from bottles. Looking up Drinkwater saw a hole in the fore-topsail and another in the main. It was uncomfortably close. As their sterns rose to the following seas the Spaniards were firing at the oncoming British silhouetted against the setting sun.

Drinkwater shivered. The brief winter warmth was gone and the fresh breeze had become a gale. He looked again at the Spanish fleet. They were appreciably nearer. Then he saw two plumes of white rise under the Spaniard's quarter. Their own guns were silent. He looked interrogatively at Tregembo.

'What the…?' Then the seaman pointed.

To starboard, hidden from the huddling midshipman by the mast, Resolution, a newly coppered seventy-four, was passing the frigate. Conditions now favoured the heavier ships. Resolution was overhauling the Spaniards rapidly and beyond her Edgar and Defence were bearing down on the enemy. Before the sun set behind a bank of cloud its final rays picked out the Resolution.

The almost horizontal light accentuated every detail of the scene. The sea, piling up from the west, its shadowed surfaces a deep indigo, constantly moving and flashing golden where it caught the sun, seemed to render the warship on it a thing of stillness. The Resolution's hull was dark with the menace of her larboard batteries as she passed scarcely two cables from Cyclops. Her sails drew out, pulling the great vessel along, transmitting their power down through the masts and rigging until the giant oak hull with its weight of artillery and 750 men made ten knots through the water.

Drinkwater could see the heads of her upper-deck gunners and a line of red and silver marines on the poop. At her stern and peak battle ensigns stood out, pointing accusingly at the enemy ahead. Her bow chasers barked again. This time there was no white column. Devaux's glass swung round. 'She's hit 'em, by God!' he shouted.

Somebody on the fo'c's'le cheered. He was joined by another as Cyclops's crew roared their approval at the sight of Resolution sailing into battle. Drinkwater found himself cheering wildly with the other men in the top. Tears poured down Tregembo's cheeks. 'The bastards, the fucking bastards…' he sobbed. Drinkwater was not sure who the bastards were, nor, at the time, did it seem to matter. It is doubtful if Tregembo himself knew. What he was expressing was his helplessness. The feeling of magnificent anger that overcame these men: the impressed, the drunkards, the gaol birds and the petty thieves. All the dregs of eighteenth-century society forced into a tiny hull and kept in order by a ruthless discipline, sailed into a storm of lead and iron death cheering. Stirring to their souls by emotions they could not understand or control, the sight of puissant Resolution had torn from their breasts the cheers of desperation. It is with such spontaneous inspiration that the makers of war have always gulled their warriors and transformed them into heroes. Thus did the glamour of action infect these men with the fighting anger that served their political masters supremely well.

Perhaps it was to the latter that the barely articulate Tregembo alluded.

'Silence! Silence there!' Hope was roaring from the quarterdeck and the cheering died as men grinned at one another, suddenly sheepish after the outburst of emotion.

Faintly across the intervening sea a cheer echoed from Resolution and Drinkwater realised Cyclops must appear similarly magnificent from the seventy-four. A shudder of pride and cold rippled his back.

Before darkness isolated the admiral from his ships Rodney threw out a final command to his captains: 'Engage the enemy more closely.' He thus encouraged them to press the enemy to the utmost degree. Both fleets were tearing down upon a lee shore with off-lying shoals. By five o'clock it was nearly dark. The wind had risen to a gale and gloomy clouds raced across the sky. But the moon was rising, a full yellow moon that shone forth from between the racing scud, shedding a fitful light upon the baleful scene.

At sunset Resolution, Edgar and Defence had drawn level with the rearmost Spanish ships. Exchanging broadsides as they passed they kept on, heading the leeward enemy off from Cadiz.

'Larboard battery make ready!' The order rang out. Drinkwater transferred his attention to port as Cyclops was instantly transformed. The waiting was over, tension was released as gunners leapt to their pieces and the British frigate rode down the Spanish.

The enemy was close on Cyclops's larboard bow. Below Drinkwater a chaser rang out and a hole appeared in the Spaniard's main topsail.

Devaux ran aft along the larboard gangboard. He was yelling orders to the lieutenants on the gun-deck below. He joined Hope on the quarterdeck where the two men studied their enemy. At last the captain called one of the midshipmen over.

'M'compliments to Lieutenant Keene, when his battery engages he is to cripple the rigging…'

The boy scrambled below. Hope wanted the Spaniard immobilised before both ships, distracted by the fury of battle, ran down to leeward where the low Spanish coast lay. Offshore the shoal of San Lucar waited for the oncoming ships of both nations.

'Mr Blackmore,' Hope called over the sailing master.

'Sir?'

'The San Lucar shoal, how far distant?'

'Three or four leagues, sir,' answered the old man after a moment's consideration.

'Very well. Post a mate forward on the fore t'gallant yard. I want to know the instant that shoal is sighted.'

A master's mate went forward. On his way aloft he passed Drinkwater who stopped him with a question.

'Old man's worried about the shoals to looard,' the mate informed him.

'Oh!' said Drinkwater looking ahead of the frigate. But all he could see was a tumbling waste of black and silver water as clouds crossed the moon, the spume smoking off the wave crests as they tumbled down wind.

A squealing of gun trucks told where the men of the larboard gun battery were hand-spiking their carriages round to bear on the enemy. The Spanish frigate was ahead of Cyclops but when the British ship drew abeam they would be about two cables distant.

'Make ready!'

The order was passed along the dark gun-deck. In his foretop Drinkwater checked the swivel. Under the foot of the topsail he could see the high Spanish poop. Tregembo swung the swivel gun round and pointed it at where he judged the Spanish officers would be. The other seamen cocked their muskets and drew beads on the enemy's mizen top where they knew Spanish soldiers would be aiming at their own officers.

The Spanish frigate was only two points forward of Cyclops's beam. In the darkness of the gun-deck Lieutenant Keene, commanding the larboard battery of twelve-pounders, looked along the barrel of his aftermost gun. When it bore on the enemy's stern his entire broadside would be aimed at the frigate.

A midshipman dodged up to him touching his hat. 'Captain's compliments, sir, and you may open fire when your guns bear.' Keene acknowledged and looked along the deck. Accustomed to the gloom he could see the long line of cannon, lit here and there by lanterns. The men were crouched round their pieces tensely awaiting the order to open fire. The gun captains looked his way expectantly, each grasping his linstock. Every gun was shotted canister on ball…

A ragged flash of fire flickered along the Spaniard's side. The noise of the broadside was muted by the gale. Several balls thumped home into the hull, tearing off long oak splinters and sending them lancing down the crowded decks. A man screamed, another was lifted bodily from the deck and his bloodily pulped corpse smashed against a cannon breech.

Aloft holes appeared in the topgallant sails and the master's mate astride the fore topgallant yard had his shoes ripped off by the passage of a ball. With a twang several ropes parted, the main royal yard, its sail furled, came down with a rush.

Orders were shouted at the topmen to secure the loose gear.

Meanwhile Keene still watched from his after gun-port. He could see nothing but sea and sky, the night filled with the raging of the gale and the responsive hiss of the sea.

Then the stern of the Spanish frigate plunged into view, dark and menacing; another ragged broadside rippled along her side. He stepped back and waited for the upward roll:

'Fire!'