STO'B 4-10

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Half an hour later the disorder was all cleared away, and Badger and her consort lay waiting for the strange frigate, their guns run out and primed, waiting for the word to fire. The Spaniard, and now Philip could see the Spanish flag streaming bravely from her masthead, swept toward the bay. Her captain had not yet stripped he down to her fighting sails, which was understandable enough, for reducing sail would mean reducing speed, and she was currently sailing straight into the broadsides of the two English sloops. Nevertheless … half-formed ideas danced in Philip’s head.

“They seem to be tossing a quantity of items overboard,” said Dr M’Mullen, standing beside Philip with a pocket glass in his hand. “I believe I see some barrels, and a washtub.”

Philip almost said that it was a shame that they had tossed the tub overboard, as Badger had broken hers last week, leaving her crew with nothing to wash in, but he realised that that was incredibly presumptuous, and likely to bring bad luck. Instead he merely said “the thing about fighting with the Spanish is not that they aren’t brave, for they are, but that they are never, ever ready. An admiral told me that - probably old Admiral Pullings - and I have always found it to be true.”

“Now they have tossed their boats overboard.”

“Yes. They make nasty spinters when they get hit with a cannonball, you know. We had a lieutentant in the old Intrepid - a splinter from the longboat struck him through the chest - clean through - and pinned him to the bulwark. Hedley was his name, George Hedley. That’s why I had our boats hauled up on the beach.” He peered through his telescope, watching the Spaniard’s crew for the first sign that her captain was preparing to swing to the side and give them a broadside. “If we were at sea we would set them off on a line, to trail behind us. Doctor, you will forgive me, but if you would like to have a bang at them there will be guns in the wardroom, and a sword, too, if it should come to that. But for the moment-”

A shot from the Spaniard’s bow chaser cut him off, and he watched intently: two splashes, each in line for the Badger’s quarterdeck, before the ball finally knocked harmlessly against her side. And even now the Spanish crew was throwing things over the side: another spar, some loose fabric, a crate, and on the crate what might have been a small black dog, or perhaps a cat. “Goths!” cried Dr M’Mullen. “Heathens!” Chasseur fired a single gun, the ball bouncing once before sinking into the sea. Badger held her fire.

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