“Read it, radioman.”
“From Major Quinn, technical advisor aboard Courser, to Commander Cantrell on Intrepid. Stop. Regarding course change. Stop. Aye, aye, Commander . . . Hornblower?” The radioman’s voice had raised to an almost adolescent squeak. “Stop. Message ends. Sir, is Commander ‘Hornblower’ code, sir?”
Eddie smiled. “In a manner of speaking, rating. In a manner of speaking. Svantner?”
“Yes sir?”
“Tell me when that Spaniard starts to come around to port. As soon as he does, we’ll crowd him from the south with the Crown.”
Eddie checked his watch. And in about ten minutes, we’ll end the chase. For good.
Nine minutes later, Commander Eddie Cantrell called for the range.
After a moment’s delay, the intraship communications officer piped up, “Seven hundred yards, sir.”
“Mount One, acquire the target.”
The intraship piped up so quickly that Eddie suspected he was in constant conversation with the mount’s commanding officer. “Acquiring, sir!”
“Send word to load with solid shot.”
“Aye, sir.” A pause. “Gunnery officer requests confirmation on that last order: solid shot?”
“Solid shot. Tell him we’re not going to waste an explosive shell until we have a proven targeting solution.”
“Solid shot, aye, sir. And Mount One reports a firing solution. Range now six-hundred-fifty yards.”
Perfect. “Fire one round and continue tracking. Svantner, reef sails.”
The wire-wound eight-inch naval rifle roared and flew back in its recoil carriage, smoke gouting out its barrel as a long, sustained plume. A moment later, a geyser of water shot up about thirty yards off the Spaniard’s port quarter.
Eddie raised his glasses. He could see arms waving frantically on the deck of the carrack. While the Spanish had no idea exactly what kind of gun was shooting at them, it was a certainty that they knew it was like no gun they’d ever encountered before. And that it was also far more deadly.
“Reload,” Eddie ordered as he felt the Intrepid’s forward progress diminish, its sails retracting upward, “and adjust. Watch the inclinometer.”
From where he stood, Eddie could observe the gun’s crew go into its routine like one well-oiled machine in service of another. The handle on the back of the gun was given a hard half turn and the interrupted-screw breech swung open, vapors coiling out and around the crew. The cry of “swab out!” brought forward a man holding what looked like, at this range, a gargantuan Q-tip. He ran it into and around the interior, ensuring no embers or sparks remained to predetonate the next charge. Meanwhile, a half-hoist brought up the next shell—akin to a short, somewhat pointed bullet eight inches at the base and sixteen inches long—and the loaders swung it out of the cradle and into the breech, where another man promptly pushed it in until it was snug. Powder bags were loaded in next and then the breech was sealed while the second gunner inserted a primer in the weapon’s percussion lock.
“Loaded!”
“Primed! Hammer cocked and locked.”
“New firing solution,” called out the chief gunner. “Right two, up one!”
The second gunner hunkered down; he made a slight adjustment to a small vertical wheel on the side of the mount, and another to a small horizontal wheel. “Acquired!”
The intraship pipe at Eddie’s elbow announced, “Mount One reports ready, Commander.”
“At the discretion of the gunnery officer,”—watch the inclinometer more closely!—“fire.”
There was a pause while the gunnery officer studied the levels that indicated roll, pitch, and yaw, and then he shouted, “Fire!”
The second gunner pulled the lanyard, and the long black tube roared again.
Eddie saw the shot go into the water only ten yards in front of the carrack’s bow. And he also realized why the gunnery officer was always a fraction off on measuring the roll: because from his position on the deck, he could not watch the sea close to the Intrepid. Standing only seven feet higher, Eddie had a much better view. He could keep an eye on the inclinometer even as he read the proximal swells and troughs.
One of which was coming. The Intrepid came off the crest of a two-foot riser, slid down into a long trough—and Eddie knew the inclinometer was going to be perfectly level the moment before it was.
“Fire!” he yelled forward over the weather deck at the same moment that the inclinometer showed level.
The eight-inch rifle spoke a third time as Eddie jerked the binoculars back up to his eyes—
—Just in time to see the shell tear into the carrack, just aft of its bow on the starboard side. Planks and dusty smoke flew up and outward—and, puzzlingly, from the portside bow as well. Which, Eddie realized an instant later, had been caused by the round exiting the hull on the other side.