"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 . . . "Beggin' your pardon, sir." Malloyre's voice was urgent, bringing him back. "What's the firin' orders?" "Just fire the starboard round as a broadside, and set for the lower gun deck." "Aye aye, sir." He paused. "And Lord Jesus pray we'll live to swab out." Malloyre's parting words would have followed him up the ladder to the main deck, but they were swallowed in the muffled roll of cannon fire sounding over the bay. The galleons were spreading, circling the _Resolve_ as they bore down upon her, and they had begun to vomit round after round, jets of water randomly around the frigate as she plunged toward the shallows and safety. Any minute now, Hawksworth told himself, and she'll be in the shallows. If she doesn't run aground on a bar. Then he saw the _Resolve_ begin to come about, reefing and furling her sails. She's made the shallows. And the Portugals' guns have quieted. "Permission to set sail, sir. The bleedin' Portugals'll be on her in a trice." Mackintosh stood on the quarterdeck by the steering house. And he made no attempt to disguise the anxiety in his eyes.