Black smoke was pouring up from the Farragut's stack. One more broadside landed; then the paddle wheels thrashed into reverse, just before the steel-plated bow struck. It hit at a slight angle to the perpendicular, with the momentum of two six-hundred-ton bulks moving together at a combined speed of nearly thirty miles an hour.

The Tartessian ship shivered and pitched, stopping as if it had hit a reef. The foremast whipped forward and then snapped. Sails and mast fell down across the bows of the ship, and the rest of her rigging quivered and shook. And all that was nothing beside the brief glimpse of the damage to her hull as the Farragut reversed. Ribs had been smashed and the oak stringers stripped off the side of the ship in a swath fifteen feet long. The Tartessian war craft rolled back to port as the ram released her, and the sea poured in at once. The remaining two masts developed a list, and the open gunports were pointing down toward the sea.

The Farragut backed off. The next in line of the Tartessian fleet had yawed, turning further from the wind to bring her guns to bear.

They lashed the steamship and the water around it, but that necessarily presented her flank to the ram. With a dolorous whistle of steam, the Farragut began to pick up speed.

Alston turned her attention back to the four ships ahead. The Chamberlain was closing in on the first, no more than fifteen hundred yards now, less every second.

"Jenkins," she said, "we'll range up and give the leader a couple of broadsides at… mmmm, nine hundred yards." Fairly long range for the Tartessians.

"Then we'll touch up, cut across his stern, rake him-and give the ship following our starboard a broadside at the same time-range alongside, hit him another time or two, and board. Lieutenant Commander, convey my intentions to the rest of the flotilla. Marine sharpshooters to the fighting tops, action stations all."

The drum began to beat, a long, hoarse, rolling call. There was little to do, though, except for the Marines to scramble up the ratlines and take their places in the triangular platforms from which they would rake the enemy deck. Below, all was in readiness as it had been since they'd left port, decks clear, fearnought screens rigged and damped, corpsmen standing by for the casualties. The two Gatling guns clamped to the rails swung, loaders ready with more cylindrical drums of ammunition, gunners' hands on the cranks.

The enemy ship-probably the flagship-grew closer. It was a three-masted bark-rigged vessel; she counted twelve gunports and lighter weapons on deck. The same number of muzzles as her vessel, but surely a lighter weight of metal. The decks were black with men, though, and the rigging thick with them too-heavy crew.

Closer. Closer. Below: "Out tampions! Run out your guns! "

Drumming thunder below, squeal of carriages, and to her right the black port lids flipping up to show thick muzzles.

"Ready…"

"Fire as you bear!"

The two ships were running parallel, just under a thousand yards apart, their sails braced hard to starboard and the wind on their port. BOOOOMMMMM, a roaring world of sound as the twelve heavy cannon spoke as one, the Chamberlain heeling under their thrust, long blades of flame and clouds of smoke. Jenkins cast a quick look and then turned his eyes back to sail and helm; Alston noticed and felt a quick stab of approval.

"Thus, thus," he said to the helmsmen. "Don't close her- Zenarusson, keep your eye on your work! Thus!"

Her own attention was focused on the results. One ball raised a geyser of foam in the enemy's wake. The others all struck, solid smashing impacts on deck or hull. Then the Tartessian's cannon ran out, each muzzle seeming to point straight at her. She forced herself to objective appraisal; eighteen-pounders, probably.

BADUMMPF. One gunport wasn't firing, the cannon dismounted, perhaps. The others snarled flame and disappeared backward, recoil hurling the great weights of metal back against the lines and tackle. Three paces in front of her, an iron cannonball cut a seaman in half, blood and matter spraying out in all directions. Alston wiped sticky wetness from her face, knowing that she'd feel it again, in her sleep. Her mind was a calculating machine right now. Two solid hits, from the thumping beneath her feet; a couple of misses, from the splashes in between.

Wounded crewfolk being hurried down the companionways, headed for the surgeon's station. A rattle of lines and blocks on the splinter nets overhead, cut by the passing shot. Bosun and petty officers and riggers swarming upward, knotting and splicing; no major sails down or uncontrollable, a quick flurry of hauling on deck to correct the yawing produced by a severed buntline.

As the guns spoke again, individually this time, the crews completed their leaping dance of reloading and ran them out again. A glance at her watch; ninety seconds, very fast. A slow crackle of rifle fire came from the tops above, snipers with scope-sighted weapons trying their luck. A staysail went flying loose, flapping and entangling. The Tartessian's head started to turn away from the wind, then came back.

Thumped them hard, Alston thought, as the enemy's guns answered. This time there was a screaming from the gun deck, dying away quickly. An eighteen-pounder ball clipped the mainmast, gouging a bite out of the white pine as neatly as a giant's teeth.

Again and again. Her eyes combed the Tartessian vessel, looking for hints…

"Brennan," she said to a middie. "To the gun captains; we're going to rake her."

A quick glance backward: the Lincoln was lying in the Chamberlain's wake, trading broadsides with the next Tartessian in line. Back at her own opponent: outer and flying jibs down and a thin stream of blood flowing out of her scuppers.

"And the one behind her; we'll fire both broadsides. Then port guns reload with canister; we'll range in, sweep her decks, then board. Boarders and starbolins ready."

The youngster sprang off. She turned to Jenkins. "Now, Mr. Jenkins, if you please."

"Thus, thus!" he said. And "Haul all port, handsomely port!"

The bosun's calls and pipes repeated the call across the deck. The Chamberlain spun on her heel, taking the wind on her port quarter now, running before it to cut the Tartessian's wake. She held her breath…

"Yes!"

The enemy were too badly damaged to react quickly. The Islander frigate closed the distance with a lunging swiftness, throwing rooster-tails of salt water from her sharp bows. An almighty roar from astern distracted her for an instant; her head whipped around. Fire and a black swelling rising, bits and pieces of timber and probably of people… one of the Tartessian ships had blown up.

Back to her own work. Another grumble-rumble, as the portside guns ran out as well.

"Fire as you bear!"

Thudding reports ran back along both sides of the ship from the bows, smoke overwhelming sight for an instant, then blowing on in a mass ahead southward. The Chamberlain's broadside had swept down the Tartessian's gun deck unopposed for a hundred and twenty feet. Even from here she could hear the screaming and could well imagine what damage had been done in those crowded quarters.

"Ready about!" she called.

"Ready… come about!" Jenkin's voice replied.

The wheels spun, and the deck teams heaved again at their lines. The Chamberlain turned, running east once more. Alston's legs moved automatically to meet the changing slope of the deck, going from horizontal to starboard-down. Close enough to the enemy to toss a ship's biscuit onto their bloody decks-still crowded with men, fighting forward toward the rails, a few even swinging grapnels. Now the Gatling teams spun the clamp-wheels that held their weapons to the starboard rail, lifted the heavy weapons free and rushed them across the deck, set up in a dance of trained hands, and opened fire in a stream that cut men down and sliced lines like a giant's sickle. The port guns ran out again, fired a point-blank wave of grapeshot, crews cheering.