Chapter 24: Dousing the Lights

Five nautical miles northwest of Lingayen Bay, on the open sea.

The lookout aboard the Fury pointed into the distance and shouted, "Fire! Fire sighted in the direction of Lingayen Bay!"

The captain of the Fury was roused from sleep by the first mate, hurried onto the foredeck in his nightclothes, took the spyglass from the steward's hands, and peered toward the southeast.

There, at the dark edge of the sky, a faint orange-red glow was visible.

"Wake the crew, weigh anchor and raise sail, set course southeast, and make full speed for Lingayen Bay!" the captain ordered, lowering his spyglass.

The first mate drew in a breath, blew his whistle, then shouted at the top of his lungs: "All hands on deck! Sail crew, unfurl the canvas, haul taut the sheets, and prepare to get under way."

On the gun deck, sleeping crewmen were roused by the boatswain's booming voice. They tumbled out of their hammocks, stowed them with all possible speed, and clutching the rolled hammocks, streamed up onto the deck, where they tucked the folded hammocks into the netting along the bulwarks.

Then each man ran to his station.

Amidships, around the anchor capstan, the sailors formed a ring and, to the rhythm of the boatswain's chant, pushed the capstan slowly around.

The signalman went to the stern and, using the signal lantern, passed the order to get under way to the consorts, the Golden Lion and the Silver Wolf.

The sail handlers climbed the shrouds with practiced ease, stepped out onto the yards, loosed the furled canvas, and dropped the square sails.

In the darkness, the sail handlers moved like nimble monkeys, working with perfect ease at a height of more than twenty meters above the deck.

The navigator reported in a loud voice: "Wind from the southwest, moderate strength!"

The first mate ordered: "Course southeast, starboard tack, haul taut the port sheets!"

"Port sheets hauled taut!" the sail handlers repeated at full volume.

An hour later, the anchor capstan had turned to its limit, and the boatswain shouted: "Anchor aweigh!"

First mate: "All preparations complete — the ship is under way!"

The captain of the Fury gave the order: "It's too dark. Signal the Golden Lion and the Silver Wolf to light their running lamps and keep their distance, so we don't collide."

"Aye, Captain!" the signalman acknowledged, then ran to the stern and relayed the order at the top of his voice.

Forty minutes later, the three warships had sailed past the Bolinao Peninsula, and Lingayen Bay lay before them.

A one-off wooden watchtower stood on the peninsula's ridgeline, blazing like a burning torch, casting the mountain rocks of the peninsula in a ruddy glow.

In Lingayen Bay, east of the peninsula, a great cluster of ship lamps was surging toward the beach.

"Enemy lights sighted! Dead ahead... roughly two thousand to three thousand paces." the lookout shouted.

The sea was far too dark to judge the distance with any certainty.

"The Fury will lead, forming a line of battle. Helm to port, engage with the starboard battery." the captain ordered.

"Helm to port!" the first mate bellowed.

The signalman ran to the stern and shouted the order across to the other two ships.

The three warships groped their way into formation, struggling to align themselves in a single line, holding their southeast course as they gradually closed on the pirate fleet.

"Open the gun ports! Gunners to your stations!" the first mate ordered down to the gun deck.

The gun captain on the gun deck repeated the order at full volume: "Open the gun ports! Gunners to your stations!"

Soon the gun ports along the hull swung open, and the cannons, already loaded and primed, were run out through the ports — black, gaping muzzles aimed straight at the distant fleet's lamps.

"About a thousand paces!" the lookout shouted.

"Eight hundred paces!"

"Six hundred paces!"

No one on deck spoke; all were waiting for the captain's order.

Cold sweat ran down the Fury's captain's forehead. Even at this close range, he still could not make out the enemy ships' silhouettes through his spyglass.

They had formed their attack formation and sealed off the mouth of the bay.

But the pirate fleet held the weather gauge. If the pirates doused their lamps and wheeled about to charge back, the three Spanish warships would be thrown into a defensive boarding action.

He could wait no longer.

"Open fire!" the captain ordered in a low voice, lowering his spyglass.

The order was passed down the chain of command across the deck.

First mate: "Open fire!"

Gun captain: "Open fire!"

On the gun deck, the gunners threaded the slow match onto its linstock, and the burning orange-red tip of the match touched the powder at the cannon's touchhole.

"Ssss—" the powder caught.

Then — boom! — the cannon fired, the gun carriage lurching violently backward.

The Fury's twenty-five starboard guns fired in succession, and the immense recoil transmitted through the gun tackle into the hull, heeling the Fury sharply to port.

Then the consorts, the Golden Lion and the Silver Wolf, fired their guns in turn.

The sky was pitch black. No one could see where the shots landed — only the sound of roundshot splashing into the sea and the columns of water it threw up.

There was no crack of splintering timber, no cries of wounded men.

A full broadside. Zero hits.

This was entirely commonplace in naval combat of the day.

Cannon accuracy was inherently limited to begin with, and firing from a pitching deck made it worse. In most cases, the gunners merely aimed their muzzles in the general direction of the enemy fleet and left the matter of hitting anything to the will of God.

In most engagements, the greatest value of the first broadside was simply to correct the guns' elevation.

"Swab the bore... reload!" the gun captain shouted the order. "Fire."

At the command, the Fury's starboard gun ports flashed with fire, and a dense thunder of cannon fire rang out across the whole bay — followed by the distant splash of solid iron shot striking the water.

The two consorts fired in turn right after, and unsurprisingly, there was only the sound of splashes.

The distant ship lamps were utterly unaffected, still crawling at a snail's pace toward the beach.

Could this be a fleet of ghosts?

"Swab the bore... reload!" the gun captain shouted.

"Wait!" said the captain of the Fury.

"Cease fire!" the first mate relayed the order.

"Cease fire!" the gunnery officer repeated the command.

The sea fell into silence, with only the howling of the wind audible in their ears.

The captain of the Fury furrowed his brow. Even if those two volleys had missed, the pirates should have reacted somehow—either scattering in flight or dousing their ship lights. Why was there no response at all?

"Turn the helm to starboard. Let's sail over and take a look." the captain ordered.

A dozen or so minutes later, the Fury, leading two escort vessels, sailed into the midst of the "pirate fleet."

There were no ships on the sea at all—what floated on the surface were torches, each one inserted into bamboo rafts made of coconut shells.

The rafts were linked together with wooden poles and ropes, towed across the sea by sampans rigged with simple triangular sails.

"Damn pirates. We've been tricked." The captain of the Fury slammed his fist against the gunwale.

As for the crew, they couldn't care less about being tricked—so long as they didn't have to fight pirates, it was a good thing.

Just as the crew let their guard down, the lookout suddenly shouted, "Off the port quarter—enemy ship lights sighted!"

"Again?" The first mate was furious.

"No!" the captain of the Fury said in a low voice. The enemy ship lights in the distance were denser, stacked in layers across the sea—clearly not bamboo rafts made of coconut shells.

Whatever carried lights like that had to be a large ship.

"Load the cannons! Prepare for battle!" the captain ordered.

As the enemy vessel drew closer, the captain could faintly make out the outline of its hull through his telescope.

"Douse the lights!" the captain ordered.

As the order was passed down through the ranks of officers, the lights of the three warships gradually went dark, blending into the pitch-black sea.

In the distance, the captain of the Santa Rosa lowered his telescope with a puzzled look.

In his field of vision, the lights of the three warships had gradually gone out, leaving only the lights of a large number of sampans drifting on the sea.

"Captain, shall we prepare for battle?" asked the first mate of the Santa Rosa.

When two ships met on the sea at night and one of them doused its lights, that was absolutely a dangerous signal.

The Santa Rosa and the San Juan had originally been anchored nearby. An hour ago, hearing the sound of cannon fire, they had sailed over to investigate.

But that cannon fire had been suspiciously brief—there was a chance it had been a misfire.

Therefore, even though the other side had shown hostility, out of caution he did not dare open fire rashly.

The captain shook his head and said, "Move in closer first, then signal them with lights to ask."

After sailing for ten minutes, the Santa Rosa completely lost track of the other party.

"What do you see?" the first mate asked the lookout.

Up in the crow's nest of the mainmast, the lookout scanned in every direction from a height of over ten meters, but as far as the eye could see, there was no trace of any large ship. He could only answer, "Apart from the lights on the sampans, all is darkness around us, sir."

"Boom! Boom! Boom..."

At that very moment, a flash of red light flared across the distant sea off the Santa Rosa's starboard side, followed by the thunderous roar of heavy cannons.

"Enemy ship firing!" the first mate shouted at the top of his lungs.

Immediately after, mere dozens of paces from the Santa Rosa's starboard side, a massive column of water erupted, cascading down like a curtain of rain that drenched the crew on deck from head to toe.

"It's the Dutch!" one of the crew members said in an extremely panicked tone, voicing his judgment.

"Prepare to fire!" Through the curtain of rain, the captain of the Santa Rosa shouted his orders, one hand holding down his hat and the other gripping the gunwale.

"Prepare to fire!" The first mate and the gunnery officer repeated the command.

Soon, the gun ports on the Santa Rosa's starboard side swung open and the cannons were run out.

Another flash of red light lit up across the distant sea.

Amidst the spray of water, a cannonball struck the Santa Rosa's deck. Wood splinters flew, blood mist sprayed, and a sailor's lower body was turned to pulp—only his two legs remained, rolling to the edge of the deck.

The captain gritted his teeth and forced out the words: "Aim at the muzzle flashes of the enemy guns—fire!"

Yahei

Fenyuan

Pen