Читать книгу Champions of the Fleet. Captains and men-of-war and days that helped to make the empire онлайн

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There was harder work for the Dreadnought in the great battle of Tuesday off Portland Bill. First came the fierce brush in the morning, when Drake and Lord Howard and the leaders of the English fleet, after a daring attempt to work in between the Spanish fleet and the Dorset coast, had to tack at the last moment, baffled for want of sea room, and were closed with by the enemy in the act of going about. On came the galleons exultantly, their crews shouting and cheering, amid a blare of trumpets and ruffle of drums, in full confidence to run down and sink the lighter built English vessels. It was a moment of extreme peril:—but at the very last, suddenly, the fortune of the day changed. As the Spaniards seemed to be upon them the wind shifted, the English sails filled, ship by ship and all together, and then stretching out with bowsprits pointing seaward, the Revenge, Victory, Ark Royal, Dreadnought, and the others safely cleared the enemy, pouring in so fierce a fire as they passed that the Spanish ships had to sheer off. This was the first fight of the day. Later, when the wind, going round with the sun, shifted again and gave Drake and Howard the weather gage, came on the most desperate encounter with the Armada that our ships had yet seen. Lord Howard in the Ark Royal and Drake in the Revenge, with the Dreadnought, the Lion, the Victory, and the Mary Rose near at hand, driving ahead before the wind, pushed into the thick of the Spanish main body, and attacked the enemy, in a long and furious battle that lasted until the afternoon sun was nearing the horizon.