smash

of her crew in order to clear the recoil of her deck guns, and at least half a dozen of those guns had been dismounted by Amelia's fire. Tromp could make out officers moving amidst the carnage and confusion, fighting to impose some order upon it, and one officer—he rather thought it was Oquendo himself—clung to the shattered poop deck rail, supporting himself while blood streamed steadily down one of his legs.
It was obvious to Tromp that even that stoutly fought ship had no option but to surrender. It might take a little longer, cost a few more Spanish lives, but Santiago was too badly wounded to run and her crew was too savagely maimed to continue the fight.
He turned away from her once more, listening to the howling bedlam of the battle, and looked back at Brederode as Revenge, Tobias' flagship, altered course very slightly in order to cross astern of de With. Obviously, Tobias intended to rake San Nicolas as he crossed her stern, then range up on the Spaniard's disengaged side and smash the already crippled ship into submission.
The Englishman's bowsprit was no more than sixty or seventy feet clear of Brederode's high, ornate poop as Revenge started across her wake . . .
And then Maarten Harpentzoon van Tromp's face went bone-white under the soot and grime of powder smoke coating it, as the English flagship poured a deadly broadside through Brederode's stern.
For perhaps two heartbeats, Tromp told himself it had to be an accident. A colossal blunder. But no "accident" would have been that accurate. The Englishman's guns fired two by two, upper and lower deck together, carefully aimed, and the impact of those deadly shots turned Brederode's stern windows into the gaping cavern mouth of an abattoir.
De With's flagship was over four hundred yards from Amelia, but even at that range Tromp could hear the English roundshot hammering home, crashing the full length of her hull in maiming, mangling fury. An entire twenty-four pounder slammed forward, flung two-thirds of the way out its port as a screaming roundshot dismounted it and shattered its carriage. Even as Tromp realized in horror that the attack was deliberate, Brederode's