The Surgeon's Apprentice - John Biggins

from the ocean, and inside the bay the entrance or gullet is
between the peninsula of the Trocadero on the mainland
side, and a small promontory called Puntal on the isthmus.
And on this low promontory a fort, called San Lorenzo de
Puntal, stands to guard the entrance to the inner bay. e
Bay of Cadiz itself is not at all any great spectacle to look at,
since its shores on every side are low and marshy, and the
water in it likewise too shallow for great ships except along
a channel in the middle leading to Puerto Real and Carraca
at its easternmost extremities, which was where the Spanish
ships were now anchored beyond our reach, they having
sunk blockships in the channels. Cadiz Bay is not a very
commodious anchorage at all except that its location makes
it so, there being no other or better haven along all that
straight, sandy coast between Faro and Gibraltar.
We were nearing the Ann Royal as the cannon ball
struck her. It was the rst time I had witnessed a vessel
under re, since during our engagement with the Spanish
frigate that summer I had spent the entire action below in
the surgeon’s cockpit. So though I was diverted by the
sudden puff of smoke from the ramparts and the burning
wad ying out of it, then the boom coming to us across the
water, I did not associate the sudden rushing noise with any
peril until I saw the Ann’s taffrail suddenly y in pieces with
a loud crash and the ball splash into the water some way
beyond, then heard a great noise of cheering and trumpets
come to us across the water as the Spaniards saw they had
touched their target. I then realised with a sudden chill that
if they could hit the English agship, then they could also
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