Chapter 549: The Roar On The Seas
"Hearts of oak are our ships; Gallant tars are our men."
- Hearts of Oak, David Garrick& William Boyce
"Fire!"
"The commander said fire!"
"Praefectus misit eius ordines!"
"πυρ!"
From the roars by the men of boiling blood, charred fingers and distorted faces came the blasting of shells pounding onto the enemy ships at the sides. The first few of the Roman ships have come into full contact to the Venetians by the broadsides. While the Venetians are expecting for a further exchange of arrows and followed by a naval boarding operation, the Greeks pushed out a series of blackened rods out of their ships and started blasting at them– it is a thing they are not alien with, these things are called artiglieria, but certainly they did not expect these things to turn out on ships.
The series of thunderous blasting and long-lasting roars made an unforgettable experience to these Venetian sailors who encountered it for the first time. Many of these Venetians, who missed the chance back then in Varna, Nikopolis and Constantinopolis, never had a chance to confront these new things directly before in their career, especially with the bulk of their career bare footed on the waters, they have rarely seen these new war machines in action before.
With these roars of artilleries here beside the coast of Korfu, the mode of naval battles has been changed, forever.
Maybe historians in the future will give the ships Abraham is commanding tonight a brand new name called battleships, but for now let’s keep calling them war galleys.
Many brave Venetian sailors kneeled or squatted down on the decks trembling in fear from the thunderous roars that came right from before their eyes, although the shells at this time are still far too weak from dealing a serious damage to ships other than slicing off the head of some unlucky sailors and creating a small hole on enemy wooden hulks, but that along is enough to cause a devastating strike in the hearts and minds of the Venetian sailors who faced it.
In the future people will call this syndrome of extreme trembling and shattering as shell shock, but in this era, it is still being classified as cowardice as the Venetian commanders went around kicking the arse of all the sailors ordering them to return to their posts. Many Venetian commanders, who are experienced veterans argued that these artilleries are nothing more than a bunch of stubborn and heavy stuff that needs ages to reload, comforting their sailors that they won’t fire for a very long time.
More Venetians went up saying that this ship is the lead ship of the fleet, the pearl of the Venetian crown, the symbol of Venetian naval dominance, built with the finest wood from the Alps, the best design by the best designers of the republic and made by the finest craftsman of the entire Italia, even after that round of shelling, the ship has only suffered a minimal damage.
"Hold your spirits up misiers!" Roared the captain of the ship, Ambrogio Contarini, a longhi nobleman from the house of Contarini. "We are sailing with the flag of Saint Marco! We are sailing the largest ship of the Serene Republic! Even bigger than the flagship! Stand up and fight! Like a true Venetian!"
"Aye captain!"
Of course, the shouts of the captain can only be heard be a small group of people clustered around him, but that does not stop him from feeling good as he started ordering his sailors to begin a counter attack.
However, the scenario in the words of the Venetian commanders of the enemies stopping there to reload their artilleries simply did not happen, for the Roman ships simply continued sailing forward after firing their first round, and there came the second wave of Roman ships a few minutes later, immediately as these ships came to the broadside position of these Venetian ships, they too had twelve black metal rods being pushed out of those tiny windows.
"Hide! Embrace for shells!" Those sharp eyed Venetian sailors cried out as they ran about seeking for shelters. However, these sailors are not as lucky this time round, as two of the enemy shells somehow came crashing into the watertight compartments of the Venetian ships that are just slightly above the water level. These two shells came penetrating through the compartment creating a leakage in at least three of the compartments. Initially just a slight amount of water began slipping into these holes as the ship moves up and down, but after minutes passed more and more water came pouring in, increasing the overall weight of the ship increasing draught.
More and more water came pouring into these water compartments as the draft of the ship sunk lower and lower, by the time the Venetian sailors brought their ropes, wooden planks and nails, things are already way too late as the draft of the ship came sinking to a dangerously low level, and with the increased amount of weight of the water inside the ship, the lead ship of the Venetian fleet eventually lost its speed and came to a complete stop.
Then, the third round of shells came pounding in, but at this point of time the Venetian lead ship is already stranded, becoming an easy target for the shells. The water continued pouring in, and with an immense pressure it broke through the seals blocking each water compartments making it spread to the other compartments, eventually the hulks, creating way too much gravitational pull on one side of the ship that the structure of the ship began whining in pain, and this gigantic ship, over fifty meters in length, with a displacement ton that nears a thousand tons, began tilting to one side.
The keel of the ship became the first one to fall apart, together with it brings the mast and the shrouds of the ship as it begins getting torn apart and falls pathetically into the waters, together with it brings that banner of Saint Marco.
As the ship gradually falls apart and sinks on one side, it is literally flipped over on one side, creating a massive swirl on the sea sucking multiple sailors who are unlucky enough to fall off the deck, and no matter how good a swimmer they are, one is absolutely helplessly in front of the massive force of suction of the mother nature, all they could do is to gasp for as much air as possible, for that would be the last bit of air they can breathe before they reach the sea bed.
The lead ship of the Venetian fleet sunk just an hour after the first shell is pounded onto its hulk.
And it is not the only victim, half of the Venetian fleet is penetrated through by the Greeks, with multiple Venetian ships being blasted by the Greek artilleries. The original intention of the Venetian admiral Benedetto was to surround the Roman fleet with a v shaped formation, but now it just seems like the Romans received even more advantages as they will only have to face at most two Venetian fleet at a time.
"Admiral! Admiral!" Giovanni Ser di Mocenigo rushed to find his boss, who is found to be panting heavily on the bridge clutching his heart with a pale face, obviously just recovered from a panic attack. But Giovanni Ser di Mocenigo could not care more or less, for he has a much bigger concern now. "Admiral! We are going to lose the bulk of our ships if we continue fighting like this! By now we have lost eleven war galleys, and only sunk three enemy galleys! Our fleet is losing our organisation and our sailors are becoming like a bunch of cowards! What should we do!"
It is the very first time for the old Benedetto too to be facing such a sheer number of artilleries at once too, and he behaved no better than those sailors. But still he kept a clear mind knowing the heavy responsibility he is carrying as the commander of the fleet.
"We need to break apart!" Benedetto cried back towards Giovanni Mocenigo. "Where is the second fleet!"
"It is already approaching the tails of those Greeks sir!"
"Tell our captains to break apart!" Benedetto replied with his shivering lips. "I have observed the enemies, all of their artilleries are mounted at their broadsides and unable to turn, and their effective range of damage is just a mere three to five hundred meters, beyond that they are just a mere pebble!"
"Aye sir!"
"We need to break apart, regroup around the flag ship, and then charge towards the enemies with the bow of our ships! All of our ships have reinforced planks on our bows, and they should be able to withstand the damage of their shelling while minimising the area of contact!"
"Aye sir!"
"Remember! Kid!" Benedetto grabbed the collar of Giovanni Mocenigo as he is about to leave. "Tell the second fleet to pick up their speed! Our life and death is dependent on them tonight!"
"...Aye sir!"
