Eden scrambled through the canting companion, his eyes frightened as he peered astern for the enemy.
`Mr Hope is c-calling for y-you, Dick.'
He ducked as the frigate's bow-chaser hurled a shot close abeam, throwing a waterspout high into the air like a surfacing whale.
Bolitho nodded. `I'll go to him. Call me if anything happens.'
Starkie was peering through his telescope at the nearest line of breakers. By allowing his ship to fall downwind just a trifle he had brought the bowsprit and tapering jib boom almost in line with the tell-tale surf.
He said over his shoulder, `Don't worry. You'll know.'
Bolitho groped his way from the companion ladder and entered the small, hutch-like cabin.
Hope was sprawling in a cot, his eyes very bright as Bolitho bent over him.
`I've heard that the fourth lieutenant is unwell?' His face was ashen. `Damn him, why did he hold off his attack?' He was rambling vaguely. `My shoulder. Oh God, they'll lop off my arm when we get to the ship.'
The pain and the despair seemed to steady him.
`Are you managing?'
Bolitho forced a smile. `We have a good master's mate on deck, sir. Mr Dancer and I are trying to look like veterans.'
Another dull bang penetrated the humid cabin, and Bolitho felt the hull tremble as a ball slammed down hard alongside. Too close.
Hope gasped, `You cannot fight a frigateV
'Would you have me strike, sir?'
`No!' He shut his eyes and groaned with pain. `I don't know. I only understand that I should be helping you. Doing something. Instead ...'
Bolitho watched his desperation with new understanding. Hope, the fifth lieutenant, had been closer to him than the other officers. He always pretended not to show his concern for the midshipmen under his charge, displayed an outer skin of hardness which had been taken as brutal on some occasions. But his constant presence amongst them had proved that some of his unsympathetic criticism had been both
necessary and beneficial. As he had remarked more than once: This ship needs.ofcers not children.
And now he was lying there, broken and helpless.
Bolitho said quietly, `I will come for advice whenever I can, sir.'
One hand moved out of the bloodstained cot and gripped his.
`Thank you.' Hope was barely able to focus his eyes. `God be with you!'
`Below there !' It was Dancer's voice. `The frigate's running out her starboard guns!' `I'm coming!'
Bolitho ran for the ladder. Thinking of Hope, of all of them.
In the short time he had been below the sunlight had broken from the land and changed the sea into an endless array of leaping wavecrests.
Starkie shouted, `Wind's backed a piece! Nothing much. But the frigate's going to make a run for us, I reckon!'
Bolitho took a glass from a seaman and trained it over the nettings. The frigate was barely a mile off the larboard quarter, sails braced hard round to hold the wind, her starboard guns showing above the churning wash along her side like black teeth.
He saw her outline alter slightly as she came up a point or so to windward, the sunlight lancing on weapons and telescopes, and on the large black flag at her mainmast truck. He could even distinguish her name painted on weatherworn scrollwork beneath her beakhead. Pegaso. Probably the original name she had carried under the Spanish flag.
`She's fired!'
A stabbing line of orange tongues belched from her gunports, the untimed broadside whipping past Sandpiper's stern and a few moaning above the poop.
Bolitho said, `Alter course, Mr Starkie. Two points to windward, if you can.'
Starkie opened his mouth to protest and changed his mind. He watched some barely concealed rocks dashing past . the starboard side. Well clear, but it meant they were committed. Amongst the sprawling reefs like a fly in a web.
`Man the braces there ! Let go and haul!' Dancer hurried to lend a hand. `Heave, lads!'
Above the plunging hull every shroud and sail seemed to be booming and creaking in disorder as the bows crept round and then steadied on the next spit of land.
Another ragged broadside, the balls skipping harmlessly astern and bringing a feeble cheer from a watching seaman who did not realize the peril he was in.
Bolitho shouted, `Get the best gun captain, Martyn! Lively!'
'Sou'-east by south, sir!' The helmsman sounded dazed.
`Very well.'
Starkie turned momentarily to watch as a grizzled old seaman in patched trousers and a check shirt ran aft and knuckled his forehead.
`Taylor, zur.'
`Well, Taylor, I want you to pick your two most
reliable crews and man the aftermost six-pounders, starboard side.'
Taylor blinked at the midshipman, probably thinking Bolitho was at last going mad. The enemy, after all, was on the opposite side.
Bolitho was speaking quickly, his mind blank to everything but the frigate and Sandpiper's bearing from her. He tried to remember everything he had learned or had had beaten into him from the age of twelve until this day. 'Double-shotted. I know it's a risk. But I want you to hit the frigate's bows when I give the word.'
Taylor nodded slowly. `Aye, zur.' He gestured with a tarred thumb. `I fathom yer meanin', zur.' He ambled away, bawling out names and examining two six-pounders by the poop as he did so.
Bolitho looked at Starkie, his eyes level. `I want to wear ship and pass out through the reef again. The frigate's bound to follow. He will have all the advantage with the wind under his coat-tails.' He saw Starkie nodding grimly. `For just a few moments we will have him under our guns.' He smiled, the effort freezing his lips. `Such as they are. He'll not be expecting us to turn and fight. Not now.'
Starkie stared beyond the bows like a man seeking a way out.
`I think I know a passage. It's not much.' He made a sweeping movement with his fist. `I'm not sure about the depth. A few fathoms, no more, if I'm any judge.'
Thuds and bangs told Bolitho that Taylor and his men were almost ready.
A sudden roar of cannon fire made him realize that the frigate was still determined to cripple Sandpiper and then bring her to close action.
Aloud he murmured, `Not this time, my friend.'
Starkie lowered his telescope as the frigate's iron shrieked overhead and brought down several lengths of broken rigging and a few blocks. The hull gave a violent jerk, and Bolitho knew they had taken their first direct hit.
He looked at Starkie as the latter called, `Ready when you are.' He wiped his forehead with his wrist. He was streaming with sweat.
`Man the braces ! Stand by to wear ship!' Bolitho nodded to the two gun crews. `Run out!'
He gripped his hands behind him until the force of his hold steadied him. He knew Dancer was staring, as were several of the men at the braces and halliards. Perhaps they were trying to see their own fate in his face.
He heard the old gun captain say, `Don't yew forget, lads. As we goes about we'll be to lee'rd of that bugger. But it'll give your guns a better chance as we 'eels over like.'
There was a brief lull in the wind, so that just for an instant the sounds of sea and canvas faded. Through his racing thoughts Bolitho heard another sound, that of Tregorren groaning like a bull in agony.
The madness of it, the very hopelessness of their position made the lieutenant's discomfort all the more unreal.
He shook himself back to the present
`Put up your helm ! Wear ship!'
Leaning drunkenly with the wind, her beakhead lifting and smashing down in a welter of crisscrossing waves, Sandpiper began to respond to canvas and rudder.
The noise was indescribable, so that when the Pegaso fired a solitary shot from a bow-chaser the sound was almost lost in the thundering boom of sails, the protest of blocks and bar-taut rigging.
Bolitho saw that the men at the weather braces were hauling with such effort that their bodies were angled back almost to the deck itself. Others ran to aid th
eir companions at halliards and aloft on the yards as they creaked round still further, the sails hardening and swelling like armour to the wind's thrust.
Bolitho tried not to look for the reefs, or at Starkie who had climbed into the shrouds to gauge better their progress towards the breaking surf.
Weakened by the Pegaso's haphazard shots through the upper rigging, more pieces of severed hemp fell unheeded to the deck and across the rigid shoulders of Taylor, the old gun captain.
Round and still further round, the masts and yards creaking violently as the brig wheeled on to the opposite tack, the sea sluicing up and over the lee bulwark, which minutes earlier had been towards the enemy.
Bang. A ball sliced across the heaving water and slammed savagely into the hull, making several men cry out with alarm.
`Get some hands on the pumps!' Bolitho heard himself yelling orders, but felt like an onlooker, detached from all that was happening.
Ice-cold, he watched the enemy swinging around and across the stern, or so it appeared from Sandpiper's violent alteration of course.
`Now.' His voice was lost in the din, and he shouted with sudden urgency, `As you bear! Fire!'
He had seen the Pegaso's big foresail starting to angle round as her captain decided to change tack and follow the brig.
He-knew Taylor was crouching behind one of the guns, but could not look at him. He heard the hiss of his slow-match, and started with shock as the gun banged out across the water. He saw the Pegaso's foresail pucker and a large hole appear as if by magic. Explored and strained by the wind and by the sudden alteration of course, the hole spread out in every direction, ripping the sail to fragments.
Starkie yelled, `He's still coming round, sir!'
A lookout's voice cut across Bolitho's thoughts like a saw. `Breakers to larboard, sir!'
But all he could think of was failure. The doubleshotted gun had destroyed a sail, but under full canvas it could make no difference now.
Once through the reef, and it was strange that he had no doubts now Starkie could do it, the pirate would overhaul and board them.
Taylor loped to the second gun, his face creased in concentration. Fierce gestures with his tarred thumb got a handspike moving here, a tug on a gun tackle there.
He crouched down, his eyes like slits as he wheezed, `Easy now! Come on, my little one!'
The match went home, and with a grating crash the gun hurled itself inboard, smoke eddying back through the port like choking fog.
Bolitho watched, mesmerized. It took an age, in fact, only seconds. And then as the carefully aimed shot lifted and dropped across the frigate's bows he saw the bulging jib and staysail tear from top to bottom like old rags.
The effect was instantaneous. Caught in the middle of changing tack, her sails already in confusion, the Pegaso wallowed heavily in a deep trough, her gunports buried in the sea as she continued to answer the rudder.
Bolitho heard shouts from the lee side and ran to the nettings, his throat like dust as he saw a greenshouldered rock scudding past the Sandpiper's side, barely yards clear. In those split seconds he saw the worn shape of the rock, and some tiny black fish which had managed to remain motionless, despite the wind and current, sheltering behind the reef which could tear out a ship's keel like the string from an orange.
He darted a glance at Dancer. He looked very pale and wild-eyed, his face and chest soaked with spray as he leaned out to watch the enemy's progress.
The Pegaso seemed to stagger, as if taken by an opposite squall, then as she tilted upright her main topgallant mast cracked over and fell straight down to the deck, a tangle of rigging and canvas trailing between the shrouds like weed.
Starkie yelled incredulously, `See that? She hit a reef!' He was croaking with excitement and awe.
`She struck, by God!'
Bolitho could not tear his eyes away. The frigate must have smashed hard against a rock shoulder even as she lost power from her forward sails in the middle of a tack. Just a few yards had made all the difference, and he could picture the confusion on deck, the rush of men below to seek out the extent of the damage.
It had been enough to bring down a topgallant mast, and she must be leaking badly, he thought. And yet the frigate was still coming on, and as lie watched, his eyes aching in the glare, he saw a bowchaser shoot out an orange tongue, and felt the ball shriek past him and crash into the forecastle like a giant's axe.
Broken rigging and whirling splinters were hurled everywhere, and he saw three seamen smashed against the bulwark, their cries lost in the wind, but their convulsions marked by spreading patterns of blood.
Another ball ripped against the hull and ricocheted away over the sea, the deck bucking as if trying to throw the seamen from their feet.
Bolitho yelled, `Attend the wounded! Tell Mr Eden to put them below!'
He thought suddenly of Eden's father in his little surgery, attending to people with gout and stomach trouble. What would he think if he could see his twelve-year-old son trying to drag a gasping seaman
to the companion hatch, every foot of the way marked in pain and blood.
Dancer said despairingly, `The frigate's closing to board us!' He did not even flinch as a ball whipped above the poop, leaving another hole in the pockmarked sails. `After all we did!'
Bolitho looked at him and those nearby. The fight, the pathetic determination were going rapidly. And who could blame them? The Pegaso had matched their every move, in spite of being surprised. She was through the reef, and he could see the glitter of waving cutlasses as some of the men ran from the guns in readiness to board. He recalled Starkie's description of what had happened to Sandpiper's officers, the torture and the final agony of their deaths.
He drew his hanger and yelled, `Stand to! Starboard side P He saw them turn to stare at him incredulously, their eyes dull with despair.
Bolitho jumped to the weather shrouds and waved his hanger at the Pegaso.
`They'll not take us without a fight!'
Little cameos stood out from the main picture. A man taking out a knife and honing it back and forth across his hand, his eyes on the frigate. Another crossing the deck to face a man who was probably his best, his only friend. Nothing said. Just an expression which told far more than words. Eden by the companion hatch, his face like chalk, and a man's blood already drying on his shirt, like his own would soon do. Dancer. His hair golden in the sunlight, his chin lifted as he picked up a cutlass and leaned on it.
Bolitho saw his other hand gripping into his breeches, like a claw, pinching the flesh to shock him from his fear.
A man, wounded in the attack on the brig, was propped against a six-pounder, his legs in bandages, but his fingers busy as he loaded pistols and passed them to the others.
Something like a baying howl came from the Pegaso's crowded deck as she edged closer abeam, the shadows of her masts and yards reaching across the water as if to snare the brig and engulf her.
Bolitho blinked and dashed the sweat from his eyes as he stared at one of the frigate's open gunports. A man, then another, was clambering out and around the black muzzles, and from other ports he saw figures emerging like rats from a sewer.
Starkie exclaimed, `They're trying to abandon, sir!' He seized his arm and propelled him to the nettings. `Will you look at that!'
Bolitho stood at his side and said nothing. More and more men were leaping from the gunports and being carried away like shavings on a mill-race.
Gauvin, the Pegaso's fanatical captain, must have put guards on every hatch, and as his ship charged in hopeless, maddened pursuit, he would have known that the hull damage was fatal.
Starkie watched the frigate's bow wave falling away as the great weight of inrushing water slowed her down, the sudden pandemonium on the upper deck as everyone at last realized what was happening.
He said harshly, `Here, put on your coat.' He even
helped Bolitho into it and tugged the collar with its white patches into position.
&
nbsp; He pointed to the Pegaso, which was starting to head away, the inrush of water playing havoc with the rudder's puny efforts.
`I want him to see you, and I pray to God he'll suffer for what he did.'
When Bolitho looked at him, he added, `I want him to know he was beaten by a midshipman ! A boy!'
Bolitho turned away, his ears filled with the sounds of a ship destroying itself, as under full sail she continued to slew round across the glittering crests. He heard guns coming loose from tackles and smashing into the opposite side, and spars falling, trapping the stampeding men under masses of black rigging and canvas.
He heard himself say, `Shorten sail, Martyn. Call all hands.'
He felt men touching his shoulders, others ran towards him grinning and waving. Not a few were weeping.
`Deck there P Everyone had forgotten the lonely man at the masthead. `Sail on th' starboard bow, sir !' The merest pause and then, 'Tis th' Gorgon !'
Bolitho waved his hand to the masthead and turned to watch the pirate frigate heeling over, the sea around her filled with flotsam and thrashing, bobbing heads.
Out of the sun's path, across the heaving swell, he also saw a sudden flicker of movement, the knifeedged fins of sharks closing in around the sinking
ship. It was over a mile to the nearest beach. It was doubtful if anyone would reach it.
He raised a telescope to look for the Gorgon, his eyes misty as he saw her fat black and buff hull, her towering pyramid of canvas rounding the next headland.
In another second he thought he would break, be unable to hide his emotion from those about him.
A great voice bellowed, `What the hell is going on?'
Lieutenant Tregorren was standing half through the companion hatch, and with his blotchy grey face, his hair matted with wine and worse, he looked for all the world like a corpse emerging from a tomb.
Bolitho felt the relief flooding through him like madness. He wanted to laugh and cry all at once, and Tregorren's wild appearance, the realization that he had been completely helpless throughout the fight, broke down all reserves.
He replied in a shaking voice, `I am sorry we disturbed you, sir.'
Richard Bolitho Midshipman Page 9
