Alexander Kent - Bolitho 17

by Honour This Day [lit]

  Parris shouted, ”We’re through, we’re through!” He waved his hat wildly. ”Huzza, lads! We’ve broken the line!”

  More sails loomed like giant ghosts astern. Crusader, and Redoubtabk, the latter almost colliding with another Spaniard which had either lost her steering or had her helmsmen shot down.

  ”Stand by to alter course to larboard!” Bolitho tossed his telescope to one of the midshipmen. ”I don’t need this now!”

  He could feel his lips set in a grin.

  ”Deck there!” Someone up there above the smoke and shrieking iron was keeping his head. ”Benbow’s through the line!”

  There were more wild cheers and coughs as the larboard battery fired a full broadside through the smoke, some into the Castor’s side, while the rest fell on and around the second ship in the enemy column.

  ”Lay her on the larboard tack, Mr Penhaligon! Afterguard man the mizzen braces there!” Selected marines put down their muskets and ran to help, while some of their comrades squinted above the hammocks, their weapons cradled to their cheeks, seeking a target.

  Bolitho looked up and saw lengths of severed cordage dangling on the protective nets, while above it all there was still the same peaceful sky.

  A ball slammed into the larboard side, and crashed amongst the men by one of the forward eighteen-pounders. Bolitho gritted his teeth as two were smashed to bloody ribbons, and another rolled across the deck, his leg held on by a thread of skin.

  He tried to concentrate. All his ships must be engaged now.

  The roar of battle seemed to roll all around, as if vessels were on every hand, masked from each other by their own smoke.

  Sharper gunfire, like the staccato beat of drums, echoed over the water, as if it were another part of destiny.

  Bolitho shouted, ”General signal. Close on the Flag. Reform line of battle!”

  How they could work with their flags was a miracle, Bolitho thought.

  ”All acknowledged, Sir Richard!’Jenour tried to grin. ”I think!”

  ”No matter!” Bolitho strode to the rail as he saw a Spanish two-decker standing out from the others as she made more sail.

  Her captain either wished to rejoin his own flagship, or he had increased sail to avoid hitting the crippled Castor.

  Bolitho pointed, ”There, Val! Engage her!”

  Keen yelled, ”Stand by to starboard!’

  The newcomer seemed to gather speed as the distance fell away, but Bolitho knew it was the illusion made by smoke. He watched the Spaniard changing tack so that she would’cross Hyperion’s bowsprit; he could see the scarlet and gold banner of Spain, the huge cross on her forecourse.

  Keen’s sword rose in the air. ”As you bear!”

  The other ship fired almost at the same time. Iron and wooden splinters flew across the maindeck, while overhead the sails flailed and kicked, shot through so many times that some could not Ioid a cupful of wind. Bolitho wiped his face and saw the other ship’s foremast going down in the smoke, rigging and pieces of canvas vanishing into bursting spray alongside.

  But he could ignore even that. Hyperion had been badly wounded. He had felt part of the enemy’s broadside crash into the lower hull with the weight of a falling diff.

  He made to cross the deck but something held his shoe. He looked down and saw it was the young seaman, Naylor. He was lying against his upended gun, and was trying to speak, his face creased with pain, and the effort to find words.

  Keen called, ”Over here, Sir Richard! I think we may He stopped, his feet slipping on blood as he saw Bolitho drop to his knee beside the dying seaman.

  Bolitho took the youth’s hand. The Spaniards must have used extra grape in their broadside. Naylor had lost half of his leg, and there was a hole in his side big enough for a fist.

  ”Easy, Naylor.” Bolitho held his hand tightly as the deck seemed to leap beneath him. He was needed, probably urgently.

  Around them the battle raged without let-up. Obeying his instruction. No matter what.

  The seaman gasped, ”I - I think I’m dyin’, sid’There were tears in his eyes. He seemed oblivious to his blood, which poured unchecked into the scuppers. It was as if he was puzzled by what was happening. He almost prized his broken body away from the gun, and Bolitho felt a sudden strength in his grip.

  The youth asked, ”Why me, sir?” He fell back, blood making a thin line from a corner of his mouth. ”Why me?”

  Keen waited while Bolitho released his hand and let it fall to the deck.

  Keen said, ”Capricious is in support, Sir Richard! But there is another Don breaking through yonder!” He stared at his own raised arm. There was a strip torn from his sleeve. Yet he had not even felt the ball hiss past.

  Bolitho hurried to the side and saw the second ship already overhauling the one which had fired the last broadside.

  Bolitho nodded. ”Trying to join her admiral.”

  Keen waved his hand. ”Mr Quayle! Pass word to the lower battery! We will engage this one immediately!’

  The fourth lieutenant was no longer pouting disdainfully. He was almost beside himself with terror.

  Keen turned. ”Mr Furnival!” But the midshipman had fallen too, while his companion stood rigidly beside Jenour, his eyes on the flags where his dead friend lay as if resting from the heat of battle.

  Bolitho snapped, ”Get below, Mr Quayle! That is an order!” Keen dashed the hair from his forehead and realised that his hat had been plucked away.

  ”God damn,” he said.

  ”Ready, sir!” Keen sliced down with his sword. ”Fire!’

  Gun by gun the broadside painted the heaving water between the ships in the colours of the rainbow. It was possible to hear Hyperion’s weight of iron as it crashed - o the other ship’s side, int smashing down men and guns in a merciless bombardment.

  The smoke swirled away in a rising breeze and Keen exclaimed, ”She’ll be into us! Her rudder’s shot away!’

  Bolitho heard a splash and when he turned his head he saw some of the boatswain’s party hurrying from the upended gun.

  Naylor’s corpse had gone over the side. There was only blood left to mark where he had fought and died.

  Bolitho could still hear his voice. Why me? There were many more who would ask that question.

  He saw Allday with a bared cutlass in his fist, watching the oncoming Spaniard with a cold stare.

  Parris yelled, ”Stand by to repel boarders!”

  Major Adams went bustling forward, as the other ship’s tapering jib-boom rose through the smoke and locked into Hyperion’s bowsprit with a shudder which made even the gun crews pause at their work.

  Keen shouted, ”Continue firing!”

  Hyperion’s lower battery, of thirty-two pounders fired relentlessly across the littered triangle of smoky water. Again, and yet once more, before the enemy’s jib-boom shattered to fragments and with a great lurch she began to sidle alongside, until the gun muzzles of both friend and enemy clashed together.

  Muskets cracked from the tops and a dozen different directions. Men dropped at their guns, or collapsed as they ran to hack away fallen rigging and blocks.

  The swivels barked out from Hyperion’s maintop, and Bolitho saw a crowd of Spanish sailors blasted away even as they swung precariously across the boarding nets.

  Keen shouted, ”We’ve lost steerage way, Sir Richard! We’ll have to fight free of this one, and I think the other two-decker is snared into her!”

  ”Clear the lower battery, Val. Seal the ports! I want every spare hand up here!’

  They dared not fire into the ship alongside now. They were locked together. It only needed one flaming wad from a gun to turn both ships into an inferno.

  The seamen from the lower battery, their half-naked bodies blackened by the trapped smoke, surged up to join Major Jil Adams’s men as they charged to meet the attack.

  Keen tossed his scabbard aside and tested the balance of his sword in his hand. He stared around in the drifting smoke, picking out his
lieutenants amongst the darting figures. ”Where’s my bloody coxswain?”

  Then he gave a quick grin as Tojohns ran to join him, his cutlass held high to avoid the other hurrying seamen.

  ”Here, sir!” He glanced at Allday. ”Ready when you are, sir!” Keen’s eyes settled on Parris by the rail. ”Stay here. Hold the quarterdeck.”

  Just the flicker of a glance towards Bolitho. It was as if they had clasped hands.

  He too was up and running along the starboard gangway, as the enemy clambered aboard, or fired down from their own ship. Lieutenant Lovering pointed with his hanger and yelled, ”To the fo’c’sde, lads!”

  Then he fell, the hanger dangling from his wrist as an unseen marksman found his victim.

  Dacie the one-eyed boatswain’s mate was already there on the beakhead, swinging a boarding axe with terrible effect, cutting down three of the enemy before some of Adams’s marines jumped down to join him, their bayonets licking through the nets, hurling aside the men caught there like flies in a web.

  The swivels in the maintop banged out again, and some of Spanish sailors about to join the first boarders were scattered in a deadly hail of canister. Those already aboard Hyperion fell back, one throwing away his cutlass as the marines’cornered him on the forecastle, but it was already too late for quarter. Gunsmoke drifted over the deck and when it cleared, there were only corpses as the jubilant marines fought their way across to the other ship’s deck.

  Jenour stood dose beside Bolitho, his.sword drawn, his face like one already dead. He shouted, ”Two of the Dons have struck, Sir Richard!”

  Despite the dash of steel and the sporadic bang of muskets, them were faint cheers from another ship, and Bolitho imagined he could hear drums and fifes.

  He climbed up the poop ladder and rubbed his eyes before peering through the enveloping smoke. He could just make out Obdurate, now completely dismasted and lashed alongside the Spanish two-decker she had collided with. A British ensign flew above the other vessel’s deck, and Bolitho guessed it was Captain ”Mynne’s men who were cheering.

  Then he saw Benbow, pushing past another crippled Spaniard, slow broadside into her as she moved by. Masts pouring a toppled like felled trees, and Bolitho saw Herrick’s flag curling above the smoke, so bright in the mocking sunlight.

  He thought wildly, Hyperion had cleared the way, just as Naylor had promised she would.

  Allday shouted, ”Here, watch out!”

  Bolitho turned and saw a group of Spanish seamen clamber up over the starboard gangway, slashing aside the nets before anyone had noticed them. They must have climbed from the main chains; they could have been creatures from the sea itself.

  Bolitho drew his sword, and saw some of Adams’s red-coated marines already haddng their way aft on the other ship. These boarders had no chance at all. Their own vessel would have to strike unless the other two-decker could come to her aid. But another broadside hurled smoke and debris high in the air and even on to Hyperion’s maindeck, as one of Bolitho’s squadron, probably Crusader, raked her from stern to bow.

  There was a lieutenant leading the small group, and as he saw Bolitho he brandished his sword and charged to the attack.

  Jenour stood his ground, but the Spaniard was a fine swordsman. He parried the blue blade aside as if it was a reed, twisted it with his hilt and sent it flying. He drew back to balance himself for a last thrust, then stared with horror at the boarding pike which lunged up through the quarterdeck ladder. The seaman gave an insane yell, tugged the pike free and drove it into the lieutenant’s stomach.

  Bolitho faced another Spaniard who was armed only with a heavy cutlass.

  Bolitho yelled, ”Surrender, damn you!”

  But whether he understood or not the seaman showed no sign of giving in. The wide blade swung in a bright arc and Bolitho stopped aside easily, then almost fell as a shaft of sun bed fightpro ri, through the smoke haze and touched his injured eye. It was like that other time. Like being struck blind.

  He felt himself swaying, the old sword held straight out, pointing uselessly at nothing.

  Parris yelled, ”Stop that man!”

  Bolitho could only guess what was happening, and waited for the searing agony of the cutlass he could not see. Someone was screaming, and occasional yells told Bolitho that more of Keen’s men were running to vanquish the last of the attackers.

  Allday sliced his blade at an angle, his mind numb as he saw the other man lunging towards Bolitho, who was apparently unable to move. The blade took the man on one side of his head, a glancing blow, but it had AtIday’s strength and memory behind it. As he pivoted round, squinting into the sudden glare, he saw Allday looming towards him.

  Jenour heard the next blow even as he scrabbled in the bloodstained scuppers to retrieve his sword. Parris, who was sobbing with pain from a slash across his wounded shoulder, saw the cutlass hit the Spaniard on the forearm; could only stare as the arm, complete with cutlass, clattered across the deck.

  Ailday spat, ”An’ this is for me, matey!” He silenced the mans scream with one final blow across the neck.

  He grasped Bolitho’s arm. ”You all right, Sir Richard?” Bolitho took several deep breaths. His lungs felt as if they were filled with fire; he could barely breathe.

  ”Yes. Yes, old friend. The sun...”

  He looked for Jenour. ”You have true courage, Stephen!” Then he saw Jenour’s features change yet again and thought for an instant he had already been wounded. There were wild cheers from the ship snared alongside by a tangle of fallen rigging, but as a freak gust of wind drove the smoke away Bolitho knew the reason for Jenour’s stunned look of dismay.

  He turned, covering his left eye with his hand, and felt his body cringe.

  The Spanish admiral’s flagship San Mateo had stayed clear of

  the close-action, or maybe it had taken her this long to put about. She seemed to shine above her-own tall reflection; there was not a scar or a stain on her hull or a shot hole in her elegant sails. She was moving very slowly, and Bolitho’s mind recorded that there were many men aloft on her yards. She was preparing to change tack again. Away from the battle.

  Bolitho could feel his limbs quivering, as if they would never stop. He heard Parris shout, ”In Christ’s name! She’s going to fire!”

  San Mateo had run out every gun, and at the range of some fifty yards could not miss with any of them, even though two of her own consorts lay directly in the path of her broadside.

  Bolitho’s mind refused to clear. It was Hyperion they wanted.

  The defiant ship with his flag still at the fore which had somehow broken their line, and inspired the others to follow. He looked at Allday but he was staring at the enemy flagship, his cutlass hanging loosely from his fist.

  Together. Even now.

  Then the flagship fired. The sound was deafening, and as the weight of the broadside s mashed into the drifting Hyperion, Bolitho felt the deck rear up as if the ship was sharing their agony.

  He was thrown to the side of the quarterdeck, his ears deaf to the thundering roar of failing spars, of men crying and screaming before they togged them over the side like corpses.

  Bolitho crawled to Midshipman Mirrielees and dragged at his shoulder to turn him on to his back. His eyes were shut tight, and there was moisture like tears beneath the lids. He was dead. He idc as he sucked saw Allday crouching on his knees, his mouth win the air. Their eyes met and Allday tried to grin.

  Bolitho felt someone pulling him to his feet, his eyes blinded e sunlight as it laid bare the destruction.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The Last Farewell

  Sir Piers Blachford steadied himself against the makeshift table while the guns thundered out yet again and shook the whole ship.

  He wiped his streaming face and said,’Take this man away. He’s dead.”

  The surgeon’s assistants seized the naked corpse and dragged it away into the shadows of the orlop deck.

  Blachford reached up and f
elt the massive beam by his head. If there was really a hell, he thought, it must surely look like this.

  The swinging lanterns which dangled above the table made it worse, that were possible, casting shadows up the curved sides of the hull one moment, and laying bare the huddled or inert shapes of the wounded who were being brought down to the orlop with hardly a let-up.

  He looked at his companion, George Minchin, Hyperion’s own surgeon, a coarse-faced man with sprouting grey hair. His eyes were red-rimmed, and not only from fatigue. There was a huge jug of rum beside the table, to help ease the agony or the passing moments of the pitiful wounded who were brought to the table, stripped, then held like victims under torture until the work was done. Minchin seemed to drink more than his Share.

  Blachford had seen the most terrible wounds. Men without limbs, with their faces and bodies burned, or clawed by flaying splinters. The whole place, which was normally the midship.

  men’s berth, where they slept, ate and studied their manuals by the dim light of their glims, was filled with suffering. It stank of allow blood, vomit and pain. Each thundering roar of a broadside, or the sickening crash of enemy balls hitting the ship around them, brought cries and groans from the figures who waited to be attended.

  Blachford could only guess what was happening up there, where it was broad daylight. Here on the orlop, no outside light ever penetrated. Below the waterline it was the safest place for this grisly work, but it revolted him none the less.

  He gestured to the obscene tubs below the table, partly filled with amputated limbs, a stark warning to those who would be the next to be carried to endure what must be an extension of a blessed relief here. ”Take their agony. Only death seemed them out!”

  He listened to the beat of hammers in the narrow carpenter’s walks, which ran around the ship below the waterline. Like tiny corridors between the inner compartments and the outer hull, where the carpenter and his mates repaired shot holes or leaks as the iron smashed again and again into the side.

  There was a long drawn out rumbling directly overhead, and B lachford stared at the red-painted timbers as if he expected them to cave in.