Midshipman Pascoe dashed through the main hatch and ran aft to the foot of the quarterdeck ladder.
"Lower battery loaded and ready, sir!" He turned to hurry back but paused as Bolitho called, "Come here, Mr. Pascoe!"
The boy ran on to the quarterdeck and touched his hat. He looked bright-eyed and there were patches of colour on his cheeks.
Bolitho said quietly, "Look yonder." He waited as the boy blimbed on to a bollard to peer above the hammock nettings.
Pascoe stared for a full minute at the great array of sails stretching towards the starboard bow. Then he climbed down and said, "There are a lot of them, sir." He lifted his chin, and without effort Bolitho could see his face pictured with all those others hanging in the empty house at Falmouth.
Impulsively he reached out and gripped his arm. "Take care Mr. Pascoe. No heroics today, eh?" He thrust his hand into his pocket and took out the small carved ship which de Block had given him. "Here, take this. A souvenir of your first voyage."
The boy turned it over in his hands and said, "It's beautiful!" Then he placed it inside his coat and touched his hat again.
Bolitho watched him go, his heart suddenly heavy with concern.
"He'll be safe down there, Captain."
He turned to find Allday standing behind him, the sword and his best dress coat draped across his arm.
Several men watched him as he slipped out of his faded seagoing coat and thrust his arms into the one with the white lapels and bright gold lace. The coat which Cheney had admired so much.
Allday adjusted the swordbelt around his waist and stood back with a critical glance.
Then he said quietly, "It is going to be fierce work before we're done today, Captain. There's many a man who'll be looking aft when things get bad." He nodded, apparently satisfied. "They'll want to see you. To know you're here with them."
Bolitho lifted the old sword a few inches from its scabbard and touched the blade with his finger. Old, maybe, but the man who. had forged it had known a thing or two. It was lighter than most of the modern ones, but the blade was like a razor. He let it drop into the scabbard and thrust his hands beneath his coat.
He said, "If I fall today, see that the boy is safe."
Allday stood at his back, a heavy cutlass naked in his belt. If you fall it will be because I am already pulped, he thought. Aloud he replied, "Never fear, Captain." He showed his teeth in a grin. "I'll be an admiral's cox'n yet!"
There was a dull bang, and seconds later a thin waterspout rose lazily across the larboard bow. Bolitho watched the brown smoke being whipped away from the three-decker's forecastle by the wind.
He imagined Lequiller and his captain watching their slow approach and felt his breathing becoming more controlled, even relaxed. The last calm before madness began. The moment when there was no more room for conjecture or regret.
Another ball ploughed through the white-tipped rollers and ricocheted towards the horizon.
He found that he was smiling, his skin tight like a mask. You will have to get closer than that, my friend. Much closer.
Then he drew his sword and laid it flat along the quarterdeck rail.
The waiting was done. The time was now.
19
FINAL EMBRACE
Bolitho turned his back on the approaching ships and raised his glass to study the Spartan. With the little sloop close astern of her she was plunging through steep swells about a mile to windward. He caught a brief glimpse of Farquhar's elegant figure, his face turned towards him, and then lowered the glass again.
"Make a signal to Spartan and Dasher." He saw Carlyon's hands shaking as he picked up his slate and pencil. "Attack and harass the enemy's rear."
The suddenness of Farquhar's acknowledgement and the instant activity on the frigate's deck and yards told him of the relief his signal had unleashed. Unlike the twodeckers, Farquhar had no need to wait to be pounded blow for blow. As his sails filled to the wind and more canvas billowed from his topgallant yards Bolitho knew he would give of his best. At any other time it would have been sheer lunacy to despatch such frail vessels headlong into the fray, but as Farquhar had observed, the enemy had no frigates left, and feint attacks around the French rear might help to cause some momentary diversion.
Inch whispered, "The Dasher too, sir?"
Bolitho glanced at him. "There can be no spectators today."
There was a sporadic rumble of cannon fire, and he saw the Tornade's upper battery light up in a long ripple of orange tongues. But the Spartan was already thrusting past and ahead of Hyperion's larboard bow, her ensign streaming from the gaff as she spread more sail and headed towards the opposite end of the French line. Some of the balls ripped through the water and raised more spray beyond her, but she was a difficult target, and it was obvious that the sudden move was quite unexpected.
Flags soared up the Tornade's yards, and the two rearmost two-deckers began to idle clear of the line, their topsails flapping as they tacked slowly and ponderously towards the oncoming frigate.
Bolitho smiled tightly. The treasure ship meant more to Lequiller than anything. Without her and her cargo of men and wealth this would be a battle of no value, either to him or his, country.
Some of te other ships were firing now, the sounds intermingled and jarring as their gunners tried to wing the two spray-shrouded vessels before they could sail past.
Bolitho held his breath as the sloop rocked violently, her low hull completely bracketed with leaping columns of water. But she sailed on, her driver and maintopsail punctured in a dozen places. One of those balls from the French line would smash her delicate timbers to boxwood, and her commander needed no encouragement to spread more sail and clap on speed.
Bolitho turned away and stared fixedly at the leading enemy ship. They were almost bow to bow now, with the three-decker less than half a cable away and slightly to starboard.
Inch murmured, "We have the wind-gage it seems."
"And the wind is still fresh, Mr. Inch." Bolitho looked up as one more gun fired from the Tornade's lofty forecastle and a ball slapped through the mizzen topsail directly overhead. "But the smoke from our broadsides will be better protection than agility."
He pressed his palm on the sword's flat blade. "Stand by on the main deck!" He saw the gunners crouching down, their faces tight with concentration as they peered through the open ports, hands like claws on tackles and rammers, as if they would never move again. He heard the word being passed below decks, and tried not to think of the lower battery, the hell it would be soon, and his nephew down there enduring the living nightmare.
The three-decker's yards moved very slightly and he saw her swing away. Lequiller's captain intended to pass exactly parallel with the English line and not waste a single ball.
Bolitho watched the oncoming giant, her triple row of guns shining dully in the light, the lower battery comprised of massive thirty-two-pounders.
He lifted his left hand very slowly and could almost feel Gossett tensing behind him. He made himself wait until the Tornade's yards had settled again and then shouted, "Larboard your helm!" He heard the spokes creaking frantically and saw the bowsprit beginning to swing slowly until it was pointing straight for the enemy's figurehead. "Steady!" He slapped the rail, his voice harsh but controlled. "Now, Mr. Gossett! Bring her back on course!" The wheel started squealing again, and along the main deck he saw vague impressions of men hurling themselves at the braces, while overhead the yards creaked and grated in protest. He ran to the nettings and peered at the French flagship. She was turning away, her captain momentarily unnerved by what must have looked like a head-on collision.
He yelled, "Broadside!"
Stepkyne dropped his sword, his voice cracked with strain.
"Fire!"
Every gun hurled itself inboard, the crashing roar of explosions seemingo to drive into Bolitho's, brain with the force of a musket ball. He watched as the dense smoke billowed away and heard the splintering thunder of his b
roadside striking home.
The smoke lifted violently as if touched by some other wind, and lit up scarlet and orange, while around and above the Hyperion's quarterdeck the air came alive with screaming metal as the Tornade's gunners recovered their wits and fired back.
Bolitho staggered and seized the rail to stop himself falling as a ball sliced through the bulwark and smashed into a nine-pounder on the opposite side. He heard screams and yells, and more cries as another burst of cannon fire raked the hull from stem to poop.
Above the writhing fog he saw the Frenchman's masts, the speckled flashes from unseen marksmen in her tops, and waited counting seconds as the Hyperion's second broadside blasted the smoke aside and shook the deck beneath him as if striking a reef._
He yelled, "Lively, Mr. Roth!" The rest of his words were drowned as the quarterdeck nine-pounders jerked inboard on their tackles, their earsplitting barks adding to the din and confusion about him.
Musket balls thudded into the deck planking, and he saw a marine staggering and reeling like a drunken man, hands pressed to his stomach, his eyes closed as he reached the rail and pitched headlong into the net below.
But the Tornade's topmasts were already passing the starboard quarter, and as the Hyperion's lower battery fired again he saw the balls smashing into the threedecker's tall side, the splinters and lacerated shrouds lifting above the smoking gunports in crazy torment.
And here came the second one, a two-decker with a figurehead in the form of a Roman warrior, her bowchaser firing blindly through the gunsmoke as she endeavoured to keep station on her flagship.
Bolitho cupped his hands, "Fire as you bear, Mr. Stepkyne!" He saw the lieutenant crouching inboard of the leading gun, his hand on the captain's shoulder.
More heavy firing came from astern, and Bolitho knew the Hermes was engaging the flagship, but when he peered over the nettings he could see nothing but topmasts, all else hidden in the great pall of smoke.
"Fire!"
Gun by gun the main deck battery engaged the second ship, the men cheering and cursing as they threw themselves on the tackles, their naked bodies shining with sweat and blackened from powder smoke, while they sponged out the muzzles and rammed home the, next charges.
Bolitho felt the hull quake below his feet, and winced as more balls smashed along the ship's side, hurling splinters into the smoke or ripping through ports to plough into the men beyond. He saw a complete gun hurled bodily on to its side, with one of its crew pinned screaming and writhing beneath it. But his cries were lost in the roar and crash of the next broadside, and Bolitho forgot his agony as he turned to watch the two-decker's foremast begin to slide down into the smoke.
He grabbed Inch's arm so that the lieutenant jumped as if receiving a musket ball. "The carronades!" He did not have to add anything and saw Inch waving his speaking trumpet towards the hunched figures on the forecastle. The throaty roar of a carronade fanned the smoke downwards into the main deck, and he saw the massive ball explode just belo* the Frenchman's poop. When the wind laid bare the damage he saw that the wheel and helmsmen had vanished and the poop looked as if it had been struck by a landslide.
Crippled, and momentarily not under command, the ship started to swing downwind, her high stern and flapping Tricolour rising above the smoke like an ornate cliff.
The second carronade lurched back on its slide, and Bolitho heard someone cheering as the ball burst inside the stern cabin above her name, Cato, and the handful of marksmen who were still trying to shoot at the Hyperion's forecastle as she edged past. He could picture the murderous devastation as the ball sent its contents scything through the crowded gundeck to add to the confusion already apparent on her shattered poop.
Vaguely he could see a marine waving and gesturing from the forecastle, and when he ran to the weather side he saw something dark and covered with green weed sliding past the larboard bow like a grotesque sea monster.
Inch cried hoarsely, "Christ Almighty! The Dasher!"
Bolitho pushed past him as the third ship's topmasts and braced yards loomed above the fog of battle. The sloop must have taken a full broadside, or sailed too close to the Spanish treasure ship. Her upturned keel surrounded by bursting air bubbles and flotsam was all that remained.
He snapped, "Ready, lads!" He could feel himself grinning, yet was conscious only of numb, pitiless concentration.
A voice yelled, "Ship . on th' weather bow!"
As the smoke swirled abeam he saw the other twodecker across the larboard bow, her sails almost aback as she drifted towards him. She was one of the ships detached to protect the San Leandro, and as her upper guns blasted their orange tongues from the ports he knew it would be a double engagement.
He felt the salvo ripping overhead and saw the net bouncing with fallen blocks and full lengths of rigging. A man dropped from the mizzen top and fell hard across the breech of a nine-pQunder. Bolitho heard his ribs cracking like a wicker basket trodden underfoot, saw the terrible agony on the man's face as the seamen pulled him clear and rolled his body free of their gun.
"Stand by the larboard battery!" He was hoarse with shouting and his throat felt like raw flesh. "Get ready to show them, my lads!" He waved his sword at the waiting gunners and saw more than one of them grinning up at him, their teeth very white through the grime.
"Fire!"
The larboard guns crashed out for the first time, the double-shouted charges blasting into the newcomer's bow and side with the sound of thunder. Bolitho watched coldly as the enemy's foremast and main topgallant buckled and curtsied into the drifting smoke, and then shouted, "Mr. Stepkyne! All spare hands to the larboard gangway!" He saw Stepkyne, hatless and dazed, staring up at him. "Repel boarders!" He gestured with his sword as the French ship began to sidle slowly towards the larboard bow.
The third ship in the enemy line was abeam now, but had tacked further away than her predecessors. She seemed to lift from the Hyperion's smoke, and then as the grey light touched her figurehead and catted anchor she fired a full broadside, the shockwave of the double line of guns blasting the air apart with the power of a searing wind.
Bolitho fell choking and spitting as the deck bucked and staggered beneath him. Men were crying and yelling all around him, and he stared up as Captain Dawson rolled across the splintered planking, blood gushing from h s
mouth and one eye bouncing grotesquely on his cheek.
When his hearing came back he heard the marines calling to each other, firing and loading, and vying with their comrades in the tops as they tried to pick off the French marksmen with their muskets.
Inch yelled, "The bastards are boarding us!"
Bolitho dragged himself to the rail and felt the ship lurch as the other two-decker came to rest across the forecastle bulwark.
The larboard guns were firing with hardly a break, their balls smashing into the enemy's hull at a few yards range. But across the bows he could see the glint of steel, an occasional flash of a pistol as the boarders and his own men came to grips.
"Get the marines up forrard!" He was almost knocked from his feet as the scarlet coated figures charged past him, their bayonets shining in the gunflashes as the passing ship fired once more through the smoke.
Inch shouted wildly. "The mizzen topmast! It's coming down!"
Bolitho looked up and then pushed Inch against the nettings as with a splintering crack the topmast, complete with topgallant and yards came pitching through the smoke to smash across the larboard side. Men were falling and dying, their blood running in great patterns across the deck, while some were still trapped in the severed rigging, their cries lost in the thunder of Hyperion's guns.
Tomlin was here with his men, faces grim and intent, axes flashing while they cut the dragging wreckage clear, their ears deaf to the pitiful reams and pleas from those still enmeshed in the broken topmast. As it pitched into the water alongside Tomlin gestured with his axe and stood aside while his men began to throw the mangled corpses overboard and others drag
ged the protesting wounded down the ladder towards the main hatch and the horror of the orlop.
Bolitho stared up, his eyes smarting from the gunfire. It seemed bare and vulnerable without the great mast overhead and all its complex rigging and spars. He shook himself angrily and ran to the lee gangway to try and see the ship which was still locked around the bows.
There were scarlet coats there now, and the arrowhead of choppy r!rater between the two hulls was covered with bodies, dead or wounded, it was impossible to say. Blades hacked and flashed above the nettings, and here and there a man would fall kicking into the melee, or be thrown bodily into the sea by the press behind him.
But Stepkyne was holding the boarders off, although the French captain appeared to have stripped his guns of men to overwhelm his enemy by sheer numbers. He was paying for it now. For as the Hyperion's big twenty-fourpounders smashed ball after ball into the lower hull, the French guns remained silent. But the musket fire was fierce and accurate, and Bolitho saw more than one gun on the main deck with the dead heaped around it like so much meat.
He seized Roth's sleeve. "Get the marksmen, for God's sake!"
Roth nodded grimly and strode along the larboard gangway to yell up at the swivel gunners in the maintop. He had moved only a few paces when he received a charge of canister full in the chest. His body rose like a tattered, bloody rag and then bounced across the nets to lie gaping at the sails above.
Bolitho snapped, "Mr. Gascoigne! Lively there!" He watched the young acting-lieutenant scramble along the nettings and begin to climb up the shrouds. Just a boy, he thought dazedly.
Inch clapped his hand to his head and then beamed foolishly as his hat was plucked over the rail.
Bolitho grinned. "Walk about, Mr. Inch! You make a promising target it seems!"
"Blast!" Allday pounced forward, his cutlass raised as some handful of figures started along the gangway towards the poop. They were French seamen, a young lieutenant running ahead with drawn sword and a pistol pointing at the quarterdeck.
Enemy In Sight! Page 33
