The sharp crack of the maintop's swivel gun made some of the men falter, but as the canister swept away many of the others who were pressing forward in readiness to board, the lieutenant waved his sword and charged headlong for the poop. He saw Bolitho and slithered to a halt, his pistol surprisingly steady as he aimed it directly at him.
Allday started towards the gangway but fell back as Tomlin muttered an oath and hurled his axe withh all the strength of his hairy arm. The keen blade struck the lieutenant, in the chest, and as he toppled amongst his men his yes were popping with astonishment as they stared at the axe, firmly embedded as if in a tree.
The others broke and ran back towards their comrades, only to be met by some crazed and jubilant marines.
Bolitho tore his eyes from the flashing bayonets and the blood which splashed down on the gunners below the gangway like scarlet rain.
"Another ensign, Mr. Carlyon!" He nodded as the boy ran past "Walk, Mr. Carlyon!" He saw the midshipman staring at him, his features like chllk. He added gently, "As befits a King's officer.''
More cries came from forward, and as axes flashed he saw the battered two-decker begin to nudge slowly along the Hyperion's side, her hull hammered every yard of the way by the lower battery.
Bolitho ran on to the gangway and waved his sword at the main deck gunners. "Come on, lads! Speed his passing!"
The seamen scrambled back to their guns, pausing only to drag the corpses and moaning wounded aside before hurling themselves on the tackles with renewed effort.
Bolitho stood quite still as captain after captain raised his hand in the air. More than half the larboard battery had been knocked useless, or so denuded of men as to be silent. So it had to be a careful broadside. He saw the stricken ship drifting past while the Hyperion's pockmarked sails carried her slowly and painfully towards the remaining French two-decker which had been sent to protect Perez's San Leandro. On her quarterdeck he could see the dead and wounded heaped around the guns, the great rents in her poop and engaged side. By the carved quarterdeck ladder an officer clung to the rail for support, one leg twisted like that of a broken doll. It must be her captain, he thought absently. He dropped his sword.
"Fire!"
By coincidence both decks fired together, and as the smoke came billowing inboard through the ports and the men groped choking and cursing for the water and sponges, Bolitho saw the enemy's main and foremasts come down as one into the sea between them.
Inch yelled, "Two crippled at least, sir! And that bugger'll never see another dawn if the sea gets up!"
Bolitho wiped his smarting eyes with his sleeve and watched the last guardship's outline hardening through the smoke, her guns already firing while she tacked awkwardly across the Hyperion's bows. He swore savagely. There was not a gun which would bear yet, and if the enemy's broadside was ill aimed, it was still lethal. He jerked round as a great ball smashed through the bulwark and ploughed into the men at the larboard nine-pounders.
The crouching figures, naked to the waist, pigtailed and determined, were like a little group of statuary or part of a great painting of some forgotten battle. As the smoke whipped away Bolitho had to bite on his nausea, to look away from the bloody tangle of limbs and flesh, the bones shining like pale teeth through the carnage.
Trudgeon's men were busy dragging and cursing the screaming wounded into silence, and he saw Carlyon stooped double and vomiting into the scuppers.
Allday said calmly, "That was a poor bit o' shooting, Captain."
But at that instant the French ship fired a second time. Her captain had no intention of grappling with a ship which had already crippled two of his consorts with little outward damage to herself but the loss of a topmast. He was intending to sail downwind, to fire one more broadside into the English seventy-four's bows and then get clear.
The air seemed thick with screaming metal, the deck alive with flying splinters, and men torn and ripped as if from a beast gone mad. Bolitho watched tight-lipped as the foretopmast quivered, like a sapling feeling the first blow of an axe, and then almost wearily pitched down with smashing impact across the crowded forecastle. The ship yawed heavily as the wind groped blindly through the remaining canvas, and from forward he heard the shrill cries of men trapped beneath the great weight of spars and rigging. Seamen and marines, who seconds earlier had been training the carronades towards the enemy, were pulped into the splintered deck planking or swept bodily over the rail and into the sea.
Tomlin and his men were clambering towards the wreckage and confusion, but they were moving more slowly now, and their numbers were fewer.
Inch called, "Here comes the Hermes!"
Bolitho walked to the starboard side, feeling his shoes slipping in blood and flesh as he clambered up to peer above the hammock nettings. The Hermes was without her mizzen, too, but her guns were still firing at a French two-decker, and he could see the balls slamming into the enemy's side and along her waterline.
Further astern the smoke was so tall and dense it was impossible to tell friend from foe, but there was plenty of gunfire, and he knew that Herrick was still there. Still fighting.
He felt Inch dragging at his coat, and as he jumped back to the deck he saw him pointing wildly, his eyes bright with anxiety.
"Sir! The Tornade's gone about!" He followed Bolitho to the side. "She's outsailed Hermes and is coming for us!"
Bolitho watched while the smoke darkened and parted to reveal the outthrust bowsprit and then the figurehead of the great hundred-gun flagship. In spite of the noise and confusion on every side he could still feel a cold admiration for the French captain's superb seamanship as he edged almost into the eye of the wind, his massive armament bursting into life as with methodical savagery he poured a slow broadside into the Hermes' unprotected stern.
Even at the distance of two cables Bolitho could hear the great bombardment raking the ship from stern to bow, the balls smashing the full length of her hull and turning it into a slaughterhouse.
The great thirty-two-pound balls must have sliced away the mainmast at its foot, for it was falling complete with top and yards, with struggling men, and the masthead pendant still whipping defiantly to the wind.
Black smoke belched from her main deck, as if forced upwards by some great bellows, and as the men at the Hyperion's guns stared astern in shocked horror, the air was rent by one deafening explosion. the Tornade had sailed, clear and was already clawing round towards the Hyperion's larboard quarter, but for her it was a close thing
The explosion, .probably her magazine, had blasted the Hermes almost into two halves, in the centre of which a giant fire reached towards the sky, consuming the foremast and remaining sails in one lick, like an obscene dragon plucking down a lance.
Another explosion and another rocked the shattered hull, and within minutes of the broadside she started to roll over. As she tilted steeply into, the waves Bolitho saw the sea pouring through her lower ports, while on her blazing decks the few remaining survivors ran haphazardly in all directions, some ablaze Like human torches, others already driven beyond reason. Her ports glowed like lines of red eyes, until finally as the sea surged into her hull and she began to slide under the littered water, she was completely hidden in a seething wall of steam.
One of the helmsmen had run from the wheel to watch. He dropped on his knees, crossing himself and whimpering, "Jesus! Oh, sweet Lord Jesus!"
Gossett, one hand hiflden in a bloody bandage, pulled him to his feet and snarled, "This ain't no floatin' Bethel! Get back to your station or I'll gut you like a bloody herrin'!"
Bolitho swung away and snapped, "Clear that hamper from the bows!" He saw Inch still staring at the dying ship. "Get forrard and see to it! That ship'll be up to us directly!"
He turned back to watch the _Tornade as she steadied on her new course, her fore topsail pitted with holes from the previous encounter. She had the wind-gage this time, and was preparing to overhaul the crippled Hyperion and smash her to submission as she passed.
He found that he could watch her confident approach almost dispassionately. It was nearly done. They had caused so much damage to Lequiller's force it was unlikely he could continue fully with his plan. Far away he could hear the sharp detonations of the Spartan's guns, and guessed Farquhar was playing cat and mouse with the San Leandro. It had been a brave gesture. He looked down at his own ship and felt the pain in his heart like a knife. There were dead and dying on every hand, and with men working to clear away the wreckage from the bows there was hardly a gun still fully manned.
Then he looked up at the mainmast where a new ensign flapped briskly above the drifting smoke. Lequiller was probably watching it, too. Recalling this same ship which had anchored in the Gironde Estuary alone and outnumbered to block his escape to sea. Now they were meeting again. For the final embrace.
He walked slowly across the broken planking, his chin on his chest. But this time the Hyperion was here to block his return to land. He looked up startled, as if someone had spoken the thoughts loud.
He shouted hoarsely, "Get a move on, Mr. Inch!" Then to Gossett he added, "Will she answer the helm like this?"
The master rubbed his chin. "Mebbee, sir."
Bolitho stared at him, his eyes cold. "No maybes, Mr. Gossett! I just want steerage way, nothing more!"
Gossett nodded, his heavy face crumpled with strain and worry.
Then Bolitho ran to the ladder and down to the main deck. At the top of the hatch he yelled, "Mr. Beauclerk!" He stared as a grubby faced midshipman peered up at him.
"Mr. Beauclerk's dead, sir." He shivered but added firmly, "Mr. Pascoe and I are in charge."
Bolitho looked up at the maintop, seeking out Gascoigne. But there was no time now. He tried to clear his mind. To think. Just two boys. Two boys in command of an enclosed, deafening hell.
He said calmly, "Very well, Mr. Penrose. Send all the starboard side gunners on deck at the double!" He checked the midshipman and added, "Then load and double-shot your guns to larboard." He waited. "Do you think you can do that?"
The boy nodded, his eyes suddenly determined. "Aye, aye, sir!"
Inch strode aft. "It will take another quarter hour, sir."
"I see." Bolitho looked above the tattered hammock nettings and saw the French ship's fore topgallant high above the larboard quarter, moving slowly but surely towards the final contact.
"We have' no more time, Mr. Inch." It was strange how quiet it appeared to be. "Muster all the available men but keep them down below the bulwark. I want fifty of them aft in the wardroom and stem cabin."
Inch's eyes were on the other ship's topgallant and the vice-admiral's command flag which flew above it.
Bolitho continued in the same expressionless tone, "I am going to board her." He saw Inch staring at him but said, "It is the only hope." Then he clapped his shoulder and grinned. "So let us have some enthusiasm, eh?"
He turned and ran back to the littered quarterdeck where Allday stood beside the guns, his cutlass dangling from one hand.
A ball shrieked overhead and slapped through the main topsail, throwing a seaman from his perch on the yard and hurling him down on to the net, where he lay with his arms outstretched, as if crucified.
Bolitho said shortly, "Stand by, Mr. Gossett!" He did not turn as the detailed seamen and marines dashed past him into the gloom beneath the poop, while others hurried to the wardroom on the deck below.
Gossett could not see the enemy because of the poop, but was watching Bolitho's face with something like awe.
Inch clung to the ladder and said, "Here she comes!"
The Tornade's jib boom was already passing the quarter windows, and as she began to overhaul Bolitho saw the men high in her tops, the sudden stab of musket fire as they tried to mark down the Hyperion's officers. The swivel gun banged again and he heard Gascoigne yelling and cheering as the canister ripped away the wooden barricade around the enemy's foretop and blasted the marksmen down like birds from a branch.
The first three guns on the Tornade's side belched tongues of flame, and Bolitho felt the balls smashing into his ship and gritted his teeth against her pain and his own as shot after shot crashed into the old timbers or cleaved through ports to cause carnage and terror inside the lower - battery.
Gossett said between his teeth, "She can't take much more, sir!"
Bolitho replied harshly, "She must!" He flinched as a ball smashed through a group of men who were carrying a wounded comrade towards the main hatch. Arms and legs flew in grisly profusion, and he saw an old seaman gaping at the deck where his hands lay like tom gloves amidst the great spreading bloodstains. Then he was lost from view as the Tornade fired again, the rolling thunder of her broadside matched only by the terrible din as the massive weight of iron drove into the Hyperion's side and upper decks.
Bolitho said, "Now, Mr. Gossett! Larboard helm!" He saw a quartermaster fall kicking and screaming, and threw his own weight to the wheel. He felt the spokes jerking under his hands, as if the ship was trying to hit back at those who were letting her be destroyed. He yelled, "Heave! Over, lads!"
He could see the French ship right alongisde now, barely thirty feet clear, her guns firing and then running out to shoot again almost before the smoke had been driven away. The lower battery was shooting in reply, but the sporadic salvoes were lost in the enemy's deeper roar.
Men were waving weapons and yelling from the Tornade's poop, and he saw others gesturing towards him and pointing him out to the marksmen in the tops.
Inch muttered tightly, "Oh, God, she's feeling it ..:' He broke off and threw one hand to his shoulder, his face twisted in agony.
Bolitho held him against the wheel. "Where are you hit?" He tore open his coat and saw the bright blood pouring down his chest.
Inch said weakly, "Dear God!"
Bolitho shouted, "Mr. Canyon!" When the boy ran to him he snapped, "Tend to the first lieutenant!" He added quietly, "Rest easy, Inch."
Then he tore himself away and shouted, "Keep the helm over!" He ran past the helmsman, his ears deaf to the screams and the awful crash of splintering wood which seemed all about him.
On through the stem cabin, half filled with vague figures, and unfamiliar with burned panelling and gaping shot holes.
The ship was sluggish with a dozen rents beneath her waterline, but she was answering. Slowly and painfully she was swinging away from her attacker, the impetus of her turn bringing her battered stern towards that of the threedecker.
Bolitho kicked open the nearest window, the sword in his hand, his eyes wild and suddenly angry.
Then he saw his brother and Pascoe with the others, and felt the despair crowding through his reeling mind like a final torment.
He heard himself shout, "Now lads! Let's get to grips with the bastards!"
He almost fell into the sea as the two ships ground together with a jarring crash, but after a moment's pause he leapt outwards for the ornate sternwalk and clung to it with all his strength, while yelling and screaming like madmen the others surged across with him. Below his legs he saw Stepkyne leading his party from the wardroom windows, and a man failing, seemingly very slowly into the water below the two interlocked sterns.
Guns crashed and men cried in agony, while the ships continued to grind together, but Bolitho threw himself through the stem windows and plunged wildly across a deserted cabin, his sword ready, his mind empty of everything but the fury of battle.
Then there was a door, kicked open by a bosun's mate, who dropped dead from a pistol shot before he could jump aside. A midshipman holding the pistol screamed as a cutlass hacked him down. And then they were through and out on to the Tornade's great quarterdeck. Startled faces and flashing steel seemed to pin Bolitho against a ladder, but as more of his small party surged beneath the poop and fighting became general he forgot everything but the need to reach the forepart of the deck, where he could see a gold-laced hat surrounded by a group of officers and several armed seamen.
When the smoke swir
led clear he saw his own ship close alongside, held fast by grapnels which might have been cast by either side. She looked small and strangely unreal, and as he turned away to parry a cutlass he saw her mainmast going over the side, leaving her bare, like a listing hulk in some forgotten shipyard.
He did not even hear the mast fall, but saw only faces and wild eyes, his ears deafened by cries and savage curses, the clash of steel and the fierce determination which gripped his men like insanity.
But it was no use. Step by step they were being forced back to the poop again as more men ran from the guns in support and others fired down from the mizzen top, heedless of friend or foe in the desperation to clear their ship of boarders.
A figure darted beneath his arm and he saw it was Pascoe. As he reached out to stop him a French lieutenant struck the sword from his hand and then brought the hilt savagely against the side of his head, knocking him to his knees. Bodies and swords swerved and slashed all around him, and he saw Pascoe reaching to help him to his feet, while framed against the sky a French petty officer stood quite still, a pistol aimed straight at the boy's shoulder.
Another figure blotted out the light, momentarily silhouetted by the pistol's bright flash. Then as a body rolled against him Bolitho saw it was his brother.
Sobbing for breath he snatched up his sword from betwetn the stamping feet and lunged upwards at the petty office, seeing his face open from mouth to ear in a great scarlet gash. As the ma-i reeled back shrieking he hacked down the French Lieutenant and kicked his body aside even as he fell.
He gasped, "See to him, Pascoe! Take him aft!"
Allday was striding at his side, the cutlass swinging back and forth, up and down with merciless precision. Men were screaming and dying, but so many were crammed on the quarterdeck it was impossible to measure the rising cost. There was no quarter asked or given, and Bolitho threw himself to the forepart of the deck, realising only vaguely that his men were advancing once more. He cut down a distorted face and drove his sword between the shoulders of an officer who was trying to fight his way through the press behind him.
Enemy In Sight! Page 34
