Smoke belched over the gangway and a marine fell from the maintop, his scream lost in the bombardment. One of the forward eighteen-pounders was on its side, two men down and bleeding badly beside it, another writhing and screaming, pinned to the deck by its overheated muzzle.
Men from the disengaged side ran to replace the dead and injured, others obeyed Quantock’s speaking-trumpet and hurried to splice hasty repairs and set the big main course. It was too close to the fighting, too great a risk if fire should spread from sparks or a burning wad from a gun.
Bolitho gauged the distance. The French ship was a cable away, her guns firing intermittently, but at this range she was hitting Achates again and again.
Keen was right to set the bigger sails. If Achates lost steerageway now through lack of canvas, she would fall downwind and present her unprotected stern to the Frenchman’s heavy guns and suffer the same fate as the frigate. If the enemy got the chance to fire through Achates’ full length, both decks would suffer crushing losses.
Bolitho raised his smarting eyes to the foremast and saw his flag flying above the smoke and destruction. As the French admiral would see it. The additional spur to drive him on, to bring both ships together regardless of consequences.
“Fire!” Keen paused only until the guns roared out towards the enemy. “Mr Trevenen! Take charge there!”
Bolitho saw that Mountsteven was lying near one of his guns. He had lost an arm, and part of his face had been scorched like burned canvas.
The lower gun-deck was firing without respite, and Bolitho could picture it as if he were there. It had once been his station as a midshipman, a thousand years ago. The red-painted sides to hide the blood of battle, the leaping, grotesque shadows of the gun crews as they pranced and struggled around their weapons, and all the while the low confines of the deck filled with smoke, like a scene from Dante’s inferno.
A ball came through an open gunport, and Bolitho could follow its progress as men were hurled aside, some painted in blood as one of their companions was almost cut in halves before it eventually crashed into the opposite side. Men fell and rolled in torment, and Bolitho saw Tyrrell striding among the debris and patterns of blood, his wooden stump adding to his fierce and wild appearance.
Another ball slammed through the quarterdeck nettings and flung hammocks across the deck like torn dolls. Two helmsmen dropped, and one of the master’s mates fell screaming, a footlong wood splinter in his stomach like a barbed arrow.
Bolitho looked around frantically but saw Adam pulling himself to his feet. Through the smoke, his voice lost in noise and deafness of battle, he smiled before turning away to assist the after-guard.
“By God, sir, this is too damn hot for my taste!”
Bolitho looked at Allday. He was obviously in pain, but was gripping his cutlass with both hands like a broadsword.
Bolitho felt his hat plucked from his head and knew that they were close enough for the marksmen to test their skills.
“Walk about, Allday, or go below.” He tried to grin but his face felt stiff, like leather.
A midshipman darted forward and retrieved his hat. There was a neat hole just below the binding.
Bolitho made himself smile. “Why, thank you, Mr—”
But the youth merely stared at him, the life dying in his eyes, like a candle being snuffed out. Then he fell, blood flooding from his mouth.
Bolitho replaced his hat and stared at the enemy. He had not even remembered the boy’s name.
A great shadow swept across the deck, followed by a chorus of shouts and screams. The fore-topmast, complete with topgallant mast and spars, had been shot away as cleanly as a carrot. It thundered over the side, taking rigging, men and pieces of men in its wake.
He heard Allday gasp, “Th’ flag, sir! They’ve shot your flag away!”
Even in the midst of disaster and death Bolitho could feel his outrage and bewilderment.
Bolitho drew the old sword and carefully laid the scabbard on the deck without really knowing what he had done.
The enemy was almost alongside, the guns still firing, the air filled with flying, whining fragments.
So this was where it was to be. Destiny had always known. Men merely deluded themselves.
He saw some sailors below the quarterdeck cringing as more falling wreckage bounced on the nets or splashed into the sea alongside.
They had given everything. Far more than should be expected of them.
He flung his hat down on the nearest gun and yelled, “Come on, my lads! One last broadside.”
A gold epaulette was cut from his shoulder by a musket ball and a marine scooped it up and hid it in his tunic.
Dazed, bloody and filthy with powder smoke, the seamen returned to their guns, their rammers moving like extensions of themselves, their eyes blind to everything but the bright tricolour above the smoke.
Bolitho shouted, “One more broadside, then she’ll be into us, Val!”
Then he realized that Keen was clutching his side and there was blood on his fingers and white breeches. He saw Bolitho’s concern and shook his head.
Between his teeth he gasped, “Not yet, the people must not see me fall!”
Quantock saw what had happened and waved his hat. “Fire!”
The guns roared out at point-blank range, the balls passing through a return of fire from the enemy. Splinters burst from the deck, men reeled about gasping, others yelled orders to those who had already fallen.
Quantock was aware mainly of a feeling of triumph. At the very moment when they were to engage at close quarters, when hard discipline and not softness would win through, he and not Keen had been the one to take command.
But something was wrong. He was slipping and then falling. But it was all right. Someone would help him. By the time he realized that the blood was his own, his eyes, like the midshipman who had retrieved Bolitho’s hat, were dead.
18 HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE?
HERE AND THERE along both ships guns continued to fire right until the moment of collision. It was as if the men on the lower deck were out of control, or were so dazed by the continuous thunder of their guns they no longer associated with anything outside their private hell.
On the upper deck the air was filled with death as musket and pistol-fire was directed towards officers and seamen alike.
Bolitho watched the gap narrowing between the hulls, the trapped water leaping over the tumblehome and changing to steam on the blistered gun muzzles.
Shots hammered the deck or smacked into the hammock-nettings, while from the fighting-tops a murderous hail of canister ripped above the smoke and painted the decks of friend and foe alike with glittering rivulets of blood.
Keen clung to the quarterdeck rail with one hand while he pressed the other to his side, so that his coat helped to slow the loss of blood from his wound. But his face was deathly pale, and he made no effort to move as musket balls ploughed into the deck by his feet or cracked among the men around him.
Adam drew his curved hanger and yelled, “Here they come!”
His eyes were very bright as the two hulls crashed together and more broken spars fell from aloft to hold them fast.
Allday thrust his shoulder against Bolitho, the cutlass weaving about as if to reach the enemy as he shouted, “They’ll make for you, sir!”
Indeed, some French boarders had already clambered across from the Argonaute’s beak-head as it ground over the forecastle, the rigging and nets becoming further entwined as the sea lifted and rolled both ships together.
But a crackle of musket-fire brought some of them down before they could cut the nets, and several were run through with boarding pikes even as they tried to retreat.
Captain Dewar waved his sword. “At ’em, Marines!”
They were his last words on earth as a ball took away his jaw and flung him down a poop ladder to the deck below. His lieutenant, Hawtayne, stared aghast at his superior, unable to accept that he was dead.
Then he yel
led, “Follow me!”
Bolitho watched the scarlet coats dashing into the smoke towards the bows, some falling, others firing their last shots before using their bayonets as more boarders dropped seemingly from the sky itself on to the decks.
It was too much and the enemy too many. Bolitho heard them cheering, the sound changing to screams and curses as another swivel cut through their ranks like a bloody scythe.
He saw Midshipman Evans cowering by the companion hatch.
“Get below! Tell them to keep firing! Tell them it’s my order!”
It might set both ships ablaze but it was their only chance.
From the corner of his eye he saw more French seamen climbing their mizzen shrouds, the smoky sunlight glinting on steel as they waited for the sea and wind to push the two hulls into a closer embrace. Soon there would be more men to support them from the lower deck.
Bolitho winced as some of the Achates’ twenty-four-pounders roared out against the Frenchman’s side. Smoke, sparks and splinters flew above the gangway and several of the enemy boarders vanished to be trapped or ground between the ships.
There were Frenchmen running along the gangway, although he had not seen them fight their way aboard. One, a lieutenant, cut down a seaman as he tried to jump clear, and several shots cracked over the quarterdeck where Knocker and his men stood around the wheel like survivors on a raft.
The French officer saw Keen by the rail and lunged forward with his sword. Bolitho realized that Keen had his eyes tightly closed against the pain and stood no chance of saving himself.
Bolitho shouted, and when the lieutenant’s eyes turned towards him he struck him across the neck with the old blade, and as he tumbled over, his scream choking on blood, Allday brought his cutlass down on his ribs like a woodsman with a rebellious tree.
Steel clashed on steel as Achates’ seamen rallied on the quarterdeck, their eyes and minds empty of everything but the need to fight and not to fall under those stamping feet and cruel blades.
Bolitho saw Adam lock swords with another French lieutenant and wanted to reach him, to help in any way he could. But even in the noise and horror of the hand-to-hand fighting Bolitho was able to see his nephew’s skill as a swordsman, the way he took the weight of a heavier opponent and used it against him. Then he began to advance, stamping down with his right foot as with each thrust and parry he forced his adversary back towards the forecastle.
Allday yelled, “Watch out!”
Bolitho swung round and saw a petty officer aiming a pistol at him. A blade flashed past his eyes and the pistol dropped to the deck and exploded. The Frenchman’s hand was still gripped around it.
With a cut across his forehead, a cutlass in one hand and a belaying-pin in the other, Tyrrell managed to gasp, “Near thing!” Then like an unsteady giant he forced his way amongst the struggling men, his weapons swinging and hacking while he bellowed encouragement to anyone who could still understand him.
On the lower gun-deck it was frightening because of the clatter and slap of feet overhead. It was as if a mob had gone completely mad and out of control.
Midshipman Evans groped through the smoke as he tried to find his way back to the upper deck. He slipped on some blood and almost fell across the body of a dead gun captain, then as he regained his feet he saw figures clambering through an open port where a gun had recoiled and had been abandoned for lack of powder.
They were the enemy.
The shock held him motionless, unable to breathe, as he realized that the other ship was pressed tightly alongside.
He wanted to run, to hide from the fighting and terrible sights around him. But a wounded seaman staggered away from one of the guns, his fingers clutching a deep wound in his stomach, his eyes white and rolling with agony as he tried to escape.
Two French sailors saw him and charged beneath the deck beams. The seaman fell and tried to grasp Evans’ foot with his fingers.
He gasped, “Help me! Please, in the name o’ God!”
Evans was only thirteen years old, but even in his pain and despair the seaman had recognized authority and perhaps safety in the blue coat and white breeches.
Evans dragged out his short midshipman’s dirk and pointed it at the two Frenchmen.
They both slithered to a halt, their madness checked by the sight of their small opponent.
In the half-darkness old Crocker’s white hair moved through the smoke like a patch of light.
He swung a rammer with both hands and knocked the men to their knees. Another seaman joined him, his cutlass just a blur as he finished it.
Crocker twisted his head to stare at the midshipman and then wheezed, “Proper little fire-eater, ain’t ’e?”
Evans stared up the ladder as someone clattered down towards him. His mind could not accept what had happened, other than that he was alive.
Adam Bolitho wiped his eyes as the smoke funnelled up around him. It was hard to breathe, let alone see what was happening.
“Where’s the fourth lieutenant?”
He saw the long rammer in Crocker’s hands, the reddened cutlass held by one of the seamen.
Lieutenant Hallowes lurched through the smoke, his hanger held at the ready.
“Who the hell wants me?” He saw Adam and grinned. “Why, our dashing flag-lieutenant!”
Adam asked urgently, “How are you managing?”
Hallowes waved his blade carelessly. “I’ve got my people at the starboard ports, as you can see.” He gestured angrily. “Simms! Cut that Frog down!”
It was like a macabre dance. A French seaman dashed from the smoke, his hands over his head as if to protect himself. He must have flung himself bodily through a gunport expecting to find the gun-deck filled with his companions. He dropped to his knees, his eyes very white in the smoky gloom.
A marine sentry from the main companion lunged forward with his bayonet, the force so great that he pinned the luckless Frenchman to the deck.
Adam tore his eyes away. “I’ve an idea. We’ll go aft, through the wardroom.” He wondered if Hallowes understood or cared. He looked half-mad. “The Argonaute has a big stern gallery . . .”
Hallowes exclaimed, “Board her?” He looked up as a violent crash shook the deck timbers. “How is it up there?”
Adam thought of the exposed quarterdeck and terrible splinters, the combined chorus of yells and screams as men fought each other to win mastery of the ship.
“Bad. But many of the French boarders came from below decks.”
He ducked as a ball slammed through a port and ricocheted from a gun on the larboard side.
He looked at Crocker. “Could you blow down her mainmast?”
Crocker stared at him and then said hoarsely, “Course, sir. I’m with you.” He rattled off several names and men ran from the guns to join him.
Hallowes glared at him, the wildness momentarily held at bay.
“Why? What’s the point? We’ll never get out alive.”
Adam tossed down his scabbard as he had seen Bolitho do and shrugged. How could he explain? Even if he wanted to. In his mind he saw Bolitho up there on the torn and splintered deck. He was the obvious target. Without him there would be no resistance now that Keen was wounded and Quantock killed. In seconds it would too late.
He said simply, “I owe him everything. Everything, d’you understand?” He did not wait for an answer but shouted as he ran aft, “Come on, boy, if you care to!”
Hallowes wiped his mouth with his hand and gave a wild laugh.
“Don’t you boy me, Mister Bolitho!”
Then he was running after him, others snatching up loaded pistols to follow even though they knew not where.
Evans stared aft to the wardroom, his mind reeling. Then he saw an officer lying propped against one of the guards and knew it was Foord, the fifth lieutenant, who moments earlier had been trying to reassure him.
He knelt beside him and saw the blood which soaked the lieutenant’s waistcoat and breeches. He was dying ev
en as he watched, and did not even flinch as another ball slammed into the upper hull and made the ship tremble as if she had hit a reef.
Foord saw the young midshipman and attempted to speak.
Evans held his hand, not knowing what to say.
“Tell the captain . . .” His eyes rolled up in agony. “Tell him . . .”
Evans felt his hand stiffen and then go limp. He wondered vaguely why he was no longer afraid. With great care he prised the hanger from Foord’s fingers. He could feel the lieutenant’s empty stare on him as he stood up and walked deliberately aft towards the wardroom.
“Ready, lads?” Adam looked at their strained faces.
Crocker slung his leather bag over one shoulder and eyed the Frenchman’s ornate stern right alongside. The gallery was a few feet higher than the wardroom, but it would provide some cover when they attempted to board her.
Crocker nodded. “Give the word.”
Adam pulled himself through the shattered stern windows and after a small hesitation leapt out on to the other ship’s quarter. For a moment he thought he would lose his grip and fall into the sea. There were several corpses already bobbing between the two sterns. Unconcerned and untroubled by the savage battle overhead.
At any moment he expected a face to loom over the gilded rail, to feel the thrust of steel or the blast of a pistol.
He slipped his arm around a life-sized carved figure of a mermaid which adorned the end of the gallery. Her twin on the opposite side had been beheaded by a ball earlier in the battle.
Adam eased himself warily around the mermaid, very conscious of her unmoving stare, the touch of her gold breast under his fingers. All at once he wanted to laugh like Hallowes had done. The complete insanity of it all was beyond his grasp.
He looked again at the mermaid’s placid features and thought suddenly of Robina. Just a dream. He ought to have realized
Hallowes shouted, “Move yourself, boy, make way for a King’s officer!”
They both laughed like madmen and then Adam was up and over the rail, his feet sliding in broken glass as he kicked open a window and vaulted into the big cabin beyond. As in Achates, the ship had been completely cleared for action. But the place seemed empty except for corpses and moaning wounded, while some other figures were leaning out through the ports to lock blades with the men on Achates’ lower gun-deck.
Success to the Brave Page 26
