In Gallant Company

by Alexander Kent

  Bolitho said nothing, but his heart sank. Either end, so the boat which pulled the furthest would have a good chance of being seen before she could grapple.

  Sparke’s oars began to move again and he called, ‘I will take the stern.’

  Bolitho waited until the other was clear and then signalled his own men to pull.

  ‘You all know what to do?’

  Couzens nodded, his face compressed with concentration. ‘I will stay with the boat, sir.’

  Quinn added jerkily, ‘I’ll support you, sir, er, Dick, and take the foredeck.’

  Bolitho nodded. ‘Balleine will hold his men until they are ready to use their muskets.’

  Cairns had been insistent about that, and rightly so. Any fool might set off a musket too soon if it was loaded and primed from the start.

  Bolitho drew his curved hanger and unclipped the leather scabbard, dropping it to the bottom boards. There it would wait until he needed it. But worn during an attack it might trip and throw him under a cutlass.

  He touched the back of the blade, but kept his eyes fixed on the wavering glow beyond the bows. The nearer they got, the smaller it became, as the fog’s distortion had less control over it.

  From one corner of his eye he thought he saw a series of splashes as Sparke increased his stroke and went in for the attack.

  Bolitho watched as with startling suddenness the masts and booms of the drifting schooner broke across the cloudy sky like black bars and the lantern sharpened into one unwinking eye.

  Stockdale touched Couzens’ arm, making the boy jump as if he had cut him.

  ‘Here, your fist on the tiller-bar, sir.’ He guided him as if Couzens had been struck blind. ‘Take over from me when I give the word.’ With his other hand Stockdale picked up his outdated boarding cutlass which weighed as much as two of the modern ones.

  Bolitho held up his arm and the oars rose and remained poised over either beam like featherless wings.

  He watched, holding his breath, feeling the drag of current and holding power of the rudder. They would collide with the schooner’s raked stem, right beneath her bowsprit with any sort of luck.

  ‘Boat your oars!’ He was speaking in a fierce whisper, although surely his heart-beats against his ribs would be heard all the way to Boston. His lips were frozen in a wild grin which he could not control. Madness, desperation, fear. It was all here.

  ‘Ready with the grapnel!’

  He watched the slender bowsprit sweeping across them as if the schooner was riding at full power to smash them under her forefoot. Bolitho saw Balleine rising with his grapnel, gauging the moment, ducking to avoid losing his head on the schooner’s bobstay.

  There was a sudden bang, followed by a long-drawn-out scream. Bolitho saw and heard it all in a mere second. The flash which seemed to come from the sea itself, the response from the vessel above him, yells and startled movements before more explosions ripped across the water towards the scream.

  He jumped to his feet. ‘Ready, lads!’

  He shut Sparke from his mind. The fool had allowed somebody to load a musket, and it had gone off, hitting one of his men. It was too late now. For any of them.

  Bolitho threw up his arm and seized the trailing line as the grapnel thudded into the schooner’s bowsprit and slewed the cutter drunkenly around the bows.

  ‘At ’em, lads!’

  Then he was struggling with feet and hands, the hanger dangling from his wrist as he fought his way up and around the flared hull.

  The other end of the vessel was lit by exploding muskets, and as Bolitho’s men clambered over the forecastle and cannoned into unfamiliar pieces of gear, more shots hammered into the deck around them or whined above the rocking cutter like maddened spirits.

  He heard Quinn gasping and stumbling beside him, Stockdale’s heavy frame striding just a bit ahead, the cutlass moving before him as if to sniff out the enemy.

  Something flew out of the darkness and a man fell shrieking, a pike driven through his chest. More cracks, and two more of Bolitho’s men dropped.

  But they were nearer now. Bolitho gripped his hanger and yelled, ‘Surrender in the King’s name!’

  It brought a chorus of curses and derisive shouts, as he knew it would. But it gave him just the few more seconds he needed to get to grips. He hacked out and knocked a sword from somebody’s hand. As the man ran to retrieve it, Bolitho heard Stockdale’s cutlass smash into his skull, heard the big man grunt as he wrenched it free.

  Then they were chest to chest, blade to blade. Behind him Bolitho heard Balleine yelling and blaspheming, the sporadic bang of muskets as he managed to get off a few shots at the shrouds where sharpshooters were trying to find their targets.

  A bearded face loomed through the others, and Bolitho felt his blade grate against the man’s sword with a clang of steel as they parried, pushed each other clear to find the space to fight. Around them figures staggered and reeled like crazed drunkards, their cutlasses striking sparks, the voices distorted and wild with hate and fear.

  Bolitho ducked, slashed the man across the ribs, and as he lurched clear he brought the hanger down on his neck with such force he numbed his wrist.

  But they were being pushed back towards the forecastle all the same. Somewhere, a hundred miles away, Bolitho heard a cannon shot, and through his dazed mind he guessed that it was another vessel nearby, trying to show that help was on its way.

  His shoes slipped on blood, and a dying sailor, trodden and kicked by the fighting, hacking mass of men above him, tried to seize Bolitho’s ankle.

  Another man screamed and fell from aloft, dead from a musket ball before he hit the deck. But carried by the desperately fighting seamen he still seemed to cling to life, like a tipsy dancer.

  Bolitho saw a pair of white legs against the bulwark and knew it was Quinn. He was being attacked by two men at once, and even as Bolitho slashed one of them across the shoulder and dragged him screaming to one side, Quinn gasped and dropped to his knees, his sword gone, and both hands pressed to his chest.

  His attacker was so wild with the lust of battle he did not seem to see Bolitho. He stood above the lieutenant and drew back his arm for the kill. Bolitho caught him by the sleeve, swung him round, using the impetus of the man’s sword-thrust to take him off balance. Then he drove the knuckle guard of his hanger into his face, the pain jarring his wrist again like a wound.

  The man lurched upright, and seemed to be spitting out teeth as he bore down for another attack.

  Then he stopped stock-still, his eyes white in the gloom like pebbles, as he slowly pirouetted around and then fell. Balleine pounced forward and tore his boarding axe from the man’s back as he would from a chopping block.

  There was a commotion alongside, and moments later the retreating boarders heard Sparke’s penetrating voice as he shouted, ‘To me, Trojans, to me!’

  Attacked from both ends of the schooner, and with the obvious possibility of other boats nearby, the fight ended as swiftly as it had begun.

  There were not even any curses thrown at the British seamen this time. Trojan’s men were too wild and shocked with the hand-to-hand fighting which had left several of their own dead and badly wounded, to accept insults as well. The schooner’s crew seemed to sense this, and allowed themselves to be disarmed, searched and then herded into two manageable groups.

  Sparke, a pistol in either hand, strode amongst the corpses and whimpering wounded, and when he saw Bolitho snapped, ‘Might have been worse.’ He could not control his elation. ‘Nice little craft. Very nice.’ He saw Quinn and leaned over him. ‘Is it bad?’

  Balleine, who had torn open the lieutenant’s shirt and was trying to stem the blood, said, ‘Slit his chest like a peach, sir. But if we can get him to . . .’

  But Sparke had already gone elsewhere, bellowing for Frowd, his master’s mate, to attend to the business of getting under way at the first breath of a breeze.

  Bolitho was on his knees, holding Quinn’s hands away fr
om the wound, as Balleine did his best with a makeshift bandage.

  ‘Easy, James.’ He saw Quinn’s head lolling, his efforts to control his agony. His hands were like ice, and there was blood everywhere. ‘You will be all right. I promise.’

  Sparke was back again. ‘Come, come, Mr Bolitho, there’s a lot to do. And I’ll wager we’ll have company before too long.’

  He dropped his voice suddenly, and Bolitho was confronted by a Sparke he had not seen before in the two years he had known him.

  ‘I know how you feel about Quinn. Responsible. But you must not show it. Not now. In front of the people, d’you see? They’re feeling the shock, the fight’s going out of them. They’ll be looking to us. So we’ll save our regrets for later, eh?’

  He changed back again. ‘Now then. Cutters to be warped aft and secured. Check the armament, or lack of it, and see that it is loaded to repel attack. Canister, grape, anything you can lay hands on.’ He looked for somebody in the foggy darkness. ‘You! Archer! Train a swivel on the prisoners. One sign that they might try to retake the ship and you know what to do!’

  Stockdale was wiping his cutlass on a piece of some luckless man’s shirt.

  He said, ‘I’ll watch over Mr Quinn, sir.’ He rubbed the cutlass again and then thrust it through his belt. ‘A good tot would suit him fine, I’m thinking.’

  Bolitho nodded. ‘Aye, see to it.’

  He walked away, the sobs and groans from the darkened deck painting a better picture than any sight could do.

  He saw Dunwoody, the miller’s son, groping around an inert shape by the bulwark.

  The seaman said brokenly, ‘It’s me mate, sir, Bill Tyler.’

  Bolitho said, ‘I know. I saw him fall.’ He recalled Sparke’s advice and added, ‘Get that lantern down from aloft directly. We don’t want to invite the moths, do we?’

  Dunwoody stood up and wiped his face. ‘No, sir. I suppose not.’ He hurried away, but glanced back at his dead friend as if to tell himself it was not true.

  Sparke was everywhere, and when he rejoined Bolitho by the wheel he said briskly, ‘She’s the Faithful. Owned by the Tracy brothers of Boston. Known privateers, and very efficient at their trade.’

  Bolitho waited, feeling his wrists and hands trembling with strain.

  Sparke added, ‘I have searched the cabin. Quite a haul of information.’ He was bubbling with pleasure. ‘Captain Tracy was killed just now.’ He gestured to the upturned white eyes of the man killed by Balleine’s boarding axe. ‘That’s him. The other one, his brother, commands a fine brig apparently, the Revenge, taken from us last year. She was named Mischief then.’

  ‘Aye, sir, I remember. She was taken off Cape May.’ It was amazing that he could speak so calmly. As if they were both out for a stroll instead of standing amidst carnage and pain.

  Sparke eyed him curiously. ‘Are you steadier now?’ He did not wait for an answer. ‘Good. The only way.’

  Bolitho asked, ‘Does she have any sort of cargo, sir?’

  ‘None. She was obviously expecting to get that from our convoy.’ He looked up at the bare masts. ‘Put some hands to work on this deck. It’s like a slaughter-house. Drop the corpses over the side and have the wounded carried below. There’s precious little comfort for them, but it’s a sight warmer than on deck.’

  As Bolitho made to hurry away, Sparke added calmly, ‘Besides which, I want them to be as quiet as possible. There may be boats nearby, and I intend to hold this vessel as our prize.’

  Bolitho looked round for his hat which had gone flying in the fight. That was more like it, he thought grimly. For a brief moment he had imagined that Sparke’s reason for moving the injured was solely for humanity’s sake. He should have known better.

  The work to clear up the deck and to search out the vessel’s defences and stores went on without a break. The fit and unwounded men did the heavy work, the ones with lesser injuries sat with muskets and at the loaded swivels to watch over the prisoners. The badly wounded, one of whom was the man who had foolishly fired his musket and had lost half his face in doing so, managed as best they could.

  Sparke had not mentioned the musket incident. But for it the casualties would have been much reduced, even minimal. The schooner’s crew were brave enough, but without that warning, and lacking as they did the hardened discipline of Trojan’s seamen, it would likely have ended with little more than a bloody nose or two. Bolitho knew Sparke must have thought about this. He would doubtless be hoping that Pears would see only the prize and forget the oversight.

  Several times Bolitho climbed down to the master’s cabin where the late Captain Tracy had lived and made his plans. There, Quinn was lying white-faced on a rough bunk, his bandages soaked in blood, his lip cut where he had bitten it to stem the anguish.

  Bolitho asked Stockdale what he thought and the man answered readily, ‘He has a will to live, sir. But he’s precious little hope, I’m thinking.’

  The first hint of dawn came with the lightening of the surrounding mist.

  The schooner’s lazaret had been broken open and a generous ration of neat rum issued to all hands, including the two young midshipmen.

  Of the attacking force of thirty-six officers and seamen, twelve were already dead, or as near to as made no difference, and several of the survivors had cuts and bruises which had left them too weak and dazed to be of much use for the moment.

  Bolitho watched the paling mist, seeing the schooner taking shape around them. He saw Couzens and Midshipman Libby from Sparke’s boat staring at the great bloodstains on the planking, perhaps realizing only now what they had seen and done.

  Mr Frowd, the master’s mate, waited by the wheel, watching the limp sails which Bolitho’s men had shaken out in readiness for the first breeze. The only sounds were the clatter of loose gear, the creak of timbers as the vessel rolled uncomfortably on the swell.

  With the dawn came the awareness of danger, that which a fox might feel when it crosses open land.

  Bolitho looked along the deck. The Faithful carried eight six-pounders and four swivel guns, all of which had been made in France. This fact, added to the discovery of some very fine and freshly packed brandy in the captain’s lazaret, hinted at a close relationship with the French privateers.

  She was a very handy little vessel, of about seventy-five feet. One which would sail to windward better than most and outpace any heavier, square-rigged ship.

  Whoever Captain Tracy had once been, he would not have planned to be dead on this new dawn.

  The boom of the large gaff-headed mainsail creaked noisily, and the deck gave a resounding tremble.

  Sparke shouted, ‘Lively there! Here comes the wind!’

  Bolitho saw his expression and called, ‘Stand by the fores’l!’ He waved to Balleine. ‘Ready with stays’l and jib!’ The schooner’s returning life seemed to affect him also. ‘A good hand at the wheel, Mr Frowd!’

  Frowd showed his teeth. He had picked a helmsman already, but understood Bolitho’s mood. He had been in the Navy as long as the fourth lieutenant had been on this earth.

  Every man had at least two jobs to do at once, but watched by the silent prisoners, they bustled about the confined deck as if they had been doing it for months.

  ‘Sir! Mastheads to starboard!’

  Sparke spun round as Bolitho pointed towards the rolling bank of fog. Two masts were standing through above it, one with a drooping pendant, but enough to show it was a larger vessel than the Faithful.

  The blocks clattered and squealed as the seamen hauled and panted while the foresail and then the big mainsail with its strange scarlet patch at its throat were set to the wind. The deck tilted, and the helmsman reported gruffly, ‘We ‘ave steerage way, sir!’

  Sparke peered at the misty compass bowl. ‘Wind seems as before, Mr Frowd. Let her fall off. We’ll try and hold the wind-gage from this other beauty, but we’ll run if needs be.’

  The two big sails swung out on their booms, shaking away the clin
ging moisture and yesterday’s rain like dogs emerging from a stream.

  Bolitho said, ‘Mr Couzens! Take three hands and help Balleine with the stays’I!’

  As he turned again he saw what Sparke had seen. With the fog rolling and unfolding downwind like smoke, the other vessel seemed to leap bodily from it. She was a brig, with the now-familiar striped Grand Union flag with its circle of stars set against the hoist already lifting and flapping from her peak.

  Something like a sigh came from the watching prisoners, and one called, ‘Now you’ll see some iron, before they bury you!’

  Sparke snapped, ‘Keep that man silent, or put a ball in his head, I don’t care which.’ He glanced at Frowd. ‘Fall off two points.’

  ‘Steer nor’-east!’

  ‘Will I have the six-pounders run out, sir?’

  Sparke had found a telescope and was training it on the brig.

  ‘She’s the old Mischief.’ He steadied the glass. ‘Ah. I see her captain. Must be the other Tracy.’ He looked at Bolitho. ‘No. If we get close enough to use these little guns, the brig will reduce us to toothpicks within half an hour. Agility and speed is all we have.’

  He tugged out his watch and studied it. He did not even blink as a gun crashed out and a ball slapped through the foresail like an invisible fist.

  Spray lifted over the bows and pattered across the busy seamen there. The wind got stronger as the fog hurried ahead of the little schooner, as if afraid of being impaled on the jib boom.

  The brig had set her topsails and forecourse now and was in hot pursuit, trying to beat to windward and outsail the schooner in one unbroken tack. Her two bow-chasers were shooting gun by gun, the air cringing to the wild scream which could only mean chain-shot or langridge. Just one of those around a mast and it would be the start of the end.

  Another gun must have been trained round to bear on the elusive Faithful, and a moment later a ball ripped low over the poop, cutting rigging, and almost hitting one of the prisoners who had risen to watch.

  A seaman snarled at him, ‘Y’see, matey? Yankee iron is just as bloody for you this time!’