He saw Farquhar, his slim figure very pale against the sea and sky, his hands cupped as he yelled to one of the lieutenants. He noticed Bolitho and lurched towards him, his fair hair streaming from his head. He was dressed only in shirt and breeches, and his feet were bare.
If any other evidence was needed to show the height of the emergency, Bolitho could not think of it.
Farquhar shouted, ‘Wind’s veered to the nor’-west, sir! I’ve ordered the hands to reef tops’ls and take in the forecourse!’
He swung round as a sound like a musket shot came from forward, and then changed to a great rippling tear as the foresail exploded into a mass of flapping fragments.
‘They will be spared that!’
Bolitho clawed his way to the rail and peered along the slanting deck. To one side the sea was as black as pitch. To the other it lifted and surged in tremendous banks of foam, building up beneath the quarter until the lee gunports were awash. Of the other ships there was no sign, and he guessed that each captain would be too preoccupied to care much about Lysander’s plight.
He heard Grubb’s deep voice rising like a bellow. ‘Ease off, lads!’ You’ll ’ave the sticks out of’er else!’
A man slipped beneath the weather gangway and fell kicking and yelling in a flood of swirling water. He came up against an eighteen-pounder, and Bolitho could almost imagine that he heard his ribs stove in.
‘In heaven’s name, Captain, why so late? The squadron will be driven for miles in this!’
A broken halliard fell from aloft, writhing about the upper deck like a live thing. More would follow unless Farquhar acted, and immediately.
Farquhar spat out spray and replied, ‘That fool Gilchrist! He left it too long! By God, where is that man, I’ll have him –’
Bolitho gripped his arm. ‘There is no time now! We must lie-to and make the best of it.’
Farquhar stared at him, nodding. ‘Yes, sir. At once!’ He sounded desperate.
Bolitho did not release his arm. ‘Bring her about as soon as you’ve shortened sail!’ He had to shout to make himself heard. ‘We will lie-to under the main tops’ls!’ He ducked, closing his eyes tightly as a wall of spray tumbled over the empty nettings and swept mercilessly across the deck and down to the one below. ‘But have the main stays’l manned and ready to set in case the other carries away!’
He heard Farquhar’s voice receding as he struggled along the rail, hand over hand, saw the blurred shapes of seamen hurrying to obey. Above in the darkness he could see the wildly flapping sails where the topmen were still fighting to obey the last order. Voices, too, caught up in the deafening chorus of wind and sea, of straining rigging and spars.
Grubb shouted harshly, ‘Pass the word! Stand by to come about!’ He blinked at Bolitho. ‘I’ll bet those damned Frogs are laughin’, sir!’
Bolitho did not answer. But it was uppermost in his thoughts. A strong north-westerly was a curse to his squadron. To any French commander trying to gauge the right time to quit Toulon it would be merciful, a chance he could not possibly ignore.
He watched as Gilchrist’s beanpole figure emerged above the quarter-deck ladder, shining dully in his long tarpaulin coat. Gilchrist had probably been more frightened of his captain than he had of the first storm signs. Or so eager to prove that he could manage any eventuality he had left it far too late for anything but submission.
He wiped his streaming face with one sleeve, feeling the sting of salt in his eyes and mouth. When he peered aloft again he saw that much of the canvas had vanished, although the fore topsail was only lashed to its yard at one end. At the other a great balloon of canvas filled and puffed as if it contained a living, savage monster. Something passed across the scudding cloud formations, and he ran to the rail as it struck the forecastle with a sickening thud.
A voice called hoarsely, ‘Get that man below to the sickbay!’ Then Lieutenant Veitch. ‘Belay that order. There’s nought the surgeon can do for him!’
Poor wretch, he thought. Fighting the lashing sail, with only his feet to support his body as he craned over the great, swaying yard. His messmates on either side of him, all cursing and yelling into the darkness, punching the wet, hard canvas until their nails were torn out, their knuckles raw. One slip, an extra gust of wind, and he had fallen.
‘Man the braces there! Stand by on the quarter-deck!’
Grubb snarled, ‘Ease the spoke when I gives the word! Treat ’em like they was babies!’
‘Helm a’lee!’
More figures staggered through the dismal gloom, a midshipman bleeding from the head, a seaman holding his arm to his side, teeth bared with agony.
‘Lee braces! Heave!’
The Lysander dipped her seventeen-hundred tons of oak and artillery heavily into a maelstrom of bursting spray. Above, in a shortened, iron-hard rectangle, the reefed topsail seemed to swing independent of their muscle and bone, every mast groaning to the strain of wind and sea.
Bolitho saw it all, heard his ship and seamen fighting to bring the bows round and into the wind, to hold her under command. If the rudder failed, or the topsail was ripped to ribbons like the forecourse, it might be too late for them to set the staysail. And that could carry away just as easily.
But with the wheel hard over, the helmsmen’s bare feet treading wet planking as if they were walking uphill, the two-decker responded. Bolitho watched the sea boiling inboard from the weather gangway to the beakhead, saw it surging across and down to the opposite bulwark, taking men and loose gear in its path. Much of it would find its way deep into the hull. The pumps must be going now, but in the din he could not hear them. Stores would be spoiled, fresh water, as precious as gunpowder, polluted and rendered useless.
He released the nettings and allowed the wind to thrust him along the tilting deck until he fought his way aft to the compass.
Grubb shouted, ‘Ship’s ’ead is almost due north, sir!’ He turned to watch as a whimpering man was carried past. ‘She might be able to ’old it!’
‘She must!’ Bolitho saw his words go home. ‘If we run before this wind we’ll never beat back in time!’
Grubb watched him go and then said to a master’s mate, ‘How say you, Mr. Plowman?’
Plowman gripped the binnacle for support, his coat shining like sodden silk in the feeble lamp. ‘I told Mr. Gilchrist to call all ’ands!’ He added angrily, ‘God rot ’im, ’e might ’ave been the death of us all!’
Grubb grimaced. ‘Still time for that!’
Bolitho was on his way forward to the rail again when he heard a yell.
‘Heads below! Fore t’gallant’s coming adrift!’
Before anyone could move or act the uppermost spar on the foremast tilted violently to leeward, hung for a few agonising seconds and then plunged down like a tree. Stays and shrouds all followed it in a great mass of rasping cordage and blocks, until with a jarring crash it came to rest below the starboard bow, the furled topgallant sail showing through the darkness like some nightmare tusk.
Grubb shouted, ‘She’s payin’ off, sir!’ He threw his considerable weight on the wheel. ‘It’s like a bloody anchor up forrard!’
Bolitho saw Farquhar staggering along the weather gangway, drenched to the skin, one shoulder bare and bloodied by some fallen object from above. It was all plain to see. As if he were studying a diagram instead of watching a ship fighting for survival.
Had Herrick been in command at this moment none of it would have happened. No lieutenant would be too frightened to call him, and no matter what Herrick was like as a strategist and the squadron’s second-in-command, he was a superb seaman.
Bolitho shouted, ‘Get a strong party up forrard!’ He strode past Farquhar, knowing that Allday was close on his heels. ‘We don’t have time to waste!’
Calls shrilled, and voices responded. Bolitho saw marines and seamen, some fully dressed, some naked, fighting through the torrential spray to where the boatswain and a handful of older men from the forecastle party were b
usy amidst the tangle of rigging.
Bolitho felt the ship lift and then dip heavily into a long trough, and heard several cries of alarm as the trapped topgallant mast and yard crashed against the hull.
He realised that Pascoe was already there and shouted, ‘Are you in charge?’
Pascoe shook his head. ‘Mr. Yeo is cutting some of the rigging adrift, sir!’ He ducked like a prize-fighter, his arms bent, as a great wall of water surged amongst the gasping men. ‘And Mr. Gilchrist is leading the main party outboard by the cathead!’
Bolitho nodded. ‘Good.’ To Allday he said, ‘We’ll add our weight. There’s nothing more we can do aft.’
He groped his way down and through the huge coils of tarred rope, his shins and hands scarred within seconds.
A voice said ‘Gawd, it’s the commodore, lads!’ Another muttered, ‘Then we must be in a bad way!’
Bolitho peered over the side, seeing the frothy undertow beneath the bows, the broken mast surging and veering into the hull like a battering ram. In the darkness the jagged wood gleamed as if to mock their efforts. To put a seal on their hopes.
He saw Gilchrist waving his arms through the tangle, like a man seized by a terrible sea-creature.
‘Axes, Mr. Yeo! Save the yard, but hack the mast away as soon as you can!’
A man tried to claw his way back from his precarious perch on the cathead, but Gilchrist seized him and forced him to look down past the massive anchor-stock, to the surging water below him.
‘We save the ship, or go under together! Now catch a turn with that line, or I’ll see your backbones tomorrow!’
Gilchrist’s fury, his unintentional hint that there was indeed going to be a tomorrow, seemed to have an effect. Grunting and swearing they threw themselves into battle with the fallen spars, using their anger to hold fear at bay and drown the wail of the wind.
Bolitho worked alongside the anonymous figures, using the back-breaking work to steady his thoughts. The topgallant mast could be replaced. Herrick had made certain of a good stock of spare spars before leaving England. If the yard could be saved, the ship’s sail-power should be normal again in a few days, once they enjoyed calmer weather. But it would take time. Time when they should have been on their station, the one he had so carefully selected to snare the enemy supply ships.
Gilchrist yelled, ‘Mr. Pascoe! Take some men aft along the starboard gangway and grapple the spar!’
Pascoe nodded and touched the nearest men on shoulders or arms. ‘Aye, sir!’
Gilchrist peered up at him. ‘If you cannot save it, then at least make sure it causes no further harm to the hull!’ He broke off, choking as spray leapt up and over the bowsprit.
When the water subsided in a great hissing torrent Bolitho saw that the man Gilchrist had been threatening had vanished. He was probably somewhere in the darkness, watching his ship moving away, his cries lost in the angry wave crests. More likely he had gone straight down. It was a sad fact that few sailors could swim. Bolitho found himself praying that the man had died quickly and had been spared the agony of being left out there alone.
Thud, thud, thud, the axes hacked savagely at the rigging, while other hands worked at hastily rigged tackles to sway the undamaged yard up and around the foremast.
‘There she goes!’
The cry was taken up as with a grinding clatter of severed gear and cordage the released topgallant mast plunged freely down the lee side. Bolitho watched Pascoe’s men struggling along the gangway trying to control the still-dangerous spar, and then caught his breath as a line parted and another went bar-taut, scraping along the gangway rail and catching Pascoe around the shoulders.
‘Belay those lines!’
Midshipman Luce dashed down the gangway, heedless of the bursting spray.
‘Cut him free!’
Another line snapped, and Bolitho felt his blood chill as Pascoe appeared to bow over the rail, dragged helplessly towards the sea by the surging mass of rigging.
But Luce was beside him now, his slim frame bent under the black ropes as he hacked upwards with an axe.
Yeo strode along the forecastle, his quick eye and twenty years at sea telling him instantly of the midshipman’s danger.
‘Avast there, Mr. Luce!’
But it was too late. As the keen blade slashed away one of the broken stays another tightened automatically, so that as Pascoe fell gasping into the arms of two seamen, Luce was pinned against the side, his arm taking the full weight. When the ship lifted sluggishly to the wind he cried out once, ‘Oh God, help me!’ Then as Yeo and the others reached him and cut the rigging free once and for all he fell senseless at their feet.
Bolitho said, ‘Quick, Allday, take him below!’
Then he hurried along the gangway and helped Pascoe to his feet.
‘How does it feel?’
Pascoe felt his spine and grimaced. ‘That was near –’ He stared along the deck. ‘Where is Bill Luce, sir?’ He struggled against the rail. ‘Is he –’
‘He was injured.’ Bolitho felt the ship responding slowly to her freedom, indifferent perhaps to those who had suffered in the process. ‘I have had him taken to the surgeon.’
Pascoe stared at him. ‘Oh no, not after he saved my life!’
Bolitho sensed his distress, could see the grief despite the enclosing darkness.
He added, ‘I will go below, Adam. You remain here.’ It hurt him to continue, ‘Others need you now.’
He walked aft, seeing Farquhar by the quarter-deck rail. As if he had never moved.
Farquhar blurted out, ‘Thank you, sir! Seeing you there helped the men to rally.’
Bolitho looked at him. ‘I doubt that. But one captain aft is enough!’
He peered up at the reefed topsail. Still iron-hard, but holding well, in spite of the enormous pressure.
He said, ‘I am going to the sickbay.’
‘Are you hurt, sir?’
‘Call me instantly if anything changes.’ He walked to the companion. ‘No. Not physically, that is.’
As he made his way down and down by one ladder to the next he was conscious of the sea noises becoming muted, the new sounds of straining timbers, the smells of bilge and tar rising to greet him. Lanterns swayed and cast leaning shadows as he continued through the lower gun deck and below Lysander’s waterline, where natural light was unknown the year round.
Outside this small sickbay he found several seamen resting after treatment, some bandaged, some lying in an escape of sleep and rum. The air was thick with the combined smells of pain and blood.
He entered the sickbay where Henry Shacklock, the surgeon, was talking to some of his assistants as they arranged two more lanterns above his table.
Shacklock glanced up and saw Bolitho. ‘Sir?’
He was a tired-looking man with thin hair. In the swaying yellow light he appeared almost bald, although he was not yet thirty. Bolitho had found him to be a good doctor, which was unfortunately rare in King’s ships.
‘How is Mr. Luce?’
The men stood aside, and Bolitho realised that the midshipman was already lying on the table. He was naked, and his face was set in a frown, the skin very pale. Shacklock lifted a rough dressing from his shoulder.
Bolitho guessed that the rope had cut through the flesh and muscle like wire through cheese. The lower arm lay at an unnatural angle, the fingers unclenched and relaxed.
Shacklock held his own hand above the midshipman’s arm, the palm open like a ruler. It was less than six inches below the point of his shoulder.
He said, ‘It must come off, sir.’ He pursed his lips. ‘Even then . . .’
Bolitho looked down at Luce’s pale face. Seventeen years of age. No age at all.
‘Are you certain?’
What was the point? He had heard it asked so often.
‘Yes.’ Shacklock nodded to his assistants. ‘The sooner the better. He might not come to his senses before it is done.’
At that moment Luce’s eye
s opened. They stayed fixed on Bolitho’s face, unmoving, and yet in those few seconds they seemed to understand everything which had happened, and what was to come.
He made to move, but Bolitho gripped his uninjured shoulder. His skin was like ice, and his hair still wet with the spray from that other howling world three decks above.
He said, ‘You saved Mr. Pascoe’s life.’ He kept his voice steady. ‘Adam will come as soon as he can.’
Beyond the boy’s head he saw Shacklock taking two knives from a case. One short, the other long and thin. An assistant was wiping something below a lantern, and as the deck tilted and the man lurched sideways he realised it was a saw.
Luce whispered quietly, ‘My arm, sir?’ He was starting to weep. ‘Please, sir!’
Bolitho reached out and took a cup of rum from a loblolly boy. ‘Drink this.’ He forced it to his lips. ‘As much as you can.’ He saw it slopping out of his mouth, could feel his body trembling as if in a terrible fever. It was all they had. Rum, with opium to follow the operation as a sedative.
He heard footsteps and then Pascoe’s voice, taut and barely recognisable.
‘The captain sends his respects, sir. We have just sighted Nicator.’
Bolitho straightened his back but kept his hand on Luce’s shoulder.
‘Thank you.’ Around him the shadows loomed nearer, like angels of death, as Shacklock’s men waited to begin. ‘Stay with him, Adam.’
He made himself look at the midshipman. He was staring up at him, the rum and tears mingling on his throat. Only his mouth moved as he whispered again, ‘Please.’
He waited until Pascoe was by the boy’s head and then said to Shacklock, ‘Do your best.’
The surgeon nodded. ‘I have had the blades warmed to lessen the shock, sir.’
As Bolitho made to leave he saw the surgeon give a signal, heard Luce cry out as the assistants gripped his legs and held his head back on the table.
Bolitho had reached the upper deck when Luce screamed. The sound seemed to follow him up and into the wind, where it ended abruptly.
*
Bolitho rested both hands on his chart and studied it for several more seconds. The storm had blown itself out in two long days and nights, so that the warm sunlight and the gentle breeze in the sails made it feel as if the ship was all but becalmed.
Signal Close Action Page 19
