Authors: Alexander Kent
Bolitho shouted,
“General signal. Close on the Flag. Re-form line of battle!”
How they could work with their flags was a miracle, Bolitho thought.
“All acknowledged, Sir Richard!” Jenour tried to grin. “I think!”
“No matter!” Bolitho strode to the rail as he saw a Spanish two-decker standing out from the others as she made more sail. Her captain either wished to rejoin his own flagship, or he had increased sail to avoid hitting the crippled
Castor.
Bolitho pointed, “There, Val! Engage her!”
Keen yelled, “Stand by to starboard!”
The newcomer seemed to gather speed as the distance fell away, but Bolitho knew it was the illusion made by smoke. He watched the Spaniard changing tack so that she would cross
Hyperion
's bowsprit; he could see the scarlet and gold banner of Spain, the huge cross on her forecourse.
Keen's sword rose in the air.
“As you bear!”
The other ship fired almost at the same time. Iron and wooden splinters flew across the main deck, while overhead the sails flailed and kicked, shot through so many times that some could not hold a cupful of wind. Bolitho wiped his face and saw the other ship's foremast going down in the smoke, rigging and pieces of canvas vanishing into bursting spray alongside.
But he could ignore even that.
Hyperion
had been badly wounded. He had felt part of the enemy's broadside crash into the lower hull with the weight of a falling cliff.
He made to cross the deck but something held his shoe. He looked down and saw it was the young seaman, Naylor. He was lying against his upended gun, and was trying to speak, his face creased with pain, and the effort to find words.
Keen called, “Over here, Sir Richard! I think we mayâ” He stopped, his feet slipping on blood as he saw Bolitho drop to his knee beside the dying seaman.
Bolitho took the youth's hand. The Spaniards must have used extra grape in their broadside. Naylor had lost half of his leg, and there was a hole in his side big enough for a fist.
“Easy, Naylor.” Bolitho held his hand tightly as the deck seemed to leap beneath him. He was needed, probably urgently. Around them the battle raged without let-up. Obeying his instruction.
No matter what.
The seaman gasped, “IâI think I'm dyin', sir!” There were tears in his eyes. He seemed oblivious to his blood, which poured unchecked into the scuppers. It was as if he was puzzled by what was happening. He almost prised his broken body away from the gun, and Bolitho felt a sudden strength in his grip.
The youth asked, “Why me, sir?” He fell back, blood making a thin line from a corner of his mouth.
“Why me?”
Keen waited while Bolitho released his hand and let it fall to the deck.
Keen said, “
Capricious
is in support, Sir Richard! But there is another Don breaking through yonder!” He stared at his own raised arm. There was a strip torn from his sleeve. Yet he had not even felt the ball hiss past.
Bolitho hurried to the side and saw the second ship already overhauling the one which had fired the last broadside.
Bolitho nodded. “Trying to join her admiral.”
Keen waved his hand. “Mr Quayle! Pass word to the lower battery! We will engage this one immediately!”
The fourth lieutenant was no longer pouting disdainfully. He was almost beside himself with terror.
Keen turned. “Mr Furnival!” But the midshipman had fallen too, while his companion stood rigidly beside Jenour, his eyes on the flags where his dead friend lay as if resting from the heat of battle.
Bolitho snapped, “Get below, Mr Quayle! That is an order!”
Keen dashed the hair from his forehead and realised that his hat had been plucked away.
“God damn,” he said.
“
Ready,
sir!”
Keen sliced down with his sword.
“Fire!”
Gun by gun the broadside painted the heaving water between the ships in the colours of the rainbow. It was possible to hear
Hyperion
's weight of iron as it crashed into the other ship's side, smashing down men and guns in a merciless bombardment.
The smoke swirled away in a rising breeze and Keen exclaimed, “She'll be into us! Her rudder's shot away!”
Bolitho heard a splash and when he turned his head he saw some of the boatswain's party hurrying from the upended gun. Naylor's corpse had gone over the side. There was only blood left to mark where he had fought and died.
Bolitho could still hear his voice.
Why me?
There were many more who would ask that question.
He saw Allday with a bared cutlass in his fist, watching the oncoming Spaniard with a cold stare.
Parris yelled, “Stand by to repel boarders!”
Major Adams went bustling forward, as the other ship's tapering jib-boom rose through the smoke and locked into
Hyperion
's bowsprit with a shudder which made even the gun crews pause at their work.
Keen shouted,
“Continue firing!”
Hyperion
's lower battery of thirty-two-pounders fired relentlessly across the littered triangle of smoky water. Again, and yet once more, before the enemy's jib-boom shattered to fragments and with a great lurch she began to sidle alongside, until the gun muzzles of both friend and enemy clashed together.
Muskets cracked from the tops and a dozen different directions. Men dropped at their guns, or collapsed as they ran to hack away fallen rigging and blocks.
The swivels barked out from
Hyperion
's maintop, and Bolitho saw a crowd of Spanish sailors blasted away even as they swung precariously across the boarding nets.
Keen shouted, “We've lost steerage-way, Sir Richard! We'll have to fight free of this one, and I think the other two-decker is snared into
her!
”
“Clear the lower battery, Val. Seal the ports! I want every spare hand up here!”
They dared not fire into the ship alongside now. They were locked together. It only needed one flaming wad from a gun to turn both ships into an inferno.
The seamen from the lower battery, their half-naked bodies blackened by the trapped smoke, surged up to join Major Adams's men as they charged to meet the attack.
Keen tossed his scabbard aside and tested the balance of his sword in his hand. He stared around in the drifting smoke, picking out his lieutenants amongst the darting figures. “Where's my bloody coxswain?” Then he gave a quick grin as Tojohns ran to join him, his cutlass held high to avoid the other hurrying seamen.
“Here, sir!” He glanced at Allday. “Ready when you are, sir!”
Keen's eyes settled on Parris by the rail. “Stay here. Hold the quarterdeck.” Just the flicker of a glance towards Bolitho. It was as if they had clasped hands.
Then he too was up and running along the starboard gang-way, as the enemy clambered aboard, or fired down from their own ship. Lieutenant Lovering pointed with his hanger and yelled, “To the fo'c's'le, lads!” Then he fell, the hanger dangling from his wrist as an unseen marksman found his victim.
Dacie the one-eyed boatswain's mate was already there on the beakhead, swinging a boarding axe with terrible effect, cutting down three of the enemy before some of Adams's marines jumped down to join him, their bayonets licking through the nets, hurling aside the men caught there like flies in a web.
The swivels in the maintop banged out again, and some of the Spanish sailors about to join the first boarders were scattered in a deadly hail of canister. Those already aboard
Hyperion
fell back, one throwing away his cutlass as the marines cornered him on the forecastle, but it was already too late for quarter. Gunsmoke drifted over the deck and when it cleared, there were only corpses as the jubilant marines fought their way across to the other ship's deck.
Jenour stood close beside Bolitho, his sword drawn, his face like one already dead. He shouted, “Two of the Dons have struck, Sir Richard!”
Despite the clash of steel and the sporadic bang of muskets, there were faint cheers from another ship, and Bolitho imagined he could hear drums and fifes.
He climbed up the poop ladder and rubbed his eyes before peering through the enveloping smoke. He could just make out
Obdurate,
now completely dismasted and lashed alongside the Spanish two-decker she had collided with. A British ensign flew above the other vessel's deck, and Bolitho guessed it was Captain Thynne's men who were cheering.
Then he saw
Benbow,
pushing past another crippled Spaniard, pouring a slow broadside into her as she moved by. Masts toppled like felled trees, and Bolitho saw Herrick's flag curling above the smoke, so bright in the mocking sunlight.
He thought wildly,
Hyperion
had cleared the way, just as Naylor had promised she would.
Allday shouted, “Here, watch out!”
Bolitho turned and saw a group of Spanish seamen clamber up over the starboard gangway, slashing aside the nets before anyone had noticed them. They must have climbed from the main-chains; they could have been creatures from the sea itself.
Bolitho drew his sword, and saw some of Adams's red-coated marines already hacking their way aft on the other ship. These boarders had no chance at all. Their own vessel would have to strike unless the other two-decker could come to her aid. But another broadside hurled smoke and debris high in the air and even on to
Hyperion
's maindeck, as one of Bolitho's squadron, probably
Crusader,
raked her from stern to bow.
There was a lieutenant leading the small group, and as he saw Bolitho he brandished his sword and charged to the attack.
Jenour stood his ground, but the Spaniard was a fine swords-man. He parried the blue blade aside as if it was a reed, twisted it with his hilt and sent it flying. He drew back to balance himself for a last thrust, then stared with horror at the boarding pike which lunged up through the quarterdeck ladder. The seaman gave an insane yell, tugged the pike free and drove it into the lieutenant's stomach.
Bolitho faced another Spaniard who was armed only with a heavy cutlass.
Bolitho yelled, “Surrender,
damn you!
”
But whether he understood or not the seaman showed no sign of giving in. The wide blade swung in a bright arc and Bolitho stepped aside easily, then almost fell as a shaft of sunlight probed through the smoke haze and touched his injured eye. It was like that other time. Like being struck blind.
He felt himself swaying, the old sword held straight out, pointing uselessly at nothing.
Parris yelled,
“Stop that man!”
Bolitho could only guess what was happening, and waited for the searing agony of the cutlass he could not see. Someone was screaming, and occasional yells told Bolitho that more of Keen's men were running to vanquish the last of the attackers.
Allday sliced his blade at an angle, his mind numb as he saw the other man lunging towards Bolitho, who was apparently unable to move. The blade took the man on one side of his head, a glancing blow, but it had Allday's strength and memory behind it. As he pivoted round, squinting into the sudden glare, he saw Allday looming towards him.
Jenour heard the next blow even as he scrabbled in the bloodstained scuppers to retrieve his sword. Parris, who was sobbing with pain from a slash across his wounded shoulder, saw the cutlass hit the Spaniard on the forearm; could only stare as the arm, complete with cutlass, clattered across the deck.
Allday spat, “An' this is for
me,
matey!” He silenced the man's scream with one final blow across the neck.
He grasped Bolitho's arm. “You all right, Sir Richard?”
Bolitho took several deep breaths. His lungs felt as if they were filled with fire; he could barely breathe.
“Yes. Yes, old friend. The sun . . .”
He looked for Jenour. “You have true courage, Stephen!”
Then he saw Jenour's features change yet again and thought for an instant he had already been wounded. There were wild cheers from the ship snared alongside by a tangle of fallen rigging, but as a freak gust of wind drove the smoke away Bolitho knew the reason for Jenour's stunned look of dismay.
He turned, covering his left eye with his hand, and felt his body cringe.
The Spanish admiral's flagship
San Mateo
had stayed clear of the close-action, or maybe it had taken her this long to put about. She seemed to shine above her own tall reflection; there was not a scar or a stain on her hull or a shot hole in her elegant sails. She was moving very slowly, and Bolitho's mind recorded that there were many men aloft on her yards. She was preparing to change tack again. Away from the battle.