Authors: Alexander Kent
Bolitho felt the deck trying to level off as the sails were fisted and hauled into submission and lashed to the yards.
He made himself look towards the
Narval
again, and saw she was much closer. No more than a league away. He saw a brief puff of smoke, and flinched as a ball moaned overhead to raise a feather of spray on the opposite beam.
Keen said, “They must have one of
Eurotas'
s twenty-four-pounders as a bow chaser.”
No one answered him.
Bolitho concentrated on the other ship, expecting her to follow his example and shorten sail. There was some activity on her upper yards, but not enough to hold her headlong attack. If Tuke tried to make a violent alteration of course in either direction, to follow
Tempest
or to track her round on a new tack altogether, he would, as Lakey remarked, tear the masts out of the ship.
“Stand by to come about!” Bolitho had to cup his hands because of the boom of canvas. “Mr Borlase! Are you ready to engage with the starboard battery?” He saw him nod, confused no doubt by the fact that the enemy was on the opposite side. Bolitho added, “Well, tell me in future! I am not a magician!”
He walked back to the nettings, fighting for breath, angry with himself for wasting energy, with Borlase for being so stupid.
Herrick looked up the slanting deck, his eyes very clear in the light. “Ready, sir!” He glanced up with a start as a ball whipped between the main and mizzen without hitting even a halliard. He had not even heard the gun fire.
Bolitho glanced quickly aft to the helm and the leaning group of men around it. Lakey, dependable and as steady as a rock. Keen with his gun crews, and the marines spread along the nettings behind him, their muskets already cradled over the tightly packed hammocks.
He turned to look forward, seeing the new men at the braces, grim-faced, some no doubt wondering if their momentary heroics were worth all this.
The older men were waiting to let go the headsail sheets so that
Tempest
would swing unhindered across the wind's eye, and near them he saw Pyper and the crews of the two carronades waiting for a chance to pour their murderous charges into the enemy's stern if a chance offered itself.
“Ready! Put the helm down!”
Slowly and noisily,
Tempest
started to swing to windward, the air shaking to the onslaught of shrouds and vibrating rigging. He saw men hauling at the braces, one falling in a confused heap as he lost his footing, only to be chased and pushed back to his position by Schultz, the boatswain's mate.
Round and further still, the tossing panorama of breaking crests and glass-sided troughs swinging across and under the jib boom while every stitch of canvas protested noisily.
And there, like an hitherto unseen vessel, was the
Narval,
rising above the starboard bow instead of the opposite quarter, her pyramid of sails creamy white in the sun's glare.
Bolitho saw the deep shadows on her forecourse and topsail and knew she was trying to alter course. The sails hardened again, and he guessed Tuke knew it was impossible to match his opponent's manoeuvre.
Bolitho ignored the confusion on deck, the whine of blocks and the overwhelming groan of spars as the yards were hauled still further round to lay
Tempest
on the opposite tack. He watched intently, seeing the other ship forging towards his jib boom, making an arrowhead between them. It was the best part of a mile away, although it looked from aft as if both bowsprits would lock like tusks.
“As you bear, Mr Borlase!” He felt unsteady and sick.
Borlase sliced the air with his hanger.
“Fire!”
Double-shotted, the starboard guns crashed out in one tremendous broadside, the trucks hurling themselves inboard while dense smoke funnelled through the open ports in a choking cloud.
Above the receding echo of the broadside Bolitho heard a terrible scream and saw blood splashed across the deck close to where Borlase was standing. One of the convicts had changed his position at the moment of recoil and had been smashed in the chest by one of the guns as it came hurtling inboard.
Borlase tore his eyes from the droplets of blood which had spattered across his legs and yelled, “Stop your vents! Sponge out! Load!” His voice as shrill as a distraught woman's as he peered through the swirling smoke.
Bolitho saw the smoke swirl and quiver as the French frigate fired back. Iron hammered into the lower hull, and he heard the whine of more balls passing overhead.
Tempest'
s sudden change of tack had confused their aim.
The smoke thinned and billowed away downwind, and Bolitho caught his breath as he stared at the enemy. Sails punctured in several places, and at least two gun ports empty of muzzles.
Herrick yelled, “Well done, lads!”
Prideaux said, “We'll not surprise that one a second time.”
Bolitho strode to the compass, ignoring the stained faces of the men who watched him pass. At the compass he consulted the set of the sails, the position of the other ship as she carried on downwind, her topmen already reducing her show of canvas.
He tried to hold the sickness aside, but it was dragging at him. Pulling him down with relentless strength.
It was all suddenly quite clear. He was going to die. This day, on this deck. It was merely a matter of time.
He dashed the sweat from his eyes and peered at the compass.
South-west, and there were two islands overlapping across the bows, misty and beckoning as in a dream.
“Let her fall off two points, Mr Lakey. We will follow
Narval
round.”
“Steady she goes, sir! Sou' sou'-west!”
There was a rumble of cannonfire, and men ducked in confusion as
Narval'
s next broadside swept over the water. A different sound this time. Chain and bar shot, in an effort to cripple
Tempest'
s rigging.
The nets above the gundeck bucked and rebounded under an onslaught of severed cordage, blocks and a man who had lost both legs yet was still trying to drag himself to safety.
“Fire!”
Tempest
shook violently, the guns spitting out their long orange tongues, deadly and vivid in the choking smoke.
The frigates were a bare half-mile apart now, with
Tempest'
s bowsprit level with the other's mainmast. Again and again the guns thundered across the water, the passage of their shots marked on the sea by burning wads and by the force of their wind above the waves.
Tempest'
s forecourse and main were punctured in several places, and above the sweating gun crews the torn rigging trailed in the wind with few men spare to repair it.
A violent flash exploded from
Tempest'
s poop, as if a magazine had ignited deep in the hull. Bolitho slipped and fell to the deck as splintered planks, upended cannon, men and pieces of men were flung about him. Voices called and screamed, and as he struggled to his feet he saw that half of the helm had been smashed to fragments, the quartermaster and his mates strewn around it like bloody rags.
Lakey was unmarked and unharmed, although he had been standing just inches away. As others ran to assist him he croaked, “That schooner! The bugger's put a shot through our counter!”
Herrick pointed to the smoke which billowed up through the shattered skylight and companion. “Must have been double-shotted with a load of grape for good measure!”
He hurried aft as Jury, his legs and shoes splashed with blood, yelled, “Steerin's carried away!”
True enough. With power gone from her rudder,
Tempest
was already falling away downwind, exposing her stern towards the other frigate.
More shots tore into the hull, and others raised fountains of spray against the side.
Bolitho shouted, “Must get steering-way!”
He turned, sickened, as a ball crashed through a port and took the head from a crouching gun captain, leaving the torso standing for just a few terrible seconds.
Herrick shouted, “What'll we do, sir?”
Bolitho squinted through the smoke, watching the
Narval'
s yards swinging round as she halted her charge and began to turn in pursuit. He saw the schooner closing from the opposite quarter, her captured gun firing again, the ball shrieking through the rigging, breaking the maintopsail yard like a carrot. The great spar, and all the weight of rigging and sail, plunged through the smoke and across the gundeck, ripping the maincourse into flap-ping streamers as it fell. Men cried out in terror as they were pinned or trapped by the wreckage, others searched for friends, or struggled to free their guns and train them on the enemy.
Swift, his mind and body reeling with horror as he stared at Borlase crushed and mangled beneath the broken yard, one arm still moving frantically, fought to stop himself from running below to hide.
Then he saw something pale across the larboard quarter and shouted desperately, “The schooner!
Stand-to!
” He raised his arm and saw with astonishment that he had lost two fingers, but had felt nothing.
“Fire!”
The ragged, badly aimed broadside spouted from
Tempest'
s side, although less than half of the twelve-pounders would bear, or were still able to shoot.
The schooner's foremast quivered, the sails all in torment, and slid down into the smoke, slewing the vessel round and rendering her helpless.
Bolitho saw it and more beside, although faces and events were all somehow merged in his cringing mind. The schooner was out of the fight. But for her he would have been able to take on the enemy ship to ship. But now . . . He stared at the havoc, the struggling, filthy figures who were trying to clear the wreckage from the decks. Dead and dying were everywhere, and there was blood running down the foremast, while high above the torn body of a topman dangled and swayed with the wind, snared in some of the broken rigging.
“It's
no use,
sir!” Lakey's lean face swam before him. “We'll never get the helm rigged afore that bugger's up to us!”
Bolitho looked at Herrick. “You know what you always said about this ship?” He drew his sword and tied the lanyard around his wrist.
“Aye.” Herrick watched him, fascinated and aghast. “She's stout enough to take the heaviest battering. She's not taken a drop of water in the well, in spite of all . . .” He ducked as more iron smashed through the nettings, hurling men and hammocks aside in scarlet profusion.
Bolitho nodded, gritting his teeth. The sight of the men nearest him, of Midshipman Fitzmaurice lying on his side staring wide-eyed at the blood which was soaking out and around his slight body, had decided him.
“Tell the hands to reload and then stand down!” He shook Herrick's arm. “It's our only chance.
Narval
can get on our stern and pound us to pieces. Without steerageway I can do nothing to stop it. Arm the people.
Be ready!
”
Herrick stared at him, seeing the torment and the feverish wildness in his grey eyes. But there was nothing he could do to stop him now.
He turned to Allday. “Keep with him.”
Then a silence seemed to engulf the drifting ship as the tattered sails whipped and curled without effect, while from astern the merciless bombardment ceased. It was replaced by a mingled roar of voices, rising above the cries of the wounded and dying until it was like one great, savage bellow of triumph.
Unaware of their own strength or numbers,
Tempest'
s company crouched or lay beneath the fallen debris, or hid under gangways beside the guns which were still hot from their firing. Pikes and cutlasses, axes and belaying pins. The men, deafened by cannonfire, almost out of their senses by the sights and horrors all around them, stared at the stout timbers which had protected them and waited for the nightmare to end.
A few muskets hammered across the water, and Bolitho could hear Billy-boy yelling abuse as he shot again and again at the enemy. He could tell from his voice that he was badly wounded, dying even as he kept up his firing.
Slowly, and then with frightening suddenness, the
Narval'
s sails and yards lifted over the starboard quarter.
Bolitho stood by the rail, his sword dangling from his wrist. So the horror was not yet done. He watched the other ship's jib boom rise high above the nettings, the broken yard, and the untidy cluster of corpses. Dangling from the bowsprit, bobbing to the motion as if still alive, was the severed head of de Barras.
Bolitho felt the brittle strength coursing through him. He yelled, “Fire as you bear!”
Like rats and moles, his blackened seamen scrambled from hiding, and down the
Tempest'
s battered side every gun which could find a target exploded in an ear-shattering crescendo, the noise made twinfold by the double-shotted charges and the closeness of the other ship.