Part 30 (2/2)

Bolitho looked round 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 a.s.sist the after-guard.

'By G.o.d, sir, this is too d.a.m.n hot for my taste!'

Bolitho looked at Allday. He was obviously in pain, but was gripping his cutla.s.s 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 mids.h.i.+pman 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, b.l.o.o.d.y 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!' 'Fire!'

The guns roared out at point-blank range, the b.a.l.l.s pa.s.sing 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 mids.h.i.+pman who had retrieved Bolitho's hat, were dead.

18.

How Sleep the Brave?

Here and there along both s.h.i.+ps 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 a.s.sociated with anything outside their private h.e.l.l.

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 b.a.l.l.s ploughed into the deck by his feet or cracked among the men around him.

Adam drew his curved hanger and yelled, 'Here they come!' '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 cutla.s.s 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 Argonaute's beak-head as it ground over the forecastle, the rigging and nets becoming further entwined as the sea lifted and rolled both s.h.i.+ps together. beak-head as it ground over the forecastle, the rigging and nets becoming further entwined as the sea lifted and rolled both s.h.i.+ps 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 p.o.o.p ladder to the deck below. His lieutenant, Hawtayne, stared aghast at his superior, unable to accept that he was dead.

Then he yelled, 'Follow me!'

Bolitho watched the scarlet coats das.h.i.+ng 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 b.l.o.o.d.y scythe.

He saw Mids.h.i.+pman Evans cowering by the companion hatch.

'Get below! Tell them to keep firing! keep firing! Tell them it's my order!' Tell them it's my order!'

It might set both s.h.i.+ps 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.

<script>