At his back Captain Rennie stood nonchalantly by the hammock nettings, his sword looped to his wrist with a gold lanyard, as he watched Sergeant Garwood dressing his men into neat scarlet ranks. There was something very reassuritt about the marines, Bolitho thought grimly, but their muskets would not be much use against eighteen-pounders!
All at once the remorse and despair he had been endurii since the Andiron's first treachery had shown with her fl,' gave way to something like blind rage. It was too late for th,,
,if onlys' and the `maybes'. He had brought his ship and hi,', men to this. His was the sole responsibility. He had recognise the American's trap just in time to save them all from the firs(blow, but he should have seen it earlier.
He walked to the rail and shouted along the deck, 'NoW listen to me, men! In a few moments we are going to give bat, tle to that ship!' He saw every face turned towards him, bal already they had lost meaning and personality. They were;{crew. Good or bad, only time would show. But that they should all trust him was essential.
`Just take your time and obey orders, no matter what iy happening around you! Each gun is, fitted with the nevi flintlock, but make sure there is a slow-match at hand in cast, of failure!'
He saw Okes look across from the starboard battery tc where Herrick waited by his own guns. A quick exchange of glances which might have meant anything.
He felt Stockdale slipping the coat over his shoulders and then the firm clasp of the swordbelt around his waist. He watched the powerful frigate plunging over towards the lax, board quarter, his eyes gauging the speed and the distance.
`One more thing!' He leaned forward as if to will them to listen. `This is a King's ship! There will be no surrender!'
He thrust his hands beneath the tails of his coat and walked slowly to the weather rail. It would not be long now. He looked across to Proby's shabby outline beside the wheel. `In a moment we will beat to windward, Mr. Proby.' He heard a mumbled assent and wondered what the master would make of his order.
The American captain would no doubt expect the smaller ship to turn again and try to slip downwind, and as soon as she turned he would pour a full broadside into the Phalarope's stern, as he had first intended. Bolitho's manoeuvre would bring the Phalarope round towards the other ship, and with luck Herrick might be able to get in the first blood.
He saw the flash of sunlight on a telescope from the Andiron's quarterdeck and knew the other captain was watching?'nn.
`Stand by, Mr. Proby!' He lifted his hat and yelled along the maindeck, `Right, lads! A broadside for old England!'
With a protesting groan the yards came round, while overhead the canvas thundered like a miniature battle. Bolitho found that his mouth was as dry as sand, and his face felt chilled into a tight mask.
This was the moment.
John Allday crouched beside the second gun of the larboard battery and stared fixedly through the open port. In spite of the cool morning breeze he was already sweating and his heart pumped against his ribs like the beating of a drum.
It was like being a helpless victim of a nightmare, with every detail clear and stark even before it happened. Somehow he imagined it would be different this time, but nothing had changed. He could have been sailing into battle for the first time, new and untried, with the agony of suspense tearing him apart.
He tore his eyes from the open square of water and glanced back across his shoulder. The same men who had jeered Ferguson or ringed Evans in menacing silence now stood or crouched like himself, slaves to their guns, their faces naked and fearful.
Standing a little apart from the battery, his back to the foremast, Lieutenant Herrick was watching the quarterdeck, his fingers resting on his sword, his bright blue eyes unwinking and devoid of expression.
Allday followed the officer's stare and saw the captain at the quarterdeck rail, his palms resting on the smooth wood, his head jutting slightly as he watched the other ship. The latter was almost hidden from Allday by the high bulwark and gangway and the other guns, but he could see her topmasts and straining, sails as she bore down on the larboard quarter, until she seemed to hang over the Phalarope like a cliff.
Pryce, the gun captain, slung the powder horn over his hip and squatted carefully behind the breech, the trigger line in his hands. Through his teeth his voice sounded strange and taut. `Now, lads, listen to me! We'll be firing a broadside first.' He looked at each man in turn, ignoring the other gunners at the next port. `After that it will all depend on how quickly we load and run out. So move sharply, and as the cap'n said, take no notice of the din about you, got it?'
Ferguson clung to the -rope tackle at the side of the gun and gasped, `I can't take it! God, I can't stand this waiting!'
Pochin on the opposite side of the breech sneered, `Just as I said! It takes more than pretty clothing to make men of the likes o' you!' He jerked savagely at the tackle. `If you'd seen what I've seen you'd die of fear, man.' He looked around at the others. `I've seen whole fleets at each others' throats.' He let his words sink in. `The sea covered in masts, like a forest!'
Pryce snapped, `Hold your noise!'
He cocked his head as Herrick called, `Gun captains! As soon as we engage on the larboard side send your best men to back up the other battery under Mr. Okes!'
The captains held up their hands and then turned back to watch the empty sea.
Allday looked across at Okes and saw the officer's face gleaming with sweat. He looked white. Like a corpse already, he thought.
Vibart's voice rang hollowly through his speaking trumpet. `Braces there! Stand by to wear ship!'
Allday ran his fingers along the cold breech and whispered fervently, `Come on! Get it over with!'
The Phalarope was outclassed and outgunned, even he could see that. With half her men already too terrified to think it was just a matter of how soon her colours would fall.
He glanced down at his legs and felt a chill of terror. It never left him, and the years on the quiet Cornish hillside amongst the sheep had done nothing to dispel it. The fear of mutilation, and the horror of what followed.
Old Strachan called softly from the next gun, ` 'Ere, you lads!' He waited until his words had penetrated the minds of the new men. `Wrap a neckscarf around yer ears afore we start to blow! You'll 'ave no eardrums else!'
Allday nodded. He had forgotten that lesson. If only they had been prepared and ready. Instead they had stumbled out from their hammocks and almost at once the nightmare had begun. First the excitement of a friendly ship, fading instantly in the drummer's roll as the men ran gasping and wide-eyed to quarters. He could just see the same little drummer boy beside one rank of marines. He was staring across at the captain as if to read his own fate.
Pryce muttered, `Never bin in a fight like this afore.' He looked up at the billowing sails. 'Too much wind. It'll be hit hard an' run, you mark my words!'
There was a rasp of steel as Herrick drew his sword. He lifted it above his head, the blade holding the sun like firelight.
`Stand by in the larboard battery!'
Ferguson moaned softly, `Oh, Grace! Where are you, Grace?'
From aft Vibart bellowed, `Put the helm down! Hard down there!' -
They all felt the deck begin to cant further as the seamen forward let go the headsail sheets and allowed the plunging frigate to swing wildly across the wind.
Allday swallowed hard as the gunport suddenly darkened and the other ship's raked bow pushed across his vision. She filled the port, her guns and spray-soaked hull leaning at an angle as if to reach out and smash the Phalarope as she swung impudently towards her.
Herrick dropped his sword. `Fire!'
The captains jerked their lines and the whole world fell apart in the staggering, uneven broadside. Choking smoke billowed back through the ports, rasping the lungs and filling every eye as the guns lurched angrily back on their tackles. It was like hell, too terrible to understand.
But already the gun captains were yelling like fiends, urging and hitting at their stunned gunners as the powder monkeys ran forward with fresh cartridges and new, gleaming balls were lifted from the racks.
Pryce knocked down a man's arm and screamed, `Sponge out, you bastard! Remember what I taught you! You'll blow us all up if you drop a charge into a burning gun!' The man mumbled dazedly and obeyed him as if in a trance.
Herrick shouted, `Reload there! Lively, lads!'
Allday waited a few more minutes and then threw his weight on the tackles. Squealing like angry pigs the gun trucks rumbled forward again, the muzzles racing each other to be first through the ports.
But the Phalarope was almost into the Andiron's bow. A few more feet and it seemed as if both ships would smash into each other, to die together in locked combat.
`Fire!'
Again the savage roar of a broadside, the deck yawing away beneath them with its force. But this time more ragged, less well aimed. Through the din of shouts and groaning spars Allday heard some of the balls strike home, and saw Maynard, one of the midshipmen, waving his hat in the streaming smoke and yelling to the sky, his words lost in the guns' roar.
The Andiron must have fired simultaneously, with the Phalarope, her gunfire lost in the general thunder of noise.
There was more of a feeling than a sound, like a hot wind, or sand blasted across a parched desert.
Allday looked up as the sails jerked and twisted as if in agony. Holes were appearing everywhere, and from high aloft came a falling tangle of severed halyards and ropes. A block dropped on to the breech with a loud clang, and Pryce said without looking up from his priming, `The bastards fired too
soon! The broadside went right over our;'eads!'
Allday peered through the port, still dazed, but understand
ing at last what Bolitho had done. The Phalarope had not turned away, had not offered her stern for punishment. Her sudden swing to attack had caught the enemy off balance, and rather than risk a senseless collision he had hauled off so that his first broadside had failed to make real contact.
He heard Herrick call across to Lieutenant Okes, `By God, Matthew, that was a close thing!' Then in a wilder tone, `Look at the masthead pendant! The wind's veering!'
There was bedlam as the enemy ship swung rapidly clear of the charging Phalarope. But so sudden or so unexpected was the attack that the Andiron's captain had failed to notice what Bolitho must already have seen even as he steered towards possible disaster.
Instead of beating back to windward the Andiron met the full wind hard across her larboard bow. For a moment it looked as if she would rally and at worst come crashing back alongside.
Herrick was jumping with excitement. `My God, she's in irons! She's in irons!'
Men were standing beside their guns calling the news along the deck while across the water, framed 'in a rolling bank of gunsmoke, the Andiron rolled helplessly up wind, unable to pay off on either tack. Already men were running along her yards, and across the shadowed water they could hear the blare of commands through a speaking trumpet.
Herrick controlled himself. `Over to the starboard battery. Jump to it!'
Pryce touched the men he needed and scampered across the deck.
From aft came the call, -'Stand by to go about! Man the braces!'
Allday threw himself down beside the opposite gun and showed his teeth to the crouching men.
Old Strachan croaked, `The cap'n can certainly 'andle the ship well enough.'
Okes shouted, 'Silence there! Watch your frontP
Herrick walked to the centre of the deck and watched the carpenter and the boatswain hurrying to repair the brief damage. Men were already climbing aloft to splice the severed lines, and others were at last rigging nets above the maindeck to give some protection from falling blocks or spars.
Round came the yards once more, sails thundering, braces screaming through the blocks as the men ran like goats to obey the consthnt demands from the quarterdeck.
It did not seem possible. Caught and surprised one instant, and the next moment they were not only attacking, but hitting the enemy again and again.
Bolitho must have thought it all out. Must have planned and schemed during his lonely walks up and down the nightdarkened deck, waiting for just an eventuality.
He could see him now, calm-eyed and stiff-backed behind the rail, his hands behind his back as he watched the other ship. Once during the waiting Herrick had seen him wipe his forehead, momentarily brushing away the lock of dark hair and displaying the deep, savage scar. He had seen Herrick watching him and had jammed on his hat with something like anger.
Herrick ran his eye along his own guns, now manned by depleted crews and blind to the enemy as the Phalarope tacked round to close the range. He had heard Pochin's bitter remarks and had seen the way Allday had rallied to help the new men. It was strange how they all forgot their other worries when real danger was close and terrible.
It was true that the ship was different under Bolitho. And it went deeper than the uniform clothing now worn by all hands, issued on Bolitho's order to replace the stained rags which had been commonplace in Pomfret's time. There was this violent uncertainty instead of sullen acceptance, as if the men wanted to draw together to match the young captain's enthusiasm, yet had forgotten how to go about it.
Okes said sharply, `She's under way again! She's swinging round!'
The Andiron's sails were flapping and banging in apparent confusion, but Herrick could see the difference in her outline and the new angle of her yards.
Bolitho's voice cut through their speculations. `Another salvo, lads! Before she completes her turn!'
Herrick breathed out_ sharply. `He's going to try and cross her stern! He'll never make it. We'll be broadside to broadside in minutes!'
The wild confidence which their successful attack had brought him changed to the chill of uncertainty as the phalarope gathered way, her masts and spars quivering under the press of sail. He gripped his sword more tightly and gritted his teeth as once more the enemy topsails showed above the hammock nettings. The masts were no longer in line, she was swinging fast and well. There was nothing else for it but to take what had to come.
Okes could only stare at the oncoming ship, his jaw open as the distance was swallowed up in the gap of tossing water between them. He held up his sword. `Stand by starboard battery!' But his voice was lost in a savage ripple of gunfire from the other ship as gun after gun belched fire and smoke from aft to forward as each one came to bear.
This time there was, no mistake.
Herrick felt the hull shudder beneath his feet and reeled against the foremast as smoke blotted out the deck and the air became full of splintering woodwork and falling rigging. Above and around him the air quivered and shook with the crash of guns, and the nerve jarring scream of cannon balls as they whipped through the smoke like things from hell.
The scream of passing shots mingled with closer, more unearthly sounds as flying, splinters ripped into the packed gunners and bathed the smooth decks with scarlet. Herrick had to bite his lip to retain control of himself. He had seen men bleed before. In an occasional skirmish, and under the cat. From a fall or a shipboard accident. But this was different. It was all around him, as if the ship was being painted by a madman. He could see specks of blood and gristle across his white breeches, and when he looked across at the nearest gun he saw that it had been upended and one of its crew had been pulped into a scarlet and purple mass. Another man lay legless, a handspike still gripped and ready, and two of his companions were clinging together screaming and tearing at each other's terrible wounds in the insane torment.
The scream of passing shots mingled with closer, more unearthly sounds as flying, splinters ripped into the packed gunners and bathed the smooth decks with scarlet. Herrick had to bite his lip to retain control of himself. He had seen men bleed before. In an occasional skirmish, and under the cat. From a fall or a shipboard accident. But this was different. It was all around him, as if the ship was being painted by a madman. He could see specks of blood and gristle across his white breeches, and when he looked across at the nearest gun he saw that it had been upended and one of its crew had been pulped into a scarlet and purple mass. Another man lay legless, a handspike still gripped and ready, and two of his companions were clinging together screaming and tearing at each other's terrible wounds in the insane torment.
The enemy frigate must have reloaded almost at once, and another ragged volley thundered and crashed in the Phalarope's side.
Men cried and yelled, cursed and fumbled blindly in the choking smoke, while above their heads the nets jerked and danced madly to the onslaught of falling gear from aloft.
A powder monkey ran weeping towards the magazine hatch, only to be pushed away by one of the marine sentries. He had dropped his cartridge carrier and was running below, to the safety of darkness. But the sentry yelled at him and then struck at him with his musket. The boy reeled back and then seemed to come to his senses. With a sniff he picked up his carrier and made for the nearest gun.
There was a scream of shot, and Herrick turned biting back vomit as the eighteen-pound shot cut the boy in half. The head and shoulders remained upright on the planking for several seconds, and before he turned away Herrick saw that the boy's eyes were still open and staring.
He cannoned into Okes who still stood with upraised sword, his eyes fixed and glassy as he gaped at the remains of his battery.
Herrick shouted, 'Fire, Matthew! Give the order!'
Okes dropped his sword and here and there a gun lurched back adding its voice to the dreadful symphony.
Okes said, `We're done for! We'll have to strike!'
'Strike?' Herrick stared at him. All at once the reality was cruel and personal again. Death and surrender had always been words, a necessary but unlikely alternative to victory. He looked towards the quarterdeck at Bolitho's tall figure and the marines beyond. The latter must have been firing their muskets for some while, yet Herrick had not even noticed. He saw Sergeant Garwood with his half-pike dressing one rank where two red-coated bodies had left gaps in the line, while he called out the time and numbers to his men as they reloaded and fired another volley into the smoke. Captain Rennie had his back to the enemy and was staring across the other rail as if seeing the sea for the first time.
Pryce, the gun captain, gave one long scream and fell backwards at Herrick's feet. A long splinter had been torn from the deck and had embedded itself in the man's shoulder. Through the blood Herrick could see the thick stump of jagged timber sticking out like a tooth, and knew that the other end would be deep inside. The splinters were always the most dangerous and had to be cut out from the flesh in one piece.
Herrick gestured towards the men by the main hatch. 'Take this one below to the surgeon!' They had been staring at a pulped corpse beside the hatch, its teeth white against the flayed flesh, and Herrick's harsh tone seemed to give them strength to break the spell.
Pryce began to scream. 'No! Leave me here by the gun! For God's sake, don't take me below!'
One of the men whispered, "Fs a brave 'un! 'E don't want to leave 'is station!'
Pochin spat on the gun and watched the spittle hissing on the barrel. 'Squit! 'E'd rather die up 'ere than face the butcher's knife.'
There was a splintering crack, like that of a coach whip, high overhead, and as Herrick squinted up through the drift ing smoke he saw the maintopgallant quiver, and then as the wind tore jubilantly at the released canvas it began to slide forward.
Herrick cupped his hands. `Look alive, you men! Get aloft and cut those shrouds! It'll foul the foremast otherwise!'
He saw Quintal and some seamen running up the shrouds and then winced as another cannon ball ploughed along the deck by his feet and smashed into two wounded gunners beside the lee bulwark. He looked away, sickened, and heard Vibart yell, 'Heads below! The t'gallant is falling!'
With a jarring crash the long spar pitched over the bulwark and remained trapped and tangled in a mass of rigging, the torn sail ballooning in the water alongside and dragging at the ship like a sea anchor.
To add to the horror, Herrick could see the man, Betts, the one who had first sighted the other frigate, pinned in the trailing rigging like an insect in a web.
Vibart yelled, 'Axes there! Cut that wreckage adrift!'
Betts stared up at the frigate with glazed eyes, his voice short and painful between his teeth. 'Help me! Don't let me go to the bottom, lads!'
But already the axes were at work, the:men driven half mad by the din, too dazed to care for the suffering of one more seaman.
Okes seized Herrick's arm. 'Why doesn't he strike? For Christ's sake look what he's doing to us!'
Herrick's mind was dulled and refused to work clearly any more. But he could see what Okes was trying to show him. The heart had gone out of the men, what heart there had been. They crouched and whimpered as the enemy balls thundered all around them, and only occasionally did a single gun reply. Then it was usually a small handful of men led by one seasoned and dedicated gun captain which kept up a onesided exchange with the enemy.
Herrick shut his ears to the screaming wounded as they were dragged below and closed his eyes to everything but the small open patch of quarterdeck where Bolitho stood alone by the rail. His hat had gone and his coat was stained with powder and blown spray. Even as he watched Herrick saw a messenger run towards the captain, only to be cut down by musket fire from the other vessel as she loomed sideways out of the smoke. Musket balls were thudding against the hammock nettings and biting across the deck, yet Bolitho never budged, nor did he alter his expression of detached determination.
Only once did he look up, and then to glance at the large scarlet ensign which streamed from the gaff, as if to reassure himself that it still flew.
Herrick shook his head. `He'll not strike! He'll see us all dead first!'
5. RUM AND RECRIMINATIONS
The deck slewed over as the Phalarope's helm went hard down and she swung blindly on to her new course. Bolitho had lost count of the number of times his ship had changed direction or even how long they had been fighting.
Of one thing he was sure. The Andiron was outmanoeuvring him, was still holding to windward and keeping up a steady barrage. His own gunners were hampered by yet another hazard. The wind was falling away, and his men were now firing blindly into an unbroken bank of thick smoke which rolled down from the other ship and mingled with their own intermittent firing. -The smoke seemed to writhe with many colours as the American privateer continued the attack. Once, when a freak wind had blown the smoke skywards like a curtain Bolitho had seen the Andiron's battery belching long orange flames as each gun was trained and fired singly across the bare quarter mile between the two frigates. They were firing high, the balls screaming through the rigging and slashing the remaining sails to ribbons. Ropes and stays hung from above like weed, and every so often heavy blocks and long slivers of wood would fall amongst the labouring gunners or splash in the clear water alongside.
She intended to dismast and cripple the Phalarope. Maybe her captain had plans for using another captured ship, just as he had the Andiron.
The long nine-pounders on the quarterdeck recoiled as one, their sharp, barking detonations penetrating the innermost membranes of Bolitho's ears as he stared through the smoke and then back at his own command. Only on the quarterdeck was there still some semblance of unity and order. Midshipman Farquhar stood by the taffrail, his eyes bright but determined as he passed his orders to the gun captains. Rennie's marines were standing fast, too. From their smokeblinded positions behind the hammock nettings they kept up a steady musket fire whenever the other ship showed herself through the choking fog of powder smoke.
But the maindeck was different. Bolitho let his eyes move slowly over the chaos of scarred planking and grisly remains which marked every foot of deck space. The guns were still firing, but the intervals were longer, the aim less certain.
At first Bolitho had been amazed at the success of that opening broadside. He had known that later the lack of training would slow down the barrage, but he had not dared to hope for such a good opening. The double-shotted guns had fired almost as one, the ship staggering from the combined recoil. He had seen the bulwarks jump apart on the other frigate, had watched the balls tear through the packed gunners and gouge into her spray-dashed hull. It had seemed momentarily that the battle might still be contained.
Through the streaming smoke he saw Herrick moving slowly aft along the starboard battery checking the gunners and aiming each weapon himself before allowing the gun captain to jerk his trigger line. It should have been Okes on the starboard side, but perhaps he was already dead, like so many of the others.
Bolitho made himself examine each part of the agonising panorama which the Phalarope now represented. His body felt sick and numb from the constant battering, but his eye and mind worked in cold unison, so that the pain and suffering was all the more apparent.
Small pictures stood out from the whole, so that whenever he looked there was a pitiful reminder of the cost and the price still to be paid.
Many had died. How many he had no way of knowing. Some had died bravely, serving their guns and yelling encouragement and curses up to the moment of death. Some died slowly and horribly, their mutilated and broken bodies writhing in the blood and flesh which covered the decks as in a slaughterhouse.
Others were less brave, and more than once he had seen men shamming death, even cowering in the stench and horror of the discarded corpses until dragged and kicked back to their stations by the petty officers.
Some had escaped below in spite of Rennie's sentries, and would now be covering their ears and whimpering in the bilges to face drowning rather than the onslaught from the Andiron's guns.
He had seen the little powder monkey cut in half, and even above the roar of battle he had heard his own words to that same boy just three weeks ago: `You'll see England again! Never you fear!'
Now he was wiped away. As if he had never been.
And there had been the seaman Betts, trapped and writhing on the severed topgallant. The man he had used to try. to prove his authority. The axes had cut the spar away, and with a sigh it had bobbed clear of the ship before moving away in the smoke in a trail of rigging. The spar had idled past the quarter-deck, and for a brief instant he had seen Betts staring up at him. The man's mouth had been open like a black hole, and he had shaken his fist. It was a pitiful gesture, but it felt like a curse from the whole world. Then the spar had rolled over, and before it had faded astern Bolitho had seen Betts' feet sticking out of the water, kicking in a futile dance.
He tore his eyes from the carnage as more balls slapped through the main course and whined away over the water. It could not last much longer. The Andiron had hauled off slightly to windward. He could see her upper yards and punctured sails moving above the smoke bank as if detached from the hidden ship beneath, and guessed she was drawing clear to pound the Phalarope into submission with slow, carefully aimed shots.
He did not recognise his own voice as he gave his orders automatically and without pause. `Tell the carpenter to sound the well! And pass the word for the boatswain to send more men aloft to splice the mizzen shrouds!' There was little point any more, but the game had to be played out. He knew no other way.
His eye fell on an old gun captain at the nearest twelvepounder below -the quarterdeck. The man showed fatigue and strain, but his hoarse voice was unhurried, even patient as he coaxed his crew through the drill of reloading. `That's right, my boys!' He peered through the haze as one of his men rammed home the cartridge and another cradled the gleaming ball into the gaping muzzle. A splinter flew from the gunport and laid open his arm, but he merely winced and tied a filthy rag around his biceps before adding, `Ram that wad well home, bucko! We don't want the bugger to fall out agin!' He saw Bolitho watching him and showed his stained teeth in what might have been either pain or pride. Then he bawled, `Right then! Run out!' The trucks squeaked as the gun lumbered up the canting deck and then roared back again as the old man pulled his trigger.
Vibart loomed across the rail, his figure like a massive blue and white rock. He looked grim but unflinching, and waited for the nine-pounders to fire and recoil before he shouted, 'No water in the well, sirl She's not hit below the waterline!'
Bolitho nodded. The American obviously felt sure of a capture. It would not take long to refit a ship in one of the dockyards left by the British retreating from the American colonies.
The realisation brought a fresh flood of despairing anger to his aching mind. The Phalarope was fighting for her life. But her men were failing her. He was failing her. He had brought the ship and every man aboard to this. All the hopes and promises were without meaning now. There was only disgrace and failure as an alternative to death.
Even if he had Contemplated flying from the Andiron's attack it was too late now. The wind was falling away more and more, and the sails were almost useless, torn like nets by the screaming cannon balls.
A marine threw up his hands, clawing at the gaping scarlet hole in his forehead before pitching back into his comrades.
Captain Rennie drawled, 'Fill that space! What the hell do you think you're doing?' To Sergeant Garwood he added petulantly, 'Take the name of the next man who dies without permission!'
Surprisingly, some of the marines laughed, and when Rennie saw Bolitho looking at ban he merely shrugged, as if he too understood it was all part of one hideous game.
The ship staggered, and overhead the sails boomed in protest as the fading wind sighed against the flapping canvas. Bolitho snapped, 'Watch your helm, quartermaster! Steady as you go!'
But one of the helmsmen had fallen, a pattern of scarlet pouring from his mouth and across the smooth planking. From somewhere another seaman took his place, his jaw working steadily on a wad of tobacco.
Vibart growled, 'The starboard battery is a shambles! If we could engage the opposite side it would give us time to reorganise!'
Bolitho eyed him steadily. 'The Andiron has the advantage. But I intend to try and cross her stem directly.'
Vibart peered abeam, his eyes cold and calculating. 'She'll never allow it. She'll pound us to shavings before we get a cable's length!' He looked back at Bolitho. We will have to strike.' His voice shook. 'We can't take much more.'
Bolitho replied quietly, 'I did not hear that, Mr. Vibart. Now go forrard and try and get the full battery into action again!' His tone was cold and final. 'When two ships fight, only one can be the victor. I will decide op the course of action!'