To Glory We Steer (39 page)

Bolitho banged the rail with his hands, ignoring the whining balls and the cries from forward. In his mind he was picturing the enemy ship's lower gun-deck. Cleared for action it was one long battery which ran from one end of the ship to the other. Bolitho had been a midshipman in a ship of the line, and he knew that there must be upwards of three hundred men in there, stooping in semi-darkness, choking in the acrid fumes, and firing their guns more from familiarity than accuracy.

He shouted, “The carronades, Mr McIntosh! Fire as we cross her stern!”

Rennie grinned and wiped his face with his sleeve. “That'll kill a few, sir!”

Bolitho bit his lip as the sound of a mast thundering across smashed and broken rigging broke through the roar of combat.
Cassius
was a very old ship. Much more of this punishment and she would either break up or sink as she fought!

He wondered what had happened to the
Volcano
, and worse, the crippled three-decker. If the latter was able to engage, it would be over in minutes. Her lower gun-deck was crammed with thirty-two-pounders. One of those could smash through two and a half feet of solid oak at maximum range. Bolitho tried not to picture what would happen to the
Phalarope
's frail timbers.

“Ready, sir!” McIntosh was yelling like a madman.

Bolitho drew his sword. “Larboard a point, Mr Proby!” He watched the jib flapping and dropped his sword.

“Fire!”

Herrick felt the deck shudder beneath him as both carronades fired almost together. As the thick muzzle smoke eddied clear he stared up at the French ship's stern momentarily forgetting the battle which raged around him. A few seconds earlier he had watched the tall stern emerge from the fog of gunfire and had seen the great cabin windows with their life-sized figures on either quarter, full-breasted nymphs carrying tridents with the vessel's name,
Ondine,
in scarlet and gilt across the wide counter between them, and had marvelled at the ship's overpowering appearance of grandeur and indestructibility. As the smoke moved clear he gaped at the black jagged holes which left the stern like the entrance of a fire-scarred cave. At the horror and chaos beyond he could only briefly imagine, for as a fresh gust of wind moved busily through the
Phalarope
's sails the deck tilted, and with her helm hard over she swung in a tight arc around the enemy ship's larboard quarter.

He shouted hoarsely above the din. “Ready, lads!” He peered along the crouching line of gun captains. “Fire as you bear!”

The first guns of the starboard battery fired as one, and in ragged succession the others followed as lanyard after lanyard was pulled taut, and the double-shotted charges crashed into the trapped smoke alongside.

A few men were cheering, their cries broken by coughs and curses as the smoke swirled back through the open ports.

Herrick yelled, “Reload! Reload and run out!” He watched narrowly as the frigate moved down the other ship's beam, barely twenty yards clear. He could see the crowded heads on the high bulwark, the stabbing yellow flashes of muskets from her tops, but from the lower gun-deck with its line of powerful guns there was not a single shot in reply. The carronades' lethal attack must have swept through the crowded gun-deck like a scythe through a field of standing corn.

But as he watched he saw the first guns on the upper-deck lurch back at their ports, and then in the twinkling of an eye the whole upper battery erupted in one deafening broadside.

Herrick fell back, half stunned by the volume of the combined sounds of exploding guns, followed instantly by the demoniac scream of balls above his head. The nets which Bolitho had ordered to be placed over the main deck jumped and vibrated to falling wreckage, blocks, severed rigging and whole strips of blackened canvas. But Herrick stared up with amazement as he realised that the ill-aimed broadside had missed everything vital to
Phalarope
's movements. Not a mast or spar had fallen. Had it been the lower battery, he knew that the frigate's starboard side and gunports would now be a shattered ruin.

He heard the gun captains shouting like demons. “Run out! Heave on the tackles! Stand clear!” Then with the jerk of trigger lines the guns rumbled back to the full extent of their tackles.

A musket clattered by Herrick's feet, and as he stared upward he looked into the dead eyes of a spread-eagled marine who had pitched down from the maintop on to the net below.

But he forgot the marine immediately as something more terrible took his attention. Through the smoke, falling like a giant tree, he saw the
Ondine
's mizzen mast. It was impossible, but it was happening. Mast, top and topgallant, with all the attendant weight of sails, rigging and yards, hung in the air as if caught in a strong wind. Then, amid the screams and desperate cries of those men caught like flies in the shrouds, it crashed down across the
Phalarope
's quarterdeck. The hull quivered as if the frigate had hit a reef, and as Herrick ran aft to the ladder he felt the
Phalarope
shake from truck to keel and then begin to swing slowly to starboard. Like an unyielding bridge the
Ondine
's severed mast held both ships together, and as a fresh burst of musket fire struck foot-long splinters from the deck, Herrick fought his way up the ladder and stared with dismay at the destruction around him.

A complete yard had fallen amongst Rennie's marines, and he turned away from the smashed, writhing remains as Sergeant Garwood roared, “Stand to! Leave those men alone!” He was glaring at the remainder of his marines. “Rapid fire on her poop, my lads!” He vanished in a fresh cloud of smoke as the frigate's guns fired again, the shots crashing into the
Ondine
's hull, which at the nearest point was ten feet clear.

Herrick pushed past the struggling seamen who were trying to hack away the French rigging and dropped on one knee beside Bolitho. For a moment he thought the captain had been hit by a musket ball, but as he slid his arm beneath his shoulders Bolitho opened his eyes and struggled into a sitting position. He blinked at Herrick's anxious face and said, “Keep the guns firing, Herrick!” He peered up at the enemy ship alongside and pulled himself to his feet. “We must stop them boarding us!” He groped for his sword and shouted harshly, “Cut that wreckage away!”

Okes staggered through the smoke, his breeches and coat splashed with blood and torn flesh. His eyes seemed to fill his face, and although he appeared to be shouting, Herrick could hear nothing.

Bolitho pointed with his sword. “Mr Okes, clear the larboard battery and prepare to repel boarders!” He reached out and shook the lieutenant like a dog. “Do you hear me, damn you?”

Okes nodded violently, and a long thread of spittle ran down his chin.

Bolitho pushed him to the ladder, but Herrick said quickly, “I'll do it, sir!”

“No you won't!” Bolitho looked wild. “Get your guns firing! It is our only chance!”

At that moment the
Ondine
's guns banged out once again, and Herrick flinched as the salvo seared his face like a hot wind. He saw a party of sailors hacking away at a length of broken shrouds. In the next instant there was nothing but a squirming mass of pulped flesh and bones, with a gaping gash in the lee bulwark beyond.

Bolitho shouted in his ear, “We'll not be so lucky next time!”

Herrick ran down the ladder, closing his eyes and ears to the horror beside him as more great blows shook the frigate's hull like hammers on an anvil. He walked through the smoke, his eyes streaming, his throat like sand, as he shouted wild and unheeded encouragement to the powder-blackened gunners.

Farquhar caught his arm and shouted, “They'll never cut that mast away in time!” He pointed towards the
Ondine
's lower gun-deck. “They'll not be silent for ever!”

Herrick did not reply. With the wind at her beam, and held aft by the broken mast, the
Phalarope
's bows were starting to swing inwards towards the
Ondine
's hull. Through the smoke he could see men running along the two-decker's side towards the point of contact, the filtered sunlight playing on raised weapons.

He saw Okes groping towards the forecastle, his sword still in its sheath. He snapped, “Go with him, Mr Farquhar! He looks in a bad condition!”

Farquhar's eyes gleamed coldly. “It will be a pleasure!”

Herrick flinched as a complete section of the starboard gang-way splintered skyward and one of the twelve-pounders lurched on to its side. A seaman screamed as a severed head landed at his feet, and another ran from the gun, his eyes blinded by flying splinters.

Herrick called, “Take those men below!” But as he shouted he heard the sudden clank of pumps and knew that it was probably just as safe on deck.

He tried to shut it all from his mind and made himself walk back along the line of guns. Men were falling all around him but he knew he must not falter, and shouted, “Keep hitting 'em, lads!” He waved his hat. “If you want to see England again, keep those guns firing!”

On the forecastle the men from the unemployed guns gathered below the nettings, their hands gripping cutlasses and boarding axes as the bowsprit quivered against the enemy's forerigging. Okes croaked, “Over you go, lads! Keep those swine off our bows!”

Some of the men cheered and began to scramble out along the bowsprit, others fell back as a flurry of musket shots cut through the eager sailors and sent their corpses spinning into the water below.

Farquhar said urgently, “You must lead them! My God, you're asking the impossible!”

Okes swung round, his mouth slack. “Hold your tongue!
I'll
give the orders!”

Farquhar eyed him coolly. “I have said nothing in the past,
Mr
Okes! But I will say it now as it seems we will all die today!” His hat was plucked away by a musket ball but he did not drop his eyes. “You are a cheat, a coward and a liar! If I thought you were worth it, I would discredit you here and now in front of these men, whom you are too squeamish to lead!” He turned his back on Okes's stricken face and shouted, “Follow me, you ragged heroes!” He waved his sword. “Make way for a younger man!”

They laughed like lunatics and slapped his shoulders as he crawled over the nettings and clambered on to the smooth bowsprit. Shots whined all around him, but he was breathless with a mixture of relief and madness. All this was worth it, if only for telling Okes what he thought of him for his cowardice at Mola Island.

Okes stared back at the quarterdeck and whimpered as a seaman crawled past him, half disembowelled by a great sliver of torn planking. Bolitho was still at the quarterdeck rail, a speaking trumpet in one hand, his sword in the other. His uniform seemed to shine in the frail sunlight, and Okes could see the hammock nettings jumping as hidden marksmen tried to find the
Phalarope
's captain.

Okes cried, “I hope they kill you! I hope they kill all of you!”

He sobbed and groped for his sword. Nobody listened to his wild words, or even heeded his presence on the blood-spattered forecastle. He thought of the stinging words and the contempt in Farquhar's eyes.

“Never!”
He pulled himself towards the bowsprit where already some of the men were clashing steel with the enemy seamen. “I'll show the lot of you!” Heedless of the curses and screams he pulled himself over the clinging sailors and hacked at a French petty officer with his sword. He saw the man's shocked surprise as a great gash opened across his neck and he fell between the grinding hulls. Then he was up and over, pushing Farquhar aside in his frenzied efforts to reach and strike at the enemy.

Farquhar saw the madness on Okes's face and tried to pull him back, but it was useless. Encouraged by the apparent bravery of their officers the British sailors swarmed on to the
Ondine
's bulwark.

Okes snarled, “Are you afraid, Mr Farquhar?” He threw back his head and emitted a shrill laugh. “Your uncle won't like that!”

Farquhar parried a thrusting pike and followed Okes down on to the wide deck. It was every man for himself now.