In Gallant Company (12 page)

He turned towards his officers and Bolitho gave a quick nod.

Sparke hissed, ‘Keep him away from the nine-pounder, whatever happens.' He gestured to Balleine. ‘Start opening the hold.'

Bolitho watched the man climb up from the boat, trying to picture the
Faithful
's deck through his eyes. If anything went wrong now, all they would have to show for their plans would be five corpses and a dory.

The man who stood on the swaying deck was solidly built but agile for his age. He had thick grey hair and a matching beard, and his clothing was roughly stitched, like that of a woodsman.

He faced Stockdale calmly. ‘I am Elias Haskett.' He took another half pace. ‘You are not the Tracy I remember.' It was not a challenge but a statement.

Moffitt said, ‘This is Cap'n Stockdale. We took over the
Faithful
under Cap'n Tracy's orders.' He smiled, letting it sink in. ‘He went in command of a fine brig. Like his brother.'

The man named Elias Haskett seemed convinced. ‘We've been expecting you. It ain't easy. The redcoats have been pushing their pickets across the territory, and that ship you told of has been up and down the coast for weeks, like a nervous rabbit.'
He glanced at the others nearby, his eyes resting momentarily on Sparke.

Moffitt said, ‘Mostly new hands. British deserters. You know how it goes, man.'

‘I do.' Haskett became businesslike. ‘Good cargo for us?'

Balleine and a few hands had removed the covers from the hold, and Haskett strode to the coaming to peer below.

Bolitho watched the pattern of men changing again, just as they had practised and rehearsed. The first part was done, or so it appeared. Now he saw Rowhurst, the gunner's mate, stroll casually to join Haskett, his hand resting on his dirk. One note of alarm and Haskett would die before he hit the deck.

Bolitho peered over a seaman's shoulder and tried not to think of the marines who were packed in a hastily constructed and almost airless chamber below a false platform. From the deck it looked as if the hold was full of powder kegs. In fact, there was just one layer, and only two were filled. But it only needed a marine to sneeze and that would be an end to it.

Moffitt clambered down and remarked coolly, ‘Good catch. We cut out two from the convoy. We've muskets and bayonets too, and a thousand rounds of nine-pound shot.'

Bolitho wanted to swallow or to clear his parched throat. Moffitt was perfect. He was not acting, he
was
the intelligent mate of a privateer who knew what he was about.

Haskett said to Stockdale, ‘I'll hoist the signal. The boats are hid yonder.' He waved vaguely towards some overlapping trees which ran almost to the water's edge. It could be a tiny cove or the entrance of a hitherto unexplored bay.

‘What about the British sloop?' Moffitt glanced briefly at Sparke.

‘She'll take half a day to claw back here, an' I've put some good look-outs where they can get a first sight of her.'

Bolitho watched Haskett as he bent on a small red pendant and ran it smartly to the foremast truck. He was no stranger to ships and the sea, no matter how he was dressed.

He heard one of the seamen gasp, and saw what looked like part of a tree edging clear of the shore. Then he realized it was a fat, round-bowed cutter, her single mast and yard covered with branches and gorse, while her broad hull was propelled
slowly but firmly by long sweeps from either beam. She was followed by her twin. They looked Dutch built, and he guessed they had probably been brought here from the Caribbean, or had made their own way to earn a living from fishing and local trading.

He knew that Sparke had been counting on a single vessel, or several small lighters, even pulling boats. Each of these broad-beamed cutters was almost as large as the
Faithful
and built like a battering-ram.

Moffitt saw his quick nod and said, ‘One will be enough. They look as if they could carry a King's arsenal.'

Haskett nodded. ‘True. But we have other work after this, south towards the Chesapeake. Our boys captured a British ordnance brigantine a week back. She's aground, but filled to the gills with muskets and powder. We will off-load her cargo into one of the cutters. Enough to supply a whole army!'

Bolitho turned away. He could not bear to look at Sparke's face. He could read his mind, could picture his very plan of attack. With the sloop too far away to be of help, Sparke would seize the whole credit for himself.

The next few moments were the worst Bolitho could recall. The slow business of manoeuvring the two heavy cutters, with their strange disguise and long, galley-like sweeps. They must hold thirty or forty men, he decided. Some seamen, and the rest probably from the local militia, or an independent troop of Washington's scouts.

The
Faithful
's masthead pendant flapped wetly in the wind, and Bolitho saw the nearest cutter start to swing across the current. Minutes to go. Mere minutes, and it would be too late for her to work clear, or set her sails.

Moffitt murmured, ‘Stand by there.' If he was nervous, he was not showing it.

A seaman called, ‘Aye, aye, sir!'

Bolitho chilled. It might have been expected. That somebody, even himself who had helped to plan the deception, should overplay his part. The smart acknowledgement to Moffitt's order was not that of a defecting sailor or half-trained privateersman.

Haskett swung round with an oath. ‘You dirty scum!'

The crash of a pistol made every man freeze. Voices from the
dory alongside mingled with the shrill cries of startled seabirds, but Bolitho could only stare at the grey-haired stranger as he staggered towards the bulwark, blood gushing from his mouth, while his hands clutched at his stomach like scarlet claws.

Sparke lowered his pistol and snapped, ‘Swivels!
Open fire!
'

As the four swivels cracked from their mountings, sweeping the side and deck of the nearest cutter with whining canister, Rowhurst's men tore the tarpaulin from the nine-pounder and threw their weight on tackles and handspikes.

A few shots came from the nearest cutter, but the unexpected attack had done what Sparke had intended. The packed canister had swept amongst the men at the long sweeps, cutting them down, and knocking the stroke into chaos. The cutter was broaching to, drifting abeam, while Rowhurst's other crews waited by the stubby six-pounders which would bear, their slow-matches ready, the guns carefully loaded in advance with grapeshot.

‘Fire as you bear!' Bolitho drew his hanger and walked amongst his men as they came alive again. ‘
Steady!
' A ball whined past his face and a seaman fell kicking and screaming beside the dead Elias Haskett.

Sparke took his reloaded pistol from a seaman and remarked absently, ‘I hope Rowhurst's aim is as good as his obscenities.'

Even the taciturn Rowhurst seemed shocked out of his usual calm. He was capering from side to side of the nine-pounder's breech, watching as the second cutter managed to set her mainsail and jib, the sweeps discarded and drifting away like bones, the disguise dropping amongst them as the wind ballooned into the canvas.

Rowhurst cursed as one of his men reeled away, a massive hole punched through his forehead. He yelled, ‘Ready, sir!' He waited for the
Faithful
to complete another swing on her cable and then thrust his slow-match to the breech.

Double-shotted, and with grape added for good measure, the gun hurled itself back on its makeshift tackles like an enraged beast. The crash of the explosion rolled around the sea like thunder, and the billowing smoke added to the sense of horror as the cutter's mast disintegrated and fell heavily in a tangle of rigging and thrashing canvas.

‘Reload! Run out when you're ready and fire at will!'

The shock of Sparke's pistol shot had given way to a wave of wild excitement. This was something they understood. What they had been trained for, day by backbreaking day.

While the swivels and six-pounders kept up their murderous bombardment on the first cutter, Rowhurst's crew maintained a regular attack on the other. With mast and sails gone, she was soon hard aground on a sandbar, and even as someone gave a cheer a savage plume of fire exploded from her stern and spread rapidly with the wind, the rain-soaked timbers spurting steam until the fire took hold and she was ablaze from stem to stern.

Through and above the din of cannon-fire and yelling men Bolitho heard D'Esterre call, ‘Lively, Sar'nt Shears, or there'll be little left for us to do!' D'Esterre blinked in the billowing smoke from the cutter and Rowhurst's nine-pounder and said, ‘By God, this one will be up to us shortly!'

Bolitho watched the first cutter swinging drunkenly towards the
Faithful
's bows. There were more men in evidence on her deck now, but there were many who would never move again. Blood ran in bright threads from her scuppers to mark the havoc left by the canister and packed grape.

‘Marines, forward!'

Like puppets they stepped up to the bulwark, their long muskets rising as one.

‘Present!' The sergeant waited, ignoring the balls which buzzed overhead or thudded into the timbers. ‘
Fire!
'

Bolitho saw those who had gathered at the point where both vessels would come together stagger and sway like corn in a field as the carefully aimed volley ripped amongst them.

The sergeant showed no emotion as he beat out the time with his handspike while the ramrods rose and fell together as if on a range.

‘Take aim!
Fire!
'

The volley was upset by the sudden collision of both hulls, but not enough to save another handful of the yelling, defiant men who started to clamber aboard, cutlasses swinging, or firing at the nine-pounder's crew on the forecastle.

Sparke shouted, ‘Strike, damn you!'

‘I'll see you in hell!'

Bolitho ran to the bulwark, briefly aware that someone had defied Sparke even in the face of death.

Sergeant Shears shouted, ‘Fix bayonets!' He looked at D'Esterre's raised sword. ‘Marines, advance!'

Bolitho shouted, ‘Tell them again to strike, sir!'

Sparke looked wild as he retorted, ‘They had their chance, damn them!'

The marines moved with precision, shoulder to shoulder, a living red wall which cut the boarders off from the gun crews, separated them from their own craft, and from all hope.

Bolitho saw a figure duck past a bayonet and run aft, a cutlass held across his body like a talisman.

Bolitho raised his hanger, seeing the clumsy way he was holding the cutlass. Worse, he was no more than a youth.

‘Surrender!'

But the youth came on, whimpering with pain as Bolitho turned his blade aside and with a twist of the wrist sent his cutlass clashing into the scuppers. Even then he tried to get to grips with Bolitho, sobbing and almost blinded with fury and tears.

Stockdale brought the flat of his cutlass down on the youth's head and knocked him senseless.

Sparke exclaimed, ‘It's done.'

He walked past D'Esterre and regarded the remaining attackers coldly. There were not many of them. The rest, dead or wounded by the lunging line of bayonets, sprawled like tired onlookers.

Bolitho sheathed his hanger, feeling sick, and the returning ache in his head.

The dead were always without dignity, he thought. No matter the cause, or the value of a victory.

Sparke shouted, ‘Secure the cutter! Mr Libby, take charge there! Balleine, put those rebels under guard!'

Frowd came aft and said quietly, ‘We lost three men, sir. An' two wounded, but they'll live, with any fortune.'

Sparke handed his pistol to a seaman. ‘Damn it, Mr Bolitho, look what we have achieved!'

Bolitho looked. First at the blackened carcass of the second cutter, almost burnt out and smoking furiously above a litter of
wreckage and scattered remains. Most of her crew had either died under Rowhurst's solitary bombardment or had been carried away to drown on the swift current. Few sailors could even swim, he thought grimly.

Alongside, and closer to the eye, the other cutter was an even more horrific sight. Corpses and great patterns of blood were everywhere, and he saw Midshipman Libby with his handful of seamen picking his way over the deck, his face screwed up, fearful of what he would see next.

Sparke said, ‘But the hull and spars are intact, d'you see, eh? Two prizes within a week! There'll be some envious glances when we reach Sandy Hook again, make no mistake!' He gestured angrily at the wretched Libby. ‘For God's sake, sir! Stir yourself and get that mess over the side. I want to make sail within the hour, damn me if I don't!'

Captain D'Esterre said, ‘I'll send some marines to help him.'

Sparke glared. ‘You will not, sir. That young gentleman wishes to become a lieutenant. And he probably will, shortages in the fleet being what they are. So he must learn that it rates more than the uniform, damn me so it does!' He beckoned to the master's mate. ‘Come below, Mr Frowd. I want a course for the Chesapeake. I'll get the exact position of the brigantine at leisure.'

They both vanished below, and D'Esterre said quietly, ‘What a nauseating relish he displays!'

Bolitho saw the first of the corpses going over the side, drifting lazily past, as if glad to be free of it all.

He said bitterly, ‘I thought you craved action.'

D'Esterre gripped his shoulder. ‘Aye, Dick. I do my duty with the best of 'em. But the day you see me gloat like our energetic second lieutenant, you may shoot me down.'

The youth who had been knocked unconscious by Stockdale was being helped to his feet. He was rubbing his head and sobbing quietly. When he saw Stockdale he tried to hit out at him, but Moffitt caught him easily and pinioned him against the bulwark.

Bolitho said, ‘He could have killed you, you know.'

Through his sobs the youth exclaimed, ‘I wish he had! The
British killed my father when they burned Norfolk! I swore to avenge him!'