Inshore Squadron (15 page)

Herrick said between his teeth, “Easy, Mr Grubb. You can let her fall off a point now.” He slammed one hand into the other.
“Got him!”

They were so close to the other flagship that
Benbow
's jib-boom and tattered staysails threw faint shadows across her counter and stern windows.

Bolitho heard Speke yell, “As you bear!
Ready!
”

Right up forward Bolitho saw the two carronades poking their ugly snouts outboard. The starboard one at least could hardly miss.

Muskets cracked through the din, and Bolitho saw the hammocks jump in the nettings as the French marksmen tested their aim. In
Benbow
's tops the marines were also firing, pointing out their opposite numbers to each other as they tried to mark down anyone in authority.

The blast and thunder of gunfire from the scattered ships was mounting to a terrible crescendo. Bolitho saw the starboard carronade fire, but the effect of its devastating charge of tightly packed grape was lost in smoke and thrown spray. Through it all
Benbow
's men were yelling and cheering like demented beings. Their figures were blurred in smoke, their eyes staring and white as they threw themselves to their guns or ran to trim the yards in response to Wolfe's trumpeting voice from the quarterdeck.

Bolitho wiped his stinging eyes and peered at the Frenchman's stern as it loomed over the starboard bow. He could vaguely see her name,
La Loire,
the fine gilt lettering splintered by grape-shot and canister, while above it the stern windows were smashed to a shambles.

He heard Browne yelling at him and saw him pointing wildly to the opposite beam.

The third ship in the French line, the one which Bolitho had intended to isolate from
La Loire
, had suddenly hoisted an admiral's command flag to the fore, and even as the signal broke from her yards she began to tack round, following
Benbow
's slow turn as if they were linked together.

Browne shouted incredulously, “
La Loire
has hauled down her flag, sir!”

Bolitho pushed past him, feeling the sudden despair drop across the wildness of battle like a blanket. The French admiral had planned it perfectly, the lure of his false flag breaking the British and not his own squadron into pieces.

Herrick was waving his sword. “At 'em, lads! Engage to lar-board again, Mr Speke!”

Thwarted by the enemy's unexpected change of direction, the
Nicator
and
Odin
were almost in irons, their reduced sails flap-ping in wild confusion as they tried to re-form into line.

Ropars' ship was surging level with
Benbow
's quarter, her forward guns firing rapidly across a narrowing strip of water. To the dazed seamen around Bolitho it must seem as if each ball was finding a target.

There was not even a cheer as the foremast of the false French flagship staggered overboard in one great mass of canvas, broken spars and rigging.
La Loire
had been badly mauled, but her sacrifice looked like changing a battle into a total defeat for Bolitho's squadron.

In poor light, made worse by the billowing smoke, the ships lurched drunkenly against one another, guns pounding mercilessly at point-blank range. It was like being surrounded by a forest of masts and whipping flags, like being in hell itself.

Herrick seemed to be everywhere. Directing and rallying, shouting encouragement here, demanding greater effort there.

The young sixth lieutenant, Courtenay, the one Allday had ousted from his barge, was sprawled on his face, his shoes drumming on the deck as some of the marines dragged him towards the quarterdeck ladder. He had been hit by a French sharpshooter and his lower jaw had been completely shot away.

Browne shouted, “
Relentless
is attacking the transport, sir!” He lowered his glass. “The two French frigates are after him, and
Lookout
requests permission to engage!”

“Denied.” Bolitho wiped his face. “We may need her yet.”

For what purpose? To pick up survivors or to carry news of a crushing defeat to England?

He said, “General signal.
Take suitable stations for mutual support. Engage the enemy in succession.
”

Some of the flags spilled over the deck as a ball ploughed through the hurrying seamen, but despite the horror and the screams the signal broke to the yards with barely a delay. Bolitho doubted if it would make much difference. His captains knew what to do, and were doing their best. But as the flags broke above the roiling smoke it might show that their force was still one, with a head and mind to control it.

Bolitho stared bitterly at a limping, sobbing seaman.
What have I brought you to?

Herrick said, “
Indomitable
's in trouble, sir. Her mizzen just went down.”

Grubb said, “Aye, but old
Nicator
's spread more sail to cover 'er flank!”

“All have acknowledged, sir.” Browne looked at the spattered blood on his breeches, seeing it for the first time. “Hell's teeth!”

Bolitho stared fixedly at Ropars' flagship. Less than half a cable away. She was shortening sail, her gangways alive with armed men, while her starboard batteries continued to fire as rapidly as ever.

Herrick yelled, “She'll be down on us soon, sir!”

Bolitho looked up at the
Benbow
's pitted sails. Ropars' captain was acting like a true professional. Taking the wind out of
Benbow
's sails, cutting away her power to manoeuvre even as he poised for the final embrace.

Wolfe bellowed, “Prepare to repel boarders!”

Overhead, a swivel crashed sharply and the hail of canister raked a bloody path through some of the massed French seamen and marines.

The taut faces of the crouching gun crews glowed in a vivid red light, and seconds later an explosion rocked the embattled ships like toy boats in a storm.

Smoking fragments fell hissing all around them, and Bolitho knew that
La Loire
had caught fire unnoticed in the fight, and now her magazine had exploded.

Men dashed past to obey the boatswain's lisping bellow, buckets of water poised to douse any piece of burning wood or fabric as it fell on their own ship.

“From
Indomitable,
sir.
Request assistance!
”

Bolitho looked at his flag lieutenant but saw only Keverne. He shook his head.

“We can't. We must hold together.”

Browne watched him curiously, then nodded to his assistants.

“Acknowledge.”

Indomitable
was being attacked by the two ships which had been at the rear of the enemy squadron. Hampered by a broken mast and trailing rigging, she was falling slowly astern, while
Nicator
and
Odin
forged past in pursuit of their own flagship, spreading more canvas and firing as fast as they could reload.

Ropars' flagship was making a lot of signals, too, and Bolitho thought that most of them were being directed to his frigates and heavy transport. The last thing he would wish was for the transport to be so damaged that she and her cargo, troops or otherwise, would fall in to enemy hands.

Bolitho shouted hoarsely, “Stand fast, lads! It's going to be now or never!” He gripped Herrick's arm. “Make our people cheer! Get them on the gangway, Thomas, as if they want to board the enemy!”

Herrick stared at him. “I will
try,
sir!”

Bolitho tore off his brightly laced hat and waved it above his head.
“A cheer!”
He strode along the larboard gangway above the overheated guns and past ripped and punctured hammocks. “Huzza, lads! Show them what we can do!”

The most ignorant man aboard knew that
Benbow
had been outmanoeuvred and outwitted by the French admiral. If they faltered now they were finished, with every likelihood of
Benbow
being taken intact to sail in a French line of battle.

It was too terrible to contemplate, and Bolitho did not even see Herrick's alarm or the concern on Allday's face as he ran to follow him along the exposed gangway.

But they were responding. As more shots hammered into the hull or clipped away rigging like some invisible scythe, the
Benbow
's people stood back from the guns to cheer, to arm themselves, and climb to join Bolitho at the boarding nets.

The depleted gun crews were busily reloading, held under control by threat and physical strength, as Speke yelled,
“Full broadside! Ready!”

Bolitho gripped the nettings and stared at the sea splashing alongside. It must soon end.

He could feel the grin fixed to his lips like a painful bit, hear the voices of the seamen blurred and distorted around him as they shouted towards the enemy. Like baying hounds, eager to kill even at the expense of death.

“Broadside!
Fire!
”

The shock almost hurled Bolitho headlong, and when he looked behind him he thought it was like standing on an abandoned footbridge, for the smoke, as it billowed inboard through every port, hid the entire gundeck from view.

Somewhere a trumpet blared with sudden urgency, and in disbelief Bolitho saw Ropars' ship standing away, her mizzentopmast gone completely, her side and gunports streaming smoke. There were sparks, too, with running figures throwing water to fight the sailor's greatest fear of all.

Allday shouted wildly, “The Frogs are hauling off, sir! You did for 'em!”

Men were cheering in spite of the shots which still hissed and whimpered overhead.

Bolitho's mind cringed to the noise, but the realization was stronger. It would soon be too dark to chase the enemy, even if his battered ships were able. Ropars, too, would be unable to regroup in time to give battle, and a complete escape was no doubt uppermost on his mind.

He saw Pascoe hurrying along the gangway, his face strained and somehow defenceless.

He turned and then winced with pain as something struck him hard in the left thigh. For a brief instant he imagined someone had kicked him or had struck him with a musket or pike in the excitement of the moment. Then as he stared at the great pattern of blood pumping across his leg the agony slammed into him like a white-hot iron.

Bolitho could not think clearly, and heard himself cry out as his cheek scraped on the deck planking. He felt himself falling and falling even though his body was motionless on the gangway.

He thought he heard Herrick shouting from a long way off, and Allday calling his name. Then Pascoe was above him, looking down at his face, his fingers pushing the hair from his eyes as the final darkness closed in and offered him oblivion.

Bolitho moved his head from side to side, conscious of little else but a terrible screaming, which for a few moments he imagined was coming from his own throat. Everything was dark, yet held patches of swaying light and blurred colours.

A voice said urgently, “He is conscious. Get ready to move him!”

A red haze faded above him, and he realised it was Major Clinton's coat. He and some of his men must have carried him below. Sweat broke like ice water across his chest. Carried below. He was on the orlop deck, and the scream was someone already under the surgeon's knife.

He heard Allday, his voice almost unrecognizable as he said, “We must take him aft, Major.”

Another voice, demented in terror, said, “Oh no,
oh no! Please!
”

Bolitho felt his head being raised slightly and realised a hand was supporting it. Water trickled through his lips while his eyes probed the semi-darkness of the orlop as he tried to swallow. Another scene from Hades. Men propped against the
Benbow
's massive timbers. Inert shapes, and others which rocked about in their separate agonies.

Beneath a cluster of lanterns Loveys, the surgeon, stooped over his makeshift table, his apron spattered with blood like a butcher's.

The man who had been screaming was lying spreadeagled on the table, his cries stopped by a leather strap between his clenched teeth. He was naked, and held rigid by Loveys' mates. Only his eyes moved, like marbles as he stared at the surgeon, pleaded with him.

Bolitho saw that the man's arm had been split open, smashed by an enemy ball or a large fragment of iron.

The knife glittered in Loveys' hand, and for what seemed like an eternity he held the edge of the blade on the soft flesh above the wound, barely inches from the point of the shoulder. With a quick nod to his mates he cut down and round, his face like stone. Another assistant handed him his saw, and in minutes it was done, the severed limb thrown into a bucket below the gyrating lanterns.