To Glory We Steer (11 page)

The man nodded and hurried away without another word. His was not to question a meaningless order. A command from the captain was all he required.

Bolitho looked down at the main deck, at the dead and wounded, and the remaining gunners. He said slowly, “There will be one final broadside, men.” The words swept away his own illusion of making a last empty gesture. He continued, “Every gun will have chain shot, and I want each weapon at full elevation.” They began to stir, their movements brittle and vague like old men, but Bolitho's voice seemed to hold them as he added sharply. “Load, but do not run out until the word!” He saw the gunner's party carrying the unwieldy chain shot to each gun in turn. Two balls per gun, and each ball linked together with thick chain.

Captain Rennie said quietly, “They're getting close, sir. They'll be boarding us very soon now.” He sounded tense.

Bolitho looked away. All at once he wanted to share the enormity of his decision, but at the same instant he knew the extent of his own loneliness.

His last effort might fail completely. At best it would only drive the enemy to a madness which only the death of the whole of his crew would placate.

Herrick looked aft, his eyes steady. “All guns loaded, sir!” He seemed to square his shoulders, as if to project some strange confidence over his battered men.

Bolitho pulled out his sword. Behind him he heard the marines fixing their bayonets and shuffling their booted feet on the stained planking.

He called, “Stand by the starboard carronade, Mr Farquhar! Is it ready?” He watched narrowly as the other ship's bowsprit swung over the
Phalarope
's bulwark, her forechains and rigging alive with shouting men. Her captain must have stripped his guns to get such a large boarding party. Once aboard, they would swamp the
Phalarope,
no matter how desperate the resistance.

Farquhar swallowed hard. “Loaded, sir. Canister, and a full charge!”

“Very good.” The
Andiron
was barely twenty feet clear now, the triangular patch of trapped water between them frothing in a mad dance. “If I fall, you will take your orders from Mr Vibart.” He saw the young officer's eyes seeking out the first lieutenant. “If not, then watch for my signal!”

The
Andiron
's bow nudged the main shrouds and a great yell of derision broke from the waiting boarders.

Bolitho ran down the ladder and leaped on to the starboard gangway, his sword above his bare head. A few pistols banged across the gap and he felt a ball pluck at his sleeve like an invisible hand.

“Repel boarders!” He saw the gunners staring up at him, uncertain and shocked, their guns still inboard and impotent.

Herrick jumped up beside him, his eyes flashing as he shouted, “Come on, lads! We'll give the buggers a lesson!”

Somebody voiced a faint cheer, and the men not employed at the guns surged up to the gangway, their cutlasses and pikes puny against the great press of boarders.

Bolitho felt a man drop screaming at his side, and another pitched forward to be ground between the hulls like so much butcher's meat. He could see the privateer's officers urging their men on and pointing him out to their marksmen. Shots banged and whistled around him, and the cries and jeers had risen to one, terrifying roar.

The hulls shuddered once more and the gap began to disappear. Bolitho peered back at Farquhar. The quarterdeck with its dead marines seemed a long way away, but as he waved his sword in a swift chopping motion he saw the midshipman jerk the lanyard and felt the gun's savage blast pass his face like a hot wind.

The canister shot contained five hundred closely packed musket balls, and like a scythe the miniature bombardment swept through the cheering boarders, cutting them down into a bloody tangle of screams and curses. The boarders faltered, and a young lieutenant who had climbed up on the
Andiron
's bowsprit dropped unsupported on to the
Phalarope
's gangway. His scream was cut short as a big seaman lashed out and down with an axe, and then his body was pinned between the hulls and forgotten.

Bolitho shouted wildly, “Come on, you gunners! Run out!
Run out!
”

He held out his sword like a barrier in front of his men. “Back there! Get back!”

His small party fell back, confused by this turn of events. They had faced certain annihilation, and had accepted it. Now their captain had changed his mind. Or so it seemed.

But Herrick understood. Almost choking with excitement he yelled,
“All guns run out!”

Bolitho saw the survivors from the carronade's single blast falling back towards their guns, shocked and dismayed as the
Phalarope
's muzzles trundled forward and upwards towards them.

“Fire!” Bolitho almost fell overboard, but felt Stockdale catch his arm as the whole battery exploded beneath his feet.

The air seemed to come alive with inhuman screams as the whirling chain shot cut through sails and rigging alike in an overwhelming tempest of metal. Foremast and maintopmast fell together, the great weight of spars and canvas smashing down the remaining boarders and covering the gunports in a whirling mass of canvas.

The recoil of
Phalarope
's broadside seemed to drive the two ships apart, leaving a trail of wreckage and corpses floating between them.

Bolitho leaned against the nettings, his breath sharp and painful. “Reload! Carry on firing!” Whatever happened next, the
Phalarope
had spoken with authority, and had hit hard.

The frigate's proud outline was broken and confused in tangled shrouds and sails. Where her foremast had been minutes before there was only a bright-toothed stump, and the resonant cheers had given way to screams and confusion.

But she pushed forward across the
Phalarope
's bows, followed by a further ragged salvo and a single angry bark from a forecastle nine-pounder. Then she was clear, gathering her tattered sails like garments to cover her scars, and pushing downwind into the rolling bank of smoke.

Bolitho stood watching her, his heart thumping, his eyes watering from strain and emotion.

The minutes dragged by, and then the insane realisation came to him. The
Andiron
was not putting about. She had taken enough.

Half stumbling he returned to the quarterdeck where Rennie's marines were grinning at him and Farquhar was leaning on the smoking carronade as if he no longer trusted what he saw.

Then they started to cheer. It was not much at first. Then it gathered strength and power until it moved above and below decks in an unbroken tide.

It was part pride and part relief. Some men were sobbing uncontrollably, others capered on the blood-stained decks like madmen.

Herrick ran aft, his hat awry, his blue eyes shining with excitement. “You did for them, sir! My God, you scuppered 'em!” He clasped Bolitho's hand, unable to stop himself. Even old Proby was grinning.

Bolitho controlled his voice with one last effort. “Thank you, gentlemen.” He looked along the littered decks, feeling the pain and the blind exultation. “Next time we will do better!”

He swung round and pushed through the whooping marines towards the dark sanctuary of the cabin hatch.

Behind him, as if through a fog, he heard Herrick shout, “I don't know about
next
time, lads! This will do me for a bit!”

Bolitho stood breathing hard in the narrow passageway listening to their excitement and laughter. They were grateful, even happy, he realised dully. Perhaps the bill would not be too high after all.

There was so much to do. So many things to prepare and restore before the ship would be ready to fight again. He fingered the worn sword hilt and stared wearily at the deck beams. But it would wait a moment longer. Just a short moment.

Herrick leaned heavily on the forecastle rail and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Only the slightest breeze ruffled the calm sea ahead of the gently pitching bows, and as he watched he saw the sun dipping towards the horizon, its glowing reflection already waiting to receive it and allow night to hide the
Phalarope
's scars.

Herrick could feel his legs shaking, and again he tried to tell himself it was due to fatigue and the strain of a continuous day's working. Within an hour of the privateer's disappearance Bolitho had returned to the quarterdeck, his dark hair once more gathered neatly to the nape of his neck, his face freshly shaved, and the dust of battle brushed from his uniform. Only the lines at the corners of his mouth, the grave restlessness in his eyes betrayed any inner feelings as he passed his orders and began the work of repairing the damage to his ship and crew.

At first Herrick had imagined the task impossible. The men's relief had given way to delayed shock, so that individual sailors lay aimlessly about the stained decks, like marionettes with severed strings, or just stood and stared listlessly at the aftermath of the nightmare.

Bolitho's sudden appearance had started a train of events which nobody could really explain. Every officer and man was too spent, too dulled by the brief and savage encounter to spare any strength for protest. The dead had been gathered at the lee rail and sewn into pathetic anonymous bundles. Lines of kneeling men had moved from forward to aft working with heavy holystones to scrub away the dark stains to the accompaniment of clanking pumps and the indifferent gurgle of seawater.

The tattered and useless sails were sent down and replaced with fresh canvas, while Tozer, the sailmaker, and his mates squatted on every available deck space, needles and palms moving like lightning as they patched and repaired anything which could be salvaged and used again.

Ledward, the carpenter, moved slowly around the splintered gun-battery, making a note here, taking a measurement there, until at length he was ready to play his part in restoring the frigate to her original readiness. Even now, as Herrick relived the fury of the bombardment and heard the screams and moans of wounded men, the hammers and saws were busy, and the whole new areas of planking were being tamped neatly into place to await the pitch and paint of the following morning.

He shivered again and cursed as his knees nearly gave under him. It was shock rather than mere fatigue. He knew that now.

He thought back to his impressions of the battle, to his own stupid relief and loud-voiced humour when the enemy had hauled away. It had been like listening to another, uncontrollable being who had been incapable of either silence or composure. Just to be alive and unharmed had meant more than anything.

Now as the sky grew darker astern of the slow moving ship he examined his true feelings and tried to put his recollections into some semblance of order.

He had even tried to regain some of the brief contact he had made with Bolitho. He had crossed the quarterdeck where the captain had been staring down at the labouring sailors and had said, “You saved us all that time, sir. Another minute and she'd have been into us with a full broadside! It was a clever ruse to ask us to heave-to. That privateer was a cunning one and no mistake!”

Bolitho had not lifted his gaze from the main deck. When he had replied it had been as if he was speaking to himself. “
Andiron
is an old ship. She has been out here for ten years.” He had made a brief gesture towards the main deck. “
Phalarope
is new. Every gun is fitted with the new flintlock and the carronades are almost unknown except in the Channel Fleet. No, Mr Herrick, there is little room for congratulations!”

Herrick had studied Bolitho's brooding profile, aware perhaps for the first time of the man's constant inner battle. “All the same, sir, she outgunned us!” He had watched for some sign of the Bolitho he had seen waving his sword on the starboard gangway while shots had hammered down around him like hail. But there had been nothing. He had ended lamely, “You'll see, sir, things will be different after this.”

Bolitho had straightened his back, as if throwing off some invisible weight. When he had turned his grey eyes had been cold and unfeeling. “I hope you are right, Mr Herrick! For my part I was disgusted with such a shambles! I dread to contemplate what might have happened in a fight to the finish!”

Herrick had felt himself flushing. “I was only thinking . . .”

Bolitho had snapped. “When I require an opinion from my third lieutenant I will let him know! Until that moment, Mr Herrick, perhaps you would be good enough to make your people get to work! There will be time later for suppositions and self-adulation!” He had swung on his heel and recommenced his pacing.

Herrick watched the surgeon's party carry another limp corpse from the main hatch and lay it beside the others. Again, another picture of Bolitho sprang to his mind.

Herrick had been between decks on a tour of inspection with the carpenter. There were no shot holes beneath the water-line, but it had been his duty to make sure for his own satisfaction. Still dulled by the noise of battle he had followed Ledward beneath the massive, curved beams, his tired eyes half mesmerised by the man's shaded lantern. Together they had stepped through a screen and entered a scene from hell itself.