smooth bowsprit. Shots whined all around him, but he was breathless with j 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 bloodspattered forecastle. He thought of the stinging words and the contempt in Farquhar's eyes.
`Never!' He pulled himself towards the bowspnt 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' 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. FarquharT 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.
Bolitho strained his eyes through the smoke and watched his men changing from defenders to boarders. Whoever had decided to board the Ondine had made the right guess, he thought grimly. He heard the axes ringing on the tangle of wreckage behind him and knew it was impossible to free Phalarope from its embrace before the Ondine's heavy guns were brought back into action.
He crossed the deck and said to Rennie, `We must board her from aft, too!' He saw the marine nod. `Get some men together immediately!'
He heard someone sobbing and saw Neale on his knees below the lee rail. Midshipman Maynard was lying on his back, one hand held upright entangled in a signal lanyard, his eyes wide and unseeing and strangely peaceful. Neale was holding his hand and rocking back and forth, oblivious to the crash of gunfire and the slapping musket balls which had already claimed his friend.
Bolitho reached down and pulled Neale to his feet. The boy's last reserve seemed to collapse, and with a frantic cry he buried his face in Bolitho's coat, his body shaking with convulsions of grief. Bolitho prised him away and lifted his chin with the hilt of his sword. For a moment he stared down at him, then he said gravely, `Take a grip on yourself, Mr. Neale!' He saw the stunned look in Neale's eyes and shut his mind to the fact that he was talking with a terrified thirteen year-old child who had just lost his best friend. `You are a King's officer, Neale!' He softened his voice. `I said earlier, our people are watching you today. Do you think you can help me now?'
Neale brushed his eyes with his sleeve and looked back at Maynard's body by the bulwark. As the halyard jerked in the breeze his arm moved as if he still held on to life. Then Neale turned back to Bolitho and said brokenly, `I'm all right now, sir!'
Bolitho watched him walk back to the shouting gunners, a small figure half hidden in the smoke and flame of this savage battle.
Rennie reappeared, a cut above one eye. `Ready, sir!' He swung his curved sword. `Shall I take 'em across?'
Bolitho looked around the battered quarterdeck. There seemed to be more corpses than live men, he thought wearily. He faltered as a shot crashed against the quarterdeck ladder and tore into the planking like a plough. With disbelief he saw Proby put his hands to his face and watched his fingers clawing at the sudden torrent of blood. The master staggered against the wheel, but as Strachan left the spokes to hold him he fell moaning on to his side and lay still. His hands thudded on the planking, and Bolitho saw that his face had been torn away.
`We must take the Ondine!' The words were wrung from his lips. `If the French see their command ship strike, they'll…' He faltered and stared again at Proby's body. I've done for the lot of them! He felt the anguish changing to helpless anger. I have sacrificed the ship and every man aboard just
for this!
But Rennie eyed him evenly and said, `It is the right decision, sir!' He straightened his hat and said to his sergeant, `Right, Garwood, do you feel like a little walk?'
Bolitho stared at him. It was as if the marine had been reading his, mind. He said, `The Cassius will support us.' He looked at the waiting marines. They crouched like animals, wild and beyond fear or even anger. `It's us or - them, lads!'
Then, as the men shouted and cheered he jumped on to the Ondine's broken mast and began to claw his way across. Once he looked down at the water below him. It was littered with broken woodwork and sodden corpses, French and British alike.
As he reached the Ondine's poop he felt the balls whining past him and heard screams at his back as men fell to join the waiting corpses below. Then as he reached the scarred bulwark he hacked away the remains of the French boarding nets and leapt down on to the deck. Dead and dying lay everywhere, but when he glanced quickly across the far side he felt a further sense of shock as he saw the Cassius. She was not alongside anymore, but drifting away in the smoke of her own wounds, a mastless hulk,. battered beyond recognition. From every scupper he could see long, glistening streams of blood, which poured down the ship's side to colour the water in one unbroken stain. It was as if the ship herself was bleeding to death. But from the stump of her mizzen the ensign, pitted and torn with shot holes, still flapped in defiance, and as Rennie's yelling marines swept across the Ondine's poop there was a burst of cheering from the Cassius's deck. It was not much of a cheer, for there could not be many left to raise it, but to Bolitho it acted like the stab of a spur.
He ran across the littered deck, cutting down two seamen with hardly a pause, propelled on by the cheering and the battle-crazed men at his back. He could see his men on the Ondine's forecastle, almost encircled by an overwhelming mass of French seamen, their stubborn resistance faltering as they were forced back towards the rail.
Bolitho yelled, `Hold on Phalarope's!' He saw the Frenchmen falter and turn to face this new threat. `To me, lads! Cut your way through 'em!'
More men were swarming from the frigate now, and he saw Herrick's uniform through the smoke as he waved his men forward.
He turned as Okes slashed a path for himself in the press of figures, his sword gleaming red as he cut down a screaming midshipman and went on towards a man who was reloading a swivel gun beside the quarterdeck. Okes was bleeding from a dozen wounds, and as he reached the ladder the swivel gun exploded with a dull roar. The packed grapeshot lifted Okes like a rag doll and flung him lifeless into the fighting men below the ladder. The gunner fell a second later, cut down by a swinging cutlass.
Then, all at once, it was over. The deck clattered with the weapons thrown down by the Ondine's seamen, and Bolitho realised that their cries of defiance had changed to pleas for quarter. He knew he could not hold his men back if they wanted to complete the slaughter. It fell to some unknown sailor to break the spell of destruction and killing.
`A cheer for the Phalarope!' The voice cracked with relief and jubilation. `An' a cheer for Mad Dick!'
Bolitho climbed down the ladder, past the dazed Frenchmen and the mangled litter of entwined corpses.
`Captain Rennie!' He paused beside the remains of Liuetenant Okes. `Hoist our flag above the French ensign!' He felt his hands shaking. `Let them all see what you have done today.'
Sergeant Garwood said gruffly, `The cap'n is dead, sir!' He unrolled the flag carefully. `But I will do it!'
`Dead?' Bolitho stared after him. 'Rennie, too?' He felt Herrick pulling his arm and asked heavily, `What is it’
'The ship is ours, sir!' Herrick was shaking with excitement. `The gundeck is like a slaughterhouse! Our carronades did more than…' He broke off as he saw Bolitho's face.
`Very well, Mr. Herrick. Thank you.' His voice shook. `Thank all of you!' He turned away as more cheering echoed round the bloody decks.
Herrick shook his head as if he was beyond understanding. `A two-decker, sir! What a victory!'
