'Our part will happen at any moment.' He stood up and tested his leg warily. `Get my sword, will you?'
How quiet the ship was, he thought. The excitement of the Ajax 's capture and her terrible end when the fuses had been fired in her magazine had been dulled by the loss of Peel's ship. Altogether, Lookout had found ten survivivors. With Pascoe and the burned seaman also rescued, that meant a total bill of some two hundred sailors and marines killed. It was too much of a price to pay.
Bolitho had visited his nephew several times during the night. Each occasion had found Pascoe wide awake, defying Loveys' efforts to make him rest and save his strength.
Perhaps those last moments in the water were too stark in his mind, as if by going to sleep he would never reawake and find his survival only part of a nightmare.
But Pascoe's descriptions, brief though they were, completed a full and horrific picture.
The cruellest part of it had been that Peel had been winning. But some last fury had brought the Ajax too close, so that both frigates had collided bowsprit to bowsprit, bringing down the Frenchman's mizzen and hurling many of the men from their feet. -
Pascoe vaguely remembered Peel shouting about smoke even as Relentless's cheering boarders had rushed to grapple the enemy hand to hand.
He had been on the quarterdeck, the second lieutenant having been killed in the opening.broadsides. The next minute he had felt himself flying through the air and then being smashed, choking, into the sea.
Pascoe had started to swim for a drifting boat when one of the Relentless's topmasts had dropped from the sky like a giant's lance and had cut the boat in half and some struggling men with it.
The thing which Pascoe had not been able to accept was the actual explosion. It had blasted the thirty-six-gun frigate to pieces, yet he had heard nothing.
The collision between the two ships had probably caught a man off balance below decks. A lantern overturned, some powder spilled as a boy ran to serve his gun, or even a flaming wad from the enemy's broadside, it could have been caused by any one of many things.
Bolitho walked slowly beneath the poop, his head ducking automatically between the deckhead beams.
Faces turned to watch him pass, faces which after nearly seven months were no longer strangers.
The figures on the quarterdeck came alive as he stepped out into the morning light, and he saw Herrick with a telescope trained across the nettings towards the Lookout which stood well away on the larboard bow.
The sea was rising and falling in a slow swell, with no crests to break the surface or the motion. There was quite a lot of haze about, and far ahead of the two columns of ships it looked pale green. A trick of the eye and distance. The haze was real enough but the green layer was land. Denmark.
Herrick saw him and touched his hat.
'Wind's backed two more points, sir. More than I hoped. I shall continue on this tack, nor'-nor'-east, until I can make a proper landfall.' Some of the old, uncertain Herrick stepped out of memory as he added, `With your permission, that is.'
'Aye, Thomas. That should suit us well.'
He strode to the nettings and peered across the opposite quarter. There was Styx, alone and watchful, ready to dash downwind and assist when required.
Ajax 's captain had probably imagined the Relentless to be her, Bolitho thought. It would be just enough to drive him to the last edge of anger and hatred.
Midshipman Keys, who was assisting Browne, called excitedly, `Signal from Lookout, sir. Two strange sail to the north west!'
Men bustled around in a flurry of lively flags as the signal was repeated down the line and to the distant Styx.
'Two sail, eh?' Herrick rubbed his chin.
Bolitho said, `General signal, please. Prepare for battle.' Wolfe chuckled and gestured abeam to the Nicator. `Listen,
sir! They're cheering already!'
Browne reported, `All acknowledged, sir.'
Bolitho met his eyes. 'All right now?'
The flag lieutenant smiled stiffly. 'Better, sir. A bit better.' 'Deck there! Enemy in sight! Two sail of the line!'
Wolfe strode back and forth, his ungainly feet miraculously missing ring-bolts and the crouching gun crews with their yam mers and handspikes.
'No frigates then? That's something!'
Herrick stiffened and held his glass in direct line with the larboard cathead.
'Got'em!'
Bolitho raised his own glass and saw the two towering spans of canvas emerging from the mist as the other ships continued towards him on a converging tack.
Two-deckers, each with a great curling flag at her gaff, red with a white cross, the Danish colours.
Benbow's forecourse lifted and puffed itself out like a huge chest as a strengthening breeze pushed across the dull water.
Bolitho said, 'They're holding their course, Thomas. Strange. They're heavily outnumbered.'
Herrick grinned. 'Makes a change, sir.'
Bolitho thought of the man in the book-lined room at the Danish Palace. What was he doing at this moment? Did he still remember their brief meeting, with Inskip hovering around like a nursemaid?
Somebody chuckled, the sound unnatural in the tension of the quarterdeck.
Bolitho turned and saw Pascoe coming from the poop, very pale but trying not to show his uncertainty. He was wearing a borrowed uniform which was far too large for him.
He touched his hat and said lamely, 'Reporting for duty, sir.'
Herrick stared at him. 'My God, Mr Pascoe, what are you thinking of?'
But Bolitho said, `Welcome back.'
Pascoe smiled at the grinning seamen nearby. 'The coat belongs to Mr Oughton, sir. He is a bit, well, larger.'
– Bolitho nodded. 'If you feel weak, say so.'
He could understand Pascoe's need to get on deck. After his experience in Relentless, he would be unwilling to stay on the orlop with its grim reminders.
Pascoe said simply, 'I heard about Penels, sir. I feel to blame. When he first came to see me…'
Herrick interrupted, 'There was nothing you could have prevented. If wrong was done, then I must bear it, too. He needed advice, and I damned him for his one foolish act.'
'Deck there!' The lookout hesitated, as if unable to describe what he saw. 'Galleys! Between the two ships!' His voice cracked in disbelief. 'So many-I can't count'em!'
Bolitho levelled his glass just in time to see another hoist of signals appear on Lookout's yards. He did not need to read it. Between the two oncoming ships was a veritable flotilla of galleys, sweeps rising and falling like crimson wings, flags streaming above the hidden oarsmen and each massive bowgun
'Load and run out, Captain Herrick.' His sharp formality swept away the momentary easing of tension. 'Upper gundeck with grape and bar-shot.'
He turned towards the marine officers. 'Major Clinton, there'll be work for your best shots today.'
The two marines touched their hats and hurried away to their men.
Speaking his thought aloud, Bolitho said, 'They will try to separate us. Signal Styx and Lookout to harry the enemy's rear as soon as we are engaged.'
The young midshipman who had taken the place of the dead Penels wrote scratchily on his slate and then waited, his mouth half open, as if he could not get his breath.
Bolitho looked at him impassively, seeing in those few seconds his youth, his hopes and his trust.
'Now, Mr Keys, you may hoist number sixteen, and make sure it stays flying.'
The youth nodded jerkily and then ran back to his seamen. He yelled, `Jump to it,_Stewart! Hoist the signal for Close Action!'
At a guess, Keys was about fourteen. If he lived after today he would remember this moment forever, Bolitho thought.
