an eternity, had come about as Dumaresq had planned. With a stiff wind sweeping over the larboard quarter she was plunging across a procession of breaking white-horses, the spray rising above the weather rigging and sweeping on to the crouching seamen like tropical rain.
Destiny had been stripped down to her topsails and jib with her big forecourse holding two reefs in readiness for a swift change of tack.
Rhodes murmured, “That other vessel is out there somewhere, Dick.”
Bolitho nodded and tried not to think of the launch as it had vanished into a deepening darkness, the lanterns making a lively show on the water.
It was an eerie feeling, with the ship so quiet around him. Nobody spoke, and the heavily greased gear was without its usual din and clatter. Just the sweeping sea alongside, the occasional rush of water through the lee scuppers as Destiny dropped her bows into a deep trough.
Bolitho wanted to forget what was happening around him and to concentrate on what he had to do. Palliser had selected the best seamen in the ship for a boarding party if it came to that. But the sudden upsurge of wind might have changed Dumaresq’s ideas, he thought.
He heard Jury moving restlessly by the nettings, and Rhodes ’ midshipman, Mr Cowdroy, who had been in the ship for two years. He was a haughty, bad-tempered youth of sixteen who would be impossible as a lieutenant. Rhodes had had cause to report him to the captain more than once, and the last time he had been ignominiously caned across a six-pounder by the boatswain. It did not seem to have changed him. Little Merrett made up the trio, trying to keep out of sight, as usual.
Rhodes said softly, “Soon now, Dick.” He loosened the hanger in his belt. “Might be a slaver, who knows?”
Yeames, master’s mate of the watch, said cheerfully, “Not likely, sir. You’d smell a blackbirder by now!”
Palliser snapped, “Be silent there!”
Bolitho watched the sea curling above the dipping side in a frothing white bank. Beyond it there was nothing but an occasional jagged crest. As black as a boot, as Colpoys had remarked. His marksmen were already aloft in the tops, trying to keep their muskets dry and watching for the first sight of the stranger.
If the captain and Gulliver had timed it correctly, the stranger should appear on Destiny’s starboard bow. The frigate would hold the wind-gage and the other vessel would have no chance of slipping away. The men at the starboard battery were ready, the gun captains on their knees as they prepared to run out as soon as the word came from aft.
To a civilian sitting by his hearth in England it might all seem like a kind of madness. But to Captain Dumaresq it was something else entirely, and it mattered. The other vessel, whatever she was, was interfering with the King’s affairs. That made it personal, not to be taken lightly.
Bolitho gave another shiver as he recalled his first meeting with the captain. To me, to this ship, and to His Brittanic Majesty, in that order!
Destiny raised her quivering jib-boom like a lance and seemed to hang motionless on the edge of another trough before she plunged forward and down, her bows smashing through solid water and flinging spray high above the forecastle.
From one corner of his eye Bolitho saw something fall from overhead. It hit the deck and exploded with a loud bang.
Rhodes ducked as a ball whined dangerously past his face and gasped, “A damned bullock has dropped his musket!”
Startled voices and harsh accusations erupted from the gun-deck, and Lieutenant Colpoys ran to the quarterdeck ladder in his haste to deal with the culprit.
It all happened in a swift sequence of events. The sudden explosion as Destiny ploughed her way towards the next array of crests, the attention of officers and seamen distracted for just a few moments.
Palliser said angrily, “Stop that noise, damn your eyes!”
Bolitho turned and then froze as out of the darkness, running with the wind, came the other vessel. Not safely downwind to starboard, but right here, rising above the larboard side like a phantom.
“Put up your helm!” Dumaresq’s powerful voice stopped some of the startled men in their tracks. “Man the braces there, stand by on the quarterdeck!”
Rearing and plunging, her sails booming and thundering in wild confusion, Destiny began to swing away from the oncoming vessel. Gun crews who minutes earlier had been nursing their weapons in readiness for a fight were caught totally unawares, and even now were tumbling across to help the men on the opposite side where the twelve-pounders still pointed at their sealed ports.
More spray burst over the quarterdeck as another sea surged jubilantly across the nettings and drenched the men nearby. Order was being restored, and Bolitho saw seamen straining back on the braces until they seemed to be touching the deck itself.
He shouted, “Stand to, men!” He was groping for his hanger even as he realized that Rhodes and his midshipman had already gone running to the bows. “She’ll be into us directly!”
A shot echoed above the din of sea and wind, but whether fired by accident or by whom, Bolitho did not know or care.
He felt Jury by his side.
“What’ll we do, sir?”
He sounded frightened. As well he might, Bolitho thought. Merrett was clinging to the nettings as if nothing would ever shift him.
Bolitho used something like physical strength to control his stampeding thoughts. He was in charge. Nobody else was here to lead, to advise. Everyone on the upper deck was too occupied with his own role.
He managed to shout, “Stay with me.” He pointed at a running figure. “You, clear the starboard battery and prepare to repel boarders!”
As men floundered cursing and shouting in all directions, Bolitho heard Dumaresq’s voice. He was on the opposite side of the deck, yet seemed to be speaking into Bolitho’s ear.
“Board, Mr Bolitho!” He swung round as Palliser sent more men to shorten sail in a last attempt to delay the impact of collision. “She must not escape!”
Bolitho stared at him, his eyes wild. “Aye, sir!”
He was about to draw his hanger when with a thundering crash the other vessel drove hard alongside. But for Dumaresq’s quick action she would have rammed into the Destiny’s broadside like a giant axe.
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STAND INTO DANGER 69
Yells changed to screams as a rumbling mass of cordage and broken spars crashed on and between the two hulls. Men were knocked from their feet as the sea lifted the vessels together yet again, bringing down another tangle of rigging and blocks. Some men had fallen, too, and Bolitho had to drag Jury by the arm as he shouted, “Follow me!” He waved his hanger, keeping his eyes away from the sea which appeared to be boiling between the two snared hulls. One slip and it would all be over.
He saw Little brandishing a boarding axe, and of course Stockdale holding his cutlass like a dirk against his massive frame.
Bolitho gritted his teeth and leapt for the other vessel’s shrouds, his legs kicking in space as he struck out seeking a foothold. His hanger had gone from his hand and swung dangerously from his wrist as he gasped and struggled to hold on. More men were on either side of him, and he retched as someone fell between the two vessels, the man’s scream cut off abruptly like a great door being slammed shut.
As he dropped to the unfamiliar deck he heard other voices and saw vague shapes rushing across the fallen wreckage, some with blades in their fists, while from aft came the sharp crack of a pistol.
He groped for his hanger and shouted, “Drop your weapons in the King’s name!”
The roar of voices which greeted his puny demand was almost worse than the danger. Perhaps he had been expecting Frenchmen or Spaniards, but the voices which yelled derision at his upraised hanger were as English as his own.
