of where they were standing.
“Now or never!” He saw the sea thundering through the companion and turning one of the corpses in a wild dance as it forced the bows deeper and deeper below the surface.
With Stockdale panting and floundering between them, Bolitho and Jury sprang into the water. It seemed to take an age to reach the nearest boat, and even then they had to join the others who were hanging to the gunwales and trying not to hamper the oarsmen as they headed for the dismasted Rosario.
Most of the men around Bolitho were strangers, and he realized they must be the released prisoners. Olsson had looked so wild it was a wonder he had not left them to drown with their ship.
Then all at once the brig’s side towered above them. She was a small vessel, but viewed from the water as he fought for breath and clung to a thrown line, Bolitho thought she looked as big as a frigate.
Eventually they were pushed, dragged and man-handled up and over the side where they were confronted by the brig’s own company, who stared at them as if they had come from the sea itself.
Palliser left nobody in doubt as to who was in command.
“Little, take the prisoners below and put them in irons. Pearse, discover the chance of a jury-rig, anything to give us steerage-way!” He strode past some dazed and bleeding men and snapped, “Have these guns loaded, d’you hear? God dammit, you’re like a pack of old women!”
A man of some authority pushed through his sailors and said, “I am the master, John Mason. I know why you’re here, but I give thanks to God for it, sir, though I fear we are no match for them pirates.”
Palliser eyed him coldly. “We shall see about that. But for now, do as I direct. How you and your people behave today may decide what happens to you.”
The man gaped at him. “I don’t understand, sir?”
“Do you have a passenger, one Jonathan Egmont?”
Bolitho leaned on the bulwark sucking in great gulps of air, the sea-water streaming from his limbs to mingle with the blood around the nearest gun.
“Aye, sir, but…”
“Alive?”
“Was when I last saw him. I put my passengers below when the attack began.”
Palliser gave a grim smile. That is fortunate. For both of us, I think.” He saw Bolitho and added sharply, “Make sure Egmont is secure. Tell him nothing.” He was about to turn his attention to one of the schooners but instead watched the Heloise’s final moment, as with a last burst of spray from her hatches she plunged to the bottom. He said, “I am glad you were able to stay with us. I ordered the vessel to be abandoned.” His eyes rested momentarily on Jury and Stockdale. “However…”
Bolitho staggered to an open hatch, his bruised mind still grappling with the Rosario ’s lay-out as she pitched about in the swell.
The brig had taken a terrible beating. Upended guns, corpses and pieces of men lay strewn with the other debris, ignored in the frantic efforts to keep their attackers from boarding.
A seaman with one hand wrapped in a crude bandage, the other gripping a pistol, called, “Down ’ere, sir!”
Bolitho clambered down a ladder, his stomach rebelling against the stench of pain and suffering. Three men lay unconscious or dying, another was crawling back to his station as best he could in makeshift dressings and a sling.
Egmont stood at a table, wiping his hands on a rag, while a seaman trimmed a lantern for him.
He saw Bolitho and gave a tired shrug. “An unexpected meeting, Lieutenant.”
Bolitho asked, “Have you been attending the wounded?”
“You know the Navy, Lieutenant. For me it is a long, long time ago since I served your captain’s father, but it is something you never lose.”
Bolitho heard the urgent clank of pumps, the sounds of blocks and tackles being hauled noisily across the upper deck. The Destiny’s seamen were working again, and he was needed up there to help Palliser, to keep them at it, driving them by force if necessary.
They had been in a savage fight and some had died, as he had nearly done. Now they were needed again. Let them falter and they would drop. Allow them time to mourn the loss of a friend and they would lose the stuff of fighting.
But he asked, “Your wife, is she safe?”
Egmont gestured towards a bulkhead door. “In there.”
Bolitho thrust his shoulder against it, the fear of being trapped below decks still scraping at his mind.
By lantern-light in a sealed, airless cabin he saw three women. Aurora Egmont, her maid and a buxom woman he guessed to be the master’s wife.
He said, “Thank God you’re safe.”
She moved towards him, her feet invisible in the cabin’s gloom so that she appeared to be floating.
She reached up and felt his wet hair and his face, her eyes large as she said quietly, “I thought you were still in Rio.” Her hands touched his chest and his arms as they hung at his sides. “My poor lieutenant, what have they done to you?”
Bolitho could feel his head swimming. Even here, amidst the stench of bilge and death, he was conscious of her perfume, the cool touch of her fingers on his face. He wanted to hold her, to press her against his body like the dream. To share his anxiety for her, to reveal his longing.
“Please!” He tried to step away. “I am filthy. I just wanted to be sure you were safe. Unhurt.”
She pushed his protest aside and put her hands on his shoulders. “My brave lieutenant!” She turned her head and called sharply to her maid, “Stop weeping, you silly girl! Where is your pride?”
In those few seconds Bolitho felt her breast press against his wet shirt, as if there was nothing between their bodies.
He murmured, “I must go.”
She was staring at him as if to memorize everything about him. “Will you fight again? Do you have to?”
Bolitho felt the strength returning to his body. He could even smile as he said, “I have someone to fightfor, Aurora.”
She exclaimed, “You remembered!”
Then she pulled his head down and kissed him firmly on the mouth. Like him, she was shaking, her earlier anger with her maid a pretence like his own.
She whispered, “Be careful, Richard. My young, so-young lieutenant.”
With Palliser’s voice ringing in the distance, Bolitho walked back to the ladder and ran to the upper deck.
Palliser was examining the two big schooners with a telescope, and without lowering it he asked dryly, “May I assume that all is well below?”
Bolitho made to touch his hat, but remembered it had gone a long time ago.
“Aye, sir. Egmont is helping the wounded.”
“Is he indeed?” Palliser closed his glass with a snap. “Now listen. Those devils will try to divide our defences. One will stand off while the other attempts to board.” He was thinking aloud. “We may have survived one fight, but they will see Heloise’s loss as their victory. They’ll give no quarter now.”
Bolitho nodded. “We might hope to hold them off if we had every gun fully manned, sir.”
Palliser shook his head. “No. We are adrift and cannot prevent one or both of them from raking our stern.” He glanced at some of the brig’s seamen as they staggered past with a trailing serpent of rigging. “These people are done for, no stomach left. It’s up to us.” He nodded firmly, his mind made up. “We shall allow one of the buggers to grapple. Divide them and see how they like that.”
Bolitho looked at the fallen masts and sprawled bodies, amongst which Destiny’s seamen moved like scavengers on a battle-field. Then he touched his mouth with his fingers, as if he expected to feel a difference there where she had kissed him with such fervent passion.
He said, “I’ll tell the others, sir.”
Palliser eyed him bleakly. “Yes. Just tell them. Explanations may come later. If they do, we shall know we have won. If not, they won’t matter.”
Palliser lowered his telescope and said bitterly, “They are better manned than I thought.”
Bolitho shaded his eyes to watch the two schooners, their big fore and aft sails like wings against the bright sky as they tacked slowly to windward of the helpless brig.
