The larger of the two vessels, her canvas pock-marked by their canister-shot during the dawn engagement, was a topsail schooner. She touched off a memory and Bolitho said, “I think she was the one I saw leaving harbour when we were at Egmont’s house. I recognize her rig.”
“Most probably. Not many of them in these waters.”
Palliser was studying the schooners’ methodical approach. One standing well up to windward, the other maneouvring towards the Rosarios ’s larboard bow where she would be best shielded from her remaining guns. They were sturdy six-pounders, and under Little’s skilled supervision could still make a mark on anything which ventured too close.
Palliser handed Bolitho the glass. “See for yourself.” He walked over to speak with the brig’s master and Slade by the compass box.
Bolitho held his breath and steadied the glass on the nearest schooner. She was weather-worn and ill-used, and he could see the many men who were staring across at the defiant, mastless brig. Some were waving their weapons, their jeers and threats lost only in distance.
He thought of the girl in the cabin, what they would do to her, and gripped his hanger so tightly that it hurt his palm.
He heard the brig’s master say, “I can’t argue with a King’s officer to be sure, but I’ll not answer for what may happen!”
And Slade said urgently, “We’ll never hold ’em, sir, and it’s not right to put it to the test!”
Palliser’s voice was flat and uncompromising. “What do you suggest? Wait for a miracle perhaps? Pray that Destiny will rise from the deep and save all our wretched souls?” He did not conceal his sarcasm or his contempt. “God damn your eyes, Slade, I’d have expected better from you!”
He turned and saw Bolitho watching the tense little group. “In about fifteen minutes that cut-throat will try to grapple us. If we drive him off he will stand clear and the both of them will rake us for a while. Then they will try again. And again.” He waved his arm slowly towards the torn decks and weary, red-eyed seamen. “Do you see these people holding out?”
Bolitho shook his head. “No, sir.”
Palliser turned away. “Good.”
But Bolitho had seen the expression on his face. Relief perhaps, or surprise that someone was agreeing with him in spite of the terrible odds.
Then Palliser said, “I am going below. I must speak with the prisoners we took from Heloise.”
Little said quietly to his friend the boatswain’s mate, “Them stupid clods won’t know wot side they be on, eh, Ellis?” They both guffawed as if it was some huge joke.
Jury asked, “What will we do next?”
Ingrave suggested shakily, “Parley, sir?”
Bolitho watched the approaching schooner, the expert way her mainsail was being reset to give her a perfect heading for the last half cable.
“We shall meet them as they attempt to board.”
He saw his words moving along the littered deck, the way the seamen gripped their cutlasses and axes and flexed their muscles as if they were already in combat. The brig’s men were only hired hands, not professional and disciplined like Destiny’s people. But the latter were tired, and there were too few of them when set against the threatening mob aboard the schooner. He could hear them now, yelling and jeering, their combined shouts like an animal roar.
If there had been only one vessel they might have managed. Perhaps it would have been better to die with the Heloise rather than prolong the agony.
Palliser returned and said, “Little, stand by the forrard guns. When I so order, fire at will, but make quite certain the shots do no real damage.” He ignored Little’s disbelief. “Next, load the remainder with a double charge of grape and canister. At the moment of coming alongside I want those bastards raked!” He let his words drive home. “If you lose every man in doing it, I need those guns to fire!”
Little knuckled his forehead, his heavy features grim with understanding at last. The brig’s bulwark offered little protection, and with the other vessel grinding alongside to grapple them together, the gun crews could be cut down like reeds.
Palliser unclipped his scabbard and tossed it aside. He sliced his sword through the air and watched the bright sunlight run along the blade like gold.
“It will be warm work today.”
Bolitho swallowed, his mouth horribly dry. He too drew his hanger and removed the leather scabbard as he had seen Palliser do. To lose a fight was bad enough, to die because you had tripped over your scabbard was unthinkable.
Muskets banged across the narrowing strip of water between the two hulls, and several men ducked as the balls struck the timbers or whined menacingly overhead.
Palliser sliced down an imaginary foe with his sword and then said sharply, “Fire!”
The leading guns hurled themselves inboard on their tackles, the smoke billowing back through the ports as their crews did their best to follow Little’s orders.
A hole appeared in the schooner’s big fore-sail, but the other shots went wide, throwing up spindly waterspouts nearer to the other vessel than the one which was bearing down on them.
There were wild cheers and more shots, and Bolitho bit his lip as a seaman was hurled back from the bulwark, his jaw smashed away by a musket ball.
Palliser called, “Stand by to repel boarders!”
All at once the long schooner was right there opposite them, and Bolitho could even see his own shadow on her side with those of his companions.
Musket shots whipped past him and he heard another man cry out, the sound of the ball smashing into his flesh making Ingrave cover his face as if to save himself from a similar fate.
The sails were falling away, and as the tide of men surged across the schooner’s deck, grapnels soared above them to clatter and then grip the Rosario’s hull like iron teeth.
But someone aboard the schooner must have anticipated a last trick from men who could fight like this. Several shots swept through the crouching gun crews and two men fell kicking and screaming, their blood marking their agony until they lay still.
Bolitho glanced quickly at Jury. He was holding his dirk in one hand, a pistol in the other.
Between his teeth Bolitho said, “Keep with me. Don’t lose your footing. Do what you told me to do.” He saw the wildness in Jury’s eyes and added, “Hold on!”
There was a great lurch as with a shuddering crash the schooner came hard downwind and continued to drive alongside until the grapnel lines took the strain and held her fast.
“Now!” Palliser pointed with his sword. “Fire!”
A gun belched flame and smoke and the full charge exploded in the exact centre of the massed boarders. Blood and limbs flew about in grisly array, and the momentary terror changed to a wild roar of fury as the attackers formed up again and hurled themselves over the side and on to the brig’s hull.
Steel scraped on steel, and while a few men tried to fire and reload their muskets, others thrust wildly with pikes, flinging shrieking boarders between the two hulls to be ground there like bloody fenders.
Palliser yelled, “Another!”
But Little and his men were cut off on the forecastle, a wedge of slashing, yelling figures already on the deck between them and the remaining unfired cannon. Its crew lay sprawled nearby, either dead or dying Bolitho did not know. But without that final burst of grape and canister they were already beaten.
A seaman crawled towards the gun, a slow-match gripped in one fist, but he fell face down as an attacker vaulted over the bulwark and hacked him across the neck with a boarding axe. But the force of the blow threw him off balance and he slipped helplessly in his victim’s blood. Dutchy Vorbink shouldered Jury aside and charged forward, his jaws wide in a soundless oath as he struck the scrambling figure on the head with his cutlass. The blade glanced from his skull, and Bolitho saw an ear lying on the deck even as Vorbink finished the job with a carefully measured thrust.
When he looked again, Bolitho saw Stockdale by the abandoned gun, his shoulder bleeding from a deep cut, but apparently oblivious to it as he swept up the slow-match and jabbed it to the gun.
