The marines moved with precision, shoulder to shoulder, a living red wall which cut the boarders off from the gun crews, separated them from their own craft, and from all hope.
Bolitho saw a figure duck past a bayonet and run aft, a cutlass held across his body like a talisman.
Bolitho raised his hanger, seeing the clumsy way he was holding the cutlass. Worse, he was no more than a youth.
'Surrender!'
But the youth came on, whimpering with pain as Bolitho turned his blade aside and with a twist of the wrist sent his cutlass clashing into the scuppers. Even then he tried to get to grips with Bolitho, sobbing and almost blinded with fury and tears.
Stockdale brought the flat of his cutlass down on the youth's head and knocked him senseless.
Sparke exclaimed, 'It's done.'
He walked past D'Esterre and regarded the remaining attackers coldly. There were not many of them. The rest, dead or wounded by the lunging line of bayonets, sprawled like tired onlookers.
Bolitho sheathed his hanger, feeling sick, and the returning ache in his head.
The dead were always without dignity, he thought. No matter the cause, or the value of a victory.
Sparke shouted, 'Secure the cutter! Mr Libby, take charge there! Balleine, put those rebels under guard!'
Frowd came aft and said quietly, 'We lost three men, sir. An' two wounded, but they'll live, with any fortune.'
Sparke handed his pistol to a seaman. 'Damn it, Mr Bolitho, look what we have achieved!'
Bolitho looked. First at the blackened carcass of the second cutter, almost burnt out and smoking furiously above a litter of wreckage and scattered remains. Most of her crew had either died under Rowhurst's solitary bombardment or had been carried away to drown on the swift current. Few sailors could even swim, he thought grimly.
Alongside, and closer to the eye, the other cutter was an even more horrific sight. Corpses and great patterns of blood were everywhere, and he saw Midshipman Libby with his handful of seamen picking his way over the deck, his face screwed up, fearful of what he would see next.
Sparke said, 'But the hull and spars are intact, d'you see, eh? Two prizes within a week! There'll be some envious glances when we reach Sandy Hook again, make no mistake!' He gestured angrily at the wretched Libby. 'For God's sake, sir! Stir yourself and get that mess over the side. I want to make sail within the hour, damn me if I don't!'
Captain D'Esterre said, 'I'll send some marines to help him.'
Sparke glared. 'You will not, sir. That young gentleman wishes to become a lieutenant. And he probably will, shortages in the fleet being what they are. So be must learn that it rates more than the uniform, damn me so it does!' He beckoned to the master's mate. 'Come below, Mr Frowd. I want a course for the Chesapeake. I'll get the exact position of the brigantine at leisure.'
They both vanished below, and D'Esterre said quietly, 'What a nauseating relish he displays!’
Bolitho saw the first of the corpses going over the side, drifting lazily past, as if glad to be free of it all.
He said bitterly, 'I thought you craved action.'
D'Esterre gripped his shoulder. 'Aye, Dick. I do my duty with the best of 'em. But the day you see me gloat like our energetic second lieutenant, you may shoot me down.'
The youth who had been knocked unconscious by Stockdale was being helped to his feet. He was rubbing his head and sobbing quietly. When he saw Stockdale he tried to hit out at him, but Moffitt caught him easily and pinioned him against the bulwark.
Bolitho said, 'He could have killed you, you know.'
Through his sobs the youth exclaimed, 'I wish he had! The British killed my father when they burned Norfolk! I swore to avenge him!'
Moffitt said harshly, 'Your people tarred and feathered my young brother! It blinded him!' He pushed the youth towards a waiting marine. 'So we're equal, eh?'
Bolitho said quietly, 'No, opposite, is how I see it.' He nodded to Moffitt. 'I did not know about your brother.'
Moffitt, shaking violently now that it was over, said, 'Oh, there's more, sir, a whole lot more!'
Frowd reappeared on deck and walked past the sobbing prisoner without a glance.
He said grimly, 'I thought this day's work would be an end to it, sir. For the moment at least.'
He looked up at the pendant and then at the cutter alongside, the hands working with buckets and swabs to clear the bloodstains from the scarred and riddled planking.
'She's named the Thrush, I see.' His professional eye confirmed Bolitho s opinion. 'Dutch built. Handy craft, and well able to beat to wind'rd, better even than this one.'
Midshipman Weston hovered nearby, his face as red as his hair. He had shouted a lot during the brief engagement, but had hung back when the Colonials had made their impossible gesture.
Frowd was saying, 'I'd hoped that sloop might have joined us.' He sounded anxious. 'Mr Sparke's got the name of the cove where they beached the brigantine. I know it, but not well.'
'How did he discover that?'
Frowd walked to the rail and spat into the water. 'Money, sir. There's always a traitor in every group. If the price is right.'
Bolitho made himself relax. He could forget Frowd's bitterness. He had been afraid that Sparke, in his desperate eagerness to complete his victory, would use harsher methods of obtaining his information. His face as he had killed Elias Haskett had been almost inhuman.
How many more Sparkes were there still to discover? he pondered.
In a steady wind, both vessels eventually got under way and started to work clear of the sandbars and shoals, the smoke from the burned-out cutter following them like an evil memory.
Charred remains and gaping corpses parted to allow them through, when with all sails set both vessels started the first leg of their long tack to seaward.
Sparke came on deck during the proceedings. He peered through a telescope to see how Midshipman Libby, ably assisted by the boatswain's mate, Balleine, and a handful of seamen, were managing aboard the Thrush. Then he sniffed at the air and snapped, 'Run up our proper colours, Mr Bolitho, and see that Mr Libby follows our example.'
Later, with both vessels in close company, heeling steeply on the starboard tack, Bolitho felt the stronger upthrust of deeper water, and not for the first time was glad to be rid of the land.
From the rendezvous point where they had won such a bloody victory, to the next objective, a cove just north of Cape Charles which marked the entrance to Chesapeake Bay, it was approximately one hundred miles.
Sparke had hoped for a change of wind, but on the contrary, it soon became worse and more set against them. Both vessels were able to keep company, but each tack took longer, each mile gained could be quadrupled by the distance sailed to achieve it.
Every time that Sparke went on deck he showed no sign of apprehension or dismay. He usually examined the Thrush through his glass and then looked up at his own flag. Bolitho had heard one of the marines whispering to his friend that Sparke had made himself an admiral of his own squadron.
The weather and the constant demands of working the schooner to windward had cleared most of the tension and bitterness from Bolitho's thoughts. On the face of it, it had been a success. A vessel seized, another destroyed, and many of the enemy killed or routed. If the plan had misfired, and the trap laid in reverse, he doubted if the enemy would have showed them any mercy either. Once aboard the schooner, the combined numbers of both cutters would have swamped Sparke's resistance before the nine-pounder could have levelled the balance.
It took three days to reach the place where the brig was supposedly hidden. The rugged coastline which pointed south towards the entrance of Chesapeake Bay was treacherous, even more than that which they had left astern. Many a coasting vessel, and larger ships as well, had come to grief as they had battered through foul weather to find the narrow entrance to the bay. Once within it there was room for a fleet, and then some. But to get there was something else entirely, as Bunce had remarked often enough.
Once again, the sad-faced Moffitt was the one to step forward and offer to go ashore alone and spy out the land.
The Faith ful's boat had taken him in, while close to the nearest land both vessels had anchored and mounted
