wreckage away before it swung the ship stem on towards those merciless guns.
And aft, his face like stone, Pears watched all of it, giving his orders, not even flinching as splinters whipped past him to bring down more of the crouching gun crews.
Midshipman Huss appeared on deck, his eyes white with fear. He saw Bolitho and shouted frantically, 'Mr Dalyell's fallen, sir! I – I can't find…' He spun round, his face gaping with astonishment and freezing there as he pitched forward at Bolitho's feet.
Bolitho shouted, 'Get below, James! Take command of the lower gundeck!'
But Quinn was staring transfixed at the midshipman. Blood was pouring from a great hole in his back, but one hand still moved, as if it and nothing else was holding on to life.
A seaman turned the boy over and rasped, 'Done for, sir.'
'Did you hear?' Bolitho gripped Quinn's arm, Huss and all else forgotten. 'Get below!'
Quinn half turned, his eyes widening as more cries and screams came up from the other gundeck.
He stammered, 'Can't. Can't… do… it.'
His head fell forward, and Bolitho saw tears running down his face, cutting pale furrows through the grime of gunsmoke.
An unfamiliar voice snapped, 'I'll go.' It was Ackerman, the immaculate flag lieutenant. 'I can manage.' He stared at Quinn as if he could not believe what he saw. 'The admiral sent me.'
Bolitho peered aft, shocked by Quinn's collapse, stunned by the horror and bloody shambles all around him.
Through the drifting smoke and dangling creeper of severed rigging their eyes met. Then Coutts gave a slight wave and what could have been a shrug.
The deck shivered, and Bolitho knew that the broken mast had been hacked free.
Trojan was turning to windward, laying her enemy in the sights again, seemingly unreachable and beyond hurt.
Fire!'
The men sprang back, groping for their rammers and spikes, cursing and cheering like mad things from bedlam.
Quinn stood as before, oblivious to the hiss of iron overhead, to the crawling wounded, to the danger of his position as the enemy's mizzen and then mainmast towered high above the nettings.
Fifty yards, certainly no more, Bolitho thought wildly. Both ships were firing blindly through the churning smoke which was trapped between them as if to cushion the hammer blows.
A seaman ran from his gun, crazed by the din and slaughter, trying to reach a hatchway. To go deeper and deeper until he found the keel, like a terrified animal going to ground. A marine sentry raised his musket as if to club him down, but let it fall, as if he too was past reason and hope.
Couzens was tugging Bolitho's sleeve, his round face screwed up as if to shut out the awful sights.
'Yes?' Bolitho had no idea how long he had been there. 'What is it?'
The midshipman tore his eyes from Huss's corpse. 'The captain says that the enemy intends to board us!' He stared at Quinn. `You are to take charge forrard.' He showed his old stubbornness. 'I will assist.'
Bolitho gripped his shoulder. Through the thin blue coat the boy's body was hot, as if burning with fever.
'Go and get some men from below.' As the boy made to run he called, 'Walk, Mr Couzens. Show the people how calm you are.' He forced a grin. 'No matter how you may feel.'
He turned back to the guns, astounded he could speak like that when at any second he would be dead. Worse, he might be lying pinned on the surgeon's table, waiting for the first touch of his knife.
He watched the set of the enemy's yards, the way the angle was more acute as both ships idled closer together. The guns showed no sign of lessening, even though they were firing at point-blank range, some hurling blazing wads through the smoke which were almost as much danger as the balls.
There were new sounds now. The distant crack of muskets, the thuds of shots hitting deck and gangway, or ripping harmlessly into the packed hammock nettings.
From the maintop he heard the bark of a swivel and saw a cluster of marksmen drop from the enemy's mizzen-top, swept aside like dead fruit by a hail of canister.
Individual faces stood out on the Argonaute's decks, and he saw a petty officer pointing him out to another sharpshooter on the gangway. But he was felled by one of D'Esterre's marines even as he raised his musket to shoot.
He heard men scrambling up from the lower gundeck, the rasp of steel as they seized their cutlasses. Balleine, the boatswain's mate, stood by the mainmast rack, issuing the boarding pikes to anyone who came near him.
'We will touch bow to bow.' Bolitho had spoken aloud without knowing it. 'Not much time.' He drew his curved hanger and waved it over his head. `Clear the larboard battery! Come with me!'
A single ball crashed through an open port and beheaded a seaman even as he ran to obey. For a few moments the headless corpse stood stock-still, as if undecided what to do. Then it fell, and was forgotten as swearing and cheering the seamen dashed towards the forecastle, nothing in their minds but the towering bank of pockmarked sails alongside, the crimson stab of musketfire.
Bolitho stared, watching the other ship's great bowsprit and jib boom poking through the smoke, thrusting above the forecastle and beakhead as if nothing could stop it. There were men already there, firing down at Trojan's deck, brandishing their weapons, while beneath them their fierce-eyed figurehead watched the scene with incredible menace.
Then with a violent shudder both hulls ground together. Harking and stabbing, Trojan's men swarmed to repel boarders, and from aft D'Esterre's men kept up a withering fire on the enemy's quarterdeck and poop.
Bolitho jumped over a fallen seaman and yelled, 'Here they come!'
A French seaman tried to scramble on to the cathead, but a blow with a belaying pin knocked him aside, and a lunge from a pike sent him down between the hulls.
Bolitho found himself face to face with a young lieutenant. His sword-arm came up, the two blades circled warily and with care, despite the surging press of fighting figures all around.
The French officer lunged, his eyes widening with fear as Bolitho side-stepped and knocked his arm aside with his hanger, seeing the sleeve open up, the blood spurting out like paint.
Bolitho hesitated and then hacked him across the collar-bone, seeing him die before he hit the water alongside.
More men were hurrying to his aid, but when he twisted his head he saw Quinn standing by his guns as before, as if he would never move again.
Smoke swirled and then enveloped the gasping and struggling men, and Bolitho realized that the wind was strengthening, pushing the ships along in a terrible embrace.
Another figure blocked his path, and again the clang of steel dominated everything else.
He watched the man's face, detached, without feeling, meeting each thrust, testing his strength, expecting an agonizing blade through his stomach if he lost his balance.
There were others beside him. Raye of the marines, Joby Scales, the carpenter, wielding a great hammer, Varlo, the seaman who had been crossed in love, Dunwoody, the miller's son, and of course Stockdale, whose cutlass was taking a terrible toll.
Something struck him on the head and he felt blood running down his neck. But the pain only helped to tighten his guard, to make him examine his enemy's moves like an onlooker.
A dying seaman fell whimpering against the other man, making him dart a quick glance to his right. Just a second, no more than a flash of his eyes in the misty sunlight. It was enough, and Bolitho leapt over the corpse, his hanger still red as he rallied his men around the forecastle. He could not even remember driving the blade into flesh and bone.
Somebody slipped in a pool of blood and crashed into his spine. He fell sprawling, only retaining his hanger because of the lanyard around his wrist.
As he struggled to rise he saw with amazement that there was a glint of water below him, and as he stared down he could see it was widening. The ships were drifting apart.
The French boarders had realized it too, and while some tried to climb back on to the overlapping bowsprit, others made to jump, only to fall headlong into the sea to join the bobbing litter of corpses and frantic swimmers.
