A few threw up their hands in surrender, but when a marine was shot dead by an enemy marksman, they too were driven bodily over the side.
Bolitho felt the strength ebbing out of him, and he had to hold on to the bulwark for support. A few guns were still firing haphazardly through the smoke, but it was over. The Argonaute's sails were coming about, and very slowly she began to stand away, her stern turning towards Trojan's poop like the hinges of a gate.
Bolitho realized that he was on his back, looking at the sky, which seemed unnaturally clear and blue. So clean, too. Far away. His thoughts were drifting like the smoke and the two badly mauled ships.
A shadow loomed over him and he realized that Stockdaie was kneeling beside him, his battered face lined with anxiety.
He tried to tell him he was all right. That he was resting.
A voice shouted, 'Take Mr Bolitho to the orlop at once!'
Then he did try to protest, but the effort was too much and with it came the darkness.
Bolitho opened his eyes and blinked rapidly to clear his vision. As the pain returned to his head he realized he was down on the orlop deck, a place of semi-darkness at the best of times. Now, with deckhead lanterns swinging to the ship's heavy motion, and others being carried this way and that, it was like looking at hell.
He was propped against Trojan's great timbers, and through his shirt he could feel the hull working through a deep swell. As his eyes grew used to the gloom he saw that the whole area from the sickbay to the hanging magazine was filled with men. Some lay quite still and were probably dead, others rocked back and forth, crouching like terrified animals as they nursed their private pain.
In the centre of the deck, directly below the largest number of lanterns, Thorndike and his assistants worked in grim silence on an unconscious seaman, while one of the surgeon's loblolly boys dashed away with a bucket from which protruded an amputated arm.
Bolitho reached up and felt his head. It was crusted in blood, and there was a lump like an egg. He felt the relief welling from his taut stomach muscles like a flood, stinging the back of his eyes so that lie could feel tears running down his face. As another figure was carried to the table and stripped of his blackened clothing, Bolitho felt ashamed. He had been terrified of what would, happen, but compared with the man who was whimpering and pleading with the surgeon he was unhurt.
'Please, sir!' The man was sobbing uncontrollably, so that even some of the other wounded forgot their pain and watched.
Thorndike turned from a locker, wiping his mouth. He looked like a stranger, and his hands, like his long apron, were red with blood.
'I am sorry.'
Thorndike nodded to his assistant, and Bolitho saw the injured man's shattered leg for the first time and realized it was one of his own gun crews who had been pinned under a cannon.
He was still pleading, 'Not me leg, sir!'
A bottle was thrust to his lips, and as he let his head fall back, choking and gasping on neat rum, a leather strap was put between his teeth.
Bolitho saw the glitter of the knife and turned his face away. It was wrong for a man to suffer like this, to scream and choke on his own vomit while his stricken messmates watched in silence,
Thorndike snapped, 'Too late. Take him on deck.' He reached out for his bottle again. 'NextV
A seaman was kneeling beside Bolitho while some wood splinters were plucked from his back.
It was the masthead look-out, Buller.
He winced and then said, 'Reckon I'm a lucky one today, zur. That was all he said, but it spoke volumes.
'You all right, sir?' It was Midshipman Couzens. 'I was sent by the first lieutenant.' He flinched as someone started to scream. 'Oh God, sir!'
Bolitho reached out. 'Help me up. Must get out of here.' He staggered to his feet and clung to the boy's shoulder like a drunken sailor. 'I'll not forget this, ever.'
Stockdale strode to meet them, ducking beneath the deckhead beams, his face creased with worry.
'Let me take him!'
The journey to the upper deck was in itself another part of the nightmare. The lower gundeck was still wreathed in trapped smoke, the red-painted sides only hiding some of the battle's agony.
He saw Lieutenant Dalyell with his two remaining midshipmen, Lunn and Burslem, discussing with the gun captains what had to be done.
Dalyell saw Bolitho and hurried over, his open face filled with obvious pleasure.
'Thank God, Dick! I had heard you were done for!'
Bolitho tried to smile, but the pain in his skull stopped it.
'I heard much the same about you!'
'Aye. A gun exploded. I was stunned by the blast. But for the men nearby, I would be dead.' He shook his head. 'Poor Huss. He was a brave lad.'
Bolitho nodded slowly. They had begun with nine midshipmen. One promoted, one taken prisoner, and now one killed. The midshipman's berth would be a sad place after this.
Dalyell looked away. 'So much for the admiral's strategy. A very high price for what we have done.'
Bolitho continued with his two helpers to the upper gundeck, and stood for several moments sucking in the air and looking up at the clear sky above the severed topgallant mast.
Men were being carried below, and Bolitho wondered how Thorndike could go on. Cutting, sawing and stitching. He shuddered violently. Others were being dragged beneath the gangways,,limp and without identity, to await the sailmaker and his mates, who would sew them up in their hammocks for the last journey. How far had Bunce said it was? One thousand five hundred fathoms hereabouts. A long, dark passage. Perhaps there was peace there.
He shook himself and winced at the stabbing pain. He was getting hazy again. It had to stop.
Cairns said, 'Good to see you, Dick.' He looked tired and drained. 'I could do with some help,' he hesitated, 'if you feel up to it?'
Bolitho nodded, moved that this man who carried so much had found time to ask about him and how he was faring on the orlop.
'It will be good for me.'
He made himself look along the torn and splintered deck where he had been such a short while ago. Upended guns, great coils of fallen cordage and ripped canvas. Men picking their way amongst it like survivors from a shipwreck. How could any man have lived through it? To see such chaos made it seem impossible.
Ile asked, 'How is James?'
Cairns ' eyes were bleak. 'The fourth lieutenant is alive, I believe.' He patted Bolitho's arm. `I must be off. You remain here and assist the boatswain.'
Bolitho crossed to the first division of eighteen-pounders, where he had been for most of the battle. He could see the Argonaute, stern on and a good three miles downwind. Even if they could complete some temporary repairs in time, they would not catch the Frenchman now.
Stockdale spoke for both of them. 'Anyways, we beat ' em off. Short-handed though we was, sir, we gave as good as we got.'
Couzens said huskily, 'But the brig got away.'
The sailing master towered above the quarterdeck rail and boomed, 'Come now, Mr Bolitho, this will not do! I have a ship to steer, a course to lay! To do that I need sails and more halliards than I can see at present!' His black brows descended over his deepset eyes and he added, 'You did well today. I saw.' He nodded firmly, as if he had said far too much.
For the rest of the day the ship's company went about the work of putting Trojan to rights as best they could. The dead were buried and the wounded made as comfortable as possible. Samuel Pinhorn, the sailmaker, had kept plenty of spare canvas on deck, knowing that more would die before reaching port.
It was amazing that men could work after what they had been through. Perhaps it was work which saved them, for no ship can sail without care and constant attention.
A jury-mast was hoisted to replace the topgallant, and as the seamen bustled far above the deck the cordage dangled down on either side like weed.
Hammers and saws, tar and paint, needles and twine.
The only thing which happened to make them stop, to stare abeam and remember, was the sudden appearance
