Like a great tusk the jib boom smashed through Revenge's rigging and stays, the impact shaking the hull and deck with the force of going aground.
And still the wind, and the White Hills' impetus, drove them harder and faster together, until with a tremendous crash, followed by the sounds of spars splintering in half, the two brigs came together in a brutal embrace.
Bolitho's ears were ringing to the sounds of falling rigging and thrashing sails, of Revenge's topmast, complete with topgallant and a mountain of uncontrollable canvas, plunging down through the drifting gunsmoke to add to the destruction.
But he was angry, wildly so, and could not control himself as he waved his hanger and shouted, 'Come on, lads! At 'em!'
He saw the dazed faces change to maddened excitement as they responded. In a small tide they charged towards the bows, while from aft Bolitho could hear Frowd and his collection of cripples firing across the arrowhead of water with every weapon they could lay hands on.
And here was the enemy's deck right beneath his legs. Staring eyes and wild shouts, while others struggled and kicked beneath the severed rigging and splintered woodwork.
A bayonet lunged out and sent a seaman screaming down into the smoke, but Bolitho let himself drop, felt his feet find their balance on the other deck, while on either side of him his boarding party surged forward to the attack. The man with the bayoneted musket swung wildly to face him, but Stockdale seized him and smashed the cutlass-guard in his mouth. As the man toppled away, Stockdale hacked him across the neck and finished it.
The first shocked surprise at seeing the White Hills turn towards them and deliberately force herself into a collision would soon give way to a rage and determination to overwhelm that of the boarders. This, Bolitho knew, but at a distance, as if it were already beyond his reach.
Once, as he ducked beneath a fallen yard to slash a man across the arm who was aiming a pistol at somebody, Bolitho caught a glimpse of his brief command. With her big mainyard sprung in two like a giant's longbow, and with the canvas and rigging piled over her forecastle like so much rubbish, she looked almost a wreck.
Beyond the debris, and licking above the thinning smoke, he saw a patch of scarlet, and realized that despite everything which had happened he had given the order to run up the colours, and yet could remember nothing about it.
'This way, lads!' It was Buller, brandishing a boarding axe and a pistol. 'Fight yer way aft!' Then he fell, his face set in an expression of complete surprise.
Now So Gallant Z83
Bolitho gritted his teehh, Time, which they had won with such care, had run out.
From the Revenge's quarterdeck came the crash of a swivel gun, and Bolitho realized that someone was still firing at the White Hills, Above the din of clashing steel, screams and curses, he heard answering shots, a.d could picture Frowd yelling defiance, and waiting to die.
Somehow they had fought their way to the midships part of the deck, where the piled debris of cordage and broken spars made every move doubly hard, but where, if you hesitated, it was asking to be killed.
He saw Dunwoody rolling over and over on the bloodied deck, struggling with one of the Revenge's seamen, one hand cut to shreds as he tried to hold off the man's dirk while he groped for his fallen cutlass. Another man ran from the smoke, raised a boarding pike and drove it through Dunwoody s neck, pinioning his kicking body to the planking until the dirk stabbed him into stillness.
Bolitho saw it all, and as he struggled over an upended gig he found himself face to face with the Revenge's captain. Beyond him he could see the abandoned wheel and the torn splinters standing up from the quarterdeck like quills, the sprawled bodies and crawling wounded who had fallen to the four doubly loaded six-pounders.
Bolitho ducked as the man's blade sliced above his head, caught his foot in a trailing rope and fell heavily on his side. He watched the blade rise and plunge towards him again, and held up his hanger to take the brunt of the blow. The numbing shock jarred his shoulder like a kick, and he saw the other officer turn and run aft, leaving Bolitho rather than face a sudden rally of the boarding party. Rabbett, his cutlass bloody to the hilt, Carlsson, the Swede, with a bayoneted musket he must have snatched from one of the brig's men, even Borga, the Roman cook, who held a dirk in either hand like one of his ancestors in the gladiators' arena, were still here and ready to fight.
On the far side of the deck he saw Quinn with the rest of the boarders, white-faced and with blood running from his forehead, locked in combat with twice his own number.
Bolitho saw Couzens and yelled hoarsely, `Get back aboard! I told you to stay with Mr Frowd!'
He gasped and ducked as a shadow passed in front of him. Then with a sharp twist of his arm he brought the hanger round to lock with his attacker's cutlass.
The man was a petty officer of sorts and, he guessed, as English as himself.
'You've bitten off too much this time, sir!'
Bolitho felt the man's strength forcing him back, the blade inches from his chest. It was not that he was a better swordsman, but his voice, if not Cornish, was certainly from Bolitho's own West Country.
Moffitt rose shaking his head like a prize-fighter, the blood of another victim glittering on his cutlass.
`And you!'
Bolitho fell back with the petty officer on top of him. Moffitt's blade had been driven into his spine with such force it was a wonder it had not pinioned both of them.
Couzens was ducking and side-stepping wildly as figures staggered and kicked around him like madmen. Steel on steel, and from right aft a chorus of screams as a swivel exploded and burst apart amongst its own crew.
But he managed to shout, 'I came to help!'
Bolitho shook his arm, feeling him cringe, as he said, 'Take two men and get below! Tell them I want this brig set alight!' He knew the boy was terrified of him, his wildness, and his despair. 'Do it!'
Shots were hitting the deck around him and making the corpses jerk to their impact. The Revenge's captain had sent marksmen aloft to mark down Frowd's puny challenge and to kill any of the boarders who looked like an officer or a leader.
Stockdale bellowed, 'Watch out, sir!' He lunged forward as a man rushed at Bolitho with a cutlass, but was not quick enough.
Bolitho saw the fury on the seaman's contorted features and wondered if he himself looked like that, if that was why Couzens had seemed so frightened of him.
The heavy cutlass grated across Bolitho's sword-belt, scoring the brass plate like a musket-ball.
Bolitho saw the man's expression change to fear, then to nothing as t1he hanger opened his face from eye to jaw and threw him screaming into the men behind him.
Bolitho felt sick, worn out and stunned by the savagery of battle. Couzens would not be able to fire the brig, and in any case they had started to cheer. The battle was nearly done. Like Quinn, he had tried.
There it was again, wild and uncontrolled. 'Huzza! Huzzaf'
Bolitho stared at Stockdale. 'That was no enemy!'
He swung round, dropping his guard for the first time, as through the fore-hatch came a sudden rush of dirty, unshaven figures.
Couzens was running with them, beside himself with ecstasy as he shouted, 'Prisoners, sir!'
He was pushed away by the released men as they snatched up fallen cutlasses, belaying pins, anything which could hit or maim their old captors.
Bolitho thought he must be going mad, and yet it was happening. They were obviously seamen captured in previous battles, maybe some from this very brig. But they charged through the dwindling boarding party like an avenging tidal wave, beating down the privateer's crew and hurling some of them over the side in their determination to seize the poop.
Bolitho shouted, 'Come on, lads! One last effort!'
Then, cheering and yelling meaningless words he ran with the rest, his arm like lead as he hacked and parried, cat and pushed his way aft.
A few shots were still hitting the deck nearby, and without warning a seaman slithered down a stay and snatched a pistol from his belt, his face frozen in concentration as he stared at the onrushing figures.
He must have known that nothing could save him, and yet some last spark of anger or pride held him there.
Couzens found himself face to face with him. Bolitho saw what was happening, but was several paces away,
