A powder monkey ran weeping towards the magazine hatch, only to be pushed away by one of the marine sentries. He had dropped his cartridge carrier and was running below, to the safety of darkness. But the sentry yelled at him and then struck at him with his musket. The boy reeled back and then seemed to come to his senses. With a sniff he picked up his carrier and made for the nearest gun.
There was a scream of shot, and Herrick turned biting back vomit as the eighteen-pound shot cut the boy in half. The head and shoulders remained upright on the planking for several seconds, and before he turned away Herrick saw that the boy's eyes were still open and staring.
He cannoned into Okes who still stood with upraised sword, his eyes fixed and glassy as he gaped at the remains of his battery.
Herrick shouted, 'Fire, Matthew! Give the order!'
Okes dropped his sword and here and there a gun lurched back adding its voice to the dreadful symphony.
Okes said, `We're done for! We'll have to strike!'
'Strike?' Herrick stared at him. All at once the reality was cruel and personal again. Death and surrender had always been words, a necessary but unlikely alternative to victory. He looked towards the quarterdeck at Bolitho's tall figure and the marines beyond. The latter must have been firing their muskets for some while, yet Herrick had not even noticed. He saw Sergeant Garwood with his half-pike dressing one rank where two red-coated bodies had left gaps in the line, while he called out the time and numbers to his men as they reloaded and fired another volley into the smoke. Captain Rennie had his back to the enemy and was staring across the other rail as if seeing the sea for the first time.
Pryce, the gun captain, gave one long scream and fell backwards at Herrick's feet. A long splinter had been torn from the deck and had embedded itself in the man's shoulder. Through the blood Herrick could see the thick stump of jagged timber sticking out like a tooth, and knew that the other end would be deep inside. The splinters were always the most dangerous and had to be cut out from the flesh in one piece.
Herrick gestured towards the men by the main hatch. 'Take this one below to the surgeon!' They had been staring at a pulped corpse beside the hatch, its teeth white against the flayed flesh, and Herrick's harsh tone seemed to give them strength to break the spell.
Pryce began to scream. 'No! Leave me here by the gun! For God's sake, don't take me below!'
One of the men whispered, 'Fs a brave 'un! 'E don't want to leave 'is station!'
Pochin spat on the gun and watched the spittle hissing on the barrel. 'Squit! 'E'd rather die up 'ere than face the butcher's knife.'
There was a splintering crack, like that of a coach whip, high overhead, and as Herrick squinted up through the drift ing smoke he saw the maintopgallant quiver, and then as the wind tore jubilantly at the released canvas it began to slide forward.
Herrick cupped his hands. `Look alive, you men! Get aloft and cut those shrouds! It'll foul the foremast otherwise!'
He saw Quintal and some seamen running up the shrouds and then winced as another cannon ball ploughed along the deck by his feet and smashed into two wounded gunners beside the lee bulwark. He looked away, sickened, and heard Vibart yell, 'Heads below! The t'gallant is falling!'
With a jarring crash the long spar pitched over the bulwark and remained trapped and tangled in a mass of rigging, the torn sail ballooning in the water alongside and dragging at the ship like a sea anchor.
To add to the horror, Herrick could see the man, Betts, the one who had first sighted the other frigate, pinned in the trailing rigging like an insect in a web.
Vibart yelled, 'Axes there! Cut that wreckage adrift!'
Betts stared up at the frigate with glazed eyes, his voice short and painful between his teeth. 'Help me! Don't let me go to the bottom, lads!'
But already the axes were at work, the:men driven half mad by the din, too dazed to care for the suffering of one more seaman.
Okes seized Herrick's arm. 'Why doesn't he strike? For Christ's sake look what he's doing to us!'
Herrick's mind was dulled and refused to work clearly any more. But he could see what Okes was trying to show him. The heart had gone out of the men, what heart there had been. They crouched and whimpered as the enemy balls thundered all around them, and only occasionally did a single gun reply. Then it was usually a small handful of men led by one seasoned and dedicated gun captain which kept up a onesided exchange with the enemy.
Herrick shut his ears to the screaming wounded as they were dragged below and closed his eyes to everything but the small open patch of quarterdeck where Bolitho stood alone by the rail. His hat had gone and his coat was stained with powder and blown spray. Even as he watched Herrick saw a messenger run towards the captain, only to be cut down by musket fire from the other vessel as she loomed sideways out of the smoke. Musket balls were thudding against the hammock nettings and biting across the deck, yet Bolitho never budged, nor did he alter his expression of detached determination.
Only once did he look up, and then to glance at the large scarlet ensign which streamed from the gaff, as if to reassure himself that it still flew.
Herrick shook his head. `He'll not strike! He'll see us all dead first!'
5. RUM AND RECRIMINATIONS
The deck slewed over as the Phalarope's helm went hard down and she swung blindly on to her new course. Bolitho had lost count of the number of times his ship had changed direction or even how long they had been fighting.
Of one thing he was sure. The Andiron was outmanoeuvring him, was still holding to windward and keeping up a steady barrage. His own gunners were hampered by yet another hazard. The wind was falling away, and his men were now firing blindly into an unbroken bank of thick smoke which rolled down from the other ship and mingled with their own intermittent firing. -The smoke seemed to writhe with many colours as the American privateer continued the attack. Once, when a freak wind had blown the smoke skywards like a curtain Bolitho had seen the Andiron's battery belching long orange flames as each gun was trained and fired singly across the bare quarter mile between the two frigates. They were firing high, the balls screaming through the rigging and slashing the remaining sails to ribbons. Ropes and stays hung from above like weed, and every so often heavy blocks and long slivers of wood would fall amongst the labouring gunners or splash in the clear water alongside.
She intended to dismast and cripple the Phalarope. Maybe her captain had plans for using another captured ship, just as he had the Andiron.
The long nine-pounders on the quarterdeck recoiled as one, their sharp, barking detonations penetrating the innermost membranes of Bolitho's ears as he stared through the smoke and then back at his own command. Only on the quarterdeck was there still some semblance of unity and order. Midshipman Farquhar stood by the taffrail, his eyes bright but determined as he passed his orders to the gun captains. Rennie's marines were standing fast, too. From their smokeblinded positions behind the hammock nettings they kept up a steady musket fire whenever the other ship showed herself through the choking fog of powder smoke.
But the maindeck was different. Bolitho let his eyes move slowly over the chaos of scarred planking and grisly remains which marked every foot of deck space. The guns were still firing, but the intervals were longer, the aim less certain.
At first Bolitho had been amazed at the success of that opening broadside. He had known that later the lack of training would slow down the barrage, but he had not dared to hope for such a good opening. The double-shotted guns had fired almost as one, the ship staggering from the combined recoil. He had seen the bulwarks jump apart on the other frigate, had watched the balls tear through the packed gunners and gouge into her spray-dashed hull. It had seemed momentarily that the battle might still be contained.
Through the streaming smoke he saw Herrick moving slowly aft along the starboard battery checking the gunners and aiming each weapon himself before allowing the gun captain to jerk his trigger line. It should have been Okes on the starboard side, but perhaps he was already dead, like so many of the others.
Bolitho made himself examine each part of the agonising panorama which the Phalarope now represented. His
