to engage, it would be over in minutes. Her lower gundeck was crammed with thirty-two-pounders. One of those could smash through two and a half feet of solid oak at maximum range. Bolitho tried not to picture what would happen to the Phalarope's frail timbers.
`Ready, sir!' McIntosh was yelling like a madman.
Bolitho drew his sword. `Larboard a point, Mr. Proby!' He watched the jib flapping and dropped his sword.
`Fire!'
Herrick felt the deck shudder beneath him as both carronades fired almost together. As the thick muzzle smoke eddied clear he stared up at the French ship's stern, momentarily forgetting the battle which raged around him. A few seconds earlier he had watched the tall stern emerge from the fog of gunfire and had seen the great cabin windows with their life-sized figures on either quarter, full-breasted nymphs carrying tridents with the vessel's name, Ondine, in scarlet and gilt across the wide counter between them, and had marvelled at the ship's overpowering appearance of grandeur and indestructibility. As the smoke moved clear he gaped at the black jagged holes which left the stem like the entrance of a fire-scarred cave. At the horror and chaos beyond he could only briefly imagine, for as a fresh gust of wind moved busily through the Phalarope's sails the deck tilted, and with her helm hard over she swung in a tight arc around the enemy ship's larboard quarter.
He shouted hoarsely above the din, `Ready, lads!' He peered along the crouching line of gun captains. `Fire as you bear!'
The first guns of the starboard battery fired as one, and in ragged succession the others followed as lanyard after lanyard was pulled taut, and the double-shotted charges crashed into the trapped smoke alongside.
A few men were cheering, their cries broken by coughs and curses as the smoke swirled back through the open ports.
Herrick yelled, `Reload! Reload and run out!' He watched narrowly as the frigate moved down the other ship's beam, barely twenty yards clear. He could see the crowded heads on the high bulwark, the stabbing yellow flashes of muskets from her tops, but from the lower gundeck with its line of powerful guns there was not a single shot in reply. The carronades' lethal attack must have swept through the crowded gundeck like a scythe through a field of standing corn.
But as he watched he saw the first guns on the upperdeck lurch back at their ports, and then in the twinkling of an eye the whole upper battery erupted in one deafening broadside.
Herrick fell back, half stunned by the volume of the combined sounds of exploding guns, following instantly by the demoniac screams of balls above his head. The nets which Bolitho had ordered to be placed over the maindeck jumped and vibrated to falling wreckage, blocks, severed rigging and whole strips of blackened canvas. But Herrick stared up with amazement as he realised that the ill-aimed broadside had missed everything vital to Phalarope's movements. Not a mast or spar had fallen. Had it been the lower battery, he knew that the frigate's starboard side and gunports would now be a shattered ruin.
He heard the gun captains shouting like demons. `Run out! Heave on the tackles! Stand clear!' Then with the jerk of trigger lines the guns rumbled back to the full extent of their tackles.
A musket clattered by Herrick's feet, and as he stared upwards he looked into the dead eyes of a spreadeagled marine who had pitched down from the maintop on to the net below.
But he forgot the marine immediately as something more terrible took his attention. Through the smoke, falling like a giant tree, he saw the Ondine's mizzenmast. It was impossible, but it was happening. Mast, top and topgallant, with all the attendant weight of sails, rigging and yards, hung in the air as if caught in a strong wind. Then, amid the screams and desperate cries of those men caught like flies in the shrouds, it crashed down across the Phalarope's quarterdeck. The hull quivered as if the frigate had hit a reef, and as Herrick ran aft to the ladder he felt the Phalarope shake from truck to keel and then begin to swing slowly to starboard. Like an unyielding bridge the Ondine's severed mast held both ships together, and as a fresh burst of musket fire struck foot-long splinters from the deck, Herrick fought his way up the ladder and stared with dismay at the destruction around him.
A complete yard had fallen amongst Rennie's marines, and he turned away from the smashed, writhing remains as Sergeant Garwood roared, `Stand to! Leave those men alone!' He was glaring at the remainder of his marines. `Rapid fire on her poop, my lads!' He vanished in a fresh cloud of smoke as the frigate's guns fired again, the shots crashing into the Ondine's hull, which at the nearest point was ten feet clear.
Herrick pushed past the struggling seamen who were trying to hack away the French rigging and dropped on one knee beside Bolitho. For a moment he thought the captain had been hit by a musket ball, but as he slid his arm beneath his shoulders Bolitho opened hiss eyes and struggled into a sitting position. He blinked at Herrick's anxious face and said, `Keep the guns firing, Herrick!' He peered up at the enemy ship alongside and pulled himself to his feet. `We must stop them boarding us!' He groped for his sword and shouted harshly, `Cut that wreckage away!'
Okes staggered through the smoke, his breeches and coat splashed with blood and torn flesh. His eyes seemed to fill his face, and although he appeared to be shouting, Herrick could hear nothing.
Bolitho pointed with his sword. `Mr. Okes, clear the larboard battery and prepare to repel boarders!' He reached out and shook the lieutenant like a dog. `Do you hear me, damn you?'
Okes nodded violently, and a long thread of spittle ran down his chin.
Bolitho pushed him to the ladder, but Herrick said quickly, `I'll do it, sir!'
`No you won't!' Bolitho looked wild. `Get your guns firing! It is our only chance!'
At that moment the Ondine's guns banged out once again, and Herrick flinched as the salvo seared his face like a hot wind. He saw a party of sailors hacking away a length of broken shrouds. In the next instant there was nothing but a squirming mass of pulped flesh and bones, with a gaping gash in the lee bulwark beyond,
Bolitho shouted in his ear, `We'll not be so lucky next time!'
Herrick ran down the ladder, closing his eyes and ears to the horror beside him as more great blows shook the frigate's hull like hammers on an anvil. He walked through the smoke, his eyes streaming, his throat like sand, as he shouted wild and unheeded encouragement to the powder-blackened gunners.
Farquhar caught his arm and shouted, `They'll never cut that mast away in time!' He pointed towards the Ondine's lower gundeck. `They'll not be silent for ever.'
Herrick did not reply. With the wind at her beam, and held aft by the broken mast, the Phalarope's bows were starting to swing inwards towards the Ondine's hull. Through the smoke he could see men running along the two- decker's side towards the point of contact, the filtered sunlight playing on raised weapons.
He saw Okes groping towards the forecastle, his sword still in its sheath. He snapped, `Go with him, Mr. Farquhar! He looks in a bad condition!'
Farquhar's eyes gleamed coldly. `It will be a pleasure!'
Herrick flinched as a complete section of the starboard gangway splintered skyward and one of the twelve- pounders lurched on to its side. A seaman screamed as a severed head landed at his feet, and another ran from the gun, his eyes blinded by flying splinters.
Herrick called, `Take those men below!' But as he shouted he heard the sudden clank of pumps and knew that it was probably just as safe on deck.
He tried to shut it all from his mind and made himself walk back along the line of guns. Men were falling all around him but he knew he must not falter, and shouted, `Keep hitting 'em, lads!' He waved his hat. `If you want to see England again, keep those guns firing!'
On the forecastle the men from the unemployed guns gathered below the nettings, their hands gripping cutlasses and boarding axes as the bowsprit quivered against the enemy's forerigging. Okes croaked, `Over you go, lads! Keep those swine off our bows!'
Some of the men cheered and began to scramble out along the bowsprit, others fell back as a flurry of musket shots cut through the eager sailors and sent their corpses spinning into the water below.
Farquhar said urgently, `You must lead them! My God, you're asking the impossible!'
Okes swung round, his mouth slack. `Hold your tongue! I'll give the orders!'
Farquhar eyed him coolly. `I have said nothing in the past, Mr. Okes! But I will say it now as it seems we will all die today!' His hat was plucked away by a musket ball but he did not drop his eyes. `You are a cheat, a coward and a liar! If I thought you were worth it, I, would discredit you here and now in front of these men, whom you are too squeamish to lead!' He turned his back on Okes' stricken face and shouted, `Follow me, you ragged heroes!' He waved his sword. `Make way for a younger man!'
They laughed like lunatics and slapped his shoulders as he crawled over the nettings and clambered on to the
