close action. The smoke was already thicker. Perhaps Allday was right, or maybe a burning wad from one of Undine's guns had found its way into the hull when Soames had sent his last broadside crashing home. Either way, both ships would be destroyed unless he acted, and at once.
He yelled, 'Captain Bellairs! Fall back!'
He saw Bellairs gaping at him, blood dripping unheeded from a gash on his forehead.
Then he, too, seemed to get a grip on his own lust of battle and shouted, 'Sound the retreat!' He sought out his sergeant whose massive frame had somehow avoided both steel and musket ball. 'Coaker! Take that fool's name if he don't do as I ask!'
Coaker gripped a small marine drummer boy, but he was dead, his eyes glazed and unseeing as Coaker wrenched the trumpet from his hands and blew it with all his might.
It was almost harder to discontinue the battle thanto board the other frigate. Back and back, here and there a man' falling, or being hauled bodily across the gap between the hulls to avoid capture. The pirates had at last seen their own danger, and without the French lieutenant in command they seemed intent only on abandoning their ship as quickly as they could.
The first tongue of flame licked through a hatch, bringing a chorus of shrieks from the abandoned wounded, and within seconds the gratings and surrounding boat tier were well ablaze.
Bolitho gripped the ratlines and took a last look as his men threw themselves on to Undine's gangway. Forward, Shellabeer's men were already cutting the lashing which held the hulls together, and with the topsails once more braced round, and the helm over, Undine began to sidle clear, the wind holding the smoke and sparks away from her own canvas and vulnerable rigging.
Mudge panted, 'What now, sir?'
Bolitho watched the frigate slipping past, a few crazed men still firing across the widening gap.
He shouted, 'A final broadside, Mr. Soames!'
But it was already too late. A great sheet of flame burst upwards through the vessel's gun deck, setting the broken foremast and sails alight and leaping to the mainyards like part of a forest fire.
Bolitho heard himself reply, 'Get the forecourse on her, and smartly with it. We'll not be able to beat back the way we came. That ship's magazine will go at any moment, so we will try the eastern channel.'
Mudge said, 'May be too shallow, sir.' 'Would you burn, Mr. Mudge?'
He strode to the taffrail to watch the frigate as the blaze engulfed the poop. An English ship. It were better this way, he thought vaguely.
He turned and added harshly, 'Mr. Davy, I want a full report of damage.' He waited, seeing the wildness draining from his eyes. 'And the bill for all this.'
Bolitho saw the yards edging round, the sails, pockmarked and blackened by the fight, hardening to the wind. The channel seemed wide enough. About a cable to starboard, more on the other side. He had managed worse.
'Boat in the water, sir!' Keen was standing in the shrouds with his telescope. 'Just two men in it.'
Mudge called, 'I'll 'old 'er steady, sir. We're steerin' almost nor'-east again, but I dunno-'
The rest of his words were lost as Keen yelled, 'Sir! Sir!' He stared down at Bolitho, his face shining with disbelief.
Davy snapped, 'Keep your head, Mr. Keen!'
But Keen did not seem to hear. 'It's Mr. Herrick!'
Bolitho stared at him and then clambered up beside him. The boat was a wreck, and the scrawny figure who was now standing to wave a scrap of rag above his head, looked like a scarecrow. Lying in the bottom of the boat, half-covered with water, was Herrick.
As he held the telescope Bolitho could feel his hands shaking violently, and saw Herrick's face, ashen beneath a rough bandage. Then he saw his eyes open, imagined the other man shouting the news to him, his words as plain as if he could hear them himself.
He said, 'Pass the word to the bosun. I want that boat grappled alongside.' He gripped the midshipman's wrist. 'And tell him to be careful. There'll be no second chance.'
Allday had gone below for something. Now he was back, his eyes everywhere, until Bolitho said quietly, 'The first lieutenant is coming aboard. Go forrard and bid him welcome for me, eh?'
As the frigate slipped past another shelving hump of land the sun came down to greet them, to warm their aching limbs, to hold the shock of battle at arm's length a while longer. A deep explosion came from the main channel, and more smoke spouted high above the nearest land to show the wind which awaited them in open water, and to sound the other vessel's final destruction.
Muljadi may or may not have been aboard, and the real fight was still ahead.
Bolitho heard shouts from forward, and then a cheer as some seamen clambered into the sinking boat to pluck Herrick and his companion back on board.
But whatever was waiting beyond the green humps of land, no matter how hopeless their gesture might be, they would be together.
18. In the King's Name
'Alter course two points.'
Bolitho tried to pace along the littered deck, but was unable to overcome his anxiety. It was an hour since they had edged into the eastern channel, under minimum canvas and with two leadsmen in the chains they had felt their way towards the sea.
An hour of answering demands and listening to reports. Ten killed, fifteen wounded, half of them seriously. Considering what they had done, it was a small enough bill, but as he watched the familiar bundles awaiting burial, or heard occasional cries from the main hatch, he found little comfort in it.
If only Allday would come on deck and tell him about Herrick. He had already questioned the surviving seaman. It had been the little man called Lincoln, the one with the permanent grin made by a grotesque scar.
Bolitho had watched him reliving it as he had stammered out his description, oblivious to his captain and officers crowding around him, and seemingly only half aware he was actually alive.
It had been much as Bolitho had imagined. Herrick had decided to destroy the battery, drive his schooner aground regardless of risk and the inevitability of death. At the last moment, with the fuse lit and the vessel being fired on from a hillside, Herrick had been struck by a falling block from the mainmast. The little seaman had said in a whisper, 'Then up comes Mister Pigsliver, as cool as you please. Take to th' boat, he shouts. I've an old score to settle, though 'e didn't say wot 'e meant like. By then there was only three 'ands left. So me an' Jethro lowers Mr. 'Errick into the dory, but t'other bloke, the little sailmaker named Potter, 'e decides to stay with the Don.' He had given a great shudder. 'So off we goes. Then the schooner blows up like the gates of 'ell, an' poor Jethro was lost overboard. I just kept paddlin', and prayin' that Mr. 'Errick would stir to 'is senses an' tell me wot to do.' He had paused, sobbing soundlessly. 'Then I looks up, an' there she is, large as life, th' old Undine. I shakes Mr. 'Errick and calls to 'im, look alive, sir, the ship's a' comin' for us, an' 'e-well'e just looks at me an' says, an' wot did you expect?'
Bolitho had said quietly, 'Thank you, Lincoln, I shall see you do not go unrewarded.'
The little man had added, 'An' you'll not forget to mention a piece about Mister Pigsliver, sir? I-I mean, 'e may be a Don, sir, but, but…' Then he had broken down completely.
Now, as he moved restlessly past the six-pounders where the gun captains-knelt in the sunlight, checking their equipment, testing the tackles, their bodies stained with smoke and dried blood, Bolitho said to himself, 'No, I will not forget.'
'Deck there!'
He looked up, his eyes smarting in the glare.
'Open water ahead, sir!'
Shoes scrapedby the cabin hatch and he swung round.
'Allday, where the devil have you been?'
But it was not Allday.
