boat.
But he could leave that to Keen. He kicked the door aside, thrusting the dying man off the coaming, and then leapt into Eurotas’s poop. It was like a scene from bedlam. Cabin doors hung open or were smashed down. Clothing, weapons and all manner of personal belongings were strewn everywhere.
On the deck above he heard a voice, shrill with terror, and then Miller’s loud and menacing, “Stand still, you little bastard!” The sound ended with a body slithering across the poop deck and one final gasp.
Bolitho stepped slowly aft, his sword across his body, his feet stepping carefully so as not to trip in the scattered and looted confusion.
“Easy, Cap’n!” He recognized Jenner’s drawl. “Next cabin.”
He ducked past Bolitho, his shadow swaying across the screen doors, with two more seamen close on his heels. His face lit up as a pistol exploded from the cabin, and the man nearest him fell clutching his stomach, blood already gushing from his mouth. Jenner drew back his arm and a small dirk flew through the door like a flash of lightning.
When Bolitho reached the door Jenner was tugging the blade from the victim’s chest, wiping it carefully on the man’s leg.
More feet clattered along the maindeck, and Keen burst into the poop, a curved hanger in one hand, an empty pistol like a club in the other.
“We’ve taken the forecastle and the rest of the upper deck, sir.” He was breathing very fast, and his eyes were shining in the lanternlight with the desperate wildness of battle. He added, “Some got away in a boat, but I think the sharpshooters are trying to mark them down.” He looked at the corpse. “We managed to seize two prisoners.”
Bolitho said tightly, “Open the after hatch, but be ready for tricks. Tell Mr Ross to take over the upper deck. Someone might try to cut the cable.”
He walked past the last of the cabins to the large one in the stern. Again the disorder of clothing and sea chests. A meal halfeaten on the master’s table. A woman’s dress too, with blood on it.
It was suddenly very quiet, as if the whole ship was listening, stricken with terror.
“Come.” He strode out of the cabin, Allday behind him, his head turning from side to side as if to protect Bolitho from attack.
When the hatch was opened, and not without difficulty as it was wedged tight with bars and chains as if in a slave ship, Bolitho was sickened by the stench of bodies and fear which rose to meet him and his men.
Still no sound at all. Just the regular creak of spars and rigging. Perhaps they had killed everyone aboard?
Allday whispered, “If anyone’s down there, Captain, they must think hell itself has boarded the ship.”
Bolitho stared at him. Why hadn’t he thought of that? The horror they must have endured, the sheer terror of the past weeks, and then the deafening onslaught of Tempest’s seamen. No wonder there was no sound.
He stood on the edge of the hatch, ignoring Allday’s sudden anxiety and the fact he was probably framed against the moonlight.
“Stand fast below!” He waited, hearing his voice echo around the deck. “You are in the hands of His Britannic Majesty’s Ship Tempest!”
For a moment longer he imagined his worst fears were realized, and then as if out of the bowels of the ship he heard a mounting, combined chorus of cries and sobs.
“Down quickly, lads!”
Bolitho waited as more seamen dashed to the hatch with lanterns and then stumbled with them to the deck below. Here there was another hatch, beside which stood a chair from the officers’ quarters, a tankard near it to mark where a guard had been sitting at the moment of attack.
They withdrew more heavy bars and lifted the hatch. It was a small hold, one which had been used for cabin stores, without light or much ventilation. It was packed from side to side and bulkhead to bulkhead with people. It was like looking down at a solid carpet of upturned, terrified faces. Men and women, dirty, dishevelled, and at the last stage of survival.
Bolitho kept his tone as level as he could. “Have no fear. My people will take care of you.”
He thought about his small boarding party. He did not yet know how many of them had died or were wounded. If this crowd chose to attack them, they would stand little chance, weapons or no weapons. There must be close on two hundred souls down there.
Miller strode to the hatch. He seemed calm again, his voice crisp as he gestured for some hands to enter the hold. But from the side of his mouth he said quietly, “Mr Ross ’as three swivels loaded with canister and trained inboard, sir. If they start to show their metal he’ll sweep the deck afore they knows what’s ’it ’em.”
So he was not fully recovered from the killing.
It was terrible to watch as the people began to emerge from the packed hold. Some held on to each other from weakness and from fear. For whatever Bolitho’s voice may have implied, he knew he and his men did not look like part of the King’s Navy.
One man, cut above the eyes, and his face so bruised it was almost black, was wearing the jacket of a sailor.
Bolitho asked, “Who are you?”
The man stared at him blankly until Allday took his arm and guided him away from the slow-moving procession.
Then he said, “Archer, sir. Ship’s cooper.”
Bolitho said quietly, “The passengers, where are they?”
“Passengers?” It was an effort even to think. “I-I think they’m still on the orlop deck, sir.” He gestured about him. “Most of these are being deported.” He almost fell. “We bin down there for days.” He stared around. “Water. I must have water.”
Bolitho snapped, “Broach every cask you can find, Miller. Sort them out. You know what to do. Tell Mr Ross to send a boat for Sergeant Quare’s party at once.” He sheathed his sword, his mind rebelling against the necessary details. To Allday he added, “Orlop. Lively now.”
Another hatch, another ladder, and down below the waterline. Even in a ship of Eurotas’s tonnage and girth there was no room to stand upright between deck beams.
Lanterns swayed to greet them as more seamen entered the orlop deck by another hatch further forward.
Tiny cabins, like hutches, lined the sides of the hull. Much like those in a man-of-war where the ship’s professionals lived and slept, always cut off from natural daylight. Sailmakers and coopers, like the man Archer. Carpenters and quartermasters.
“Open the doors!”
He heard a woman weeping hysterically, and a man further down the line of cabins pleading with her to be brave.
Allday snapped, “Here, Captain!”
Bolitho strode to the door while Allday held a lantern for him. She was sitting on an upturned chest, her arm around a girl with long black hair, probably the one they had seen chased around the upper deck.
The girl was moaning, her face hidden against Viola Raymond’s shoulder, her fingers digging into the cream- coloured gown like small, frantic claws.
Bolitho could barely speak. At his back he could hear the confused cries and sobs of people being reunited, and others looking for friends and relatives without success.
But it was all part of something else.
Viola stood up slowly, taking the girl with her. She said softly, “Go with him.” She tightened her grasp as the terror shook the girl’s body. “He is a good man and will do you no harm.”
The girl moved from her, one hand still held out. As if she was being cut adrift, Bolitho thought.
Allday had left the lantern and closed the door behind them.
Bolitho reached out and held her shoulders, feeling her reserve crumbling as she threw her arms round his neck and buried her mouth against his cheek.
“You came!” She gripped him even tighter. “Oh, my darling Richard, you came back for us! ”
He said, “I’ll take you aft!”
“No. Not there.” She looked up at him, and he could sense her disbelief. “Take me on deck.”
They made their way through the jostling crowds of men and women, seamen and the newly arrived marines
