With All Despatch

'Run out, Mr Queely.' Bolitho rested his hand on his sword hilt and watched as the Wakeful's men hauled and guided their guns up to their open ports.

The French lugger would know what that meant. Baring her teeth. Making it clear what she intended.

The lugger changed tack and began to fall downwind to draw nearer to her consort.

Teach the gunner was creeping along the bulwark like a crab, pausing to peer through every port, to instruct each man, a hand-spike here, a pull on a tackle there. Wakeful was no fifth-rate but at least she was prepared.

Queely exclaimed, 'The Frogs are hauling off!'

Bolitho thought he knew why but said nothing. The explosion when it came was violent and unexpected. A tongue of flame shot from the fishing boat's deck and in seconds her canvas was in charred flakes, the rigging and upperworks savagely ablaze.

A boat was pulling away, and must have been in the water, hidden by the shattered hull before the explosion was sparked off. One of the luggers fired, and a ball passed above the little boat to hurl a waterspout high into the air.

Queely stared at Bolitho, his eyes wild. 'Engage, sir?'

Bolitho pointed to the fishing boat. 'As close as you dare. I don't think-' The rest was lost in a second explosion as a ball crashed directly into the oared boat, and when the fragments had finally ceased splashing down-there was nothing to be seen.

Queely banged one hand into his palm. 'Bastards!'

'Shorten sail, if you please.' Bolitho trained his glass on the sinking fishing boat. By rights she should have gone by now, but some trick of buoyancy defied both the fire and the gashes in her hull.

Kempthorne whispered to his commander, 'If there is another explosion we shall be in mortal danger, sir!'

Queely retorted, 'I think we are aware of it.' He looked hotly at Bolitho. 'I certainly am.'

There was a far-off, muffled bang, and it seemed an eternity before a great fin of spray cascaded across the sea near the capsizing hull. Fired at maximum range from some shore battery which was watching the drama through powerful telescopes. Probably a thirty-two-pounder, a 'Long Nine' as the English nicknamed them, an extremely accurate gun, and the largest carried by any man-of-war. For that purpose it was also used on both sides of the Channel to determine the extents of their territorial waters.

Wakeful was out of range for any accurate shooting. But it would only need one of those massive iron balls, even with the range all but spent, to dismast her, or shatter her bilges like a battering ram.

It was why the luggers were keeping well clear, and not just because they were unwilling to match the cutter's carronades.

Bolitho said, 'No time to put down the boat. I want grapnels.' He looked at the men not employed at the guns. 'Volunteers to board that wreck!'

Nobody moved, and then one of the half-naked seamen swaggered forward. 'Right ye be, sir.'

Another moved out. 'Me too, sir.'

A dozen hands shot up, some of the gun crews too.

Bolitho cleared his throat. Allday might have got volunteers; he had not expected to do it himself with total strangers.

'Take in the mains'l!' Queely had his hands on his hips, pressing against his waist to control his agitation.

'Tops'l and jib, Mr Kempthorne, they will suffice!'

Bolitho walked amongst the volunteers as they prepared their heaving lines and grapnels.

The first volunteer peered at him and asked, 'Wot we lookin' fer, sir?' He had the battered face of a prize- fighter, and Bolitho's mind clung to yet another memory, that of Stockdale, his first coxswain, who had died protecting his back at the Saintes.

'I don't know, and that's the God's truth.' He craned over the bulwark and watched the sinking hull moving dangerously near. The surrounding sea was covered with dead fish and shattered casks, flotsam, charred remains, but little else.

There was another distant bang and eventually the ball slammed down just a few yards from the wreck. The fishing boat was an aiming mark for the invisible shore battery, Bolitho thought. Like a lone tree in the middle of a battlefield.

The shock of the heavy ball made the wreck lurch over and Bolitho heard the sudden inrush of water as the seams opened up to speed its end.

'Grapnels!'

Four of them jagged into the wreck and within seconds the seamen were clawing their way across, urged on by their mess-mates, the luggers all but forgotten except by Teach and his handpicked gun crews.

The shore battery fired again, and spray fell across the sinking vessel and made the seamen there peer round with alarm.

Queely said hoarsely, 'They'll catch us at any moment, sir!'

A grapnel line parted like a pistol shot; the wreck was starting to settle down. There was no point in any further risk.

'Cast off! Recall those men!'

Bolitho turned as the man with the battered face yelled, ''Ere, sir!'

He floundered through a hatchway where the trapped water already shone in the sunlight like black glass. If the hull dived nothing could prevent it, and he would certainly go with her.

'Call him back!'

Bolitho watched, holding his breath as the man reappeared. He carried a body over his bare shoulders as effortlessly as a sack.

Queely muttered, 'God's teeth, it's a woman!'

Willing hands reached out to haul them on board, then as the wreck began to dip, and another line snapped under the strain, Bolitho said, 'Carry on, Mr Queely, you may stand your ship out of danger.'

A ball smashed across the water and hit the wreck beneath the surface.

'Loose the mains'l! More hands aloft there!'

Wakeful gathered way, flotsam and dead fish parting beneath her long bowsprit.

When Bolitho looked again, the fishing boat had vanished. He walked slowly through the silent seamen then felt his head swim as he saw the woman lying on the deck. She was just a girl, wearing rough, badly made clothing, a coarse shawl tied under her long hair. One foot was bare, the other still encased in a crude wooden sabot.

They stood around staring until Queely pushed between them, and, after glancing questioningly at Bolitho, knelt beside her.

The man who had carried her aboard said, 'She be dead, sir.' He sounded stricken, cheated.

Bolitho looked at her face. The eyes tightly shut, with salt-water running from them like tears, as if she was asleep, trapped in some terrible dream.

Some poor fishergirl probably, caught up in a conflict in which she had no part.

But looking at her pale features reminded Bolitho of only one thing, that moment when Viola had been given to the sea.

Queely opened the front of the girl's clothing and thrust his hand underneath and around her breast.

Apart from the wind in the sails there was no other sound.

Queely withdrew his hand and tidied her wet garments with unexpected care.

'Dead, sir.' He looked up at him dully. 'Shall I put her over?'

Bolitho made himself move closer, his hands bunched so tightly that he could feel the bones cracking.

'No. Not yet.' He looked at the watching faces. 'Have her sewn up.' He lowered himself to the deck and touched her hair. It was like sodden weed.