mainyard appeared to slash at the wavecrests, her lower gunports completely hidden- beneath the cream and surge of her own efforts.
Her sail drill was less efficient than Hyperion's, and that was probably because she had spent more time at anchor than at sea, but within fifteen minutes she too had spread her royals and topgallants in one giant pyramid of gleaming canvas.
Rooke said flatly, `She's overhauling us, sir. She'll be up to us in thirty minutes.'
But Bolitho was staring ahead watching the Justice. She was less than a mile away now, and like the other transports was finding the pace too demanding. The two enemy frigates were standing in closer to the lead ships, and as he strained his eyes through the crisscross of rigging he saw a puff of smoke from the leading one and a ripple of bright flashes.
It seemed an age before the dull rumble of gunfire reached back to him, then he said, 'You may load now, Mr. Rooke. See that the first broadside is double-spotted with a measure of grape for good fortune!' The first aimed salvo was usually the last to be fired with time to spare. After that men fired more from familiarity than anything else. And down on the lower gundeck it would be even worse. With hardly enough room to stand upright, the crews would fight their guns in a crazed world of dense, choking smoke, or semi-darkness and horror which was better unseen.
'Harvester has returned fire, sirl'
Bolitho nodded, half-watching the gunners as they cradled
!, the gleaming balls from the racks and rammed them down the gaping muzzles. The more practised gun- captains checked each ball with something like loving care before loading. Some were better rounded than others. They would go with that first order to fire.
'Make a signal to Harvester. 'You are at liberty to engage the enemy.'' He almost smiled at the empty words. 'Not that he has any choice.'
Rooke asked, 'Shall we run out, sir?' He was staring across the larboard quarter watching the French ship cutting away the distance as she drove effortlessly towards the convoy. Her captain was level-headed enough to stay just that much upwind of the slower Hyperion. If Bolitho turned away he would present his ship's stern to the French broadside. At close range that would be enough to reduce the between-decks to a slaughterhouse, and probably dismast her into the bargain. If he held his present course it would be a gun-for-gun battle, with the Frenchman holding his advantage and Hyperion unable to tack in either directon without receiving crippling damage.
`Not yet, Mr. Rooke.' His voice was quite controlled, but as he watched the other ship's shadow rising and falling across the glittering water he guessed that Rooke probably imagined he was running away, either from fear or from a complete inability to think of a plan to avoid destruction.
He glanced quickly at the masthead again. He hardly dared to look for fear his eye had deceived him. But the pendant was at a different angle. Only very slight, but it was all he had.
To Gossett he said evenly, `The wind has veered a point, I believe?'
The master stared at him. 'Well, yes, sir. Just a mite.' He sounded surprised that it should matter.
Bolitho controlled the rising tension in his thoughts. He had to use all his will to shut out the distant crash of gunfire as the frigates engaged the solitary Harvester, even to crush the lurking fear that he had already misjudged the situation around him.
'Very well, Mr. Rooke. Shorten sail. Get the royals and 'gallants off her.' He gripped his hands behind him as the topmen swarmed along the yards. 'Now you may run out the larboard battery.'
The Hyperion seemed to sink forward into a trough as the power died in her extra sails. The weeds on her bottom acted as a brake, and Bolitho could see the mizzen topgallant shivering like a tree in a wind and felt the vibration transmitting itself through the planks under his shoes.
Then he walked to the larboard side of the quarterdeck and leaned out to watch as the double line of gunports swung upwards, and seconds later he heard the squeal of trucks as the sweating seamen threw themselves against the tackles and hauled their heavy weapons up the canting deck. A shaft of sunlight touched the black muzzles as they poked from the open ports and Rooke called, 'Run out, sir!'
He gave a slight shiver and turned to watch the Frenchman. She was barely a cable's length astern now, and even though she too was shortening sail, would be alongside in minutes. To the French captain it would look as if Bolitho had tried to drive his convoy to safety under full sail but had failed and was now falling back to accept full payment for his folly.
Bolitho licked his lips. They felt like dust. To Gossett he said slowly, `Stand by to wear ship, Mr. Gossett. In two minutes I intend to go about across his bows!' He did not see the stunned look on Gossett's face. He was looking at the other two-decker. She had run out her starboard battery, and on her gangways he could see clumps of figures and the gleam of sunlight on levelled muskets and cutlasses.
`Aye, aye, sir!' Gossett had recovered his voice again.
To Rooke Bolitho added sharply, 'We will sail back on the same course and engage his other side!' He felt a grin spreading on his face and sensed that same madness he had forcibly controlled at Cozar.
Rooke nodded and raised his speaking trumpet. He looked pale beneath his tan, but somehow he got the words out. `Stand by to go about! Ready ho!V
'Helm alee!' Gossett threw his own weight to help the straining helmsmen.
For a few seconds the ship seemed to go mad, and as the men in the bows let go the headsail sheets and the hull began to answer the savage demands of the rudder, even the distant gunfire was drowned by the thunder of canvas and the agonised whine of stays and rigging.
'Off tacks and sheets!' Rooke was dancing with impatience and despair. 'Mainsail haul!'
What the Hyperion's desperate manoeuvre looked like to the Frenchman Bolitho could not imagine, but as he stared fixedly at the other two-decker he felt the sweat like ice across his forehead. Perhaps he had after all left it too late. The other ship seemed to tower across the Hyperion's quarter like a great cliff, so that as the old hull staggered round it seemed as if nothing would prevent the Frenchman from smashing headlong into her larboard side.
'Let go and haul, you bastards!' Rooke was hoarse and al
most screaming. But the men at the braces were almost horizontal with the deck as they dug in their toes and tugged like madmen, their ears and minds blank to everything and their eyes filled with the tall, onrushing sails which loomed high above them blotting out all else.
But she was answering, as with a mighty roar of canvas the Yards went round, the sails ballooning and cracking with effort while the deck tilted further and still further towards the Frenchman's onrushing bowsprit.
Bolitho gripped the rail and shouted, 'Stand to! Guncaptains fire as you bearl Pass the word to the lower battery!'
He was almost blinded with sweat and was shaking with wild excitement. Somehow the Hyperion had answered his impossible demands and had turned into the wind right across the other ship's course. Now as she heeled on an opposite tack she was already charging down the Frenchman's side, a side lined with sealed ports and as yet undefended. He could see the surging chaos on the ship's maindeck as men from the opposite battery ran across to open the ports, probably stunned by the sudden change of roles.
The Hyperion's heeling bows passed the Frenchman's forecastle, her shadow across the struggling seamen like a cloud of doom.
Inch was running along the guns, and as he dropped his arm the first pair of guns roared out together. Both ships were passing one another so rapidly that the attack was almost a full broadside, rippling down the Hyperion's hull in a double line of darting red flashes.
Bolitho almost fell as the quarterdeck nine-pounders joined in the battle, while around and above him he could hear Ashby's marines yelling and cursing with excitement as they fired their muskets into the mounting wall of smoke which billowed up and across the Frenchman's side hiding the carnage and damage as they passed within twenty yards of those sealed ports.
Bolitho yelled, `Stop that cheering! Reload and run out!' He had his sword in his hand although he did not recall drawing it. `Larboard cat ronade stand by!' He saw the gunners on the forecastle staring back at him from beside the snub-nosed carronade. They were hemmed in by smoke and seemed to be suspended in space. He turned to Gossett. 'Stand by to go about again! We will cross his stem now that we have taken the weather-gage!'
`Look, sir! Her foretopmast's falling!'
