He shut the sounds from his mind and yelled, 'Fire the ship!'
A crouching seaman hurled his lantern into the pile of loose canvas and woodwork, and for a few seconds Bolitho saw his face in the small flame, a mask of unbelievable hatred as the unknown man made his own gesture of defiance and revenge.
The distance between the ships had dropped to less than seventy yards, and for a moment Bolitho thought he had left it too late. Already he could see men running along the Saphir's gangway towards the point where both vessels would embrace. He could hear them cheering and shouting, the voices mingled together so that they sounded like animals baying for the final kill.
Then the small flame seemed to dart along the sloop's tilting deck like a lighted fuse, and as it touched the oiled bundles the whole sloop lit up, so that men shielded their eyes and fell back, fascinated and appalled by what they had done.
Another salvo crashed into the hull, and below decks Boiitho heard the sudden inrush of water, the boom and clatter of collapsing compartments where the sea surged to complete its victory.
He coughed violently as the wind swept the smoke back from the bows, and when he wiped the moisture from his eyes he saw the foremast and topsail yard burst into flames like some giant crucifix. The fire was spreading at a fantastic speed, and aboard the Saphir the cries of jubilation were already changing to shouts of alarm and terror. Someone jerked the lanyard of a swivel gun, and Bolitho felt the cannister spray past his face and rip into the deck on the far side.
A seaman was picked from his feet, his scream caught in midair as he fell jerking like a bundle of sodden rags, his blood marking his movements on the planking like spilled paint
He saw Seton, bowed behind the bulwark, his hand to his mouth as he ran aft, and he had to call his name repeatedly' before he showed any sign of understanding.
'Into the gig, Mr. Seton! Clear the ship!' Beyond the flames he saw the two-decker's tall side, every port and bared gun shining as if in bright sunlight as the fireship cruised towards her.
Allday shouted, 'Come on, Captain! We'll be alongside in…”
Another blast of C nnister raked the deck, making the sparks fly from the leaping flames and cutting down more running figures as Fowler drove his men towards the stem.
Seton flung his hand to his shoulder and said faintly, 'I'm hit, sir!' Then he fell, and as a seaman hurried to his side the Fairfax drove her charred bowsprit hard through the Saphir's fore rigging like a lance.
Fowler was yelling, 'Come back, sir! Quick, they're boarding us!'
Men were leaping down, already on to the sloop's deck, and while some ran towards the flames others groped through the billowing smoke firing pistols or slashing at wounded and living alike.
Bolitho saw a French seaman charging towards him and felt the wind of a ball past his cheek before he could release the pistol from his own belt. The weapon jumped in his hand and he saw the man swerve and scream, fingers clawing at his chest before he fell back into the smoke. He threw the pistol at another shrouded shape and then pulled out his sword. Still more figures appeared on the quarterdeck, their arms groping like blind men as they ran through the drifting curtain of smoke and ashes. Bolitho noticed vaguely that the clock was chiming again, but from a new angle, and realised that both vessels were now drifting together. Someone aboard the French ship had at last succeeded in cutting her cable, but as an extra powerful gust of wind momentarily cleared the smoke he saw tongues of flame leaping up her rigging and knew that it was already too late to save her.
The smoke dropped again in a choking cloud, and he heard the wind urging the flames along the sloop's deck, the sparks hissing skyward beyond the masthead. Around him men were fighting and yelling, their cries punctuated with the harsh clash of steel and the occasional crack of a pistol. He could feel the deck sagging beneath him, the very timbers vibrating as water poured into the listing hull. It was a race between fire and sea, and with her work done the Fairfax seemed eager to slide beneath the surface, if only to hide her misery and escape the destruction they had wrought upon her.
Fowler was back at his side, his sword shining in the leaping flames while he parried aside the blades as more Frenchmen appeared through the smoke.
He shouted above the din, 'We must leave the wounded, sir!' He lunged forward and down and a man toppled shrieking towards the bulwark. As he fell the deck at his back seemed to open and more searing flames spurted- between the charred planks so that he twisted like a carcase on a spit, his hair on fire, his cries lost in the terrifying roar of flames forced up from the deck below.
Bolitho stumbled and found that Seton still lay by the rail, his head pillowed on his arm as if asleep. The seaman who should have taken him to the gig had either fled or was already killed, and with something like madness Bolitho stood astride his body, his sword cutting down a charging seaman and swinging back to catch another who was struggling with Allday beside the wheel.
But the odds were mounting. It could not last much longer. It seemed as if the Frenchmen were so maddened by rage and despair that they were more intent on destroying the handful of British sailors than of saving themselves or their own ship.
Fowler dropped his sword and clapped his hands across his face. He cried wildly, 'Oh, Jesus! Oh, my God!'. And in the leaping flames the blood which poured across his neck and chest gleamed like black glass.
He droppped choking on his knees, and a French lieutenant, hatless and with his uniform coat scorched almost from his back, lunged forward to strike his unprotected head. Bolitho stepped forward, but caught his foot on a splintered plank and saw the officer's blade change direction, cutting through the air with all his strength. With one last effort Bolitho held his balance and instinctively threw up his left arm to protect himself. lie felt the blade jar against his forearm and sensed a numbing agony, as if he had been kicked by a maddened horse. The French lieutenant slithered sideways, thrown almost to the deck by the force of his attack,, and in the advancing fires his face shone like a mask, the eyes bright and staring as he watched Bolitho's sword scything above Seton's body, the razor-edged blade holding- the flames until the moment of impact. He did not even scream, but hobbled backward, his fingers digging at his belly, his back bowed as if in some grotesque curtsy.
Allday was shouting, `She's going, Captain!'
Bolitho blinked and tried to wipe the sweat from his eyes. But his arm remained at his side, and with a sense of shocked disbelief he saw the blood pouring down his side, soaking his leg and running across the deck at his feet. Dazedly he shook himself and stared towards the bows. The towering bank of flames had shifted to the Saphir, and he could see the furled sails and tarred rigging whipping out in fiery streamers, and other, smaller fires leaping aft urged on by the wind and burning everything they touched. Through the abandoned gunports the ship's interior glowed red like an open furnace, and as he watched he saw men.leaping blindly over the side, calling to one another or screaming pitifully as they were held and then ground to bloody pulp by the two blazing hulls.
But the sloop's deck was dipping rapidly, and from below he heard the hiss of seawater as it surged in triumph to quench the flames. The foremast had gone completely and he had not even noticed amidst the savagery of destruction and death around hire. Corpses lolled down the tilting deck, and a few wounded crawled whimpering away from the flames or made a last effort to reach the poop.
Allday shouted, `The gig is standing clear! Come, Captain, I'll help you over!'
Bolitho still stared around him, waiting to fight, to beat off another attack. But he was sharing the deck with corpses.
Allday yelled, 'There are no more! You've done for 'em!' Then he saw Bolitho's arm. 'Here, Captain! Take my hand!' They reeled together as the sloop wallowed heavily on to her side, the small deck guns tearing from their lashings to squeak across to the other bulwark or plunge hissing into one of the great fiery craters.
Bolitho spoke between his teeth, his face pouring with sweat as the pain reached up his arm like a pair of white-hot pincers. 'The boy! Get him, Allday!' Jerkily he thrust the sticky blade back into its scabbard and with his good arm pulled himself aft towards the taffrail while Allday picked up the unconscious midshipman and threw him across his shoulder.
He saw ONeil by the rail, naked to the waist as he wrapped his shirt around Fowler's face while the lieutenant rocked from side to side, his words choking on the cloth and in his blood.
The bargeman said, 'Oi done what Oi could, sorrl' He ducked as one of the sloop's guns exploded in the heat as if fired by some invisible hand. `The poor man has lost most of his face!'
Bolitho managed to croak, `There is the gig! We will have to jump for it!'
He hardly remembered falling, but was conscious of the salt rasping in his lungs, the cool air across his face as he broke surface. The gig seemed to tower above him, and there was Piper, his monkey face black with grime as he
