stuffy air, his eyes moving back and forth in time with a deckhead lantern.
Bolitho spoke very quietly, 'We are about to engage the enemy, sir. Do you have any orders at present?'
The pale eyes stopped and settled on his face.
Fanshawe said helplessly, 'I don't think he understands, sir.'
Bolitho said slowly, 'Sir Edmund, the French are out!' But Pomfret's eyes did not even blink.
From behind him he heard Rowlstone say, 'I'll have him carried to the sickbay, sir. I can keep an eye on him there.'
Bolitho caught his arm. 'A moment!' He was watching Pomfret's hands. Like two claws they had fastened to the sides of the cot, the knuckles bone-white with strain. Then his mouth opened very slightly, but no words came from it.
Bolitho looked straight into Pomfret's eyes, holding them, willing him to speak. For just an instant he saw a small understanding, a kind of defiance, like that of a trapped animal facing an enemy.
He said quietly, 'You stay with him here, Mr. Fsnshawe.' Pomfret's fingers relaxed slightly, and he added, 'I will keep the admiral informed whenever I can.' Then he turned on his heel and walked back to the quarterdeck.'
The distant firing had stopped, and as he levelled his glass he saw that the ships were clearly visible now. The one being pursued was a seventy-four, like Hyperion, and as she tacked slightly to windward he saw that her outline was marred by the loss of her mizzen. But she had managed to rig a crude jurymast, and her ensign was streaming bravely above the pockmarked sails as more flags broke from her yards.
Piper shrilled, 'She's the Zenith, seventy-four, Cap'n Stewart, sir!'
Bolitho nodded, but kept his glass trained beyond the battle-scarred ship towards the jumbled mass of white topsails. He counted six enemy vessels before he had to lower the glass to rest his eye. They were in a ragged line, and were already tacking slowly to windward, their hulls leaning over in the pressure.
Herrick lowered his glass and said, 'They have the windgage, sir. There's no doubt about it.'
Bolitho looked round the quarterdeck. 'General signal. 'Form line of battle ahead and astern of the admiral!' '
He ignored the burst of feverish activity at the halyards. He knew Stewart vaguely. He was a good captain, and was already tacking his ship to face the enemy. Astern, Dash was acknowledging the signal, and in minutes Bolitho saw the yards begin to swing as the Tenacious manoeuvred comfortably astern of the flagship.
He tried not even to think the word. Flagship. Pomfret was incapable of speaking, let alone directing a battle. And it was eleven years since Bolitho had been in a real sea-fight. At the Saintes he had commanded a small frigate, and that great battle had been fought and won against an enemy equal both in strength and experience. He made himself look towards the enemy. Two to one. Even Rooke might consider the odds unfavourable.
Herrick said, 'We will pass larboard to larboard, sir. We cannot hope to tack across their course now.'
Bolitho nodded. To windward lay Cozar, it seemed as if they were doomed by that place, no matter what they did. Now it acted as a barrier to cut their chances of tacking to windward. If they continued as they were the French ships would pass down their larboard side, would pound them to submission before they could turn and fight again.
He snapped, 'General signal. 'Shorten sail!' ' The Zenith had completed her tack and was now leading. the line… Through his glass he could see the mauling the enemy bowchasers had given her, the great scars across her poop. He said calmly, 'We will cut the enemy line in half, gentlemen! That way we will take the weather-gage, and give him a moment of alarm!'
He saw Herrick and Ashby exchanging anxious glances and added, 'It will mean facing three broadsides instead of six.'
Bolitho turned as Allday padded from the poop carrying his best coat and hat. The men around the quarterdeck were all watching in silence as he threw his old seagoing coat aside and slipped his arms into the other one. It was something he had always done before a fight. Madness or conceit? He could not be sure. Perhaps, unlike his predecessor in Hyperion, he did not wish to leave anything worthwhile behind should he die today. The stupidity of his racing thoughts helped to steady him, and the watching seamen and marines saw him give a small smile.
Allday held. out the sword and asked quietly, 'Must I stay with the admiral, Captain?' He looked wretchedly at the crouching gunners. 'My place is here.'
'Your place is where I choose, Allday!' Then Bolitho nodded. 'I will know where you are if I need you, never fret!' 'Both ships have acknowledged, sir!' Piper was shouting, his voice very loud in the silence.
'Good. Now bend on another signal, Mr. Piper, but do not
hoist it, 'Take in succession and re-form line of battle!' ' He withdrew his sword and turned it over in his hands. The steel felt like ice. To the deck at large he added, 'There will be one final signal. You will keep it flying until I order otherwise.'
Piper peered up from his slate, his face pinched with strain and concentration. 'I'm ready, sir!'
Bolitho looked evenly towards the approaching ships. Not long now.
He said, 'When we break their line you will hoist 'Engage the enemy closer!''
Then he returned the sword to its scabbard with a snap.
'And now, Mr. Herrick, you may give the order to load and run out.' For a moment longer he held Herrick's gaze. He wanted to grip his hand. To say something personal or trivial. But the moment was already past.
Herrick touched his hat and then raised his speaking trumpet. He had seen the pain in Bolitho's eyes. He did not have to be told anything.
As he shouted his order the deck seemed to come alive. Ports were hauled open, and as one captain after another raised his hand.Rooke roared, 'Run out!' Then he too turned aft and looked towards Bolitho.
A ragged thunder of cannon-fire echoed across the water, and through the taut rigging Herrick saw the spreading wall of gunsmoke drifting down to enfold the Zenith like a cloud.
He heard Gossett mutter, 'Make a note in the log. At two bells of th' Forenoon action was joined.' He cleared his throat. 'And God preserve us!'
Waiting for the final clash seemed endless. Bolitho made himself stand motionless by the rail while he watched the battered Zenith receiving the full brunt of the enemy broadsides. Barely seventy yards separated the two-decker as she edged past the leading French ship, but as a down-draught of wind cut through the billowing smoke Bolitho saw with cold relief that her masts were still standing and her guns were running out again as she sailed to meet the next adversary. The second ship in the enemy line was a three-decker, and as he watched Bolitho saw her foremost guns belch fire and smoke, the thundering crash of the detonations making him wince. Above the growing bank of smoke he saw the bright flash of colour at the enemy's topmast, the command flag of an admiral.
He shouted, `Stand by!' He shut the picture of the flashing guns from his mind and concentrated on the leading ship, as like two wooden juggernauts she and Hyperion crossed bowsprits, and the men at the foremost guns stared through their ports and saw the hardening line of the enemy's bows.
Rooke yelled, 'Fire as you bear!'
Hyperion staggered drunkenly as the broadside rippled along her side in a double-edged line, the guns hurling themselves inboard against the tackles, their crews choking and cursing as the great fog of acrid smoke funnelled back through the ports, blinding them as they reeled and groped for the next charges.
Bolitho shaded his streaming eyes and stared up at the enemy's foremast as slowly and relentlessly it carved above the smoke until it hung directly above him. Then the French= man fired, the gun-flashes stabbing through the dense smoke and painting it with red and orange, so that it seemed to come alive. He felt the balls crashing into the hull, the splintering thunder jarring the planks beneath his straddled legs as if to burst up through the deck itself.
He yelled, 'Again, lads! Hit 'em again!'
His brain cringed as the nine-pounders at his back joined in the savage onslaught, and through the deafening gunfire he heard muffled cries and shouted orders as the marines opened fire with their muskets, shooting blindly into the allenveloping smoke.
Something slammed into the rail by his hand, and when he looked down he saw a wood splinter standing on end like a quill pen.
Ashby bellowed, 'The tops! Shoot down those marksmen, you bastards!'
A marine corporal pulled the lanyard of a swivel gun, and before the dense brown smoke blew back across the quarterdeck Bolitho saw some half-dozen men plucked from the enemy's maintop by the scything burst of canister and swept away like so much rubbish.
