seamen, and Bolitho stared at him, trying to understand what he was saying.
The French captain yelled, 'Strike! You are beaten!' Then he went down as a marine impaled him on his bayonet.
'Beaten!' Bolitho shouted, 'Strike their colours!' He saw a man running to slash away the halyards and drop from a musket ball even as the great Tricolour fell and covered him like a shroud.
Stepkyne was pushing up beside Allday, his curved hanger crossing with a French lieutenant's sword. He raised his arm and then screamed as a man darted beneath his guard and drove a dirk up and into his stomach. The man ran on, too dazed to know what he had done or where he was going. A pigtailed seaman watched him dash past and then hacked him across the neck with his cutlass with no more expression on his face than a keeper killing a rabbit.
Bolitho reeled against the bulwark, his eyes blinded with sweat. He was cracking, he had to be. For above the harsh grate of steel and the awful screams he thought he could hear cheering.
Allday was yelling into his face. 'It's Cap'n Herrick, sir!'
Bolitho looked at him. Allday had never called him sir in living memory.
He dragged himself past the interlocked, swaying figures and peered across his ship at the braced yards and tan coloured sails of another vessel driving alongside. Then as grapnels thudded into the splintered bulwark he saw seamen and marines pouring across the Hyperion like a bridge, cheered on by the wounded and the surviving gunners still left to work the dismasted ship, their voices mingling with those of the enraged attackers.
No guns were firing now, and as more men surged hacking their way through boarding nets and defenders alike, Bolitho saw the French admiral's flag fluttering down to the deck, and heard the hoarse cries of Herrick's lieutenants for the French to submit and lay down their arms.
Herrick himself came aft to the poop, his sword in his hand. Bolitho stared at him. All fighting had ceased, and as the wind moved the limp sails overhead he saw the Spartan driving close by, her men cheering in spite of the damage and death around them.
Herrick seized his hand. 'Two others have struck to us! And the San Leandro is ours!'
Bolitho nodded. 'The rest?'
'Two made off to the north'rd!' He wrung his hand wildly. 'My God, what a victory!'
Bolitho released his hand and turned towards the poop. He saw Pascoe kneeling beside Hugh's body, and with Herrick beside him pushed between the exhausted but jubilant seamen.
Bolitho knelt down, but it was over. Hugh's face seemed younger, and the deep lines of strain were gone. He closed his brother's eyes and said quietly, 'A brave man '
Pascoe stared at him, his eyes very bright. 'He saved my life, sir.'
'He did.' Bolitho stood up slowly, feeling the pain and exhaustion clawing at his nerves. 'I hope you'll always remember him.' He paused. 'As I will.'
Pascoe looked at him searchingly and some small tears ran down his stained cheeks. But when he spoke his voice was steady enough. 'I shall never forget. Never.'
Allday – said, 'They've caught the French admiral, Captain.'
Bolitho swung round, the despair and the sense of loss flooding through him like fire. The chase and the disappointments, and all the dead still to be counted. And Lequiller had lived through it.
He stared at the little man standing between Lieutenant Hicks and Tomlin. He was bent and bearded, a-small, wizened man whose stained uniform seemed too large for him.
Bolitho looked away, unable to watch the expression of stunned disbelief on Lequiller's face. He felt suddenly cheated and ashamed.
In war it was better for the enemy to be faceless.
'Take him under guard to Impulsive.' He walked towards the ladder, his men cheering him, their hands, some covered in blood, reaching out to touch his shoulders as he passed without a word.
On the Hyperion's quarterdeck he found Inch waiting for him, one arm in a sling, his tattered coat across his shoulders like a cape. Bolitho reached his side and studied him. The sight of Inch did more than he would have thought possible to control his rising emotion.
He said quietly, 'I believe I ordered you below?'
Inch showed his teeth in a painful grin. 'I thought you would like to know, sir. The commodore was unconscious throughout the battle. But he is astir now and demanding
brandy.'
Bolitho grasped his good hand, Inch's face suddenly blurred and out of focus, 'And he shall have it, Mr. Inch!'
He looked past Gossett's huge grin. and the capering, cheering gunners. The ship was mastless and heavy in the water, and he could almost feel her pain like his own.
Then he clapped his hat across the rebellious lock of hair and said firmly, 'We've sailed a long way together, Mr. Inch.'
He unbuckled his sword and handed it to Allday.
'Now, if Hyperion is to be jury-rigged enough to lead our prizes back to Plymouth, there is a great deal of work to be done.'
He could feel the emotion pricking his eyes but continued in the same brisk tones, 'So what are we waiting for, eh?'
Inch looked at him sadly. Then he replied, 'I'll attend to it directly, sir!'
EPILOGUE
The windows of the Golden Lion Inn were no longer sealed against the rain and icy wind but were thrown open to receive what was little more than a gentle breeze. There were no white horses cruising across Plymouth Sound, and the bright midday sun threw a million dancing reflections from the blue water and played down upon the jostling sightseers along the road and jetty with friendly warmth.
But the telescope on its tripod was still there, and the room exactly as Bolitho had remembered it. And yet it was different in some way, and as he stared down at the slow-moving throng of townspeople below the window he was conscious of the stillness at his back, a quiet emptiness which seemed to be waiting for him to leave. Even now he could hear the landlord shuffling beyond the closed door, no doubt still wondering at Bolitho's strange request and fretting with impatience for him to depart so that some new guests would take over the room, as he had once done.
Most of the people along the busy waterfront had come for one purpose only. To see the ships at anchor, to display pride or horror at their battle-scarred appearance, as if by watching and waiting they, too, might share in some way the visible evidence of this victory. Any success was welcome in these uncertain times, but to see the spoils of war, and savour the sights and smells of conflict and death were to most people far more satisfactory than some vague account in the Gazette or hearing the shouted news from some hard-riding courier on his way to London.
Bolitho touched the brass telescope with his fingers and watched the busy comings and goings of small boats as they carried their paying passengers around the towering shape of the anchored Tornade, Lequiller's great threedecker, which within months would be at sea once again under the flag of her old enemy. With a new captain and company, and perhaps her old identity concealed behind some carefully chosen name.
He was thankful that Hyperion was not down there for all to see and examine like some grotesque relic. Almost as soon as they had crept into the Sound on the previous morning she had been warped into the dockyard, her pumps still struggling manfully to keep the vengeful sea at bay. One thing was certain. The old Hyperion would never fight again. Now, with the unwounded remnants of her company paid off and scattered to the demands of the fleet, she was lying empty and lifeless to await her final fate. At best she might be used as a receiving ship. At worst… Bolitho tried again to shut his mind to the possibility, she might end her days in some estuary or river as a prison hulk. He had left her just a few hours earlier, saddened at what he had seen, yet knowing that he could never have left without that final understanding which had grown between them.
As he had walked across the splintered quarterdeck he had thought of the voyage home after the battle. It had
