The Flag Captain

“Right, Williams, over you go!”

The big seaman clambered on to the larboard gangway, and with his face set in a mask of determination began to lean over the rail.

Keverne muttered harshly, “God, he is making the most of his performance.”

“There ’e goes!” Partridge hurried back to his place near the wheel as with a violent thrashing of arms Williams pitched over the rail and vanished.

Bolitho ran to the nettings as the cry “Man overboard!” brought the crew of the quarterboat dashing from their various attitudes of unlikely concentration. He breathed out more easily as the seaman’s head appeared bobbing and spluttering close to the side, and snapped, “Back the mizzen tops’l, Mr Keverne! Get that boat away!” He had feared that Williams’s enthusiasm would make him mistime his fall. The steep tumblehome of the three-decker’s side could easily have broken an arm or skull had he been careless.

He tore his eyes from the orderly confusion as the boat’s crew swarmed down into the tethered craft below the quarter, while overhead the mizzen topsail banged and flapped against the mast and yard, acting like a brake on some runaway juggernaut, just long enough to peer towards the Spanish ship. She was about two cables from the point where she would cross Euryalus’s wake, and he could see figures scampering along her forecastle, as if to get a better view of the drama.

Bolitho raised his hand. “Now! Stand by to go about!” Already

the mizzen yard was squeaking back to its original position, while from their hiding places beneath the gangways the seamen ran to their stations, encouraged by derisive cheers from the unemployed gun crews.

Partridge called, “Ready, sir!”

“Put the helm down!” Bolitho trained his glass on the Spaniard. There was still no sign of alarm as far as he could see.

“Helm a’lee, sir!”

Up forward the headsail sheets had already been let go, and as the wheel went over and the great hull began to swing very slowly into the wind, Keverne urged the men at the braces to even greater efforts as they strained back, panting and cursing, their eyes on the yards above them.

Sails boomed and swelled, and as the ship continued to swing Bolitho saw sudden activity on the other vessel’s poop, an officer waving wildly and pointing to his men who were still grouped around the bows.

“Off tacks and sheets!”

Bolitho shaded his eyes to peer aloft through the tangle of flapping sails and jerking shrouds to where the topmen were already fighting their way to the topgallant yards in readiness for the next part of the attack. For a moment longer he hardly dared to draw breath. The wind was still quite strong, and at worst might bring down the topmasts, or leave the heavy ship thrashing helplessly and all aback.

But the pendant was swinging, the ship was still responding, wheeling across the eye of the wind like a well- disciplined mammoth.

“Let go and haul!” Keverne had not raised his eyes from the men on deck. “Heave there!”

Slowly but steadily the great yards began to respond to the braces, until with a sound of hill thunder the sails billowed out,

full and bulging to the wind, while the deck heeled over to the opposite tack.

Bolitho watched fixedly as the other ship appeared to swim backwards through the mass of rigging around the foremast, until she lay not safely across the larboard quarter, but there, fine on the starboard bow.

There was no sign of the boat or the swimmer, and he found time to hope someone was watching out for them.

“Pass the word. Mr Keverne! Lower batteries run out!”

As the port lids lifted and he heard the familiar squeak and groan of gun trucks, he could imagine the cursing men far below his feet as they hauled their massive charges up the tilting decks towards the sunlight.

“Run up the colours. Mr Tothill!”

Broughton’s voice made him turn. “That was a fierce turn, Bolitho. I thought you would have the sticks out of her.” He had appeared on deck in his gold-laced coat, wearing the beautiful sword, as if for another of his inspections.

There was a dull bang and a puff of smoke drifted across the Spaniard’s poop. A gun must have been kept loaded and ready, Bolitho thought, although he did not see where the ball went.

“Get the t’gallants on her, Mr Keverne! This one intends to run for it!”

The two ships were on parallel courses, with the Euryalus now some two cables’ length astern.

There was another bang and someone gasped with alarm as a ball smacked through the fore topsail and splashed down far to windward.

The Spanish ship had a very curved stern, and Bolitho guessed she had some powerful guns mounted there to protect herself from a pursuer.

Broughton snapped, “No sense in delaying things.”

Bolitho nodded. Any minute now and a ball might bring down

a vital spar. “Middle battery, Mr Keverne. Fire in succession!”

To Partridge he snapped, “Bring her up a point to wind’rd!”

While the Euryalus swung slightly away from her intended victim the middle gundeck erupted in a cloud of brown smoke. From forward to aft, cannon after cannon crashed out at regular two-second intervals, each massive twenty-four-pounder hurling itself inboard as the savage orange tongue left its muzzle.

Bolitho watched the leaping waterspouts bursting near and beyond the Spaniard’s quarter, saw splintered woodwork fly from her bulwark as some of the balls smashed home.

From below he could hear the gunners cheering, the squeak of trucks as they raced each other up the canting deck towards the ports.

Keverne was watching him, his eyes dark with tension. “They have not struck, sir.”

Bolitho bit his lip. The red and orange flag of Spain still floated above the poop, and even as he watched another gun banged across the water and a ball screamed close overhead like a tortured spirit in hell.

He had expected the Spaniard to strike at the first sight of the flag. There was about a cable between them, and with her topgallant sails drawing well the Euryalus was beginning to pare the range away with each minute.

Something caught his eye, and he saw the quarter boat, black against the glittering water, while its crew, and presumably Williams, stood to cheer the one-sided battle.

The Spaniard’s quarter battery belched orange tongues again; this time three, perhaps four, had fired, and before the smoke had blown clear Bolitho felt the deck jump as a ball slammed into the Euryalus’s hull like a hammer.

“Bring her up a point again, Mr Partridge.” What was that fool of a Spaniard doing? It was sheer madness to risk any more fighting. If he continued to run before the wind Euryalus would

overhaul him. If he stood away, she would rake his stern and dismast him in seconds.

More flashes, and this time a ball ploughed into the starboard gangway, and two seamen rolled screaming and kicking on the deck below, cut down by the flying splinters.

Bolitho said, “Lower batteries, Mr Keverne.” He held on, watching the defiant flag. Hoping. Then he snapped, “Broadside!”

The two lower gundecks had been given plenty of time. It had been almost a leisurely business as gun-captains had checked their crews, and the lieutenants had paced up and down, ducking beneath the massive deck beams to peer through the open ports, as with tired dignity the Euryalus turned slightly away from her enemy, showing the double line of guns like black teeth. The next instant, as lieutenants blew on their whistles and captains jerked their lanyards, every gun roared out as one, the whole ship quaking as if grinding across a submerged reef.

On the quarterdeck Bolitho watched the smoke billowing down towards the Spaniard, while above it he saw her mizzen tilt forward before plunging down over her poop, the crash audible even above the broadside’s echo, which still reverberated across the sea like thunder.

As the smoke drifted beyond the other ship he saw the gaping holes in her exposed bilge and along her quarter,