waiting to meet him, their faces showing their surprise at his sudden and undignified arrival.
Allday clambered after him, and Bolitho saw that somehow he had managed to retrieve his hat from the sea, although it was unlikely it would ever be the same again.
He took it from the coxswain’s hands, examining it critically as he gave his breathing time to return to normal, his eyes giving the swaying deck a brief glance as the extent of the damage became more apparent.
The severed mizzen mast, the tangle of fallen rigging and charred canvas, while on the deck nearby lay several gaping corpses, their blood paling in the blown spray and seeping away like life itself.
He said, “Well, Mr Meheux, I would be obliged if you will give me your observations and conclusions.” He turned as a block fell from somewhere overhead and crashed amongst a pile of shattered planks, which had once been some of the ship’s boats. “But be brief.”
The
Bolitho rubbed his chin. All those passengers. So why did her captain risk their lives by trying to fight a three- decker? It did not make sense. Nor did it match a Spaniard’s normal attitude when it came to self- preservation.
“You have thirty seamen in your party, Mr Meheux.” He tried not to think of those terrified people battened down below. “Send
some to put extra members of the
“My petty officer, McEwen, is attending to the lines, sir.” Meheux shook his head, obviously thinking it all a waste of time. “But the tiller head is damaged too, and will come adrift in anything like a heavy sea.”
Midshipman Ashton had climbed in through the entry port and was shaking himself like a half-drowned terrier.
Bolitho took a hasty glance at the sky. The fading light made the scudding clouds appear faster and lower. Either way they were in for a bad night, he thought grimly.
He saw Meheux watching him worriedly, no doubt wondering how he was going to cope with an impossible task. He slapped the lieutenant on the shoulder and said with a confidence he certainly did not feel, “Come, Mr Meheux, your face is like a thunderstorm to a bowl of fresh milk! Now get our people to work, and I will let Mr Ashton show me the passengers.”
He followed Ashton beneath the poop where a corpse in a gold-laced coat lay where it had fallen from a fire- scorched ladder. It must be the captain, he thought. The man’s face had been almost blown away, yet there was hardly a speck of blood on the immaculate coat.
Two pigtailed seamen were standing by the wheel gingerly moving the spokes in response to a muffled voice from below a companion ladder as the petty officer bawled his instructions. They saw Bolitho and one of them grinned with obvious relief. “ We leavin’ ’er, zur? ’Er’ll never steer proper with this ’un.”
Perhaps seeing his own captain again after seemingly being abandoned on this shattered, listing vessel had momentarily made him forget his normal respect when addressing his officers. But Bolitho only saw the man’s homely face split into a grin. A man he had hardly noticed before amidst the
souls, yet one who at this moment seemed like an old friend in an alien and despairing place.
He smiled. “I think we might prefer even this to a raft.”
As he ducked beneath the deck timbers the seaman winked at his mate. “Wot did Oi tell ’ee? Oi knew our Dick’d not leave us fer long.”
The petty officer, his hands and arms glistening with thick black grease from the rudder, appeared behind them and snarled, “Probably ’e don’t trust yew. Any more’n what I does.” But even he was surprised to learn his captain had arrived on board, and was content to leave it at that.
One deck down, Bolitho followed Ashton along a madly lurching passageway, very aware of the groaning timbers, the creak and clatter of loose gear and discarded belongings which seemed to mark each foot of the journey. He could hear the sea sluicing against the hull, the long shuddering protest as the ship lifted herself through another trough before heeling heavily away from the wind. His feet skidded, and in the swaying lantern light he saw a man’s body spreadeagled across a hatch coaming. His trunk was almost cut in half by a ball which must have come through an open port, catching him as he carried a message, or ran for his life before the merciless bombardment.
Two seamen were standing by another companionway, the top of which was sealed with a heavy hatch cover. They were both armed, and stared at Bolitho with surprise and something like guilt. They had probably been rifling some of the cabins, he thought. That could be sorted out later. Just so long as they had not yet broached a spirit store or found some wine in an officer’s sea chest. Thirty men, inflamed by drink, would be little use for saving the ship or anything else.
He asked sharply, “Are they all down there?”
“Aye, sir.” One of then thumped his musket on the hatch. “Most of ’em had been put there afore the attack, sir.”
“I see.” It was a wise precaution in spite of the terror and the thunder of cannon fire. Otherwise many more would have died with the captain and his officers.
Allday hissed, “You’re not going down there, Captain?”
Bolitho ignored him. “Open it.”
He cocked his head to listen to Meheux shouting orders, the answering patter of bare feet on the deck above. Another crisis, but Meheux would have to manage on his own. Right now he had to see the passengers, for down there below the waterline he was sure he might find the answer to one of his questions, and there was no time left for delay.
At first Bolitho could see nothing. But when the seamen flung back the hatch cover and Ashton held his lantern directly above the ladder he felt the sudden tension and fear rising to greet him like something physical.
He climbed down two of the steps, and as the lantern light fell across his body he was almost deafened by a violent chorus of cries and shouts, and saw what appeared to be hundreds of eyes shining in the yellow beam, swaying about in the pitching hull as if detached from anything human. But the voices were real enough. Rising together in shock and terror, the shriller cries of women or children making him halt on the ladder, suddenly aware that many of these people were probably quite ignorant of what had happened in the world above them.
He shouted, “Be silent, all of you! I will see that no harm comes…”
It was hopeless. Hands were already reaching from the gloom, clawing at the ladder and his legs, while the mass of glittering eyes swayed forward, pushed on by the press of figures at the rear.
Ashton said breathlessly, “Let me, sir! I speak a little Spanish.”
Bolitho pulled him down to the ladder and shouted, “Just tell them to keep quiet!”
As Ashton tried to make himself heard above the clamour
Bolitho called to the two seamen, “Get some more hands down here! Lively, or you’ll be trampled to pulp!”
Ashton was tugging at his sleeve and pointing below him. “Sir! There’s someone trying to say something!”
It was in fact a plump, frightened-looking man, whose bald head shone in the lantern like a piece of smooth marble as he cried, “I speak the English, Captain! I will tell them to obey you if you only get me out of this terrible place!” He was almost weeping with fear and exhaustion, but was managing to keep a grip on something which Bolitho now recognised as a wig.
“I’ll have you all out of there in a moment. Stay on the ladder and tell them.” He felt suddenly sorry for the unknown man, who was neither young nor very firm on his feet. But right now he was his most valuable asset, one he could not afford to lose from view.
The bald man had a surprisingly carrying voice, although he had to break off several times to regain his breath. Some of the noises had died, and the crush of figures beneath the ladder eased back in response to his pleas.
The master’s mate and three seamen came panting along the passageway and Bolitho shouted, “Ah, Mr
