The Flag Captain

A quick glance told him Zeus was leading her own division in obedience to the signal, her sails flapping violently as more balls screamed through them from the enemy guns. But instead of a converging bunch of ships, the French gunners now had the more slender targets to compete with. End on, their gundecks still silent, the two British lines moved steadily towards them, although because of the gentle turn to starboard Euryalus was a good ship’s length ahead of Zeus.

Bolitho gripped the rail as smoke rolled down from the flashing guns. Iron shrieked above the quarterdeck, and here and there a severed line or block fell unheeded on the taut nets.

“Steady!”

He wiped his eyes as more smoke swirled above the deck and watched the nearest set of topmasts standing, as if detached, fine on the larboard bow. He felt the deck jerk again as more shots smashed into the hull, and recalled suddenly the time he had described the superiority of her French build to Draffen. It was macabre to think of him down in the undisturbed darkness of a lower hold in his cask of spirits while the rest of them waited to fight and die.

He strode to the nettings as a small patch of colour showed itself above the smoke. The Spanish flag was flapping from her gaff, and he knew he had not mistimed his approach.

“Stand by on the gundecks!”

He saw the midshipmen scamper to the hatchways and imagined Weigall and Sawle down there in their world of semi-darkness, the great muzzles glinting perhaps in the open ports.

Meheux was facing aft, his eyes fixed on the quarterdeck, and Bolitho noticed that he had his sword sloped across his shoulder as if on parade.

With sudden alarm he clapped his hand to his hip and said, “My sword!”

Allday ran forward. “But, Captain, you can’t use it yet!”

“Get it!” Bolitho touched his side and marvelled at the stupid value he had given to wearing the sword. And yet it was important to him, although he could not put words to it.

He waited as Allday slipped the belt around his waist and said, “Left-handed or not, I may need it today.”

The coxswain took up his position by the nettings and watched him fixedly. While he had his cutlass the captain would not need his arm, he would lay an oath on that.

A new sound made several faces turn upwards. Screaming and sobbing, like some crazed spirit, it passed overhead and faded into the drifting smoke.

Bolitho said shortly, “Chain shot.”

The French usually tried to dismast or cripple an enemy if at all possible, whereas the British gunnery was normally directed at the hulls, to do as much damage and create sufficient carnage to encourage surrender.

The smoke glowed red and orange, and he heard cries from the forecastle as more chain shot scythed past the carronades to cut away shrouds and rigging like grass.

A strong down-eddy of wind thrust the smoke to one side, and while gunfire continued up and down the enemy line Bolitho saw the nearest Spanish seventy-four less than half a cable from the larboard bow. Just before the smoke billowed down again she stood there on the glittering water, clear and bright, her gold scrollwork and elegant counter throwing back reflections, while on her tall poop there were already flashes of musket fire.

To starboard the second Spanish ship was wallowing slightly out of line, her jib and fore topsail in torment as her captain tried to avoid the oncoming three-decker.

When he looked at Broughton he found him as before. Standing motionless with his hands hanging at his sides as if too stricken to move.

“Sir! Walk about!” He pointed at the nearest ship. “There are sharpshooters there this morning!”

As if to verify his warning several splinters rose like feathers from the planking, and a man beside a gun screamed in agony as a ball smashed into his breast. He was dragged away gasping and protesting, knowing in spite of his pain what awaited him on the orlop.

Broughton came out of his trance and began to pace up and down. He did not even flinch as a corpse bounced down from the main yard and rolled across the nets before pitching overboard. He seemed beyond fear or feeling. A man already dead.

More crashes and thuds against the hull, and then as the smoke cleared once again Bolitho saw the Spanish ship’s stern swinging level with the foremast. They were passing through the line, and the realisation almost unnerved him. He gripped the rail and tried to make himself heard above the din.

“Both batteries, Mr Meheux! Pass the word!” Fumbling and cursing, he tried to draw his sword with his left hand. It was hopeless.

A voice said, “Here, let me, sir.” It was Pascoe.

Bolitho took the worn hilt in his hand and smiled at him. “Thank you, Adam.” Was he thinking the same in that small fragment of time? That this old sword would be his too one day?

He held it above his head, seeing the hazed sunlight touch the keen blade before the smoke rolled inboard again.

“As you bear!” He counted the seconds. “Fire!”

The ship gave a terrible lurch as deck by deck, gun by gun, the deadly broadsides flashed and bellowed from either beam. He heard the groan of falling spars, the sudden screams in the smoke, and knew that the nearest ship had been badly mauled. And it

had not even begun. The lower batteries of thirty-two-pounders were roaring above all else, their recoil shaking the hull, to its very keel as their double-shotted bombardment raked the two ships with merciless accuracy. The one to starboard had lost both her fore and main topmasts, and charred canvas dropped alongside like so much rubbish. The nearest two-decker was idling downwind, her steering gone and her stern gaping to the sunlight like a great black cave. What the broadside had done within her gundecks was past speculation.

A blurred shape was edging around the other Spaniard, and Bolitho guessed it must be the French second-in- command. Euryalus’s lower battery had already reloaded and raked the Frenchman’s bows almost before she had drawn clear of her consort. He saw her guns belching fire and smoke, and knew she was shooting with little attention to accuracy.

“Stand by to tack, Mr Partridge!”

They were through. Already the disabled seventy-four was lost in smoke and there seemed an immense gap before another ship, the third in the line, could be seen.

Yards creaking and voices yelling above the thunder and crash of gunfire, Euryalus turned slowly to follow the enemy line. The difference was startling. With the wind’s advantage on their side it was possible to watch the enemy unhindered by gunsmoke, and he breathed with relief as the deck cleared and he saw that masts and yards were still whole. The sails were pitted with holes, and there were several men lying dead and wounded. Some had been hit by marksmen in the enemy’s tops, but most had been clawed down by flying wood splinters.

Somewhere astern there was a sickening crash, and when he leaned over the nettings he stared with disbelief as Impulsive swung drunkenly in a welter of broken spars, her passage through the enemy’s line only half completed. Her foremast had gone completely, and only her mizzen topsail appeared to be intact.

There were great gaps in her tumblehome, and even as he watched he saw her main topmast fall crashing into the smoke to drag alongside and pull her still further under the guns of a French two-decker. Chain shot had all but dismasted her, and he could already see another French ship tacking across her stern to rake her, as Euryalus had just done to the Spaniard.

He made himself turn back to his own ship, but his ears refused to block out the sounds of that terrible broadside. He saw Pascoe staring through the smoke, his eyes wide with horror.

He shouted, “Cast the boats adrift!” The boy turned towards him, his reply lost in a sudden burst of firing from ahead. Then he ran aft, beckoning to some seamen to follow him.

Bolitho watched coldly as the wind pushed his ship steadily towards the next Frenchman’s quarter. He was staring at her stern, knowing that her captain would either stay and fight or try to turn downwind. In which case he was doomed, as Impulsive had been. He had to grind his teeth together to stop himself from speaking Herrick’s name aloud. Casting the boats adrift had been more to ease the boy’s pain than with any hope of saving more than a handful of survivors.

Almost savagely he shouted, “Stand by on the fo’c’sle, Mr Meheux! Carronade this one!”