'Yes.' Bolitho sheathed his sword without knowing why he had done so. 'No frigate carries that number of men.' The second lieutenant dropped his head and said brokenly, 'That damned Nicator. Here at last, too late to save our ship and all our men.'
Sunlight probed through the smoke, and Bolitho saw leaping flames and heard the crackle of burning timber. A mastless hulk, abandoned and well ablaze, was less than fifty yards away.
But as the smoke swirled high in the air, he stared at a ship which even now was firing another broadside downwind, at some other invisible target.
There was no mistaking her. Lysander was steering past the scattered transports, firing into individual vessels, or pouring a half-broadside into one isolated or apparently untouched. Her other side was obviously firing at the French seventy-four, which explained the first cheers and violent broadsides.
Bolitho saw and understood all of these things, but found they carried no meaning.
Only one thing counted. Lysander. Thomas Herrick had come for them, by some fantastic piece of luck and little less than a miracle, he had sailed down from the north channel and turned the anchorage into a shipbreaker's yard.
Pascoe said, 'I think that's Buzzard now, sir!' He was wild-eyed, his chest and throat moving with emotion. 'Yes, it is her! Her sails are so holed she is barely making way!'
Bolitho rubbed his eyes, seeing a corvette following close under Lysander's stern. She was listing, but had less damage to her sails than Javal's victorious frigate. Also, above her flapping tricolour she was wearing a large Union Jack.
Bolitho wrenched his eyes away. 'They’ve got boats in the water. Tell our people that help is coming.'
He watched the drifting hulk and prayed she was not one of the ammunition ships.
Another gust of wind moved across the water, and he saw that many of the transports had sunk completely. If they were loaded with those great guns, it was not surprising.
Boats 'pulled below the Osiris's shadow, and he heard voices shouting encouragement, while the oarsmen stared grim-faced at the battered, holed wreck which had once been Farquhar's command.
Plowman limped past carrying the ship's chronometer. He saw Bolitho and gave a tense grin. 'Pity to leave it in the wreck, sir. 'Er’ll come in useful.' He hurried to the side adding, 'Glad you're safe, sir.'
Bolitho realised there were many boats now, some with armed marines, and swivels mounted on their stems, while the others got on with the work of rescue.
That, too, became clear as he leaned on the rail to watch. Some boats were painted dark red, from Nicator then. So somewhere beyond the scattered transports and burning wrecks Probyn's ship was here to see the price of the battle.
A lieutenant crossed the deck and touched his hat to Pascoe. 'Nobody else survived but you?' He looked very clean against the horror and death.
Bolitho said, 'I survived.'
The lieutenant gaped at him and snapped, 'Beg pardon, sir! I did not recognise you in-'
Bolitho said wearily, 'No matter. It has become a custom. ' The officer blinked. 'I am from Nicator, sir. We did not think anyone had survived, 'he waved his hand despairingly around the deck, 'all this!'
Guthrie, the Osiris's second lieutenant, suddenly ran from the poop and seized the young officer by the coat.
, You bloody coward! You damned, crawling toad! Look what you did-'
As Pascoe pulled him away from the astonished lieutenant, Guthrie broke down completely, his body shaking violently to his sobs.
The lieutenant gasped, 'Nicator ran aground, sir. But when Lysander appeared out of nowhere, we were able to kedge off fairly well. Without Captain Herrick's arrival I fear we would have been even later.'
Bolitho watched him gravely, seeing his despair, his shame at Guthrie's attack.
'Of that I am quite sure.'
He walked to the sagging gangway. 'Now we can clear the ship. '
He paused above the nearest launch, his eyes on the hull's bare outline. Without masts or sails, and with only the dead and a few trapped and crazed men to crew her, Osiris was already a wreck. He felt the hull shudder, as if in protest against his thoughts, and knew that the blazing hulk had drifted along the other side. He heard the crackle of flames, the jubilant roar as they spread along Osiris's tarred rigging which lay in huge coils to receive them.
The French, or others, might salvage some of her seventy-four guns, and perhaps her bell as a souvenir. But the keel and ribs would lie in the sand long after the flames had been quenched, and until time and the sea completed the victory.
'Cast off.' He sat on the gunwale, surrounded by silent men, some wounded, some merely stunned by all they had witnessed and suffered. 'Give way all!'
Bolitho looked at the other boats. Every one crowded with survivors. But of Osiris's original company of six hundred souls there were about half that number. He tightened his lips and felt his gaze smarting from strain. A very heavy price. It was to be hoped someone would appreciate their sacrifice.
He heard a voice calling, and then Allday croaked, 'God, look at that gig!'
It was Lieutenant Veitch, blackened from head to foot and almost naked, but waving towards him and grinning from ear to ear.
Plowman murmured, 'said 'e'd make it. That what 'e said. The mad bugger!'
