Wallowing helplessly while her seamen tried to hack the trailing wreckage away, the Ajax drifted end-on towards Neale's battery. There was no fear of the double-shotting splitting the breeches now, Bolitho thought. The guns were so overheated that he could feel the nearest one like an open furnace.
He saw one old gun captain cradling each shot in his hard hands before allowing it to be rammed home. It had to be perfect this time.
Neale clambered up into the lee shrouds and snatched his first lieutenant's speaking trumpet to shout, `Strike your colours! Surrender!' He sounded almost as if he were pleading. But the only answer was a volley of musket shots, one of which clanged against his sword like a bell.
He climbed down to the deck, his eyes bleak as he stared at the raised fists of his gun captains.
'So be it then.' He looked at his first lieutenant and gave a curt nod.
The broadside, which thundered with mounting fury from bow to stern, gun by gun, as the Styx sailed slowly past the enemy's figurehead, was terrible to see. Wreckage flew high in the air and the mainmast fell in a great swooping crash to join the other broken spars alongside. Bolitho thought he saw the frigate drop her bows under the murderous weight of iron, and he saw a young midshipman biting the sleeve of his coat with horror as long tendrils of blood ran from the Ajax 's scuppers, as if she and not her people were dying.
A master's mate shouted, `The merchantmen are weighing, sir.' He sounded beyond understanding, past belief.
Bolitho nodded, still watching the beaten frigate. Vanquished in battle, but her tricolour was still flying, and he knew from hard experience that she at least would live to fight again.
He guessed that Neale and many of his men still had fire enough to try and seize the Ajax as a prize. But they had done plenty, and far more than he had dared hope. To go further, and flaunt the authority of the Swedish commandant and the one-sided neutrality of a Russian warship, would be pushing the odds too far.
He looked instead at the merchantmen. There were six in all, their sailors busily spreading more sails and trying to avoid collision with one another as they steered towards the small frigate which flew four flags for all to see.
Neale wiped his smoke-grimed features and said, 'Your flag lieutenant will not be the same again, I fear, sir.' He sighed as a wounded man was carried past. 'Nor any of us, for that matter.'
He turned to watch the nearest merchantman passing abeam, her larboard gangway alive with cheering men.
He added dryly, `We did what we came to do, sir. I think it only fair we borrow a few of their prime seamen? The least they can do to show their gratitude!'
Pascoe came aft and touched his hat. He waited for Neale to walk away to deal with the countless problems left behind by the fight, then said, 'That was quickly done, sir!'
Bolitho rested one hand on his shoulder. 'Barely twenty minutes. I can scarce believe it. Captain Neale is a fine seaman.'
Pascoe did not look at him, but his mouth twitched in a smile.
`I believe he learned a lot in his first ship, Uncle?'
Mr Charles Inskip strode back and forth through the highceilinged room as if it were no longer big enough to contain him. Even his wig, which he had donned to lend dignity to his authority, was knocked awry with his agitation.
`God damn it, Bolitho, what am I to do about you?' He did not wait for a reply. 'You abuse the Danish neutrality and slink off in the night with some cock-and-bull scheme for a cuttingout expedition, and now you are back here in Cophenagen! You do not even have the sense to stay away!'
Bolitho waited for the squall to pass. He could sympathize with Inskip's unwelcome role here, but he had no regrets about the released ships. By now they would be passing through the narrows and out into the North Sea. To have left them in the Tsar's hands, to be handed possibly to the French as some kind of gift or bribe, was unthinkable. It would have been even more cruel to leave their luckless crews to rot in some prison camp or freeze to death in alien surroundings.
He said impassively, 'It was the least I could do, sir. The merchantmen have no cause to fear attack from the Danes. They were wrongly seized, much as the Danish ships were impounded by us this year. But if I had not anchored here again, had trailed my coat instead beneath the shore batteries of the Sound Channel, I would have provoked a disaster.'
He thought suddenly of the passage back. No one had had time to precede them and yet rumour had outpaced everything.' The waterfront had been packed with silent townspeople, in spite of the bitter cold, and later, when permission had been granted by the port admiral to carry out repairs and to carry the dead ashore for burial, something like a great sigh had gone up from the watchers.
Inskip did not seem to hear him. 'I might have expected such action from one of your captains. But the flag officer of a squadron, indeed not! Just by being there you represented your King and Parliament.'
`You mean that a mere captain could be dismissed, court martialled, if things went against him, sir?'
Inskip paused in his agitated pacing and said, `Well? You know the risks as well as the rewards for command!'
Bolitho knew he was getting nowhere and said, `Anyway, I should like to send word to my flag captain, if that is possible. I told him I might be away from the squadron for a week at the most. It is that now.'
Inskip glared at him. 'Oh dammit, Bolitho. I did not say you could not achieve what you set out to do. It was your method I doubted.' He gave a wry grin. `I have already sent a message to your squadron.' He shook his head. `I cannot imagine what they will say in Parliament, or here in the Palace, but I'd have given a lot to see you free our merchantmen! My aide has already spoken with your Captain Neale. That young man told him that the Styx dished up the enemy in no more than twenty minutes!'
Bolitho recalled Herrick's comment. Men, not ships, win battles.
'True, sir. It was the fastest frigate action I have yet witnessed.'
Inskip regarded him calmly. 'I suggest you were more than a mere witness.' He crossed to the window and peered at the square below. 'The snow has stopped.' Almost off-handedly he added, `You must prepare yourself to meet the Adjutant General while you are here. Possibly this evening. In the meantime you will remain as my guest.'
`'And the ship, sir?'
'I am assured she will be allowed to leave when temporary repairs are completed. But…' the word hung in the air as he turned to face Bolitho, 'your stay will be rather more permanent if the Danes request me to hand you over to them.'
He rubbed his hands as an elegant footman entered with a tray and said, `But for now we will toast your, er, victory, eh?'
Later, when he had been joined by Lieutenant Browne, Bolitho dictated a full report of his discovery and the action against the French frigate. He would leave higher authority to draw its own conclusions about the rights and wrongs of it.
By permitting the French ship to interfere with seized merchantmen within Swedish waters, and in the presence of one ofthe Tsar's own vessels, it would be a hard knot to untangle; he thought.
He sat back and watched Browne's face. `Have I forgotten anything?'
Browne eyed him for several seconds. 'I believe, sir, that the less you put on paper the better. I had time to think while I was boarding the merchantmen, time to place myself in a position where I would have to act instead of suggest. You won a battle, nothing to change the face of the world, but the very sort to give heart to the people at home. They hate to see ordinary folk like themselves put upon and humiliated by some foreign power. But others may not be so kindly towards you, sir.'
Bolitho smiled gravely. 'Go on, Browne, you have my full attention.'
Browne said, 'Admiral Sir Samuel Damerum, sir. He will not be pleased. It might make him look a fool to some, a man who lacks the courage to fight for small causes as well as great ones.' He gave a smile, as if he had gone too far. 'As I said, sir, I have had time to change places with the mighty while I have been away. Frankly, I am glad to be a lieutenant, especially a privileged one.'
Bolitho rubbed his chin and glanced at the presentation sword which was lying on a chair. Even the omen had been false. He had been right to act, and though Neale had lost ten men killed it had been worth it. As Browne had pointed out, it was no great panorama of battle, but it would put a small edge to their pride and show that, even
