the pendant flapping almost directly forward.
He could feel the ship responding, as with the wind under her coat-tails she forged eagerly ahead.
`French have made more sail, sir.' Herrick looked at him. 'Do I set the courses on her again?'
`No.' Bolitho walked three paces to the nearest gun and back again. 'I want them to believe we're more interested in delaying their progress than closing to point-blank range.'
He watched the French topgallant yards changing shape and direction as the ships spread more sail and increased speed accordingly. Less than a mile separated them now.
'Be ready, Mr Browne.'
He pictured the captains following in Benbow's wake. He had explained this very tactic to them when he had first met them as a- squadron. The minimum of signals. The maximum of initiative. He could see them now. Keverne, Keen and good old Inch. Waiting for the solitary flag which was already bent on and ready. As he had said at the time, `The French can read our signals, too, so why share our knowledge with them?'
'I think we may open fire, Captain Herrick.'
Bolitho saw his words being passed forward along the gundeck by whisper and gesture with the speed of light.
'No broadside. Tell your gun captains to shoot on the uproll and to fire at will.'
Herrick nodded. `Aye, sir. That will get the Frogs moving. They'll not want to be dismasted or crippled by a random shot at this stage of the game. They've a fair way to go in either direction!'
A midshipman ran down the main hatch with the message, and seconds later a whistle shrilled out from the forecastle.
It was hard to see who fired first, and to what effect. Down the engaged side the guns came crashing inboard on their tackles, the crews jumping instantly to sponge out the steaming muzzles and reload. Gun captains, stooped like old men, peered through their ports, watching the sails of the leading French ship jerk wildly as if in a whirlwind.
From the lower gundeck the recoiling thirty-two-pounders made the timbers quiver, while streaming past her beakhead the drifting smoke fanned out on either bow like a fog.
'We've hit her, by God!'
Another voice yelled, 'That was our gun, lads! Run out now an' we'll make 'em dance another jig!'
The rest of Bolitho's line were firing now, the shots cutting through the waves, some falling short and others hitting sails and hulls in a confusion of bursting spray and smoke.
'The French have altered course again, sir.' Herrick could barely control his excitement. 'Here they come.'
He winced as the second ship vanished in a wall of smoke and the long orange tongues flashed through it with the sound of thunder.
Water deluged across the forecastle, and beneath his feet Bolitho felt the massive hull stagger to the enemy's iron. Five, maybe six hits, but not a stay or shroud had been parted.
'Sponge out, that man!' A gun captain had to punch one of his men in the shoulder to bring him back to his senses. 'Now load, you bugger!'
Crash… crash… crash. All along Benbow's painted tumblehome the guns came roaring inboard on their tackles. Alone, in pairs or whole sections their captains aimed and pulled their trigger lines, unhampered by the restricting demands of a fixed broadside.
Men were cheering from up forward as the leading Frenchman's main-topgallant mast vanished into the smoke. There were black dots drifting past the ships; wreckage, burned hammocks from the nettings or perhaps corpses thrown overboard to keep the guns firing.
'Again, lads! Hit them!' Herrick was yelling through his cupped hands, a far cry from the quiet-faced man who had stood at the altar in Kent.
The French line were all firing now, and each British ship was being damaged, or so deluged in falling spray she appeared to be.
A ball punched through the main-topsail and other holes appeared in the fore.
A few severed lines swung lazily above the guns, like dead weed, while Swale, the boatswain, Big Tom, matched his voice to the din as he urged his men aloft to splice and effect repairs before something vital carried away.
Bolitho flinched as metal clanged against a gun on the starboard side and the broken splinters cracked around him like musket fire. A seaman fell headlong to the deck, and Bolitho saw that beneath his pigtail his vertebrae had been laid bare. Nearby a petty officer had dropped to his knees and was trying to hold his entrails in his hands, his mouth wide in a soundless scream.
'Steady, lads! Point! Ready! Fire!'
The quarterdeck nine-pounders fired together, their sharper, note making some of the men gasp with pain.
'And again!'
Bolitho swallowed hard as more enemy shots beat into the hull. He heard one smash through an open port on the lower gundeck, pictured the horror as it ploughed through men already blinded by smoke and half-mad from the deafening explosions.
'Fire!'
The leading French ship was overreaching Benbow, in spite of her missing topgallant mast. She was firing wildly, but some of the shots were hitting the hull. Bolitho looked along the upper gundeck at the men moving back and forth, jumping clear as each gun came squealing and crashing inboard.
Some lay where they had been dragged to await treatment. Others would not move again. Pascoe was walking behind his men, shouting something, then waving his hat. One of his gun captains turned to grin at him and fell dead as a ball whipped past his stomach without even touching him. On the opposite side it thundered into the bulwark and killed another seaman even as he ducked away.
'Fire!'
Bolitho cleared, his throat. 'We are rightly placed, I think.' He peered up at the flapping pendant, his eyes smarting with smoke. 'Be ready, Mr Browne!'
He heard Herrick yelling, 'Stand by to come about, Mr Grubb! Mr Speke!' He had to borrow Wolfe's trumpet to make the lieutenant hear through the noise. 'We will engage with both batteries! Prepare to raise the starboard port lids!' He watched to ensure that his message had been carried to the lower gundeck and then turned to add, 'By God, our people are doing well today, sir!'
Bolitho took him by the arm. 'Walk about, Thomas. When we break the enemy's line they will try to mark us down from the tops!'
Somewhere in the smoke a man gave a shrill scream, and blood ran along the larboard scuppers in an unbroken thread.
He measured the distance. It was time. Later and the French might cripple them, or might try to separate them from each other.
'Make your signal, Mr Browne!'
The solitary flag broke from the yard, to be acknowledged all along the line.
Browne wiped his mouth with his hand. His hat was awry and there was blood on his white breeches.
`Close up, sir!'
Bolitho looked at the men ready at the braces, the ones at the big double-wheel taking the strain on the spokes while they tried to concentrate on Grubb, on everything but the crash and roar of cannon fire.
A marine fell from the maintop, hit a net and rolled over the side into the sea.
A powder-monkey, running towards the larboard guns, turned on his toes like a dancer then fell kicking to the deck. Before he looked away Bolitho-saw that his eyes had been blasted from his head.
'Now!'
The yards came round like great, straining bows, and as the helm went over Bolitho saw the French ships suddenly loom above the larboard bow. Then they stood before the bowsprit as Benbow continued to turn until her yards were all but braced fore and aft.
With canvas thundering and flapping in protest, Benbow held on her new tack, her tapering jib-boom pointing directly at the gilded gallery of the French flagship. He could see the sudden consternation on her poop and quarterdeck, the flags appearing frantically above the drifting smoke as she endeavoured to rally support.
