admiral. If they faltered now they were finished,, with every likelihood of Benbow being taken intact to sail in a French line of battle.
It was too terrible to contemplate, and Bolitho did not even see Herrick's alarm or the concern on Allday's face as he ran to follow him along the exposed gangway.
But they were responding. As more shots hammered into the hull or clipped away rigging like some invisible scythe, the Benbow's people stood back from the guns to cheer, to arm themselves, and climb to join Bolitho at the boarding nets.
The depleted gun crews were busily reloading, held under control by threat and physical strength, as Speke yelled, 'Full broadside! Ready!'
Bolitho gripped the nettings and stared at the sea splashing alongside. It must soon end.
He could feel the grin fixed to his lips like a painful bit, hear the voices of the seamen blurred and distorted around him as they shouted towards the enemy. Like baying hounds, eager to kill even at the expense of death.
'Broadside! Fire!'
The shock almost hurled Bolitho headlong, and when he looked behind him he thought it was like standing on an abandoned footbridge, for the smoke, as it billowed inboard through every port, hid the entire gundeck from view.
Somewhere a trumpet blared with sudden urgency, and in disbelief Bolitho saw Ropars' ship standing away, her mizzentopmast gone completely, her side and gunports streaming smoke. There were sparks, too, with running figures throwing water to fight the sailor's greatest fear of all.
Allday shouted wildly, 'The Frogs are hauling off, sir! You did for 'em!'
Men were cheering in spite of the shots which still hissed and whimpered overhead.
Bolitho's mind cringed to the noise, but the realization was stronger. It would soon be too dark to chase the enemy, even if his battered ships were able. Ropars, too, would be unable to regroup in time to give battle, and a complete escape was no doubt uppermost on his mind.
He saw Pascoe hurrying along the gangway, his face strained and somehow defenceless.
He turned and then winced with pain as something struck him hard in the left thigh. For a brief instant he imagined someone had kicked him or had struck him with a musket or pike in the excitement of the moment. Then as he stared at the great pattern of blood pumping across his leg the agony slammed into him like a white-hot iron.
Bolitho could not think clearly, and heard himself cry out as his cheek scraped on the deck planking. He felt himself falling and falling, even though his body was motionless on the gangway.
He thought he heard Herrick shouting from a long way off, and Allday calling his name. Then Pascoe was above him, looking down at his face, his fingers pushing the hair from his eyes as the final darkness closed in and offered him oblivion.
Bolitho moved his head from side to side, conscious of little else but a terrible screaming, which for a few moments he imagined was coming from his own throat. Everything was dark, yet held patches of swaying light and blurred colours.
A voice said urgently, 'He is conscious. Get ready to move him!'
A red haze faded above him, and he realized it was Major Clinton's coat. He and some of his men must have carried him below. Sweat broke like ice water across his chest. Carried below. He was on the orlop deck, and the scream was someone already under the surgeon's knife.
He heard Allday, his voice almost unrecognizable as he said, 'We must take him aft, Major.'
Another voice, demented in terror, said, 'Oh no, oh no! Please!'
Bolitho felt his head being raised slightly and realized a hand was supporting it. Water trickled through his lips while his eyes probed the semi-darkness of the orlop as he tried to swallow. Another scene from Hades. Men propped against the Benbow's massive timbers. Inert shapes, and others which rocked about in their separate agonies.
Beneath a cluster of lanterns Loveys, the surgeon, stooped over his makeshift table, his apron spattered with blood like a butcher's.
The man who had been screaming was lying spreadeagled on the table, his cries stopped by a leather strap between his clenched teeth. He was naked, and held rigid by Loveys' mates. Only his eyes moved, like marbles as he stared at the surgeon, pleaded with him.
Bolitho saw that the man's arm had been split open, smashed by an enemy ball or a large fragment of iron. The knife glittered in Loveys' hand, and for what seemed like an eternity he held the edge of the blade on the soft flesh above the wound, barely inches from the point of the shoulder. With a quick nod to his mates he cut down and round, his face like stone. Another assistant handed him his saw, and in minutes it was done, the severed limb thrown into a bucket below the gyrating lanterns.
Someone whispered, 'Thank the Lord, he's fainted, poor bugger!'
Allday was behind Bolitho's head. 'Let us carry you aft, sir. Please, this is no place for you!'
Bolitho strained his head round to look at him. He wanted to console him, to explain that he had to remain here, if only to share the pain he had brought to the men around him. But no words came, and he was shocked to see the tears running down Allday's face.
Bolitho gritted his teeth. 'Where is Captain Herrick?'
Browne was on his knees beside him. 'He is attending to the squadron, sir. He will be down again soon.'
Again? So much to do; the dead to be buried, the repairs to be carried out before a storm found them, yet Herrick had already been here to see him.
Loveys was looking down at him, his wispy hair shining in the lamplight.
'Now, sir, let me see.'
Loveys knelt down, his skull-like features showing no sign of fatigue or dismay. He had just flensed a man's arm and amputated it, and God knew how many before that. For so frail a man he seemed to have more strength than any of them.
Bolitho closed his eyes. The pain was already so bad he barely felt the probing fingers, the slicing movement of a knife through his breeches.
Loveys said, 'Musket ball, but it is somehow deflected.' He stood up slowly. `I will do what I can, sir.'
Browne whispered, 'Your nephew is coming, sir. Shall I send him away?'
'No.'
Even one word was agony. The thing he had always dreaded. This was no scar, no spent ball in the shoulder. This was deep in his thigh. His leg and foot were on fire, and he tried not to think of the man he had just seen on the table.
'Let him come to me.'
Pascoe knelt beside him, his face very still, like one of the old portraits at Falmouth.
'I'm here, Uncle.' He took Bolitho's hand in his. 'How are you?'
Bolitho looked at the deckhead. Above it, and the next above that, the guns were still.
He said thickly, 'I have been better, Adam.' He felt the grip
tighten. 'Is everything all right with the squadron?'
He saw Pascoe trying to shield him from a man who was
carrying the bloodied bucket to the companion ladder.
Pascoe nodded. 'You beat them, Unde. You showed them!' Bolitho tried to hold the pain at bay, to estimate the damage
to his body his wild gesture had cost him.
Loveys was back again.
'I will have to remove your clothes, sir.'
Allday said, 'I'll do it!' He could barely look at Bolitho as he fumbled with his shirt and slashed breeches.
Loveys watched patiently. 'Better leave the rest to my loblolly boys.' He gestured to his assistants. 'Lively there!'
It was then that Bolitho wanted to say so much. To tell Adam about his father and what had really happened to him. But hands were already lifting him up and over some motionless figures. Drugged with rum, bandaged against infection, they might yet live. He felt something like terror, claws of fear exploring his insides.
