‘Fire!'
The pace was slower, the response more irregular, as the gun captains jerked their lines and jumped clear as each great breech charged inboard again.
There was a great crack and then amidst a writhing tangle of stays and rigging Achates' main-topgallant mast thundered down. It ploughed into the larboard gangway like a battering ram, tearing aside the protective nets as if they were cobwebs before toppling overboard.
Rooke and his men were there in an instant, axes flashing as they cut the wreckage away. Two seamen were down too. Dead or knocked unconscious by falling rigging, Bolitho did not know.
The guns roared out once more, the din scraping at his mind, as fallen cordage and great strips of canvas fell over the sweating gun crews while they reloaded and then fired again.
Keen shouted, 'Argonaute's coming at us, sir!'
He looked wild-eyed, his hat knocked from his head in the turmoil which surged around him.
Bolitho wiped his eyes and looked at the enemy. The trick had worked. The Argonaute was charging down-wind with every available sail set, her forward guns firing haphazardly, some hitting, but others, because of the fine angle of approach, ripping through wave-crests far astern.
The little frigate had made no attempt to press home her attack, and was probably grateful to be a mere spectator. She was too far away now to be of any use. It was already too late for last-minute strategy.
Bolitho heard himself shout above the crash and recoil of the guns, 'It's men not ships, Val! They're what count in the end!'
Smoke belched over the gangway and a marine fell from the main-top, his scream lost in the bombardment. One of the forward eighteen-pounders was on its side, two men down and bleeding badly beside it, another writhing and screaming, pinned to the deck by its overheated muzzle.
Men from the disengaged side ran to replace the dead and injured, others obeyed Quantock's speaking-trumpet and hurried to splice hasty repairs and set the big main-course. It was too close to the fighting, too great a risk if fire should spread from sparks or a burning wad from a gun.
Bolitho gauged the distance. The French ship was a cable away, her guns firing intermittently, but at this range she was hitting Achates again and again.
Keen was right to set the bigger sails. If Achates lost steerage-way now through lack of canvas, she would fall down-wind and present her unprotected stern to the Frenchman's heavy guns and suffer the same fate as the frigate. If the enemy got the chance to fire through Achates full length, both decks would suffer crushing losses.
Bolitho raised his smarting eyes to the foremast and saw his flag flying above the smoke and destruction. As the French admiral would see it. The additional spur to drive him on, to bring both ships together regardless of consequences.
'Fire!' Keen paused only until the guns roared out towards the enemy. 'Mr Trevenen! Take charge there!'
Bolitho saw that Mountsteven was lying near one of his guns. He had lost an arm, and part of his face had been scorched like burned canvas.
The lower gun-deck was firing without respite, and Bolitho could picture it as if he were there. It had once been his station as a midshipman, a thousand years ago. The red-painted sides to hide the blood of battle, the leaping, grotesque shadows of the gun crews as they pranced and struggled around their weapons, and all the while the low confines of the deck filled with smoke, like a scene from Dante's inferno.
A ball came through an open gun-port, and Bolitho could follow its progress as men were hurled aside, some painted in blood as one of their companions was almost cut in halves before it eventually crashed into the opposite side. Men fell and rolled in torment, and Bolitho saw Tyrrell striding among the debris and patterns of blood, his wooden stump adding to his fierce and wild appearance.
Another ball slammed through the quarterdeck nettings and flung hammocks across the deck like torn dolls. Two helmsmen dropped, and one of the master's mates fell screaming, a foot-long wood splinter in his stomach like a barbed arrow.
Bolitho looked round frantically but saw Adam pulling himself to his feet. Through the smoke, his voice lost in noise and deafness of battle, he smiled before turning away to assist the after-guard.
'By God, sir, this is too damn hot for my taste!'
Bolitho looked at Allday. He was obviously in pain, but was gripping his cutlass with both hands like a broadsword.
Bolitho felt his hat plucked from his head and knew that they were close enough for the marksmen to test their skills.
'Walk about, Allday, or go below.' He tried to grin but his face felt stiff, like leather.
A midshipman darted forward and retrieved his hat. There was a neat hole just below the binding.
Bolitho made himself smile. 'Why, thank you, Mr – '
But the youth merely stared at him, the life dying in his eyes, like a candle being snuffed out. Then he fell, blood flooding from his mouth.
Bolitho replaced his hat and stared at the enemy. He had not even remembered the boy's name.
A great shadow swept across the deck, followed by a chorus of shouts and screams. The fore-topmast, complete with topgallant mast and spars, had been shot away as cleanly as a carrot. It thundered over the side, taking rigging, men and pieces of men in its wake.
He heard Allday gasp, 'Th' flag, sir! They've shot your flag away!'
Even in the midst of disaster and death Bolitho could feel his outrage and bewilderment.
Bolitho drew the old sword and carefully laid the scabbard on the deck without really knowing what he had done.
The enemy was almost alongside, the guns still firing, the air filled with flying, whining fragments.
So this was where it was to be. Destiny had always known. Men merely deluded themselves.
He saw some sailors below the quarterdeck cringing as more falling wreckage bounced on the nets or splashed into the sea alongside.
They had given everything. Far more than should be expected of them.
He flung his hat down on the nearest gun and yelled, 'Come on, my lads! One last broadside!'
A gold epaulette was cut from his shoulder by a musket ball and a marine scooped it up and hid it in his tunic.
Dazed, bloody and filthy with powder smoke, the seamen returned to their guns, their rammers moving like extensions of themselves, their eyes blind to everything but the bright tricolour above the smoke.
Bolitho shouted, 'One more broadside, then she'll be into us, Val!'
Then he realized that Keen was clutching his side and there was blood on his fingers and white breeches. He saw Bolitho's concern and shook his head.
Between his teeth he gasped, 'Not yet, the people must not see me fall!'
Quantock saw what had happened and waved his hat. 'Fire!'
The guns roared out at point-blank range, the balls passing through a return of fire from the enemy. Splinters burst from the deck, men reeled about gasping, others yelled orders to those who had already fallen.
Quantock was aware mainly of a feeling of triumph. At the very moment when they were to engage at close quarters, when hard discipline and not softness would win through, he and not Keen had been the one to take command.
But something was wrong. He was slipping and then falling. But it was all right. Someone would help him. By the time he realized that the blood was his own, his eyes, like the midshipman who had retrieved Bolitho's hat, were dead.
18
How Sleep the Brave?
Here and there along both ships guns continued to fire right until the moment of collision. It was as if the men on the lower deck were out of control, or were so dazed by the continuous thunder of their guns they no longer
