Honour This Day

The youth asked, 'Why me, sir?' He fell back, blood making a thin line from a corner of his mouth. 'Why me?

Keen waited while Bolitho released his hand and let it fall to the deck.

Keen said, 'Capricious is in support, Sir Richard! But there is another Don breaking through yonder!' He stared at his own raised arm. There was a strip torn from his sleeve. Yet he had not even felt the ball hiss past.

Bolitho hurried to the side and saw the second ship already overhauling the one which had fired the last broadside.

Bolitho nodded. 'Trying to join her admiral.'

Keen waved his hand. 'Mr Quayle! Pass word to the lower battery¹ We will engage this one immediately!'

The fourth lieutenant was no longer pouting disdainfully. He was almost beside himself with terror.

Keen turned. 'Mr Furmval!' But the midshipman had fallen too, while his companion stood rigidly beside Jenour, his eyes on the flags where his dead friend lay as if resting from the heat of battle.

Bolitho snapped, 'Get below, Mr Quayle! That is an order!'

Keen dashed the hair from his forehead and realised that his hat had been plucked away.

'God damn,' he said.

''Ready, sir!'

Keen sliced down with his sword. 'Ftre!'

Gun by gun the broadside painted the heaving water between the ships in the colours of the rainbow. It was possible to hear Hyperion's weight of iron as it crashed into the other ship's side, smashing down men and guns in a merciless bombardment.

The smoke swirled away in a rising breeze and Keen exclaimed, 'She'll be into us! Her rudder's shot away!'

Bolitho heard a splash and when he turned his head he saw some of the boatswain's party hurrying from the upended gun. Naylor's corpse had gone over the side. There was only blood left to mark where he had fought and died.

Bolitho could still hear his voice. Why me? There were many more who would ask that question.

He saw Allday with a bared cutlass in his fist, watching the oncoming Spaniard with a cold stare.

Parns yelled, 'Stand by to repel boarders!'

Major Adams went bustling forward, as the other ship's tapering jib-boom rose through the smoke and locked into Hyperion's bowsprit with a shudder which made even the gun crews pause at their work.

Keen shouted, 'Continue firing¹''

Hyperion's lower battery of thirty-two pounders fired relentlessly across the littered triangle of smoky water. Again, and yet once more, before the enemy's jib-boom shattered to fragments and with a great lurch she began to sidle alongside, until the gun muzzles of both friend and enemy clashed together.

Muskets cracked from the tops and a dozen different directions. Men dropped at their guns, or collapsed as they ran to hack away fallen rigging and blocks.

The swivels barked out from Hyperion's maintop, and Bolitho saw a crowd of Spanish sailors blasted away even as they swung precariously across the boarding nets.

Keen shouted, 'We've lost steerage way, Sir Richard! We'll have to fight free of this one, and I think the other two-decker is snared into her¹'

'Clear the lower battery, Val. Seal the ports! I want every spare hand up here!'

They dared not fire into the ship alongside now. They were locked together. It only needed one flaming wad from a gun to turn both ships into an inferno.

The seamen from the lower battery, their half-naked bodies blackened by the trapped smoke, surged up to join Major Adams's men as they charged to meet the attack.

Keen tossed his scabbard aside and tested the balance of his sword in his hand. He stared around in the drifting smoke, picking out his lieutenants amongst the darting figures. 'Where's my bloody coxswain⁵' Then he gave a quick grin as Tojohns ran to join him, his cutlass held high to avoid the other hurrying seamen.

'Here, sir!' He glanced at Allday. 'Ready when you are, sir!'

Keen's eyes settled on Parris by the rail. 'Stay here. Hold the quarterdeck.' Just the flicker of a glance towards Bolitho. It was as if they had clasped hands.

Then he too was up and running along the starboard gangway, as the enemy clambered aboard, or fired down from their own ship. Lieutenant Lovering pointed with his hanger and yelled, 'To the fo'c'stle, lads!' Then he fell, the hanger dangling from his wrist as an unseen marksman found his victim.

Dacie the one-eyed boatswain's mate was already there on the beakhead, swinging a boarding axe with terrible effect, cutting down three of the enemy before some of Adams's marines jumped down to join him, their bayonets licking through the nets, hurling aside the men caught there like flies in a web.

The swivels in the maintop banged out again, and some of Spanish sailors about to join the first boarders were scattered in a deadly hail of canister. Those already aboard Hyperion fell back, one throwing away his cutlass as the marines cornered him on the forecastle, but it was already too late for quarter. Gunsmoke drifted over the deck and when it cleared, there were only corpses as the jubilant marines fought their way across to the other ship's deck.

Jenour stood close beside Bolitho, his sword drawn, his face like one already dead. He shouted, 'Two of the Dons have struck, Sir Richard!'

Despite the clash of steel and the sporadic bang of muskets, there were faint cheers from another ship, and Bolitho imagined he could hear drums and fifes.

He climbed up the poop ladder and rubbed his eyes before peering through the enveloping smoke. He could just make out Obdurate, now completely dismasted and lashed alongside the Spanish two- decker she had collided with. A British ensign flew above the other vessel's deck, and Bolitho guessed it was Captain Thynne's men who were cheering.

Then he saw Benbow, pushing past another crippled Spaniard, pouring a slow broadside into her as she moved by. Masts toppled like felled trees, and Bolitho saw Hernck's flag curling above the smoke, so bright in the mocking sunlight.

He thought wildly, Hyperion had cleared the way, just as Naylor had promised she would.

Allday shouted, 'Here, watch out!'

Bolitho turned and saw a group of Spanish seamen clamber up over the starboard gangway, slashing aside the nets before anyone had noticed them. They must have climbed from the mam chains; they could have been creatures from the sea itself.

Bolitho drew his sword, and saw some of Adams 's red-coated marines already hacking their way aft on the other ship. These boarders had no chance at all. Their own vessel would have to strike unless the other two-decker could come to her aid. But another broadside hurled smoke and debris high in the air and even on to Hyperion's mamdeck, as one of Bolitho's squadron, probably Crusader, raked her from stern to bow.

There was a lieutenant leading the small group, and as he saw Bolitho he brandished his sword and charged to the attack.

Jenour stood his ground, but the Spaniard was a fine swordsman. He parried the blue blade aside as if it was a reed, twisted it with his hilt and sent it flying. He drew back to balance himself for a last thrust, then stared with horror at the boarding pike which lunged up through the quarterdeck ladder. The seaman gave an insane yell, tugged the pike free and drove it into the lieutenant's stomach.

Bolitho faced another Spaniard who was armed only with a heavy cutlass.

Bolitho yelled, 'Surrender, damn you!'

But whether he understood or not the seaman showed no sign of giving in. The wide blade swung in a bright arc and Bolitho stepped aside easily, then almost fell as a shaft of sunlight probed through the smoke haze and