Honour This Day

Lovering closed his eyes. 'Please God, not my arm!'

Blachford waited for an assistant to bring his instruments. He had had to order them to to be cleaned again and again. No wonder men died of gangrene. He said gently, 'He's right. For your own sake.'

The lieutenant rolled his head away from the nearest lantern. He was about twenty-two, Blachford thought.

Lovering said in a whisper, 'Why not kill me? I'm done for.'

More crashes shook the hull and several instruments fell to die deck. Blachford stooped to retrieve one of them and stared, sickened, as a rat scurried away into the shadows.

Mmchin saw his disgust and set his teeth. Coming here with all his high-and-mighty talk. What did he know about war?

From one corner of his eye he saw the lamplight glint on Blachford's knife.

'Here, Ralph.' He placed a wedge of leather between his jaws before he could protest. 'I'll give you some proper brandy after this.'

A voice yelled through the misty smoke. 'Another officer, sir!'

An assistant held up his lantern and Blachford saw Lieutenant Quayle slipping down against one of the massive umbers, trying to cover his face with his coat.

A seaman protested angrily,' 'E's not even marked!'

Lieutenant Lovering struggled on the table, and but for the assistant holding his uninjured arm, and Mmchm's hands on his shoulders, would have fought his way to his feet.

'You bloody bastard! You cowardly -' His voice trailed away as he fell back in a faint on the table.

Blachford glanced again at Quayle; he was gripping his fingers and whimpering like a child.

'Call him what you will, but he's as much a casualty as any of them!'

Minchin replaced the leather wedge between Lovering's jaws. Brutal, callous; they were the marks of his trade. He held Lovering's shoulders and waited for him to feel the first incision of the knife. With luck he might lose consciousness completely before the saw made its first stroke.

Minchin could dismiss what Blachford and others like him thought about the navy's surgeons. He could even ignore Love-ring's agony, although he had always liked the young lieutenant.

Instead he concentrated on his daughter in Dover, whom he had not seen for two years.

'Next.' Lovering was carried away; the amputated limb fell into the tub. The wings and limbs tub as most of them called it. Until it was their turn.

Blachford waited for a seaman whose foot had been crushed beneath a careering gun-truck to be laid before him. Around him the loblolly boys and their helpers held the flickering lanterns closer. Blachford looked at his own arms, red to the elbows, like Minchm's and the rest. No wonder they call us butchers.

The man began to scream and plead but sucked greedily on a mug of rum which Minchin finished before laying bare the shattered foot. The hull quivered again, but it felt as if the battle had drawn away. There seemed to be cannon fire from all directions, occasional yells which were like lost spirits as they filtered through the other decks.

Hyperion might have been boarded, Blachford thought, or the enemy could have drawn away to reform. He knew little about sea-warfare other than what he had been told or had read about in the Gazette. Only since his travels around the fleet had he thought about the men who made victories and defeats real, into flesh and blood like his own.

'Next!* It never stopped.

This time a marine ran down a ladder and called, 'We've taken the Don alongside, lads!' He vanished again, and Blachford was amazed that some of the wounded could actually raise a weak cheer. No wonder Bolitho loved these sailors.

He looked down at the young midshipman. A child.

Minchin probed open part of his side where the ribs showed white through the blood.

Blachford said quietly, 'God, he looks so young.'

Minchin stared at him, wanting to hurt him, to make him suffer.

'Well, Mr Springett won't be getting any older, Sir Piers. He's got a fistful of Spanish iron inside him!' He gestured angrily. Take him away.'

'How old was he?'

Minchin knew the boy was thirteen, but something else caught his attention. It was the sudden stillness, which even the far-off gunfire could not break. The deck was swaying more slowly, as if the ship was heavier in the water. But the pumps were still going. God, he thought, in this old ship they never seemed to stop.

Blachford saw his intent expression. 'What is it?'

Minchin shook his head. 'Don't know.' He glanced at the dark shapes of the wounded along the side of the orlop. Some already dead, with no one to notice or care. Others waiting, still waiting. But this time… He said harshly, 'They're all sailors. They know something is wrong.'

Blachford stared at the smoke-filled ladder which mounted to the lower gundeck. It was as if they were the only ones left aboard. He took out his watch and peered at it. Minchin reached down and refilled his cup with rum, right to the brim.

He had seen the fine gold timepiece with the crest engraved on its guard. God rot him!

The roar of the broadside when it came was like nothing Minchin had ever experienced. There must have been many guns, and yet they were linked into one gigantic clap of thunder which exploded against the ship as if the sound, and not the massive weight of metal, was striking into the timbers.

The deck canted right over, shivered violently as it reared against the ship alongside, but the din did not stop. There was an outstanding, splitting crack which seemed to come right through the deck; it was followed immediately by a roar of crashing spars and rigging, and heavy thuds which he guessed were guns being hurled back from their ports.

The wounded were shouting and pleading, some dragging themselves to the ladder, their blood marking the futility of their efforts. Blachford heard the broken spars thudding against the hull, then sudden screams from the carpenter's walk, men clawing their way in darkness as the lanterns were blown apart.

Minchin picked himself up from the deck, his ears still ringing from the explosion. He saw some rats scurrying past the bodies of those who were beyond pain, and shook his head to clear it.

As he brushed past, Blachford called, 'Where are you going?'

'My sickbay. All I own in this bloody world is in there.'

'In Heaven's name, tell me, man!'

Minchin steadied himself as the deck gave another great shudder. The pumps had finally stopped. He said savagely, 'We're going down. But I'm not staying to watch it!'

Blachford stared round. If I survive this… Then he took a grip on his racing thoughts.

'Get these men ready to move on deck.' The assistants nodded, but their eyes were on the ladder. Going down. Their life. Their home, whether from choice or impressment; it could not happen. Shoes clattered on the ladder, and Dacie, the one-eyed boatswain's mate, peered down at them.

'Will you come up, Sir Piers? It's a bloody shambles on deck.'

'What about these wounded?'

Dacie gripped the handrail and wiped his remaining eye. He wanted to run, run, keep on running. But all his life he had been trained to stand fast, to obey.

Til pass the word, Sir Piers.' Then he was gone.

Blachford picked up his bag and hurried to the ladder. As he climbed the first steps he felt they were different. At an angle. He sensed the chill of fear for the first time.

He thought of Minchin's anger.

Going down.

Lieutenant Stephen Jenour retained his grip on Bolitho's arm even after he had pulled him from the deck. He was almost incoherent in his relief and horror. 'Thank God, oh thank God!'

Bolitho said, 'Take hold, Stephen.' His eyes moved across the quarterdeck and down to the awful spread of destruction. No wonder Jenour was close to a complete breakdown. He had probably imagined himself to be the