For My Country’s Freedom

'All acknowledged, sir!' Avery licked his lips to moisten them.

Bolitho looked at Tyacke. 'Execute!'

As the flags darted down again to drop amongst the signal party in colourful disorder, Tyacke shouted, 'Lay her on the larboard tack, Mr York. Steer nor’-west by north, as close as you can!'

With the spokes gleaming in the strange light the big wheel was hauled over, the helmsmen squinting at the masthead pendant and the shaking driver while Indomitable continued to swing. He snatched a telescope from a gasping midshipman and rested it on the boy’s shoulder as reefs were cast off, and the spreading canvas thundered out from every spar until even the great main-

sail yard appeared to be bending like a bow.

From line-abreast to line-ahead, with the little brig lost somewhere beyond Reaper.

Tyacke yelled, 'Cast off your breechings! Prepare to load! Full elevation, Mr Scarlett!'

Then, surprisingly, Tyacke removed his hat and slapped it against the nearest breech.

'Come on, my lads! Watch this lady fly!'

With almost every sail she could carry filled and hard to the wind, the ship did seem to be bounding over the crests, not away from the enemy this time but on a close-hauled converging tack.

'All guns load!'

Bolitho gripped a stay and watched the half-naked bodies of the gun crews moving in tight separate teams, the scampering powder-monkeys with their bulky cartridges, each gun captain stooping to check the training tackles, his heavy gun moving slightly with the breeching rope cast off.

'Open the ports!'

The gunports on either side were hauled open, as if raised by a single hand. Drills, drills and more drills. Now they were ready, Lieutenant Daubeny by the foremast, his sword across his shoulder while he watched the enemy. Not merely sails any more, but towering and full of menace as they bore down towards the larboard bow.

Heavy artillery roared from elsewhere, and there was something like a sigh as the little Woodpecker drifted out of command, her foremast, yards and flapping canvas trailing over the side even as more long-range balls from Unity slammed into her hull.

Tyacke drew his sword. 'On the uproll, lads! Lay for the foremast!'

Bolitho gripped his hands together and watched the glittering sword in Tyacke’s fist. The Baltimore was steering directly for the gap between Indomitable and Adam’s Zest in the van.

The deck tilted slightly, the topsails flapping in protest while the ship came as close as she dared into the wind.

'Fire!'

It was like watching an invisible avalanche as it roared across Baltimore’s tall side, splintering gangways and timbers alike, upending guns and clawing every sail so that some ripped open, tearing into long ribbons as the wind completed the destruction.

'Signal Zest, Mr Avery! Attack and harry the enemy’s rear.'

Tyacke glanced round. 'He’ll need no second order, sir!'

'Stop your vents! Sponge out! Load!'

Along the deck each grubby gun captain held up his fist.

'Ready, sir!'

'Run out!'

A few flashes burst through the thickening smoke, and Bolitho felt the enemy’s iron smash into the lower hull.

Men peered at one another, looking for friends and messmates. Not a single man had fallen and Bolitho heard a ragged cheer: defiance, pride, and the overwhelming madness of a fight at sea.

'Fire!'

Allday exclaimed, 'The bugger’s mizzen is goin’, sir!'

The Baltimore’s steering must have been damaged or its helmsmen smashed down in that last broadside. A few guns were still firing, but the timing was gone, the ability to change tack destroyed with it.

Bolitho wiped his face with his sleeve, and saw the long orange tongues spitting through the smoke beyond the big American. Steady and merciless, gun by gun, into the drifting Baltimore’s unprotected stern. Bolitho could imagine Adam sighting and firing each gun himself. Remembering what he had lost and could never reclaim.

Scarlett called wildly, 'Reaper’s struck, sir!' He sounded half mad with disbelief. 'The bastards!'

Bolitho lowered his glass. Reaper had been overwhelmed. All but dismasted, her sails like blackened rags, she was falling downwind, her ensign gone, her upper deck like a slaughterhouse. Smashed guns, men and pieces of men, her brave captain, James Hamilton, in a game made for others far younger, killed on the quarterdeck where he had fought his ship to the end. He should have remained in the H.E.I.C. This was not for him. Bolitho looked at his hand on the rail, gripping until it was bloodless. Not for me either.

'Run out! Take aim! Fire!'

Bolitho coughed as more smoke swirled inboard through the open ports. Acrid, savage, blinding.

Reaper had had no chance. A small sixth-rate of 26 guns against Beer’s powerful artillery.

He wiped his eyes and saw Avery watching him, surprisingly calm. Distancing himself from the shattered ships and the floundering bodies that marked Woodpeckers sudden end, as he did from many other experiences.

'All reloaded, sir!' Scarlett was staring from Tyacke to his admiral.

A silence had fallen over the ship; even the wind had lulled for the moment. Drifting through smoke as dense as fog, with only the muffled sounds of musket fire and swivels, and the smells of burning timber. Like the gateway to hell itself.

Then he saw Unity’s topgallants, her sky-scrapers, punctured here and there but strangely serene above the smoke and carnage it concealed.

'Stand by, lads!'

Bolitho watched Tyacke’s sword, wondering in those few seconds why fate had decided that this vital meeting was to be.

But the sword fell from Tyacke’s hand as the smoke exploded in one huge broadside. A world of screaming madness, of falling rigging and razor-edged splinters.

Men dying, or being pounded into bloody gruel even as they stood mesmerised by the enormity of the bombardment.

There were twisting, unreal shapes as the maintopmast thundered down over the side, the corpses of some marines tossed from the nets and into the sea like human flotsam.

Hands pulling him to his feet, although he could not recall having fallen. His hat was gone, and one of his proud epaulettes. There was bright blood on his breeches, but no pain, and he saw Midshipman Deane staring at him from the rail, half his young body pulped into something obscene.

Bolitho heard Avery calling, but it seemed far away, although their faces all but touched.

'Are you hit, sir?'

He gasped, 'I think not.' He dragged out the old sword and saw Allday crouching near by, his cutlass already drawn while he peered half blind into the smoke.

Somebody yelled, 'Repel boarders! Stand-to, marines, face your front!'

Bolitho wiped his face again with his sleeve. There was still order and life in the ship. Axes flashed through the trailing cordage and shattered spars alongside, and he heard the boatswain bellow, 'More men on the forebraces ’ere!'

Tyacke was also on his feet, his coat badly torn by the trailing halliards which had almost clawed him over the