the hurried glances from the gun crews, a half-wave from young Protheroe.
On this deck, the gun was god. Nothing else mattered but to fire and keep firing, to shut out the sights and the sounds, even when a friend cried out in agony.
He found Bolitho with Tyacke and the first lieutenant, observing from the quarterdeck. Here, too, the marines had come to life, like scarlet soldiers taken from a box, lining the packed hammock nettings while elsewhere sentries stood guard at hatches or ladders, in case a man’s nerve cracked and terror tore discipline apart.
Avery touched his hat. “She’s Retribution right enough, Sir Richard. She wears a commodore’s broad-pendant. Fifty guns, at a guess. She changed tack.” He thought of the corporal again, the doubt in his voice. “She’ll lose the wind-gage if she remains on that tack.”
York said, “She steers nor’-east, sir.” Unruffled. Patient. Bolitho saw him tap the youngest midshipman’s arm as the child reached for the half-hour glass beside the compass box. “Easy, Mr Campbell, don’t warm the glass! I have to write the log, not you!”
The twelve-year-old midshipman looked embarrassed, and momentarily forgot the growing menace of the American’s tall sails.
Bolitho took a telescope and trained it beyond the bows. Retribution had no intention of altering course, not yet. He studied the other frigate: well-built, like so many French vessels, designed to one standard for the convenience of repair and replacement, not at the whim of an individual shipbuilder like most British men-of-war. When Taciturn and the other damaged ships reached Halifax, they would be hard put to find a mast or a spar that would match any one of them.
He said, “He is deliberately dropping downwind, James.” He sensed that Daubeny was leaning forward to listen, squinting in concentration.
Tyacke agreed. “Then he intends to use the extra elevation the wind gives him to fire at full range.” He glanced up at the braced yards, the flag and pendant streaming towards the enemy, and said grimly, “He’ll try for our spars and rigging.”
Avery turned away. The corporal had seen it, but had not fully understood. Both Bolitho and Tyacke must accept it.
Bolitho said, “Chain-shot, James?”
Tyacke shook his head. “I did hear they were using langridge, that damnable case-shot. If so…” He swung away as though to consult the compass again.
Bolitho said to Avery, “It can cripple a ship before she can fight back.” He saw the concern in Avery’s tawny eyes, but he did not fully comprehend. Damnable, Tyacke had termed it. It was far worse than that. Packed into a thin case, each shot contained bars of jagged iron, loosely linked together so that when they burst into a ship’s complex web of rigging they could tear it to pieces in one screaming broadside.
He saw Tyacke gesturing to the gun crews and making some point urgently to Daubeny with each jab of his finger.
That was the advantage of langridge; but against that, it took far longer to sponge and worm out each gun afterwards to avoid a fresh charge exploding in the muzzle as it was rammed home. It took time, and Tyacke would know it.
Bolitho rubbed his damaged eye and felt it ache in response. If I were James, what would I do? He was astonished that he could even smile, recalling that almost forgotten admiral who had met his pleading for a command with the withering retort, Were a frigate captain, Bolitho…
I would hold my fire and pray that the regular drills hold firm, if all else fails.
Lieutenant Blythe called, “The enemy’s running out, sir!”
Tyacke said, “Aye, and he’ll likely check each gun himself.”
Bolitho saw Allday watching him. Even Tyacke had accepted Aherne, had given him body and personality. A man with so much hatred. Retribution. And yet if he crossed this very deck, I would not know him. Perhaps it was the best kind of enemy. Faceless.
Once again, he looked at the sky and the searing reflections beneath it. Two ships with an entire ocean to witness their efforts to kill one another.
He covered his undamaged eye and tested the other. His vision was blurred; he had come to accept that. But the colours remained true, and the enemy was close enough now to show her flag, and the commodore’s broad- pendant standing out in the wind like a great banner.
Tyacke said, “Ready, Sir Richard.”
“Very well, James.” So close, so private, as if they shared the deck only with ghosts. “For what we are about to receive…”
Tyacke waved his fist, and the order echoed along the upper deck.
“Open the ports! Run out!” And from the waist of the ship where the gunner’s mates were already passing out cutlasses and axes from the arms chest, Lieutenant Daubeny’s voice, very clear and determined.
“Lay for the foremast, gun captains! And fire on the uproll!”
The older hands were already crouching down, as yet unable to see their target.
Tyacke yelled, “Put your helm down! Off heads’l sheets!”
Indomitable began to turn, using the wind across her quarter to her best advantage. Round and further still, so that the other frigate appeared to be ensnared in the shrouds as Indomitable’s bowsprit passed over her, to hold her on the larboard side.
The distance was falling away more quickly, and Bolitho saw the topmen darting amongst the thrashing sails like tiny puppets on invisible strings.
The air quivered and then erupted in a drawn-out explosion, smoke billowing from the American’s guns which was then driven inboard and away across the water.
It seemed to take an age, an eternity. When the broadside ploughed into Indomitable’s masts and rigging, it was as if the whole ship was bellowing in agony. Tiny vignettes stood out amidst the smoke and falling wreckage. A seaman torn apart by the jagged iron as it ripped through the piled hammocks, and hurled more men, screaming and kicking, to the opposite side. Midshipman Essex, stock-still, staring with horror at his white breeches, which were splashed with blood and pieces of human skin cut so finely that they could have been the work of a surgeon. Essex opened and closed his mouth but no sound came, until a running seaman punched his arm and yelled something, and ran on to help others who were hacking away fallen cordage.
Avery stared up, ice-cold as the fore-topgallant mast splintered apart, stays and halliards flying like severed snakes, before thundering down and over the side. He wiped his eyes and looked again. It was suddenly important, personal. He saw the four scarlet figures in the top, peering up at the broken mast, but otherwise untouched.
“A hand here!”
Avery ran to help as York caught one of his master’s mates, who had been impaled on a splinter as big as his wrist.
York stepped into his place, and muttered hoarsely, “Hold on, Nat!”
Avery lowered the man to the deck. He would hear nothing ever again. When he was able to look up once more, Avery saw the American’s topgallant sails standing almost alongside. He knew it was impossible; she was still half a cable away.
He heard Daubeny shout, “As you bear! Fire! ”
Down the ship’s side from the crouching lion to this place here on the quarterdeck, each gun belched fire and smoke while its crew threw themselves on tackles and handspikes to hasten the reloading. But not double-shotted this time. It would take too many precious minutes.
A marine fell from the nettings without a word; there was not even a telltale scar on the deck planking to mark the shot.
Bolitho said, “Walk with me, George. Those riflemen are too eager today.”
“Run out! Ready! Fire!”
There was a cracked cheer as the Retribution’s mizzen-mast swayed and toppled in its stays and shrouds, before falling with a crash that could be heard even above the merciless roar of cannon fire. York was holding a rag against his bloody cheek, although he had not felt the splinter which had opened it like a knife.
He called, “Her steering’s adrift, sir!”
Bolitho said sharply, “Helm down, James! Our only chance!”
And then the enemy was here, no longer a distant picture of grace and cruel beauty. She was angled toward
