Unrivalled’s shortage of hands from the outset. After that…
There were a few hoarse cheers as the crouching gun crews saw the enemy angled across each port, and he heard Lieutenant Massie’s sharp response.
“Keep silent, you deadheads! Stand to your guns! I’ll have none of it!”
Adam walked to the rail and watched the nearest vessel, the brig. Like his old Firefly. Well handled, leaning over while she changed tack. Probably steering south-east. He thought of Cristie. By guess and by God. He measured the range, surprised still that he could do it without hesitation. The Tetrarch had taken in her fore and main courses and was preparing to await her chance, poised across the starboard bow as if nothing could prevent a collision.
There was a dull bang, and seconds later a hole appeared in the maintopsail. A sighting shot. He clenched his fists. Not yet, not yet. Another shot came from somewhere, sharper, one of the brig’s bow-chasers probably. He saw the feathers of spray dart from wave to wave, like flying fish. Still short.
“Forecourse, Mr Galbraith!” He strode to the opposite side. “Lay for the mainmast, Mr Massie! On the uproll!”
The enemy might be expecting a ragged broadside, and be waiting for a chance to close the range before Unrivalled could reload.
Adam heard Massie yell, “Ready! Fire! ”
He kept his eyes fixed on the other ship. Massie was managing on his own, pausing at each breech, one hand on the gun captain’s shoulder, the trigger-line taut, ready, the target framed in the open port like a painting come to life.
“Fire!”
Gun by gun, the full length of Unrivalled’s spray-dashed hull, each one hurling itself inboard on its tackles to be seized, sponged out and reloaded, the men racing one another to run out again, whilst on the opposite side the crews waited their turn, with only the empty sea to distract them from the regular crash of gunfire.
Someone gave a wild cheer.
“Thar goes ’er main-topmast! B’ Jesus, look at ’er, mates!”
But the other ship was firing now, iron hammering into Unrivalled ’s lower hull, a stray ball slamming through a port and breaking into splinters.
Adam tore his eyes from the spouting orange tongues of fire, feeling the blows beneath his feet like wounds to his own body. Men were down, one rolling across the deck, kicking and coughing blood, another crouched against a gun, fingers interlaced across his stomach, his final scream dying as he was dragged aside and the gun run up to its port again.
Galbraith yelled, “He’s standing off, sir!” He flinched as a powder monkey spun round, his leg severed by another haphazard shot. Adam saw another run and snatch up the fallen charge, eyes terrified, and averted from someone who had probably been his friend.
He turned. “Wouldn’t you? If you were full to the gills with powder and shot?” He shut them from his mind. “Stand by on the quarterdeck!” There was smoke everywhere, choking, stinging, blinding.
He could no longer see the other ship; the forecourse was filled to the wind, blotting out the enemy’s intentions.
“Put the helm down!” He dashed his wrist across his eyes and thought he saw the ship’s head already answering the helm, swinging bowsprit and flapping jib across the wind.
“Helm’s a’ lee, sir!”
Adam heard someone cry out and knew a ball had missed him by inches.
Come on! Come on! If Unrivalled was caught aback across the eye of the wind she would be helpless, doomed. He felt the deck planking jump again and knew the ship had been hit.
“Off tacks and sheets!” He walked level with the quarterdeck rail, his hand brushing against the smooth woodwork. Without seeing, he knew the forward sails were writhing in confusion, spilling the wind, allowing the bows to swing still further, unhampered.
“Fores’l haul! Haul, lads!”
One man slipped on blood and another dragged him to his feet. Neither spoke, nor looked at one another.
She was answering. Adam gripped the rail, and felt her standing into the opposite tack, sails filling and booming, the yards being hauled round until to an onlooker they would appear almost fore-and-aft.
“Hold her! Steer east-by-south!” Adam glanced swiftly at Cristie. Only a second, but it was enough to see a wild satisfaction. The pride might come later.
“Starboard battery!” Massie was there now, his sword in the air, his face a mask of concentration as he watched the brig swinging away, caught and unprepared for Unrivalled’s change of tack.
“Fire!”
It must have been like an avalanche, an avalanche of iron. When the whirling smoke, swept aside by the wind, laid bare the other vessel it was hard to recognise her, almost mastless, her shattered stumps and rigging dragging outboard like weed. She was a wreck.
Adam took a telescope from Midshipman Fielding, and felt the youth’s hand shaking. Or is it mine?
“Again, Mr Cristie! Man the braces and stand by to wear ship!” He tried to calm himself and steady the glass.
The terrier was dead. The real target could never outpace them.
“All loaded, sir!”
He watched the other ship. Saw the scars left by Unrivalled’s first controlled broadside, the holes punched in her darkly tanned canvas.
Galbraith called, “Ready, sir!” He sounded hoarse.
“Bring her about and lay her on the starboard tack.” He glanced up at the forecourse, at scorched holes which had not been there earlier. Earlier? On my birthday.
Galbraith’s voice again. “We could call on him to strike, sir.”
“No. I know what that feels like. We will open fire when we are in position.” The smile would not come. “The wind will not help him now.” He saw Midshipman Bellairs watching him fixedly, and said, “Signal the brig to lie to. We will board her presently.”
Bellairs beckoned to his signals party. “A prize, sir?” Like Galbraith he sounded parched, as if he could scarcely speak.
“No. A trophy, Mr Bellairs.” He looked at Galbraith. “Bring her about and take in the t’gallants. We shall commence firing.” He measured the distance again. “A mile, would you say? Close enough. Then we will see.”
He watched the sudden activity on deck, the shadows swinging across the flapping sails while the frigate continued to turn, the grim faces of the nearest gun crews.
It was neither a contest nor a game, and they must know it.
He saw Massie pointing with his sword and passing his orders, the words lost in the din of canvas and tackles.
Unless that flag came down, it would be murder.
Using the wind across his quarter to best advantage, Tetrarch’s captain had decided to wear ship, not to close the range but to outmanoeuvre and avoid Unrivalled’s challenge.
Adam observed it all in silence, able to ignore the bark of commands, the sudden protesting bang of canvas as his ship came as close to the wind as she could manage.
He raised his telescope again and trained it on the other vessel as she began to come about; he could even discern her figurehead, scarred and rendered almost shapeless by time and weather, but once a proud Roman governor with a garland of laurel around his head. Her captain might try to elude his adversary until nightfall. But there was little chance of that. It would only prolong the inevitable. He stared at the other ship’s outline, shortening, the masts overlapping while she continued to turn.
He could sense Galbraith and some of the others watching him, all probably full of their own ideas and solutions.
If they came too close and the other ship caught fire, her lethal cargo could destroy all of them. Adam had done it himself. Jago had been there then, also.
He said sharply, “Stand by to starboard as before, Mr Massie! Gun by gun!”
He wiped his eye and looked again. The enemy was bows-on, and in the powerful lens it looked as if her
