Galbraith saw him turn away and gesture urgently to the cabin servant, Napier.
“You! Over here!”
Napier hurried across, past grim-faced seamen and marines, a cutlass thrust through his belt, his shoes clicking on the sun-dried planking and bringing some unexpected grins from the crew of a nine-pounder. One called, “Look, boyos! We’ve nowt to fear now! We’re all in good hands!”
Adam said gently, “Your place is below. You know what to do.”
Napier faced him anxiously, with something like desperation.
“My place is here, sir, with you.”
There was no laughter now, and Cristie looked away, perhaps remembering somebody.
Adam said, “Do as I ask. I shall know where you are. I mean it.”
Jago heard it, too, feeling the handshake again, the strange sense of sharing what he could not contain or understand.
Galbraith watched the boy return to the companion-way, head high, the cutlass almost dragging along the deck.
Adam raised the glass once more, and remembered that Midshipman Bellairs was still at the masthead.
“Carry on, Mr Galbraith. Bring her about. Let’s see her fly today!” His hand was raised and Galbraith waited, remembering every phase, and each mood, like pictures in a child’s most treasured book.
And saw his captain suddenly give a broad grin, teeth very white against his tanned skin.
“And be of good heart, my friend. We shall win this day!”
Cristie’s voice was harsh, his Tyneside accent even more pronounced as he shouted, “Steady as she goes, sir! Sou’-west-by south!”
Another bang echoed across the choppy water, the second gun to be fired. Adam clenched his knuckles against his thighs, counting seconds and then feeling the ball smash into Unrivalled’s lower hull. He did not need the glass; he had seen the smoke from the nearest pursuer before it was shredded in the wind. The second shot, and both had come from the frigate on Unrivalled’s starboard quarter. Not because the other, on almost exactly the opposite quarter, could not bear but, he suspected, because the ship which had fired was the senior, and probably mounted heavier bow-chasers.
The ship which had made that brief signal. No trick, then; she was the main danger. Unrivalled’s stern was vulnerable to any shot, no matter how badly aimed. The rudder, the steering tackles… He shut his mind to it.
“Stand by to come about, Mr Galbraith!” He strode to the rail again, and shaded his eyes. Two shots; it was enough. He dared not risk it any further. Disabled, Unrivalled would be destroyed piecemeal.
As he turned he saw the staring eyes of those at the gun tackles along the starboard side, muzzles pointing at the empty sea. The breechings were cast off, the guns were loaded, and men with sponges, worms and rammers were already poised for the next order, their bodies shining with sweat, as if they had been drenched by a tropical rain.
“Stand by on the quarterdeck!”
Massie would be ready with his gun captains. All those drills… it was now or not at all.
“Put the helm down!”
Feet skidded on wet gratings as the three helmsmen hauled over the spokes. With her topsails filled to the wind Unrivalled began to respond immediately, her head swinging even as more men freed the headsail sheets, spilling out the wind, to allow the bows to thrust unimpeded into and across the eye. Sails flapped and banged in confusion, and as the deck tilted hard over the nearest enemy ship appeared to be charging towards the concealed broadside.
It must have taken the other captain completely by surprise. From a steady, unhampered chase to this: Unrivalled pivoting round, revealing her full broadside, and none of his own guns yet able to bear.
“Open the ports! Run out!”
All order had gone. Men yelled and cursed with each heave on the tackles until every port was filled, and there was no longer an empty sea for a target.
Massie strode past the empty boat tier. “Fire!” A slap on a man’s tense shoulder. “As you bear, fire! ”
As each trigger-line was jerked an eighteen-pounder thundered inboard to be seized and sponged out, charge and ball tamped home.
Adam shouted, “Hold her now! Steer north-west!”
There were more yells, and he imagined that he heard the splintering crack of a falling spar, although it was unlikely above the din of canvas and straining rigging, and the last echoes of a full broadside.
The other frigate was falling downwind, her bowsprit and jib boom shot away, the tangle of severed cordage and wildly flapping sails dragging her round.
Adam cupped his hands. “On the uproll! Fire! ”
It was a ragged broadside, some of the guns had not yet run out, but he saw the iron smash home, and bulwarks and planking, broken rigging and men being flung like flotsam in a high wind.
It might have been us.
Galbraith was shouting, “The other one’s coming for us, sir!”
The second frigate seemed so near, towering above the larboard quarter, stark in the hard sunlight. He could even see the patches on her forecourse, and the pointing sword of a once proud figurehead.
He winced as more iron smashed into the hull, feeling the deck lurch beneath his feet, and hearing the heavy crash of a ball ripping into the poop. The enemy’s jib-boom was already overreaching the larboard quarter.
He dashed the smoke from his eyes and saw a man fall on the opposite side, his scream lost in the report of a solitary gun.
He waved to Cristie. “Now!”
The wheel was moving again, but one of the helmsmen was sprawled in blood. Unrivalled turned only a point, so that it appeared as if the other ship must ride up and over her poop. The jib-boom was above the nettings now, men were firing, and through the swirling smoke Adam saw vague figures swarming out on the other frigate’s beak-head and bowsprit, cutlasses glinting dully in the haze of gunfire.
Going to board us. It was like another voice.
“Clear lower deck, Mr Galbraith!” Suppose it failed? He thrust the thought away and dragged out his sword, conscious of Avery beside him, and Jago striding just ahead, a short-bladed weapon in his fist.
Adam raised the sword. “To me, Unrivalleds!”
She was a well-armed ship. He could remember the admiration, the envy. Apart from her two batteries of eighteen-pounders, she also mounted eight 32-pound carronades, two of which were almost directly below his feet.
It happened within seconds, and yet each moment remained separate, stamped forever in his memory.
Midshipman Homey slipping and falling to his knees, then being hit in the skull by a heavy ball even as he struggled to his feet. Flesh, blood and fragments of bone splashed across Adam’s breeches. The carronades roared out together, crashing inboard on their slides and hurling their massive balls, packed with grape and jagged metal, directly into the enemy forecastle.
Avery turned and stared at him, shook his sword, shouted something. But the stare did not waver, and he fell face down, and the packed mass of boarders surged across his body and on to the other ship’s deck.
It was useless to hesitate. Too many who depended upon… But for only a second Adam halted, looking for the man who had been his uncle’s friend.
Jago was dragging at his arm.
“Come on, sir! We’ve got the bastards on the run!”
A dream, a nightmare; scenes of desperate brutality, all mercy forgotten. Men falling and dying. Others dropping between the two hulls, the only escape. A face loomed out of the yelling, hacking mob: it was Campbell, the hard man, waving a flag and screaming, “The flag! They’ve struck!”
Now there were different faces, and he realised that, like Avery, he had fallen and was lying on the deck. He felt for the sword, and saw Midshipman Bellairs holding it; it must have been knocked out of his hand.
And then the pain reached him, a searing agony, which punched the breath from his lungs. He groped for his thigh, his groin; it was everywhere. A hand was gripping his wrist and he saw it was O’Beirne, and understood that he was on Unrivalled’s gun deck; he must have lost consciousness, and he felt something akin to panic.
He said, “The orlop! You belong with the wounded, not here, man!”
