hunt them down and slaughter them. Revenge… I should have known that, only too well.
“We will come about, Mr Cristie! Steer nor’-east!”
They were staring at him, and he heard the reluctance in Cristie’s response.
“The channel, sir? We don’t even know if…” It was the closest he had ever come to open disagreement.
Adam swung on him, his dark eyes blazing. “Men, Mr Cristie! Remember? I’ll roast in hell before I leave Galbraith to die in their hands!”
He strode to the opposite side, ignoring the sudden bustle of seamen and marines as they ran to braces and halliards, as if they had been shaken from a trance.
The leadsmen were in position in the chains, one on either bow, their lines already loosely coiled, ready to heave.
Adam bit his lip. Like a blind man with his stick. There was not a minute more to measure the danger. There was no alternative.
He said, “Carry on! Put the helm down!” He saw Massie staring at him over the confusion of men already lying back on the braces, his face wild, that of a stranger.
Cristie stood near his helmsmen, one hand almost touching the spokes as the big double-wheel began to turn, and Unrivalled’s figurehead gazed at what appeared to be an unbroken line of sunscorched rocks.
Adam gripped the old sword and forced it against his hip, to steady himself. To remember.
His voice sounded quite level, as if someone else had spoken.
“Then get the hands aloft and shake out the t’gallants!”
He touched his face as the sun reached down between the flapping canvas, and did not see Bellairs pause to watch him.
Then he held out one hand, like someone quieting a nervous horse.
“Steady now! Steady!”
Trust.
Adam remained by the nettings and watched the shadows of Unrivalled’s topgallants and topsails glide over a long strip of sand and rock, as if some phantom ship were in close company. Some of the gun crews and unemployed seamen were peering into the water, the more experienced to study the patches of weed, black in the weak sunlight, which seemed to line the side of the channel through the islands. They were bedded in rock, any one of which could turn the ship into a wreck.
As if to drive home their danger, the leadsman’s voice echoed aft from the chains. “By the mark ten!”
Adam watched the man hauling in his lead, his bare arm moving deftly, perhaps too engrossed to consider the peril beneath the keel.
Cristie said, “Narrows a bit here, sir.” It was the first time he had spoken since they had laid the ship on the new tack, and his way of reminding his captain that after this there would be less room to come about, even if that was still possible.
“Wreckage ahead, sir!” That was Midshipman Cousens, very calm, and aware of his new responsibilities now that Bellairs was promoted. Almost.
Adam leaned over to stare at the charred timbers as they parted across Unrivalled’s stem. Galbraith’s people must have got right alongside the vessel to cause such complete devastation. Perhaps they had all been killed. Somehow he knew Galbraith had done it himself; he would never delegate, particularly when lives were at risk. And because I would expect it of him. It was like a taunt.
He could smell it, too. The boat must have exploded like a giant grenade; the fire had done the rest. There were corpses as well, pieces of men, lolling wearily in the frigate’s small wash.
“Deep six! ”
If he went to the side he knew he would be able to see the ship’s great shadow on the seabed. He did not move. Men were watching him, seeing their own fate in him. Lieutenant Wynter was by the foremast, staring at another, larger island which appeared to be reaching out to snare them.
Adam said, “Let her fall off a point.” He saw Captain Bosanquet with one of his corporals positioned by the boat tier. If she drove aground they would need every boat, perhaps to try and kedge her free again. But men in fear of their lives would see the boats as their only security, their link with the invisible Halcyon.
He looked at the masthead pendant again. How many times? Holding steady. If the wind backed again they would not weather the next island, with its headland jutting out like a giant horn. If, if, if.
He heard the big forecourse flap noisily, and felt the deck heel very slightly.
Jago muttered, “Just stow that, matey!” Adam had not realised that he was at his side.
“An’ a quarter six!”
Adam released his breath very slowly. Slightly deeper here. He had seen the splash of the lead hitting the water, but his mind had rejected it, as if afraid of what it might reveal.
“Deck there! Boats ahead! ” From his lofty perch Sullivan could very likely see over, if not beyond, the out- thrust headland, and on to the next leg of the channel.
Bosanquet snapped, “Put your men in position, Corporal!”
His best shots, although his chosen marksmen were with the landing party.
Adam said, “Over here, boy!” He swung Napier round like a puppet and pointed him towards the bows. Then he laid the telescope on his shoulder. “Breathe easily.” Surely the boy was not afraid of him? With the ship in real danger of being wrecked, perhaps overrun by Algerines, it was impossible. He steadied the shoulder, and said quietly, “This will show them, eh?”
He saw the leading cutter spring into focus, the oars rising and falling to a fast, desperate stroke. Another cutter was close astern, and the third appeared to be stopped, its oars in confusion. A man was hanging over the gunwale, others were trying to drag him from the looms. They had been fired on, the sound muffled by Unrivalled’s shipboard noises. One officer, Halcyon’s second lieutenant, a seaman tying a bandage around his arm.
Even at this distance Adam could see Colpoys’ disbelief, when he turned and saw Unrivalled filling the channel.
And then he saw the chebec. She must have used her sweeps to cut past the wreckage and overhaul the three cutters. The great, triangular sails were filling, pushing the chebec over while her sweeps rose and froze in perfect unison. No wonder unarmed merchantmen were terrified of the Barbary pirates.
Adam gritted his teeth, and felt the boy stiffen as the leadsman’s chant came aft to remind them of their own peril.
“By th’ mark seven!”
He said sharply, “Stand to your guns, Mr Massie! Bow-chasers, then the smashers!”
He saw Massie look aloft. A split second only, but it said everything. If Unrivalled lost a spar, let alone a mast, they would never see open water again.
Adam rubbed his eye and laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder again. It was madness, but it reminded him of the instant she had raised her hand to strike him, and he had gripped her wrist with such force that it must have shocked her.
He said, “Still, now!” and winced as a bow-chaser banged out from the forecastle, the recoil jerking the planks even here at his feet.
He tried again, and then said, “Over yonder, boy. You look. Tell me.”
He thrust the long signals telescope into his hands, and tensed as another shot cracked out from forward. From a corner of his eye he saw one of the cutters passing abeam, suddenly dark in Unrivalled’s shadow, men standing to yell and cheer when moments earlier they had been facing death.
There were more shots now, heavy muskets, and the sharper, answering crack of the marines’ weapons.
He felt something thud into the packed hammocks, heard the screech of metal as a ball ricocheted from one of the quarterdeck nine-pounders. Men were crouching, peering through open ports, waiting for the first sight of the chebec, waiting for the order as they had been taught, had had hammered into them day after day.
But Adam did not move an inch. He could not. He had to know.
Then Napier said in a remarkably steady voice, “It’s them, sir! On the headland! Four of them!” The significance of what he had said seemed to reach him and he twisted round, the telescope forgotten. “Mr Galbraith is safe, sir!”
Then Massie’s whistle shrilled and the first great carronade lurched inboard on its slide, the noise matched only by the crash of its massive ball as it exploded into the chebec’s quarter. Timber, spars, oars and fragments of men
