want to keep him waiting!'
He watched the topmasts of the other ship rising through the smoke, saw small, bright flashes from the tops or yards where marksmen had taken up their most effective positions. Distant, without apparent danger, until you felt the heavy balls thudding into the deck, or gouging up splinters as if raised by some invisible chisel. And that other sound. Lead smashing into flesh and bone, a man's pitiful cries as he was dragged away to the orlop, and the surgeon. A ball ploughed into the boat tier, and severed the bow of the big cutter like an axe. More men fell as the splinters cut amongst them like arrows.
Adam thought suddenly of Napier. That last time. When he swung round he saw the youth on one knee, tying a bandage around a marine's forearm, his fingers red with blood, and with the same serious expression he wore even when preparing a meal for his captain.
'Keep down, David!' Their eyes met, and he thought he heard him reply. It sounded, insanely, like '… a pony ride!'
'Ready, sir!' Every gun captain who was able was peering aft, fist raised. Galbraith had drawn his hanger, and the marines at the packed hammock nettings had already fixed bayonets.
The carronades, too, would he ready. If they failed now…
He shouted, 'Stand fast, and take them as they come, lads!' lie saw faces, eyes staring. Wild, fearful, desperate. And they were his men.
He waved the unfamiliar sword. 'Remember, lads! Second to None!'
With a shuddering lurch, the enemy's jib-boom and bowsprit drove over the forecastle like a giant tusk. He could hear the crack of muskets, and voices merged above the din of grinding hulls and snapping cordage like a hymn of hate. A severed halliard snaked through the crouching seamen and marines, and had somehow become entangled with Midshipman Cousens's body, so that it swayed upright again, as if to answer the call he had followed without question for most of his young life.
The sword sliced down. 'Fire!'
Towards the bows, the gun muzzles must have been overlapping those of the enemy now looming high alongside. At point-blank range, double-shotted and with added grape for good measure, the explosion sounded like a ship being blasted apart. Where seamen had been standing and shaking their weapons, waiting for the moment of impact, there was now a smoking strip of water. Men and pieces of men, the dead and the dying ground together as the hulls were brought to another embrace by the wind.
But a few had taken the risk and had somehow gained a foothold, some by the smoking carronades which had transformed the enemy's foredeck into a bloody shambles.
'Forward, Marines!'
That was Captain Luxmore. Adam could not see him beyond the smoke, but imagined he would be immaculately turned out, as always.
He could hear a new sound, like a horn, rather than a trumpet or bugle. Galbraith was shouting at him. 'They're casting off, sir!' His voice was harsh with disbelief. 'On the run!'
Adam swung round. 'Grapple her!' Galbraith was staring at him, as if he could not understand. 'Grapple her.'
But it was too late; the hulls were lurching apart, like two prizefighters who had given and taken too much.
Adam gazed up at the sky, clear again now above the smoke, in that other, impossible world.
Where was the barque? Why could Galbraith not understand?
He felt the solitary explosion, and was only partly aware of the deck splintering behind him. Half the double wheel had been shot away; one of the helmsmen still clung to the spokes, but his legs and entrails painted a grisly pattern on the planking.
And above it all he heard the lookout's cry. Far, far away, beyond all this pain.
'Deck there! Sail on th' larboard quarter!'
He felt Jago holding his shoulders, and realised that he had dropped on his knees. And then came the pain. He heard himself cry out; it was like a branding iron. He tried to grope at his side, but someone was preventing it. For some reason he thought of John Allday. When they had last met. Had spoken, and had held hands… as it must have been…
Galbraith was here now, eyes anxious, moving to others around them as if to seek assurance, or grim acceptance.
He heard himself speaking, anguished, incoherent.
'They-broke-off-the-action-because-of-this-newcomer.'
He almost bit through his lip as the agony lanced him. 'Otherwise…' He could not go on; there was no need.
The smoke was clearing; he heard the guns run out yet again. Someone was calling pitifully, another was insisting, 'I'm 'ere, Ted! 'Ang on now!'
He turned his head and saw Napier bending down to wipe his forehead with a cloth.
Cristie's voice. 'Surgeon's comin'!'
He tried to rise, but felt the blood running across his side and down his thigh.
'Mr Galbraith.' He waited for his face to move into focus. 'Get the ship to Plymouth. Those despatches must reach Lord Exmouth.'
Galbraith said, 'God damn the despatches.'
'How many did we lose?' He gripped his sleeve. 'Tell me.'
'Eight at a count, sir.'
'Too many.' lie shook his head. 'The oldest trick, and I did not see it…' A shadow shut out the misty glare. Small, strong hands for so burly a figure. The Irish voice, calm, taking no nonsense, even from the captain.
'Ah, be still, sir.' A pause, and some sharp pain, insistent. Pitiless. 'A close thing. I'll deal with it now.' The shadow moved away, and he heard O'Beirne murmur, 'Marine Fisher was killed. Dropped his musket as he fell, and it fired on impact. It found the wrong target!'
He felt hands lifting him, others reaching out as if to reassure him, or themselves.
Galbraith waited until the little procession had disappeared below, then he looked at the scars and the pitted sails, the drying blood, and the deck where men had died. And more would follow them before they saw Plymouth Hoe again.
He shaded his eyes to look at the other ships, but they had become unreal in the mist and the drifting smoke. Already he could hear hammers and saws, men calling to one another as they worked high above the embattled deck.
How was it that the captain had seemed to know what was happening, at the moment of truth, and later, when the other frigate had tried to free herself from their deadly embrace? And what if the barque's captain had realised that Unrivalled's steering had been disabled by that single shot?
He took a mug of something from one of the wardroom messmen, and almost choked on it. It was neat rum.
And when he had seen the captain stagger and then fall to his knees, he had heard himself speaking aloud. Anyone but him. Please, God, not him!
It was like a voice. Because you could not have done it. Nor will you.
He stared at the flag locker, overturned in that brief but savage encounter.
'Attend to it, Mr Cousens!'
Then he turned away, sickened, remembering, and murmured, 'Forgive me.'
There was nobody to hear him.
Daniel Yovell critically regarded the nib of a new pen before testing it against his thumbnail. Beyond the white-painted screen he could hear the constant sounds and movements of men working to repair damage, reeving new cordage, or replacing sails which had been shot through in the engagement.
It seemed that the work had never stopped, and it was sometimes difficult to believe that the brief action had been more than four days ago.
It was as if the labour was a need, the only way sailors could put their anger and sadness behind them. Yovell had watched men die, and had been there when they had made their last journey, down into permanent darkness.
