Adam lowered the glass. He had seen the boat towing from the schooner. Some kind of galley, probably a local craft. He had seen plenty of them at Algiers. It was closer to the schooner than before. Under her quarter…
The thought was like a hand on his shoulder, shaking him.
The boat was not a threat. It was a means of escape.
He raised the telescope again. They are watching us right now.
'Bring her up two points to larboard. 'He dropped to the deck as the order was repeated, and the big double wheel began to respond. He stared forward, seeing the faces at each gun peering aft, and Maddock standing just inboard of the first eighteen-pounder. He was ready, no matter what he might be thinking.
'Nor 'east by east, sir.'
Adam watched the schooner slowly change her bearing as Onward responded to the rudder. His mind told him it was July an's voice. Taking no chances.
'open the ports! 'He was at the quarterdeck rail but did not recall moving. There was no turning back. My decision.
'Runout!'
Maddock's drills had not been in vain. Along Onward''s starboard side, the eighteen-pounders thudded against their ports. Showing her teeth…
Maddock was staring aft, one hand raised against the pitiless glare, the other on the shoulder of his senior gun captain.
Adam watched the schooner, almost abeam now as Onward settled on her new course. It was as if Nautilus, and the headland, did not exist.
'On the uproll! 'Like counting the seconds. 'Fire!'
The forward gun recoiled, its crew leaping aside, handspikes and sponge ready, as if they had been doing it all their lives.
The crash of gunfire was still echoing over the water. A jagged burst of spray showed the fall of shot, directly across the schooner's bows.
Vincent said sharply, 'Nautilus is making more sail!'
'That woke ‘em up! 'Jago's voice. Adam scarcely heard them. Men were running along the schooner's deck, and some were already down in the boat alongside.
He raised the telescope, cursing the time it took to focus. The schooner was still under way. The solitary figure in uniform was standing where he had last seen him. Closer now, but partly obscured by drifting gunsmoke.
The image seemed to hold him in a vise. The man by the helm had not moved because he was tied upright, helpless.
Probably dead. And it could not be gunsmoke at that range.
He leaned on the rail and saw Maddock turn.
'Fire!'
Maddock might have hesitated, but only for a few seconds.
Then he was stooping at the second gun, gesturing almost unhurriedly to his crew, until he was satisfied.
Some one gave a wild cheer as the ball slammed into the schooner's side. More smoke, and Maddock's voice, strong and clear.
'Lay for the foremast an' fire on the uproll! Ready!'
Adam did not hear the order to fire. It was as if the sea had exploded in his face. But the picture remained starkly before his eyes, as it had been when the telescope was jolted from his hands.
Men in the boat, struggling, fighting to cast off from the schooner's side, knocked over by others leaping down to join them in a panic which distance could not hide. One figure running in the last moment of sanity before bursting into a human torch, arms and legs flailing as he pitched into the sea alongside.
And then the explosion, bursting through the schooner's deck: a giant fireball blasting masts and sails into ashes, the heat enough to sear the skin at a cable's distance.
Fragments were splashing around the stricken vessel, some ablaze and breaking up, burning on the water so that the sea became a final torment for those still alive.
Men stood by their guns staring at the smoke, the debris still falling so near. Some one cried out as another explosion rebounded against the hull, like a ship running aground. Final.
But muffled this time, no searing glare.
The schooner, or what remained of her, was on her way to the bottom. And through it all the wind was holding, cool after the inferno.
Adam picked up his telescope and cradled it in his arm.
'We will heave to, Mr. Vincent. 'He rubbed his forehead with the back of his wrist. 'Fall out guns 'crews. 'To his own ears, he sounded like a stranger. Calm. Dispassionate.
'Boat's crew, sir? 'Guthrie, the boatswain.
Adam licked his lips. They tasted of smoke and sudden death.
'Have them standing by. 'He raised the glass with both hands, knowing that others were watching him. 'But there's little chance.'
He felt the deck tilt uneasily as Onward turned into the wind, headsails flapping and filling again in confusion.
He moved the telescope slowly, giving himself time, allowing his hand to steady. And there was Nautilus, topsails braced and full on a fresh tack, gangway and lower shrouds alive with tiny figures. Gunports still closed, as Maddock and his crews would notice. The silent witness.
He thought of the French captain, Marchand. How he must be feeling even as he watched the ever-spreading litter of charred remains and ashes. Seeing again the fireball which would have been Nautilus. His ship, his men. Himself.
Vincent was beside him. 'No survivors, sir. 'His voice seemed hushed, as if he were dazed by the swiftness of near disaster. Treachery. Perhaps the commodore was right. 'But for you…'
He said nothing more.
'There's your answer, Mark. 'He did not trust himself to raise the telescope.
Midshipman Deacon shouted, 'Nautilus is dipping her ensign, sir! 'He was staring around at the others. 'The Frenchman's saluting us!'
There were cheers from the upper deck. Adam turned deliberately toward the other frigate and raised his hat in acknowledgment. Marchand would see, and understand.
Vincent asked, 'Shall we go ahead?'
Adam held the hat to shade his eyes. Or hide them.
'As ordered. Under two flags.'
Lieutenant James Squire reached the quarterdeck and paused to stare abeam at the land: no longer lines and figures on a chart, but real and alive. He prided himself on his vision, and even without a glass could see the shades and depths of colour of the coastal waters, spray shining on a spur of rock or fallen cliff which marked the entrance to the bay; tiny figures by the water's edge; a track or rough road leading inland, and a lone horseman raising a trail of yellow dust, soon lost from view over a ridge or bare hillside.
Local people, caught in the crossfire of war or revolution, and hardened enough to gather and watch a vessel blowing apart, destroyed in its own trap.
He glanced across the deck where the marines of the afterguard, some by the hammock nettings, were leaning on their muskets. Grim-faced after what they had witnessed, contemplating the fate they might have shared. The senior midshipman by the flag-locker, silent and unsmiling: the same one who had shouted with such wild excitement to the deck at large when Nautilus had dipped her ensign in salute.
And the young topman who had been sent for by the captain, cornered now by some of his mates, grinning, but still mystified by whatever he had said which had proved so significant. He looked aft again, and saw the captain with the master and his crew by the compass box, and another midshipman writing on a slate, teeth gritted against the sound of the squeaking pencil. He saw the land moving aside, the bay slowly opening beyond the bows. Some small houses, white and hazy in the sunlight. He pictured the chart, and the captain's own rough map; how he had made light of the possible inaccuracies and flaws in their information, even if it had come from the admiral. And all the time he must have been confronting the real danger, which only at the last minute they had all glimpsed for themselves. And he had still found time to thank a common seaman. For doing his duty, many would say.
