In the King`s Name

someone cried out and fell nearby, and remained there motionless.

Adam shouted, “Full elevation, Christie! Knock out all the quoins!” and saw him nod, teeth bared in concentration. Without the wedge-shaped quoins beneath their breeches, the stocky twelve-pounders should rake the rigging and yards, leaving the hostages untouched.

The first carronade responded instantly, bringing down most of the remaining branches and foliage, and blasting away some of the shrouds. Three bodies fell to the deck below, or into the water alongside.

Pecco, face desperate, was hauling down the Portuguese flag, flinching as the second carronade fired and ripped into the big schooner’s topsails. Between shots they could hear the shouts and screams of the slaves who had been herded between forecastle and mainmast, then they were silent. Shock or disbelief, and perhaps the sight of the White Ensign and whatever it might mean to them.

Adam felt a shot hammer into the planking near him, but he did not move. Nothing else mattered now.

“Wheel hard a-starboard! Stand to, lads!”

It seemed to take an age, but he knew it was only seconds before the bows began to respond, until Delfim’s bowsprit and jib-boom were swinging toward and across the slaver’s taut canvas.

More shots, but haphazard, or perhaps they were firing on the slaves.

Squire yelled, “Ready, lads! Grapnels forrard!”

Adam gestured to Tozer, who had been joined by two more seamen at the wheel. “Helm a-lee!” He reached out and seized a stay, bracing himself for the collision.

But it was more of an embrace: a splintering crash as the jib-boom and bowsprit drove through the other ship’s shrouds like a giant lance, and the final, shuddering impact as the bows of both locked together. Vague figures had become the enemy. Yelling and screaming, some falling into the sea between the hulls, escaping one fate for another as some of the released slaves began to shout, even cheer.

Adam heard Lieutenant Sinclair’s voice even above the noise, breathless after running with his men to the point of impact.

“Royal Marines, stand to! Ready to fire!”

Adam drew his sword and shouted, “Boarders away!” as he jumped onto a broken grating and across a huge tangle of canvas. He felt someone reach out and prevent him falling. He did not turn to look but knew it was Jago, knew his cutlass, and the smell of the last “wet” on his breath.

He stared up and behind him at a line of Royal Marines, heads and shoulders and trained muskets. Some had even found time to don their scarlet tunics, although most were hatless. Seamen were swarming up to join him, cutlasses and boarding pikes dispelling any doubt or argument.

There was another deafening shot and an instant response of shouts and cries from slaves and captors alike.

He heard Squire’s powerful voice, and Tozer’s; he must have just left the wheel.

Squire climbed over a shattered spar and stood by him, breathing heavily. “That was the ship’s master. Killed himself, the bastard!”

He was trying to sheathe his sword, but there was blood on the blade and it refused to budge.

A few scattered shots followed, and then, as if to some invisible signal, weapons were clattering across the deck and some of the slaver’s crew were running toward them as if to seek protection from the advancing line of scarlet and blue. With Squire beside him and Jago at his back, Adam made his way toward the poop.

At the foot of the mizzen mast Jago shouted, “A moment, Cap’n!” His voice seemed very loud, as if all movement had stopped.

Adam handed his sword to a grinning seaman and thrust his arms into the sleeves of his coat, which Jago must have had slung over his shoulder despite the chaos surrounding them.

A few more weapons fell, and someone nearby was murmuring, maybe praying, in Portuguese. A man who might have been the schooner’s second-in-command was offering the hilt of his sword and gesticulating toward his captain’s corpse, sprawled near the big double wheel, a pistol still gripped in his hand. He had no face.

Adam looked away as someone grasped his arm. He saw Jago’s sudden, defensive movement, then he lowered his cutlass and said, “Lucky it was you, my son!”

It was a young African boy, naked but for a ragged shirt, staring up at Adam or his uniform with wide eyes. There were bloody welts on his arms where he had been chained or beaten. Adam felt the heavy silence around him as he reached down to clasp the boy’s shoulder. Like Trusty, the one without a tongue.

In the unreal stillness they all heard the distant cry from one of Squire’s hand-picked lookouts, who must have watched the boarding and its aftermath from aloft, unable to help or take part.

Squire lifted his stained blade and signalled toward the overlapping masts. “He’s sighted the Peterel, sir.”

They were no longer alone.

Adam heard a groan, and saw the surgeon bandaging a marine’s bloody head. He had not known that Murray had followed him aboard. The marine, a corporal, saw his captain watching and tried to grin. Then he died.

Adam heard the two hulls creaking together, and the clatter of untended tackle. It was over. So many times. He steeled himself.

“What’s the bill?”

Squire regarded him steadily. “Five, sir.” He saw Murray hold up his free hand. “Six.” He gave their names, knowing his captain would be seeing each face.

Adam stared up at the shot-holes in the topsails overhead, the dark stains left by canister. He said, “They did well. Tell Lieutenant Sinclair,” and stopped as Squire shook his head.

“He’s dead, sir. They just told me.”

Adam walked to the side, and looked down at the swirling arrowhead of water with its litter of branches, and one corpse caught among them.

Squire glanced over at the crowd of captives, separated by a thin line of marines. Then he asked quietly, “When Peterel is within signalling distance-”

He felt Adam’s hand close on his arm. There was blood on it. “Make to Peterel …” Adam hesitated. Strain or emotion? This was not the time. “Welcome. Mission successful. We will proceed when ready. Together.”

Squire had found a slate somewhere and was deliberately repeating the signal. But Adam was gazing at a body covered by canvas, a pair of polished boots protruding, gleaming in the sunlight. The cost of freedom.

He reached out to stop Squire but he had gone, and the blood remained.

11 SUNSET

HARRY DRUMMOND CLIMBED through Onward‘s main hatchway and paused to clear his mind. Most of the routine work had been completed during the forenoon watch, and with a heavy meal under his belt a doze in the mess would have been welcome. But as bosun he needed to be seen and heard, as he had learned the hard way.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stifled a yawn. Too much grog. But it was Tilley, the sailmaker’s, birthday-as good an excuse as any.

He glanced up at the shrouds and stays, the neatly furled sails gleaming in the sun, unmoving, like the flags and masthead pendant. As for the ship herself, she could have been aground.

He looked aft, but the quarterdeck appeared to be empty. Not for long. Vincent, temporarily in command, never seemed to rest from his extra duties. Maybe he did not know how. Was he still brooding about how nearly he had been given command? Dead men’s shoes …

Close by at her own anchorage was the new frigate Zealous, her captain’s first command. Young, too, from what Drummond had heard. That would be lying heavily on Vincent’s mind.

He shook himself, tasting the grog again.

He saw a seaman standing by an upturned boat, which had been propped over some old canvas to protect the deck. It was the gig, and Drummond had been thinking about Luke Jago and wondering how he was faring aboard