Victory

other. The yells of triumph from the Frenchman’s deck tailed off quickly at the sight of a dark chasm between the two ships and the boarders hesitated. Some stood on the bulwarks poised to leap and were hit by pistol shot and musket fire from Teazer’s marines. They dropped with shrieks between the grinding hulls; others held back at the sight of the lethal points of boarding pikes held by unflinching British seamen.

A swivel banged from Teazer’s rail, another from forward. The French boarders’ hesitation was fatal for at that moment the frigate caught a wind flurry and surged ahead and away, snapping the grapnels that held the ships together and spilling three men into the sea.

A storm of cheers went up from the Teazers at the sight of the frigate sheering off, but Kydd didn’t join in. As the frigate readied for another attempt the privateer was manoeuvring to close and it was obvious to him that this time there was the awful prospect of a boarding from both sides simultaneously.

He hastily summoned every man aboard to join the lines of defenders, sending some into the tops with grenadoes to hurl at the massing boarders, with swivels to mount that could bring fire down on them, but it was so little against such odds.

The frigate had backed its mizzen topsail and was slipping back in a stern-board to lay itself alongside Teazer – the privateer was cannily matching its movements on the other side, a crude gangway hoisted in readiness to lower over the void between them.

Kydd stood in the centre of the deck with drawn sword and turned to face the massing privateers. In seconds the screeching horde on the vessel would be flooding on to their deck – but dogged courage like a man-o’-war’s man’s would not be their style. If they met with too much resistance they would falter and break, the effort not worth any gain. If by naked courage the Teazers could sustain the fight until . . .

‘I shall attend on the frigate side, brother.’ It was Renzi, with a plain but serviceable sword that, since he had taken up his scholarly quest, he had sworn to draw only in the last extremity. Their eyes met, then the frigate bumped and ground into the hull as the privateer’s gangway crashed down on Teazer’s bulwarks.

A roar of triumph went up and Kydd sprang forward to meet the rush across the improvised bridge. The first corsair had a scimitar and a pistol that he fired left-handed as he jumped – it brought down Seaman Timmins in a choking huddle but before Kydd could face him the man took a pike thrust to the chest and he had to kick the squealing body away to confront another with a tomahawk and cutlass.

There was no science in it: Kydd lunged viciously for the eyes and, when the man recoiled, turned the stroke to slash down at the wrist. The cutlass clattered to the deck, but before he could recover, a flailing body from behind catapulted him on to Kydd’s blade, which did its work without mercy.

Beside him, Kydd was subliminally aware that Poulden was being overborne by a brutish black man and, without thought, swung his blade horizontally in a savage backhand slash that ended in a meaty crunch in the man’s neck. With a wounded howl he turned on Kydd, but Poulden saw the opening and thrust pitilessly deep into the armpit.

Kydd turned back to fend off a frenzied stab from a wild-eyed man – the crude flailing had no chance against Kydd’s skill and experience and, with one or two expert strokes, he had forced him to a terrified defensive. The man slipped and tried to ward off Kydd’s straight-arm thrust to his throat, but in vain – he went down gurgling and writhing.

Suddenly there were no more opponents: he saw that the makeshift gangway had clattered down between the ships and many were left impotently on the wrong side. He whirled round. Renzi, in a practised fencer’s crouch, lunged up at a frigate officer in a blur of motion. The man stood no chance.

Defenders from the privateer’s side righted the gangway, then sprang across the deck. The smoke-wreathed chaotic melee, wreckage, stench of blood, groaning bodies and frayed cordage whipping about was a scene from hell.

The frigate was in heaving movement with the high seas, the vertical motion making it a trial for those dropping down on to Teazer’s deck from its higher bulwarks. The attackers had to time their move, unavoidably signalling this to the defenders, and when they landed, stumbling and off-balance, they were easy meat for the pikemen.

A trumpet bayed from within the frigate above the clash of battle – and then again. The retreat? With swelling exultation, Kydd saw the attackers left on Teazer’s deck fling down their weapons in despair, knowing the penalty for turning their backs to return to their ship.

It was incredible, glorious, and Kydd’s blood sang. They had repelled the enemy and Teazer was made whole again. Inside, a cooler voice chided that in large part they owed their success to the restless seas.

The frigate pulled away and cheers were redoubled again and again from the smoke-grimed and bloodied Teazers. But in a cold wash of reality Kydd knew what was coming next.

‘For y’ lives! Hands to wear ship!’ he bellowed, stumping up and down to get the men from their guns and to the ropes. Teazer began her swing – but was it too late? The frigate was wearing about as well, but Kydd was gambling that their own turning circle was less.

It was – but it was not enough to escape. The frigate now no longer saw Teazer as a prize but an enemy who must be crushed. And against the unrestrained broadsides of a frigate the little sloop had no chance.

When it came the punishment was hideous. Quartering across Teazer’s stern the bigger ship’s cannon blows brought a cascade of ruin and devastation, a tempest of iron that smashed, splintered and gouged, brought down spars, turned boats to matchwood.

In the blink of an eye Purchet, who had been with the ship from the first, was disembowelled and flung across the deck, his entrails strung out into a bloody heap against the waterway. The inoffensive sailmaker, Clegg, huddled by the main-hatch, was frantically trying to stitch repairs when he simply dropped, his head dissolved into a spray of brain.

From all sides came shrieks of pain from cruel, skewering splinters.

Shaken by the destruction, Kydd shouted hoarsely for sail of any kind on the fore. If they could just . . .

The frigate completed her veering, but she had another broadside waiting on her opposite side and she took time to tack about, a manoeuvre that would end in her coming up alongside the wreck that would be Teazer.