let fall her tops’ls. Attend to nothing else at all. Pick your men: quick. The rest come along with me and look alive, now. There’s not a moment to be lost.’ Killick handed him his pistols and he dropped into his gig, never looking behind him. The Polychrests poured over the side, thump thump thump down into the boats. The clash of arms, a voice bawling in his ear ‘Squeeze up, George. Make room, can’t you?’ How many men in the boats? Seventy? Eighty? Even more. A magnificent rise in his heart, all the blackness falling clear away.
‘Give way,’ he said. ‘Silence, all boats. Bonden, right over the bank. Go straight for her.’ A crash behind him as a salvo from Convention took away the Polychrest’s foretopmast.
‘No great loss,’ he said, settling in the stern-?sheets with his sword between his knees. They touched once, a bare scrape, on the top of the sand-?bank, then they were beyond it, in the inner road, going straight for the corvette half a mile away. The risk was enormous - she might have two hundred men aboard - but here again there was the chance of surprise. They would scarcely expect to be boarded from a grounded ship, not right under their own guns. Too far under their own guns - what a simple place to moor - for the Convention battery was high-?perched up on the headland: its guns could never be depressed so far as to sweep the sea two or three hundred yards in front of the fort. Only five hundred yards to go. The men were pulling like maniacs, grunt, grunt, grunt, but the boat was crammed, heavy and encumbered - no room to stretch to their oars. Bonden wedged next to him, little Parslow - that child should never have come - the purser, deathly pale in the moonlight, the villainous face of Davis; Lakey, Plaice, all the Sophies.
Four hundred yards, and at last the corvette had woken to her danger. A hail. An uneven broadside, musketry. And now musketry crackling all along the shore. A deluge of water from Convention’s great guns, no longer firing at the Polychrest but at her boats, and missing only by a very little. And all the time the barge, banging away behind them at the gun-?brigs with its little six-?pounder carronade, roaring, firing muskets, wonderfully diverting attention from this silent rush across the inner road. Convention again, at extreme depression, but firing over them.
Two hundred yards, one. The other boats drawing ahead, Smithers to the right, Pullings turning left-?handed to go round her stern.
‘Mizen chains, Bonden,’ he said, loosening his sword in its scabbard.
A shattering burst of fire, a great roaring - the Marines were boarding her over the bows.
‘Mizen chains it is, sir,’ said Bonden, heaving on the tiller. A last broadside overhead, and the boat came kissing against the side.
Up. He leapt on the high roll, his hands catching the dead-?eyes. Up. No boarding-?netting, by God! Men thrusting, grasping all round him, one holding his hair. Up and over the rail, through the thin fringe of defenders
- a few pikes, swabs, a musket banging in his ear - on to the quarterdeck, his sharp sword out, pistol in his left hand. Straight for the group of officers, shouting ‘Polychrest! Polychrest!’ a swarm of men behind him, a swirling scuffle by the mizenmast, an open maul, men grappling silently, open extreme brutal violence. Fired his pistol, flinging it straight at the next man’s face. Babbington on his left running full into the flash and smoke of a musket - he was down. Jack checked his rush and stood over him; lunging hard he deflected the plunging bayonet into the deck. His heavy sword carried on, and now with all his weight and strength he whipped it up in a wicked backhanded stroke that took the soldier’s head half off his body.
A little officer in the clear space in front of him, sword-?point darting at his breast. Swerve and parry, and there they were dancing towards the taffrail, their swords flashing in the moonlight. A burning stab in his shoulder, and before the officer could recover his point Jack had closed, crashing the pommel into his chest and kicking his legs from under him. ‘Rendez-?vous,’ he said.
‘Je me rendre,’ said the officer on the deck, dropping his sword. ‘Parola.’
Firing, crashing, shouting in the bows, in the waist. And now Pullings was over the side, hacking at the cables. Red coats, dark in the moonlight, clearing the starboard gangway, and everywhere, everywhere the shout of Polychrest. Jack raced forward at the tight group by the mainmast, mostly officers; they were backing, firing their pistols, pointing swords and pikes, and behind them, on the landward side, their men were dropping into the boats and into the water by the score. Haines ran past him, dodging through the fight, and hurled himself aloft, followed by a string of other men.
Here was Smithers, shouting, sweating, a dozen other Marines - they had reached the quarterdeck from the bows. Now Pullings, with a bloody axe in his hand, and the top-?sails were letting fall, mizen main and fore - men already at the sheets.
‘Capitaine,’ cried Jack, ‘Capitaine, cessez effusion sang. Rendez-?vous. Hommes desertes. Rendez-?vous.’
‘Jamais, monsieur,’ said the Frenchman, and came for him with a furious lunge.
‘Bonden, trip up his heels,’ said Jack, parrying the thrust and cutting high. The French captain’s sword flashed up. Bonden ran beneath it, collared him, and it was over.
Goodridge was at the wheel - where had he come from? - calling like thunder for the foretopsail to be sheeted home; already the land was gently receding, gliding, sliding backwards and away.
‘Capitaine, en bas, dessous, s’il vous plait. Toutes officiera dessous.’ Officers giving up their swords; Jack taking them, passing them to Bonden. Incomprehensible words
- Italian? ‘Mr Smithers, put ‘em in the cable-?tier.’
An isolated scuffle and a single shot on the forecastle, to join the firing from the shore. Bodies on deck: the wounded crawling.
She was heading westward, and the blessed wind was just before her beam. She must go round the tail of the West Anvil before she could tack to reach the Polychrest, and all the way she would be sailing straight into the fire of St Jacques: half a mile’s creep, always closer to that deadly raking battery.
‘Foresail and driver,’ cried Jack. The quicker the better, and above all she must not miss stays. She seemed to be handling beautifully, but if she missed stays she would be cut to pieces.
Convention was firing behind them: wildly at present, though one great ball passed through all three topsails. He hurried forward to help sort out the foresail tack. The deck was swarming with Polychrests - they called out to him: tearing high spirits, some quite beside themselves. ‘Wilkins,’ he said, putting his hand on the man’s shoulder, ‘you and Shaddock start getting the corpses over the side.’
She was a trim little vessel. Eighteen, no, twenty guns. Broader than the Polychrest. Fanciulla was her name - she was indeed the Fanciulla. Why did St Jacques not fire? ‘Mr Malloch, clear away the small bower and get a
