In Gallant Company (32 page)

Smoke swirled and then enveloped the gasping and struggling men, and Bolitho realized that the wind was strengthening, pushing the ships along in a terrible embrace.

Another figure blocked his path, and again the clang of steel dominated everything else.

He watched the man's face, detached, without feeling, meeting each thrust, testing his strength, expecting an agonizing blade through his stomach if he lost his balance.

There were others beside him. Raye of the marines, Joby Scales, the carpenter, wielding a great hammer, Varlo, the seaman who had been crossed in love, Dunwoody, the miller's son, and of course Stockdale, whose cutlass was taking a terrible toll.

Something struck him on the head and he felt blood running down his neck. But the pain only helped to tighten his guard, to make him examine his enemy's moves like an onlooker.

A dying seaman fell whimpering against the other man, making him dart a quick glance to his right. Just a second, no more than a flash of his eyes in the misty sunlight. It was enough, and Bolitho leapt over the corpse, his hanger still red as he rallied his men around the forecastle. He could not even remember driving the blade into flesh and bone.

Somebody slipped in a pool of blood and crashed into his spine. He fell sprawling, only retaining his hanger because of the lanyard around his wrist.

As he struggled to rise he saw with amazement that there was a glint of water below him, and as he stared down he could see it was widening. The ships were drifting apart.

The French boarders had realized it too, and while some tried to climb back on to the overlapping bowsprit, others made to jump, only to fall headlong into the sea to join the bobbing litter of corpses and frantic swimmers.

A few threw up their hands in surrender, but when a marine was shot dead by an enemy marksman, they too were driven bodily over the side.

Bolitho felt the strength ebbing out of him, and he had to hold on to the bulwark for support. A few guns were still firing haphazardly through the smoke, but it was over. The
Argonaute
's sails were coming about, and very slowly she began to stand away, her stern turning towards
Trojan
's poop like the hinges of a gate.

Bolitho realized that he was on his back, looking at the sky, which seemed unnaturally clear and blue. So clean, too. Far away. His thoughts were drifting like the smoke and the two badly mauled ships.

A shadow loomed over him and he realized that Stockdale was kneeling beside him, his battered face lined with anxiety.

He tried to tell him he was all right. That he was resting.

A voice shouted, ‘Take Mr Bolitho to the orlop at once!'

Then he did try to protest, but the effort was too much and with it came the darkness.

Bolitho opened his eyes and blinked rapidly to clear his vision. As the pain returned to his head he realized he was down on
the orlop deck, a place of semi-darkness at the best of times. Now, with deckhead lanterns swinging to the ship's heavy motion, and others being carried this way and that, it was like looking at hell.

He was propped against
Trojan
's great timbers, and through his shirt he could feel the hull working through a deep swell. As his eyes grew used to the gloom he saw that the whole area from the sickbay to the hanging magazine was filled with men. Some lay quite still and were probably dead, others rocked back and forth, crouching like terrified animals as they nursed their private pain.

In the centre of the deck, directly below the largest number of lanterns, Thorndike and his assistants worked in grim silence on an unconscious seaman, while one of the surgeon's loblolly boys dashed away with a bucket from which protruded an amputated arm.

Bolitho reached up and felt his head. It was crusted in blood, and there was a lump like an egg. He felt the relief welling from his taut stomach muscles like a flood, stinging the back of his eyes so that he could feel tears running down his face. As another figure was carried to the table and stripped of his blackened clothing, Bolitho felt ashamed. He had been terrified of what would happen, but compared with the man who was whimpering and pleading with the surgeon he was unhurt.

‘
Please
, sir!' The man was sobbing uncontrollably, so that even some of the other wounded forgot their pain and watched.

Thorndike turned from a locker, wiping his mouth. He looked like a stranger, and his hands, like his long apron, were red with blood.

‘I am
sorry
.'

Thorndike nodded to his assistant, and Bolitho saw the injured man's shattered leg for the first time and realized it was one of his own gun crews who had been pinned under a cannon.

He was still pleading, ‘Not me leg, sir!'

A bottle was thrust to his lips, and as he let his head fall back, choking and gasping on neat rum, a leather strap was put between his teeth.

Bolitho saw the glitter of the knife and turned his face away. It was wrong for a man to suffer like this, to scream and choke
on his own vomit while his stricken messmates watched in silence.

Thorndike snapped, ‘Too late. Take him on deck.' He reached out for his bottle again. ‘Next!'

A seaman was kneeling beside Bolitho while some wood splinters were plucked from his back.

It was the masthead look-out, Buller.

He winced and then said, ‘Reckon I'm a lucky one today, zur. That was all he said, but it spoke volumes.

‘You all right, sir?' It was Midshipman Couzens. ‘I was sent by the first lieutenant.' He flinched as someone started to scream. ‘Oh God, sir!'

Bolitho reached out. ‘Help me up. Must get out of here.' He staggered to his feet and clung to the boy's shoulder like a drunken sailor. ‘I'll not forget this, ever.'

Stockdale strode to meet them, ducking beneath the deckhead beams, his face creased with worry.

‘Let me take him!'

The journey to the upper deck was in itself another part of the nightmare. The lower gundeck was still wreathed in trapped smoke, the red-painted sides only hiding some of the battle's agony.

He saw Lieutenant Dalyell with his two remaining midshipmen, Lunn and Burslem, discussing with the gun captains what had to be done.

Dalyell saw Bolitho and hurried over, his open face filled with obvious pleasure.

‘Thank God, Dick! I had heard you were done for!'

Bolitho tried to smile, but the pain in his skull stopped it.

‘I heard much the same about you!'

‘Aye. A gun exploded. I was stunned by the blast. But for the men nearby, I would be dead.' He shook his head. ‘Poor Huss. He was a brave lad.'

Bolitho nodded slowly. They had begun with nine midshipmen. One promoted, one taken prisoner, and now one killed. The midshipman's berth would be a sad place after this.

Dalyell looked away. ‘So much for the admiral's strategy. A very high price for what we have done.'

Bolitho continued with his two helpers to the upper gundeck,
and stood for several moments sucking in the air and looking up at the clear sky above the severed topgallant mast.

Men were being carried below, and Bolitho wondered how Thorndike could go on. Cutting, sawing and stitching. He shuddered violently. Others were being dragged beneath the gangways, limp and without identity, to await the sailmaker and his mates, who would sew them up in their hammocks for the last journey. How far had Bunce said it was? One thousand five hundred fathoms hereabouts. A long, dark passage. Perhaps there was peace there.

He shook himself and winced at the stabbing pain. He was getting hazy again. It had to stop.

Cairns said, ‘Good to see you, Dick.' He looked tired and drained. ‘I could do with some help,' he hesitated, ‘if you feel up to it?'

Bolitho nodded, moved that this man who carried so much had found time to ask about him and how he was faring on the orlop.

‘It will be good for me.'

He made himself look along the torn and splintered deck where he had been such a short while ago. Upended guns, great coils of fallen cordage and ripped canvas. Men picking their way amongst it like survivors from a shipwreck. How could any man have lived through it? To see such chaos made it seem impossible.

He asked, ‘How is James?'

Cairns' eyes were bleak. ‘The
fourth lieutenant
is alive, I believe.' He patted Bolitho's arm. ‘I must be off. You remain here and assist the boatswain.'

Bolitho crossed to the first division of eighteen-pounders, where he had been for most of the battle. He could see the
Argonaute
, stern on and a good three miles downwind. Even if they could complete some temporary repairs in time, they would not catch the Frenchman now.

Stockdale spoke for both of them. ‘Anyways, we beat 'em off. Short-handed though we was, sir, we gave as good as we got.'

Couzens said huskily, ‘But the brig got away.'

The sailing master towered above the quarterdeck rail and
boomed, ‘Come now, Mr Bolitho, this will not do! I have a ship to steer, a course to lay! To do that I need sails and more halliards than I can see at present!' His black brows descended over his deepset eyes and he added, ‘You did well today. I saw.' He nodded firmly, as if he had said far too much.

For the rest of the day the ship's company went about the work of putting
Trojan
to rights as best they could. The dead were buried and the wounded made as comfortable as possible. Samuel Pinhorn, the sailmaker, had kept plenty of spare canvas on deck, knowing that more would die before reaching port.

It was amazing that men could work after what they had been through. Perhaps it was work which saved them, for no ship can sail without care and constant attention.

A jury-mast was hoisted to replace the topgallant, and as the seamen bustled far above the deck the cordage dangled down on either side like weed.

Hammers and saws, tar and paint, needles and twine.

The only thing which happened to make them stop, to stare abeam and remember, was the sudden appearance of the schooner from the anchorage at Isla San Bernardo.
Spite
had been abandoned as a hopeless wreck, then set alight to make sure no pirate or privateer would lay hands on her.

In a short and savage boat action, Cunningham attacked and took the schooner. The one reward of the whole operation.

But Bolitho was certain of one thing. The prize, no matter what secrets she disclosed, would not remove the ache from Cunningham's heart as he had ordered his men to abandon his own command.

At sunset, Cairns ordered a halt. A double ration of spirits was issued to all hands, and after shortening sail for the night
Trojan
was content to reflect and lick her wounds.

Bolitho received a summons to the great cabin without curiosity. Like most of the company, he was drained, and too shocked to care.

But as he made his way aft, ducking his h ad beneath the poop, he heard Pears' voice, clearly audible through two sets of screen doors.

‘I know your father, otherwise I would have you stripped of your appointment
at this very moment!
'

Bolitho hesitated outside the door, feeling the sentry's eyes watching him.

It was Quinn of course. Poor, broken Quinn. He could still see him, standing on the gundeck amongst the litter of dead and dying. Stricken, unable to think or move.

The sentry looked at him. ‘Sir?'

Bolitho nodded wearily, and the marine banged his musket on the deck and called, ‘Second lieutenant,
sir!
'

The door opened and Teakle, the clerk, ushered Bolitho inside. He had a bandage on his wrist and looked very shaken. Bolitho wondered why he had never thought of a clerk being in as much danger as any of them.

Quinn came from the cabin, his face as white as a sheet. He saw Bolitho and looked as if he were about to speak. Then with a gasp he blundered past him into the shadows.

Pears strode to meet Bolitho. ‘Ah, not too knocked about, eh?' He was restless, off balance.

Bolitho replied, ‘I was fortunate, sir.'

‘Indeed you were.'

Pears looked round as Coutts came from the adjoining cabin.

The admiral said, ‘I will be leaving at daylight and transferring to the prize, Bolitho. I intend to head for Antigua and take passage from there in a courier brig, or one of the frigates.'

Bolitho looked at him, trying to guess where it was leading. He could feel the tension between the two men, see the bitterness in Pears' eyes. Like physical pain.

Coutts added calmly, ‘
Trojan
will follow, of course. Full repairs can be carried out there before she returns to the squadron. I will ensure that the people at Antigua give full attention to it, and to obtaining replacements for –'

Pears interrupted bluntly, ‘For all the poor devils who died today!'

Coutts flushed, but turned to Bolitho again.

‘I have watched you. You are the right stuff, with the ability and the steel to lead men.'

Bolitho glanced at Pears' grim features and was shocked to see his expression. Like a man under sentence.

‘Thank you, sir.'

‘Therefore . . .' the word hung in the damp air, ‘I am
offering you a new appointment as soon as you reach Antigua. With me.'

Bolitho stared, realizing what it would do to Pears. With Coutts back in Antigua, or probably in New York before
Trojan
reached harbour, Pears would have nobody to speak for him but Cairns. A scapegoat. Someone to use to cover Coutts' costly exercise.

He was surprised that he could answer without hesitation. It was all he wanted, the one opportunity to transfer to another ship, smaller, faster, like
Vanquisher
or one of the other frigates. With Coutts' patronage it would be the best chance he would ever get.

‘I thank you, sir.' He looked at Pears. ‘But my appointment is under Captain Pears. I would wish it to remain so.'

Coutts regarded him curiously. ‘What an odd fellow you are, Bolitho. Your sentimentality will do for you one day.' He nodded, curt, final. ‘Good evening.'