Signal Close Action (44 page)

Allday said hoarsely, "The hillside seems to be afire, sir!'

Bolitho wiped his eyes with his sleeve and stared across the larboard bow.
Osiris
had pivoted right round now, and he could see the dense wall of smoke, darting tongues of flame, too, rolling towards the sea and adding to the scene of chaos and despair.

Allday said it for him. 'Must be Mr. Veitch. Set the hillside ablaze. It's probably like tinder.' He sighed. 'A brave man. One of those guns will be blinded by smoke. They'll not thank Mr. Veitch for
that.'

A violent explosion thundered across the water, and through the thickening smoke Bolitho saw a vivid red heart.

Pascoe coughed in the smoke. 'We have hit one of the transports, sir! Must have been loaded with powder!'

Fragments splashed down lazily and bobbed around the embattled ship. Beyond the smoke Bolitho could hear sharper notes of gunfire, and knew Javal was there, fighting probably two enemies at once.

The masthead yelled above the din, 'Some of the French are making sail!'

Bolitho said, 'Cutting their cables.'

He did not blame them. With one or more of their number ablaze or badly crippled by
Osiris's
broadsides, they had nothing to gain by remaining where they lay. He felt the deck under his feet. Lifeless, but for the guns' savage vibration.
And
nobody
could
stop
them.

Something fanned past him, crashed against a nine-pounder in a shrieking wave of splinters. Men fell kicking and gasping, and Bolitho felt blood splashed across his breeches like paint.

He turned and saw Farquhar leaning back against the quarterdeck rail, his gaze fixed on the lower yards while he clutched his chest with both hands.

Bolitho ran to his side. 'Here.
Let me help!'

Farquhar's eyes swivelled down towards him. He bared his teeth, spacing out each word to hold back the pain.

'No. Leave me. Must stay. Must.'

He had bunched the front of his new uniform coat into a tight ball. A ball which was already bright red. Allday said, 'I'll take him below.'

The ship quivered again as the lower battery vented its anger on the anchorage. Several masts had fallen, and the two leading ships were listing towards each other, one almost awash, the other a blackened wreck in the path of that terrible explosion.

Farquhar tried to shake his head. 'Keep your damned hands off me!' He reeled against Bolitho.
'Mr.
Outhwaite!'

But the first lieutenant was sitting against one of the abandoned guns, his head lolling, and the deck around him spreading in blood.

Bolitho loo
ked at Allday. 'Get Mr. Guthrie.
Tell him I want all the wounded brought to the lower gun deck, larbo
ard side, and be quick about it!
'

He saw the smoke from the hillside mingling with that from the guns. At least Veitch's courage had given the wounded a chance. Without the smoke's screen, any attempt to get boats alongside would have been prevented by the two siege guns. As it was, the French were still firing blindly across the water, the great balls adding their strange notes to the screams of the dying and wounded men.

A small man darted through the smoke, and Bolitho saw it was the surgeon.

Despite Farquhar's protests, he ripped open the gold-laced coat, his hair blowing in the wind from another shot directly above the deck, and placed a heavy dressing above the bright stain.

Farquhar gasped, 'Get
below,
Andrews.
See to our people!
' The surgeon looked despairingly at Bolitho. 'I'm getting the wounded up, sir.' He peered dazedly at the shattered bulwarks and sprawled corpses. Even after the gruesome work he had to perform deep on the orlop deck, this must seem a worse horror. 'Will you strike, sir ?'

Farquhar heard him and gasped,
'Strike?
Get below, you bloody fool! I'll see you in hell before I strike
my
colours!
'

Bolitho beckoned to Pascoe. 'Attend the captain. You stay here, too, Allday.'

He ignored their anxiety and ran to the rail, straining his eyes through the smoke until he had found the boatswain. He could not remember his name, but shouted wildly until the man looked up at him, his face as black as any Negro's from powder-smoke and charred wreckage.

'Get the quarter boats alongside to larboard! A raft, too, if you can manage it!'

He turned as Pascoe called him and saw a pale square of canvas rising through the smoke, the ship beneath still hidden.

His sword blade touched the deck as his arms dropped to his sides. Time had run out. The Frenchman was here. Crossing their stern with the precision of a hunter stalking a wounded beast.

He saw, too, the enemy's broad pendant lifting and curling in the offshore wind, and wondered vaguely if its owner had seen his above the ruin and carnage.

The smoke seemed to fan upwards to a freak gust, but the ripple of red and orange tongues which spurted through it told Bolitho that this wind was man-made.

Deck by deck, pair by pair, the seventy-four's armament poured its broadside into
Osiris's
stern.

It seemed to go on and on forever. The cringing, reeling men around him lost shape and meaning, their faces merely masks of pain and terror, their gaping mouths like soundless holes as they ran blindly before the onslaught.

Bolitho found that he was on his knees, and as his hearing started to return he groped for his sword, using it like a lever to prise himself from the deck.

Hardly daring to breathe, he staggered to the rail, or what was left of it, and saw that Pascoe and Allday stood as before, with the captain propped between them. Allday had a bad cut on one arm, and Pascoe had a dark weal on his forehead where he had been hit by a flying pie
ce of timber. Bolitho could not
get his breath to speak, but clung to them, nodding to each in turn.

Beyond the quarterdeck there was not a mast left standing, and the whole of the upper gun deck, forecastle and gangways were buried under a mountain of broken spars and rigging. Smoke billowed from everywhere, while beneath the heaped wreckage he heard voices calling for help, for each other, or cursing like men driven mad.

Allday gasped, 'Mizze
n'll come down any minute, sir!
' He sounded faint. 'Only the shrouds holding it, I'd say!'

Faintly through the din of shouts and splintering woodwork Bolitho heard cheering. Frenchmen cheering their victory.

Farquhar thrust Pascoe away and reeled towards the broken hammock nettings. His uniform was torn, and several wood splinters were embedded in his shoulders like darts. Blood ran unheeded down his chest and marked his passage towards the side, and when Bolitho caught him he had his eyes tightly shut.

He gasped,
'Did
we
strike,
sir?'

Bolitho held him firmly as Pascoe ran to help. The mast with his pendant, the halliards which had held the ensign, all had been blasted away in the enemy's broadside.

'No, we did not.'

Farquhar opened his eyes very wide and looked at him. 'That is good, sir. I-I'm sorry about
-'
He closed his eyes against another searing pain, but exclaimed fiercely, 'I hope Probyn
rots
in
hell!
He's finished us this day.'

Bolitho supported him, knowing that Pascoe was watching his face as if for an answer to something.

Farquhar said quietly, 'Let me stand, sir. I will be all right now. Get that fool Outhwaite to - ' Some last understanding flashed across his eyes, and then froze there.

The second lieutenant staggered through the funnelling smoke, but stopped motionless as Bolitho said, 'Take your captain, Mr. Guthrie.' He watched a few men emerging from beneath the poop. 'Sir Charles Farquhar is dead.'

16
The Captain's Report

'O
nly
the wounded into the boats!'

Bolitho was hoarse from shouting above the din of gunfire. Several transports were shooting through the smoke, and he knew that some of the shots would be hitting their consorts, as the packed anchorage changed from a prepared defence-line to a scene of indescribable panic. Three ships were blazing fiercely, and with their cables either cut or burned through, were already drifting amongst the others.

Bolitho could not tell how many guns were firing at
Osiris,
for with only a few of her lower battery still manned, it was impossible to distinguish between a thirty-two-pounder's recoil and an enemy ball crashing into the hull.

He peered over the gangway and saw the boats immediately below him, filled with wounded, while others clung to the gunwales or floated away, unable to swim, or without the strength to do so. Others were clambering down the rounded tumblehome, marines and seamen, coopers and sailmakers, while here and there the blue and white of an officer tried to restore order.

Pascoe ran to his side. 'What will happen now, sir ?'

Bolitho did not reply immediately. 'Down there, Adam. That is what defeat is like. The way it looks. How it smells.' He turned away. 'Pass the word. Cease firing. This ship may take fire at any moment when one of those wrecks drifts against us.'

More violent crashes, and freed at last from its remaining shrouds, the mizzen mast plunged down alongside, bedding itself in the shallows like a great marker.

He walked a few paces across the deck, his shoes catching in splinters and the great diagonal rent where the French gunners had smashed down the helm and all around it.

A few men ran past him, not even giving him a glance. To where, and for what purpose, they probably did not know.

Smoke poured across the hull and eddied through holes in the deck. It was like walking in hell. Dead men were on every hand, weapons and small possessions where they had been dropped or had fallen in battle. A marine lay staring at the sky, his head and shoulders supported on the lap of a comrade. A best friend perhaps. But he, too, was dead. Killed by a metal splinter as he had watched his friend die.

There was no sign of Farquhar, and he imagined that they had carried him right aft, to the wrecked cabin with its once beautiful furniture and fittings.

A small figure emerged below the poop, and he realised it was Midshipman Breen.

'Go with Mr. Pascoe!' He watched the boy peering at him without a spark of recognition. 'And take care.'

Breen nodded, and then burst into tears. 'I ran away, sir!
I
ran
away
I'

Bolitho touched his shoulder. 'A lot of
men
did that today, Mr. Breen. There's nothing more they can do here.'

Pascoe came aft with the second lieutenant. The latter looked exhausted, white-faced with shock.

'The boats are full, sir.' He cringed as a ball ripped past him and struck something solid in the smoke. The smoke was so thick that the other ship was completely hidden.

'Very well.' Bolitho looked slowly along the deserted decks. There would still be some who were trapped under that great tangle of wreckage. Listening, or calling for help.

He said, 'Pass the word. Abandon ship. We will ferry the wounded ashore.' He looked at Pascoe.
‘I
am sorry for you, Adam. Twice a prisoner of war in so short a span.'

Pascoe shrugged. 'At least we're together this time, Uncle.'

Allday, who had been nursing his injured arm, levered himself from the rail and said,
'Listen!'

They looked at him, and Bolitho put his arm round him, fearing that because of his own despair he had failed to help Allday.

Breen wiped his eyes with his fists and stared at Allday.
‘I
hear it!' He rea
ched out for Allday's hand. 'I
hear
it
'

Bolitho walked over the broken planks, listening to the swelling roar of cheers. It faltered only to a ragged crash of

gunfire, which was followed instantly by an even louder, more violent broadside. Then the cheering resumed, stronger and fiercer, like one great voice.

Allday said huskily, 'That's no French cheer!'

'Huzz
a!
Huzz
a!'