Stand Into Danger (8 page)

Yells changed to screams as a rumbling mass of cordage and broken spars crashed on and between the two hulls. Men were knocked from their feet as the sea lifted the vessels together yet again, bringing down another tangle of rigging and blocks. Some men had fallen, too, and Bolitho had to drag Jury by the arm as he shouted, “Follow me!” He waved his hanger, keeping his eyes away from the sea which appeared to be boiling between the two snared hulls. One slip and it would all be over.

He saw Little brandishing a boarding axe, and of course Stockdale holding his cutlass like a dirk against his massive frame.

Bolitho gritted his teeth and leapt for the other vessel's shrouds, his legs kicking in space as he struck out seeking a foothold. His hanger had gone from his hand and swung dangerously from his wrist as he gasped and struggled to hold on. More men were on either side of him, and he retched as someone fell between the two vessels, the man's scream cut off abruptly like a great door being slammed shut.

As he dropped to the unfamiliar deck he heard other voices and saw vague shapes rushing across the fallen wreckage, some with blades in their fists, while from aft came the sharp crack of a pistol.

He groped for his hanger and shouted, “Drop your weapons in the King's name!”

The roar of voices which greeted his puny demand was almost worse than the danger. Perhaps he had been expecting Frenchmen or Spaniards, but the voices which yelled derision at his upraised hanger were as English as his own.

A spar plunged straight down into the deck, momentarily separating the two opposing groups and smashing one of the figures to pulp. With a final quiver the two vessels wrenched themselves apart, and even as a sword-blade darted from the shadows towards him, Bolitho realized that
Destiny
had left him to fend for himself.

4
B
LADE TO BLADE

CALLING to each other by name, and matching curses with their unknown adversaries, the
Destiny
's small boarding party struggled to hold together. All the while the deck was flung about by the sea, the motion made worse by fallen spars and great creepers of rigging which trailed over the bulwarks and pulled the hull into each trough like a sea-anchor.

Bolitho slashed out at someone opposite him, his blade jarring against steel as he parried away another thrust. Bolitho was a good swordsman, but a hanger was a poor match for a straight blade. Around him men were yelling and gasping, bodies interlocked while they fought with cutlass and dirk, boarding axe and anything which they could lay hands on.

Little bellowed, “Aft, lads! Come on!” He charged along the littered deck, hacking down a crouching shadow with his axe as he ran, and followed by half of the party.

Near Bolitho a man slipped and fell, and then rolled over, protecting his face from the one who stood astride him with a raised cutlass. Bolitho heard the swish of steel, the sickening thud of the blade driving into bone. But when he turned he saw Stockdale wrenching his own blade free before tossing the dead man unceremoniously over the side.

It was a wild, jumbled nightmare. Nothing seemed real, and Bolitho could feel the numbness thrusting through his limbs as he fought off another attacker who had slithered down the shrouds like an agile ape.

He ducked, and felt the man slice above his head, the breath rasping out of him from the force of his swing. Bolitho punched him in the stomach with the knuckle-bow of his hanger, and as he reeled away hacked him hard across the neck, the pain lancing up his arm as if he had been the one to be cut down.

Despite the horror and the danger, Bolitho's mind continued to respond, but like that of an onlooker, somebody uninvolved with the bloody hand-to-hand fighting around him. The vessel was a brigantine, her yards in disarray as she continued to fall downwind. There was a smell of newness about her, a freshly built craft. Her crew must have been dumbfounded when
Destiny
's canvas had loomed across their bows, and that shock was the only thing which had so far saved the depleted boarding party.

A man bounded forward, regardless of the slashing figures and sobbing wounded who were being trampled underfoot.

Through his reeling mind one more thought came to Bolitho. This gaunt figure in a blue coat and brass buttons must be the vessel's master.

The brigantine was temporarily out of control, but within hours that could be put right. And
Destiny
was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps her damage was much worse than they had thought. You never really considered it might happen to your own ship. Always to another.

Bolitho saw the dull glint of steel and guessed dawn was not far away. Surprisingly, he thought of his mother, glad that she would not see his body when he fell.

The gaunt man yelled, “Drop your sword, rot you!”

Bolitho tried to shout back at him, to rally his men, to give himself a last spur of defiance.

Then the blades crossed, and Bolitho felt the strength of the man through the steel as if it was an extension of his own arm.

Clash, clash, clash,
Bolitho parried and cut at the other man, who took every advantage to press and follow each attack.

There was a clang, and Bolitho felt the hanger torn from his fingers, the lanyard around his wrist severed by the force of the blow.

He heard a frantic voice yell, “Here, sir!” It was Jury, as he hurled a sword across the writhing bodies hilt-first.

Bolitho's desperation came to his aid. Somehow he caught it, twisting it in his grip as he felt its balance and length. Tiny pictures flashed through his mind. His father teaching him and his brother Hugh in the walled kitchen-garden at Falmouth. Then later, matching careful movements against each other.

He sobbed as the other man's sword cut through his sleeve just below his armpit. Another inch and. . . . He felt the fury sweeping everything else aside, an insanity which seemed to give him back his strength, even his hope.

Bolitho locked blades again, feeling his opponent's hatred, smelling his strength and his sweat.

He heard Stockdale calling in his strange, husky voice and knew he was being pressed too hard to reach his side. Others had stopped fighting, their wind broken as they stared with glazed eyes at the two swordsmen in their midst.

From another world, or so it seemed, came the crash of a single cannon. A ball hissed over the deck and slammed through a flapping sail like an iron fist.
Destiny
was nearby, and her captain had taken the risk of killing some of his own men to make his presence felt and understood.

Some of the brigantine's men threw down their weapons instantly. Others were less fortunate and were felled by the inflamed boarders even as they tried to grasp what was happening.

Bolitho's adversary shouted wildly, “Too late for you,
sir!
”

He thrust Bolitho back with his fist, measured the distance and lunged.

Bolitho heard Jury cry out, saw Little running towards him, his teeth bared like a wild animal.

After all the agony and the hate, it was too easy and without any sort of dignity. He held his balance and did not even have to guide his feet and arms as he stepped aside, using the other man's charge to flick his blade in one ringing encounter and then drive his own beneath the lost guard and into his chest.

Little dragged the man away and raised his bloodied axe as he tried to struggle free.

Bolitho shouted, “Belay that! Let him be!”

He looked round, feeling dazed and sick, as some of his men gave a wild cheer.

Little let the man fall to the deck and wiped his face with the back of his wrist, as if he too was slowly but reluctantly letting go of the madness. Until the next time.

Bolitho saw Jury sitting with his back against a broken spar, his hands clasped across his stomach. He knelt down and tried to drag Jury's fingers away. Not him, he thought. Not so soon.

A seaman Bolitho recognized as one of his best maintopmen bent down and jerked the midshipman's hands apart.

Bolitho swallowed hard and tore the shirt open, remembering Jury's fear and his trust at the moment of boarding. Bolitho was young, but he had done this sort of thing before.

He peered at the wound and felt like praying. A blade must have been stopped by the large gilt plate on Jury's cross-belt, he could see the scored metal even in the poor light. It had taken the real force, and the attacker had only managed to scar the youth's stomach.

The seaman grinned and fashioned a wad from Jury's torn shirt. “He'll be all right, sir. Just a nick.”

Bolitho got shakily to his feet, one hand resting on the man's shoulder for support.

“Thank you, Murray. That was well said.”

The man looked up at him as if trying to understand something.

“I saw him throw that sword to you, sir. It was then that some other bugger made his play.” He wiped his cutlass absently on a piece of sailcloth. “It was the last bloody thing he
did
do on this earth!”

Bolitho walked aft towards the abandoned wheel. Voices from the past seemed to be following him, reminding him of this particular moment.

They will be looking to you now. The fight and fury has gone out of them.

He turned and shouted, “Take the prisoners below and put them under guard.”

He sought out a familiar face from others who had followed him blindly without really knowing what they were doing.

“You, Southmead, man the wheel. The rest go with Little and cut free the wreckage alongside.”

He glanced quickly at Jury. His eyes were open and he was trying not to cry out from the pain.

Bolitho forced a smile, his lips frozen and unreal. “We have a prize. Thank you for what you did. It took real courage.”

Jury tried to reply but fainted away again.

Through the wind and spray Bolitho heard the booming challenge of Captain Dumaresq's voice through a speaking-trumpet.

Bolitho called to Stockdale, “Answer for me. I am spent!”

As the two vessels drew closer, their fine lines marred by broken spars and dangling rigging, Stockdale cupped his big hands and yelled, “The ship is ours, sir!”

There was a ragged cheer from the frigate. It seemed obvious to Bolitho that Dumaresq had not expected to find a single one of them left alive.

Palliser's crisp tones replaced the captain's resonant voice. “Lay to if you are able! We must recover Mr Slade and his boat!”

Bolitho imagined he could hear someone laughing.

He raised his hand as the frigate tacked slowly and awkwardly away, men already working on her yards to haul up fresh canvas and reeve new blocks.

Then he looked at the brigantine's deck, at the wounded men who were moaning quietly or trying to drag themselves away like sick animals will do.

There were some who would never move.

As the light continued to strengthen, Bolitho examined the sword which Jury had flung to save him. In the dull light the blood was like black paint, on the hilt and up to his own wrist.

Little came aft again. The new third lieutenant was young. In a moment he would fling the sword over the side, his guts soured by what they had done together. That would be a pity. Later he would want it to give to his father or his sweetheart.

Little said, “ 'Ere, sir, I'll take that an' give it a shamper for you.” He saw Bolitho's hesitation and added affably, “It's bin a real mate to you. Always look after yer mates, that's what Josh Little says, sir.”

Bolitho handed it to him. “I expect you're right.”

He straightened his back, even though every muscle and fibre seemed to be cutting him like hot bands.

“Lively, men! There's much to do.” He recalled the captain's words. “It won't do it by itself!”

From beneath the foremast and its attendant pile of fallen debris Stockdale watched him and then gave a satisfied nod. One more fight had ended.

Bolitho waited wearily by Dumaresq's table in
Destiny
's cabin, his aching limbs at odds with the frigate's motion. Dull daylight had revealed the brigantine's name to be
Heloise,
outward bound from Bridport in Dorset to the Caribbean, by way of Madeira to take on a cargo of wine.

Dumaresq finished leafing through the brigantine's log-book and then glanced at Bolitho.

“Do sit, Mr Bolitho. Before you fall down.”

He rose and walked to the quarter windows, pressing his face against the thick glass to seek out the brigantine which was lying in
Destiny
's lee. Palliser and a fresh boarding party had gone across earlier, the first lieutenant's experience in much demand as they sought to repair the damage and get the vessel under way again.

Dumaresq said, “You performed well. Extremely so. For one so young and as yet inexperienced in leading men, you achieved more than I'd dared to hope.” He clasped his powerful hands behind his coat-tails as if to contain his anger. “But seven of our people are dead, others badly injured.” He reached up and banged the skylight with his knuckles. “
Mr Rhodes!
Be so good as to find out what the damned surgeon is about!”

Bolitho forgot his tiredness, his previous resentment at being ordered from his prize to make way for the first lieutenant. It was fascinating to watch the slow rise of Dumaresq's anger. Like a smouldering fuse as it edges towards the first cask of powder. It must have made poor Rhodes jump to hear his captain's voice rising from the deck at his feet.

Dumaresq turned to Bolitho. “Good men killed. Piracy and murder, no less!”

He had made no mention of the miscalculation which all but wrecked or dismasted both ships.

He was saying, “I knew they were up to something. It was evident at Funchal that too many ears and eyes were abroad.” He ticked off the points on his strong fingers. “My clerk, just to get the contents of his satchel. Then the brigantine, which must have quit England about the same time as we left Plymouth,
happens
to be in harbour. Her master must have known I could not beat to wind'rd and make a chase of it. So long as he kept his distance he was safe.”

Bolitho understood. If
Destiny
had clawed round to approach the other vessel in daylight, the
Heloise
would have had the advantage of the wind and the distance. The frigate could outpace her in any fair chase, but under cover of darkness the brigantine would easily slip away if expertly handled. Bolitho thought of the gaunt man he had cut down in the fight to hold the deck. He could almost pity him. Almost. Dumaresq had ordered him to be brought across so that Bulkley, the surgeon, could save his life, if that were possible.

Dumaresq added, “By God, it proves something, if more proof were needed. We are on the right scent.”