To Glory We Steer (10 page)

Okes could only stare at the oncoming ship, his jaw open as the distance was swallowed up in the gap of tossing water between them. He held up his sword. “Stand by starboard battery!” But his voice was lost in a savage ripple of gunfire from the other ship as gun after gun belched fire and smoke from aft to forward as each one came to bear.

This time there was no mistake.

Herrick felt the hull shudder beneath his feet and reeled against the foremast as smoke blotted out the deck and the air became full of splintering woodwork and falling rigging. Above and around him the air quivered and shook with the crash of guns, and the nerve jarring scream of cannon balls as they whipped through the smoke like things from hell.

The scream of passing shots mingled with closer, more unearthly sounds as flying splinters ripped into the packed gunners and bathed the smooth decks with scarlet. Herrick had to bite his lip to retain control of himself. He had seen men bleed before. In an occasional skirmish, and under the cat. From a fall or a shipboard accident. But this was different. It was all around him, as if the ship was being painted by a madman. He could see specks of blood and gristle across his white breeches, and when he looked across at the nearest gun he saw that it had been upended and one of its crew had been pulped into a scarlet and purple mass. Another man lay legless, a handspike still gripped and ready, and two of his companions were clinging together screaming and tearing at each other's terrible wounds in the insane torment.

The enemy frigate must have reloaded almost at once, and another ragged volley thundered and crashed in the
Phalarope
's side.

Men cried and yelled, cursed and fumbled blindly in the choking smoke, while above their heads the nets jerked and danced madly to the onslaught of falling gear from aloft.

A powder monkey ran weeping towards the magazine hatch, only to be pushed away by one of the marine sentries. He had dropped his cartridge carrier and was running below, to the safety of darkness. But the sentry yelled at him and then struck at him with his musket. The boy reeled back and then seemed to come to his senses. With a sniff he picked up his carrier and made for the nearest gun.

There was a scream of shot, and Herrick turned biting back vomit as the eighteen-pound shot cut the boy in half. The head and shoulders remained upright on the planking for several seconds, and before he turned away Herrick saw that the boy's eyes were still open and staring.

He cannoned into Okes who still stood with upraised sword, his eyes fixed and glassy as he gaped at the remains of his battery.

Herrick shouted, “Fire, Matthew! Give the order!”

Okes dropped his sword and here and there a gun lurched back adding its voice to the dreadful symphony.

Okes said, “We're done for! We'll have to strike!”

“Strike?” Herrick stared at him. All at once the reality was cruel and personal again. Death and surrender had always been words, a necessary but unlikely alternative to victory. He looked towards the quarterdeck at Bolitho's tall figure and the marines beyond. The latter must have been firing their muskets for some while, yet Herrick had not even noticed. He saw Sergeant Garwood with his half-pike dressing one rank where two red-coated bodies had left gaps in the line, while he called out the time and numbers to his men as they reloaded and fired another volley into the smoke. Captain Rennie had his back to the enemy and was staring across the other rail as if seeing the sea for the first time.

Pryce, the gun captain, gave one long scream and fell backwards at Herrick's feet. A long splinter had been torn from the deck and had embedded itself in the man's shoulder. Through the blood Herrick could see the thick stump of jagged timber sticking out like a tooth, and knew that the other end would be deep inside. The splinters were always the most dangerous and had to be cut out from the flesh in one piece.

Herrick gestured towards the men by the main hatch, “Take this one below to the surgeon!” They had been staring at a pulped corpse beside the hatch, its teeth white against the flayed flesh. Herrick's harsh tone seemed to give them strength to break the spell.

Pryce began to scream. “No! Leave me here by the gun! For God's sake, don't take me below!”

One of the men whispered, “'E's a brave 'un! 'E don't want to leave 'is station!”

Pochin spat on the gun and watched the spittle hissing on the barrel. “Squit! 'E'd rather die up 'ere than face the butcher's knife.”

There was a splintering crack, like that of a coach whip, high overhead, and as Herrick squinted up through the drifting smoke he saw the main-topgallant quiver, and then as the wind tore jubilantly at the released canvas it began to slide forward.

Herrick cupped his hands. “Look alive, you men! Get aloft and cut those shrouds! It'll foul the foremast otherwise!”

He saw Quintal and some seamen running up the shrouds and then winced as another cannon ball ploughed along the deck by his feet and smashed into two wounded gunners beside the lee bulwark. He looked away, sickened, and heard Vibart yell, “Heads below! The t'gallant is falling!”

With a jarring crash the long spar pitched over the bulwark and remained trapped and tangled in a mass of rigging, the torn sail ballooning in the water alongside and dragging at the ship like a sea anchor.

To add to the horror, Herrick could see the man, Betts, the one who had first sighted the other frigate, pinned in the trailing rigging like an insect in a web.

Vibart yelled, “Axes there! Cut that wreckage adrift!”

Betts stared up at the frigate with glazed eyes, his voice short and painful between his teeth. “Help me! Don't let me go to the bottom, lads!”

But already the axes were at work, the men driven half mad by the din, too dazed to care for the suffering of one more seaman.

Okes seized Herrick's arm. “Why doesn't he strike? For Christ's sake
look
what he's doing to us!”

Herrick's mind was dulled and refused to work clearly any more. But he could see what Okes was trying to show him. The heart had gone out of the men, what heart there had been. They crouched and whimpered as the enemy balls thundered all around them, and only occasionally did a single gun reply. Then it was usually a small handful of men led by one seasoned and dedicated gun captain which kept up a one-sided exchange with the enemy.

Herrick shut his ears to the screaming wounded as they were dragged below and closed his eyes to everything but the small open patch of quarterdeck where Bolitho stood alone by the rail. His hat had gone and his coat was stained with powder and blown spray. Even as he watched Herrick saw a messenger run towards the captain, only to be cut down by musket fire from the other vessel as she loomed sideways out of the smoke. Musket balls were thudding against the hammock nettings and biting across the deck, yet Bolitho never budged, nor did he alter his expression of detached determination.

Only once did he look up, and then to glance at the large scarlet ensign which streamed from the gaff, as if to reassure himself that it still flew.

Herrick shook his head. “He'll not strike! He'll see us all dead first!”

5 RUM AND
R
ECRIMINATIONS

T
HE DECK
slewed over as the
Phalarope
's helm went hard down and she swung blindly on to her new course. Bolitho had lost count of the number of times his ship had changed direction, or even how long they had been fighting.

Of one thing he was sure. The
Andiron
was outmanœuvering him, was still holding to windward and keeping up a steady barrage. His own gunners were hampered by yet another hazard. The wind was falling away, and his men were now firing blindly into an unbroken bank of thick smoke which rolled down from the other ship and mingled with their own intermittent firing. The smoke seemed to writhe with many colours as the American privateer continued the attack. Once, when a freak wind had blown the smoke skywards like a curtain Bolitho had seen the
Andiron
's battery belching long orange flames as each gun was trained and fired singly across the bare quarter mile between the two frigates. They were firing high, the balls screaming through the rigging and slashing the remaining sails to ribbons. Ropes and stays hung from above like weed, and every so often heavy blocks and long slivers of wood would fall amongst the labouring gunners or splash in the clear water alongside.

She intended to dismast and cripple the
Phalarope.
Maybe her captain had plans for using another captured ship, just as he had the
Andiron.

The long nine-pounders on the quarterdeck recoiled as one, their sharp, barking detonations penetrating the innermost membranes of Bolitho's ears as he stared through the smoke and then back at his own command. Only on the quarterdeck was there still some semblance of unity and order. Midshipman Farquhar stood by the taffrail, his eyes bright but determined as he passed his orders to the gun captains. Rennie's marines were standing fast, too. From their smoke-blinded position behind the hammock nettings they kept up a steady musket fire whenever the other ship showed herself through the choking fog of powder smoke.

But the main deck was different. Bolitho let his eyes move slowly over the chaos of scarred planking and grisly remains which marked every foot of deck space. The guns were still firing, but the intervals were longer, the aim less certain.

At first Bolitho had been amazed at the success of that opening broadside. He had known that later the lack of training would slow down the barrage, but he had not dared to hope for such a good opening. The double-shotted guns had fired almost as one, the ship staggering from the combined recoil. He had seen the bulwarks jump apart on the other frigate, had watched the balls tear through the packed gunners and gouge into her spray-dashed hull. It had seemed momentarily that the battle might still be contained.

Through the streaming smoke he saw Herrick moving slowly aft along the starboard battery checking the gunners and aiming each weapon himself before allowing the gun captain to jerk his trigger line. It should have been Okes on the starboard side, but perhaps he was already dead, like so many of the others.

Bolitho made himself examine each part of the agonising panorama which the
Phalarope
now represented. His body felt sick and numb from the constant battering, but his eye and mind worked in cold unison, so that the pain and suffering was all the more apparent.

Small pictures stood out from the whole, so that wherever he looked there was a pitiful reminder of the cost and the price still to be paid.

Many had died. How many he had no way of knowing. Some had died bravely, serving their guns and yelling encouragement and curses up to the moment of death. Some died slowly and horribly, their mutilated and broken bodies writhing in the blood and flesh which covered the deck as in a slaughterhouse.

Others were less brave, and more than once he had seen men shamming death, even cowering in the stench and horror of the discarded corpses until dragged and kicked back to their stations by the petty officers.

Some had escaped below in spite of Rennie's sentries, and would now be covering their ears and whimpering in the bilges to face drowning rather than the onslaught from the
Andiron
's guns.

He had seen the little powder monkey cut in half, and even above the roar of battle he had heard his own words to that same boy just three weeks ago:

“You'll see England again! Never you fear!”

Now he was wiped away. As if he had never been.

And there had been the seaman Betts, trapped and writhing on the severed topgallant. The man he had used to try to prove his authority. The axes had cut the spar away, and with a sigh it had bobbed clear of the ship before moving away in the smoke in a trail of rigging. The spar had idled past the quarterdeck, and for a brief instant he had seen Betts staring up at him. The man's mouth had been open like a black hole, and he had shaken his fist. It was a pitiful gesture, but it felt like a curse from the whole world. Then the spar had rolled over, and before it had faded astern Bolitho had seen Betts's feet sticking out of the water, kicking in a futile dance.

He tore his eyes from the carnage as more balls slapped through the main course and whined away over the water. It could not last much longer. The
Andiron
had hauled off slightly to windward. He could see her upper-yards and punctured sails moving above the smoke bank as if detached from the hidden ship beneath, and guessed she was drawing clear to pound the
Phalarope
into submission with slow, carefully aimed shots.

He did not recognise his own voice as he gave his orders automatically and without pause. “Tell the carpenter to sound the well! And pass the word for the boatswain to send more men aloft to splice the mizzen shrouds!” There was little point any more, but the game had to be played out. He knew no other way.

His eye fell on an old gun captain at the nearest twelve-pounder below the quarterdeck. The man showed fatigue and strain, but his hoarse voice was unhurried, even patient as he coaxed his crew through the drill of reloading. “That's right, my boys!” He peered through the haze as one of his men rammed home the cartridge and another cradled the gleaming ball into the gaping muzzle. A splinter flew from the gunport and laid open his arm, but he merely winced and tied a filthy rag around his biceps before adding, “Ram that wad well home, bucko! We don't want the bugger to fall out agin!” He saw Bolitho watching him and showed his stained teeth in what might have been either pain or pride. Then he bawled, “Right then! Run out!” The trucks squeaked as the gun lumbered up the canting deck and then roared back again as the old man pulled his trigger.

Vibart loomed across the rail, his figure like a massive blue and white rock. He looked grim but unflinching, and waited for the nine-pounders to fire and recoil before he shouted, “No water in the well, sir! She's not hit below the waterline!”

Bolitho nodded. The American obviously felt sure of a capture. It would not take long to refit a ship in one of the dockyards left by the British retreating from the American colonies.

The realisation brought a fresh flood of despairing anger to his aching mind. The
Phalarope
was fighting for her life. But her men were failing her.
He
was failing her. He had brought the ship and every man aboard to this. All the hopes and promises were without meaning now. There was only disgrace and failure as an alternative to death.

Even if he had contemplated flying from the
Andiron
's attack it was too late now. The wind was falling away more and more, and the sails were almost useless, torn like nets by the screaming cannon balls.

A marine threw up his hands, clawing at the gaping scarlet hole in his forehead before pitching back into his comrades.

Captain Rennie drawled, “Fill that space! What the hell do you think you're doing?” To Sergeant Garwood he added petulantly, “Take the name of the next man who dies without permission!”

Surprisingly, some of the marines laughed, and when Rennie saw Bolitho looking at him he merely shrugged, as if he too understood it was all part of one hideous game.

The ship staggered, and overhead the sails boomed in protest as the fading wind sighed against the flapping canvas. Bolitho snapped, “Watch your helm, Quartermaster! Steady as you go!”

But one of the helmsmen had fallen, a pattern of scarlet pouring from his mouth and across the smooth planking. From somewhere another seaman took his place, his jaw working steadily on a wad of tobacco.

Vibart growled, “The starboard battery is a shambles! If we could engage the opposite side it would give us time to reorganise!”

Bolitho eyed him steadily. “The
Andiron
has the advantage. But I intend to try and cross her stern directly.”

Vibart peered abeam, his eyes cold and calculating. “She'll never allow it. She'll pound us to shavings before we get a cable's length!” He looked back at Bolitho. “We will have to strike.” His voice shook. “We can't take much more.”

Bolitho replied quietly. “I did not hear that, Mr Vibart. Now go forrard and try and get the full battery into action again!” His tone was cold and final. “When two ships fight, only one can be the victor. I will decide on the course of action!”

Vibart seemed to shrug. As if it was not his concern. “As you say, sir!” He strode to the ladder adding harshly, “I
said
that they did not respect weakness!”

Bolitho felt Proby shaking his arm and turned to see the anxiety etched on his mournful face. “The wheel, Captain! It don't answer! The yoke lines have parted!”

Bolitho stared dully over Proby's rounded shoulders to where the helmsman pulled vaguely at the wheel, the squeaking spokes responding in empty mockery as the ship paid off and began to sidle sluggishly downwind.

The sudden movement brought more cries from the main deck as the frigate rolled her gunports skyward in a dizzy, uncontrollable elevation.

Bolitho ran his fingers through his hair, realising for the first time that his hat had been knocked from his head. The masthead pendant was barely flapping now, and without power in her sails the ship would drift at the mercy of the sea until her surrender or destruction. It would take all of an hour to re-rig the rudder lines. By then . . . he felt a cold shudder moving across his spine.

He cupped his hands. “Cease firing!”

The sudden silence was almost more frightening than the gunfire. He could hear the chafe and creak of spars, the gurgle of water below the counter, and the swaying clatter of loose rigging. Even the wounded seemed quelled, and lay gasping and staring at the captain's still figure at the quarterdeck rail.

Then across the water, drifting with the smoke like a final insult, he heard a wild cheering. It was more like a baying, he thought bitterly. Like hounds closing for the kill.

A V-shaped cleft broke in the smoke, and through it came the
Andiron
's raked bow and the long finger of her bowsprit. Filtered sunlight played across her figurehead and glinted on raised cutlasses and boarding pikes. As more and more of the other ship glided into view Bolitho saw the press of men running forward to the point where both ships would touch. Others were crawling out along the yards with grapnels, ready to lash the two enemies together in a final embrace. It was nearly finished.

He heard Stockdale mutter at his elbow, “The bastards! The
bastards!
”

Bolitho saw that there were small tears in the man's eyes, and knew that the battered coxswain was sharing his own misery.

Above his head the flag whipped suddenly in a small breeze, and he knew that he dare not look at it. A defiant patch of scarlet. Like the red coats of the marines and the great glittering pools of blood which seeped through the scuppers as if the ship herself was bleeding before his eyes.

A new wildness moved through his mind, so that he had to lock his fingers around his swordbelt to prevent his hands from shaking.

“Get Mr Brock! At the double!”

He saw Midshipman Maynard lope forward, and then forgot him as his glance strayed again to the watching men. They were exhausted and smashed down with the fury of battle. There was hardly a spark amongst them. His fingers settled on the hilt of his sword and he felt the painful prick of despair behind his eyes. He could see his father, and so many others of his family, ranked with his crew, and watching in silence.

Proby said hoarsely. “I've sent a party to splice the yoke lines, Captain.” He waited, plucking the buttons of his shabby coat. “It were not your fault, sir.” He shifted beneath Bolitho's unwavering stare. “Don't you give in, sir. Not now!”

The gunner reached the quarterdeck and touched his hat. “Sir?” He was still wearing the felt, spark-proof slippers he always wore in the dark magazine, and he seemed dazed by the sudden silence and the litter of destruction about him.

“Mr Brock, there is a task for you.” Bolitho listened to his own voice and felt the strange wildness stirring him like brandy. “I want every starboard gun loaded with chain shot.” He watched the
Andiron
's slow, threatening approach. “You have about ten minutes, unless the wind returns.”