ALEXANDER KENT - TO GLORY WE STEER
`Have the guns loaded, but do not run out until I tell you.'
He saw the gunners push the fresh charges down the gaping muzzles, followed by the round, gleaming shot. The more experienced gun captains took time to fondle each ball, weighing it almost lovingly to make sure that the first salvo would be a perfect one.
He heard Herrick shout, `Double-spotted and grape, lads! Let 'em feel it this time!'
A stronger breath of wind rolled aside the mist around the entangled ships, and Bolitho tightened his lips into a thin line. Almost stem on to the Phalarope's swift approach was a French frigate, and alongside, listing and battered almost beyond recognition, was the little brig, Witch o f Looe. One mast was already gone, and the other seemed to be held upright only by the remaining stays. He thought of her commander, the young Lieutenant Dancer he 'had met aboard the flagship, and marvelled at the man's pluck or wasted courage which had made him him match his ship against this powerful opponent. His little pop-guns against the still-smoking twelvepounders.
Okes said, `They've seen us, sir!' He swallowed hard as something like an animal growl floated across the water. `My God, look at them!'
The Witch of Looe's shattered deck seemed to be swamped in French sailors, and as the drifting gunsmoke parted momentarily to allow the sunlight to play across the carnage, Bolitho saw the small knot of defenders, still fighting back from the brig's small quarterdeck. In a few more minutes they would be swamped completely.
The gunports along the French frigate's disengaged side suddenly opened, and to the steady rumble of trucks the guns appeared like a line of bared teeth.
Bolitho shut his ears and mind to the victorious shouts from the French frigate and concentrated his thoughts on the narrowing strip of water between them. Less than a cable's length to go, with neither ship able to fire. Phalarope was almost dead in line with the other ship's stem, so that if she held her course her bowsprit would drive straight through the stern windows. On one side of the enemy frigate lay the listing, rid-• dled brig, and on the other the guns waited to claim another victim.
Bolitho called sharply, `Run out the starboard battery!'
He watched as his men threw themselves against the tackle falls, and in a squealing, protesting line the guns trundled up the slight slope of the deck and out through the open ports.
There was a great bellow of noise from the French ship, wild and inhuman. The sound gained from killing and madness. Phalarope's own men remained tense and cold, their eyes unblinking as the enemy's pockmarked sails grew higher and higher above the bows.
Bolitho placed his hands on the rail and said slowly, `Now send your men across to the larboard battery, Mr. Herrick!' He saw the quick, mystified glances and added harshly, `In another minute I am, going to turn to starboard and go alongside the Witch of Looe. She is low in the water, our broadside should pass right above her!'
Herrick's frown gave way to a look of open admiration.
`Aye, aye, sir!'
Bolitho's voice stopped him in his tracks. `Quietly there! I don't want the Frogs to see what we're doing!'
Crouching almost on their knees the gunners scuttled
across to the opposite side, then excitement instantly quelled
by hoarse threatss from the gun captains.
Nearer and nearer. A few musket balls whined harmlessly overhead, but for the most part the French captain was prepared to wait. He could match gun for gun, and as Phalarope's bows and foremast would take the first punishment he could afford to feel confident. His own ship was drifting slowly downwind and his gunners could thank the Witch of Looe's weight alongside for a'steadier platform beneath their feet. There was a faint ripple of cheering, drowned instantly by a fresh outburst of musket fire.
Proby muttered, `The brig's people are cheering us, sir!'
Bolitho ignored him. One error now and his ship would change into a shambles. Fifty yards, thirty yards. Bolitho lifted his hand. He saw Quintal crouching like a runner, one beefy hand resting on the nearest seaman at the braces.
Bolitho shouted, `Now!'
At his side Pioby added his weight to the wheel, as with a scream of blocks the yards began to swing, the sails flapping in protest, but answering the challenge of wind and rudder.
`Run out!' Bolitho felt ice cold as the larboard battery squealed across the sanded planks. `Fire as your guns bear!'
He pounded the rail, counting each frantic second. For a moment he thought that he had mistimed the change of course, but even as be waited, holding his breath and hardly daring to watch, the bowsprit swung lazily across the French ship's high stem, almost brushing away a small group of sailors which had gathered above the hammock nettings.
Herrick ran from gun to gun, making sure that each successive shot went home. Not that he need have troubled. As the French gunners ran dazedly from the opposite side the first shots went crashing home. The Phalarope shuddered as she ground -against the little brig, but maintained her way steadily down the ship's side, her guns belching fire and death above the heads of the stunned boarders and the remaining members of the brig's crew.
Bolitho winced as the quarterdeck nine-pounders joined in the din. But still there was no answer from the French ship. Bolitho had guessed correctly that the guns which stared impotently at the Phalarope's smashing attack would have been in action right up to the moment of grappling and boarding the little brig.
He watched as great pieces of the frigate's bulwark caved in and fragments of torn planking rose above the smoke as if thrown from an invisible hand. An axe flashed dully, and Bolitho yelled, `He's trying to free himself!' He drew his sword. `Over you go, lads! Boarders away!'
As the Phalarope ground to a sluggish halt, her bows locked into the brig's fallen rigging and spars, Bolitho ran down the port gangway and clambered on to the Witch of Looe's tilting deck. For a moment nobody followed him, and then with a great roar, half cheer and half scream, the waiting seamen swept over the bulwark behind him.
Most of the French sailors, caught between the Phalarope's savage gunfire and the revived members of the brig's crew, threw up their hands in surrender, but Bolitho thrust them aside, his sword raised high towards his own men. `Come on, lads! We'll take the frigate!' There would be time enough for the boarders later, he thought vaguely.
Once up the frigate's shot-pitted side the resistance became fierce and deadly. Wild, crazed faces floated around Bolitho as he hacked his way aft towards the poop, and his feet barely supported him-in the heel-thick layer of blood.which seemed to cover the deck like fresh paint. The enemy's upperdeck had been crammed with men. Some were boarders recalled from the Witch of Looe, and others were gunners caught off guard by the Phalarope's sudden change of course. This tangled, momentarily disorganised mass of men had received the full force of the broadside. All the Phalarope's larboard twelvepounders and the quarterdeck battery as well, every one double-shotted and loaded with grape for good measure. It looked as if a maniac had been throwing buckets of blood everywhere. Even the lower edges of the sails were speckled in scarlet, and fragments of men hung from upended guns and splintered bulwarks alike.
A French officer, hatless and bleeding from a scalp wound, leapt in front of Bolitho, his thin sword red almost to its hilt. Bolitho lifted his own sword, but felt it parried aside, and saw the French officer's expression change from anxiety to sudden exultation. Bolitho tried to draw back, but the struggling, press of figures prevented it. He could not lift his sword in time. He saw the man's arm come round, heard the swish of steel, and waited for the shock of the thrust.
Instead the Frenchman's face twisted with alarm as a battle-crazed marine burst through the throng, his fixed bayonet held in front of him like a spear. The sword swung round yet again, but it was too late. The momentum of the marine's charge impaled the officer on the bayonet and threw them both against the poop ladder. The marine screamed with wild" delight and stamped his boot on the Frenchman's stomach, at the same moment wrenching out the dripping bayonet. The French officer sank slowly to his knees, his mouth opening and shutting like a dying fish. The marine stared at him as if for the first time and then thrust. the bayonet hone again.
Bolitho caught his arm. `That's enough! For God's sake, man!' The marine did not seem to hear him, but after a brief startled look at his captain's face he charged off into the battle once more, his expression one of concentration and hatred.
The frigate's captain lay on the poop, his shoulders supported by a young lieutenant. Someone was tying a crude tourniquet around the shattered stump of one leg, and the captain was only just hanging on to his senses as fighting, stabbing seamen reeled and staggered across his body.
Bolitho shouted, `Strike! Strike, Captain! While you still have some men left!' He did not recognise his own voice, and his hand around the hilt of his sword was wet with sweat. He thought of the crazed marine and knew that he too was in danger of giving way to the lust of battle.
The French captain gestured faintly, and the lieutenant gasped, `We strike! M'sieu, we strike!'
But even after the white flag had fluttered to the deck and men had been hauled bodily from the work of killing, it took time to make the Phalarope's men realise they had won.
The first to congratulate Bolitho was Dancer of the Witch of Looe. Bleeding from several wounds, his arm tied across his chest with a piece of codline, he limped over the splintered, bloodstained' deck and held out his good hand. `Thank you, sir! I was never more pleased to see any man!'
Bolitho sheathed his sword. `Your own ship is sinking, I fear.' He looked up at the frigate's tattered sails. `But you sold her dearly.'
Dancer swayed and then gripped Bolitho's arm. `I was trying to warn Sir Robert! The French are out, sir!' He squinted his eyes as if to restore his dazed thoughts. `Three days ago de Grasse met up with Rodney's fleet, but after a quick clash at long range, broke off the battle.' He pointed vaguely through the smoke. `I have been trying to shadow the Frogs, and thismorning I saw the whole fleet nor'-west of Dominica!' He shook his head. `I think Sir George Rodney has managed to engage them again, but I cannot be sure. I was caught by this frigate before I could get back to the squadron.' He smiled ruefully. `Now I have no ship at all!'
Bolitho frowned. `Have you enough men to take this frigate as prize?'
Dancer stared. `But she is your prize, sir!'
`We can discuss the share of financial reward at a later and more convenient time, Lieutenant!' Bolitho smiled. 'In the meantime I suggest you herd these prisoners below and make as much speed as you can with these rags for some port of safety.' He peered up through the smoke. 'The wind has veered slightly to the south-east. It should carry you clear of any impending battle!'
Herrick blundered through the mess and tangle of corpses, his sword dangling from his wrist. He touched his hat. 'We have just sighted the Cassius, sir!V
'Very well.' Bolitho held Dancer's hand. `Thank you for your news. At least it will justify Sir Robert's leaving his proper station!' He turned on his heel and climbed back across the sinking brig towards his own ship.
Still deep in thought he clambered over the bulwark and walked along the gangway. The gunners were standing below him, their faces upturned as he passed. The marine marksmen high in the tops and the little powder monkeys by the magazine hatch, all stood and stared at the slim solitary figure framed against the torn sails of the vanquished Frenchman.
It had been a swift and incredible victory. Not a man injured let alone killed in the attack, and no damage to the Phalarope at all. Some good men had died in the fight aboard the enemy ship, but the success far outweighed any such loss. A frigate taken as a prize, the Witch of Looe revenged if not saved, and all within an hour.
Yet Bolitho thought of none of these things. In his mind's eye he could see his well-worn chart, and the enemy's fleet moving in an irresistible tide towards the open sea, and Jamaica the prize.
Then a voice yelled out from the maindeck and Bolitho turned startled and caught off guard.
`Three cheers, lads! Three cheers for our Dick!'
Bolitho stared round at the quarterdeck as the air was split with wild, uncontrollable cheering. Herrick and Rennie were openly grinning at him. Neale and Maynard waving their hats to the men on deck below. Bolitho felt confused and entirely unprepared, and as the three cheers extended to a frenzied shouting Herrick crossed to his side and said, `Well done, sir! Well done!`
Bolitho said, `What is the matter with everyone today?'
Herrick replied firmly, `You've given them more than a victory, sir! You're given 'em back their self-respect!'
The cheering died away as if from a signal, and Herrick said quietly, `They want you to tell them, sir.' He dropped his eyes.
Bolitho moved to the rail and stared slowly around the familiar faces. These men. His men. The thoughts chased one another through his mind like shadows. Starve them, beat them. Let them face scurvy and disease, and death a hundred different ways. But still they could cheer. He gripped the rail hard and stared above their heads. When he spoke his voice was quiet, and those men furthest away leaned forward to hear it better.
`This morning we fought and beat a French frigate!' He saw some of the men nudging each other and grinning like children. `But more important to me is the fact that we fought as a single unit, as a King's ship should, and must fight!' A few of the older seamen nodded soberly, and Bolitho tried to steel himself for what he had to tell them.
It was no use just telling men to fight. They had to be led. It was an act of mutual trust. He cleared his throat. `When you see an enemy ship abeam and the balls begin to fly overhead, you all fight for many reasons.' He looked around their tanned and expectant faces. `You fight out of comradeship, to protect each other, and,avenge well-loved friends who have already laid down their lives. Or you fight out of fear, a fear which breeds a power of hatred for the enemy who is always faceless yet ever present. And above all we fight for our ship!' He waved his arm around him. `This is our ship, and will remain so, as long as we have the will to live and die for what is right!'
Some of the men started to cheer again, but he held up his
hand, his eyes suddenly sad. `But this short fight today was only a beginning. I cannot tell you how our small deeds will fit into the great pattern of battle, for I do not know. I only
know that it is our common duty to fight today, and to fight as we have never done before!'
He had their full attention now, and he hated himself for the truth which had to be told. `This morning we had luck on our side. But before this day dies we will need much more than that.'
As he paused the air seemed to give a sullen shudder, which as every man turned to stare across the captured ship alongside extended into a low, menacing rumble, like thunder across distant hills.
Bolitho continued steadily, `Over there, lads, lies the enemy!'
