Signal Close Action (20 page)

'Course nor'-east, sir!'

'Steady as you go.'

Bolitho raised his glass, feeling the wind whipping at his coat as he trained it on the enemy. His sudden alteration of course had caught the two French captains by surprise. He saw the leading ship's ornate stern slipping past
Lysander's
starboard bow, the gap widening more and more until he could see the second seventy-four's jib boom pushing through the left side of his lens.

A ripple of orange tongues darted from the leading Frenchman's hull, and he heard some of the balls hissing overhead, the sharp crack of a stay parting somewhere in their path.

He strode across the deck and seized Herrick's arm. 'The fool fired too soon.' He gestured towards the waiting seamen. 'Starboard battery, Thomas. Give him a broadside! With luck there'll be time to reload before we cut across his stern.'

Herrick waved his arm. 'As you bear!'

The earsplitting roar of the broadside, the great spouting bank of choking smoke as it was blown towards the enemy, made several of the marines loose off their muskets. They had no hope of finding a target, and Sergeant Gritton bellowed, 'Punishment for the next bugger to fire without orders!'

Bolitho stood on a bollard to peer above the hammock nettings, his eyes smarting in smoke as he watched for some sign of damage. The enemy's sails were pockmarked with shot holes, and he saw a gap in the boat tier, an upended launch split in halves. But the tricolour was still there, and the ship was holding direction as before.

He heard his men cheering and whooping and snapped,
'Reload!
I want three rounds every two minutes.' He saw Gilchrist staring at him. 'Gunnery is all we have now.'

There was a ragged crash of cannon fire from larboard, and he realised that the second Frenchman was trying to hit
Lysander
with his forward guns, the only ones which would bear.

Veitch was yelling, 'Larboard battery!' His hanger glittered above his head. 'As you bear, lads!'

Bolitho saw one of the midshipmen scuttling to the hatch to pass the order.

The hanger cut downwards.
'Fire!'

Once more the ship shook and bucked violently as both gun decks erupted in a slow and regular broadside. Men were already hurling themselves on the tackles and handspikes, reaching blindly for charges and fresh shot, many of them retching as smoke funnelled downwind to hide the deck from view.

Veitch shouted wildly, 'Faster! Come on, number three!
Sponge out!'

Bolitho wiped his streaming face, his mouth like dust as he watched the Frenchman's foresail flapping in all directions like a torn sheet, the long black scars along the enemy's forecastle where some of the broadside had gone home.

The leading French ship was still on the same course, her captain probably unwilling to expose his stern until the last moment. Or hoping his consort might produce some kind of miracle.

Herrick said, 'All loaded and run out again.' His face was streaked with grime. 'Less than two minutes, by my reckoning
'
'Fire!
'

The starboard guns hurled themselves inboard on the tackles, the orange-tinged smoke rolling downwind towards the Frenchman which now appeared to lie diagonally across the starboard bow.

Bolitho gritted his teeth, seeing
Lysander's
drifting smoke light up again to the enemy's immediate reply. The deck jerked under him, and he saw men duck as the balls shrieked low over the quarterdeck, some dropping in the sea almost a mile away.

Bolitho shouted,
'New,
Thomas! Pass the word
to the carronade crews forrard
'

Herrick nodded, his face a stiff mask as more shots crashed into the side or sliced between the sails.

Bolitho strode down the deck to the lee side, seeing the leading French ship's stern rising like a golden horseshoe above the eddying smoke.
Lysander's
forecastle was already passing through the gap between them. He winced, in spite of his warning, as a carronade blasted out its great grape-packed ball with an accompaniment of Veitch's foremost eighteen-pounders as they came to bear on the enemy's most vulnerable point.

Veitch was almost screaming. 'Stop your vents! Sponge out!
Load!'

The thunder of cannon fire, the squeal and rumble of guns being run out, the endless mad chorus of yells and cheers seemed to be reaching out from another world, or from the depths of hell.

Severed rigging twisted like snakes on the protective nets across the upper deck, and as the gun crews stooped and heaved, their naked bodies running with sweat and powder, they looked like the servants and not the masters of their bellowing black charges.

'Fire!'

Bolitho heard a man scream, saw a body bounce down from the main top before pitching over the side.

More shots slammed through the smoke, but he heard Grubb exclaim hoarsely, 'T
he old smasher 'as done it, sir!’
He took off his crumpled hat and waved it over his head. 'Must 'ave got 'er rudder!'

Bolitho watched narrowly, realising that although
Lysander
had sailed through the gap, the leading Frenchman's stern was still pointing straight at him. The murderous charge of grape from the carronade, accompanied by the forward guns, which by their harsher bark suggested they had been double-shotted for the purpose, must have ripped through the stern and disabled the steering. She was falling downwind, swinging her stern round, and he saw that her once ornate gallery was in ruins, her poop pitted and splintered from the onslaught.

As he watched he saw her mizzen stagger, held upright by stays and shrouds a while longer, and then begin to fall. Tiny figures were sliding down from the mizzen top, others ran like mad things to escape the great plunging mass of rigging and spars as with a crash, audible even above the thunder of guns, it swayed down into the smoke, the bright, flapping tricolour with it.

'
‘T’
other one is tryin' to follow us round, sir.' Gr
ubb's eyes were streaming.' 'E'll
take our wind.'

Bolitho pointed towards the second ship. 'Mr. Gilchrist! Prepare the larboard carronade
!
'

He saw the other ship's jib boom thrusting through the smoke like a black lance, the tiny pin-pricks of musket fire from her beakhead and foretop. With her yards hard-braced and the wheel over, she was struggling round to starboard, presenting more and more of her scarred side as the range shortened rapidly.

The larboard carronade slammed back on its slide, the ball exploding in a whirling mass of splinters and broken rigging directly abaft the enemy's beakhead.

Herrick yelled, 'By God, his fore is coming down!'

As the enemy's foremast started to totter drunkenly towards the sea his broadside rippled along his exposed side, a few of the gun ports remaining silent as a mark of Veitch's earlier success. But Bolitho knew it was the most carefully prepared attack so far. The deck bounded repeatedly, and from below he heard a metallic clang and a great chorus of shrill screams. The French marksmen were still firing, too, and as he paced restlessly about the deck Bolitho saw thin splinters flying from the planking as a sharpshooter tried to hit
Lysander's
officers.

A sharper bang came down from the pockmarked sails which now seemed to be towering above the nettings like a cliff, and a second later the after end of the quarterdeck was filled with kicking, screaming men. The French had a swivel gun in the top, and the canister fired at close range was evidence enough of the enemy captain's anxiety.

Herrick shouted, 'The Frog's out of control! She's swinging towards us!' He peered through the smoke. 'Mr. Grubb, put up your helm!'

But the master was coughing and cursing through the smoke, dragging corpses and wounded alike from the wheel, or what was left of it. The whole charge of canister had struck the wheel like a target and had scythed away in all directions, marking deck and guns, men and fragments in a great pattern of blood. More men ran dazedly to Grubb's aid, hauling at the remaining spokes, their eyes squinting as if fearful of the mutilated bodies around them.

Bolitho said harshly, 'It's too late.'

The enemy's bowsprit, the great dragging mass of severed mast and yards was directly across
Lysander's
bows. The enemy was still firing, as were his own men. At the most forward positions the range was down to about thirty feet.

Balls whimpered overhead or thudded into the hull with great hammer-blows. One burst through a port and ploughed into a gun crew which was sponging out for the next shot. The eighteen-pounder, freed from its tackles, careered across the tilting deck, its trucks making little bloody lines as it thrust through the remains of its crew.

Harry Yeo, the boatswain, was bawling for his men to get the gun under control, brandishing a boarding axe like some primitive warrior.

Bolitho looked at Herrick. 'We will ram her!' He sought out Gilchrist. 'Get the tops'ls off her!' He felt a musket ball zip past him. 'We must fight free before the other Frenchman recovers!'

Herrick nodded jerkily. 'Mr. Gilchrist
!
Pass the word!
Repel boarders!'

Bolitho heard more cries, and then Leroux's voice, 'Kill those marksmen in the main top
!
'

He said urgently, 'No, Thomas. We must board her! They'll cut our people to fragments.'

He seized the rail as with a great groaning crunch
Ly
sander's
jib boom smashed through the enemy's beakhead. The impetus carried both ships in a slow embrace, the guns falling silent and giving way to the sharper cracks of musketry.

Bolitho drew his sword. 'Work the ship clear, Thomas.' He wanted to reassure him in some way, and saw the uncertainty on Herrick's grimy face giving way to something worse as he replied, 'Let someone else go, sir!'

A great chorus of shouts and yells came from forward, and through the dangling remains of rigging and drifting smoke Bolitho saw men already trying to swarm down along the bowsprit.

He snapped, 'There's no time!' Then he ran along the starboard gangway, pointing down at every other gun on the disengaged side, shouting at their crews to follow.

When he reached the forecastle there were already a dozen or more corpses lying amidst the fighting seamen from both sides. Cutlasses rang against each other, and from the shrouds and the forechains of both ships the marksmen kept up a haphazard fire to add to the chaos.

Bolitho shouted,
'Carronade!'

He thrust a wounded man aside and hacked a French petty officer across the neck, feeling the blow lance up his arm and bring a stab of fire to his wounded shoulder.

A wild-eyed marine seemed to understand what he wanted and threw himself on the carronade's tackles, while Midshipman Luce and some more seamen came running to his aid.

'Fire!
'

The carronade's explosion made most of the boarders fall back in momentary confusion. When they peered at their own ship and saw the bloody remains of the men who had been about to swarm on to
Lysander's
deck they decided to retreat.

Bolitho yelled, 'Boarders away, lads!'

He waved his sword, feeling his hat plucked from his head by a pistol ball from somewhere, and then he was leaping and half falling down on to the enemy's shattered beakhead. When he stared back to see how many of his men were following he found himself looking into the eyes of
Lysander's
massive, unsmiling figurehead, and he felt the insane grin coming to his lips, the uncontrollable wildness which forced him on through upended ladders and broken spars, gaping corpses and great coils of fallen rigging.

Steel to steel, the men swaying back and forth locked together, feet stamping, teeth bared in curses and fear as they hacked and slashed their way aft along the forecastle deck.

From one corner of his eye Bolitho saw his flagship, nudging firmly through the enemy's torn shrouds, the smoky scarlet of Leroux's marines as they maintained a murderous fire on the Frenchman's upper deck.

From the direction of the drifting smoke he knew that both ships were standing downwind, the darkened water between the arrowhead of their embrace littered with splintered wood and a few bobbing corpses.

Sunlight lanced through the smoke, and he saw the gap widening. Herrick had succeeded in easing
Ly
sander's
bulky hull round to a point where she could use sails and rudder to work clear.