COLOURS ALOFT!

17. BENEATH THE FLAG

THE TWO converging lines of ships appeared to be closing rapidly, although Jobert's squadron still stood at about three miles' range.

Keen watched fixedly and then said, "He's not reduced sail yet, sir."

Bolitho wanted to climb to the poop and see what was happening in the convoy. There the firing had become general, and the last time he had looked Bolitho had seen Benbow wreathed in smoke as she engaged the two French seventy-fours on either beam at once. It was never a comfortable plan; it meant dividing the gun crews and left few hands to carry out repairs and remove the wounded.

The sharper crack of small weapons told him that Adam's Firefly had thrown any caution to the wind as she tacked as close as she dared to the two big Frenchmen. Adam knew Benbow wore Herrick's flag. Not that he would need any encouragement to fight. Bolitho thought of Keen's comment. Jobert had hoisted no signals either and had obviously drilled his ships for this very moment.

Keen asked without lowering his glass, "Shall I shorten sail, sir?"

"Yes. Take in the courses. Otherwise Jobert will overreach our line before we can cripple some of his ships."

Paget shouted, "Barracouta has gone for the frigates!" He sounded excited. "God, she's crossing the stern of one of 'em!"

Lapish had used his disguise well. While the two French frigates had held their station, one astern of the other, he had swept suddenly towards them with all the wind in his favour. His starboard battery was blasting into the enemy while he cut so dangerously close across the leader's stern that it looked as if they had collided. Smoke and flame belched from the Frenchman, and somebody gave a wild cheer as the maintopmast plummeted over her side, the attendant tangle of rigging and snapped spars dragging her over and giving Lapish's gun crews the rare chance of a second broadside, before Barracoutas helm went down and she changed tack towards the French line.

Even some of Keen's seamen paused as they fisted and kicked the main and forecourses against their yards, to stare as their one frigate curtsied round before the second enemy vessel had time to follow. Her two broadsides had rendered the other ship momentarily helpless and the list of killed and wounded must have struck them hard.

Bolitho made himself watch Jobert's flagship. Like her consorts, she was painted in black and white stripes, her gunports rising up her tumblehome in a checkered pattern.

Keen said, "He intends to overreach us, sir."

Bolitho said nothing. Leopard's jib-boom appeared to be pointing directly at their own.

Then Keen said, "They're shortening now, sir." He sounded tight with concentration. Relief too, for if Jobert's ships crossed their line of battle, they could smash into the convoy while Keen lost vital time trying to head round and engage. The reduction of sails might settle their final embrace.

The range was less than two miles now, and seemed to make Jobert's flagship loom even higher above the choppy wave crests.

"Stand by, starboard batteries!" Keen drew his sword, his eyes slitted in concentration.

Bolitho heard the order being piped to the lower gun deck and imagined the faces he had come to know.

He said, "We must try to break the line. Pass astern of Jobert, and let Montresor and Houston tackle the others. Ship to ship, broadside to broadside."

He saw the stabbing lines of flashes as Jobert's three-decker fired a slow broadside. The sea boiled violently as the heavy balls screeched above him and tore rigging to shreds and punched a dozen holes in the sails. Men swarmed aloft with the boatswain's bellowing voice guiding them to the worst damage.

Less than a mile now. More shots crashed overhead, and two balls hit the lower hull like battering rams. Bolitho wiped his eyes as smoke swirled over the quarterdeck in a freak downdraught before being sucked away downwind.

"Signal Rapid to assist Benbow." Bolitho tried not to consider Quarrell's chances, but it would lend heart to Herrick-he bit his lip-and Adam. Please God he was still safe.

Paget yelled, "He's resetting his tops'ls, the bugger!"

Bolitho watched as Leopard's topmen struggled out on their yards while the helm went over and Jobert's ship changed tack as if to avoid a final encounter. As she presented her full broadside she fired. It was like one gigantic explosion and Bolitho had to seize the rail as many of the balls struck Argonautes side or crashed across the forecastle. Wood fragments whirled in the air and most of the starboard carronade's crew were cut to bloody fragments.

Keen's sword flashed down. "Fire!"

The gun captains jerked their lanyards and Argonaute swayed over to the thrust of her combined broadside. The lower battery, their main armament, reacted badly; some of the crews there must have been stunned or unnerved by the weight of the enemy's iron.

Some of Leopard's sails lifted and writhed, and her fore-topsail was torn apart by the force of the wind through the ragged holes. It was not enough to make her even falter.

Despatch was closing with the second Frenchman, and Bolitho could hear Icarus firing from extreme range at the rearmost two-decker. He hurried to the nettings, the crews of the unemployed nine-pounders staring at him, their eyes wild, their naked bodies heaving with exertion as if they had been running.

Bolitho watched his two ships closing with the enemy, Icarus almost hidden in a rolling fog of gunsmoke.

He shouted, "Follow Jobert!" He winced as more balls slammed into the hull and a man screamed briefly as he was cut down.

Keen shouted, "Put up your helm! Close with her, man!"

Fallowfield glared at him and then gestured to his helmsmen, who clustered around the big wheel as if it was a last refuge.

Small flashes lit up Leopard's fighting-tops and several musket balls, almost spent, slammed harmlessly into the hammocks. The Royal Marines crouched against their frail protection and waited for the command to fire; some even glanced at Captain Bouteiller, willing him to give the order.

Keen called, "Set the forecourse!"

The hands had been waiting and Bolitho saw the great sail billow from its yard, cutting away the vision of the enemy like a huge curtain.

More shots whimpered across the quarterdeck and poop and Allday muttered, "Stay close to me, lad. They're out of range, but-"

Stayt pulled out his pistol and stared at it as if he were seeing it for the first time.

The air was filled with noise, gun captains yelling and gesturing to their crews who wielded their handspikes to heave the smoking barrels round towards the enemy. Overhead, seamen called to one another while severed standing and running rigging flapped out in the wind and defied their grasping fingers. Occasionally the spread nets would jerk as something broke free and plummeted down from aloft, and Bolitho knew it was a miracle that more damage had not been done.

He heard two bangs, loud and resonant, and knew Rapid was using her borrowed thirty-two-pounders. They would give the French ships something to worry about. They might even draw one of them away from Herrick who was being raked from two sides at once.

He saw a frigate falling downwind, her foremast trailing over the side, antlike figures swarming amongst the wreckage to hack it away. A cheer from some of the gun crews stopped abruptly, as if to a word of command.

Bolitho gripped his sword and saw Barracouta reel over as another burst of crossfire tore into her and brought down more spars and flailing rigging.

Keen murmured, "Bad luck. But he's knocked one of them out of the fight!" He ran to the side as Jobert's ship fired again, some of the balls ripping overhead with just a few feet to spare.

Stayt said abruptly, "We can't mark him down!" The words were wrung from his lips as if he were feeling every shot. "Must get closer!"

Bolitho shouted, "Captain Keen! Head for the convoy!" It was suddenly more than clear that Jobert intended to take the merchantmen as he had planned, and abandon his captains to stop or delay Bolitho's ships from interfering.

A great shower of sparks burst from Despatch's main deck and timber splashed down alongside. For an instant Bolitho imagined that a magazine had exploded, but it must have been a powder charge which had burst before it could be rammed home. As the French ship drifted away from her Bolitho saw that she too was badly mauled, and Despatch was already nudging round, her lower battery firing again and again, although many of her upper gun crews had been cut down by the explosion. Icarus too was obeying the signal, and appeared to be overlapping her enemy, her sails filled with holes and some of her guns unmanned or smashed.

With her helm over, Argonautes bowsprit followed Jobert's ship as if to impale her. The arrowhead of sea between them was torn again and again by leaping fins of spray, many followed by the terrible thud of iron striking deep into the hull.

Stayt remarked, "We're alone!"

Bolitho looked at him. Stayt sounded so calm, almost matter of fact. A man without nerves, or one resigned to the inevitable.

"Larboard battery!" Keen's sword caught the sunlight. "Fire!"

There were some wild cheers as the Frenchman's sails bucked and split, and tell-tale puffs of smoke along her tall hull told of their success. Keen's regular drills were paying off even now.

Stayt ducked as musket balls scythed over the hammock nettings, and two seamen were hurled to the deck, one screaming as he clawed at his stomach. The dead man was thrown over the side, the other dragged to the nearest hatch and eventually down to Tuson.

Bolitho shuddered. It was happening there now. The knife and saw, the dreadful agony while some poor wretch was held on the table.

Stayt coughed.

Bolitho looked at him and saw him falling very slowly to his knees, a look of intent concentration on his dark features.

Midshipman Sheaffe ran to his aid and put an arm round his shoulders.

Bolitho said, "Get him below!"

Stayt looked up at him, but seemed to have difficulty in focusing his eyes. He had one hand to his waist, and already his fingers were wet with blood.

Stayt tried to shake his head but the pain made him cry out.

"No!" He stared at Bolitho, his eyes desperate. "Hear me!"

Bolitho knelt beside him, his ears cringing to the crash and roar of cannon fire. Leopard's masts were no longer at a distance; they were rising up alongside, huge and formidable, as the two ships continued to drive together.

"What is it?" He knew Stayt was dying. Men were falling everywhere; one of the helmsmen was dragging himself into the gloom of the poop, his efforts mocked by the great pattern of blood he left behind him.

"It was my father…I wanted to tell…" He coughed violently and blood ran from his mouth. "I wrote to him about the girl, never thought what he might…" He rolled up his eyes and gasped, "Oh dear God, help me!"

Sheaffe said, "I'll carry him, sir!"

Sheaffe's voice seemed to give Stayt some impossible strength. His eyes turned towards the midshipman and he started to grin. It made him look terrible. "Admiral Sheaffe, it was. A friend of my father, y'see."

He turned back to Bolitho and shut his eyes tightly as shots scored across the deck, killing a seaman who was thrusting his rammer into a gun and taking off the arm of his companion like a dead twig.

"Always hated you. Thought you knew, sir. All fathers together." He tried to speak clearly but there was too much blood. He was drowning in it. "Yours, mine and this young mid-" He coughed again and this time the blood did not stop.

Sheaffe lowered him to the deck, and when he looked up his face was like stone. Then he picked up the silver-mounted pistol and thrust it into his belt.

Keen hurried across the deck and shouted, "We're all but into her!" The deck bucked and splinters flew like hornets, hurling men aside or leaving them too badly injured to help themselves. He saw Stayt's body and said, "Damn them!"

Bolitho walked to the nettings again and, using a marine's shoulder for support, climbed up to look at the other vessel. On every hand the battle raged, flotsam and broken spars drifted abeam, while here and there a lonely corpse floated beneath the thunder of cannon fire, like an uncaring swimmer.

He saw Jobert's command flag above the smoke, the sparkle of musket fire as the sharpshooters sought out targets. The shot which had killed Stayt had probably been aimed at him.

He turned his back on the black and white ship and glanced down at the bronzed marine. It was sheer madness, and he expected to feel the crushing agony between his shoulderblades at any second. His epaulettes would make a fine marker.

But he could feel the same recklessness, the need to make these men trust him, even though he had led them to disaster.

He said, "Aim well, my lad! But save the admiral for me, eh?" He clapped the marine on his rigid shoulder and saw his wild-ness change to astonishment, his face split into a huge grin.

The marine exclaimed, "God's teeth, sir, I got two o' the buggers already!"

He was levelling and firing again as Bolitho jumped down to the deck.

The hull shook violently as more shots hammered into it, and an eighteen-pounder was lifted by an invisible hand and toppled onto some of its crew. The barrel must have been as hot as a furnace, but the men soon died, their screams lost in the bombardment. The fore-topsail blew in ribbons, and without warning the main-topgallant mast staggered and then plunged to the deck like a forest giant.

Bolitho stared through the smoke, his eyes stinging and streaming. They had to get alongside. A sudden gap in the smoke made him realize how close they were to the convoy. He saw Benbow, her flags still flying, but her mizzen gone, firing without a pause into the ship nearest to her. The other one was almost dismasted, and he saw the two little brigs firing at her before the smoke swirled down again.

His foot touched Stayt's outflung arm and he looked down at him. In those few minutes he had learned more about the man than ever before. How petty and empty all the jealousy and hate seemed now.

He looked at Keen. "We have the wind. Use it." His voice hardened. "Ram her!" Then he drew his sword and heard Allday pull out his cutlass.

"Now! Hard over!"

Keen swung away. It was pointless to try to protest or explain. Jobert's company would overwhelm them. They would have no chance. But they never had from the beginning.

He shouted, "Man the braces! Put up your helm, Mr Fallowfield!"

But the master's mate had taken charge. Fallowfield lay near the wheel where he had died, his ear to the deck as if he were listening for something.

"Mr Paget! Prepare to ram!"

Paget stared up at him and then ran towards the forecastle, his hanger already drawn as, with ponderous intent, Argonaute turned towards her enemy, her jib-boom like a lance, her sails so torn and holed that even the jubilant wind, a cruel spectator to the fight, could barely offer steerage-way.

Despatch was alongside another ship, her guns still firing even though her muzzles were grinding against those of her enemy.

Jobert had now realized Bolitho's intention but could do little about it. By changing tack directly towards the convoy he had the wind abeam. He could neither turn towards Argonaute, nor could he allow the wind to carry him away without exposing his stern to a murderous broadside.

Oblivious to the din, Bolitho watched the shrieking balls as Jobert's guns tried to traverse onto the slow-moving ship with the huge Jack at her foremast.

French sailors were already running along the gangway, firing towards Argonaute, some falling or pitching overboard as they came under fire from Bouteiller's marksmen. A swivel blasted out from somewhere, and Bolitho saw one of the scarlet coats fall. It was Lieutenant Orde, his sword still in his hand as he stared up at the sky.

Keen gripped the rail, watching transfixed as the big three-decker, once so aloof and distant, loomed above them. Men were firing down, and he felt the planks jerk by his feet. A heavy ball hit Stayt's body so that it convulsed as if he were only shamming death. The Frenchmen were running to the point of impact, and the chorus of their cries and curses was like one tremendous voice which even the battle could not quench.

Keen turned as Bolitho touched his sleeve. "Are the guns ready?"

Keen nodded. "At this range, sir?" The jib-boom thrust slowly through Leopard's foremast shrouds. It looked such a gentle motion but Keen knew the whole weight of his command was behind it. He waved his sword to the lieutenant at the larboard battery. The seconds seemed like hours and Keen had time to consider several things at once. The great chorus of voices and then, in that fragment of time before the trigger-lines were jerked taut, he heard Bolitho say, "Fine words do not a broadside make, Val."

Then the space between the hulls vanished in a frothing torment of flame and smoke. Burning wads floated towards the torn sails, and the crash of metal against the enemy's hull was like a thunderclap.

The mass of French seamen and marines were gone, and Leopard's side below the gangway was running bright red, so that the ship herself seemed to be bleeding to death.

Then like a last convulsion the two vessels ground together, the shrouds and spars entangled, guns, men and wind all suddenly silent. As if their world had ended.

Bolitho was almost knocked over by the marines from the poop as they charged towards the forecastle, some hatless and wild-eyed, their bayonets glittering in the smoky sunshine. The ships rolled more heavily together and, through the dangling creepers of rigging and strips of blackened canvas, Bolitho saw the stab of musket fire and the gleam of steel as the two sides came together.

From above the smoke the marksmen kept up their fire, and Bolitho saw Phipps, the fifth lieutenant, clutch his face as a ball smashed into his forehead. He had been one of Achates' midshipmen. In the twinkling of an eye he had become nothing.

The ships were being carried slowly and heavily downwind and away from the convoy. It would give Herrick a chance, but no more than that unless-Bolitho saw several seamen cut down by a blast of swivel, the canister shot raking them into bloody ribbons while they screamed and kicked out their lives.

Bolitho shouted, "Take the ship, Val! Hold her!" He saw the shocked understanding on Keen's face and repeated, "No matter what!" Then with his sword in his hand he ran along the starboard gangway with Allday and Bankart behind him. He found time to wonder what was keeping Bankart from hiding below, how long it would be before it all ended, as it had for too many already.

Allday rasped, "God, they're aboard us!"

Bolitho saw Paget by the foremast and shouted, "Clear the lower battery! Every man on deck!"

Then he found himself by the starboard cathead, and already the place was littered with corpses. Seamen and marines, friends and enemies, clawed for handholds on the beak-head, and slid down stays and torn sails to get at each other. Bayonets thrust; others hacked at the boarders with anything they could find, cutlasses and axes; one man was even using a rammer like a club until a ball brought him down and he tumbled outboard between the grinding hulls.

From the quarterdeck Keen watched despairingly as more enemy uniforms appeared through the smoke, some already on the larboard gangway. They would swamp his company. He stared round and saw Hogg, his coxswain, fall to the deck, one hand reaching for help even as the light died in his eyes.

They were all dying, and for two ships full of bloody gold.

He yelled, "Open fire with the nine-pounders, Mr Valancey! Mark down their poop!"

It was almost impossible to speak or breathe as the smoke billowed over the decks and men slipped and hacked at each other, stamping on the corpses of their companions.

There was a cracked cheer and Keen saw more men swarming up from the lower gun deck, Chaytor, the second lieutenant, waving them forward with his hanger.

The nine-pounders lurched inboard on their tackles and blasted grape into the smoke, some of which might find a target on the enemy's stern and amongst her officers.

Keen saw a seaman running towards him and his startled mind made him realize it was one of the enemy, a single seaman suddenly cut off from the rest of the boarders.

He lunged forward, seeing the stranger through a mist of combined pain and fury. Hogg was dead, Bolitho would soon be killed or captured as he led his own counter-attack.

The French seaman aimed a pistol but a mocking click from the hammer made him stare wildly before flinging the useless weapon away. He raised his heavy cutlass and kept his eyes on Keen's face.

He was young and nimble-footed, but the madness of battle blinded him to Keen's skill.

Keen parried the heavy blade, the weight and power of the man's thrust carrying his attacker almost past him. Then Keen slashed him across the neck and, as he fell, shrieking, hacked him once again across the face.

He turned away, the anger giving him an unnatural strength; he did not even look round as more shots whimpered past him or slammed into the deck.

Then he stared towards the forecastle. It was the most terrible scene of all.

Captain Inch, naked but for his breeches, was hurrying to the larboard ladder, his raw stump jerking violently as he waved his sword and yelled, "Stand fast, Helicons!" The words were torn from him, the agony of his wound making it pitiful. He shouted again, his voice rising above the clash of steel and the screams of the dying, "To me, Helicons! Repel boarders, my lads!"

Keen wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

"In God's name, he thinks he's in his own ship again!"

It could not last. The packed, stamping figures were being forced back, and there were some French boarders already fighting amongst the fallen cordage and bodies on the main deck.

A midshipman, unarmed, driven beyond reason, ran for a hatchway, his ears covered with his hands as he tried to escape.

Keen saw it was Hext, one of the youngest aboard. As he reached the hatch coaming he slipped on some blood and fell sprawling. A tall Frenchman bounded towards him, his cutlass already swinging. The boy rolled over and stared at him. He did not cover his face or plead, he just lay and watched death.

But Inch was there, and drove his blade under the seaman's ribs, swinging him round, the man's weight tearing the sword from his grasp. The sailor dropped beside Midshipman Hext, his bare feet drumming in agony on the deck.

Keen saw a boarding pike come from the smoke. It took Inch in the back. As he fell to his knees the pike was torn free and then driven into him once more.

Bolitho watched Inch fall, and then, along the length of the deck, above the swaying, exhausted figures he saw Keen looking at him. For a moment longer the battle seemed elsewhere. They shared the moment. All their memories, and the brave Zenoria. The brightness of hope and love, the illusion of a precious discovery.

The voices roared through it and Bolitho swung round to face a French lieutenant.

Savagely he slashed the young officer's blade aside and then seized his lapel and drove the knuckle bow into his jaw. The lieutenant lurched aside and gasped in terror as Allday's great cutlass swept across the sunlight like a shadow.

Allday wrenched the blade free and gasped thickly, "We can't 'old 'em!"

Bolitho saw his men falling back; they were trapped here; both gangways had as many Frenchmen on them as Keen's people.

Bolitho shouted, "Hold fast, lads!" A seaman dropped on his knees and tried to fend off another bright blade. He screamed as his severed hand fell beside him. Bolitho lunged over the wounded man's shoulder and felt the Frenchman against the sword, then reel over as the point grated off his crossbelt and slid into his chest.

He turned to rally some seamen and marines on the other side and then saw something rising above the great pall of smoke.

Allday croaked, "Bastards are alongside! 'Nother of 'em!"

One of the French seventy-fours must have fought free of Bolitho's ships and was coming to assist his admiral.

There was a crazed cheer and Bolitho saw that the newcomer had lost her mizzen. Guns bellowed from her side, and Bolitho felt the jerk of iron transmit itself even to Argonautes own deck.

It was an impossible dream, the stern-faced figurehead in breastplate and with out-thrust sword. Admiral Benbow.

Cheering and whooping, Herrick's marines and seamen swarmed across in a tide of smoke-blackened, battered men, who had already fought and won their battle to protect the convoy.

Suddenly Bolitho was being carried forward on Argonaute's new strength and almost fell into the swirling water as two seamen hauled him roughly over the forecastle rail and onto the bowsprit. Caught between Benbow s men and Keen's own company, the French were already fighting their way onto one gangway, a bridge of escape to their own ship, and still held the advantage over those below them.

Bolitho heard Bouteiller yell, "Royal Marines, still!"

He could not see them but pictured the scarlet coats, no longer smartly pressed and clean, as they responded to their captain's command. Dazed, wild, even the fury within them was not enough to withstand their familiar discipline.

They stood or knelt along the opposite gangway, their muskets rising as one. A marine fell dead from the rank, but nobody flinched. Revenge would come later.

Bouteiller yelled, "Fire!"

The musket balls crashed into the packed mass of boarders and, even as the living struggled free from the dead, the marines were already charging towards them, shouting and screaming like demons as they went in with their bayonets.

Bolitho slipped, but held on to the massive bowsprit, his feet kicking at the spritsail yard and shrouds while he stared with stunned disbelief at the deck below him, Leopard's forecastle. But for the lanyard around his wrist he would have lost his sword for ever.

There was more firing from that other existence beyond the smoke, ships locked together or surging towards the French rear-admiral's flag, Bolitho could not tell. A command flag was supposed to lead and direct. Now it had become a beacon, a guide for carnage. Men fought and struggled all around him; it was impossible to grasp direction or time. Bodies were sometimes pressing against him, with brief flashes of recognition as a wild face found his. Someone even managed to shout, "'Tis the admiral, lads!" Another yelled, "You keep with us, Dick!"

It was wild, terrifying, and yet the madness was like rich wine. Bolitho locked hilts with another lieutenant and was astonished that he found it so easy to disarm him with one twist of the wrist which tore the weapon from his hand. He would have left it at that as the yelling, panting seamen carried him along, but a marine paused and glared at the cowering officer. All he said was, "This is for Cap'n Inch!" The thrust carried the lieutenant to the rail, the point of the bayonet glinting red through the back of his coat.

Bolitho dashed his wrist across his face. It felt like a furnace and he was almost blinded by sweat.

He saw the gouged planks across the broad sweep of quarterdeck where Keen's grape had fired so blindly. Bodies lay scattered near the abandoned wheel, others ran to meet the rush of boarders, probably unable to accept what had happened.

A sailor darted under a bayonet and headed for Allday. He stared at the Frenchman and then lifted his cutlass. He almost laughed through his despair. It was so easy.

As he raised the blade and tightened his hold on the cutlass he suddenly cried out, the pain in his old wound burning through his chest, rendering him helpless, unable to move.

Bolitho was separated from him by an abandoned gun, but hurled himself towards him, his sword hitting out.

But Bankart leaped between them armed only with a belaying pin.

He screamed, "Get back! Don't you touch him!" He threw himself protectively against his father, sobbing with anger and fear as the Frenchman darted forward for the kill.

Bolitho felt the ball fan past his face, although his dazed mind did not record the sound of a shot.

He saw the Frenchman slide back and drop to the deck, his cutlass clattering beneath the feet of the crowd.

Bolitho saw Midshipman Sheaffe, his face white with strain, with Stayt's pistol still smoking in one hand, his puny dirk in the other.

Then he forgot him; even the fact that, with Allday about to be cut down, his son had found himself and the courage which he believed would never be his.

Bolitho saw Jobert by the poop ladder, saw him shouting to his officers, although the din, the mingled roar of victory and defeat, made it impossible to understand.

Lieutenant Paget, his coat sliced from shoulder to waist and cut about the face by wood splinters, waved his bloodied hanger to his men.

Bolitho stared through the smoke, now almost blind from it, or was it something worse? He could not even find the will to care any more.

Paget yelled, "Get him! Cut the bastard down!"

Bolitho found himself lurching through the jubilant seamen, some of whom were strangers from Herrick's ship.

It had to stop. The past could not repair anything; nor must it destroy.

He knocked a marine's musket aside with the flat of his sword. He heard Allday gasping behind him. He would die rather than leave him now.

Bolitho shouted, "Strike, damn you!"

Jobert stared at him, his eyes shocked. He peered past Bolitho and must have sensed that only he was keeping him alive. There was a great wave of cheering and someone yelled, "There goes their flag, mates! We beat the buggers!"

The voices and faces swirled round, while the cornered Frenchmen in various parts of their ship began to throw down their weapons. But not Jobert. Almost disdainfully he drew his sword and tossed his hat to the deck.

Paget gasped, "Let me take him, Sir Richard!"

Bolitho gave him a quick glance. Paget, the man who had faced the odds of Camperdown, was no longer the calmly efficient first lieutenant. He wanted to kill Jobert.

Bolitho snapped, "Stand back." He raised his sword and felt the raw tension in his wrist and forearm.

So it was a personal duel after all.

There was silence now, and only the groans and cries of the wounded seemed to intrude. Even the wind had dropped without anyone noticing it. Jobert's command flag flapped only slightly and in time with the bright Union Flag on the ship whose jib-boom still impaled the shrouds.

The blades circled one another like wary serpents.

Bolitho watched Jobert's face, as dark as Stayt's. It was all there. He had been a prisoner before, and his flagship had been taken from him only to rise again and repeat the disgrace. The impossible had happened. Jobert was a professional officer, and did not have to look farther than the man who now faced him for the reason. A last chance to even the score, to give him the seeds of a victory even if he never lived to see it for more than minutes after Bolitho had fallen.

Jobert moved around the deck and even the English sailors fell back to give him room.

Paget pleaded desperately, "Can I take him?" He saw Bolitho's foot catch on some broken rigging, the way he staggered. Paget whispered, "Fetch Captain Keen, for God's sake!" The messenger scuttled away, but Paget knew he would be too late.

Then Jobert struck, lunged forward again and again, his foot stamping hard down as he advanced. He turned still farther and made Bolitho twist his head as the sunlight lanced down through the ragged sails and blinded him.

Was it imagination or did he see a quick flash of triumph in the French admiral's eyes? Did he know his weakness? The blades glanced together and the steel hissed as each fought to retain balance and the strength to hold the other at arm's length.

Clash-clash-clash, the blades struck, parried and parted.

Midshipman Sheaffe stared wildly at Allday. "Stop him, can't you, man?"

Allday clutched his shirt against his burning wound and replied, "Get a marksman, lively now!"

Bolitho stepped carefully over some more rope. His arm throbbed with pain and he could barely see Jobert's intent face. Why prove anything? He is beaten, finished. It is enough.

Jobert's blade moved like lightning, and when Bolitho swung his own to beat it aside he felt it pass through his coat below his armpit, the searing pain as the edge cut across his skin. Bolitho smashed his hilt down on Jobert's wrist so that they lurched together, chest to chest.

Bolitho could feel the strength going from his arm, the biting pain of the cut on his side like a branding iron. He could feel the man's breath on his face, see the strange darkness in his eyes. Everything else was lost in mist, and even when he heard Herrick's voice coming through the packed figures around him, it was like an intrusion.

He raised his arm and thrust at Jobert's chest with all of his remaining strength. Jobert staggered back against a quarterdeck cannon and then stared with horrified disbelief as the old sword flashed forward and struck him in the heart.

Bolitho almost fell as the sailors surged around him, cheering and sobbing like madmen.

He handed his sword to Allday and tried to smile at him, to reassure him, like those other times.

Herrick pushed his men aside and seized his arm.

"My God, Richard, he might have killed you!" He studied him anxiously. "If I'd been here I'd have shot him down!"

Bolitho touched the hole in his coat and felt the blood wet on his fingers.

The cheering dazed him, but they had every right to give vent to their feelings. What did they know or understand of strategy, or the need to defend two unknown merchantmen? Why should they obey, when the harvest was so savage, so cruel?

He looked down at Jobert and saw a seaman prise the sword from his outflung hand. Jobert's dark eyes were half open, as if he were still alive, listening, and watching his enemies.

"He wanted to die, Thomas. Don't you see that?" He turned and peered across to his own ship and saw Keen shading his eyes to look at him. Bolitho raised his arm in a tired salute. He was safe. It would have been the final blow had he fallen.

He felt Herrick's hand holding his arm as someone brought a dressing to staunch the blood.

"He lost the fight. He would not surrender his pride too."

Bolitho made his way through his blackened and bleeding men. It did not seem real or possible. He looked up at the sky above the masts and lifeless sails.

He turned and looked at his friend and added quietly, "In his way, Jobert was a victor after all."

Allday heard him and then put his arm around his son's shoulders. He had not the words, not now anyway.

Bankart glanced at his father's face and smiled.

Pride of friend or enemy did not need any words.