In Gallant Company

14

A Very High Price

As the upper battery, followed instantly by the thirty-twopounders on the lower gundeck, roared out in a full broadside, Trojan gave a tremendous shudder, as if she would wrench herself apart.

Even though every man had been expecting it, the deafening crash of gun-fire was beyond imagination, the sound going on and on as each cannon hurled itself inboard on its tackles.

Bolitho watched the dense smoke being forced downwind from the starboard bow and stared towards the French ship as the sea around her became a mass of leaping white feathers. The Argonaute was steering on a converging tack, her yards braced hard round to carry her away from the nearest spit of land. Without a telescope it was impossible to see if they had hit her, although with such a massive broadside they should have found some targets. But Trojan had fired at the first possible moment, and Bolitho estimated the range to be at least eight cables.

On either side of him the gun captains were yelling like demons, the crews ramming home charges and fresh balls, while others stood with handspikes in readiness to control their ponderous weapons.

It sounded blurred, unreal, and Bolitho rubbed his ears rapidly to restore his hearing. The deck tilted very slightly as Pears ordered an alteration of course towards the other ship. How invulnerable she looked. With topsails and forecourse flapping to retain the wind, the French captain was trying to gain sea-room, to escape the blanketing shelter of the land across his quarter.

What was he up to, he wondered? What motive did Coutts' I i, opposite number have in mind? Perhaps he wished to draw Trojan away from the island to allow the schooner time to escape. Or maybe, having put the Spite out of action, all he wanted to do was slip away himself and avoid further conflict. Perhaps he had other orders, to find a second rendezvous and unload his cargo without delay.

It was incredible that he could think at all. He peered along the deck, seeing the captains raise their fists, their faces masked in concentration.

He looked aft. 'Ready, sir!'

Again, the senior midshipman of the lower gundeck bobbed through the hatch and yelled, 'Ready, sir!'

Couzens went past at the run, carrying a message from the forecastle to Cairns on the quarterdeck.

As he passed Midshipman Huss he shouted, 'You were slow that time!' They grinned at one another as if it were a huge game.

Bolitho turned towards the enemy again. Nearer now, her deck angled over to the wind, the lines of guns shining in the sunlight like teeth.

He knew in his heart that the French admiral had no inten

tion of telling his captain to haul off. He was going to fight.

What the world said later mattered little out here. Justification 11 would-be sought and found by both sides, but the winner would have the real say in things.

The side of the French ship vanished in a writhing bank of smoke, broken by darting orange tongues, as she delivered her reply to Trojans challenge.

Bolitho gritted his teeth, expecting to feel the hull quiver to the crash of the broadside. But only a few balls hit the tumblehome, while above the decks the air became alive with screaming, shrieking chain-shot.

Bolitho saw the boatswain's hastily spread nets jumping with fallen blocks and severed rigging, and then a marine fell headlong from the maintop, struck the gangway and vanished over the side without even a cry.

Bolitho swallowed hard. First blood. He looked aft, seeing Pears watching the enemy while his hand rose level with his shoulder.

Bolitho said quickly, 'Ready, lads!'

The captain's arm fell, and once more the air was blasted by the thunder of guns.

'Stop your vents! Sponge out! L,oadr

The seamen, who had cursed their captain and officers as they had drilled again and again in every kind of condition, went through the motions without even pausing to watch some of their companions hurrying aloft to make repairs.

Bolitho saw the great rent in the main-topsail spreading and ripping as it was pushed by the wind, and knew that the enemy was following a reguar French tactic. To cripple the adversary first, render her useless and impossible to handle so that she would fall downwind and present her stern to another murderous broadside. Cleared for action, a ship of the line was open from bow to stern, and a well-timed bombardment through the poop and counter could change the gundecks into a slaughterhouse.

The Argonaute was showing some signs of damage, too. Shot-holes in her canvas, and a savage gash in her larboard gangway where two balls had struck home together.

Five cables. Just half a mile between them, and both ships gathering speed as they thrust clear of the land.

Again the writhing bank of smoke, and once more the shriek of chain-shot overhead. It was unbelievable that no spar was hit, but the terrible sound made more than one man gasp with alarm as he worked at his gun.

Stockdaie paused at his efforts and shouted, 'We're holdin' the wind, sir!' His battered features were stained with smoke, but he looked unbreakable.

'On the uproll!'

Bolitho heard Midshipman Huss repeating the order to Dalyell below.

'Fire!'

The deck rebounded as if the ship was driving ashore, and then there was a ragged cheer as the enemy's main-topgallant mast swung wildly on its stays before breaking away and plunging down like a lance.

A lucky shot, and nobody would ever know who had aimed it.

Pears' harsh voice carried easily above the squeak of gun trucks and the clatter of rammers.

'Well done, Trojans! Hit 'em again!'

More cheers, quenched by the enemy's return fire, the terrifying crash of iron smashing into the hull and through some of the gunports below.

Bolitho winced, wondering why the Frenchman had changed his tactics. He heard the rumble of a cannon careering across the lower deck, the sudden lurch as it hit something solid. Men were yelling down there, their voices strangely muffled, like souls in torment.

The Argonaute seemed to be gaining, drawing slightly ahead, so that her jib boom appeared to be touching Trojan's bowsprit. With the advantage of wind and position, Pears would probably let his ship fall off, then spread more sail and try to cross the enemy's stern.

He heard Cairns ' voice through his speaking trumpet. 'Hands aloft! Loose t'gan'sls!'

Bolitho found himself nodding as if in agreement. The ship

was turning again, just a few points, while her topgallant sails

flapped and then hardened at their yards.

He watched the other ship, his eyes smarting in the smoke.

One giant arrowhead of blue water, and both vessels aiming

for some invisible mark which would bring them together. 'Fire!'

The seamen leapt aside as their guns crashed inboard, groping in the funnelling smoke to sponge out the muzzles before a packed charge was rammed home.

Bolitho felt the hull quiver and realized the enemy had fired again, and saw part of a gangway splinter apart as if under an invisible axe. A seaman ran screaming and stumbling past his companion, his hands clawing at his face.

A marine seized him and pushed him to a hatchway, and others reached up to drag him below.

Bolitho glanced at Quinn and saw him retching. The seaman had taken a giant wood splinter in his eye as big as a marlinespike.

The sharper crack of the quarterdeck nine-pounders told him that their crews had at last been able to bring them to bear on the enemy.

The noise was growing and spreading as the two ships moved inexorably towards each other. Wood splinters, fragments of cordage and yet another corpse joined the tangle on the nets, and from below Bolitho heard a man screaming like a tortured hare.

A quick glance aft again. Pears still there, unmoving and grim-faced as he studied the enemy, Coutts, apparently untroubled by the din of battle, one foot on a bollard as he pointed to something on the Frenchman's deck for Ackerman's benefit.

'Fire!'

The guns were recoiling more unevenly now. The crews were getting tired, stunned by the constant thunder and crash of explosions.

Bolitho made himself walk along the deck, ducking to peer through each port as the men hauled their guns back in readiness to fire. A small world, a square of hazy sunlight in which each crew saw just a portion of the enemy.

He felt unsteady, his gait jerky as he moved behind them. His face was stiff with strain, and he imagined he must look halfway between laughing and squinting from shock.

Stockdale glanced round at him and nodded. Another man, Bolitho recognized him as Moffitt, waved his hand and shouted, 'Hot work, sir!'

More powerful thuds into the lower hull, and then a column of black smoke through an open hatch to bring a chorus of shouts and cries of alarm. But the smoke was quickly brought under control, and Bolitho guessed that Dalyell's men had been ready for such an emergency.

'Cease firing!'

As the men stood back from their smoking guns, Bolitho thought the silence almost as painful as the noise. The enemy had moved further across the bows, so that it was pointless to try to hit her.

Cairns shouted, 'Put some men to larboard!' He gestured with his trumpet. 'We will engage him as we cross his stern!'

Bolitho saw petty officers pushing dazed men across to the opposite side to help the depleted crews there. Pears had timed it well. With the slight change of tack, and extra canvas to give her more speed, Trojan would sweep across the enemy's wake and pour a broadside, gun by gun, the length of her hull. Even if she were not dismasted, she would be too crippled to withstand the next encounter.

He shouted, 'Ready, James!' Again he felt his jaw locked in a wild grin. 'Yours is the honour this time!'

A gun captain touched Quinn's arm as he hurried past. 'We'll show 'em, sir!'

'Hands to the braces there!'

Bolitho swung round as Cairns ' voice echoed from the quarterdeck.

Stockdale gasped, 'The Frenchie s luffed, by God!'

Bolitho watched, his body like ice, seeing the Argonaute swinging steadily up into the wind, her reduced sails almost aback as she turned to face her enemy.

It was all happening in minutes, yet Bolitho could still find time for admiration at the superb seamanship and timing. Round and further still, so that when she had finished her manoeuvre she would be on the reverse tack, while Trojan was still struggling to slow her advance.

'Hands aloft! Take in the t'gan'sls!'

Masts and spars shook and creaked violently as the helm was put over, but it was all taking too long.

As men ran wildly back to the starboard battery, Bolitho saw the enemy's side belch smoke and fire, felt the ship stagger as a carefully timed broadside smashed into the side from bowsprit to quarterdeck. Because of the angle, many of the shots did little damage, but others, which burst through gunports or smashed through the flimsy defences of gangways and nettings, caused terrible havoc. Three guns were upended, their crews either crushed or hurled aside like rubbish, and Bolitho heard the splintering bang of more balls ripping through the boat tier and sending a wave of splinters across the opposite side like tiny arrows. Men were falling and stumbling everywhere, and when Bolitho glanced at his legs he saw they were bloody from the carnage at the nearest gun.

A great chorus of voices made him turn in time to see the fore-topgallant mast fall across the bows and plunge over the side, taking with it a writhing trail of rigging like maddened snakes, spar and canvas, and two screaming seamen.

Momentarily out of control, Trojan swung drunkenly away from her enemy, while all the time, as her jubilant crews reloaded, Argonaute continued to go about until she had completed one great circle. Then as she settled down on a parallel course, but slightly ahead of the Trojan, she opened fire with her sternmost guns.

Blinded by smoke, and fighting to free themselves from the mass of tangled rigging, the forward gun crews aboard the Trojan were able to return only half their shots.

Bolitho found himself striding up and down yelling meaningless words until he was hoarse, raw with the stench of battle.

Around him men were fighting back, dying, or sprawled in the bloody attitudes of death.

Others hurried past, following the boatswain and his mates, axes shining in the smoky glare, to hack the wreckage away before it swung the ship stem on towards those merciless guns.

And aft, his face like stone, Pears watched all of it, giving his orders, not even flinching as splinters whipped past him to bring down more of the crouching gun crews.

Midshipman Huss appeared on deck, his eyes white with fear. He saw Bolitho and shouted frantically, 'Mr Dalyell's fallen, sir! I – I can't find…' He spun round, his face gaping with astonishment and freezing there as he pitched forward at Bolitho's feet.

Bolitho shouted, 'Get below, James! Take command of the lower gundeck!'

But Quinn was staring transfixed at the midshipman. Blood was pouring from a great hole in his back, but one hand still moved, as if it and nothing else was holding on to life.

A seaman turned the boy over and rasped, 'Done for, sir.'

'Did you hear?' Bolitho gripped Quinn's arm, Huss and all else forgotten. 'Get below!'

Quinn half turned, his eyes widening as more cries and screams came up from the other gundeck.

He stammered, 'Can't. Can't… do… it.'

His head fell forward, and Bolitho saw tears running down his face, cutting pale furrows through the grime of gunsmoke.

An unfamiliar voice snapped, 'I'll go.' It was Ackerman, the immaculate flag lieutenant. 'I can manage.' He stared at Quinn as if he could not believe what he saw. 'The admiral sent me.'

Bolitho peered aft, shocked by Quinn's collapse, stunned by the horror and bloody shambles all around him.

Through the drifting smoke and dangling creeper of severed rigging their eyes met. Then Coutts gave a slight wave and what could have been a shrug.

The deck shivered, and Bolitho knew that the broken mast had been hacked free.

Trojan was turning to windward, laying her enemy in the sights again, seemingly unreachable and beyond hurt.

Fire!'

The men sprang back, groping for their rammers and spikes, cursing and cheering like mad things from bedlam.

Quinn stood as before, oblivious to the hiss of iron overhead, to the crawling wounded, to the danger of his position as the enemy's mizzen and then mainmast towered high above the nettings.

Fifty yards, certainly no more, Bolitho thought wildly. Both ships were firing blindly through the churning smoke which was trapped between them as if to cushion the hammer blows.

A seaman ran from his gun, crazed by the din and slaughter, trying to reach a hatchway. To go deeper and deeper until he found the keel, like a terrified animal going to ground. A marine sentry raised his musket as if to club him down, but let it fall, as if he too was past reason and hope.

Couzens was tugging Bolitho's sleeve, his round face screwed up as if to shut out the awful sights.

'Yes?' Bolitho had no idea how long he had been there. 'What is it?'

The midshipman tore his eyes from Huss's corpse. 'The captain says that the enemy intends to board us!' He stared at Quinn. `You are to take charge forrard.' He showed his old stubbornness. 'I will assist.'

Bolitho gripped his shoulder. Through the thin blue coat the boy's body was hot, as if burning with fever.

'Go and get some men from below.' As the boy made to run he called, 'Walk, Mr Couzens. Show the people how calm you are.' He forced a grin. 'No matter how you may feel.'

He turned back to the guns, astounded he could speak like that when at any second he would be dead. Worse, he might be lying pinned on the surgeon's table, waiting for the first touch of his knife.

He watched the set of the enemy's yards, the way the angle was more acute as both ships idled closer together. The guns showed no sign of lessening, even though they were firing at point-blank range, some hurling blazing wads through the smoke which were almost as much danger as the balls.

There were new sounds now. The distant crack of muskets, the thuds of shots hitting deck and gangway, or ripping harmlessly into the packed hammock nettings.

From the maintop he heard the bark of a swivel and saw a cluster of marksmen drop from the enemy's mizzen-top, swept aside like dead fruit by a hail of canister.

Individual faces stood out on the Argonaute's decks, and he saw a petty officer pointing him out to another sharpshooter on the gangway. But he was felled by one of D'Esterre's marines even as he raised his musket to shoot.

He heard men scrambling up from the lower gundeck, the rasp of steel as they seized their cutlasses. Balleine, the boatswain's mate, stood by the mainmast rack, issuing the boarding pikes to anyone who came near him.

'We will touch bow to bow.' Bolitho had spoken aloud without knowing it. 'Not much time.' He drew his curved hanger and waved it over his head. `Clear the larboard battery! Come with me!'

A single ball crashed through an open port and beheaded a seaman even as he ran to obey. For a few moments the headless corpse stood stock-still, as if undecided what to do. Then it fell, and was forgotten as swearing and cheering the seamen dashed towards the forecastle, nothing in their minds but the towering bank of pockmarked sails alongside, the crimson stab of musketfire.

Bolitho stared, watching the other ship's great bowsprit and jib boom poking through the smoke, thrusting above the forecastle and beakhead as if nothing could stop it. There were men already there, firing down at Trojan's deck, brandishing their weapons, while beneath them their fierce-eyed figurehead watched the scene with incredible menace.

Then with a violent shudder both hulls ground together. Harking and stabbing, Trojan's men swarmed to repel boarders, and from aft D'Esterre's men kept up a withering fire on the enemy's quarterdeck and poop.

Bolitho jumped over a fallen seaman and yelled, 'Here they come!'

A French seaman tried to scramble on to the cathead, but a blow with a belaying pin knocked him aside, and a lunge from a pike sent him down between the hulls.

Bolitho found himself face to face with a young lieutenant. His sword-arm came up, the two blades circled warily and with care, despite the surging press of fighting figures all around.

The French officer lunged, his eyes widening with fear as Bolitho side-stepped and knocked his arm aside with his hanger, seeing the sleeve open up, the blood spurting out like paint.

Bolitho hesitated and then hacked him across the collar-bone, seeing him die before he hit the water alongside.

More men were hurrying to his aid, but when he twisted his head he saw Quinn standing by his guns as before, as if he would never move again.

Smoke swirled and then enveloped the gasping and struggling men, and Bolitho realized that the wind was strengthening, pushing the ships along in a terrible embrace.

Another figure blocked his path, and again the clang of steel dominated everything else.

He watched the man's face, detached, without feeling, meeting each thrust, testing his strength, expecting an agonizing blade through his stomach if he lost his balance.

There were others beside him. Raye of the marines, Joby Scales, the carpenter, wielding a great hammer, Varlo, the seaman who had been crossed in love, Dunwoody, the miller's son, and of course Stockdale, whose cutlass was taking a terrible toll.

Something struck him on the head and he felt blood running down his neck. But the pain only helped to tighten his guard, to make him examine his enemy's moves like an onlooker.

A dying seaman fell whimpering against the other man, making him dart a quick glance to his right. Just a second, no more than a flash of his eyes in the misty sunlight. It was enough, and Bolitho leapt over the corpse, his hanger still red as he rallied his men around the forecastle. He could not even remember driving the blade into flesh and bone.

Somebody slipped in a pool of blood and crashed into his spine. He fell sprawling, only retaining his hanger because of the lanyard around his wrist.

As he struggled to rise he saw with amazement that there was a glint of water below him, and as he stared down he could see it was widening. The ships were drifting apart.

The French boarders had realized it too, and while some tried to climb back on to the overlapping bowsprit, others made to jump, only to fall headlong into the sea to join the bobbing litter of corpses and frantic swimmers.

A few threw up their hands in surrender, but when a marine was shot dead by an enemy marksman, they too were driven bodily over the side.

Bolitho felt the strength ebbing out of him, and he had to hold on to the bulwark for support. A few guns were still firing haphazardly through the smoke, but it was over. The Argonaute's sails were coming about, and very slowly she began to stand away, her stern turning towards Trojan's poop like the hinges of a gate.

Bolitho realized that he was on his back, looking at the sky, which seemed unnaturally clear and blue. So clean, too. Far away. His thoughts were drifting like the smoke and the two badly mauled ships.

A shadow loomed over him and he realized that Stockdaie was kneeling beside him, his battered face lined with anxiety.

He tried to tell him he was all right. That he was resting.

A voice shouted, 'Take Mr Bolitho to the orlop at once!'

Then he did try to protest, but the effort was too much and with it came the darkness.

Bolitho opened his eyes and blinked rapidly to clear his vision. As the pain returned to his head he realized he was down on the orlop deck, a place of semi-darkness at the best of times. Now, with deckhead lanterns swinging to the ship's heavy motion, and others being carried this way and that, it was like looking at hell.

He was propped against Trojan's great timbers, and through his shirt he could feel the hull working through a deep swell. As his eyes grew used to the gloom he saw that the whole area from the sickbay to the hanging magazine was filled with men. Some lay quite still and were probably dead, others rocked back and forth, crouching like terrified animals as they nursed their private pain.

In the centre of the deck, directly below the largest number of lanterns, Thorndike and his assistants worked in grim silence on an unconscious seaman, while one of the surgeon's loblolly boys dashed away with a bucket from which protruded an amputated arm.

Bolitho reached up and felt his head. It was crusted in blood, and there was a lump like an egg. He felt the relief welling from his taut stomach muscles like a flood, stinging the back of his eyes so that lie could feel tears running down his face. As another figure was carried to the table and stripped of his blackened clothing, Bolitho felt ashamed. He had been terrified of what would, happen, but compared with the man who was whimpering and pleading with the surgeon he was unhurt.

'Please, sir!' The man was sobbing uncontrollably, so that even some of the other wounded forgot their pain and watched.

Thorndike turned from a locker, wiping his mouth. He looked like a stranger, and his hands, like his long apron, were red with blood.

'I am sorry.'

Thorndike nodded to his assistant, and Bolitho saw the injured man's shattered leg for the first time and realized it was one of his own gun crews who had been pinned under a cannon.

He was still pleading, 'Not me leg, sir!'

A bottle was thrust to his lips, and as he let his head fall back, choking and gasping on neat rum, a leather strap was put between his teeth.

Bolitho saw the glitter of the knife and turned his face away. It was wrong for a man to suffer like this, to scream and choke on his own vomit while his stricken messmates watched in silence,

Thorndike snapped, 'Too late. Take him on deck.' He reached out for his bottle again. 'NextV

A seaman was kneeling beside Bolitho while some wood splinters were plucked from his back.

It was the masthead look-out, Buller.

He winced and then said, 'Reckon I'm a lucky one today, zur. That was all he said, but it spoke volumes.

'You all right, sir?' It was Midshipman Couzens. 'I was sent by the first lieutenant.' He flinched as someone started to scream. 'Oh God, sir!'

Bolitho reached out. 'Help me up. Must get out of here.' He staggered to his feet and clung to the boy's shoulder like a drunken sailor. 'I'll not forget this, ever.'

Stockdale strode to meet them, ducking beneath the deckhead beams, his face creased with worry.

'Let me take him!'

The journey to the upper deck was in itself another part of the nightmare. The lower gundeck was still wreathed in trapped smoke, the red-painted sides only hiding some of the battle's agony.

He saw Lieutenant Dalyell with his two remaining midshipmen, Lunn and Burslem, discussing with the gun captains what had to be done.

Dalyell saw Bolitho and hurried over, his open face filled with obvious pleasure.

'Thank God, Dick! I had heard you were done for!'

Bolitho tried to smile, but the pain in his skull stopped it.

'I heard much the same about you!'

'Aye. A gun exploded. I was stunned by the blast. But for the men nearby, I would be dead.' He shook his head. 'Poor Huss. He was a brave lad.'

Bolitho nodded slowly. They had begun with nine midshipmen. One promoted, one taken prisoner, and now one killed. The midshipman's berth would be a sad place after this.

Dalyell looked away. 'So much for the admiral's strategy. A very high price for what we have done.'

Bolitho continued with his two helpers to the upper gundeck, and stood for several moments sucking in the air and looking up at the clear sky above the severed topgallant mast.

Men were being carried below, and Bolitho wondered how Thorndike could go on. Cutting, sawing and stitching. He shuddered violently. Others were being dragged beneath the gangways,,limp and without identity, to await the sailmaker and his mates, who would sew them up in their hammocks for the last journey. How far had Bunce said it was? One thousand five hundred fathoms hereabouts. A long, dark passage. Perhaps there was peace there.

He shook himself and winced at the stabbing pain. He was getting hazy again. It had to stop.

Cairns said, 'Good to see you, Dick.' He looked tired and drained. 'I could do with some help,' he hesitated, 'if you feel up to it?'

Bolitho nodded, moved that this man who carried so much had found time to ask about him and how he was faring on the orlop.

'It will be good for me.'

He made himself look along the torn and splintered deck where he had been such a short while ago. Upended guns, great coils of fallen cordage and ripped canvas. Men picking their way amongst it like survivors from a shipwreck. How could any man have lived through it? To see such chaos made it seem impossible.

Ile asked, 'How is James?'

Cairns ' eyes were bleak. 'The fourth lieutenant is alive, I believe.' He patted Bolitho's arm. `I must be off. You remain here and assist the boatswain.'

Bolitho crossed to the first division of eighteen-pounders, where he had been for most of the battle. He could see the Argonaute, stern on and a good three miles downwind. Even if they could complete some temporary repairs in time, they would not catch the Frenchman now.

Stockdale spoke for both of them. 'Anyways, we beat ' em off. Short-handed though we was, sir, we gave as good as we got.'

Couzens said huskily, 'But the brig got away.'

The sailing master towered above the quarterdeck rail and boomed, 'Come now, Mr Bolitho, this will not do! I have a ship to steer, a course to lay! To do that I need sails and more halliards than I can see at present!' His black brows descended over his deepset eyes and he added, 'You did well today. I saw.' He nodded firmly, as if he had said far too much.

For the rest of the day the ship's company went about the work of putting Trojan to rights as best they could. The dead were buried and the wounded made as comfortable as possible. Samuel Pinhorn, the sailmaker, had kept plenty of spare canvas on deck, knowing that more would die before reaching port.

It was amazing that men could work after what they had been through. Perhaps it was work which saved them, for no ship can sail without care and constant attention.

A jury-mast was hoisted to replace the topgallant, and as the seamen bustled far above the deck the cordage dangled down on either side like weed.

Hammers and saws, tar and paint, needles and twine.

The only thing which happened to make them stop, to stare abeam and remember, was the sudden appearance of the schooner from the anchorage at Isla San Bernardo. Spite had been abandoned as a hopeless wreck, then set alight to make sure no pirate or privateer would lay hands on her.

In a short and savage boat action, Cunningham attacked and took the schooner. The one reward of the whole operation.

But Bolitho was certain of one thing. The prize, no matter what secrets she disclosed, would not remove the ache from Cunningham's heart as he had ordered his men to abandon his own command.

At sunset, Cairns ordered a halt. A double ration of spirits was issued to all hands, and after shortening sail for the night Trojan was content to reflect and lick her wounds.

Bolitho received a summons to the great cabin without curiosity. Like most of the company, he was drained, and too shocked to care.

But as he made his way aft, ducking his head beneath the poop, he heard Pears' voice, clearly audible through two sets of screen doors.

'I know your father, otherwise I would have you stripped of your appointment at this very moment!'

Bolitho hesitated outside the door, feeling the sentry's eyes watching him.

It was Quinn of course. Poor, broken Quinn. He could still

see him, standing on the gundeck amongst the litter of dead

and dying. Stricken, unable to think or move. The sentry looked at him. 'Sir?'

Bolitho nodded wearily, and the marine banged his musket on the deck and called, 'Second lieutenant, sir!'

The door opened and Teakle, the clerk, ushered Bolitho inside. He had a bandage on his wrist and looked very shaken. Bolitho wondered why he had never thought of a clerk being in as much danger as any of them.

Quinn came from the cabin, his face as white as a sheet. He saw Bolitho and looked as if he were about to speak. Then with a gasp he blundered past him into the shadows.

Pears strode to meet Bolitho. 'Ah, not too knocked about, eh?' He was restless, off balance.

Bolitho replied, 'I was fortunate, sir.' 'Indeed you were.'

Pears looked round as Coutts came from the adjoining cabin.

The admiral said, 'I will be leaving at daylight and transferring to the prize, Bolitho. I intend to head for Antigua and take passage from there in a courier brig, or one of the frigates.'

Bolitho looked at him, trying to guess where it was leading. He could feel the tension between the two men, see the bitterness in Pears' eyes. Like physical pain.

Coutts added calmly, 'Trojan will follow, of course. Full repairs can be carried out there before she returns to the squadron. I will ensure that the people at Antigua give full attention to it, and to obtaining replacements for – '

Pears interrupted bluntly, 'For all the poor devils who died today!'

Coutts flushed, but turned to Bolitho again.

'I have watched you. You are the right stuff, with the ability and the steel to lead men.'

Bolitho glanced at Pears' grim features and was shocked to see his expression. Like a man under sentence. 'Thank you, sir.'

'Therefore…' the word hung in the damp air, 'I am offering you a new appointment as soon as you reach Antigua. With me.'

Bolitho stared, realizing what it would do to Pears. With Coutts back in Antigua, or probably in New York before Trojan reached harbour, Pears would have nobody to speak for him but Cairns. A scapegoat. Someone to use to cover Coutts' costly exercise.

He was surprised that he could answer without hesitation. It was all he wanted, the one opportunity to transfer to another ship, smaller, faster, like Vanquisher or one of the other frigates. With Coutts' patronage it would be the best chance he would ever get.

'I thank you, sir.' He looked at Pears. 'But my appointment is under Captain Pears. I would wish it to remain so.'

Coutts regarded him curiously. 'What an odd fellow you are, Bolitho. Your sentimentality will do for you one day.' He nodded, curt, final. 'Good evening.'

In a daze Bolitho went down a ladder and found himself in the wardroom, remarkably untouched by the battle.

Cairns followed him a few moments later and took his arm, beckoning to the wardroom servant as he did so.

'Mackenzie, you rogue! Some good brandy for this officer!'

D'Esterre appeared with his lieutenant and asked, 'What is happening?'

Cairns sat down opposite Bolitho and watched him intently.

'It has happened, gentlemen. I have just witnessed a misguided but honest man doing something which was right.'

Bolitho flushed. 'I – I didn't know…'

Cairns took a bottle from Mackenzie and smiled sadly.

'I was outside. Peering through a crack like a schoolboy.' lie became suddenly serious. 'That was a fine thing you did just now. He'll never thank you for it, in as many words.' Cairns raised his glass. 'But I know him better than most. You gave him something to make up for what Coutts did to his ship!'

Bolitho thought of the schooner steering somewhere under Trojan's lee. Tomorrow she would leave them and take with her his chance of promotion.

He got another surprise, He no longer cared.