In Gallant Company

3. The Faithful

The following day was little different from the preceding ones. Overnight the wind had backed slightly but had lost much of its strength, so that the great, dripping sails filled and sagged in noisy confusion and added in some way to the general air of tension.

Towards noon, with the drizzle as heavy as ever and the sea an expanse of dirty grey, the pipe echoed around the ship, 'Hands lay aft to witness punishment!' It was common enough, and under normal conditions might have excited little comment. In a King's ship discipline was hard and quickly executed, and the punishment given by members of the company to one of their own caught stealing from a shipmate's meagre possessions was far worse.

But today should have been different. After all the weeks and months of frustration and waiting, of being cooped up in harbour with little more comfort than a prison hulk, or beating up and down the coastline on some fruitless mission or other, it had been hoped that this would bring a change.

The weather did nothing to help. As Bolitho stood with the other lieutenants, while the marines clattered up and across the poop in two scarlet lines, the ship's company hurried aft. They had to squint against the blown spray and rain, and the biting wind which stirred the dripping canvas with long, uneven gusts. A sullen, unhappy start, Bolitho thought.

The man to be punished came to the larboard gangway, flanked by Paget, the swarthy master-at-arms, and Mr Tolcher, the boatswain. Paget was a tight-lipped, bitter man, and set against him and the squat boatswain the prisoner looked by far the most innocent.

Bolitho watched him, a young Swede named Carlsson. He had a clean-cut face with long flaxen hair, and was staring around as if he had never laid eyes on the ship before. He was typical of the Trojan's mixture, Bolitho thought. You never knew what sort of man you would confront from day to day. Many tongues and races had been gathered up into Trojan's hull in two years, and yet somehow they all seemed to settle in a very short while of coming aboard.

Bolitho hated floggings, even though they were part of a sailor's life. There still seemed to be no alternative for a captain to maintain discipline when far away from higher authority and the company of other ships.

The grating was rigged by the gangway, and Balleine, a muscular boatswain's mate, stood waiting beside it, the red baize bag dangling at his side.

Cairns crossed the quarterdeck as Pears appeared beneath the poop.

'Company assembled, sir.' His eyes were expressionless. 'Very well.'

Pears glanced at the compass and then walked heavily forward to the quarterdeck rail. There was a hush over the crowded seamen who filled the gundeck and overflowed on to the gangways and into the shrouds themselves. '

Bolitho glanced at the midshipmen grouped alongside the older warrant officers. He had been sick at a flogging when he had been a midshipman.

He thought about Carlsson. Found asleep on watch after a whole day of fighting wind and rebellious canvas.

With some officers it might have made a difference. But Lieutenant Sparke had no such weakness as sentiment. Bolitho wondered if he was thinking about it now. How it had cast a blight over the very day he was going to lead a boat attack. He glanced sideways at him but saw nothing but Sparke's usual tight severity.

Pears nodded. 'Uncover.' He removed his hat and tucked it beneath his arm, while the others followed his example.

Bolitho looked to larboard, half expecting to see the sails of their faithful shadow. During the night the schooner had edged closer, and was now visible from the tops of the lower shrouds,

but not from the quarterdeck as yet. That made it harder to accept in a sailor's simple reasoning. A Yankee rebel cruising along as safe as you please, and one of their own about to be flogged.

Pears opened the Articles of War and read the relevant numbers with little change from his normal tone. He finished with the words, '…he shall be punished according to the Laws and Customs of such cases used at sea.' He replaced his hat, adding, 'Two dozen lashes.'

The rest of the proceedings moved swiftly. Carlsson was stripped to the waist and seized up to the grating, his arms spread up and out as if he was crucified.

Balleine had taken his cat-o'-nine-tails from the red baize bag and was running it through his fingers, his face set in a grim frown. He was to be in Bolitho's boat for the attack. Was he thinking of that?

Pears said in his harsh voice, 'Do your duty.'

Balleine's thick arm came back, over and down, the lash swishing across the man's naked shoulders with a dull crack. Bolitho heard the man gasp as the air was knocked from his lungs.

'One,' counted the master-at-arms.

Nearby, the surgeon and his mates waited to attend the man should he faint.

Bolitho made himself watch the ritual of punishment, his heart like lead. It was unreal. The grey light, the stark clarity of the sailmaker's patches on the heavily flapping main-course. The lash rose and fell, and the scars across the Swede's skin soon changed to overflowing red droplets, which altered into a bloody mess of torn flesh as the flogging continued. Some of the blood had spattered across the man's flaxen hair, the rest eddied and faded in the drizzle across the deck planking.

'Twenty-one!'

Bolitho heard a midshipman sobbing quietly, and saw Forbes, the youngest one aboard, gripping his companion's arm to control himself.

Carlsson had not cried out once, but as the final stroke cracked over his mutilated back he broke, and started to weep.

'Cut him down.'

Bolitho looked from the captain's profile to the watching company. Two dozen lashes was nothing to what some captains awarded. But in this case it might destroy the man. Bolitho doubted if Carlsson had understood more than a few words of what had been said to him.

The surgeon's assistants moved in to carry the sobbing man below. Two seamen started to swab up the blood, and others hurried to obey Tolche s order to unrig the grating and replace it.

The marines trooped down either poop ladder, and Captain D'Esterre sheathed his bright sword as the company broke up and continued about its affairs.

Sparke said to Bolitho, 'We had best go over the raid again, so that we know each other's thinking.' Bolitho shrugged. 'Aye, Sir.'

Maybe Sparke's attitude was the right one. Bolitho liked Carlsson, what he knew of him. Obedient, cheerful and hardworking. But suppose it had been one of the ship's real troublemakers who had been caught sleeping on watch. Would he still have felt the same dismay?

Sparke leaned his hands on the quarterdeck rail and peered down at the two cutters which had already been manhandled away from the other boats on the tier in readiness for swaying out.

He said, 'I am not too hopeful.' He gestured at the vibrating shrouds and halliards. 'Mr Bunce is usually right, but this time – '

A seaman yelled from the maintop, 'Deck there! T'other vessel's fallin' off, sir!'

Dalyell, who was officer of the watch, snatched a glass and climbed into the weather shrouds.

He exclaimed, 'Right, by God! The schooner's falling downwind. Not much, but she'll be visible to all hands by the time they've had their spirit ration!' He laughed at Bolitho's face. 'Damme, Dick, that bugger is a saucy one!'

Bolitho shaded his eyes against the strange light and saw a brief blur across the tumbling water. Perhaps the schooner's master believed the same as Bunce and was drawing nearer so as not to lose his large quarry. Or maybe he was merely trying

to provoke the captain into doing something foolish. Bolitho pictured Pears' face as he had read from the Articles of War. There was no chance of the latter,

Sparke was saying, 'It will have to be very fast. They might have boarding nets, but I doubt it. It would hamper her people more than ours.'

He was thinking aloud, seeing his name and citation in the Gazette, Bolitho guessed. It was clear in his eyes, like fever, or last.

'I will go and see the master.' Sparke hurried away, his chin thrusting forward like a galley prow.

Stockdale emerged from somewhere and knuckled his forehead.

'I've seen to the weapons, sir, I've put all the cutlasses and boarding axes to the grindstone.' He wheezed painfully. 'We still going, sir?'

Bolitho crossed to the side and took a telescope from the midshipman of the watch.

'I hope so.'

Then he saw that the midshipman was Forbes, the one who had been holding on to his friend during the flogging.

'Are you well, Mr Forbes?'

The boy nodded wretchedly and sniffed. 'Aye, Sir,'

'Good.' He trained the glass across the nettings. 'It comes hard to see a man punished. So we must always be on the lookout to remove the cause in the first place.'

He held his breath as the other vessel's topmasts flitted above the heaving water, as if the rest of her were totally submerged. She had a red square stitched against the throat of her mainsail. A makeshift patch, he wondered, or some special form of recognition? He shivered, feeling the rain trickling over his collar, plastering his hair to his forehead. It was uncanny to see the disembodied masts, to know nothing of the vessel and crew.

He turned to speak with Stockdale, but he had vanished as silently as he had appeared.

Dalyell lurched up the sloping deck and said hoarsely, 'It looks as if you'll be staying with us, Dick.' He'grinned unfeelingly. 'I'm not sorry. I've no wish to do George Probyn's work when he's in his cups!'

Bolitho grimaced. 'I'm coming round to everyone else's view, Simon. I'll go below now.' He looked up at the flapping masthead pendant. 'It seems I shall have the afternoon watch after all.'

But it appeared that the captain had other ideas and still retained some powerful faith in his sailing master. Bolitho was relieved from his watchkeeping duties, and spent most of Lie time compiling a letter to his father. He merely added to the same long letter whenever he found the opportunity, and ended it just as abruptly whenever they spoke with a homebound packet. It would be a link with his father. The reverse would also be true as Bolitho described daily events, the sighting of ships and islands, the life which was no more for Captain James.

He sat on his sea chest, squinting his eyes as he tried to think of something new to put in his letter.

A chill seemed to run up his spine. As if a ghost had suddenly entered his tiny cabin. He looked up, startled, and saw the deckhead lantern flickering as before. But was it? He stared, and then peered round at the small hanging space where his other clothing had been swaying and creaking just moments earlier.

Bolitho stood up, but remembered to duck his head as he rushed out and aft into the wardroom. The stern windows were dull grey, streaked with spindrift and caked salt.

He pressed his face against them and exclaimed. 'My God The Sage was right!'

He hurried up to the quarterdeck, instantly aware of the motionless figures all around him, their eyes peering across the quarter or up at the sails which were lifting and then drooping, shaking against the pressures of rigging and spars.

Cairns had the watch, and looked at him gravely. 'The fog, Dick.' He pointed across the nettings. 'It is coming now.'

Bolitho watched the slow progress, the way it seemed to smooth the turbulence from the waves and flatten the crests as it approached.

'Deck there! Oi've lost sight o' th' schooner, zur!'

Pears' voice cut across the speculation and gossip. 'Bring her up two points, Mr Cairns!' He watched the sudden bustle, the shrill calls between decks.

'Man the braces there!'

Pears said to the deck at large, 'We'll gain a cable or so.'

He looked up as the wheel squeaked and the yards began to swing in response to the braces. With her great spread of canvas still holding the dying wind, Trojan heeled obediently and pointed her jib boom further to windward. Flapping canvas, chattering blocks and the yells of petty officers did not cover his voice as he said to the tall sailing master, 'That was well done, Mr Bunce.'

Bunce dragged his gaze from the helmsmen and the swaying compass card. In the dull light his eyes and brows stood out from all else.

He replied humbly, 'It is His will, sir.'

Pears turned away as if to hide a smile. He barked, 'Mr Sparke, lay aft. Mr Bolitho, attend the cutters and have them swayed out presently.'

Steel clashed between decks, and more men swarmed up to the boat tier, their arms filled with cutlasses, pikes and muskets.

Bolitho was on the gundeck, watching the second cutter's black painted hull rising on its tackles. Then he turned to look aft and saw that the upper poop and the taffrail were already misty and without substance.

He said, 'Lively, lads, or we'll not find our way over the bulwark!' It brought a few laughs.

Pears heard them and said soberly to Sparke, 'Tend well what the master tells you about the set of the current hereabouts. It will save a mile of unnecessary boat pulling, and not see you arriving on your prize with no breath to lift a blade.' He watched Sparke's eyes as they took it all in. 'And take care. If you cannot board, then stand off and wait for the fog to clear. Well not drift that much apart.'

He cupped his hands. 'Shorten sail, Mr Cairns! Bring her about and lie to!'

More shouted commands, and moments later as the courses and topsails were brailed up to the yards the two boats detached themselves from the shadowy gundeck and swung up and over the gangway.

Bolitho came aft and touched his hat. 'The people are mustered and armed, sir.'

Sparke handed him a scribbled note. 'Estimated course to steer. Mr Bunce has allowed for the schooner's drift and the strength of the current.' He looked at the captain. 'I'll be away, sir.'

Pears said, 'Carry on, Mr Sparke.' He was going to add good luck, but set against Sparke's severe features it- seemed superfluous.

He did say to Bolitho, however, 'Do not get lost, sir. I'll not

hunt around Massachusetts Bay for a year?'

Bolitho smiled. 'I will do my best, sir.'

As he ran down to the entry port, Pears said to Cairns,

'Young rascal.'

But Cairns was watching the pitching boats alongside, already filled with men and waiting for Sparke and Bolitho to take them clear of their ship. His heart was with them. It did him no good to realize that the captain's decision had probably been the right one.

Pears watched the black hulls turning end on, the confused

splash and thud of oars suddenly picking up the stroke and

taking them deeper into the wet, enveloping mist.

'Double the watch on deck, Mr Cairns. Have swivels loaded

and set to withstand any boarding attempt on ourselves.' 'What will you do now, sir?'

Pears looked up at his ship's strength. Each sail was either furled or motionless, and Trojan herself was paying off to the current, rolling deeply on a steady swell.

'Do?' He yawned. 'I am going to eat.'

Bolitho stood up in the sternsheets and gripped Stockdale's shoulder while he found his balance. Through the man's checkered shirt his muscles felt like warm timber.

The mist swirled into the boat, clinging to their arms and face, making their hair glisten as if with frost.

Bolitho listened to the steady, unhurried pull of the oars. No sense in urgency. Save the strength for later.

He said, 'Hold her nor'-west, Stockdale, I am assured that is the best course to take.'

He thought of Bunce's wild eyes. Could there be any other course indeed!

Then, leaving Stockdale at the tiller, crouching over the boat's compass, Bolitho groped his way slowly towards the bows, climbing over thwarts and grunting seamen, treading on weapons and the feet of the extra passengers.

The twenty-eight-foot cutter had a crew of eight and a coxswain in normal times. Now she held them and an additional party which in total amounted to eighteen officers and men.

He found Balleine, the boatswain's mate, crouching above the stem like a figurehead, peering into the wet mist, a hand cupped around his ear to pick up the slightest sound which might be a ship, or another boat.

Bolitho said quietly, 'I cannot see the second lieutenant's cutter, so we must assume. we are dependent on our own resources.'

'Aye, sir.' The reply was blunt.

Bolitho thought Balleine might be brooding over the flogging, or merely resentful in being given a look-out's job while Stockdale took the tiller.

Bolitho said, 'I am depending on your experience today.' He saw the man nod and knew he had found the right spot. 'I fear we are somewhat short of it otherwise.'

The boatswain's mate grinned. 'Mr Quinn and Mr Couzens, sir. I'll see 'em fair.'

'I knew it.'

He touched the man's arm and began to make his way aft again. He picked out individual faces and shapes. Dunwoody, a miller's son from Kent. A dark-skinned Arab named Kutbi who had enlisted in Bristol, although nobody knew much about him even now. Rabbett, a tough little man from the Liverpool waterfront, and Varlo, who had been crossed in love, and had been picked up by the press-gang while he had been drowning his sorrows at his local inn. These and many more he had grown to know. Some he knew very well. Others stayed away, keeping the rigid barrier between forecastle and quarterdeck.

He reached the sternsheets and sat down between Quinn and Couzens. Their three ages added together only came to fifty-two. The ridiculous thought made him chuckle, and lie felt the others turning towards him.

They think me already unhinged. I have lost sight of Sparke, and am probably steering in quite the wrong direction.

He explained, 'I am sorry. It was just a thought.' I-le took a deep breath of the wet salt air. 'But getting away from the ship is reward enough.' He spread his arms and saw Stockdale give his lopsided grin. 'Freedom to do what we w=_ Right or wrong.'

Quinn nodded. 'I think I understand.'

Bolitho said, 'Your father will be proud of you after Ah' 7f we live that long.

Cairns had explained to Bolitho what Quinn had meant about his family being in the leather trade. Bolitho had imagined it to be a tanyard of the kind they had in Falmouth. Bridles and saddles, shoes and straps. Cairns had almost laughed. 'Man, his father belongs to an all-powerful city company. He has contracts with the Army, and influence everywhere else! When I look at young Quinn I sometimes marvel at his audacity to refuse all that power and all that money! He must be either brave or mad to exchange it for this!'

A large fish broke surface nearby and flopped back into the water again, making Couzens and some of the others gasp with alarm.

'Easy all!' Bolitho held up his arm to still the oars,

Again he was very conscious of the sea, of their isolation, as the oars rose dripping and motionless along the gunwales. H-e heard the gurgle of water around the rudder as the boat idled forward into the swell. The splash of another fish, the heavy breathing of the oarsmen.

Then Quinn said in a whisper, 'I hear the odh~cr cutter, sir!'

Bolitho nodded, turning his face to starbcard, picking upp the muffled creak of oars. Sparke was keeping about.,,- sat npace and distance. He said, 'Give way all!'

Beside him Couzens gave a nervous cough and asked, 'H-ho-n many of the enemy will there be, sir?'

'Depends. If they've already taken a prize or two, they'lll be short of hands. If not, we may be facing twice our number ci more.

'I see, sir.'

Bolitho turned away. Couzens did not see, but he was able to discuss it in a manner which would do justice to a veteran.

He felt the fog against his cheek like a cold breath. Was in moving faster than before? He had a picture of the wind rising and driving the fog away, laying them bare beneath the schooner's guns. Even a swivel could rip his party to shredE before he could get to grips.

He looked slowly along the straining oarsmen and the other; waiting to take their turn. How many would change sides if that happened? It had occurred often enough already, when British seamen had been taken by privateers. It was common practice in the Navy, too. Trojan had several hands in hei company caught or seized in the past two years from both sea and land. It was thought better to fight alongside their old enemy rather than risk disease and possible death in a prison hulk. While there was life there was always hope.

Bolitho reached up and touched his scar, it was throbbing again, and seemed to probe right through his skull.

Stockdale opened the shutter of his lantern very slightly and examined his compass.

He said, 'Steady as she goes, sir.' It seemed to amuse him.

On and on, changing the men at the oars, listening foa Sparke's cutter, watching for even a hint of danger.

Bolitho thought that the schooner's master, being a local man, may have made more sail and outpaced the fog, might already be miles away, laughing while they pulled slowly and painfully towards some part of New England.

He allowed his mind to explore what was fast becoming a real possibility.

They might get ashore undetected and try to steal a small vessel and escape under sail. Then what?

Balleine called hoarsely, 'There's a glow of sorts, sir!'

Bolitho stumbled forward again, everything else forgotten.

'There, sir.'

Bolitho strained his eyes through the darkness. A glow, that described it exactly, like the window of an alehouse through a waterfront fog. No shape, no centre.

'A lantern.' Balleine licked his lips. 'Hung very high. So there'll be another bugger nearby.'

Bunce had been very accurate. But for his careful calculations they might have passed the other vessel without seeing her or the light. She was standing about a mile away, maybe less.

Bolitho said, 'Easy all!' When he returned to the sternsheets he said, 'She's up ahead, lads. From our drift I'd say s'he'll be bows on or stern on. We'll take what comes.'

Quinn said in a husky voice, 'Mr Sparke is coming, sir.'

They heard Sparke call, 'Are you ready, Mr Bolitho?' He sounded impatient, even querulous, his earlier doubts forgotten.

'Aye, sir.'

'We will take her from either end.' Sparke's boat loomed through the fog, the lieutenant's white shirt and breeches adding to the ghostlike appearance. 'That way we can divide their people.'

Bolitho said nothing, but his heart sank. Either end, so the boat which pulled the furthest would have a good chance of being seen before she could grapple.

Sparke's oars began to move again and he called, 'I will take the stern.'

Bolitho waited until the other was clear and then signalled his own men to pull.

'You all know what to do?'

Couzens nodded, his face compressed with concentration. 'I will stay with the boat, sir.'

Quinn added jerkily, 'I'll support you, sir, er, Dick, and take the foredeck.'

Bolitho nodded. 'Balleine will hold his men until they are ready to use their muskets.'

Cairns had been insistent about that, and rightly so. Any fool might set off a musket too soon if it was loaded and primed from the start.

Bolitho drew his curved hanger and unclipped the leather scabbard, dropping it to the bottom boards. There it would wait until he needed it. But worn during an attack it might trip and throw him under a cutlass.

He touched the back of the blade, but kept his eyes fixed on the wavering glow beyond the bows. The nearer they got, the smaller it became, as the fog's distortion had less control over it.

From one corner of his eye he thought he saw a series of splashes as Sparke increased his stroke and went in for the attack.

Bolitho watched as with startling suddenness the masts and booms of the drifting schooner broke across the cloudy sky like black bars and the lantern sharpened into one unwinking eye.

Stockdale touched Couzens' arm, making the boy jump as if he had cut him.

'Here, your fist on the tiller-bar, sir.' He guided him as if Couzens had been struck blind. 'Take over from me when I give the word.' With his other hand Stockdale picked up his outdated boarding cutlass which weighed as much as two of the modern ones.

Bolitho held up his arm and the oars rose and remained poised over either beam like featherless wings.

He watched, holding his breath, feeling the drag of current and holding power of the rudder. They would collide with the schooner's raked stem, right beneath her bowsprit with any sort of luck.

'Boat your oars!' He was speaking in a fierce whisper, although surely his heart-beats against his ribs would be heard all the way to Boston. His lips were frozen in a wild grin which he could not control. Madness, desperation, fear. It was all here.

'Ready with the grapnel!'

He watched the slender bowsprit sweeping across them as if the schooner was riding at full power to smash them under her forefoot. Bolitho saw Balleine rising with his grapnel, gauging the moment, ducking to avoid losing his head on the schooner's bobstay.

There was a sudden bang, followed by a long-drawn-out scream. Bolitho saw and heard it all in a mere second. The flash which seemed to come from the sea itself, the response from the vessel above him, yells and startled movements before more explosions ripped across the water towards the scream.

He jumped to his feet. 'Ready, lads!'

He shut Sparke from his mind. The fool had allowed somebody to load a musket, and it had gone off, hitting one of his men. It was too late now. For any of them.

Bolitho threw up his arm and seized the trailing line as the grapnel thudded into the schooner's bowsprit and slewed the cutter drunkenly around the bows.

'At 'em, lads!'

Then he was struggling with feet and hands, the hanger dangling from his wrist as he fought his way up and around the flared hull.

The other end of the vessel was lit by exploding muskets, and as Bolitho's men clambered over the forecastle and cannoned into unfamiliar pieces of gear, more shots hammered into the deck around them or whined above the rocking cutter like maddened spirits.

He heard Quinn gasping and stumbling beside him, Stockdale's heavy frame striding just a bit ahead, the cutlass moving before him as if to sniff out the enemy.

Something flew out of the darkness and a man fell shrieking, a pike driven through his chest. More cracks, and two more of Bolitho s men dropped.

But they were nearer now. Bolitho gripped his hanger and yelled, 'Surrender in the King's name!'

It brought a chorus of curses and derisive shouts, as he knew it would. But it gave him just the few more seconds he needed to get to grips. He hacked out and knocked a sword from somebody's hand. As the man ran to retrieve it, Bolitho heard Stockdale's cutlass smash into his skull, heard the big man grunt as he wrenched it free.

Then they were chest to chest, blade to blade. Behind him Bolitho heard Balleine yelling and blaspheming, the sporadic bang of muskets as he managed to get off a few shots at the shrouds where sharpshooters were trying to find their targets.

A bearded face loomed through the others, and Bolitho felt his blade grate against the man's sword with a clang of steel as they parried, pushed each other clear to find the space to fight. Around them figures staggered and reeled like crazed drunkards, their cutlasses striking sparks, the voices distorted and wild with hate and fear, Bolitho ducked, slashed the man across the ribs, and as he lurched clear he brought the hanger down on his neck with such force he numbed his wrist.

But they were being pushed back towards the forecastle all the same. Somewhere, a hundred miles away, Bolitho heard a cannon shot, and through his dazed mind he guessed that it was another vessel nearby, trying to show that help was on its way.

His shoes slipped on blood, and a dying sailor, trodden and kicked by the fighting, hacking mass of men above him, tried to seize Bolitho's ankle.

Another man screamed and fell from aloft, dead from a musket ball before he hit the deck. But carried by the desperately fighting seamen he still seemed to cling to life, like a tipsy dancer.

Bolitho saw a pair of white legs against the bulwark and knew it was Quinn. He was being attacked by two men at once, and even as Bolitho slashed one of them across the shoulder and dragged him screaming to one side, Quinn gasped and dropped to his knees, his sword gone, and both hands pressed to his chest.

His attacker was so wild with the lust of battle he did not seem to see Bolitho. He stood above the lieutenant and drew back his arm for the kill. Bolitho caught him by the sleeve, swung him round, using the impetus of the man's sword-thrust to take him off balance. Then he drove the knuckle guard of his hanger into his face, the pain jarring his wrist again like a wound.

The man lurched upright, and seemed to be spitting out teeth as he bore down for another attack.

Then he stopped stock-still, his eyes white in the gloom like pebbles, as he slowly pirouetted around and then fell. Balleine pounced forward and tore his boarding axe from the man's back as he would from a chopping block.

There was a commotion alongside, and moments later the retreating boarders heard Sparks ’s penetrating voice as he shouted, 'To me, Trojans, to me!'

Attacked from both ends of the schooner, and with the obvious possibility of other boats nearby, the fight ended as swiftly as it had begun.

There were not even any curses thrown at the British seamen this time. Trojan's men were too wild and shocked with the hand-to-hand fighting which had left several of their own dead and badly wounded, to accept insults as well. The schooner's crew seemed to sense this, and allowed themselves to be disarmed, searched and then herded into two manageable groups.

Sparke, a pistol in either hand, strode amongst the corpses and whimpering wounded, and when he saw Bolitho snapped, 'Might have been worse.' He could not control his elation. 'Nice little craft. Very nice.' He saw Quinn and leaned over him. 'Is it bad?'

Balleine, who had torn open the lieutenant's shirt and was trying to stem the blood, said, 'Slit his chest like a peach, sir. But if we can get him to.,

But Sparke had already gone elsewhere, bellowing for Frowd, his master's mate, to attend to the business of getting under way at the first breath of a breeze.

Bolitho was on his knees, holding Quinn's hands away from the wound, as Balleine did his best with a makeshift bandage.

'Easy, James.' He saw Quinn's head lolling, his efforts to control his agony. His hands were like ice, and there was blood everywhere. 'You will be all right. I promise.'

Sparke was back again. 'Come, come, Mr Bolitho, there's a lot to do. And I'll wager we'll have company before too long.'

He dropped his voice suddenly, and Bolitho was confronted by a Sparke he had not seen before in the two years he had known him.

'I know how you feel about Quinn. Responsible. But you must not show it. Not now, In front of the people, d'you see? They're feeling the shock, the fight's going out of them. They'll be looking to us. So we'll save our regrets for later, eh?'

He changed back again. 'Now then. Cutters to be warped aft and secured. Check the armament, or lack of it, and see that it is loaded to repel attack, Canister, grape, anything you can lay hands on.' He looked for somebody in the foggy darkness. 'You! Archer! Train a swivel on the prisoners. One sign that they might try to retake the ship and you know what to do!'

Stockdale was wiping his cutlass on a piece of some luckless man's shirt.

He said, 'I'll watch over Mr Quinn, sir.' He rubbed the cutlass again and then thrust it through his belt. 'A good tot would suit him fine, I'm thinking.'

Bolitho nodded. 'Aye, see to it.'

He walked away, the sobs and groans from the darkened deck painting a better picture than any sight could do.

He saw Dunwoody, the miller's son, groping around an inert shape by the bulwark.

The seaman said brokenly, 'It's me mate, sir, Bill Tyler.'

Bolitho said, 'I know. I saw him fall.' He recalled Sparke's advice and added, 'Get that lantern down from aloft directly. We don't want to invite the moths, do we?'

Dunwoody stood up and wiped his face. 'No, sir. I suppose not.' He hurried away, but glanced back at his dead friend as if to tell himself it was not true.

Sparke was everywhere, and when he rejoined Bolitho by the wheel he said briskly, 'She's the Faithful. Owned by the Tracy brothers of Boston. Known privateers, and very efficient at their trade.'

Bolitho waited, feeling his wrists and hands trembling with strain.

Sparke added, 'I have searched the cabin. Quite a haul of information.' He was bubbling with pleasure. 'Captain Tracy was killed just now.' He gestured to the upturned white eyes of the man killed by Balleine's boarding axe. 'That's him. The other one, his brother, commands a fine brig apparently, the Revenge, taken from us last year. She was named Mischief then.'

'Aye, sir, I remember. She was taken off Cape May.' It was amazing that he could speak so calmly. As if they were both out for a stroll instead of standing amidst carnage and pain.

Sparke eyed him curiously. 'Are you steadier now?' He did not wait for an answer. 'Good. The only way.'

Bolitho asked, 'Does she have any sort of cargo, sir?'

'None. She was obviously expecting to get that from our convoy.' Ile looked up at the bare masts. 'Put some hands to work on this deck. It's like a slaughter-house. Drop the corpses over the side and have the wounded carried below. There's precious little comfort for them, but it's a sight warmer than on deck.'

As Bolitho made to hurry away, Sparke added calmly, 'Besides which, I want them to be as quiet as possible. There may be boats nearby, and I intend to hold this vessel as our prize.'

Bolitho looked round for his hat which had gone flying in the fight. That was more like it, he thought grimly. For a brief moment he had imagined that Sparke's reason for moving the injured was solely for humanity's sake. He should have known better.

The work to clear up the deck and to search out the vessel's defences and stores went on without a break. The fit and unwounded men did the heavy work, the ones with lesser injuries sat with muskets and at the loaded swivels to watch over the prisoners. The badly wounded, one of whom was the man who had foolishly fired his musket and had lost half his face in doing so, managed as best they could.

Sparke had not mentioned the musket incident. But for it the casualties would have been much reduced, even minimal. The schooner's crew were brave enough, but without that warning, and lacking as they did the hardened discipline of Trojan's seamen, it would likely have ended with little more than a bloody nose or two. Bolitho knew Sparke must have thought about this. He would doubtless be hoping that Pears would see only the prize and forget the oversight.

Several times Bolitho climbed down to the master's cabin where the late Captain Tracy had lived and made his plans. There, Quinn was lying white-faced on a rough bunk, his bandages soaked in blood, his lip cut where he had bitten it to stem the anguish.

Bolitho asked Stockdale what he thought and the man answered readily, 'He has a will to live, sir. But he's precious little hope, I'm thinking.'

The first hint of dawn came with the lightening of the surrounding mist.

The schooner's lazaret had been broken open and a generous ration of neat rum issued to all hands, including the two young midshipmen.

Of the attacking force of thirtt/-six officers and seamen, twelve were already dead, or as near to as made no difference, and

several of the survivors had cuts and bruises which had lef them too weak and dazed to be of much use for the moment.

Bolitho watched the paling mist, seeing the schooner taking shape around them. He saw Couzens and Midshipman Libb from Sparke's boat staring at the great bloodstains on the plank ing, perhaps realizing only now what they had seen and done

Mr Frowd, the master's mate, waited by the wheel, watchini the limp sails which Bolitho's men had shaken out in readines for the first breeze. The only sounds were the clatter of loosi gear, the creak of timbers as the vessel rolled uncomfortably o1 the swell.

With the dawn came the awareness of danger, that which «fox might feel when it crosses open land.

Bolitho looked along the deck. The Faithful carried eigh six-pounders and four swivel guns, all of which had been madh in France. This fact, added to the discovery of some very fins and freshly packed brandy in the captain's lazaret, hinted at close relationship with the French privateers.

She was a very handy little vessel, of about seventy-five feet One which would sail to windward better than most and outpace any heavier, square-rigged ship.

Whoever Captain Tracy had once been, he would not have planned to be dead on this new dawn.

The boom of the large gaff-headed mainsail creaked noisily and the deck gave a resounding tremble.

Sparke shouted, 'Lively there! Here comes the wind!'

Bolitho saw his expression and called, 'Stand by the fores'l!' He waved to Balleine. 'Ready with stays'! and jib!' The schooner's returning life seemed to affect him also. 'A goof hand at the wheel, Mr Frowd!'

Frowd showed his teeth. He had picked a helmsman already, but understood Bolitho's mood. He had been in the Navy a: long as the fourth lieutenant had been on this earth.

Every man had at least two jobs to do at once, but watched by the silent prisoners, they bustled about the confined deck as if they had been doing it for months.

'Sir! Mastheads to starboard!'

Sparke spun round as Bolitho pointed towards the rolling bank of fog. Two masts were standing through above it, one with a drooping pendant, but enough to show it was a larger vessel than the Faithful.

The blocks clattered and squealed as the seamen hauled and panted while the foresail and then the big mainsail with its strange scarlet patch at its throat were set to the wind. The deck tilted, and the helmsman reported gruffly, 'We 'ave steerage way, sir!'

Sparke peered at the misty compass bowl. 'Wind seems as before, Mr Frowd. Let her fall off. We'll try and hold the wind-gage from this other beauty, but we'll run if needs be.'

The two big sails swung out on their booms, shaking away the clinging moisture and yesterday's rain like dogs emerging from a stream.

Bolitho said, 'Mr Couzens! Take three hands and help Balleine with the stays'l!'

As he turned again he saw what Sparke had seen. With the fog rolling and unfolding downwind like smoke, the other vessel seemed to leap bodily from it. She was a brig, with the now-familiar striped Grand Union flag with its circle of stars set against the hoist already lifting and flapping from her peak.

Something like a sigh came from the watching prisoners, and one called, 'Now you'll see some iron, before they bury you!'

Sparke snapped, 'Keep that man silent, or put a ball in his head, I don't care which.' He glanced at Frowd. 'Fall off two points.'

'Steer nor'-east!'

'Will I have the six-pounders run out, sir?'

Sparke had found a telescope and was training it on the brig.

'She's the old Mischief.' He steadied the glass. 'Ah. I see her captain. Must be the other Tracy.' He looked at Bolitho. No. If we get close enough to use these little guns, the brig will reduce us to toothpicks within half an hour. Agility and speed is all we have.'

He tugged out his watch and studied it. He did not even blink as a gun crashed out and a ball slapped through the foresail like an invisible fist.

Spray lifted over the bows and pattered across the busy seamen there. The wind got stronger as the fog hurried ahead

of the little schooner, as if afraid of being impaled on the jib boom.

The brig had set her topsails and forecourse now and was in hot pursuit, trying to beat to windward and outsail the schooner in one unbroken tack. Her two bow-chasers were shooting gun by gun, the air cringing to the wild scream which could only mean chain-shot or langridge. just one of those around a mast and it would be the start of the end.

Another gun must have been trained round to bear on the elusive Faithful, and a moment later a ball ripped low over the poop, cutting rigging, and almost hitting one of the prisoners who had risen to watch.

A seaman snarled at him, 'Y'see, matey? Yankee iron is just as bloody for you this time!'

Balleine hurried aft and asked, 'Shall I cut the boats adrift, sir? We might gain half a knot without them.'

Another ball slammed down almost alongside, hurling spray clean over the poop like tropical rain.

A seaman yelled in disbelief, 'The Yankee's goin' about, sir!'

Sparke permitted himself a small smile of satisfaction. With the fog retreating rapidly through her towering masts and rigging like ghostly gunsmoke, the Trojan loomed to meet them, her exposed broadside already run out in twin lines of black muzzles.

Sparke said, 'Bless me, Mr Bolitho! They'll have us if we're not careful!'

Midshipman Libby ran aft like a rabbit, and seconds later the British ensign broke from the gaff, bright scarlet to match the one above Trojan's gilded poop.

Below, in the tiny cabin, Stockdale wiped Quinn's forehead with a wet rag and looked at the skylight.

Quinn moved his lips very slowly. 'What was that sound?'

Stockdale watched him sadly. 'Cheering, sir. Must've sighted the old Trojan.'

He saw Quinn swoon away again on a tide of pain and the brandy which he had been forcing into him. If he lived he might never be the same again. Then he thought of the splashes alongside as the corpses, friends and enemies alike, had been buried at sea. Even so, he'd be better off than them.