Passage to Mutiny

9. Decoy

“GOD’S TEETH, Mr Pyper, what is taking you so long?”

Herrick mopped his face with his sleeve and peered up at the brightening sky. Below him, some waist-deep in boiling surf, were the remainder of his landing party, while others, notably Finney’s militiamen, were already higher up the steep rocky slope which they had confronted when the schooner’s two boats had carried them here.

Herrick watched Midshipman Pyper staggering in the water while several brown-skinned islanders tried to keep a boat from smashing itself on the rocks. He hated it when things went wrong because of careless planning or, as in this case, no planning at all.

Finney and his other lieutenant, a dull-eyed man called Hogg, had been certain of the right place to land the party. Herrick glared at the pitching schooner which had anchored nearly a cable offshore. That showed just how much they knew of landing places!

The result had been several long trips back and forth with the two small boats, and by now it was well past the time when they should have been moving inland.

Pyper scrambled up the slope, water trickling from his shirt and breeches, his face beset with worry. Like Swift, he was seventeen, and looked forward to promotion if and when a chance came. He did not want to irritate his first lieutenant.

“All ready, sir.”

Captain Prideaux called from the top of the slope, “I should damn well think so!” Despite the discomfort he, of all present, looked impeccable as usual.

Herrick bit back an oath. “Send the marine skirmishers ahead, if you please.”

“Done.” Prideaux’s foxy face gave a sly smile. “I’ve got those bloody guides to hurry their carcasses, too!” He drew out his slim hanger and lopped the head off a plant. “So?”

Herrick gritted his teeth. “So be it.”

He waved his hand over his head, and with some further delay his mixed party started to move inland.

Finney observed cheerfully, “The village is right at the top of the inlet. Most of the huts are on stilts, their backs in the hillside. If Tuke’s men are in there, they’ll be like rats in a cask when your ship blocks the seaward end!” The prospect of a fight seemed to please him.

Down the straggling line of guides and marine skirmishers came the message. There was smoke in the air. Strong stench of burning.

Prideaux said, “They must be destroying the village.” He did not sound as if he cared.

Herrick slapped a stinging insect from his neck and tried to fathom it out. Tuke had attacked the island, and was creating his usual terror and murder. But why? If he needed supplies, which seemed unlikely after his rich haul from the Eurotas, why waste time in sacking the place? Likewise, if he was setting up a new hiding place, why burn it down first? Nothing made sense. He thought of discussing it with Prideaux but checked himself. The marine always seemed to be sneering at everyone he considered beneath his station in life. Too bloody clever by half.

He glanced at the two militia lieutenants as they strode easily amongst their ragged retainers. They would know nothing. It seemed likely they left all their thinking to Hardacre.

Herrick thought about Bolitho and pictured him here. Now. What would he do? He grinned in spite of his apprehension. He was not here. He had sent his first lieutenant.

He looked up, sniffing the air. There was the smoke right enough. It was shimmering over a low hill, staining the sky.

Prideaux said harshly, “By God, this is hard going!”

Midshipman Pyper turned to Herrick and said, “I think I should go ahead with a guide, sir.” He was rather a serious youth, but likeable.

Herrick paused, hiding his surprise. That was what Bolitho would have done.

“I was thinking along that tack, Mr Pyper. But I’ll go myself.” He waved to Finney. “Halt the men and put out your pickets. I want the best guide, double-quick!” It was amazing how easily it was coming to him now. “Right, Mr Pyper, you can come too.” He slapped his shoulder.

Pyper stared at him, unaware what he had done to excite his lieutenant.

“Aye, sir.”

Prideaux said wearily, “Attack from the rear. Five or six volleys and a charge of canister would do just as well. Less work, too. They’d run like rabbits. Right under Tempest’s guns.”

Herrick looked at him, trying to mask his anger. Prideaux always swept other people’s plans away with a few simple remarks. The trouble was, he always sounded so confident.

“We shall see,” Herrick replied stiffly. “And in the meantime…”

He turned and hurried towards the waiting guide, a squat native, quite naked, and whose ears were split and transfixed by sharp bones.

Pyper grimaced. “He stinks a bit, sir.”

The guide showed his teeth. They were filed like marlin spikes.

“God.” Herrick examined his pistol and loosened his sword. “Come along then.”

The island was tiny, but after blundering and crawling over scrub and stone, and thrusting between tightly interwoven fronds, Herrick imagined it must be twice the size of Kent.

The guide bobbed round some rotting trunks and jabbed his hand towards the thickening smoke. He was excited.

Herrick said tightly, “We’ll have a look.”

He dropped on his knees once again and followed the guide’s scarred and dusty rump through a clump of prickly scrub.

Pyper exclaimed, “Masts and yards, sir! They’re anchored right below the village, where the smoke is coming from!”

Herrick shook his head. “Insolent buggers. They are that sure of their safety while they do their work.” He rubbed his hands, “Tempest will be able to take her time and blow them apart as she pleases.” He turned round with difficulty. “We’ll tell the others.” He looked at the Midshipman. “Well?”

Pyper flushed. “I thought-well, I was once told-”

“Spit it out or we’ll be here all day!”

Pyper said firmly, “Hadn’t we better look at those vessels first, sir? One might be better armed than the other. Perhaps we could get our sharpshooters to pick off her seamen if she seems likely to weigh first.” He added lamely, “I am sorry, sir.”

Herrick sighed. “You are quite right.” It must be the heat. “I should have thought of it.”

Leaving the perplexed guide amongst the scrub, Herrick and the midshipman wriggled further towards a dip in the bill. Then they saw the inlet, a line of huts blazing and crackling along the far bank like torches, and smoke hiding the water beneath them.

To the left was a jutting wedge of land, while closer to the hill and partly hidden from Herrick were the other huts. But he could only stare at the jutting piece of land and the beach below it.

“There are the ships, Mr Pyper.”

He could still not really accept it. The masts and yards looked real enough, but they were rigged to stand on the short beach, held upright by long stays and plaited creepers. There was even a masthead pendant on one of them, and Herrick realized that the loosely brailed-up sails were in fact crude matting.

The truth thrust into his dazed thoughts like ice water. If they seemed genuine to him this close, to Tempest’s masthead lookouts as she forged towards the headland they would appear perfect. Two vessels at anchor, their crews intent on pillage and murder ashore.

Pyper stared at him, his face filled with confusion.

“What will we do, sir?”

Herrick felt his throat go dry. Just above the out-thrust wedge of land he had seen something move. Tempest was here already. He could picture her exactly as if she were not hidden. Guns manned. Officers at their stations. Bolitho and Lakey on the quarterdeck.

He felt something akin to panic. What was waiting for her? Where were the pirates? He could hear occasional musket and pistol shots, and there was much more smoke now.

Something glinted beyond the burning huts, and Pyper said thickly, “A battery. Some big guns, sir.”

So that was it. It was all frighteningly clear to Herrick. Like walking to the edge of a grave and seeing yourself there.

The message, the dummy masts, the burning village had been a combined plan. To lure Tempest to the inlet.

Herrick stood up, regardless of the danger. Due to the wretched schooner, to everything which had happened since their arrival in the islands, Bolitho was unwarned and unready.

He heard himself say, “Run back! Tell Captain Prideaux I want a full-scale attack here and now!” He saw the shocked understanding on Pyper’s face. “I know. We’ll not be able to get away. But we’ll save the ship. Remember that.”

Then, as Pyper stumbled away and the naked guide watched him with fixed fascination, Herrick cocked his pistol and drew his sword.

“By th’ mark seven!”

Bolitho looked at Lakey’s intent face as the leadsman’s voice drifted aft from the chains. He restrained himself from using a telescope again and stood with his hands on his hips, trying to visualize his ship and the narrowing strip of water, the undulating barrier of land as a single panorama. After coming on deck before dawn, and going over the charts and calculations with Lakey and his two lieutenants, Bolitho was as prepared as any captain could be when approaching a little-known island. Island? It was not much more than the ridge of a drowned mountain, he thought.

He watched the surge of current around the nearest clump of rocks, the drag of it as it receded in a bright welter of spray. But the wind, hesitant though it was so near to land, was still holding, and steady. He glanced up at the long masthead pendant as it licked away towards the starboard bow. Wind and depth. The ability to stop the ship and anchor. The procession of thoughts and precautions trooped through his mind like persistent beetles.

“Deep eight!”

Lakey said sharply, “More like it.”

Bolitho walked to the quarterdeck rail and looked down at the guns. Here and there a man moved nervously or took another pull on a gun tackle. Bare feet scraped on the sanded decks, and high in the maintop some marines were swinging a swivel gun back and forth in a silent bombardment. He saw Lieutenant Keen standing between the lines of twelve-pounders, bending at the waist to peer through one of the open ports, but keeping his arms folded as if to show how calm he was.

Two midshipmen were assisting him at the divisions of guns, the pug-faced Fitzmaurice and the slight figure of young Romney. Swift stood with his signal party on the quarterdeck, while Borlase, puffing and emptying his cheeks like a fretful baby, moved restlessly by the starboard gangway.

All there. Ready and waiting for something to happen.

Bolitho glanced at the half-hour glass beside the compass. He wanted to take out his watch to be sure, but knew it would be seen as agitation, uncertainty. He had been aware of the men nearby, watching him. Looking away quickly as his gaze had passed over them.

But it was taking far too long. If they had to change tack now it would be an age before they could work back towards the inlet. He studied the out-thrust wedge of land, the only thing recognizable from the bald description on his chart. It was pale, probably some sort of rock, and strangely at odds with the lush green background. Beyond it, glittering now above the starboard carronade, was the first hint of an opening. He bit his lip. If Herrick stayed silent he would have to drive past the inlet, and lose precious time in so doing. If there were ships still there, they might even slip past before he could come about and spread more canvas. He looked up, slitting his eyes against the glare. The sunlight angled down between the shrouds as if through windows in a cathedral, he thought vaguely.

Topsails and jib, with the forecourse so tightly reefed it was barely filling. But it was dangerous to make more speed.

He saw Allday watching him from the companionway, his heavy cutlass across one shoulder. Allday was waiting his moment. He knew his captain’s moods so well that to speak now would only bring a swift rebuke.

The realization, even amidst all his uncertainty, moved Bolitho. He said quietly, “I can almostfeel the island.”

Allday walked to his side. “The smoke is thinning a bit, Captain.”

“No. I think it’s being fanned further inland.”

“Mebbee. It’s my thought that the first lieutenant has found nothing. The pirates have gone, and knowing Mr Herrick, I’ll wager he’s looking after the dead an’ wounded left behind.”

“Deck there!” The urgency of the cry made everyone look up. “Ships at anchor around the point! Two of ’em!” A pause. “Tops’l schooners!”

Bolitho turned to Allday, his eyes gleaming. “Well?”

Allday seemed troubled. “I was wrong then.”

“Yes.” Bolitho strode to the rail. “Shake out the fores’l, Mr Borlase! There’s no sense in losing that pair.” He smiled at the lieutenant’s anxious expression. “We might even catch them as prizes if they’ve the wit to strike to us!”

He turned away, trying to contain his anxiety for Herrick and his men. They must have lost their way, or perhaps the schooner had grounded?

The big forecourse boomed and filled importantly from the foreyard. In response, the land seemed to move abeam more quickly, while spray spattered over the bow and across the crouching seamen there.

Keen was shouting, “Starboard battery will fire by division! On the order, gun captains, and not before, d’you hear?”

Bolitho looked at him at the opposite end of the ship, or almost. How far he had come to gain such confidence and authority. Without becoming a tyrant on the journey, which was even more important.

It did not occur to Bolitho that Keen’s captain might have had something to do with it.

He said, “Stand by to alter course, Mr Borlase. Pipe the hands to the braces. We will steer nor’-east.”

How many times had they altered tack and course during the long night? But it had been usual enough for these men. This was different. They had made their landfall. They would do what they were ordered.

He listened to the bark of commands, the clatter of halliards and blocks as belaying pins were removed and the hands prepared to trim the yards.

The pale wedge of land was almost past now, and he could see fires burning, and hissing clouds of steam from the opposite side of the inlet.

“By th’ mark five!”

Lakey said, “Ready, sir.”

Bolitho looked at him gravely. It was all on the sailing master’s lean face. Responsibility. Anxiety. Determination. The ship, and it was always his ship to a master, had to have room to come about should the water become too shallow or the wind die. At worse they must anchor, but still hope they could fight clear of the shoals and the angry-looking spray below the foreshore.

“Very well.” As the seamen hauled at the braces, and the big double wheel was put steadily over by Lakey’s best helmsmen, Bolitho cupped his hands and yelled, “Masthead! What of the ships?” The seaman must have been so enthralled by his place as spectator that he had not added to his first report.

“Still at anchor, sir!” The man was probably peering down at the deck, but the blinding sunlight hid him.

Bolitho consulted the compass and then the set of the sails, feeling the ship leaning less steeply as she came into the land’s shelter.

Borlase was yelling, “Belay there! Take that man’s name, Mr Jury!”

Bolitho had no idea who that man was, nor did he care. He was staring at the reflected fires on the water, leaping and glowing dull red despite the sun’s power, making the inlet ahead of the bowsprit glitter like one great flaming arrowhead.

“Take in the forecourse, Mr Borlase!”

As the sail was brailed up to its yard again, Bolitho studied the blazing village and charred boats with mounting anger. Where was the point of it? What prestige could a pirate like Tuke hope to gain by destroying and murdering these simple people?

“Deep six!” The leadsman sounded completely absorbed.

Ninety feet above the deck Marine Blissett, ex-gamekeeper and now one of Tempest’s best musket shots, stood with his companions beside the little swivel gun and watched the stick-like masts above the barrier of land.

Once round it and the starboard battery would begin to fire. Slow and deadly. The first shots were always under control. He peered over the barricade at the intent figures between the black guns, the lieutenants and warrant officers pacing and worrying, or snatching a look aft at the captain.

He saw Bolitho almost below him. He was carrying his hat, and his black hair was moving in the hot breeze.

Blissett remembered the other island. The girl he had found stripped and murdered.

Blissett was always amazed at his fellow men. They were often forced to live and work in unbearable hardship, and no matter how the captain kept an eye on such matters, there was always some bully ready to make things worse when he got the chance.

Yet these same men who could face a broadside with outward calm, or watch one of their mates flogged with barely any emotion, could rise to madness if an outsider kicked a dog, or as in that case, killed an unknown girl who was probably a slut anyway.

Blissett was not like that. He thought things out. What you needed to stay out of trouble. But also what you had to do to get noticed. He wanted to be a sergeant like Quare. He might as well, now that he was one of them.

He wondered why he had not been one of the party sent ashore with that pig Prideaux.

The captain of the maintop, legs braced, his back against the massive blocks of the topmast shrouds, asked, “Wot you dreamin’ about, Blissett?”

The captain of the top, a giant petty officer called Wayth, was very aware of his responsibility, the maze of cordage and spars, the great areas of canvas which he might be ordered to repair or reset at any moment of the day. And he disliked marines intensely without knowing why.

Blissett shrugged. “We’ll have no chance of taking these buggers. They’ll fight to the finish and take their bloody ships to the bottom with ’em. No prize money. No nothin’!”

The mast trembled, and Wayth forgot the marines as he peered up at his topmen.

Blissett said to his friend, “We’ll be up to ’em. shortly, Dick.”

“Aye.” The marine at the swivel swung it towards the land.

“We’d never even reach the ships with this poor cow!” He grinned. “Now, if we was shootin’ on the larboard beam we might ’it a couple of fat ’ogs for our supper, eh?”

Rising to his friend’s joke, Blissett turned away from the rocky shoreline and the two sets of masts and playfully pointed his musket towards the opposite side.

“One for the pot, Dick!” He froze. “Jesus! There’s a bloody cannon over there!”

Wayth snarled, “I’ve ’ad about all…”

The rest of his anger was blasted away by the crash of a heavy gun and the immediate shriek of iron as it smashed between Tempest’s masts.

Blissett fell to his knees, ears ringing, the breath pounded from his lungs by the closeness of a massive ball. Dazedly he stared at the length of severed rigging, and then, as he retched helplessly over the barricade, at the pulped remains of the maintop’s captain. The ball had cut him completely in half, leaving his stomach against the mast like a pancake.

Somehow Blissett managed to shout, “Deck! Battery on th’ larboard bow!”

It was then he realized that apart from the corpse he was alone. His friend and the other marine must have been hurled bodily to the deck below.

Blissett leaned his musket against the barricade and trained the swivel towards the shore.

The first shot from the shore was followed instantly by another, bringing cries of alarm from the Tempest’s gundeck as it passed between the masts and ploughed into the beach on the opposite beam.

Bolitho yelled, “Engage with both batteries, Mr Keen!”

He turned away as blood and flesh fell across the nets which had been spread above the guns. Someone had been killed on the maintop, and two marines had gone over the side after hitting the same nets then bouncing into the water, dead or alive, he did not know.

Some of the men at the starboard battery were shouting and cheering, the sound strangely wild. They were probably trying to drown their sudden surprise at the bombardment, the unexpected deaths right amongst them. But soon they would hit back themselves. Even the score.

The shouting faltered and broke up into more confusion as the hidden guns fired again, putting down a heavy ball almost alongside.

Bolitho watched the spray falling across the hammock nettings, a seaman peering up at it as if expecting to see a boarder. He felt chilled, unable to move his thoughts in time with the swift change of events.

Bang! That was surely a third gun, perhaps halfway up a slope and above the blazing huts. The ball went wide, and he turned to see it raise a tall waterspout near the rocks.

Keen had his sword above his head. “Ready, lads! Ready! ”

Bolitho saw the sword drop to Keen’s side and for an instant feared he had been hit by some hidden marksman.

Then Keen came running aft, heads turning from each gun to watch his passing.

“What the hell, Mr Keen?” Borlase’s voice was shriller than ever.

But Keen ran halfway up the larboard ladder and shouted to Bolitho, “Sir! The masts are false! There are no ships!”

To add menace to his words a shot crashed through a gunport and upended a twelve-pounder over two of its crew; the air rent with screams and sobs as the ball shattered in fragments on a gun across the deck. Men fell kicking and plucking at their bodies with hands like claws, their dying progress across the planking marked by trails of dark blood.

“Engage to larboard!” Bolitho walked quickly to the compass. “Broadside, and then reload with grape!”

Through his reeling thoughts came a spark of hope. That they might hit some of the carefully sited guns and give themselves time to beat clear of the inlet.

“Fire!”

The ship bucked and vibrated as if she had struck a sandbar, the smoke rolling away downwind in a dense pall from the uneven broadside. Shouting like madmen the gun captains urged their men to reload with heavy grape, while around them the ship’s boys darted with more powder, dodging the gaping corpses and crawling wounded, their faces like tight masks.

“Ready!”

Hand by hand each gun captain looked at Keen, his trigger line pulled almost taut.

“On the uproll! Fire! ”

This time it was better timed, and Bolitho thought he saw the trees and burning huts shiver as the packed grape sliced through them.

But the reply came just as swiftly, almost two together. One hit the forecastle, and Bolitho heard the crash and whine of splinters, saw men flung down as if by a terrible wind. He felt the air throb over his head, and winced as a ball cut through rigging and clawed down another seaman who was pulling himself aloft to repair some of the damage.

The man fell with a sickening thud across one of the quarterdeck guns, and for a few moments he moved like some obscene, bloody creature before he died and was hauled away by the stonefaced crew.

“We will come about, Mr Lakey!”

Bolitho staggered as the deck jumped to another long-drawnout broadside. Thank God the smoke was going towards the hidden guns. It was their only protection.

Lakey nodded, his head jerky. “At once, sir.” He cupped his hands. “Man the braces if you please, Mr Borlase!”

Borlase peered aft, his eyes bulging from his head. Another shot whined low over the nettings, and it seemed to bring the lieutenant’s limbs back into motion.

“Man the braces! Clear the starboard battery if you must but lively there!”

Bolitho watched coldly. No room to wear and take full advantage of the wind. They would have to pass right through its eye, pivoting round with those four mocking masts their only adversary. He could feel the anguish blinding and choking him.

It was his fault. He should have seen the flaw, felt his enemy’s cunning. No, skill.

“Ready ho!”

Several men let go a brace as a ball splintered through a portion of the gangway and ground three men into a writhing shambles.

Bolitho saw it all. Felt it. One second a scene of pain and survival as two men dragged a wounded companion towards a hatchway and safety. Now they kicked and screamed in one hideous gruel.

“Put the helm down!”

Bolitho ran to the lee side to try and see any sign of the enemy. But apart from several scattered fires on a hillside, caused no doubt by Keen’s grapeshot, it was as before.

He watched the men hauling at the braces, their features grim and shining with sweat. Here and there a warrant officer, even some of the wounded, added their weight to drag the great yards round, while above the proud figurehead the jib, with broken rigging drifting amongst it like weed, flapped in abandoned confusion.

“Helm a’lee!”

The quartermaster had to repeat it as the guns hurled themselves inboard on their tackles, one of them making red tracks through the remains of a fallen seaman.

“Off tacks and sheets!” Borlase’s voice was like a scream through the speaking trumpet.

“Let go and haul!”

Bolitho watched, hardly daring to breathe, as the land began to move very slowly to larboard as his ship responded to rudder and canvas.

A grating crash brought more startled shouts, and he saw a ball upend another gun, slewing it right round amidst its severed tackles and gasping men as if to turn upon its own ship in revenge.

Rigging fell from the maintopmast in black, glittering coils, and heavy blocks bounced and trailed over the nets like live things.

Through it all, urging and threatening, sliding in blood or colliding with men employed at trimming the yards, Keen and his subordinates sent more hands across to the still unfired starboard battery.

All these things were recorded in Bolitho’s brain like writing on parchment. Keen was keeping his head, knew that once around they might have a faint chance of finding and hitting their attackers before they reached open water again.

Crash! Lakey yelled, “Main t’gallant, sir! Watch out on deck!”

Like a giant, murderous tree, the whole topgallant mast and yard, all its canvas, blocks and shrouds swept down and through the flimsy protection with the sound of an avalanche. It fell across the larboard side, breaking down nettings, whipping men from their feet and flinging them aside like dolls.

Bolitho felt the ship stagger under the onslaught, sensed the change in motion as the tangle dragged at the hull like a great sea-anchor.

Jury was booming, “Axes there! Clear it away! Get those wounded below!”

His great voice seemed to rally the dazed gun crews along the side where the topgallant mast had fallen. More trailing halliards and ratlines, followed by the masthead pendant, splashed over the side, surging around some corpses and a few frantic swimmers as if to suck them under.

Somewhere through the din and smoke Bolitho heard the fore-topsail filling to the change of tack, and saw the land loom dangerously close while Tempest continued to turn.

The planks bucked beneath him, throwing up splinters like jagged darts as a ball smashed through the poop and explored the semi-darkness between decks in a trail of destruction and terror.

In disbelief Bolitho saw the sun glinting on clear water, a distant island very green in the untroubled light. In the opposite direction the trailing smoke from his ship mingled with that of the inlet and glowed above the burning village.

One more ball struck the hull right aft, a great hammer-blow, as if to mark the final seal of defeat.

Bolitho listened to voices resuming command and order, the cries of the wounded becoming fainter as men died or were carried below to the orlop for Gwyther and his mates to tend as best they could.

The broken mast and spars were drifting clear of the stern, and he saw one man sitting astride the crosstrees, staring after his ship, too stunned to know what was happening.

Borlase lurched towards him. “We are out of range, sir.” It seemed as if he had to speak, although his voice was thick and unsteady.

Midshipman Swift was on his knees beside one of his men.

“Hold on, Fisher!”

He peered round desperately for aid, his powder-grimed face streaked with sweat, or perhaps they were tears, Bolitho thought.

The wounded seaman was one of the older hands, and had been put in the signals party because of his inability to swarm aloft as he had once done. Two bad falls had rendered him almost a cripple, and by rights he should have been ashore with his family, if he had one.

Now he lay staring up at the trailing rigging, his face ashen as he gripped Swift’s hand between his as if in prayer.

He asked in a strong voice, “Be Oi goin’, zur?”

Swift stared blindly at Bolitho. Then he seemed to draw on an inner reserve and pulled a flag up and over the man’s waist. A ball, split in half by striking an upended gun, had almost severed one of his legs, and had laid open his groin like a cleaver.

Swift said haltingly, “You’ll be all right, Fisher, you’ll see.”

Fisher tried to grin. “Oi don’t feel all right, zur.” Then he died.

Swift stood up violently and vomited on the deck.

Bolitho glanced at Allday. “See to him. He was worth six men today!”

“Aye.” Allday sheathed his cutlass and walked to the midshipman’s side.

Swift did not look at him. “All these men. We never stood a chance.”

“Look at Fisher, Mr Swift.” Allday’s voice was calm but firm. “He could have been any of us.” He waited for the youth to face him. “Or all of us. He did his best. Now there are other poor fellows who need help.” He turned as the midshipman hurried to the quarterdeck rail. Then he said, “He’ll do, Captain. Just give him something to bite on.”

He watched Bolitho’s face, seeing the strain clouding over it like pain. He’d not heard a word of it.

Lakey asked. “What orders, sir?”

Bolitho looked past Allday towards the island and its pall of smoke.

He said, “We could enter and re-enter that place with little change in result. Until-” he thrust his hands behind him, gripping his fingers until the pain steadied him “-until our damage became fatal. Then, we would lie aground or sinking until we agreed to terms, or until we were all killed.”

He forced himself to look up at the men who were already climbing up the shrouds towards the gap left by the lost topgallant mast. They were moving slowly. The confidence and the will gone out of them.

Almost to himself he said, “They have the upper hand.”

In his brain a voice insisted. They beat you… you… you. Until he thought his mind would burst.

“We will rejoin the schooner and anchor, Mr Lakey.” He turned to Borlase. “I want a list of dead and wounded. Soon as possible.”

They were all looking at him. Accusing, sympathizing, hating? He could not tell any more.

Lakey murmured, “Very well, sir.” Then in a louder voice, “Watch your helm, damn your eyes!”

Bolitho crossed to the weather gangway and took several deep breaths. In a moment more he would step inside his role again. Plan a suitable approach, lay his scarred ship on her rightful tack to rejoin Herrick with least delay. Bury the dead, attend the wounded. See to the repairs, discover the reason for failure no matter how painful it was to swallow.

But first… He let his gaze move over the quiet shore. The huts were hidden as were the dummy masts. It was a savage lesson. What he had seen as his last moments on earth might now be viewed as a last chance to redeem a terrible mistake. He made himself turn away from the land and examine his ship, as if to punish himself even further.

Borlase asked, “Secure guns, sir?”

He nodded. “Then have the galley fire lit and see that the people are fed directly.” He looked at the dangling rigging, the long smears of blood on the decks, already brown in the sunlight. “There is a lot to be done.”

Allday said awkwardly, “I’ll fetch something to drink, Captain.”

Bolitho looked at him sharply, something in Allday’s tone dragging him from his own despair.

The big coxswain added, “That last ball, Captain. It did for poor Noddall.” He looked away, unable to watch Bolitho’s eyes. “I’ll fetch it for you.”

Bolitho took a few paces, hesitantly and then with sudden urgency. Poor, defenceless Noddall. Loyal and uncomplaining, who despite his terror of the din of battle had always been ready to serve, to watch over him.

It seemed impossible he was not below now. Hands like paws. Shaking his head and fussing.

Lakey watched him grimly, while from nearby Jury, the boatswain, paused in his work with the scrambling, grimy seamen to study Bolitho. He had heard Allday’s words, and marvelled that with all this hell the captain could find time to mourn just one man.

Bolitho’s eyes lifted suddenly and settled on him. “Your men are doing well, Mr Jury. But not yet well enough to idle, I think.”

Jury sighed. It was a relief to see Bolitho returning from inner hurt, no matter how bad the consequences might be.