Stand into Danger

8. Palliser’s Ruse

BOLITHO felt a growing pressure against his spine as some of the fallen timber shifted to the brigantine’s motion. He heard a scraping sound somewhere overhead, the clang of metal as one of the guns broke free and tumbled across the deck. The angle was more acute, and he could hear the sea piling against the hull, but much higher than before as the vessel continued to settle deeper and deeper.

There was still some shooting, but it seemed as if the victors were standing off to wait for the sea to complete their work for them.

Slowly, but with mounting desperation, Bolitho tried to wriggle free from the debris across his body. He could hear himself groaning and pleading, gasping meaningless words as he struggled to rid himself of the trap.

It was useless. He only succeeded in dislodging some more broken woodwork, a piece of which ploughed past his head like a spear.

With something like panic he heard sounds of a boat being manned, some hoarse cries and more musket shots.

He clenched his fists and pressed his face against the deck planking to prevent himself from screaming. The vessel was going fast and Palliser had ordered her to be abandoned.

Bolitho tried to think clearly, to accept that his companions were doing what they must. It was no time for sentiment or some useless gesture. He was already as dead as the others who had been shot down in the heat of the fighting.

He heard voices and someone calling his name. Needles of light probed through the tangled wreckage, and as the deck gave another lurch Bolitho shouted, “Go back! Save yourselves!”

He was shocked and stunned by his words and the strength of his voice. More than anything he had wanted to live until he had realized someone had cared enough to risk death for his sake.

Stockdale’s throaty voice said, “’Ere, work that spar clear!”

Somebody else said doubtfully, “Too late, by the looks of it, mate. We’d best get aft.”

Stockdale rasped, “Take ’old like I told you! Now, together, lads! ’Eave!”

Bolitho cried out as the pain pushed harder into his spine. Feet moved down from the other side of the pile and he saw Jury on his knees peering though a gap to look for him.

“Not long, sir.” He was shaking with fear but trying to smile at the same time. “Hold on!”

As suddenly as it had smashed him down the weight of broken planking and one complete spar were levered and hoisted clear.

A man seized Bolitho’s ankles and dragged him roughly up the sloping deck, while Stockdale appeared to be holding back a wall of wreckage all on his own.

Jury gasped, “Quickly!” He would have fallen but for a seaman’s ready grip, and then they were all staggering and lurching like drunks running from a press-gang.

On deck at last, Bolitho forgot the pain and the lurking moments of bare terror.

In the strengthening light he saw that the Heloise was already a total wreck, her fore-topmast gone completely and her main nothing more than a jagged stump. Her canvas, broken spars and an entangled mesh of fallen rigging completed the scene of devastation.

To drive it home, Bolitho saw that both boats were manned and standing clear, and the nearer of the two was already higher than the Heloise’s lee side.

Palliser stood in the cutter directing some of his men to use their muskets on one of the schooners. The dying brigantine acted as a barrier, the only thing which still stood between the enemy and their chance to run down on the boats and finish the one-sided fight.

Stockdale grunted, “Over th’ side, lads!”

His mind reeling, Bolitho saw that two of the men who had come back for him were Olsson, the mad Swede, and one of the farm-workers who had volunteered to his Plymouth recruiting party.

Jury kicked off his shoes and secured them inside his shirt. He looked at the water as it came swirling over the bulwark and exclaimed huskily, “It’s a long swim!”

Bolitho flinched as a musket ball smacked into the deck and raised a splinter as high as a goose quill within feet of where they were standing.

“Now or never!” He saw the sea thundering through the companion and turning one of the corpses in a wild dance as it forced the bows deeper and deeper below the surface.

With Stockdale panting and floundering between them, Bolitho and Jury sprang into the water. It seemed to take an age to reach the nearest boat, and even then they had to join the others who were hanging to the gunwales and trying not to hamper the oarsmen as they headed for the dismasted Rosario.

Most of the men around Bolitho were strangers, and he realized they must be the released prisoners. Olsson had looked so wild it was a wonder he had not left them to drown with their ship.

Then all at once the brig’s side towered above them. She was a small vessel, but viewed from the water as he fought for breath and clung to a thrown line, Bolitho thought she looked as big as a frigate.

Eventually they were pushed, dragged and man-handled up and over the side where they were confronted by the brig’s own company, who stared at them as if they had come from the sea itself.

Palliser left nobody in doubt as to who was in command.

“Little, take the prisoners below and put them in irons. Pearse, discover the chance of a jury-rig, anything to give us steerage-way!” He strode past some dazed and bleeding men and snapped, “Have these guns loaded, d’you hear? God dammit, you’re like a pack of old women!”

A man of some authority pushed through his sailors and said, “I am the master, John Mason. I know why you’re here, but I give thanks to God for it, sir, though I fear we are no match for them pirates.”

Palliser eyed him coldly. “We shall see about that. But for now, do as I direct. How you and your people behave today may decide what happens to you.”

The man gaped at him. “I don’t understand, sir?”

“Do you have a passenger, one Jonathan Egmont?”

Bolitho leaned on the bulwark sucking in great gulps of air, the sea-water streaming from his limbs to mingle with the blood around the nearest gun.

“Aye, sir, but…”

“Alive?”

“Was when I last saw him. I put my passengers below when the attack began.”

Palliser gave a grim smile. That is fortunate. For both of us, I think.” He saw Bolitho and added sharply, “Make sure Egmont is secure. Tell him nothing.” He was about to turn his attention to one of the schooners but instead watched the Heloise’s final moment, as with a last burst of spray from her hatches she plunged to the bottom. He said, “I am glad you were able to stay with us. I ordered the vessel to be abandoned.” His eyes rested momentarily on Jury and Stockdale. “However…”

Bolitho staggered to an open hatch, his bruised mind still grappling with the Rosario ’s lay-out as she pitched about in the swell.

The brig had taken a terrible beating. Upended guns, corpses and pieces of men lay strewn with the other debris, ignored in the frantic efforts to keep their attackers from boarding.

A seaman with one hand wrapped in a crude bandage, the other gripping a pistol, called, “Down ’ere, sir!”

Bolitho clambered down a ladder, his stomach rebelling against the stench of pain and suffering. Three men lay unconscious or dying, another was crawling back to his station as best he could in makeshift dressings and a sling.

Egmont stood at a table, wiping his hands on a rag, while a seaman trimmed a lantern for him.

He saw Bolitho and gave a tired shrug. “An unexpected meeting, Lieutenant.”

Bolitho asked, “Have you been attending the wounded?”

“You know the Navy, Lieutenant. For me it is a long, long time ago since I served your captain’s father, but it is something you never lose.”

Bolitho heard the urgent clank of pumps, the sounds of blocks and tackles being hauled noisily across the upper deck. The Destiny’s seamen were working again, and he was needed up there to help Palliser, to keep them at it, driving them by force if necessary.

They had been in a savage fight and some had died, as he had nearly done. Now they were needed again. Let them falter and they would drop. Allow them time to mourn the loss of a friend and they would lose the stuff of fighting.

But he asked, “Your wife, is she safe?”

Egmont gestured towards a bulkhead door. “In there.”

Bolitho thrust his shoulder against it, the fear of being trapped below decks still scraping at his mind.

By lantern-light in a sealed, airless cabin he saw three women. Aurora Egmont, her maid and a buxom woman he guessed to be the master’s wife.

He said, “Thank God you’re safe.”

She moved towards him, her feet invisible in the cabin’s gloom so that she appeared to be floating.

She reached up and felt his wet hair and his face, her eyes large as she said quietly, “I thought you were still in Rio.” Her hands touched his chest and his arms as they hung at his sides. “My poor lieutenant, what have they done to you?”

Bolitho could feel his head swimming. Even here, amidst the stench of bilge and death, he was conscious of her perfume, the cool touch of her fingers on his face. He wanted to hold her, to press her against his body like the dream. To share his anxiety for her, to reveal his longing.

“Please!” He tried to step away. “I am filthy. I just wanted to be sure you were safe. Unhurt.”

She pushed his protest aside and put her hands on his shoulders. “My brave lieutenant!” She turned her head and called sharply to her maid, “Stop weeping, you silly girl! Where is your pride?”

In those few seconds Bolitho felt her breast press against his wet shirt, as if there was nothing between their bodies.

He murmured, “I must go.”

She was staring at him as if to memorize everything about him. “Will you fight again? Do you have to?”

Bolitho felt the strength returning to his body. He could even smile as he said, “I have someone to fightfor, Aurora.”

She exclaimed, “You remembered!”

Then she pulled his head down and kissed him firmly on the mouth. Like him, she was shaking, her earlier anger with her maid a pretence like his own.

She whispered, “Be careful, Richard. My young, so-young lieutenant.”

With Palliser’s voice ringing in the distance, Bolitho walked back to the ladder and ran to the upper deck.

Palliser was examining the two big schooners with a telescope, and without lowering it he asked dryly, “May I assume that all is well below?”

Bolitho made to touch his hat, but remembered it had gone a long time ago.

“Aye, sir. Egmont is helping the wounded.”

“Is he indeed?” Palliser closed his glass with a snap. “Now listen. Those devils will try to divide our defences. One will stand off while the other attempts to board.” He was thinking aloud. “We may have survived one fight, but they will see Heloise’s loss as their victory. They’ll give no quarter now.”

Bolitho nodded. “We might hope to hold them off if we had every gun fully manned, sir.”

Palliser shook his head. “No. We are adrift and cannot prevent one or both of them from raking our stern.” He glanced at some of the brig’s seamen as they staggered past with a trailing serpent of rigging. “These people are done for, no stomach left. It’s up to us.” He nodded firmly, his mind made up. “We shall allow one of the buggers to grapple. Divide them and see how they like that.”

Bolitho looked at the fallen masts and sprawled bodies, amongst which Destiny’s seamen moved like scavengers on a battle-field. Then he touched his mouth with his fingers, as if he expected to feel a difference there where she had kissed him with such fervent passion.

He said, “I’ll tell the others, sir.”

Palliser eyed him bleakly. “Yes. Just tell them. Explanations may come later. If they do, we shall know we have won. If not, they won’t matter.”

Palliser lowered his telescope and said bitterly, “They are better manned than I thought.”

Bolitho shaded his eyes to watch the two schooners, their big fore and aft sails like wings against the bright sky as they tacked slowly to windward of the helpless brig.

The larger of the two vessels, her canvas pock-marked by their canister-shot during the dawn engagement, was a topsail schooner. She touched off a memory and Bolitho said, “I think she was the one I saw leaving harbour when we were at Egmont’s house. I recognize her rig.”

“Most probably. Not many of them in these waters.”

Palliser was studying the schooners’ methodical approach. One standing well up to windward, the other maneouvring towards the Rosarios ’s larboard bow where she would be best shielded from her remaining guns. They were sturdy six-pounders, and under Little’s skilled supervision could still make a mark on anything which ventured too close.

Palliser handed Bolitho the glass. “See for yourself.” He walked over to speak with the brig’s master and Slade by the compass box.

Bolitho held his breath and steadied the glass on the nearest schooner. She was weather-worn and ill-used, and he could see the many men who were staring across at the defiant, mastless brig. Some were waving their weapons, their jeers and threats lost only in distance.

He thought of the girl in the cabin, what they would do to her, and gripped his hanger so tightly that it hurt his palm.

He heard the brig’s master say, “I can’t argue with a King’s officer to be sure, but I’ll not answer for what may happen!”

And Slade said urgently, “We’ll never hold ’em, sir, and it’s not right to put it to the test!”

Palliser’s voice was flat and uncompromising. “What do you suggest? Wait for a miracle perhaps? Pray that Destiny will rise from the deep and save all our wretched souls?” He did not conceal his sarcasm or his contempt. “God damn your eyes, Slade, I’d have expected better from you!”

He turned and saw Bolitho watching the tense little group. “In about fifteen minutes that cut-throat will try to grapple us. If we drive him off he will stand clear and the both of them will rake us for a while. Then they will try again. And again.” He waved his arm slowly towards the torn decks and weary, red-eyed seamen. “Do you see these people holding out?”

Bolitho shook his head. “No, sir.”

Palliser turned away. “Good.”

But Bolitho had seen the expression on his face. Relief perhaps, or surprise that someone was agreeing with him in spite of the terrible odds.

Then Palliser said, “I am going below. I must speak with the prisoners we took from Heloise.”

Little said quietly to his friend the boatswain’s mate, “Them stupid clods won’t know wot side they be on, eh, Ellis?” They both guffawed as if it was some huge joke.

Jury asked, “What will we do next?”

Ingrave suggested shakily, “Parley, sir?”

Bolitho watched the approaching schooner, the expert way her mainsail was being reset to give her a perfect heading for the last half cable.

“We shall meet them as they attempt to board.”

He saw his words moving along the littered deck, the way the seamen gripped their cutlasses and axes and flexed their muscles as if they were already in combat. The brig’s men were only hired hands, not professional and disciplined like Destiny’s people. But the latter were tired, and there were too few of them when set against the threatening mob aboard the schooner. He could hear them now, yelling and jeering, their combined shouts like an animal roar.

If there had been only one vessel they might have managed. Perhaps it would have been better to die with the Heloise rather than prolong the agony.

Palliser returned and said, “Little, stand by the forrard guns. When I so order, fire at will, but make quite certain the shots do no real damage.” He ignored Little’s disbelief. “Next, load the remainder with a double charge of grape and canister. At the moment of coming alongside I want those bastards raked!” He let his words drive home. “If you lose every man in doing it, I need those guns to fire!”

Little knuckled his forehead, his heavy features grim with understanding at last. The brig’s bulwark offered little protection, and with the other vessel grinding alongside to grapple them together, the gun crews could be cut down like reeds.

Palliser unclipped his scabbard and tossed it aside. He sliced his sword through the air and watched the bright sunlight run along the blade like gold.

“It will be warm work today.”

Bolitho swallowed, his mouth horribly dry. He too drew his hanger and removed the leather scabbard as he had seen Palliser do. To lose a fight was bad enough, to die because you had tripped over your scabbard was unthinkable.

Muskets banged across the narrowing strip of water between the two hulls, and several men ducked as the balls struck the timbers or whined menacingly overhead.

Palliser sliced down an imaginary foe with his sword and then said sharply, “Fire!”

The leading guns hurled themselves inboard on their tackles, the smoke billowing back through the ports as their crews did their best to follow Little’s orders.

A hole appeared in the schooner’s big fore-sail, but the other shots went wide, throwing up spindly waterspouts nearer to the other vessel than the one which was bearing down on them.

There were wild cheers and more shots, and Bolitho bit his lip as a seaman was hurled back from the bulwark, his jaw smashed away by a musket ball.

Palliser called, “Stand by to repel boarders!”

All at once the long schooner was right there opposite them, and Bolitho could even see his own shadow on her side with those of his companions.

Musket shots whipped past him and he heard another man cry out, the sound of the ball smashing into his flesh making Ingrave cover his face as if to save himself from a similar fate.

The sails were falling away, and as the tide of men surged across the schooner’s deck, grapnels soared above them to clatter and then grip the Rosario’s hull like iron teeth.

But someone aboard the schooner must have anticipated a last trick from men who could fight like this. Several shots swept through the crouching gun crews and two men fell kicking and screaming, their blood marking their agony until they lay still.

Bolitho glanced quickly at Jury. He was holding his dirk in one hand, a pistol in the other.

Between his teeth Bolitho said, “Keep with me. Don’t lose your footing. Do what you told me to do.” He saw the wildness in Jury’s eyes and added, “Hold on!”

There was a great lurch as with a shuddering crash the schooner came hard downwind and continued to drive alongside until the grapnel lines took the strain and held her fast.

“Now!” Palliser pointed with his sword. “Fire!”

A gun belched flame and smoke and the full charge exploded in the exact centre of the massed boarders. Blood and limbs flew about in grisly array, and the momentary terror changed to a wild roar of fury as the attackers formed up again and hurled themselves over the side and on to the brig’s hull.

Steel scraped on steel, and while a few men tried to fire and reload their muskets, others thrust wildly with pikes, flinging shrieking boarders between the two hulls to be ground there like bloody fenders.

Palliser yelled, “Another!”

But Little and his men were cut off on the forecastle, a wedge of slashing, yelling figures already on the deck between them and the remaining unfired cannon. Its crew lay sprawled nearby, either dead or dying Bolitho did not know. But without that final burst of grape and canister they were already beaten.

A seaman crawled towards the gun, a slow-match gripped in one fist, but he fell face down as an attacker vaulted over the bulwark and hacked him across the neck with a boarding axe. But the force of the blow threw him off balance and he slipped helplessly in his victim’s blood. Dutchy Vorbink shouldered Jury aside and charged forward, his jaws wide in a soundless oath as he struck the scrambling figure on the head with his cutlass. The blade glanced from his skull, and Bolitho saw an ear lying on the deck even as Vorbink finished the job with a carefully measured thrust.

When he looked again, Bolitho saw Stockdale by the abandoned gun, his shoulder bleeding from a deep cut, but apparently oblivious to it as he swept up the slow-match and jabbed it to the gun.

The explosion was so violent that Bolitho imagined it must have split the barrel. A whole section of the schooner’s bulwark had vanished, and amidst the charred woodwork and cut rigging the men who had been waiting their chance to leap across were entwined in a writhing heap.

Palliser yelled, “At ’em, lads!” He cut down a running figure and fired his pistol into the press of boarders as the thin line of defenders surged to meet it.

Bolitho was carried forward with the rest, his hanger rasping against a cutlass, the breath burning in his lungs as he parried the blade clear and slashed a wild-eyed man across his chest. A pistol exploded almost in his ear, and he heard Jury cry out to someone to watch his back as two kicking, yelling boarders cut their way through the exhausted seamen.

A pike slid past Bolitho’s hip and pinioned a man who had been trying to follow his comrades through the breach. He was still screaming and dragging at the pike with his bloodied fingers as Stockdale loomed out of the throng and killed him with his cutlass.

Midshipman Ingrave was down, holding his head with both hands as the fight-maddened figures lurched over him in a tide of hatred.

Above it all Bolitho heard Palliser’s voice. “To me, my lads!” It was followed by a burst of cheering and wild cries, and with amazement he saw a tightly packed crowd of men surge through the companionway and forward hatch to join Palliser amidships, their bared blades already clashing with the surprised boarders.

“Drive ’em back!” Palliser pushed through his men, and this seemed to inflame them to greater efforts.

Bolitho saw a shadow waver towards him and struck out with all his strength. The man coughed as the hanger’s blade took him right across the stomach and fell to his knees, his fingers knitted across the terrible wound as the cheering sailors blundered over him.

It could not be happening, but it was. Certain defeat had changed to a renewed attack, and the enemy were already falling back in a broken rout as the wave of men charged into them.

Bolitho understood that they must be the prisoners, the Heloise’s original crew, which Palliser had released and had put to his own use. But it was all confused in his mind as he cut and thrust with the rest, his shoulder knotted in pain, his sword-arm like solid lead. Palliser must have offered them something, as Dumaresq had done for their master, in exchange for their aid. Several had already fallen, but their sudden arrival had put back the heart into the Destiny’s men.

He realized too that some of the pirates had gone over the side, and when he lowered his guard for the first time he saw that the lines had been severed and the schooner was already drifting clear.

Bolitho let his arm fall to his side and stared at the other vessel spreading her sails and using the wind to stand away from the mastless, blood-stained but victorious brig.

Men were cheering and slapping each other on the back. Others ran to help their wounded companions, or called the names of friends who would never be able to answer.

One of the pirates who had been feigning death ran for the bulwark when he finally realized his own vessel was breaking off the battle. It was Olsson’s moment. With great care he drew a knife from his belt and threw it. It was like a streak of light, and Bolitho saw the running man spin round, his eyes wide with astonishment as the heft quivered between his shoulders.

Little jerked out the knife and tossed it to the pale-eyed Swede. “Catch!” Then he picked up the corpse and pitched it over the bulwark.

Palliser walked the length of the deck, his sword over his shoulder where it made a red stain on his coat.

Bolitho met his gaze and said huskily, “We did it, sir. I never thought it would work.”

Palliser watched the released prisoners handing back their weapons and staring at each other as if stunned by what they had done.

“Nor I, as a matter of fact.”

Bolitho turned and saw Jury tying a bandage round Ingrave’s head. They had survived.

He asked, “D’you think they’ll attack again?”

Palliser smiled. “We have no masts. But they have, with the masthead lookouts who can see far further than we. I have no doubt we owe our victory to more than a momentary and unorthodox ruse.”

Palliser, as always, was right. Within the hour Destiny’s familiar pyramid of sails was etched against the horizon in bright sunshine. They were no longer alone.