To Glory We Steer

17

FORM LINE OF BATTLE!

Within ten minutes of the drum's urgent tattoo the Phalarope was cleared for action. Decks were sanded and buckets of water stood within reach of every gun. Over the whole ship there had fallen a strange, gripping stillness, broken only by the uneasy slap of canvas and the steady sluice of water around the stem.

Bolitho shaded his eyes and watched the sun's unearthly orange glow as it tried to filter through the unending wall of sea mist. The bang and clatter of gunfire had become more uneven and sporadic with each dragging minute, and now as the distance fell away between the Phalarope and the other ships there came new sounds, more vicious,, and somehow more personal. Bolitho could hear the sharp cracks of muskets and pistols, the jarring scrape of steel against steel, and above all the mingling cries of men fighting for their lives.

Okes wiped his face with the back of his hand and said quickly, `This damn mist! I can't see what's happening!'

Bolitho glanced at him briefly. `It is a godsend, Mr. Okes. They are too busy to see us!' He lifted his hand to the quartermaster. `Starboard a point!' Then he walked to the rail and looked down at Herrick's upturned face.

`Have the guns loaded, but do not run out until I tell you.'

He saw the gunners push the fresh charges down the gaping muzzles, followed by the round, gleaming shot. The more experienced gun captains took time to fondle each ball, weighing it almost lovingly to make sure that the first salvo would be a perfect one.

He heard Herrick shout, `Double-spotted and grape, lads! Let 'em feel it this time!'

A stronger breath of wind rolled aside the mist around the entangled ships, and Bolitho tightened his lips into a thin line. Almost stem on to the Phalarope's swift approach was a French frigate, and alongside, listing and battered almost beyond recognition, was the little brig, Witch o f Looe. One mast was already gone, and the other seemed to be held upright only by the remaining stays. He thought of her commander, the young Lieutenant Dancer he 'had met aboard the flagship, and marvelled at the man's pluck or wasted courage which had made him him match his ship against this powerful opponent. His little pop-guns against the still-smoking twelvepounders.

Okes said, `They've seen us, sir!' He swallowed hard as something like an animal growl floated across the water. `My God, look at them!'

The Witch of Looe's shattered deck seemed to be swamped in French sailors, and as the drifting gunsmoke parted momentarily to allow the sunlight to play across the carnage, Bolitho saw the small knot of defenders, still fighting back from the brig's small quarterdeck. In a few more minutes they would be swamped completely.

The gunports along the French frigate's disengaged side suddenly opened, and to the steady rumble of trucks the guns appeared like a line of bared teeth.

Bolitho shut his ears and mind to the victorious shouts from the French frigate and concentrated his thoughts on the narrowing strip of water between them. Less than a cable's length to go, with neither ship able to fire. Phalarope was almost dead in line with the other ship's stem, so that if she held her course her bowsprit would drive straight through the stern windows. On one side of the enemy frigate lay the listing, rid-• dled brig, and on the other the guns waited to claim another victim.

Bolitho called sharply, `Run out the starboard battery!'

He watched as his men threw themselves against the tackle falls, and in a squealing, protesting line the guns trundled up the slight slope of the deck and out through the open ports.

There was a great bellow of noise from the French ship, wild and inhuman. The sound gained from killing and madness. Phalarope's own men remained tense and cold, their eyes unblinking as the enemy's pockmarked sails grew higher and higher above the bows.

Bolitho placed his hands on the rail and said slowly, `Now send your men across to the larboard battery, Mr. Herrick!' He saw the quick, mystified glances and added harshly, `In another minute I am, going to turn to starboard and go alongside the Witch of Looe. She is low in the water, our broadside should pass right above her!'

Herrick's frown gave way to a look of open admiration.

`Aye, aye, sir!'

Bolitho's voice stopped him in his tracks. `Quietly there! I don't want the Frogs to see what we're doing!'

Crouching almost on their knees the gunners scuttled

across to the opposite side, then excitement instantly quelled

by hoarse threatss from the gun captains.

Nearer and nearer. A few musket balls whined harmlessly overhead, but for the most part the French captain was prepared to wait. He could match gun for gun, and as Phalarope's bows and foremast would take the first punishment he could afford to feel confident. His own ship was drifting slowly downwind and his gunners could thank the Witch of Looe's weight alongside for a'steadier platform beneath their feet. There was a faint ripple of cheering, drowned instantly by a fresh outburst of musket fire.

Proby muttered, `The brig's people are cheering us, sir!'

Bolitho ignored him. One error now and his ship would change into a shambles. Fifty yards, thirty yards. Bolitho lifted his hand. He saw Quintal crouching like a runner, one beefy hand resting on the nearest seaman at the braces.

Bolitho shouted, `Now!'

At his side Pioby added his weight to the wheel, as with a scream of blocks the yards began to swing, the sails flapping in protest, but answering the challenge of wind and rudder.

`Run out!' Bolitho felt ice cold as the larboard battery squealed across the sanded planks. `Fire as your guns bear!'

He pounded the rail, counting each frantic second. For a moment he thought that he had mistimed the change of course, but even as be waited, holding his breath and hardly daring to watch, the bowsprit swung lazily across the French ship's high stem, almost brushing away a small group of sailors which had gathered above the hammock nettings.

Herrick ran from gun to gun, making sure that each successive shot went home. Not that he need have troubled. As the French gunners ran dazedly from the opposite side the first shots went crashing home. The Phalarope shuddered as she ground -against the little brig, but maintained her way steadily down the ship's side, her guns belching fire and death above the heads of the stunned boarders and the remaining members of the brig's crew.

Bolitho winced as the quarterdeck nine-pounders joined in the din. But still there was no answer from the French ship. Bolitho had guessed correctly that the guns which stared impotently at the Phalarope's smashing attack would have been in action right up to the moment of grappling and boarding the little brig.

He watched as great pieces of the frigate's bulwark caved in and fragments of torn planking rose above the smoke as if thrown from an invisible hand. An axe flashed dully, and Bolitho yelled, `He's trying to free himself!' He drew his sword. `Over you go, lads! Boarders away!'

As the Phalarope ground to a sluggish halt, her bows locked into the brig's fallen rigging and spars, Bolitho ran down the port gangway and clambered on to the Witch of Looe's tilting deck. For a moment nobody followed him, and then with a great roar, half cheer and half scream, the waiting seamen swept over the bulwark behind him.

Most of the French sailors, caught between the Phalarope's savage gunfire and the revived members of the brig's crew, threw up their hands in surrender, but Bolitho thrust them aside, his sword raised high towards his own men. `Come on, lads! We'll take the frigate!' There would be time enough for the boarders later, he thought vaguely.

Once up the frigate's shot-pitted side the resistance became fierce and deadly. Wild, crazed faces floated around Bolitho as he hacked his way aft towards the poop, and his feet barely supported him-in the heel-thick layer of blood.which seemed to cover the deck like fresh paint. The enemy's upperdeck had been crammed with men. Some were boarders recalled from the Witch of Looe, and others were gunners caught off guard by the Phalarope's sudden change of course. This tangled, momentarily disorganised mass of men had received the full force of the broadside. All the Phalarope's larboard twelvepounders and the quarterdeck battery as well, every one double-shotted and loaded with grape for good measure. It looked as if a maniac had been throwing buckets of blood everywhere. Even the lower edges of the sails were speckled in scarlet, and fragments of men hung from upended guns and splintered bulwarks alike.

A French officer, hatless and bleeding from a scalp wound, leapt in front of Bolitho, his thin sword red almost to its hilt. Bolitho lifted his own sword, but felt it parried aside, and saw the French officer's expression change from anxiety to sudden exultation. Bolitho tried to draw back, but the struggling, press of figures prevented it. He could not lift his sword in time. He saw the man's arm come round, heard the swish of steel, and waited for the shock of the thrust.

Instead the Frenchman's face twisted with alarm as a battle-crazed marine burst through the throng, his fixed bayonet held in front of him like a spear. The sword swung round yet again, but it was too late. The momentum of the marine's charge impaled the officer on the bayonet and threw them both against the poop ladder. The marine screamed with wild" delight and stamped his boot on the Frenchman's stomach, at the same moment wrenching out the dripping bayonet. The French officer sank slowly to his knees, his mouth opening and shutting like a dying fish. The marine stared at him as if for the first time and then thrust. the bayonet hone again.

Bolitho caught his arm. `That's enough! For God's sake, man!' The marine did not seem to hear him, but after a brief startled look at his captain's face he charged off into the battle once more, his expression one of concentration and hatred.

The frigate's captain lay on the poop, his shoulders supported by a young lieutenant. Someone was tying a crude tourniquet around the shattered stump of one leg, and the captain was only just hanging on to his senses as fighting, stabbing seamen reeled and staggered across his body.

Bolitho shouted, `Strike! Strike, Captain! While you still have some men left!' He did not recognise his own voice, and his hand around the hilt of his sword was wet with sweat. He thought of the crazed marine and knew that he too was in danger of giving way to the lust of battle.

The French captain gestured faintly, and the lieutenant gasped, `We strike! M'sieu, we strike!'

But even after the white flag had fluttered to the deck and men had been hauled bodily from the work of killing, it took time to make the Phalarope's men realise they had won.

The first to congratulate Bolitho was Dancer of the Witch of Looe. Bleeding from several wounds, his arm tied across his chest with a piece of codline, he limped over the splintered, bloodstained' deck and held out his good hand. `Thank you, sir! I was never more pleased to see any man!'

Bolitho sheathed his sword. `Your own ship is sinking, I fear.' He looked up at the frigate's tattered sails. `But you sold her dearly.'

Dancer swayed and then gripped Bolitho's arm. `I was trying to warn Sir Robert! The French are out, sir!' He squinted his eyes as if to restore his dazed thoughts. `Three days ago de Grasse met up with Rodney's fleet, but after a quick clash at long range, broke off the battle.' He pointed vaguely through the smoke. `I have been trying to shadow the Frogs, and this\morning I saw the whole fleet nor'-west of Dominica!' He shook his head. `I think Sir George Rodney has managed to engage them again, but I cannot be sure. I was caught by this frigate before I could get back to the squadron.' He smiled ruefully. `Now I have no ship at all!'

Bolitho frowned. `Have you enough men to take this frigate as prize?'

Dancer stared. `But she is your prize, sir!'

`We can discuss the share of financial reward at a later and more convenient time, Lieutenant!' Bolitho smiled. 'In the meantime I suggest you herd these prisoners below and make as much speed as you can with these rags for some port of safety.' He peered up through the smoke. 'The wind has veered slightly to the south-east. It should carry you clear of any impending battle!'

Herrick blundered through the mess and tangle of corpses, his sword dangling from his wrist. He touched his hat. 'We have just sighted the Cassius, sir!V

'Very well.' Bolitho held Dancer's hand. `Thank you for your news. At least it will justify Sir Robert's leaving his proper station!' He turned on his heel and climbed back across the sinking brig towards his own ship.

Still deep in thought he clambered over the bulwark and walked along the gangway. The gunners were standing below him, their faces upturned as he passed. The marine marksmen high in the tops and the little powder monkeys by the magazine hatch, all stood and stared at the slim solitary figure framed against the torn sails of the vanquished Frenchman.

It had been a swift and incredible victory. Not a man injured let alone killed in the attack, and no damage to the Phalarope at all. Some good men had died in the fight aboard the enemy ship, but the success far outweighed any such loss. A frigate taken as a prize, the Witch of Looe revenged if not saved, and all within an hour.

Yet Bolitho thought of none of these things. In his mind's eye he could see his well-worn chart, and the enemy's fleet moving in an irresistible tide towards the open sea, and Jamaica the prize.

Then a voice yelled out from the maindeck and Bolitho turned startled and caught off guard.

`Three cheers, lads! Three cheers for our Dick!'

Bolitho stared round at the quarterdeck as the air was split with wild, uncontrollable cheering. Herrick and Rennie were openly grinning at him. Neale and Maynard waving their hats to the men on deck below. Bolitho felt confused and entirely unprepared, and as the three cheers extended to a frenzied shouting Herrick crossed to his side and said, `Well done, sir! Well done!`

Bolitho said, `What is the matter with everyone today?'

Herrick replied firmly, `You've given them more than a victory, sir! You're given 'em back their self-respect!'

The cheering died away as if from a signal, and Herrick said quietly, `They want you to tell them, sir.' He dropped his eyes.

Bolitho moved to the rail and stared slowly around the familiar faces. These men. His men. The thoughts chased one another through his mind like shadows. Starve them, beat them. Let them face scurvy and disease, and death a hundred different ways. But still they could cheer. He gripped the rail hard and stared above their heads. When he spoke his voice was quiet, and those men furthest away leaned forward to hear it better.

`This morning we fought and beat a French frigate!' He saw some of the men nudging each other and grinning like children. `But more important to me is the fact that we fought as a single unit, as a King's ship should, and must fight!' A few of the older seamen nodded soberly, and Bolitho tried to steel himself for what he had to tell them.

It was no use just telling men to fight. They had to be led. It was an act of mutual trust. He cleared his throat. `When you see an enemy ship abeam and the balls begin to fly overhead, you all fight for many reasons.' He looked around their tanned and expectant faces. `You fight out of comradeship, to protect each other, and,avenge well-loved friends who have already laid down their lives. Or you fight out of fear, a fear which breeds a power of hatred for the enemy who is always faceless yet ever present. And above all we fight for our ship!' He waved his arm around him. `This is our ship, and will remain so, as long as we have the will to live and die for what is right!'

Some of the men started to cheer again, but he held up his

hand, his eyes suddenly sad. `But this short fight today was only a beginning. I cannot tell you how our small deeds will fit into the great pattern of battle, for I do not know. I only

know that it is our common duty to fight today, and to fight as we have never done before!'

He had their full attention now, and he hated himself for the truth which had to be told. `This morning we had luck on our side. But before this day dies we will need much more than that.'

As he paused the air seemed to give a sullen shudder, which as every man turned to stare across the captured ship  alongside extended into a low, menacing rumble, like thunder across distant hills.

Bolitho continued steadily, `Over there, lads, lies the enemy!'

He watched each man in turn, his heart suddenly dreading what was to come. He had brought them all to this. For no matter what reason, or how justified his efforts might be seen by others, he had committed his ship and men to the inevitable.

He felt a sudden gust of warm wind at his neck, and as he watched the low, writhing bank of morning mist began to move clear. One minute the two frigates with the sinking wreck of the Witch of Looe between them made up their own small world. To one beam lay the sun-tinted mist, and to the other the open sea, where night had already crossed the hard horizon, and the topsails of the labouring Cassius showed above its edge, gleaming in the sunlight like a pink shell. Then, as the mist rolled away that small world broke up for ever.

Shrouded in haze to the south-east Bolitho could see the low wedge of Dominica, while away to the north the scattered islands which were called the Saintes. But between these two there was no horizon. It was a sight so vast and so terrible that nobody said a word. From side to side, as far as the eye could reach, the blue water was topped with an unbroken line of ships. There seemed to be no gap between each towering crop of sails, and as the growing sunlight reflected across the apparently motionless panorama of armed might, Bolitho was reminded of an old painting he had seen as a child. The armoured knights at Agincourt, their great horses bedecked in standards and glittering mail, the proud pennants and banners streaming from lances as they gathered to charge the flimsy line of English archers.

Almost desperately he looked down at his spellbound men. `Well, lads, what do you say?' He pointed towards the great shimmering line of ships. `Beyond that fleet lies England, across five thousand miles of open sea. At our back is Jamaica.' He pointed down between his feet. `And below us is a thousand fathoms to the bottom!' He leaned forward, his eyes flashing with sudden urgency. 'So which is it to be, lads?'

The new sound of distant gunfire was drowned in the sudden wave of wild and uncontrolled cheering which swept across the Phalarope's maindeck, to be caught and carried by those aboard the captured frigate. Even wounded men who were being carried below shouted with the rest, some not knowing why, or even having heard Bolitho's words. It was as if all the bitterness and pent-up frustrations were being swept away by their great chorus of voices.

Bolitho turned away, and Herrick who was nearest saw the strange sadness and disbelief in his eyes. He said quickly, `There's your answer, sir!' He was excited like the others, even jubilant.

When Bolitho turned to look at him he studied the lieutenant as if he was a stranger. `Tell me, Mr. Herrick, have you ever seen a sea battle?' He waved towards the horizon. `Like this one will be?' He did not wait for a reply. `I have. There is no dash and madcap victory. No hit-and-run when the game gets too rough.' He gripped his hands behind him and stated unseeingly past the other officers. `The sky is so dark with smoke that it is like hell. Even the ships cry out, did you know that?' His voice became harsher. `They cry because they are being torn apart, like the fools who man them!'

He swung round as Midshipman Maynard said hoarsely, `Flagship's signalling, sir.'

Bolitho walked to the weather side and stared down at the listing brig. The water was already lapping over her bulwark, and only discarded corpses lolled on her battle-torn deck. He, snapped, `Do not acknowledge, Mr. Maynard!' To Herrick he added, `Cast off from the brig and get under way.' He looked up at the masthead. `We will steer due east!'

Herrick asked, `What of the flagship, sir?’

'Sir Robert is a gallant gentleman, Mr. Herrick. But his seniority will have made him more careful than I.' He gave a short smile. `And his men may not be so keen to die on this fine day!' His smile vanished. `Now get those men to their stations, and stop this damn cheering!'

The Phalarope idled clear from the wreckage, and as the captured frigate cast off her grappling irons the little brig rolled slowly on to her beam, the bursting air bubbles tinged with scarlet as the creeping water surged triumphantly across her battered hull.

Bolitho lifted his glass as the yards went round and the deck canted slightly to the wind. He could see the frigate Volcano's topmasts beyond the Cassius, and wondered how her captain would react to this awesome sight. Sir Robert Napier still had time to retire. One definite signal would take them all out of danger, mute witness's as the French burst from the battle and headed for their goal.

Bolitho made up his mind. 'Mr. Maynard, make a signal to the Flag.' He saw Herrick look at Rennie and shrug, as if his captain's actions were now quite beyond his ability to keep up. `Enemy in sight!'

He did not watch the flags soaring up the yards, but made himself walk back and forth across the quarterdeck, followed by the eyes of Rennie's square of marines. This was the decisive moment. Sir Robert was an old man, and past his best. To try to delay the French ships would give him nothing but glory he would never see. It might even be so futile that his action would be remembered with a scorn which could overshadow and despoil his whole career.

Maynard called, `Flag has acknowledged, sir!'

Bolitho bit his lip and continued his pacing. He could imagine the admiral's rasping voice as he dictated his signals, the uncertainty of the flag-captain, and the cautious confidence of Fox in the Volcano.

Maynard said suddenly, `I can just make out her hoist, sir!' His eye was pressed to the end of the big telescope. `Flag to Volcano. Prepare for battle!'

The word flashed along the quarterdeck and down to the men waiting by the guns. Again the cheering, and again the cheer taken up across the water aboard the French ship. Bolitho waved absently as he saw Lieutenant Dancer's limping figure by the taffrail as the captured ship braced her yards and spread her tattered sails abreast the low wind.

Herrick said excitedly, 'Cassius is making all sail, sir! My God, what a sight!' He seemed more impressed by the flagship's sudden activity than the fleet at his back.

Bolitho said, `Have every man armed, Mr. Herrick. Put cutlasses and tomahawks at each gun. There will be plenty of fighting before long!'

Maynard lowered his glass, his voice shaking as he stared across at his captain. `From Flag, sir! General signal.' He sounded as if he was trying to feel each word. `Form line of battle!'

Bolitho nodded slowly. `Shorten sail, Mr. Herrick. We will bide here and allow the Cassius to meet up with us.' He sniffed the air. `I feel we will lose the wind very soon. Dominica will act as a lee, I am afraid.'

He moved to the weather side and raised his glass across the nettings. Very slowly he moved the lens from side to side. In the small magnified picture he could see the dull flash of cannon fire, the brave flags and the gleam of sails as ship after mighty ship wheeled ponderously into line. He could feel

264

the sweat at his spine, as he had after his nightmare. But this was real, yet harder to comprehend. God, there were threedeckers in plenty, perhaps sixty sail of the line, British and French, gliding together for a first, inexorable embrace.

He said sharply, `Pass the word for Mr. Brock!' He did not lower his glass until the gunner reached the quarterdeck.

`Mr. Brock, I want both carronades taken to the forecastle. Put your best hands in charge of them, and see that their slides are freshly smeared with tallow.' He closed the glass and studied the gunner's dour face. `The carronades are the only weapons we possess which the French lack.' He stared down at the nearest weapon, snub-nosed and ugly, and lacking either the grace or the proportion of a proper deck gun. Yet a carronade could throw a massive sixty-eight-pound shot at short range, the power of which was devastating. Each circular shot burst on impact to deluge everything nearby with murderous cast-iron balls. One shot had the lethal quality of grape, added to which was the weight of a much heavier weapon.

He walked slowly to the rail and looked down at the neat decks. Had he forgotten anything? He ignored Brock and his stripped working party struggling and cursing the heavy carronades. He had to concentrate his full being on the task ahead. He must trust each officer and man. If they failed now, it was his fault for some earlier lapse in judgement.

Suddenly the restless, crowded figures below each gangway took on another meaning. Bolitho felt the pain of loss, as if he was looking at faces already dead. Quintal, the boatswain, spitting on his hands and pointing aloft for the benefit of the men who waited to sail' the ship into action. Farquhar, slim and self-contained, walking abreast his battery of guns, his eyes moving over each weapon and every man in its crew. And the seamen themselves. Tanned and healthy in spite of their discomforts. Some faces standing out more than others. Here a man who had done well at Mola Island. There another who had fled from his station when they had met the Andiron.

He let his eyes move up the shrouds, to the men like Allday still at work aloft, and the marines kneeling in the tops with their long muskets loaded and ready.

Then aft, here to the quarterdeck. With its nine-pounders, and Neale's tiny figure dwarfed by that of a pigtailed gunner's mate. And Proby, old Proby, waving his arms like some fat scarecrow as he gave his instructions to the helmsmen. One of the men at the wheel Bolitho recognised as Strachan, the oldest sailor in the company. Too old to work a gun to Brock's satisfaction, he was still keen enough to stand his trick at the helm, and when the hell of battle swept this very deck, Bolitho knew a man like Strachan would never falter. Not because he wass brave or stupid, but because it was part of his life. The only life he had known, and had been trained for.

Bolitho saw Okes watching him, his fingers playing nervously with the scabbard of his sword. Inwardly he wished it was Herrick at his side, but the latter would have his work cut out handling the ship's firepower. And anyway, Bolitho thought with sudden irritation, Okes was now first lietuenant. Vibart was dead. Not even a memory any more.

By the cabin hatch Stockdale saw Bolitho's grave face and gave a slight nod. He saw the captain's eye catch the gesture and then move. But Stockdale was satisfied. Bolitho knew he was there. And that was enough.

Close hauled, and making heavy weather of the faltering breeze, the three ships tacked into line. Just as they had rehearsed it so many frustrating times under the pitiless sun and beneath the eye of this same querulous admiral.

Bolitho raised his hat as the Volcano's sails billowed with sudden power and the lean frigate took her station in the lead. Cassius followed heavily in her wake, and as more flags soared aloft, Bolitho said sharply,, 'Take station astern the Flag, Mr. Okes!'

He watched the men scampering to the braces, and then looked at the two-decker, as like an elderly but experienced warrior she opened her double line of ports and ran out her guns.

A voice pealed out suddenly, `Deck there! Ships on the starboard bow!' A pause while every eye peered up at the tiny figure in the main crosstrees. 'Two ship o' the line! An' two frigates!'

Bolitho tried to control his impatience. At the rear of the small line Phalarope would engage last. By then, it might all be decided, he thought bitterly.

The sails flapped dejectedly, and he heard the helmsmen curse as the wheel went slack. 'Wind is backing to the east, sir!' Proby looked mournful.

'Very well.' Bolitho lifted his glass and tried to see the nearest enemy ships. The gunfire was louder and unending, but the main battle fleets seemed stationary as before. It was of course an illusion.

Beyond the Cassius's flapping main course he saw a brief picture of the ships indicated by the lookout. Two big ones, very close in line. With two smaller sails, one on either beam.

But the falling wind was playing havoc with his own men, he thought angrily. They had cheered, expecting to fight or die in glory. But this waiting, this agonising waiting, while all the time that slowly advancing fleet grew and grew, until the once exuberant seamen seemed too stunned to move, or drag their eyes from the smoke-shrouded ships.

Bolitho-said, 'I am going aloft, Mr. Okes.' Without a glance at the sweating lieutenant he strode to the starboard gangway and made his way to the main shrouds. Even as a young midshipman Bolitho had never achieved a good head for heights,

but after a quick look at the listless sails he started on the long .climb to the main topmast.

As he swung through the lubber's hole of the maintop the waiting marines stared at him without speaking, and then turned their eyes back to the embattled fleets. The air was dinning with noise, and Bolitho's nostrils seemed full of the smell of powder and burned wood.

He found a solitary seaman perched in the crosstrees, and waited to regain his breath before opening his glass to stare over and beyond the slow-moving Cassius.

It was impossible to tell one line of battle from the other. The main British and- French squadrons were practically ship to ship, yardarm to yardarm, their masts and sails enveloped in a dense pall of trapped gunsmoke.

He shifted the glass and tried not to look at the deck far below his dangling. legs. Then he stiffened. The ships which this lookout had reported minutes earlier were breaking away from the main .battle. The two ships of the line were in fact linked by a stout cable, and as he peered through the forerigging he realised that the furthest vessel, a big three-decker, was partially disabled and without either bowsprit or foremast.

The towing ship, hampered by her massive consort, yawed from side to side, her sails puffing and then falling slack in the sluggish wind. As she swung the sunlight threw strange shadows on her tall side, and on the gleaming rows of guns already run out and prepared to fight.

Bolitho nodded to the lookout. 'Keep a good eye on them.'

The man grinned. 'Got nothin' else to do, zur!' He leaned over to watch Bolitho's careful descent and then settled down at his post. As Bolitho made his way down the rough, vibrating ratlines he heard the man humming.

He found Okes and Rennie waiting for him beside the wheel. Bolitho said flatly, `Two big ships right enough. But one of them is disabled. Probably in a collision during the night.' He rubbed his chin. `The towing ship is flying a. command flag. White over blue.' He forced a smile and called to Maynard, `What do you make of that, my lad?'

The midshipman lowered his glass for a moment. `Part of the French van, sir.' He looked uneasy.

`Right.' Bolitho walked to the rail. `De Grasse will be worried about his transports. To mount an attack on Jamaica he will need more than fighting ships. He'll have troops and supplies in other craft, like the ones we burned at Mola Island.'

Okes said, `While the fleet is engaged, de Grasse will try and force his transports this way!'

Bolitho nodded grimly. `Right again.' He snapped his fingers. `Part of the French van has been detached to clear the way for them!' He looked up at the listless sails. `And three ships only bar their way.' He turned to Rennie who was swinging his sword idly against his polished boots. `If we can turn the enemy's van, gentlemen, Sir George Rodney will do the rest!' He slapped his palms together. `Like rabbits in a trap!'

Okes stared at the slow-moving ships ahead of the Cassius. `In this case the rabbits are bigger than the hunters, sir!'

But Bolitho had already moved away. He paused beside the minute drummer boy and asked calmly, `Give us a tune on your fife, boy.' He spoke loudly, so that the men at the ninepounders could hear him.

The boy peered up from beneath his shako and swallowed hard. His lips were pale, and Bolitho could see his hands shaking against his tunic. 'Wh-what shall I play, sir?'

Bolitho looked around at the strained, watchful faces. `What about “Hearts of Oak”? We all know that, eh, lads?'

And so with the overwhelming roar of battle drumming in their ears, the Phalarope's sailors picked up the fife's feeble lilt.

Bolitho walked back to the weather side and lifted his glass. Even aboard the Cassius the men might hear the Phalarope's sailors singing the well-used words and gain some slight confidence.

`Come cheer up my lads,

Tis to Glory we steer ...’

Bolitho watched the great rolling bank of black smoke as it moved steadily towards the three British ships. It was like a living thing, he thought coldly. Writhing, and alight with angry red and orange flashes. Yet he was grateful for its presence. At least it hid the horror and the gruesome scenes beyond.

He looked down at his men, their faces momentarily engrossed in their singing. They would not have much longer to wait.