To Glory We Steer

5

 

RUM AND RECRIMINATIONS

 

The deck slewed over as the Phalarope's helm went hard down and she swung blindly on to her new course. Bolitho had lost count of the number of times his ship had changed direction or even how long they had been fighting.

Of one thing he was sure. The Andiron was outmanoeuvring him, was still holding to windward and keeping up a steady barrage. His own gunners were hampered by yet another hazard. The wind was falling away, and his men were now firing blindly into an unbroken bank of thick smoke which rolled down from the other ship and mingled with their own intermittent firing. -The smoke seemed to writhe with many colours as the American privateer continued the attack. Once, when a freak wind had blown the smoke skywards like a curtain Bolitho had seen the Andiron's battery belching long orange flames as each gun was trained and fired singly across the bare quarter mile between the two frigates. They were firing high, the balls screaming through the rigging and slashing the remaining sails to ribbons. Ropes and stays hung from above like weed, and every so often heavy blocks and long slivers of wood would fall amongst the labouring gunners or splash in the clear water alongside.

She intended to dismast and cripple the Phalarope. Maybe her captain had plans for using another captured ship, just as he had the Andiron.

The long nine-pounders on the quarterdeck recoiled as one, their sharp, barking detonations penetrating the innermost membranes of Bolitho's ears as he stared through the smoke and then back at his own command. Only on the quarterdeck was there still some semblance of unity and order. Midshipman Farquhar stood by the taffrail, his eyes bright but determined as he passed his orders to the gun captains. Rennie's marines were standing fast, too. From their smokeblinded positions behind the hammock nettings they kept up a steady musket fire whenever the other ship showed herself through the choking fog of powder smoke.

But the maindeck was different. Bolitho let his eyes move slowly over the chaos of scarred planking and grisly remains which marked every foot of deck space. The guns were still firing, but the intervals were longer, the aim less certain.

At first Bolitho had been amazed at the success of that opening broadside. He had known that later the lack of training would slow down the barrage, but he had not dared to hope for such a good opening. The double-shotted guns had fired almost as one, the ship staggering from the combined recoil. He had seen the bulwarks jump apart on the other frigate, had watched the balls tear through the packed gunners and gouge into her spray-dashed hull. It had seemed momentarily that the battle might still be contained.

Through the streaming smoke he saw Herrick moving slowly aft along the starboard battery checking the gunners and aiming each weapon himself before allowing the gun captain to jerk his trigger line. It should have been Okes on the starboard side, but perhaps he was already dead, like so many of the others.

Bolitho made himself examine each part of the agonising panorama which the Phalarope now represented. His body felt sick and numb from the constant battering, but his eye and mind worked in cold unison, so that the pain and suffering was all the more apparent.

Small pictures stood out from the whole, so that whenever he looked there was a pitiful reminder of the cost and the price still to be paid.

Many had died. How many he had no way of knowing. Some had died bravely, serving their guns and yelling encouragement and curses up to the moment of death. Some died slowly and horribly, their mutilated and broken bodies writhing in the blood and flesh which covered the decks as in a slaughterhouse.

Others were less brave, and more than once he had seen men shamming death, even cowering in the stench and horror of the discarded corpses until dragged and kicked back to their stations by the petty officers.

Some had escaped below in spite of Rennie's sentries, and would now be covering their ears and whimpering in the bilges to face drowning rather than the onslaught from the Andiron's guns.

He had seen the little powder monkey cut in half, and even above the roar of battle he had heard his own words to that same boy just three weeks ago: `You'll see England again! Never you fear!'

Now he was wiped away. As if he had never been.

And there had been the seaman Betts, trapped and writhing on the severed topgallant. The man he had used to try. to prove his authority. The axes had cut the spar away, and with a sigh it had bobbed clear of the ship before moving away in the smoke in a trail of rigging. The spar had idled past the quarter-deck, and for a brief instant he had seen Betts staring up at him. The man's mouth had been open like a black hole, and he had shaken his fist. It was a pitiful gesture, but it felt like a curse from the whole world. Then the spar had rolled over, and before it had faded astern Bolitho had seen Betts' feet sticking out of the water, kicking in a futile dance.

He tore his eyes from the carnage as more balls slapped through the main course and whined away over the water. It could not last much longer. The Andiron had hauled off slightly to windward. He could see her upper yards and punctured sails moving above the smoke bank as if detached from the hidden ship beneath, and guessed she was drawing clear to pound the Phalarope into submission with slow, carefully aimed shots.

He did not recognise his own voice as he gave his orders automatically and without pause. `Tell the carpenter to sound the well! And pass the word for the boatswain to send more men aloft to splice the mizzen shrouds!' There was little point any more, but the game had to be played out. He knew no other way.

His eye fell on an old gun captain at the nearest twelvepounder below -the quarterdeck. The man showed fatigue and strain, but his hoarse voice was unhurried, even patient as he coaxed his crew through the drill of reloading. `That's right, my boys!' He peered through the haze as one of his men rammed home the cartridge and another cradled the gleaming ball into the gaping muzzle. A splinter flew from the gunport and laid open his arm, but he merely winced and tied a filthy rag around his biceps before adding, `Ram that wad well home, bucko! We don't want the bugger to fall out agin!' He saw Bolitho watching him and showed his stained teeth in what might have been either pain or pride. Then he bawled, `Right then! Run out!' The trucks squeaked as the gun lumbered up the canting deck and then roared back again as the old man pulled his trigger.

Vibart loomed across the rail, his figure like a massive blue and white rock. He looked grim but unflinching, and waited for the nine-pounders to fire and recoil before he shouted, 'No water in the well, sirl She's not hit below the waterline!'

Bolitho nodded. The American obviously felt sure of a capture. It would not take long to refit a ship in one of the dockyards left by the British retreating from the American colonies.

The realisation brought a fresh flood of despairing anger to his aching mind. The Phalarope was fighting for her life. But her men were failing her. He was failing her. He had brought the ship and every man aboard to this. All the hopes and promises were without meaning now. There was only disgrace and failure as an alternative to death.

Even if he had Contemplated flying from the Andiron's attack it was too late now. The wind was falling away more and more, and the sails were almost useless, torn like nets by the screaming cannon balls.

A marine threw up his hands, clawing at the gaping scarlet hole in his forehead before pitching back into his comrades.

Captain Rennie drawled, 'Fill that space! What the hell do you think you're doing?' To Sergeant Garwood he added petulantly, 'Take the name of the next man who dies without permission!'

Surprisingly, some of the marines laughed, and when Rennie saw Bolitho looking at ban he merely shrugged, as if he too understood it was all part of one hideous game.

The ship staggered, and overhead the sails boomed in protest as the fading wind sighed against the flapping canvas. Bolitho snapped, 'Watch your helm, quartermaster! Steady as you go!'

But one of the helmsmen had fallen, a pattern of scarlet pouring from his mouth and across the smooth planking. From somewhere another seaman took his place, his jaw working steadily on a wad of tobacco.

Vibart growled, 'The starboard battery is a shambles! If we could engage the opposite side it would give us time to reorganise!'

Bolitho eyed him steadily. 'The Andiron has the advantage. But I intend to try and cross her stem directly.'

Vibart peered abeam, his eyes cold and calculating. 'She'll never allow it. She'll pound us to shavings before we get a cable's length!' He looked back at Bolitho. We will have to strike.' His voice shook. 'We can't take much more.'

Bolitho replied quietly, 'I did not hear that, Mr. Vibart. Now go forrard and try and get the full battery into action again!' His tone was cold and final. 'When two ships fight, only one can be the victor. I will decide op the course of action!'

Vibart seemed to shrug. As if it was not his concern. 'As you say, sir!' He strode to' the ladder adding harshly, 'I said that they did not respect weakness!'

Bolitho felt Proby shaking his arm and turned to see the anxiety etched on his mournful face. 'The wheel, Captain! It don't answer! The yoke lines have parted!'

Bolitho stared dully over Proby's rounded shoulders to where the helmsmen pulled vaguely at the wheel, the squeaking spokes responding in empty mockery as the ship paid off and began to sidle sluggishly downwind.

The sudden movement brought more cries from the maindeck as the frigate rolled her gunports skyward in a dizzy, uncontrollable elevation.

Bolitho ran his fingers through his hair, realising for the first time that his hat had been knocked from his head. The masthead pendant was barely flapping now, and without power in -her sails the ship would drift at the mercy of the sea until her surrender or destruction. It would take all of an hour to re-rig the rudder lines. By then ... he felt a cold shudder moving across his spine.

He cupped his hands. 'Cease firing!'

The sudden silence was almost more frightening than the gunfire. He could hear the chafe and creak of spars, the gurgle of water below the counter, and the swaying clatter of loose rigging. Even the wounded seemed quelled, and lay gasping and staring at the captain's still figure at the quarterdeck rail.

Then across the water, drifting with the smoke like a final insult, he heard a wild cheering. It was more like a baying, he thought bitterly. Like hounds closing for the. kill.

A V-shaped cleft broke in the smoke, and through it came the Andiron's raked bow and the long finger of her bowsprit. Filtered sunlight played across her figurehead and glinted on raised cutlasses and boarding pikes. As more and more of the other ship glided into view Bolitho saw the press of men running forward to the point where both ships would touch. Others were crawling out along the yards with grapnels, ready to lash the two enemies together in a final embrace. It was nearly finished.

He heard Stockdale mutter at his elbow, 'The bastards! The bastards!'

Bolitho saw that there were small tears in the man's eyes, and knew that the battered coxswain was sharing his own misery.

Above his head the flag whipped suddenly in a small breeze, and he knew that he dare not look at it. A defiant patch of scarlet. Like the red coats of the marines and the great glittering pools of blood which seeped through the scuppers as if the ship herself was bleeding before his eyes.

A new wildness moved through his mind, so that he had to lock his fingers around his swordbelt to prevent his hands from shaking.

'Get Mr. Brock! At the double!'

He saw Midshipman Maynard lope forward, and then forgot him as his glance strayed again to the watching men. They were exhausted and smashed down with the fury of battle. There was hardly a spark amongst them. His fingers settled on the hilt of his sword and he felt'the painful prick of despair behind his eyes. He could see his father, and so many others of his family, ranked with his crew, and watching in silence.

Proby said hoarsely, 'I've sent a party to splice the yoke lines, Captain.' He waited, plucking the buttons of his shabby coat. 'It were not your fault, sir.' He shifted beneath Bolitho's unwavering stare. `Don't you give in, sir. Not now!'

The gunner reached the quarterdeck and touched his hat. 'Sir?' He was still wearing the felt, spark-proof slippers he always wore in the dark magazine, and he seemed dazed by the sudden silence and the litter of destruction about him.

'Mr. Brock, there is a task for you.' Bolitho listened to his own voice and felt the strange wildness stirring him like brandy. 'I want every starboard gun loaded with chain shot.' He watched the Andiron's slow, threatening approach. 'You have about ten minutes, unless the wind returns.'

The mann nodded and hurried away without another word. His was not to question a meaningless order. A command from the captain was all he required.

Bolitho looked down at the maindeck, at the dead and wounded, and the remaining gunners. He said slowly, 'here will be one final broadside, men.' The words swept away his own illusion of making a last empty gesture. He continued, 'Every gun will have chain shot, and I want each weapon at full elevation' They began to stir, their movements brittle and vague like old men, but Bolitho's voice seemed to hold them as he added sharply, 'Load, but do not run out until the wordl' He saw the gunner's party carrying the unwieldy chainshot to each gun in turn. Two balls per gun, and each ball linked together with thick chain.

Captain Rennie said quietly, `They're getting close, sir. They'll be boarding us very soon now.' He sounded tense.

Bolitho looked away. All at once he wanted to share the enormity of his decision, but at the same instant he knew the extent of his own loneliness.

His last effort might fail completely. At best it would only drive the enemy to a madness which only the death of the whole of his crew would placate.

Herrick looked aft, his eyes steady. 'All guns loaded, sir!' He seemed to square his shoulders, as if to project some strange confidence over his battered men.

Bolitho pulled out his sword. Behind him he heard the marines fixing their bayonets and shuffling their booted feet on the stained planking.

He called, 'Stand by the starboard carronade, Mr. Farquahar! Is it ready?' He watched narrowly as the other ship's bowsprit swung over the Phalarope's bulwark, her forechains and rigging alive with shouting men. Her captain must have stripped his guns to get such a large boarding party. Once aboard, they would swamp the Phalarope, no matter how desperate the resistance.

Farquhar swallowed hard. 'Loaded, sir. Canister, and a full charge!'

'Very good.' The Andiron was barely twenty feet clear now, the triangular patch of trapped water between them frothing in a mad dance. 'If I fall, you will take your orders from Mr. Vibart.' He saw the young officer's eyes seeking out the first lieutenant. 'If not, then watch for my signal!'

The Andiron's bow nudged the main shrouds and a great yell of derision broke from the waiting boarders.

Bolitho ran down the ladder and leaped on to the starboard gangway, his sword above his bare head. A few pistols banged across the gap and he felt a ball pluck at his sleeve like an invisible hand.

'Repel boarders!' He saw the gunners staring up at him, uncertain and shocked, their guns still inboard and impotent.

Herrick jumped up beside him, his eyes flashing as he shouted, 'Come on, lads! We'll give the buggers a lesson!'

Somebody voiced a faint cheer, and the men not employed at the guns surged up to the gangway, their cutlasses and pikes puny against the great press of boarders.

Bolitho felt a man drop screaming at his side, and another pitched forward to be ground between the hulls like so much butcher's meat. He could see the privateer's officers urging their men on and pointing him out to their marksmen. Shots banged and whistled around him, and the cries and jeers had risen to one, terrifying roar.

The hulls shuddered once more and the gap began to disappear. Bolitho peered back at Farquhar. The quarterdeck with its dead marines seemed a long way away, but as he waved his sword in a swift chopping motion he saw the midshipman jerk the lanyard and felt the gun's savage blast pass his face like a hot wind.

The canister shot contained five hundred closely packed musket balls, and like a scythe the miniature bombardment swept through the cheering boarders, cutting them down into a bloody tangle of screams and curses. The boarders faltered, and a young lieutenant who had climbed up on the Andiron's bowsprit dropped unsupported on to the Phalarope's gangway. His scream was cut short as a big seaman lashed out and down with an axe, and then his body was pinned between the hulls and forgotten.

Bolitho shouted wildly, 'Come on, you gunners! Run out! Run outl'

He held out his sword like a barrier in front of his men. 'Back there! Get back!'

His small party fell back, confused by this turn of events. They had facefl certain annihilation, and had accepted it, Now their captain had changed his mind. Or so it seemed.

But Herrick understood. Almost choking with excitement he yelled, 'All guns run outl'

Bolitho saw the survivors from the carronade's single blast falling back towards their guns, shocked and dismayed as the Phalarope's muzzles trundled forward and upwards towards them.

'Fire!' Bolitho almost fell overboard, but felt Stockdale catch his arm as the whole battery exploded beneath his feet.

The air seemed to come alive with inhuman screams as the whirling chain shot cut through sails and rigging alike in an overwhelming tempest of metal. Foremast and maintopmast fell together, the great weight of spars and canvas smashing down the remaining boarders and covering the gunports in a whirling mass of canvas.

The recoil of Phalarope's broadside seemed to drive the two ships apart, leaving a trail of wreckage and corpses floating between them.

Bolitho leaned against the nettings, his breath sharp and painful. 'Reload! Carry on firing!' Whatever happened next, the Phalarope had spoken with authority, and had hit hard.

The frigate's proud outline was broken and confused in tangled shrouds and sails. Where her foremast had been minutes before there was only a bright-toothed stump, and the resonant cheers had given way to screams and confusion.

But she pushed forward across the Phalarope's bows, followed by a further ragged salvo and a single angry bark from a forecastle nine-pounder. Then she was clear, gathering her tattered _sails like garments to cover her scars, and pushing downwind into the rolling bank of smoke.

Bolitho stood watching her, his heart thumping, his eyes watering from strain and emotion.

The minutes dragged by, and then the insane realisation came to him. The Andiron was not putting about. She had taken enough.

Half stumbling he returned to the quarterdeck where Rennie's marines were grinning at him and Farquhar was leaning on the smoking carronade as if he no longer trusted what he saw.

Then they started to cheer. It was not much at first. Then it gathered strength and power until it moved above and below decks in an unbroken tide.

It was part pride and part relief. Some men were sobbing uncontrollably, others capered on the bloodstained decks like madmen.

Herrick ran aft, his hat awry, his blue eyes shining with excitement. 'You did for them, sir! My God, you scuppered 'em!'

He clasped Bolitho's hand, unable to stop himself. Even old Proby was grinning.

Bolitho controlled his voice with one last effort. `Thank you, gentlemen.' He looked along the littered decks, feeling the pain and "the blind exultation. 'Next time we will do better!'

He swung round and pushed through the whooping marines towards the dark sanctuary of the cabin hatch.

Behind him, as if. through a fog, he heard Herrick shout, 'I don't know about next time, lads! This will do me for a bit!'

Bolitho stood breathing hard in the narrow passageway listening to their excitement and laughter. They were grateful, even happy, he realised dully. Perhaps the bill would not be too high after all.

There was so much to do. So many things to prepare and restore before the ship would be ready to fight again. He fingered the worn sword hilt and stared wearily at the deck beams. But it would wait a moment longer. Just a short moment.

 

Herrick leaned heavily on the forecastle rail and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Only the slightest breeze ruffled the calm sea ahead of the gently pitching bows, and as he watched he saw the sun dipping towards the horizon, its glowing reflection already waiting to receive it and allow night to hide the Phalarope's scars.

Herrick could feel his legs shaking, and again he tried to tell himself it was due to fatigue and the strain of a continuous day's working. Within an hour of the privateer's disappearance Bolitho had returned to the quarterdeck, his dark hair once more gathered neatly to the nape of his neck, his face freshly shaved, and the dust of battle brushed from the uniform. Only the lines at the comers of his mouth, the grave restlessness in his eyes betrayed any inner feelings as he passed his orders and began the work of repairing the damage to his ship and crew.

At first Herrick had imagined the task impossible. The men's relief had given way to delayed shock, so that individual sailors lay aimlessly about the stained decks like marionettes with severed strings, or just stood and' stared listlessly at the aftermath of the nightmare.

Bolitho's sudden appearance had started a train of events which nobody could really explain. Every officer and man was too spent, too dulled by the brief and savage encounter to spare any strength for protest. The dead had been gathered at the lee rail and sewn into pathetic anonymous bundles. Lines of kneeling men had moved from forward to aft working with heavy holystones to scrub away the dark stains to the accompaniment of clanking pumps and the indifferent gurgle of sea-water.

The tattered and useless sails were sent down and replaced with fresh canvas, while Tozer, the sailmaker, and his mates squatted on every available deck space, needles and palms moving like lightning as they patched and repaired anything which could be salvaged and used again.

Ledward, the carpenter, moved slowly around the splintered gun battery, making a note here, taking a measurement there, until at length he was ready to play his part in restoring the frigate to her original readiness. Even now, as Herrick relived the fury of the bombardment and heard the screams and moans of wounded men, the hammers and saws were busy, and the whole new areas of planking were being tamped neatly into place to await the pitch and paint of the following morning.

He shivered again and cursed as his knees nearly gave under him. It was shock rather than mere fatigue. He knew that now.

He thought back to his impressions of the battle, to his own stupid relief and loud-voiced humour when the enemy had hauled away. It had been like listening to another, uncontrollable being who had been incapable of either silence or composure. Just to be alive and unharmed had meant more than anything.

Now as the sky grew darker astern of the slow moving ship he examined his true feelings and tried to put his recollections into some semblance of order.

He had even tried to regain some of the brief contact he had made with Bolitho. He had crossed the quarterdeck where the captain had been staring down at the labouring sailors and had said, `You saved us all that time, sir. Another minute and she'd have been into us with a full broadside! It was a clever ruse to ask us to heave to. That privateer was a cunning one and no mistake!'

Bolitho had not lifted his gaze from the maindeck. When he had replied it had been as if he was speaking to himself. `Andiron is an old ship. She has been out here for ten years.' He had made a brief gesture towards the maindeck. 'Phalarope is new. Every gun is fitted with the new flintlock and the carronades are almost unknown except in the Channel Fleet. No, Mr. Herrick, there is little room for congratulations!'

Herrick had studied Bolitho's brooding profile, aware perhaps for the first time of the man's constant inner battle. 'All the same, sir, she outgunned us!' He had watched for some sign of the Bolitho he had seen waving his sword on the starboard gangway while shots had hammered down around him like hail. But there had been nothing. He had ended lamely, 'You'll see, sir, things will be different after this.'

Bolitho had straightened his back, as if throwing off some invisible weight. When he had turned his grey eyes had been cold and unfeeling. 'I hope you are right, Mr. Herrick! For my part I was disgusted with such a shambles! I dread to contemplate what might have happened in a fight to the finish!'

Herrick had felt himself flushing. 'I was only thinking . .

Bolitho had snapped. 'When I require an opinion from my third lieutenant I will let him know! Until that moment, Mr. Herrick, perhaps you would be good enough to make your people get to work! There will be time later for suppositions and self-adulation!' He had swung on his heel and recommencedd his pacing.

Herrick watched the surgeon's party carry another limp corpse from the main hatch and lay it beside the others. Again, another picture of Bolitho. sprang to his mind.

Herrick had been between decks on a tour of inspection with the carpenter. There were no shot holes beneath the Water-line, but it had been his duty to make sure for his own satisfaction. Still dulled by the noise of battle he had followed Ledward beneath the massive, curved beams, his tired eyes half mesmerised by the man's shaded lantern. Together they had stepped through a screen and entered a scene from hell itself.

Lanterns ringed the deck space, to allow none of the horror to escape his eyes, and in the centre of the yellow glare, strapped and writhing like a sacrifice on an altar, was a badly wounded seaman, his leg already half amputated by Tobias Ellice, the surgeon. The latter's fat, brick-red face was devoid of expression as his bloody fingers worked busily with the glittering saw, his chins bouncing in time against the top of his scarlet-daubed apron. His assistants were using all- their strength to restrain the struggling victim and pin his spreadeagled body on top of the platform of sea chests, which sufficed as an operating table. The man had rolled his eyes with each nerve-searing thrust of the saw, had bitten into the leather strap between his teeth until the blood had spurted from his lips, and Ellice had carried on with his amputation.

Around the circle of light the other wretched wounded had awaited their turn, some propped on their elbows as if unable to tear their eyes from the gruesome spectacle. Others lay moaning and sobbing in the shadows, their lives ebbing away and thereby spared the agony of knife and saw. The air had been thick with the stench of blood and rum, the latter being the only true way of killing the victims' senses before their turn came.

Ellice had looked up as the man had kicked out wildly and then fallen lifeless even as the severed limb had dropped into a waiting trough. He had seen Herrick's face stiff with shock and had remarked in his thick, tipsy voice, `A day indeed, Mr. 'Errick! I sew an' I stitch, I saws an' I probes, but still they rushes to join their mates aloft!' He had rolled his rheumy eyes towards heaven and had reached for a squat leather bottle. `Maybe a litle nip for yerself, Mr. 'Errick?' He had lifted it against the light. 'No? Ah well then, a little sustenance for meself!'

He had given the merest nod to his loblolly boy, who in turn had pointed out another man by the ship's rounded side. The latter had been immediately seized and hauled screaming across the chests, his cries unheeded as Ellice wiped his mouth and had then ripped away the shirt from the man's lacerated arm.

Herrick had turned away, his face sweating as the man's scream had probed deeper into his eardrums. He had stopped in his tracks, suddenly aware that Bolitho was standing slightly behind him.

Bolitho had moved slowly around the pain-racked figures, his voice soothing but too soft for Herrick to comprehend. Here he had reached to touch a man's hand as it groped blindly for comfort or reassurance. There he had stopped to close the eyes of a man already dead. At one instant he had paused beneath a spiralling lantern and had asked quietly, `How many, Mr. Ellice? What is the bill?'

Ellice had grunted and gestured to his men that he had completed his ministrations with the limp figure across the sheets. `Twenty killed, Cap'n! Twenty more badly wounded, an' another thirty 'alf an' 'alf!'

It was then that Herrick had seen Bolitho's mask momentarily drop away. There had been pain on his face. Pain and despair.            -

Herrick had immediately forgotten his anger and resentment at the captain's remarks earlier on the quarterdeck. The Bolitho he had seen on the. ship's side waving his sword had been real. So, too, was this one.

He stared down at the canvas-shrouded corpses and tried to remember the faces to fit against the names scrawled on each lolling bundle. But already they were fading, lost in memory like the smoke of the battle which had struck them down.

Herrick started as he caught sight of Lieutenant Okes' thin figure moving slowly along the shadowed maindeck. He had hardly seen Okes at all since the action. It was as if the man had been waiting for the hard-driven sailors to finish their work so that he could have the deck to himself.

There had been that moment immediately after the sound of the last shot had rolled away in the smoke. Okes had staggered up through a hatchway, his eyes wild and uncontrolled. He had seemed shocked beyond understanding as he had looked around him, as if expecting to see the enemy ship alongside. Okes had seen Herrick watching him, and his eyes had strayed past to the smoking guns in the battery which he had left to fend for themselves.

He had clutched Herrick's arm, his voice unrestrained and desperate. `Had to go below, Thomas! Had to find those fellows who ran away!' He had swayed and added wildly, `You believe me, don't you?'

Herrick's contempt and anger had faded with the discovery that Okes was terrified almost to a point of madness. The realisation filled him with a mixture of pity and shame.

`Keep your voice down, man!' Herrick had looked round for Vibart. `You damn fool! Try and keep your head!'

He watched Okes now as the man skirted the corpses and then retraced his steps to the stern. He too was reliving his own misery. Destroying himself with the knowledge of his cowardice and disgrace.

Herrick found time to wonder if the captain had noticed Okes' disappearance during the battle. Perhaps not. Maybe Okes would recover after this, he thought grimly. If not, his escape might be less easy the next time.

He saw Midshipman Neale's small figure scampering along the maindeck and felt a touch of warmth. The bay had not faltered throughout the fight. He had seen him on several occasions, running with messages, yelling shrilly to the men of his division, or just standing wide-eyed at his station. Neale's loss would have been felt throughout the ship, of that Herrick was quite sure.

He hid a smile as the boy skidded to a halt and touched his hat. `Mr. Herrick, sir! Captain's compliments and would you lay aft to supervise burial party!' He gulped for breath. `There's thirty altogether, sir!'

Herrick adjusted his hat and nodded gravely. `And how are you feeling?'

The boy shrugged. `Hungry, sir!'

Herrick grinned. `Try fattening a ship's rat with biscuit, Mr. Neale. As good as rabbit any day!' He strode aft, leaving Neale staring after him, his forehead creased in a frown.

Neale walked slowly past the bow-chasers, deep in thought. Then he nodded very slowly. `Yes, I might try it,' he said softly.

 

Bolitho felt his head loll and he jerked himself back against his chair and stared at the pile of reports on his table. All but completed. He rubbed his sore eyes and then stood up.

Astern, through the great windows he could see moonlight on the black water and could hear the gentle sluice and creak

of the rudder below him. His mind was still fogged by the countless orders he had given, the requests and demands he had answered.

Sails and cordage to be repaired, a new spar broken out to replace the missing topgallant. Several of the boats had been damaged and one of the cutters smashed to fragments. In a week, driving the men hard, there would be little outward sign of the battle, he thought wearily. But the scars would be there, deep and constant inside each man's heart.

He recalled the empty deck in the fading light as he had stood over the dead men and had read the well-tried words of the burial service. Midshipman Farquhar had held a light above the book, and he had noticed that his hand had been steady and unwavering.

He still did not like Farquhar, he decided. But he had proved a first-class officer in. combat. That made up for many things.

As the last corpse had splashed alongside to begin its journey

two thousand fathoms deep he had turned, only to stop in surprise as he had realised that the deck had filled silently with men from below decks. Nobody spoke, but here and there a man coughed quietly, and once he had heard a youngster sobbing uncontrollably.

He had wanted to say something to them. To make them understand. He had seen Herrick beside the marine guard, and Vibart's massive figure outlined against the sky at the quarter-deck rail. For a brief moment they all had been together, bound by the bonds of suffering and loss. Words would have soiled the moment. A speech would have sounded cheap. He had walked aft to the ladder and paused beside the wheel.

The helmsman bad stiffened. `Course south-west by south, sir! Full an' by!'

He had returned here. To this one safe, defended place where there was no need for words of any sort.

He looked up angrily as Stockdale padded through the door. The man studied him gravely. `I've told that servant o' yours to bring your supper, Captain.' Stockdale peered disapprovingly at the litter of charts and written reports. `Pork, sir. Nicely sliced and fried, just as you like it.' He held out a bottle. `I took the liberty of breaking out one o' your clarets, sir.'

The tension gripped Bolitho's voice in a vice. `What the hell are you jabbering about?'

Stockdale was undaunted. `You can flog me for sayin' it, sir, but today was a victoryl You done us all proudly. I think you deserve a drink!'

Bolitho stared at him lost for words.

Stockdale began to gather up the papers. 'An' further, Captain, I think you deserves a lot more!'

As Bolitho sat in silence watching the big coxswain laying the table for his solitary meal, the Phalarope plucked at the light airs and pushed quietly beneath the stars.

From dawn to sunset she had given much. But there would be other days ahead, thanks to her captain.