Herrick watched the brig’s jolly-boat pulling away and said,

“Brave fellow.” Then he turned on his heel and strode away to attend to his ship.

Allday came aft and waited for Bolitho to see him.

“Ozzard’s sent your gear across to Odin, sir. He’s gone with it. Wouldn’t stay in Benbow a second time, he said. Beggin’ your pardon, sir, nor would I.”

Bolitho smiled. “It seems we are always making this journey, Allday.”

He glanced at the midshipmen at the flag halliards preparing to strike his flag and hoist Herrick’s broad-pendant as he departed.

At least it would protect Herrick from any criticism if the worst happened.

He turned and shaded his eyes to watch for Rapid ’s boat but it had already merged alongside and was lost from view.

Lieutenant the Honourable Oliver Browne had not even hesitated. It would make those in safe occupations ashore think again if they could have seen his sacrifice.

Herrick joined him and said, “Your acting flag-lieutenant is here, sir.”

They all looked down at Midshipman Stirling, who with bag in one hand and signals book under his arm was staring at Bolitho.

Bolitho saw that the midshipman had one hand resting in a sling, and said, “Take his things, Allday.”

Allday almost winked, but not quite. “Aye, aye, sir. This way, young sir, I’ll see you get no lip from them Odins.”

“Well, Thomas.”

Herrick rubbed his chin. “Aye, sir, it’s time.”

“Remember, Thomas, a victory now will put heart into the ordinary people at home. They’ve had much to bear over the years. It’s not only sailors who suffer in a war, you know.” Herrick forced a grin. “Don’t fret, sir, I’ll be there with the squadron. No matter what.” He was making a great effort.

“Besides, I’ve got to be at the wedding, haven’t I?” They shook hands.

“I’d not forgive you otherwise, Thomas.” Herrick straightened his back. “Carry on, Major Clinton.” Clinton’s sword glittered in the pale sunlight. “Marines!

Present arms! ”

The drums rolled and the fifers broke into Heart of Oak, and with a last glance at his friend Bolitho climbed down to the waiting barge.

“Bear off forrard! Out oars!” Allday’s shadow rose over the rear-admiral and diminutive midshipman like a cloak. “Give way, all! ” The green-painted barge turned swiftly away from Benbow’s side, and as it pushed out of her protective lee, Bolitho was startled by a sudden burst of wild cheering. He turned and looked back as Benbow’s seamen lined the gangway and swarmed into the shrouds to cheer him on his way.

Allday murmured softly, “Good ship, sir.” Bolitho nodded, unable to find words for the unexpected demonstration.

Benbow, which had been his flagship in some of the worst fighting he had known, was wishing him well.

He was glad of the cold spray which danced over the gunwale and touched his face as if to steady and reassure him. He saw Midshipman Stirling staring enthralled at the Odin where the ceremony would begin all over again.

Allday stared at the small two-decker with the fierce Norse-man’s figurehead and winged helmet waiting to receive them.

“Proper pot o’ paint she looks!” he muttered disdainfully.

“What do you think of all this, er, Mr Stirling?” The boy looked gravely at his rear-admiral and took a few seconds to answer. He had just been writing a letter in his mind to his mother, describing this very moment.

“It is the happiest day of my life, sir.” He said it so seriously that Bolitho momentarily forgot his anxieties.

“Then we must try and keep it so, eh?” The barge hooked on to Odin’s main-chains, and Bolitho saw Inch peering down at him, not wishing to miss a minute of it as his ship hoisted the flag.

In his excitement Stirling made for the side of the barge, but was forestalled by Allday’s great fist on his shoulder.

“Belay that, sir! This is the admiral’s barge, not some mid-shipmite’s bumboat!”

Bolitho nodded to them and then climbed swiftly up Odin’s tumblehome.

“Welcome aboard, sir!” Inch had to shout above the din of fifes and barked commands.

Bolitho glanced aloft as his flag broke from the mizzen truck.

There it was, and there it would remain until it was finished. One way or the other.

“You may get the ship under way, Captain Inch.” Inch was staring uncertainly at Midshipman Stirling.

Bolitho added calmly, “Oh, Mr Stirling, signal, if you please.

From Flag to Rapid. Make, We Happy Few. ” Stirling scribbled furiously on his book and then ran to muster the signalling party.

Bolitho shaded his eyes to watch the little brig turn stern on to the rest of the squadron. Stirling would not understand the signal, neither probably would Rapid ’s signals midshipman.

But Browne would know. Bolitho turned towards the poop.

And that mattered.

“Rapid ’s acknowledged, sir.” Bolitho entered his new quarters and saw Allday carefully placing the bright presentation sword on a rack.

Allday said defensively, “Makes it more like home, sir.” Bolitho sat down and watched Ozzard bustling around the cabin as if he had served in Odin for years.

Stirling entered and stood awkwardly, shifting from one foot to the other.

“Well, Mr Stirling, what do you suggest I do now?” The boy regarded him warily and then said, “I think you should invite some of the ship’s officers to dinner, sir.” Allday’s face split into a grin. “A proper flag-lieutenant already, sir, an’ that’s no error!”

Bolitho smiled. Perhaps by being with Browne, Stirling had also learned something.

“That is an excellent idea. Would you ask the first lieutenant to see me?”

The door closed and Allday said, “I’ll find you a good sword for later on.”

By later on, Allday meant the forthcoming battle with the French.

But now the rear-admiral would show his other face to Odin’s officers, the one which displayed confidence and a certainty of victory. For on the day after tomorrow they would be looking to him again and, right or wrong, they had to trust him.

Inch entered the cabin and peered round as if to assure himself that the quarters were suitable for his unexpected arrival.

He remarked, “Phalarope’s taken station to wind’rd as ordered, sir.” He tossed his hat to his own servant. “If you’ll pardon my saying so, sir, I would that your nephew was aboard Odin instead of that ship.”

“You never alter, Inch.” Bolitho lay back on the bench and listened to the sea surging around the rudder. “But in this case I think you are wrong.”

He did not see the perplexed look on Inch’s long face. When action was joined it was somehow right that his brother’s son should be in that same old frigate. Like a joining of hands, after all the bitterness which had driven them apart.

Allday left the cabin, wondering what sort of companion Inch’s coxswain would make. He saw Stirling hovering in the lobby and asked, “All too much, is it?” The boy turned on him as if to hit back but then smiled. “It’s a big step, Mr Allday.”

Allday grinned and squatted on the breech of a nine-pounder.

“Not Mister, just Allday, it suits well enough.” The boy relaxed and studied him curiously. “But you speak with the admiral like one of his equals.” Allday looked down at his fists. “Friend, more like. It’s what he needs.”

He stood up suddenly and leaned over the midshipman’s slight figure.

“If you go aft to him and act normal, he’ll treat you the same.” He spoke with such force that Stirling was impressed into silence.

“Cause he’s just a man, see? Not God Almighty! Right now he needs all his friends, not his bloody lieutenants, so just you remember that, sir! ” He punched the midshipman gently on his uninjured arm. “But you tell him what I said, or give him any of your lip, an’ I’ll take you apart, sir! ” Stirling grinned. “Got you, Allday! And thanks.” Allday watched him re-enter the cabin and sighed. Seems a nice lad, he thought. Of course, when he was made lieutenant he might well change. He looked round the shadowy between-decks at the tethered gun at every sealed port, brooding and waiting, like all the others in the squadron. Stirling was fourteen. What the hell was he doing here when they were about to sail into battle? What the hell were any of them doing here?

Allday shivered. It got worse, not better. Stirling was full of high spirits, in spite of his injury, or perhaps because of it. But he did not know what it would be like when those guns were surrounded with yelling, smoke-blackened madmen, and the order was to fire, reload and keep firing, no matter what.

He thought of the battle-crazed marine who had almost driven his bayonet through him on the Ceres’ orlop deck.

Maybe peace was really coming, and this might be the last sea-fight for any of them.

Allday thought too of the Phalarope standing to windward of them. It made him feel uneasy, just to know she was there.

A sergeant of marines clumped out of the shadows and peered at him.

“Feel like a wet, matey?”

Allday grinned. “From a bullock?”

The sergeant took his arm and led him towards the companion ladder.

“Why not?”

They climbed down through the familiar shipboard smells and the headier aroma of Jamaican rum.

Maybe Odin wasn’t such a bad ship after all.

The marine sergeants and corporals shared a small, screened off portion of the lower gun-deck. They greeted Allday with cheerful grins, and soon had him comfortably seated with a pot of rum by his elbow.

The colour-sergeant said, “Now, matey, as the rear-admiral’s personal cox’n, so to speak, you’ll know wot we’re goin’ to do, right?”

Allday leant against the side and expanded. “Well, usually me an’ the admiral . . .”

By the evening of that day, Odin, with Phalarope keeping well to windward, were out of sight of the remainder of the squadron.

In the great cabin, resplendent with the table fully extended and the best glasses and silver laid before the chattering officers, Captain Francis Inch was bursting with pleasure and pride.

Nothing could ever be quite so perfect again.

Bolitho sat at the head of the table and allowed the conver-sation and wit to flow around him, while glasses were refilled and toasts drunk with barely a break in between.

Bolitho glanced at the ship’s lieutenants. Mostly they were so young, and like Allday, although he had no way of knowing it, he was thinking of this same carefree place as it would soon become when the ship was called to quarters.

He studied the officers in turn and tried to remember each by name. Sons, and lovers, but not many husbands amongst them.

Yet. A normal enough wardroom in any ship of the line.

They would fight, and they must win.

One young lieutenant was saying, “Yes, I’m really going to get married when we get home again.” He held up his hand to silence the derisive laughter. “No, this time I mean it!” Then he turned and looked at Bolitho, emboldened by claret or touched perhaps by the thought of the battle yet to come, he asked, “May I ask, sir, are you married?” Bolitho smiled. “Like you, Mr Travers, I am getting married when we anchor again in Plymouth Sound.”

“Thank you for that, sir.” The lieutenant studied him anxiously. “I thought, just for a moment—”

“I know what you were thinking.” He was suddenly glad he had remembered the lieutenant’s name. “The idea of marriage has given you something to stay alive for, am I right?” Travers lowered his eyes. “I am not afraid, sir.”

“I know that too.” He looked away. How can I not become involved?

Bolitho said, “But it also gives you something to fight for, remember that and you’ll not fail.” As the most junior guest present, Midshipman George Stirling, whose home was in Winchester, sat enthralled and watched everything.

In his mind he was composing another long letter to his mother.

My dearest Mother . . . This evening we are standing towards the French coast. I am dining with Rear-Admiral Bolitho.

He gave a secret smile. She might not believe it. He was not sure that he did either.

He tried again.

He is such a fine man, and I nearly cried when the people lined the ship to give their huzzas when he left for Odin.

He realized that Bolitho was watching him down the length of the table.

Bolitho asked, “Are you ready, Mr Stirling?” The midshipman swallowed hard and lifted his goblet which suddenly seemed too heavy to hold.

Bolitho glanced at the others, their faces flushed and cheerful. Wars were not made by young men, he thought, but they had to fight them. It seemed right that Stirling should give the final toast. And it would be just that for some of these same young men.

Stirling tried not to lick his lips as every eye turned in his direction. Then he recalled what Allday had told him about Bolitho. He’s just a man.

“Gentlemen, the toast is Victory! Death to the French!” The rest was lost in a roar of approval, as if the ship herself was eager to fight.

“CAP’N’S comin’ up, sir.”

Pascoe lowered his telescope and nodded to the master’s mate.

“Thank you.”

He had been watching the Odin going through her sail and gun drills, the ports opening and closing as if controlled by a giant’s touch, sails filling and then reefing with equal precision.

He heard Emes’s step on the damp planking and turned towards him. He never knew what sort of mood might lie behind Emes’s impassive features, what he might really be thinking and planning in the privacy of his cabin.

Pascoe touched his hat. “Sou’-east by south, sir. Wind’s veered a trifle, north by east.”

Emes strode to the quarterdeck rail and gripped it hard as he stared first along his command, the comings and goings of the watch, and the boatswain’s party who were as usual splicing and repairing. An endless task. Then he shifted his gaze to Odin as she rode comfortably some four cables to starboard.

“Hmm. Visibility’s poor.” Emes’s lower lip jutted forward. It was the only sign he ever gave that he was worried about something. “It’ll be an early dusk, I shouldn’t wonder.” He tugged a watch from his breeches and flicked open the guard. “Your uncle appears to be giving Captain Inch some extra drill.” He smiled, but only briefly. “Flagship indeed.” Emes walked aft to the compass and peered at it, then at the slate which hung nearby.

Pascoe watched the helmsmen and master’s mate of the watch, the way they tensed when Emes was near, as if they expected him to abuse them.

Pascoe could not understand it. They were actually afraid of the captain. And yet Emes had done little or nothing to warrant such fear. He was unbending over matters of discipline, but never awarded excessive punishment like some captains. He was often impatient with subordinates, but rarely used his rank to insult them in front of their men. What was it about him, Pascoe wondered? A cold, withdrawn man who had not backed down to his rear-admiral even under the cloud of a possible court martial.

Emes walked across the deck and stared at the sea and damp mist. It was more like drizzle, which made the shrouds and canvas drip and shine in the strange light.

“Has Mr Kincade inspected all the carronades today, Mr Pascoe?”

Kincade was Phalarope’s gunner, a sour, taciturn man who appeared to love his ugly charges more than mankind itself.

“Aye, sir. They’ll give a good account of themselves.”

“Really.” Emes eyed him bleakly. “Eager for it, are you?” Pascoe flushed. “It’s better than waiting, sir.” The midshipman-of-the-watch called hesitantly, “Rapid ’s in sight to wind’rd, sir.”

Emes snapped, “I’m going to my quarters. Call me before you shorten sail, and keep good station on the Flag.” He strode to the companion-way without even a glance at Rapid ’s murky silhouette.

Pascoe relaxed. Was that too part of an act, he wondered? To walk away without seemingly caring about Rapid as she headed towards the enemy shore. Like the way he deliberately refused to exercise the carronade crews, even though the flagship had been drilling for most of the day.

The sailing-master, a gaunt, mournful-faced man who had obviously been keeping out of Emes’s way, climbed on to the quarterdeck and glanced at the traverse board.

Pascoe said, “What of the weather, Mr Bellis?” Bellis grimaced. “It’ll get worse, sir. Can feel it in me bones.” He cocked his head. “Listen to that lot!”

Pascoe thrust his hands behind him and gripped them together. He had heard the pumps going. They went during each watch now. Perhaps they were right about the old ship. The Bay was certainly playing hell with her seams.

The master warmed to his theme. “Too long in port, sir, that’s what. Should’ve left her be. I’ll lay odds she’s as ripe as a pear round the keel, no matter what the dockyard said!” Pascoe turned away. “Thank you for your confidence, Mr Bellis.” The master grinned. “My pleasure, sir.” Pascoe raised his telescope and stared at the little brig. Almost lost now in another flurry of grey, wet mist.

He had read the fighting instructions, and pictured Browne now as he prepared himself for what lay ahead. Pascoe shivered.

Tonight.

He wished more than anything he was going with him. Even the thought made him angry. He was getting disloyal like Bellis and some of the other old hands.

Phalarope had been a fine ship. He clutched the hammock nettings as the deck tilted steeply to the wind. His uncle had once stood just here. A chill seemed to touch his spine, as if he were standing naked in the wet breeze.

He must have stood and watched the other frigate, Andiron, approaching, her British colours hiding her new identity of a privateer.

Commanded by my father.

Pascoe looked along the gun-deck and nodded slowly. Herrick, Allday and poor Neale had walked that deck, even Bolitho’s steward Ferguson, who had lost an arm up there on the forecastle.

I’ve come to you now. Pascoe smiled self-consciously. But he felt better for it.

Lieutenant Browne had been hanging on to the jolly-boat’s gunwale for so long his hand felt numb and useless. Ever since they had thrust away from the brig’s protective side he had been beset by a procession of doubts and heart-stopping moments of sheer terror.

The heavily muffled oars had continued in their unbroken stroke, while a master’s mate had crouched beside the coxswain, a lighted compass hidden beneath a tarpaulin screen.

Lieutenant Searle said, “According to my calculations we should be close now. But as far as I can tell we might be in China!”

Browne peered from bow to bow, his eyes raw with salt spray. He felt the boat sidle and veer away on a sudden current, and heard the master’s mate mutter new instructions to the coxswain.

Had to be soon. Must be. He saw a wedge of black rock rise up to starboard and slide away again, betrayed only by the uneasy surf.

He peered at the sky. Black as a highwayman’s boot.

Searle stiffened at his side, and for one terrible moment Browne thought he had seen a French guard-boat.

Searle exclaimed, “Look! Larboard bow!” He clapped his arm excitedly. “Well done, Oliver!”

Browne tried to swallow but the roof of his mouth was like leather. He peered harder into the darkness until he thought his eyes would burst from their sockets.

It was there. A crescent of beach, a long frothing necklace of surf.

He tried to stay calm and unmoved. He could still be wrong.

The rock he had remembered so vividly might look quite different from this bearing.

“Easy, all! Boat yer oars!”

The boat surged forward and ground on to the beach with an indescribable clatter and roar. Browne almost fell as seamen leapt into the shallows to steady the hull, while Searle watched their small party of six men until they were all clear and wading ashore.

Searle rasped, “See to the powder, man! Nicholl, scout ahead, lively!”

There were a few quick whispers. “Good luck, sir.” Another unknown voice called, “I’ll keep a wet for you, Harry!” Then the boat had gone, oars backing furiously as freed of her load she turned eagerly towards the open water.

Browne stood quite still and listened to the wind, the gurgle of water among rocks and across the tight sand.

Searle strode back to him, his hanger already drawn.

“Ready, Oliver?” His teeth shone white in the darkness. “You know the way.”

Then Browne saw the rock standing above him. Like a squatting camel. As he remembered it from when he had stood there with Bolitho.

Searle had selected his men himself. Apart from two competent gunner’s mates, there were four of the toughest, most villainous looking hands Browne had ever laid eyes on. Searle had described them as fugitives from more than one gibbet. Browne could well believe it.

They paused by a waving clump of salt-encrusted grass and Browne said quietly, “The path begins here.” He was surprised he was so calm now that the moment had arrived. He had been half afraid that his resolve might vanish once he had left the ship and the familiar faces and routine.

I am all right.

Searle whispered, “Moubray, get up there and stay with Nicholl, Garner take rear-guard.”

The remaining seaman and the two gunner’s mates lurched up the path, their bodies loaded with powder and weapons like so many pit ponies.

The path was steeper than Browne remembered, and at the top they all laid down in the wet grass to regain their breath and find their bearings.

Browne said softly, “See that pale thing? That’s the prison wall. If there are no new prisoners there, the guard will be pretty slack. Our target is to the right. Hundred paces and then round a low hill.”

The gunner’s mate named Jones hissed, “Wot’s that, then?” They all lay prone and Browne said, “Horses. A night picket of the dragoons I told you about. They’ll keep to the road.” Mercifully, the slow, drumming hoofbeats were soon lost to the other night noises.

Searle rose to his feet. “Advance.” He pointed with his hanger.

“Don’t stumble, and the first man to loose off a weapon gets my blade on his neck!”

Browne found he was able to smile. Searle was only twenty, but he had the sturdy assurance of an old campaigner.

It took longer than expected, and Browne had the feeling they had wandered too far to the right.

He felt a great sense of relief when Nicholl, the seaman who was scouting ahead, called in a fierce whisper, “There ’tis, sir!

Dead ahead!”

They all dropped flat while Browne and Searle examined the faint outline of the church.

“The door’s on the far side, facing the road.” Browne made himself think about the next minutes. They might be all there were left for him. What had he expected? It was necessary, but for him and the others it was almost certain death. He smiled to himself. At least his father might see some good in him after this.

He looked from side to side. “Ready?” They all nodded, and some bared their teeth like hounds on a leash.

Then, keeping close against the wall of the church, they edged their way around it towards the opposite side. It was if everyone else had died or been stricken by some terrible plague. Only the grass shivered in the sea-breeze, and the squeak of their shoes made the only other sound.

One man gasped aloud as a bird shot from cover almost between his feet and vanished croaking into the darkness.

Searle exclaimed hoarsely, “Bloody hell!”

“Still!” Browne pressed his back against the rough stones and waited for a challenge or a shot.

Then he moved deliberately away from the wall and peered up at the square Norman tower which he could just determine against the sky. There was a faint glow from a narrow, slitted window. He tried to control his racing thoughts and remember what he had learned about semaphore stations. In England they were usually manned by an officer, one other of warrant rank, and two or three seamen. With the prison so close, it was likely some of them lodged there during the night. If so . . .

Browne joined Searle and whispered, “Test the door.” Jones, the gunner’s mate, grasped the heavy ring which formed the handle and turned it carefully. It squeaked but did not budge.

“Locked, sir.”

Searle beckoned to another of his men. “Moubray, ready with the grapnel!”

Browne held his breath as the grapnel flew through the air and bounced off the wall to fall back amongst them.

But the second time it held firm, and Browne saw the next man swarm up the line and disappear, as if the old church had swallowed him alive.

Searle said between his teeth, “Good man. Used to be a felon in Lime House ’til the press picked him up.” The door handle squeaked again and this time it swung inwards to reveal the small seaman standing there with a grin splitting his face.

“Come inside! Bit warmer ’ere!”

“Hold your noise, damn you!” Searle peered into the shadows.

“S’all right, sir. No bother.” The seaman opened the shutter of a lantern and held it across some spiralling stone stairs. A body in uniform lay spreadeagled where he had fallen, his eyes like pebbles in the light.

Browne swallowed hard. The man’s throat had been cut and there was blood everywhere.

The seaman said calmly, “Only one ’ere, sir, ’e was. Easy as robbin’ a blind baby, sir.”

Searle sheathed his hanger. “You would know, Cooper.” He walked to the stairs. “Harding and Jones, prepare your fuses.” He looked at Browne and smiled tightly. “Let us go and secure our prize, eh?”

Bolitho awoke with a start, his fingers gripping the arms of one of Inch’s comfortable bergères in which he had been dozing on and off since nightfall.

He could tell immediately that the ship’s movements were more lively and forceful, and he heard the sluice of water beneath the counter as Odin heeled over to the wind.

Apart from a solitary shuttered lantern, the stern cabin was in darkness, so that through the heavily streaked window the waves looked angry and near.

The companion-way door opened and Bolitio saw Allday’s shadow against the screen.

“What’s happening?” So he had been unable to sleep too.

“Wind’s veered, sir.”

“More than before?”

“Aye. Nor’-east, or as makes no difference.” He sounded glum.

Bolitho grappled with the news. He had anticipated that the wind might shift. But as far round as the north-east was unthink-able. With only a few hours of darkness left to hide their stealthy approach, they would be slowed down to a mere crawl. It might mean an attack in broad daylight, with every enemy ship for miles around roused and ready to hit back.

“Fetch my clothes.” Bolitho stood up and felt the deck sway over as if to mock him and his plans.

Allday said, “I’ve already told Ozzard. I heard you tossing and turning, sir. That chair’s no place for a good sleep.” Bolitho waited for Allday to open the lantern shutters very slightly. The whole ship was in darkness, the galley fire doused.

It would put the final touch of disaster if the rear-admiral allowed lights to show from the cabin.

He smelt coffee and saw Ozzard’s small shape moving towards him.

Ozzard murmured, “Took the liberty of making this before they put out the fires, sir. Kept it wrapped in a blanket.” Bolitho sipped the coffee gratefully, his mind still busy with alternatives. There could be no turning back, even if he wanted to. Browne would be there by now, or lying dead with his party of volunteers.

He knew he would not break off the attack whatever happened, even though his open-worded instructions to use his discretion left him room to manœuvre up to the last minute.

Perhaps his move to Odin had just been an excuse after all. To protect Herrick, but also to prevent his arguments from changing his mind.

Bolitho slipped his arms into his coat and strode to the door.

He could not wait a moment longer.

On deck the air was alive with the chorus of canvas and clattering blocks. Figures loomed and faded in the shadows, while around the double wheel, like survivors on a tiny reef, the master and his mates, helmsmen and midshipman-of-the-watch stood in a tight, shapeless group.

Inch’s lanky figure bustled to meet him.

“Good morning, sir.” Inch was no actor and could not conceal his surprise. “Is something wrong?” Bolitho took his arm and together they moved to the rail. He said, “It’s the wind.”

Inch stared at him. “The master thinks it will veer still more, sir.

“I see.” Thinks. Old Ben Grubb would have known, as if God were on his side.

Streamers of spindrift twisted through the drumming shrouds, and almost lost abeam, but still on station, Bolitho saw Phalarope.

A ghost ship indeed.

Bolitho bit his lip, then said shortly, “Chartroom.” Followed by Inch and the sailing-master, Bolitho strode into the shuttered space beneath the poop and stared hard at the chart. He could almost feel Inch waiting for a decision, just as he could sense the urgency. Like sand running through a glass. Nothing to slow or stop it.

He said, “We’ll not delay any longer. Call all hands and clear for action right away.” He waited for Inch to relay his order to a boatswain’s mate outside the chartroom door. “You estimate that we are some ten miles to the south-west of the headland?” He saw the sailing-master nod soundlessly and got a brief impression of an anxious but competent face. He suddenly remembered. The man had been the senior master’s mate at Copenhagen when the old master had been cut down. New and, until now, untried.

Inch craned forward to watch Bolitho move the brass dividers over the chart.

“The French squadron is anchored off the point, just north of the Loire Estuary.” Bolitho was thinking aloud. “It would take hours for us to beat against the wind along the original course.

We must pass the French squadron before full daylight and head into the bay where the invasion fleet is anchored.” He looked at the master. “Well?”

Inch said encouragingly, “Come along, Mr M’Ewan.” The master moistened his lips then said firmly, “We can claw inshore now, sir, then come about and steer nor’-west, close-hauled, into the bay. Provided the wind don’t back on us, for if that happens we’ll be in irons an’ no mistake, sir.” Inch opened his mouth as if to protest but closed it when he saw Bolitho nod his head.

“I agree. It will cut the approach by an hour, and with any luck we will slip past the French men-of-war with a mile to spare.” He looked at Inch. “You were going to add something?”

“The wind is not only hard for us, sir.” Inch shrugged helplessly. “The rest of the squadron will be delayed accordingly.”

“I know.”

He heard the muffled pounding of feet, the bang and squeak of screens being removed and obstacles being lowered hastily to the orlop. A ship-of-war. Open from bow to stern, deck above deck, gun above gun, where men lived, hoped, slept and trained.

Now was the testing time for them all.

The first lieutenant yelled, “Cleared for action, sir!” Inch examined his watch and bobbed. “Nine minutes, Mr Graham, that is a good time.”

Bolitho turned away to hide his sudden sadness. Neale had done the same.

He said, “If we delay, we could be destroyed piecemeal.

Whether Commodore Herrick arrives in time to support us or not, we must be able to get amongst those invasion craft.” He looked Inch squarely in the eyes. “It is all that matters.” Surprisingly, Inch beamed. “I know, sir. And Odin is the ship for the task.”

Bolitho smiled. Safe, trusting Inch would never question anything he said.

The chartroom door opened and Midshipman Stirling squeezed inside. Even in the poor lantern light he looked red-eyed and weary.

He said, “I—I apologize for being late, sir.” Bolitho glanced at Inch. “I have forgotten how to sleep that soundly!”

Inch made to leave. “I’ll make the night signal to Phalarope, sir. I hope she’s still there at daybreak!” Bolitho leaned on the chart and stared at the neat figures and bearings. It was a risk. But then it had never been otherwise.

Even now it could all go against them before they had a chance to stand inshore. A solitary fisherman might be risking the weather and the wrath of French guard-boats to put out and earn his keep. He might just see the shielded flare which was now being shown to Phalarope.

He said, “Damnation on doubt. It kills more good sailors than any round shot!”

Stirling glanced round quickly. Inch and the master had gone.

Bolitho was speaking to him.

He asked unsurely, “Could the French prevent our entering the bay, sir?”

Bolitho looked down at him, unaware he had voiced his anxiety aloud.

“They can try, Mr Stirling, they can try. ” He clapped the boy on the shoulder. “Come and walk with me. I need to have the feel of this ship.”

Stirling glowed with pride. Even the fact that Bolitho had unwittingly gripped his injured arm did not tarnish the moment.

Allday, a new cutlass jutting from his belt, watched them pass, and found he could smile in spite of his troubled thoughts.

The boy and his hero. And why not? They would need all their heroes this day.

“Wind’s holding steady, sir!”

Bolitho joined Inch at the quarterdeck rail and peered along the ship’s pale outline. Beyond the forecastle, reeling now as the yards were hauled further round until they were almost fore and aft, he could see nothing. He had purposefully stayed on deck so that his eyes would be accustomed to any change in the light, be ready to detect the first join between sea and sky. And the land.

The deck plunged ponderously in the offshore currents, and Bolitho heard the marines on the poop packing the hammocks even more tightly in the nettings for their protection, and to rest their muskets while they sought out their targets.

Figures moved occasionally below the gangways where every gun stood loaded and ready. Others clambered aloft to make last adjustments to chain-slings and nets, to hoist one more sack of canister to the swivels in the tops, or to splice another fraying line.

Bolitho watched and heard it all. What he did not see he could picture in his mind. Like all those other times, the remorse-less grip on the stomach like steel fingers, the last-moment fear that he had overlooked something.

The ship was answering well, he thought. Inch had proved to be an excellent captain, and it was hard to believe that Bolitho had once thought it unlikely he would even rise above lieutenant.

Bolitho tried to shut his mind to it. The young lieutenant named Travers, now somewhere on the lower gun-deck, waiting with all the other men for the ports to open on their red-painted hell and the guns to begin to roar. He was hoping to get married.

And Inch, who was striding about the quarterdeck, his coat-tails flapping, his cocked hat at a jaunty angle, as he chatted to his first lieutenant and sailing-master. He had a wife named Hannah and two children who lived in Weymouth. What of them if Inch were to fall today? And why should he show such pride and pleasure at being ordered to a battle which could end in total defeat?

And Belinda. He moved restlessly to the nettings, unaware that Stirling was keeping near him like a shadow. He must not think of her now.

He heard a man say quietly, “There’s th’ old Phalarope, Jim.

Rather any other bugger than that ’un for company!” He seemed to sense Bolitho’s nearness and fell silent.

Bolitho stared at the ghostlike outline as Phalarope lifted and plunged abeam. Like Odin, she had her sails close-hauled to make a pale pyramid while the hull still lay in darkness.

Two ships and some eight hundred officers, seamen and marines whom he alone would commit to battle.

He looked down at the midshipman. “How would you like to serve in a frigate?”

Stirling puckered his mouth and considered it. “More than anything, sir.”

“You should speak with my nephew, he—” Bolitho broke off as Stirling’s eyes lit up momentarily like small coals.

Then, what seemed like an eternity later, came the dull boom of an explosion. Like the short-lived glow in the sky, that too was soon lost to the ceaseless murmur of sea and wind.

“What the hell was that?” Inch strode across the deck as if he expected to discover an answer.

Bolitho said quietly, “The charges have been blown, Captain Inch.”

“But, but . . .” Inch stared at him through the darkness. “They are surely too early?”

Bolitho turned away. Too early or too late, Browne must have had his reasons.

He felt Allday move up beside him and raised an arm to allow him to clip a sword to his belt.

“It’s the best I could do, sir. Bit heavier than you’re used to.” He gestured into the darkness. “Mr Browne?”

“Aye. He said he could do it. I wish to God there had been another way.”

Allday sighed. “He knows what he’s about, sir.” He nodded firmly. “Like the time you an’ he rode off to fight that duel, remember?”

“I remember.”

Midshipman Stirling said, “It looks brighter, sir.” Bolitho smiled. “So it does.” He turned his back on the midshipman and said softly, “Allday, there is something I must say.” He saw the coxswain recoil as if he already knew. “If, and I say if, I should fall today—”

“Look here, sir.” Allday spread his hands to emphasize each word. “Anything I’ve said or done since we came to this place don’t matter now. We’ll be all right, sir, just like always, you see.

Bolitho said, “But if. You must promise me you’ll never return to the sea. You’ll be needed at Falmouth. To take care of things.” He tried to ease Allday’s despair. “I’d like to have your word on it.”

Allday nodded dumbly.

Bolitho drew the sword from its scabbard and cut through the air above Stirling’s head.

Several seamen and marines standing nearby nudged each other, and one shouted, “We’ll teach they buggers, sir!” Bolitho dropped his arm and said, “Now I’m ready, Allday.” Captain Inch cupped his hands. “Lay her on the starboard tack, Mr Graham!”

“After-guard, man the mizzen braces!” Bolitho stood amidst and yet apart from the busy activity as Odin laid herself over to the wind again.

Inch said brightly, “No sign of the French, sir!” Bolitho glanced up at the braced yards and the hard-bellied canvas, already much paler against the sky.

“They’ll be out soon enough.” He saw his flag streaming from the mizzen truck, as yet without colour. “Have another flag ready to bend on, Mr Stirling.” He found he could actually smile at Inch. “When they come, I want Remond to know who he is fighting, so even if it is shot away we’ll hoist another directly!” Allday watched Bolitho’s face, the way he seemed to rouse the men around him merely with a glance.

He was suddenly afraid for him, for what this impudent gesture might cost.

A pale gold thread touched the rim of the land and Inch exclaimed, “We’ve passed the French squadron, sir!” Bolitho looked at Allday and smiled. He at least understood.

He said, “Very well, Captain Inch. When you are ready, run out your guns.”

LIEUTENANT Searle stood at the top of a straight ladder and peered at the complicated array of tackles and blocks which hung from the roof. They were obviously connected to the semaphore struc-ture on the tower.

He said, “No wonder they need sailors for this work, Oliver.

No landsman would ever be able to untangle it.” He touched the damp stone wall and grimaced. “We’ll need a big charge to blow down the whole tower.”

Browne stared up at him. “The whole tower?” Searle was already beckoning to one of his gunner’s mates.

“Up here, Jones! Move yourself, man!” To Browne he added, “This place is built like a fortress. How long do you imagine it would take the Frenchies to mount another semaphore on the top of the tower, eh?”

Searle turned to the gunner’s mate. “Pack the charges tight beneath the stairway under the outer wall. That should do it.” When the man remained silent he snapped, “Well, man?” Jones rubbed his jaw and looked up the ladder to the square trap-door at the top.

“I reckon, sir.”

He clambered down again and could be heard talking with his companion.

“Bloody fools!” Searle pushed upwards at the trap-door. “All of a quiver because it’s a church! You’d think they were a bunch of saints!”

As Searle vanished through the trap-door, Browne followed him, chilled instantly by the breeze across the headland.

Searle was still fuming. “More sins have been committed by the church than any seaman, I shouldn’t wonder!”

“You’re very cynical for one so young.” Browne walked to the parapet and stared towards the sea. As yet it was still too dark to see it. But for the tang of salt, and the liberal coating of gull droppings on the tower, they could have been anywhere.

Searle chuckled. “My father is a clergyman. I should know.” Browne heard the thump of a body being hauled from the stairs and recalled that the French seaman had not even bothered to carry a weapon when Cooper, the cut-throat from Lime House, had killed him. He remembered the curious stares of the French people who had seen them marched along the road as prisoners.

Why should they be on their guard? It was unlikely anyone in the north or west of England would anticipate being confronted by a Frenchman.

“Sir!”

“Not so loud!” Searle threw himself down on to the ladder.

“What is it now?”

“Someone comin’!”

Browne hurried to the other parapet and peered down to where the entrance should be. There was a path of sorts, made of small pale stones from a nearby beach. As he watched he saw a shadow move over it, and seconds later heard a metallic clang at the door.

“Hell’s teeth!” Searle struggled down to the stairs. “Earlier than I thought!”

Browne followed and heard Searle say, “Shuffle your feet, Moubray! You, be ready to open the door!” Browne clung to the ladder, barely able to breathe. After the total darkness of the roof, the little drama below seemed suddenly clear and stark. Searle, his breeches very white against the old stone wall, the seaman Moubray, shifting his feet as he pretended to walk towards the door. The key squeaked noisily and the door swung inwards, the man outside calling something as he hurried out of the chill air.

It all happened in a second, and yet to Browne it seemed as if the moment was frozen for a much longer time. The newcomer, another French sailor, standing mouth agape as he saw the half circle of crouching figures. Searle, his hanger drawn, while Jones, the gunner’s mate, held a musket above his head like a club.

The picture broke up in short, frantic scenes. The Frenchman yelled and turned back towards the entrance, while Jones struck at him with the musket. But in the sudden tension they had all forgotten about the pool of blood which had run down the stairs when the first man had died. Jones gave a cry of alarm as his foot slipped from under him, the musket flew from his hands and exploded, the sound deafening in the confined space.

Browne heard the ball crack against the stone wall, but not before it had hit Jones in the face.

Searle yelled, “Get that man, you fool!” Cooper, small and deadly, threw himself down the steps, and seconds later they heard a terrible scream which was choked off instantly.

Cooper came back, breathing fast, his dirk bloody in his fist.

He gasped, “More o’ the buggers comin’, sir!” Jones was rolling on the floor, his blood mingling with that of the French sailor.

Browne said sharply, “Take care of him!” To Searle he added rightly, “We shall have to shift ourselves now!” Searle had recovered his outward calm. “Harding, carry on with the fuses.”

The second gunner’s mate darted a look at his friend and said harshly, “Not right, sir. In a church an’ all.” Searle plunged a hand into his coat and pulled out one of his pistols, and said coldly, “Don’t you talk to me like that, you super-stitious oaf. I’ll see you receive a checkered shirt at the gangway when we rejoin the ship, you’ve my word on that!” Fists and boots hammered at the door, and Browne said,

“Keep away, lads.” He winced as a shot cracked into the stout door and more voices echoed around the building as if the dead had risen from their graves to seek revenge.

Cooper said, “There’s another door at the far end, sir. Very small. I think it’s for fuel.”

Searle snapped, “I’ll look at it. Cooper, come with me.” He glanced meaningly at Browne. “Watch ’em, Oliver. They’ll cut and run if they think they’re done for.” He strode off between the worn pillars of a doorway, his feet clicking on the flagstones as if he were on parade.

Outside the church it was very quiet and still, whereas Browne was conscious of Harding’s irregular breathing as he cut his fuses, the occasional shuffle of feet on the ladder above the stairs as another seaman rammed home some of the charges.

Harding whispered, “What you reckon they’m doin’, sir?” He did not look up, and his thick, scarred fingers were as gentle as a child’s as he worked to complete what his friend had begun.

Browne guessed that some of the French seamen or prison guards had hurried away to tell the dragoons. It would not take long for them to reach here. He thought of the black horsehair plumes and long sabres, the air of menace which even at a distance the dragoons had roused.

But he replied, “Waiting to see what we intend. They don’t know where we’re from or who we are, remember that.” Jones gave an agonized moan and Browne knelt over him.

The musket ball had taken out one eye and a splinter of bone as large as a man’s thumb. The seaman named Nicholl held a piece of rag over the terrible wound, and even in the feeble lantern light Browne could see the gunner’s mate’s life ebbing away.

Jones whispered, “Done for, look you. Stupid thing to do, isn’t it?”

“Rest easy, Jones. You’ll be all right soon.” Jones gave a terrible cry and gasped, “Oh God, help me! ” Cooper returned and stared at him savagely. “If it worn’t for you droppin’ th’ musket, this wouldn’t ’ave ’appened, you Welsh bastard!”

Searle appeared at that moment, his knees and chest covered in dirt.

“There is a way out. Very small and not used for months, I’d say. Not since the navy commandeered this church, by the look of it.” He glanced at Harding. “How long?”

“I’ve given it half an hour, sir.”

Searle turned to Browne and sighed. “You see? Hopeless.” In a sharper tone he added, “Make it ten minutes, no more.” Then he looked thoughtfully at Browne. “After that, I’m not sure, Oliver.”

Browne examined his pistols to give himself time. Searle was right in setting a short fuse. They had come to destroy the semaphore, to break the chain, and he guessed that most of them had not even expected to reach this far. But he wondered if he could have given the order with such cool authority.

“We’ll leave.” As two of the men bent to pick up the groan-ing Jones, he added, “He’ll not get far.” Searle said, “A good gunner’s mate, but put him ashore . . .” He did not finish it.

Carrying and dragging the luckless Jones they groped their way to the tiny door. When it was forced open Browne expected a fusilade of shots, and as Cooper thrust his thin body through it he had to clench his teeth as he waited for a blade to take him across the neck.

But nothing happened, and Searle muttered, “The Frenchies are no better than Jones, it seems.”

“Wait here.” Browne looked back at the curved doorway where Harding waited beside his fuses. “I’ll do it. Then we’ll make for the beach. You never know.”

As Searle wriggled through the tiny door Browne felt suddenly alone and ill at ease.

His shoes sounded like drumbeats as he joined Harding and asked, “Are you ready?”

“Aye, sir.” Harding opened the lantern’s shutter and lit a slow-match which he had carried in his jacket. “You can’t trust ’em, sir. Not this short.” He stared into the shadows and added bitterly, “But some’ll not be told.”

Browne watched fascinated as the gunner’s mate swung the slow-match around until the end shone like a glowworm.

Then he said, “Now.”

The fuses began to hiss loudly, and the sparks seemed to be moving at a terrible speed.

Harding grasped his sleeve. “Come on, sir! No time to dally!” They ran through the empty church, heedless of the noise or their dignity. Hands dragged them out into the cold air, and Browne found time to notice that there were a few pale stars right overhead.

Searle said, “We heard horses!”

Browne stood up, it was too late for stealth. “Follow me, lads!” Then they were stooping and running, with Jones dangling between them like a corpse.

Browne stared ahead and saw the prison wall. He veered away from it, and heard the others stumbling and cursing behind him.

They were making a lot of noise, but it was just as well, he thought, as it helped to drown the sounds of pounding hoofs which were drawing rapidly closer.

He managed to gasp, “They’ll make for the church first!” Searle replied jerkily, “I hope it blows them to hell!” Browne almost fell on wet grass as he ran towards the lip of the hill. The beach would be empty, but at least it was the sea.

He heard the louder clatter of horses and guessed they had at last reached the road.

Someone called, “Got to stop, sir! Poor Jones is dyin’!” They paused, gasping and wheezing like old men.

Browne said, “We must keep on the move, it’s our only chance!”

The gunner’s mate Harding shook his head. “S’no use. I’m stayin’ with me mate. They’ll catch us anyway.” Browne stared wildly at him. “They’ll cut you down! Don’t you see that?”

Harding stood firm. “I wear the King’s coat, sir. I’ve done nowt but obey orders.”

Browne tried to clear his mind, to remember how long they had been running since they had fired the fuses.

He turned away. “Come along, the rest of you.” They reached the top of the path and heard the familiar hiss and gurgle of surf.

As they plunged down the narrow path Browne thought he heard a shout, but it was lost immediately in a thunder of hoofs, and he knew the dragoons had found Harding and his dying friend.

Seconds later came the explosion, deafening and terrible, like Harding’s revenge on his murderers. The whole hillside seemed to shake, and small stones rattled down the slope like musket balls.

Searle said, “Get on ahead, Cooper.” He clutched at Browne for support. “No quarter if we’re taken. I hope it was worth it.” Above them the light died as suddenly as it had exploded, and Browne caught the stench of burned powder drifting with the wind.

Cooper came back within minutes. “I found a boat, sir. No more’n a skiff, but better than nothin’.” Searle smiled in the darkness. “I’d swim rather than die here.” Cooper and Nicholl vanished into the gloom to find the boat, and Browne said, “I think some of the dragoons are still up there.” The explosion would have killed anybody within twenty yards of the church, he thought. But at dawn there would be soldiers by the hundred searching every cove and patch of cover.

He wondered if any of the squadron were near enough to hear the explosion.

Searle said, “I’ve got my breath, Oliver. Lead on.” They tramped past the camel-shaped rock and down towards the rocks where someone had beached a small boat. Smuggler or fisherman, Browne did not care. It was unlikely they would ever reach safety, but anything was better than waiting to be slaughtered.

“Halte-là!”

The voice cracked out of the darkness like a shot.

Browne dragged Searle down beside him and pointed. “Up to the left!”

It came again. “Qui va là?” But this time there was also a click of metal.

Searle let out a sob of despair and anger. “Damn their bloody eyes!”

Feet slipped and thudded over the rocks, and Browne heard one of the seamen yell, “Take that, you bugger!” He saw Nicholl shine suddenly in the blast of a musket fired at point-blank range, saw him drop his cutlass and fall dead.

But in the flash Browne had seen three, perhaps four, French soldiers.

“Ready?” He barely recognized his own voice. “Them or us!” Searle nodded violently, and together the two lieutenants rose to their feet, and with pistols drawn and cocked ran the last few yards along the beach.

There were more shouts, which changed to screams as the pistols flashed across wet sand and brought two of the soldiers kicking amongst the rocks.

Cooper’s wiry shape darted forward, and a choking cry announced another victim to his dirk.

The remaining soldier threw down his musket and yelled at the top of his voice. That too was cut short with the suddenness of deafness, and the seaman named Moubray joined his lieutenants and cleaned his cutlass in the sand.

“That were for Bill ’Arding, sir.”

Browne tried to reload his pistols, but his hands were shaking so badly he had to give up.

“Launch the boat, lads.”

He saw Cooper stooping over a sprawled body, doubtless stealing something, he thought wearily.

Then he grasped Cooper’s shoulder and pushed him roughly aside. “Help the others. It’ll be light very soon.” He dropped on one knee and peered at the corpse. It was the little commandant who had bade them farewell on this same beach. Well, they had met once again after all.

Searle called, “What is it?”

Browne stood up shakily. “Nothing.” Searle completed reloading his pistols without any difficulty.

“You really are a marvel, Oliver.”

Am I? Is that what you think?

Browne followed him down to the small boat, but paused long enough to stare back at the dark shape which was already being lapped by the tide.

For a moment longer Browne felt cheated and unclean. It was like leaving a friend, not an enemy.

Then he said, “Pull hard, lads. We’ve a whole ocean to choose from.”

“North-west by north, sir! Full and bye!” Bolitho glanced up as the maintopsail shook violently in protest. Odin was sailing closer to the wind than he had imagined possible. A heavier ship like Benbow would have been in real difficulties by now, he thought.

Inch said, “I’ve put my best lookouts aloft, sir.” Bolitho watched the water creaming away from the lee side as the sixty-four heeled over to the strengthening breeze. He could see the white patterns reaching out across the surface, when only a short while ago there had been darkness. Faces stood out too, and the uniforms of the marines looked scarlet and not black as they had appeared in the night.

“Deep nine!” The leadsman’s chant floated aft.

Bolitho glanced briefly at M’Ewan, the master. He appeared calm enough, although nine fathoms was no great depth beneath Odin’s keel.

He saw the land for the first time, a ragged shadow to starboard which marked the entrance of the bay.

Inch observed, “Wind’s steady, sir.” He was thinking of his ship’s safety this close inshore.

Bolitho watched Stirling and the ship’s signal midshipman with their assistants, surrounded by flags to suit every demand.

Without turning his head, Bolitho knew Allday was standing just a few paces away, arms folded as he stared fixedly ahead beyond the gilded figurehead and bowsprit as the ship thrust towards the top of the bay.

“By the mark seven!”

Inch stirred uneasily. “Mr Graham! We will alter course two points. Steer nor’-west by west!”

Graham raised his speaking trumpet. There was no need for silence any more. Either the invasion craft were here or they were not.

“Hands to the braces, Mr Finucane!” Inch walked aft and consulted the binnacle as the ship paid off and then steadied on her new course. It was a small alteration but would keep the keel out of danger. Above the decks the sails hardened and filled as they too responded to the change.

“By the mark ten!”

The midshipman-of-the-watch coughed into his hand to hide his relief, and several of the marine marksmen glanced at each other and grinned.

“Deck there! Anchor lights fine on th’ weather bow!” Bolitho followed Inch and his first lieutenant to the starboard side.

Dawn was minutes away. If they had kept to their original plan of attack they would be miles away, with every French ship and coastguard on full alert.

He tried not to think of Browne and what must have happened, but concentrated everything on the paler shadows and winking lights which must be the anchorage.

A distant boom echoed and re-echoed around the bay, and Bolitho knew the sound was being thrown back by the land.

A signal gun, a warning which was already too late, and had been from the moment they had slipped past Remond’s sleeping ships.

With the wind thrusting almost directly at the starboard side, and the ship tilting over to a steep angle, the guns would have all the help they required for the first broadsides.

Already the gun captains were waving their fists and their crews were working feverishly with tackles and handspikes.

Inch called, “On the uproll, Mr Graham, when I give the word!”

“Take in the mains’l!”

As the great sail was brought up to its yard Bolitho was reminded of a curtain being raised. There was sunlight too, prob-ing out from the land where night mist and wood smoke drifted above the water like low cloud.

And there lay the anchored vessels of the invasion fleet.

For a moment Bolitho imagined the frail light was playing tricks, or that his eyes were deceiving him. He had expected a hundred such craft, but there must have been three times that number, anchored in twos and threes and filling the elbow of the bay like a floating town.

There was a medium sized man-of-war anchored nearby, a cut-down ship of the line, Bolitho thought, as he peered through his telescope until his eye throbbed.

The crowded vessels looked at peace through the silent lens, but he could picture the pandemonium and panic there must be as Odin sailed purposefully towards them. It was impossible, but an enemy ship was right amongst them, or soon would be.

Inch said, “Phalarope’s on station, sir.” Bolitho trained his glass towards the frigate and saw her exposed carronades, blunt-muzzled and ugly, run out in a long black line. He thought he could see Pascoe too, but was not certain.

“Signal Phalarope. Take station astern of the Flag.” He ignored the bright flags darting up to the yards and turned his attention back to the enemy.

He heard a trumpet, far-off and mournful, and moments later saw the guard-ship running out her guns, although as yet she had not made any attempt to up-anchor or set sail.

In his excitement Inch took Bolitho’s arm and pointed towards the shore.

“Look, sir! The tower! ”

Bolitho trained his telescope and saw a tower above the headland like a sentinel. At the top a set of jerking semaphore arms told their story better than shouted words.

But if Browne had destroyed the semaphore station on the church, there would be no one to see and relay the message to Remond’s squadron. And even if the same message was passed in the other direction, all the way to Lorient, it was too late to save this packed assembly.

Odin’s jib-boom had passed the end of the anchored vessels now, which presented an unbroken barrier some half a mile away.

Smoke swirled above the guard-ship, and the rolling cash of gunfire showed that the French were now wide awake.

A few balls hurled spray into the air close abeam and brought cries of derision from Odin’s gun crews.

Graham watched as Inch slowly raised his sword above his head.

“On the uproll! Steady, my lads!” A stronger gust of wind sighed into Odin’s topsails so that she heeled over and showed her copper in the pale sunlight. It was all Inch needed. The sword slashed down.

A midshipman who had been clinging to an open hatchway above the lower gun-deck yelled, “Fire!” But his shrill voice was lost in the devastating roar of the upper battery’s eighteen-pounders.

Bolitho watched the waterspouts lifting amongst and beyond the anchored craft. The spray was still falling as the lower battery’s thirty-two-pounders added their weight of iron to the destruction. Bolitho saw fractured planking and whole areas of decking flung into the air, and when the smoke cleared he realized that several of the smaller craft were already heeling over. In the telescope’s lens he could see a few boats pulling clear, but in some cases the crews on the landward side of the anchorage had at last cut their cables and were trying to work clear.

“Run out!”

Again the trucks creaked and squealed up the slanting deck and the muzzles thrust through their ports.

“Stand by! As you bear!”

The sword came down again. “Fire!” Slower this time, as each gun captain waited and took more careful aim before jerking at his trigger line.

The French guard-ship was loosening her topsails, but had fouled two of the drifting invasion craft. She fired nevertheless, and two balls hit Odin just above the waterline.

Bolitho saw smoke around the guard-ship, and realized one of the other craft had caught fire. It might even have been caused by a blazing wad from one of the guard-ship’s own guns. He could see the running figures, tiny and futile in distance, as they hurled water from the beakhead and tried to free their ship from the flames. But the entanglement of rigging and the persistent strength of the offshore wind were too much for them, and Bolitho saw flames leaping from hull to hull and eventually setting light to the guard-ship’s jibsails.

On their converging approach they were now within a cable of the nearest craft, and from the bows Odin’s leadsman yelled,

“Deep six! ”

Inch looked anxiously at Bolitho. “Far enough, sir?” Bolitho nodded. “Bring her about.”

“Stand by to come about!”

All available hands sprang to braces and halliards, some still gasping and rubbing their streaming eyes from the gun smoke.

“Ready ho!”

“Put the wheel down!”

The spokes glittered in the sunshine as the helm was put hard over, and then M’Ewan shouted, “Helm’s a-lee, sir!” Bolitho watched the panorama of drifting and shattered vessels as they began to swing slowly across Odin’s bows until it appeared as if the jib-boom was right above them. The sails flapped and thundered, while petty officers added their own weight to the braces to haul the yards round and lay the ship on the opposite tack.

Inch shouted, “Stand by on the larboard battery! On the uproll, Mr Graham!”

“Steady as you go!”

M’Ewan waited until the last sail was brought under control, hard-bellied in the wind.

“Sou’-east by east, sir!”

“Fire!”

The larboard guns hurled themselves inboard for the first time, the smoke funnelling back through the ports as the whole broadside crashed and blasted amongst the invasion craft with terrible effect.

Bolitho watched Phalarope’s shape lengthening, her sails in confusion as she followed the flagship’s example and tacked across the wind. She was even closer to the enemy, and Bolitho could imagine the terror those carronades would create.

The guard-ship was no longer under control and from her mainmast to forecastle was ablaze, the flames leaping up the sails and changing them to ashes in seconds.

Bolitho saw her shake and a topgallant mast fall like a lance into the smoke. She must have run aground, and several figures were floundering in the water, while others were swimming towards some rocks.

“Cease firing!”

A silence fell over the ship, and even the men who were still sponging out the guns from the last broadside stood up to the gangways to watch Phalarope’s slow and graceful approach.

Allday said thickly, “Look at her. Moving closer. I could almost feel sorry for the mounseers.” Emes was taking no chances, either with his aim or with the effect on his ship’s timbers. From bow to stern the carronades fired one by one. Not the echoing crash of a long gun, but each shot was hard and flat, like a great hammer on an anvil.

The carronades were hidden from view, but Bolitho saw the shots slamming home amongst the remaining invasion craft like a great gale of wind. Except that this wind was tightly packed grape contained in one huge ball which burst on contact.

If one ball from a “smasher” exploded in the confines of a gun-deck, it could turn it into a slaughterhouse. The effect on the smaller, thinly-planked invasion craft would be horrific.

Emes took his time, reefing all but his topsails to give his carronade crews an opportunity to reload and fire one last broadside.

When the echoes faded, and the smoke eventually eddied clear, there were barely a dozen craft still afloat, and it seemed unlikely that they had escaped some casualties and damage.

Bolitho shut the telescope and handed it to a midshipman.

He saw Inch slapping his first lieutenant on the shoulder and beaming all over his long face.

Poor Inch. He looked up as the masthead lookout yelled,

“Deck there!”

“Sail on the lee bow!”

A dozen telescopes rose together, and something like a sigh transmitted itself along the upper deck.

Allday stood at Bolitho’s shoulder and whispered, “He’s too bloody late, sir!” But there was no pleasure in his voice.

Bolitho moved his glass very carefully across the glittering wave crests. Three ships of the line, bunched together by the distance, their pendants and ensigns making bright patches of colour against the sky. Another vessel, probably a frigate, was just showing herself around the headland.

He heard the marines shuffling their boots and standing up to the hammock nettings again as they realized their work had not even begun.

Allday had understood from the beginning. Inch too in all probability, but he had been so engrossed in his ship’s behaviour that he had put it from his mind.

He saw Midshipman Stirling shading his eyes to peer ahead towards the pale array of sails. He turned and saw Bolitho watching him, his eyes no longer confident but those of a confused boy.

“Come here, Mr Stirling.” Bolitho pointed to the distant ships. “Remond’s flying squadron. We’ll have given him a rude awakening this morning.”

Stirling asked, “Will we stand and fight, sir?” Bolitho looked down at him and smiled gravely. “You are a King’s officer, Mr Stirling, no less than Captain Inch or myself.

What would you have me do?”

Stirling tried to see how he would describe this to his mother.

But nothing formed in his mind, and he was suddenly afraid.

“Fight, sir!”

“Attend the signals party, Mr Stirling.” To Allday he added softly, “If he can say that when he is terrified, there is hope for us all.”

Allday eyed him curiously, “If you say so, sir.”

“Deck there! Two more sail of the line roundin’ the point!” Bolitho clasped his hands behind him. Five to one. He looked at Inch’s despair.

There was no point in fighting and dying for nothing. A brutal human sacrifice. They had done what many had thought impossible. Neale, Browne and all the others would not have died in vain.

But to order Inch to strike his colours would be almost as hard as dying.

“Deck there!”

Bolitho stared up at the lookout in the mizzen crosstrees. He must have been so dazed by the sight of the oncoming squadron he had failed to watch his own sector.

“Glass!”

Bolitho almost snatched it from the midshipman’s hand, and ignoring the startled glances ran to the shrouds and climbed swiftly until he was well clear of the deck.

“Three sail of the line on the lee quarter!” Bolitho watched the newcomers and felt a lump rise in his throat. Somehow or other, adverse winds or not, Herrick had managed it. He wiped his eye with his sleeve and steadied the glass for another look.

Benbow in the lead. He would know her fat hull and thrusting figurehead anywhere. He saw Herrick’s broad-pendant writhing uncomfortably as ship by ship the remainder of the squadron tacked for what must be the hundredth time as they struggled to beat upwind and join their admiral.

He lowered himself to the quarterdeck and saw the others watching him like strangers.

Then Inch asked quietly, “Orders, sir?” Bolitho glanced at Stirling and his colourful litter of flags.

“General signal, if you please, Mr Stirling. Form line of battle. ” Allday looked up as the flags broke stiffly to the wind. “I’ll lay odds mounseer never expected that! ” Bolitho smiled. They were still outnumbered, but he had known worse odds. So had Herrick.

He looked at Stirling. “You see, I took your advice!” Allday shook his head. How did he do it? In an hour, maybe less, they would be fighting for their very breath.

Bolitho glanced up at the masthead pendant and formed a picture of the battle in his mind. If the wind held they might fight ship to ship. That would offer Remond the advantage. Better to allow his captains to act individually after they had broken the enemy’s line.

He looked along the deck, at the bare-backed gun crews and the boatswain’s party who were preparing to hoist out the boats and drop them astern. A tier of boats only added to the splinter wounds, and these were not low-hulled invasion craft they were preparing to fight.

He saw some of the new hands murmuring to one another, their first taste of victory soured by the arrival of the powerful French squadron.

“Captain Inch! Have your marine fifers play us into battle. It will help to ease their minds.”

Inch followed his glance, and then bobbed and said,

“Sometimes I forget, sir, the war has gone on for so long I think everyone must have fought in a real sea battle!” And so the little sixty-four with the rear-admiral’s flag at her mizzen sailed to meet the enemy in the bright sunlight, while her marine fifers and drummers marched and counter-marched on a space no bigger than a carpet.

Many of the seamen who had been staring at the enemy ships turned inboard to watch and to tap their feet to the lively jig, The Post Captain.

Astern of Odin and her attendant frigate, the bay was filled with drifting smoke and the scattered flotsam of a dream.

BOLITHO was in Odin’s chartroom when Inch reported that the masthead had sighted the brig Rapid closing slowly from the south-west.

Bolitho threw the dividers on the chart and walked out into the sunlight. Commander Lapish obviously hoped to add his small ship to the squadron, odds or no odds.

He said, “Signal Rapid as soon as you can. Tell her to find Ganymede and harass the enemy’s rear. ” It might prevent the only French frigate at present in sight from outmanœuvring the heavier ships, at least until Duncan’s Sparrowhawk joined them from the northern sector.

Inch watched the flags darting aloft and asked, “Shall we wait for the commodore to join us, sir?” Bolitho shook his head. The French squadron had formed into an untidy but formidable line, the second ship wearing the flag of a rear-admiral. Remond. It had to be.

“I think not. Given more time I would not hesitate. But time will also aid the enemy to stand into the bay and take the wind-gage while the rest of our squadron is floundering into the face of it.”

He raised his glass again and studied the leading ship. A two-decker, with her guns already run out, although she was still three miles distant. A powerful ship, probably of eighty guns. On the face of it she should be more than a match for the smaller Odin.

But this was where the months and years of relentless blockade and patrols in all weathers added their weight to the odds.

The French, on the other hand, spent more time bottled up in harbour than exercising at sea. It was most likely why Remond had placed another ship than his own to point the attack, to watch and prepare his squadron in good time.

He said suddenly, “See how the French flagship stands a little to windward of the leader.”

Inch nodded, his face totally blank. “Sir?”

“If we attack without waiting for our other ships to join us, I think the French admiral intends to separate, then engage us on either beam.”

Inch licked his lips. “While the last three in his line stand off and wait.”

Stirling called, “Rapid ’s acknowledged, sir.” Allday climbed on to the poop ladder and peered astern. How far away Benbow now seemed. Quite rightly Herrick was clawing his way into the bay so that he could eventually come about and hold the wind in his favour. But it took time, a lot of it.

There was a dull bang, and a ball skipped across the sea a good mile away. The leading French captain was exercising his bow-chasers, probably to break the tension of waiting as much as possible.

It would not help him to have his admiral treading on his coat-tails, Allday thought, and watching every move he made.

He turned and looked along Odin’s crowded deck. There would not be many left standing if she got trapped between two of the Frenchmen without support. Was that what Bolitho meant to do? To damage the enemy so much that the remainder would be left to fight Herrick on equal terms?

He spoke aloud. “Gawd Almighty!”

The marine colour-sergeant who was standing on the right of the nearest line of marksmen grinned at him.

“Nervous, matey?”

Allday grimaced. “Hell, not likely. I’m just looking for a place to take a nap!”

He stiffened as he heard Inch say to the master, “Mr M’Ewan, the rear-admiral intends to luff when we are within half a cable.

We shall then wear and attack the second ship in the French line.”

Allday saw the sailing-master’s head nodding jerkily as if it was only held to his shoulders by a cord.

The colour-sergeant hissed, “Wot’s that then?” Allday folded his arms and allowed his mind to settle. Odin would luff, and by the time she had turned into the wind would be all but under the other ship’s bowsprit. Then she would wear and turn round to thrust between the leading vessels. If she was allowed. It was hazardous, and could render Odin a bloody shambles in a few minutes. But anything was better than being raked from either beam at the same time.

He replied calmly, “It means, my scarlet friend, that you an’

your lot are going to be very busy!” Bolitho watched the oncoming formation, looking for a sign, some quick hoist of flags which might betray Remond’s suspi-cion. He would be expecting something surely? One small sixty-four against five ships of the line.

He recalled Remond’s swarthy features, his dark, intelligent eyes.

He said, “Captain Inch, tell your lower battery to load with double-shot. The eighteen-pounders of the upper battery will load with langridge, if you please.” He held Inch’s gaze. “I want that leading ship dismasted when we luff.” Bolitho looked up at the masthead pendant. Wind still holding as strong as ever. He almost looked astern but stopped himself in time. The officers and men nearby would see it as uncertainty, their admiral looking for support. It was best to forget about Herrick. He was doing all he could.

Graham, the first lieutenant, touched his hat to Inch.

“Permission to fall out the drummers and fifers, sir?” Bolitho looked quickly at the minute figures in scarlet. He had been so wrapped in his thoughts he had barely heard a note.

Gratefully, the panting fifers hurried below to a chorus of ironic cheers.

Bolitho touched the unfamiliar hilt of his sword. They could still cheer.

Another bang from the leader, and the ball ploughed up a furrow of spray some three cables abeam. The French captain must be on edge. He’s probably watching me now. Bolitho walked away from the mizzen bitts so that the sunshine would play on his bright epaulettes. At least he would know his enemy, he thought grimly.

He turned to watch a cluster of screaming gulls below the quarterdeck rail. They were unimpressed and quite used to a daily fight for survival.

Inch said, “The French admiral’s reset his t’gan’s’ls, sir.” Bolitho watched the weather bow of the enemy flagship show itself around the leader’s quarter. He had guessed Remond’s intention. Now it all depended on the men around him.

“Captain Inch, this needs to be carefully done.” He touched his arm and smiled. “Though I need not tell you how to handle her, eh?”

Inch beamed with obvious pleasure. “Thank you kindly, sir!” He turned away, the captain again. “Mr Graham! Pipe the hands to the braces!” His arm shot out and pointed at a lieutenant on the gun-deck. “Mr Synge! Have both batteries been reloaded as ordered?”

The lieutenant squinted up at the quarterdeck rail and replied nervously, “Aye, sir! I—I forgot to report it.” Inch glared at the luckless lieutenant. “I am glad to hear it, Mr Synge, for an instant I imagined you thought I was a mind-reader!”

Several of the gun crews chuckled and lapsed into silence as the flushed-faced lieutenant turned towards them.

Bolitho watched the French ships and found he could do it without emotion. He was committed. Right or wrong, there was no chance to break off the action, even if he wanted to.

“Ready ho!”

The men at the braces and halliards crouched and flexed their muscles as if they were about to enter a contest.

M’Ewan watched the shake of the topsails, the angle of the masthead pendant. Nearby his helmsmen gripped the spokes and waited like crude statuary.

“Helm a-lee!”

“Let go and haul!”

The ship seemed to stagger at the rough handling, then after what felt like an eternity she began to swing readily into the wind.

Graham’s voice was everywhere at once. “Haul over the boom!

Let go the t’gallant bowlines!”

At each port the gun captains watched the empty sea and ignored the commotion of thrashing canvas, the squeal of running rigging and the slap of bare feet on the planking.

Bolitho concentrated on the leading Frenchman, feeling a cold satisfaction as she continued on the same tack, although her officers must have wondered what Inch was doing. They might have expected his nerve to break, for him to tack to leeward with the wind from aft. Then the leading enemy ships would have raked Odin’s stern before grappling and smashing down her resistance at point-blank range.

But now Odin was answering, and heading into the wind with her sails billowing in disorder as her yards were hauled round. To any landsmen she would appear to be all aback and unable to proceed, but as she continued to flounder into the wind she slowly and surely presented her starboard side to the oncoming ship’s bows.

Graham yelled through his trumpet, “As you bear!” Inch’s sword hissed down, and deck by deck Odin’s guns crashed out, the upper battery with its screaming langridge matched by the lower one’s double-charged guns.

Bolitho held his breath as the forward guns found their targets. The French ship seemed to quiver, as if, like the guard-ship, she had run aground. The bombardment continued, with the lieutenants striding behind each gun as its trigger line was jerked taut.

On the deck below the picture would be the same but more terrible as the naked bodies toiled around the guns as each one thundered back on its tackles to be instantly sponged out and reloaded.

The langridge or chain-shot was easier to determine, and Bolitho saw all the enemy’s headsails and rigging hacked aside in a tangle, while most of the fore-topmast plunged over the side in a great welter of spray. As it crashed down the weight took immediate effect like an immense sea-anchor, so that even as he watched Bolitho could see the enemy’s beakhead begin to swing awkwardly into the wind.

“As you bear, lads! Fire! ” The double-shotted charges smashed into the disabled ship to upend guns and rip through the lower deck with murderous impact. Overhead, rigging was scythed away, and as more and more sail area was exposed it too was punched through with holes and long streaming remnants.

Inch shouted, “Stand by on the fo’c’s’le!” The starboard carronade belched fire and smoke, but the aim was too high and the great ball exploded on the enemy’s gangway. It hit nothing vital, but the outward effect was horrific. Some twenty men had been working to cut free the dragging weight of spars and cordage, and when the ball exploded near them it painted the ship’s tumblehome scarlet from deck to waterline.

It was as if the ship herself was mortally wounded and bleeding to death.

“Stand by to alter course to starboard!”

“Brace up your head yards!”

A few shots pattered against the hull and brought an instant retort from Odin’s marines who were yelling and cheering as they fired through the thickening smoke.

Bolitho felt the wind on his cheek and heard the sails filling untidily as Odin turned her stern towards the wind. She was no frigate, but Inch handled her like one.

A strong down-gust carried the smoke away, and he saw the French flagship riding on the starboard cathead as if she were caught there. In fact she was a good cable clear, but close enough to see her tricolour and command flag, the frantic activity as her captain changed tack to avoid colliding with the stricken leader.

Bolitho took a glass and steadied it while he waited for the guns to fire another broadside into the helpless Frenchman. He felt the planks buck beneath his shoes, saw the wildness in the eyes of the nearest crew as they hurled themselves on the tackles to restrain the smoking eighteen-pounder.

When he looked again he saw the flagship’s tall stern and gilded quarter-gallery, and on her counter her name, La Sultane, as if he could reach out and touch it.

He moved the glass upwards slightly and saw some of her officers, one gesticulating up at the yards, another mopping his face as if he had been in a tropical downpour.

Just for a brief moment before the guns crashed out again he saw the rear-admiral’s cocked hat, then as he walked briskly to the poop, the man’s face.

Bolitho lowered the glass and allowed the small pictures to fall away with it. No mistake. Contre-Amiral Jean Remond, he would never forget him.

Allday saw the expression on Bolitho’s face and understood.

Many senior officers would have taken the Frenchman’s offer of a safe, comfortable house with servants and the best of everything, with nothing to do but wait for an exchange. It showed Remond did not, nor would he ever, understand a man like Bolitho who had waited only for the chance to hit back.

It was all part of the madness, of course, Allday decided philo-sophically, yet despite that he felt less afraid of what might happen.

Unaware of Allday’s scrutiny, Bolitho kept his eyes on the disabled French ship. She was badly mauled by the constant battering, and thin red lines ran from her scuppers and down her smashed side to show how her people had died for their over-confidence.

But there was still time for Remond to stand off and fight his way back to the Loire Estuary and the safety of the coastal batteries. He might think that Odin’s impudence was backed up by a knowledge that more support was on the way.

Bolitho looked towards Phalarope. Herrick would be remembering that other time when she had been made to take her place in the line of battle, to fight and face the broadsides of the giants.

That had been at the Saintes, and she had been paying for that cruel damage ever since.

Inch said, “They’re re-forming, sir.” Bolitho nodded as he saw the flags break out above La Sultane.

Four to one. It was nothing to feel pleased about.

Inch exclaimed, “Converging tack, but we’ll still hold the wind-gage!”

Bolitho watched narrowly as the French flagship’s side shone in the smoky sunlight. Eighty guns, larger even than Benbow. He saw all her artillery run out and poking blindly towards the shore, her yards alive with seamen as they prepared to close with their enemy.

Bolitho asked softly, “Where is our squadron, Mr Stirling?” The boy leapt into the shrouds, then hurried back and said,

“They are fast overhauling us, sir!” He too had lost his fear, and his eyes were dancing with feverish excitement.

“Stay by me, Mr Stirling.” He glanced meaningly at Allday.

The midshipman had lost his fear at the wrong moment. It could have been his only protection.

“Let her fall off a point, Captain Inch.”

“Steer sou’-east!”

He heard the rasp of steel as Allday drew the cutlass from his belt, saw the way the men on the starboard side were standing to their guns again.

At least we shall give Remond something to remember after this day.

Bolitho drew his sword and tossed the scabbard to the foot of the mizzen-mast.

One thing was certain, Odin’s challenge would slow the French down, and Herrick would be amongst them like a lion.

Bolitho smiled gravely. A Kentish lion.

Inch and the first lieutenant saw him smile then looked at each other for what might be the last time.

“Marines! Face your front!” Odin’s marine captain walked stiffly behind his men, his eyes everywhere but on the enemy.

Allday brushed against the midshipman and felt him flinch.

And no wonder.

Allday watched the towering criss-cross of shrouds and rigging, braced yards and canvas as it rose higher and higher above Odin’s starboard bow until there was no sky left. He tugged at his neckerchief to loosen it. No air either.

Stirling pulled out his midshipman’s dirk and then thrust it back again.

Against that awesome panorama of sails and flags it was like taking a belaying pin to fight an army.

He heard Allday say between his teeth, “Keep with me.” The cutlass hovered in the air. “It’ll be hot work, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“Alter course two points to wind’rd!” Odin steered slowly away from the enemy, so that La Sultane seemed to loom even larger than before.

“As you bear!”

Inch peered across the narrowing arrowhead of water between his ship and the big two-decker. Just for a moment they had moved away to present their guns.

“Fire!”

Even as the ship jerked to the irregular crash of cannon fire Inch yelled, “Bring her back on course, Mr M’Ewan!” Bolitho saw the seamen on the forecastle crouching down as the French flagship’s tapering jib-boom, with some dangling rigging trailing from their brief encounter, probed past and above them.

Musket balls whined through the air, and several slapped into the packed hammocks or clanged against the guns.

Inch said fiercely, “Here we go!” He straightened his hat and yelled, “At ’em, my Odins!”

Then the whole world seemed to explode in one great shuddering upheaval.

It was impossible to determine the number of times Odin had fired her broadside into the enemy or to measure the damage wrought by the French guns in return. The world was lost in choking smoke, lit from within by terrible orange tongues as the gun crews fired and reloaded like men driven from their reason.

Bolitho thought he heard the sharper notes of smaller cannon in the far distance whenever there was a brief pause in the bombardment, and guessed that Ganymede and Rapid were wag-ing their own war against Remond’s frigate.

The smoke was dense and rose so high between the two ships that all else was hidden. The other French ships, Herrick and the squadron could have been alongside or a mile away, shut from the tumult by the roar of gunfire.

Overhead the nets bounced to falling rigging and blocks, and then together, as if holding hands, three marines were hurled from the maintop by a blast of canister, their screams lost in the din.

A ball smashed through the quarterdeck rail and ploughed across to the opposite side. Bolitho saw the deck, and even the foot of the driver boom, splashed in blood as the ball cut amongst some marines like a giant’s cleaver.

Inch was yelling, “Bring her up a point, Mr M’Ewan!” But the master lay dead with two of his men, the planking around them dappled scarlet where they had fallen.

A master’s mate, his face as white as death, took charge of the wheel, and slowly the ship responded.

More marines were climbing the ratlines to the fighting-tops, and soon their muskets were joining in the battle as they tried to mark down the enemy’s officers.

Bolitho gritted his teeth as two seamen were flung from their gun below the quarterdeck, one headless, the other shrieking in terror as he tried to drag wood splinters from his face and neck.

“Fire!”

Small pictures of courage and suffering stood out through gaps in the swirling smoke. Powder-monkeys, mere boys, running with backs bent under the weight of their charges while they hurried from gun to gun. A seaman working with a handspike to move his eighteen-pounder while his captain yelled instructions at him over the smoke-hazed breech. A midshipman, younger than Stirling, knuckling his eyes to hold back the tears in front of his division as his friend, another midshipman, was dragged away, his body shot through by canister.

“And again, lads! Fire! ”

Allday crowded against Bolitho as musket fire hissed and whined past. Men were falling and dying, others were screaming their hatred into the smoke as they fired, reloaded and fired again.

“Look up, sir!”

Bolitho raised his eyes and saw something coming through the smoke high overhead, like some strange battering-ram.

La Sultane may have intended to sail past on the opposite tack and smash Odin into surrender by sheer weight of artillery. Maybe her captain had changed his mind or, like M’Ewan who lay dead with his men, had been shot down before he could execute a manœuvre.

But the oncoming tusk was La Sultane’s jib-boom, and as more trapped smoke lifted and surged beneath the hulls, Bolitho saw the hazy outline of the Frenchman’s figurehead, like some terrible phantom with staring eyes and a bright crimson mouth.

The jib-boom crashed through Odin’s mizzen shrouds, and there was a loud, lingering clatter as the other ship’s dolphin-striker tore adrift and trailing rigging flew in the wind like creeper.

“Repel boarders!”

Bolitho felt the hull jerk and knew it had been badly hit by the last broadside. He could not see through the burning smoke but heard warning shouts and then cries as the foremast thundered down. The sound seemed to deaden even the guns, and Bolitho almost fell as the ship rocked to the great weight of mast and rigging.

The master’s mate yelled, “She don’t answer th’ helm, sir!” Bright stabbing flashes spat through the smoke from overhead, and Bolitho saw scrambling figures climbing along the enemy’s bowsprit and spritsail yard as they tried to reach Odin’s deck.

But they were delayed by the spread nets, and, as a wild-eyed marine corporal threw himself to one of the poop swivels and jerked its lanyard, the determined group of boarders were flung aside like butchers’ rags.

Inch strode through the smoke, his hat gone, one arm hanging at his side.

He said through clenched teeth, “Must free ourselves, sir!” Bolitho saw the first lieutenant waving his sword and urging more men aft to fight off the next wave of boarders. How the gun crews could keep firing with half of their number already smashed into silence was a miracle. On the deck below it would be far worse.

Bolitho stared round at the scene of destruction and carnage.

The two ships were killing each other, all thought of victory lost in the madness and hatred of battle.

He saw Allday watching him, Stirling close at his side, his face pinched against the sights and sounds around him.

He saw the smoke quiver as new cannon fire rumbled across the water like a volcano. Herrick was here and at grips with the rest of the French squadron.

It was then that it hit Bolitho like a fist or a sharp cry in his ear. It was no longer a matter of pride or the need to destroy Odin’s flag.

“Remond wants me.” He realized he had spoken aloud, saw the understanding on Inch’s face, the sudden tightening of Allday’s jaw.

They would never fight free of La Sultane in time. Either Odin would be totally swamped by her heavier artillery or both ships would be fought to a senseless slaughter.

Bolitho tried to contain the sudden madness, but could do nothing.

He leapt on to the starboard gangway and shouted above the crash and thunder of firing, “Boarders away, lads! To me, Odins!” He blinked as muskets flashed from unseen marksmen. It is what Neale would have said.

Seamen cut away the boarding nets, and as others snatched up axes and cutlasses Bolitho’s wildness seemed to inflame the upper deck like a terrible weapon.

Graham, the first lieutenant, jumped out and down, his sword shining dully in the smoke. From somewhere a boarding pike stabbed outboard like a cruel tongue, and without even a cry Graham fell between the two hulls. Bolitho glanced down at him only briefly, saw his eyes staring up before the two great hulls were thrust together yet again and he was ground between them.

Then he was slipping and stumbling from handhold to handhold, until he found himself on the enemy’s forecastle. He was almost knocked aside as more of Odin’s boarders charged past him, yelling like fiends as they hacked aside all opposition until they had reached the starboard gangway.

Startled faces peered up from the guns which were still firing into Odin, even though the muzzles were almost overlapping above the slit of trapped water as La Sultane swung heavily alongside.

A French midshipman darted from the shrouds and was hit between the shoulder-blades by a boarding axe as he ran.

Gun by gun the enemy’s broadside fell silent as men took up their pikes and cutlasses to defend their ship against this unexpected attack.

Bolitho found himself being carried along the narrow gangway, his sword-arm trapped at his side by the yelling, cheering seamen and marines.

Shots banged and whimpered from every angle and men were falling and dying, unable to find safety as they were forced along in the crush.

A lieutenant stood astride the gangway and saw Bolitho as he broke free from the men around him. Some of the boarders had dropped to the gun-deck below, and small tight groups of men hacked and slashed at each other, gasping for breath, while they sought to kill their enemies.

Bolitho held his sword level with his belt and watched the lieutenant’s uncertainty.

The blades circled and hissed together, and Bolitho saw the other man’s first surprise give way to concentrated determination.

But Bolitho held fast to a stanchion and wedged his hilt hard against his adversary’s. The lieutenant lost his balance, and for an instant their faces almost touched. There was fear now, but Bolitho saw his enemy only as a hindrance for what he must do.

A twist and a thrust to push the man off balance. The blade was unfamiliar but straight, and Bolitho felt it grate on bone before it slid beneath the lieutenant’s armpit.

He jerked it free and ran on towards the quarterdeck. Vaguely through the smoke he saw Odin’s misty outline, festooned with tattered canvas and severed rigging. Upended guns and motionless figures which told the story of every sea-fight.

Bolitho’s sudden anger seemed to carry him faster towards the battling figures which surged back and forth across the quarterdeck while the air rang with steel and the occasional crack of a pistol.

A seaman swung at a French quartermaster and cut his arm, and yelling with fear the man ran the wrong way and was quickly impaled on a marine’s bayonet.

Two of Inch’s seamen, one badly wounded, were hurling fire buckets from the quarterdeck on to the heads of the Frenchmen below. Filled with sand, each bucket was like a rock.

A figure lunged through the smoke, but his blade glanced off Bolitho’s left epaulette. But for it, the blade might have sliced into his shoulder like a wire through cheese.

Bolitho staggered aside as the French officer tried to recover his guard.

“Not now, mounseer! ”

Allday’s big cutlass made a blur across Bolitho’s vision and sounded as if it was hitting solid wood.

Where was Remond? Bolitho peered round, his sword-arm aching as he tried to gauge the progress of the battle. There were more marines aboard now, and he saw Allday’s new friend, the colour-sergeant, striding between a line of his men, his handpike taking a terrible toll as they stabbed and hacked their way aft.

By the larboard poop ladder, protected by some of his lieutenants, stood Remond. He saw Bolitho at the same moment, and for what seemed like minutes they stared at each other.

Remond shouted, “Strike! Without your flag, your ships will soon be gone!”

His voice brought a baying response from the British sailors and marines who had managed to fight their way the full length of the ship.

But Bolitho held out his sword and snapped, “I am waiting, Contre-Amiral!”

He could feel his heart thumping wildly, knowing that he was exposing his back to any marksman who might still have the will to take aim.

Remond threw his hat aside and answered, “I am ready enough, m’sieu!”

Allday said fiercely, “Jesus, sir, he’s got the sword! ”

“I know.”

Bolitho stepped away from his men, sensing their wildness giving way to something like savage curiosity.

Just to see the old sword in Remond’s hand was all the spur he required.

They met on a small, shot-scarred place below the poop, hemmed in by seamen and marines who for just a few moments were spectators.

The blades touched and veered away again. Bolitho trod carefully, feeling the stab of pain in his thigh which might betray him to the enemy.

The sword blades darted closer, and Bolitho felt the power of the man, the strength of his broad, muscular body.

Despite the danger and the closeness of death, Bolitho was very aware of Allday nearby. Held back because of his need to face Remond alone, but not for long, any more than this fight would end a battle. Even now La Sultane’s lower gun-deck would have realized what was happening, and officers would be muster-ing their hands to repel the boarders.

Clang, clang, the swords shivered together, and Bolitho recalled with sudden clarity his father using that same old blade to teach him how to defend himself.

He could feel Remond’s nearness, even smell him as they pressed together and locked hilts before fighting clear again.

He heard someone sobbing uncontrollably and knew it was Stirling. He must have climbed after the boarders in spite of his orders and the risk of being hacked down.

They think I am going to be killed.

Like the sight of the old sword in his enemy’s grasp, the thought made a chill of fury run through him. As their blades clashed and parried, and each man circled round to find an advantage, Bolitho could feel the strength going from his arm.

In one corner of his eye something moved very slowly, and for an instant he imagined that another of the French ships was going to take Odin from the other beam as first intended.

His breath seemed to stop. She was no ship of the line. She could only be Phalarope. As Odin had lain against her powerful adversary, and Herrick’s ships had closed with their French coun-terparts, Phalarope had fought her way through the line to support him.

He gasped as Remond drove the knuckle-bow into his shoulder and punched him away. Perhaps for that second’s hesitation Remond had seen Bolitho’s surprise as defeat.

Bolitho fell back against the hammock nettings, his sword clattering across the deck. He saw Remond’s dark eyes, merciless and unwinking, he seemed to be staring straight along the edge of the blade to its very point which was aimed at his heart.

The deafening roar of carronades was terrifying and broke the spellbound watchers into confusion. Phalarope had crossed the French flagship’s stern and was firing through the windows and along the lower gun-deck from transom to bows.

The ship felt as if it were falling apart, and Bolitho saw splinters and fragments of grape bursting up through the deck itself or ricocheting over the sea like disturbed hornets. One such fragment hit Remond before he could make that final thrust.

He realized that Allday was helping to get him to his feet, that Remond had fallen on his side, a hole the size of a fist punched through his stomach. Behind him a British seaman came out of his daze, and seeing the dying admiral, lifted his cutlass to end it.

Allday saw Bolitho’s face and said to the man, “Easy, mate! Enough’s enough.” Almost gently he prised the old sword from Remond’s fingers and added, “It don’t serve two masters, mounseer.” But Remond’s stare had become fixed and without understanding.

Bolitho gripped the sword in both hands and turned it over very slowly. Around him his men were cheering and hugging each other, while Allday stood grim-faced and watchful until the last Frenchman had thrown down his weapons.

Bolitho looked at Stirling who was staring at him and shivering uncontrollably.

“We won, Mr Stirling.”

The boy nodded, his eyes too misty to record this great moment for his mother.

A young lieutenant, whose face was vaguely familiar, pushed through the cheering seamen and marines.

He saw Bolitho and touched his hat.

“Thank God you are safe, sir!”

Bolitho studied him gravely. “Thank you, but is that what you came to say?”

The lieutenant stared around at the dead and wounded, the scars and bloody patterns of battle.

“I have to tell you, sir, that the enemy have struck to us. All but one, which is running for the Loire with Nicator in full pursuit.”

Bolitho looked away. A complete victory. More than even Beauchamp could have expected.

He swung towards the lieutenant. He must think me mad.

“What ship?”

“Phalarope, sir. I am Fearn, acting-first lieutenant.” Bolitho stared at him. “Acting-first lieutenant?” He saw the man recoil but could only think of his nephew. “Is Lieutenant Pascoe . . . ?” He could not say the word.

The lieutenant breathed out noisily, glad he was not in the wrong after all.

“Oh no, sir! Lieutenant Adam Pascoe is in temporary command!” He looked down at the deck as if the realization he had survived was only just reaching him. “I fear Captain Emes fell as we broke through the French line.”

Bolitho gripped his hand. “Return to your ship and give my thanks to the people.”

He followed the lieutenant along the gangway until he saw a boat hooked alongside.

Phalarope was lying hove to close by, her sails punctured, but every carronade still run out and ready to fire.

He remembered what he had said to Herrick after the Saintes, when he had spoken of others’ ships.

Bolitho had replied then, “Not like this one. Not like the Phalarope. ”

There would be no need to tell Adam that. For like Emes before him, he would have discovered it for himself.

He saw Allday rolling up the captured French flag which had outlived its admiral.

Bolitho took it and handed it to the lieutenant.

“My compliments to your commanding officer, Mr Fearn.

Give him this.” He looked at his old sword and added quietly,

“We can all honour this day.”

epilogue

RICHARD BOLITHO studied his reflection in a wall mirror with the same scrutiny he would offer a junior officer who had applied for promotion.

He said over his shoulder, “It was good of you to stay with me, Thomas.” He turned and looked fondly at Herrick who was sitting on the edge of a chair, a half-empty goblet clutched in one hand. “Although in your present state of nerves I fear we will be of little use to one another!”

It was still difficult to believe he was home in Falmouth. After all that had happened, the squadron’s slow return to Plymouth, the work involved in caring for the battle-scarred ships, the goodbyes, and the memories of those who would never set foot in England again.

How quiet the house was, so still he could hear the birds beyond the windows which were closed against the first October chill, so very quiet, like a ship before a fight or after a storm.

Herrick shifted uncomfortably in his chair and looked down at his new uniform.

“Acting-commodore, they said!” He sounded incredulous. “But I’d lose even that when peace was signed!” Bolitho smiled at Herrick’s discomfort. Whatever the Admiralty’s official attitude was to be about the French invasion fleet’s destruction, their lordships had shown honest sense where Herrick was concerned.

Bolitho said quietly, “It has the right ring to it. Thomas Herrick, Rear-Admiral of the Red. I’m truly proud of you, and for you.”

Herrick stuck out his jaw, “And what about you? Nothing for what you achieved?” He held up his hand. “You can’t shut me up any more! We’re equal now, you said so yourself, so I’ll say my piece and there’s an end to it!”

“Yes, Thomas.”

Herrick nodded, satisfied. “Right then. It’s all over the West Country, everyone knows that peace is everything but signed, that fighting has ceased, and all because the French are the ones eager for an armistice! And why, do I ask?”

“Tell me, Thomas.”

Bolitho looked at himself in the mirror again. He felt worried and unsettled now that the moment had arrived. Within the hour he would be married to Belinda. What he had wanted more than anything, what he had clung to even in the worst moments in France and at sea.

But suppose she had inwardly changed her mind. She would still marry him, he had no doubt about that, but it would be on his terms and not hers. Herrick’s anger at the Admiralty’s attitude on his future seemed unimportant.

Herrick said, “It is because of what you did, make no mistake on that! Without those damned invasion vessels the French can only make a noise. They could no more invade England than, than . . .” He groped for some suitable insult. He ended by saying, “I think it’s petty and unfair. I’m promoted, when God’s teeth I’d rather remain a captain, while you stay where you are!” Bolitho looked at him gravely. “Was it hard for you at Plymouth?”

Herrick nodded. “Aye. Saying farewell to Benbow. It was hard.

I wanted to explain so much to the new captain, tell him what the ship could do . . .” He shrugged heavily. “But there it is. We paid our formal respects, and I came here to Falmouth.”

“Like that other time, eh, Thomas?”

“Aye.”

Herrick stood up and placed the goblet firmly on the table.

He said, “But today is a special day. Let’s make the most of it. I’m glad we’re walking down to the church.” He looked steadily into Bolitho’s eyes. “She’s lucky. So are you.” He grinned. “Sir.” Allday opened the door, their hats in his hands. He looked very smart in his new gilt-buttoned jacket and nankeen breeches, a far cry from the man with a cutlass on the French flagship’s quarterdeck.

“There’s a visitor, gentlemen.”

Herrick groaned. “Send him or her packing, Allday. What a time to arrive!”

A tall shadow moved through the door and gave a stiff bow.

“With respect, sir, no admiral attends his wedding without his flag-lieutenant.”

Bolitho strode across the room and grasped both his hands.

“Oliver! Of all miracles!”

Browne gave his gentle smile. “A long story, sir. We escaped by boat and were picked up by a Yankee trader. Unfortunately, he was unwilling to put us ashore until we reached Morocco!” He studied Bolitho for several seconds. “Everywhere I’ve been I have heard nothing but praise for your victory. I did warn you that authority might take a different view if you succeeded with Admiral Beauchamp’s plan.” He glanced at Herrick’s new epaulettes and added, “But some rightful reward has been made, sir.” Herrick said, “You’ve come at the right time, young fellow!” Browne stepped back and then patted Bolitho’s coat and neckcloth into shape.

“There, sir, fit for the day.” Bolitho walked through the open doors and looked at the empty grounds. The wedding was to be a quiet, personal thing, but it seemed as if every servant, Ferguson his steward, the gar-deners and even the stable-boy had gone on ahead of him.

He said softly, “Your safe arrival has done more good than I can say, Oliver. It is like having a weight lifted from my heart.” He turned and looked at his three friends and knew he meant it.

“Now we shall walk down together.”

As they arrived in the square and moved towards the old church of King Charles the Martyr, Bolitho was surprised to see a great crowd of townspeople waiting to see him.

As the three sea-officers, followed cheerfully by Allday, approached the church, many of the people began to cheer and wave their hats, and one man, obviously an old sailor, cupped his hands and yelled, “Good luck to ye! A cheer for Equality Dick!”

“What is happening, Thomas?”

Herrick shrugged unhelpfully. “Probably market day.” Allday nodded, hiding a grin. “That might well be it, sir.

Bolitho paused on the steps and smiled at the expectant faces.

Some he knew, people he had played with as a child and had grown up with. Others he did not, for they had come from outlying villages, and some all the way from Plymouth where they had seen the squadron arrive and anchor.

For although the politicians and the lords of Admiralty could say and do as they pleased, to these ordinary people today was something important.

Once again a Bolitho had come home to the big grey house below Pendennis Castle. Not a stranger, but one of their own sons.

A clock chimed and Bolitho whispered, “Let us enter, Thomas.”

Herrick smiled at Browne. He had rarely seen Bolitho at a loss before.

The doors opened, and one more surprise waited to disturb Bolitho’s emotions.

The church was packed from end to end, and as Bolitho walked to meet the rector, he realized that many of them were officers and sailors from the squadron. One whole line was taken up by his captains and their wives, even their children. Inch, with his arm in a sling and his pretty wife. Veriker, his head to one side in case he misheard something. Valentine Keen whose Nicator had chased the last French ship under the guns of a coastal battery before he had decided to give the enemy best. Duncan and Lapish, and Lockhart of the Ganymede, obviously enjoying the twist of fate which had made him one of Bolitho’s captains. Nancy, Bolitho’s younger sister, was there beside her husband, the squire.

She was already dabbing her eyes and smiling at the same time, and even her husband looked unusually pleased with himself.

Some would be remembering that other time seven years ago when Richard Bolitho, then a captain himself, had waited here for his bride.

Bolitho looked at Herrick. Allday had melted into the mass of watching sailors and marines, and Browne stood beside Dulcie Herrick, her hand resting on his cuff.

“Well, old friend, we are alone again it seems.” Herrick smiled. “Not for long.”

He too was remembering. In this place it was hard to forget.

The line of plaques on the wall near the pulpit, all Bolithos, from Captain Julius Bolitho who had died right here in Falmouth in 1646 trying to lift the Roundhead blockade on Pendennis Castle.

At the bottom there was one plain plaque. “Lieutenant Hugh Bolitho. Born 1752 . . . Died 1782.” Nearby was another, and Herrick guessed it had been placed there only recently. It stated,

“To the memory of Mr Selby, Master’s Mate in His Britannic Majesty’s Ship Hyperion, 1795.” Yes, it was very hard to forget.

He saw Bolitho straighten his back and turned to face the aisle as the doors reopened.

The organ played, and a rustle of expectancy transmitted itself through the building as Lieutenant Adam Pascoe, with Bolitho’s bride on his arm, walked slowly towards the altar.

Bolitho watched, afraid he might miss something. Belinda was beautiful, and Adam like a picture of himself from the past.

He saw Belinda raise her eyes to his and smile, and reached out to guide her the last few steps to the altar.

She gave his hand a gentle squeeze, and Herrick heard him say, “Peace. At last.”

Herrick stepped up beside them. He doubted if anyone else here today would know what Bolitho had meant, and the realization made him feel like a giant.