Alexander Kent - Passage to Mutiny

“Avast, Mr Herrick! I can hear the buggers!”

Herrick lifted his arm and the muffled oars rose dripping on either side of the launch. He hoped that Miller, following closely astern, would have his eyes open and not collide with them.

He heard the distant murmur of voices, then the clang of metal. He swallowed hard and made a circular motion above his head with his sword. They must be almost up to the schooner, but because of the smoke could see nothing. Earlier they had seen her masts poking through the drifting fog, and Herrick had been thankful that nobody had had the sense to send up a lookout.

The men in the boat shifted uneasily, watching his face. Their eyes were red-rimmed from the smoke, and their bodies stank from its filth and greasy persistence.

Herrick looked at those nearest him. Grant, a senior gunner’s mate, who came from Canterbury, not that far from his own home. Nielsen, a fair-haired Dane, who shared an oar with Gwynne, the young recruit he had got from the Eurotas. He knew them all, as he did those in the other boat.

Something tall and dark loomed above them, and as they drifted beneath the schooner’s long jib boom they almost became entangled in her anchor cable.

Not a second left for hesitation. Herrick snapped, “Grapnel! Boarders away! ”

Then, pushed and jostled by his men, Herrick fought his way up and over the bulwark, seeing faces above him, and hearing the muffled voices change just as quickly into violent yells and oaths. Pistols banged, and a seaman fell back into the launch, knocking another down with him.

Herrick sat astride the bulwark, seeing it all through the drifting smoke. The massive gun, the additional tackle it had needed to restrain it on the narrow deck. A man ran at him with a cutlass, but Herrick twisted it with his hilt and flicked it clattering into the scuppers. Now he had both feet inboard, and slashed the man across the face and neck before he could pull out of his charge.

They were outnumbered, but with trained determination the

Tempest’s men made a tight little wedge, backs to the bulwark, their feet already slipping in blood as they clashed together with their enemy.

The clang of steel, the fierce, wild cries of the men, were matched by the screams of the wounded and dying.

But from right aft came the thud of another grapnel, and Miller’s men swarmed over the taffrail yelling and cursing like fiends. Steel on steel, the pent-up fear and hatred bursting in a tide of unrestrained killing. Men rolled upon one another, fighting with dirks, cutlasses, axes, or anything which would beat a man into submission.

Herrick parried a sword aside and realized it was the bearded man who had met Bolitho under a flag of truce. He was even bigger near to, but Herrick had endured enough.

He had never had much time for the fancy swordsmanship of men like Prideaux, or from what he had heard, Bolitho’s dead brother, Hugh. He was a fighter, and relied on his strength and staying-power to carry him through.

He took the man’s heavy sword just six inches above his hilt, forcing him round, but keeping both blades crossed.

The bearded giant shouted, “You bloody bastard! This time you die!”

Herrick’s eye flickered to a patch of blood on the deck, and thrust his hilt away from him with all his strength. He saw the cruel grin of triumph on the man’s face as he was allowed to draw back the full length of his blade. Then it altered to sudden alarm as his heel slipped on the fresh blood, and for a mere second he was off balance.

Herrick thought suddenly of the tiny scene he had watched through his telescope. The terrified French officer, his throat cut in the twinkling of an eye. Like a slaughtered pig.

“No, you die!”

His short fighting-sword seared diagonally across the man’s stomach, just above the belt, and as he dropped his weapon and clutched the torn wound with both hands, Herrick hacked him once and hard on the neck.

There was a wild cheer, and Miller, his axe red in his filthy fist, yelled, “She’s ours, lads!” It was done.

The cheers altered to cries of alarm as the deck gave a violent shiver and threw several men kicking amongst the dead and wounded.

Herrick yelled, “The reef! They cut the cable!”

There was another great lurch, and part of the mainmast thundered across the deck and crushed Gwynne dead, his mouth still open from calling.

Herrick waved his sword. “Fall back! Man the boats!”

He heard the water swilling through a nearby hold, the sounds of loose cargo and stores being hurled against the bulkhead. The reef would make short work of her, and anyone stupid enough to remain aboard.

Carrying the wounded, and kicking the pirates’ weapons into the water, the seamen retreated to their boats.

Half-mad at the swift change of events, some of the pirates, and several whom Herrick guessed to be Frenchmen from the Narval, turned on each other, while with each violent lurch the schooner lifted and ground still further on to the reef.

Miller’s cutter discharged its swivel gun for good measure as they pulled away.

Herrick shouted, “To the ship! Give way all!”

He held his breath as a great shoulder of shell-encrusted reef rose out of the sea almost under the bows. He waited for the crash, the inrush of water, and then as the boat pulled clear he turned his thoughts to his men. Poor Gwynne. A volunteer for so short a time. He looked at Nielsen, the young Dane, rocking from side to side, his face ashen with agony. He had dropped his cutlass, and one of the pirates had lunged at him with a sword. Nielsen had seized the swinging blade with both hands, and had hung on even as his attacker had pulled the razor-edged weapon through his palms and fingers.

Grant, the old gunner’s mate, showed his tobacco-stained teeth in a tired grin. “We done it, sir. One down.” He turned as the schooner rolled over in a welter of spray. “’Nother to go.”

“Aye.” Herrick looked along the boat, sharing their pain and their pride. “Well done.” He thought of Bolitho and what he would say.

It was only a beginning, but they had shown what they could achieve.

BOLITHO made himself stand very still as Herrick hurried aft towards him. The nausea came and went, and several times he thought he was going to fall to the deck. And yet he was acutely aware of what was happening around him, as if he could see without being seen. As if he were already dead.

Even his voice seemed to come from far away. “Thank God you are safe, Thomas!” He looked towards the gangway where the boatswain’s party were helping some of the scarred and battered seamen up from the boats.

Herrick said, “They did well. When that smoke clears you’ll see naught but a few spars across the reef. I lost three good hands though…” He stopped short and saw Lakey trying to signal him.

Then, as the exhaustion and fury of the fight left him, he looked closer at Bolitho.

He said, “I-I’m sorry, sir. I was thinking of myself.” He did not know how to continue. “You must go below. At once.” He studied the firm line of Bolitho’s jaw. Like that of a man preparing for the first touch of a surgeon’s blade. “How could this have happened?”

Voices called from forward, and he turned, off guard and confused, as he saw the remainder of the ship’s boats moving slowly from the shore. They were packed beyond capacity, bodies lumped over the oars and gunwales like sacks of grain, with only inches of freeboard above the water.

Borlase said hoarsely, “Convicts. He sent for them.”

“Yes.” Bolitho walked slowly to the side to watch the first boat hook on.

The drops which the surgeon had allowed him had given him a small relief, and Allday’s brandy lingered on his throat like fire. He had to blink to clear his vision as the convicts scrambled awkwardly on to the gangway and through the boarding nets. Against his own men he could see little difference. He felt a sudden sense of urgency. He must talk with them. Tell them. He saw Keen coming towards him and waited for him to speak first. He felt he had to save every breath. Each small effort brought the sweat across his body in a flood.