Alexander Kent - Sloop Of War

The brig was barely half a cable away, her bowsprit pointing at right angles towards Sparrow's figurehead? The distance seemed to be failing away at a tremendous speed, and Bolitho knew that if he had misjudged it, or if the wind chose this instant to drops the enemy would drive into the sloop's side like a battering ram and split her seams wide open?

The big thirty-two-pounder in the bows broke the spell, the crash of the explosion transmitting itselb through the deck until it reached Bolitho's feet. He saw the brig's shrouds slashed open, the whirl of bright wood splinters as the ball ploughed into her tiered boats. Then gun by gun down Sparrow's side the broadside continued, with Graves bursting into the smoky sunlight, waving his sword and yelling orders to each crew in succession?

Frantically the enemy captain tried to wear ship and follow Sparrow's onrushing charge. Unable to get her own guns to bear, and with most of the forward shrouds and rigging hanging like black weed above her decks the brig was staggering drunkenly under the well-aimed barrage?

Then with the helm over and some wind still alive in the torn sails the brig finally came under command? Here and there a gun banged out, but in their haste the privateers were firing haphazardly into the whirling smoke?

"Load and run out!" Tyrrell was yelling above the din? "Roundly!"

Bolitho shouted, "Don't wait for a broadside! Let each captain fire whenever he has loaded!" It was useless to expect these men to keep on firing as a team once they, too, were under the enemy's metal?

Graves rasped, "Sponge out, you stupid bugger!l He had to drag a dazed man to the rear of his gun? "Are you mad?" He pushed the luckless seaman towards the gun captain." I'll put you in irons if I see you…"

Bolitho did not hear the rest of it. The brig was edging round until she was lying almost diagonally across the larboard quarter. Smoke fanned down around him and he felt musket balls thudding into the deck planks, the maniac whine as one ricocheted from a swivel gun just feet away?

Stockdale said desperately, "Keep on the move, sir. Them buggers'll mark you down else!"

Bolitho stared at him, knowing his own face was set in a wild grin. It never failed to amaze him that it was so easy to lose control and reason once a battle had begun. Later perhaps… He shook himself. There would be no later when they closed with the bigger ship?

He yelled, "They are shooting blind, Stockdale!" He waved his sword around the quarterdeck. None of the officers had found time to get their uniform coats or hats and like himself were dressed only in shirts and breeches, and those were already grimy with drifting powder-smoke." See? They can take their pick of us today!"

A seaman at the mizzen braces gave a terrible scream and was hurled on to his side by the force of Z

musket ball. Blood spurted from his chest, and as he rolled about in agony Bolitho called, "See to that mans Mr. Bethune!" When the midshipman hesitated, his face like chalk under the freckles, he added harshly, «Your mother is at home, boy, so you can weep alone after you have done your. duty!"

Bethune dropped to his knees, his breeches spattered with the blood, but his face suddenly determined as the dying sailor groped for his hand?

Buckle yelled, "The Yankee will try to work across our stern, sir!"

Bolitho nodded. There was nothing else the enema could do. With most of his sails damaged by cannon fire, and already overreached by Sparrow's maddened attack through the transports, the brig's captain must either try to cross astern or tack and risk his own poop coming under fire?

He snapped, "We will wear ship, Mr. Buckle. Lay her to the larboard tack and follow the brig round, nose to tail!"

He was still grinning, but could feel his mouth raw with tension as once again the men hurled themselves on the braces, their smoke-grimed bodies glistening in the glare as they angled back above the deck, their eyes on the yards above them?

"Helm a'lee!" Buckle was adding his own weight to the wheel?

Bolitho watched the bowsprit swinging, heard the immediate crash of guns as Graves directed his newly loaded battery towards the other ship?

Through the dense gunsmoke Bolitho saw the murky shape of the leading transport, now some two cables away?

"Steady as you go, Mr. Buckle!" A ball whimpered overhead, and when he glanced up he saw a neat hole in the centre of the big spanker." Keep station on Golden Fleece, she is better than any compass today!"

He winced as the hull jumped once, twice and yet again, as some enemy shots smashed into it. But the brig was in a bad way, and she was drifting stern-firsts her complete foremast dragging over the side like a fallen tree. Men were working in the wreckage, axes flashing, while others continued to fire and reload the guns as before?

"Steady, sir! Nor'-west by north!"

Bolitho raised his sword, his eyes narrowed against the reflected sunlight as he watched the brig swinging drunkenly on the tow of fallen spars?

"Easy!" The sword held the sunlight." Easy, lads!l Not a gun fired, and along the deck only at the weapons not yet reloaded was there any sort ob movement?

Another ball slammed into the lower hull, and somewhere a man screamed in torment as he was clawed down by flying splinters?

The sun was shining into his eyes now, and through the drifting smoke he saw the outline of the brig's tattered main topsail, the glint of glass as she helplessly presented her stern?

"Fire as you bear!"

Driven by the wind, the smoke came funnelling inboard through port after port as Graves ran along the gun deck, his voice cracking from the strain of shouting directions?

A shadow passed briefly above the smoke, and through the din Bolitho heard the splintering crash of a complete mast failing, and guessed it had been sheared off between decks by the Sparrow's merciless bombardment?

Then as the Sparrow forged ahead once more he heard cheering and knew it was from the Golden Fleece. As wind drove the smoke apart he saw the brig very clearly and someone on her splintered deck waving the flag in surrender. Mastless, and with her stern gouged open by the slow broadside, she was little better than a hulk. Within her small hull her company must have been savagely mauled?

Tyrrell was staring at it, his eyes bright with concentrytion, and by his side Heyward was almost jumping up and down, his voice half choked by smoke?

Then, almost before the Sparrow's dazed compana could feel the taste of their conquest, the air was blasted apart with one deafening explosion. Sparss complete sections of timber and deck planking, all whirled above an angry scarlet core, and across the water a shock wave rolled towards the sloop like a miniature typhoon. When the smoke and flying fragments subsided there was nothing to show of the privateer but for a few pieces of charred flotsam and an upended jolly boat which was miraculously undamaged. A sudden spark, an upended lantern, or someone so crazed in the horror between the shattered decks that he had ignited a fuse, the brig's end was terrible in its completeness?

Bolitho said, "Get the main course on her, Mr. Tyrrell0 We must make haste to assist Miranda." He waited until Tyrrell had brought the stunned seamen to their senses, his voice hoarse through his speaking trumpet, and then added, "They will know that we can still sell our lives dearly."

It took little time to overhaul the Golden Fleece and to see the two embattled ships about a mile distant? They had drifted in the fury of combat, their hulls masked in smoke, through which the flash of musket fire, the occasional glare of a swivel, were clear to see?

The frigate was listing against her heavier adversary, like a hulk already dead, and without using a glass Bolitho could see that the fighting had spread down across the fore deck as more boarders hacked their way between the grappled ships?