Alexander Kent - Relentless Pursuit

Williams could have been promoted long ago, but for his love of gambling. With hirn it was like lust, and, discipline or not, nothing would change him. Dice, or simply laying odds on the most common daily occurrence: how many knots sailed in a single watch, or how much rum would be consumed in one mess in the course of a week. He had a loyal group of fellow gamblers, his clutch, as he called them, and as he was able to read and write he was the one who kept a tally of the wins and, more likely, the losses. Rist had heard some of them say they had already laid down their slave-and prize-bounty in Williams' care, and they had not even received it yet!

Williams was his own man. If he liked you, it was enough. If you pushed him too far, then beware.

It had all been so quick. If Mister bloody Sandell had not been nosing around between decks when he should have been standing watch, it would not have happened. Maybe the midshipman had heard something and was out to prove himself. But he was there that morning, when Williams had been returning to his mess after yet another secret session with the clutch.

Sandell had probably attempted to seize the list of bets, or even some of the money, as evidence. It was all so fast, you would never know for sure. One moment there had been the two of them, Williams towering over the irate, gesticulating midshipman, then there was only Williams. Sandell had fallen back against one of the carronades, his head striking the iron "smasher." Dead or unconscious, the sea had received him. And bloody good riddance.

He swung round guiltily as Williams shouted, "Done, Frank! Cut the cable, and we'll be going!"

Rist hurried forward and called, "Cut it, lads!" He stared ahead at the overlapping shapes of anchored vessels. They would soon do the same when they saw a fireship drifting down on them.

A seaman shouted, "Look out!" It was almost a scream.

One of the anchor watch must have hidden below, undiscovered, when the boarding party had swarmed up from the boats. He just seemed to rise out of the deck, from a small hatch which nobody had cared to investigate.

Fist aimed his pistol; he did not even recall having drawn it. The two shots sounded as one. He ran to help Williams, who had fallen to his knees; the other man had no time even to cry out as a cutlass smashed into his skull.

"Where is it, Owen?" Other hands were helping, but Rist and Williams were completely alone.

Williams said thickly, "It's a bad one, Frank. This time, I think…" His head lolled, and he groaned, as if to bite back the agony. Rist could feel the blood on his hand, running over his wrist. A bad one. He had seen enough of them.

"We'll get you to the boat."

Williams tried to protest but the pain held it back. Then he said in an almost normal tone, "You too busy to see the wind, man? It's shifted. Not much. But a bit. Enough, see?"

Rist stared around. "I don't give a damn!"

With sudden strength Williams pulled himself up to the schooner's wheel. Gasping with pain, he slowly wrapped and fastened the old-style crossbelt he always wore around and through the spokes, so that it took his weight.

"Get to the boats, Frank. Time to move, see? Nothing more you can do. The ship'll need you now!"

Somebody asked, "What d' you say, Mr Rist?"

For a moment longer he stared up at the masts, and the loosely flapping jib. A command of his own. What he had always wanted. He shrugged, as if to the world. What Galbraith wanted too, although he would never admit it.

He looked down as a hand gripped his.

Rist lowered his head until their faces almost touched. Feeling the agony, the sudden determination.

"What is it, Owen?"

Williams gripped his hand harder. "You saw me, Frank, that morning. I knew you did." lie fought a bout of coughing. There was blood on his shirt. Rist heard the distant guns. It could not last. He had others to think of

"Yes, I saw it."

"And you never said?" He tried to smile, but it only made it worse. "Save yourself, see? Time to go, cut the cable. Now." He reached out suddenly and Rist heard the sharp click of his flintlock. The realisation seemed to freeze him, but he could see it stark and clear in his mind. Williams had fired the fuse.

"Cut the cable, Billy! Into the boats, the rest of you!"

The deck was deserted, the only sound the regular thud of a heavy axe. He heard Williams mutter, "A life for a life, see, Frank? So I was taught!"

"Cut." The seaman was already running aft to the waiting boats.

Rist stood motionless, seeing the wheel respond to the hands, the jib hardening enough to swing the hull very slightly. Adrift, and at any second the fuses would blow.

Then he ran aft, his leg over the rail even as the first muffled explosion spurted sparks through the forehatch.

Voices were yelling at him to jump; he thought he had heard Galbraith too, but all he could think of was the figure strapped to the schooner's wheel. And how strong his Welsh accent had sounded, in the face of death itself.

Someone thrust a bottle into his hands. It was rum, like fire in his throat. He raised the bottle again and murmured, "All bets down, my friend!"

Then the world exploded.

"Hold your fire!" Adam had to shout twice to gain Varlo's attention. The guns had fired three broadsides, the havoc on the other frigate's deck easy to see despite the smoke and confusion. Perhaps their forecastle party had been cut down in the first double-shotted onslaught, when Unrivalled had come about to show her true intention. The ship was swinging now, moored only by her forward cable, the stream anchor aft having been cut to escape the second broadside. Purpose or panic, it mattered little now, but the blazing schooner Galbraith and his two boats had boarded had been enough for the crowded shipping which had been relying on the warships' moored broadsides.

The fireship had become entangled with another schooner and both were now drifting like one huge torch.

Even as he watched, Adam saw another, smaller vessel catch fire, the flames leaping up the sun-dried rigging and turning the sails into scattered ashes. He heard warning shouts from the maintop and saw two oared galleys sweeping past the other ships, turning as one towards Unrivalled and increasing speed to the urgent beat of a drum.

Such fanatical daring should have achieved a better settlement. But the brig Magpie was ready, and raked the leading galley with canister and grape, in an instant changing it to a shattered wreck. The second paid no heed and met with more grape from Unrivalleds larboard carronades.

The long sweeps splintered like boxwood as the galley lurched and shuddered alongside. In the next instant figures were swarming up and over the gangway, only to be confronted by the boarding nets, probably something they had never before encountered.

Men snatched up cutlasses and axes, while others dragged the deadly boarding-pikes from the racks and impaled the screaming, crazed attackers before they had even cut through the nets.

And yet there were a few who managed to hack their way past the defences. One, a bearded giant, marked out from the others by a scarlet robe, reached the quarterdeck ladder, his eyes fixed on the man he recognised as captain.

Adam had his sword balanced in his hand, loosely, some of the others might have thought. As if he no longer cared…

He saw the great blade swing down, heard someone, Napier perhaps, yell out a warning. Like being someone else, able to measure the weight and force of the blow. He felt it lance through his arm, heard the scream of steel as the two blades crossed, the heavier blade sliding down to lock against the hilt of his sword. He could even smell his attacker, feel the overwhelming hate which excluded everything else.

He stepped aside, gasping as pain seared his wounded side, but keeping his balance as the giant lunged forward.