Alexander Kent - Cross of St George

Bolitho trained the glass still further. He could feel the youth’s shoulder quivering: excitement, fear, it could be both.

The frigate was almost bows-on, leaning over as her yards were hauled round to hold her on the opposite tack. So close now, five miles or thereabouts. She would soon be on a converging course. Tyacke must have anticipated it, had put himself in the other captain’s place when he had ordered York to let Indomitable fall off two points. Either way, they would hold the wind-gage. It would be a swift, and possibly decisive, embrace.

The enemy frigate was trying to head further into the wind, but her flapping canvas filled again while she held her present course.

Bolitho heard Tyacke say, almost to himself, “Got you!”

“Royal Marines, stand to!” That was Merrick. A good officer, but one who had always been dominated by du Cann, who had been torn to bloody shreds by a swivel even as he had led his marines onto the American’s deck. Was Merrick hearing his voice even now, as he ordered his men to their stations?

He moved the glass again, his lips dry as he saw Virtue’s blurred shape falling downwind, obviously out of command, her steering gone, her remaining sails whipping in the wind like ragged banners.

Tyacke again. “Starboard battery, Mr Daubeny! Open the ports!”

A whistle shrilled, and Bolitho imagined the port lids lifting like baleful eyes along their spray-dappled side.

“Run out!”

Bolitho lowered the glass and murmured a word of thanks to the midshipman. He saw Avery watching him, and said, “The senior captain is holding off for the present.”

Tyacke joined him and exclaimed angrily, “To let another do his work for him, the bastard!”

There was a puff of smoke from the approaching frigate, and seconds later a ball slapped down beyond Indomitable’s thrusting jib-boom. Bolitho said, “You may shorten sail, Captain Tyacke.” He could have been speaking to a stranger.

Tyacke was shouting to his lieutenants, while high above the tilting deck the topmen were already kicking and fisting the wild canvas under control, yelling to one another as they had done so often during their endless drills and contests, mast against mast. Bolitho straightened his back. It was always the same: the big main course brailed up to lessen the risk of fire, but leaving the crouching gun crews and the bare backed seamen at the braces and halliards feeling exposed and vulnerable.

He stared at the drifting Virtue. If she survived this day, it would take months to repair and refit her. Many of her people would not see that, or any other day.

But her flag still flew, hoisted with pathetic jauntiness to an undamaged yard, and through the smoke he could see some of her seamen climbing on to the shattered gangways to cheer and gesture as Indomitable surged towards them.

Avery tore his eyes away from the other ship and looked toward Bolitho as he said, “See? They can still cheer!” He pressed one hand to his eye, but Avery had seen the emotion and the pain.

Tyacke leaned on the rail as if to control his ship single-handed.

“On the uproll, Mr Daubeny!” He drew his sword and lifted it, until the first lieutenant had turned towards him.

“When you are ready, Mr York!” York raised a hand in acknowledgment. “Helm a’lee! Hold her steady there!”

Responding to the quarter-wind, Indomitable turned slightly and without effort, her long jib-boom slicing above the other ship’s like a giant’s lance.

“Steady she is, sir! Nor’ by east!”

“Fire!”

Controlled, gun by gun, the broadside thundered out from bow to quarter, the sound so loud after the distant sea-fight that some of the seamen almost lost their grip on the braces as they hauled with all their strength to drag the yards round, to harness the wind. The oncoming frigate had been waiting, to draw closer, or to anticipate Tyacke’s first move. By a second or an hour, it was already too late, even before it had begun.

Bolitho watched Indomitable’s double-shotted broadside smashing into the other ship, and imagined that he saw her stagger as if she had run aground. He saw great holes in the sails, the wind already exploring them and tearing them apart. Severed rigging and shrouds dangled over her side, and more than one gunport had been left empty, blinded, its cannon running free to cause more havoc inboard.

“Stop your vents! Sponge out! Load! Run out!”

Even as the enemy fired, the gun crews threw themselves into their work in a barely controlled frenzy.

Gun captains peered aft where Tyacke stood watching the other frigate. Perhaps he could exclude all else but the moment and his duty; he certainly did not seem to notice as one of the packed hammocks was torn apart by a jagged splinter a few yards from his body.

Bolitho felt the hull jerk as some of the other frigate’s iron found its mark. The range was closing fast; he could even see men running to retrim the yards, and an officer waving his sword, before Tyacke’s arm came down and the guns hurled themselves inboard on their tackles once more. Through the black shrouds and stays the American frigate looked as if she would run headlong into Indomitable’s side, but it was an illusion of battle, and the sea churned between the two ships was as bright as before.

Bolitho snatched up a glass and walked to the opposite side, expecting to see the senior American frigate running into the fight, with only the smaller Attacker standing in her way. He stared with disbelief as he realized that she had already gone about, and was making more sail even as he watched.

Avery said hoarsely, “Not bluffing this time, sir!”

There was a wild cheer as the frigate’s foremast began to fall. He imagined he could hear the terrible sounds of splintering wood and tearing rigging, although his ears were still deaf from the last broadside. So slow, so very slow. He even thought he could see the final hesitation before shrouds and stays snapped under the weight, and the whole mast, complete with yards, top and sails, thundered down alongside, dragging the vessel round like some giant sea anchor.

He watched the range closing fast, the American frigate turning clumsily while some of her men ran to cut the mast adrift, their axes like bright stars in the smoky sunshine.

Daubeny called, “All loaded, sir!”

Tyacke did not seem to hear. He was watching the other ship as she drifted helplessly to the thrust of wind and current.

The American officer was still waving his sword, and the huge Stars and Stripes streamed as proudly as before.

“Strike, damn you!” But Tyacke’s voice held no anger or hatred; it was more a plea, one captain to another.

Two of the enemy’s guns recoiled in their ports and Bolitho saw more packed hammocks blasted from their nettings, and seamen reeling from their weapons while one of their number was cut in half by a ball, his legs kneeling in grotesque independence.

Tyacke stared at Bolitho. Nothing was said. The sudden silence was almost more painful than the explosions.

Bolitho glanced at the enemy ship, and saw that some of her seamen who had been running seconds earlier to hack away the dragging wreckage had stopped as if stricken, unable to move. But here and there a musket flashed, and he knew that her invisible marksmen could not be cheated for much longer.

He nodded. “As you bear!”

The sword fell, and in one shattering roar the starboard battery fired into the drifting smoke.

Daubeny yelled, “Reload!”

Stooping like old men, the gun crews sponged out the hot guns and rammed home the fresh charges and shining black balls from the garlands. At one of the ports the men hauled their gun back, oblivious even to the sliced corpse and the blood that soaked their trousers like paint. A fight they could understand; even the pain and fear that kept it close company were part of it, something expected. But a drifting ship, unable to steer and with most of her guns either unmanned or out of action, was something different.