Alexander Kent - BEYOND THE REEF

The second ship, another 74, had been obeying a signal to close on the leader, and now because her consort was staggering out of line, her forecastle strangely bare with the mast gone, there was danger of collision.

Keen shouted, "Fire at will!"

Whistles again, the upper and middle gun decks roared out at the enemy. Bolitho saw wreckage fly from the second ship, and holes punched through her flapping sails as the iron raked her from bow to poop.

John Allday gritted his teeth. "For what we are about to receive…"

Every port along the enemy's side flashed fire and Bolitho gripped the quarterdeck rail as he felt the shots smashing into the hull like great hammers. But nothing fell from above, and already several of the gun captains below him had their hands in the air, ready to fire again.

Keen yelled, "On the uproll, Mr Sedgemore!"

"Fire!"

The long twelve-pounders flung themselves inboard on the tackles, their black muzzles streaming smoke and hissing like live things as the wet sponges were rammed into them.

"Run out!" Sedgemore wiped his sweating face. "As you bear, lads! Fire!"

The third ship had dropped downwind to avoid the leading two and swayed over to the force of a full broadside as she fired directly into Black Prince's quarter.

There were crashes and screams from below the poop, and the rumble of a gun being upended.

"Put your helm down!" Keen watched the leading ship swinging towards them, still out of control because of the great mass of rigging and spars hauling her round like some huge sea anchor. He raised a glass and saw the gleam of axes as men tried to cut away the fallen mast, while others stood, apparently unable to move as Black Prince's jib-boom passed their own.

At this range Joyce's great thirty-two-pounders could not miss. The enemy stood at barely thirty yards' range when his guns thundered from every port, and another broadside of screaming metal ripped through the remaining masts and spars or across the deck itself.

Major Bourchier watched with little more than professional interest as his lieutenant snapped, "Marines! Fix bayonets! Stand-to! "

They stepped smartly up to the packed nettings and slid their muskets across the hammocks to take aim.

Smoke swirled over the deck. Bolitho felt Allday flinch beside him as a ball crashed through a port and splintered on the breech of a gun even as it was being run out.

The gun's crew were hurled in all directions, some cut to pieces to cover the men at the neighbouring twelve-pounder with blood, others smashed down where they had been standing in their fixed attitudes before they fell to the deck.

Midshipman Hilditch, one of the twelve-year-olds who had joined Black Prince at Spithead, had been running messages to and from the lower gun deck. He fell down the open hatchway, but not before Bolitho had seen that half of his face had gone. Like Tyacke.

"She's trying to cross our stern, Val!"

Bolitho watched men running to Keen's commands, hauling on braces and halliards to allow the ship to turn even further downwind. Their immediate danger was the third ship in the French line. If she managed to press astern, and at this close range, she could pour a full broadside deck by deck through Black Prince's unprotected stern. Any fighting ship, once cleared for action, was open from bow to counter; a single carefully timed broadside would turn the open gun decks into a bloody shambles. But the enemy had left it too late, and was now coming about to overreach the flagship's starboard quarter.

"Marines! Open fire!"

Like puny pop-guns amidst the thunder of the main armament the muskets obeyed, while far away in an unreal war the other battle raged on unheeded. When Bolitho raised his telescope he saw with dismay that Relentless was drifting, her steering apparently shot away, her main and mizzen cut down like savaged trees as she continued to fire into the dense smoke. Valkyrie's masts were still intact, and he could see her flag floating above the drifting pall as if detached from any vessel.

More shots hammered into the lower hull, and men screamed and fell dying as two balls burst through the nettings, killing gun crews on the disengaged side.

A terrified midshipman ran across the quarterdeck, his eyes wide, probably from seeing Hilditch's body on the ladder. If, mercifully, the iron splinter had killed him.

Keen shouted, "Walk, Mr Stuart! The people are looking to you today!"

Bolitho winced as another ragged burst of firing exploded over the deck. Keen's remarks had been like hearing himself, all that time ago. He heard the boy gasp, "No more bar-shot, sir!"

"Get below. Tell Mr Joyce to resume firing at the ship on our quarter."

The boy left the quarterdeck, walking, a small lost figure not daring to look at the sights around him.

Some of the crews of the forward division broke away, cowering, as another ball screamed past them and overturned another gun.

Sedgemore was there instantly. "Get back! Fight your gun, you bastards, or fight me!"

They ran to the tackles again, the gun captain watching them with a shame Bolitho could sense even from the quarterdeck.

The nettings above the deck were bouncing with fallen cordage, and a musket dropped by someone from the maintop. Some seamen were struggling up the lee shrouds with a boatswain's mate to try to repair dangling rigging. One fell almost at once as marksmen fired from the other ship to test their aim and prepare to mark down the officers.

"The second ship is closing, sir!" Keen's hand went to his head as his hat was knocked to the deck. The shot had missed him by inches.

In a brief lull Bolitho heard the sharper bang of Tybalt's guns. She must be among the supply ships.

"Must concentrate on the last one, Val!"

He almost fell as a ball smashed across the deck and cut down two of the helmsmen.

Two more ran to replace them but the quartermaster yelled, "She don't answer, sir!" His white trousers were splashed with bright blood from his two companions but all he could think of was the wheel. The ship was already going out of control.

More shots hammered the stout hull, and Bolitho found himself recalling Hyperion's last fight. She would have been no match for this merciless bombardment. A great explosion made the air cringe, but the intensity of the crossfire from all the engaged ships soon recovered.

It must have been a supply vessel blowing up, like the one Adam had destroyed.

Bolitho lifted a glass and watched the men swarming across the forecastle of the French ship, some exchanging fire with the marines, others brandishing hangers and axes, preparing to board as Black Prince continued to fall downwind.

Keen stared at him with wretched eyes. "If we had some support, sir!" It was like a cry of despair.

Major Bourchier shouted hoarsely, "More marines down aft, Mr Courtenay!" But the lieutenant lay dead beside his sergeant, and Bolitho was reminded of those first terrible seconds when he had boarded Herrick's flagship. Herrick had still been calling out orders to his marines, who had been strewn across the bloodied decks like broken toy soldiers.

Allday drew his cutlass and said, "Together again, eh, Sir Richard?" He watched narrowly as Tojohns hurried to give Keen his hat. There was a neat hole punched through its brim.

Keen felt suddenly at ease. The madness, then. He had seen some of the new men break and run from their stations when death had moaned amongst them. But not I. This is my ship. They will take it from me on pain of death.

Balls hammered into the deck nearby and he guessed that the French marksmen were shooting from the two-decker's foretop. Then he heard Tojohns cry out, and saw him lurch against an unmanned gun, blood spilling from his mouth. Jenour knelt beside him but shook his head. "He's gone, sir."