Alexander Kent - The Only Victor

He saw Bolitho touch his injured eye. Remembering too. The awful cries of army mounts dying in terror and in darkness until the sea finally ended it.

Bolitho noticed some of the seamen staring at each other with anger and sick dismay. Men who would barely turn a hair when they saw an enemy fall, or even one of their own if the time was wrong. But a helpless animal-that was always different.

"May I, Val?" Then all at once he found himself at the rail again, his voice surprisingly level and controlled as every man turned aft towards him.

"That ship is coming for us, lads! Whatever you may think or feel, you must stay your hand! Behind each port is a double-shotted gun with Englishmen to use them when I give the word! " He hesitated as he saw Ozzard's tiny shape scurrying along the starboard gangway towards the forecastle with one of the big signals telescopes over his shoulder like a mace.

He dragged his mind away from what it must have been like here. Helpless ships; Herrick standing like a rock between them and impossible odds. Perhaps Herrick was dead. In the same breath he knew he was not.

"Stand together! This is our ship and those people yonder were our kin! But this is not revenge! It is justice! "

He fell silent, exhausted, empty. He said quietly, "They don't have the heart for it, Val."

"Right, lads! Huzza for Our Dick! " The ship seemed to shiver to the sudden wild burst of cheering. "An' huzza for our Cap'n whose bride's waitin' for 'm in England! "

Keen turned, his eyes full of tears. "There's your answer-they'll give you all they have! You should never have doubted it! "

Allday seized Ozzard and cursed the men for cheering when they had no minds for what they were facing.

"What the hell were you doin'? I thought you'd run dizzy like them natives do in the sun! "

Ozzard put down the telescope and stared at him. He seemed very composed. More so than Allday could ever recall.

He said, "I heard what Sir Richard just told them. That it's not revenge." He looked at the powerful telescope. "I don't know much about ships, but I know that one right enough. How could I forget?"

"How d'you mean, matey?" But the throbbing pain in his chest had already warned him.

Ozzard glanced towards Bolitho and the captain. "I don't care what they call her or what flag she flies. She's the same one that destroyed our Hyperion. It will be revenge all right! " He peered at his friend, his courage gone. "What shall we do, John?"

For once there was no answer.

Midshipman Roger Segrave pressed his palms on the quarterdeck rail and took in great gulps of air, as if he were being suffocated. His whole body was like taut wire, and when he looked at his hands and arms he expected to see them shaking uncontrollably He glanced quickly at the figures around him. The master and his mates by the compass, the four helmsmen, with extra hands standing by but pretending to look like men with nothing to do. It was like a madness. The larboard gangway, the one which was nearest to the tall enemy three-decker, was packed with sailors, all unarmed, apparently chatting to each other and occasionally pointing at the other ships as if they were not involved. Segrave dropped his eyes and saw the lie revealed. Beneath the gangway and matched by the two decks below that, the gun crews were crammed against their weapons. Handspikes, rammers and sponges were close to hand, and even the breechings were cast off to avoid even a second's delay.

He looked at Bolitho who was standing with Captain Keen, hands on hips, sometimes pointing at the other ships but mostly keeping his eyes inboard. Even without their uniforms they stood out from the rest, Segrave thought wildly The lordly Midshipman Bosanquet was speaking with the flag lieutenant and Segrave saw signal.

flags rolled and ready to bend on, partly hidden by some hammocks stretched out to dry in the sunshine. Only the marines made no pretence of hiding their true identities. Their scarlet coats filled the maintop by the depressed swivel guns, and two more squads were properly deployed with fixed bayonets on the forecastle and aft near the poop.

Segrave heard Bolitho say, "Mr Julyan, you are supposed to be the captain today! "

The tall sailing-master gave a broad grin. "I feels different already, Sir Richard! "

Segrave felt his breathing and heartbeat steady. He must accept it, as they did.

Bolitho added in the same easy way, "I know that our Danish opposites dress somewhat more soberly than we do, but I think a hat might make all the difference."

More grins as Julyan tried first Keen's cocked hat and then Bolitho's, which fitted him perfectly.

Bolitho glanced around the quarterdeck and Segrave tensed as the grey eyes rested momentarily on him. "The waiting's over. Stand by! "

Segrave looked again at the enemy. The second large ship, a two-decker, was falling downwind and changing tack, flags rising and vanishing from her yards as she exchanged signals with her superior. She would confront Nicator, which was making full sail as if to head off any attack on her "prize."

Keen watched his former ship and murmured, "She was a good old girl." Was.

Segrave jumped as the first lieutenant's harsh voice smashed through his thoughts.

"Lower gundeck, Mr Segrave! Report to the third lieutenant there! " He glared round the darkly shadowed deck. "That bloody Vincent should have been here by now! Tell him I want him if you see him! " His eyes fell on Segrave and something perhaps from an old memory made him say "Easy young fellow. Men will die today but, only if chosen." His hard features cracked into a smile. "You've proved your worth-it'll not be your turn yet! "

Segrave ran to the ladder and suddenly remembered the rough kindness shown to him in Tyacke's Miranda before she had been blown to pieces. He was a year older. He had lived a full lifetime since then.

He paused for a last glance before losing himself in the hull's darkness. A captured scene, which he would never forget. Bolitho, his frilled shirt blowing in the fresh breeze, one hand on the old sword, with his coxswain just behind him. Keen, Jenour, Bosanquet, master's mates and seamen, people now, more real than any he knew at home.

As he turned he felt his mouth go dry. Beyond the larboard gangway was a solitary flag, like a lance-pendant above an armoured knight in one of his old storybooks.

As close as that. He knew it was the foremast truck of the enemy ship.

Someone shouted, "She's luffed! She wants to speak! " There was no defiant response, no ironic jeers such as he had heard from sailors in danger. It was like a single animal growl, as if the ship were speaking for them.

He found himself hurrying down, deck by deck, ladder by ladder, past wary marine sentries posted to prevent men from running below, and ship's boys as they ran with fresh powder for the guns which had yet to be fired.

He saw a midshipman cowering by the carpenter's extra stock of wedges and plugs, and knew it was Vincent.

He said, "Mr Cazalet wants you on deck! "

Vincent seemed to shrink into the heap of repairing gear and sobbed, "Go away, damn you to hell! I hope they kill you! "

Segrave hurried on, shocked more than anything by what he had seen. Vincent was finished. He had not even begun.

The lower gundeck was in total darkness, and yet Segrave could feel the mass of men who crouched there. In places chinks of sunlight probed down the gunports to touch a naked, sweating shoulder, or a pair of eyes white and staring like a blind man's.

Flemyng, the third lieutenant, commanded here. This was the main power of Black Prince's artillery, where twenty-eight 32-pounders and their crews lived, trained and waited for just this moment.

Flemyng was a tall man, and was crouched over with his face pressed against the massive hull by the first division of guns. Only when he looked inboard did Segrave see the small round observation port, no bigger than a sailor's basin, where the lieutenant could watch the nearness of an enemy before any one else.