Alexander Kent - Midshipman Bolitho and the Avenger

Dancer had also come on deck, looking pale and dishevelled.

`I'll go, sir.'

Hugh Bolitho gave a tired smile. `Still no head for heights, Richard?'

The brothers looked at each other, and Dancer, who knew only one of them, could sense they were closer than they had been for a long time.

As Dancer clambered into the weather shrouds, Bolitho said, `I'm glad you asked me to join Avenger.'

He looked away, embarrassed that it was so hard to speak like this.

– Hugh Bolitho nodded slowly. `Aboard the old Gorgon I expect they're envying you at ease beside a full table. If they only knew…

He looked up, showing his anxiety, as Dancer yelled, `Deck there! Sail on the weather bow.'

Even as his cry faded, eight bells chimed out from the forecastle. They had been following the other

vessel all this time without being able to see her. She could only be the Virago. Had to be. Another few minutes and Avenger would have come about, allowing her prey to slip away once and for all.

Pyke and Truscott, the gunner, came hurrying aft, their hair ragged with spray, their bodies so steeply angled to the deck they looked like drunken sailors with three sheets to the wind.

Pyke shouted, `I'll go aloft to be sure, sir!' His teeth were bared, as if this was too personal to be shared.

Hugh Bolitho handed his hat to a seaman and snapped, `No. I will go myself.'

They all watched in silence. If Dancer had not gone aloft they would have sailed to Plymouth in ignorance. Hugh Bolitho, his coat tails flapping around his white breeches like twin pendants, paused merely briefly beside the midshipman before continuing up and further still until his shape was blurred in mist and rain. When he reached the topsail yard he stopped, and with his arms wrapped around the madly vibrating mast peered ahead.

In two minutes he returned to the deck, his face expressionless as he said, `She's Virago. No doubt about it. Two masts, ketch-rigged, carrying a lot of canvas.' Only his eyes were alive, bright like little fires as he thought it out. `She has the wind-gage of course, but no matter.' He took a few paces to the compass and then eyed each sail in turn. `Set the jib, Mr Pyke, and then send the hands aloft and run out the booms from the yard. With stuns'ls she'll even outpace that sloop.' His eyes flashed as he added sharply, `Or someone will answer to me!'

Dancer was called down to the deck, and an experienced seaman sent aloft to take his place. As he arrived, breathless and soaked in rain and spray, he exclaimed, `A change of luck, sir!'

Hugh Bolitho tightened his jaw. `We need skill today, Mr Dancer, but I'll grant you I'll not send any luck away!'

Straining and pitching, her sails booming under the pressure, Avenger responded to their combined efforts. Like huge ears, the studding sails were run out on either beam, so that with the yards braced round she presented a tremendous pyramid of canvas before the wind.

It was a strange sensation, and sometimes frightening, Bolitho thought, as the cutter battered her way through crests and troughs alike, the spray bursting over the weather bulwark in solid sheets. There was still no sign of the Virago, and from what Dancer had described, there was little to see, even from the yards. Her hull was lost in sea mist, while like disembodied fins her sails towered above it, an easy task for the keen-eyed lookout.

Bolitho thought it unlikely that Vyvyan's sailing master was bothered at the possibility of a sea chase. Not at this stage. Vyvyan probably knew more about local ship movements even than the Admiralty, and would imagine Avenger snug in harbour, or tail between legs on her way back to face the admiral's wrath.

They were probably celebrating, somewhere up ahead. Christmas, victory over the King's authority, and a booty Bolitho could not even begin to imagine.

And why not? Vyvyan had won all the tricks. And now he was safely around the Lizard and would be well clear of the Scillies when he eventually broke into the vast desert of the Atlantic.

He heard Truscott ask, `What pieces will she be carryin', sir?'

Hugh Bolitho sounded preoccupied as he scanned the sails again, searching for some possible danger or weakness.

`Much as ourselves normally. My guess is that Sir Henry Vyvyan will have a few extra surprises however, so be vigilant, Mr Truscott. I want no haphazard shooting today.' His tone hardened. `This is not a mere fight. It is a matter of honour.'

Bolitho heard him. He sounded as if it was another duel. Something to be settled in the only way he knew. Perhaps this time, he was right.

Gloag called, `Rain's movin' off, sir!'

It was hard to tell the difference, Bolitho thought. There was more spray coming inboard than rain, and the pumps were going busily all the time, so that he guessed a good portion of sea-water had found its way below.

There was a different light, not anything like the sun, and yet the tossing wave crests were brighter, their deep troughs less grey.

The helmsman cried, `Steady she goes, sir! West sou'-west!'

Bolitho held his breath. Incredible. In spite of the powerful wind, Gloag had brought her three full points into it, with every sail and spar cracking and booming like a miniature battle.

Hugh Bolitho saw his expression and gave a quick nod. `I told you, Richard. She handles well!'

A yell from the lookout put an end to speculation. `Deck there! Ship on the lee bow!'

Peploe, the sailmaker, bustling past with his mates to prepare for the first exploding piece of canvas, looked at the acting-master and grinned. `Got 'im! We'm to wind'rd of th' bugger now!'

The lookout shouted, `She's sighted us!'

They stared, fascinated, as the other vessel seemed to expand out of the receding rain like a spectre. She was moving well, the sea creaming back from her fore-foot.in an unbroken white moustache.

Someone gasped as smoke belched from her quarter, and before the smoke had been thrust aside a ball slammed through Avenger's sails and rigging, ripping holes in the starboard studding sail and main alike.

`By God, the old fox is still alert!' Hugh Bolitho turned to watch the ball pounding across the waves. He strode to the lee side and trained his telescope on his adversary. `Load and run out, if you please. I see no need for a challenge. That has already been offered!' He left the Avenger's small broadside to Truscott and said in a quieter tone, `That was a powerful piece. A nine-pounder at least. Probably put aboard with this in mind.'

Another bang, and a ball whimpered past the tafF rail before throwing up a waterspout well off the larboard quarter.

Hugh Bolitho said angrily, `Run up the colours.'

He watched as the gunner signalled from the foredeck that the guns were all loaded and run out. With the hull at such an angle it had been easy to thrust the six-pounders tightly against their ports, but less easy to fire with any accuracy. The sea was barely inches below each port, and the crews drenched with each savage plunge.

`On the uproll!'

Five tarred hands were raised along the bulwark, five slow-matches poised, hissing, above each touchhole.

Then, `Fire!'

The sharp explosions were closely joined, jarring the deck, probing the ears, as shouting and cheering the crews hauled in their guns to swab out and reload with a minimum of delay.

Above the swaying hull men swarmed like monkeys to repair severed cordage, to take in the studding sail, which because of the wind's strength had torn itself to shreds. And it had taken only one shot to do it.

Crash.

The cutter shook violently, and Bolitho knew that a ball had at last hit the hull, and possibly close to the water-line.

Bolitho steadied a glass on the other vessel. Instantly her masts and yards sprang alive in the lens, and he saw tiny figures moving around the deck, or working at braces and halliards like the Avenger's men.