Alexander Kent - COLOURS ALOFT!

Keen saw it was Hext, one of the youngest aboard. As he reached the hatch coaming he slipped on some blood and fell sprawling. A tall Frenchman bounded towards him, his cutlass already swinging. The boy rolled over and stared at him. He did not cover his face or plead, he just lay and watched death.

But Inch was there, and drove his blade under the seaman's ribs, swinging him round, the man's weight tearing the sword from his grasp. The sailor dropped beside Midshipman Hext, his bare feet drumming in agony on the deck.

Keen saw a boarding pike come from the smoke. It took Inch in the back. As he fell to his knees the pike was torn free and then driven into him once more.

Bolitho watched Inch fall, and then, along the length of the deck, above the swaying, exhausted figures he saw Keen looking at him. For a moment longer the battle seemed elsewhere. They shared the moment. All their memories, and the brave Zenoria. The brightness of hope and love, the illusion of a precious discovery.

The voices roared through it and Bolitho swung round to face a French lieutenant.

Savagely he slashed the young officer's blade aside and then seized his lapel and drove the knuckle bow into his jaw. The lieutenant lurched aside and gasped in terror as Allday's great cutlass swept across the sunlight like a shadow.

Allday wrenched the blade free and gasped thickly, "We can't 'old 'em!"

Bolitho saw his men falling back; they were trapped here; both gangways had as many Frenchmen on them as Keen's people.

Bolitho shouted, "Hold fast, lads!" A seaman dropped on his knees and tried to fend off another bright blade. He screamed as his severed hand fell beside him. Bolitho lunged over the wounded man's shoulder and felt the Frenchman against the sword, then reel over as the point grated off his crossbelt and slid into his chest.

He turned to rally some seamen and marines on the other side and then saw something rising above the great pall of smoke.

Allday croaked, "Bastards are alongside! 'Nother of 'em!"

One of the French seventy-fours must have fought free of Bolitho's ships and was coming to assist his admiral.

There was a crazed cheer and Bolitho saw that the newcomer had lost her mizzen. Guns bellowed from her side, and Bolitho felt the jerk of iron transmit itself even to Argonautes own deck.

It was an impossible dream, the stern-faced figurehead in breastplate and with out-thrust sword. Admiral Benbow.

Cheering and whooping, Herrick's marines and seamen swarmed across in a tide of smoke-blackened, battered men, who had already fought and won their battle to protect the convoy.

Suddenly Bolitho was being carried forward on Argonaute's new strength and almost fell into the swirling water as two seamen hauled him roughly over the forecastle rail and onto the bowsprit. Caught between Benbow s men and Keen's own company, the French were already fighting their way onto one gangway, a bridge of escape to their own ship, and still held the advantage over those below them.

Bolitho heard Bouteiller yell, "Royal Marines, still!"

He could not see them but pictured the scarlet coats, no longer smartly pressed and clean, as they responded to their captain's command. Dazed, wild, even the fury within them was not enough to withstand their familiar discipline.

They stood or knelt along the opposite gangway, their muskets rising as one. A marine fell dead from the rank, but nobody flinched. Revenge would come later.

Bouteiller yelled, "Fire!"

The musket balls crashed into the packed mass of boarders and, even as the living struggled free from the dead, the marines were already charging towards them, shouting and screaming like demons as they went in with their bayonets.

Bolitho slipped, but held on to the massive bowsprit, his feet kicking at the spritsail yard and shrouds while he stared with stunned disbelief at the deck below him, Leopard's forecastle. But for the lanyard around his wrist he would have lost his sword for ever.

There was more firing from that other existence beyond the smoke, ships locked together or surging towards the French rear-admiral's flag, Bolitho could not tell. A command flag was supposed to lead and direct. Now it had become a beacon, a guide for carnage. Men fought and struggled all around him; it was impossible to grasp direction or time. Bodies were sometimes pressing against him, with brief flashes of recognition as a wild face found his. Someone even managed to shout, "'Tis the admiral, lads!" Another yelled, "You keep with us, Dick!"

It was wild, terrifying, and yet the madness was like rich wine. Bolitho locked hilts with another lieutenant and was astonished that he found it so easy to disarm him with one twist of the wrist which tore the weapon from his hand. He would have left it at that as the yelling, panting seamen carried him along, but a marine paused and glared at the cowering officer. All he said was, "This is for Cap'n Inch!" The thrust carried the lieutenant to the rail, the point of the bayonet glinting red through the back of his coat.

Bolitho dashed his wrist across his face. It felt like a furnace and he was almost blinded by sweat.

He saw the gouged planks across the broad sweep of quarterdeck where Keen's grape had fired so blindly. Bodies lay scattered near the abandoned wheel, others ran to meet the rush of boarders, probably unable to accept what had happened.

A sailor darted under a bayonet and headed for Allday. He stared at the Frenchman and then lifted his cutlass. He almost laughed through his despair. It was so easy.

As he raised the blade and tightened his hold on the cutlass he suddenly cried out, the pain in his old wound burning through his chest, rendering him helpless, unable to move.

Bolitho was separated from him by an abandoned gun, but hurled himself towards him, his sword hitting out.

But Bankart leaped between them armed only with a belaying pin.

He screamed, "Get back! Don't you touch him!" He threw himself protectively against his father, sobbing with anger and fear as the Frenchman darted forward for the kill.

Bolitho felt the ball fan past his face, although his dazed mind did not record the sound of a shot.

He saw the Frenchman slide back and drop to the deck, his cutlass clattering beneath the feet of the crowd.

Bolitho saw Midshipman Sheaffe, his face white with strain, with Stayt's pistol still smoking in one hand, his puny dirk in the other.

Then he forgot him; even the fact that, with Allday about to be cut down, his son had found himself and the courage which he believed would never be his.

Bolitho saw Jobert by the poop ladder, saw him shouting to his officers, although the din, the mingled roar of victory and defeat, made it impossible to understand.

Lieutenant Paget, his coat sliced from shoulder to waist and cut about the face by wood splinters, waved his bloodied hanger to his men.

Bolitho stared through the smoke, now almost blind from it, or was it something worse? He could not even find the will to care any more.

Paget yelled, "Get him! Cut the bastard down!"

Bolitho found himself lurching through the jubilant seamen, some of whom were strangers from Herrick's ship.

It had to stop. The past could not repair anything; nor must it destroy.

He knocked a marine's musket aside with the flat of his sword. He heard Allday gasping behind him. He would die rather than leave him now.

Bolitho shouted, "Strike, damn you!"

Jobert stared at him, his eyes shocked. He peered past Bolitho and must have sensed that only he was keeping him alive. There was a great wave of cheering and someone yelled, "There goes their flag, mates! We beat the buggers!"

The voices and faces swirled round, while the cornered Frenchmen in various parts of their ship began to throw down their weapons. But not Jobert. Almost disdainfully he drew his sword and tossed his hat to the deck.