Alexander Kent - A Tradition of Victory

Then he was slipping and stumbling from handhold to handhold, until he found himself on the enemy’s forecastle. He was almost knocked aside as more of Odin’s boarders charged past him, yelling like fiends as they hacked aside all opposition until they had reached the starboard gangway.

Startled faces peered up from the guns which were still firing into Odin, even though the muzzles were almost overlapping above the slit of trapped water as La Sultane swung heavily alongside.

A French midshipman darted from the shrouds and was hit between the shoulder-blades by a boarding axe as he ran.

Gun by gun the enemy’s broadside fell silent as men took up their pikes and cutlasses to defend their ship against this unexpected attack.

Bolitho found himself being carried along the narrow gangway, his sword-arm trapped at his side by the yelling, cheering seamen and marines.

Shots banged and whimpered from every angle and men were falling and dying, unable to find safety as they were forced along in the crush.

A lieutenant stood astride the gangway and saw Bolitho as he broke free from the men around him. Some of the boarders had dropped to the gun-deck below, and small tight groups of men hacked and slashed at each other, gasping for breath, while they sought to kill their enemies.

Bolitho held his sword level with his belt and watched the lieutenant’s uncertainty.

The blades circled and hissed together, and Bolitho saw the other man’s first surprise give way to concentrated determination. But Bolitho held fast to a stanchion and wedged his hilt hard against his adversary’s. The lieutenant lost his balance, and for an instant their faces almost touched. There was fear now, but Bolitho saw his enemy only as a hindrance for what he must do.

A twist and a thrust to push the man off balance. The blade was unfamiliar but straight, and Bolitho felt it grate on bone before it slid beneath the lieutenant’s armpit.

He jerked it free and ran on towards the quarterdeck. Vaguely through the smoke he saw Odin’s misty outline, festooned with tattered canvas and severed rigging. Upended guns and motionless figures which told the story of every sea-fight.

Bolitho’s sudden anger seemed to carry him faster towards the battling figures which surged back and forth across the quarterdeck while the air rang with steel and the occasional crack of a pistol.

A seaman swung at a French quartermaster and cut his arm, and yelling with fear the man ran the wrong way and was quickly impaled on a marine’s bayonet.

Two of Inch’s seamen, one badly wounded, were hurling fire buckets from the quarterdeck on to the heads of the Frenchmen below. Filled with sand, each bucket was like a rock.

A figure lunged through the smoke, but his blade glanced off Bolitho’s left epaulette. But for it, the blade might have sliced into his shoulder like a wire through cheese.

Bolitho staggered aside as the French officer tried to recover his guard.

“Not now, mounseer!”

Allday’s big cutlass made a blur across Bolitho’s vision and sounded as if it was hitting solid wood.

Where was Remond? Bolitho peered round, his sword-arm aching as he tried to gauge the progress of the battle. There were more marines aboard now, and he saw Allday’s new friend, the colour-sergeant, striding between a line of his men, his handpike taking a terrible toll as they stabbed and hacked their way aft.

By the larboard poop ladder, protected by some of his lieutenants, stood Remond. He saw Bolitho at the same moment, and for what seemed like minutes they stared at each other.

Remond shouted, “Strike! Without your flag, your ships will soon be gone!”

His voice brought a baying response from the British sailors and marines who had managed to fight their way the full length of the ship.

But Bolitho held out his sword and snapped, “I am waiting, Contre-Amiral!”

He could feel his heart thumping wildly, knowing that he was exposing his back to any marksman who might still have the will to take aim.

Remond threw his hat aside and answered, “I am ready enough, m’sieu!”

Allday said fiercely, “Jesus, sir, he’s got the sword! ”

“I know.”

Bolitho stepped away from his men, sensing their wildness giving way to something like savage curiosity.

Just to see the old sword in Remond’s hand was all the spur he required.

They met on a small, shot-scarred place below the poop, hemmed in by seamen and marines who for just a few moments were spectators.

The blades touched and veered away again. Bolitho trod carefully, feeling the stab of pain in his thigh which might betray him to the enemy.

The sword blades darted closer, and Bolitho felt the power of the man, the strength of his broad, muscular body.

Despite the danger and the closeness of death, Bolitho was very aware of Allday nearby. Held back because of his need to face Remond alone, but not for long, any more than this fight would end a battle. Even now La Sultane ’s lower gun-deck would have realized what was happening, and officers would be mustering their hands to repel the boarders.

Clang, clang, the swords shivered together, and Bolitho recalled with sudden clarity his father using that same old blade to teach him how to defend himself.

He could feel Remond’s nearness, even smell him as they pressed together and locked hilts before fighting clear again.

He heard someone sobbing uncontrollably and knew it was Stirling. He must have climbed after the boarders in spite of his orders and the risk of being hacked down.

They think I am going to be killed.

Like the sight of the old sword in his enemy’s grasp, the thought made a chill of fury run through him. As their blades clashed and parried, and each man circled round to find an advantage, Bolitho could feel the strength going from his arm.

In one corner of his eye something moved very slowly, and for an instant he imagined that another of the French ships was going to take Odin from the other beam as first intended.

His breath seemed to stop. She was no ship of the line. She could only be Phalarope. As Odin had lain against her powerful adversary, and Herrick’s ships had closed with their French counterparts, Phalarope had fought her way through the line to support him.

He gasped as Remond drove the knuckle-bow into his shoulder and punched him away. Perhaps for that second’s hesitation Remond had seen Bolitho’s surprise as defeat.

Bolitho fell back against the hammock nettings, his sword clattering across the deck. He saw Remond’s dark eyes, merciless and unwinking, he seemed to be staring straight along the edge of the blade to its very point which was aimed at his heart.

The deafening roar of carronades was terrifying and broke the spellbound watchers into confusion. Phalarope had crossed the French flagship’s stern and was firing through the windows and along the lower gun-deck from transom to bows.

The ship felt as if it were falling apart, and Bolitho saw splinters and fragments of grape bursting up through the deck itself or ricocheting over the sea like disturbed hornets. One such fragment hit Remond before he could make that final thrust.

He realized that Allday was helping to get him to his feet, that Remond had fallen on his side, a hole the size of a fist punched through his stomach. Behind him a British seaman came out of his daze, and seeing the dying admiral, lifted his cutlass to end it.

Allday saw Bolitho’s face and said to the man, “Easy, mate! Enough’s enough.” Almost gently he prised the old sword from Remond’s fingers and added, “It don’t serve two masters, mounseer.” But Remond’s stare had become fixed and without understanding.

Bolitho gripped the sword in both hands and turned it over very slowly. Around him his men were cheering and hugging each other, while Allday stood grim-faced and watchful until the last Frenchman had thrown down his weapons.