Alexander Kent - THE INSHORE SQUADRON

Browne watched the flag dashing up the yard and breaking to the wind. To see the quick exchange of glances between Bolitho and Herrick had pushed his own troubles into the background. He knew what they were thinking. What it must always cost a senior officer to place a friend or relative at risk.

The gunfire was reaching the quarterdeck now, savage, intermittent and very distinct, which suggested that the two or more vessels were firing at dose range.

Herrick said, 'Mr Speke! Aloft with you and tell me what you think.'

The lieutenant scrambled up the shrouds, his coat tails flying in the wind.

Wolfe touched his hat. 'Shall I pass the order to load and run out, sir?'

Bolitho said, 'No. There's no point.'

It was strange. In a matter of seconds the battle, Copenhagen, even their reason for being here at all, had been sponged away.

Somewhere on the horizon's misty edge one of their own was fighting. It sounded like two ships. Russian, Swedish or Danish made no difference now.

He recalled Peel's quiet competence and knew he would not be one to act foolishly. He thought, too, of Pascoe's expression as he had turned away from the cabin after he had heard about his father.

'Smoke, sir!' Speke's voice sounded shrill. 'Ship afire!' Bolitho bit his lip. 'Signal to the squadron, Mr Browne. Make more sail.'

Herrick caught his mood and shouted, 'Mr Wolfe! Hands aloft and set t'gan's'ls! Then break out the driver!'

Wolfe strode about the deck, ginger hair flapping, his speaking trumpet swinging as he bellowed for the afterguard to be piped to the braces even as the topmen swarmed to the uppermost yards.

Benbow responded instantly, as under more canvas she heeled heavily to the thrust. Astern, down the line, the other ships were following her example, and to a landsman's inexperienced eye they would seem to be flying like frigates. In fact, Bolitho knew that in these moderate winds they were barely making five knots through the water.

The horizon seemed to shiver and then erupt to a single, violent explosion. Nobody on the quarterdeck said anything. Only a ship's magazine could sound like that.

Browne cleared his throat. 'From Lookout, sir. Sail in sight.'

Herrick stared at Benbow's flapping topsails with fixed attention. 'But which one, for God's sake?'

Speke called, 'One ship has gone down, sir. The other seems to be crippled!'

The masthead pendant whipped out, and Bolitho felt the deck give a sudden tremble as the strengthening gust pushed over the quarter to fill the sails.

He trained a telescope through the rigging, saw a man's face leap into focus as it passed over the carronades on the forecastle to reach far ahead of the ship.

He saw the pall of smoke, two masts with yards and sails in holed fragments standing above it like mute witnesses of the fight.

Then he heard the lookout cry, 'She's a Frenchie, sir!' Bolitho looked at Browne. 'The Ajax.'

Allday came from the poop and watched with the others.

'She'd done her repairs an' was trying to get back to France, I reckon.'

'Probably.'

Bolitho gripped his sword hilt until the pain made him think more dearly. Allday was right, had to be. After such a mauling from Styx the French captain would have needed at least five months to effect repairs. He had probably chosen a port which had become hemmed in by the ice, and now here he was, bringing with him a terrible revenge.

He said harshly, 'Tell Lookout to investigate but not to engage.' He turned and glanced at the sailing master's ruined features and added, 'Lay a course to take the wind-gage off that one, Mr Grubb.'

Herrick lowered his telescope. ` Ajax is not moving. She's lost her mizzen, and I think her steering may have gone.'

The torment of waiting, watching the battered frigate growing larger and larger while Lookout moved warily nearby like a hunter who has discovered a wounded lion, was made more terrible by the silence.

Then Wolfe said, 'Lookout's dropped her boats, sir. Looking for survivors, though after that explosion…' He fell silent as Herrick shot him an angry glance.

Major Clinton had left his marines to join Herrick by the quarterdeck rail. Suddenly he pointed with his stick and said, 'I think the Frenchman's getting under way!'

Wolfe nodded. 'He's cut the wreckage free. Now he's set another topsail.'

They faced Bolitho as he said, 'Run out the lower battery, Mr Wolfe.'

Even the repeated order was hushed. Then the deck gave a long quiver as the great thirty-two-pounders trundled noisily up to their open ports.

'Run out, sir!'

Blackened woodwork and a length of trailing rigging clattered along the Benbow's side. There were corpses, too, or what was left of them.

'Fire a warning shot, Mr Wolfe.'

The gun nearest the bows erupted with a violent bang, and as the smoke fanned out over the water Bolitho saw the great ball slam down almost in line with Ajax 's figurehead.

But the tricolour which had replaced the one lost overboard on the mizzen showed no sign of dipping, and even as he watched Bolitho saw the frigate's shape shortening as she began to turn away.

Wolfe asked, 'Broadside, sir?'

Bolitho stared past him, the French ship blurred in his vision as if through thick glass.

At a range of just over a mile, a full broadside from those great guns would smash the damaged frigate to fragments. The leaks caused by her fight with Relentless and the weight of her own artillery would finish it.

He heard Clinton exclaim, `That captain is a fool!'

Bolitho shook his head. 'Tell the gun captains to fire in succession.'

The second ball smashed through the Ajax 's quarter, hurling wreckage and shattered spars high into the air like straw in a wind.

Bolitho watched the tricolour as it was hauled down and added quietly, 'He is also a brave man, Major.'

A master's mate said, 'Lookout's boats have picked up some people, sir!'

Bolitho barely recognized his own voice. `Alter course to intercept Lookout. Make a signal to Indomitable to board the ' Ajax and take off her company.' He hardened his voice. `Then sink her.'

Speke, still on his lofty perch in the cross-trees, yelled, 'Six hands, sir! Five seamen and a marine!'

Bolitho ducked beneath the furled boarding nets and stood on the starboard gangway as he watched the slow-moving boats, the drifting remains of Peel's command. Flotsam, burned timber, fire-blackened canvas. And men. Men so torn and disfigured that they would have known very little about it.

He gripped the shrouds and almost cried out as his wounded thigh grated against the iron-hard cordage.

A hand reached up and he saw Midshipman Penels staring at him. 'Let me, sir!'

'Thank you.' Bolitho rested his elbow on the boy's shoulder as he waited for the pain to ebb away.

Damerum, however unwittingly, had found an assassin after all.

He made himself look at the procession of bobbing remnants as they parted beneath Benbow s staring figurehead.

Behind him he could hear some of the seamen yelling, congratulating each other on preventing Ajax 's escape.

Penels said in a small voice, 'Sir, I think I saw something move out there.'

Bolitho raised his glass and followed the direction of his arm. Half of an upturned boat and a long spar with one end blasted off like chalk.

There were several corpses floating nearby, and for a moment he thought Penels had imagined it, or had wanted to say something to please him.

He said, 'I see it!' It was just an arm, sticking up over the spar. But it was moving. Alive. Someone who had survived. Who might know…

He was gripped by something like panic. Even in these few moments the ship had moved some fifty yards.

`Captain Herrick! Man in the water, starboard side! Quarter boat, quick!'