Alexander Kent - THE INSHORE SQUADRON

Allday's great cutlass flashed across his vision and sank into the officer's forehead like an axe into a log. Allday wrenched it free and swung again at a man who was trying to duck past him. The man screamed and fell, trodden instantly underfoot as the hacking, gasping men fought savagely to hold their ground.

Then it was done, the surviving boarders running to the broken stem to climb back to their galleys or to drop into the sea to escape the reddened cutlasses and pikes.

Wolfe appeared, his face like stone as he stared at the corpses and the glittering runnels of blood.

'We are almost alongside the enemy, sir!'

He saw a man's hand creeping from the shadows to ' retrieve a fallen pistol. One great foot pinioned the man's wrist to the deck, and with almost contemptuous ease Wolfe struck.down with his hanger, cutting off the scream almost before it had began.

Bolitho gasped, `Leave some spare hands here!'

He heard Allday hurrying after him to the companion, saw the most forward gun crews fading into deeper shadow as the drifting enemy floated slowly alongside. But they continued to fire, cheering and swearing, aware of nothing but the pockmarked hull opposite their muzzles. Men lay dead and dying around the guns but only the other ship seemed to mean anything. Deafened, half-blinded, sickened by the stench of killing, it was likely that some of them had not even noticed the attempt to board their ship from astern.

Bolitho walked across the shot-pitted quarterdeck, his eyes fixed on the enemy. Men fired muskets, swivels and pistols, while others, driven almost mad, stood and shook their cutlasses and pikes at the Danes.

Herrick had one hand inside his coat and there was blood on his wrist.

Browne was on his knees bandaging Acting Lieutenant Aggett's leg which had been laid open by a wood splinter.

`Repel boarders!'

With a grinding shudder the two hulls came together in a powerful embrace, yards and rigging snared, gun muzzles overlapping and grating as they continued to drift helplessly downwind.

Clinton waved his stick. 'At'em, marines!'

The red-coated marines ran to the attack, bayonets probing and stabbing through the nets as the first Danish seamen attempted to cut their way through.

Men fell screaming between the hulls, human fenders as the ships rocked and ground together on the swell. Others tried to get away, to be trodden down by their companions or shot in the back in sight of safety.

A pike jabbed through the nets and narrowly missed Allday's chest. Browne parried it away and slashed the attacker across the face before despatching him with a full thrust.

Like survivors on a rock, Grubb and his helmsmen stood clustered around the useless wheel, firing pistols at the figures on the enemy's poop and gangway while their wounded companions reloaded for them as best they could.

Pascoe came running aft with the carronade crews, his hanger flashing dully through the smoke.

Then he skidded to a halt, his feet and legs splattered with blood, as he shouted, `Sir! Indomitable's signalling!'

Herrick swore savagely and fired his remaining pistol at a man's head below the nettings.

'Signals? God dammit, we've no time for them!'

Browne wiped his mouth and lowered his sword. Then he said hoarsely, 'Indomitable's repeating a signal from the fleet. Discontinue the engagement! Number thirty-nine, sir!'

Bolitho stared past the Indomitable's battered hull and trailing shrouds. A frigate, one of Nelson's, was standing far beyond the smoke like an intruder, the signal still flapping to the wind.

`Cease firing!'

Wolfe pointed his hanger at the ship alongside as one by one the Danish seamen dropped their weapons and stood like stricken creatures, knowing that for them it was all over.

Herrick said, 'Take charge of our prize, Mr Wolfe!' He turned to look at the ships and at the galleys which even now were fading away into the smoke to seek refuge in their harbour.

The sea was littered with flotsam and broken timber of every sort. Men, friend and enemy alike, dung together for mutual support and awaited rescue, too beaten and shocked to care much who had won. There were many corpses, too, and Inch's Odin was so deep by the bows that she looked as if she might capsize at any moment.

Only the Styx seemed unmarked, distance hiding her hurt and scars as she shortened sail to search amongst the debris of battle.

Bolitho put his arm round his nephew's shoulder and asked, 'D'you still want a frigate, Adam?'

But the reply was lost in a growing wave of cheering, wilder and louder as it spread from ship to ship, with even the wounded croaking at the sky, grateful to be alive, to have come through it once more, or for the first dreadful time.

Herrick picked up his hat and banged it against his knee. Then he put it on his head and said quietly, 'Benbow's a good ship. I'm proud of her!'

Bolitho smiled at his friend, feeling the tiredness and the pain as he glanced at the grinning, smoke-blackened faces around him.

'Men, not ships, you once said, Thomas. Remember?'

Grubb blew his nose and then said, 'Rudder's answerin', sir!'

Bolitho looked at Browne. It had been a near thing. Even now he was not certain how it might have ended had the frigate not appeared. Perhaps the English and the Danes were too much alike to fight. If so, there would have been no man alive by nightfall.

Browne asked huskily, 'Signal, sir?'

'Aye. General signal. Squadron to form line ahead and astern o f flagship as convenient.'

The flag for close action rippled down from the yard, and as it was removed from the halliards Allday took it and laid it across the face of the dead midshipman.

Bolitho watched and then said quietly, `We will rejoin the fleet, Captain Herrick.'

They looked at each other. Bolitho, Herrick, Pascoe and Allday. Each had had something to sustain him throughout the battle. And this time there was something to hope for in the future.

Even if the weather remained kind to the mauled and bloodied squadron there was much to be done. Friends to be contacted, the dead to be buried, the ships to be made safe for the passage home.

But for this one precious moment, this escape from hell, a new hope would suffice.

The open carriage paused at the top of a rise while the horses regained their breath and the dust settled around them.

Bolitho removed his cocked hat and allowed the June sunlight to play across his face, his ear picking up the many sounds of insects in the hedgerows, the distant lowing of cattle, the voices of the countryside.

By his side Adam Pascoe stared ahead towards the rooftops of Falmouth, the glassy reflection of Carrick Roads beyond. On the opposite seat, his feet planted firmly on several sea-chests, Allday glanced contentedly around him, lost in his own thoughts and the moment of peace after the jolting ride from Plymouth.

The journey over moorland and past isolated farmsteads and small hamlets had been like a cleansing, Bolitho thought. After all the weeks and months, and those final devasting broadsides before Nelson had ordered a ceasefire and had declared a truce, the Cornish landscape had affected Bolitho and his companions deeply.

Now, Benbow was anchored at Plymouth with the other scarred survivors of the Inshore Squadron. With the exception of Inch's Odin, which because of her severe underwater damage had only just managed to reach the safety of the Nore.

Two months since they had watched the crimson galleys returning to harbour like guilty assassins, and now it was difficult to believe any of it had happened.

The green hills, the sheep dotting their slopes, the slow comings and goings of farm waggons and carriers' carts were far removed from the discipline and suffering of a manof-war.