Alexander Kent - Signal-Close Action!

Bolitho watched narrowly, gauging time and distance.

Whether they would collide or break the enemy's line. They had to get amongst the supply ships.

A ripple of bright orange tongues from the leading ship, and this time the controlled broadside was better directed. He felt the hull jerk, and heard the searing whine of iron passing over the poop.

Up and down between the eighteen-pounders and their motionless crews, Kipling, the second lieutenant, walked unhurriedly, his drawn sword over his shoulder like a stick. "Easy, my lads!" He was speaking almost softly. As if calming a horse. 'stand-to and face your front!"

Bolitho saw the Frenchman's forecourse stretched and hard-bellied on its yard, and it looked for all the world as if it was spread on Lysander's bowsprit and jib boom.

Bolitho snapped, "Let her falloff two points!"

He nodded to Herrick as Grubb's men put up their helm. "As you bear! Fire!

From forward to aft, Lysander's larboard guns fired, reloaded and fired again, smoke and fire belching from her ports, the trucks squealing as the crews trundled them back again for another broadside.

Bolitho gritted his teeth, feeling the deck shaking violently to the guns" recoil. His eyes smarted as he trained his glass beyond the bow, seeing the Frenchman's sails jerking and tearing under the barrage. Some of Lysander's guns would not bear on the French leader, but he hoped that the heavier balls from the thirty-two-pounders might be finding targets over and beyond her stem.

Herrick shouted, "The French captain's altered course, sir!" He cursed as the enemy ship fired, the broadside haphazard and ill-timed, but nevertheless deadly. Great thuds shook the hull, and two large holes appeared in the main topsail.

Bolitho watched the enemy's yards moving, narrowing the exposed sails as she turned slightly away. To give her gun crews a better chance to fire and to take advantage of the wind, which by being so close-hauled had been denied her.

Bolitho said sharply, "Alter course to larboard again! Steer north by west!"

He had not wasted his first broadsides. It had unnerved the enemy captain enough to make him edge round to return fire. It would take him far too long to work his ship back so close to the wind.

Men hauled wildly at the braces, the yards creaking and allowing the sun to spill more light into smoke-hazed decks. "Fire!"

The larboard guns came crashing inboard, one by one, the crews sponging out and yelling like madmen as they reloaded.

Bolitho saw the second French ship rising above the rolling smoke, and knew he had caught the leader unprepared… The second one was already probing towards the larboard bow, and ahead of her, hidden in Lysander's own gunsmoke, was the gap between the ships, the hole in the line.

'set the forecourse!" Bolitho heard balls whimpering over- head and saw tall waterspouts bracketing the ship on either side. The deck bucked sharply, and several lengths of broken cordage fell unheeded on the spread nets. "Hold her, Mr. Grubb!"

Major Leroux yelled, "Ready, Marines!" He had his sword above his head. "By sections, fire!"

The sharper cracks of the muskets, the hollow bang of the maintop swivel, must have made the men at the lower battery on the starboard side realise for the first time just how near the Frenchman was. And as Lysander, holding the wind in her increased canvas, surged across the leader's stem, the crews cheered, blinking in the sunlight, then reeling aside as Lieutenant Steere blew his whistle, and the whole line of thirty-two-pounders roared out at the enemy.

Painted scrollwork, glass and strips of timber flew above the smoke, and Bolitho pictured the terror amongst the supply ships as Lysander s fierce-eyed figurehead thrust through the line towards them.

"Fire!"

The second Frenchman, another seventy-four, was changing course rapidly, swinging to larboard and firing as she followed Lysander round. Balls ripped into the hull and hissed above the sweating gun crews, while from the French leader came a less powerful challenge from a stem chaser and a few charges of canister. Several marines had-dropped, but Sergeant Gritton was holding them together. The ramrods rising and falling, the balls rammed home, and then the scarlet line back up to the nettings to shoot once more.

Bolitho ran to the lee side and peered through the smoke.

The French leader had lost her main topmast and was drifting heavily, with either her steering gone, or so badly hampered by dragging spars and canvas she was temporarily out of control.

"Again, Mr. Veitch! Full broadside!"

Gun captains yelled to restrain the din-crazed crews, even used their fists, as one by one the starboard guns were trundled to the ports and each captain held a blackened hand towards his officer.

Veitch yelled, "Fire!"

Starting with the lower battery, up along the eighteen-pounders, and finally to the quarterdeck nine-pounders, every black muzzle added its havoc to the bombardment.

Bolitho watched the smoke rolling away, trying to see the enemy, his eyes streaming, his mouth like sand.

The sky had gone, even the sun, and the world was confined to a thundering nightmare of flame and earsplitting noise.

He felt the hull shiver, heard muffled screams from far below as enemy iron came through a port and sliced amongst the crowded gun deck. He tried not to. think of Pascoe lying hurt or crippled, the horror that a great ball could do in such a confined place.

He saw a flag making a small patch of colour in the smoke, and realised there was no other mast near it. Some of the gun crews started to cheer, their voices strangely muffled after the din of a full broadside. He watched grimly as the other ship showed herself through the fog, her stem and quarter smashed and almost unrecognisable. Only her foremast remained, and some brave soul was risking death to climb aloft and fix a new tricolour to the foretop.

Herrick shouted incredulously, "Nicator's not following!"

He fell back as a man was hurled from a gun, his scream dying in his throat. Herrick lowered him to the deck, his hands spattered with blood. As he scrambled up again he said savagely, "Probyn's not going to help!"

Bolitho glanced at him and ran to the larboard side, seeking the rest of the enemy line, and saw that the remaining two were holding on the same course, while the one which had swung round after Lysander was still trying to overhaul, her forward guns firing towards the quarter.

Bolitho shouted, "Direct your fire on that one!"

He winced as men fell kicking from a pair of guns.

Splinters and charred hammocks burst" across the boat tier, and he saw a ship's boy smashed to the deck and almost decapitated by a jagged length of planking.

"Fire!" Lieutenant Kipling was still walking up and down, but his hat had gone, and his left arm hung useless at his side. 'stop your vents! Sponge out! Load!" He stooped to drag a wounded man from the path of a gun. "Run out!"

Thuds along the gangway and decks made some duck away, and Bolitho saw bright darting flames from the enemy's tops as the sharpshooters tested their aim. "Fire!

There was a ragged cheer as the enemy's fore topgallant mast toppled, steadied and then plunged into her own gunsmoke. Some of her marksmen would have gone with it. But she was still firing, and Bolitho could feel the balls slamming into the side and poop, the crash and whine of metal, the dreadful screams.

A midshipman ran across the deck, his eyes fixed on Bolitho.

'sir! Immor-Immor-" He gave up. "Captain Javal's ship is breaking through, sir! Mr. Yea's respects, and he saw her thrusting across the third Frenchie" s bowsprit!"

Bolitho gripped his shoulder, feeling him jump with alarm as a ball crashed through the quarterdeck rail and killed two men at a nine-pounder. They fell in a bloody heap at the midshipman's feet, and it was then that Bolitho realised it was Breen, his ginger hair almost black with smoke.