Alexander Kent - ENEMY IN SIGHT

Bolitho turned away and stared fixedly at the leading enemy ship. They were almost bow to bow now, with the three-decker less than half a cable away and slightly to starboard.

Inch murmured, "We have the wind-gage it seems."

"And the wind is still fresh, Mr. Inch." Bolitho looked up as one more gun fired from the Tornade's lofty forecastle and a ball slapped through the mizzen topsail directly overhead. "But the smoke from our broadsides will be better protection than agility."

He pressed his palm on the sword's flat blade. "Stand by on the main deck!" He saw the gunners crouching down, their faces tight with concentration as they peered through the open ports, hands like claws on tackles and rammers, as if they would never move again. He heard the word being passed below decks, and tried not to think of the lower battery, the hell it would be soon, and his nephew down there enduring the living nightmare.

The three-decker's yards moved very slightly and he saw her swing away. Lequiller's captain intended to pass exactly parallel with the English line and not waste a single ball.

Bolitho watched the oncoming giant, her triple row of guns shining dully in the light, the lower battery comprised of massive thirty-two-pounders.

He lifted his left hand very slowly and could almost feel Gossett tensing behind him. He made himself wait until the Tornade's yards had settled again and then shouted, "Larboard your helm!" He heard the spokes creaking frantically and saw the bowsprit beginning to swing slowly until it was pointing straight for the enemy's figurehead. "Steady!" He slapped the rail, his voice harsh but controlled. "Now, Mr. Gossett! Bring her back on course!" The wheel started squealing again, and along the main deck he saw vague impressions of men hurling themselves at the braces, while overhead the yards creaked and grated in protest. He ran to the nettings and peered at the French flagship. She was turning away, her captain momentarily unnerved by what must have looked like a head-on collision.

He yelled, "Broadside!"

Stepkyne dropped his sword, his voice cracked with strain.

"Fire!"

Every gun hurled itself inboard, the crashing roar of explosions seemingo to drive into Bolitho's, brain with the force of a musket ball. He watched as the dense smoke billowed away and heard the splintering thunder of his broadside striking home.

The smoke lifted violently as if touched by some other wind, and lit up scarlet and orange, while around and above the Hyperion's quarterdeck the air came alive with screaming metal as the Tornade's gunners recovered their wits and fired back.

Bolitho staggered and seized the rail to stop himself falling as a ball sliced through the bulwark and smashed into a nine-pounder on the opposite side. He heard screams and yells, and more cries as another burst of cannon fire raked the hull from stem to poop.

Above the writhing fog he saw the Frenchman's masts, the speckled flashes from unseen marksmen in her tops, and waited counting seconds as the Hyperion's second broadside blasted the smoke aside and shook the deck beneath him as if striking a reef._

He yelled, "Lively, Mr. Roth!" The rest of his words were drowned as the quarterdeck nine-pounders jerked inboard on their tackles, their earsplitting barks adding to the din and confusion about him.

Musket balls thudded into the deck planking, and he saw a marine staggering and reeling like a drunken man, hands pressed to his stomach, his eyes closed as he reached the rail and pitched headlong into the net below.

But the Tornade's topmasts were already passing the starboard quarter, and as the Hyperion's lower battery fired again he saw the balls smashing into the threedecker's tall side, the splinters and lacerated shrouds lifting above the smoking gunports in crazy torment.

And here came the second one, a two-decker with a figurehead in the form of a Roman warrior, her bowchaser firing blindly through the gunsmoke as she endeavoured to keep station on her flagship.

Bolitho cupped his hands, "Fire as you bear, Mr. Stepkyne!" He saw the lieutenant crouching inboard of the leading gun, his hand on the captain's shoulder.

More heavy firing came from astern, and Bolitho knew the Hermes was engaging the flagship, but when he peered over the nettings he could see nothing but topmasts, all else hidden in the great pall of smoke.

"Fire!"

Gun by gun the main deck battery engaged the second ship, the men cheering and cursing as they threw themselves on the tackles, their naked bodies shining with sweat and blackened from powder smoke, while they sponged out the muzzles and rammed home the, next charges.

Bolitho felt the hull quake below his feet, and winced as more balls smashed along the ship's side, hurling splinters into the smoke or ripping through ports to plough into the men beyond. He saw a complete gun hurled bodily on to its side, with one of its crew pinned screaming and writhing beneath it. But his cries were lost in the roar and crash of the next broadside, and Bolitho forgot his agony as he turned to watch the two-decker's foremast begin to slide down into the smoke.

He grabbed Inch's arm so that the lieutenant jumped as if receiving a musket ball. "The carronades!" He did not have to add anything and saw Inch waving his speaking trumpet towards the hunched figures on the forecastle. The throaty roar of a carronade fanned the smoke downwards into the main deck, and he saw the massive ball explode just belo* the Frenchman's poop. When the wind laid bare the damage he saw that the wheel and helmsmen had vanished and the poop looked as if it had been struck by a landslide.

Crippled, and momentarily not under command, the ship started to swing downwind, her high stern and flapping Tricolour rising above the smoke like an ornate cliff.

The second carronade lurched back on its slide, and Bolitho heard someone cheering as the ball burst inside the stern cabin above her name, Cato, and the handful of marksmen who were still trying to shoot at the Hyperion's forecastle as she edged past. He could picture the murderous devastation as the ball sent its contents scything through the crowded gundeck to add to the confusion already apparent on her shattered poop.

Vaguely he could see a marine waving and gesturing from the forecastle, and when he ran to the weather side he saw something dark and covered with green weed sliding past the larboard bow like a grotesque sea monster.

Inch cried hoarsely, "Christ Almighty! The Dasher!"

Bolitho pushed past him as the third ship's topmasts and braced yards loomed above the fog of battle. The sloop must have taken a full broadside, or sailed too close to the Spanish treasure ship. Her upturned keel surrounded by bursting air bubbles and flotsam was all that remained.

He snapped, "Ready, lads!" He could feel himself grinning, yet was conscious only of numb, pitiless concentration.

A voice yelled, "Ship. on th' weather bow!"

As the smoke swirled abeam he saw the other twodecker across the larboard bow, her sails almost aback as she drifted towards him. She was one of the ships detached to protect the San Leandro, and as her upper guns blasted their orange tongues from the ports he knew it would be a double engagement.

He felt the salvo ripping overhead and saw the net bouncing with fallen blocks and full lengths of rigging. A man dropped from the mizzen top and fell hard across the breech of a nine-pQunder. Bolitho heard his ribs cracking like a wicker basket trodden underfoot, saw the terrible agony on the man's face as the seamen pulled him clear and rolled his body free of their gun.

"Stand by the larboard battery!" He was hoarse with shouting and his throat felt like raw flesh. "Get ready to show them, my lads!" He waved his sword at the waiting gunners and saw more than one of them grinning up at him, their teeth very white through the grime.