Alexander Kent - FORM LINE OF BATTLE!

Bolitho watched until the Tenacious's topmasts crept' into line. Dash was following, and above the crashing roar of Hyperion's artillery he could hear the deeper thunder of the three-decker's thirty-two-pounders as they continued to hammer the enemy.

When the Hyperion's bow swung gratefully across the wind the smoke cleared from her decks as if drawn away by a giant hand. All at once her scars were laid bare, and Bolitho felt suddenly stunned by the completeness of her misery.

Dead and wounded lay everywhere on the upper deck. The rest, their naked. bodies shining with sweat and blackened by powder, worked at their guns with the wild desperation of souls in hell.

The great net above the littered deck was covered with torn canvas and wood splinters, and here and there a wounded man writhed broken and whimpering- in the mesh after being shot down from aloft, like dying insects in a web.

The marines kept up a rapid fire from the nettings, hurling insults as they reloaded, and yelling encouragement to their comrades high in the swaying tops.

The larboard battery fired yet again, the balls ripping a bare twenty yards to blast through the enemy's poop and turn her quarterdeck into a bloody shambles.

Bolitho pounded the rail, silently urging his ship to complete her turn. But it could not last like this. Soon the other French ships would recover and fight back to rejoin their line. Before that happened they must settle with the enemy flagship and smash these three leading vessels into submission.

He swung round as Piper yelled, 'Signal from Zenith, sir! "Require assistance!"'

Bolitho had already seen the leading two-decker. She was completely dismasted, but for a stump of her main, and had drifted downwind across the French flagship's bows. Where the two vessels embraced men were already locked in hand-tohand combat, while in the trapped arrowhead of water between them the guns still kept up their relentless bombardment, their blackened muzzles barely feet apart.

He shook his head. `Make "Inability", Mr. Piper!' He watched the flags soaring aloft and added, 'Now that other signal, Mr. Piper, lively there!'

Bolitho ignored the rippling flashes as his guns bellowed defiance at the nearest ship. The enemy was hardly firing a shot in return, but aboard her battered decks he could see something like panic as the Tenacious followed ponderously through the gap in the line, her triple rows of guns gaping straight at the Frenchman's unprotected stem.

He gripped Herrick's shoulder, feeling him jump with shock at the sudden contact. Like himself he was probably expecting a musket-ball, he thought grimly.

`Zenith is all but done for, Thomas.' He broke off as a ball ploughed through the quarterdeck ladder and smashed into a file of crouching marines. Sickened, he saw the blood spreading away like paint, until it seemed it would never stop. Amidst the litter of smashed limbs and screaming men he saw a marine's head rolling across the deck, the eyes still open and staring.

He swallowed hard to control the nausea. 'We must take the enemy flagship, Thomas!' He saw understanding flooding across Herrick's begrimed features. 'It is our only chance!'

He looked round abruptly as someone started to cheer. He saw young Caswell waving his hat like a madman and pointing at the last signal.

'Engage the enemy closer!'

Through the swirling smoke another set of red tongues licked across the water and Caswell was dead. He had had one hand across his chest and the ball smashed it through his body, cutting off his cry with the sharpness of a knife.

Bolitho turned towards the towering three-decker. All the anger and hate, the despair and bitterness seemed to overpower him like a frenzy. The sword was in his hand, and as he waved it he felt his hat plucked away by another musketball, so that the rebellious lock of hair fell across his eye, shutting out Caswell's broken body and his staring look of disbelief.

'Starboard gunners take station for boarding!' He was almost screaming. 'Come on, lads! England wants a victory, so what do you say?'

He did not hear the answering cheers and yells, but was already running along the larboard gangway. He leapt across the shattered bulwark and above the naked gunners, the sword in his hand and his eyes fastened on that one patch of colour which still flew from the enemy's topmast.

By the time Bolitho reached the forecastle the Hyperion's bowsprit was already edging across the French flagship's starboard gangway, thrusting through the boarding nets and into the main shrouds like a giant lance.

He stared round at the crouching seamen and marines and yelled, 'Over you go, lads!' Then as both hulls ground together he hurled himself from the cathead, his sword slashing wildly at the nets, his feet kicking to gain some hold above the dark strip of trapped water.

Across the French ship's bows the dismasted and listing Zenith was putting up a stiff resistance, but in face of a great wave of boarders the English seamen had fallen back as far as their quarterdeck, the cutlasses and axes flashing dully through the smoke, the air filled with terrible screams and cries as they retreated across the bodies of their comrades already killed in battle.

But as Bolitho's men leapt over the narrowing gap the French attack hesitated, and at the blare of a trumpet many of the successful boarders turned and ran back to their own ship to meet this new threat from astern.

Lieutenant Shanks was pulling himself up the sagging net, his sword dangling from his wrist as he yelled encouragement to his men. A bearded French sailor ran across the gangway, and before Shanks could jump clear thrust upward with a boarding pike, the force of his charge driving the point deep into the marine's stomach. Shanks gave one shrill scream and dropped like a stone.

When Bolitho looked down he saw the lieutenant's whiteclad legs kicking above the water, the motion becoming more violent and terrible as the two hulls moved together to hold the pulped corpse firmly between them.

Bolitho slashed through the last of the net and flung himself down to the deck. The same French seaman was already turning to meet him, but a yelling bosun's mate pushed Bolitho aside and slashed the man down with his cutlass, the blow amost cutting him from shoulder to armpit.

As more and more men jumped from the Hyperion it was hard to distinguish friend from foe. Bolitho fired his pistol at the wheel and saw the last helmsman fall kicking on the splintered planking. Then he placed his back against the poop ladder and crossed blades with a wild-eyed petty officer, while the fighting surged around him in a panorama of hatred and terror.

Bolitho parried the heavy sword aside and struck out hard for his neck. He felt the shock jerk up his wrist, and swung round to seek out another enemy even as the man pitched across the rail, blood gushing from a great wound in his throat.

He saw a marine drive his bayonet through a shrieking midshipman, and Tomlin, the boatswain, swinging a huge boarding axe like a toy as he. carved a path for himself towards the upper deck, his bare shoulders covered with blood, although whether it was his own or that of his victims it was impossible to tell.

A French lieutenant threw down his sword, his mouth slack with terror as he struggled to catch Bolitho's arm. He wanted to surrender, either himself or the ship, but it was to no avail. The Hyperion's seamen were not yet ready to consider reason or quarter, for themselves or the enemy.

The man moaned and held his hands across his face, and as a cutlass flashed across Bolitho's vision he saw the blade sever the lieutenant's hand at the wrists and drive on to smash him bodily to the deck.

Sergeant Best, wielding his half-pike like a club, staggered to join Bolitho above the reeling mass of men, dragging a French officer at his side..