Alexander Kent - FORM LINE OF BATTLE!

He shouted, `This 'ere's th' admiral sir!' He lashed out savagely, and a seaman already wounded screamed and fell sideways across an abandoned swivel gun.

Bolitho stared for a few seconds at the small admiral before recognition and understanding returned to his shocked mind.

He snapped, 'Take him aft, Sergeant!' He saw the admiral's agonised face relax slightly and added, 'Get that flag down, for God's sake, and hoist our colours above it!'

The admiral tried to speak. Maybe he was grateful, or he could have been making a last protest, but Best hauled him away like a. sack, and Bolitho knew that but for the marine's strong arm the French admiral would already be dead.

He heard Tomlin roaring like a bull. 'Avast therel Give 'em quarter!' And as Bolitho kicked a corpse from the ladder and ran on to the gangway he saw with amazement that the French seamen were throwing down their weapons and falling back towards the bows. From the relieved Zenith he could hear wild cheering, and when he looked across at his own ship he saw the gunners standing back from the smoking muzzles to join in.

The sight of the Hyperion's damage helped to steady him. From the three-decker's high gangway it was all too apparent. There were dead and dying everywhere he looked. Her side was smashed almost beyond recognition, but from the lower gundeck more heads poked through the ports to add their voices to the wild cheering and excitement.

A dazed lieutenant gripped his hand and pumped it up and down, his eyes shining.with pleasure. 'I'm from Zenith, Captain. Oh my God, what a victory!'

Bolitho pushed him roughly aside. 'Take command here, Lieutenant!' He stared across his own ship, his mind ice-cold as he saw the bows of another Frenchman edging downwind towards Hyperion's disengaged quarter.

He yelled, 'To me, Hyperions! Fall back to the ship!'

The lieutenant was still following him. 'What shall I do, sir?'

Bolitho watched while his men began to scramble towards their own ship.

The lieutenant persisted, 'Captain Stewart fell when we cut the French line, sir!'

Bolitho turned and studied him gravely. 'Very well. Drive these French seamen below and put guards on the hatches.' He glanced up at the tattered sails. 'I suggest you bring every fit man across from your ship and prepare to take Zenith in tow!' He clapped the dazed officer on the shoulder. 'Good experience for you!' Then he turned and followed the last of his men over the side.

He found Herrick at the quarterdeck rail yelling at the men on deck to cast off the grapnels from the other vessel's hull.

He saw Bolitho and gasped, 'Thank God, sir! I lost sight of you back there!'

Bolitho grinned. 'See yonder, Thomas! That must be the fifth ship in the French line!' He pointed with his sword. 'The fourth has drifted downwind. She'll not bother us for a bit with her bowsprit and fore shot away!'

Rooke yelled up from the deck, 'We can't get clear, sir!'

`Damn!' Herrick ran to the nettings and peered across at the captured ship. 'We must have drifted round more than I thought, sir.' He stared across Bolitho's shoulder, his face suddenly tight with alarm. 'By God, he's going about!' He waved to the men at the starboard battery. 'Open fire as you bearl Lively, if you want to see another dawn!'

The captain of the approaching ship had had plenty of time to plan his next move. While Zenith and Hyperion were locked in close combat, and Dash completed his destruction of the other two ships, he had clawed upwind, his efforts to retake the advantage well hidden in the smoke of battle.

Now, as Hyperion's men ran desperately back to their guns, he tacked slowly to expose his full broadside at a range of about seventy yards. Not for him the uncertainty of close combat, but as the double line of guns belched fire Bolitho knew he was quite near enough to do his work.

It was like a scalding wind, with all sense of direction and feeling swept away in its path as the full weight of the Frenchman's broadside smashed into the Hyperion's after part with the force and devastation of an avalanche.

With it came the choking smoke, and as men screamed and cursed around him Bolitho stared up with numbed dismay as the whole mizzen mast splintered apart less than twenty feet above the poop.

Then his own gunners replied, their salvo ragged and uncertain while they groped in the swirling darkness and slipped on the blood which covered the scarred deck- from scupper to scupper.

Bolitho jumped aside as the topsail yard crashed across the quarterdeck and ground amidst the groping figures like a giant axe.

He heard Gossett roar. 'The steerin's gone, sirl' Then a curse. 'Get back to your station, that man!'

The Frenchman was still there, her yards coming round tightly as she closed in for another broadside. In a brief lull Bolitho heard more gunfire, and with astonishment saw the enemy's sails and rigging jerking wildly and more than one spar ripped away to fall alongside. Through the smoke he got a quick glimpse of close-reefed topsails beyond the Frenchman's rigging, and realised that Captain Leach had also been biding his time before throwing his frail Harvester to close quarters with the giants.

Axes rang amidst the crash and rumble of gunfire, and he heard Tomlin urging his men to greater efforts to hack away the shattered mast from the poop, while others streamed aft through the destruction and horror to help Gossett rig the emergency steering gear. Not that there would be time, he thought dully.

Rooke was almost beside himself as he strode along the starboard battery, his sword beating time to control the shocked and bleeding gunners as they rammed home the charges and hauled the twelve-pounders up the tilting deck for yet another assault. But there were several empty ports, and upended guns and the grisly remains of their crews were strewn in obscene profusion, while above the battered decks the tops and rigging were festooned with dead and dying seamen as a blast of grape moaned through the shrouds like a messenger from hell itself.

Rooke dropped' his sword. 'Fire!'

Bolitho staggered as the guns lurched back on their tackles, and then stared sickened as Rooke seemed to lift from his feet and fly back across the deck as if thrown by an invisible hand. One second he was there waving his sword and shouting at his sweating gunners. The next instant he was sprawled against the opposite bulwark, his limbs broken and twisted, the blood already pouring from a dozen wounds. He must have taken a full charge of canister. There was nothing left of the original man at all.

Shots seemed to be coming from every direction at once, and Bolitho guessed that the third ship in the French line, although crippled by the Tenacious's onslaught, was still firing some of her guns. Her men were blinded by smoke, but some of the balls were hitting and cutting across Hyperion's quarter to add to the damage and slaughter.

Bolitho turned and then stopped in his tracks. For a brief moment he thought he had finally cracked under the strain. In the middle of the quarterdeck, his full dress uniform glittering against the shattered planking and the piles of fallen rigging, Pomfret was surveying the terrible scene as if he was totally immune from danger of any kind.

Ailday shouted, 'I tried to stop him, Captain!' He jerked aside with a savage oath as Lieutenant Fanshawe received a musket-ball full in the breast and fell against him, his hands clawing wildly at his arm.

Pomfret ignored the dying man. 'How goes the fight, Bolitho?'

Bolitho felt slightly giddy. He replied, 'The French flagship has struck, sir. At least two more are disabled, I think.'

He added quickly, 'If you must stay here, Sir Edmund, I would suggest you walk for a while. The French have sharpshooters aloft, and your uniform is a fair target.' Pomfret shrugged. 'If you say so.' He began to pace up and down the littered deck with Bolitho at his side.