Richard Woodman - In Distant Waters

'Quite the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,' Frey waxed suddenly lyrical.

'How many women have you seen, Frey? You've been aboard here since…'

'What was that?' asked Frey sharply, sitting upright.

'One of the men cursing those bastard Russians for being too free with their knouts, I expect,' said Wickham in a bored tone.

'No! Listen!'

It came again, an agonised bellow of command and there was something vaguely familiar about the voice. Frey's eyes opened wide.

'It can't be…'

'Can't be what… ?'

The shout came again and then there were the screams and bellows of a fight somewhere above them. Both midshipmen stood. Their sentry, a slovenly Russian marine, stirred uneasily, hefting his neglected musket, his thumb poised on its hammer.

There was a sudden buzz throughout the ship as other men, confined in irons or about their imposed duties realised something momentous was happening on deck. For too many days now they had rotted in a regime of inactivity, required only occasionally to turn out and pump the bilges, or tend the cable. For the most part they had languished in almost total darkness, separated from their officers, uncertain of their future, toying with rumours that, when the Suvorov returned, many of them would be drafted into her, or into other Russian ships or settlements. For Prince Rakitin such a draft of healthy labour seemed like a blessing from heaven, sufficient to restore the fortunes of the Russian-American Company after the loss of Rezanov.

Frey stood cautiously, not wishing to alarm the sentry. He had learned enough about their gaolers to realise that the man would display no initiative, did not dare to, and would remain at his post until someone came down and relieved or shot him.

'What the devil is going on?' Frey asked in an agony of uncertainty.

'Damned if I know…'

Then there was an outburst of the most horrible noise, a howling ululation that reminded the two youths of stories of Iroquois massacres they had heard old men tell from the Seven Years War. It was much closer than the upper deck, and provoking responses even nearer as the captive British seamen joined in with whoops and shouts of their own. The two midshipmen could hear shouts of joyful recognition, the clank of chains and the thud-thud of axes, the sharp clink as they struck iron links, more shouts and then, to compound the confusion, Patrician lurched as something large and heavy struck her.

'Come on, Wickham!' Frey's hand scooped the water-pot from the table and hurled it in the face of their sentry. Momentarily blind the man squeezed the trigger of his musket and the confined space reverberated with the crack of the shot. The ball buried itself in the deck-head and the Russian stabbed out with his bayonet but the thing was unwieldy in the small space, and the two midshipmen dodged nimbly past him.

Out on the gun-deck the scene was like a painting of the Last Judgement. Russians lay dead or writhing in agony, like the damned on their way to hell-fire. A handful of piratical British seamen led by Captain Drinkwater's coxswain Tregembo were turning up the hatchways like avenging angels and out of the hold poured a starveling rabble of pale and ragged bodies, corpses new-released from their tombs, some dragging irons, some half-free of them so that they held the loose links and went howling after their captors, swinging the deadly knuckle-dusters in a whirlwind of vengeful pursuit.

Tregembo, by all that's holy!' Frey stood for an instant, taking in the scene, then ran to a still-writhing Russian, tore the cutlass from his dying grasp and hurried on deck.

Lieutenant Quilhampton lost his cheerfulness the instant Captain Drinkwater left in the schooner's boat. All his attention had to be paid to split-second timing, to bring the Virgen de la Bonanza up under Patrician's stern, to fail in an attempt to tack and fall alongside the frigate in a display of Hispanic incompetence that, if he was a yard or two short, would condemn Captain Drinkwater to an untimely death.

His throat was dry and his heart thudded painfully as he sought to concentrate, gauging the relative angle of approach, his speed, and the set of a tide that was already flooding in through the narrows behind him.

'A point to larboard, if you please,' he forced himself to say, feigning complete mastery of himself and seeing Drinkwater ascend the Patrician's side by the man-ropes.

What would happen if Quilhampton failed and Drinkwater died? For himself he knew that he could never return and press his suit for the hand of Catriona MacEwan. Somehow such a course of action would be altogether dishonourable, knowing that he had failed the one man who had ever shown him kindness. And what of Drinkwater? Quilhampton knew of his distant devotion to his family, for all the estrangement imposed by the naval service, and this particular commission. Did Drinkwater expect him to fail? Would Drinkwater rather die in this remote and staggeringly beautiful corner of the world, attempting to recapture his own ship, rather than live with the knowledge of having lost her? If so the responsibility he bore was even heavier, the bonds of true friendship imposing a greater burden than he felt he had skill to meet.

And then he felt the tide, flooding in with increasing strength. Patrician was already lying head to it, his own course crabbed across; another point to larboard perhaps…

'Larboard a point.'

'Larboard a point more, sir.' There was warning in the helmsman's voice. Quilhampton looked up; the luff of the mainsail was just lifting.

'She's a-shiver, sir,' Marsden said from amidships.

Quilhampton did not answer, he was watching the schooner's bowsprit, watching it cross the empty sky until…

'Down helm!'

The Virgen de la Bonanza turned slowly into the wind.

'Midships!'

He stole a quick look along the deck. Apart from the half-a-dozen men at the sheets, the remainder, armed to the teeth, lay in the shadow of the starboard rail or crouched under the carelessly thrown down tarpaulin amidships.

The Virgen de la Bonanza lost way. The quarter of the Patrician loomed over them. They could see marks of neglect about the frigate, odds and ends of rope, scuffed paintwork…

A terrible bellow of range came from the deck above. With mounting anxiety Quilhampton suddenly knew he had now to concentrate more than ever before. Such a howl had not been planned, something was wrong, very wrong. He could abandon all pretence.

'Up helm! Shift the heads'l sheets!'

He checked the swing. 'Steady there, lads, not yet, not yet…'

The schooner began to swing backwards. He looked over the side. The boat, bobbing under the main chains of the Patrician , was already empty. He saw the last pair of heels disappear in through an open gun-port with relief. Drinkwater had at least the support of Tregembo and his boat's crew. A moment later the boat was crushed between the schooner and the frigate as the two hulls jarred together.

'Now!'

There was an ear-splitting roar from amidships. The big carronade, trained forward at maximum elevation and stuffed with langridge, ripped through the rigging of the forechains and, in the wake of that iron storm, Quilhampton loosed his boarders.

Drinkwater parried the first wave of the attack. There was a curious life in the cavalry sabre; centrifugal force kept it swinging in a wide and dangerous swathe though it tore mercilessly at the wrecked muscles of his wounded right shoulder. How long he could keep such a defence going he did not know, but he knew that he would have been a dead man already had he been armed only with his old hanger. He had fired two of the three pistols he had carried and foolishly thrown them down, intending to draw the third, but he could not free it from his belt, and it ground into his belly as he twisted and dodged his assailants.