Julian Stockwin - Quarterdeck

Waiting for the men to settle their blades safely along the side, Kydd held up his hands for quiet once more. In the breathless silence, a drip of water from oars, the rustle of waves and an occasional creak were deafening. Kydd concentrated with every nerve. Nothing.

He waited a little longer, automatically checking that their heading remained true, then ordered quietly, "Oars, give way, together." The men swung into it and the bluff-bowed launch got under way again.

In one heart-stopping instant a boat burst into view, headed directly for them. In the same moment Kydd registered that it was hostile, that it was a French chaloupe, and that it had a small swivel gun in its bow.

His instincts took over. "Down!" he yelled, and pulled the tiller hard over. The swivel cracked loudly—Kydd heard two shrieks and felt the wind of a missile before the bow of the enemy boat thumped heavily into their own swinging forepart. French sailors, their faces distorted with hatred, took up their weapons and rose to their feet in a rush to board.

The launch swayed as the British responded, snarls and curses overlaid with challenging bellows as they reached for their own weapons in a tangle of oars and blood. Pistols banged, smoke hung in the still air. One Frenchman collapsed floppily, his face covered with blood and grey matter; another squealed and dropped his pistol as he folded over.

It was the worst form of sea warfare, boat against boat, nothing but rage and butchery until one side faltered.

An arm came out to grasp the French gunwale and pull it alongside. A tomahawk thudded across the fingers, which tumbled obscenely away. "Get th' bastards!" Kydd roared, waving his sword towards the enemy.

The boats came together, oars splintering and gouging, enemy opponents within reach. The furious clash and bite of steel echoed in the fog. Kydd's sword faced a red-faced matelot flailing a curved North African weapon. The smash of the blade against his sword numbed Kydd's wrist, but the man triumphantly swept it up for a final blow, leaving his armpit exposed. Kydd's lighter steel flashed forward and sank into the soft body. The man dropped with an animal howl.

There was an enraged bellow and a large dark-jowled man shouldered his way into his place, a plain but heavy cutlass in his hand. His face was a rictus of hatred and his first lunge was a venomous stab straight to the eyes. Kydd parried, but the weight of the man's weapon told, and Kydd took a ringing blow to the side of the head.

The man drew back for another strike. He held his weapon expertly, leaving no opening for Kydd. The next blow came, smashing across, and Kydd's awkward defence did not stop a bruising hit above his hip. He felt cold fear—the next strike might be mortal.

As the man stepped on to the gunwale he cunningly swept a low straight-arm stab at Kydd's groin and, at his hasty defence, jerked the blade up for a lethal blow to Kydd's head. Kydd's sword flew up to meet it, an anvil-like ringing and brutish force resulting in the weapon's deflection—and a sudden lightness in his hand.

Kydd looked down. His sword had broken a couple of inches from the hilt. The man gave a roar of triumph and jumped into the launch. Kydd backed away, flinging the useless remnant at him. Jostled by another fighting pair the man stumbled before he could land his final stroke. Kydd cast about in desperation and saw a bloodied cutlass lying in the bottom of the boat.

He wrenched it up, in the process taking a stroke from the Frenchman aimed again at the head, but Kydd's blade was now a satisfying weight in his hand and he'd kept the blow from landing. Fury building, he swung to face his assailant. The man paused, taken aback by Kydd's intensity.

Kydd went on to the attack with the familiar weapon. He smashed aside the man's strikes, landing solid, clanging hits. In the confined space it could not last. As he thrust the broad blade straight for the belly, Kydd brought one foot forward to the other. The man's cautious defence was what he wanted. As the man readied his own thrust, the spring in Kydd's heel enabled him to lunge forward inside the man's own blade, the cutlass drawing a savage line of blood on one side of his head.

The man recoiled, but met the side of the boat and fell against it. Mercilessly Kydd slashed out, his blade slithering along the top of his opponent's to end on the man's forearm. The Frenchman's cutlass fell as he clutched at his bloody wound.

"Je me rends!" he shouted hoarsely. Kydd's blade hovered at the man's throat, death an instant away. Then he lowered it.

"Down!" he snarled, gesturing. "Lie down!" The man obeyed. The blood mist cleared from Kydd's brain and he snatched a glance around him. As quickly as it had started the brutal fight was ending. In the launch the three or four Frenchmen who had boarded were dead or giving up, and the bulk of the British were in the chaloupe, forcing back the remainder. The end was not far away.

"Tell 'em t' lie down!" he yelled. "Don't let the bastards move an inch!"

High-pitched shouts came from the French boat; they were yielding. Kydd felt reason slowly return to cool his passions. He took a deep breath. "Secure the boats t'gether," he ordered, the bloodstained cutlass still in his hands.

His body trembled and he had an overpowering urge to rest, but the men looked to him for orders. He forced his mind to work. "Poulden, into th' Frogs' boat and load the swivel." The petty-officer gunner was nowhere to be seen—he'd probably not survived.

While Poulden clambered over the thwarts and found powder and shot, Kydd looked around. There was blood everywhere, but he was experienced enough in combat to know that just a pint looked mortal. The wounded men were being laid together in the widest part of the launch as Pybus climbed back in. When he caught Kydd's eyes on him, he defiantly handed over a tomahawk—bloodied, Kydd noted.

At Poulden's call, the French were herded weaponless back into their chaloupe and the swivel brought round inside to menace the boat point-blank. "Hey, you, Mongseer!" Kydd's exasperated shout was lost on the sullen men in the boat. He turned to his own boat. "Any o' you men speak French?"

The baffled silence meant he would have to lose dignity in pantomime, but then he turned to the midshipman. "Rawson! Tell 'em they'll be hove overside if they make any kind o' false move." Let him make a fool of himself.

Kydd realised he was still clutching his cutlass, and laid it down, sitting again at the tiller. His hip throbbed and his head gave intermittent blinding stabs of pain; it was time to return to Tenacious and blessed rest. He would secure the Frenchy with a short towline; they could then row themselves close behind under the muzzle of the swivel. He would send another three men to stand by Poulden.

Pybus was busy with the men in the bottom of the boat. "So, we go home," Kydd said, searching around for the compass. "Now do ye remember what course . . ."

Ashen-faced, Rawson held out a splintered box and the ruins of a compass card. With an icy heart Kydd saw that their future was damned. The wall of dull white fog pressed dense and featureless wherever he looked, no hazy disc of sun, no more than a ripple to betray wave direction. All sense of direction had been lost in the fight and there was now not a single navigation indicator of even the most elementary form to ensure they did not lose themselves in the vast wastes of the Atlantic or end a broken wreck on the cold, lonely Newfoundland cliffs.

Kydd saw the hostility in the expressions of his men: they knew the chances of choosing the one and only safe course. He turned to Rawson. "Get aboard an' find the Frenchy's compass," he said savagely.

The midshipman pulled the boats together and clambered into the chaloupe. In the sternsheets the man Kydd had bested held up the compass. Rawson raised his hand in acknowledgement, and made his way aft. Then, staring over the distance at Kydd with a terrible intensity, the Frenchman deliberately dropped the compass box into the water just before Rawson reached him.