He shouted hoarsely above the din, `Ready, lads!' He peered along the crouching line of gun captains. `Fire as you bear!'
The first guns of the starboard battery fired as one, and in ragged succession the others followed as lanyard after lanyard was pulled taut, and the double-shotted charges crashed into the trapped smoke alongside.
A few men were cheering, their cries broken by coughs and curses as the smoke swirled back through the open ports.
Herrick yelled, `Reload! Reload and run out!' He watched narrowly as the frigate moved down the other ship's beam, barely twenty yards clear. He could see the crowded heads on the high bulwark, the stabbing yellow flashes of muskets from her tops, but from the lower gundeck with its line of powerful guns there was not a single shot in reply. The carronades' lethal attack must have swept through the crowded gundeck like a scythe through a field of standing corn.
But as he watched he saw the first guns on the upperdeck lurch back at their ports, and then in the twinkling of an eye the whole upper battery erupted in one deafening broadside.
Herrick fell back, half stunned by the volume of the combined sounds of exploding guns, following instantly by the demoniac screams of balls above his head. The nets which Bolitho had ordered to be placed over the maindeck jumped and vibrated to falling wreckage, blocks, severed rigging and whole strips of blackened canvas. But Herrick stared up with amazement as he realised that the ill-aimed broadside had missed everything vital to Phalarope's movements. Not a mast or spar had fallen. Had it been the lower battery, he knew that the frigate's starboard side and gunports would now be a shattered ruin.
He heard the gun captains shouting like demons. `Run out! Heave on the tackles! Stand clear!' Then with the jerk of trigger lines the guns rumbled back to the full extent of their tackles.
A musket clattered by Herrick's feet, and as he stared upwards he looked into the dead eyes of a spreadeagled marine who had pitched down from the maintop on to the net below.
But he forgot the marine immediately as something more terrible took his attention. Through the smoke, falling like a giant tree, he saw the Ondine's mizzenmast. It was impossible, but it was happening. Mast, top and topgallant, with all the attendant weight of sails, rigging and yards, hung in the air as if caught in a strong wind. Then, amid the screams and desperate cries of those men caught like flies in the shrouds, it crashed down across the Phalarope's quarterdeck. The hull quivered as if the frigate had hit a reef, and as Herrick ran aft to the ladder he felt the Phalarope shake from truck to keel and then begin to swing slowly to starboard. Like an unyielding bridge the Ondine's severed mast held both ships together, and as a fresh burst of musket fire struck foot-long splinters from the deck, Herrick fought his way up the ladder and stared with dismay at the destruction around him.
A complete yard had fallen amongst Rennie's marines, and he turned away from the smashed, writhing remains as Sergeant Garwood roared, `Stand to! Leave those men alone!' He was glaring at the remainder of his marines. `Rapid fire on her poop, my lads!' He vanished in a fresh cloud of smoke as the frigate's guns fired again, the shots crashing into the Ondine's hull, which at the nearest point was ten feet clear.
Herrick pushed past the struggling seamen who were trying to hack away the French rigging and dropped on one knee beside Bolitho. For a moment he thought the captain had been hit by a musket ball, but as he slid his arm beneath his shoulders Bolitho opened hiss eyes and struggled into a sitting position. He blinked at Herrick's anxious face and said, `Keep the guns firing, Herrick!' He peered up at the enemy ship alongside and pulled himself to his feet. `We must stop them boarding us!' He groped for his sword and shouted harshly, `Cut that wreckage away!'
Okes staggered through the smoke, his breeches and coat splashed with blood and torn flesh. His eyes seemed to fill his face, and although he appeared to be shouting, Herrick could hear nothing.
Bolitho pointed with his sword. `Mr. Okes, clear the larboard battery and prepare to repel boarders!' He reached out and shook the lieutenant like a dog. `Do you hear me, damn you?'
Okes nodded violently, and a long thread of spittle ran down his chin.
Bolitho pushed him to the ladder, but Herrick said quickly, `I'll do it, sir!'
`No you won't!' Bolitho looked wild. `Get your guns firing! It is our only chance!'
At that moment the Ondine's guns banged out once again, and Herrick flinched as the salvo seared his face like a hot wind. He saw a party of sailors hacking away a length of broken shrouds. In the next instant there was nothing but a squirming mass of pulped flesh and bones, with a gaping gash in the lee bulwark beyond,
Bolitho shouted in his ear, `We'll not be so lucky next time!'
Herrick ran down the ladder, closing his eyes and ears to the horror beside him as more great blows shook the frigate's hull like hammers on an anvil. He walked through the smoke, his eyes streaming, his throat like sand, as he shouted wild and unheeded encouragement to the powder-blackened gunners.
Farquhar caught his arm and shouted, `They'll never cut that mast away in time!' He pointed towards the Ondine's lower gundeck. `They'll not be silent for ever.'
Herrick did not reply. With the wind at her beam, and held aft by the broken mast, the Phalarope's bows were starting to swing inwards towards the Ondine's hull. Through the smoke he could see men running along the two-decker's side towards the point of contact, the filtered sunlight playing on raised weapons.
He saw Okes groping towards the forecastle, his sword still in its sheath. He snapped, `Go with him, Mr. Farquhar! He looks in a bad condition!'
Farquhar's eyes gleamed coldly. `It will be a pleasure!'
Herrick flinched as a complete section of the starboard gangway splintered skyward and one of the twelve-pounders lurched on to its side. A seaman screamed as a severed head landed at his feet, and another ran from the gun, his eyes blinded by flying splinters.
Herrick called, `Take those men below!' But as he shouted he heard the sudden clank of pumps and knew that it was probably just as safe on deck.
He tried to shut it all from his mind and made himself walk back along the line of guns. Men were falling all around him but he knew he must not falter, and shouted, `Keep hitting 'em, lads!' He waved his hat. `If you want to see England again, keep those guns firing!'
On the forecastle the men from the unemployed guns gathered below the nettings, their hands gripping cutlasses and boarding axes as the bowsprit quivered against the enemy's forerigging. Okes croaked, `Over you go, lads! Keep those swine off our bows!'
Some of the men cheered and began to scramble out along the bowsprit, others fell back as a flurry of musket shots cut through the eager sailors and sent their corpses spinning into the water below.
Farquhar said urgently, `You must lead them! My God, you're asking the impossible!'
Okes swung round, his mouth slack. `Hold your tongue! I'll give the orders!'
Farquhar eyed him coolly. `I have said nothing in the past, Mr. Okes! But I will say it now as it seems we will all die today!' His hat was plucked away by a musket ball but he did not drop his eyes. `You are a cheat, a coward and a liar! If I thought you were worth it, I, would discredit you here and now in front of these men, whom you are too squeamish to lead!' He turned his back on Okes' stricken face and shouted, `Follow me, you ragged heroes!' He waved his sword. `Make way for a younger man!'
They laughed like lunatics and slapped his shoulders as he crawled over the nettings and clambered on to the smooth bowsprit. Shots whined all around him, but he was breathless with j mixture of relief and madness. All this was worth it, if only for telling Okes what he thought of him for his cowardice at Mola Island.
Okes stared back at the quarterdeck and whimpered as a seaman crawled past him, half disembowelled by a great sliver of torn planking. Bolitho was still at the quarterdeck rail, a speaking trumpet in one hand, his sword in the other. His uniform seemed to shine in the frail sunlight, and Okes could see the hammock nettings jumping as hidden marksmen tried to find the Phalarope's captain.
Okes cried, 'I hope they kill you! I hope they kill all of you!'
He sobbed and groped for his sword. Nobody listened to his wild words, or even heeded his presence on the bloodspattered forecastle. He thought of the stinging words and the contempt in Farquhar's eyes.
`Never!' He pulled himself towards the bowspnt where already some of the men were clashing steel with the enemy seamen. `I'll show the lot of you!' Heedless of the curses and screams he pulled himself over the clinging sailors and hacked at a French petty officer with his sword. He saw the man's shocked surprise as a great gash opened across his neck and he fell between the grinding hulls. Then he was up and over, pushing Farquhar aside in his frenzied efforts to reach and strike at the enemy.
Farquhar saw the madness on Okes' face and tried to pull him back. But it was useless. Encouraged by the apparent bravery of their officers the British sailors swarmed on to the Ondine's bulwark.
Okes snarled, `Are you afraid, Mr. FarquharT He threw back his head and emitted a shrill laugh. `Your uncle won't like that!'
Farquhar parried a thrusting pike and followed Okes down on to the wide deck. It was every man for himself now.
Bolitho strained his eyes through the smoke and watched his men changing from defenders to boarders. Whoever had decided to board the Ondine had made the right guess, he thought grimly. He heard the axes ringing on the tangle of wreckage behind him and knew it was impossible to free Phalarope from its embrace before the Ondine's heavy guns were brought back into action.
He crossed the deck and said to Rennie, `We must board her from aft, too!' He saw the marine nod. `Get some men together immediately!'
He heard someone sobbing and saw Neale on his knees below the lee rail. Midshipman Maynard was lying on his back, one hand held upright entangled in a signal lanyard, his eyes wide and unseeing and strangely peaceful. Neale was holding his hand and rocking back and forth, oblivious to the crash of gunfire and the slapping musket balls which had already claimed his friend.
Bolitho reached down and pulled Neale to his feet. The boy's last reserve seemed to collapse, and with a frantic cry he buried his face in Bolitho's coat, his body shaking with convulsions of grief. Bolitho prised him away and lifted his chin with the hilt of his sword. For a moment he stared down at him, then he said gravely, `Take a grip on yourself, Mr. Neale!' He saw the stunned look in Neale's eyes and shut his mind to the fact that he was talking with a terrified thirteen year-old child who had just lost his best friend. `You are a King's officer, Neale!' He softened his voice. `I said earlier, our people are watching you today. Do you think you can help me now?'
Neale brushed his eyes with his sleeve and looked back at Maynard's body by the bulwark. As the halyard jerked in the breeze his arm moved as if he still held on to life. Then Neale turned back to Bolitho and said brokenly, `I'm all right now, sir!'
Bolitho watched him walk back to the shouting gunners, a small figure half hidden in the smoke and flame of this savage battle.
Rennie reappeared, a cut above one eye. `Ready, sir!' He swung his curved sword. `Shall I take 'em across?'
Bolitho looked around the battered quarterdeck. There seemed to be more corpses than live men, he thought wearily. He faltered as a shot crashed against the quarterdeck ladder and tore into the planking like a plough. With disbelief he saw Proby put his hands to his face and watched his fingers clawing at the sudden torrent of blood. The master staggered against the wheel, but as Strachan left the spokes to hold him he fell moaning on to his side and lay still. His hands thudded on the planking, and Bolitho saw that his face had been torn away.
`We must take the Ondine!' The words were wrung from his lips. `If the French see their command ship strike, they'll…' He faltered and stared again at Proby's body. I've done for the lot of them! He felt the anguish changing to helpless anger. I have sacrificed the ship and every man aboard just
for this!
But Rennie eyed him evenly and said, `It is the right decision, sir!' He straightened his hat and said to his sergeant, `Right, Garwood, do you feel like a little walk?'
Bolitho stared at him. It was as if the marine had been reading his, mind. He said, `The Cassius will support us.' He looked at the waiting marines. They crouched like animals, wild and beyond fear or even anger. `It's us or -them, lads!'
Then, as the men shouted and cheered he jumped on to the Ondine's broken mast and began to claw his way across. Once he looked down at the water below him. It was littered with broken woodwork and sodden corpses, French and British alike.
As he reached the Ondine's poop he felt the balls whining past him and heard screams at his back as men fell to join the waiting corpses below. Then as he reached the scarred bulwark he hacked away the remains of the French boarding nets and leapt down on to the deck. Dead and dying lay everywhere, but when he glanced quickly across the far side he felt a further sense of shock as he saw the Cassius. She was not alongside anymore, but drifting away in the smoke of her own wounds, a mastless hulk,. battered beyond recognition. From every scupper he could see long, glistening streams of blood, which poured down the ship's side to colour the water in one unbroken stain. It was as if the ship herself was bleeding to death. But from the stump of her mizzen the ensign, pitted and torn with shot holes, still flapped in defiance, and as Rennie's yelling marines swept across the Ondine's poop there was a burst of cheering from the Cassius's deck. It was not much of a cheer, for there could not be many left to raise it, but to Bolitho it acted like the stab of a spur.
He ran across the littered deck, cutting down two seamen with hardly a pause, propelled on by the cheering and the battle-crazed men at his back. He could see his men on the Ondine's forecastle, almost encircled by an overwhelming mass of French seamen, their stubborn resistance faltering as they were forced back towards the rail.
Bolitho yelled, `Hold on Phalarope's!' He saw the Frenchmen falter and turn to face this new threat. `To me, lads! Cut your way through 'em!'
More men were swarming from the frigate now, and he saw Herrick's uniform through the smoke as he waved his men forward.
He turned as Okes slashed a path for himself in the press of figures, his sword gleaming red as he cut down a screaming midshipman and went on towards a man who was reloading a swivel gun beside the quarterdeck. Okes was bleeding from a dozen wounds, and as he reached the ladder the swivel gun exploded with a dull roar. The packed grapeshot lifted Okes like a rag doll and flung him lifeless into the fighting men below the ladder. The gunner fell a second later, cut down by a swinging cutlass.
Then, all at once, it was over. The deck clattered with the weapons thrown down by the Ondine's seamen, and Bolitho realised that their cries of defiance had changed to pleas for quarter. He knew he could not hold his men back if they wanted to complete the slaughter. It fell to some unknown sailor to break the spell of destruction and killing.