'Well, Mr. Mudge, what of the wind now?'
'It'll get up, sir.' Mudge took out his handkerchief and blew his great nose violently. 'Might back a bit.' He gestured up at the masthead pendant. It was stiff, like a spear. 'I'd suggest, beggin' yer pardon, sir, that you fights under topsails only.'
Bolitho turned to Herrick. 'What do you say?'
Herrick was watching the other ship, his eyes like slits. 'Get to grips, sir. He'll pound us to pieces with those long guns otherwise.'
The deck lifted across the first true roller, and spray drifted high above the nettings.
'Let's be about it then.' Bolitho licked his parched lips. 'Get the forecourse off her.' He dropped his voice. 'And have those corpses buried directly. It does no good to see where some of us will end this morning.'
Herrick watched him calmly. 'I can think of better reasons for dying.' He glanced at the motionless seamen by the guns. 'But no better place for it.'
Bolitho walked to the rail and watched the Argus for several minutes. Le Chaumareys had a good position. He had probably considered it very carefully. He was over there now, watching him, expecting him to act. To try and take the wind-gage, or to alter course and attempt to cross his stern and cripple him with one good broadside as he passed.
The French frigate dipped to the swell, showing her copper for several seconds. The wind was tight across her exposed side, but Le Chaumareys was holding back, keeping on Undine's larboard bow, barely making headway.
Bolitho bit his lip, his eyes running in the sun's fierce stare. His men would find it hard to shoot well into the blinding sunlight.
When he looked at the gun deck again he saw that corpses were gone.
Herrick came aft and said, 'All done.'
He saw Bolitho's intent features and asked quietly, 'Is something wrong, sir?'
'I think I am starting to understand Le Chaumareys." He could feel his heart beginning to pound again, the familiar chill at his neck and spine. 'I think he wants us to have the windgage.'
'But, sir…' Herrick's blue eyes darted to the Argus and back again. 'Is the sun in our eyes of greater value to him?' Understanding spread across his round face. 'It might well be. He can stand off and use his heavy artillery to better result.'
Bolitho turned, his eyes flashing. 'Well, it's not to be, Mr. Herrick! Get the t'gallants on her directly!' He added, 'I am sorry, Mr. Mudge, but if we lose the sticks out of her to your damned wind it may be better than losing them the other way!'
Herrick was already raising his speaking trumpet. 'Hands aloft! Loose t'ga'n's'ls!'When he looked at Bolitho again there was little to show what he had so recently endured. 'By God, sir, what we miss in weight we can show that bastard in agility today!'
Bolitho grinned at him, his lips painful. 'Alter course two
points to starboard. We'll run for his bows.'
Allday folded his arms and watched Bolitho's shoulders, and then glanced up at the flag as it rippled in the freshening wind.
'And that is all the running you'll be doing, I'm thinking.'
'East nor'-east, sir!' Carwithen had one hand resting on the polished spokes as the helmsmen concentrated on the compass and the set of the sails overhead. 'Steady as she goes!'
Mudge rubbed his hands on his coat. 'She's movin' well, sir.'
Bolitho lowered his telescope and nodded thoughtfully. The extra power of the topgallants was laying Undine firmly in line across the other ship's path. Argus had not set any additional sail. Yet. He winced as the sunlight lanced down from the lens. Le Chaumareys still held the best position. He could alter course to lee'rd and present his broadside as Undine tried to pass him. Equally, he could allow her to cross his bows, and while she lost time in changing tack, he could take the windgage, sun's glare or not, and attack him from the other side.
Herrick said hoarsely, 'He's holding the same course. He may have let her fall off a point, but there's nothing in it.' He breathed out slowly. 'She makes a fair sight, God rot her!'
Bolitho smiled tightly. Argus had barely changed her bearing, but that was because Undine had altered course to starboard. She was much closer now, a bare two miles, so that he could see her red and yellow figurehead, the purposeful movement of figures about her sloping quarterdeck.
There was a sudden bang, and seconds later a thin waterspout rose lazily amongst the tossing wavecrests, slightly ahead of Undine's path, and half a cable short. Ranging shot, or merely to unnerve Undine's own gun crew. Another of Le Chaumareys' little ruses.
Herrick muttered fervently, 'If I know the Frogs, he'll try and dismast us with chain-shot and langridge. Another prize for his bloody ally!P
'You don't know this Frenchman, Mr. Herrick.' Bolitho recalled Le Chaumareys' face when he had spoken of home, his France which he had been denied for so long. 'My guess is he'll want a complete victory.'
The word made him feel uneasy. He could even picture Undine dismasted and wallowing amongst her own dead and dying before her final plunge. Like the one he himself had just destroyed. Like Nervion, and so many he had watched crumble and perish.
The stage was set. Two ships, with not even a seabird to watch their manoeuvres, their dedicated efforts to outwit each other.
'There, sir! He's setting his t'gallants!' Carwithen's voice jarred him from his thoughts.
Herrick exclaimed, 'He intends to outreach us after all.'
Bolitho watched intently as the Argus's upper yards filled with freshly-set, bulging canvas. He could see the instant effect it had around her raked stem as she bit into the waves and thrust forward with sudden haste.
From his position behind the rail it looked to Bolitho as if the other ship's jib-boom was actually touching his own, although she was still over a mile away. Smoke wreathed above her hull, and he held his breath as the bright tongues of fire licked from her exposed ports.
The sea boiled and shot skywards as the heavy balls ploughed into the wind-ruffled water, or ricocheted away far abeam. One ball smashed hard down alongside, the shock transmitting itself to the very mastheads.
'Trying to rattle our wits!'
Herrick was grinning, but Bolitho saw the anxiety behind his eyes.
Le Chaumareys had not seemed the kind of man who wasted gestures on the wind. He was preparing his gun crews, showing them the range, probably telling them right now in his resonant voice exactly what he expected of them.
'By God, the devil's shortening sail again!'
Bolitho saw the topgallants vanishing along the Argus's yards, and leaned across the rail.
'Stand by, the larboard battery!'
Perhaps he had found Le Chaumareys' one real weakness. That he needed to win and to survive. Bolitho knew that the two did not always walk hand in hand.
'Alter course three points to larboard!'
He heard the rush of feet, the confused shouts as his orders were relayed to the waiting seamen.
Mudge asked, 'Is that wise, sir?
Bolitho waited as the helm went down, and then turned to watch the bowsprit swinging slowly and then more quickly to larboard, the other frigate suddenly enmeshed in the criss-cross of rigging and shrouds.
'Hold her so!'
He waited impatiently while Herrick bellowed -through his-trumpet, and the hands on the braces hauled feverishly to retrim the yards.
'Nor'-east by north, sir!' The helmsman sounded breathless.
With the wind sweeping tightly across the larboard quarter, Undine swept straight down towards the other ship, as if to cut her in halves. More flashes darted from the Frenchman's side, and Bolitho clenched his fists as metal shrieked overhead, parting rigging, slapping through sails and hurling spray in profusion on either beam.
'Now we shall see!'
Bolitho craned forward, gripping the rail, his eyes stinging painfully in the hazy glare. Another rippling line of flashes, the sounds of the broadside rolling across the water like the thunder of mighty drums. He felt the hull stagger violently, and saw some of the seamen below the quarterdeck exchanging quick, desperate glances.