There were more dull explosions from astern and he heard the marines on the poop yelling to the men at the quarterdeck guns. "The frigate's hauled down her colours, lads! She's struck to the Spartan." The responding cheers only added to Bolitho's growing anxiety. To the ship's company any victory was an event, but viewed against the overall pattern it was almost nothing.
Inch said thickly, "God, look at the Dutchman!"
The Telamon had changed her tack, and when Bolitho lifted his glass again he saw her swinging wildly across the wind, her sails in confusion and her masthead pendant streaming out abeam like a strip of metal.
"Frenchman's wearing ship, sir!" Inch was hoarse with excitement.
It was true. The enemy captain had little alternative now. With the reefs to starboard and the careering Telamon swinging across his bows, he had to act quickly to avoid collision or grounding his own ship in a last attempt to slip past.
But as the French ship's shape lengthened to overlap that of the Telamon everyone on the quarterdeck heard the ragged crash of a full broadside, and watched with dismay as the Dutchman's sails disappeared in a towering pall of dense smoke.
Bolitho pounded the rail, willing Mulder to tack again and break from the deadly embrace. He could hear the Telamon's ancient cannon firing now, disjointed but defiant, the smoke billowing inboard to blind the gunners as Mulder continued to hold a course parallel with his adversary.
Gossett said, "Gawd, the Telamon's given us time to get to grips with the bugger!"
"Stand by on deck!" Bolitho saw Stepkyne touch his hat. "Starboard battery, ready!"
He heard Pelham-Martin whisper fervently, "Catch him, Bolitho! In the name of God, catch him!"
The French two-decker was still firing with hardly a pause between salvoes, and as the wind drove some of the smoke clear Bolitho saw the Telamon's mizzen vanish in a welter of broken rigging, and imagined he could hear the enemy's weight of iron smashing into her hull.
Lieutenant Roth muttered tightly, "There goes her foremast!"
At the mercy of wind and sea the Telamon was already dropping past the Frenchman's starboard quarter, and although a gun still fired here and there along her side, she was crippled almost beyond recognition.
Bolitho needed no glass to see the enemy's yards swinging, and while she ploughed past the Telamon's shattered bows men were already aloft as in final desperation her courses broke out to the wind so that she tilted still further, showing her copper in the dull sunlight.
It had to be now or never.
Bolitho yelled, "Starboard your helm!"
Drunkenly the Hyperion started to edge round, every spar and shroud slamming and creaking in protest. Muffled cries came from below, and he guessed that the impetus of the turn was sweeping the sea through the lower ports.
Round and still further round, until the two ships lay almost level with some two cables between them. It was a difficult range, but with every sail holding the ship over as rigidly as a fortress there would never be another chance.
"Fire as you bear!"
He seized the rail and watched as the ship shook violently to the controlled broadside. The French twodecker was already swinging away, but as the sea came alive with leaping spray the bulk of the Hyperion's metal raked her poop and quarterdeck with the sound of thunder.
Her yards were coming round again, and Bolitho knew that her captain had at last realised his predicament. He should have stayed to fight the pursuing Hyperion in the first place. Then there was always a chance of crippling, even destroying her. But now as she wallowed back Bolitho could almost feel the torment within her hull as the sea explored the rents left by that one smashing broadside. Leaning to the press of canvas she had exposed a whole expanse of bilge, into which many of the lower battery's twenty-four-pound balls must have carved a path of devastation which the pumps could never contain under such conditions.
He heard Stepkyne barking, "Run out! Fire as you bear!"
The gunners were whooping with wild excitement as they poured another double salvo at the struggling ship which lay right across their sights. The Frenchman was trying to shoot back, but so great was the confusion and so dense the smoke from the Hyperion's guns that only a few balls came close. Most of them whimpered overhead, and on the poop the marines were cheering and yelling, unable to use their long muskets at such a distance.
The range was closing, nevertheless, until both ships were less than two hundred yards apart. The enemy's sails were pockmarked with shot holes, and above her littered decks the rigging hung like torn creeper as she wilted to one more savage broadside.
Inch shouted, "Look, sir! She's breaking off the action!"
Bolitho shook his head. "We must have smashed her steering." He watched coldly as the enemy ship began to idle down-wind, her motion becoming more sluggish and haphazard with every nerve-wrenching minute.
Gossett said, "She's done for!" Several turned to stare at him and he -added flatly, "The reef! She'll never claw off in time!"
Bolitho nodded. The long line of white breakers which reached out from the headland was overlapping the stricken ship, and nothing but a miracle could save her.
The quarterdeck gunners began to cheer with the jubilant marines, although they had not been able to fire either.
Bolitho crossed to the opposite side and stared for several moments at the Telamon. Alone and disabled, she too was in great danger of driving ashore. Yet for those few moments he was unable to move as he watched her plight and the complete destruction she had suffered. Dismasted, but for a stump of her main, with her side broken in countless places, she was almost a total wreck. Other ships of her size might have taken the punishment and lived to fight again. But her old timbers were welded together by time and weather, so that instead of individual planks and beams being broken, whole_ areas of her hull gaped open to the sea, while from her scuppers the blood ran down into the flotsam alongside as a testament of her sacrifice.
He said, "Tell Mr. Tomlin to lay out the towing cable. Secure guns and get every available man aft."
Some of the gunners on the main deck climbed on to the gangways, realising for the first time what their own victory had cost the Dutch ship and her company.
Then he turned as Pelham-Martin rasped, "The Frenchman has not hauled down his colours!" His eyes were gleaming strangely. "He might still repair the damage!"
Bolitho stared at him. "And the Telamon?"
Pelham-Martin gestured fiercely with one hand. "Signal Hermes to take her in tow!" His eyes were still fixed on the drifting two-decker. "1 want that ship sunk!"
Bolitho looked at Gossett. "Lay a course to weather the reef." To Inch he continued in the same impassive tone, "One broadside as we pass. -There will be no second chance once we clear the reef.",
He crossed to the commodore's side again. "They'll be hard aground in a moment, sir." He knew it was pointless even as he spoke. There was something wild about Pelham-Martin's expression, a kind of inhuman eagerness which filled him with disgust.
"Do as I order!" Pelham-Martin clung to the nettings as the ship heeled slightly and Gossett said, "Course sou'west, sir!"
Far astern Bolitho could hear cheering aboard the Hermes, and as he looked over the nettings he saw figures standing on the Telamon's gangways waving and cheering with them. Someone had nailed a new flag to the broken mast, and amidst all the destruction and horror it seemed remote and strangely sad.
But aboard Hyperion not a single man called out now. Even the marines watched in silence as the ship bore down towards the dancing breakers along the reef. Here and there Bolitho saw the black tooth of a jagged rock, and found himself praying that the French would strike their colours before it was too late. There was a stiff sea running across the reef, and the survivors would be hard put to get ashore in safety even without this last battering.