Gossett, one hand hiflden in a bloody bandage, pulled him to his feet and snarled, "This ain't no floatin' Bethel! Get back to your station or I'll gut you like a bloody herrin'!"
Bolitho swung away and snapped, "Clear that hamper from the bows!" He saw Inch still staring at the dying ship. "Get forrard and see to it! That ship'll be up to us directly!"
He turned back to watch the _Tornade as she steadied on her new course, her fore topsail pitted with holes from the previous encounter. She had the wind-gage this time, and was preparing to overhaul the crippled Hyperion and smash her to submission as she passed.
He found that he could watch her confident approach almost dispassionately. It was nearly done. They had caused so much damage to Lequiller's force it was unlikely he could continue fully with his plan. Far away he could hear the sharp detonations of the Spartan's guns, and guessed Farquhar was playing cat and mouse with the San Leandro. It had been a brave gesture. He looked down at his own ship and felt the pain in his heart like a knife. There were dead and dying on every hand, and with men working to clear away the wreckage from the bows there was hardly a gun still fully manned.
Then he looked up at the mainmast where a new ensign flapped briskly above the drifting smoke. Lequiller was probably watching it, too. Recalling this same ship which had anchored in the Gironde Estuary alone and outnumbered to block his escape to sea. Now they were meeting again. For the final embrace.
He walked slowly across the broken planking, his chin on his chest. But this time the Hyperion was here to block his return to land. He looked up startled, as if someone had spoken the thoughts loud.
He shouted hoarsely, "Get a move on, Mr. Inch!" Then to Gossett he added, "Will she answer the helm like this?"
The master rubbed his chin. "Mebbee, sir."
Bolitho stared at him, his eyes cold. "No maybes, Mr. Gossett! I just want steerage way, nothing more!"
Gossett nodded, his heavy face crumpled with strain and worry.
Then Bolitho ran to the ladder and down to the main deck. At the top of the hatch he yelled, "Mr. Beauclerk!" He stared as a grubby faced midshipman peered up at him.
"Mr. Beauclerk's dead, sir." He shivered but added firmly, "Mr. Pascoe and I are in charge."
Bolitho looked up at the maintop, seeking out Gascoigne. But there was no time now. He tried to clear his mind. To think. Just two boys. Two boys in command of an enclosed, deafening hell.
He said calmly, "Very well, Mr. Penrose. Send all the starboard side gunners on deck at the double!" He checked the midshipman and added, "Then load and double-shot your guns to larboard." He waited. "Do you think you can do that?"
The boy nodded, his eyes suddenly determined. "Aye, aye, sir!"
Inch strode aft. "It will take another quarter hour, sir."
"I see." Bolitho looked above the tattered hammock nettings and saw the French ship's fore topgallant high above the larboard quarter, moving slowly but surely towards the final contact.
"We have' no more time, Mr. Inch." It was strange how quiet it appeared to be. "Muster all the available men but keep them down below the bulwark. I want fifty of them aft in the wardroom and stem cabin."
Inch's eyes were on the other ship's topgallant and the vice-admiral's command flag which flew above it.
Bolitho continued in the same expressionless tone, "I am going to board her." He saw Inch staring at him but said, "It is the only hope." Then he clapped his shoulder and grinned. "So let us have some enthusiasm, eh?"
He turned and ran back to the littered quarterdeck where Allday stood beside the guns, his cutlass dangling from one hand.
A ball shrieked overhead and slapped through the main topsail, throwing a seaman from his perch on the yard and hurling him down on to the net, where he lay with his arms outstretched, as if crucified.
Bolitho said shortly, "Stand by, Mr. Gossett!" He did not turn as the detailed seamen and marines dashed past him into the gloom beneath the poop, while others hurried to the wardroom on the deck below.
Gossett could not see the enemy because of the poop, but was watching Bolitho's face with something like awe.
Inch clung to the ladder and said, "Here she comes!"
The Tornade's jib boom was already passing the quarter windows, and as she began to overhaul Bolitho saw the men high in her tops, the sudden stab of musket fire as they tried to mark down the Hyperion's officers. The swivel gun banged again and he heard Gascoigne yelling and cheering as the canister ripped away the wooden barricade around the enemy's foretop and blasted the marksmen down like birds from a branch.
The first three guns on the Tornade's side belched tongues of flame, and Bolitho felt the balls smashing into his ship and gritted his teeth against her pain and his own as shot after shot crashed into the old timbers or cleaved through ports to cause carnage and terror inside the lower – battery.
Gossett said between his teeth, "She can't take much more, sir!"
Bolitho replied harshly, "She must!" He flinched as a ball smashed through a group of men who were carrying a wounded comrade towards the main hatch. Arms and legs flew in grisly profusion, and he saw an old seaman gaping at the deck where his hands lay like tom gloves amidst the great spreading bloodstains. Then he was lost from view as the Tornade fired again, the rolling thunder of her broadside matched only by the terrible din as the massive weight of iron drove into the Hyperion's side and upper decks.
Bolitho said, "Now, Mr. Gossett! Larboard helm!" He saw a quartermaster fall kicking and screaming, and threw his own weight to the wheel. He felt the spokes jerking under his hands, as if the ship was trying to hit back at those who were letting her be destroyed. He yelled, "Heave! Over, lads!"
He could see the French ship right alongisde now, barely thirty feet clear, her guns firing and then running out to shoot again almost before the smoke had been driven away. The lower battery was shooting in reply, but the sporadic salvoes were lost in the enemy's deeper roar.
Men were waving weapons and yelling from the Tornade's poop, and he saw others gesturing towards him and pointing him out to the marksmen in the tops.
Inch muttered tightly, "Oh, God, she's feeling it…:' He broke off and threw one hand to his shoulder, his face twisted in agony.
Bolitho held him against the wheel. "Where are you hit?" He tore open his coat and saw the bright blood pouring down his chest.
Inch said weakly, "Dear God!"
Bolitho shouted, "Mr. Canyon!" When the boy ran to him he snapped, "Tend to the first lieutenant!" He added quietly, "Rest easy, Inch."
Then he tore himself away and shouted, "Keep the helm over!" He ran past the helmsman, his ears deaf to the screams and the awful crash of splintering wood which seemed all about him.
On through the stem cabin, half filled with vague figures, and unfamiliar with burned panelling and gaping shot holes.
The ship was sluggish with a dozen rents beneath her waterline, but she was answering. Slowly and painfully she was swinging away from her attacker, the impetus of her turn bringing her battered stern towards that of the threedecker.
Bolitho kicked open the nearest window, the sword in his hand, his eyes wild and suddenly angry.
Then he saw his brother and Pascoe with the others, and felt the despair crowding through his reeling mind like a final torment.
He heard himself shout, "Now lads! Let's get to grips with the bastards!"
He almost fell into the sea as the two ships ground together with a jarring crash, but after a moment's pause he leapt outwards for the ornate sternwalk and clung to it with all his strength, while yelling and screaming like madmen the others surged across with him. Below his legs he saw Stepkyne leading his party from the wardroom windows, and a man failing, seemingly very slowly into the water below the two interlocked sterns.