He tried not even to think the word. Flagship. Pomfret was incapable of speaking, let alone directing a battle. And it was eleven years since Bolitho had been in a real sea-fight. At the Saintes he had commanded a small frigate, and that great battle had been fought and won against an enemy equal both in strength and experience. He made himself look towards the enemy. Two to one. Even Rooke might consider the odds unfavourable.
Herrick said, 'We will pass larboard to larboard, sir. We cannot hope to tack across their course now.'
Bolitho nodded. To windward lay Cozar, it seemed as if they were doomed by that place, no matter what they did. Now it acted as a barrier to cut their chances of tacking to windward. If they continued as they were the French ships would pass down their larboard side, would pound them to submission before they could turn and fight again.
He snapped, 'General signal. "Shorten sail!" ' The Zenith had completed her tack and was now leading. the line… Through his glass he could see the mauling the enemy bowchasers had given her, the great scars across her poop. He said calmly, 'We will cut the enemy line in half, gentlemen! That way we will take the weather-gage, and give him a moment of alarm!'
He saw Herrick and Ashby exchanging anxious glances and added, 'It will mean facing three broadsides instead of six.'
Bolitho turned as Allday padded from the poop carrying his best coat and hat. The men around the quarterdeck were all watching in silence as he threw his old seagoing coat aside and slipped his arms into the other one. It was something he had always done before a fight. Madness or conceit? He could not be sure. Perhaps, unlike his predecessor in Hyperion, he did not wish to leave anything worthwhile behind should he die today. The stupidity of his racing thoughts helped to steady him, and the watching seamen and marines saw him give a small smile.
Allday held. out the sword and asked quietly, 'Must I stay with the admiral, Captain?' He looked wretchedly at the crouching gunners. 'My place is here.'
'Your place is where I choose, Allday!' Then Bolitho nodded. 'I will know where you are if I need you, never fret!' 'Both ships have acknowledged, sir!' Piper was shouting, his voice very loud in the silence.
'Good. Now bend on another signal, Mr. Piper, but do not
hoist it, "Take in succession and re-form line of battle!" ' He withdrew his sword and turned it over in his hands. The steel felt like ice. To the deck at large he added, 'There will be one final signal. You will keep it flying until I order otherwise.'
Piper peered up from his slate, his face pinched with strain and concentration. 'I'm ready, sir!'
Bolitho looked evenly towards the approaching ships. Not long now.
He said, 'When we break their line you will hoist "Engage the enemy closer!"'
Then he returned the sword to its scabbard with a snap.
'And now, Mr. Herrick, you may give the order to load and run out.' For a moment longer he held Herrick's gaze. He wanted to grip his hand. To say something personal or trivial. But the moment was already past.
Herrick touched his hat and then raised his speaking trumpet. He had seen the pain in Bolitho's eyes. He did not have to be told anything.
As he shouted his order the deck seemed to come alive. Ports were hauled open, and as one captain after another raised his hand.Rooke roared, 'Run out!' Then he too turned aft and looked towards Bolitho.
A ragged thunder of cannon-fire echoed across the water, and through the taut rigging Herrick saw the spreading wall of gunsmoke drifting down to enfold the Zenith like a cloud.
He heard Gossett mutter, 'Make a note in the log. At two bells of th' Forenoon action was joined.' He cleared his throat. 'And God preserve us!'
Waiting for the final clash seemed endless. Bolitho made himself stand motionless by the rail while he watched the battered Zenith receiving the full brunt of the enemy broadsides. Barely seventy yards separated the two-decker as she edged past the leading French ship, but as a down-draught of wind cut through the billowing smoke Bolitho saw with cold relief that her masts were still standing and her guns were running out again as she sailed to meet the next adversary. The second ship in the enemy line was a three-decker, and as he watched Bolitho saw her foremost guns belch fire and smoke, the thundering crash of the detonations making him wince. Above the growing bank of smoke he saw the bright flash of colour at the enemy's topmast, the command flag of an admiral.
He shouted, `Stand by!' He shut the picture of the flashing guns from his mind and concentrated on the leading ship, as like two wooden juggernauts she and Hyperion crossed bowsprits, and the men at the foremost guns stared through their ports and saw the hardening line of the enemy's bows.
Rooke yelled, 'Fire as you bear!'
Hyperion staggered drunkenly as the broadside rippled along her side in a double-edged line, the guns hurling themselves inboard against the tackles, their crews choking and cursing as the great fog of acrid smoke funnelled back through the ports, blinding them as they reeled and groped for the next charges.
Bolitho shaded his streaming eyes and stared up at the enemy's foremast as slowly and relentlessly it carved above the smoke until it hung directly above him. Then the French= man fired, the gun-flashes stabbing through the dense smoke and painting it with red and orange, so that it seemed to come alive. He felt the balls crashing into the hull, the splintering thunder jarring the planks beneath his straddled legs as if to burst up through the deck itself.
He yelled, 'Again, lads! Hit 'em again!'
His brain cringed as the nine-pounders at his back joined in the savage onslaught, and through the deafening gunfire he heard muffled cries and shouted orders as the marines opened fire with their muskets, shooting blindly into the allenveloping smoke.
Something slammed into the rail by his hand, and when he looked down he saw a wood splinter standing on end like a quill pen.
Ashby bellowed, 'The tops! Shoot down those marksmen, you bastards!'
A marine corporal pulled the lanyard of a swivel gun, and before the dense brown smoke blew back across the quarterdeck Bolitho saw some half-dozen men plucked from the enemy's maintop by the scything burst of canister and swept away like so much rubbish.
Rooke dropped his sword. 'Run out! Fire!' Again the extended thunder of the two batteries and the answering crash of iron against timber as the full weight of Hyperion's broadside smashed home.
Bolitho wiped his face with his sleeve. The other ship was already past, yet in spite of the hammering he could see little damage around him. He tried to stop the grin from spreading over his face. The Tenacious would soon finish off the leading ship, he thought wildly.
He cupped his hands. `Easy, lads! The next one is the admiral's ship.' He heard the derisive yells from the smokeshrouded gunners. `Give him a proper salute!'
Then he ran across to the other side of the deck, straining his eyes to find the Zenith. He saw her maintop mast and commission pendant isolated above the smoke and already level with the third enemy ship. Her foremast had gone, but her guns were still firing, and between the savage broadsides he could hear cheering, like men driven beyond caution or sanity.
He shouted, 'Mr. Piper! Hoist that signal!'
He watched the flags jerking up to the yards and then stared anxiously towards the battered Zenith. With only one mast in view it was hard to judge her exact position or bearing.
But Piper was ready. 'She's acknowledged, sir!' He was clinging' to the shrouds, oblivious of the oncoming threedecker as he peered at the signal.
Bolitho watched, hardly daring to breathe as Captain Stewart tacked his ship round and headed straight towards the enemy. He could see the Zenith's topmast outlined against the braced yards of the fourth ship in the French line… She was already heading into the wind, and Bolitho had to grip the rail to prevent himself from running along the deck to watch as she swung still further, her bows pushing resolutely across the enemy's course, her guns firing from either beam as she struggled to obey Bolitho's last signal.