Herrick yelled, 'She's through! By God, she's cut the line!'
Men were cheering in the smoke, some hardly aware of the reason, but desperately eager to break their own dazed uncertainty.
Bolitho shouted, "Stand by, Mr. Rooke!' He ran back to the nettings as the French flagship rose above the fog like a cliff, her forecastle rippling with musket-fire, her bow guns already shooting out their long red tongues as the range fell away to fifty yards.
Rooke yelled, 'Fire as you bear!' He was running down the upper deck, stopping for just a few seconds by each gun as captain after captain pulled his lanyard to add to the deafening bombardment.
From astern Bolitho heard the Tenacious adding her massive weight to the engagement, but forgot her completely as the deck bucked wildly beneath him and some twenty feet of the larboard gangway careened into the air, hurling men and splintered timbers back into the smoke.
He saw the nets across the upper deck jumping with severed blocks and pieces of rippled sailcloth, but when he stared aft he could still see every mast and yard intact.
Bolitho shouted, 'On the uproll, Mr. Rooke!' He peered towards the Frenchman's braced yards, the sudden flurry of colour as a signal broke to the wind. Their admiral obviously intended to try and stop the British attempt to cut the line, he thought wildly. He pulled out his sword and held it above his head. `When I give the signal, Mr. Rooke!' His throat was raw with shouting and coughing. 'I want that rigging down!'
Another ragged broadside cut through the trapped smoke alongside, and two twelve-pounders were hurled away from the bulwark as if they were scraps of paper. Bolitho tore his eyes from the men trapped beneath the heavy guns and shut their agonised screams from his mind. Those muzzles must be almost red-hot, he thought vaguely.
He dropped his sword. 'Fire!'
Hyperion was rolling heavily with the wind, and the force of a full broadside threw her even further over as both gundecks roared out together.
With something like sad dignity, the Frenchman's foremast began to totter, the stays and shrouds holding it just long enough to give those trapped in the top and along the yards a few seconds of hope. Then with a great sigh the whole mass of rigging and spars pitched forward through the smoke, cleaving into the forecastle gunners before plunging down towards the shrouded water below.
Bolitho groped his way towards the poop until he found Gossett's massive shape beside the wheel. 'Stand by to wear ship!' Bolitho felt a musket-ball whip past his head and hamer into the poop ladder. 'We will turn across the enemy's line when you are ready!'
He did not wait for an answer but hurried back to the quarterdeck rail. The other ship was wallowing downwind, the trailing mass of spars acting like a giant sea-anchor. But over and beyond her snared bows Bolitho could already see the towering sails of the Tenacious, and before he wrenched his eyes back to the next ship in the line he saw the three-decker's broadside smashing into the French flagship, bringing down her main topgallant to add to the confusion below.
'Nowl' Bolitho had to call twice because of the ninepounders' vicious barking behind him. 'Now, Mr. Gossett!'
He watched narrowly as the big double wheel began to go over, the helmsmen stepping over two dead comrades as they fought to control the spokes.
At the quarterdeck rail Herrick was roaring at the top of his voice, 'Braces there! Let go and haul!'
Through the smoke the third ship was already firing across the narrowing strip of water. Shots hammered into the Hyperion's hull, and others slapped through topsails and spanker, severing halyards and shrouds and hurling pieces of splintered wood high in the air.
But the old ship was answering. As she swung slowly across the enemy's quarter Bolitho saw some French seamen running aft as if to repel boarders, and then as the Hyperion's intention became clear they opened fire with muskets and pistols, urged on by their officers and the fury of battle.
Across the disengaged side Bolitho saw another ship loom through the fog like some phantom vessel, and with something like disbelief he realised that Hyperion was cutting the line, her tapered bowsprit and flapping jib already clear of smoke and reaching out beyond the enemy's weather side.
He shouted, 'Stand by to starboard! It's your turn now, lads!'
A man fell back from a' nine-pounder, his face smashed to a bloody pulp, and he saw young Caswell, white but determined, waving another to take his place.
The gunners of the starboard battery waited their moment. The smoke hid the bulk of that fourth ship, but the black bowsprit and gleaming figurehead acted better than any aiming mark.
Rooke bellowed, 'Fire as you bear!'
Hyperion was responding to wind and rudder, and as she edged purposefully around the third ship's counter the starboard battery opened fire on her helpless consort. Two by two the guns bellowed and lurched inboard, their whooping crews already sponging and reloading before the broadside had reached as far aft as the quarterdeck.
Pieces of bulwark flew skyward above the haze of smoke, and the luckless ship's sails streamed from her yards like so much shredded waste.
Bolitho watched until the Tenacious's topmasts crept' into line. Dash was following, and above the crashing roar of Hyperion's artillery he could hear the deeper thunder of the three-decker's thirty-two-pounders as they continued to hammer the enemy.
When the Hyperion's bow swung gratefully across the wind the smoke cleared from her decks as if drawn away by a giant hand. All at once her scars were laid bare, and Bolitho felt suddenly stunned by the completeness of her misery.
Dead and wounded lay everywhere on the upper deck. The rest, their naked. bodies shining with sweat and blackened by powder, worked at their guns with the wild desperation of souls in hell.
The great net above the littered deck was covered with torn canvas and wood splinters, and here and there a wounded man writhed broken and whimpering- in the mesh after being shot down from aloft, like dying insects in a web.
The marines kept up a rapid fire from the nettings, hurling insults as they reloaded, and yelling encouragement to their comrades high in the swaying tops.
The larboard battery fired yet again, the balls ripping a bare twenty yards to blast through the enemy's poop and turn her quarterdeck into a bloody shambles.
Bolitho pounded the rail, silently urging his ship to complete her turn. But it could not last like this. Soon the other French ships would recover and fight back to rejoin their line. Before that happened they must settle with the enemy flagship and smash these three leading vessels into submission.
He swung round as Piper yelled, 'Signal from Zenith, sir! "Require assistance!"'
Bolitho had already seen the leading two-decker. She was completely dismasted, but for a stump of her main, and had drifted downwind across the French flagship's bows. Where the two vessels embraced men were already locked in hand-tohand combat, while in the trapped arrowhead of water between them the guns still kept up their relentless bombardment, their blackened muzzles barely feet apart.
He shook his head. `Make "Inability", Mr. Piper!' He watched the flags soaring aloft and added, 'Now that other signal, Mr. Piper, lively there!'
Bolitho ignored the rippling flashes as his guns bellowed defiance at the nearest ship. The enemy was hardly firing a shot in return, but aboard her battered decks he could see something like panic as the Tenacious followed ponderously through the gap in the line, her triple rows of guns gaping straight at the Frenchman's unprotected stem.
He gripped Herrick's shoulder, feeling him jump with shock at the sudden contact. Like himself he was probably expecting a musket-ball, he thought grimly.
`Zenith is all but done for, Thomas.' He broke off as a ball ploughed through the quarterdeck ladder and smashed into a file of crouching marines. Sickened, he saw the blood spreading away like paint, until it seemed it would never stop. Amidst the litter of smashed limbs and screaming men he saw a marine's head rolling across the deck, the eyes still open and staring.