Some were blackened, some were ghastly pale. Some had arms and legs, some were missing limbs, or bits of torso. As they stood there, more climbed up hatchways from the gundeck, some hardly able to crawl; it was not only the Welfare’s upper deck that had been shattered.
The triumphant ship had dropped astern, to sit proudly, spilling wind, to wait and see. To see if the Welfare wanted any more. Broad looked at her. As she dropped into a trough, he saw men making for the boats, clearing them for lowering. There was not any doubt, when it came to it. The Welfare had had enough.
‘She will not come alongside,’ said Matthews quietly. ‘Thank God we prevented the issuing of arms. There are some blessings in this sorry world.’
‘Will she sink, the Welfare? Will she go down after all this punishment?’
‘That, my friend, is no longer our concern.’ He laughed. ‘I doubt it though. She’s a fine powerful boat. They’ll jury rig her and put on a crew. They’ll get her safe to Cape Town.’
‘Thank God I won’t be on board her,’ Broad said. ‘Hang I will, if hang I must. But dear God, my friend, I think I could die happy so long I’m off this ship.’
The Welfare was wallowing. Wallowing in the cold southern ocean, her decks littered with gear and men. Confused men, weeping men, injured men, dead and dying men. The first boat from the frigate was neatly launched.
The other boarding parties were drawn up, quiet and well-armed. The first boat slipped her falls, and began to struggle through the cold and lumpy sea. From behind a pile of jumbled debris near the mainmast, Joyce and Madesly came into view. With them were two other men. They picked their way towards the stern. They carried cutlasses.
It did not occur to Broad and Matthews for some time what was up. Kneeling in the clutter, they watched the four come aft. The faces, dirty and blackened, one badly cut, were intent. Despite the chaos, they moved fast. Their eyes were firmly fixed; they had a purpose. Broad grabbed Matthews by the arm, horrified.
‘The boy,’ he said.
Matthews cottoned on immediately. He gave a grunt, and they rose to their feet as one. Joyce, seeing them, stopped.
‘So,’ he shouted. ‘Hiding like bugs in the woodwork. Stand, you bastards, stand, or we cut you down.’
Broad and Matthews did not wait to argue. They set out at a stumbling run. Joyce snarled with fury, and his party started running too. It was laughable in a way, the six men stumbling, panting, racing for the after hatchway.
Matthews got there first, with Broad a pace or two behind. Madesly hauled out a pistol, which misfired. Another of them tried with his. It ignited, and a ball clipped Matthews on the shoulder, making him lose his grip. He half fell down the ladder, but looked up to see if Jesse was all right. Madesly, frustrated, threw his pistol at Broad. It struck him on the temple, but only a glancing blow. As he tumbled down the steps the attackers were on his heels, snorting like pigs with rage and exertion.
The two ran into the cabin pell-mell. Broad tried to slam the door, ram home the bolt, but it was too late. As it swung to, the four dashed themselves against it, knocking him backwards. He banged his hip against the table, lost his pistol far across the deck, fell heavily and nearly broke his wrist. By the time he had got himself half upright, the cabin was full of men. Matthews was to the right, his pistol and cutlass raised. As Jesse watched, the hammer of the pistol fell. A flash around the action, but no bang. He hurled it down, disgusted.
Joyce’s pistol was now ready. He aimed it at Matthews and pulled the trigger. But this misfired, too. The last of the four looked almost comical as he raised his; he really had no hope of it.
There was a bang, however. The man, instead of wearing triumph on his face, showed horror, and a look of pained surprise. A wound beneath his arm began to gush blood, then he fell. William Bentley, who had fired the shot, was half slumped across a chair, exhausted by his efforts to get out of bed and dressed during the last ten minutes. The musket-kick banged painfully against his ribs. He was gasping, feeling giddy and sick. He had not known his lungs had grown so weak.
The three assassins were bemused for a moment.
Matthews gave a loud, glad cry and lunged himself towards them. He led with the point of his cutlass, which was his downfall. It ran easily into the body of Arthur Madesly, who screeched, coughed blood across the deck, then fell.
But the weight of him was on the blade. It bent, but did not break. As Matthews, frantic, white with knowledge, hauled on it to get it free, Joyce aimed an enormous swing at him with his own cutlass. There was a bang as it hit the bone, a crunch as it broke through it, and his left arm was ruined. His blade freed itself from Madesly then, and Matthews staggered back. He still had speed and strength enough to parry Joyce’s second blow.
Broad was on his feet, and moving to the unengaged man. Bentley, gasping in his chair, a cutlass beside him that he could barely lift, watched the bloody fight. In the confined space it was ghastly; the deckhead much too low for high-raised blades, the mess of blood from Madesly’s punctured stomach making the deck untenable. The four men slipped and slid, grunted and spat. As he watched it, Matthews’ face grew pale, only a mighty determination enabling him to ward off Joyce’s swinging, violent blows for a dwindling while.
Bentley wished he could have stopped it somehow, this final loss of blood. But even if he’d cut his throat, as Joyce had come to do, he knew it would have passed unnoticed. He was forced to sit and watch, wheezing painfully, a prematurely aged young man. They had come to make a sacrifice, they had come to drive out some demon with his blood. And he would gladly have spilt it, gladly. But there he sat, helpless, to watch his friends protect him.
Matthews died next, as much of exhaustion, it seemed, as anything else. He raised his cutlass too wearily to fend off a thrust, and it drove deeply into him beneath his guard. Before Joyce could drag his buried blade away, his companion, fighting Broad, was run through the stomach, and fell gurgling.
There was a strange pause. It would have been a silence if that had been possible. It sounded like a silence to William Bentley. The two surviving men faced each other, panting, their shoulders heaving, black and soaked with blood. There was blood everywhere, they were framed in it, shrouded in it, wallowing in it. They faced each other, the half-mad giant and the small, strong man. They faced each other.
Then slowly, trembling with fatigue, they both drew back their arms.
‘And now I’ll kill you, Jesse Broad,’ said Joyce.
It was then that Daniel Swift arrived. He appeared in the doorway, behind and to one side of them; slightly to one side. Bentley saw him, and his mouth dropped open. He could not say a word. His uncle looked ill. Gaunt, ill and terrible, with a long pistol in his hand. He looked desperate ill.
For a long moment everything was still. The tired men, their rasping breath awful in the silence, prepared to fight to death. Bentley watched his uncle, his mouth gaping helplessly. His uncle watched the men, who had not seen him there.
He was stooped, his powerful frame oddly less powerful. His face was hollow-cheeked and ulcerated, his eyes a shining pale. Only the great beak was the same, and he lifted it like a scythe.
As Joyce and Broad pulled back their cutlasses, Swift spoke. The two men jumped, the voice was such a shock. It was low, and penetrating, and terrifyingly vibrant. It was throbbing with hate.
‘Put down your cutlasses, bastards, or I shoot you where you stand.’