Drinkwater swallowed. This was a damned inconvenient moment for a return of the old man's faculties. 'Well sir, Sir John has approved…'
'Damn Sir John, Nathaniel. Don't prevaricate. The question is do I approve it?'
Six paces forward, six paces aft. Up and down, up and down, Diamond's bell chiming the half hours until it was several minutes overdue. 'Light's out in Diamond's cabin, sir.' It was Nicholls, the poor lookout, sent aft to interrupt Drinkwater's train of thought.
Smith was to signal which side of Diamond the Kestrel was to pass as soon as his officers, from the loftier height of her foremast, made out the enemy dispositions. 'Call all hands, there, all hands to general quarters!'
Minutes passed, then: 'Two lights, sir!'
So it was to larboard, to the eastward that they were to go. He gave his orders. Course was altered and the sheets trimmed. They began to diverge and pass the frigate, shaking out the reef that had held them back while Diamond shortened sail. Giving the men a few moments to make their preparations Drinkwater slipped below.
'Enemy's in sight, sir…' Griffiths opened his eyes. His features were sunk, yellow in the lamplight, like old parchment. But the voice that came from him was still resonant. 'Be careful, boy-o,' he said with almost paternal affection, raising a wasted hand over the rim of the cot. Drinkwater shook it in an awkward, delicate way. 'Take my pistols there, on the settee…' Drinkwater checked the pans. 'They're all ready, Nathaniel, primed and ready,' the old man said behind him. He stuck them in his belt and left the cabin. On deck he buckled on his sword and went round the hands. The men were attentive, drawing aside as he approached, muttering 'good lucks' amongst themselves and assuring him they knew what to do. As he walked aft again a new mood swept over him. He no longer envied White. He was in a goodly company, knew these men well now, had been accepted by them as their leader. A tremendous feeling of exhilaration coursed through him so strongly that for a moment he remained staring aft, picking out the pale streak of their wake while he recovered himself. Then he thought of Elizabeth, her kiss and parting remark: 'Be careful, my love…' So like Griffiths's and tonight so enormously relevant. He was on the verge of breaking that old promise of circumspection and giving way to recklessness. Then, unhidden, a fragment of long past conversation rose like flotsam on the whirlpool of his brain. 'I have heard it said, 'Appleby had averred, 'that a man who fails to feel fear when going into action is usually wounded… as though some nervous defence is destroyed by reckless passion which in itself presages misfortune…'
Drinkwater swallowed hard and walked forward. Mindful of his sword and the loaded pistols in his belt, he began to slowly ascend the rigging, staring ahead for a sight of the enemy.
'Make ready! Make ready there!' The word was passed in sibilantly urgent whispers. 'Aft there, steer two points to larboard! Larboard guns train as far forrard as you can!'
And then the need for silence was gone as, a mile west of them a ragged line of fire erupted into the night where one of the frigates loosed off her broadside. The rolling thunder of her discharge came downwind to them.
Drinkwater could see the lugger clearly now. He stood on the rail, one hand round the huge running backstay. She was beating up to cover a barque, presumably one of the storeships. He ordered the course altered a little more and noted where the sheets were trimmed.
At three hundred yards the lugger opened fire, revealing herself as a well-served chasse marée of about ten guns. Drinkwater held his fire.
'When your guns bear, open fire.' Men tensed in the darkness as he said: 'Luff her!'
Kestrel's sails shivered as she turned into the wind. The crash and recoiling rumble of the guns exploded down her larboard side. Forward a bosun's mate had the jib backed, forcing the cutter on to her former tack. As she closed the chasse marée Drinkwater studied his opponent for damage, wondering if the specially prepared broadside had done anything.
It was impossible to say for certain but he heard shouts and screams and already his own gun captains were reporting themselves ready. He waited for Jessup commanding the battery. 'All ready Mr Drinkwater!'
'Luff her!'
A hundred yards range now and a flash and crash, a scream and a flurry of bodies where the Frenchman's broadside struck, then Kestrel fired back and steadied for the final assault on the enemy. As the last few yards were eaten up Drinkwater was aware of a furious exchange of fire where Arethusa and the brig-corvette engaged; then he snapped: 'Boarders!'
The cutter was gathering way, heading straight for the lugger. The French commander was no sluggard and sought to rake her. A storm of shot swept Kestrel's deck. Grape and langridge forced Drinkwater's eyes tight shut as the whine and wind of its passing whistled about him. Thumps, shouts and screams forced his eyes open again. Soon they must run on board of the lugger… would the distance never lessen?
He could hear shouts of alarm coming from the Frenchman then he felt the deck tremble under his feet as Kestrel's bowsprit went over the lugger's rail with a twanging of the bobstay. Then the deck heeled as a rending crash told where her stem bit into the enemy's chains and Kestrel slewed round. The guns fired again as they bore and the two hulls jarred together.
'Boarders away!'
The noise that came from forward was of a different tenor now as the Kestrels left their guns and swept over the rail. Forward and aft lashings were caught round the lugger's rufftree rail and the two ships ground together in the swell.
Drinkwater leapt across the gap, stepped on the lugger's rail and landed on the deck. He was confronted by two men whose features were pale blurs. He remembered his own orders and screamed through clenched teeth. Behind him the two helmsmen came aboard, their faces blackened, like his own, by soot from the galley funnel.
Drinkwater fired his pistol at the nearer Frenchman and jabbed his hanger at the other. They vanished and a man in front thrust at him with a boarding pike. He parried awkwardly, sliding on the deck, taking the thrust through his coat sleeve and driving the muzzle of the discharged pistol into the man's exposed stomach. His victim doubled over and Drinkwater savagely struck at the nape of his neck with the pommel of his sword. Something gave beneath the ferocity of the blow and like a discarded doll the man dropped into the anonymous darkness of the bloody deck.
He moved on and three, then four men were in front of him. He slashed with the hanger, hurled the pistol at another then whipped the second from his belt. Pulling the trigger the priming flashed but it misfired and with a triumphant yell the man leapt forward. Drinkwater was through the red-rimmed barrier of fighting madness now. His brain worked with cool rapidity, emotionless. He began to crouch instinctively, to turn his head away in a foetal position, but his passive submission was deceptive; made terrible by the sword. Bringing the hilt down into his belly, the blade ran vertically upwards between his right ear and shoulder. He sensed the man slash at where he had been, felt him stumble on to the exposed sword-blade in the confusion. Drinkwater thrust with his legs, driving upwards with a cracking of back muscles. Supported by fists, belly and shoulder the disembowelling blade thrust deep into the man's guts, through his diaphragm and into his lungs. Half crouched, with the dying Frenchman collapsed about his shoulder, he felt the sword nick his own ear. The weight of the body sliding down his back dragged the hanger over his shoulder and he tore it clear with both hands as another man pointed a pistol at his exposed left flank. The blade came clear as the priming flashed. In a terrible swipe the steel scythed round as the pistol discharged.