'Would you know the men who did this?' Drinkwater asked desperately.
'I don't know,' Templeton answered evasively, avoiding Drinkwater's scrutiny, 'it was all rather confusing. I could try.'
'Yes, you could,' Drinkwater snapped, his eyes cold. 'Take Walsh and a file of his men ...' Drinkwater remembered. 'Oh, Walsh is dead.' He looked down at the red corpse. Templeton's eyes followed and saw the horror at his feet for the first time. 'Damnation!' The clerk's eyes glazed over and he crumpled in a swoon at Drinkwater's feet. 'Damnation!' Drinkwater swore again.
'Sir!' The first lieutenant's cry of warning recalled Drinkwater's attention to the Odin. He looked out to larboard. The Danish frigate was bearing down on them in a second attempt to rake Andromeda from astern. But in her approach, just for a few minutes of opportunity, she was head on to them.
'Messenger!'
'Sir?' Midshipman Fisher stood beside him. The boy was pale and fidgeted with his coat lapels.
'Are you all right, son?'
'Perfectly, sir.'
'Good, go below to the gun deck and tell ...'
But Huke had anticipated the order and was shouting to Mosse on the gun deck below. The roar of the larboard broadside bellowed defiance at the approaching Odin. Andromeda rocked with the recoil. The men sponged and loaded and rammed, and again, then again, flung bar-shot high at the enemy's foremast. This was what Huke had trained his crew for, and if Pardoe's absence had been reprehensible, Huke had taken full advantage of the breach of regulations. The bar-shot, each comprising two hemispheres of iron joined by a rod, were flung from the gun muzzles and flailed wildly during their inaccurate, short-ranged trajectory.
The noise brought Templeton to. Drinkwater bent and shook him roughly. 'Get up!' he commanded. 'Get up and pull yourself together. I want those men rounded up.' He turned and bellowed, 'Sergeant Danks!'
'Sir?'
'A file of your men, we've work to do on board! Follow me! Quickly now!'
Drinkwater helped Templeton to his unsteady feet and thrust him forward.
'Shall I come too, sir?' It was little Fisher, still waiting for orders. Another broadside interrupted them.
'No. Do you stand by Mr Huke,' and turning to Huke, Drinkwater shouted, 'Tom, take command on the quarterdeck, d'you hear?'
'Aye, aye, sir!'
'Come, Templeton, Sergeant Danks…'
As he led them along the starboard gangway, Drinkwater was aware that it was already dusk, that the shadows of the surrounding mountains threw most of the water into a mysterious darkness from which the first stars were reflected. Night was almost upon them. Damnably odd that he had hardly noticed.
Since their treachery, and in anticipation of Andromeda being raked, the rebels had gone over the bow and concealed themselves on the heads. There, beside the pink nakedness of the carved representation of Andromeda chained to her rock, half a dozen men awaited the outcome of the battle, furiously debating their course of action, secure only for the time being, they assumed, because of the demands of the fight with the Danish ship.
As Danks's marines prodded them on to the forecastle at the point of the bayonet, they were greeted by cheers. Drinkwater forgot the matter in hand; he looked round to see the Odin's foremast totter and then fall sideways.
'Secure those men in irons, Sergeant,' shouted Drinkwater, ignoring Templeton and hurrying aft towards the first lieutenant, anxiously staring at the Odin.
'I think we've scored a point!' Huke shouted, his words drowned in yet another discharge of Jameson's cannon.
'Well done, Tom ...'
Both officers looked at the Dane. The Odin had fallen off the wind and only her bow-chasers bore; after two shots, they too fell silent. As the two men watched, the main and mizen yards were braced round; gradually the Odin began to make a stern-board.
'A tactical withdrawal for the night, I think,' offered Huke.
'Yes. And we shall do the same.' Drinkwater looked about him. 'God, what a shambles!' Even in the twilight, Andromeda's deck bore the appearance of a slaughter-house.
Another broadside thundered out, the gun-flashes bright in the gathering gloom. 'You may cease fire now. Pipe up spirits and have the cooks get some burgoo into all hands. The men can mess at their guns, then we have work to do.' He turned to the sailing master. 'What o'clock is moonrise, Mr Birkbeck?'
'Not before three, sir.'
'We shall be gone by then.'
No one paid any attention to Templeton as he hung back until Danks had had time to secure his prisoners in the bilboes. Then he made his way hurriedly below.
CHAPTER 10
Friends and Enemies
The dismasting of the Odin brought them more than a respite, it brought them a sense of accomplishment. They had not achieved a victory, but they had beaten off an enemy with a superior weight of metal. In his cabin, or in the after section of the gun deck which had formerly been his cabin, by the light of a pair of horn-glazed battle lanterns, Drinkwater outlined his plan to his officers. His right cheek was dark and pocked with clotted blood.
'It is going to be a long night, gentlemen,' he concluded, 'but most of us will be able to sleep a little easier when we do turn in. Any questions?'
The officers shook their heads and rose from where they squatted on the deck or the trucks of the adjacent guns, exchanging brief remarks with one another. All wore grim expressions and none were under any false illusions about their chances. Further forward the buzz of the men eating at their action stations swelled at this sudden, conspicuous activity aft.
Huke hung back. 'What about these damned prisoners, sir?'
'I'll see them in a minute. Get a screen put up, will you? A canvas will do, just enough to discourage prying eyes. Ah, and post a marine sentry on its far side.'
Huke nodded. 'I've taken command of the marines myself, I hope you approve?'
'Yes, of course. I'm going to see the wounded first. Get the screen rigged and we'll find what's at the bottom of all this.'
In the cockpit Kennedy was finishing the last of his dressings. 'Twenty-three wounded, sir, five seriously.'
'How seriously?'
'Very. Two are mortal, maybe three. Deep penetration of the abdomen, vital organs in shreds, severe blood loss.'
'Bloody business.'
'Very.'
'You look tired.'
'Not used to naval surgery. Noisy business. Most of the poor devils are dead drunk. Used a lot of rum.'
'Go and get something to eat. I'm afraid we're going to start getting the ship out of this predicament.'
'Ah,' replied Kennedy. He had no idea what the captain was talking about, but was too tired to ask.
'By the bye, how is the man with typhus? I had quite forgotten him. I take it we sent him below?'
'He's here...'
Drinkwater followed Kennedy through the stygian gloom. The low space, usually the mess and living quarters of the midshipmen and marines, was filled with the mutilated wounded who groaned where they lay. Kennedy's assistants were clearing away the blood-soaked cloth from the 'table' upon which the surgeon had wielded scalpel and catling, saw and suture needle. The stink of bilge, blood and fear hung heavy in the stale air. Snores and low moans punctuated the sounds of deep breathing, and the grey bundles moved occasionally as the fumes of oblivion cleared momentarily. In a corner a hammock was slung.
'How are you?' Drinkwater asked the pale blur that regarded him.