Drinkwater looked at Frey. 'Very well. Do you keep an eye on things here. I'm going to take a turn below.
He descended to the gloom of the gun deck. The gunners were, to a man, gathered about their cannon, staring at the enemy through the open ports. Behind the guns the powder-monkeys crouched, trying to see between the men. Standing at the bottom of the ladder, Drinkwater was struck by the lack of numbers. The larboard guns were almost unmanned. Shackled amidships were the chained American prisoners. Drinkwater had quite forgotten them. His memory seemed, these days, to be fickle in the extreme.
Further forward, beside the mainmast, Lieutenant Jameson was studying the enemy and haranguing his men.
'He's going to open fire any moment, my lads. When he does I want him to feel the weight of our metal in one blow.'
A murmur of appreciation greeted this speech. Someone forward, in the eyes of the ship, cracked a joke, and Drinkwater heard the expressions of mirth roll aft.
'Make 'em eat shit, Jamie!' another called, and a good-natured laugh broke out again.
'No, no,' Jameson called, never taking his eyes off the enemy. "Tis too soft.'
The filthy jests went on, bolstering their courage. This was a Jameson Drinkwater had never met, but would be glad of in the coming hour. He abandoned any thought of addressing these men and made to return to the quarterdeck. The sudden movement attracted attention. Midshipman Fisher saw him and touched the brim of his ridiculous hat. Others caught sight of their captain and the whisper of his presence passed along the line of guns like a gust of wind through the tops of fir trees. Jameson became aware of it and straightened up.
'Don't let me distract you, Mr Jameson, I merely came to satisfy myself that you were ready,' he called.
'We're ready, sir, aren't we, my lads?'
'Aye, we're ready!' They broke out into a cheer. It was foolish; it was utterly beyond reason and it was pitifully affecting. Drinkwater stood stupid with emotion and, although stoop-shouldered beneath the beams, he raised his damaged hat in solemn salutation. Then he turned and ascended into sunshine as the cheers of the gunners below followed him.
The noise was taken up on the upper deck. The men at the forecastle guns, those mustered at the mast and pinrails and stationed on the quarterdeck at the carronades and the wheel, began to cheer.
He let them be, let their enthusiasm subside naturally and, walking to the ship's side, wiped the moisture from his eyes as unobtrusively as possible. He was a damned ninny to be seduced by such stupidity, but he could not prevent himself from feeling moved.
Sniffing, he looked again at the enemy; she was much closer now.
The line of the Odin's opened gun-ports suddenly sparkled, then faded from view, obscured by the smoke from her broadside. Shot whined overhead, fell short or thudded into their side before the sound rolled down upon them.
He heard Jameson's order and Andromeda shook to the simultaneous discharge of her own battery. Plumes of spray rose up along Odin's waterline and a cannonade which was to last for twenty long minutes began.
Shot smacked home, the faint trembling of the hull betraying a ball burying itself in the frigate's stout oak sides; ropes parted aloft; more holes appeared in the already tattered sails with an odd, sucking plop; explosions of splinters lanced the deck and the hot breath of cannon shot made them gasp. The business of dying began again; men screamed and were taken below.
'I believe you're boarding, sir.'
'What?' Distracted, Drinkwater looked round to see Templeton beside him.
'I understand it is your intention to board the Odin.'
'Yes.'
'It is my intention to accompany you.'
'The devil it is ...'
Drinkwater looked at the clerk. Was he pot-valiant? Drinkwater could smell no liquor on his breath, and Templeton winced as the starboard battery fired again. Templeton had not occupied much of Drinkwater's time or attention during the last fortnight. He had been summoned when required, which had not proved often, and for the most part had been left to his own devices and desires. He looked somehow strange, different from the man who had stood in his room in the Admiralty, but then Quilhampton was dead and Frey was a changed man; so, he supposed, was he. If Templeton wished to prove himself it was his own affair, and who was Drinkwater to judge him for taking a nip to fortify his nerves.
'Very well, Mr Templeton, if that is what you wish. I should have sent you with Ashley in the Kestrel, but I shall be glad of all the support I can get.'
'Thank you.' Templeton moved away and stood by the mizen mast, selecting a boarding pike from the rack. Six feet away a ball from the Odin crashed into the bulwark between two larboard carronades and a spray of musketry spattered aboard, killing a marine and wounding a gunner. Drinkwater saw Templeton jerk with involuntary reaction.
The distance between the two ships was closing rapidly now. It must have been obvious to Dahlgaard what Drinkwater intended, but the Danish captain made no attempt to draw off and pound his weaker opponent.
'Edge closer, Mr Birkbeck, then go at her with a run, we're falling under her lee!'
Shot thumped into Andromeda's planking and the enemy's upperdeck cannon belched langridge at them. The iron hail swept whistling aboard, taking Drinkwater's second hat from his head. He drew his hanger. He was conscious now of only one burning desire, to end this madness in the catharsis of a greater insanity.
'Now, Birkbeck! Now!'
Andromeda was losing ground quickly as the Odin masked her from the wind, but Birkbeck had the measure of the situation and put the helm up the instant the guns had fired a broadside. The British ship swung to starboard with a slow and magnificent grace. Her bowsprit rode over the Dane's waist and the dolphin striker lodged itself in the Odin's main chains. The impetus of the Odin caught the lighter ship and drew her alongside, so the first impact of the collision was followed by a slewing of the deck; then the two ships ground together, locked in mortal combat, a tangle of yards and hooked braces aloft, their guns muzzle to muzzle below.
From the corner of his eye Drinkwater caught a glimpse of a grapnel snaking out as he clambered up on the rail and stepped over the hammock netting. Other men were gathering, anticipating his order:
'Boarders away!'
He could never afterwards remember those few vulnerable seconds as he scrambled aboard the Odin, beyond realizing that the Danish frigate had two feet more freeboard than her adversary and he had to climb upwards. It was always something of a mystery as to why the defenders of a ship did not find it easy to repel attackers coming aboard in so haphazard a manner. A mystery, that is, until one considered the encumbrance of the hammock netting which was designed to form a breastwork behind which sharpshooters could be stationed, but which almost perfectly masked an attack made up the ship's side.
Sometimes a ship would hoist boarding nettings, but neither had done so, perhaps each to facilitate their own attacks. Astride the Odin's hammock netting Drinkwater discharged his pistol into the face of a Danish marine, then leaned down and thrust his hanger at a gunner waving a pike. The pike ripped his sleeve and, gripping the hammocks with his leg as though on horseback, he jabbed the discharged pistol barrel into the man's eye. As his victim fell back, Drinkwater stood, swung both legs over the netting and, grabbing a mizen shroud with his left hand, slashed a swathe with his sword and jumped down on to the Odin's deck in the space thus provided.