"Aye, there she is, Captain."
"Douse the light in the binnacle. Lay me alongside the Gull, if you please. Have four spare helmsmen standing by to take the whipstall when the others are killed."
"Aye, Sir." Hal went forward. Big Daniel's figure emerged out of the darkness. "Grappling irons, Master Daniel?"
"All ready, Captain. Me and ten of my strongest men will heave them."
"Nay, Daniel, leave that to John Lovell. I have better work for you and Aboli. Come with me."
He led Daniel and Aboli back to where Judith Nazet stood at the foot of the mainmast.
"The two of you will go with General Nazet. Take ten of your best seamen. Do not get caught up in the fighting on deck. Swift as you can, get down to the Gull's stern cabin. There you will find the Tabernacle and the child. Bring them out. Nothing must turn you aside from that purpose. Do you understand?"
"How do you know where they are holding the Emperor and the Tabernacle? "Judith Nazet asked quietly.
"I know," Hal said, with such finality that she was silent. He wanted to order her to stay in a safe place until the fight was over, but he knew she would refuse and besides which there was no safe place when two ships of such force were locked in mortal combat.
"Where will you be, Gundwane?"Aboli asked softly.
"I shall be with the Buzzard," Hal said, and left them without another word.
He went towards the bows, pausing as he reached each of the divisions who crouched below the gunwale, and speaking softly to their boatswains. "God love you, Samuel Moone. We might have to take a shot or two before we board her, but think of the pleasure that waits you on the Gull's deck."
To Jiri he said, "This will be such a fight as you will boast of to your grandchildren."
He had a word for each, then stood once more in the bows and looked across at the Gull. She was a cable's length ahead now, sailing on serenely under her moon, radiant canvas.
"Lord, keep us hidden from them," he whispered, and looked up at his own black sails, a tall dark pyramid against the stars.
Slowly, achingly slowly they closed the gap. She cannot elude us now, Hal thought, with grim satisfaction. We are too close.
Suddenly there came a wild scream of terror from the Gull's masthead. "Sail ho! Dead astern! The Golden Bough!" Then all was shouting and confusion on the other ship's deck. There was the savage beat of a drum calling the Buzzard's crew to battle quarters, and the rush of many feet on her planking. A loud series of crashes as her gun ports were flung open, and then the squeal and rumble as the guns were run out. From twenty points along her dark rail came the glow of slow-match burning, and the glint of their reflection from steel.
"Light the battle lamps!" Hal heard the Buzzard's bellows of rage as he drove his panicky crew to their stations, then clearly his order to the helm. "Hard to larboard! Lay the bastards under our broadside!
We'll give them such a good sniff of gunsmoke that they'll fart it in the devil's face when we send them down to hell."
The Gull's battle lanterns flared, as she lit up to give her gunners light to work. In their yellow glow Hal glimpsed the Buzzard's bush of red hair.
Then the silhouette of the Gull altered rapidly as she came around. Hal nodded, the Buzzard had acted instinctively but unwisely. In his position Hal would have stood off and shot the Golden Bough to a wreck while she was unable to reply. Now he would have to be fortunate and quick to get off one steady broadside before the Golden Bough was upon him.
Hal grinned. The Buzzard was the victim of his own iniquity. Probably it had not even entered his calculations that Hal would hold his fire on account of a child and an ancient relic. If he were in the same position as Hal, the Buzzard would have blazed away with all his cannon.
As the Gull came slowly around, the Golden Bough flew at her and, for a moment, Hal thought they might be alongside her before her guns could bear.
They closed the last hundred yards and Ned had already given the order to shorten to fighting sail, when the Gull turned through the last few degrees of arc and all her guns were aimed straight at where Hal stood.
Looking directly into the Gull's battery, Hal's eyeballs were seared by the brilliant crimson glow as she fired her broadside into the Golden Bough at point-blank range.
A tempest of disrupted air struck them so viciously that Hal was hurled backwards and thought that he had been hit by a ball. The deck around him dissolved into a buzzing storm of splinters and the knot of Amadoda nearest him were struck squarely and blown into nothingness. The Golden Bough heeled over sharply to the weight of shot that tore through her, and the choking fog of gunsmoke drifted over her shattered hull.
The terrible silence that followed the thunder of the broadside was marred only by the screams and groans of the wounded and the dying.
Then the wall of gunsmoke was blown aside, and from across the narrow gap of water came the cheering of the other crew. "The Gull and Cumbrae!" and Hal heard the rumble of the gun trains as they were run in-board to be reloaded.
How many of my lads are dead? he wondered. A quarter? Half? He looked back at his own decks, but the darkness hid from his eyes the torn timbers and the heaps of dead and dying.
From across the water he heard the thudding of ramrods forcing powder and shot down the barrels of the guns. "Faster!" he whispered.
"Faster, my darling. Close the gap and do not make us face another such blast."
He heard the squeal of the tackle and the rumble as one of the swiftest gun crews completed loading before the others and ran out its culverin. The two ships were now so close together that Hal saw the monstrous gaping barrel come poking out through its gun port With the muzzle almost touching the Golden Bough's side it roared again, and timbers shattered and men screamed as the heavy ball tore through them.
Then before any more of the Gull's guns could be run out, the two ships came together with a rending, grinding crash. In the light of the Gull's battle lanterns Hal saw the grappling hooks hurled over her side and heard them clatter on her deck. He did not hesitate but sprang to the gunwale and leaped across the narrow strip of water as the two hulls surged alongside each other. He landed lightly as a cat among the nearest of the Buzzard's gun crews and killed two men before they could draw their cutlasses.
Then a wave of his boarders followed him over her side, led by the Amadoda armed with pike and axe. Within seconds the Gull's upper deck was transformed into a battlefield. Men fought chest to chest and hand to hand, shouting and yelling with rage and terror.
"El Tazar!" roared the men of the Golden Bough, to be answered by, "The Gull and Cumbrae!" as they came together.
Hal found himself confronted by four men simultaneously and was driven back to the rail before John Lovell tore into them from behind and killed one with a thrust between the shoulder-blades. Hal killed another as he hesitated and the other two broke and ran. Hal had a moment to look about him. He saw the Buzzard on the far side of the deck, roaring with rage, the great claymore swinging high above his head as he hacked down the men in front of him.