Hal looked about him hopelessly. Then, suddenly, his jaw clenched with resolution. Sam saw the change in him and turned to follow his gaze. His own expression collapsed in consternation as he saw the pinnace only half a league ahead, crowded with armed sailors.
"Have at him, lads!" he exhorted his companions. "He has but one shot in the musket, and then he's ours!"
"One shot and my sword! " Hal roared, and tapped the hilt of the cutlass on his hip. "God's teeth, but I'll take half of you with me and glory in it."
"All together!" Sam squealed. "He'll never get the blade out of its sheath."
"Yes! Yes!" Hal shouted. "Come! Please, I beg you for the chance to have a look at your cowardly entrails."
They had all watched this young wildcat at practice, had seen him fight Aboli, and none wanted to be at the front of the charge. They growled and shuffled, fingered their cutlasses and looked away.
"Come on, Sam Bowles!" Hal challenged. "You were quick enough from the Dutchman's deck. Let's see how quick you are to come at me now."
Sam steeled himself and then, grimly and purposefully, started forward, but when Hal poked the muzzle of the musket an inch forward, aiming at his belly, he pulled back hurriedly and tried to push one of his gang forward.
"Have at him, lad!" Sam croaked. Hal changed his aim to the second man's face, but he broke out of Sam's grip and ducked behind his neighbour.
The pinnace was close ahead now they could hear the eager shouts of the seamen in her. Sam's expression was desperate. Suddenly he fled. Like a scared rabbit he shot down the ladder to the lower deck, and in an instant the others followed him in a panic-stricken mob.
Hal dropped the musket to the deck, and used both hands on the whipstall. He gazed forward over the plunging bows, judging his moment carefully, then threw his weight against the lever and spun the ship's head up into the wind.
She lay there hove to. The pinnace was nearby and Hal could see Big Daniel Fisher in the bows, one of the Lady Edwina's best boatswains. Big Daniel seized his opportunity, and shot the small boat alongside. His sailors latched onto the trailing grappling lines that Sam and his gang had cut, and came swarming up onto the caravel's deck.
"Daniel!" Hal shouted at him. "I'm going to wear the ship around. Get ready to train her yards! We're going back into the fight!"
Big Daniel flashed him a grin, his teeth jagged and broken as a shark's, and led his men to the yard braces. Twelve men, fresh and eager, Hal exulted, as he prepared for the dangerous manoeuvre of bringing the wind across the ship's stern rather than over her bows. If he misjudged it, he would dismast her, but if he succeeded in bringing her round, stern first to the wind, he would save several crucial minutes in getting back to the embattled galleon.
Hal put the whipstall hard alee, but as she struggled wildly to feel the wind come across her stern, and threatened to gybe with all standing, Daniel paid off the yard braces to take the strain. The sails filled like thunder, and suddenly she was on the other tack, clawing up into the wind, tearing back to join the fight.
Daniel hooted and lifted his cap, and they all cheered him, for it had been courageously and skilfully done. Hal hardly glanced at the others, but concentrated on holding the Lady Edwina close hauled, heading back for the drifting Dutchman. The fight must still be raging aboard her, for he could hear the faint shouts and the occasional pop of a musket. Then there was a flash of white off to leeward, and he saw the gaff sail of the second pinnace ahead the crew waving wildly to gain his attention. Another dozen fighting men to join the muster, he thought. Was it worth the time to pick them up? Another twelve sharp cutlasses? He let the Lady Edwina drop off a point, to head straight for the tiny vessel.
Daniel had a line ready to heave across and, within seconds, the second pinnace had disgorged her men and was on tow behind the Lady Edwina.
"Daniel!" Hal called him. "Keep those men quiet! No sense in warning the cheese-heads we're coming."
"Right, Master Hal. We'll give "em a little surprise." "Batten down the hatches on the lower decks! We have a cargo of cowards and traitors hiding in our holds. Keep "em. locked down there until Sir Francis can deal with them."
Silently the Lady Edwina steered in under the galleon's tumble home Perhaps the Dutchmen were too busy to see her coming in under shortened sail for not a single head peered down from the rail above as the two hulls came together with a jarring grinding impact. Daniel and his crew -hurled grappling irons over the galleon's rail, and immediately stormed up them, hand over hand.
Hal took only a moment to lash the whipstall hard over, then raced across the deck and seized one of the straining lines. Close on Big Daniel's heels, he climbed swiftly and paused as he reached the galleon's rail. With one hand on the line and both feet planted firmly on the galleon's timbers, he drew his cutlass and clamped the blade between his teeth. Then he swung himself up and, only a second behind Daniel, dropped over the rail.
He found himself in the front rank of the fresh boarding party. With Daniel beside him, and the sword in his right fist he took a moment to glance around the deck. The fight was almost over. They had arrived with only seconds to spare for his father's men were scattered in tiny clusters across the deck, surrounded by its crew and fighting for their lives. Half their number were down, a few obviously dead. A head, hacked from its torso, leered up at Hal from the scupper where it rolled back and forth in a puddle of its own blood. With a shudder of horror, Hal recognized the Lady Edwina's cook.
Others were wounded, and writhed, rolled and groaned on the deck. The planks were slick and slippery with their blood. Still others sat exhausted, disarmed and dispirited, their weapons thrown aside, their hands clasped over their heads, yielding to the enemy.