Something dropped amongst the taut rigging before falling to the gun deck with a sickening thud.
Herrick shouted, 'Man from aloft! Take him to the surgeon!'
Bolitho bit his lip. It was unlikely he could live after such a fall.
Fighting every yard of the way, Undine came round into the wind, her hull awash from quarterdeck to beakhead, and with men clinging to tethered guns or stanchions as each wave surged and broke across her reeling deck.
Mudge bellowed hoarsely, 'She'll ride it out now, sir!'
Bolitho nodded, his mind cringing from the onslaught, the very vehemence of the storm.
'We'll set the spanker if the tops'! carries away. Tell the boatswain to have his hands ready, there'll not be time for regrets if that one goes!'
He felt a bowline being bent around his waist, and saw Allday's teeth bared in a grin.
'You look after us, Captain. This'll take care of you.'
Bolitho nodded, the breath knocked out of him. Then he clung to the dripping nettings, peering through the painful needles of spray as he watched over his command. A lucky ship? Perhaps he had spoken too soon. Tempted fate.
Herrick gasped, 'Could be over by first light, sir.'
But when dawn did come, and Bolitho saw the angry, copper-coloured clouds reflected upon the endless, jagged wavecrests, he knew it was not going to give up so willingly.
High above the deck, torn and broken cordage floated to the wind like dead creeper, and the solitary braced topsail looked so full-bellied that it could follow the fate of the other at any second.
He looked at Herrick, seeing the angry sores on his neck and hands where the blown salt had done its work. The other crouching, battered figures nearby were no better. He thought of the other frigate, probably snug in a protected anchorage, and felt the anger welling up inside him.
'Get some hands aloft, Mr. Herrick! There's work to be done!'
Herrick was already clawing his way along the nettings towards the rail.
Bolitho wiped his face and mouth with his arm. If they could weather this one, he thought, they would be ready for anything.
13. No Quarter
'Some more 'ot coffee, sir?' Noddall held his pot above Bolitho's mug without waiting for a reply.
Bolitho sipped it slowly, feeling the scalding liquid running through him. A taste of rum, too. Noddall was certainly doing his best.
He eased his shoulders and winced. Every bone and fibre seemed to ache. As if hehad been in actual battle.
He studied the weary figures who were moving about the upper deck, made curiously ghostlike and unreal by the heavy vapour which rose from sodden planking and clothing alike.
It had been just that, he thought gravely. A battle, no less than if cannon had been employed. For three days and nights they had fought it out, their confined world made even smaller by the great roaring expanse of wavecrests, their minds blunted by the ceaseless shriek of the wind. Like him, the ship seemed to have had the breath knocked from her. Now, under barely drawing topsails, her littered decks steaming once more beneath an empty sky, she was thrusting only slowly above her reflection. In places paint had been pared away to display wood so bare it could have been the work of a carpenter. Everywhere men were at work, marlin spikes and needles, hammers and tackles, endeavouring to restore the ship which had carried them through such a frenzy that even Mudge had admitted it was one of the bitterest he had endured.
He came across the deck now, his coat steaming gently, his jowls almost hidden in white stubble.
'Accordin' to me reckonin', sir, we've overreached the Benua Group by a fair piece. When we checks the noon sights I'll be 'appier.' He squinted upwards towards the flapping pendant which had lost almost half its length in the storm. 'But the wind's veered as I thought it might. I suggest we 'old your new course, nor' nor'-east, until we gets a better fix of our position.' He blew his nose loudly. 'An' I'd make so bold as to say 'ow well you 'andled 'er, sir.' He puffed out his cheeks. 'A couple o' times I thought we was done for.'
Bolitho looked away. 'Thank you.'
He was thinking of two men less fortunate. One had gone during the second night. Swept away without a sound. Nobody had seen him go. The other had slipped from the larboard cathead where he had_ been -working -feverishly to repair chafing lashings around the anchor stock. A solitary wavecrest had pulled him from his perch almost casually, so that for a while longer he had still imagined he would be saved. Willing hands had reached out for him, but another wave had flung him not outwards but high in the air like a kicking doll before hurling him against the massive anchor with savage force. Roskilly, a bosun's mate, had insisted he had heard the man's ribs cave in before he had been dragged screaming into the frothing water alongside.
Including the man who had fallen from aloft, that made three dead, with some seven others injured. Broken bones, fingers torn raw by bucking, sodden canvas, skin inflamed by salt, by wind, and by lines snaking through clutching hands in pitch darkness, made up most of the surgeon's list.
Herrick strode aft and said, 'I'm having a new jib bent on now, sir. The other's only fit for patching.' He took a mug from Noddall and cradled it gratefully to his mouth. 'Heaven help the poor sailorman!'
Bolitho looked at him. 'You'd not change it.'
Herrick grimaced. 'A few times back there I wondered if I'd get the choice!'
Davy, who had the watch, joined them by the rail.
'What are our chances of a landfall, sir?'
He looked older, less assured than he had before the action with the frigate. During the storm he had behaved well, so perhaps he still believed the only real menace came from a cannon's mouth.
Bolitho considered his question. 'That will depend on fixing our position. Allowing for our drift, and the shifting of the wind, I'd say we might sight the islands before nightfall.'
He smiled, the effort making him more conscious of the strain he had been under.
Herrick said dourly, 'The damned Frog will be laughing at us. Sitting in harbour under that bloody pirate's guns.'
Bolitho looked at him thoughtfully. The same idea had only left him occasionally, and that when he had needed all his thoughts elsewhere. To parley with the French captain was one thing. To accept that he was serving under Muljadi's flag meant far more. It would be an open admission of failure. An acceptance that Muljadi's sovereignty did exist. If Conway agreed to the latter, every other European power which had trading and protection rights in the Indies, especially the powerful Dutch East India Company, would see it as England's move to take all the advantages for herself. Which was exactly what the French would like.
What should he do if the French captain refused to be moved by Conway's message? Patrol up and down outside the islands and draw Argus into combat? It would be a one-sided affair. Le Chaumareys was an old hand in these waters, knew every islet and cove where he had once hidden to avoid British frigates in time of war. Equally, he would be well advised to lie at anchor, living off the land, until Undine was made to withdraw.
He felt his tiredness putting an edge to his anger. If only the politicians were here to see what their ideas of world strategy actually represented in flesh and blood, in wood and canvas.
'Land ho! Fine on th' starboard bow!'
Davy rubbed his hands. 'Nearer than you thought, sir.'
Mudge said quickly, 'Never!' He fumbled with his slate and made some rapid calculations. 'There's a small islet, some forty miles to the south'rd of the Benuas, sir.' He peered round until he had discovered Midshipman Penn's diminutive shape by the taffrail. 'Aloft with ye, Mr. Penn, an' fetch the big glass for company.' He eyed him fiercely. 'Take a look, an' make me a sketch just like I taught you!'
He waited until the boy had scampered for the main shrouds and chuckled. 'Cap'n Cook 'ad the right idea, sir. Sketch an' describe every damn thing you see. Time'll come when every man-o'-war will 'ave a complete set o' pictures to study.' He watched Penn's progress. 'Not that some'll 'eed 'em, o' course.'