He gestured to Allday. 'Now! Over the bows!'
His limbs were like lead as he hauled himself up and across the small beakhead, his heart pounding his ribs, hearing the gasps and frantic whispers from the men below him.
As they climbed on to the forecastle he saw groups of manacled natives, their naked bodies crowded together while they watched what was happening on the land. Two armed seamen stood beside a swivel gun, but as the boat pulled away from the side they were unable to fire without hitting their comrades.
Allday bellowed, 'At 'em, lads!' Then he was flying along the deck, his heavy cutlass taking a man across the neck and felling him without even a cry.
The second guard dropped on one knee and aimed a musket as more and more of Bolitho's party scrambled aboard. Faces lit up in the flash, and Bolitho felt the ball whine past, the sickening sound as it smashed into flesh and bone.
More of the brigantine's crew were dashing wildly from the poop, firing as they came, regardless of the screaming slaves who fell dying in their path.
A naked girl, her body shining with sweat, was trying to reach one of the fallen slaves, her arms pinioned by a length of chain. Husband? Brother? Bolitho had no time even to guess as one of the crew hacked her down with his cutlass in order to bar the way aft.
Bolitho felt his sword jerk in his hand. as he crossed blades with the girl's killer. He saw the hatred on the man's bearded face, the madness in his eyes as they pressed forward and apart, feet sliding in someone's blood, bodies balanced to withstand each parry.
All round the deck others were fighting and slashing in the shadows with only an occasional pistol shot to throw light on friend and enemy.
Bolitho pushed the man against the main mast, forcing him backwards over the spider-band while their hilts stayed locked below his throat. He could feel the other man's anger giving way to fear, saw the sudden anguish as he jerked the hilt free and struck him hard across the mouth with it. As he fell away, gasping for breath, Bolitho turned and thrust. The man gave one shriek, lifting an arm as the blade drove under his shoulder and deeper still.
Allday dashed to his side and gasped, 'Well done, Captain!' He rolled the man away with his foot. Then he snarled, 'And another, by God!'
The seaman had jumped from the shrouds. To take them by surprise from above, to escape the unexpected attack, Bolitho did not know. All he heard was Allday's quick breathing, the swish of his blade as he slashed the man down and then finished him with one more terrible blow.
'Two boats comin', sir!'
Bolitho ran to the bulwark, and then ducked as a ball slammed hard into the rail by his fingers.
He yelled, 'Train that swivel on them!'
Someone scuttled past him firing a pistol as he fled from Allday's cutlass. Bolitho spun round, sobbing as the pain lanced into his thigh. But when he felt his leg and the jagged tear in his breeches there was no blood, no agonising splinter of broken bone.
The man who had fired had inadvertently run too close to the yelling slaves. Chains swung like serpents, and he vanished beneath a struggling heap of screaming, shining bodies.
Allday threw his arm around Bolitho's waist. 'Where are you hit, Captain?' His anxiety was clear even amidst the din of shouting and screaming.
Bolitho pushed him aside, gasping between his teeth, 'Hit my watch, damn his eyes!'
Allday grinned and ducked after him. 'I think his time has stopped, too!'
Bolitho only glanced at the thing which had rolled away from the panting slaves. They had literally torn him to pieces.
He dragged Allday clear. 'Stray too close and you will follow him!'
'Ungrateful dogs!'
Bolitho reached the abandoned swivel and swung it towards the nearest long boat.
'Probably think we are a different lot of slavers.'
He jerked the lanyard, feeling the hot breath from the muzzle as the canister exploded across the crowded boat. Screams and curses, bodies splashing in the water, and others still firing from the sternsheets.
He twisted round, trying to see where Soames had reached on the shore. But it was impossible to be certain. Shots stabbed and whimpered over the inlet, and once he thought he heard, steel on steel.
Then he turned and looked inboard. 'How many?' He caught Keen's wrist as he lurched past, a dirk gleaming in one hand, an empty pistol held like a club in the other.
Keen stared at him dazedly. 'We seem to have lost five of our people, sir. But the slavers have either been killed or have jumped overboard.'
Bolitho strained his ears for the sounds of more oars, the one thing which would tell him Soames was coming to his aid.
There was a loud thud from aft, and he guessed that another boat was grappling in readiness for boarding. He peered at his little party. Five dead, one obviously wounded. It was not enough.
Allday shouted hoarsely, 'We can manhandle one of the guns to the hold and put a ball through her bottom! If we can hold 'em on the poop while-'
Bolitho shook his head, pointing at the slaves. 'They are held by more than one chain. They would go down with the ship.'
He could feel the fight dying in his surviving men, like fire under heavy rain. Most of them were staring aft, each unwilling to be the first to challenge this new attack.
They did not have long to wait. The poop doors burst open and a group of men charged along the littered deck, their voices yelling wildly in what seemed like a dozen different languages.
Bolitho balanced himself on the balls of his feet, the sword angled across his body.
'Cut the cable! We'll let her drift ashore in the shallows!'
A ball shrieked above his head, and he turned to see one of his men sprawled headlong, blood gushing from his throat. He had been struck by a marksman somewhere in the shrouds.
Allday yelled, 'Stand fast, you bastards!'
But it was useless, the remaining seamen were clambering forward again, dropping their weapons in their frantic haste to get away.
Only Keen remained between him and the beakhead, his arms at his sides, his young body swaying with exhaustion.
Allday said, 'Come on, Captain! It's no use!' He fired a pistol into the advancing shadows, and grunted with satisfaction as a man screamed in agony.
The next seconds were too blurred to understand. One moment Bolitho was astride the bowsprit, and the next he was swimming towards the black wall of trees. He could not remember diving or regaining the surface, although his lungs were raw from shouting, from keeping alive.
Feathers of spray spurted nearby, and he heard feet stampeding along the brigantine's deck as more men climbed from boats or swam out from the shore. Shots whimpered above his head, and there was one short cry as a seaman was hit and disappeared beneath the surface.
'Keep together!'
It was all he could do to speak, and the foul-tasting water was slopping again and again into his mouth.
He saw a white figure splashing down the beach, and when he groped for his sword he stumbled headlong, his feet stubbing against sand and stone beneath him.
But it was Soames, his chest heaving from exertion, his hair wild as he pulled Bolitho to dry land.
Bolitho gasped at the air. They had failed. They had lost several good men. For nothing.
Allday was hauling Keen from the water, and two more figures lay on the sand like corpses, only their fierce breathing telling otherwise. There were no others.
A gun banged out from the brigantine, but the ball went wide, splintering through the trees to a chorus of shrieks from birds and slaves alike.
Soames said harshly, 'I could only capture one boat, sir.. The slaver had a large party ashore.' He sounded angry. Despairing. 'When they fired at that damn Spaniard my lads started to attack. It was too soon. I'm sorry, sir.'