There was an enraged bellow and a large dark-jowled man shouldered his way into his place, a plain but heavy cutlass in his hand. His face was a rictus of hatred and his first lunge was a venomous stab straight to the eyes. Kydd parried, but the weight of the man's weapon told, and Kydd took a ringing blow to the side of the head.
The man drew back for another strike. He held his weapon expertly, leaving no opening for Kydd. The next blow came, smashing across, and Kydd's awkward defence did not stop a bruising hit above his hip. He felt cold fear—the next strike might be mortal.
As the man stepped on to the gunwale he cunningly swept a low straight-arm stab at Kydd's groin and, at his hasty defence, jerked the blade up for a lethal blow to Kydd's head. Kydd's sword flew up to meet it, an anvil-like ringing and brutish force resulting in the weapon's deflection—and a sudden lightness in his hand.
Kydd looked down. His sword had broken a couple of inches from the hilt. The man gave a roar of triumph and jumped into the launch. Kydd backed away, flinging the useless remnant at him. Jostled by another fighting pair the man stumbled before he could land his final stroke. Kydd cast about in desperation and saw a bloodied cutlass lying in the bottom of the boat.
He wrenched it up, in the process taking a stroke from the Frenchman aimed again at the head, but Kydd's blade was now a satisfying weight in his hand and he'd kept the blow from landing. Fury building, he swung to face his assailant. The man paused, taken aback by Kydd's intensity.
Kydd went on to the attack with the familiar weapon. He smashed aside the man's strikes, landing solid, clanging hits. In the confined space it could not last. As he thrust the broad blade straight for the belly, Kydd brought one foot forward to the other. The man's cautious defence was what he wanted. As the man readied his own thrust, the spring in Kydd's heel enabled him to lunge forward inside the man's own blade, the cutlass drawing a savage line of blood on one side of his head.
The man recoiled, but met the side of the boat and fell against it. Mercilessly Kydd slashed out, his blade slithering along the top of his opponent's to end on the man's forearm. The Frenchman's cutlass fell as he clutched at his bloody wound.
"Je me rends!" he shouted hoarsely. Kydd's blade hovered at the man's throat, death an instant away. Then he lowered it.
"Down!" he snarled, gesturing. "Lie down!" The man obeyed. The blood mist cleared from Kydd's brain and he snatched a glance around him. As quickly as it had started the brutal fight was ending. In the launch the three or four Frenchmen who had boarded were dead or giving up, and the bulk of the British were in the chaloupe, forcing back the remainder. The end was not far away.
"Tell 'em t' lie down!" he yelled. "Don't let the bastards move an inch!"
High-pitched shouts came from the French boat; they were yielding. Kydd felt reason slowly return to cool his passions. He took a deep breath. "Secure the boats t'gether," he ordered, the bloodstained cutlass still in his hands.
His body trembled and he had an overpowering urge to rest, but the men looked to him for orders. He forced his mind to work. "Poulden, into th' Frogs' boat and load the swivel." The petty-officer gunner was nowhere to be seen—he'd probably not survived.
While Poulden clambered over the thwarts and found powder and shot, Kydd looked around. There was blood everywhere, but he was experienced enough in combat to know that just a pint looked mortal. The wounded men were being laid together in the widest part of the launch as Pybus climbed back in. When he caught Kydd's eyes on him, he defiantly handed over a tomahawk—bloodied, Kydd noted.
At Poulden's call, the French were herded weaponless back into their chaloupe and the swivel brought round inside to menace the boat point-blank. "Hey, you, Mongseer!" Kydd's exasperated shout was lost on the sullen men in the boat. He turned to his own boat. "Any o' you men speak French?"
The baffled silence meant he would have to lose dignity in pantomime, but then he turned to the midshipman. "Rawson! Tell 'em they'll be hove overside if they make any kind o' false move." Let him make a fool of himself.
Kydd realised he was still clutching his cutlass, and laid it down, sitting again at the tiller. His hip throbbed and his head gave intermittent blinding stabs of pain; it was time to return to Tenacious and blessed rest. He would secure the Frenchy with a short towline; they could then row themselves close behind under the muzzle of the swivel. He would send another three men to stand by Poulden.
Pybus was busy with the men in the bottom of the boat. "So, we go home," Kydd said, searching around for the compass. "Now do ye remember what course . . ."
Ashen-faced, Rawson held out a splintered box and the ruins of a compass card. With an icy heart Kydd saw that their future was damned. The wall of dull white fog pressed dense and featureless wherever he looked, no hazy disc of sun, no more than a ripple to betray wave direction. All sense of direction had been lost in the fight and there was now not a single navigation indicator of even the most elementary form to ensure they did not lose themselves in the vast wastes of the Atlantic or end a broken wreck on the cold, lonely Newfoundland cliffs.
Kydd saw the hostility in the expressions of his men: they knew the chances of choosing the one and only safe course. He turned to Rawson. "Get aboard an' find the Frenchy's compass," he said savagely.
The midshipman pulled the boats together and clambered into the chaloupe. In the sternsheets the man Kydd had bested held up the compass. Rawson raised his hand in acknowledgement, and made his way aft. Then, staring over the distance at Kydd with a terrible intensity, the Frenchman deliberately dropped the compass box into the water just before Rawson reached him.
Disbelieving gasps were followed by roars of fury, and the launch rocked as men scrambled to their feet in rage. "We'll scrag the fucker! Get 'im!" Poulden fingered the swivel nervously: if they boarded he would no longer have a clear field of fire.
"Stand down, y' mewling lubbers!" Kydd roared. "Poulden! No one allowed t' board the Frenchy." He spotted Soulter, the quartermaster, sitting on the small transverse windlass forward. "Soulter, that's your division forrard," he said loudly, encompassing half the men with a wave. "You're responsible t' me they're in good fightin' order, not bitchin' like a parcel of old women."
"Sir?" The dark-featured Laffin levered himself above the level of the thwarts from the bottom boards where he had been treated for a neck wound.
"Thank 'ee, Laffin," Kydd said, trying to hide his gratitude. If it came to an ugly situation the boatswain's mate would prove invaluable.
"We'll square away now, I believe. All useless lumber over the side, wounded t' Mr Pybus." Smashed oars, splintered gratings and other bits splashed into the water.
"Dead men, sir?" There was a tremor in Rawson's voice.
Kydd's face went tight. "We're still at quarters. They go over." If they met another hostile boat, corpses would impede the struggle.
After a pause, the first man slithered over the side in a dull splash. His still body drifted silently away. It was the British way in the heat of battle: the French always kept the bodies aboard in the ballast shingle. Another followed; the floating corpse stayed with them and did not help Kydd to concentrate on a way out of their danger. The fog swirled pitilessly around them.
"Is there any been on th' Grand Banks before?" Kydd called, keeping his desperation hidden.
There was a sullen stirring in the boat and mutterings about an officer's helplessness in a situation, but one man rose. "I bin in the cod fishery once," he said defensively. Kydd noted the absence of "sir."