'Fire! ' Again the hull shook like a mad thing, the planking jarring under the feet as the guns crashed inboard, their smoke belching like a curtain beyond the ports. Eden was cheering, despite several angry glances from Tregorren, and some of the seamen were actually laughing. Dancer called, 'I hope they can see what we are about on the quarterdeck! We could be shooting at the sky! '
He winced as something jarred against the hull, followed immediately by a chorus of shouts from overhead. Bolitho nodded towards him. It was a direct hit. They, whoever they were, had struck back. Somewhere a pump began to clatter, and he guessed that a heated ball must have penetrated the timbers and water was needed to quench it before the wood took light. A seaman near him gestured towards the deckhead.
'Give they lazy dogs summat to do, eh?' But nobody laughed, and Bolitho saw Wellesley rubbing his chin in quick nervous movements as if he was unable to believe that someone should dare to fire at a King's ship. 'All loaded, sir! ' A messenger appeared on the companion ladder, his voice shrill. 'We are going about, sir! Prepare to engage with the larboard side! ' He vanished. Fairweather peered at Bolitho, his teeth white in the eddying smoke. 'We'm hitting 'em proper, eh, sir? Giving t'other guns a chance! The gun captain darted a quick glance at the breechings and snapped. 'They've got us beat. We're runnin' away, you soft fool! ' Bolitho saw the amazement on Fairweather's face and felt the gun captain's blunt words moving to the other men nearby. Tregorren strode past, his head dipping between the massive beams. 'Stand to your guns! Prepare to run out! ' He paused and glared at Bolitho. 'What th' hell are you staring at?' 'We're coming about, sir.' He kept his voice steady, aware that there was more gunfire from the far distance. Whoever commanded the fortress had plenty of artillery. 'What a masterly appraisal, Mr Bolitho! ' Tregorren gripped a deckhead beam as Gorgon began to tilt steeply, the sea lifting towards the open ports as she swung heavily into the wind. 'Was the din of battle too much for you?' 'No, sir.' He met his hostility and added, 'I think we may have been too close inshore. That fortress has our exact range.' Men, who seconds earlier had been hurrying to the opposite side, paused to watch. The towering bulk of the lieutenant and the slim midshipman, angled to the deck, their arms at their sides like antagonists meeting for a duel. Wellesley said nervously, 'The captain knows best.' Tregorren stared at him. 'Do you have to explain to a midshipman?' He looked from one to the other. 'Now stand to your guns! ' But the order to fire the larboard was not given. Instead there was a long and uncertain silence, broken only by the occasional movement of seamen on the upper deck, the twitter of calls as the hands went to braces and halliards for altering course. The gun captain near Bolitho said darkly, 'Told you. Cap'n's standin' out to sea. Just as well, if you asks me.' During the long and tiring gun drills Bolitho had never found time to consider how cut-off this deck could become. Now, as seamen and their officers stood or lounged beside the ports, he felt a growing sense of apprehension and uncertainty. He could tell from the slant of the sun that the ship was heading away from the land, but apart from that there was nothing to break the frustrating sense of being quite apart from the world above. 'Secure guns! ' The messenger's white breeches caught the filtered sunlight on the ladder. 'All officers lay aft, if you please, sir! ' Bolitho said to Dancer, 'I think the captain has been worried all along, Martyn.' Dancer looked at him grimly. 'But surely he would not run from a damned pirate?' 'Better than be left swimming without a ship, eh?' Bolitho tried to cheer him up. 'I know which I'd rather have.' But if the lower gundeck was remote and as before, the quarterdeck was not. Bolitho stood blinking in the harsh glare, seeing the two great holes in the main topsail, a streak of scarlet on the planking to mark where a man had fallen, or died. He stared over the rail and saw the land shimmering in a blinding haze. Already the island and its fortress had merged with the mainland and the anchored ships quite lost from sight around the same point which they had so confidently rounded a few hours earlier. Of the barquentine there was no sign at all. Dancer asked anxiously, 'Where is the City of Athens, do you think?' Little Eden said, 'She's s-standing off t-to keep an eye on the d-devils.' Dancer nodded. 'Bit of luck getting hold of her.' They fell silent as Verling dismissed the hands from the quarterdeck nine-pounders and beckoned the other officers to close around him. He appeared as irritable as ever, Bolitho thought, his beaky nose checking who was present and who was yet to arrive. Captain Conway crossed from the weather side and stood by the quarterdeck rail looking down at the eighteen-pounders below him, their crews checking their equipment and refilling the shot garlands. There was a rank smell of powder in the air, of heated metal and charred wood. Verling said, 'All present, sir.' The captain turned and regarded them thoughtfully, his back against the rail, his palms resting on the polished wood. 'We are standing offshore and will anchor further along the coast. As you know, we were fired on, and fired on with a confidence I dislike.' He spoke calmly and unhurriedly, with less emotion than when he had awarded a flogging. 'The enemy is well prepared, and our bombardment, such as it was, made no impression. But I had to be certain. To gain some knowledge of what we are against.' Bolitho could tell from the expressions of some of those nearby, who had been on the upper deck throughout the biief engagement, that there was something more to come. Captain Conway continued in the same tone, 'Some months ago it was reported that one of our brigs, a new vessel which was employed in these waters, was overdue and therefore presumed lost. There had been some foul weather, and several merchantmen were also wrecked.' He glanced up at the masthead pendant, his eyes shining in the glare. 'When we rounded the point this morning the City of Athens was well in the lead. The lookouts reported sighting two vessels at anchor. There may have been more under the island's protection.' His voice hardened for the first time. 'But one of them was the missing brig, His Majesty's Ship Sandpiper of fourteen guns. Because of her, the City of Athens must have imagined that all was well, that Sandpiper's captain had already done our work for us.' Dancer gave a gasp as he added, 'The brig was the bait which we, but for our prize, would have taken. We would have laid under the guns of the fortress, and without the speed and agility to beat clear, would have been destroyed. As it was, the barquentine was hit several times. I doubt if any of her people survived.' There was absolute silence. Bolitho was remembering the din on the lower gundeck, the importance and excitement they had all felt. He recalled the unsmiling face of Midshipman Grenfell, a face which had hidden a warmer and kinder nature than many imagined. And it had all happened without a word being passed from the quarterdeck. It would have changed nothing, could have done nothing to help. And yet… The captain added slowly, 'When we took the City of Athens, Mr Tregorren suggested that the pirates made off upon sighting another vessel. It now seems very possible that the other sail was ours, and the reasons for the pirate's haste was that he did not want to be seen for what he is! A captured British man-o'-war. Imagine, gentleman, what havoc he may have been wreaking in our country's name?' He spat out the words like poison. 'No master of any peaceful vessel would challenge a ship so obviously British and in the King's service! That is not piracy, it is cold-blooded murder! ' Mr Verling nodded. 'It would be simple, sir. Whoever commands these scum has a sharp mind to attend him! ' The captain did not seem to hear. 'Some of our prize crew may have survived.' He glanced down at the dried blood by his feet. 'We may never know. However, our next task is to seize the brig and discover all we can of what is happening.' Bolitho looked at the others. Seize the brig. Just like that. 'A cutting-out operation must be done tonight. No moon, and the weather favours us at present. The marines will provide a distraction. But I want that vessel retaken, the shame she has been made to endure and promote wiped out! ' He turned as the surgeon appeared on the ladder. 'Well?' 'The lookout died, sir.' Laidlaw's hooded eyes were expressionless. 'Broke his back.' 'I see.' The captain turned to the silent officers. 'The lookout was the one who first sighted Sandpiper. The balls which passed close above us from the battery ashore must have thrown him to the deck.' Bolitho watched the surgeon for some sign, knowing he was remembering that same lookout was the man who had been flogged. The captain licked his lips. It was very hot on the quarterdeck, with the worst of the day yet to come. He said, 'Mr Verling will give you your instructions.