Herrick yelled, "By God, his fore is coming down!"
As the enemy's foremast started to totter drunkenly towards the sea his broadside rippled along his exposed side, a few of the gun ports remaining silent as a mark of Veitch's earlier success, But Bolitho knew it was the most carefully prepared attack so far. The deck bounded repeatedly, and from below he heard a metallic clang and a great chorus of shrill screams. The French marksmen were still firing, too, and as he paced restlessly about the deck Bolitho saw thin splinters flying from the planking as a sharpshooter tried to hit Lysander s officers.
A sharper bang came down from the pockmarked sails which now seemed to be towering above the nettings like a cliff, and a second later the after end of the quarterdeck was filled with kicking, screaming men. The French had a swivel gun in the top, and the canister fired at close range was evidence enough of the enemy captain's anxiety.
Herrick shouted, "The Frog's out of control! She's swing- ing towards us!" He peered through the smoke. "Mr. Grubb, put up your helm!"
But the master was coughing and cursing through the smoke, dragging corpses and wounded alike from the wheel, or what was left of it. The whole charge of canister had struck the wheel like a target and had scythed away in all directions, marking deck and guns, men and fragments in a great pattern of blood. More men ran dazedly to Grubb's aid, hauling at the remaining spokes, their eyes squinting as if fearful of the mutilated bodies around them.
Bolitho said harshly, "It's too late."
The enemy's bowsprit, the great dragging mass of severed mast and yards was directly across Lysander" s bows. The enemy was still firing, as were his own men. At the most forward positions the range was down to about thirty feet.
Balls whimpered overhead or thudded into the hull with great hammer-blows. One burst through a port and ploughed into a gun crew which was sponging out for the next shot. The eighteen-pounder, freed from its tackles, careered across the tilting deck, its trucks making little bloody lines as it thrust through the remains of its crew.
Harry Yeo, the boatswain, was bawling for his men to get the gun under control, brandishing a boarding axe like some primitive warrior.
Bolitho looked at Herrick. "We will ram her!" He sought out Gilchrist. "Get the tops"ls off her!" He felt a musket ball zip past him. "We must fight free before the other Frenchman recovers!"
Herrick nodded jerkily. "Mr. Gilchrist! Pass the word!
"Repel boarders!"
Bolitho heard more cries, and then Leroux's voice, "Kill those marksmen in the main top!"
He said urgently, "No, Thomas. We must board her!
They’ll cut our people to fragments."
He seized the rail as with a great groaning crunch Lysander's jib boom smashed through the enemy's beak- head. The impetus carried both ships in a slow embrace, the guns falling silent and giving way to the sharper cracks of musketry.
Bolitho drew his sword. "Work the ship clear, Thomas." He wanted to reassure him in some way, and saw the uncertainty on Herrick's- grimy face giving way to something worse as he replied, "Let someone else go, sir!"
A great chorus of shouts and yells came from forward, and through the dangling remains of rigging and drifting smoke Bolitho saw men already trying to swarm down along the bowsprit.
He snapped, "There's no time!" Then he ran along the starboard gangway, pointing down at every other gun on the disengaged side, shouting at their crews to follow.
When he reached the forecastle there were already a dozen or more corpses lying amidst the fighting seamen from both sides. Cutlasses rang against each other, and from the shrouds and the forechains of both ships the marksmen kept up a haphazard fire to add to the chaos.
Bolitho shouted, "Carronade!"
He thrust a wounded man aside and hacked a French petty officer across the neck, feeling the blow lance up his arm and bring a stab of fire to his wounded shoulder.
A wild-eyed marine seemed to understand what he wanted and threw himself on the carronade's tackles, while Midshipman Luce and some more seamen came running to his aid.
"Fire!"
The carronade's explosion made most of the boarders fall back in momentary confusion. When they peered at their own ship and saw the bloody remains of the men who had been about to swarm on to Lysander's decks they decided to retreat.
Bolitho yelled, "Boarders away, lads!"
He waved his sword. feeling his hat plucked from his head by a pistol ball from somewhere, and then he was leaping and half falling down on to the enemy's shattered beakhead. When he stared back to see how many of his were following he found himself looking into the eyes of Lysander's massive, unsmiling figurehead, and he felt the insane grin coming to his lips, the uncontrollable wildness which forced him on through upended ladders and broken spars, gaping corpses and great coils of fallen rigging.
Steel to steel, the men swaying back and forth locked together, feet stamping, teeth bared in curses and fear as they hacked and slashed their way aft along the forecastle deck.
From one corner of his eye Bolitho saw his flagship, nudging firmly through the enemy's torn shrouds, the smoky scarlet of Leroux's marines as they maintained a murderous fire on the Frenchman's upper deck.
From the direction of the drifting smoke he knew that both ships were standing downwind, the darkened water between the arrowhead of their embrace littered with splintered wood and a few bobbing corpses.
Sunlight lanced through the smoke, and he saw the gap widening. Herrick had succeeded in easing Lysander's bulky hull round to a point where she could use sails and rudder to work clear.
He saw a man darting towards him, an upraised pistol aimed at his chest. In those split seconds he shared the moment with the unknown French sailor. He had a thin dark face, teeth bared in frantic concentration as he took aim. Bolitho was too far away to reach him with his sword, and his arm ached so much from fighting his way through the yelling press of men that he felt he could not raise it even to defend himself.
The blade of a heavy cutlass cut downwards across his vision, so fast that it made an arc of silver in the hazy sunlight.
The French sailor gave a shrill scream and lurched away, staring with agonised horror at the pistol still gripped with his own hand on the far side of the deck.
Allday ran to Bolitho's side, the cutlass edge red against his coat.
"A moment, sir!"
He ducked under two fallen spars and hacked the wounded man across the neck, felling him with no more than a sob.
He said between gasps, "Better"n letting him live with one hand!"
Bolitho shouted, "Fall back, lads!"
A few more minutes and they could take the French ship.
He knew it. Just as he knew that the other seventy-four was probably working round again to pour a broadside into Lysander before she was able to return the fire.
"Fall back!"
The cry ran along the bloodied decks and mingled with the cheers of Leroux's marines, some of whom were squatting in Lysander's beakhead picking off their enemy like wild-fowlers in a marsh.
Many hands reached out to haul the boarders back into Lysander's protection, as with a splintering, jerking symphony she tore free from her opponent's fallen spars and shrouds and swung heavily downwind.