Tyacke walked to the taffrail and peered astern. The vessel was lifting and dropping into every trough, inert, making no way at all.
Tyacke knew he should accept it, but he had an impatient nature and
hated to feel his command failing to respond to sail or rudder.
The sailing master judged his mood before saying, "Can't hold, sir. Visibility's so bad to the east'rd I think there may be a storm blowing up."
Tyacke took a telescope and wedged his buttocks against the compass box. Pitcairn was not very often wrong. The glass swept over the writhing sea-mist to where the land should lie.
Ozanne said, "Rain too, I shouldn't wonder, sir."
Tyacke grunted. "We could do with it. The timbers are like kindling."
The glass moved on, over the swells and troughs and across a group of drifting gulls. They seemed held together, like a pale wreath cast down by someone as a memorial.
Ozanne watched him and his emotions. A handsome man who would turn any lass's head, he thought. Once. There had been times when it had been hard for Ozanne to accept the horrible disfigurement and find the man beneath. The one the Arab slavers feared most of all. The devil with half a face. A fine seaman, and a just one to his small company. The two did not always make good bedfellows in the King's navy.
Tyacke felt the sweat running down his face and wiped the skin with his fingers, hating what he felt. Who was it who had told him that it could have been worse?
"I don't see that at all." With a start he realised he had spoken aloud, but managed to grin as Ozanne asked, "Sir?"
Tyacke was about to return the glass to its rack when something made him stiffen. As if he had heard something, or some awful memory had sent a shiver up his spine.
The deck quivered slightly, and when he looked up he saw the trailing masthead pendant flick out like a whip. Loose gear rattled and groaned, and the watch on deck seemed to come alive again from their sun-dulled torpor.
"Stand to, hands to the braces! "
The brig swung slightly and the two helmsmen who had been standing motionless, their arms resting on the wheel, gripped the spokes as the rudder gave in to a sudden pressure.
Tyacke looked at the sailing master. "You were right about a storm, Mr. Pitcairn! Well, we're ready for any help we can get! "
He realised that none of them had moved, and cursed suddenly as he heard again the sound he had taken for thunder. His hearing had never been the same since the explosion.
Ozanne said, "Gunfire! "
The deck tilted more steeply and the big fore course filled iron-hard with a mind of its own.
Turn up the watch below! I want all the sail she can carry! Bring her back on course, Mr. Manley! "
Tyacke watched the sudden rush of men as the call shrilled between decks. The top men were already clambering out along the upper yards, and others were loosening halliards and braces ready for the next order. A few found time to stare aft at their formidable captain, questioning, uncertain, but trusting him completely.
Ozanne said, "A fair size by the sound of it, sir." He did not even flinch as Lame was sheeted home on the starboard tack.
The helmsman yelled, "South by east, sir! Steady she goes! "
Tyacke rubbed his chin but did not see the others exchange glances. He did not even realise that it was something he always did in the face of danger.
Too heavy for another anti-slavery vesseclass="underline" Ozanne was right about that. He saw the spray burst over the beak head and soak the seamen there. In the angry glare it looked almost gold.
Two frigates then? He glanced at each sail in turn. Lame was beginning to lean forward into every line of troughs, the sea pattering inboard and swilling into the scuppers. One of their own then, perhaps outgunned or outnumbered?
He snapped, "Clear for action as the mood takes you, Mr. Ozanne." He looked around and beckoned to a seaman. "Cabin, Thomas fetch my sword and lively so! "
As suddenly as the returning wind it began to rain, a downpour which advanced across the water so heavily and thickly that it was like being hemmed in by a giant fence. As it reached the ship the men were held breathless and gasping where they stood, some using it to wash themselves, others just standing amidst the onslaught and spluttering with pleasure. There were more heavy crashes through the rain. The same sound, as if only the one vessel was firing.
Then there was one great explosion which seemed to go on for minutes. Tyacke could even feel it against the Lame's hull like something out of the deep.
Then the distant gunfire ceased and only the sound of the deluge continued. The rain was moving away, and the sun came through as if it had been in hiding. Sails, decks and taut rigging were steaming, and seamen looked for one another as if after a battle.
But the wind was holding, laying bare the distant coastline and the movement of the current.
The lookout yelled, "Deck there! Sail to the south-east! Hull down! "
As the wind continued to drive away the mist Tyacke realised that much of it was smoke. The other ship or ships were already far away if only the lookout could see them. The assassins.
Some of his men were standing away from their guns or caught in their various attitudes of working ship and trimming the sails. They were staring at something.
It could have been a reef, except that out here there were none. It might have been some old and forgotten hulk left to the mercy of the ocean. But it was not. It was the capsized hull of a vessel about the size of this one, his Lame. There were huge obscene bubbles exploding from the opposite side, probably from that one great explosion. In a moment she would be gone.
Tyacke said harshly, "Heave-to, Mr. Ozanne! Bosun, clear away the boats! "
Men ran to the tackles and braces as Lame wallowed heavily into the wind, her sails all in confusion.
Tyacke had never seen the boats get away so quickly. The experience gained at boarding suspected slavers was proving itself. Not that these men, his men, would need any incentive.
Tyacke levelled his telescope and stared at the pathetic little figures struggling to pull themselves to safety, others limp and trapped in the trailing weed of rigging alongside.
Not strangers this time. It was like looking at themselves.
An officer dressed in the same uniform as Ozanne and the others, seamen in checkered shirts like some of those beside him. There was blood in the water too, clinging to the upended bilge as if the vessel herself were being bled to death.
The boats were hurling themselves across the water, and Tyacke saw the third lieutenant, Robyns, pointing to something for his coxswain to identify.
Without looking Tyacke knew the surgeon and his mate were already down on deck to help the first survivors. There could not be many of them.
More big bubbles were bursting and Tyacke had to look away as a figure obviously blinded by the explosion appeared, arms outstretched, his mouth opened in unheard cries.
Tyacke clenched his fists. It could be me.
He looked away and saw a young seaman crossing himself, another sobbing quietly, heedless of his companions.
Ozanne lowered his telescope. "She's going, sir. I just saw her name. She's the Thruster." He seemed to stare around with disbelief. "Just like us! "
Tyacke turned again to watch the boats standing as near as they dared, oars and lines flung out for anyone who could swim.
The brig began to dip under the sea, a few figures still trying to get away even as she took her last dive.
For a long time, or so it seemed, the boats pitched and rolled in the whirlpool that remained until corpses, rigging, and burned sailcloth were sucked down.