He heard some of his men groan as, with the suddenness of a great seabird settling to fold its wings, both of Miranda's masts collapsed, burying the deck under a mass of writhing canvas and splintered spars.
The frigate did not fire again. She was already setting her royals, her yards alive with tiny figures as she pointed her jib boom towards the south-east, the wind carrying her speedily to open sea and freedom.
Tyacke wanted to look away but could not even lower his telescope. No wonder the French frigate had not fired a second broadside. Miranda's hull had been blasted open in several places, and he saw smoke escaping from the fallen canvas to add to the horror of the men pinned beneath.
Then just as suddenly the fire was quenched, as quickly as it had begun.
Tyacke lowered the glass and stared into the sun until he could see nothing. The schooner, his Miranda, had gone. In trying to help him she had herself become a victim.
He realised that Segrave and some of the others were watching him. When he spoke again he was stunned by the calmness of his own voice.
"Shorten sail, Mr Sperry. The chase is over." He pointed at the guardboat, where some of the oarsmen were waving and cheering towards the shabby schooner. "See? They bid us welcome! "
Slowly, like drunken men, the hands turned to, to give the appearance of reducing sail.
Tyacke stood beside Segrave and rested his hand on the boy's until the tiller brought the bowsprit in line with the space between the two anchored ships.
"Hold her steady." He looked at those nearest him and added, "Then you take to the boat." He studied their faces, but was seeing others in their place. Ben Simcox, who would have been leaving the ship to obtain his position as Master. Bob Jay and old Archer the gunner. So many faces. Gone in a moment. Those who had not died in the broadside would not escape the sharks."
He said, "Be ready, lads." He cocked his head as a trumpet echoed across the water. "The alarm." He glanced at the sudden activity in the guardboat as the oar blades churned up the water, and the boat began to swing round towards them.
Tyacke snapped, "Stand by, Private Buller! " He knew the marine was crouching by the bulwark, his long musket resting beside him. Tyacke said, "Think of what you just saw, Buller, and of the flogging you deserve but will never receive!
"Ready, Buller! "
He watched the officer in the guardboat as he got to his feet, his arm beating out the time to his confused oarsmen.
"Now! "
The musket bucked against Buller's powerful shoulder, and Tyacke saw the Dutch officer's arm halt in midair before he pitched over the side and floundered away from the hull.
The boat turned, out of command, while some of the crew attempted to reach their officer with an oar.
Segrave heard the sharp bang of the guardboat's swivel and Dwyer cry out before he slithered to the deck, blood pouring down his neck and side. Buller's musket cracked again and another man vanished inside the boat, its oars now in complete disarray.
Segrave saw Sperry the boatswain down on his knees, his teeth bared like fangs as he clutched his bulging stomach. He must have taken some of the guardboat's deadly canister shot even while he was helping to trim the sails.
Tyacke's eyes narrowed as he stared hard at the two big ships which seemed to lie across the bows barely yards away. In fact they were over half a cable distant-but nothing could save them now.
Segrave tore his eyes away as Sperry rolled kicking on to his back, his blood filling the scuppers while he choked out his life.
The Dutch sailors were probably wondering what the Albacora was doing, the boy thought wildly. As if reading his thoughts Tyacke shouted, "Let's not leave them in suspense, eh?" He took the tiller and drew a pistol from his belt. "Get below, Mr Segrave and take the slow-match to the fuses! "
Even Segrave could sense the fear which had so suddenly replaced the wildness, the urge to kill. Men Tyacke knew and trusted could soon change once the fuses were lit, and they were standing on their own funeral pyre. Segrave ran past the dying boatswain, realising that his eyes were fixed on his as he hurried by as if they alone were clinging to life.
In his dazed mind he seemed to hear more trumpets, the far-off squeal of gun-trucks as some of the Indiamen's officers understood at last what they were witnessing.
He was sobbing and could not stop himself as he stumbled down into the stinking hull, still shocked by Miranda's unexpected end, and Tyacke's terrible grief and anger.
The man who had been his only friend and whom he had tried to save was dead, and the little schooner, which had been Tyacke's very life, his one escape, had been sent to the bottom.
Segrave fell back with a gasp as the first fuse hissed into life like a malevolent serpent. He had not even seen himself lighting it. He reached the second one and stared at the slow-match in his fingers. His grip was so firm it did not even quiver when he ignited the fuse.
As he scurried back towards the sunlight at the foot of the ladder, he thought of his mother. Perhaps the admiral would be satisfied now. But neither bitterness nor tears would come, and when he reached the tiller he saw Tyacke exactly as he had left him, propped against the tiller as if he were part of the ship.
Tyacke nodded. "Look at 'em now! "
The Indiamen's decks were swarming with sailors. Some were clambering aloft to the yards, others were in the bows, probably attempting to cut their cables.
There was a dull thud below their feet, and seconds later black greasy smoke surged up through the vents, followed by the first vicious tongues of flame.
Tyacke said, "Heave the boat alongside, handsomely now. I'll shoot the first man who tries a run for it! "
Segrave watched flames darting through the deckseams, his eyes glazed as he felt the whole hull heating up like a furnace.
A man yelled, "Ready in the boat, sir! " It was the one named Swayne, the deserter.
Segrave said in a strangely controlled voice, "Don't stay with her, sir." He waited for Tyacke to turn his terrible scars towards him. "Please." He tried to shut out the growing roar beneath the deck and added, "They all died back there, sir. Let it not be a waste, for their sakes! "
Surprisingly, Tyacke stood up and grasped his shoulders. "I'll see you a lieutenant yet, my lad."
They clambered down into the boat and cast off. They had barely pulled out of Albacora's shadow when, with a savage hiss of flames, the deck appeared to burst open, fires starting everywhere, as if lit by one man's hand.
Tyacke rested his arm on the tiller bar. "Pull, lads. If we reach the headland, we may be able to get ashore and hide until we know what's happening."
One of the oarsmen exclaimed, "She's struck, by Jesus! " His own eyes and face were shining in the reflected glare as the schooner, her rigging and sails already blowing away in ashes, crashed alongside the first Indiaman.
Tyacke swung round as the flames leapt up the moored ship's tarred shrouds and darted out along the yards. Some of the men who had been working feverishly to loose the topsails found themselves trapped by the mounting fires. Tyacke watched without expression as their tiny figures fell to the decks below, rather than face
that slower, more horrific death. The second Indiaman had managed to cut her stern moorings but she had freed her cable too late. Fires were already blazing on her forecastle and flowing along her hammock nettings like spurting red liquid.
Nobody spoke in the boat, so that the sounds of creaking oars and the men's rasping breathing seemed to come from somewhere else.
So short a while ago, they had all expected to be dead. Now Fate had decided otherwise.
"Watch out for any place to beach when we get closer."
Buller the Royal Marine paused, ramming home a ball into his musket, and swore with harsh disbelief. "You won't need no beach, sir! "
Tyacke stared until his mind throbbed and his eyes were too blind to see; all that remained was the memory. Miranda's sails folding like broken wings.