"She has to turn," said Kershaw. "She'll hit the bottom else. Ah there she goes."
As Biter swung hard round on to the wind, Will heard a ragged fusillade. The instant it was over, and before he heard the one that did the damage, the cutter received the most amazing blow, he felt her lift and smash beneath him. He was sprayed with something wet, not sea but something warm and heavy, and in front of him Behar's trunk sat at the mizzen sheet, blood weeping from his headless neck. Ahead of that, a swathe of crimson stretched out to the bow, with mangled men adorning it. This was all in silence, he was not aware of any sound at all. The bow, in fact, was open to the sea, its whole starboard side removed from just behind the stem. Before time was properly renewed, he watched the sea roll in and swamp the boat, but very slowly. Then he heard the screams.
The lugger, having done for her, damn nearly ran across the wreckage then. There were many men on deck, seamen and pickups from the shore, and some were openly aghast at the carnage they were bearing down on, and had caused. At the very latest moment the helm went down, she sliced up towards them, sails let fly and all a-shake. If she was life-saving, it was each man for himself, and some on board the cutter were past help anyway. Tom Tilley jumped, and Tennison and Wilmott, then Will, after pushing the crippled Kershaw into the reach of willing hands. The cutter crunched along the lugger's side; two screaming men rolled off and under, the water staining red. By the time he was on board, his soaked pistol held foolishly in hand, her sails were filled and sheeted and she was ploughing on.
The fusillade that had sunk the cutter had hit Biter, it appeared. Her fore course was down, the yard cocked across the deck, the canvas covering and impeding men. She was athwart the seas and rolling heavily, as other men strove to clear the decks for gunnery and sailing. In common with all hands, William watched from the lugger's deck as she forged under Biter's lee at about a half a cable's distance. The action seemed all over, and although the French skipper could have put in another volley, he did not do so. But as the Biter rolled away from them, exposing her weedy larboard side, four of her guns were fired almost simultaneously, and by luck or judgement they caught the roll just right. First the flashes, then the strikes, then the reports. Will looked aloft and saw the top part of the foremast sag then break, the sail dropping like an enormous bat. From aft, though, came a burst of screaming. A ball had smashed the rail, missed the mainmast by inches, and killed and crippled, mainly from splinters. One of its victims was the pilot-captain, whose leg was severed at the groin. He bled to death in half a minute, without a word or cry.
There was cheering on the Biter and another, single cannon-shot, that went wide. But the lugger, with only her mainsail set, still forged through the water fast, and stayed close-winded. None of her fore hamper had gone over side to drag her back, and the helmsman, small, dark and saturnine, handed the spokes as if on a summer outing. Within a minute they were clear ahead of the Impress brig, and in five they went about on to the larboard tack to sail round her on the windward side to clear into deeper water before standing south.
Before that, though, the Biter men were rounded up as prisoners. There were only five of them, and it was not roughly done, perhaps as only Will had brought a firearm on board, and that quite drowned for all to see. The common men were separated off by common Frenchmen and had their sea knives taken off them, then they were herded forward as if to share a can which, for all Will knew, they might. He gave his pistol up, politely and butt-first, and Kershaw indicated with his hand to show that he had nothing. As they went aft men were washing blood away, but the looks they got were curious, not informed by rage or hate. In the cabin, seated at the table with four men, was Celine.
"Mr. Bentley," she said. "In less tragic circumstances, I would say well met. I do not understand how this came about, this sad contretemps, but now, it seems, you are our prisoner. I am sorry for that."
She was vaguely as Will remembered her to look at, but of a different manner entirely. Small, dark, but with a heavy seriousness, as if she were in command. Indeed, the men who flanked her said nothing, although they followed the conversation as if they understood. He found her manner rather chilling; and her assumptions.
"You are in breach of English law," he began. It sounded ludicrously pompous. One of the Frenchmen seemed to smile. Will said stiffly: "In any way, the action is not over yet, not by a long shot."
"And it would need a long one, cher monsieur," said another Frenchman, his English almost accentless. "The sad thing is that there were shots at all."
We are at war, thought William, angry with himself. That's what I meant to say. But Celine was shaking her head from side to side, looking white and weary.
"Blaise Leopold is dead," she said. "There are dead on your side, also. Mr. Bentley, we do not wish to chain you up. We need your word is all, yours and your colleague's. Monsieur... ?"
She was talking to Kershaw, who stood silently beside him.
"My name is Kershaw," he said. "You have my word. I knew of your Monsieur Leopold. I am sorry for his death. A fine seaman and navigator."
They all stared at him. Celine's eyes, suddenly, were filled with tears.
"Thank you," she said. "He was. And Mr. Bentley? Your parole?"
"You have it," he said. His mouth was stubborn. "But our action is not lost. Not yet. If it comes on hot again, the word is void. Is that agreed?"
Nobody smiled, but after a moment, there were nods.
"But it is lost," said one of the Frenchmen. "It is too late for you."
The men on Biter, it appeared, were not of his opinion but of Bentley's. When he and Kershaw made the quarterdeck once more as an act of courtesy it was made open to them she was still just visible in the gathered gloom, and she was making canvas. Their vision of her, and hers of them, was made possible by a rising moon, which the Frenchmen must have cursed, and the fact that the north-wester clouds were running down the coast but, by some quirk, were disinclined to roll out across the sea, obscuring the light. It was a spring-tide moon, almost full, and in the next hour it climbed into the sky like an enormous lamp, imparting stark beauty to the rolling seas that were breaking white into the distance. By the end of that hour the English brig, her damaged gear replaced or repaired, had grown a full suit, including studding sails. It was going to be a race. Things might not be lost completely, after all.
"She is a stiff-built tub," said Kershaw, with a sort of grudging admiration. "Not many of her size could carry that press in this wind." He glanced at Bentley with an odd gleam in his eye. "How long before she carries something away, do you reckon? Those Deptford riggers are infamous, you know."
Will, upset and irritated by the whole damn circus, thought levity was out of place, so did not answer. It was hard to tell at such a distance, but to him it seemed that Biter was gaining fast. On the foredeck of the lugger, men were working hard at rigging a jury mast.
"Mark you," said Kershaw, 'if we should stay in close, it won't be many hours before our brig will need deep water, will it?" Again the strange look. "Or have you not studied the charts for hereabouts?"