Bolitho said, “Pass the word. The guardboat will stand between us. Make it appear we are shortening sail.”
Jenour stared at him. “Will we, Sir Richard?”
Bolitho smiled. “I think not.”
A sudden gust filled the topsail and a line parted high above the deck like a pistol shot.
Dacie, the formidable boatswain’s mate, jabbed a seaman with his fist. “Aloft with ye, boy! See to it!”
It took just a second and yet as Dacie peered aloft, the Swedish master sprang forward and seized a musket from one of the crouching sailors. He pointed it above the bulwark and fired towards the guardboat. Bolitho saw the musket smoke fan away even as the master hit the deck, felled by one of the boarding party.
The guardboat was frantically backing water, her blades churning the sea into a mass of foam. There was no time left.
Bolitho shouted, “Run her down! Lively! ” He forgot the shouts, even the crack of a solitary musket as the schooner tacked round and drove into the guardboat like a Trojan galley.
It felt like hitting a rock, and Bolitho saw oars and pieces of planking surging alongside, men floundering, their cries lost in the rising wind and the boom of canvas.
The treasure-ship seemed to tower above them, individual figures which moments earlier had been staring transfixed towards the explosions, running along the gangways, others pointing and gesticulating as the schooner charged towards them.
“Stand by to board!” Bolitho gripped the hanger and tightened the lanyard around his wrist. He had forgotten the danger, even the fear of his eye’s treachery, as the last half-cable fell away.
“Down helm! Take in the tops’l!”
Shots whimpered overhead and one gouged a tall splinter from the deck like a clerk’s quill.
“Hold your fire!” Parris strode forward, his eyes narrowed against the glare while he watched his men, as they hunched down close to the point of impact.
Bolitho saw the sagging boarding nets, faces peering through them at the schooner, one solitary figure reloading a musket, his leg wrapped around the foremast shrouds.
Halfway down the Spaniard’s side a port-lid rose like an awakened man opening one eye.
Then he saw the gun muzzle lumber into view, and seconds later the livid orange tongue, followed by the savage bang of an explosion. It was a wild gesture and nothing more; the ball eventually hit open water like an enraged dolphin.
As the last of the sails were freed to the wind, the Spica’s jib boom plunged through the Spaniard’s larboard rigging and shivered to splinters. Broken cordage and blocks showered down on the forecastle before both ships jarred finally together with a terrible crash. Spica’s foretopmast fell like a severed branch, but men ran amongst torn canvas and snakes of useless rigging, oblivious to everything but the need to board the enemy.
“Swivels!” Bolitho dragged the midshipman aside as the nearest swivel jerked back on its mounting and blasted the packed canister across the other ship’s beakhead. Men fell kicking into the sea, their screams lost as Parris signalled the six-pounders to add their weight to the attack.
Allday ran, panting at Bolitho’s side as he leapt on to the bulwark, the hanger dangling from his wrist. To board her from aft would have been impossible; her high stern, a mass of gilded carving, rose above her reflection like an ornate cliff.
The forecastle was different. Men clambered across the beakhead, hacking aside resistance, while others slashed and cut their way through the nets.
A pike darted through a net like a serpent’s tongue and one of Parris’s men fell back, clutching his stomach, his eyes horrified as he dropped into the water below.
Another turned to stare after him then gurgled as a pike thrust into him, withdrew and struck again, the point taking him in the throat and reappearing through his neck.
But Dacie and some of the seamen were on deck, pausing to fire into the defenders before slashing aside the remaining nets. Bolitho felt someone seize his wrist and haul him through a hole in the netting. Another toppled against him, his eyes glazing as a ball smashed into his chest like the blow of a hammer.
“To me, Hyperions!” Parris waved his hanger and Bolitho saw it was running with blood. “Starboard gangway!”
Shots banged and whimpered over their heads, and two more men fell writhing and gasping, their agony marked by the stains across the planking.
Bolitho stared round wildly as some swivels blasted the Spaniard’s high poop, cutting down a handful of men who had appeared there as if by magic. Mere seconds, and yet his mind recorded that they were only partly dressed or stark naked; probably some of the ship’s officers roused from their sleep by the sudden attack.
Parris’s men were on the starboard gangway, where another swivel was seized and depressed towards an open hatch as more faces peered up at them.
The remainder of Parris’s boarders were already leaving the little schooner, and Bolitho heard the thud of axes as the Swedes took the opportunity to hack their vessel clear of the treasure-ship, complete with Hyperion’s longboats.
Dacie brandished his boarding axe. “At ’em, you buggers!”
Every man Jack would know now that there was no retreat. It was victory or death. They would receive no quarter from the Spaniards after what they had done.
Bolitho paused on the gangway, his eyes watering from drifting smoke as the scrambling seamen spread out into purposeful patterns. Two to the big double-wheel below the poop, others already swarming aloft to loose the topsails while Dacie rushed forward to cut the huge anchor cable.
Shots cracked from hatchways to be answered instantly by reloaded swivels, the packed canister smashing into the men crammed on the companion ladders and turning them into flailing, bloody gruel. One Spaniard appeared from nowhere, his sword cutting down a seaman who crouched on all fours, already badly wounded from the first encounter.
Bolitho saw the little midshipman, Hazlewood, staring at the wild-eyed sailor, his dirk gripped in one hand while the Spaniard charged towards him.
Allday stepped between Bolitho and the enemy and shouted hoarsely, “Over here, matey!” He could have been calling a pet dog. The Spaniard hesitated, his blade wavering, then saw his danger too late.
Allday’s heavy cutlass struck him across the collar-bone with such force it seemed it might sever the head from his body. The man swung round, his sword clattering to the deck below as Allday struck him again.
Allday muttered, “Get yerself a proper blade, Mr Hazlewood! That bodkin couldn’t kill a rat!”
Bolitho hurried aft to the wheel, and watched as the bows appeared to swing towards the nearest fort with the cry, “Cable’s cut!”
“Loose tops’ls! Lively, you scum!” Dacie was peering aloft, his single eye gleaming like a bead in the sunlight.
Parris wiped his mouth with a tattered sleeve. “We’re under way! Put your helm down!”
There were unexplained splashes alongside, then Bolitho saw some Spanish seamen swimming away from the hull, or floundering in the current like exhausted fish. They must have clambered from the gunports to escape; anything rather than face the onslaught they had heard on deck.
Midshipman Hazlewood walked shakily beside Bolitho, his eyes downcast, fearful of what terrible scene he might witness next. Corpses sprawled in the scuppers who had been caught by the double-shotted six-pounders, and others who had been running to repel boarders when the swivels had scoured the decks with their murderous canister shot.
One jibsail cracked out to the wind and the great ship began to gather way. She appeared to be so loose in stays that she must be fully loaded with her precious cargo, Bolitho thought. What would the fort’s battery commander do? Fire on her, or let her steal away under his eyes?
Bolitho saw the second treasure-ship as she appeared to glide towards them. Pin-pricks of light flashed from her tops, but at that range it would need a miracle to hit any of Hyperion’s topmen or those around the helm.
Bolitho snapped, “Ha
nd me the glass!” He saw Hazlewood fumbling with it, his mouth quivering from shock as he stared at the vivid splashes of blood across his breeches. He had been within a hair’s breadth of death when Allday’s cutlass had hacked the man down.
Bolitho took the glass and levelled it on the other ship. She lay between them and the fort. Once clear of her, every gun on the battery would be brought to bear.
If I were that commander I would shoot. To lose the ship was bad enough. To do nothing to prevent their escape would get little mercy from the Captain-General in Caracas.
There was a ragged cheer and Parris exclaimed, “Here comes Imrie, by God!”
The Thor had spread every stitch of canvas so that her sails seemed to make one great golden pyramid in the early sunlight. All her snub-nosed carronades were run out like shortened teeth along her buff and black hull, and Bolitho saw the paintwork shine even more brightly as the helm went over and she tacked round towards the two treasure-ships. Compared with the Ciudad de Sevilla’s slow progress, Thor seemed to be moving like a frigate.
It must have taken everyone in the forts and ashore completely by surprise. First the Swedish schooner, and now a man-of-war, running it would appear from inshore, their own heavily-defended territory. Bolitho thought briefly of Captain Price. This would have been his moment.
“Signal Thor to attack the other treasure-ship.” They had discussed this possibility, even when it was originally intended to be a boat attack. Bolitho glanced at the bloodstained deck, the gaping corpses and moaning wounded. But for falling upon the schooner it now seemed unlikely they would have succeeded.
Bolitho trained the glass again and saw tiny figures stampeding along the other ship’s gangways, sunlight flashing on pikes and bayonets. They expected Thor to attempt a second boarding, but this time they were ready. When they realised what Imrie intended it was already too late. A trumpet blared, and across the water Bolitho heard the shrill of whistles and saw the running figures colliding with each other, like a tide on the turn.
Almost delicately, considering her powerful timbers, Thor tacked around the other ship’s stern, and then with a deafening, foreshortened roar so typical of the heavy “smashers,” the carronades fired a slow broadside, gun by gun as Thor crossed the Spaniard’s unprotected stern.
The poop and counter seemed to shower gold as the bright carvings splashed into the sea or were hurled high into the air, and when a down-draft of wind carried the smoke clear, Bolitho saw that the whole stern had been blasted open into a gaping black cave.
The heavy grape would have cut through the decks from stern to bow in an iron avalanche, and anyone still below would have been swept away.
Thor was turning, and even as someone managed to cut the stricken ship’s cable, she came about and fired another broadside from her opposite battery.
There was smoke everywhere, and the men trapped below Bolitho’s feet must have been expecting to share the same fate. The other ship’s mizzen and main had fallen in a tangle alongside, and the rigging trailed along the decks and in the water like obscene weed.
Bolitho cleared his throat. It was like a kiln.
“Get the forecourse on her, Mr Parris.” He gripped the midshipman’s shoulder and felt him jump as if he had been shot. “Signal Thor to close on me.” He retained his grip for a few seconds, adding, “You did well.” He glanced at the staring eyes of the men at the wheel, their smoke-grimed faces and bare feet, the blood still drying on their naked cutlasses. “You all did!”
The big foresail boomed out and filled to the wind, so that the deck tilted very slightly, and a corpse rolled over in the scuppers as if it had only feigned death.
He saw Jenour on the maindeck where two armed seamen were standing guard over an open hatch, although it was impossible to know how many of the enemy were still aboard. Jenour seemed to sense that he was looking at him, and raised his beautiful sword. It was like a salute. Like the thirteen-year-old Hazlewood, it was probably his first blooding.
“Thor has acknowledged, sir!”
Bolitho made to sheathe his hanger and remembered he had dropped the scabbard before the fight. It was lying in the little schooner which even now was fading in sea-mist, like a memory.
“Steady as she goes, sir! Nor’-east-by-east!”
The open sea was there, milky-blue in the early light. Men were cheering, dazed, with joy or disbelief.
Bolitho saw Parris grinning broadly, gripping the master’s mate’s hand and wringing it so hard the man winced.
“She’s ours, Mr Skilton! God damn it, we took her from under their noses!”
Skilton grimaced. “We’re not in port yet, sir!”
Bolitho raised the glass yet again; it felt like lead. And yet it had been less than an hour since they had driven into the anchored treasure-ship.
He saw a host of small boats moving out from the land, a brig making sail to join them as they all headed for the shattered treasure-ship. That last broadside must have opened her like a sieve, he thought grimly. Every boat and spare hand would be used to salvage what they could before she keeled over and sank. A worthwhile sacrifice. To try and take two such ships would have meant losing both. The master’s mate was right about one thing. They still had a long way to go.
He dropped the hanger to the deck and looked at it. Unused. Like the midshipman’s dirk; you never really knew what you could do until called to fight.
He examined his feelings and only glanced up as the main topsail boomed out to the wind.
Death-wish? He had felt no fear. Not for himself. He looked at the sweating seamen as they slid down the backstays and rushed to the next task, where a hundred men should have been ready at halliards and braces.
They trusted him. That was perhaps the greatest victory.
Bolitho picked up a coffee cup and then pushed it away. Empty. Something Ozzard would never allow to happen in these circumstances. Wearily he rubbed his eyes and looked around the ornate cabin, palatial when compared with a man-of-war. He smiled wryly. Even for a vice-admiral.
It was mid-afternoon, and yet he knew that if he had the will to go on deck again and climb to the maintop he would still be able to see the coast of the Main. But in this case speed was as important as distance, and with the wind holding steady from the north-west he intended to use every stitch of canvas the ship would carry. He had had a brief and hostile interview with the ship’s captain, an arrogant, bearded man with the face of some ancient conquistador. It was hard to determine which had angered the Spaniard more. To have his ship seized under the guns of the fortress, or to be interrogated by a man who proclaimed himself to be an English flag-officer, yet looked more like a vagrant in his tattered shirt and smoke-blackened breeches. He seemed to regard Bolitho’s intention to sail the ship to more friendly waters as absurd. When the reckoning came, he had said in his strangely toneless English, the end would be without mercy. Bolitho had finished the interview right there by saying quietly, “I would expect none, since you treat your own people like animals.”
Bolitho heard Parris shouting out to someone in the mizzen top. He seemed tireless, and was never too proud to throw his own weight on brace or halliard amongst his men. He had been a good choice.
Thor had placed herself between the ponderous treasure-ship and the shore, probably as astonished as the rest of them by their success. But great though that success had been it was not without cost, or the sadness which followed any fight.
Lieutenant Dalmaine had died even as his men had been hoisted into Thor from the waterlogged lighter. The two mortars had had to be abandoned, and their massive recoil had all but knocked out the lighter’s keel. Dalmaine had seen his men to safety and had apparently run back to retrieve something. The lighter had suddenly flooded and taken Dalmaine and his beloved mortars to the bottom.
Four men had died in the attack, three more had been seriously wounded. One of the latter was the seaman named Laker, who had lost an arm and an eye when a musketoon had been discharge
d at point-blank range. Bolitho had seen Parris kneeling over him and had heard the man croak, “Better’n bein’ flogged, eh, sir?” He had tried to reach out for the lieutenant’s hand. “Never fancied a checkered shirt at th’ gangway, ’specially for ’is sake!”
He must have meant Haven. If they met with Hyperion soon, the surgeon might be able to save him.
Bolitho thought of the holds far below his feet. Cases and chests of gold and silver plate. Jewel-encrusted crucifixes and ornaments—it had looked obscene in the light of a lantern held by Allday, who had never left his side.
So much luck, he thought wearily. The Spanish captain had let slip one piece of information. A company of soldiers were to have boarded the ship that morning to guard the treasure until they unloaded it in Spanish waters. A company of disciplined soldiers would have made a mockery of their attack.
He thought of the little schooner, Spica, and her master, who had tried to raise the alarm. Hate, anger at being boarded, fear of reprisal, it was probably a bit of each. But his ship was intact, although it was unlikely that the Spaniards would divert other vessels to convoy him to safer waters as intended. They might even blame him. One thing was certain; he would not want to trade with the enemy again, neutral or not.
Bolitho yawned hugely and massaged the scar beneath his hair. Hyperion’s imposing boatswain, Samuel Lintott, would have a few oaths to offer when he discovered the loss of the jolly-boat and two cutters. Maybe the chance of prize-money would soften his anger. Bolitho tried to stop his head from lolling. He could not remember when he had last slept undisturbed.
This ship and her rich cargo would make a difference only in the City of London, and of course with His Britannic Majesty. Bolitho smiled to himself. The King who had not even remembered his name when he had lowered the sword to knight him. Perhaps it meant so little to those who had so much.
He knew it was sheer exhaustion which was making his mind wander.
Honour This Day Page 11