With All Despatch (9 page)

“I think not.
Wakeful
will stand a better chance downwind if this stranger decides to make a run for the Dover Strait.”

Paice gave a tight grin. “I'll say this, sir, you never let up.”

Bolitho glanced away. “After this, I hope others may remember it.”

Paice beckoned to his first lieutenant. “Call all hands, Andrew—” He glanced anxiously at Bolitho. “That is,
Mr
Triscott. Clear for action, but do not load or run out.”

Bolitho watched them both and said, “This is where
Telemachus'
s ability to sail close to the wind will tell. It will also offer our small broadside a better chance should we have to match the enemy's iron!”

He crossed to the lee side and looked down at the creaming wake. There was only this moment. He must think of nothing further. Not of Allday, nor that this newcomer might well be an honest trader. If that were true, his name would carry no weight at all.

He heard the boy ask, “What'll
I
do, sir?”

Bolitho looked at him and saw him falter under his gaze. Then he said, “Fetch my sword.” He nearly added
and pray.
Instead he said, “Then stand by me.”

Calls trilled although they were hardly needed in
Telemachus'
s sixty-nine-foot hull.

“All hands! Clear for action!”

Tomorrow would bring the first day in May. What might it take away? Bolitho lowered the telescope and spoke over his shoulder. “What do you estimate our position, Mr Chesshyre?”

There was no hesitation. “'Bout ten miles north of Foreness Point, sir.”

Bolitho wiped the telescope with his sleeve to give himself time to digest the master's words.

Foreness Point lay on the north-eastern corner of the Isle of Thanet, and the mainland of Kent. It reminded him briefly of Herrick, as had Chesshyre's voice.

Paice said hoarsely, “If he is a smuggler he'll be hard put to go about now, sir.”

Bolitho levelled the glass again and saw the big schooner's dark sails standing above the sea like bat's wings. Paice was right. The north-easterly would make it difficult, even hazardous to try and claw round to weather the headland. The lookouts would be able to see it from their perch, but from the deck it looked as if the two vessels had the sea to themselves.

Bolitho glanced at the sky, which was still cloudless and clear. Only the sea seemed darker, and he knew that sooner or later one of them would have to show his hand.

He pictured the coast in his mind. They were steering towards the old anchorage at Sheerness, but before that lay Whitstable, and as the two vessels maintained their same tack and speed they were slowly converging, drawing together like lines on the chart.

Paice said, “He'll have to stand away soon, sir, or he'll end up with Sheppey across his bows.”

Bolitho glanced along the deck, at the gun crews crouching or lounging by the sealed ports, each captain having already selected the best shot from the garlands for the first loading.

Bolitho had been in so many actions that he could recognise the casual attitudes of the seamen, the way they watched the schooner's steady approach with little more than professional interest. With Allday it was different; but these men were not accustomed to real action. A few might have fought in other ships, but most of them, as Paice had explained, were fishermen and workers driven from the land because of falling trade.

Bolitho said, “You may load now, Mr Paice.” He waited for the lieutenant to face him. “He is not going to run, you know that, don't you?”

Paice swallowed. “But I don't see that—”

“
Do it,
Mr Paice. Tell the gunner's mates to supervise each piece personally. I want them double-shotted but with no risk of injury from an exploding cannon!”

Paice yelled, “All guns load! Double-shotted!”

Bolitho ignored the curious and doubtful stares as several of the seamen peered aft to where he stood by the taffrail. He raised the glass again and watched the big sails leap into view. People too, at the bulwarks, and moving around the tapering masts. How would
Telemachus
look to them, he wondered? Small and lively, her guns still behind their port lids. Just one little cutter which stood between them and the land.

“D'you know her?” Bolitho lowered the glass and saw young Matthew staring at him unblinkingly, as if fearful of missing something.

Paice shook his head. “Stranger, sir.” To the master he added, “What about you?”

Chesshyre shrugged. “Never laid eyes on her.”

Bolitho clenched his fists. It had to be the right one. A quick glance abeam; the light was slowly going, the sun suddenly misty above the hidden land.

He said, “Bring her up two points, Mr Paice.”

Men scampered to their stations, and soon the blocks squealed, and the great mainsail thundered from its long boom.

“Steady she goes, sir! Nor'-West!”

“Run up the Colours!”

Bolitho dragged his eyes from the schooner and watched the gun crews. Some of them were still standing upright, gaping at the other ship.

Bolitho snapped, “Tell those bumpkins to stand to, damn them!”

He heard the big ensign cracking in the wind above the deck, then shouted, “Fire one of the larboard guns, Mr Paice!”

Paice opened his mouth to dispute the order, then he nodded. By firing a gun from the opposite side they would keep the whole starboard broadside intact.

Moments later the foremost six-pounder banged out, the smoke dispersing downwind before the crew had begun to sponge its barrel.

Bolitho folded his arms and watched the schooner, like the boy at his side, not daring to blink.

Paice said, “He's ignored the signal, sir.” He sounded dazed, as if he scarcely believed it was happening. “Maybe he's—”

Bolitho did not know what Paice intended to say for at that second there was a great flash from the schooner's forecastle, and as smoke belched over the wave crests a ball smashed through
Telemachus'
s bulwark and burst apart on a six-pounder. Splinters of wood and iron shrieked away in all directions, and as the gun's echo faded the sound continued, but this time it was human.

One of the seamen was on his knees, his bloodied fingers clawing at his face and then his chest, his scream rising until it sounded like a woman in terrible agony. Then he pitched on his side, his life-blood pumping across the sloping deck and into the lee scuppers. Several of the other sailors stared at the corpse with utter horror; and there were more yells and screams as another ball crashed into the bulwark and hurled a fan of splinters across the deck.

“Open the ports!
Run out!
” Paice was standing silhouetted against the surging water alongside, his face like a mask as men whimpered and crawled across the shattered planking, marking the pain and progress with their blood.

Bolitho called, “On the uproll, Mr Paice! It's our only hope at this distance!” So it had happened just as Hoblyn had predicted. His mind cringed as Triscott's hanger sliced down and the six guns on the starboard side crashed out in unison. The carronade was useless at anything more than point-blank range, and undoubtedly the schooner's master knew it.

He saw the sails dancing above the schooner's deck and watched as some blocks and cordage plummeted over the side to trail like creeper in the water.

“Reload! Run out!” Triscott's voice was shrill. “As you bear, lads!” He dropped his hanger again.
“Fire!”

Bolitho saw several of the men peering round at their fallen comrades—how many had died or been cruelly wounded it was impossible to tell. At the same time Bolitho thought he saw their anxiety and sudden terror changing its face to anger, fury at what had been done to them.

Chesshyre yelled, “Down here—take over from Quin!” The helmsman in question had been hit in the head and had slumped unnoticed and unheard across the tiller bar, his eyes fixed and staring as they lowered him to the deck.

Chesshyre caught Bolitho's glance and said, “They've a bit to learn, sir, but they'll not let you down.” He spoke so calmly he could have been describing a contest between boats' crews.

Bolitho nodded. “We must hit her masts and rigging.” He shouted in the sudden lull. “Gun-captains! Aim high! A guinea for the first sail!”

“Fire!”

Paice said harshly, “That bastard's using nine-pounders if I'm any judge!” He gasped as a ball smashed hard down alongside and flung spray high over the bulwark.

Bolitho saw his expression as men ran to the pumps. Like pain. As if he and not the cutter had been hit.

There was a wild cheer and Bolitho swung round to see the schooner's foresail tearing itself apart, the wind bringing her down as she fought against the confusion of sea and helm.

Bolitho bit his lip as another ball screamed overhead and a length of halliard whirled across the deck like a wounded snake. It could not last. One ball into
Telemachus'
s only mast would finish it.

Paice said wildly, “He can't depress his nine-pounders, sir!”

Bolitho stared. Paice was more used to this kind of vessel and would know the difficulty of mounting a long nine-pounder on the deck of a merchantman.

“He's trying to put about!” Triscott waved at his gun crews. “Into him, lads!” He watched as their grimy hands shot up.
“Fire!”

Paice whispered,
“Holy Jesus!”

Luck, the skill of an older gun-captain, who could say? Bolitho saw the schooner's bowsprit shiver to fragments, the forecastle suddenly enveloped in torn shrouds and writhing canvas.

Paice searched through the drifting smoke for his boatswain.

“Mr Hawkins! Stand by the arms chest!” He tugged out his own hanger, his eyes back on the schooner. “By God, they'll pay for this!”

Bolitho saw the distance dropping away as the crippled schooner continued to pay off downwind. His eyes narrowed and he heard the vague bang of muskets, the balls slamming against the cutter's hull. How long? He gestured urgently. “Can you man-handle the other carronade to the starboard side?”

Paice nodded, his eyes blazing. “Clear the larboard battery, Mr Triscott! Lay the smasher to starboard and prepare to fire!” He glanced at Bolitho and added, “They may outnumber us, but not for long!”

Bolitho watched the punctured sails rising above the cutter as if to swoop down and enfold her, smother her into the sea. Fifty yards. Twenty yards. Here a man fell coughing blood, there another clapped one hand to his chest and dropped to his knees as if in prayer.

Bolitho pushed the boy down beside the companionway.

“Stay there!”
He drew the old sword and pictured Allday right here beside him, his cutlass always ready.

“Stand by to board!” He saw their faces, some eager, others fearful now that the enemy was alongside. They could hear them yelling and firing, cursing while they waited for the impact.

Bolitho walked behind the crouching seamen, his sword hanging loosely from his hand.

Some glanced at him as his shadow fell over them, stunned, wild, filled with disbelief as he showed himself to the schooner's marksmen.

“Ready!” Bolitho winced as a ball cut through the tail of his coat. Like a gentle hand plucking at it.
“Now!”

The two carronades exploded in adjoining ports with a combined roar which shook the cutter from truck to keel. As the smoke fanned inboard and men fell about coughing and retching in the stench, Bolitho saw that most of the schooner's forecastle had been ripped aside, and the mass of men who had been waiting to attack or repel boarders were entwined in a bloody tangle, which turned and moved as if one hideous giant had been cut down. The weight of grape with canister from the poop swivel had turned the deck into a slaughterhouse.

Bolitho gripped the shrouds and shouted, “To me, lads! Grapnels there!” He heard them thudding on the schooner's bulwark, saw a crouching figure beside an upended gun, as if watching the attack. But it was headless.

The two hulls ground into each other, lurched apart, and then responding to the hands at the grapnels came together in a deadly embrace.
“Boarders away!”
Bolitho found himself carried across to the other vessel's deck, men thrusting past and around him in their need to get at their adversary.

Figures fell screaming and dying, and Bolitho saw
Telemachus'
s anger and jubilation change yet again to an insane sickness. With cutlass and pike, bayonets, even their bare hands they fell on the schooner's crew with a ferocity which none of them would have believed just an hour earlier.

Bolitho shouted,
“That's enough!”
He struck down a man's cutlass with his own blade as he was about to impale a wounded youth on the reddened planks.