Bolitho returned to the poop, his legs heavy, his sword arm throbbing as if from a wound.

The Spanish seamen were already heaving the enemy’s corpses overboard, to bob alongside in a macabre dance before they drifted away like so many discarded rag dolls. There were no prisoners, for the enraged Spanish were in no mood to give quarter.

Bolitho said to Meheux, “They’ll not attack us again today, I’m thinking. We had best get the wounded below. Then I will inspect the damage to the hull before it gets dark.”

He looked round, trying to free his mind from the dragging aftermath of battle.

“Where’s Pareja?”

Allday called, “He took a musket ball in the chest, Captain. I tried to keep him from showing himself!” He sighed. “But he said that you would expect him to help. To keep the crew’s spirits up.” He gave a sad smile. “He did too. Funny little fellow.”

“Is he dead?” Bolitho recalled Pareja’s eagerness, his pathetic subservience in his wife’s presence.

“If not, Captain, then it will soon be so.” Allday ran his fingers through his thick hair. “I had him put below with the rest.”

Witrand crossed the blood-spattered deck and asked calmly, “Those pirates will return, Capitaine?” He glanced round at the limping wounded and the exhausted, lolling survivors. “And what then?”

“We will fight again, m’sieu.”

Witrand eyed him thoughtfully. “You saved this hulk, Capitaine. I am pleased I was here to see it.” He pursed his lips. “And tomorrow, who knows, eh? What ship will come and discover us, I wonder?”

Bolitho swayed and then said tightly, “If we are met by one of your frigates, m’sieu, I will surrender the ship. There would be no point in letting these people suffer any more.” He added quietly, “But until that time, m’sieu, this ship, like her flag is mine.”

Witrand watched him go and shook his head. “Stupefiant!” was all he said.

* * *

Bolitho ducked his head beneath the low deck beams and looked gravely at the untidy lines of wounded. Most of them lay quite still, but as the ship yawed sluggishly and the lanterns spiralled from the deckhead it seemed as if every shape was writhing in agony, condemning him for their suffering.

The air was foul with a stench of cooking oil and blood, of bilge and vomit, and he had to steel himself before he could continue on his way. Allday was holding a lantern in front of him, so that some of the faces of the injured and wounded leapt into focus as he passed, only to fade into darkness again, their pain and despair mercifully hidden.

Bolitho wondered how many times he had witnessed sights like these. Men crying and weeping for forgiveness. Others demanding assurances that they were not really dying. That by some miracle they would live to see daylight. Here, the language and intonation were different, but all else the same. He could recall the time as a frightened midshipman aboard the Manxman, an eighty-gun ship-of-the-line, seeing men fall and die for the first time and watching their agony after the fight was finished. He could remember being ashamed, disgusted with himself for feeling nothing but an overwhelming joy and relief at being whole and spared the agonies of the surgeon’s saw and knife.