Inch murmured, “We have them, sir. They cannot take the advantage from us.”

Bolitho crossed to him, his hand resting on his sword. “They need no advantage. They carry their own power.”

A dozen voices shouted excitedly as the first of the chebecks thrust clear of the shadows, their long prows throwing back foam and spray as they rode over the low breakers.

The drums became clearer and more menacing as one by one they pulled away from the land, and Bolitho heard Inch counting aloud, realising perhaps for the first time the extent of his enemy.

Allday said quietly, “There are many more of ’em than last time, Captain.” He licked his lips. “Twenty, maybe twenty-two.”

Bolitho watched them narrowly, his face a mask to hide his mounting concern. As soon as they were clear of the rocks the chebecks began to open out in a huge fan, so that the whole area of lively water was filled with flashing oars and intermingled bow waves.

On Hekla’s decks was total silence, the gun crews standing like statues to watch the oncoming horde of craft. It was a veritable fleet, the like of which none of them had ever seen, nor would live to describe if they failed to destroy it.

Bolitho strode to the rail, feeling the early excited anticipation giving way to sudden anxiety. He saw their faces turn towards him as he shouted, “Remember, they will no more have seen anything like your Hekla than you have laid eyes on them. I doubt they have faced a carronade before, so stand to and be ready.” He saw some of them glancing at each other and added harshly, “Let each gun-captain select his own target. Shoot as you have never done before, lads.” He looked towards the seamen by the swivels and those who crouched along the bulwarks with loaded muskets. “Keep firing no matter what is happening. If they board us, we will be swamped.” He let his lips turn into a smile. “So make every ball strike home!”

He heard a scrape of steel and saw Inch drawing his curved hanger and tying it to his wrist with a gold lanyard. He looked at Bolitho and grinned almost apologetically. “It was a present,” he said.

A sullen bang echoed back from the shore and a ball whimpered low above the deck. A gun-captain stood back from his carronade but Bolitho shouted, “Hold your fire!” He felt the deck jerk as a chebeck’s bow gun belched smoke and a ball smashed hard into the Hekla’s waterline. The enemy’s formation had fanned out even wider now, so that the ship was almost encircled by them, the furthest ones like the extremes of the crescent flags which some of them were flying above their furled sails.

He watched the range falling away, heard the drums beating faster as the long oars drove the craft towards the slow-moving Hekla like cavalry charging a square of foot soldiers.

He tugged out his sword and held it above his head. “Easy, lads!” Some of the men near him were sweating in spite of the cool wind. To them it must seem as if the chebecks would drive right through their own ship.