A swivel barked from the forecastle and several of them fell kicking in their blood, but others were swarming through a great gap in the nets and locking steel with the seamen.
Bolitho seized a gun-captain’s shoulder and yelled into his face, “See if you can put a ball into this one!” He saw the man nod dazedly before turning to call to his crew to reload.
Allday swung round and cut down a boarder who had somehow fought his way through Lieutenant Wilmot’s men in the bows. The man slithered along the deck, his teeth bared in a another wild shriek as a seaman drove a pike into his ribs.
Bolitho waved his sword and beckoned to another group of seamen below the mainmast. He felt a pistol ball fan his cheek and turned to see Wilmot fall, blood flowing from his mouth, when seconds before he had been leading his men into the attack.
He saw Inch yelling to some of his deck party to take up sweeps and stave off a blazing chebeck which was drifting dangerously close alongside. Above the crackle and roar of flames Bolitho heard terrible screams, and realised the oarsmen must be slaves, held captive by chains to their oars to endure the most horrible death of all.
A man dropped from overhead, his face smashed away by musket fire, another rolled kicking from a carronade, his foot crushed by the slide as the heavy muzzle blasted out into the dense smoke.
Bolitho saw the gun-captain waving at him, his teeth white in his blackened face, and knew he had managed to get a ball into the chebeck below the rent in the nets.
A bearded figure ducked beneath a pike and came towards him, his heavy sword scything in line with his stomach. He stuck out with his sword, saw a spark jump from the steel as the shock darted up his arm. It was enough to turn the man in his charge, and before he could recover he was beaten to the deck by a belaying pin wielded by Broome, the gunner.
Inch was suddenly beside him yelling, “They’re done for!” He was almost capering with wild excitement. “We’ve sunk more’n half and the others are in a bad way!”
He waved his hat in the air, and as the smoke thinned above the sweating gun crews Bolitho saw the sea’s face littered with battered hulls and wreckage, while here and there a damaged chebeck pulled hurriedly towards the land. It would be a long time before Messadi’s name brought terror to these shores again, he thought dazedly. Broome roared, “By God, sir! There’s one across the bows!”
Through the smoke Bolitho saw the dovetailed flag very near, and somehow knew this was the leader’s chebeck. Messadi himself trying to get past the Hekla’s fury and escape to the cove once more.
He followed Inch aft to where the helmsmen stood astride two of their dead comrades and gestured with his sword, his voice suddenly loud over the silent carronades. “A guinea for the gun-captain who can bring her down!”