Broughton was gripping his sword-hilt, his face tight with fixed concentration as another French ship fired and a ball slapped through the fore topsail and shrieked away over the water.
Bolitho said tersely, “Listen, sir!” He strode to the admiral’s side. “Hear them?”
Faintly above the wind and the dying echo of cannon fire came the sound of cheering, distorted and vague, as if the ships themselves were calling the tune. As word was shouted from gun to gun and deck to deck the Euryalus’s seamen joined in, their voices suddenly loud and engulfing. Some stood back from the main deck twelve-pounders and waved to Broughton, who still stood like a statue, his face as stiff as his shoulders.
Bolitho said quietly, “You see, sir? They don’t ask for much.”
He turned away as Broughton muttered, “God help me!”
More ships were firing now, and some of the balls were flicking across the water close by, and he saw several holes in the Zeus’s sails as she continued purposefully into the smoke.
He turned as Broughton said firmly, “I am ready. Signal the squadron to engage.” Before he hurried back to the rail he saw that Broughton’s eyes were bright with shock or surprise at hearing the cheers. Cheers for a short, trite signal which at the threshold of death could mean so much.
Bolitho shouted, “Make the signal, Mr Tothill!” To Keverne, “Man the braces. We will endeavour to keep station on Zeus until the last moment.”
More crashes echoed across the shrinking arrowhead of water, and he felt the deck shudder as some hit home. He saw Meheux walking behind the forward guns, his sword bared as he spoke to some of the crews, his round face completely absorbed.
“Ready, sir!”
Bolitho raised his hand very slowly. “Steady, Mr Partridge!” He felt the pain throbbing in his shoulder to mark the rising tension in his blood. His hand sliced down. “Now!”
The flags vanished from Euryalus’s yards, and while men threw themselves on the braces and the wheel squealed against the rudder lines he saw the French line changing as if on a great gate, swinging across the bowsprit until Euryalus was pointing directly towards it at right-angles.
A quick glance told him Zeus was leading her own division in obedience to the signal, her sails flapping violently as more balls screamed through them from the enemy guns. But instead of a converging bunch of ships, the French gunners now had the more slender targets to compete with. End on, their gundecks still silent, the two British lines moved steadily towards them, although because of the gentle turn to starboard Euryalus was a good ship’s length ahead of Zeus.
Bolitho gripped the rail as smoke rolled down from the flashing guns. Iron shrieked above the quarterdeck, and here and there a severed line or block fell unheeded on the taut nets.
“Steady!”
He wiped his eyes as more smoke swirled above the deck and watched the nearest set of topmasts standing, as if detached, fine on the larboard bow. He felt the deck jerk again as more shots smashed into the hull, and recalled suddenly the time he had described the superiority of her French build to Draffen. It was macabre to think of him down in the undisturbed darkness of a lower hold in his cask of spirits while the rest of them waited to fight and die.