Some of the men cheered and began to scramble out along the bowsprit, others fell back as a flurry of musket shots cut through the eager sailors and sent their corpses spinning into the water below.

Farquhar said urgently, “You must lead them! My God, you’re asking the impossible!”

Okes swung round, his mouth slack. “Hold your tongue! I’ll give the orders!”

Farquhar eyed him coolly. “I have said nothing in the past, Mr Okes! But I will say it now as it seems we will all die today!” His hat was plucked away by a musket ball but he did not drop his eyes. “You are a cheat, a coward and a liar! If I thought you were worth it, I would discredit you here and now in front of these men, whom you are too squeamish to lead!” He turned his back on Okes’s stricken face and shouted, “Follow me, you ragged heroes!” He waved his sword. “Make way for a younger man!”

They laughed like lunatics and slapped his shoulders as he crawled over the nettings and clambered on to the smooth bowsprit. Shots whined all around him, but he was breathless with a mixture of relief and madness. All this was worth it, if only for telling Okes what he thought of him for his cowardice at Mola Island.

Okes stared back at the quarterdeck and whimpered as a seaman crawled past him, half disembowelled by a great sliver of torn planking. Bolitho was still at the quarterdeck rail, a speaking trumpet in one hand, his sword in the other. His uniform seemed to shine in the frail sunlight, and Okes could see the hammock nettings jumping as hidden marksmen tried to find the Phalarope’s captain.

Okes cried, “I hope they kill you! I hope they kill all of you!”

He sobbed and groped for his sword. Nobody listened to his wild words, or even heeded his presence on the blood-spattered forecastle. He thought of the stinging words and the contempt in Farquhar’s eyes.

“Never!” He pulled himself towards the bowsprit where already some of the men were clashing steel with the enemy seamen. “I’ll show the lot of you!” Heedless of the curses and screams he pulled himself over the clinging sailors and hacked at a French petty officer with his sword. He saw the man’s shocked surprise as a great gash opened across his neck and he fell between the grinding hulls. Then he was up and over, pushing Farquhar aside in his frenzied efforts to reach and strike at the enemy.

Farquhar saw the madness on Okes’s face and tried to pull him back, but it was useless. Encouraged by the apparent bravery of their officers the British sailors swarmed on to the Ondine’s bulwark.

Okes snarled, “Are you afraid, Mr Farquhar?” He threw back his head and emitted a shrill laugh. “Your uncle won’t like that!”

Farquhar parried a thrusting pike and followed Okes down on to the wide deck. It was every man for himself now.