Bolitho ran his fingers through his hair, realising for the first time that his hat had been knocked from his head. The masthead pendant was barely flapping now, and without power in her sails the ship would drift at the mercy of the sea until her surrender or destruction. It would take all of an hour to re-rig the rudder lines. By then . . . he felt a cold shudder moving across his spine.

He cupped his hands. “Cease firing!”

The sudden silence was almost more frightening than the gunfire. He could hear the chafe and creak of spars, the gurgle of water below the counter, and the swaying clatter of loose rigging. Even the wounded seemed quelled, and lay gasping and staring at the captain’s still figure at the quarterdeck rail.

Then across the water, drifting with the smoke like a final insult, he heard a wild cheering. It was more like a baying, he thought bitterly. Like hounds closing for the kill.

A V-shaped cleft broke in the smoke, and through it came the Andiron’s raked bow and the long finger of her bowsprit. Filtered sunlight played across her figurehead and glinted on raised cutlasses and boarding pikes. As more and more of the other ship glided into view Bolitho saw the press of men running forward to the point where both ships would touch. Others were crawling out along the yards with grapnels, ready to lash the two enemies together in a final embrace. It was nearly finished.

He heard Stockdale mutter at his elbow, “The bastards! The bastards!”

Bolitho saw that there were small tears in the man’s eyes, and knew that the battered coxswain was sharing his own misery.

Above his head the flag whipped suddenly in a small breeze, and he knew that he dare not look at it. A defiant patch of scarlet. Like the red coats of the marines and the great glittering pools of blood which seeped through the scuppers as if the ship herself was bleeding before his eyes.

A new wildness moved through his mind, so that he had to lock his fingers around his swordbelt to prevent his hands from shaking.

“Get Mr Brock! At the double!”

He saw Midshipman Maynard lope forward, and then forgot him as his glance strayed again to the watching men. They were exhausted and smashed down with the fury of battle. There was hardly a spark amongst them. His fingers settled on the hilt of his sword and he felt the painful prick of despair behind his eyes. He could see his father, and so many others of his family, ranked with his crew, and watching in silence.

Proby said hoarsely. “I’ve sent a party to splice the yoke lines, Captain.” He waited, plucking the buttons of his shabby coat. “It were not your fault, sir.” He shifted beneath Bolitho’s unwavering stare. “Don’t you give in, sir. Not now!”

The gunner reached the quarterdeck and touched his hat. “Sir?” He was still wearing the felt, spark-proof slippers he always wore in the dark magazine, and he seemed dazed by the sudden silence and the litter of destruction about him.