Read Online In Gallant Company by Alexander Kent - Free Book Online Page B

’em, lads!’
    Then he was struggling with feet and hands, the hanger dangling from his wrist as he fought his way up and around the flared hull.
    The other end of the vessel was lit by exploding muskets, and as Bolitho’s men clambered over the forecastle and cannoned into unfamiliar pieces of gear, more shots hammered into the deck around them or whined above the rocking cutter like maddened spirits.
    He heard Quinn gasping and stumbling beside him, Stockdale’s heavy frame striding just a bit ahead, the cutlass moving before him as if to sniff out the enemy.
    Something flew out of the darkness and a man fell shrieking, a pike driven through his chest. More cracks, and two more of Bolitho’s men dropped.
    But they were nearer now. Bolitho gripped his hanger and yelled, ‘Surrender in the King’s name!’
    It brought a chorus of curses and derisive shouts, as he knew it would. But it gave him just the few more seconds he needed to get to grips. He hacked out and knocked a sword from somebody’s hand. As the man ran to retrieve it, Bolitho heard Stockdale’s cutlass smash into his skull, heard the big man grunt as he wrenched it free.
    Then they were chest to chest, blade to blade. Behind him Bolitho heard Balleine yelling and blaspheming, the sporadic bang of muskets as he managed to get off a few shots at the shrouds where sharpshooters were trying to find their targets.
    A bearded face loomed through the others, and Bolitho felt his blade grate against the man’s sword with a clang of steel as they parried, pushed each other clear to find the space to fight. Around them figures staggered and reeled like crazed drunkards, their cutlasses striking sparks, the voices distorted and wild with hate and fear.
    Bolitho ducked, slashed the man across the ribs, and as helurched clear he brought the hanger down on his neck with such force he numbed his wrist.
    But they were being pushed back towards the forecastle all the same. Somewhere, a hundred miles away, Bolitho heard a cannon shot, and through his dazed mind he guessed that it was another vessel nearby, trying to show that help was on its way.
    His shoes slipped on blood, and a dying sailor, trodden and kicked by the fighting, hacking mass of men above him, tried to seize Bolitho’s ankle.
    Another man screamed and fell from aloft, dead from a musket ball before he hit the deck. But carried by the desperately fighting seamen he still seemed to cling to life, like a tipsy dancer.
    Bolitho saw a pair of white legs against the bulwark and knew it was Quinn. He was being attacked by two men at once, and even as Bolitho slashed one of them across the shoulder and dragged him screaming to one side, Quinn gasped and dropped to his knees, his sword gone, and both hands pressed to his chest.
    His attacker was so wild with the lust of battle he did not seem to see Bolitho. He stood above the lieutenant and drew back his arm for the kill. Bolitho caught him by the sleeve, swung him round, using the impetus of the man’s sword-thrust to take him off balance. Then he drove the knuckle guard of his hanger into his face, the pain jarring his wrist again like a wound.
    The man lurched upright, and seemed to be spitting out teeth as he bore down for another attack.
    Then he stopped stock-still, his eyes white in the gloom like pebbles, as he slowly pirouetted around and then fell. Balleine pounced forward and tore his boarding axe from the man’s back as he would from a chopping block.
    There was a commotion alongside, and moments later the retreating boarders heard Sparke’s penetrating voice as he shouted, ‘To me, Trojans, to me!’
    Attacked from both ends of the schooner, and with the obvious possibility of other boats nearby, the fight ended as swiftly as it had begun.
    There were not even any curses thrown at the British seamen this time.
Trojan
’s men were too wild and shocked with thehand-to-hand fighting which had