“Moves. Soon. May be. But not yet, Capitaine. War with the milords is not something I have a fear of, but neither is it something I rush toward.” He touched the decoration on his chest absently. “I have marched against them before, and I have no doubt I will again, someday. But that day is for others than me to decide. Non, Capitaine, I will not sound the charge for my nation just to save your ship.”

  Michael nodded sadly. “I understand, Colonel. If you don’t mind, I’ll be getting back to my ship.”

  “A moment, Capitaine. I am perhaps not so neutral as I should be. Before you arrived the milords sent me a message by a Lieutenant Lord Carrington. Most arrogantly he informs me that if I should fire at his vessel, it will be regarded as an act of war. I, of course, replied that I had no wish for war, but any shot fired by his captain at any portion of the shore would be regarded by me in the same fashion. From the words he sent I deduce this. This Captain Harris will not wait for wind to come against you. Nor will he send his boats in the night to, how you say, cut out your prize. Within the hour he will use them to tow his vessel into place to engage you. I thought that would interest you. God speed, Capitaine, and may your lance strike true.”

  Michael flogged his horse all the way from the fort to the quay, rousing his oarsmen from their sleep as he scrambled straight from the saddle into the boat. “Row, damn you. Row for your lives. Pull, God blast your eyes.”

  Out by the frigate, its boats gathered. At least they hadn’t started towing yet. He climbed to the Hussar’s deck and pushed his way through a crowd of clamoring seamen to the quarterdeck.

  “I’ll answer your questions later, damn it. Can’t you see there’s no time now? Where in hell are the boarding nets? God’s wounds, there’s not a gunport open, or a gun run out. What the hell’s going on here, Christopher? Don’t you realize that’s a damned great frigate out there?”

  Byrne’s foot nudged back the corner of a cloak on the quarterdeck to reveal a duckfoot, a pistol with five barrels like spread fingers. It was for use in a riot. Or a mutiny. And there were other bulges under the cloak.

  “A little trouble, Michael. There’s been some talk of surrender.”

  Michael’s face darkened like a thunderhead. “There has, has there? Back me up. But don’t show those things unless there’s no other way.” He strode to the rail and stared down at the milling mass of seamen until they quietened and stood staring back at him. “I hear there are some cowards among you. How they got there I don’t know. There were none when we fought HMS Charon, gun to gun, and sank her.”

  A wave of whispering and shoving ran through the men. No one wanted to be the first to speak. Finally a bulbous-nosed old sailor was pushed forward. He snatched off his cap and ducked his head.

  “Begging your pardon, Captain, sir, but that Charon had only eighteen guns against our sixteen. And we fought because, well, hell, you made it sound easier to fight than to run, though a stiffer fight I’ve never been in. But that ain’t the Charon out there. That’s HMS Apollyon, thirty-eight guns. I was on her just two years ago, till I—” He sniffed and rubbed his nose. “Well, that’s as may be. Anyway, Captain Sir Henry Harris had her then, and he’s likely got her now. He’d work the gun crews till they’d drop, but they can load and fire faster than the devil’s children. That’s a crack frigate, Captain, not a sloop-of-war.”

  “All right,” Michael grated. “You’ve had your say. Now I’ll have mine. Surrender’s been mentioned. No, you didn’t say it just now, but the word’s been said by you before I did. And just what do you think to get by that? Oh, they’ve not hanged any privateers as pirates, yet, though they’ve threatened it often enough. They’ll just lock you up in Mill Prison. You have a man among you who’s one of the few ever escaped from Mill. You, Philpott, tell them what it’s like.”

  Everyone turned to look, and a space formed around a gaunt, almost skeletal, man with the sallow skin of sickness on him. He wet his lips. “It’s a hell made out of stone. I’ll not go back. I’ll die first.”

  “A hell made out of stone, he says. Well, maybe you’ll come to think better of it after you’ve been there a time. After all, what do you have to fight for? Just a shipload of ivory and gold and pearls. Just your dreams you’re holding in your hands, that’s all. The meanest powder monkey of you will be able to buy his own farm. You can spend ten years swimming in rum and women. Or you can rot the rest of the war in Mill. It’s time to make a decision. But not between fight or surrender. Between fight or get the hell off my ship. Because I’ll fight if I have to load and lay and fire the guns myself. Now’s the time. Cowards over the side and swim for shore. The rest of you to the guns. Move, damn you!”

  He turned his back and went to the rail to stare out at the Apollyon. The boats were out in front, now, cables stretching back tautly. The frigate was moving into the channel. Behind him guncarriage wheels rumbled, and ports creaked open.

  “Christopher,” he said without turning around, “how many left us?”

  “Not a one,” Byrne replied in amazement. “If you asked for a boarding party, I think they’d all volunteer.”

  “Let’s hope we don’t need it.” He wheeled back to the men in the waist. “Listen to me, now. With the best rowing in the world it’ll take an hour for that lobster to get to where he can turn and fire, an hour for you to show how good you are shooting at targets. And that’s all she’ll be. They won’t be able to fire a musket at us till they clear the channel. You there, captain of the number one gun—Henriks. Every second shot you fire, fire at the boats. The rest, do like the other guns. Hull the bastard. Hit him hard. Make him pay the price for coming to us. We’ll see how crack they are after an hour, with their ears beat down around their ankles.”

  “Three cheers for the captain!” Henriks yelled, and Michael had to stand while they howled them out at the top of their lungs. As the last one faded they bent to their guns, and Michael returned to watching the frigate draw closer. The angel was painted black, his sword as well. What sort of angel was it supposed to be?

  The first shot from Hussar made all the frigate’s boat crews duck as if they could hide in the bottoms of their boats, but it had no effect that he could see. The second, though, opened a gap above the bowsprit, and the third brought down a spar. From then on Hussar’s gunners had the range, and they hammered the frigate repeatedly. Like the barrel they often tossed over the side to practice on, it only bobbed closer and closer, but it was ten thousand times larger and ten thousand times easier to hit. And hit it they did.

  For an hour and a half Apollyon ran the gauntlet. The angel’s sword disappeared, and then the angel was splinters. The foretop came down, and half her spars. Torn rigging littered the deck, and sails hung in ruins. The bowsprit was chopped off short. The port side of the forecastle had a hole a dozen feet long. And the frigate came on.

  The boatmen had learned quickly that the shots weren’t aimed for them. They stuck to their rowing and ignored the firing. Then Henriks’s second ball raised a geyser in their midst. The panic was such that one boat overturned. From then on they gave full attention to every shot. And if they began to forget, Henriks’s shots reminded them. Once a cable snapped, whipping into the boat, snapping arms and legs, and twice more boats overturned, one disintegrating under a direct hit from an eighteen-pound ball.

  Michael watched the coming in an almost detached fashion. It was the target practice he’d named it. But battle was coming. Apollyon began to swing, under the action of rowers and rudder. Gunports came into view, already open, red squares above black ones. Before the frigate’s anchor dropped, smoke blossomed at nineteen gunports with a roar.

  Hussar seemed to jump in the water under the impact. Splinters whistled through the air, and a line of wetness stung across Michael’s cheek. His own eight-gun broadside answered back raggedly. He turned to call to the gunners, and another hammer struck from the frigate. He fell, and a spar smashed to the deck where he’d been standing. God, he thought, they were a crack crew to get their second shots off so soon. He crawled over the spar and pulled himself up on the splintered quarterdeck rail.

  “The decks and the gunports! Aim for the decks and the gunports! Lang-rage against the deck!”

  Powder monkeys ran to get the canvas bags of nails, old bolts, rusty scrap iron, and anything else that could be found to put in them. When that bag hit the enemy it’d rip apart and shower iron in all directions.

  Time slowed, or else it ran on quicker than before. The broadsides came all at once, or they came after interminable waits. A haze of powder smoke obscured both ships, reddening eyes and blackening faces. More spars were down on Hussar, falling silently amid the din of the guns. Rigging hung in tatters. A dead man lay in front of the wheel, a splinter as big as his forearm sticking from his throat. No one had the time to cover or move him. Once Michael saw a cannon, nine feet and two tons of black metal, rise into the air, spinning, to fall into the water on the far side of the ship. Those of its crew who were still alive lay screaming on the deck.

  How long had it gone on? Michael fumbled out his pocket watch and was stunned to see they’d been at it for five minutes short of an hour. It didn’t seem possible to survive so long under that pounding. There seemed to be something wrong with Apollyon. But what? He rubbed his eyes, and his hand came away red. Gingerly he felt his forehead, and the wicked gash that ran across it. He hadn’t even felt it, he realized wonderingly. But the frigate?

  Through the smoke from both ships’ guns he could barely make out the enemy. The foremast was gone. That was it. They’d shot away the bastard’s foremast. No. There was something else. The frigate seemed shorter, the masts too close together. What in the—A wisp of breeze curled the haze in front of him, and he knew.

  “The misbegotten bastard’s running! That whoreson got a breath of wind, and he’s running!”

  He turned from the beautiful sight of the frigate making its way down the channel to sea, and stopped. The wind had freshened and carried away enough smoke to make the rest of the ship clearly visible. Two guns lay on their sides, and there were three- and four-foot gaps in the waist bulwark. The deck was littered with blocks and cut ropes and pieces of rigging. It was littered with men, too. Dead men, dying men, wounded men. Not a man or a boy was without a rag for a bandage, and blood seeping through it. His throat tightened.

  He looked for Christopher, and found him braced against the rail, strangely bright-eyed. “We whipped them, Michael. Damn—Damn British can’t beat the Irish.” And he fell forward on the deck, the back of his coat shredded and blood soaked.

  Stunned, Michael went to his knees. Before he even touched his friend he knew it was too late. The familiar sardonic grin was still on Christopher’s lips, but his eyes were already dull with death.

  Young Oliver, his face haggard, stopped by Michael’s side. “Sir. Sir, I believe the men are expecting a word from you. Sir?”

  Michael rose slowly and made his way to the quarterdeck rail.

  “Men of the Hussar! You’ve done something no privateer has ever done before, nor any other American ship. You’ve stood toe to toe with a frigate of the Royal Navy, one of their finest, and made the frigate turn and run. It is a thing to be proud of, a thing to tell your children about, and your grandchildren. It’s a thing to be remembered.” His voice sank; it was difficult keeping his eyes from Christopher. “I only regret the price that was paid.” To his embarrassment they cheered him again.

  Oliver touched his shoulder and held out a spyglass. “Maybe you’d better hold off on talk of victory, Captain. Look.”

  Michael looked, and muttering curses under his breath he watched Apollyon, the wreckage of its foremast cut away, sail across the harbor mouth. It followed a regular pattern. Sail across the opening at an angle to the wind coming straight out of the harbor, then tack back in toward shore to sail across the other way. Captain Harris of the Apollyon wasn’t about to let a damned rebel privateer escape. He was staying put.

  A cutter with a pair of lugsails rigged darted away from the frigate and headed out to sea. Michael ran off a string of curses aloud. “What’ll you wager he doesn’t know right where to find more British ships?”

  “Not a clipped farthing, sir.” Oliver replied.

  Michael looked toward the Empress of India. She’d laid dead in the water, stern to the action, but now Broadman had managed to get her turned to present a broadside to the channel. It wouldn’t be much help. Petrie couldn’t spare more than two or three slim gun crews from guarding prisoners.

  “We’re not waiting. If we can run out past him, we’re faster than he is. Even the Indiaman might keep ahead with that mast gone. Send a boat over there. Tell Petrie to follow us out, but once he’s clear of the shoals he’s to head north for Brest immediately. If he gets so much as a sniff of a sail, he’s to put in at Saint Nazaire of Lorient. Then you start repairing enough rigging to shove us out of here.” He stopped as his gaze fell on Christopher, a piece of sailcloth over his head and shoulders.

  “The rest of your orders, sir?”

  Michael sighed. No time. “Put as many guns back in action as you can. Double-shot everything with bar-shot and chainshot. We’ll try for the rigging, to slow her as much as possible. Take the carpenter’s report, but don’t bother me with it. If there are any holes too close to the waterline, fother a sail over them. That’ll hold us till Brest. And bring all the scrap you can back here to the quarterdeck, all the spars and rigging that’re down. Bring some spars from storage, too, and a spare sail, and one of the extra anchors. And the sailmaker.”

  As Hussar slid down the channel, a huge, ungainly bundle wrapped in sailcloth and fastened to a cable lay across the stern. Michael went over everything one more time, to make certain the party of seamen gathered there understood what they were to do.

  “All right, then. When I shout ‘heave,’ you six push that overgrown sea-anchor over. When I shout ‘cut,’ you with the ax, you cut the cable. With one blow, mind you.” He whirled on the helmsman. “And when I shout ‘helm,’ you starboard your helm like the devil’s at you. Do you all understand?”

  They nodded and muttered ayes. It’d have to do, he decided. Everything had to be done on the split second, but if they didn’t have it now, they wouldn’t get it at all.

  Behind, the Indiaman followed, and ahead, just coming into view beyond the headland, Apollyon tacked back toward land. With luck they might be clear and running free before the frigate could reach them.

  “Hoist the colors, Mr. Oliver.”

  The Stars and Stripes broke at the masthead. From the fortress came the boom of a cannon.

  “My God,” Oliver gasped. “The Frenchies have fired on us.”

  It couldn’t be. Another single gun fired, and another. And then Michael understood. He looked up at the flag, standing out from the masthead. Before it’d been just another of the endless stream of flags American ships flew, from the Congress, from the states. Suddenly it was different. He wanted to stand up a little straighter. As Hussar sailed from the harbor the fortress of La Morelle was firing eleven guns, salute to the flag of a friendly foreign power. If only Christopher could’ve seen.

  “Captain,” said Oliver. The British frigate had begun its run across the harbor from farther out, not waiting to get close to shore. It would cross at a shallower angle, and Hussar would be running directly toward its broadside. Yet it could all work to their advantage. If Captain Sir Henry Harris had enough hate built up in him for the American. If he wanted to get close enough to destroy them with the first broadside. Michael nodded to himself and waited. If.

  The three ships moved as if they were all aiming for the same spot in the ocean, the British frigate, the American privateer, and the lumbering Indiaman. If they kept on, they’d all collide. The Indiaman curved away toward the north, and only the two kept on. The distance was growing shorter. Apollyon’s broadside could rake Hussar then. Every moment simply brought them closer to sure hits, to a rain of death, and to boarding. How long would the frigate’s captain wait? How long?

  “Heave!” Michael shouted, and the bundle went over the stern. The weight of the spars took it deep, the canvas ballooned, and Hussar shuddered to a halt as suddenly as if she’d run into a wall. Men staggered, and everything loose went flying. In that instant Apollyon’s guns roared, and the sea ahead was whipped into a froth.

  “Cut! Helm!” The axe sliced through the cable, and the Hussar leaped ahead. The helm went over, and the ship raced to port, behind the frigate. “Fire as they bear!”

  One by one the cannon answered him, hurling balls connected by bars and balls connected by chains into the enemy’s rigging. Slowly, like a collapsing house of cards, the frigate’s remaining masts crumpled. A huzza went up from the Hussar’s waist. The frigate drifted backwards with the tide, until finally someone managed to drop an anchor, and she swung there beneath the guns of the fortress.

  “I’d never have believed it, sir,” Oliver said. “I’m not sure I do even now. Where away, Captain? Brest?”

  Michael looked from the shattered frigate to his own deck. Apollyon couldn’t be much worse off than his own crew.

  “Brest? Yes, for the moment. And then Charlestown, Mr. Oliver. I think it’s time we went home.”

  24

  The hired carriage wheeled briskly up the drive at Tir Alainn and deposited Michael at the foot of the double stairs. He tossed a coin to the driver and got out with his arms full of packages.

  Daniel, standing by the stairs, stared down at him as if seeing a ghost. “Lord, Mr. Fallon! We all just about give you up for dead! How are you, sir?”

  “Alive and fine, Daniel, as you can see. And yourself?”

  “Married, sir,” the boatman said morosely.

  Michael burst out laughing. “Married? Aren’t you the same man told me he’d buy a nice girl and keep her, but he’d not get married?”