‘At ’em!’ the midshipman shouted.

  The men cheered and surged forwards. Rob tucked his cutlass in his belt and held his knife between his teeth. He grabbed the bow chains, swung himself up onto the cathead and then onto the deck.

  An American sailor came at him with a pike. Rob had practised sword drills on the Perseus, but he had little formal training. Instinctively, he swung the cutlass at the pike and battered it aside. Strength, more than technique, saved him. The pike’s point went wide of his shoulder and lodged in the bowsprit. The American tugged on it, but he had buried it so deep he could not get it free. Rob brought the cutlass down on his collarbone with a blow like chopping wood, so hard he almost cut through to the man’s heart. The American collapsed.

  Rob twisted the pike free from the bowsprit and reversed its point. This was a more familiar weapon, like an old friend. He had gone out in the bush many times hunting with sharpened sticks. His father’s Qwabe herdsmen had delighted in teaching Rob the use of their assegais, the long light throwing spears of their tribe. Rob stabbed and jabbed it expertly, making space in the press of men the same way he had in the tangled forests of Africa. Beside him, Angus wielded a boarding axe with lethal effect, driving the Americans back.

  Over the clash of steel, the shouting and screaming, Rob heard the dull boom of cannon fire like distant thunder. The Perseus must be engaging the French frigate. In the thick of battle, he could not see who was winning. But at least he was playing his part. Distracted by the boarders, the American crew could no longer handle the brig. She was bearing off downwind, away from the two other ships. That would level the odds for Captain Tew.

  But for the Perseus’s men aboard the brig, the odds were grim. The American ship carried a big crew for her size, and the boarders were too few against them. They were hemmed in, a knot on the foredeck fighting for their lives. More than half lay dead or wounded already. The young midshipman was shouting bravely to keep fighting, but it was a lonely voice. If they could not break out, they would have to surrender or die.

  Rob drove the pike into an American sailor’s belly. Instead of pulling back, he kept hold of the shaft and drove forwards, ramming the weapon through his opponent. The point burst out of the man’s back. He was pushed into the man behind him, who was skewered with his shipmate on the protruding point. Rob pushed on. Both men were driven backwards, knocking more of the brig’s crew out of their way until they collapsed on the deck.

  Rob let go of the pike. Before anyone could react, he ran into the space he had created, leaped up onto the gunwale and swung himself into the rigging, jackknifing his legs to avoid a cutlass thrust.

  He ran up the ratlines towards the main top. The rigging shook under the feet of men chasing him, but he didn’t look back. Halfway up, he saw a rope tackle dangling from a yard. He leaped for it. There was no room to miss, but he snatched it in mid-air and let his momentum carry him swinging over the main deck, almost to the mizzen mast. Not quite far enough. He grabbed a backstay, swung himself off it and managed to get hold of the mizzen shrouds.

  In the chaos and the smoke, the men on deck lost sight of him. Rob climbed to the top, then edged along the gaff boom until he found the halyard that held the brig’s flag in place.

  He cut it with his knife. The rope slithered away as the rebel flag fell billowing to the quarterdeck. Below, Rob heard shouts of consternation, then a strange and sudden hush. To strike your flag was to surrender your ship. For a moment, the Americans wondered if the battle was lost.

  A figure in a blue uniform coat strode from the quarterdeck, brandishing a pistol.

  ‘Fight on!’ he bellowed. ‘We have victory in our grasp.’

  The American captain levelled the pistol towards the bow. Rob saw it was aimed at Angus. While the Americans were confused, the Scot had broken out with a group of boarders, charging across the main deck. But he had not seen the gun aimed at him.

  Rob let go of the yard and dropped. From that height, he would have snapped both his legs if he had hit the deck. But the captain broke his fall. Rob landed on top of him, knocking his pistol from his hand. Before the captain could recover, Rob stabbed him through the heart.

  A swivel gun stood mounted on the side. Rob swung it around so that it pointed inboard, where the American sailors were gathered. As it pivoted, he felt something move inside the barrel. It was loaded. The gunner must have abandoned his station, or been killed, before he could fire it.

  The swivel was fitted with a flintlock, like a rifle; and there was powder in the touch hole. Rob jerked the rope attached to it. The flint sparked; the flame ran through the touch hole and ignited the powder in the barrel. A hail of tiny shot spat from the cannon’s mouth, reaping a terrible harvest on the main deck. Cut down from behind, the American crew faltered. It was all the encouragement the British sailors needed. With shouts of ‘God save the King,’ they charged forwards.

  And suddenly the battle was over. Their colours had been struck; their captain was dead: the Americans had nothing left to fight for. As quickly as the battle had started, they threw down their weapons and surrendered to the boarders.

  Angus ran aft to Rob.

  ‘What are your orders, sir?’

  Rob stared at him, dazed. ‘My orders?’ He looked down the length of the deck. Blood, bodies and broken limbs littered every inch. ‘Midshipman Evans is in command.’

  ‘The midshipman caught a bayonet. You are the senior officer.’

  Rob stared at his friend blankly. He was not yet nineteen. There were men in the crew who had served at sea for thirty years or more. He felt their eyes on him. Bruised and blood-spattered, flushed with victory, they were looking to him.

  How could he tell them what to do?

  But instead of being distracted by their expectation, he found it gave him strength. Something stiffened inside him, like a sail filling with the wind and snapping taut.

  ‘Lock the prisoners below,’ he said.

  The Perseus’s men had taken the ship, but they were still outnumbered by the American crew. He needed to secure the victory before the Americans recovered their morale.

  A warm smile spread across Angus’s face. He could see the mantle of command settling on Rob’s shoulders as the boy came to terms with his responsibility. Men would follow him, Angus thought, wherever he led them.

  They herded the Americans and locked them in the hold. Rob inspected the ship. She had taken heavy damage from the Perseus’s broadsides. Her mainsail had been shot away, and her boom dangled off the mizzen mast like a broken limb. Among the bodies and blood, her deck was littered with cordage and splintered timbers.

  ‘Set parties to clear the deck and get some sail on her,’ Rob ordered.

  The wind had risen, a stiff onshore breeze blowing them towards land. Until they got steerage way, they would be helpless before it.

  The wind had driven off the last of the fog so Rob could see clearly at last. Across the water, the two frigates, the Perseus and the Rapace, had drifted far away from the brig. With the naked eye, it was hard to tell how they had fared, and there were no telescopes to hand on the shattered quarterdeck. Both still had their colours aloft, and a haze of smoke over their decks where the cannons were firing. The Perseus seemed to have come off worse, but Tew was working her hard, using her superior speed to manoeuvre so the Frenchman’s guns could not come to bear.

  ‘We must help her,’ said Rob. ‘Together, we may be able to defeat the French.’

  He saw doubtful faces around him. The men were exhausted. It would take all their strength to make the brig serviceable again. The prospect of having to re-enter the battle was enough to drive them to mutiny.

  Rob forced himself to smile. In the heat of the moment, the words his men needed to hear seemed to come naturally.

  ‘Are we not the most feared warriors on the ocean? Do we want the men we left behind getting all the glory when they capture the Frenchie frigate? Shall we leave them to spend the prize money? This is your chance to prove yourselves worthy of our flag – and make yourselves rich.’

  It brought a ragged cheer from his men. They cleared the deck and sprang to their work: breaking open the sailmaker’s locker to stitch canvas and splice lines that had been cut in the fight.

  But it was taking too long. The wind blew them back, away from the frigates and into the mouth of the great bay that opened in the shore. The brig’s hastily repaired sails and cordage could not take the strain of beating into the wind. Angus, manning the wheel, grimaced.

  ‘Something’s amiss,’ he told Rob. ‘Her rudder’s not answering aright.’

  ‘Her cables?’ Rob asked in a low voice.

  If the rudder cables had been shot away, it would take hours to repair. The vessel would be at the mercy of the wind and currents. And they were rushing ever closer to the rocky promontory at the mouth of the bay.

  Angus shook his head. ‘More likely blockage under her stern keeping the rudder from turning. We can steer her afore the wind. But if we try to put her hard over, it might snap.’

  Rob made his face calm so that the men wouldn’t divine his panic. Those nearest had already overheard too much, pausing in their tasks to look at him. He gazed at the line of white breakers foaming on the rocky headland. To be caught on a lee shore, with jury-rigged sails and a broken rudder, was any sailor’s worst nightmare. If they could not turn into the wind, their only option was to sail into the bay and hope they could find a sheltered inlet to repair the damage.

  Rob remembered the charts he had studied aboard the Perseus. The coast hereabouts was a treacherous maze of sandbars, shoals and reefs. But that was not the worst of it. The land around Narragansett Bay was a stronghold of rebel sympathisers. And inside the bay was the harbour of Newport, where – according to Tew’s reports – the rebel navy kept a flotilla. The moment the rebels saw the brig, and realised what had happened, they would seize her back. They would not be kind to the British sailors who had taken her.

  Now Rob felt the loneliness of command, of having to choose between bleak options. Whatever he did, men might die. But if he delayed any longer, the sea would make his choice for him. They were already so close to shore he could hear the waves breaking on the rocks.

  ‘Bear away downwind,’ he ordered, with all the confidence he could summon. ‘We will enter the bay.’

  The men jumped to obey. The promontory slid past, barely a hundred yards off their beam, as the brig threaded her way through the channel between an island and the mainland. It reminded Rob of the entrance to Nativity Bay back home.

  ‘Maybe put a leadsman in the chains,’ Angus murmured in Rob’s ear. ‘Treacherous waters, hereabouts.’

  Rob nodded, angry with himself for forgetting such an obvious precaution. How much a captain had to remember! Even when faced with the biggest decisions, he could not neglect the thousand other details necessary to keep a ship safely afloat.

  Rob gave the order and promised himself he would do better next time.

  Luckily, the wind was dead behind them. It drove them down the middle of the channel, away from the treacherous shallows at its edge. The breeze eased as they came in shelter of the land. Rob was confident enough to alter course a few points, looking for a cove where they could anchor.

  Nothing looked promising. The rocky shore offered little protection, barely so much as an inlet. As they sailed further on into the bay, Rob began to worry that they would never get out. Even if the wind shifted in their favour, the French frigate was most likely out there. If she sailed in after them, they would be trapped.

  ‘There,’ said Angus. Rob looked up.

  It was an anchorage. But not the quiet cove or deserted beach he had hoped for. As the brig came past a spit of land, the bay opened out to their right. Where Angus had pointed, was a complete harbour. It looked a prosperous place. The wharfs and cranes were built to accommodate transatlantic trade. Solid four-square houses lined the waterfront, extending some distance back, while along the coast shipyards supported vessels in various states of construction. It must be the town of Newport.

  ‘We will get a warm reception there,’ murmured Angus.

  He handed Rob a spyglass he had found in the wreckage of the captain’s quarters. Rob put it to his eye and scanned the ships at anchor in the harbour.

  All of them carried the striped pennant of the rebel navy. It was not much of a fleet – half a dozen converted fishing boats and schooners – but they would make short work of the wounded brig.

  Once again, Rob felt the claustrophobia of command closing around him. He had made his decision, and it had failed. Now he was trapped on the horns of a dilemma. If he tried to flee, the Americans would chase him down. If he held his course, he would sail into their arms. The only card he had to play was that the Americans did not yet know that the brig had been captured.

  He stared through the spyglass, thinking furiously. As he surveyed the harbour, he noticed another ship he had not seen before. A frigate, so gleaming new she must just have been launched from the shipyard. Her masts were already stepped, her sails mostly rigged. Soon she would be ready for sea. Fully armed, she would be the most powerful ship in the American navy.

  An idea formed in Rob’s mind. A way to escape the poisoned choice he had. He gave Angus the telescope and pointed to the frigate.

  ‘What do you make of her?’

  His friend ran an expert eye over the ship.

  ‘She’s a big ’un. Pierced for forty guns, and you can see how stout her timbers are by how low she sits in the water. She’ll fear nothing but a ship of the line when she’s finished.’

  ‘Then maybe we can do something.’ Rob’s eyes were bright with mischief. ‘Open every scuttle and gunport and wedge them open. Bring up all the tar, cordage, sailcloth and wood you can find in the stores, and stack it on the main deck. I want this ship ready to burn like a bonfire.’

  Angus looked astonished. ‘A fire ship?’

  ‘Even if we could beat out of this bay without breaking the rudder, we would never outrun those ships in the harbour. If we land, they will have us in chains in an instant. One way or another we cannot keep hold of this prize. At least we can put her to good use.’

  ‘And how do we get away?’

  ‘If we manage to sail the fire ship into that harbour, there’ll be so much confusion and panic they will not see us escape.’ Rob gestured aft, where they were towing the boat that had brought them from the Perseus. ‘We can make our escape in the cutter.’

  Angus gave Rob a look that was half admiration, half anxiety.

  ‘They say command changes a man. But look at you. Half an hour ago you could hardly open your mouth to give an order. Now you are Sir Francis Drake.’

  Angus had meant it as a compliment. But he saw Rob flinch at the words, as if he had opened an old wound. He could not know that the mention of Sir Francis Drake had reminded Rob of the Neptune sword, the magnificent gift that Drake had given his ancestor Sir Charles Courtney. Going into battle, in command of his own ship for the first time, Rob should be wearing it. He felt its absence like a hole in his side. Seven generations of Courtneys, and he had lost it.

  Angus touched his forehead. ‘Meaning no offence, sir.’

  Rob recovered himself. He saw the concern on his friend’s face and clapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘You do not have to salute me yet. I have just got hold of my first ship, and now I am about to burn her to the waterline. I fear I will not be a captain for long.’

  ‘Long enough.’

  As Angus ran to supervise the preparations, Rob turned the telescope back on to the harbour. He could see a commotion around the quayside – men and women hurrying to watch the brig approach. They could see she had been in battle and were desperate for news. Was it a victory?

  The thought that she might have been captured did not seem to have occurred to them. The bow hid the pile of kindling that was being tossed on the main deck around the mast. Fire was a seaman’s greatest fear, but now they embraced it with devilish glee and ingenuity. They soaked sailcloth and hammocks in tar, dipped them in gunpowder and piled them over the wood around the foremast. Other men pulled apart rope ends and bound them with powder and splinters in paper packets. They would burn long enough to make sure the fire took good hold.

  ‘How long will we have before the fire reaches the magazine?’ Rob wondered.

  ‘Five minutes,’ Angus guessed.

  Rob measured the distances with his eyes. They would have to sail right into the harbour before they fired her, to be sure that no one had time to get aboard and put out the fire.

  ‘I hope the men are ready to row for their lives.’

  A few small craft had set out from the harbour to intercept the brig. Rob watched them, his chest tightening.

  ‘Run up the Yankee colours.’

  The red-and-white striped jack broke from the masthead, where Rob had cut it down a short time before. A cheer rang out from shore.

  It would not fool them for long. With her makeshift canvas, the brig was coming in too fast. She should be shortening sail, preparing her anchor cable. Instead, Rob had crammed on every scrap of speed he could extract from her.

  Angus reappeared at his side. His face was grim.

  ‘Begging your pardon—’ he began.

  ‘Not now,’ Rob snapped. He was feeling the tension, the knife-edge he was walking. Set the fire too soon and it would give the Americans time to react. Too late, and his crew would burn with their ship.

  ‘This cannot wait,’ Angus insisted. ‘What will you do with the prisoners?’

  Rob froze. With so many decisions to make, so much danger, he had not thought of the brig’s crew crammed captive in the hold. If he left them there, they would be burned alive.

  Whatever the risks, he could not have that on his conscience.

  ‘Lower the ship’s boats,’ he said. ‘But take the oars out. Bring the prisoners up in groups and let them into the boats. They will make it to land eventually.’

  ‘They will see on shore what we are doing.’

  Rob shrugged. ‘There is no choice.’