Beating to quarters

Well, this had been an interesting turn of events, Allen thought. Just a short time ago, he had been up in the maintop with his musket trained on the French frigate, waiting for the opportunity to fire. But then that daft Frog ship had gone and cut the Terpsy off, and now, here he was, fighting his way through a sea of Frenchies, as he crossed over to the enemy frigate. He caught a glimpse of Corporal Johnson some distance away on the deck of the French ship, and decided it might be wise to fight his way in that direction.

"Bloody Frogs!" Allen shouted, thrusting his bayonet at the nearest French sailor and continuing to push his way forward.

Another Frenchman was down, his face slashed open by the lieutenant's blade. He was enjoying himself now; the usual savage joy that came whenever it was time to fight. Cut to the right, stab upwards and carry on. Stab again, at the man behind him; cut away and down...

Backed up against the mainmast didn't rank very high on Johnson's list of places to find himself when fighting on the deck of an enemy ship. At least, he admitted as he slashed at another sneering Frenchman, the solid mast behind him prevented any opportunistic Frog from sneaking up on him.

"Ain't this lovely," Johnson grumbled. The handful of Marines who'd been near enough by a few minutes ago were gone, either cut down or driven back toward where they'd boarded. He kicked a wounded Frog off his cutlass and tried to shove away from the mast. A sabre cut across his coat buttons sent him back.

Johnson thundered out a curse and struck back. Those buttons were hard to replace! "Terpsies! To me!"

"Chase! Come on!" Billy cried, carving a path towards Johnson as best he could with the cutlass. "C'mon, mate, corp's over there!" he called to a redcoat nearby, only belatedly realizing that it was the army gent. Well, fair enough. If he was inclined to lend his arms to the fray, they were certainly needed.

The oncoming swarm of French sailors seemed to have abated for a moment, though Bolitho hardly noticed. The realisation only hit him when at last there were no more crewmen in his path. As his eyes darted around, he now saw that the nearby sailors had stepped aside and an officer came into the opening they had created. Not the captain, however. A lieutenant, judging by his uniform. With his cutlass raised, the man came quickly towards Bolitho, affording him a mocking smile before raising his weapon to strike.

With little time to react, Bolitho brought his own cutlass up to meet the man's thrust. Then he attempted a counter of his own, but the French officer parried it at once. Compared to the rabble Bolitho had encountered so far, this man was an experienced swordsman. But he was more inclined to affect fancy moves and footwork instead of fighting for his life as he should have. And so it was only a matter of time before Bolitho caught the Frenchman off-guard and thrust his sword into the man's chest. A look of shock passed over the officer's face for a moment, then he collapsed to the deck. Then Bolitho quickly stepped over him and moved on. He saw that he was now very near to the captain's cabin, and he continued on in that direction, cutting down the next French sailor who came at him.

"Terpsy!" Chase cried, hacking carelessly at Frog sailors with his axe. He could see Johnson's red coat bobbing amid the pack of shouting, cursing, fighting men.

There were Marines carving their way toward the corporal as well. The wild, angry thundering of the Marine called Higgins was carrying over almost all other noise and Chase saw the Marine lift a burly French sailor clean off the deck with an upward-swung musket butt. Cheering, Chase surged toward the beleaguered Johnson.

The French were drawn like magpies to the colonel's glittering gold lace and epaulets. "C'mon, yer lordship," Billy cried as he shouldered his way in. "Can't have all the Frogs to yerself! They ain't never seen sommat like you before!"

Edrington's right arm was beginning to ache from the weight of the cutlass. The right sleeve of his coat, from epaulette to gold-embroidered cuff, was soaked in blood. Mainly, he thought, it was that of Frenchmen. He had been hemmed in by them as he had tried to fight a way clear to the Marine Corporal, and with the young sailor beside him had managed to cut a passage, and now there was a knot of sailors and marines, and one lone Army Colonel, around the French mainmast.

He wondered how long they had been fighting. It was with some relief that he saw the Marine Sergeant reappear. The man had been carried below... and was now back, a bandage round his head. But the dead and wounded lay across the Frenchman's deck, British and French.

Quinn's headache seemed to diminish as he crossed again from Terpsy to the French ship. There was a group of sailors and Marines gathered with their backs to the French mainmast. The Army Colonel was with them; the lace of his jacket glinting in the light. Where was everybody else? They couldn't all be gathered around the mast.

He took a breath. "Terpsies to me!" he roared, despite the headache that made part of him want to curl up in a dark corner. There was his musket lying on the deck and he snatched it up.

"Branning! Musket!" he said, holding out the borrowed weapon to the stolid Private.

The French turned and gaped at them and he thumped the nearest one in the head, much as he'd been hit earlier. The man went down, poleaxed, and lay still.

"Huzzay!" Branning accepted his musket back happily and went to work with it at once, heaving aside the axe he had temporarily acquired. With another cheer, he went forward into the mass of Frenchmen, taking care to step over the bodies strewn about the deck.

Johnson was back near the mainmast, though there were other Terpsies with him now, including that Army colonel. It was slowly getting harder to keep slashing mightily at every thing that moved - apparently, the slash he'd taken had done more than remove buttons from his coat.

"Rally, Terpsies!" Johnson bellowed, glancing quickly over the handful of Marines nearest him. "You, Higgins, Grattan! Beech! Clear a path, the cap'n's gone aft!"

It had been pure chance that he'd spotted Captain Bolitho making his gradual way aft, but the press of Frenchmen made the sea officer's venture dangerous. Better to give him some support and quickly.

When he caught sight of Quinn and Branning coming to join the knot of Marines and sailors around the mainmast, Allen found that his spirits lifted a good deal. And it seemed the reappearance of the two Marines had lifted the spirits of all the nearby Terpsies as well. However, their situation was still not the best one. They were still hemmed in by Frenchies, despite their valiant battling. After knocking back another Frog with his musket, Allen glanced around and saw that the army colonel and Billy Barrow were right next to him now, fighting off several Frenchies of their own. Quinn was close by as well, and Allen found himself grinning despite their situation as he looked at the sergeant.

"Glad t' see you, Sarn't!" he called out, striking a nearby Frenchman with the butt of his musket, "I knew you wouldn't want t' miss out on any more o' th' fun!"

Quinn ran another Frenchman through with his bayonet before replying. "Where's the rest of the lads, then? Don't tell me we're all the Terpsies there are hereabouts." Thompson he knew about, but there weren't half as many Terpsies as he thought there should've been. Unless his wits had got addled when he got hit, anyway.

"Terpsies to me!" he roared in his best Sergeant's bellow, fighting his way aft towards the Captain.

"Well, there's Barrow an' that army colonel over there," Allen said, jerking his head in their direction before knocking out another French sailor, "An' I just heard th' corporal callin' fer some more help. But I think we may be th' last line o' defence now."

He stabbed yet another oncoming sailor and followed Quinn as he started cutting a path aft, in the direction the captain had gone.

There were Terpsies fighting all along the deck. Quinn knocked aside another French sailor who'd got in between him and the Captain. He wondered what had held the British sailors up, and swung his musket up to deflect a cutlass aimed at his head. "Watch out for the Captain, lads. And who's keepin' an eye on the colonel?"

Sergeant Quinn was coming quickly up to join the thin, wavering line of Terpsies forcing its way aft. Excellent. Johnson had slashed and bulled his way along, just behind Higgins, Beech, and Grattan. They'd see the battle turned in their favour yet, the way the Marines alone were fighting.

"Stay by the cap'n!" Johnson snarled, directing the order to the three Marines just ahead of him. They were a deadly trio and were best used to that purpose.

"I got him, Sarn't!" Branning called out, turning aside a wild swing from an axe-wielding Frenchman. He backed off from his initial movement to follow after Johnson and the others, determined that he'd keep with the Army colonel as it was needed.

Allen glanced back briefly and saw that the colonel appeared to be defending himself rather well. But certainly some extra assistance would not go amiss, especially from a great fighter like Branning.

"I think th' colonel's doin' pretty good fer himself at th' moment," Allen said, taking down one Frenchman with his bayonet, "An' wit' Branning t' help him now, I'm sure he'll be doin' just fine!"

He knocked another sailor out of his way and now saw that they had all gotten much closer to the captain. He was a short distance away, fighting off a Frenchie of his own.

The French seemed to be falling back in front of the determined advance of the Marines, which was only right, although the sailors were doing their bit as well. Quinn knew his men could give a good accounting for themselves, and even Oxley had left his drum somewhere to join in the fight.

After taking down a rather large French sailor, Bolitho finally tore his eyes away from the battle to see exactly where he had gotten to. To his satisfaction, he saw that he was now just outside the captain's cabin. Making his way to the door, he readied himself to break it down--but was saved the effort when the door opened and the captain of the Victorieuse stepped out. He was an older man, but looked more than capable of holding his own in a fight, and he carried himself with a decidedly dignified air even as he prepared to attack.

"The English capitaine, I presume?" he said in a disdainful tone as he glared at Bolitho. It seemed he was surprised that such a young captain had dared to attack his frigate.

"Indeed," Bolitho nodded quickly, "Now, do I have your surrender, sir?"

"My surrender?" the French captain scoffed, "Not while I have breath in my body!"

With that, he thrust at Bolitho, who met the attack and countered. He was an excellent fighter, and he knew much more about swordplay than his lieutenant had. And on top of that, he was not already winded from fighting his way through an entire deck of sailors. But Bolitho was not about to give up now, not when they were so close to gaining their prize. And so, he fought back with every bit of strength in his tired limbs, engaging the French captain in a fight which soon moved them back towards the mass of men skirmishing across the frigate's deck.

"Higgins!" Johnson cried. He hardly needed to alert the man and his two companions to the captain's engagement, but he did want them to avoid interfering unless the personal fight began to go poorly - officers were notorious for their love of man-to-man duels, after all.

Quinn was close by now too. Johnson offered him a passing salute and a terse, almost happy grin. "Welcome up, Sarn't," he said.

"Hello, Corp'l. Any idea where the rest of our lot are?" He remembered the Terpsies pouring aboard the French frigate in a wild, excited crowd, but there didn't seem to be half that number on deck. Though maybe his thinking or his memory were clouded by the clout he'd received. He took a swing at a French marine, knocking him to the deck then stabbing down with the bloodied bayonet.

Johnson parried a thrust by a Frog sailor and knocked the man in the face with his cutlass hilt. "There's a bunch of 'em below. Mister Watts led a stormin' party down."

He swung the musket butt into the face of a moustached French marine and saw the man go down hard. "Let's hope they're doin' as well down there as we are," he said, stepping back a bit to give the two Captains room.

"Should I send a couple lads down to support 'em?" Johnson asked. He grunted in pain when a Frog came knocking against him, trying to flee from a Terpsy seaman's axe. The Frog tumbled down to the deck after Johnson ran him through, spitting a heartfelt curse at him. Damned Tars!