Free Captain's Surrender by Alex Beecroft

head sharply to see the second lieutenant, Sanderson, scrambling to his feet. The man seemed unable to bear weight on his right ankle—one of the rolling cannonballs must have clipped him "by accident"—and now, unable to walk, he stood shaking with fear and pain, helpless. Summersgill could hear the sailors debating whether to break the other leg or pound him into a pulp and heave him overboard. "No one'd know," Bates laughed again, "and it'd be one less of the bastards to deal with later."
"Shut up, cully! The fucking lubber's watching!"
Summersgill didn't recognize the voice that said this, but at the words he felt every head swivel and every eye affix itself on him. For a moment he stood rapt in terror, as a tiger's prey feels before its glowing gaze. Death by fire seemed quicker, cleaner, infinitely more desirable than the thought of whatever these men might do to him, and his knees shook. With a great effort of will he locked them, stood tall, and smiled. At any moment, at any moment now, someone was going to shout "Get him!"
The voice, when it came, stopped his heart, he clutched at the quarterdeck rail to stay upright, and for a second of abject fear, he did not register that the words were "Sail ho!" shouted by the lookouts at fore and mizzen masts together.
Movement around the edges of the crowd—men fading away into the darkness. Young Hawkes darted out of concealment, where he had been cowering behind the capstan, and ran to the captain's cabin. The hard core of mutineers, Boyd and Bates among them, tried to call men back, but others were already returning the shot to the shot garlands.
A far off thump of cannon and the cloudless night was stained pink. Jets of fire outlined two ships, sails flapping in the billowing smoke, hulls outlined in flashes of gunpowder, only to vanish again when the guns fell silent.
"Beat to quarters!" Hawkes' shrill voice broke as he gave the order, and for a moment there was no movement at all on deck as the beginnings of mutiny were checked by the wild, high thrill of excitement in the child's voice. "It's pirates, lads! Pirates! She'll be our first prize of the campaign. All hands clear for action!"
A lantern, kicked over on the far off brig, kindled her ratlines. Her sails went up in curtains of fire and the unstayed masts drooped towards each other. The second, larger sloop had now seen the Nimrod coming like an avenging angel out of the darkness, and her flame-lit sides were thick with men cutting the cables, hauling back the boarding ladders that held them to their prey.
"Bow chasers, fire on the up roll, I want them stopped, not sunk!" Walker was on deck—quite a different man from the spit and polish tyrant Summersgill had come to know, roused from his bed and ready to fight. There was a sort of glory about him, as there had been at times on punishment day— the glow of a man in his element, completely fearless and at ease.
"Riflemen to the tops! Take in sail! Port your helm!"
Marines came thundering up every hatchway,
sharpshooters swarming up the shrouds. Insensibly, the feeling had shifted and now men were running to their places, with no more thought than a leaf shows, opening to the sun.
"Lay aloft to furl royals! Lay out and stop flying jib! Man topgallant clewlines, buntlines, and weather braces. Jib downhaul!"
Officers had begun to reappear. The Nimrod slowed, turning side-on to the privateer ship. With a great clash, the gun-port covers flew open and the cannons rolled out. The bow chasers were already barking in harsh voices, each shot sent on its way by an enormous jet of crimson flame and a plume of sulfurous smoke. Summersgill could see the black pocks appear in the privateer's white sails where shot had punctured them, and as he looked, the main topgallant yard cracked and fell on the heads of the men trying to scramble back onboard. He felt almost giddy with the reprieve. Not yet dead, not quite yet.
"Back into the cabin, sir, please, and stay there." Peter