16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
hat from his head, the bullet scoring his skull,
and another, lunging with a long pike,
brought him down.
'The Captain's down,' shrieked Davies. He cut
the pikeman's legs from under him and Bonden
split his head. Davies went on hacking the
body as the Franklins came howling down and
took the Alastors in the flank.
There was an extremely dense and savage
mêlée with barely room to strike – cruel blows
for all that and pistols touching the enemy's
face. The battle surged forward and back,
more joined in, forward and back, turning,
trampling on bodies dead and living, all sense
of direction lost, a slaughter momentarily interrupted
by the crash of the Franklin's carronade,
turned and fired at last, but misfired,
misaimed so that it killed many of those it was
meant to help. The remaining Alastors came
flooding back into their own ship, instantly