Agamemnon had at first approached in apparent haste, but now with both ships almost upon her flanks, she sought to slyly creep towards her prey, wind spilling cleverly from her sails. As each of the enemy ships came abeam, the sheets let go and wind abruptly filled her canvas, speedily bringing her back to life, much like a stalled stallion suddenly heeled in the side. She surged forth, her pace very much a surprise. The cannon upon Agamemnon commenced, a rolling broadside as each barrel lined upon the other. Solitaire was almost caught unaware, the suddenness of Agamemnon’s ability to make way causing havoc with their aim. Hastily the French struggled, desperate to properly time their linstocks to the touch holes, for they had not flintlocks. Finally the French unleashed their iron, all in one cruel moment, a total broadside.

Holt beheld the incoming broadside standing tall upon the quarterdeck. In the first moments he regarded the undeniable sight of smoke instantly puffing from the ships yonder, silently though, for the sound had not yet fully travelled. He was thereafter borne of a singular mind, assuredly a mind to which all familiarity with the outside world now fell lost. It certified within him a suffering never before deemed imaginable. It was a hostility he would soon not forget, such was his boyhood innocence. Noted instantly were a great many astonishing sounds, all racing to rupture the virtue of his lobes, an overall resonance seemingly strange and without a doubt wholly outlandish. Having never been on the receiving end of such a broadside, it openly gave him pause. The whistling tunes aloft seared the sky and oh how they chanced to inflict the gravest of thoughts, the wind of the enemy’s shots whizzing as they trespassed upon the ship. The scene descended upon him most abruptly, the horrendous tearing of sails overhead, the ripping of canvas crying aloud as the weight of spars sought to claw them down. Splinters upon bulwark and gunwale haphazardly flew, mimicking a violent winter’s storm, more furious than even a hundred wood choppers madly serving their axes. All about the planking, indeed immersed within the depths of the structure, Agamemnon shuddered and trembled, the penance of each shot hurried from the ship. The roaring of cannon reverberated within his chest, almost as if he were in fact somehow the barrel itself, the hum of each shot grabbing wickedly at his heart. The deafening turmoil within sought to impose a hideous most disturbed feeling and immediately he felt inclined to be uncontrollably ill, the vile gurgling about his abdomen finally seeping the sanctity of his throat.

Commonly could Holt discern explosions from all parts of the ship, the ensuing chaos distinctly mingled in the distance with the thumping bang of yonder French cannon. Here and there could he hear shots striking the sides, the ricochet of the balls within as they forced their way through the oak, ever refusing to resist. Within the smoke, beneath the hail of iron, it was as if the ship had been levied by a thunderous tempest lighting its fury upon her, randomly strewing the fallen into weeping pools of its bloodied wrath. It was a scene which very much sought to arrest his entire being, the chaste adolescence beholden within him now very much befallen, the eyes of a young soul ever youthful no more. He attended his duty nonetheless, an indescribable confusion surging about the decks as he found himself giving orders as if he was the only body still standing. A jack not thirty feet before him stood attending his gun, only a moment later to instantly disappear with nothing apparent striking him. Another jack stumbling had lost his leg, hopelessly fumbling to tie off the stump with a handkerchief. The hand of god breached the ship and oh how every man prayed as the carnage fell haplessly upon them. Yet in the next moment, within the despair, unexpectedly and seemingly all at once, almost without warning, indeed without the slightest prejudice as it is with all great storms, was Agamemnon engulfed in compelling silence. Shots on both sides had been spent and the race to reload began. Only the cries of the wounded and the sporadic squawking of some ragged gulls served to remind Holt that he was still the first officer aboard a ship of war and not some spirit haplessly wandering the afterlife.