Laroche called in his affected drawl, “I say, Matthew, if I can rouse the two soldiers here, would you care to make a foursome?” He ruffled the cards and added, “Chance to even the score, what?”
“Not now.”
“But it’ll be all-hands before you know it. You know what it’s been like.”
“I said not now. Are you bloody deaf or something?” He did not see the lieutenant’s anger and resentment; all he could think of was the letter which had come with the schooner’s mail. Even the sight of his mother’s spidery writing had twisted his stomach like a sickness.
It should have been so different. Could have been. Indomitable had lain at Plymouth undergoing alterations and re-rigging, ready for a role which had not come about in time for the Mauritius campaign. As first lieutenant he had had every hope and promise for promotion, to commander in all probability, on a temporary footing until he could be advanced to captain. Captain of this powerful vessel, a match for any of the crack American newcomers like Unity and the rest. The money that went with such a command would be further increased with the prizes he would take or share. A real chance to wipe out the mounting debts that hung over him like a spectre.
His mother was desperate. They had threatened her that they would, if necessary, go to the lords of admiralty. But the deeds of the house which her late husband had left her would show an honest attempt at repayment.
The very mention of cards by the unimaginative Laroche had nearly made him vomit.
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at night or pacing the quarterdeck in all weathers, he was dogged by worry and despair.
Indomitable was not to continue as a private ship, as he and others had expected.
When Sir Richard’s flag had broken out at the mainmast truck he had watched his hopes begin to dwindle. It was well known in the fleet that Bolitho often promoted his various flag-lieutenants to command at the end of a commission. For some it had been richly deserved; others, who could say? Scarlett was one of the most senior lieutenants in the squadron, apart from a few of the old hands who had risen from warrant rank and the like.
It was so unfair. But it would not go away. There would be no peace.
Another mess-man faltered by the table. “Beg pardon, sir.” Scarlett turned sharply. “What?”
“I ’eard a cry from the masthead, sir.”
“Well, so did I, damn it!” He stood up and strode out, snatch-ing his hat as he passed. In fact, he had heard nothing.
Captain du Cann of the Royal Marines opened one eye and looked at Laroche. “Coming in for a blow, what?” Laroche was still sulking. “I hate a bad loser!” On deck Scarlett adjusted to the hard glare thrown back from the endless, undulating swell of empty ocean. Like molten glass.
The emptiness was an illusion. Their last estimated position had been only 25 miles south-east of Sandy Hook and New York.
Lieutenant Protheroe, the officer-of-the-watch, studied him warily.
“Lookout reports a small sail to the nor’-east, sir.”
“Who is up there?”
“Crane, sir.”
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scarcely see the lookout, but from his name he got an immediate picture.
A good, reliable hand, not a man to imagine what he saw. He asked shortly, “What sort of vessel?”
“I sent up a glass, sir . . .”
“Not what I asked.”
Protheroe swallowed hard. He had always got on very well with the first lieutenant. Or thought he had.
He replied, “Very small, sir. Topsail schooner, but foreign rig, he thinks Portuguese.”
“Does he indeed.” He took a pace to the rail and stared down at the men working their watch on deck. “As soon as she sights us she’ll be off like a rabbit!”
He saw Isaac York the sailing-master, a bundle of charts beneath one arm and his slate-grey hair ruffling in the breeze, pause with his hand above his eyes while he scanned the horizon for the as yet invisible vessel.
York continued his way to the quarterdeck and said, “I’ll tell the Captain, Matthew.”
Scarlett swung round, his eyes ablaze with sudden anger.
“Don’t you start . . .”
York stood fast. “It’s me, Matthew. Remember?”
“Sorry.” He touched his rough coat. “So sorry!”
“If you want to talk. . . ?”
He nodded blindly. “I know. I am in hell!” To Protheroe he added, “Get aloft, eh? Tell me what you make of her.” To York he said, “Maybe later I’ll be able . . .” But Isaac York had gone below.
York was tall, and had to stoop as he made his way aft towards the marine sentry outside the admiral’s quarters.
What had happened to Scarlett, he wondered. A good first lieutenant, one spoken of for promotion. That was then.
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Ozzard opened the door and squinted around it, York thought, rather like a suspicious housewife examining a pedlar.
It took a minute for York to accustom his eyes to the com-parative gloom of the great cabin, then he made out the comfortable shape of the admiral’s secretary, his small round glasses perched on his moist forehead while he awaited the next instruction. Avery, the flag-lieutenant, was standing beside the desk, his body swaying easily to the ship’s heavy progress, some papers in his brown hands. And their captain, moving restlessly by a gunport, the reflected sunshine lighting his hideous scars one way, losing them in shadow the next. York remembered how his midshipmen had been terrified of Tyacke when he had first come aboard. Few would even catch his eye. Now, in some strange way, all that had changed. The fear remained, but it was greatly tempered with respect, and perhaps a recognition of his courage.
And of course, Sir Richard Bolitho. Shirt loosened, his legs thrust out while he sat framed against the glistening panorama astern.
York smiled. The midshipmen were not the only ones in awe of admiral and captain.
“Be seated, Mr York. I’ll give you the barest details of a despatch I received from Halifax in the schooner Reynard. ” Bolitho forced a smile. “Little news of the war, I am afraid, although the Duke of Wellington continues to advance and press upon Napoleon’s coat-tails.”
York was as shrewd as he was experienced. There was tension here. Anxiety in their various stances; no roles for the actors, he thought.
Bolitho watched him, fighting the despair, the sense of helplessness. He continued, “Word has come from some unknown source that my nephew is recovered from his wound but is to be held captive, isolated like some felon.” He calmed his sudden anger with an effort. “No chance of exchange, nor a just release For My Country's Freedo#261496D 7/10/08 11:14 AM Page 244
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because of his wound . . .” He looked directly at the sailing-master. “I need your advice, Mr York.” Tyacke said hotly, “It’s a trap, sir! That would finish us right enough!”
York waited. It must be bad, for the captain to speak so forcefully to his admiral.
Bolitho showed no sign of irritation. “Delaware Bay, that is where he is imprisoned. A place named Avon Beach.” They all watched while York unrolled one of his charts and flattened it on the table.
“Ah, here it is, Sir Richard.”
Bolitho glanced away to the small lacquered box on his desk.
A letter from Catherine. How he longed to read it, to share his hopes and fears across the leagues of ocean which held them apart.
York nodded. “A good choice, if you’ll pardon my saying so, Sir Richard. Too shallow for anything but small vessels at that point. Plenty of deep water in the bay, of course. Fine anchorage.”
Bolitho watched York’s mind working while the others waited in silence. He turned his eyes back to the small box. Each word in every letter meant so much. There had been a letter for Allday, too. He would be waiting somewhere, ready to spring out on the flag-lieutenant so he could listen to her voice in Avery’s words.
It touched Bolitho deeply that Allday had forced himself to say so little about his new daughter, even though he was bursting with it.
Because of me, and of Kate. He looked at his hands. And because of Adam.
York raised his head. “A landing party, Sir Richard?” His tone hardened. “Or a rescue attempt, is that what you’re proposing?” Bolitho said quietly, “Would they really expect me to risk ships and men because of my heart?” He was feeling the locket through For My Country's Freedo#261496D 7/10/08 11:14 AM Page 245
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his damp shirt, trying to summon her voice. But there was nothing.
Tyacke asked abruptly, “What was the commotion on deck, Mr York?”
“A small sail to the nor’-east, sir. The first lieutenant is given to ignore it.”
Bolitho looked at him. “This place, Avon Beach—do you know it?”
“Of it, sir. Loyalists were imprisoned there. Now I believe it is derelict.”
They watched him, seeing him creating the prison in his mind.
“It will break his heart.”
Tyacke said, “It has happened to many good men, Sir Richard.”
“I know. It is not honour I seek, nor even yet revenge . . .” Tyacke frowned as the sentry called, “First lieutenant, sir!”
“Tell him to wait!” To Bolitho he added, “I had better go to him.” His expression softened. But for the scars he would have been handsome, Bolitho thought, gentle.
“I meant no offence, Sir Richard. I have too much respect for you, and much more that I’d say naught of in company. I do know your feelings. As your flag-captain . . .” He shrugged. “You taught me, remember?”
York said uncertainly, “If you need me, Sir Richard?”
“Thank you, Mr York. We will talk further.” York gathered up his charts and departed.
Bolitho sat with his back against the windows, feeling the warmth through the thick glass, the lift and roll of all of her 1,400
tons. Men, weapons, and perhaps the will to win. What chance had all these against love?
He looked at his flag-lieutenant. His tawny eyes were very clear from the sea’s reflections.
“Well, George? Nothing to say? Your leader taken all aback, and you remain silent?”
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“I see someone who is helpless because he cares so much for others. The ships and men who must rely upon him. People he knows, good and bad—they are in his hands.” Bolitho said nothing, and Avery added, “A general will say,
‘Order the 87th to advance.’ And if they are not enough or are hacked down, he will send in another regiment. He sees no faces, hears no pitiful cries which will never be answered, only flags, pins on a map.”
There was a long silence, and Bolitho could hear Avery’s breathing above the other sounds.
“I know. ”
When he looked up Avery was shocked to see tears in his eyes.
“I had no right, sir.”
“You of all people had every right.”
They heard Tyacke’s voice raised in anger. “You are dismissed, man! Go to your barracks until told otherwise!” Tyacke’s anger seemed to pursue the luckless sentry. “We are all fighting on the same bloody side, I hope! ” Then Scarlett’s voice, hoarse and angry. “Zest has been sighted, sir!”
“What is the matter with you, man? It is near enough to rendezvous. Is that all you had to tell me?” Avery asked, “Shall I go and quieten things, sir?” He stared as Bolitho held up one hand. “Not yet!” Tyacke asked sharply, “What about the lookout and the sighting to the nor’-east?”
“I have set more sail, sir. She will lose us at dusk, so I thought . . .”
Tyacke sounded very calm suddenly, the sharpness of his temper gone like a passing squall. “Heave-to. Signal Zest to close on Flag.”
When he re-entered the great cabin he looked quite impassive.
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“I apologise for my rough tongue, Sir Richard. I’ve long since lost the pretty manners of liners!”
Allday entered silently, his eyes questioning the absence of a sentry by the screen door. “Are you going up, Sir Richard?” Indomitable rolled heavily as the hands ran to the braces and sheets to shorten sail and bring her up to the wind. On deck there were startled faces everywhere, peering at the sea, empty still but for small slivers of sail which appeared to be circling Indomitable like sharks while she continued to head upwind.
Bolitho lurched against a stay as the deck tilted over, his shoe sliding on the wet planking.
He saw Tyacke watching, then turning away again as Allday caught his arm.
He took a telescope from Lieutenant Protheroe. Very carefully he raised it to his right eye, hardly daring to breathe as the brightly painted schooner lurched into the lens.
“Have the side manned, Mr Scarlett!” He tried again, afraid that his voice might betray him. “There is a captain coming aboard, and we shall offer him all honours on this September day!” He could feel Allday’s grasp on his arm, his anxiety.
“What is it, Sir Richard?”
Bolitho looked across the broad quarterdeck where Tyacke was watching his ship respond to canvas and rudder, his coat soaked with flying spray.
Tyacke had guessed. He had known.
Then he handed the telescope to Allday and said quietly, “See, old friend? There is one other coming aboard today.” Philip Beauclerk, the surgeon, wiped his strong bony hands with a wet cloth, and said, “Whoever had cause to attend Captain Bolitho after he was wounded must have been an excellent doctor. I should like to congratulate him, enemy or not.” Bolitho sat beside the cot which had been rigged in his own For My Country's Freedo#261496D 7/10/08 11:14 AM Page 248
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quarters and grasped Adam’s hand. He could scarcely believe it, and yet somehow, like Tyacke, he had known. The one and only chance, and it had been theirs to seize.
Adam opened his eyes and studied him, slowly, feature by feature, perhaps to reassure himself that it was not merely another dream, another lost hope.
“Well, Uncle, you cannot rid yourself of me so easily.” He seemed to realise that his hand was clasped firmly, and whispered,
“It was Allday’s son. He took a terrible risk.”
“So did you, Adam.”
He smiled, gripping harder as the pain returned. “I would have been caged, Uncle. He would have been hanged, like poor George Starr. I shall never forget what he did.” Beauclerk said, “He is still very weak, Sir Richard. His recent exploits have done little to speed his recovery.” Adam shook his head. “Why is it, Uncle, when you are ill, that those who care for you seem to think you are deaf and slightly stupid? They discuss you as if you are only one step from Heaven!” Bolitho touched his bare shoulder. Even that felt stronger, less feverish.
“You are better already, Adam.”
He tried to force the despatches which Reynard had delivered to the back of his mind. The troop convoy had been doubled and would arrive at Halifax within the next two weeks. He had mentioned it to Tyacke while Beauclerk had been examining Adam, and had seen the arguments in Tyacke’s eyes.
The Americans had leaked the information about Adam’s place of captivity to encourage a rescue attempt, to split the Leeward Squadron when it was most needed. The convoy’s size and importance had dwarfed even that.
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it would be impossible for anyone to expect him to have reached Indomitable. One favourable card, then.
Bolitho watched Adam’s eyes begin to droop, felt the grip of his hand slacken.
“If there is anything I can do for you . . .” He saw Adam trying to speak and guessed that the surgeon had given him some drug to ease the shock and strain of his escape. “I never thought you were lost. But I cared very much.” Adam pulled the crumpled glove from his breeches. “Keep this for me, Uncle. It is all I have of hers.” Avery had entered quietly but stood motionless and in silence.
The glove, the rumour of suicide, and the young captain’s despair told most of the story, and he was deeply moved by what he had seen and heard.
Then Adam said softly, “A ship, Uncle. Please find me a ship.” Bolitho gazed at him, the words unlocking another old memory. When he had returned from the Great South Sea half dead from fever, and on his recovery had pleaded for a ship, any ship.
“You should be sent home, Adam. You are not yet recovered.
What must I do to make you . . .”
Beauclerk took Adam’s hand and put it beneath the sheet. “He hears nothing, Sir Richard. It is better this way.” His pale eyes were assessing Bolitho curiously. “He is very strong.” Bolitho stood up, unwilling to return to the squadron’s affairs.
“Call me instantly, if . . .”
Beauclerk gave a small smile. “When, Sir Richard. When. ” Bolitho saw Avery, and said, “A miracle.” To Beauclerk he added, “I meant to tell you, the results of your work in this ship are excellent. I shall see that it goes on your report.”
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for improved surgical techniques in the King’s ships, and I will do my utmost to make my opinions survive beyond the furnace!” Bolitho smiled. “I wish you luck. I am grateful for what you have done in Indomitable. ”
Beauclerk picked up his bag but lingered to rest a hand on Adam’s brow. Then he said quietly, “In Sir Piers Blachford, I had the finest of tutors.”
Bolitho touched his eye. So he had known all the time, but had said nothing. Loyalty seemed to come in all guises, and he was suddenly glad that Beauclerk had shared the secret.
On deck the sky and the sea were like bronze, the breeze barely strong enough to lift the sails into motion.
Tyacke strode to meet him and wasted no time. “We made signal contact with Zest, Sir Richard. She had a skirmish this morning and suffered small damage when she surprised an enemy brig, well inshore at the time.”
Bolitho saw the reckless Captain Dampier’s eager face clearly like a portrait in his mind.
Tyacke was saying, “I did not disturb you. There is nothing we can do until we meet with the courier brig tomorrow.” He hesitated. “I am glad about Captain Bolitho, sir. I have much respect for him.”
“What damage, James?”
Again the hesitation. In a moment he knew why. “Very little.
A spar or two shot away, but the brig was taken as a prize. Unhappily, Captain Dampier was killed outright by a stray ball. He’ll be sorely missed.”
Bolitho paced along the side, deep in thought. Dampier was always one to take risks, to lead his men in person to board an enemy, to walk his deck when all hell was breaking loose around him. A popular captain who had never appreciated that there was always one risk too many.
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Bolitho watched the bronze shine on the deep troughs giving way to deeper shadows.
“I shall write to his parents.” It was better not to know men so well. That well. But how could you not, when to lead you must take and hold their confidence despite the pain, the sense of betrayal when they died?
Tyacke said, “This plan of yours, Sir Richard.”
“You are still against it?”
“I am, sir.” He paused as seamen scampered past to take in the slack of some loose lines.
“Because it might fail? That I might be wrong about the enemy’s intentions?”
Tyacke faced him stubbornly. “Because of you, sir. If the enemy is uncertain of the troop convoy’s time of arrival at Halifax, he might attempt an attack in the Caribbean, where he has more chance of success. Either way he can divide our strength, but at least we will have taken all precautions open to us. And this ruse to draw us against Captain Bolitho’s proposed prison—I am firmly convinced it would be a trap, to seize or destroy more of our vessels.” He took a deep breath. “In every case, every action will point to you.”
“You of all people should not be so surprised, James. But I have little or no choice. The Americans will finish us piecemeal if we keep up this unrewarding hit-and-run strategy. We are here to destroy their ships, and to re-open our safe seaways for supplies, and the military for the conflict in Canada. They might still fight on the Lakes, but that will never decide a war.” They walked a few more paces while the other ships in company seemed to melt into the ocean itself.
Bolitho said, “Victor or scapegoat, James? The price of admiralty.” Then, “Send for Yovell. I shall issue the squadron’s orders by morning.”
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Tyacke watched him stride to the companion-way and tried to feel the depth of the man. His energy, his infectious optimism and his black despair. What had restored him? His nephew’s incredible escape, aided by a man who had once served as his coxswain? Allday’s son. Or was it the letter still unopened in the admiral’s little box, Catherine Somervell’s words and strength from across an ocean?
He saw Allday by the hammock nettings and asked him how he was.
He saw the tired grin in the shadows.
“I feel at odds with meself, Cap’n. I was flung right over when I saw who it was with Cap’n Adam. Like turning the pages.
Friend or father, I’m not sure which. He’s not going back to their lot, though, an’ that’s a blessing.”
Tyacke said, “Did he tell you what happened?” Allday stiffened suspiciously. But why not? Captain Tyacke was no enemy. Also, he needed to talk, if only to sort it out for himself, to make some sense of it.
“He couldn’t get work, not the kind he quit the navy for, sir.
He wanted to fish, or work on the land. Nobody had any use for him.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Even his wife gave up on him and took to another man’s bed. So when he heard about Cap’n Adam he knew what he must do. He’ll hang or worse if they catches him.”
Tyacke said, “Go below. There was a letter from home for you, I believe.”
Allday sighed. “It makes up for all this, sir.” Tyacke watched him melt into the gloom and was suddenly filled with envy.
He stared into the darkness, seeing the last of the horizon.
Then he touched the weathered quarterdeck rail. Aloud he said,
“We’ll fight very soon, my girl. You and me. Never ask the bloody reason, only fight and win!”
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Adam Bolitho lay in the gently swaying cot, listening to the groan and shiver of cordage and rudder, the occasional slap of spray against the quarter windows. The cabin was in darkness but for a solitary lantern, and he knew that his uncle was elsewhere expand-ing upon his instructions to his captains for the courier brig.
It was heavy and close between decks with all hatches and shutters sealed as though against some unseen enemy witness. He was sweating, and the ache in his side felt as if the wound had been re-opened.
It was still hard to accept that he was in Indomitable, that he would not be awakened by the one-legged man from Bristol, or the surly lieutenant of the guard.
They would be hunting for him. A needle in a haystack. He prayed that those who had aided his escape would remain safe and unknown.
He listened to the footsteps on deck and pictured the duty watch, the lieutenant and his midshipmen and master’s mate, the helmsmen watching the dimly glowing compass card, their bare feet braced against the tug of the great rudder. Sounds and sensations so familiar and personal that he was even more aware of his sense of bereavement, of not belonging. He heard the scrape of boots and quick murmurs beyond the screen as the marine sentry was relieved. His world, and yet denied to him since Anemone’s loss.
A door opened, and he thought he heard Ozzard’s sharp voice. Another lantern threw more light around the sleeping-compartment and he saw a small figure with unruly hair and bare feet, treading carefully down the slope of the deck with a tray gripped in his hands like something precious.
Adam forced himself on to his elbow and opened the shutter of his lantern. “I know you, boy, you’re John Whitmarsh. They told me what happened to you.”
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The boy stared at him, almost afraid, shocked perhaps to see his captain lying like any wounded seaman.
“Aye, sir. ’Tis me. Mr Ozzard said for me to come to you. I’ve brought some wine. He said it belonged to some lady, though I didn’t understand what he meant, sir.” Adam reached out and took his arm. There was nothing of him. “Volunteered” by some relative who found his upkeep and care too inconvenient.
“You survived when so many fell, John Whitmarsh.” He tried to smile. “Or surrendered!”
“I tried, sir.” He did not explain. “Be you goin’ to be all right, sir?”
Adam nodded. “When I get a ship. I’ll be brave enough then.” He realised that the boy was staring at him, his eyes filling his face. The realisation came starkly to him. The boy had nothing. Even his best friend had been lost.
He asked, “Will you come as my servant, John, when I get another ship? Will you do that?”
The boy nodded and began to sob quietly. “I’d be that proud, sir!”
“Can you read?”
“No, sir. But I could learn!”
Adam smiled. “I shall teach you. Who knows, you may wear the King’s coat one day; then I shall be proud of you, eh?”
“I dunno what to say, sir!”
Adam sipped the wine. Lady Catherine’s. Ozzard would understand. This poor, twelve-year-old youth probably imagined that he was offering him some kind of lifeline. He would never believe that it was the other way round.
The excitement, the emotion, and now the wine were making him drowsy again.
He said, “On days when we are sad, young John, we can restore ourselves by remembering our old ship, and our lost friends.” His For My Country's Freedo#261496D 7/10/08 11:14 AM Page 255
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eyes hardened in the flickering lights. “Our enemies, too, if it pleases you.”
The boy watched until he was asleep and then curled up near by. Without fear, without need. He was somebody.
16 the S trength of a ship
BOLITHO walked up to the stern windows of the great cabin and watched the spray soaking the thick glass, hardening like ice rime in the south-westerly wind.
Captain James Tyacke watched him, noting each mood while half his mind clung to the sounds of wind and rigging. His responsibility to his ship.
“You still think I am wrong, James?”
“I’m more worried by the weather, sir. York claims it will remain the same for a few days yet, but I’m not so sure. If the Halifax-bound convoy is caught by wind and heavy seas it could be scattered, and that means they would be without whatever escorts their lordships have seen fit to provide.” He did not hide the contempt in his voice. “All those men, and horses and guns too. It would be slaughter.”
Bolitho walked to the chart on his table. It was noon, but gloomy enough for sunset.
He tried to picture his extended line of ships, with Captain Dawes’ big Valkyrie in command, spread along the 45th parallel while the rest of their patrol areas were left undefended. Beer’s Unity was at Boston, and the Baltimore, another of the new American frigates, had been in Delaware Bay. Waiting for any rescue attempt? It seemed unlikely, although Zest’s first lieutenant had reported sighting such a vessel when they had crossed swords with the smart little brig. Every captain would act as he thought For My Country's Freedo#261496D 7/10/08 11:14 AM Page 256
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fit if challenged, without hope of assistance and support.
Bolitho touched his eye. He had to be right. The convoy of soldiers, now said to be doubled in size, was a prize no commander could ignore.
But if I am wrong . . .
The door opened and Adam entered the cabin. Three days since Allday’s son had guided him to safety, and what a difference, except in his eyes. There was tension there, and strain around his mouth which Bolitho had not seen before Anemone’s loss.
There was eagerness too, in marked contrast. Almost the midshipman again, or was it only wishful thinking?
“Well, Adam, you look the part at least!” Adam glanced down at his various items of uniform clothing, which had been donated by Indomitable’s officers and midshipmen.
Tyacke asked, “Did the first lieutenant have something to offer?”
Bolitho glanced at him. The sharpness in the question was very evident.
Adam said easily, “I expect he forgot. All first lieutenants have much to do on the eve of great matters!” He tried to grin, but it did not relieve the intensity in his eyes.
Bolitho asked, “You are so certain of that?” Impulsively he put his hands on Adam’s shoulders. “I have your commission for you. You will assume command of Zest immediately, in case the weather goes against us. But no risks, Adam—you are far from well as yet. Hold the people together and try to keep Anemone a kind memory, one that will not incite you to avenge her beyond what you know to be any chance of victory. You are my best frigate captain, so take heed.” He squeezed his shoulders, and thought of the letter he had sent away in the schooner Reynard.
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went through. But he is the best I have, and he needs the command, as I once did.
Tyacke glanced at the salt stains on the leaning windows. He was eager to get it over with. In his heart he knew they all were.
Like the last goodbyes; never the proper words when they were most needed.
He said, “Captain Dampier was a good leader, if a trifle reckless for my taste. But because he is dead he will suddenly become a martyr when anyone speaks of him.” He smiled briefly, as if touched by some memory. “His company may close ranks, regard you as an intruder, yes?”
Adam nodded, very conscious of the power of this tall figure with the ruined face. “I understand you.”
“Oh yes, they will curse their new captain and damn his eyes to the full, swear to God he can never hold a slow-match to their old one! But you are the captain. Allow nobody to forget it.” He held out his hand. “And you’re taking the boy Whitmarsh with you?” He knew one of the reasons was because the boy had been the last one alive to leave Anemone.
But all Adam said was, “He deserves it.” A midshipman, his jacket black with spray, peered in at them.
“First lieutenant’s respects, sir! Boat’s ready alongside!” He fled.
Bolitho said, “There is one thing more.” He walked to the bulkhead and took down the old family sword. “Take this. It will be yours by right one day.”
Adam refused it gently, putting it back into his hands. “We’ll not speak of that, Uncle. I shall find another when the need arises.” They walked out into the passageway between the lines of officers’ cabins, hutches which could be ripped down in minutes when the hands dashed to quarters and the drums stopped every man’s heartbeat. Figures moved out like shadows: Allday with a handclasp, Yovell, even Ozzard, who rarely showed any emotion For My Country's Freedo#261496D 7/10/08 11:14 AM Page 258
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at all. And John Bankart, Allday’s illegitimate son, unknown for so many years.
Perhaps Adam was thinking of his own upbringing, fatherless as he had then believed, his mother selling herself to feed and educate him.
Bolitho watched as Adam shook Bankart’s hand. Never a youth, but now a man of thirty or so.
He heard Adam say, “Leave the sea, John. It is not for you and never was. I’ll never forget what you did for me, nor will your father.” He smiled with genuine warmth. “Give him time. He is all aback because of you!”
The calls trilled and he was down the side, nimbly, and sure-footed despite his wound.
Bolitho shaded his eyes to stare over at Zest, showing her copper as she pitched violently in a quarter sea.
Her company were in for a surprise. It would do them good.
He watched Adam turn just once to wave from the sternsheets, his borrowed hat pressed between his knees. It would do Adam good as well.
Tyacke had already put the event from his immediate thoughts.
“I shall exercise the guns when the hands have eaten, Sir Richard.
This is no time for slackness.”
Bolitho left him and went aft to his cabin. There he took out his unfinished letter and wondered when they would meet with the Reynard again, or some other courier who would take it on board.
He sat with the pages spread out on the table and laid her last letter beside them. She had written of the changing colours of Cornwall, of Falmouth. The coming of autumn, and the mists over Pendennis Point.
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before about Val Keen. He was grieved by his loss. Bolitho had imagined that he had felt her hesitate as she had written it. But he will get over it, I am certain, and he shall find another.
There are those who have no such escape . . .
He looked up, annoyed at the interruption, but it was Allday.
Allday said, “I thought I’d stop them disturbing you, Sir Richard. Reaper has just sighted a sail to the east’rd. A brig.”
“One of ours then, old friend.” His eyes moved to the letter.
No, he would finish it afterwards. Why should that word hold such threat?
Allday said gruffly, “It’s strange to have your own kin aboard.
Better he were a stranger—I’d not feel so ill at ease!” His eyes crinkled. “Still, he was fair tickled when he heard about the baby.” Bolitho smiled. Kate. He hoped it had not saddened his own Kate.
Two hours later, Indomitable was near enough to the newcomer to identify her as the brig Weazel of fourteen guns.
She had been ordered to patrol as close as was prudent to the southern approaches of Nantucket Sound. As laid down in his original instructions, her commander, a red-faced Devonian named John Mates, had left the sector to find either his admiral in person or one of the chain of vessels that made up this very mixed squadron.
Tyacke brought the news to Bolitho in his cabin.
“From Weazel, sir. The U.S.S. Unity has put to sea. She slipped out three nights ago.” He spread his strong hands. “Gone, just like that.” He saw Bolitho’s mind working busily on the information, or the lack of it. He added, “I’ve repeated the signal to Reaper . . .” his blue eyes did not even blink, “. . . and Zest. ” Bolitho leaned over his chart again. Not yet. Not yet. Two days more. How could they know, be certain of anything? This was not warfare as it was expected to be fought. But then, those who made the rules of battle had too often never seen one. This was For My Country's Freedo#261496D 7/10/08 11:14 AM Page 260
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personal, cold-bloodedly personal. Either Beer must be destroyed, or he must kill me. Nothing else would make the vital difference.
Tyacke said quite suddenly, “I shall give you all I have, sir.” Bolitho said, looking up at him, “Then we shall succeed.” He glanced at the unfinished letter again. Dearest Kate. Our love is greater even than duty. Once he might have challenged such a sentiment, but that was in the past.
Tyacke had gone. He was like the strength of Indomitable herself, her great keel, her shining batteries of guns: strong enough to control landmen and seasoned sailors like the ship’s rigging itself. He smiled. As an old hand who had once trained him had explained every mile of cordage.
“Equal strain on all parts, my young gennleman! That’s the strength of it!” It certainly described Tyacke better than he knew himself.
On the weather side of the quarterdeck George Avery gripped a stay and watched the majesty of the ocean stretching away on either beam. It was hard to accept, until somebody like York showed you the chart and the pages of calculations, tides, depths and currents, that there was any danger. Land of any kind was beyond the sight of even the most keen-eyed lookout. Only the misty topsails of their two consorts, like linked hands, were visible on the horizons.
He thought of the letters he had read and written for Allday.
Vignettes of rural England, small personal comments which he could not fathom, but he could see the true pleasure they gave in the coxswain’s eyes. Bolitho had mentioned Rear-Admiral Keen again when he had received a letter from Lady Catherine. He gave it all a great deal of consideration, intrigued also by the glove, obviously cherished, which was all of his personal possessions that Adam Bolitho had been able to save in his captivity.
What was honour when it came to love, no matter how secret the love?
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“Is this all you have to do with yourself?” It was Scarlett, swaying back and forth on his heels as the Indomitable thrust through every roller with disdain.
Avery answered calmly, “I am busy enough. I do not wish to argue, nor do I wish to be insulted.” He might as well have stayed silent. “Oh no, not for you, eh!
No hard struggle to gain advancement like the rest of us! Privilege, who-you-know, that is your navy, sir, but it is not mine!”
“Hold your noise, damn you! The watchkeepers will hear!”
“And that would never do, would it? Because he is a Bolitho he gets a new command, instantly, and I bloody well suggest it will be your turn next!”
“I’ll hear no more.” He turned to go but Scarlett’s fingers gripped his forearm like claws.
Avery said very quietly, “Remove your hand, Mister Scarlett, or . . .”
“Or what?”
“Do not try to provoke me, sir. You can have all the commands on the ocean for all I care. But I tell you this—” he saw Scarlett flinch under his tawny stare, “I do not believe you’re fit to command anything!”
A midshipman called, “Captain’s coming, sir!” But he dropped his eyes as Scarlett glared past him.
“Hold your noise, Mr Essex, or I’ll have you mastheaded, all night if need be!”
He turned back to Avery. When he pondered over it later in his hutch, Avery thought it was like seeing an entirely different person. Scarlett merely said, “You mustn’t be so hasty, man! So quick to burn a fuse, eh?” He even smiled. Like a stranger, and yet they had shared the same mess since Plymouth.
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the man apart. Drink, women, or money? It was usually one of the three. But a madman on the quarterdeck of a King’s ship . . .
who would carry the blame?
He imagined Bolitho below his feet in the cabin, reading his letters or the leather-bound Shakespeare sonnets which she had given him. The man they all depended on, and yet he was still called to depend upon them. Us.
Lieutenant Laroche had the afternoon watch, and was regarding Scarlett very warily as he strode away from the captain.
“Ah, Jeremy, you have the watch. We shall exercise the weather battery this afternoon. But later, in the dogs maybe, do you fancy a game? Good, good—can’t bear people who sulk. Bad losers usually!”
Avery saw Laroche staring after him, a look of utter astonishment on his piggy face.
Avery walked to the companion-way. So that was it.
Yovell laid another paper on the table and waited for Bolitho to sign it.
Bolitho said, “That will have to do. I expect you have done more than enough quill-pushing as well, on my behalf.” Yovell was peering at him over the top of his gold spectacles.
“You should eat something, Sir Richard. It is not good to fast in the face of danger.”
Bolitho looked up from the table, the ship noises and stresses intruding as his mind cleared. The thrumming of taut stays and shrouds; the creak of the steering-gear beneath the counter; the thousand and one unknown murmurs of a ship at sea. York had been right about the weather: the wind was still strong and gusty, but held steady from the south-west. He tried to see it in his mind’s eye: the endless land-mass to the north-west, Cape Cod, then eventually on to Halifax, Nova Scotia.
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Yovell had sensed his tension. It was hardly surprising; they had been together a long time.
“It may come to nothing.” Bolitho turned his head to listen as his ear caught the brief sound of a fiddle. The watch below were resting, their last meal of the day cleared away. Did they feel the closeness of danger? Or did nobody care what they thought and felt?
The door opened and Avery stepped into the cabin. “Sir Richard?”
“I thought you might take a glass with me.” Avery glanced at Yovell, who shook his head.
“You should eat, Sir Richard.”
Bolitho contained his anger. “What about you, George? Have you eaten?”
Avery sat down and watched as Ozzard padded past to fetch the cognac. Bolitho was restless, ill at ease. He replied, “When I was a prisoner of war I found I could eat everything and anything, sir. A habit that came in very useful.” Bolitho watched him fondly. Of course, that was why Avery had understood so completely his anguish over Adam. The mis-ery of detention, after the freedom of the sea.
He held up the glass. “To us, and whenever we are called to prove ourselves.”
He knew Yovell was about to leave, but was lingering by the screen door; just as he knew that anything said here would remain here.
“I think it will be sooner rather than later.” The door closed silently. Yovell would take his Bible to his little office, where he slept and preserved his privacy. A difficult thing to achieve in a ship in the company of 270 other souls, from admiral to powder-monkey.
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head straight for the convoy? On the other hand far, far astern, the gate to the Caribbean lay wide open and unguarded. Which might tempt him the most? He sipped the cognac and tried not to think of Catherine alone in the old grey house.
Avery said quietly, “I think that Commodore Beer is much like his opponent, Sir Richard.”
“Me? How can that be? I have never met him!” Avery warmed to his theme. “It’s you he wants. I believe he held Unity back because he sincerely believed that you intended a rescue attempt. I also believe that Zest was chased by another big frigate. The Baltimore was mentioned, I believe.” He realised with a start that Bolitho was on his feet, moving cat-like about the swaying cabin as he had seen him do so often.
Bolitho said, “Then we shall fight.” He looked at Avery, searching his face as if to discover someone else. “You see, George, this will not be like other sea-fights. We have been fighting the French and their allies on and off for twenty years and even before that, out here in these same waters. The English sailor’s cheerful contempt for foreigners, the Frogs, the Dons and the Meinheers, has sustained him when all else seemed overwhelmingly against him. This is different, as it was after the American Revolution.
It is one thing to stand in the line of battle, fighting it out until the enemy’s flag comes down. When I was out here at that time, I was young, full of ideals of what I thought the navy should be.
I soon learned at close quarters just how different such a conflict can be.” He touched his arm, and Avery knew he had done so without noticing it.
“How so, Sir Richard?”
Bolitho turned on him, his eyes cold, clear grey like the sea at Pendennis.
“Sword in hand, cutting and thrusting all about you, breath gone, your heart filling your mouth, and then you hear them . . .” Avery waited, a chill on his back, holding him silent.
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“The voices, George, they are what you remember. Voices from the Shires, the West Country and the Dales, fishermen and ploughmen, farm-workers and weavers. You hear your own voices on every side. When we meet the Americans this time it will be the same. They will be fighting for the freedom they wrested from us once before, the freedom of their new country, and they will regard us as the aggressors yet again!” Avery said, “Our people will not let you down, sir. I have watched them, heard them. They speak of home, but they seek no other land.” He thought of Allday’s letter from that tiny inn at Fallowfield, the contentment and the love which even distance could not break. Men like Allday would not change.
Bolitho clapped his hand on his shoulder. “We shall have another drink. Then you can tell me what is troubling you. ”
“It is nothing, sir. Nothing at all.” Bolitho smiled. “Methinks he doth protest too much!” He sat down again. “Scarlett, the first lieutenant, is it not?” Before he could answer, Bolitho said, “I have watched you too, you know.
Ever since the day my Catherine took you to her heart, when you thought I would send you packing. You are loyal, but sensi-tive, as you showed just now when you mentioned your time as a prisoner-of-war. The unfair court martial that followed your release has also given you sympathy for others in that position, some of whom deserve nothing but harsh treatment if the people have been placed in jeopardy because of their misjudgement.” He was on his feet again, head turned as a spectre of foam clawed up the quarter windows as if to seize the whole ship. “If a captain stands his ship into unnecessary danger he can expect to face a court martial or worse.” He tried to smile. “And myself? I would probably end up being shot dead on the quarterdeck by Captain du Cann’s Royal Marines, like poor Admiral Byng. Half a century ago, perhaps, but still the same navy.” He handed Avery a goblet. “His vice is gambling, is it not?” For My Country's Freedo#261496D 7/10/08 11:14 AM Page 266
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Avery stared at the goblet, overwhelmed by the force of these revelations and his glimpse of Bolitho’s true emotion. He dared not think of it as uncertainty.
Bolitho said quietly, “You forget, George. Like you I have good cause to remember some of my so-called friends, who were quick to remind me of my brother’s gambling debts and the price he eventually paid for his folly.”
“I am sorry, sir.”
“I expect Captain Tyacke suspects it; if so, I could feel pity for Scarlett. But he is one of the few experienced lieutenants on board. He has felt the enemy’s breath in his face, blade-to-blade, him or me: the only code of battle.” Avery got to his feet. “Thank you, Sir Richard. For sharing your thoughts and for finding time for my own problems. I promise . . .” Then he shook his head and gave a rueful smile. “I am sorry. I must not say that. When I first presented myself to you and Lady Catherine at Falmouth you warned me then. You said, ‘Promise nothing! It is wiser in the long run.’” Bolitho said, “Send Allday to me.”
“A ‘wet,’ sir?”
They grinned like conspirators. The door closed and Bolitho returned to the salt-caked windows.
My little crew. It needed to be stronger than ever now.
Captain James Tyacke walked to the quarterdeck rail and took several deep breaths. Beyond Indomitable’s powerful shadow he could see the boiling ridges on every long roller, feel the jubilant chorus of wind through canvas and rigging, a ship responding to chart and rudder. Figures took shape around him as his eyes became used to the unbroken darkness. John Daubeny, the second lieutenant and officer of the first watch, hovered nearby, unsure whether to speak or remain silent.
“Well, Mr Daubeny? I am not a mind-reader!”
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Tyacke glanced up at the pale squares of canvas, spread like huge wings but barely visible through the spindrift and drifting spray.
The reduced sail plan would suffice until daylight while they sought out their two consorts. And then what? He still thought it unlikely that the enemy would have been expecting Bolitho to fall bait to the tale of Captain Adam’s place of captivity. Commodore Beer was an old dog, with more experience than most, and a hard head to protect him against foolhardy schemes.
Daubeny ventured carefully, “Do you think we shall fight, sir?” Tyacke smiled grimly. “As I said, I am no mind-reader. But we shall stand prepared and ready, what say you?” He guessed that the lieutenant was squinting his eyes as he always did when asked a direct question.
“I think we are prepared, sir.” He hesitated. “Thanks to you.” Tyacke frowned. But it was not idle flattery, which he might have expected from Lieutenant Laroche.
He replied, “I had a lot to learn too. This is a vast change from commanding a brig, with nobody to crowd you and no admiral’s flag to fill you with terror!” The lieutenant laughed. He could never imagine his formidable captain being frightened. Except perhaps when he had found himself on the orlop deck after the Nile, and had seen his own face.
He said, “I wrote my last letter to my father, sir, and told him of our pride at being Sir Richard’s flagship . . .” He flinched as Tyacke seized his arm.
Tyacke said harshly, “Never speak of a last letter to anybody, do you hear me? For it may well be your last, if you dwell on it too much!”
Daubeny swallowed hard. “Then I shall pray, sir.”
“Aye, do that, although I have more faith in a good surgeon than a prayer book!”
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He turned sharply. “Who is that?” He saw the senior midshipman, Blythe, climbing up from the boat tier where he had been inspecting the lashings.
“Sir?”
“I was going to tell you, Mr Blythe . . .” He hesitated, wondering why he disliked the signals midshipman in spite of the outstanding reports of him from other officers. A confidence as big as his head. Well, never mind. He said, “I have put you in my despatches, to confirm that I am making you acting-lieutenant until your examination.”
Blythe stared at his shadow. “Thank you very much, sir! That will help considerably!” Even he could hide neither his pleasure nor his surprise. Tyacke rarely spoke with his “young gentlemen,” content to leave it to officers who really knew them.
“I have a question, Mr Blythe.”
The figures standing around them were suddenly quite still, and trying not to appear as if they were eagerly listening. Deane, the other midshipman of the first watch, was paying particular attention in case he was asked the same question when his time came. Navigation or seamanship, gun-drill or boat-work. It would be well to be prepared.
Blythe was standing very upright. Tyacke could almost hear his brain working.
He asked, “What is the strength of a ship, Mr Blythe? Can you tell me that?”
Blythe was at a loss for words. “The keel and main timbers, sir?” Tyacke said curtly, “I’m taking this midshipman with me, Mr Daubeny. I trust you can manage?”
They walked along the weather gangway, dark shapes jump-ing aside as they passed. Tyacke climbed down the forward ladder, pausing to study the empty hammock nettings. If Sir Richard was right, there would be blood on the packed nettings very soon.
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resignation? No. It was more of an awareness, the tasks of responsibility. Fate might already have decided.
He said, “Do you go down to the messdecks, Mr Blythe?” The youth stared at him. “Sometimes for drills, sir. The bosun’s mates can deal with the other matters.”
“Can they indeed? Well, follow me.”
Down another wide ladder, which would be replaced by a less vulnerable rope one if they were called to action. When Indomitable had been a two-decker before her conversion, many of the messes had been crammed between the guns on either side. Now they had more space, at least.
There was sudden silence as Tyacke’s white breeches appeared on the ladder, and an old seaman bellowed, “Attention for the Cap’n!” His eyes were popping as if he could scarcely believe it.
Tyacke tucked his hat beneath his arm and snapped to the midshipman, “Remove your hat, man! You are not called to duty here. And this is their home, always remember that!” Blythe watched almost humbly as Tyacke waved the seamen to reseat themselves on the long benches beside the scrubbed deal tables. The smell of cooking still filled the long messdeck, and Tyacke paused to examine a fine model of a fifth-rate which was being completed, critically watched by the man’s messmates.
One said cheekily, “’Tis the only ship Jake ’ere’ll ever command, sir!”
Tyacke listened to them laugh, felt their unexpected comradeship, their simple pleasure at what would otherwise be regarded as an intrusion.
He picked out the various faces, knowing the parts of ship where they worked, saw the ditty-boxes in which they kept their small treasures, a few portraits, perhaps, needles and thread, whalebone and canvas for repairs to their seagoing clothing.
He said to Blythe, “Remember. This is home. All they have is here.”
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“We goin’ to trounce them Frenchies, sir?” The man fell silent as Tyacke’s eyes found him. Frenchies. Many of these same men had no idea of where they were, or where bound. Weather, food, security. There were very different values on the messdecks. The smells of packed humanity, bilge and tar, hemp and paint.
He answered, “We fight the King’s enemies, lads. But mostly we keep just the one hand for His Majesty, and the other for ourselves.” He looked around at their intent faces. “For each other.” Some stared at the hideous scars, others watched only his eyes.
There was laughter, some at the other mess-tables craning to hear or ask what he had said.
A voice called, “Would you care for a tot, sir?”
“Aye, I’ll have one.” It was as if somebody else had spoken as he added, “Must keep a clear head for tomorrow.” They watched in utter silence as he drained a tumbler of neat rum. He nodded, catching his breath. “Nelson’s blood, lads!” Then he straightened as much as was possible, no less impressive a figure stooped between the low deckhead beams.
“God bless you, lads.”
They cheered, the din filling the cramped place until Tyacke said, “Carry on, Mr Blythe!”
Through the Royal Marines’ messes, the barracks as they insisted on calling them. Neatly piled drums and pipeclayed belts, stands of Brown Bess muskets and their bayonets, scarlet coats and delighted grins, even a handshake or two from the NCOs.
Tyacke felt the sea air on his face and was thankful it was over.
He knew who had taught him the importance and pain of such close intimacy with men you could promote, flog or hang, even in the jaws of death.
A familiar figure lounged against one of the black twenty-four-pounders. Troughton, the one-legged cook who had shared his own horror at the Nile.
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“You got ’em, Cap’n! The Old Indom’s in the palm of your hand, that she is!”
He was called away and Tyacke was glad. The young, fresh-faced seaman who had been blasted down when the world had exploded around them probably knew better than any, and would see through his disguise if only from memory.
He turned instead to Midshipman Blythe, who was watching him with a mixture of awe and fear.
“Men, Mr Blythe. Ordinary, everyday men—you’d never notice any one of them in a street or working in the fields in England, right?”
Blythe nodded but remained silent.
Tyacke continued relentlessly, “But they are your answer. They are the strength of a ship. So let them not die to no good purpose.”
He watched the midshipman’s shadow melt into the darkness.
He might have learned something from it, until the next time.
He thought of the man whose flag flew at the masthead and smiled, embarrassed because of what he had just done.
He touched the tarred rigging and murmured to himself, “So let’s be about it, then!”
17 and for W hat?
RICHARD BOLITHO peered into the small looking-glass and felt the smoothness of his skin after Allday’s careful, unhurried shave.
The ship was in total darkness, and with so much low cloud the first light would be late in coming. And yet the ship felt alive.
Men moving about, the smell of breakfast still hanging greasily on the damp air.
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Suppose I am wrong? He was surprised to see the face in the glass smile back at him. So many times, different ships, other seas and oceans. He knew that he was not wrong. It was not merely the calculations on York’s charts, the estimated time of arrival of the convoy at Halifax; it went deeper, so much so. Like the minds of men dedicated to survival but condemned to danger, even death. So many times.
Allday knew it too, but had said very little on this chill morning on the great Western Ocean.
Bolitho had touched only briefly on the matter of his son, Bankart.
Allday had hesitated, the keen razor poised in the air. “I want to feel him as my son, Sir Richard. But something stands between us. We’re strangers, as we were when I first met him.” Bolitho touched the locket beneath his shirt. A clean, frilled shirt, one of Ozzard’s best. Why was it necessary to do this? Allday had told him that his son had confided that the largest American men-of-war had the pick of the navy’s sharpshooters, former backwoodsmen who lived or died by the success of their marksmanship. It was madness, surely, to present an admiral’s hat and epaulettes as a ready target, or even a captain’s. He had said as much to Tyacke, whose answer had been uncompromising and blunt, like the man.
“I’m proud of this ship, Sir Richard. She’s mine, and I know her better than I ever believed possible. And I want our people to see me—know I’m with them, even at the worst of times.” He had given one of his attractive smiles. “I seem to have learned that, too, from somebody not so far away!” Bolitho rubbed his eye and winced. But if I have miscalculated, then Beer will have joined his other ships to attack the convoy. Even Valkyrie and her smaller consorts could not withstand such an onslaught.
Ozzard came out of the shadows carrying the heavy dress coat.
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Bolitho said, “If we are called to battle, you will go below.”
“Thank you, Sir Richard.” He hesitated. “I’ll be ready when you need me.”
Bolitho smiled. Poor Ozzard. He always took refuge below the waterline whenever battle was joined, as he had in the old Hyperion when she had begun to founder. Allday had even hinted that it had been his intention to remain there and go down with the old ship, as so many had done that day. How Hyperion Cleared the Way: the ballad was still ever-popular in sailors’ taverns and ale-houses.
Too many ghosts, he thought, ships and men, men and ships.
Too many lost, too many lives . . .
There was a tap at the door and Tyacke made his way aft, his single epaulette glinting in the spiralling lantern-light.
“The wind’s backed a piece, Sir Richard, more like sou’-west by south. Steady enough, though.” He glanced at the deckhead as if he could see the yards and reefed sails. “She’ll fly when we give her the chance!”
Bolitho tried to clear his mind. “When we are able, James, signal the frigates to close on us. Woodpecker will remain well up to wind’rd.” A lone witness if things went badly wrong.
Tyacke said, “I was wondering if we should signal Zest to change stations with Reaper, sir. A captain with a new ship, a ship with a new captain.” He shrugged. “I’d suggest that Reaper would be better placed closer to the enemy.” So even Tyacke was coming round. He said, “That is what I intend, James. If I am right . . .”
Tyacke exclaimed, “You mean that Commodore Beer has anticipated this move, and has outsailed us during the night?” Bolitho felt the locket again, warm against his skin. “Wouldn’t you? Take the wind-gage if you had the chance? And if we run, we will eventually be caught on a lee shore, yes?” Tyacke said shortly, “Sometimes you have me in irons, For My Country's Freedo#261496D 7/10/08 11:14 AM Page 274
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Sir Richard. But run? Never, while I draw breath!” He listened to the feet overhead. Recognising every sound, knowing the qualities and the reliability of each man there.
“That was a fine thing you did, James. ‘The strength of a ship.’
It is a pity such moments never reach the pages of the Gazette. ”
“Well, I’m damned if I know how you know, but it gave him something more important than himself to think about.” Allday entered quietly. “Horizon’s losing its cloak, Sir Richard.” He glanced at the sword-rack. “Can’t see nothing yet.” Tyacke smiled and left the cabin, saying over his shoulder,
“That son of yours might still change his mind and sign on with us, Allday!”
Allday watched the door close. “It’s no joke, Sir Richard.” Bolitho touched his arm. “I know.” It was no time to be thinking of such things. A man could die in a moment of distraction.
He said, “How do you feel, old friend?” Allday seemed surprised by the question, then a lazy grin spread over his face and he said, “We’ve seen it all afore, Sir Richard.” He shrugged. “Today or never . . .” Bolitho nodded. There was a smell of rum in the cabin and again he was moved by Allday’s unbreakable faith and loyalty.
“Have another wet, old friend.” He glanced around the spacious cabin. A place to think, to remember and to hide. In his bones, like Allday, he knew it was almost time.
He went out through the screen door and saw a squad of marines having their weapons checked by Sergeant Chaddock.
They did not look up or see him as he passed, so intent were they on their inspection.
It made him feel invisible. Like one of the many ghosts this old ship must have in plenty.
He stooped to peer through an open gunport, the twenty-four-pounder like ice under his fingers. Not for much longer.
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Very dark, with only a few pale crests breaking away from the lower hull. Just a slight brush-stroke. The eastern horizon.
Oh dear Kate, think of me, of us!
Spray touched his skin, like an awakening, and he thought he heard her voice above the sounds of sea and ship.
Don’t leave me!
He rested his forehead on the weapon’s black breech and whispered, “Never!”
Captain James Tyacke paused outside Isaac York’s chartroom and glanced in at the sailing-master, who was crowded against his table with his three mates.
York smiled, his sharp eye taking in the dress coat and gleaming epaulette.
“You’re about early this day, sir.”
Tyacke glanced over a master’s mate’s shoulder at the open log, and the date on the first page in York’s strong handwriting. September 12th 1812, with the time and date of today’s estimated position at the head of the column. Their eyes met. York had no doubts, either.
Tyacke nodded at the master’s mates. “Watch well today, gentlemen. You will learn something of your enemy.” Then he left the small space and walked towards the open deck. Silver, shark-blue, and lingering banks of shadow. Sea and sky. He could feel Scarlett walking closely behind him, could sense his uneasiness. But not fear, that was something at least.
He turned abruptly and said, “What is wrong, man? I told you when we met, I command Sir Richard’s flagship, but I am still your captain. Speak out. I nurse the notion that we will be too busy presently!”
Scarlett licked his lips, his eyes so listless that he seemed dis-interested, in spite of what the day might bring.
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Tyacke was growing impatient. “In truth I can’t help you if you remain dumb, sir. What is it, a woman? Have you fathered a child?”
Scarlett shook his head. “I wish it were that simple, sir.”
“Money, then?” He saw the bolt strike home. “Cards?” Scarlett nodded. “I am in debt, sir, serious debt!” Tyacke regarded him without pity. “Then you are a fool. But we shall speak later. I may be able to help you.” His tone hardened. “Give of your best today. I am relying on it. Indomitable will make this her day! ”
He strode aft and stared up at the reefed topgallants and courses, the admiral’s flag and masthead pendant whipping out in the wind with the racing grey clouds beyond them.
He could hear the scrape of grindstones as Duff, the gunner, put his men to work sharpening cutlasses and boarding-axes. It could not have been very different before Crécy and Agincourt, he thought. He saw acting-lieutenant Blythe in earnest conversation with Protheroe, the fourth lieutenant. He still wore his midshipman’s white patches, but in a King’s ship the word would have travelled like wildfire. Blythe’s one of them now! Tyacke smiled grimly. Or soon would be, if he was prepared to listen for a change.
Allday passed him by, resting a cutlass on his hand to find the right balance. Some of the hands spoke to him but he did not seem to hear.
At the foot of the quarterdeck ladder Allday gripped the handrail while Indomitable buried her stem in a long Atlantic roller, hurling spray heavily over the figurehead, the prancing lion with bared claws.
“What are you doing here?”
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you were useless as a topman! Not so many ropes to play with down aft!” He was troubled, all the same. The quarterdeck in any ship was a target for marksmen and swivels; it always had been.
The chain of command began and ended here. Many of the Royal Marines served in the after-guard too, their boots and equipment making them useless for work aloft.
Allday folded his arms. “We may be fighting some of your lot afore long, my lad, so be warned.”
Bankart regarded him sadly. “I wanted to live in peace, that was all. Cap’n Adam was the first to understand. Why can’t you?
There always has to be a flag, or one side or t’other. I hoped to find peace in America.”
Allday said gruffly, “When we gets home, my son, just remember what it’s cost some of us. My wife Unis has already had one man killed aboard the old Hyperion, and her brother John lost a leg in the line with the 31st Huntingdonshires. You’ll find plenty of good men who’ve been maimed in Falmouth where Sir Richard’s found work for them.”
“And what of you—” He hesitated. “Father?”
“I’ve more’n any man could hope for. Unis, and now my little Kate. They’ll both be waiting for me. Now there’s you. John,” his eyes crinkled. “Three Johns all told, eh?” Bankart smiled, strangely proud of this big man who, for once, was at a loss for words.
They both gazed up at the ragged clouds as the masthead lookout called, “Reaper in sight to the sou’-east, sir!” The frigate must be right in the spreading cloak of silver. The first sighting of the day.
Allday saw Tyacke with Daubeny, the officer-of-the-watch, conferring together, looking along the upper deck and gangways as more light spilled over the sea’s edge like water over a dam.
He heard Daubeny call, “Aloft with you, Mr Blisset, and take a glass, you idiot!”
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The bright-eyed midshipman swarmed up the ratlines like a monkey and Allday murmured, “Cheeky little bugger, that one!
Asked me what the navy was like in my day! ” They both fell silent as Blisset’s piping voice floated down from the crosstrees.
“Deck there! From Woodpecker repeated Reaper, Sail in sight to the sou’-west! ”
Tyacke called, “My respects to the admiral, Mr Scarlett, and . . .”
“I heard, Captain Tyacke.” Bolitho waited for the deck to level off and then walked unhurriedly to the quarterdeck rail, where he and Tyacke formally touched hats to one another.
Allday watched. It always unnerved him, even though he knew Sir Richard would never suspect it from his “oak.” He turned to speak with his son, but Bankart was already being urged aft by the squat boatswain, Sam Hockenhull.
Allday felt the soreness in his chest come alive like a warning. It never left him completely, nor did it allow him to forget the day he had been cut down by Spanish steel, and Bolitho had been on the point of surrendering to save him.
Always the pain.
Tyacke looked for another midshipman. “Acknowledge the signal, Mr Arlington.” He turned to Bolitho and waited for the inevitable. Bolitho glanced across the motionless figures, and those who peered up at the lookout’s lofty perch as if they expected it to prove a mistake.
He saw Allday looking at him. Remembering, or trying to forget? He smiled, and saw Allday raise one big hand like a private salute.
“When you are ready, Captain Tyacke.” Tyacke turned on his heel, his mutilated face stark in the first pale rays of silver light.
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“Beat to quarters and clear for action, if you please, Mr Scarlett!”
Avery was here too, with the new senior midshipman Carleton, the replacement for Blythe who had taken the first vital step on his ladder of promotion.
Avery said, “Make to Reaper, repeated Woodpecker. Close on Flag. ”
He glanced at Bolitho and saw him smile briefly to the captain. Like a last handshake. He thought of his sister in her shabby clothes, the way she had embraced him on that final day.
The drummers and fifers scrambled into line, dragging their pipeclayed belts into place, their sticks crossed beneath their noses as they watched their sergeant.
“Now!”
The drums rolled and rattled, drowning even the scamper of bare feet as the men ran to obey, to clear the ship from bow to stern, opening her up into two great batteries.
Bolitho watched without expression. Even right aft beneath this deck, there would be nothing to impede the seamen and marines once action was joined. All gone: Catherine’s gifts, the green-bound Shakespeare sonnets, the wine-cooler which she had had engraved with the Bolitho crest and family motto, For My Country’s Freedom.
He could recall his father tracing that same motto with his fingers on the great fireplace in Falmouth . . . It would be cold in Cornwall now, the wind off the sea, the anger of breakers beneath the cliffs. Where Zenoria had thrown herself away and had broken Adam’s heart . . . Everything carried below. A few portraits perhaps, wardroom chairs, a metal box with individual money-pouches, a family watch, a lock of somebody’s hair.
“Cleared for action, sir!” Scarlett sounded breathless, although he had not moved from this place.
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And Tyacke’s laconic comment. “Nine minutes, Mr Scarlett!
They do you proudly, sir!”
Bolitho touched his eye. Praise indeed from Tyacke. Or was it Scarlett’s troubles that concerned him more?
“Deck there! Sail in sight to the nor’-west!” Then Midshipman Blisset’s reedy voice. “’Tis Zest, sir!” Tyacke smiled. “I had forgotten all about that shrimp!
Acknowledge, but tell Zest to remain on station.” Avery saw Bolitho nod to him and he touched the signals midshipman on the arm. He jumped as if he had been hit by a musket-ball.
“Hoist battle ensigns, Mr Carleton!” How do I feel? He lifted and dropped the hanger in its scabbard at his hip and saw some of the quarterdeck gun crews staring at him. I feel nothing. Only the need to belong. He glanced at Bolitho, his profile so calm as he watched the horizon for the first sign of the enemy. To serve this man like no other.
“Deck there! Second sail to the sou’-west! ’Nother man-o’-war, sir!”
Avery expected he might see surprise, even dismay in the profile turned towards him. If there was anything he might recognise, it was relief. He repeated his thoughts in his mind. Like no other.
Bolitho stood watching the sea, and his men while they waited for their next orders.
The little Woodpecker would give them early warning before scuttling to safety from those great guns. Two ships then, as he had expected. The other one must be Baltimore.
“Royal Marines, take station!”
Up the shrouds on either side to their positions in the fighting-tops, Marines known to be good shots above the rest; at least three of them, Tyacke had discovered, were once poachers.
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stations behind the tightly-packed hammock nettings, grim-faced, bayonets fixed, the debonair Captain Cedric du Cann watching them with cold, professional interest, his face almost the colour of his tunic.
Solitary scarlet figures stood at the hatchways, ready to prevent men from running below if their nerve broke or they were driven mad by the sights and sounds around them.
Tyacke called, “You may cast off the boats, Mr Hockenhull!” Always a bad moment even for the most experienced seamen, who would know well the additional danger from flying splinters if a longboat were smashed by cannon fire. But as they were lowered and allowed to drift away, many saw them as a last chance of survival if the battle turned against them. Loosely moored together, they would drift with the sea to await recovery by the victors, whoever they might be.
“Rig the nets!”
More men ran to obey, and Allday saw his son hauling on blocks and tackles with his new companions to spread the protective net above the big double-wheel and its four helmsmen.
Just a glance, and he was gone. For a brief second Allday tried to recall Bankart’s mother, and was shocked to discover he could remember nothing about her. As if she had never been.
“From Reaper, sir. Enemy in sight to the sou’-west! ”
“Acknowledge and repeat signal to Zest. ” Bolitho said suddenly, “Do your fifers know Portsmouth Lass, sergeant?”
The Royal Marine puffed out his cheeks. “Yessir.” It sounded like of course.
“Then so be it!”
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and counter-marched up and down the crowded gun deck, the familiar tune Portsmouth Lass lively enough to set a man’s foot tapping, or purse his lips in a silent whistle.
Allday looked at his admiral and smiled gravely.
Bolitho never forgot. Nor would he.
Bolitho took a telescope from the rack and walked aft towards the taffrail, his body angling to the deck without conscious effort.
He raised the glass with care, imagining his small force as the morning gull might see it. Sailing in line abreast with Indomitable in the centre, the wind lively but steady across the starboard quarter. By and large, as Isaac York would describe it. He steadied the glass once again on the western horizon, still partly in misty shadow compared with the silver knife-edge of the eastern sky.
He tightened his grip on the cool metal, controlling his emotion. The quarterdeck gun crews were still awaiting orders after clearing for action; some would be watching him, and wondering what this day might cost.
There she was, Beer’s Unity, with almost every sail set and filled so that she appeared to be leaning forward into the surging spray beneath her beak-head. The huge broad-pendant straight out like painted metal, a picture of naval strength at its best.
Over his shoulder he said, “Tell Captain Tyacke. Fifteen minutes.” He glanced up to the masthead pendant and felt his injured eye sting in protest.
Avery was ready, the signal already bent on. As they had discussed it for such an eventuality, except that Adam had commanded Anemone then. He would be feeling her loss today, with men whose strength he did not know, in a frigate which was very like the one which had been so dear to him. And yet, he would be thinking, so different.
He turned and walked down to the quarterdeck rail and ran his eyes the full length of the ship.
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The gun crews were stripped to the waist despite the wind’s bitter edge, their muscled bodies very brown from their service in the Caribbean. Beer could not risk losing them. But he would not expect them to run either.
He tugged out his watch and saw Midshipman Essex observ-ing him with studied concentration.
There must be no mistakes at this stage: Beer had the wind-gage, and that was bad enough.
He felt Allday moving closer, heard his uneven breathing, the old pain probably aroused and reminding him of that other time, and all the rest. Unity and Baltimore between them probably carried as many guns as a first-rate ship of the line. Together or separately, they would be hard to surprise or vanquish.
He said, “Mr Avery, general signal. Alter course, steer north-west by north! ”
As the bright signal flags soared aloft to break out to the wind, he could see Adam’s intent face in his mind, and Hamilton of the Reaper, and the plump Eames of Woodpecker who had defied orders to hunt for survivors.
The topmen were already spread out along the yards, with every spare hand at braces and halliards. The moment of decision had come which could destroy every one of them.
“All acknowledged, sir!” Avery licked his lips to moisten them.
Bolitho looked at Tyacke. “Execute!” As the flags darted down again to drop amongst the signal party in colourful disorder, Tyacke shouted, “Lay her on the larboard tack, Mr York. Steer nor’-west by north, as close as you can!” With the spokes gleaming in the strange light the big wheel was hauled over, the helmsmen squinting at the masthead pendant and the shaking driver while Indomitable continued to swing.
He snatched a telescope from a gasping midshipman and rested it on the boy’s shoulder as reefs were cast off, and the spreading canvas thundered out from every spar until even the great main-For My Country's Freedo#261496D 7/10/08 11:14 AM Page 284
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sail yard appeared to be bending like a bow.
From line-abreast to line-ahead, with the little brig lost somewhere beyond Reaper.
Tyacke yelled, “Cast off your breechings! Prepare to load! Full elevation, Mr Scarlett!”
Then, surprisingly, Tyacke removed his hat and slapped it against the nearest breech.
“Come on, my lads! Watch this lady fly! ” With almost every sail she could carry filled and hard to the wind, the ship did seem to be bounding over the crests, not away from the enemy this time but on a close-hauled converging tack.
“All guns load!”
Bolitho gripped a stay and watched the half-naked bodies of the gun crews moving in tight separate teams, the scampering powder-monkeys with their bulky cartridges, each gun captain stooping to check the training tackles, his heavy gun moving slightly with the breeching rope cast off.
“Open the ports!”
The gunports on either side were hauled open, as if raised by a single hand. Drills, drills and more drills. Now they were ready, Lieutenant Daubeny by the foremast, his sword across his shoulder while he watched the enemy. Not merely sails any more, but towering and full of menace as they bore down towards the larboard bow.
Heavy artillery roared from elsewhere, and there was something like a sigh as the little Woodpecker drifted out of command, her foremast, yards and flapping canvas trailing over the side even as more long-range balls from Unity slammed into her hull.
Tyacke drew his sword. “On the uproll, lads! Lay for the foremast!”
Bolitho gripped his hands together and watched the glittering sword in Tyacke’s fist. The Baltimore was steering directly for the gap between Indomitable and Adam’s Zest in the van.
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The deck tilted slightly, the topsails flapping in protest while the ship came as close as she dared into the wind.
“Fire!”
It was like watching an invisible avalanche as it roared across Baltimore’s tall side, splintering gangways and timbers alike, upending guns and clawing every sail so that some ripped open, tearing into long ribbons as the wind completed the destruction.
“Signal Zest, Mr Avery! Attack and harry the enemy’s rear. ” Tyacke glanced round. “He’ll need no second order, sir!”
“Stop your vents! Sponge out! Load!” Along the deck each grubby gun captain held up his fist.
“Ready, sir!”
“Run out!”
A few flashes burst through the thickening smoke, and Bolitho felt the enemy’s iron smash into the lower hull.
Men peered at one another, looking for friends and messmates. Not a single man had fallen and Bolitho heard a ragged cheer: defiance, pride, and the overwhelming madness of a fight at sea.
“Fire!”
Allday exclaimed, “The bugger’s mizzen is goin’, sir!” The Baltimore’s steering must have been damaged or its helmsmen smashed down in that last broadside. A few guns were still firing, but the timing was gone, the ability to change tack destroyed with it.
Bolitho wiped his face with his sleeve, and saw the long orange tongues spitting through the smoke beyond the big American.
Steady and merciless, gun by gun, into the drifting Baltimore’s unprotected stern. Bolitho could imagine Adam sighting and firing each gun himself. Remembering what he had lost and could never reclaim.
Scarlett called wildly, “Reaper’s struck, sir!” He sounded half mad with disbelief. “The bastards!”
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Bolitho lowered his glass. Reaper had been overwhelmed. All but dismasted, her sails like blackened rags, she was falling downwind, her ensign gone, her upper deck like a slaughterhouse.
Smashed guns, men and pieces of men, her brave captain, James Hamilton, in a game made for others far younger, killed on the quarterdeck where he had fought his ship to the end. He should have remained in the H.E.I.C. This was not for him. Bolitho looked at his hand on the rail, gripping until it was bloodless. Not for me either.
“Run out! Take aim! Fire! ”
Bolitho coughed as more smoke swirled inboard through the open ports. Acrid, savage, blinding.
Reaper had had no chance. A small sixth-rate of 26 guns against Beer’s powerful artillery.
He wiped his eyes and saw Avery watching him, surprisingly calm. Distancing himself from the shattered ships and the floun-dering bodies that marked Woodpecker’s sudden end, as he did from many other experiences.
“All reloaded, sir!” Scarlett was staring from Tyacke to his admiral.
A silence had fallen over the ship; even the wind had lulled for the moment. Drifting through smoke as dense as fog, with only the muffled sounds of musket fire and swivels, and the smells of burning timber. Like the gateway to hell itself.
Then he saw Unity’s topgallants, her sky-scrapers, punctured here and there but strangely serene above the smoke and carnage it concealed.
“Stand by, lads!”
Bolitho watched Tyacke’s sword, wondering in those few seconds why fate had decided that this vital meeting was to be.
But the sword fell from Tyacke’s hand as the smoke exploded in one huge broadside. A world of screaming madness, of falling rigging and razor-edged splinters.
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Men dying, or being pounded into bloody gruel even as they stood mesmerised by the enormity of the bombardment.
There were twisting, unreal shapes as the maintopmast thundered down over the side, the corpses of some marines tossed from the nets and into the sea like human flotsam.
Hands pulling him to his feet, although he could not recall having fallen. His hat was gone, and one of his proud epaulettes.
There was bright blood on his breeches, but no pain, and he saw Midshipman Deane staring at him from the rail, half his young body pulped into something obscene.
Bolitho heard Avery calling, but it seemed far away, although their faces all but touched.
“Are you hit, sir?”
He gasped, “I think not.” He dragged out the old sword and saw Allday crouching near by, his cutlass already drawn while he peered half blind into the smoke.
Somebody yelled, “Repel boarders! Stand-to, marines, face your front!”
Bolitho wiped his face again with his sleeve. There was still order and life in the ship. Axes flashed through the trailing cordage and shattered spars alongside, and he heard the boatswain bellow, “More men on the forebraces ’ere!” Tyacke was also on his feet, his coat badly torn by the trailing halliards which had almost clawed him over the side.
But the guns were still loaded, waiting to fire when Tyacke dropped his sword.
“Now!” Bolitho would have fallen but for Allday’s grip on his arm. The deck was slippery and the sweet smell of death was stronger even than the burned powder.
Tyacke stared at him and then waved his blade. “Open fire!” Unity’s shadow seemed to tower above them, sails already being brailed up as the Americans lined the gangway and prepared to board the drifting Indomitable.
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Tyacke’s voice seemed to rouse a memory, a discipline which had all but gone. With the hulls barely yards apart the roar of Indomitable’s twenty-four-pounders sounded like the climax to a nightmare.
It seemed to give individual strength where before there had been only the raw fury of war. Wild-eyed, the Indomitable’s remaining men and the marines from the nettings charged, yelling and cheering, blades clashing and stabbing as they swarmed on to the enemy’s deck. Musket and pistol-shots brought down a few of them, and one hot blast of canister cut down Captain du Cann and some of his marines before the frenzied mob overwhelmed the swivel, and hacked the solitary gunner to bloodied rags.
Suddenly there were more cheers, English voices this time, and for one dazed instant Bolitho imagined relief had arrived from the convoy.
But it was Zest, grappling the big Unity from the opposite side. Adam and his new company were already swarming across the gap.
Allday parried a cutlass to one side and hacked down the man with such a powerful blow that the blade almost severed his neck.
But it was too much for him. The pain seared through his chest, and he could barely see which way he was facing.
Avery was trying to help, and Allday wanted to thank him, to do what he had always done, to stay close to Bolitho.
He tried to shout but it was only a croak. He saw it all as if it were a series of pictures. Scarlett yelling and slashing his way over the blood-red deck, his hanger like molten silver in the misty sunshine. Then the point of a pike, motionless between two struggling seamen: like a snake, Allday thought. Then it stabbed the lieutenant with the speed of light. Scarlett dropped his sword and clung to the pike even as it was dragged from his stomach, his scream silenced as he pitched down beneath the stamping, hack-ing figures.
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He saw Sir Richard fighting a tall American lieutenant, their blades ringing and scraping as each sought the other’s weakness.
Avery saw it too, and dragged a pistol from beneath his coat.
Tyacke shouted, “The flag! Cut it down!” He turned and saw another officer running at him with his sword. Almost contemptuously, he waited for the man to falter at his terrible scars and momentarily lose his nerve before he ran him through, as he would have done a slaver.
There was one great deafening cheer which seemed unending, ear-splitting. Men hugging one another, others peering round, cut and dazed, not knowing whether they had won or lost, barely knowing friend from foe.
Then silence, the sounds of battle and suffering held at bay like another enemy.
Bolitho went to Allday’s assistance and, with Avery, got him to his feet.
Avery said simply, “He was trying to protect you, sir.” But Allday was crawling on his knees, his hands and legs soaked with blood, his eyes suddenly desperate and pleading.
“John! It’s me, John! Don’t leave us now!” Bolitho watched, unable to speak as Allday knelt, and with great gentleness gathered his son’s body into his arms.
Bolitho said, “Here, let me, old friend.” But the eyes that met his were blank, like a total stranger’s.
He said only, “Not now, Sir Richard. I just needs a few minutes with him.” He brushed the hair from his son’s face, so still now, caught at the moment of impact.
Bolitho felt a hand on his shoulder, and saw that it was Tyacke’s.
“What?” The enemy had surrendered, but it made no sense.
Only Allday’s terrible hurt was real.
Tyacke glanced at Allday, on this crowded and fought-over deck, so alone with his grief.
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He said abruptly, “I’m sorry, Sir Richard.” He waited for Bolitho’s attention to return to him. “Commodore Beer is asking for you.” He looked up at the sky, clearing now to lay bare their wounds and damage. If he was surprised to be alive, he did not reveal it. He said, “He’s dying.” Then he picked up a fallen boarding-axe and drove it with furious bitterness into the quarterdeck ladder. “And for what?”
Commodore Nathan Beer was propped against the broken compass-box when Bolitho found him, his surgeon and a bandaged lieutenant trying to make him comfortable.
Beer looked up at him. “I thought we’d meet eventually.” He tried to offer his hand but as if it was too heavy, it fell back into his lap.
Bolitho stooped down and took the hand. “It had to end in victory. For one of us.” He glanced at the surgeon. “I must thank you for saving my nephew’s life, doctor. Even in war it is necessary to love another.”
The commodore’s hand was heavy in his, the life running out of it like sand from a glass.
Then he opened his eyes and said in a strong voice, “Your nephew—I remember now. There was a lady’s glove.” Bolitho glanced at the French surgeon. “Cannot anything be done for him?”
The surgeon shook his head, and afterwards Bolitho recalled seeing tears in his eyes.
He gazed into Beer’s lined face. A man with an ocean of experience. He thought of Tyacke’s bitterness and anger. And for what?
“Someone he cared for very much . . .” But Beer’s expression, interested and eager, had become still and unmoving.
Allday was helping him to his feet. “Set bravely, Sir Richard?” Bolitho saw Lieutenant Daubeny walk past, the Stars and Stripes draped over one shoulder.
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He touched Allday’s arm, and then realised that Adam was watching them across the fallen.
“Yes, old friend. It gets harder.” He pointed at Daubeny. “Here, lay the flag over the commodore. I’ll not part him from it now!” He climbed slowly across the fallen spars, and on to Indomitable’s scarred deck.
Then he turned and grasped Allday’s arm. “Aye, set bravely. ” He looked at the watching faces. What did they really think?
Pride, or was it conceit: the need to win, no matter what?
He touched the locket beneath his stained shirt, which had been clean only hours ago.
Aloud he said quietly, “I’ll never leave you, until life itself is denied me.”
Despite all this carnage, or perhaps because of it, he knew she would hear him.
epilogue
LADY Catherine Somervell stared at her reflection in the looking-glass and brushed her long dark hair, her eyes critical, as if searching for a fault. Brush—brush—brush, automatic and without feeling. It was just another morning, a bitter one too if the frost around the bedroom windows was any gauge.
Just another day. Perhaps a letter would come. In her heart she knew it would not.
In two days’ time it would be December; after that did not bear thinking of. Another year. Separated from the only man she loved, could ever love.
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ill. He had suffered a stroke, the possibility of which his doctor had warned him often enough in the past.
Catherine had sat with him, reading to him, feeling the frustration and the impatience of the man who, more than most, had lived life to the full. He had muttered, “No more hunting, no more riding—where’s the point of going on?” She had said, “There is Nancy to think of, Lewis. Try, for her sake.”
She crossed the room now to the tall cheval mirror, the one decorated with carved thistles, a gift from Captain James Bolitho to his Scottish bride. In spite of the cold air which even an early fire in the grate could not dispel, Catherine opened her gown and let it fall over her arms. Again the searching stare, like despair, like fear. She cupped her fine breasts in her hands and pressed them together as he had done so often.
Will he still love me like that? Will he believe me beautiful?
But when, when, when?
The news from North America had been vague and sparse.
Reports had criticised the inability of the smaller English frigates to maintain their usual superiority over the new American vessels, which were more powerful and skilfully handled, but that war was a long way from England. The news-sheets were more preoccupied with Wellington’s continued success against the French, and the prospect of an overwhelming victory within months.
Catherine dressed herself slowly and with care. It was strange not to have Sophie helping her, starting each day with her uncaring chatter. She would have to find another maid. Perhaps in London, someone in whom she might see herself again.
She opened a drawer and saw Richard’s gift lying there. She took it out and carried it to the window. The freezing air took her breath away but she ignored it and opened the velvet box.
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between her breasts she felt both proud and defiant. Together they had defied society, but had won the heart of a nation.
She kissed the pendant and fought against the tears. I must hold on. It is just another day. In their simple way the people on the estate, some of them crippled sailors from Richard’s own ships, seemed to turn to her, trusting her to look after them with so many of the menfolk at sea or forming squares on Wellington’s fields of battle.
She glanced down at the yard. Two horses being groomed, a carter delivering cider for the estate workers, not that there was much to do in this bitter weather.
And beyond, the naked trees, ragged spectres on the headland.
Beyond them, the sea would soon show itself as something solid, like water penned in a great dam.
How will he see me when he first comes through those doors? She offered a wistful smile. More likely he will be worried about how I shall receive him. He dreaded getting older; even his wounded eye was like a cruel taunt, a sign of the years between them. She sighed and left the room. The dark portraits were all here, watching her pass; the Bolitho faces. She paused on the staircase.
And what of Adam? Would he ever recover?
She saw Bryan Ferguson, the steward, about to leave the house: he had probably been discussing the day’s arrangements with his wife Grace, the housekeeper. A man so full of energy and enthusiasm, despite his single arm. He grinned at her and touched his forehead. “You caught me out, my lady! I was not expecting you this early.”
“Is it early?”
Ferguson watched her. So beautiful even with her rough riding-cloak over her arm. Sad too. The other face that few people ever saw.
She said, “I’m ready if you are, Bryan. I have no feeling for breakfast.”
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He said, “Don’t you let my Grace hear that, my lady—she’ll take it badly!”
They walked out into the grey light and turned towards the office where Ferguson kept his estate accounts and records.
She saw his eyes fall to the breast of her gown and the glittering pendant she had hung there almost without realising it.
She said, “I know you think me foolish to wear it. I might lose it somewhere. It’s only . . .” She turned suddenly, her face terribly pale. “What was that? ” Ferguson wished his wife was here. She would know what to do.
He listened as a hollow bang echoed across the headland, and imagined that he felt the ground shake.
He stared as Young Matthew came hurrying from the stable yard. “Did you hear?” He saw Lady Catherine and touched his hat. “Beg pardon, m’lady, I didn’t know you was here too!” Another bang. The echo going on and on until lost inland.
She asked, “A ship in distress?” Her mouth was quite dry and her heart was throbbing with an almost physical pain.
Ferguson took her arm. “Best you come inside where it’s warm.” He shook his head. “That’s no ship, my lady, that’s the St Mawes battery.” He tried to control his racing thoughts, hearing nothing but the regular boom of cannon fire.
Young Matthew looked around as other figures emerged into the crisp morning. There was a sudden silence, and she heard herself ask, “What does it mean, Bryan? Please tell me.” Grace Ferguson had arrived at last, her plump arms out-stretched as Ferguson said hoarsely, “Seventeen shots, my lady, an admiral’s salute. That’s what that is!” They all stared at one another with disbelief until Young Matthew exclaimed, “Well, the port admiral from Plymouth wouldn’t warrant that!” He grinned hugely. “He’s come home, m’lady! He’s here! ”
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Grace Ferguson said, “You’re not riding down there in your state, m’lady!”
Her husband said, “Matthew, the carriage . . .” Catherine walked slowly down to the low wall where her roses would bloom again in the spring.
Coming home. It was not possible. But it was.
I must not let him see me like this. She could feel the tears on her cheeks and lips, like salt from the sea.
She said, “Let us go down, Bryan. I want to watch him come in.”
The horses were stamping and shaking their harness as they were backed into the shafts of the handsome light carriage with the Bolitho crest on the door.
I am here, dearest of men. No more will you come home to an empty house.
The tiny village of Fallowfield on the Helford River was quiet and still, protected from the freezing south-westerly by the hillside and the trees, although the wind had sent even the hardiest fisherman scurrying for harbour.
The little inn with its proud sign, the Old Hyperion, was as always like a haven, used mostly by farm-workers and passing merchants.
In the open doorway, Unis Allday’s one-legged brother John stood unmoving in the cold. Years of marching and fighting with his regiment had hardened him against it, and he was more interested in how many customers they would fetch in this day than in the weather.
He had heard Allday’s child, Kate, chuckling from the kitchen.
A happy little soul, at the moment anyway.
Unis came into the parlour and regarded him thoughtfully.
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it? Hope we gets more folk in here later on.” A horse clattered along the narrow road. John saw the glint of buttons, the familiar hat pulled down against the breeze off the sea. One of the Coastguard.
He touched his hat, smiled at the two figures in the doorway and called, “Did you hear the excitement over yonder at Falmouth? Won’t do your trade no good though—there’s a King’s ship in Carrick Roads so the press are bound to be abroad tonight!” He cantered away, unmoved by the misfortunes of others.
Unis ran out after him, in her apron, something she would never normally do.
“What ship, Ned?”
He twisted round in the saddle. “Frigate! The Zest! ” The one-legged ex-soldier put his arm round her shoulders and guided her back into the parlour.
“I know what you were thinking, Unis love, but . . .” She pulled herself away and stood motionless in the centre of the room, her fingers clasped as if she were in prayer.
“John, remember that letter we had? Zest? She be one of Sir Richard’s ships!”
She stared around. “Must change the bed. John, you fetch some of the new bread, tell Annie to keep an eye on young Kate!” He protested, but to no avail.
She stared past him. “Through that door, my man is going to come this day! As God is my witness, I just knows it!” There were tears too, but she was more excited than anxious.
They had two customers, carpenters working on the little church where Unis and John Allday had been wed.
It would be dark early. He watched his sister worriedly. Follow the drum, wear the King’s coat, they said. But nobody ever told you about this part of it.
Unis walked into the parlour, her eyes very bright.
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“He’s coming, John. Like I said. Like he promised.” Then he heard it for the first time, faint but familiar above the soft moan of wind around the eaves. The steady clip-clop of Bryan Ferguson’s pony and trap.
She said quietly, “Don’t go, John. You’re part of it.” There were muffled voices and she whispered, “Dear God, let it be him!”
The door opened slowly, perhaps even nervously.
And then she was in his powerful grip, her face nuzzling his fine blue jacket with the Bolitho buttons on it. “Oh, dear John, it’s been so long! I’ve missed you so!” Her brother, watching, offered, “No need to look surprised, John. We just heard that the Zest was in port!” Allday stared around, barely able to believe he was here.
“Yes. We was aboard her. Young Captain Adam’s in command.” He held her gently as if she might break. “I’ve thought so often of this minute.” He thought, too, of the big grey house where he had left Sir Richard with his lady. He must have written to her about his son. That had been almost the worst part.
She had looked at him very calmly and had said, “He has not really gone, you know. Think of that sometimes.” And now he was here. He stiffened as the girl Unis had hired to help her came in, with a baby in her arms. He knew by instinct that it was his daughter, although it could have been anyone’s. He would not tell Unis about his lost son. Not yet. This was their moment alone.
He took the child carefully. “She’s a mite small.” Unis said softly, “The doctor says it’s unlikely I’ll carry another, John. I know a son might have pleased you better.” He pressed the child against his body and tried not to relive the scene on that dreadful September morning. Friends and enemies alike, helping and consoling each other when the fighting had stopped and the flag had come down through the smoke.
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He replied quietly, “She’s our Kate. She’ll do me fine.” He hesitated. “A son can break your heart.” Unis glanced at her brother but he shook his head. It would keep.
She asked, “Have you brought somebody with you, John Allday? Left him outside in the cold? What will people think?” The door opened and Lieutenant George Avery ducked under the low beams.
“A room for a few days, Mrs Allday? I’d be obliged.” He looked around, remembering when they had left here. “I thought it fairer to leave Sir Richard to enjoy his homecoming.” He was smiling, but she noticed that it did not reach his tawny eyes.
It was a strange feeling. Because of the letters he had written for her man, she seemed to know him well.
Avery was saying, “Long walks, good food, a chance to think before the next time . . .”
Satisfied, Allday said, “So you’re staying with the little crew after all?”
Avery said, “Was there ever any choice?” He looked around the parlour again, slowly allowing himself to accept the peace and welcome of the place. The child, almost lost in Allday’s arms. He would never forget that morning either. Allday carrying his dead son so tenderly across the littered, bloodied deck where so many had fallen; Allday quite alone for those last moments before he lowered his son into the sea alongside and watched him drift away.
Unis exclaimed, “Drinks for everybody! Now, Mr Avery, what would please you best?”
Like a reply they heard Ferguson’s trap clatter away. He had been waiting, just in case.
Richard Bolitho sat by the great fire and held his hands towards the blazing logs.
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“When I saw the carriage, Kate . . .” He held out one hand and touched her as she came to him with goblets of brandy. “I could scarcely believe it.”
She nestled down beside him. “A toast to my admiral! An admiral of England!”
He stroked her hair, her neck where he had seen the pendant.
How could she have known? Really known?
So many memories, to share with her when they walked again.
Tyacke’s moving farewell when Indomitable had entered Halifax with her two American prizes, where repairs, some urgent, would be necessary. Bolitho had clasped his hand for the last time when his flag had been shifted to Zest.
Tyacke had said, “When you need me, Sir Richard, just say the word.”
Together they had looked at the battered prizes, already swarming with men, and Bolitho had said, “It might be over soon.
Once and for all.”
Tyacke had smiled. “Then I shall return to Africa. I liked it there.”
The long voyage home, soon to be summoned to the Admiralty. He could even find an ironic amusement in that. Again.
And Adam’s grave pleasure when the guns had thundered out in salute to his new command, and to the man whose flag flew proudly from the mainmast truck.
The formality had been as unexpected as it was moving, after all that had happened. The guns had said it all. Their welcome home to Falmouth’s most famous son.
Bolitho looked up at her as she said, “Bring your drink. I have something to show you.”
Hand in hand they climbed the staircase, past each watching portrait and then to their room.
It was already very dark outside, and Bolitho heard an early fox barking harshly.
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She had told him about Roxby. He would ride over and see him, but not yet.
Catherine had covered the portrait with a silk shawl. She smiled, but her eyes hinted at uncertainty.
“Ready?”
It was not as he had expected, or was it? Not in one of her fine shot-silk gowns or riding-habit. She was bare-footed, her hair loose to the wind, wearing the same sailor’s shirt and breeches she had worn aboard the Golden Plover when it had been smashed on the reef and they had suffered the privations of an open boat until, in all the limitless miles of sea, James Tyacke had found them.
She was watching him anxiously. “It is the real me. When we were so close, when we needed each other as never before.” He took her in his arms and faced her towards the cheval-glass.
“I shall never forget, Kate.” He felt her tremble as she watched his hands in the glass, caressing her, undressing her like a stranger, all else forgotten.
She whispered, “I love you so . . .” The rest was lost as he came to her.
Out in the darkness on the crumbling cliff path, a sleeping gull was suddenly awakened.
But on the wind, it could have been mistaken for a girl’s last cry.
For My Country's Freedo#261496D 7/10/08 11:14 AM Page 301
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exa
ALEXANDER KENT is the pen name of British author Douglas nd
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series under the Kent pseudonym. The popular Bolitho novels have K
been translated into nearly two dozen languages.
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www.douglasreeman.com
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ISBN: 978-0-935526-84-4
5 1 6 9 5
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Fiction
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“Authentic, inspiring, well-characterized and fi nally, moving.” r my co
Fr
F e
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—Sunday Times of London
“Impeccable naval detail and plenty of action.”
—Sunday Telegraph
F un
re tr
1811: War with the United States looms on the horizon.
e y
d ’s
Admiral Sir Richard Bolitho leads a squadron against the powerful om
new ships of Britain’s former colony. Supported by his loyal crew, Bolitho must use all his ingenuity to defeat one of America’s great naval commanders, Nathan Beer. But will Bolitho be too late to A
rescue his nephew, Adam, who is badly wounded and held as a pris-l
oner of war?
exa
ALEXANDER KENT is the pen name of British author Douglas nd
Reeman. After serving in the Royal Navy during WWII, he turned to writing, publishing books under his own name and the Bolitho er
series under the Kent pseudonym. The popular Bolitho novels have K
been translated into nearly two dozen languages.
e
www.bolithomaritimeproductions.com
nt
ISBN: 978-0-935526-84-4
5 1 6 9 5
McBooks Press
21
www.mcbooks.com
9 780935 526844
Alexande
n r
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K t
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the Bolitho novels: 21