Urquhart looked at him gravely. “Almost.” His handshake was firm, thankful. “I’m afraid I lost Mr Lovie. I liked him. Very much.”

Adam thought of one of his own midshipmen, who had died on that other day. It was pointless, destructive to have friends, to encourage others to form friendships which would only end in death.

When he looked again, Success and the American were gone.

There was only a great haze of smoke, like steam from a volcano, as if the ocean itself were burning in the deep, and wreckage, men and pieces of men.

He walked to the opposite side and wondered why he had not known. To hate was not enough.

14 V erdict

REAR-ADMIRAL Thomas Herrick stood squarely by the quarterdeck rail, his chin sunk in his neckcloth, and only his eyes moving while Indomitable, under reduced sail, glided slowly toward her anchorage.

“So this is Halifax.” His eyes followed the running figures of the extra hands who were answering the boatswain’s hoarse shout.

Only then did he turn his head and glance at the captain on the opposite side of the deck. Tyacke was studying the landmarks, the nearest ships, anchored or otherwise, his hands behind him as if he were unconcerned.

Herrick said, “A good ship’s company, Sir Richard. Better than most. Your Captain Tyacke would be hard to replace, I’m thinking.”

246

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

Bolitho said, “Yes,” sorry that they were soon to be parted, and also saddened on behalf of the man he had once known so well.

He had offered Herrick the full use of the ship while she was in Halifax, and typically, Herrick had refused. He would take the accommodation he had been offered. It was as if it was painful for him simply to see and feel a ship working around him again.

York, the sailing-master, called, “Ready when you are, sir!” Tyacke nodded, without turning. “Wear ship, if you please!”

“Man the lee braces there! Hands wear ship!” The calls shrilled and more men scampered to add their weight to haul the yards around. “Tops’l sheets!”

Two fishermen stood in their heavy dory to wave as they passed through Indomitable’s shadow.

Bolitho saw one of the midshipmen waving back, then freeze as he found the captain’s eyes on him.

“Tops’l clew-lines! Roundly there—take that man’s name, Mr Craigie!”

Bolitho had already noticed that Valkyrie was not at her usual anchorage, nor was the American ship Success. He was not surprised that the latter had been moved. The harbour, large though it was, seemed to be bursting with ships, men-of-war, merchantmen and transport vessels of every type and size.

“Helm a’ lee!”

Slowly, as though recalling her earlier life as a ship of the line, Indomitable turned into the light wind, the panorama of houses and rough hillside gliding past her jib-boom, as if the land and not the ship was moving.

“Let go!”

The great anchor dropped into the water, spray dashing as high as the beak-head and its crouching lion while the ship came obediently to rest.

“I’ll have the gig take you ashore, Thomas. I can send my flag lieutenant with you until you are ready . . .” CROSS OF S T GEORGE

247

The bright blue eyes studied him for a moment. “I can manage, thank you.” Then he held out his remaining hand, his body visibly adjusting to the movement, as if still unaccustomed to the loss. “I can see why you have never quit the sea for some high office ashore or in the Admiralty. I would be the same, if they had allowed it.” He spoke with the same curious lack of bitterness. “I’ll wager you’d find no Happy Few in that damned place!” Bolitho took his hand in both of his own. “There are not too many left, I’m afraid, Thomas.”

They both looked along the deck, the busy seamen, the marines waiting by the entry port, the first lieutenant leaning out from the forecastle to check the lie of the cable. Even here, Bolitho thought. Charles Keverne had been his first lieutenant in the three-decker Euryalus, when he had been a flag captain himself.

A reliable officer despite a hasty temper, with the dark good looks which had won him a lovely wife. About twelve years ago, as a captain, Keverne had commanded this same ship, when she had been a third-rate. Together they had fought in the Baltic. Once again, Indomitable had triumphed, but Keverne had fallen there.

Herrick watched his sea-chest and bags being carried on deck.

The gig was already hoisted out: the contact was almost severed.

Herrick paused by the ladder, and Bolitho saw the Royal Marine colour-sergeant give a quick signal to his officer.

Herrick was fighting with something. Stubborn, strong-willed, intransigent, but loyal, always loyal above everything.

“What is it, Thomas?”

Herrick did not look at him. “I was wrong to regard your feeling for Lady Somervell so ill. I was so full of grief for my Dulcie that I was blind to all else. I tried to tell her in a letter . . .”

“I know. She was very moved by it. And so was I.” Herrick shook his head. “But I can see now, don’t you understand? What you’ve done for the navy, for England, no less—and yet still you drive yourself.” He reached out and seized Bolitho’s 248

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

arm. “Go while you can, Richard. Take your Catherine and be grateful. Let someone else carry this goddamned burden, this war that nobody wants, except those who intend to profit from it! It is not our war, Richard. Just this once, accept it!” Bolitho could feel the strength of the man in the grip of the solitary hand. No wonder he had forced himself to climb the ship’s side, to prove what he could do, and who he was.

“Thank you for saying that, Thomas. I shall tell Catherine when I write to her next.”

Herrick walked beside him to the entry port. His bags and sea-chest had vanished. He saw Allday waiting, and said, “Take care, you rascal.” He stared past him at the land. “I was sorry to hear about your son. But your daughter will give you much happiness.” Allday looked at Bolitho. It was as if he had known what Herrick had just said, had felt the very urgency of the plea.

“He won’t listen to me, Mr Herrick. Never does!” Herrick held out his hand to Tyacke. “She does you credit, Captain Tyacke. You have suffered for what you have earned, but I envy you, for all that.” He turned toward Bolitho and removed his hat. “You, Captain, and one other.” The calls shrilled and the marines’ bayonets flashed in the bright sunlight.

When Bolitho looked down once more, the gig was already backing water from the side. He watched until it was lost beyond an anchored brigantine. Then he smiled. Typically, again, Herrick did not look back.

Tyacke fell into step beside him. “Well, I don’t envy him his job, Sir Richard. It’s Reaper’s captain who should be on trial. I’ve run better slavers up to the main-yard before now!” Bolitho said, “He may surprise us, but I agree. His is a thank-less task.” But the force of Herrick’s words refused to leave him, and he could not imagine what it must have cost him to speak.

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

249

Tyacke said suddenly, “This victory you mentioned, Sir Richard. Some place in Spain, you said?” It was said to be Wellington’s greatest triumph over the French so far. The war could not last much longer, surely.

Bolitho replied, “They speak of months, not years any more, James. I have learned not to hope too much. And yet . . .” He watched the courier schooner Reynard speeding toward the harbour mouth, her ensign dipping in salute as she passed abeam of his flagship. A small, lively command for the young lieutenant who was her lord and master. Like Miranda, the schooner which had been Tyacke’s first command; he would be thinking of it now, and of their own first wary meeting. What they had now become to one another.

He said abruptly, “Well, James, the war is still with us here, so I shall have to accept it!” Bolitho stood by a window and watched his flag lieutenant walking along the stone-flagged terrace, carrying his hat in the warm sunshine. In the background, the anchorage was so crowded that it was hardly possible to see Indomitable. But for his flag curling in the wind, she might have been any one of them.

Valentine Keen was saying, “I decided to send Valkyrie to Antigua. She was the only ship powerful enough to escort the prize and frighten off any over-eager enemy.” In the glass Bolitho saw Keen’s reflected arm wave across the litter of papers and despatches which the schooner Reynard had delivered to him. Bolitho had sensed a moment’s uneasiness when the schooner had sailed smartly abeam as he had been speaking to Tyacke: Reynard’s youthful commander had known then that Keen was here, otherwise he would have made his report on board Indomitable.

“Valkyrie met with two American frigates. It is all here in 250

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

Adam’s report, which he passed to Reynard when they happened to meet at sea.”

“And one was destroyed, Val. Valkyrie suffered no losses but for a midshipman. Remarkable.”

“Yes, they picked up a few survivors, not many, apparently, and discovered that the ship that went down with Success was the USS

Condor. A Captain Ridley was in command, killed, with most of his people, it seems.”

“And the other frigate was the Retribution.” Keen did not seem to hear him. “I did not intend that either Valkyrie or the prize should be put at unnecessary risk. Had I been aboard, I would have made certain that a more open course was observed. Captain Bolitho was too near to the enemy coast.”

“Two hundred miles, you say?” He turned from the glare, his eye suddenly painful. “You and I have trailed our coats a good deal nearer than that, in our time!”

“I think it was deliberate.” Keen faced him across the table. “I know he is your nephew, and I am the first to appreciate that.

But I think it was an impetuous and dangerous course of action.

We could have lost both ships.”

Bolitho said, “As it was, Val, we exchanged a broken-down prize which would have taken months or perhaps years to overhaul and refit, for one of a group which has been a thorn in our side since our return to Halifax. Your place was here, while you were waiting to receive the latest convoy. You made the right decision, and it was yours to make. And as the one in command, Adam had no choice but to act as he did. I would expect that of any of my captains. You must know that.” Keen recovered himself with an effort. “The survivors also confirmed your belief that Captain, now Commodore Rory Aherne was in command of the group.” He banged his hand down on the papers, and anger put an edge to his voice. “He might have taken my flagship!”

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

251

“And Adam—where is he now?”

Keen plucked his shirt away from his skin. “He had orders for the Captain in Charge at Antigua. He will return here when he has carried out my instructions.”

“Remember when you were my flag captain, Val. Trust extends in two directions. It has to be the strongest link in the chain of command.”

Keen stared at him. “I have never forgotten that. I owe everything to you . . . and Catherine.” He smiled, ruefully, Bolitho thought, and said, “And to Adam, I know that!” He touched his pocket, and Bolitho wondered if he carried the miniature there.

So that was it. This was, after all, Benjamin Massie’s house, and the St Clairs would be staying here also. It was not difficult to guess what had come between Keen and his flag captain. The girl with moonlit eyes.

In fairness, it might prove to be the best thing that could happen to Keen. As Catherine had predicted . . . A brave and defiant young woman, one strong enough to help Keen in his future. And able to stand up against his father, he thought grimly.

Adam would not regard it in that light at all.

“And what of the latest intelligence, Val?” Keen took two goblets from a cupboard. “The Americans have brought two more frigates to Boston. I ordered Chivalrous and the brig Weazle to patrol outside the port. If they come out . . .” Bolitho said, “I think they will. And soon.” He looked up, and asked, “And York—is there any more news?” Keen shrugged. “Very little. It takes so long to reach here. But David St Clair told me that weapons and supplies were stored there for our ships on the lakes. They might have seized or destroyed them. Either way, it will make our vessels less able to control Lake Erie, which St Clair insists is the vital key to the whole area.”

“And tell me about Miss St Clair.” He saw Keen start, so that 252

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

some of the claret he was about to pour pattered onto the table.

He added gently, “I shall not pry, Val. I am a friend; remember that, too.”

Keen filled the two goblets. “I admire her greatly. I have told her as much.” He faced him again. “Perhaps I delude myself.” He gave his boyish smile, which Bolitho had seen from his youth to this moment, and seemed relieved that he had at last spoken openly about it.

Bolitho thought of Adam’s despair, his agony when he had read Catherine’s letter, breaking the news of Zenoria’s lonely and terrible death. But he said, “Thank you for sharing it with me. I wish you good fortune, Val. You deserve it.” He returned the smile, touched by Keen’s obvious relief. “I mean it. You cannot be an admiral all of the time!”

Keen said suddenly, “I am told that Rear-Admiral Herrick is here. Transferred to Indomitable when you made your rendezvous with the convoy.” He did not attempt to soften his tone.

“I know there was no love lost between you, Val. He does not relish this mission, let me assure you.” Keen said shortly, “The right man for the task, I think. He has known what it is to sit on both sides of the table at a court martial!”

“That is past, Val. It has to be.”

Keen persisted, “But what can he do? Ninety men, British sailors. Hang them or flog them? The crime was done, the penalty is already decided. It has always been so.” Bolitho moved to the window again, and saw Avery speaking with Gilia St Clair.

Without turning he asked, “When you met up with Reaper, and before she struck to you, did you believe that Adam would order the guns to fire on them?” He waited a few seconds.

“Hostages or not?”

“I . . . am not certain.”

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

253

Bolitho saw the girl throw back her head and laugh at something Avery had said. Caught up in a war, and now in something more personal. She had talked with Adam: she would have known, or guessed, how near death might have been that day.

He walked away from the window, turning his back on the light. “The schooner Crystal in which the St Clairs were on passage when Reaper captured them—who owned her?”

“I believe it was Benjamin Massie. You have a very good memory for names.”

Bolitho put down the glass, thankful for the sunlight behind him, hiding his face and his thoughts.

“It’s getting better all the while, Val!” Richard Bolitho stepped onto the jetty stairs and waited for Tyacke and his flag lieutenant to follow him. Across the heads of the barge crew Allday was watching him, sharing it all with him, even if he probably saw things differently.

Bolitho said to him, “I’m not certain how long we shall be.” Allday squinted into the hard light. “We’ll be here, Sir Richard.” They walked up to the roadway in silence, and Bolitho noted that the air felt cooler despite the sun. It was September: could the year be passing so quickly?

He thought of the letter he had received from Catherine, telling him of Roxby’s final hours, and describing the funeral in detail so that he felt he had been there with her. Quite a grand affair, as was appropriate for a knight of the Hanoverian Guelphic Order: Roxby had been well liked by his own set of people, respected by all those who worked for him, and feared by many others who had crossed his path in his other role as magistrate. He had a been a fair man, but he would have had little patience with today’s happenings. Even in the barge Bolitho had sensed the tension, the oarsmen avoiding his eyes, Avery staring abeam at the anchored Reaper, and Tyacke quite 254

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

detached from it all, more withdrawn than he had been for many months.

He raised his hat to a troop of soldiers as they clattered past on perfectly matched horses, their young ensign raising his sabre with a flourish at the sight of an admiral’s uniform.

All these soldiers. When would they be called upon to fight, or was the die already cast? Tyacke, like David St Clair, had been right about the Americans and their determination to take and hold the lakes. They had made another raid on York, and had burned supply sheds and military equipment which had been abandoned when the British army had retreated to Kingston three months ago. The need to wrest control of Lake Erie from the Americans was vital, to protect the line of water communications and keep open the army’s only supply route, without which they would be forced into further retreat, and perhaps even surrender.

He saw the barracks gates ahead of them, and realized with pleasure that he was not out of breath.

The guard had turned out for them, with bayonets glinting as they walked into the main building. A corporal opened the doors for them, and Bolitho saw his eyes move briefly to Tyacke’s disfigured face, and then just as hastily away. He knew that Tyacke had noticed, and wondered if that was why he was so unusually remote. He was intensely aware of the stares, the pity, and the revulsion: he was never allowed to forget, and Bolitho knew that that was why he avoided going ashore whenever possible.

More doors and clicking heels, and then they entered a large, spartan room containing a table and two rows of chairs. Keen and Adam were already present, as was the languid de Courcey. A dusty-looking civilian clerk sat at one end of the table, a major of the Royal Marines at the other. Despite the room’s bare austerity, it already had the atmosphere of an official court.

They shook hands, more like strangers than friends. Bolitho had seen very little of Adam since his return from Antigua, but CROSS OF S T GEORGE

255

had written to congratulate him on his destruction of the prize and her attacker, with the loss of only one man. It was hard to tell what Adam really thought about it.

The other door was opened and Rear-Admiral Thomas Herrick walked straight to the table and sat down, his eyes moving briefly across their faces, his own impassive, with nothing to reveal the strain under which he had placed himself with his personally conducted enquiry into the loss and recapture of His Britannic Majesty’s frigate Reaper.

Bolitho knew that Herrick had read all the statements, including that taken by Avery from Reaper’s badly injured first lieutenant at Hamilton, and Adam’s account of the recapture from the Americans when Reaper’s guns had been discharged into the sea.

Herrick had also spoken with David St Clair, and very likely with St Clair’s daughter. Bolitho recalled the moment at the general’s house when the youthful captain of the King’s Regiment had handed the girl’s miniature over to Keen. This latest attack on York had occasioned no more casualties, as the British army had not returned to the burned-out fort, but she must have thought of it, all the same: the man she had loved, and had believed had cared deeply for her, lying up there somewhere with his dead soldiers. The Americans had quit York after only three days; perhaps the stores and weapons they had hoped to find were already gone, or had been destroyed during the first attack. Compared with many other battles, the action was not one of the most significant, but in proportion it was certainly one of the bloodiest; and the full consequences were still to be measured.

Herrick looked up from his file of papers.

“This is an official court of enquiry into the loss and recapture of His Britannic Majesty’s Ship Reaper, intelligence of which I am authorized and ordered to summarize for the Lords of Admiralty, for their guidance and final approval.” He waited for the clerk to pass him another sheet of paper.

256

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

“We are all very well aware of the consequences of bad example, and of poor leadership. It is often too simple to be wise after an event which has already done so much wrong and caused so much damage.” For only a moment, his blue eyes rested on Bolitho.

“In all these years of war, against one foe or another, we have won many victories. However, we have never won the freedom to question or challenge what we did, or why we were so ordered.” He almost smiled. “And I fear we never will, in our lifetimes.” He looked down again. “We require no reminding of the absolute need for order and discipline at all times. Without them, we are a shambles, a disgrace to the fleet in which we serve.” His shoulder moved, and the empty sleeve swayed slightly; he did not appear to notice. “It is a lesson which any captain forgets at his peril.”

Bolitho glanced at his companions. Keen and Adam had both been his midshipmen, and had learned the hazards and the rewards on their way up the ladder of promotion. De Courcey was listening intently, but his expression was devoid of understanding. James Tyacke was leaning back in the shadows as if to conceal his face, but his hands, which rested in his lap, were very tense, locked together as if he, too, were preparing for the inevitable. Like those others who would be waiting: some ninety souls, whose suffering under a sadistic captain would soon be obliterated in the name of justice.

He saw Adam gazing at him with unblinking eyes, his face drawn, as if he were in pain. But Bolitho knew it was a deeper pain even than the body’s wounds: he was reliving the loss of his ship, the flag coming down while he lay where he had fallen on that bloody day. Remembering those who had fought and died at his bidding. Men who, as Herrick had rightly said, had never known the freedom to question or challenge what they were ordered to do.

He thought Adam must be remembering their many long CROSS OF S T GEORGE

257

conversations, each gaining from the other’s experience. He was headstrong and impetuous, but his love had never been in doubt, caring always for the man who would be called upon to sign the warrants for those condemned to be hanged, or at best flogged into something inhuman.

Bolitho touched the locket beneath the fresh shirt he wore, and thought he saw understanding in Adam’s face.

Herrick was saying, “The Americans are, fortunately, a nation of magpies. They are slow to throw away items which may be of historic interest at some later time.” He gestured to the clerk, and waited while he opened a large, canvas-covered volume.

Herrick continued, without expression, “Reaper’s punishment book. It tells me more than five hundred written reports and dying declarations. This captain was not long in command and on his first active service as such, and yet this book reads like a chapter from Hell itself.”

Bolitho could almost feel Tyacke’s sudden tension. Wanting to speak out. But Herrick knew for himself what quarterdeck tyranny could be: Bolitho had become his captain in Phalarope all those years ago only because the previous captain had been removed.

Another tyrant.

“To go back to that day, gentlemen. The mutiny, which we now know was both inspired and encouraged by the Americans who boarded that unhappy ship. There were ringleaders, of course, but without American aid and a ready presence, who could swear to the truth of what would have happened?” He peered at his papers, as he must have done every day since his arrival in Halifax. “Vengeance is a terrible disease, but in this case it was probably inevitable. We know that Reaper’s captain died as a result of the flogging he received that day.” He looked up sharply, his eyes hard. “I have known common seamen die even under a legal flogging. We must not allow the deed to overshadow or dispel the cause.”

258

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

Two army officers strode past the closed doors, their noisy laughter dying instantly when they realized what was happening within. Herrick frowned. “These observations are in my personal report, which will be presented to Their Lordships.” His eyes shifted to Bolitho. “When I am gone from here.” The frigate Wakeful had been taking on stores and water as he had been pulled ashore. Her work done on this station, she would be speeding back to England for fresh orders. Herrick would be taking passage in her again. Being “entertained.” Herrick glanced at a tumbler of water, but apparently rejected the idea. “My considered conclusion in this miserable affair is that the two ringleaders, Alick Nisbet, Master-at-Arms, and Harry Ramsay, maintopman and able-bodied seaman, are detained, with a recommendation for the maximum penalty.” Bolitho saw Adam clenching his fists until the knuckles were drained of blood beneath the tanned skin. He had heard about the man Ramsay, once of Anemone, whose mutilated back was living proof of the ship’s punishment book. The other man was a surprise: the master-at-arms was the symbol of discipline and, when necessary, punishment aboard any King’s ship, and he was usually hated for it.

And now the rest. He wanted to stand up and speak on behalf of the men he did not even know, but it would have damaged whatever frail hope they might still have.

Herrick continued, “My further instruction is that all the other seamen and landmen involved be returned to their duties forth-with. They have suffered enough, and yet, when called, they would not, could not fire upon ships of this navy, no matter what the refusal would have cost them.”

Tyacke exclaimed, “Hell’s teeth! They’ll crucify him when he gets back to London!” He turned and looked at Bolitho, his eyes revealing a rare emotion. “I would never have believed it!” Herrick said with no change of expression, “I will insist that CROSS OF S T GEORGE

259

a new captain be appointed to Reaper without delay.” He glanced at Bolitho, then at Keen. “That responsibility must be yours.” Keen stood. “My flag captain has already suggested such an officer for promotion, sir. Lieutenant John Urquhart.” He paused.

“I will support it, sir.”

Herrick said, “Can you manage without him?” Keen looked at Adam, who made a gesture of agreement, and said, “We will, sir.”

Herrick beckoned to the clerk and the major of marines.

“Sign after my signature.” He straightened his back, and winced. “It is done.” Then he said shortly, “I wish to speak to Sir Richard Bolitho. Alone.”

It seemed an age before the others had filed out, and the room was silent.

Bolitho said, “You did that for me, Thomas.” Herrick said, “I would relish a glass—a wet, as that rascal Allday calls it.” Then he looked up at him, searching for something, and finding it. “I have nothing to lose, Richard. My flag will never fly again after this last passage. Maybe we shall meet again, but I think not. The navy is a family—you have often said as much.

Once released from it, you become ordinary, like a ship laid up.” A horse clattered noisily across the yard by the gates, reminding Bolitho poignantly of Catherine and her Tamara. How would he tell her, describe to her all that Herrick had said, and had thrown away . . .

Herrick walked to the doors, his shoulder angled stiffly, his face clearly showing the pain of his wound. He said, “You have everything to lose, as would all those godforsaken souls who depend on you, and those like you.” He added bitterly, “Though I’ve yet to meet one!”

An invisible hand opened the doors, and Bolitho saw Avery waiting for him, his tawny eyes moving between them, trying to understand.

260

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

“We have had a messenger from the lookout, Sir Richard. The brig Weazle is entering harbour. She has signalled that the American vessels have left Boston with others from New York. They are steering north-east.”

Bolitho said quietly, “So they’re coming out. Pass the word to Captain Tyacke, George. I shall be aboard as soon as I can.” Avery hurried away, but stopped uncertainly and stared back at them.

Herrick said, “Listen! Cheering! How could they know already?” They walked down the steps together, while the cheering rolled across the harbour like one great voice.

Bolitho said, “They always know, Thomas. The family, remember?”

Herrick looked back toward the barracks, his eyes suddenly, deeply fatigued.

“Take good care, Richard.” He touched his sleeve. “I shall raise a glass to you when that young puppy hauls anchor for England!” At the jetty they found Allday standing at the tiller of the admiral’s barge with the crew grouped on the stairs, grinning hugely. Their places had been taken by officers, three of them captains, including Adam.

Herrick held out his hand to Tyacke. “Your work, I presume, sir?”

Tyacke did not smile. “All we could do at such short notice.” Bolitho followed him down the stairs, recalling Tyacke’s words.

They’ll crucify him. But Herrick would have his way. Perhaps the

“damned little upstart” Bethune had used his influence. He would know the man he had served as a midshipman better than many, and perhaps had attempted to help by subtle means.

Allday had seen Herrick’s face and said awkwardly, “I don’t get too many chances to tell the officers what to do, an’ that’s no error!” Then he said, “Good luck, Mr Herrick.” Just for those seconds they were back on board Phalarope, young lieutenant and pressed man.

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

261

The barge pulled away, the stroke surprisingly smart and regular. As they wended between the anchored men-of-war the cheering escorted them, some of it from Reaper herself. And this time Herrick did look back, although it was doubtful if he could see anything.

Bolitho turned away, and saw that Keen was speaking quietly with Gilia St Clair. And suddenly, he was glad for them.

“Call a boat, James. Sailing orders.” Tyacke was gazing impassively after the barge. “Aye, Sir Richard. But first . . .”

Bolitho smiled, but shared the unspoken sadness. “A wet. So be it.”

15 no din of W ar

RICHARD BOLITHO flattened the chart very carefully on his table and opened a pair of brass dividers. He could feel the others watching him, Avery standing by the stern windows, Yovell seated comfortably in a chair, paper and pens within easy reach as always.

Bolitho said, “Two days, and we’ve sighted nothing.” He studied the chart again, imagining his ships as they might appear to a cruising sea bird: five frigates sailing in line abreast, with Indomitable, the flagship, in the centre. The extended line of frigates, half of his entire force, could scan a great expanse of ocean in this formation. The sky was clear, with only a few streaks of pale cloud, the sea a darker blue in the cool sunlight.

He thought of the solitary patrolling frigate, Chivalrous, which had sent the brig Weazle to Halifax with the news that the Americans were on the move again. In his mind’s eye he could see Chivalrous’s captain, Isaac Lloyd, an experienced officer, twenty-eight years old. He would be trying to keep the enemy in view, 262

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

but would have sense enough not to be trapped into engaging them.

Two days, so where were they? In the approaches to Halifax, or out further still towards St John’s in Newfoundland? He had discussed various possibilities with Tyacke and York. When he had suggested the Bay of Fundy to the north-west of Nova Scotia, York had been adamant.

“Unlikely, sir. The bay has the world’s highest tides, twice a day for good measure. If I was the Yankee commander I wouldn’t want to get trapped in the middle of that!” Bolitho had been warned of the situation in the Bay of Fundy.

His Admiralty Instructions had already stated that the tides could rise and fall as much as fifty feet and more, with the added risk to smaller vessels of fierce tidal bores. No place to risk a frigate, even the large Americans. Or Indomitable.

He thought of Herrick, on his way now across the Atlantic to throw his findings in someone’s face at the Admiralty. Had he been glad to leave, after all? Or deep inside, was the old, tena-cious Herrick still hating what amounted to a dismissal from the only life he knew?

It had obviously had a great effect on Tyacke. He had been more withdrawn than ever after Herrick had been taken out to the frigate which was to carry him back to England.

He tossed the dividers onto the chart. Perhaps this was all a waste of time, or worse, another ruse to draw them away from something more important.

He walked to the stern windows, and felt the ship lifting and leaning beneath him. That, too, he could see in his mind, Indomitable close-hauled on the larboard tack, the wind holding from the south-east as it had for most of the time since they had weighed anchor. Adam was openly fretting at having been left at Halifax, but Valkyrie was their second most powerful frigate: Keen might need her.

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

263

Adam had not hesitated in recommending his first lieutenant for promotion to the questionable command of Reaper. A challenge for any man, but Adam had said bluntly, “I’d have taken her myself, had I been free to do so.” Were things between him and Val so strained?

Avery said gently, “We could have missed them overnight, Sir Richard.”

“If they were looking for us, I think not.” Bolitho dismissed the thoughts, and recalled himself to the matter at hand. “Ask Mr York to let me see his notes again, will you?” The cabin was tilting over once more, and the brass dividers clattered onto the deck. Yovell tried to lean down to recover them, but the angle was so extreme that he sank back in his chair and mopped his face with a bright red handkerchief. But lively or not, the Old Indom was riding it well. As York had remarked with his usual cheerful confidence, “Like a bald-headed barque she is, Sir Richard. Stiff in any wind and stiff when she’s not!” Yovell said suddenly, “You could describe me as a civilian, could you not, Sir Richard? Despite the warlike surroundings, and our way of life, I am not truly bound to the niceties and tradi-tions of sea officers?”

Bolitho smiled at him. He never changed. Not even in that wretched longboat, when his hands had been raw and bleeding from pulling on an oar with the others. With Catherine.

“I hope you remain so.”

Yovell frowned, then polished his small gold-rimmed spectacles, something he often did when he was pondering a problem.

“Mr Avery is your flag lieutenant—he stands between you and the captain and serves both.” He breathed on his spectacles again.

“He is loyal to both. He would never speak behind the captain’s back, because you are friends. It would seem like a betrayal of trust, and the association which has grown between them.” He 264

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

smiled gently. “Between all of us, if I may say so, Sir Richard.” There was complete silence from the pantry. Ozzard would be there, listening.

“If it troubles you, then tell me. I felt something was amiss myself.” He turned towards the sea again. Yovell’s remark had touched him more than he cared to accept, reminding him uncomfortably of Herrick’s comments on the Happy Few. In truth, there were not many left now. Keverne, who had once commanded this ship; Charles Farquhar, once a midshipman like Bethune, who had been killed aboard his own command at Corfu. And dear Francis Inch, eager, horse-faced, married to such a pretty woman at Weymouth. Her name was Hannah . . . He recalled it with effort. And so many others. John Neale. Browne, with an “e,” and Avery’s predecessor, Stephen Jenour. So many. Too many. And all dead.

He turned from the light as Yovell said quietly, “Captain Tyacke received a letter in Halifax. It was in the bag delivered by the schooner Reynard.”

“Bad news?”

Yovell replaced his spectacles with care. “I am told that it had travelled far. As is often the way with the fleet’s mail.” Bolitho stared at him. Of course. Tyacke never received letters. Like Avery, until he had been sent one by his lady in London.

It was so typical of Avery to remain silent, even if he knew the cause of Tyacke’s withdrawal. He would understand. Just as he had understood Adam’s anguish at having been a prisoner of war.

“Is it all over the ship?”

“Only the flag lieutenant knows, sir.” Bolitho touched his eyelid, and recalled the gown Catherine had been given when Larne finally found them. When she had returned it to Tyacke, she had expressed the wish that it might be worn by someone worthy of him . . .

He clenched his fist. Surely not the same woman? It could not CROSS OF S T GEORGE

265

be; why, after so long, and after the cruel way she had rejected him, and his disfigured face? But in his heart, he knew that it was.

He saw Catherine, as clearly as if he had looked at her locket.

They had no secrets. He knew of her visits to London, and that she occasionally consulted Sillitoe for his advice on investing the money from Spain; he trusted her completely, as she trusted him.

But what if . . . He thought of Tyacke’s silence and reticence, the reawakened pain that must be hidden. What if . . . Catherine needed to be loved, just as she needed to return love.

“If I spoke out of turn, Sir Richard . . .” Bolitho said, “You did not. It is good to be reminded sometimes of things that truly matter, and those who are out of reach.” Yovell was reassured, and glad that he had spoken out. As a civilian.

The other door opened and Ozzard padded into the cabin, a coffee pot in his hands.

“Is that the last of it, Ozzard?”

Ozzard glanced severely at the pot. “No, Sir Richard. Two weeks more, at most. After that . . .” Avery returned to the cabin, and Bolitho saw him waiting while he took a cup from the tray, gauging the moment when the ship staggered through a confusion of broken crests. Ozzard had poured a cup for the flag lieutenant, almost grudgingly. What did he think about; what occupied his mind in all the months and years he had been at sea? A man who had obliterated his past, but, like Yovell, an educated one, who could read classical works, and had the handwriting of a scholar. It seemed as if he wanted no future, either.

Bolitho took the notes Avery had brought, and said, “One more day. We might fall in with a courier from Halifax. Rear-Admiral Keen may have more news.”

Avery asked, “These American ships, sir—will they wish to challenge us?”

266

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

“Whatever they intend, George, I shall need every trick we can muster. Just as I will need all of my officers to be at their best, if fight we must.”

Avery glanced at Yovell, and lowered his voice. “You know about the captain’s letter, sir?”

“Yes. Now I do, and I appreciate and respect your feelings, and your reluctance to discuss it.” He paused. “However, James Tyacke is not only the captain of my flagship, he is the ship, no matter how he might dispute that!”

“Yes. I am sorry, Sir Richard. I thought—”

“Don’t be sorry. Loyalty comes in many guises.” They looked at the door as the sentry called, “First lieutenant, sir! ”

Lieutenant John Daubeny stepped into the cabin, his slim figure angled in the entrance like that of a drunken sailor.

“The captain’s respects, Sir Richard. Taciturn has signalled.

Sail in sight to the nor’-west.”

Avery remarked quietly, “She’ll have a hard beat to reach us, sir.”

“One of ours, you believe?”

Avery nodded. “Chivalrous. Must be her. She’d soon turn and run with the wind otherwise.”

Bolitho smiled unconsciously at his judgment. “I agree. My compliments to the captain, Mr Daubeny. Make a signal. General.

To be repeated to all our ships. Close on Flag. ” He could see them, tiny dabs of colour as the flags broke from their yards, to be repeated to the next vessel even though she might barely be in sight. The chain of command, the overall responsibility. Daubeny waited, noting everything, to go in the next letter to his mother.

Bolitho glanced up at the skylight. Tyacke with his ship. A man alone, perhaps now more than ever.

“I shall come up at seven bells, Mr Daubeny.” CROSS OF S T GEORGE

267

But the first lieutenant had gone, the signal already hoisted.

He touched the locket beneath his shirt.

Stay close, dear Kate. Don’t leave me.

They met with the 30-gun frigate Chivalrous in late afternoon, Indomitable and her consorts having made more sail to hasten the rendezvous. It would also ensure that Captain Isaac Lloyd could board the flagship with time to return to his own command before nightfall, or in case the wind freshened enough to prevent the use of a boat.

Lloyd was only twenty-eight but had the face of an older, more seasoned officer, with dark, steady eyes and pointed features that gave him the demeanour of a watchul fox. He used the chart in Bolitho’s cabin, his finger jabbing at the various positions which York had already estimated.

“Six of them all told. I could scarce believe my eyes, Sir Richard. Probably all frigates, including a couple of large ones.” He jabbed the chart again. “I signalled Weazle to make all haste to Halifax, but I fully expected the Yankees to try and put a stop to it.” He gave a short, barking laugh: a fox indeed, Bolitho thought. “It was as if we did not exist. They continued to the nor’-east, cool as you please. I decided to harry the rearmost one, so I set me royals and t’gallants and chased them. That changed things. A few signals were exchanged, and then the rearmost frigate opened fire with her chasers. I had to admit, Sir Richard, it was damn’ good shootin’.”

Bolitho sensed Tyacke beside him, listening, perhaps considering how he might have reacted in Lloyd’s shoes. Yovell was writing busily and did not raise his head. Avery was holding some of York’s notes, although he was not reading, and his face was set in a frown.

Lloyd said, “It got a bit too warm, and I reduced sail. Not before that damn Yankee had brought down a spar and punched 268

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

my forecourse full of holes. I thought that maybe he’d been ordered to fall back and engage Chivalrous. I would have accepted that, I think. But I says to meself, no, he don’t intend to fight, not now, anyways.”

Bolitho said, “Why?”

“Well, Sir Richard, he had all the time he needed, and he could see I had no other ship to support me. I knew he would have put his boats in the water, had he meant to show his met-tle.” He grinned. “He may have carried more guns than my ship, but with all those boats stowed on deck we could have cut down half his men with their splinters in the first broadside!” Tyacke roused himself from his silent contemplation and said abruptly, “Boats? How many?”

Lloyd shrugged, and glanced through the smeared windows as if to reassure himself that his ship was still riding under the Indomitable’s lee.

“Double the usual amount, I’d say. My first lieutenant insisted that the next ship in the American’s line was likewise equipped.” Avery said, “Moving to a new base?” Tyacke said bluntly, “There is no other base, unless they take one of ours.” When Lloyd would have said something, Tyacke held up one hand. “I was thinking. Remembering, while you were speaking just now. When it was decided that the slave-trade was not quite respectable, unbefitting civilized powers, Their Lordships thought fit to send frigates to stamp it out. Faster, better-armed, trained companies, and yet . . .” He turned and looked directly at Bolitho. “They could never catch them. The slavers used small vessels, cruel, stinking hulls where men and women lived and died in their own filth, or were pitched to the sharks if a King’s ship happened to stumble on them.”

Bolitho remained silent, feeling it, sharing it. Tyacke was reliving his time in Larne. The slavers had come to fear him: the devil with half a face.

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

269

Tyacke continued in the same unemotional tone, “All along that damnable coast, where the rivers came out to the Atlantic, the Congo, the Niger and the Gaboon, the slavers would lie close inshore, where no man-of-war of any consequence would dare to venture. Which was why they evaded capture and their just deserts for so long.” He glanced at the young captain, who did not avoid his eyes. “I think you fell in with something you were not supposed to see.” He moved to the chart and laid his hand on it. “For once, I think our Mr York was wrong. Mistaken. They didn’t give chase, Captain Lloyd, because they could not. They dared not.” He looked at Bolitho. “Those boats, sir. So many of them. Not for picking up slaves like those cruel scum used to do, but to put an invading army ashore.” Bolitho felt the shock and the truth of his words like a cup of icy water in his face.

“They’re carrying soldiers, as they did on the lakes, except that these are larger vessels, with something bigger in prospect at the end of it!”

He thought of the army captain who had survived the first attack on York, and of the reports which had filtered through with information of a second attack three months later. Perhaps Lake Erie had already fallen to the Americans? If so, the British army would be cut off, even from retreat. The young captain had described the Americans at York as being well-trained regulars.

Bolitho said, “If these ships entered the Bay of Fundy but turned north, and not towards Nova Scotia, they could disembark soldiers who could force their way inland, knowing that supplies and reinforcements would be waiting for them once they reached the St Lawrence. It would seal off all the frontier districts of Upper Canada, like ferrets in a sack!” He gripped Lloyd’s hand warmly in farewell. “You did not fight the American, Captain Lloyd, but the news you have carried to me may yet bring us a victory. I shall ensure that you 270

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

receive proper recognition. Our Nel would have put it better. He always insisted that the Fighting Instructions were not a substi-tute for a captain’s initiative.”

Tyacke said roughly, “I’ll see you over the side, Captain Lloyd.” As the door closed, Avery said, “Is it possible, sir?” Bolitho half-smiled. “Do you really mean, is it likely? I think it is too important to ignore, or to wait for a miracle.” He listened to the trill of calls as the fox-like captain went down to his gig.

Tyacke returned, and waited in silence while Bolitho instructed his secretary to send a brief despatch to Halifax. “We shall alter course before nightfall, James, and steer due north. Make the necessary signals.” He saw the concern in the clear eyes that watched him, from the burned remains of the face. “I know the risks, James. We all do. It was there for all of us to see, but only you recognized it. Your loneliest command was not wasted. Nor will it be.” He wondered if Tyacke had been going over it all again.

The letter, the girl he might scarcely remember, or not wish to remember. One day he might share it; at the same time, Bolitho knew that he would not.

“D’ you think your man Aherne is with them?”

“I am not certain, but I think it possible that he may have fallen out of favour with his superiors, like John Paul Jones.” Like my own brother.

Tyacke was about to leave, but turned when Bolitho said with sudden bitterness, “Neither side can win this war, just as neither can afford to lose it. So let us play our part as best we can . . .

And then, in God’s mercy, let us go home!” They stood crowded together around York’s chart-table, their shadows joining in a slow dance while the lanterns swung above them.

More like conspirators than King’s men, Bolitho thought. It CROSS OF S T GEORGE

271

was pitch black outside the hull, early dark as he had known it would be, the ship unusually noisy as she rolled in a steep swell.

There was no land closer than seventy miles, Nova Scotia’s Cape Sable to the north-east, but after the great depths to which they had become accustomed they sensed its presence. Felt it.

Bolitho glanced at their faces in the swaying light. Tyacke, his profile very calm, the burns hidden in shadow. It was possible to see him as the woman had once done: the unscarred side of his face was strongly boned and handsome. On his other side the master was measuring his bearings with some dividers, his expression one of doubt.

Avery was crammed into the small space too, with Daubeny the first lieutenant bobbing his head beneath the heavy beams as he tried to see over their shoulders.

York said, “In broad daylight it’s bad enough, sir. The entrance to the bay, allowing for shallows and sandbars, is about 25 miles, less, mebbee. We’d not be able to hold our formation, and if they are ready and waiting . . .” He did not go on.

Tyacke was still grappling with his original idea. “They can’t go in and attack anything in the dark, Isaac. They’d need to take soundings for most of the bay. The boats could be separated, swamped even, if the worst happened.” York persisted, “The whole of that coastline is used by small vessels, fishermen mostly. A lot of the folk who made their homes in New Brunswick after the American rebellion were loyalists.

They’ve no love for the Yankees, but . . .” He glanced at Bolitho.

“Against trained soldiers, what could they do?” Bolitho said, “And if they have already carried out a landing, those ships might be waiting for us to appear like ducks in a waterfowler’s sights. But it takes time—it always does. Lowering boats, packing men and weapons into them, more than likely in the dark, and with some of the soldiers half sick from the passage . . . Marines, now, that would be different.” He rubbed his 272

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

chin, aware of its roughness: one of Allday’s shaves then, if there was time. He said, “Our captains know how to perform. We have exercised working together, although not with Mr York’s unwelcoming bay in mind!” He saw them smile, as he had known they would. It was like being driven, or perhaps led. Hearing somebody else speak, somehow finding the faith and confidence to inspire others. “And we must admit, the plan, if that is what they have in mind, is a brilliant one. Seasoned soldiers could march and fight their way northwards and meet with their other regiments on the St Lawrence. What is that, three hundred miles? I can remember as a boy when the 46th Regiment of Foot marched all the way from Devon to Scotland. And doubtless back again.” York asked uneasily, “Was there more trouble up north then, sir?”

Bolitho smiled. “No, it was the King’s birthday. It was his wish!”

York grinned. “Oh, well, that’s different, sir!” Bolitho picked up the dividers from the chart. “The enemy know the risks as well as we do. We shall remain in company as best we can. Each captain will have his best lookouts aloft, but they cannot work miracles. By dawn we shall be in position, here. ” The points of the dividers came down like a harpoon. “We may become scattered overnight, but we must take that chance.” Tyacke studied him in silence. You will take it, his expression said. Bolitho said, “If I were the enemy commander I would send in my landing parties, and perhaps release one of my smaller ships as close inshore as possible to offer covering fire if need be. That would even the odds.” He put down the dividers very carefully.

“A little.”

Tyacke said, “If we’re wrong, sir . . .”

“If I am wrong, then we will return to Halifax. At least they will be prepared there for any sudden attack.” He thought of Keen when he had spoken of St Clair’s daughter: he might become a CROSS OF S T GEORGE

273

vice-admiral sooner than his highest hopes, if the enemy had out-witted this makeshift plan.

He saw Avery bending over the table to scribble some notes in his little book, and for a second their eyes met. Did Avery know that his admiral was barely able to see the markings on the chart without covering his damaged eye? He felt the sudden despair lift from his spirit, like a dawn mist rising from the water. Of course they knew, but it had become a bond, a strength, which they willingly shared with him. Again he seemed to hear Herrick’s words. We Happy Few. Dear God, don’t let me fail them now.

Then he said quietly, “Thank you, gentlemen. Please carry on with your duties. Captain Tyacke?”

Tyacke was touching his scars; perhaps he no longer noticed that he was doing it.

“I would like to have the people fed before the morning watch, sir. Then, if you agree, we will clear for action.” He might have been smiling, but his face was in shadow again. “No drums, no din of war.”

Bolitho said lightly, “No Portsmouth Lass, either?” The same thought returned. Like conspirators. Or assassins.

Tyacke twisted round. “Mr Daubeny, do not strain your ears any further! I want all officers and senior warrant officers in the wardroom as soon as is convenient.” He added, almost as an afterthought, “We had better assemble our young gentlemen as well on this occasion. They may learn something from it.” York left with Daubeny, probably to confer with his master’s mates. It would keep them busy, and a lack of sleep was nothing new to sailors.

Avery had also departed, understanding better than most that Tyacke wished to be alone with Bolitho. Not as the officer, but as a friend. Bolitho had almost guessed what his flag captain was going to say, but it still came as a shock.

274

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

“If we meet with the enemy, and now that I have weighed the odds for and against, I think we shall, I would ask a favour.”

“What is it, James?”

“If I should fall.” He shook his head. “Please, hear me. I have written two letters. I would rest easy and with a free mind to fight this ship if I knew . . .” He was silent for a moment. “One is for your lady, sir, and the other for somebody I once knew . . . thought I knew . . . some fifteen years back, when I was a young luff like Mr Know-it-all Blythe.”

Bolitho touched his arm, with great affection. It was the closest to the man he had ever been.

He said, “We shall both take care tomorrow, James. I am depending on you.”

Tyacke studied the well-used chart. “Tomorrow, then.” Later, as he made his way aft to his quarters, Bolitho heard the buzz of voices from the wardroom, rarely so crowded even in harbour. Two of the messmen were crouching down, listening at the door as closely as they dared. There was laughter too, as there must have been before greater events in history: Quiberon Bay, the Saintes, or the Nile.

Allday was with Ozzard in the pantry, as he had known he would be. He followed Bolitho past the sentry and into the dimly lit cabin, with the sea like black glass beyond the windows. Apart from the ship’s own noises, it was already quiet. Tyacke would be speaking to his officers, just as he would eventually go around the messdecks and show himself to the men who depended on him.

Not to tell them why it was so, but how it must be done. But the ship already knew. Like Sparrow and Phalarope, and Hyperion most of all.

Allday asked, “Will Mr Avery be coming aft, Sir Richard?” Bolitho waved him to a chair. “Rest easy, old friend. He’ll find a minute to pen a letter for you.”

Allday grinned, the concern and the pain falling away. “I’d take CROSS OF S T GEORGE

275

it kindly, Sir Richard. I’ve never been much for book-learnin’ an’

the like.”

Bolitho heard Ozzard’s quiet step. “Just as well for the rest of us, I daresay. So let us drink to those we care about, while we can. But we’ll wait for the flag lieutenant.” He looked away. Avery had probably already written a letter of his own, to the unknown woman in London. Perhaps it was only a dream, a lost hope. But it was an anchor, one which was needed by them all.

He walked to the gun barometer and tapped it automatically, recalling Tyacke’s acceptance of what must be done, his confidence in his ship. And of his words. “If I should fall . . .” The same words, the same voice which had spoken for all of them.

Avery entered the cabin even as the sentry shouted his arrival.

Bolitho said, “Did it go well, George?” Avery looked at Ozzard and his tray of glasses.

“Something I heard my father say, a long time ago. That the gods never concern themselves with the protection of the innocent, only with the punishment of the guilty.” He took a glass from the unsmiling Ozzard. “I never thought I would hear it again under these circumstances.”

Bolitho waited while Allday lurched to his feet to join them.

Tomorrow, then.

Thinking of Herrick, perhaps. Of all of them.

He raised his glass. “We Happy Few!” They would like that.

16 lee S hore

LIEUTENANT George Avery gripped the weather shrouds and then paused to stare up at the foremast. Like most of the ship’s company, he had been on deck for over an hour, and yet his eyes were 276

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

still not accustomed to the enfolding darkness. He could see the pale outline of the hard-braced topsail, but beyond it nothing save an occasional star as it flitted through long banners of cloud. He shivered; it was cold, and his clothing felt damp and clinging, and there was something else also, a kind of light-headedness, a sense of elation, which he thought had gone forever. Those days when he had been in the small schooner Jolie, cutting out equally small prizes from the French coast, sometimes under the noses of a shore battery . . . Wild, reckless times. He almost laughed into the damp air. It was madness, as it had been madness then.

He swung himself out and wedged his foot onto the first ratline, then, slowly and carefully, he began to climb, the big signals telescope hanging across his shoulder like a poacher’s gun. Up and up, the shrouds vibrating beneath his grip, the tarred cordage as sharp and cold as ice. He was not afraid of heights, but he respected them: it was one of the first things he could remember when he had been appointed midshipman under his uncle’s spon-sorship. The seamen, who had been rough and independent although they had shown him kindness, would rush up the ratlines barefooted, the skin so calloused and hardened that they scorned the wearing of shoes, which they would keep for special occasions.

He stopped to regain his breath, and felt his body being pressed against the quivering rigging while the invisible ship beneath him leaned over to a sudden gust of wind. Like cold hands, holding him.

Even though he could see nothing below him but the unchanging outline of the upper deck, sharpened occasionally when a burst of spray cascaded over the gangways or through the beak-head, he could imagine the others standing as he had left them.

So different from the usual nerve-wrenching thrill when the drums rattled and beat the hands to quarters, the orderly chaos when a ship was cleared for action from bow to stern: screens torn CROSS OF S T GEORGE

277

down, tiny hutches of cabins where the officers found their only privacy transformed into just another part of a gun deck, furniture, personal items and sea-chests dragged or winched into the lower hull, below the waterline, where the surgeon and his assistants would be preparing, remaining separate from the noise before battle: their work would come to them. On this occasion clearing for action had been an almost leisurely affair, men moving amongst familiar tackle and rigging as if it were broad daylight.

As ordered, the hands had been given a hot meal in separate watches, and only then was the galley fire doused, the last measure of rum drained.

Tyacke had remained by the quarterdeck rail, while officers and messengers had flowed around him, like extensions of the man himself. York with his master’s mates, Daubeny, the first lieutenant, with a junior midshipman always trotting at his heels like a pet dog. And right aft by the companion-way where he had walked with Sir Richard, Avery could see that in his mind also.

Where the command of any ship or squadron began or ended.

He smiled as he recalled what Allday had said of it. “Aft, the most honour. Forward, the better man!” Bolitho had been holding his watch closely against the compass light, and had said, “Go aloft, George. Take a good glass with you. I need to know instantly.

You will be my eyes today.”

It still saddened him. Did those words, too, have a hidden meaning?

And Allday again, taking his hat and sword from him. “They’ll be here when you needs ’em, Mr Avery. Don’t want our flag lieutenant gettin’ all tangled up in the futtock shrouds, now, do we?” He had written the letter Allday had requested. Like the man, it had been warmly affectionate, and yet, after all he had seen and suffered, so simple and unworldly. Avery had almost been able to see Unis opening and reading it, calling her ex-soldier brother to tell him about it. Holding it up to the child.

278

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

He shook his head, thrusting the thoughts aside, and started to climb again. Long before any of their letters reached England, they might all be dead.

The foremast’s fighting-top loomed above him, reminding him of Allday’s joke about the futtock shrouds. Nimble-footed topmen could scramble out and around the top without interruption, those on the leeward side hanging out, suspended, with nothing but the sea beneath them. The fighting-top was a square platform protected by a low barricade, behind which marksmen could take aim at targets on an enemy’s deck. It matched the tops on the other masts, above which the shrouds and stays reached up to the next of the upper yards, and beyond.

The foremast was perhaps the most important and complicated in the ship. It carried not only the bigger course and topsails, but was connected and rigged to the bowsprit, and the smaller, vital jib and staysails. Each time a ship attempted to come about and turn across the eye of the wind, the small jibsails would act like a spur or brake to prevent her floundering to a standstill, taken all aback with her sails flattened uselessly against the masts, unable to pay off in either direction. At the height of close action, the inability to manoeuvre could mean the death of the ship.

He thought of York and men like him, the true professionals.

How many people ashore would ever understand the strength and prowess of such fine sailors, when they saw a King’s ship beating down-Channel under a full press of sail?

He dragged himself between the shrouds and took the easier way into the foretop by way of a small opening, the “lubber’s hole,” as the old Jacks derisively termed it.

There were four Royal Marines here, their white crossbelts and the corporal’s chevrons on one man’s sleeve visible against the outer darkness.

“Mornin’, sir! Fine day for a stroll!” Avery unslung the telescope and smiled. That was another CROSS OF S T GEORGE

279

thing about being a flag lieutenant, neither fish nor fowl, like an outsider who had come amongst them: he was not an officer in charge of a mast or a division of guns, nor a symbol of discipline or punishment. So he was accepted. Tolerated.

He said, “Do you think it will be light soon?” The corporal leaned against a mounted swivel-gun. It was already depressed, and covered with a piece of canvas to protect the priming from the damp air. Ready for instant use.

He replied, “’Alf hour, sir. Near as a priest’s promise!” They all laughed, as if this were only another, normal day.

Avery stared at the flapping jib and imagined the crouching lion beneath it. What if the sea was empty when daylight came?

He searched his feelings. Would he be relieved, grateful?

He thought of the intensity in Bolitho’s voice, the way he and Tyacke had conferred and planned. He shivered suddenly. No, the sea would not be empty of ships. How can I be certain? Then he thought, Because of what we are, what he has made us.

He tried to focus his thoughts on England. London, that busy street with its bright carriages and haughty footmen, and one carriage in particular . . . She was lovely. She would not wait, and waste her life.

And yet, they had shared something deeper, however briefly.

Surely there was a chance, a hope beyond this cold dawn?

The corporal said carefully, “I sometimes wonders what he’s like, sir. The admiral, I mean.” He faltered, thinking he had gone too far. “It’s just that we sees him an’ you walkin’ the deck sometimes, and then there was the day when ’is lady come aboard at Falmouth.” He put his hand on his companion’s shoulder. “Me an’ Ted was there. I’d never ’ave believed it, see?” Avery did see. Replacing Catherine’s shoes and remarking on the tar on her stocking after her climb up this ship’s side. The flag breaking out, and then the cheers. Work them, drive them, break them; but these same men had seen, and remembered.

280

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

He said, “He is that man, Corporal. Just as she is that lady.” He could almost hear Tyacke’s words. I would serve no other.

One of the other marines, encouraged by his corporal, asked,

“What will us do when th’ war’s over an’ done with?” Avery stared up at the great rectangle of sail, and felt the raw salt on his mouth.

“I pray to God that I shall be able to choose something for myself.”

The corporal grunted. “I’ll get me other stripe an’ stay in the Royals. Good victuals an’ plenty of rum, an’ a hard fight when you’re needed! It’ll do me!”

A voice echoed down from the crosstrees. “First light a-comin’, sir!”

The corporal grinned. “Old Jacob up there, he’s a wild one, sir!” Avery thought of Tyacke’s description of the seaman named Jacob, the best lookout in the squadron. Once a saddle-maker, a highly skilled trade, he had found his wife in the arms of another man, and had killed both of them. The Assizes had offered him the choice of the gibbet or the navy. He had outlived many others with no such notoriety.

Avery withdrew the big telescope from its case, while the marines made a space for him and even found him something to kneel on.

One of them put his hand on the swivel-gun and chuckled.

“Don’t you go bumpin’ into old Betsy ’ere, sir. You might set ’er off by accident, an’ blow the ’ead off our poor sergeant. That’d be a true shame, wouldn’t it, lads?” They all laughed. Four marines on a windswept perch in the middle of nowhere. They had probably no idea where they were, or where bound tomorrow.

Avery knelt, and felt the low barricade shivering under the great weight of spars and canvas, and all the miles of rigging that ruled the lives of such men as these. Of one company.

He held his breath and trained the glass with great care, but CROSS OF S T GEORGE

281

saw only cloud and darkness. Old Jacob on his lofty lookout would see it first.

He was shivering again, unable to stop.

“’Ere, sir.” A hand reached out from somewhere. “Nelson’s blood!”

Avery took it gratefully. It was against all regulations: they knew it, and so did he.

The corporal murmured, “To wish us luck, eh, lads?” Avery swallowed, and felt the rum driving out the cold. The fear. He stared out again. You will be my eyes today. As if he were right beside him.

And suddenly, there they were. The enemy.

Captain James Tyacke watched the shadowy figures of Hockenhull, the boatswain, and a party of seamen as they hauled on lines and secured them to bollards. Every one of Indomitable’s boats was in the water, towing astern like a single unwieldy sea anchor, and although he could scarcely see them, he knew that the nets were already spread across the gun deck. The scene was set.

Tyacke searched his feelings for doubt. Had there been any?

But if so, they were gone as soon as the old lookout’s doleful voice had called down from the foremast crosstrees. Avery would be peering through his glass, searching for details, numbers, the strength of the enemy.

York remarked, “Wind’s falling away, sir. Steady enough, though.”

Tyacke glanced over at Bolitho’s tall figure framed against the pale barrier of packed hammocks, and saw him nod. It was time: it had to be. But the wind was everything.

He said sharply, “Shake out the second reef, Mr Daubeny! Set fores’l and driver!” To himself he added, where are our damned ships? They might have become scattered during the breezy night; better that than risk a collision, now of all times. He heard the 282

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

first lieutenant’s tame midshipman repeating his instructions in a shrill voice, edged with uncertainty at the prospect of something unknown to him.

He considered his other lieutenants, and frowned. Boys in the King’s uniform. Even Daubeny was young for his responsibilities.

The words repeated themselves in his mind. If I fall . . . It would be Daubeny’s skill, or lack of it, that would determine their success or failure.

He heard Allday murmur something and Bolitho’s quick laugh, and was surprised that it could still move him. Steady him, like the iron hoops around each great mast, holding them together.

The marines had laid down their weapons, and had manned the mizzen braces as the driver filled and cracked to the wind.

He knew that Isaac York was hovering nearby, wanting to speak to him, to pass the time as friends usually did before an action. Just in case. But he could not waste time in conversation now. He needed to be alive and alert to everything, from the men at the big double-wheel to the ship’s youngest midshipman, who was about to turn the half-hour glass beside the compass box.

He saw his own coxswain, Fairbrother, peering down at the boats under tow.

“Worried, Eli?” He saw him grin. He was no Allday, but he was doing his best.

“They’ll all need a lick o’ paint when we picks ’em up, sir.” But Tyacke had turned away, his eyes assessing the nearest guns, the crews, some bare-backed despite the cold wind, standing around them, waiting for the first orders. Decks sanded to prevent men slipping, in spray or perhaps in blood. Rammers, sponges, and worms, the tools of their trade, close to hand.

Lieutenant Laroche drawled, “Here comes the flag lieutenant.” Avery climbed the ladder to the quarterdeck, and Allday handed him his hat and sword.

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

283

He said, “Six sail right enough, Sir Richard. I think the tide’s on the ebb.”

York muttered, “It would be.”

“I think one of the frigates is towing all the boats, sir. It’s too far and too dark to be sure.”

Tyacke said, “Makes sense. It would hold them all together.

Keep ’em fresh and ready for landing.” Bolitho said, “We can’t wait. Alter course now.” He looked at Tyacke, and afterwards he imagined he had seen him smile, even though his features were in shadow. “As soon as we sight our ships, signal them to attack at will. This is no time for a line of battle!”

Avery recalled the consternation at the Admiralty when Bolitho had voiced his opinions on the fleet’s future.

Tyacke called, “Alter course two points. Steer north-east by north!” He knew what Bolitho had seen in his mind, how they had discussed it, even with nothing more to go on than Captain Lloyd’s sighting report and his own interpretation of the extra boats carried by the enemy. Tyacke gave a crooked grin. Slavers, indeed.

Men were already hauling at the braces, their bodies angled almost to the deck while they heaved the great yards round, mus-cle and bone striving against wind and rudder.

Tyacke saw Daubeny urging a few spare hands to add their weight to the braces. But even with the Nova Scotian volunteers, they were still short-handed, a legacy of Indomitable’s savage fight against Beer’s Unity. Tyacke straightened his hat. It was unnerving when he considered that that was a year ago.

Bolitho joined him by the rail. “The enemy have the numbers and the superior artillery, and will readily use both.” He folded his arms, and could have been discussing the weather. “But he is on a lee shore and knows it. Being a sailor, I am sure he was never 284

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

consulted about the choice of landing places!” He laughed, and added, “So we must be sharp about it.” Tyacke leaned over to consult the compass as the helmsman called, “Nor’-east by north, sir! Full an’ bye!” Tyacke peered up at each sail, watchful and critical as his ship leaned over comfortably on the starboard tack. Then he cupped his hands and shouted, “Check the forebrace, Mr Protheroe! Now belay!” He said almost to himself, “He’s only a boy, dammit!” But Bolitho had heard him. “We were all that, James. Young lions!”

“Chivalrous is in sight, sir! Larboard quarter!” Just an array of pale canvas riding high into the dull clouds.

How did he know? But Tyacke did not question the lookout: he knew, and that was all there was to it. The others would be in sight soon. He saw the first feeble light exploring the shrouds and shaking topsails. So would the enemy.

The wind was still fresh, strong enough, for the moment anyway. There would be no land in sight until the sun came out, and even then . . . But you could feel it all the same. Like a presence, a barrier reaching out to rid the approaches of all ships, no matter what flag they paraded.

Tyacke touched his face, and did not notice Bolitho turn his head towards him. So different now, out in the open, to see and to be seen. Not like the choking confines of the lower gun deck on that day at the Nile, when he had almost died, and afterwards had wanted to die.

He thought of the letter in his strongbox, and the one he had written in reply. Why had he done it? After all the pain and the despair, the brutal realization that the one being he had ever cared for had rejected him, why? Against that, it was still hard to believe that she had written to him. He remembered the hospital at Haslar in Hampshire, full of officers, survivors from one battle or another. Everyone else who had worked there had pretended to CROSS OF S T GEORGE

285

be so normal, so calm, so unmoved by the pervasive suffering. It had almost driven him crazy. That had been the last time he had seen her. She had visited the hospital, and he now realized that she must have been sickened by some of the sights she had seen.

Hopeful, anxious faces, the disfigured, the burned, the limbless, and others who had been blinded. It must have been a nightmare for her, although all he had felt at the time had been pity. For himself.

She had been his only hope, all he had clung to after the battle, when he had been so savagely wounded in the old Majestic.

Old, he thought bitterly: she had been almost new. He touched the worn rail, laid his hand on it, and again was unaware of Bolitho’s concern. Not like this old lady. Her captain had died there at the Nile, and Majestic’s first lieutenant had taken over the ship, and the fight. A young man. He touched his face again. Like Daubeny.

She had been so young . . . He almost spoke her name aloud.

Marion. Eventually she had married a man much older than herself, a safe, kindly auctioneer who had given her a nice house by Portsdown Hill, from where you could sometimes see the Solent, and the sails on the horizon. He had tortured himself with it many times. The house was not very far from Portsmouth, and the hospital where he had wanted to die.

They had had two children, a boy and a girl. They should have been mine. And now her husband was dead, and she had written to him after reading something about the squadron in the news-sheet, and the fact that he was now Sir Richard Bolitho’s flag captain.

It had been a letter written with great care, and without excuse or compromise: a mature letter. She had asked for his understanding, not for his forgiveness. She would value a letter from him, very much. Marion. He thought, as he had thought so often, of the gown he had bought for her before Nelson had led them 286

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

to the Nile, and the way that Sir Richard’s lovely Catherine had given the same gown grace and meaning after they had lifted her from that sun-blistered boat. Had she perhaps given him back the hope that had been crushed by hatred and bitterness?

“Deck there! Sail in sight to the nor’-east!” Tyacke snatched a glass from the rack and strode up to the weather side, training it across the deck and through the taut rigging. A glimpse of sunshine, without warmth. Waters blue and grey . . . He held his breath, able to ignore the marines and seamen who were watching him. One, two, three ships, sails filling and then flapping in an attempt to contain the wind. The other ships were not yet visible.

We have the advantage this time. But with the wind as it was, their roles could quite easily change.

He lowered the glass and looked at Bolitho. “I think we should hold our course, Sir Richard.”

Just a nod. Like a handshake. “I agree. Signal Chivalrous to close on Flag. ” He smiled unexpectedly, his teeth white in his tanned face. “Then hoist the one for Close Action. ” The smile seemed to evade him. “And keep it flying!” Tyacke saw his quick glance at Allday. Something else they shared. A lifeline.

“Chivalrous has acknowledged, sir.”

“Very good.”

Bolitho joined him again. “We will engage the towing vessel first.” He looked past Tyacke at the other frigate’s misty sails, so clean in the first frail light. “Load when you are ready, James.” The grey eyes rested on his face. “Those soldiers must not be allowed to land.”

“I’ll pass the word. Double-shotted, and grape for good measure.” He spoke without emotion. “But when we come about we shall have to face the others, unless our ships give us support.” CROSS OF S T GEORGE

287

Bolitho touched his arm and said, “They will come, James. I am certain of it.”

He turned as Ozzard, half-crouching as if he had expected to find an enemy engaged alongside, stepped from the companion-way. He was carrying the admiral’s gold-laced hat, holding it out as if it were something precious.

Tyacke said urgently, “Is this wise, Sir Richard? Those Yankee sharpshooters will be all about today!” Bolitho handed his plain sea-going hat to Ozzard, and after the slightest hesitation pulled the new one onto his spray-damp hair.

“Go below, Ozzard. And thank you.” He saw the little man bob gratefully, with no words to make his true feelings known.

Then Bolitho said calmly, “It is probably madness, but that is the way of it. Sane endeavour is not for us today, James.” He touched his eye and stared at the reflected glare. “But a victory it must be!” The rest was drowned out by the shrill of whistles and the squeak of blocks, as the great guns were cast off from their breech-ings and their crews prepared to load.

He knew that some of the afterguard had seen him put on his new hat, the one he and Catherine had bought together in St James’s Street: he had forgotten to tell her of his promotion, and she had loved him for it. A few of the seamen raised a cheer, and he touched his hat to them. But Tyacke had seen the anguish on Allday’s rugged face, and knew what the gesture had cost him.

Tyacke walked away, watching the familiar preparations without truly seeing them. Aloud he said, “And a victory you shall have, no matter what!”

Bolitho walked to the taffrail where Allday was shading his eyes to peer astern.

Like feathers on the shimmering horizon, two more ships of the squadron had appeared, their captains no doubt relieved that 288

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

the dawn had brought them together again. The smaller of the two frigates would be Wildfire, of twenty-eight guns. Bolitho imagined her captain, a dark-featured man, bellowing orders to his topmen to make more sail, as much as she could carry. Mor-gan Price, as craggy and as Welsh as his name, had never needed a speaking-trumpet, even in the middle of a gale.

Allday said, “That’s more like it, Sir Richard.” Bolitho glanced at him. Allday had not been concerned about the other ships. Like some of the others on the quarterdeck, he had been watching the cluster of boats falling further and further astern, drifting to a canvas sea anchor, to be recovered after the action. It was a necessary precaution before fighting, to avoid the risk of additional wounds being caused by splinters. But to Allday, like all sailors, the boats represented a final chance of survival if the worst happened. Just as their presence on deck would tempt terrified men to forget both loyalty and discipline, and use them as an escape.

Bolitho said, “Fetch me a glass, will you?” When Allday had gone to select a suitable telescope, he stared at the distant frigate. Then he covered his undamaged eye, and waited for the pale topsails to mist over or fade away altogether.

They did not. The drops the surgeon had provided were doing some good, even if they had a sting like a nettle when first applied.

Brightess, colour; even the sea’s face had displayed its individual crests and troughs.

Allday was waiting with the telescope. “Set bravely, Sir Richard?”

Bolitho said gently, “You worry too much.” Allday laughed, relieved, satisfied.

“Over here, Mr Essex!”

Bolitho waited for the midshipman to reach him, and said,

“Now we shall see!”

He rested the heavy glass on the youth’s shoulder and care-CROSS OF S T GEORGE

289

fully trained it across the starboard bow. A fine clear morning had emerged from the cloud and chilling wind: winter would come early here. He felt the young midshipman’s shoulder shiver slightly.

Cold; excitement; it was certainly not fear. Not yet. He was a lively, intelligent youth, and even he would be thinking of the day when he would be ready for examination and promotion. Another boy in an officer’s uniform.

Three ships at least, the rest not yet in sight. Almost bows-on, their sails angled over as they tacked steeply across the wind.

Far beyond them was a purple blur, like a fallen cloud. He pictured York’s chart, his round handwriting in the log. Grand Manan Island, the guardian at the entrance to the Bay. The American would be doubly aware of the dangers here: being on a lee shore, with shallows as an extra menace once the tide was on the turn.

He stiffened and waited for the midshipman’s breathing to steady; or perhaps he was holding his breath, very aware of his special responsibility.

A fourth ship, a shaft of new sunlight separating her from the others, bringing her starkly to life in the powerful lens.

He knew Tyacke and York were watching, weighing the odds.

Bolitho said, “The fourth ship has the boats under tow. The flag lieutenant was not mistaken.”

He heard Avery laugh as Tyacke remarked, “That makes a fair change, sir!”

Bolitho closed the glass with a snap and looked down at the midshipman. He had freckles, as Bethune had once had. He thought of Herrick’s assessment. The upstart.

“Thank you, Mr Essex.” He walked to the rail again. “Bring her up closer to the wind, James. I intend to attack the towing ship before she can slip the boats. Filled or empty, it makes no difference now. We can stop them landing, and within the hour it will be too late.”

Tyacke beckoned to the first lieutenant. “Stand by to alter 290

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

course.” A questioning glance at the sailing-master. “What say you, Isaac?”

York squinted his eyes to stare up at the driver and the mizzen topsail beyond it. “Nor’-east by east.” He shook his head as the driver’s peak with the great White Ensign streaming from it almost abeam flapped noisily. “No, sir. Nor’-east is all she’ll hold, I’m thinking.”

Bolitho listened, touched by the intimacy between these men.

Tyacke’s command of small ships had left its mark, or maybe it had always been there.

He shaded his eyes with his hand to observe the ship’s slow response, the long jib-boom moving like a pointer until the enemy ships appeared to slide slightly from bow to bow.

“Steady she goes, sir! Course nor’-east!” Bolitho watched the sails buck and shiver, uncomfortable this close to the wind. It was the only way. Only Indomitable had the firepower to do it in one attack. Chivalrous was too small, the rest too far away. Their chances would come soon enough.

Avery folded his arms close to his body, trying not to shiver.

The air was still keen, making a lie of the strengthening sunlight that painted the broken wavelets a dirty gold.

He saw Allday staring around, his eyes searching: a man who had seen it many times before. He was studying the open quarterdeck, the scarlet-coated marines with their officer, David Merrick. The gun crews and the helmsmen, four of the latter now, with a master’s mate close beside them. Tyacke standing apart from the rest, his hands beneath his coat-tails, and the admiral, who was explaining something to the midshipman, Essex. Something he would remember, if he lived.

Avery swallowed hard, knowing what he had seen. Allday, probably more experienced than any other man aboard, was seeking out the weaknesses and the danger points. Past the tightly-packed hammock nettings and up to the maintop, where CROSS OF S T GEORGE

291

more scarlet coats showed above the barricade. Where an enemy’s fighting-top might be if they were close enough. Thinking of the sharpshooters, said to be backwoodsmen for the most part, who lived by their skills with a musket. Avery was chilled by the thought. Except that these marksmen would be armed with the new and more accurate rifles.

Was that the source of Allday’s worry, then? Because of Bolitho’s gesture, the hat with the bright gold lace, and all that it meant, and could mean, at the moment of truth. It was said that Nelson had refused to remove his decorations before his last battle, and had ordered that they should be covered before he was carried below, his backbone shot through, his life already slipping away. Another brave, sad gesture. So that his men should not know their admiral had fallen, had left them before the fight had been decided.

It was plain on Allday’s homely features, and when their eyes met across the spray-patterned deck, no words were needed by either man.

“Deck there! The boats is bein’ warped alongside!” Bolitho clenched his fists, his face suddenly unable to conceal his anxiety.

Avery knew, had guessed even from the moment Bolitho had mentioned the primary importance of the boats. Despite the risks and the stark possibility of failure, he had been thinking of the alternative, that Indomitable would be forced to fire on boats packed with helpless men, unable to raise a finger to defend themselves. Was this part of the difference in this war? Or was it only one man’s humanity?

Tyacke shouted, “Something’s wrong, sir!” York had a telescope. “The Yankee’s run aground, sir!” He sounded astonished, as if he were over there, sharing the disaster.

Bolitho watched the sunlight catch the reflected glare from falling sails and a complete section of the vessel’s mainmast. In 292

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

the silence and intimacy of the strong lens, he almost imagined he could hear it. A big frigate, gun for gun a match for Indomitable, but helpless against the sea and this relentless destruction above and below. The boats were already filled or half-filled with blue uniforms, their weapons and equipment in total disarray as the truth became known to them.

Bolitho said, “Prepare to engage to starboard, Captain Tyacke.” He barely recognized his own voice. Flat, hard, and unemotional.

Somebody else.

Daubeny shouted, “Starboard battery! Run out! ” The long twenty-four-pounders rumbled up to and through their ports, their captains making hand signals only to avoid confusion. Like a drill, one of so many. A handspike here, or men straining on tackles to train a muzzle a few more inches.

The other ship had slewed around slightly, wreckage trailing alongside as the tide continued to drop, to beach her like a wounded whale.

The wheel went over again, while York turned to watch the land, the set of the current, feeling if not seeing the danger to this ship.

“Course nor’ by east, sir!”

Bolitho said, “One chance, Captain Tyacke. Two broadsides, three if you can manage it.” Their eyes met. Time and distance.

Midshipman Essex jerked round as if he had been hit, and then shouted, “Our ships are here, sir!” He waved his hat as distant gunfire rolled across the sea like muffled thunder. Then he realized that he had just shouted at his admiral, and dropped his eyes and flushed.

“On the uproll!”

Bolitho looked along the starboard side, the gun captains with their taut trigger-lines, the emergency slow-matches streaming to the wind like incense in a temple.

Daubeny by the mainmast, his sword across one shoulder, CROSS OF S T GEORGE

293

Philip Protheroe, the fourth lieutenant, up forward with the first division of guns. And here on the quarterdeck, the newest lieutenant, Blythe, staring at each crouching seaman as if he was expecting a mutiny. The stranded ship was drawing slowly abeam, the floundering boats suddenly stilled as the reluctant sunlight threw Indomitable’s sails across the water in patches of living shadow.

Daubeny raised his sword. “As you bear!” Lieutenant Protheroe glanced aft and then yelled, “Fire!” Division by division, the guns roared out across the water, each twenty-four-pounder hurling itself inboard to be seized and man-handled like a wild beast.

Bolitho thought he saw the shockwave of the broadside rip across the water, carving a passage like some scythe from hell.

Even as the first double-shotted charges and their extra packing of grape smashed into the boats and exploded into the helpless ship, Protheroe’s men were already sponging out their guns, prob-ing for burning remnants with their worms before ramming home fresh charges and balls.

The quarterdeck guns were the last to fire, and Blythe’s voice almost broke in a scream as he yelled. “A guinea for the first gun, I say! A guinea!”

Bolitho watched it all with a strange numbness. Even his heart seemed to have stopped. Tyacke had trained them well; three rounds every two minutes. There would be time for the third broadside before they came about, to avoid running aground like the stricken American.

Tyacke was also watching, remembering. Point! Ready! Fire!

The drill, always the drill. Slaves to the guns which were now repaying his hard work.

A whistle shrilled. “Ready, sir!”

“Fire!”

Boats and fragments of boats, uniformed soldiers thrashing in 294

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

the water, their screams engulfed as their weapons and packs carried them down into bitter cold. Others who had been able to reach the ship’s side were dragging themselves back to a security they could recognize, only to be torn down by the next controlled broadside. The American was burned and scarred by the weight of iron, but mostly it was the blood that was remarkable. On the hull, and down the side, where even the water shone pink in the sunlight.

In a brief lull, Bolitho heard Allday say, “If they’d been first, sir, they’d have given no quarter to us.” He was speaking to Avery, but any reply was lost in the next roar of cannon fire.

Outside this pitiless arena of death, another struggle was taking place. Ship to ship, or two to one, if the odds were overwhelming. No line of battle, only ship to ship. Man to man.

York said hoarsely, “White flag, sir! They’re finished!” True or not, they would never know, for at that moment the third and last broadside smashed into the other ship, shattering forever the scattered remnants of a plan that might have been successful.

As men staggered from Indomitable’s guns and ran to the braces and halliards in response to shouted commands to bring the ship about and into the wind, Bolitho took a final glance at the enemy. But even the white flag had vanished into the smoke.

Daubeny sheathed his sword, his eyes red-rimmed and bright.

“Chivalrous has signalled, sir. The enemy has broken off the action.” He looked at his hand, as if to see if it were shaking.

“They did what they came to do.”

Tyacke tore his eyes from the flapping sails as his ship turned sedately across the wind, the masthead pendant rivalling Bolitho’s Cross of St George as they streamed across the opposite side.

He said harshly, “And so, Mr Daubeny, did we! ” Bolitho handed the telescope to Essex. “Thank you.” Then to Tyacke, “General signal, if you please . Discontinue the action. Report CROSS OF S T GEORGE

295

losses and damage. ” He looked across at the tall signals midshipman. “And, Mr Carleton, mark this well and spell it out in full.

Yours is the gift of courage. ” Avery hurried across to assist the signals party, but once with them he paused, afraid to miss anything, his head still reeling from the roar of the guns and the immediate silence which had followed.

Bolitho was saying to Tyacke, “Taciturn will take command and lead our ships to Halifax. I fear we have lost some good men today.”

He heard Tyacke reply quietly, “We could have lost far more, Sir Richard.” He tried to lighten his tone. “At least that damned renegade in his Retribution failed to appear.” Bolitho said nothing. He was staring across the quarter to the distant smoke, like a stain on a painting.

Avery turned away. The gift of courage. Our Nel would have appreciated that. He took the slate and pencil from Carleton’s unsteady hands.

“Let me.”

Tyacke said, “May I change tack and recover the boats, Sir Richard?”

“Not yet, James.” His eyes were bleak. Cold, as that dawn sky had been. He gazed up at the signal for Close Action. “We are not yet done, I fear.”

17 the greatest R eward

CAPTAIN Adam Bolitho removed his boat-cloak and handed it to an army orderly, who was careful to shake it before carrying it away. It had begun to rain with the abruptness of a squall at sea, and the drops were hard and cold, almost ice.

296

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

Adam crossed to a window and wiped away the dampness with his hand. Halifax harbour was full of shipping, but he had scarcely glanced at the anchored vessels while he had been pulled ashore in the gig. He could not become accustomed to it, accept that he had to go to the land in order to see his admiral.

Keen had sent word that he needed to speak with him as soon as possible, when, under normal circumstances, they could have met aft in Valkyrie’s great cabin.

He thought of John Urquhart, now acting-captain of the ill-fated Reaper. Perhaps Keen’s summons had come at the right moment. Urquhart had been with him in the cabin, about to take his leave to assume command of Reaper, and their farewell and the significance of the moment had moved Adam more than he had believed possible. He knew that he had been seeing himself, although he had been much younger when he had been offered his first ship. But the feelings, gratitude, elation, nervousness, regret, were the same. Urquhart had said, “I’ll not forget what you have done for me, sir. I shall endeavour to make use of my experience to the best of my ability.”

Adam had answered, “Remember one thing, John. You are the captain, and they will know it. When you go across to her presently to read yourself in, think of the ship, your ship, not what she has been or might have become, but what she can be for you. All your officers are new, but most of the warrant ranks are from the original company. They are bound to make comparisons, as is the way with old Jacks.”

Urquhart had looked up at the deckhead, had heard the tramp of boots as the marines took up their positions to see him over the side. It had all been in his face. Wanting to go, to begin: needing to stay where all things were familiar.

Adam had said quietly, “Don’t concern yourself now with Valkyrie, John. It will be up to Lieutenant Dyer to fill your shoes.

It is his chance, too.” He had gone to the table and opened a CROSS OF S T GEORGE

297

drawer. “Take these.” He had seen the surprise and uncertainty on Urquhart’s face, and added abruptly, “A bit weathered and salt-stained, I fear, but until you find a tailor . . .” Urquhart had held the epaulettes to the light, all else forgotten. Adam had said, “My first. I hope they bring you luck.” They had gone on deck. Handshakes, quick grins, a few cheers from some of the watching seamen. The twitter of calls, and it was done. Moments later they might hear the calls from Reaper across the harbour.

Just before they had parted Urquhart had said, “I hope we meet again soon, sir.”

“You will be too busy for social events.” He had hesitated. “In truth, I envy you!”

A door opened, and de Courcey stood waiting for him to turn from the window.

“Rear-Admiral Keen will see you now, sir.” Adam walked past without speaking. De Courcey was different in some way, oddly subdued. Because he had shown fear when the Americans had hove into view? Did he really imagine I would run carrying tales to his admiral, as he would have done about me?

It was the general’s room which he had visited with Keen and Bolitho on another occasion, with the same large paintings of battles and dark, heavy furniture, and he realized that this had probably been Keen’s idea, rather than ask him to join him at the Massie residence.

He saw that Keen was not alone, and the other man, who was about to leave, was David St Clair.

St Clair shook his hand. “I am sorry you were kept waiting, Captain Bolitho. It seems I may be needed here in Halifax after all.”

Keen waved him to a chair as the door closed behind his other visitor. Adam studied him with interest. Keen looked strained, and unusually tense.

298

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

He said, “I have received fresh despatches from the Admiralty, but first I have to tell you that Sir Richard was correct in his belief that control of the lakes was vital.” He glanced around the room, thinking of that day in the summer when the army captain had described the first attack on York. When Gilia had asked about the officer who had been killed. “The army could not hold the vital line of water communications, and at Lake Erie they were beaten. A retreat was ordered, but it was already too late.” He slapped his hand on the table and said bitterly, “The army was cut to pieces!”

“What will it mean, sir?” Adam could not recall ever seeing Keen so distressed. So lost.

Keen made an effort to compose himself. “Mean? It means we will not be able to drive the Americans out of the western frontier districts, especially not now, with winter fast approaching. It will be another stalemate. We, in the fleet, will blockade every American port. They’ll feel that as deeply as any bayonet!” Adam tried to think without emotion. His uncle was at sea, and the brig Weazle had brought word that he was investigating the whereabouts of some enemy frigates reported heading north-east. They could be anywhere by now. He thought of Keen’s words, winter fast approaching. The fierce, bitter rain, the fogs, the damp between decks. Where had the time gone? It was October, by only a day or two, and yet you could feel it.

He roused himself from his thoughts and found that Keen was watching him gravely. “Sir Richard, your uncle and my dear friend, is to be withdrawn. That was the main point of the despatches.

I shall remain in charge here.”

Adam was on his feet. “Why, sir?”

“Why, indeed? I am informed that Sir Alexander Cochrane will be taking over the whole station, which will include the Leeward Squadron. A far bigger fleet will be at his disposal, both for blockade duties and for land operations with the army. In CROSS OF S T GEORGE

299

Europe, Napoleon’s armies are in retreat on every front. It is a land war now. Our blockade has served its purpose.” He turned away, and said with the same soft bitterness, “And at what a price.”

Adam said, “I think Sir Richard should be told without delay.”

“I need all available frigates here, Adam. I have scarcely a brig available to retain contact with our patrols, let alone watch over enemy movements.”

“Sir Richard may have been called to action, sir.”

“D’ you imagine I’ve not thought as much? I couldn’t sleep because of it. But I cannot spare any more ships.” Adam said coolly, “I understand, sir. As your flag captain, I am required to advise, and to present conclusions. My uncle would be the very first to steer away from favouritism, or from encouraging action taken purely out of personal involvement.”

“I hoped you would say that, Adam. If I were free to act . . .” Adam turned away as the same orderly entered with a tray and glasses. “With the General’s compliments, sir.” He said, “But you are not free, sir, not so long as your flag is flying above this command.”

Keen watched the soldier’s steady hand as he poured two large measures of cognac. The general lived well, it seemed.

Adam held the glass to the light from the window. Already it was as grey as winter, like a symbol of time’s relentless passage.

Keen swallowed deeply, and coughed to regain his breath.

Then he said, “You may go, thank you.” When they were alone again, he said, “The warrants for the two mutineers were presented this morning. Have no fear— I signed them. Sir Richard will be spared that, at least.” It seemed to spark off another memory. “John Urquhart took command today, did he not?” Adam said, “Yes. The custom will prevail, sir. Both prisoners will be hanged, run up to the main-yard by their own ship’s company. Reaper’s.”

300

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

Keen nodded almost absently, as if he had been listening to a stranger.

“I will order Reaper to sea immediately. Captain Urquhart can find Sir Richard and carry my despatches to him. I’ll not begin that ship’s new life with a damned execution!” There were voices outside: de Courcey with the next visitors.

Keen glanced irritably at the door. “There is another matter, Adam. If you would prefer to take another appointment, I would understand. It has not been easy.” He looked at him directly, his eyes very still. “For either of us.” Adam was surprised that he did not even hesitate. “I would like to remain with you, sir.” He put down the empty glass. “I shall return to Valkyrie in case I am needed.” For the first time, Keen smiled. “You will always be that, Adam. Believe me.”

The same orderly was waiting for him with his cloak. “Stopped rainin’, sir.”

He thought of Urquhart, how he would feel when he was ordered to proceed to sea with all possible despatch. Relieved, probably. And of the mutineer, Harry Ramsay, whom he had tried to help, although he had suspected that he was guilty. At least he would be spared the final degradation of being hanged by his own shipmates.

“A moment, Captain Bolitho!”

He turned, and as if to a secret signal the front doors swung shut again.

She was warmly dressed, her cheeks flushed from the cold air.

He waited, seeing her as she had been that day when Valkyrie’s powerful broadside had been ready to fire. None of them would have survived, and she would know it.

He removed his hat, and said, “You are well, Miss St Clair?” She did not seem to hear. “Are you remaining as flag captain to Rear-Admiral Keen?”

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

301

So Keen had confided in her. He was again surprised, that he did not care.

“I am.”

He glanced down as she laid one hand on his sleeve. “I am so glad. He needs you.” Her eyes did not falter. “And, for his sake, so do I.”

Adam studied her. He supposed that she would also know about the battle for Lake Erie, and the regiments involved.

He said, “You have my good wishes.” He allowed himself to smile, to soften it. “Both of you.” She walked with him to the door. Then she said, “You knew Rear-Admiral Keen’s wife, I believe?” He faced her again. “I was in love with her.” It was madness; she would tell Keen. Then, he was as certain that she would not.

She nodded: he did not know whether she was satisfied or relieved. “Thank you, Captain . . . I can understand now why you love your uncle. You are both the same man, in many ways.” She tugged off her glove, and it dropped to the floor. Adam stooped to recover it, and she did not see the sudden distress in his eyes.

He took her hand, and kissed it. “You do me too much honour, Miss St Clair.”

She waited until the door had been pulled shut behind him.

Her father would be impatient to see her, wanting to tell her about his new appointment here in Halifax. It would be good to see him happy, occupied with his work again.

But all she could think of was the man who had just left her, whose austere face had seemed very young and vulnerable for those few seconds, when he had picked up her glove. Something which even he had been unable to hide. And she was both moved and gladdened by it.

At four bells of the afternoon watch His Majesty’s Ship Reaper weighed anchor, and under topsails and jib wended her way 302

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

towards the entrance and the open sea. Many eyes followed her, but no one cheered or wished her well. Captain Adam Bolitho followed her progress until she was lost from view. She was free.

“Deck there! Boats in the water, dead ahead!” Tyacke walked to the compass box and then stopped as eight bells chimed out from the forecastle.

“I was beginning to wonder, Mr York.” The sailing-master rubbed his hands. “By guess and by God, sir. It usually works!”

Tyacke peered along the length of his ship, the guns lashed firmly behind shuttered ports, men working, not certain what to expect. Indomitable was steering due west, the wind sweeping over the larboard quarter, the spray as heavy and cold as rain.

He looked aft again and saw Bolitho by the taffrail, not walking but standing, oblivious to the men around him and the marines at the nettings, where they had remained since the attack on the American boats.

York moved closer and murmured, “What ails the admiral?

We prevented the landings, more than most of us dared to hope.” Tyacke stared at the horizon, hard, hard blue in the noon light. A sun without warmth, a steady wind to fill the topsails, but without life.

Even the casualties amongst the squadron had been less than would have been suffered in a straightforward fight. But the Americans had been eager to stand away, unwilling to risk a running battle for no good purpose. If they had rallied and reformed, it would have been a different story. As it was, the frigate Attacker had been dismasted, and the smaller Wildfire had been so badly holed by long-range and well-sighted shots that she had been down by the head when she had finally been taken in tow. Most of the casualties had been in those two ships: thirty killed and CROSS OF S T GEORGE

303

many others wounded. It had been time to discontinue the action and Bolitho had known it. Tyacke had watched his face when the signals had been read out, giving details of damage and casualties. Some might think that the admiral was relieved because Indomitable had not been in the thick of it, and was unmarked.

If they believed that they were bloody fools, Tyacke thought.

He swung round. “What?”

Lieutenant Daubeny flinched. “I was wondering, sir, about relighting the galley fire . . .”

Tyacke controlled his anger with an effort. “Well, wonder away, Mr Daubeny!” He glanced aft again, unable to forget the quiet voice, as if Bolitho had just spoken to him. When he had reported that there were no more boats in the water by the stranded and smoke-shrouded American ship, Bolitho had said, “It was murder, James. Justified in war, but murder for all that. If that was the price of victory, I don’t wish to share a part of it!” Tyacke said abruptly, “That was unfair. Pass the word for the purser and arrange an extra tot of rum for all hands. Food too, if there is any, but the galley fire stays out until I know what’s happening.”

Daubeny said, “I see, sir.”

Tyacke turned away. “You do not, Mr Daubeny, but no matter.” To York he said, “Sir Richard feels it, Isaac. Cares too much.

I’ve not seen him like this before, though.” York tucked some dishevelled grey hair beneath his hat. “He’s fair troubled, right enough.”

Tyacke walked to the compass box and back again. “Let me know when you can see the boats from the deck. It will give the hands something to do when we hoist ’em inboard.” He clapped the master on the shoulder. “A good piece of navigation, Mr York.” He turned as Allday walked aft from the companion. “You know him best, Allday. What do you think?” 304

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

Allday regarded him warily. “It’s not for me to say, sir.” He followed Tyacke’s eyes to the figure by the taffrail, the hero others never saw. So completely alone.

He made up his mind. The captain was a friend; it was not merely idle curiosity.

“He knows, sir.” He glanced at the hard, glittering horizon; unlike the admiral, he did not have to shade his eyes. “It’s today, y’ see?”

Tyacke said sharply, “The Yankees are gone, man. They’ll not be back, not till they’re ready and prepared again. Our ships will reach Halifax and the dock-master will foam at the mouth when he sees all the repairs that need doing!” But Allday did not respond, nor did he smile.

He said, “There’s always the . . .” He frowned, searching for the word. “The scavenger. My wife’s brother was a line-soldier—

he told me. After a battle, men lying wounded, calling out for help, with only the dead to hear them. And then the scavengers would come. To rob them, to answer a cry for help with a cut-throat blade. Scum! ”

Tyacke studied his lined face, aware of the strength of the man. The admiral’s oak. He heard York’s steady breathing beside him. He could feel it too: knew it, the way he read the wind’s direction and the set of the current in the painted sea. Tyacke was not superstitious. At least, he believed he was not.

Allday was carrying the old sword, which was part of the legend.

He said quietly, “We’ll fight this day, sir. That’s it an’ all about it!”

He walked aft, and they saw Bolitho turn toward him, as if they had just met on a street or in some country lane.

York said uneasily, “How can that be, sir?” Allday was saying, “The hands are going to draw a wet, Sir Richard. Can I fetch you something?” CROSS OF S T GEORGE

305

Bolitho glanced down as he clipped the old sword onto his belt.

“Not now, old friend.” He smiled with an effort, understanding that Allday needed reassurance. “Afterwards, that would be better.”

He reached out to touch his arm, and then halted.

“Deck there! Sail on th’ larboard bow!” They were all staring round, some at the empty sea, and others aft towards their officers. Avery was here, a telescope in his hands, his eyes darting between them. To miss nothing, to forget nothing.

Bolitho said, “Aloft with you, George. In my own mind, I can already see her.” He held up one hand. “Take your time. The people will be watching you.”

Allday took a deep breath, feeling the old pain in his chest.

Scavenger.

Bolitho knew that Tyacke had turned toward him, and called to him, “Alter course. Steer west by south. That should suffice for the present.”

He turned away from them, and watched a solitary gull swoop-ing around the quarter gallery. The spirit of some old Jack, Allday thought.

“Deck there!” Avery was a fast climber, and had a good carrying voice: he had told him that he had been in a church choir in his youth. In that other world. “She’s a frigate, sir! I—I think she’s Retribution! ”

Bolitho murmured, “I know she is, my friend.” He frowned, as Allday’s hand went to his chest. “I’ll not have you suffer for it!” He raised his voice. “You may beat to quarters again, Captain Tyacke. We have some old scores to settle today!” He laid his hand on the sword’s hilt at his hip, and it was cold to the touch.

“So let us pay them in full!”

306

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

Lieutenant George Avery waited for the motion to ease, and knew that more helm had been applied. He raised his telescope, as he had on the first sight of enemy ships only hours ago. It felt like a lifetime. The same marines were still in the foretop, staring at the oncoming American as her sails emptied and filled violently, while she leaned over to the pressure. She was a heavy-looking frigate under a full press of canvas, the spray bursting beneath her beak-head and as high as the gilded figurehead. The gladiator, a short stabbing-sword glinting in the hard glare.

The corporal said, “The Yankee’s crossin’ our bows, lads.” But his comment was really intended for the flag lieutenant.

Avery studied the other ship, forcing himself to take his time, not to see only what he expected to see. The corporal was right.

The Retribution would eventually cross from bow to bow; more importantly, she would find herself to leeward of Indomitable’s broadside once they were at close quarters. He estimated it carefully. Three miles at the most. Tyacke had reduced sail to topsails and jib, driver and reefed forecourse, and Indomitable’s progress was steady and unhurried, a floating platform for her twenty-four-pounders.

He lowered the glass and looked around at his companions.

Somehow, they managed to appear very jaunty and smart in their glazed leather hats with the cockade and plume over the left ear.

He noticed also that they had all shaved. They were fastidious about such details in the Corps.

“Won’t be long, lads.” He saw the corporal glance at the swivel-gun, “Betsy.” He would know what to expect. They all did.

He nodded to them, and lowered himself quickly onto the ratlines. On deck once more, he strode aft, catching the hurried glances from the gun crews, a half-wave from young Protheroe.

On this deck, the gun was god. Nothing else mattered but to fire and keep firing, to shut out the sights and the sounds, even when a friend cried out in agony.

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

307

He found Bolitho with Tyacke and the first lieutenant, observing from the quarterdeck. Here, too, the marines had come to life, like scarlet soldiers taken from a box, lining the packed hammock nettings while elsewhere sentries stood guard at hatches or ladders, in case a man’s nerve cracked and terror tore discipline apart.

Avery touched his hat. “She’s Retribution right enough, Sir Richard. She wears a commodore’s broad-pendant. Fifty guns, at a guess. She changed tack.” He thought of the corporal again, the doubt in his voice. “She’ll lose the wind-gage if she remains on that tack.”

York said, “She steers nor’-east, sir.” Unruffled. Patient. Bolitho saw him tap the youngest midshipman’s arm as the child reached for the half-hour glass beside the compass box. “Easy, Mr Campbell, don’t warm the glass! I have to write the log, not you!” The twelve-year-old midshipman looked embarrassed, and momentarily forgot the growing menace of the American’s tall sails.

Bolitho took a telescope and trained it beyond the bows.

Retribution had no intention of altering course, not yet. He studied the other frigate: well-built, like so many French vessels, designed to one standard for the convenience of repair and replacement, not at the whim of an individual shipbuilder like most British men-of-war. When Taciturn and the other damaged ships reached Halifax, they would be hard put to find a mast or a spar that would match any one of them.

He said, “He is deliberately dropping downwind, James.” He sensed that Daubeny was leaning forward to listen, squinting in concentration.

Tyacke agreed. “Then he intends to use the extra elevation the wind gives him to fire at full range.” He glanced up at the braced yards, the flag and pendant streaming towards the enemy, and said grimly, “He’ll try for our spars and rigging.” Avery turned away. The corporal had seen it, but had not 308

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

fully understood. Both Bolitho and Tyacke must accept it.

Bolitho said, “Chain-shot, James?”

Tyacke shook his head. “I did hear they were using langridge, that damnable case-shot. If so . . .” He swung away as though to consult the compass again.

Bolitho said to Avery, “It can cripple a ship before she can fight back.” He saw the concern in Avery’s tawny eyes, but he did not fully comprehend. Damnable, Tyacke had termed it. It was far worse than that. Packed into a thin case, each shot contained bars of jagged iron, loosely linked together so that when they burst into a ship’s complex web of rigging they could tear it to pieces in one screaming broadside.

He saw Tyacke gesturing to the gun crews and making some point urgently to Daubeny with each jab of his finger.

That was the advantage of langridge; but against that, it took far longer to sponge and worm out each gun afterwards to avoid a fresh charge exploding in the muzzle as it was rammed home.

It took time, and Tyacke would know it.

Bolitho rubbed his damaged eye and felt it ache in response.

If I were James, what would I do? He was astonished that he could even smile, recalling that almost forgotten admiral who had met his pleading for a command with the withering retort, Were a frigate captain, Bolitho . . .

I would hold my fire and pray that the regular drills hold firm, if all else fails.

Lieutenant Blythe called, “The enemy’s running out, sir!” Tyacke said, “Aye, and he’ll likely check each gun himself.” Bolitho saw Allday watching him. Even Tyacke had accepted Aherne, had given him body and personality. A man with so much hatred. Retribution. And yet if he crossed this very deck, I would not know him. Perhaps it was the best kind of enemy.

Faceless.

Once again, he looked at the sky and the searing reflections CROSS OF S T GEORGE

309

beneath it. Two ships with an entire ocean to witness their efforts to kill one another.

He covered his undamaged eye and tested the other. His vision was blurred; he had come to accept that. But the colours remained true, and the enemy was close enough now to show her flag, and the commodore’s broad-pendant standing out in the wind like a great banner.

Tyacke said, “Ready, Sir Richard.”

“Very well, James.” So close, so private, as if they shared the deck only with ghosts. “For what we are about to receive . . .” Tyacke waved his fist, and the order echoed along the upper deck.

“Open the ports! Run out!” And from the waist of the ship where the gunner’s mates were already passing out cutlasses and axes from the arms chest, Lieutenant Daubeny’s voice, very clear and determined.

“Lay for the foremast, gun captains! And fire on the uproll!” The older hands were already crouching down, as yet unable to see their target.

Tyacke yelled, “Put your helm down! Off heads’l sheets!” Indomitable began to turn, using the wind across her quarter to her best advantage. Round and further still, so that the other frigate appeared to be ensnared in the shrouds as Indomitable’s bowsprit passed over her, to hold her on the larboard side.

The distance was falling away more quickly, and Bolitho saw the topmen darting amongst the thrashing sails like tiny puppets on invisible strings.

The air quivered and then erupted in a drawn-out explosion, smoke billowing from the American’s guns which was then driven inboard and away across the water.

It seemed to take an age, an eternity. When the broadside ploughed into Indomitable’s masts and rigging, it was as if the whole ship was bellowing in agony. Tiny vignettes stood out 310

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

amidst the smoke and falling wreckage. A seaman torn apart by the jagged iron as it ripped through the piled hammocks, and hurled more men, screaming and kicking, to the opposite side.

Midshipman Essex, stock-still, staring with horror at his white breeches, which were splashed with blood and pieces of human skin cut so finely that they could have been the work of a surgeon. Essex opened and closed his mouth but no sound came, until a running seaman punched his arm and yelled something, and ran on to help others who were hacking away fallen cordage.

Avery stared up, ice-cold as the fore-topgallant mast splintered apart, stays and halliards flying like severed snakes, before thundering down and over the side. He wiped his eyes and looked again. It was suddenly important, personal. He saw the four scarlet figures in the top, peering up at the broken mast, but otherwise untouched.

“A hand here!”

Avery ran to help as York caught one of his master’s mates, who had been impaled on a splinter as big as his wrist.

York stepped into his place, and muttered hoarsely, “Hold on, Nat!”

Avery lowered the man to the deck. He would hear nothing ever again. When he was able to look up once more, Avery saw the American’s topgallant sails standing almost alongside. He knew it was impossible; she was still half a cable away.

He heard Daubeny shout, “As you bear! Fire! ” Down the ship’s side from the crouching lion to this place here on the quarterdeck, each gun belched fire and smoke while its crew threw themselves on tackles and handspikes to hasten the reloading. But not double-shotted this time. It would take too many precious minutes.

A marine fell from the nettings without a word; there was not even a telltale scar on the deck planking to mark the shot.

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

311

Bolitho said, “Walk with me, George. Those riflemen are too eager today.”

“Run out! Ready! Fire!”

There was a cracked cheer as the Retribution’s mizzen-mast swayed and toppled in its stays and shrouds, before falling with a crash that could be heard even above the merciless roar of cannon fire. York was holding a rag against his bloody cheek, although he had not felt the splinter which had opened it like a knife.

He called, “Her steering’s adrift, sir!” Bolitho said sharply, “Helm down, James! Our only chance!” And then the enemy was here, no longer a distant picture of grace and cruel beauty. She was angled toward them, the water surging and spitting between the two hulls even as Indomitable’s long jib-boom and then her bowsprit rammed into the enemy’s shrouds like some giant tusk.

The force of the impact splintered Indomitable’s main-yard, broken spars, torn rigging and wounded topmen falling on Hockenhull’s spread nets like so much rubbish.

Tyacke shouted at his gun crews, “One more, lads! Hit ’em! ” Then he staggered and clapped one hand to his thigh, his teeth bared against the pain. Midshipman Carleton ran to help him, but Tyacke gasped, “Pike! Give me a pike, damn you!” The midshipman thrust one towards him and stared at him, unable to move as Tyacke drove the pike into the deck and held himself upright, using it as a prop.

Bolitho felt Allday move closer, Avery too, with a pistol suddenly in one hand. Across the debris and the wounded he saw Tyacke raise a hand to him, a gesture towards the fallen masts.

A bridge, joining them with the enemy.

The guns roared out and recoiled again, the crews leaping aside to pick up their cutlasses, staggering as though with a deadly fatigue while they clambered across to the other ship which had 312

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

been forced alongside, Indomitable’s splintered jib-boom dangling beside the enemy’s figurehead.

There was a bang from the swivel-gun in the foretop, and a hail of canister raked a group of American seamen even as they ran to repel boarders. The marines were gasping and cheering as they fired, reloaded, and then threw themselves on the hammocks to take aim again. And again. Above it all, Bolitho could hear Tyacke shouting orders and encouragement to his men. He would not give in to anything, not even the wound in his thigh. After what he had already suffered, it was an insult to think that he might.

Lieutenant Protheroe was the first on Retribution’s gangway, and the first to fall to a musket which was fired into his body from only a few inches away. He fell, and was trapped between the two grinding hulls. Bolitho saw him drop, and remembered him as the youngster who had welcomed him aboard.

He shouted, “To me, Indoms! To me, lads!” He was dragging himself across, above the choppy water, aware of flashing pistol fire and heavier calibre shot, and of Allday close behind, croaking, “Hold back, Sir Richard! We can’t fight the whole bloody ship!”

Bolitho was finding it difficult to breathe, his lungs filled with smoke and the stench of death. Then he was aboard the other ship, saw Hockenhull, the squat boatswain, kill a man with his boarding-axe and manage to grin afterwards at Allday. He must have saved him from being struck down. In the terrible blood-red rage of battle, the consuming madness, Bolitho could still remember Allday’s son, and that Allday had blamed Hockenhull for posting him to the vulnerable quarterdeck, where he had died.

Perhaps this would end that festering grievance.

Avery dragged at his arm, and fired point-blank into a crouching figure that had appeared at their feet. Then he, too, staggered, and Bolitho imagined he had been hit.

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

313

But Avery was shouting, trying to be heard above the shouts and cries and the clash of steel, blade to blade.

Then Bolitho heard it also. He lurched against a wild-eyed marine, his bloodied bayonet already levelled for a second thrust, his mind still refusing to understand. Faint but certain. Someone was cheering, and for a chilling moment he imagined that the Americans had had more men than he had believed, that they had managed to board Indomitable in strength. Then Tyacke must be dead. They would not otherwise get past him.

Avery gripped his arm. “D’ you hear, sir?” He was trembling, and almost incoherent. “It’s Reaper! She’s joined the squadron!” The explosion was sudden, and so close that Bolitho found himself flung bodily to the deck, his sword dangling from the knot around his wrist. It had felt like a searing wind, the dust and fragments from the blast like hot sand. Hands were pulling him to his feet; Allday, with his back turned, exposed to the enemy as he steadied him amongst the press of dazed and breathless men.

Bolitho gasped, unable to speak, to reassure him, but the agony in his eye was making it impossible.

He said, “Help me.”

Allday seemed to understand, and tore his neckerchief from his throat and in two turns had tied it around Bolitho’s head, covering his injured eye.

It was like being deaf, with men crawling or kneeling in utter silence beside the wounded, and peering into the faces of the dead.

Retribution’s seamen were staring at them, bewildered, shocked, beaten. Their flag had fallen with the broken mizzen-mast, but they had not surrendered. They had simply ceased to fight.

The explosion had been confined to the ship’s quarterdeck. A bursting cannon, carelessly loaded for a final desperate show of defiance, or perhaps a burning wad from one of Tyacke’s guns 314

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

when they had fired that last broadside with muzzles almost over-lapping those of the enemy. A small group of American officers were waiting near the shattered wheel, where helmsmen and others lay in the ugly attitudes of violent death.

One lieutenant held out his sword, and instantly Allday’s cutlass and Avery’s pistol rose in unison.

Bolitho touched the bandage across his eye, and was grateful for it. He said, “Where is your commodore?” He stared at the fallen mast, where men were still trapped in the tangled rigging like fish in a net. Reaper was closer, and the cheering was still going on; and he wished that he could see her.

The lieutenant stooped, and uncovered the head and shoulders of his commodore.

He handed his sword, hilt first, to Avery, and said, “Commodore Aherne, sir. He sometimes spoke of you.” Bolitho stared down at the face, angry and contorted, frozen at the instant of death. But a stranger.

He looked beyond them, toward the open sea. Had Aherne heard the cheers, and recognized Reaper too?

He turned inboard again. It was right, it was justice, that it should be Reaper. Now a witness to victory, and to folly.

He looked around at the breathless, gasping men, the madness gone from them as they dragged the wounded and the dying away from the blood-stained chaos on deck, talking to one another, some without realizing that those who answered were the enemy.

Through the clinging smoke he could see Tyacke facing him across the narrow strip of trapped water, still propped on his pike, with the surgeon on his knees applying a dressing. Tyacke raised one bloodied hand in salute. Perhaps to his ship. To the victor.

Bolitho said, “Help me back to Indomitable.” It was impossible to smile. Had he really cried, To me, Indom s , only minutes ago?

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

315

Allday took his arm and guided him, watching out for anything that might take him unaware. He had guessed what had happened, and now he was certain of it. He had seen too much to be shocked or awed by the sights on every hand: in his own way, despite the brutal ugliness of death everywhere, he was satisfied.

Once again they had come through, and they were still together. It was more than enough.

Bolitho hesitated, and looked around at the two embattled ships. Men had leaned over to touch his coat as he had passed; some had grinned and spoken his name; a few had openly wept, ashamed, perhaps, that they had survived when so many had fallen.

Now they all fell silent to listen as he looked beyond them and saw Reaper’s topsails suddenly bright in the hard sunlight.

He touched the locket beneath his stained shirt, and knew she was close to him.

“It is a high price to pay, and we have paid it many times before.

But we must not forget, for if we do, it will be at our peril!” He raised his head and stared up at his flag at the mainmast truck, so clean, and removed from the suffering and the hate.

“Loyalty is like trust, and must surely reach in both directions.” He looked at the slow-moving topsails again. “But it is the greatest reward of all.”

It was over.

epilogue

THE CARRIAGE with the Bolitho crest on its doors, freshly washed that morning, came to a halt by the church. It was cold even for March, but Catherine Somervell did not notice it.

316

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

Bryan Ferguson opened the door and lowered the step for her.

“Why not wait in there, my lady? ’Tis warmer, to be sure.” He seemed concerned, anxious that something might go wrong even now. She took his hand and stepped down onto the cobbles, and glanced toward the waterfront.

It was like any other day, and yet it was entirely different. Even the people seemed to be waiting, drawn together as was so often the way in seaports. A rumour, a message, a signal-gun, or a ship in distress. The people of Falmouth had seen it all before.

She adjusted her long green cloak, and the fastening at the throat. She had dressed carefully, taken her time, even though every fibre of her body had screamed at her to leave the house without delay. It still did not seem possible that Richard was coming, that he was probably within a mile of Falmouth at this moment.

She could recall the exact time when the letter had been brought by fast courier from Bethune at the Admiralty. She had already received one from Richard; it had touched on the battle, but he had avoided mentioning the many who had died. Bethune had told her that Indomitable was ordered to Plymouth, to be handed over to the care of carpenters and riggers there, eventually. But she was to be paid off upon arrival. A battered ship with her own memories and wounds, and like many of her company, she would wait now, and see if she was needed again.

The church clock at King Charles the Martyr chimed very slowly. Noon. She had been deeply suspicious of Bethune’s written suggestion that she await Richard’s return in Falmouth, and briefly she had conjured up old or unknown enemies who, even at this last precious opportunity, would attempt to reunite Richard with his wife under some pretext or other.

When she had composed herself and considered it, dismissing her fears, she knew the real reason. Indomitable was to be paid off in Plymouth, and Richard would be saying farewell to so many familiar faces. Others had already left, like shadows, carrying CROSS OF S T GEORGE

317

memories she could only imagine. He did not want her to see the ship now, but to remember her as she had been when she had climbed aboard, and they had cheered her for it, and Richard’s flag had broken out above all of them.

He was alive; he was coming home. It was all that mattered.

She had sensed that there were other matters, which Bethune had left unwritten . I am ready.

To Ferguson she said, “I shall be all right. I shall know you are here.” She brushed a strand of dark hair from her eyes, and looked up at Young Matthew on his box, framed against the cold, pale sky. “Both of you.”

There would be others here today. Unis, waiting for John Allday, although she had not yet seen her: this was a private moment for all who shared it. Perhaps it symbolized, more than anything, the elusive dream of peace, after so many years of sacrifice and separation. Bethune had said that the war was almost over. The allies had scored another crushing victory over Napoleon at Laon, and Wellington had captured Bordeaux: there was even talk of disbanding the local militia, the sea fencibles too. She thought with regret and affection of Lewis Roxby; how proud he would have been on this day. Nancy had visited her often: a sailor’s daughter as well as Richard’s sister, she was a great comfort to Catherine. And without Roxby’s presence filling every room at that great, empty house, it had helped her also. But she would stay away today. She understood, better than most.

She walked on, towards the moored vessels in the harbour, the swaying masts and spars which were now so familiar to her. The smells, too, were a far cry from the slums of her childhood, or the elegant London she had shared with Richard. Fresh bread and fish, tar and oakum, and the salt of the ever-present sea.

She saw people glance at her, some with curiosity, some familiarity, but without hostility. She would always be a stranger here, but never an intruder, and she was grateful for that.

318

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

She saw one of the coastguards with his companion, the same pair who had been on the beach as the tide had receded, and she had taken Zenoria’s slight, broken body in her arms.

He nodded and removed his hat to her. “Fine day, m’lady.”

“I hope so, Tom.”

She walked on, until she stood on the very edge of the jetty.

And the war in North America? It took second place to most of these people, for whom France had been the enemy for so long.

Too long.

Samuel Whitbread, the wealthy and influential brewer, had thundered out in the House of Commons that the war with America should be ended without delay. He had reminded the honourable members of that other occasion when peace had been grudgingly signed after the War of Independence, and Pitt had then remarked, A defensive war can only end in inevitable defeat.

She lifted her chin. So be it, then.

She heard laughter and noisy voices, and turned to see a group of discharged sailors loitering, watching the harbour. The ones she had heard Allday scornfully denounce as old Jacks who refought their battles every day in the inns and ale-houses, until the parlour lanterns were swinging like those of a ship in Biscay.

But they belonged here today: they were members of what Richard would call the family. One or two of them waved in acknowledgement, privileged to be part of his homecoming. She turned away. There was not one whole man amongst them.

Someone exclaimed, “There she be, lads!” Catherine looked across the water, her face like ice in the wind off Falmouth Bay and here in Carrick Roads.

The coastguard said, “’Tis the Pickle. Quite right an’ proper.” For my benefit?

She watched the little schooner moving between some moored lighters, distinguished from her merchant sisters only by a large, new White Ensign streaming from her peak.

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

319

HM Schooner Pickle. Right and proper. Her eyes pricked with sudden emotion, but she was determined to miss nothing. Pickle was a fairly regular visitor here, as she was at every port and naval station between Plymouth and Spithead. Carrying despatches and mail, and sometimes passengers, to the port admirals, or to the ships resting from their arduous blockade duties, sheltering in Torbay and protected from the gales by Berry Head.

But here, Pickle would always be remembered for her part in a single, greater event. She had run into Falmouth, and from here her commander, Lieutenant John Lapenotiere, had taken a post-chaise non-stop to the Admiralty, a journey of some 37

hours. And all the way the cry had gone with him, of England’s greatest victory at Trafalgar, to raise the heart of the nation.

And to numb it just as quickly, with the news that Nelson, the people’s hero, was dead.

She wondered if Richard had made any comparison, but knew he would not. His memories would be with James Tyacke and the others.

She touched her throat. And his hopes with me.

She saw the sails being brought under control, heaving lines snaking ashore to seamen and onlookers alike. Pickle had come alongside, her ensign very clear against the grey stones. Lieutenant Avery and Yovell would come by road with Richard’s possessions . . . She was filling her mind with irrelevant thoughts to control her emotion.

The chair, the wine cooler which she had had made when the other had been lost with his ship. If it had survived the last action . . . She walked to the end of the jetty, unfastening her cloak so that he should see her, and his fan-shaped pendant resting at her breast.

She saw the blue and white of uniforms, heard people on the jetty raising a cheer, not merely for the hero, but for Falmouth’s own son.

320

CROSS OF S T GEORGE

The baker’s wife was here with her small daughter, the child looking pleased but rather puzzled by the bunch of wild daffodils which she had been given to present as their own welcome.

Then she saw him, straight-backed and tall in his fine gold-laced coat, the old family sword at his side. And close on his heels, turning only to wave to the men on the schooner, was Allday, as she had known he would be.

She stood and watched him, oblivious to the cold. It was so important, too important to ruin in the presence of all these smiling, cheering faces. There were tears, too: there would be many who were not so lucky today. But the tears would not be hers.

The baker’s wife gave her little girl a gentle push, and she trotted forward with her daffodils.

Catherine clenched one fist until she felt her nails break the skin, as Richard brushed against the child with his knee.

Allday was there in an instant: she had heard that he was good with children. The puckered face which had been about to burst into tears was all smiles again. The moment was past.

Catherine held out her arms. Richard had not seen the child.

He could not.

Afterwards, she did not recall speaking, although she must have said something. Allday had grinned, and had made light of it.

Only in the carriage did she hold him, take his hands and press them against her to disperse his uncertainty, and his despair.

It was not a dream, and the ache would be gone until the next time, if it had to be.

Once he’d kissed her neck and said, “Don’t leave me.” She had answered strongly, for both of them, “Never.” Beyond the harbour, the sea was quieter now. Waiting.

Fiction

$16.95

mcbooks

press

cross of

“One of our foremost writers of naval fiction.”

—Sunday Times

cr

os

“Kent doesn’t make it easy for his hero. But he does endow S s

St

S tGe

G o

e r

o g

r e

g

t o

him with the authenticity that makes these adventures the G f

closest thing to C.S. Forester still coming off the presses.” eo

—The New York Times Book Review rge

1813: American privateers prey on British ships in the wake of the War of 1812. Admiral Richard Bolitho returns A

to Halifax to defend crown property, fi ghting fruitless skirmishes in the cold, unforgiving waters off Nova Scotia. While Bolitho’s le

enemies in the Admiralty pull strings behind the scenes to bring xa

him down, his nephew Adam rises to the grueling challenges of nd

command.

e

ALEXANDER KENT is the pen name of British author Douglas r

Reeman. After serving in the Royal Navy during WWII, he turned K

to writing, publishing books under his own name and the Bolitho e

series under the Kent pseudonym. The popular Bolitho novels have n

been translated into nearly two dozen languages.

t

www.bolithomaritimeproductions.com

ISBN: 978-0-935526-92-9

5 1 6 9 5

McBooks Press

22

www.mcbooks.com

9 780935 526929

Alexande

n r

de Ken

K t

en

the Bolitho novels: 22

Fiction

$16.95

mcbooks

press

cross of

“One of our foremost writers of naval fiction.”

—Sunday Times

cr

os

“Kent doesn’t make it easy for his hero. But he does endow S s

St

S tGe

G o

e r

o g

r e

g

t o

him with the authenticity that makes these adventures the G f

closest thing to C.S. Forester still coming off the presses.” eo

—The New York Times Book Review rge

1813: American privateers prey on British ships in the wake of the War of 1812. Admiral Richard Bolitho returns A

to Halifax to defend crown property, fi ghting fruitless skirmishes in the cold, unforgiving waters off Nova Scotia. While Bolitho’s le

enemies in the Admiralty pull strings behind the scenes to bring xa

him down, his nephew Adam rises to the grueling challenges of nd

command.

e

ALEXANDER KENT is the pen name of British author Douglas r

Reeman. After serving in the Royal Navy during WWII, he turned K

to writing, publishing books under his own name and the Bolitho e

series under the Kent pseudonym. The popular Bolitho novels have n

been translated into nearly two dozen languages.

t

www.bolithomaritimeproductions.com

ISBN: 978-0-935526-92-9

5 1 6 9 5

McBooks Press

22

www.mcbooks.com

9 780935 526929

Alexande

n r

de Ken

K t

en

the Bolitho novels: 22