Sword of Honour

by Alexander Kent

  ‘And there were many who fell because of it, Graham.’

  He had shaken his head, dismissing it. ‘We shall see the First Lord again when he returns from his audience with the Prince Regent. Their meetings are usually brief.’ He paused, and the smile was gone. ‘I have to tell you that the First Lord will offer you Malta, will insist that you are the obvious choice for it. Until the peace is finally agreed amongst the Allies, the Mediterranean must serve as a reminder to friends and foes alike that no further territorial claims on land or at sea will be tolerated.’ He had watched Bolitho then in silence. ‘I thought you should hear it first from me.’

  ‘That was good of you, Graham.’ He had glanced around the spacious room. ‘But it can be dangerous here, also, so be warned!’

  He rapped the roof of the carriage, and said, ‘I shall walk from here.’

  The coachman in his Admiralty livery barely glanced down from the box. Perhaps he had become too used to the ways of senior officers to question any whim.

  He walked beside the river. Kate’s London. She had made it his London now, or this small part of it, at least.

  What shall I say? What must I tell her?

  The First Lord had had no doubts at all. ‘Not since Collingwood held this command has there been stability and leadership. Your reputation, your sense of honour are more valuable now than in the line of battle!’ He had neglected to mention that Collingwood, Nelson’s second-in-command at Trafalgar, had died in the Mediterranean without ever being relieved of that command, despite his repeated requests to be allowed to come home, and despite the illness which had eventually killed him.

  He walked on, disquieted by his thoughts.

  It had been bad enough when he and Catherine had left Falmouth. Allday visiting the house, ostensibly to ensure that the swords were in good trim, then coming straight out with it. Not pleading, but insisting on his right to be at Bolitho’s side, wherever his flag should lead. And his secretary, Yovell, a man of many faces, and the secretive Ozzard. His little crew. And now there was Avery to consider. Bethune had hinted that he had been offered a great opportunity, a chance of security and prosperity. God knew he would never find either as a lowly lieutenant.

  The door was open and she was standing at the top of the steps, her hair piled above her ears, like silk in the candlelight.

  She slipped his arm around her waist. ‘Come into the garden, Richard. I have some wine there. I heard you were coming.’ She seemed to sense his tension. ‘I had a visitor.’

  He turned. ‘Who?’

  The strain was very evident in his face.

  ‘George Avery. He had come on a mission, with an invitation to some reception.’ She caressed his hand. ‘Tomorrow. After that, we can leave for Falmouth.’

  He said nothing, and walked into the garden, into its deepening shadows. He heard her pour the wine, then she said quietly, ‘So it is to be Malta, Richard?’

  Nothing of the anger she had shown in Falmouth. This was the poised, determined woman who had dared everything for his sake, who had even shared the ordeal in an open boat off the coast of Africa.

  ‘I have not decided, Kate ….’

  She put her fingers lightly on his mouth. ‘But you will. I know you so well, better than any other, even yourself. All those men you have led and inspired, they will expect it. For them, and the future they have been fighting for. You told me once, they are never allowed to ask, or to question why they should sacrifice so much.’

  They walked together to the low wall and watched the sunset over the river.

  She said, ‘You are my man, Richard. I will be with you, no matter how unfair or unjust I believe this decision may be. I would die rather than lose you.’ She touched his face, the cheekbone beneath the damaged eye. ‘And afterwards?’

  ‘Afterwards, Kate. That is a very beautiful word. Nothing can or will part us again.’

  She took his hand and pressed it to her breast. ‘Take me, Richard. Use me as you will, but always love me.’

  The wine remained in the garden, untouched.

  2

  More Than a Duty

  CAPTAIN JAMES TYACKE sat by the small table in his room and half listened to the muffled murmur of voices from the parlour below his feet. The Cross Keys was a small but comfortable inn on the road which headed north from Plymouth to Tavistock. Few coaches paused here because of the narrowness of the track, and he had sometimes wondered how the inn managed to make a living, unless perhaps it had some connection with the smuggling trade. It suited him very well, however, away from the stares and the swiftly averted glances. The pity, the curiosity, the revulsion.

  It was hard, even unnerving, to accept that he had last stayed here all of three years ago. It had been run at the time by a pleasant woman named Meg, who had spoken to him often, and had looked at him directly, without flinching. Three years ago; and when he had left the inn on that last occasion, he had known they would not meet again.

  The new landlord was welcoming enough, a little ferret of a man with quick, darting movements, and he had done his best to ensure that Tyacke was not disturbed.

  Three years. It was a lifetime. He had been about to take command of Indomitable, Sir Richard Bolitho’s flagship, before they had made sail for American waters. So many miles, so many faces, some already lost from memory. And now that same Indomitable lay at Plymouth, paid off, an empty ship, waiting for a new future, or with no future at all.

  He glanced at the big brass-bound sea chest by the bed. They had travelled a long, long way together. His whole world was contained in it.

  He thought of the past weeks, spent mostly aboard his ship attending to the thousand and one details of paying off, and worse, the rough farewells and handshakes from men he had come to know, men whose confidence and loyalty he had won by his own example.

  And Sir Richard Bolitho; that had been the most difficult parting of all. As admiral and flag captain they had discovered a mutual trust, and an admiration which might never be truly understood by an outsider.

  And now Napoleon was beaten; the war with the old enemy was over. Perhaps he should have felt elation, or relief. But as Tyacke had watched the fleet schooner Pickle standing out to sea, taking Bolitho and Allday on to Falmouth, all he had been conscious of was a sense of sorrow and loss.

  The port admiral was a friend of Bolitho’s, and had been both cordial and helpful to his flag captain. He had no doubt thought Tyacke’s request to be transferred once more to the anti-slavery patrols off the coast of West Africa, exchanging the comparative comfort of a larger ship, or some well-earned extended leave ashore for cramped quarters and the risks of fever and death, bizarre. Bolitho’s written support had added a great deal of weight. But, as the admiral had explained, the transfer might not be possible for another year or more.

  He remembered Indomitable as he had last seen her. Yards sent down, her usually immaculate decks littered with unwanted cordage and spars, her powerful cannon, which had roared defiance at the American Retribution, silent and disarmed. Now she was no longer needed, like the men who had served her so long and so well, men who had been pressed into the navy, for the most part. His mouth softened into a smile. But then, so had Allday been a pressed man. And the wounded, what of them? Cast ashore to try and find their places in a world which had all but forgotten them, to fend for themselves as best they could, to beg on the streets when all most people wanted now was to forget the war.

  And Sir Richard Bolitho, the hero and the man. One who could inspire others when all hope seemed lost, and who could not conceal his compassion, or his grief for those who had fallen.

  Again he gave the small smile. Bolitho had given him back his own hope, his pride, when he had believed them gone for ever. He touched the side of his face. Scored away by fire, rendered inhuman during the great battle when Nelson had led his ships to the Nile. How the eye had survived was a miracle. He had been so lucky, some said. What did they know? All the years since he had been smashed down by a
French broadside, when men had been killed and maimed on every side and even the captain of his ship, Majestic, had died in that bloody embrace, the disfigurement had haunted him. The stares, the way his young midshipmen had dropped their eyes, glanced away, anything but look at him. The devil with half a face, the slave-traders had called him. And now he was asking to go back to that lonely world of solitary patrols, pitting his wits against the traders, until the sighting and chase; the stinking vessels with their holds packed with chained slaves living in their filth, knowing they would be killed at the slightest provocation, their bodies pitched to the sharks. Slavers and sharks were rarely far apart.

  No, they would not let Bolitho leave the navy. To many people who served in the fleet, he was the navy. Between them, Bolitho and his mistress had defied convention and the censure of society. Tyacke touched his face again. He remembered her climbing up Indomitable’s tumblehome at Falmouth, disdaining a boatswain’s chair, and arriving on deck with tar on her stockings, raising the loudest cheers from the ship’s company because of it. The sailor’s woman who had come aboard to wish them well: men about to be carried to the other side of the world, torn from wives and families by the relentless press gangs, or felons freed by the local judges provided they were put aboard a King’s ship.

  And she had done it because she cared for them. She had even disdained formality that day in Falmouth, and had kissed him on the cheek in greeting. You are so welcome here. He could still hear the words. And then she had looked along the crowded deck at the watching crowds of seamen and marines and had said, They will not let you down. Nor had they.

  Perhaps she had been the only one who had truly understood the torment he had suffered when he had agreed to be Bolitho’s flag captain. He might be envied, feared, respected, even hated, but a captain, especially one who commanded a flagship, must be beyond self-doubt and uncertainty. Few could have guessed that those were the emotions he had felt when he had first stepped aboard to read himself in at Plymouth.

  His own words then came back to him now, as if he had spoken aloud. I would serve no other.

  He glanced around the room. He would have to leave it soon, if only to let them clean it. And suppose the appointment to the anti-slavery squadron was delayed even beyond the port admiral’s estimate of a year? What then? Would it always be like this, hiding in rooms, walking out only at night, avoiding every kind of human contact?

  He touched the dress coat which hung over a chair, and bore the twin gold epaulettes of a post-captain; a far, far cry from his previous command, the little brig Larne.

  His mind explored the years since the Nile, and his slow recovery from his wounds. Fifteen years had passed since hell had burst into Majestic’s lower gundeck and turned it into an inferno. He had been in Haslar Hospital at Portsmouth for what little treatment could be offered, and Marion had eventually dared to come and see him. She had been young then, and pretty, and he had hoped and expected to marry her.

  It had been an ordeal for her, like all the others who had ventured to Haslar in search of friends or relatives. Officers wounded in a dozen or more sea-fights, their faces so hopeful and so pitiful each time another visitor arrived. The burned, the maimed, the limbless and the blind, the living price of every victory, although few ever saw it.

  After that, she had married another, an older man who had given her a pleasant house by Portsdown Hill, not far from that same hospital. There had been two children of the marriage, a boy and a girl.

  Eventually her husband had died. Tyacke had received a letter from her while Indomitable had been at Halifax, the first news he had had of her for those fifteen years. It had been a letter written with great care, offering no excuses, no compromise, very mature, so different from the young girl he had once loved.

  He had written a reply to her, and had locked it in the strongbox before the last battle with Retribution; she would only have received it if he had died that day. Afterwards, he had torn it into pieces and had watched them drift away beneath his ship’s shot-pitted side. When he had needed her, and had sometimes found himself praying for death, she had turned away from him. He had told himself often enough that it was understandable. But she had not returned. So why had her letter disturbed him so much? The years had been another man’s reward, and, like the two unknown children, were a part of something he could never share.

  There was a quiet tap at the door, and after a moment it opened a few inches.

  Tyacke said, ‘It’s all right, Jenny, I am just going out for a walk. You can see to the room.’

  She gazed at him gravely. ‘Not that, zur. There’s a letter come for you.’

  She held it out and watched him carry it to the window. She was a local girl and had six sisters, and at the inn she often saw the uniforms of army or navy, so that she did not feel so cut off from Plymouth, that bustling seaport which her sisters were always quick to compare with this place.

  But she had never met anyone like this man before. He spoke only when it was necessary, although everybody knew all about him. A hero: Sir Richard Bolitho’s friend and his right arm, they said. They said a lot more too, probably, when she was not within earshot.

  She studied him now, his head lowered while he held the letter to the light of the window; he always turned his terrible injury away from her. He had a strong face, handsome too, and he was courteous, not like some of the gentry who called in for a glass. Her mother had warned her often enough about the dangers, about other girls who got themselves into trouble, especially with the garrison near Tavistock.

  She felt herself flushing. All the same ….

  Tyacke was unaware of the scrutiny. The note was from the port admiral. To present himself at his earliest convenience. Even addressed to a post-captain, that meant immediately.

  ‘I’ll need the carter, Jenny. I have to go to Plymouth.’

  She smiled at him. ‘Right away, zur!’

  Tyacke picked up his coat and brushed the sleeve with his fingers. The walk would have to wait.

  He stared around the room, the revelation hitting him like a fist. It was what he wanted. It was the only life he knew.

  The carriage slowed, and Bolitho saw groups of idlers and passers-by shading their eyes against the evening sun to peer in at the occupants. Some even waved their hats, although they could not possibly have recognised him, he thought.

  He felt her hand on his sleeve. ‘It’s their way of showing their feelings.’ She raised the hand to the nearest crowd and a man shouted, ‘It’s Sir Richard an’ his lady, lads! Equality Dick!’ There were cheers, and she murmured, ‘You see? You have many friends there.’

  The house on the river was ablaze with lights, the chandeliers burning even more brightly than this late sunshine.

  How Sillitoe must hate it, Bolitho thought. Wasteful but necessary. Necessary was the word for it. His world.

  Catherine said, ‘I hear there are receptions all over London tonight to celebrate the victory.’ She watched his profile, and wanted to put her arms around him, and let the crowds think what they liked.

  He said restlessly, ‘I wish it was young Matthew up there on the box, and we were heading down to Falmouth.’ He looked at her and smiled. ‘I am poor company for one so lovely, Kate.’ Strangely, the realisation seemed to give him strength. She was wearing a new gown in her favourite green shot silk, high-waisted, her shoulders bared, the diamond pendant resting between her breasts. Beautiful, poised, and outwardly very calm, and yet the same woman who had given herself to him with such passion, again and again until they were exhausted, in the house on the Walk at Chelsea, around the next great sweeping bend of this river.

  She said, ‘At least it will not be like that terrible feast at Carlton House. I have never eaten so much in my life!’ She watched his mouth lift, the way he smiled when they spoke of such things together.

  She peered out at the other carriages turning in Sillitoe’s drive, the crowds of footmen and grooms. Sillitoe must have gone to a great deal o
f expense.

  There were women too, but not many wives, she decided. She never forgot that Sillitoe had helped her when there had been no one else. He had made no secret of his feelings for her after that. Like the man, it had been a statement of fact, cool and deliberate, not something open to doubt.

  She glanced down at her gown. Daring perhaps, as some would expect of her. She lifted her chin and felt the pendant shift against her skin: Bolitho’s woman, for the whole world to see.

  And then they were there; the door was opened, and Bolitho stepped down to assist her from the carriage.

  Servants bowed and curtsied, while here and there Sillitoe’s own men, hard and watchful, reminded Catherine of that last visit to Whitechapel. Some of Sillitoe’s men had accompanied them then; there was always an air of mystery and danger where Sillitoe was concerned.

  Bolitho handed his hat to another servant, but she retained the silk shawl, which she wore across her bare shoulders. There were no announcements, no footmen to scrutinise invitations, only waves of noisy conversation, and, from somewhere nearby, music. It was neither joyful nor martial, merely an unobtrusive background for people who quite obviously knew one another, either by sight or reputation.

  ‘You look well, Sir Richard!’ Sillitoe appeared from behind a pillar, his hooded eyes everywhere. Then he took Catherine’s hand and held it to his lips. ‘As always, my lady, I never find words for such beauty.’

  She smiled, and saw several of the other women turning to stare. Sillitoe gestured impatiently as a footman appeared with a laden tray.

  Then he said, ‘Rhodes is here. I thought you should meet him, in view of the immediate future.’

  Bolitho turned towards her. ‘Admiral the Right Honourable Lord Rhodes is Acting Controller at the Admiralty, but he is also said to be the most likely contender for the role of First Lord.’ He watched her, reading her eyes. She mistrusted the mention of senior officers she did not know, in case they meant him harm in some way.