Sword of Honour

by Alexander Kent

  Monteith nodded, and touched his hat. ‘I never doubted it, sir.’

  Adam saw Whitmarsh’s small figure below the poop, carrying his short fighting sword, and what appeared to be his best hat; the other must have been lost somewhere between here and Chesapeake Bay. He shaded his eyes to look up at the freshly-set topgallant sails. Again, he saw the enemy ships as he had watched them through the powerful telescope. Three hours, four at the most, and then this deck would be in torment.

  He raised his arm so that Whitmarsh could clip on his scabbard, then took the hat and examined it. Make me strong today ….

  Valkyrie’s previous captain had been a tyrant and a coward. How would he be judged?

  He laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder, and saw the gunner’s mate, Jago, pause to watch them.

  ‘It will be warm work today, John Whitmarsh. Take station below when we engage.’

  The boy gazed up at him. ‘I’ll be close by, zur. If you needs me.’

  It was little enough, but Adam clapped the hat with its gleaming gold lace on his unruly hair and exclaimed, ‘Then so be it!’ He looked over at the helmsmen and felt the grin spread across his dry mouth.

  ‘Let us make this a day to remember!’

  Adam closed his watch with a snap and said to the first lieutenant, ‘That was well done, Mr Dyer. A minute off your record for clearing for action!’

  After the strident rattle of drums and the seemingly uncontrolled stampede of running men, the silence seemed unreal; even the ticking of his watch was audible.

  Now all was still, the crews around their guns, most of them stripped to the waist, outwardly relaxed now while they waited for the next order. Valkyrie was cleared for action, screens torn down, chests and cabin furniture stowed below. But the boats still lay on their tier, and no nets had been spread overhead to protect the hands from falling wreckage.

  He walked aft, where the marines waited on either side, muskets resting against the packed hammock nettings, their only protection if it came to close action.

  He found Deighton, alone but for his servant, right aft by the taffrail. Both the enemy ships were clearly visible now, and with a soldier’s wind directly under their coat-tails were almost bows-on. The smaller of the two ships was overhauling her larger consort, with even her studding sails set to achieve her maximum speed. Twenty-eight guns. Certainly no more.

  He said, ‘This is what I intend, sir.’ He was surprised that he could sound so formal, as if it were just another daily drill. ‘The leading ship intends to close the range as quickly as possible.’

  Deighton did not take his eyes off the other frigates.

  ‘Huh, you can blow him out of the water!’

  Adam recalled his own early days in a frigate, the ruses and tricks he had seen some captains attempt, not always successfully.

  ‘Like a hound after a stag, sir. He intends to try and slow us down, cripple us if possible, so they can close in for a kill.’ He glanced forward again; it seemed so bare without the nets spread above the gundeck.

  The lieutenants would explain, and the older hands might see the sense of it. They must seem to be running away from a superior force of ships; if they dropped the boats astern and were seen to spread the nets, their intent to fight would be obvious.

  He added, ‘They will hold the wind-gage, but I shall use it to our advantage.’

  There was a sharp bang, and seconds later he saw a ball skip across the blue water like a dolphin. The pursuing captain had used his bow-chaser to test the range; it was always a difficult shot, but it only required one good hit.

  He went forward and waited for Dyer to meet him. ‘I shall luff presently.’ He saw Ritchie listening, taking it all in. ‘Then we shall sail as close to the wind as we can. It should give us some advantage and extra elevation.’ He watched his words going home. ‘Double-shotted, chain-shot, too, if we have any. No full broadside.’ He paused, holding Dyer’s eyes. ‘Gun by gun. Do it yourself. I want that terrier dismasted before we are!’

  He snatched a glass from the rack and climbed into the shrouds to search for the second vessel. He found her and settled her in the spray-dappled lens. One of their large frigates. Like Beer’s Unity ….

  He strode aft again, feeling the eyes upon him, knowing their thoughts.

  ‘Sergeant Whittle. Choose your marksmen, then clear the poop. Your scarlet coats make a good aiming point!’ Some of them even laughed, as if it was a huge joke.

  Whittle, an impressive figure with iron-grey hair beneath his leather hat, bawled an order, and his men moved to their usual stations.

  Deighton said, ‘I don’t see the wisdom of that, Captain. Those ships are out for a kill, you said as much yourself!’

  Perhaps he felt safer with the armed marines around him. Adam almost smiled. What was safe today?

  He flinched, although he had been expecting it, as a long orange tongue shot from the other frigate’s bow, and the bang followed like an echo.

  It was well aimed, but the range was still too great. Maybe a nine-pounder; he imagined he could see the brief blur as the ball reached its maximum elevation. He saw the splash, and felt the hull jerk violently as the shot found its mark below the waterline. He glanced sharply at the wheel; Ritchie had three helmsmen on it now, but she showed no sign of running free or being out of command. With the steering gone, there would be no hope at all.

  He raised his hand. ‘Alter course three points! Steer nor’west!’

  Men were already hauling on the braces as the helm went over. The effect was immediate, the wind tilting Valkyrie like a toy as she came round further and further, as close to the wind as she would hold.

  A whistle shrilled. ‘Open the ports! Run out!’

  Squealing like pigs, the guns were hauled up to their ports, extra men running from the opposite side to add their weight to the tackles. At this angle, it was like dragging each gun up a steep slope.

  Sails cracked and thundered overhead. Ritchie called, ‘Course nor’west, sir!’

  Dyer was already at the starboard gangway, oblivious to the demented sails and the men slipping and falling on the spray-drenched deck. He had drawn his sword, and was standing motionless, staring at the enemy frigate as she loomed into view, as if she and not Valkyrie had made the violent change of tack.

  ‘Fire!’ Dyer ran from the side as the gun roared out and hurled itself inboard on its tackles, the crew already working with their sponges and worm to clear the barrel of any smouldering remnants which might ignite the next charge as it was rammed home. Adam had seen it happen, men driven beyond reason by the fury of battle who had neglected to sponge out a gun, and had been blown to bloody fragments when it had exploded.

  There was a chorus of wild cheering which Adam could not have prevented even if he had wished to. It must have been one of the last guns to fire; they would never know.

  Almost with disbelief, he saw the other frigate’s foremast begin to move, in a silence which made it all the more terrible.

  Slowly at first, and then like a giant tree, the entire foremast with spars, torn canvas and trailing rigging reeled forward and over the side.

  He shouted, ‘Stand by on the quarterdeck!’ When he looked again, the mast was dragging in the sea alongside the enemy ship, snaring her, dragging her round like a great sea-anchor. From a thing of beauty and purpose to a drifting shambles; but that would not last.

  The confusion amongst the flapping sails was even more violent when Valkyrie swung round still further, almost aback as she laboured through the eye of the wind.

  Adam dragged himself to the compass. ‘South-east by east, Mr Ritchie.’ He saw Dyer staring at him and shouted, ‘Larboard battery! Broadside!’

  ‘Fire!’ The range was about half a mile, but with a full, double-shotted broadside, they could easily have been alongside.

  As the wind drove the swirling smoke away like fog, Adam raised his telescope and studied the enemy’s shattered stern; the fallen mast had dragged her around to
expose her full length. Only her mainmast remained standing; topmasts, spars and booms covered her decks; torn canvas and coils of severed cordage completed the picture of devastation.

  Deliberately, he made himself turn, testing his emotions as he saw the second frigate, leaning over on a converging tack, her guns already run out like black teeth.

  He walked to the quarterdeck rail and saw the men stand back from their guns, one gun captain lifting a fresh ball in readiness for the next shot, and the one after that. Until it was over.

  He said, ‘They must not board us! We’re done for if they overrun the ship!’

  He drew the fine, curved hanger and held it over his head.

  ‘On the uproll, lads! Make each shot tell!’

  Somebody cheered, and a petty officer silenced him with a threat.

  The gun captains stood behind their breeches now, each with his trigger-line pulled taut, their crews crouched and ready with handspikes to change the elevation or training.

  ‘Fire!’

  The deck reeled beneath his feet, and Adam realised that the enemy had fired at the same moment. There was smoke everywhere, and he heard men screaming as splinters as large as goose quills tore amongst them. He wiped his face with his wrist and saw the enemy’s sails, pockmarked with holes, but each yard properly braced, still holding her on the same tack.

  The smoke was gone and he saw the upended guns now, the patterns of bright blood where men had fallen, or been crushed beneath the heated barrels.

  Deighton was suddenly beside him, and seemed to be shouting, although his voice was muffled, faint.

  ‘Disengage, Captain! That is an order, do you hear?’

  Adam stared past him at the oncoming ship; she seemed to fill the sea, and there were men in her shrouds, waiting to board, ready to mark down the most valuable targets. As if in a dream, he noticed that Deighton had removed his bright epaulettes. Marines were clambering up the ratlines, some with two muskets slung over their shoulders. Sergeant Whittle’s best marksmen…. He tried to think, to clear his mind.

  ‘I will not strike our colours, sir! You gave me an order to fight.’ He knew Dyer was waiting for the order. ‘Fight I will!’

  Deighton winced as more iron crashed into the lower hull. ‘I’ll see you in hell for this!’

  Adam pushed past him. ‘We shall meet there, sir!’

  He reached up to his shoulder, thinking somebody had tried to take his attention. His epaulette was gone, the cloth shredded into rag where a musket ball had torn it away.

  ‘Fire!’

  Men were coughing and retching as the smoke billowed inboard through the open gun ports; the enemy’s sails seemed to be towering right alongside, and yet the guns still fired, and were reloaded. The dead lay where they had fallen; there were not enough spare hands either to throw them outboard, or to carry the whimpering wounded below.

  Adam saw the other ship’s tapering jib boom and then her bowsprit passing over the larboard bow like a giant’s lance. There were shots everywhere, a rain of iron hammering the deck, ripping into the torn hammocks where several marines had already fallen.

  So they would not collide. The American was carrying too much canvas.

  Wildly he swung round, and shouted, ‘Carronade!’ Then, ‘Let her fall off, Mr Ritchie!’

  A master’s mate ran to throw his weight on to the wheel. Ritchie was propped against the compass box, his eyes fixed and staring as if still watching his ship’s performance, even in death.

  Adam waved his sword, and someone on the splintered forecastle jerked the lanyard. The carronade, the smasher as it was known, recoiled on its slide, and where seamen had been massing, ready for a chance to board, there was only a blackened heap of remains, men and fragments of men, and one officer standing, apparently untouched, his sword dangling by his side, perhaps too shocked to move.

  Dyer had rallied the gun crews and had brought more men from the disengaged side. Valkyrie shivered to another broadside, their own or the enemy’s Adam did not know.

  Somebody was yelling at him. ‘The commodore’s bin hit, sir! They’ve took ’im below!’

  The other frigate, her hull pockmarked with holes and with great, livid scars in her timbers, was being carried past by the press of canvas. Shots still ripped across the broadening arrowhead of water between them, but the shooting was less controlled. He saw two men fall from the shrouds as the Royal Marines in the fighting tops kept up their fire. In his heart, he knew that the engagement was over, but his reason could not accept it. One enemy crippled, and unlikely to reach safety once the other ships in the squadron came upon her. And the other – he could see her name now, in bright gold lettering across her counter, Defender – was unwilling to continue.

  He rubbed his ear; there was cheering too, which seemed very faint, although he knew it was here, in his own ship. The guns’ roar had rendered him almost deaf. He saw men peering at him and grinning, teeth white in their smoke-blackened faces.

  Dyer was here, shaking his arm. ‘The lookout has sighted Reaper, sir! The enemy must have seen her, that’s why they’re standing away!’ He looked stunned, unable to accept that he was alive when so many had fallen.

  Reaper, of all ships. So right that it should be John Urquhart, coming to the aid of his old ship, where he had been treated so badly.

  ‘Shorten sail, Mr Dyer.’ He wanted to smile, to give them something they could cling to when the final bloody bill was reckoned. ‘Report damage and casualties.’ He tried again. ‘You did well. Very well.’ He turned away, and did not see Dyer’s expression. Pride; gratitude; affection.

  He said, ‘I must see the commodore. Take charge here.’ He saw the man called Jago, a bare cutlass wedged through his belt.

  ‘A victory, sir.’ It seemed to have drained him. ‘Or as good as.’

  Adam shaded his eyes to watch the enemy frigate. Defender. They might still meet again. Her flag was flying as proudly as before. Defiant ….

  He seemed to recall what Jago had said, and stared around.

  ‘My servant! Whitmarsh! Where is he?’

  Jago said, ‘He’s below, sir. I took ’im meself, you bein’ busy at the time.’

  Adam faced him. ‘Tell me.’ It was almost as if he had known. But how could he?

  Jago answered, ‘Splinter. Didn’t feel nothin’.’

  ‘And you took him below?’ He looked away, at the sea. So clean, he thought. So clean…. ‘That was bravely done. I’ll not forget.’

  The orlop deck was crowded with wounded men, some fearful of what might happen, others lying quietly, beyond pain.

  Minchin, his familiar apron covered with blood, peered at him as a man was dragged from his table and carried into the shadows.

  He said thickly, ‘The commodore’s dead, sir.’ He gestured to a covered shape by one massive timber and Adam saw the strange servant on his knees beside the corpse, rocking back and forth, moaning like a sick animal.

  Minchin wiped some blood from his knife with a rag, and cut himself a slice of apple with it. ‘Quite mad, that one!’

  He chewed steadily as Adam turned down a blanket and looked at the dead boy’s face. There was not a mark on him; he might have been asleep. Minchin knew that the iron splinter had hit him in the spine, and must have killed him outright. He had seen many terrible things in his butcher’s work, men torn apart in the name of duty, who had believed even in extremity that a miracle could save them. At least the captain’s servant had been spared that. But there was nothing he could say; there never was. And there were others waiting. He could barely taste the apple because of the rum, which helped him at times like these, but down here in this hellish, lightless place, it reminded him of somewhere. Someone ….

  He gave a great sigh. Where was the point? And the captain had done what he could. For all of us.

  It would not help him, or anyone else, to know that Commodore Deighton had been killed by a single musket ball, but not one fired by an American weapon. It had entered the body
from high up, at a steep angle. He peered at a wounded marine who was drinking some rum. It could rest.

  He gestured with his knife. ‘Next!’

  Adam looked at the boy’s face. How he must have relived Anemone’s death each time the drums had beaten to quarters.

  We help each other. He covered his face again with the blanket. It was all that John Whitmarsh had ever wanted.

  He climbed once more up to the smoky sunlight, and almost broke when he saw his lieutenants and warrant officers waiting to make their reports, and to ask for his instructions.

  One figure blocked his way. It was Jago.

  ‘Yes?’ He could scarcely speak.

  ‘I was thinkin’, sir. That offer of yours, cox’n, weren’t it?’

  Adam faced him, but barely saw him. ‘You’ll take it?’

  Like the other time he had seized a lifeline.

  Jago nodded, and held out his hand. ‘I’d want to shake on it, sir.’

  They shook hands in silence, men pausing in their work and perhaps forgetting their fear, merely to watch. To share it.

  That evening, as predicted by Ritchie, they met with the remainder of the squadron and headed for the Bermudas, for orders. In Valkyrie’s wake, the stitched canvas bundles drifted down and down into eternal darkness. One of them was the commodore.

  And one was a boy who wore a fine dirk strapped to his side, for the last farewell.

  10

  A Ship of War

  HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY’S Ship Frobisher lay at her anchor, unmoving above the perfect twin of her reflection in the blazing sunlight. The ensign at her stern and the admiral’s flag at the mainmast truck were equally motionless, and between decks, in spite of the awnings and windsails, the air was like an open kiln.

  The crash of Malta’s noonday gun echoed across the water like an intrusion, but only a few gulls rose from their torpor, squawking in protest before settling down again.

  In the great cabin Sir Richard Bolitho, coatless, his ruffled shirt open almost to the waist, shaded his eyes to stare at the land, the craggy battlements where, occasionally, he could see a red coat moving slowly on patrol. He pitied the soldiers in their thick uniforms as they paced up and down in the heat.