Sword of Honour

by Alexander Kent

  Frobisher was a well-built ship, and the sounds which reached Bolitho’s quarters were muffled and remote, as if they, too, were stifled by the heat. But in many ways he envied the life and movement from which he was separated, protected, as his secretary Yovell had once described it. Even here, right aft, he could catch the heady smell of rum, and imagine the ship’s community of some six hundred seamen and Royal Marines preparing for their midday meal.

  He sighed and sat at his table again, to the litter of signals and local correspondence awaiting collection. Since their arrival here in Grand Harbour, the ship had scarcely moved. Such inactivity was bad for any fighting ship, and for one with a company far from home, with no immediate prospect of discharge or action, the strain on discipline and routine was becoming evident.

  He had received two letters from Catherine; they had arrived together in a courier brig from Plymouth. It was the shortest time they had ever been parted, and yet the uncertainty of the future and the strange, lingering sense of loss he felt seemed to make it worse.

  She wrote of things she knew would please him, of the house and the estate. Of the garden, her garden, and the roses which gave her so much pleasure.

  She touched on her feelings for him, but was careful not to trouble him with her own pain of separation.

  There had been one ugly note; she had mentioned it in case he should hear it from someone else. There had been a riot in Bodmin, the county town, although he found it hard to imagine in that sort of community; a local regiment had been disbanded, and the men had mounted a protest to demand work after their service to their country.

  If it had happened in Falmouth, Bolitho wondered what Lewis Roxby would have done. He might well have put some of the men to work on his own large estate, and encouraged other landowners to do the same. In Bodmin, a magistrate had read the Riot Act, and called out the dragoons from Truro.

  She had told him that she was going to London to see the lawyers again. She would think of him. Dearest of men … always.

  He heard Ozzard’s sharp voice from the pantry, and then Allday’s. They were bickering about something, as usual. Without them and their concern over his welfare, he sometimes thought that the inactivity would drive him mad.

  There were receptions, for him and his officers, and for visiting ships, old enemies who were now classed as allies. That would take a long, long time to accept.

  He had seen little otherwise of the island itself, and although he had been offered facilities ashore with as many servants as he might need, he had remained in his flagship. As if it were a last link with the only life he knew and understood.

  Malta was full of history, and as one senior officer had described it, ‘the stronghold of Christianity’. When the French had been forced to withdraw because of the naval blockade, the Maltese had requested British protection, and a restoration of their rights and privileges. The island, small though it was, had once again become a stronghold. Now, with Napoleon’s surrender and his incarceration on Elba, it was assumed by some that Malta would be allowed to resume its own self-government, not so different from that of the old Knights of Malta.

  That same senior officer had laughed outright when Bolitho had suggested it. He had exclaimed, ‘Have you ever known the flag hauled down after a victory, Sir Richard? If a place is worth dying for, it’s worth holding on to, in my opinion!’

  He heard the marine sentry’s heels click together, and then Ozzard hurrying to the outer screen door.

  It was Captain Tyacke, his scarred face very deeply tanned above the whiteness of his shirt. He was so used to the heat and the sun of Africa that he scarcely noticed it.

  ‘Officer-of-the-Guard has just brought a message, Sir Richard.’ He glanced around the cabin, made still more spacious by the removal of the eighteen-pounder guns which would otherwise have occupied even an admiral’s quarters. They had been replaced by short wooden replicas, quakers as they were termed, so that, outwardly at least, the ship would appear fully armed.

  Bolitho slit open the envelope. It bore a military seal on the outer flap. Another visitor ….

  He said, ‘We shall have a major-general coming aboard during the dogs, James. His name is Valancy, although it does not give a reason for this honour.’

  ‘I shall deal with it, sir.’

  Bolitho looked at him, aware of the change in him; he had seen it develop during their passage into the Mediterranean, and these dragging weeks in harbour. Perhaps he had found the challenge of the new command stimulating; he had performed miracles with some of the inexperienced hands and the junior officers. But that was only a part of it.

  We are so alike in many ways. He will share it with me, when he is ready.

  Tyacke said, ‘Perhaps we shall be told something, sir.’

  ‘Soon, I trust.’ He stood up and walked to the quarter gallery and watched a small boat being pulled across the harbour. A boy and an old man; they did not even glance up as Frobisher’s big shadow passed over them.

  He said quietly, ‘If it does not happen, James, I shall write a suitable report to their lordships.’

  Tyacke watched him, the set of his shoulders, his hair still as black as the day they had first met. And later, when Bolitho had asked him to be his flag captain. Not ordered or demanded, as most flag officers would have done, as, indeed, they were entitled to do. He had asked. And had said, because I need you. No wonder they spoke of the legend, the charisma, but it was both and neither of them. It was the man himself.

  Tyacke said, ‘If we can get to sea ….’

  Bolitho turned towards him. ‘I know. Drive her if we must, fight if we have to, but get to sea!’

  He saw Tyacke glance down at the wine cooler, made for him after the other had been lost in Hyperion. Even here, Catherine was very close. He saw the disfigured side of Tyacke’s face in the reflected glare from the skylight. Like melted wax, the flesh burned from the bone, the eye, miraculously unblinded, as clear and blue as the other. Even that seemed different…. From the moment the ship had left Spithead Tyacke had gone about his duties, explaining his standards to his lieutenants and senior warrant officers without flinching beneath the scrutiny of strangers. Landsmen and some of the younger midshipmen still could not meet his gaze without dropping their eyes; Tyacke had endured this every hour and every day since he had been smashed down at the Nile. Was it possible that he had accepted it? Or was there some other, deeper reason?

  He had spoken of his feelings concerning Malta to Tyacke. The reply had been blunt, uncompromising, like the man.

  ‘We’d be fools to let it go, sir. It may be only seventeen miles by nine, a landsman might say the same as the Isle of Wight. But it stands here, and who commands it holds the key to the Mediterranean. Every trading nation knows that well enough!’

  Bolitho said, ‘Perhaps this commission will be shorter than we thought possible.’ He touched his eye as the sunlight found its mark. The cruel reminder. Which I cannot accept. ‘Will you still go back to Africa?’

  Tyacke smiled faintly. ‘I would have to think on it.’ He seemed to consider it. ‘Yes, I would have to give it a deal of thought.’ He looked at the deckhead as a call twittered, and feet padded across the tinder-dry planking. ‘I must see the first lieutenant, if you will excuse me, sir.’

  Bolitho watched his hand hesitate on the door, and said, ‘If there is anything you wish to talk about, James, I am here.’

  Tyacke paused with his hat halfway to his head. Then he smiled fully, and seemed suddenly young again.

  ‘If you were not, sir, then neither would I be.’

  Allday entered as the door closed, and glanced at the two swords on their rack.

  ‘Might be another courier vessel soon, Sir Richard.’

  So he was fretting, too. Needing to be here, but thinking of his newfound life with Unis and his daughter.

  Bolitho gestured toward the cupboard. ‘Have a wet, old friend. We are both all aback, it seems.’

  Allday stooped beside
the cupboard, and said over his shoulder, ‘Get this little lot over, an’ maybe we can make sail for home.’

  Bolitho rubbed his eye. He must have missed something.

  Allday held up a glass of rum and grinned.

  ‘To us, Sir Richard!’

  ‘What have you heard?’

  Allday looked at the high-backed chair in green leather, which she had given Bolitho. Like the wine cooler, and the locket he always wore when they were apart from one another. A sailor’s woman. There was no higher compliment.

  He said, ‘I was talkin’ to the men in the guardboat just now, Sir Richard. There’s a yarn goin’ around about an attack on some local merchantmen. Pirates, they says.’

  He felt something like a chill against his damp spine. How they had first met, all those years ago. Barbary corsairs.

  He said, ‘The officer-of-the-guard left no such message.’

  Allday put down the empty glass, careful not to leave any wet mark, which would cause more trouble with Ozzard.

  ‘With respect, Sir Richard, the Royals are all well an’ good, in their place.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘But their officers don’t know it all.’

  Bolitho smiled. ‘Off with you. And don’t fret over Unis. She is in good hands.’

  Allday went out, unreassured, and found Ozzard in his pantry. He sniffed suspiciously, and said, ‘Been at the grog again!’

  Allday ignored it. ‘Sir Richard’s troubled. He worries about Cap’n Tyacke, an’ about me, an’ about everybody but himself!’

  Ozzard regarded him scornfully. ‘Captain Tyacke? Don’t you know, for God’s sake?’

  Allday sighed inwardly. He could kill the stooping servant with one blow, and he sometimes wondered why they had remained friends. Of a sort.

  Ozzard snapped, ‘It’s a woman, you blockhead! It’s always a bloody woman when trouble’s at the door!’

  Allday left the pantry, touching the little man’s shoulder as he passed. If he stayed, he knew he would make matters worse.

  It was like sharing a terrible secret. It was not Captain Tyacke’s pain Ozzard was describing. It was his own.

  Major-General Sir Ralph Valancy stepped into the stern cabin and glanced around while Ozzard took his hat. Bolitho noticed that he showed no sign of discomfort and that his uniform was perfectly pressed, his boots like black glass, although if he had been dressed in rags one would have known him to be a professional soldier. He must keep his orderly very busy, to appear so untroubled by Malta’s heat and the dust.

  Valancy took a chair. ‘I could never have been a sailor, Sir Richard. Too confined, even for an admiral!’

  Bolitho waited while Ozzard fetched wine, and wondered why this man reminded him of someone. Then it came to him. Halifax, where he had met the young captain from the King’s Regiment, who had been at the siege of York, and had given a miniature of herself back to the girl, Gilia St Clair, who would soon marry Valentine Keen.

  That young captain would be very like this major-general, if he lived long enough.

  Valancy sipped the wine and made a sound of approval.

  Bolitho said, ‘It’s a mite warm, but cooling anything is not easy with the ship at anchor.’

  Valancy’s face broke into a grin. ‘Any wine tastes good to me, sir! I’ve ridden, marched and damned well crawled over every kind of territory, and like my men, I’ve had most dislikes steamed out of me!’ He became serious. ‘You’ve heard about the missing transport vessel, the Galicia?’

  Bolitho recalled Allday’s scorn for the military in general, and the marines in particular.

  ‘I have not had an official signal as yet.’

  Valancy shrugged. ‘I only heard myself this morning. The Galicia was under charter to the army, on passage for Malta. A fisherman reported seeing her attacked by a heavily-armed vessel. He made off before he became another victim.’

  ‘Algerine pirates?’

  Valancy nodded. ‘Sailing too close to the Saracen coast, as they call it. The Dey of Algiers will have had a hand in it. The whole North African coast would be part of the Turkish empire if he and the Bey of Tunis could find enough ships.’

  Bolitho thought of his time as a flag captain, when he had been involved with that same coast and the notorious port of Djafou to the west of Algiers. Slavery, cruelty and torture; he had seen even his most experienced seamen sickened by what they had found. Piracy was common in these waters, and when the fleet had been fully employed against the French and maintaining a blockade, some of those same pirates had even flouted all authority to prey as far north as the Channel and the Western Approaches.

  If the Mediterranean was to become stable again, this menace to trade would have to be removed. If peace and mutual trust were not restored, Britain’s new allies would soon look for other means of enforcement.

  Bolitho said, ‘I have six frigates, and a few smaller vessels.’ He glanced at the nearest quaker. ‘And my flagship. Not a great force, but I have worked with far less in the past.’

  ‘Indeed, I know, Sir Richard. You won’t remember me, but I was aide to the general at Good Hope when you came to our aid.’ He gave a faint smile, remembering. ‘I was with the Sixty-First then. It was a fine regiment.’

  It was the smile, exactly like the captain who had fought at York. The professional soldier.

  ‘I remember.’ He recalled that other general. They would not give the Cape of Good Hope back to the Dutch, either.

  The soldier said, ‘Yes, we’d not long heard about Trafalgar. And Nelson’s death. Such a shock, although inevitable, I suppose. I often wonder what happened to his mistress after his death. Shunned by everyone, I suppose.’

  Then he looked directly at Bolitho. ‘That was a stupid remark. I apologise, Sir Richard.’

  Bolitho said, ‘It is something I think on myself, Sir Ralph.’ He stood up abruptly, thinking now of Catherine, how they had first met, the deadly chebecks closing in under sail and oars, ready to fire into any larger vessel’s vulnerable stern. When Catherine’s Spanish husband had died. And we lost one another ….

  He said, ‘I shall send the only frigate I have in harbour. Frobisher will remain here, as she must, until more men-of-war arrive.’ He could already hear Tyacke’s disagreement, and his doubt.

  Valancy nodded slowly, surprised, perhaps, at this sudden decision, but careful not to show it.

  ‘The frigate’s captain.’ He hesitated, as he might before leading a charge. ‘Will he know the instability of these people? They have countless sailors and fishermen, thrown into their rotten jails, and for no other reason than that they are Christians! Barbarians!’ He became very earnest. ‘And the Dey of Algiers has some six hundred guns, according to our latest intelligence ….’

  ‘May I ask you something? If this matter were to be entrusted to the army, who would you send?’

  Surprisingly, Valancy laughed. ‘A mission like this, which might fan the flames of another war? I’d go myself! Right or wrong, it would be my responsibility.’

  Bolitho smiled, and tapped his glass with a paper-knife. ‘Another glass, Sir Ralph?’

  When Ozzard appeared to pour the wine, Bolitho said to him, ‘Ask Allday to find Captain Tyacke, and have him lay aft.’ He noticed that Ozzard did not lift his eyes, nor did he show any surprise.

  As he left the cabin, Bolitho said quietly to Valancy, ‘I thought you would say as much.’ He sipped the wine, and added, ‘I shall go in Halcyon.’ He recalled her captain’s face when he had described his fear and helplessness aboard Majestic at the Nile, when Tyacke had given him back his courage and his pride.

  Frobisher, or a larger group of ships would invite disaster ….

  Allday entered by the other door and paused, as if uncertain. That, in itself, was unusual.

  Bolitho said, ‘Well?’

  ‘Cap’n Tyacke is with the purser, Sir Richard.’ He refused to look at the major-general. ‘I left a message, but I thought….’

  Bolitho sat again. ‘It is why we are he
re. Why I was sent.’ He smiled. ‘My compliments to the captain, and ask him to come aft.’

  Allday departed, and Valancy said, ‘Remarkable fellow. Although I don’t see that it is possible for anyone to know what you intend.’

  Bolitho touched his eye. ‘Remarkable, yes. Your general said as much at Good Hope. He also said that he could use a few thousand more like him.’

  The soldier got to his feet. ‘I shall detain you no longer, Sir Richard.’

  Bolitho shook his hand. Tonight Valancy would probably regale his staff with tales of the strange ways of the navy, and how an admiral had taken the time to reassure a common seaman.

  And yet, somehow, he knew he would not.

  Tyacke entered the cabin as soon as the major-general had been seen safely into his boat.

  Bolitho said, ‘Have Halcyon’s captain repair on board, James. There is something I wish to discuss with you.’ He saw the immediate signs of argument. ‘It is a matter of some urgency.’

  ‘You’re leaving Frobisher? Your flagship?’

  ‘Presently. While I am away, I would be pleased if the guns were replaced in my quarters.’

  Tyacke left the cabin without asking another question; there was no need.

  The sunshine and the brightly painted boats meant nothing to him. His was still a ship of war.

  Lieutenant George Avery put down his pen and passed the finished letter across his small table. ‘There. I hope it does justice to your thoughts.’ He watched as Allday, who had been squatting on a chest in the hutch-like cabin, made his mark carefully and deliberately at the bottom of the page. Avery had asked him once what the distinctive symbol meant, and Allday had told him that it was like the stone Cornish cross that stood outside the church in Fallowfield where he and Unis had been married.

  Allday cocked his head to listen to a bosun’s call, very clear and shrill in the evening stillness. ‘Won’t be long now,’ he said.

  Avery glanced around the cabin. A hutch indeed, but private when he needed to withdraw from the ship’s general life and routine.