For My Country's Freedom

by Alexander Kent

  Even the thought of England made Hudson lick his lips. Summer, yes, but it might be raining. Cool breezes, wet grass under foot. But it was not to be. He realised that the second lieutenant who had been in charge of the forenoon watch was still beside him. He wanted to talk, up here where he could not be heard. It made Hudson feel both guilty and disloyal. He was the first lieutenant, responsible only to the captain for the running and organisation of the ship and her company.

  How could things have changed so much in less than a year? When his uncle, a retired vice-admiral, had obtained him the appointment in Anemone through a friend in the Admiralty, he had been overjoyed. Like most ambitious young officers he had yearned for a frigate, and to be second-in-command to such a famous captain had been like a dream coming true.

  Captain Adam Bolitho was all that a frigate commander was supposed to be: dashing and reckless, but not one to risk lives for his own ends or glory. The fact that Bolitho’s uncle, who commanded their important little squadron, was as celebrated and loved in the fleet as he was notorious in society ashore, gave the appointment an added relish. Or it had, until the day Adam Bolitho had returned to Anemone after his summons to the flagship at English Harbour. He had always been a hard worker, and had expected others to follow his example: often he carried out tasks normally done by common seamen, if only to prove to the landmen and others pressed against their will that he was not asking the impossible of them.

  Now he was driving himself to and beyond the limit. Month by month they had patrolled as near to the American mainland as possible, unless other ships were in close company. They had stopped and searched ships of every flag and taken many deserters, and on several occasions had fired on neutral vessels which had showed no inclination to heave-to for inspection. A quarter of Anemone’s total company were even now in captured prizes and making either for Antigua or Bermuda.

  Even that seemed to give the captain no satisfaction, Hudson thought. He shunned the company of his officers, and only came on deck when required for sailing the ship, or in times of foul weather, which had been plentiful over the past months. Then, soaked to the skin, his black hair plastered to his face, looking more like a pirate than a King’s officer, he had never budged until his ship was out of danger.

  But he was curt, impatient now, an entirely different man from the one Hudson had first met in Plymouth.

  Vicary, the second lieutenant, said, ‘I’ll be glad when this convoy is out of our hands. Slow to sail, slow even to co-operate – sometimes I think these damned grocery captains take a delight in ignoring signals!’ Hudson watched a fish leap and fall into the heaving water. He had found himself assessing even the most commonplace remarks for some secret significance.

  Captain Bolitho was never brutal with punishment; otherwise, sailing with only the elderly brig Woodpecker in company, he might well have expected serious trouble. Hudson had questioned some of the retaken deserters himself, and many had pleaded that they had run only because of unfair and in some cases horrific floggings for even minor offences. Now, returned to British ships but in the same war, their treatment would be gauged by their behaviour.

  Hudson glanced at the men working on deck, some trying to remain in the shadows of the reefed topsails, or watching the marine sentry with his fixed bayonet on sweating guard over the fresh-water cask.

  If only they could be free of the merchantmen and their painfully slow progress. Day in, day out, only the wind seemed to change: and there was precious little of that, too.

  Hudson said, ‘You think that all this is a waste of time, do you, Philip?’

  ‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. This is a drudge’s work. Let them fend for themselves, I say! They are quick enough to squeal and appeal to higher authority if we take a few of their prime seamen to fill the gaps, but they bleat even louder when they are in danger themselves!’

  Hudson thought of a verse he had once heard somewhere. God and the Navy we adore, when danger threatens but not before! Obviously nothing had changed.

  Anemone had been driven hard. A proper refit was inevitable. He tried not to hope too much. One of the ships awaiting their arrival at Bermuda had been out here for less time than Anemone, and she was going to sail home as an additional escort. Home. He almost gritted his teeth. Then he lifted the telescope again and moved it deliberately towards the distant sails. Further downwind the brig Woodpecker stood above the thick heat haze like a pair of feathers, so white against the pitiless sky.

  He said, ‘Why don’t you cut on down to the wardroom? It’ll be a mite cooler if nothing else.’ He lowered the glass and waited. Here it comes.

  Vicary said, ‘We’ve always got on well. I can’t talk to anyone else. You know how things get twisted.’

  ‘Distorted, you mean?’ Vicary was twenty-four, a native of Sussex, fair-haired and blue-eyed with, Hudson thought, what his mother could have called such an English face. He contained a fond smile and retorted, ‘You know I cannot discuss the matter.’ Even that felt like disloyalty.

  ‘I appreciate that.’ Vicary plucked at his stained shirt. ‘I just want to know why. What happened to change him? We deserve that much, surely?’

  Hudson toyed with the idea of sending him below with a direct order. Instead he said, ‘Something very personal, perhaps. Not a death, or we’d have heard of it. His future is assured, provided he can stay alive, and I don’t just mean in the line of battle.’

  Vicary nodded, perhaps from satisfaction that their friendship was not in danger. ‘I did hear a few tales about a duel somewhere. Everyone knows it goes on, despite the law.’

  Hudson thought of the captain’s uncle as he had been when he had come aboard to meet the officers. Adam was so like him, exactly as Bolitho must have been at the same age. The hero, the man who was followed into battle with a kind of passion, as they had once followed Nelson. And yet unlike so many high-ranking and successful officers – heroes – Hudson had felt that Sir Richard Bolitho was a man without conceit, and one who truly cared for the men he inspired. It was more than charisma, as he had heard it described. When the admiral looked at you, you as an individual person, you could feel it run through your blood. And you knew in the same breath that you would follow him anywhere.

  He felt suddenly troubled. Adam Bolitho had once been very like that.

  He saw the master-at-arms and the boatswain standing by the weather side and its rank of long eighteen-pounders, and the sight brought him out of his thoughts with a jolt. Punishment was to be carried out at two bells, when the watch below had finished their meal. He could smell the rum on the hot breeze, which was barely enough to fill the sails.

  Punishment was usually carried out in the forenoon; it gave all hands time to get over it and wash away the memory with rum. But for some reason the captain had ordered an extra gun drill today, had even been on deck to time it himself, as if he did not trust his officers to stress the importance of teamwork.

  Had they been running free with all canvas filled and driving the Anemone until every strand of rigging was bar taut, it would have been just another punishment. Two dozen lashes: it could have been many more for the man in question. This would not be the first time he had received a striped shirt at the gangway. He was a hard man, a lower-deck lawyer, a born troublemaker. Captain Bolitho could have awarded double that amount.

  But this was different. Moving so slowly, with nothing in sight but the far-off convoy and brig, it could be like a spark in a powder keg. The nearest land was Santo Domingo, some hundred miles to the north: the perverse wind made it impossible to tack any closer. But in another two days they would reach the Mona Passage where many changes of tack would be required, keeping all hands busy for days until they broke out into the Atlantic.

  Hudson turned as a shadow moved across the rail. It was the captain.

  Adam Bolitho gazed at them impassively. ‘Nothing to do but gossip, Mr Vicary?’ He looked at the first lieutenant. ‘I would have thought you could discover something not to
o tiring for an officer to do, if he has no stomach for his lunch?’

  Hudson said, ‘We have not had too much time to talk of late, sir.’

  He studied his captain as he walked to the compass and then glanced at the limply flapping masthead pendant.

  The helmsman called huskily, ‘Sou’-east by south, sir, steady she goes!’

  Hudson noted the dark shadows beneath the captain’s eyes, the restless way he moved his hands. Like the rest of them he was casually dressed, but he wore his short fighting-sword, which was unusual. The boatswain’s party was preparing to rig a grating, and Hudson saw Cunningham, the surgeon, appear in the companion-way. When he realised the captain was on deck he disappeared down the ladder without another glance.

  But the captain had seen him. He said, ‘The surgeon has protested to me about punishment being carried out. Did you know that?’

  Hudson said, ‘I did not, sir.’

  ‘He states that the seaman in question, Baldwin, whose name has repeatedly appeared in the punishment book – and not only in Anemone’s, I suspect – has some internal illness, too much rum and other more damaging potions. What do you say, Mr Hudson?’

  ‘He is often in trouble, sir.’

  Adam Bolitho said sharply, ‘He is scum. I’ll suffer no insubordination in my ship.’

  Hudson had always been very aware of the captain’s love for this ship. Such a personal attachment seemed only another aspect of the Bolitho legend. But now he thought he knew why he was so intense about it. His beloved Anemone was all he had in the world.

  The other lieutenant had used the opportunity to go below. It was a pity, Hudson thought; had he stayed he would have seen it for himself. Or would he?

  The boatswain lumbered aft and called, ‘Ready, sir!’

  Adam said, ‘Very well, Mr M’Crea, put up the prisoner and clear lower deck.’

  As if to a secret signal, the Royal Marines marched up to line the quarterdeck, their bayoneted muskets and equipment gleaming as if at their barracks, their faces as scarlet as their tunics.

  George Starr, the captain’s coxswain, brought the old sea-going coat and hat to cover him with a cloak of authority.

  ‘All hands! All hands! Lay aft to witness punishment!’

  The seaman named Baldwin strode aft, the master-at-arms and ship’s corporal on either side of him. A big man, a bully, he ruled his own mess like a tyrant.

  A boatswain’s mate and another seaman took his arms as soon as they had stripped him of his chequered shirt, and seized him up to the grating by his wrists and his knees. Even from the quarterdeck, it was possible to see all the old scars on the strong back.

  Adam removed his hat and took out his thumbed copy of the Articles of War. He had been aware of Hudson’s scrutiny, just as he had sensed Vicary’s keen resentment. Given time, both would make good officers. He felt the anger stirring. But they did not command.

  He saw the surgeon taking his place and recalled his pleas on behalf of the prisoner. Cunningham was a whining hypocrite. He would not cross the road to help a child knocked down by a runaway horse.

  From the corner of his eye he saw the boatswain drag the infamous cat-o’-nine-tails from its red baize bag.

  Adam hated the use of the cat, as his uncle had always done. But if, like the line of sweating marines, it was all that stood between disobedience and order, then so be it.

  He put his hand in his pocket and bunched his knuckles until the pain helped to steady him.

  He could feel his coxswain Starr watching him. Worried and anxious, as he had been over the months. A good man. Not another Allday: but there was no such creature.

  He loosened his fingers carefully, testing the moment as he felt her glove in his pocket. So many times he had taken it out and had stared at it, remembering her eyes when he had handed it to her. How they had walked together in the port admiral’s garden: feeling her presence like a beautiful wild flower.

  What can I do? Why did you leave me?

  He realised with a start that he had begun to read the relevant Article, his voice level and calm. Calm? I am destroying myself.

  He heard himself say, ‘Carry on, Mr M’Crea. Two dozen!’

  The drums rattled noisily and the boatswain’s brawny arm went back. The lash seemed to dangle there for an eternity until it came down across the prisoner’s naked back with a crack. M’Crea was a powerful man and, although a fair one, was probably enjoying this task.

  He saw the red lines break into bloody droplets. But he felt no revulsion, and that alone frightened him.

  ‘Deck there!’

  It was as if the call had turned them all to stone. The lash dangling from the boatswain’s out-thrust fist, the drumsticks suddenly still in the heavy air. The prisoner himself, face pressed against the grating, his chest heaving as he dragged in breath like a drowning man.

  Hudson raised his speaking-trumpet. ‘What is it, man?’

  ‘Sail on the larboard quarter!’ He hesitated. The heat haze was probably just as bad in that direction. ‘Two sail, sir!’

  Hudson knew that every eye but the prisoner’s was turned upon the little group of officers on the quarterdeck. But when he looked at the captain he was astonished to see Adam’s expression, his utter lack of surprise. As if a question which had troubled him had suddenly been made clear.

  ‘What do you think, sir?’

  ‘Well, no matter who they are, they are certainly not ours. That we do know.’ He was thinking aloud, as if there was nobody else near him. ‘They must have used the Windward Passage, west of Port au Prince. That way they would have the wind which is eluding us.’

  Hudson nodded, but did not understand.

  Adam looked at the towering mainmast spars, the quivering canvas.

  ‘I shall go aloft.’

  The man at the grating tried to twist his head. ‘What about me, you bastard?’

  Adam handed his hat and coat to Starr and snapped, ‘Be patient, man. And Mr M’Crea, another dozen for his damned impertinence!’

  He reached the crosstrees, surprised that he was not even breathless. He acknowledged the lookout, one of the best in the squadron, a man who looked twice his real age.

  ‘Well, Thomas, what do you make of them?’

  ‘Men-o’-war, zur. No doubt o’ that!’

  Adam unslung his telescope, aware of the great trembling mast and yards, the bang and slap of canvas, the very power of the ship beneath him. He had to wait a few seconds more. Even the lookout’s familiar Cornish accent caught him unawares like a trap.

  Then he levelled the telescope, as he had done so many times in his Anemone.

  The smaller of the two vessels could have been anything in the haze. Sloop or brig, it was impossible to determine. But about the other one there was no such doubt.

  It could have been yesterday: the U.S.S. Unity’s great cabin, and his conversation with her captain, Nathan Beer, who had known his father during the American Revolution.

  ‘Yankee,’ he said shortly.

  ‘Thought as much, zur.’

  ‘Well done, Thomas. I’ll see you have an extra tot for this.’

  The man watched him, puzzled. ‘But we bain’t at war with they, zur?’

  Adam smiled and made his way down like a practised topman.

  He met Hudson and the others and saw all the questions in their eyes, although nobody spoke.

  He said crisply, ‘One of them’s the big Yankee frigate Unity, forty-four guns that I know of for sure, maybe more now.’ He glanced at the nearest guns. Unity carried twenty-four pounders. He remembered the American mentioning them. Pride or threat? Probably both.

  He glanced at the sky. Two hours before they were up to Anemone. Seven hours more before the convoy could escape in the darkness.

  Hudson said carefully, ‘What are their intentions, sir?’

  Adam thought of the splendid sight Unity had made as she edged round to beat closer to the wind, the other vessel responding to a bright hoist of signal fl
ags.

  There was no need for such a manoeuvre. Her captain could remain on his present course untroubled by either the convoy or her escort. Instead, he was taking the wind-gage, and would hold it until he was ready.

  ‘I think they intend to attack, Dick. In fact, I am sure of it.’

  The use of his first name surprised Hudson almost as much as the simple acceptance of something unthinkable.

  ‘You know this ship, sir?’

  ‘I have been aboard her and have met her captain. An impressive man. But know her? That is another matter.’

  Adam stared along the deck above the mass of silent figures towards the beakhead, the perfect shoulder and gilded hair of the figurehead. Daughter of the Wind.

  Almost to himself he said, ‘We are of one company, Dick. Some good, some bad. But every so often we must forget our differences. We become an instrument, to be used rightly or wrongly as directed.’

  ‘I see, sir.’

  He touched Hudson’s arm, as he had seen his uncle do on many occasions.

  ‘I want you to make a signal to Commander Eames of the Woodpecker, repeated to our fat charges. Make more sail. Disperse the convoy.’ He hesitated for only a few seconds. Suppose I am wrong? But his conviction to the contrary was more compelling. ‘Then make Enemy in sight to the north-west.’

  He heard men calling out as the midshipman in charge of signals and his crew ran to the halliards, while Hudson repeated the instructions behind them. He saw Lieutenant Vicary staring at him, his face suddenly pale under the tanned skin.

  He asked quietly, ‘Will we be able to outreach them, sir?’

  Adam turned and looked at him, and through him. ‘Today we are the instrument, Mr Vicary. We fight, so that others shall survive.’

  Hudson glanced at the streaming flags. ‘Orders, sir?’