For My Country's Freedom

by Alexander Kent

  Bolitho touched his eye. Praise indeed from Tyacke. Or was it Scarlett’s troubles that concerned him more?

  ‘Deck there! Sail in sight to the nor’-west!’ Then Midshipman Blisset’s reedy voice. ‘’Tis Zest, sir!’

  Tyacke smiled. ‘I had forgotten all about that shrimp! Acknowledge, but tell Zest to remain on station.’

  Avery saw Bolitho nod to him and he touched the signals midshipman on the arm. He jumped as if he had been hit by a musket-ball.

  ‘Hoist battle ensigns, Mr Carleton!’ How do I feel? He lifted and dropped the hanger in its scabbard at his hip and saw some of the quarterdeck gun-crews staring at him. I feel nothing. Only the need to belong. He glanced at Bolitho, his profile so calm as he watched the horizon for the first sign of the enemy. To serve this man like no other.

  ‘Deck there! Second sail to the sou’-west! ’Nother man-o’-war, sir!’

  Avery expected he might see surprise, even dismay in the profile turned towards him. If there was anything he might recognise, it was relief. He repeated his thoughts in his mind. Like no other.

  Bolitho stood watching the sea, and his men while they waited for their next orders.

  The little Woodpecker would give them early warning before scuttling to safety from those great guns. Two ships then, as he had expected. The other one must be Baltimore.

  ‘Royal Marines, take station!’

  Up the shrouds on either side to their positions in the fighting tops. Marines known to be good shots above the rest; at least three of them, Tyacke had discovered, were once poachers. The rest tramped across the quarterdeck and took up their stations behind the tightly-packed hammock nettings, grim-faced, bayonets fixed, the debonair Captain Cedric du Cann watching them with cold, professional interest, his face almost the colour of his tunic.

  Solitary scarlet figures stood at the hatchways, ready to prevent men from running below if their nerve broke or they were driven mad by the sights and sounds around them.

  Tyacke called, ‘You may cast off the boats, Mr Hockenhull!’

  Always a bad moment even for the most experienced seamen, who would know well the additional danger from flying splinters if a longboat were smashed by cannon fire. But as they were lowered and allowed to drift away, many saw them as a last chance of survival if the battle turned against them. Loosely moored together, they would drift with the sea to await recovery by the victors, whoever they might be.

  ‘Rig the nets!’

  More men ran to obey, and Allday saw his son hauling on blocks and tackles with his new companions to spread the protective net above the big double-wheel and its four helmsmen.

  Just a glance, and he was gone. For a brief second Allday tried to recall Bankart’s mother, and was shocked to discover he could remember nothing about her. As if she had never been.

  ‘From Reaper, sir. Enemy in sight to the sou’-west!’

  ‘Acknowledge and repeat signal to Zest.’

  Bolitho said suddenly, ‘Do your fifers know Portsmouth Lass, sergeant?’

  The Royal Marine puffed out his cheeks. ‘Yessir.’ It sounded like of course.

  ‘Then so be it!’

  Isaac York recorded in his log that on this September morning in 1812, while the Indomitable held her same course under reduced canvas, the ship’s small drummers and fifers marched and countermarched up and down the crowded gundeck, the familiar tune Portsmouth Lass lively enough to set a man’s foot tapping, or purse his lips in a silent whistle.

  Allday looked at his admiral and smiled gravely.

  Bolitho never forgot. Nor would he.

  Bolitho took a telescope from the rack and walked aft towards the taffrail, his body angling to the deck without conscious effort.

  He raised the glass with care, imagining his small force as the morning gull might see it. Sailing in line abreast with Indomitable in the centre, the wind lively but steady across the starboard quarter. By and large, as Isaac York would describe it. He steadied the glass once again on the western horizon, still partly in misty shadow compared with the silver knife-edge of the eastern sky.

  He tightened his grip on the cool metal, controlling his emotion. The quarterdeck gun-crews were still awaiting orders after clearing for action; some would be watching him, and wondering what this day might cost.

  There she was, Beer’s Unity, with almost every sail set and filled so that she appeared to be leaning forward into the surging spray beneath her beakhead. The huge broad-pendant straight out like painted metal, a picture of naval strength at its best.

  Over his shoulder he said, ‘Tell Captain Tyacke. Fifteen minutes.’ He glanced up to the masthead pendant and felt his injured eye sting in protest.

  Avery was ready, the signal already bent on. As they had discussed it for such an eventuality, except that Adam had commanded Anemone then. He would be feeling her loss today, with men whose strength he did not know, in a frigate which was very like the one which had been so dear to him. And yet, he would be thinking, so different.

  He turned and walked down to the quarterdeck rail and ran his eyes the full length of the ship.

  The gun-crews were stripped to the waist despite the wind’s bitter edge, their muscled bodies very brown from their service in the Caribbean. Beer could not risk losing them. But he would not expect them to run either.

  He tugged out his watch and saw Midshipman Essex observing him with studied concentration.

  There must be no mistakes at this stage: Beer had the wind-gage, and that was bad enough.

  He felt Allday moving closer, heard his uneven breathing, the old pain probably aroused and reminding him of that other time, and all the rest. Unity and Baltimore between them probably carried as many guns as a first-rate ship-of-the-line. Together or separately, they would be hard to surprise or vanquish.

  He said, ‘Mr Avery, general signal. Alter course, steer north-west by north!’

  As the bright signal flags soared aloft to break out to the wind, he could see Adam’s intent face in his mind, and Hamilton of the Reaper, and the plump Eames of Woodpecker who had defied orders to hunt for survivors.

  The topmen were already spread out along the yards, with every spare hand at braces and halliards. The moment of decision had come which could destroy every one of them.

  ‘All acknowledged, sir!’ Avery licked his lips to moisten them.

  Bolitho looked at Tyacke. ‘Execute!’

  As the flags darted down again to drop amongst the signal party in colourful disorder, Tyacke shouted, ‘Lay her on the larboard tack, Mr York. Steer nor’-west by north, as close as you can!’

  With the spokes gleaming in the strange light the big wheel was hauled over, the helmsmen squinting at the masthead pendant and the shaking driver while Indomitable continued to swing. He snatched a telescope from a gasping midshipman and rested it on the boy’s shoulder as reefs were cast off, and the spreading canvas thundered out from every spar until even the great mainsail yard appeared to be bending like a bow.

  From line-abreast to line-ahead, with the little brig lost somewhere beyond Reaper.

  Tyacke yelled, ‘Cast off your breechings! Prepare to load! Full elevation, Mr Scarlett!’

  Then, surprisingly, Tyacke removed his hat and slapped it against the nearest breech.

  ‘Come on, my lads! Watch this lady fly!’

  With almost every sail she could carry filled and hard to the wind, the ship did seem to be bounding over the crests, not away from the enemy this time but on a close-hauled converging tack.

  ‘All guns load!’

  Bolitho gripped a stay and watched the half-naked bodies of the gun-crews moving in tight separate teams, the scampering powder-monkeys with their bulky cartridges, each gun-captain stooping to check the training tackles, his heavy gun moving slightly with the breeching rope cast off.

  ‘Open the ports!’

  The gunports on either side were hauled open, as if raised by a single hand. Drills, drills and more drills. Now they were r
eady, Lieutenant Daubeny by the foremast, his sword across his shoulder while he watched the enemy. Not merely sails any more, but towering and full of menace as they bore down towards the larboard bow.

  Heavy artillery roared from elsewhere, and there was something like a sigh as the little Woodpecker drifted out of command, her foremast, yards and flapping canvas trailing over the side even as more long-range balls from Unity slammed into her hull.

  Tyacke drew his sword. ‘On the uproll, lads! Lay for the foremast!’

  Bolitho gripped his hands together and watched the glittering sword in Tyacke’s fist. The Baltimore was steering directly for the gap between Indomitable and Adam’s Zest in the van.

  The deck tilted slightly, the topsails flapping in protest while the ship came as close as she dared into the wind.

  ‘Fire!’

  It was like watching an invisible avalanche as it roared across Baltimore’s tall side, splintering gangways and timbers alike, upending guns and clawing every sail so that some ripped open, tearing themselves into long ribbons as the wind completed the destruction.

  ‘Signal Zest, Mr Avery! Attack and harry the enemy’s rear.’

  Tyacke glanced round. ‘He’ll need no second order, sir!’

  ‘Stop your vents! Sponge out! Load!’

  Along the deck each grubby gun-captain held up his fist.

  ‘Ready, sir!’

  ‘Run out!’

  A few flashes burst through the thickening smoke, and Bolitho felt the enemy’s iron smash into the lower hull.

  Men peered at one another, looking for friends and messmates. Not a single man had fallen and Bolitho heard a ragged cheer: defiance, pride, and the overwhelming madness of a fight at sea.

  ‘Fire!’

  Allday exclaimed, ‘The bugger’s mizzen is goin’, sir!’

  The Baltimore’s steering must have been damaged or its helmsmen smashed down in that last broadside. A few guns were still firing, but the timing was gone, the ability to change tack destroyed with it.

  Bolitho wiped his face with his sleeve, and saw the long orange tongues spitting through the smoke beyond the big American. Steady and merciless, gun by gun, into the drifting Baltimore’s unprotected stern. Bolitho could imagine Adam sighting and firing each gun himself. Remembering what he had lost and could never reclaim.

  Scarlett called wildly, ‘Reaper’s struck, sir!’ He sounded half mad with disbelief. ‘The bastards!’

  Bolitho lowered his glass. Reaper had been overwhelmed. All but dismasted, her sails like blackened rags, she was falling downwind, her ensign gone, her upper deck like a slaughterhouse. Smashed guns, men and pieces of men, her brave captain, James Hamilton, in a game made for others far younger, killed on the quarterdeck where he had fought his ship to the end. He should have remained in the H.E.I.C. This was not for him. Bolitho looked at his hand on the rail, gripping until it was bloodless. Not for me either.

  ‘Run out! Take aim! Fire!’

  Bolitho coughed as more smoke swirled inboard through the open ports. Acrid, savage, blinding.

  Reaper had had no chance. A small sixth-rate of twenty-six guns against Beer’s powerful artillery.

  He wiped his eyes and saw Avery watching him, surprisingly calm. Distancing himself from the shattered ships and the floundering bodies that marked Woodpecker’s sudden end, as he did from many other experiences.

  ‘All reloaded, sir!’ Scarlett was staring from Tyacke to his admiral.

  A silence had fallen over the ship; even the wind had lulled for the moment. Drifting through smoke as dense as fog, with only the muffled sounds of musket-fire and swivels, and the smells of burning timber. Like the gateway to hell itself.

  Then he saw Unity’s topgallants, her sky-scrapers, punctured here and there but strangely serene above the smoke and carnage it concealed.

  ‘Stand by, lads!’

  Bolitho watched Tyacke’s sword, wondering in those few seconds why fate had decided that this vital meeting was to be.

  But the sword fell from Tyacke’s hand as the smoke exploded in one huge broadside. A world of screaming madness, of falling rigging and razor-edged splinters. Men dying, or being pounded into bloody gruel even as they stood mesmerised by the enormity of the bombardment.

  There were twisting, unreal shapes as the maintop mast thundered down over the side, the corpses of some marines tossed from the nets and into the sea like human flotsam.

  Hands pulling him to his feet, although he could not recall having fallen. His hat was gone, and one of his proud epaulettes. There was bright blood on his breeches, but no pain, and he saw Midshipman Deane staring at him from the rail, half his young body pulped into something obscene.

  Bolitho heard Avery calling, but it seemed far away, although their faces all but touched.

  ‘Are you hit, sir?’

  He gasped, ‘I think not.’ He dragged out the old sword and saw Allday crouching near by, his cutlass already drawn while he peered half blind into the smoke.

  Somebody yelled, ‘Repel boarders! Stand to, marines, face your front!’

  Bolitho wiped his face again with his sleeve. There was still order and life in the ship. Axes flashed through the trailing cordage and shattered spars alongside, and he heard the boatswain bellow, ‘More men on the forebraces ’ere!’

  Tyacke was also on his feet, his coat badly torn by the trailing halliards which had almost clawed him over the side.

  But the guns were still loaded, waiting to fire when Tyacke dropped his sword.

  ‘Now!’ Bolitho would have fallen but for Allday’s grip on his arm. The deck was slippery and the sweet smell of death was stronger even than the burned powder.

  Tyacke stared at him and then waved his blade. ‘Open fire!’

  Unity’s shadow seemed to tower above them, sails already being brailed up as the Americans lined the gangway and prepared to board the drifting Indomitable.

  Tyacke’s voice seemed to rouse a memory, a discipline which had all but gone. With the hulls barely yards apart the roar of Indomitable’s twenty-four-pounders sounded like the climax to a nightmare.

  It seemed to give individual strength where before there had been only the raw fury of war. Wild-eyed, the Indomitable’s remaining men and the marines from the nettings charged, yelling and cheering, blades clashing and stabbing as they swarmed on to the enemy’s deck. Musket and pistol-shots brought down a few of them, and one hot blast of canister cut down Captain du Cann and some of his marines before the frenzied mob overwhelmed the swivel, and hacked the solitary gunner to bloodied rags.

  Suddenly there were more cheers, English voices this time, and for one dazed instant Bolitho imagined relief had arrived from the convoy.

  But it was Zest, grappling the big Unity from the opposite side. Adam and his new company were already swarming across the gap.

  Allday parried a cutlass to one side and hacked down the man with such a powerful blow that the blade almost severed his neck. But it was too much for him. The pain seared through his chest, and he could barely see which way he was facing.

  Avery was trying to help, and Allday wanted to thank him, to do what he had always done, to stay close to Bolitho.

  He tried to shout but it was only a croak. He saw it all as if it were a series of pictures. Scarlett yelling and slashing his way over the blood-red deck, his hanger like molten silver in the misty sunshine. Then the point of a pike, motionless between two struggling seamen: like a snake, Allday thought. Then it stabbed the lieutenant with the speed of light. Scarlett dropped his sword and clung to the pike even as it was dragged from his stomach, his scream silenced as he pitched down beneath the stamping, hacking figures.

  He saw Sir Richard fighting a tall American lieutenant, their blades ringing and scraping as each sought the other’s weakness. Avery saw it too, and dragged a pistol from beneath his coat.

  Tyacke shouted, ‘The flag! Cut it down!’ He turned and saw another officer running at him with his sword. Almost contemptuous
ly, he waited for the man to falter at his terrible scars and momentarily lose his nerve before he ran him through, as he would have done a slaver.

  There was one great deafening cheer which seemed unending, ear-splitting. Men hugging one another, others peering round, cut and dazed, not knowing whether they had won or lost, barely knowing friend from foe.

  Then silence, the sounds of battle and suffering held at bay like another enemy.

  Bolitho went to Allday’s assistance and, with Avery, got him to his feet.

  Avery said simply, ‘He was trying to protect you, sir.’

  But Allday was crawling on his knees, his hands and legs soaked with blood, his eyes suddenly desperate and pleading.

  ‘John! It’s me, John! Don’t leave us now!’

  Bolitho watched, unable to speak as Allday knelt, and with great gentleness gathered his son’s body into his arms.

  Bolitho said, ‘Here, let me, old friend.’ But the eyes that met his were blank, like a total stranger’s. He said only, ‘Not now, Sir Richard. I just needs a few minutes with him.’ He brushed the hair from his son’s face, so still now, caught at the moment of impact.

  Bolitho felt a hand on his shoulder, and saw that it was Tyacke’s.

  ‘What?’ The enemy had surrendered, but it made no sense. Only Allday’s terrible hurt was real.

  Tyacke glanced at Allday, on this crowded and fought-over deck, so alone with his grief.

  He said abruptly, ‘I’m sorry, Sir Richard.’ He waited for Bolitho’s attention to return to him. ‘Commodore Beer is asking for you.’ He looked up at the sky, clearing now to lay bare their wounds and damage. If he was surprised to be alive, he did not reveal it. He said, ‘He’s dying.’ Then he picked up a fallen boarding-axe and drove it with furious bitterness into the quarterdeck ladder. ‘And for what?’

  Commodore Nathan Beer was propped against the broken compass-box when Bolitho found him, his surgeon and a bandaged lieutenant trying to make him comfortable.

  Beer looked up at him. ‘I thought we’d meet eventually.’ He tried to offer his hand but as if it was too heavy, it fell back into his lap.