Alexander Kent - Bolitho 17

by Honour This Day [lit]

  A frightened voice called from the shadows. ”What’s that, Toby?”

  Someone replied, ”They’re runnin’ in the lower battery, that’s whad.”

  Blachford asked quickly, ”Why would they do that?”

  Minchin took a cupful of rum and wiped his mouth with a blood-stained fist.

  ”Clearing it. We’re alongside one o’ the buggers. They’ll need every spare Jack to fight ‘em off !”

  He shouted hoarsely, ”Next one, Donovan!”

  Then he eyed Blachford with something like contempt. ”Not quite what you’re used to, I expect? No fancy operating rooms, with lines of ignorant students hanging’on your every word.” He blinked his red-rimmed eyes as smoke eddied through the deck. ”I hope you learn something useful today, Sir Piers. Now you know what we have to suffer in the name of medicine.” A loblolly boy said, ”This one’s an officer, Sir.”

  Blachford leaned over the table as the lieutenant was stripped of his torn shirt and pressed flat on the table.

  It was the second lieutenant, Lovering, who had been shot down by a Spanish marksman.

  Blachford studied the terrible wound in his arm. The blood looked black in the swinging lanterns, the skin ragged where the ball had split apart upon hitting the bone.

  Lovering stared at him, his eyes glazed with pain. ”Oh God, is it bad?”

  Minchin touched his bare shoulder. It felt cold and clammy.

  ”Sorry, Ralph.” He glanced at Blachford. ies got to come off., Lovering dosed his eyes. ”Please God, not my arm!”

  Blachford waited for an assistant to bring his instruments. He had had to order them to to be cleaned again and again. No wonder men died of gangrene. He said gently, ”He’s right. For your own sake.”

  The lieutenant rolled his head away from the nearest lantern.

  He was about twenty-two, Bladiford thought.

  Lovering said in a whisper, ”Why not kill me? I’m done for.”

  More crashes shook the hull and several instruments fell to the deck. Blachford stooped to retrieve one of them and stared, sickened, as a rat scurried away into the shadows.

  Minchin saw his disgust and set his teeth. Coming here with all his high-and-mighty talk. What did he know about war?

  From one corner of his eye he saw the lamplight glint on Blachford’s knife.

  ”Here, Ralph.” He placed a wedge of leather between his jaws before he could protest. ”I’ll give you some proper brandy after this.”

  A voice yelled through the misty smoke. ”Another officer, sir!’

  An assistant held up his lantern and Blachford saw Lieutenant Quayle slipping down against one of the massive timbers, trying to cover his face with his coat.

  A seaman protested angrily, ”E’s not even marked!””

  Lieutenant Lovering struggled on the table, and but for the assistant holding his uninjured arm, and Minchin’s hands on his shoulders, would have fought his way to his feet.

  ”You bloody bastard! You cowardly...” His voice trailed away as he fell back in a faint on the table.

  Blachford glanced again at Quayle; he was gripping his fingers and whimpering like a child.

  ”Call him what you will, but he’s as much a casualty as any of them!”

  Minchin replaced the leather wedge between Lovering’s jaws.

  Brutal, callous; they were the marks of his trade. He held Lovering’s shoulders and waited for him to feel the first incision of the knife. With luck he might lose consciousness completely before the saw made its first stroke.

  Minchin could dismiss what Blachford and others like him thou t about the navy’s surgeons. He could even ignore Lovegh ring’s agony, although he had always liked the young lieutenant.

  Instead he concentrated on his daughter in Dover, whom he had not seen for two years.

  ”Next.” Lovering was into the tub. The wings and limbs tub carried away; the amputated firm as most of them called it.

  Until it was their turn.

  Blachford waited for a seaman whose foot had been crushed beneath a careering pn-truck to be laid before him. Around him the loblolly boys and their helpers held the flickering lanterns closer. Blachford looked at his own arms, red to the elbows, like Minchin’s and the rest. No wonder they call us butchers The man began to scream and plead but sucked greedily on a mug of rum which Minchin finished before laying bare the shattered foot. The hull quivered again, but it felt as if the battle had drawn away. There seemed to be cannon fire from all directions, occasional yells which were like lost spirits as they filtered through the other decks.

  Hyperion might have been boarded, Blachford thought, or the enemy could have drawn away to reform. He knew little about sea-warfare other than what he had been told or had read about in the Gazette. Only since his travels around the fleet had he thought about the men who made victories and defeats real, into flesh and blood like his own

  ”Next!” It never stopped.

  This time a marine ran down a ladder and called, ”We’ve taken the Don alongside, lads!” He vanished again, and Blachford was amazed that some of the wounded could actually raise a weak cheer. No wonder Bolitho loved these sailom He looked down at the young midshipman. A child.

  Minchin probed open part of his side where the ribs showed white through the blood.

  Blachford said quietly, ”God, he looks so young.” Minchin stared at him, wanting to hurt him, to make him suffer.

  ”Well, Mr Springert won’t be getting any older, Sir, he got a fistful of Spanish iron inside him!” He gestured angrily.

  ”Take him away.”

  ”How old was he?”

  Minchin knew the boy was thirteen, but something else caught his attention. It was the sudden stillness, which even the far-off gunfire could not break. The deck was swaying more slowly, as if the ship was heavier in the water. But the pumps were still going.

  God, he thought, in this old ship they never seemed to stop.

  Blachford saw his intent expression. ”What is it?, Minchin shook his head. ”Don’t know.”He glanced at the dark shapes of the wounded along the side of the orlop. Some already dead, with no one to notice or care. Others waiting, still waiting.

  But this time... He said harshly, ”They’re all sailors.They know something is wrong.”

  Blachford stared at the smoke-filled ladder which mounted to the lower gundeck. It was as if they were the only ones left aboard. He took out his watch and peered at it. Minchin reached down and refilled his cup with rum, right to the brim.

  He had seen the fine gold timepiece with the crest engraved on its guard. God rot him!

  The roar of the broadside when it came was like nothing Minchin had ever experienced. There must have been many guns, and yet they were linked into one gigantic clap of thunder which exploded against the ship as if the sound, and not the massive mg weight of metal, was striking into the timbers.

  The deck canted right over, shivered violently as it reared against the ship alongside, but the din did not stop. There was an outstanding, splitting crack which seemed to come right through the deck; it was followed immediately by a roar of crashing spars and rigging, and heavy thuds which he guessed were guns being hurled back from their ports.

  The wounded were shouting and pleading, some dragging themselves to the ladder, their blood marking the futility of their efforts. Blachford heard the broken spars thudding against the hull, then sudden screams from the carpenter’s walk, men clawing their way in darkness as the lanterns were blown apart.

  Minchin picked himself up from the deck, his ears still ringing from the explosion. He saw some rats scurrying past the bodies of those who were beyond pain, and shook his head to clear it.

  As he brushed past, Blachford called, ”Where are you going?”

  ”My sickbay. All I own in this bloody world is in there.”

  ”In Heaven’s name, tell me, man!”

  Minchin steadied himself as the deck gave another great shudder. The pumps had finally stopped. He
said savagely, ”We’re going down. But I’m not staying to watch it.”

  Blachford stared round. If I survive this.... Then he took a grip on his racing thoughts.

  ”Get these men ready to move on deck.” The assistants nodded, but their eyes were on the ladder. Going doum. Their life. Their home, whether from choice or impressment; it could not happen.

  Shoes clattered on the ladder, and Dacie, the one-eyed boatswain’s mate, peered down at them.

  ”Will you come up, Sir Piers? It’s a bloody shambles on deck.”

  ”What about these wounded?”

  Dade gripped the handrail and wiped his remaining eye. He wanted to run, run, keep on running. But all his life he had been trained to stand fast, to obey.

  ”I’ll pass the word, Sir Piers.”Then he was gone.

  Blachford picked up his bag and hurried to the ladder. As he climbed the first steps he felt they were different. At an angle. He sensed the chill of fear for the first time.

  He thought of Minchin’s anger.

  Going down.

  Lieutenant Stephen jcnour retained his grip on Bolitho’s arm even after he had pulled him from the deck. He was almost incoherent in his relief and horror. ”Thank God, oh thank God!”

  Bolitho said, ”Take hold, Stephen.” His eyes moved across the quarterdeck and down to the awful spread of destruction. No wonder Jenour was close to a complete breakdown. He had probably imagined himself to be the only one left alive up here.

  It was as if the whole ship had been stripped and laid bare, so that no part of her wounds should be hidden. The mizzen mast had gone completely, and the whole of the foretopmast had been severed as if by some gigantic axe, and was pitching alongside with all the other wreckage. Spars, ropes, and men. The latter either floated in the weed of rigging, or floundered about like dying fish.

  Jenour gasped, ”The first lieutenant, Sir Richard!” He tried to point, but his body was shaking so violently he almost fell.

  Bolitho forgot his own despair as he hurried down a splintered ladder to the maindeck. Guns lay up-ended and abandoned, their crews strewn around them, or crawling blindly for the nearest hatch to hide. Parris was pinned beneath an overturned eighteenpounder, his eyes staring at the sky until he saw Bolitho.

  Bolitho dropped beside him. To Jenour he said, ”Send some one for the surgeon.” He held his coat. ”And Stephen, remember to walk, will you? Those who have survived will need all their confidence in us.”

  Parris reached up to touch his arm. Through gritted teeth he gasped, ”God, that was bad!”

  He tried to move his shoulders. ”The San Mateo, what of her?”

  Bolitho shook his head. ”She has gone. There was no point in continuing the fight after this.”

  Parris released a great sigh. ”A victory.” Then he looked at Bolitho, his eyes pleading. ”My face - is it all right, sir?”

  Bolitho nodded. ”Not a mark on it.” Parris seemed satisfied. ”But I can’t feel my legs.”

  Bolitho stared at the overturned gun. The barrel was still hot from being fired, yet Parris could feel nothing. He could see his hessian boots protruding from the other side of the truck. Both legs must have been crushed.

  ”I’ll wait here until help comes.” He looked along the shattered deck. Only the foremast still stood as before, with his flag rippling from the truck above the shredded sails.

  He felt the deck quiver. The pumps had stopped, probably choked or smashed apart. He made himself face the truth.

  Hyperion was dying, even while he waited. He glanced across at the dead midshipman Mirrielees, whose body had been hurled down from the quarterdeck where he had been killed. He was keel tasted salt water sixteen. I was just his age when Hyperion’s for the first time.

  He heard voices and hurrying feet and saw seamen and marines returning from the Spanish two-decker alongside. It was their battered prize.

  Strange, but Bolitho had not even glanced at it. He saw Keen, an arm wrapped around Toiohns’ shoulders, a bloody bandage tied about one leg, limping anxiously towards him.

  ”I died a dozen times back there, Sir Richard. I - I thought you must have fallen in that broadside.” He saw Parris and said, ”We should move him.”

  Bolitho took his arm. ”You know, don’t you, Val?”

  Their eyes met. Keen replied, ”Yes. She’s sinking. There’s little we can do. Even if we could cast these guns overboard.”

  He stared at the abandoned cannon, unable to watch Bolitho’s pain.

  ”But time is against us.”

  Bolitho asked, ”is the prize safe, Val?”

  ”Aye. She’s Asturias of eighty guns. She took much punishment for too from that battering, as did her neighbour. But she is useful repeating signals.” Bolitho tried to dear his throbbing mind; his ears were still aching from that terrible broadside.

  ”Signal Benbow to secure the prizes and then give chase with whatever forces we have still seaworthy. The Dons will doubtless be running for the nearest Spanish port-”

  He stared at the bloody decks.

  ”Leaving their friends as well as their enemies to manage for themselves!” ”Come, Tojohns! We must muster the hands!”

  Keen tightened his hold on his coxswain.

  Bolitho said to Jenour, ”Go below and take charge of the boatswain’s party. Can you do that?”

  ”What about him, Sir Richard?”

  Jenour stared at Parris. ”He will wait for the surgeon.” Bolitho lowered his voice, ”He want to amputate both legs, I fear.”

  Parris said vaguely, ”I am sorry about this, Sir Richard.” He gasped as a great pain went through him. ”I - I could have helped. Should have come to you earlier when I learned about your troubles in London.”

  He was rambling. Bolitho leaned over him and grasped his hand. Or was he?

  Parris continued in the same matter-of-fact tone, ”I should have known. I wanted a new command so much, just as I hated to lose the other. I suppose I didn’t want it quite enough.”

  Figures were clambering over from the other ship, voices of command emerged from chaos, and he saw Penhaligon, the master, with one of his mates coming from the wrecked poop, carrying the ship’s chronometer, the same one she had carried in all her years of service. He half-listened to Parris’s vague sentences but he was thinking of this ship he had known better than any other. Hyperion had carried three admirals, served fifteen captains, and countless thousands of sailors. There had been no campaign of note she had missed except for her time as a hulk.

  Parris said, ”Somervell became very dear to me. I fought against it, but it was no use.”

  Bolitho stared at him, for a moment not understanding what he was saying.

  ”You and Somervell - is that how it was?” It came at him like a blow, and he was stunned at his own blindness. Catherine’s dislike for Parris, not because he was a womaniser as Haven had believed, but because of his liaison with her husband. There was no love between us. He could almost hear her words, her voice. it must have been why Parris had lost his only command, the matter dropped by some authority which required the scandal to be buried.

  Parris gazed at him sadly. ”How it was. I wanted to tell you you of all people. After what you did for me and this ship what you had to endure because of my folly.”

  Bolitho heard Blachford hurrying along the deck. He should have felt anger or revulsion, but he had been in the navy since he had been twelve years old; what he had not seen in that time he had soon learned about.

  ”Well, you’ve told me now., He touched his He said quietly, shoulder. ”I shall speak with the surgeon.”

  and discarded The deck gave a shudder, and broken blocks weapons clattered from a gangway like so much rubbish.

  Blachford looked as white as a sheet, and Bolitho could guess what it had been like for him in the cockpit

  ”Can you do it here on deck?”

  ”After this I can do anything.”

  Blachford nodded.

  Keen came limping
down from the quarterdeck, ”Sir Richard. Benbow has acknowledged, offers you all assistance! Rear-Admiral Herrick wishes you well.” Bolitho smiled sadly, thank God for that.

  Thomas was alive, unharmed.

  Keen watched Blachford stooping to open his bag. His eyes said, it could have been either of us, or both. He said, ”Six of the Dons have struck, Sir Richard, including Intrepido which was the last to haul down her colours to Tybalt.”

  There was the crack of a line parting and Keen added, ”She drags heavily on Asturias, Sir Richard.”

  ”I know.” He stared round. ”Where’s Allday?”

  ”Sir Richard!” A passing seaman called, ”Gone below!”

  Bolitho nodded. ”I can guess why.”

  Blachford said, ”I’m ready.”

  There was another loud crack but this time it was a pistol shot. Parris fell to the deck, Bolitho and the others stared at him. In his fingers was the pistol he always carried, still smoking.

  Blachford closed his bag, and said quietly, ”Perhaps his was the best way, better than mine. For such a courageous young man, think living as a cripple would have proved unbearable.”

  Bolitho removed his hat and walked to the quarterdeck ladder.

  ”Leave him there. He will be in good company.”

  Afterwards he thought it sounded like an epitaph.

  Major Adams, hatless but apparently unmarked, was bellowing orders. Scarlet coats moved into the ship.

  Bolitho said, ”The wound...” He did not finish after that.

  Instead he turned to watch as Benbow, accompanied by Capricious, passed down the opposite side. There were no cheers this time, and Bolitho could envision how Hyperion must look. Was it imagination, or were the figurehead’s muscled shoulders already closer to the sea? He stared until his damaged eye throbbed.

  He could think of nothing else. Hyperion was settling down.

  They could not even anchor, for here the sea had no bottom, so her exact position could never be marked.

  Men moved briskly around him, but like the moment he had hoisted his flag aboard, the faces he saw were different ones.

  He touched the fan in his pocket. Sharing it with her.

  He saw Rimer, the wizened master’s mate who had accompanied him on the cutting-out of the treasure galleon. He was sitting against a bollard, his eyes fixed and unmoving, caught at the moment the shot had cut him down. Loggie the ship’s corporal, sprawled headlong across another marine he had been trying to haul to safety when a marksman had found him too.