The Flag Captain

by Alexander Kent

  Allday returned carrying another lantern and a jug of hot water.

  ‘Wind’s holding steady from the nor’ west, Captain.’

  He busied himself with the razor and towel as Bolitho threw his shirt on the bench and slumped back in his chair again.

  ‘Mr. Keverne called all hands an hour since.’

  Bolitho relaxed slightly as the razor scraped over his chin. He had not even heard a sound as Euryalus’s company of several hundred souls had come aliye to the pipe’s bidding. While he had lain on the desk in an exhausted sleep they had been fed and had set about cleaning down decks in spite of the surrounding darkness. For, no matter what lay ahead, there was no sense in allowing them to brood about it. When they commenced to fight they would expect the ship around them to be as normal as possible. It was not only their way of life, but their home also. Like the faces at the mess tables, the ones which would soon be peering through open gun ports, everything was as familiar as the spread sails and the sluice of water against the hull.

  While Allday completed the hasty shave with his usual dexterity, Bolitho let his mind drift back over the previous day’s frantic preparations. The whole complement of marines from all the ships had been divided in two equal halves. Half had been transferred to Rattray’s Zeus at the head of the line. The remainder to Valorous astern. Almost all the squadron’s large pulling boats had been divided in the same way, and Bolitho could pity the two ships’ uneasy night with so many extra people to accommodate.

  He stood up and wiped his face, peering as he did so through the stern windows. But outside the cabin it was still too dark to see anything but a brief scattering of spray from around the rudder. The ships were heading almost due east, with the coast some five miles on the starboard beam. Broughton had been right to continue as before, with the wind comfortably across the quarter, instead of trying to complete the final manœuvre for his approach towards the land. The vessels might have become scattered, whereas now, with a favourable wind and the usual discreet stern lanterns, they would be able to halve the time when the admiral made his signal.

  In the thick glass he could see his own reflection, with Allday standing behind him like an additional shadow. His own shirt was still open and he saw the locket swinging slowly to the ship’s motion, the dark lock of hair hanging rebelliously above his eye. Involuntarily he reached up and touched the deep scar beneath the lock of hair gently with one finger. It was automatic, yet he always expected to feel heat there, or pain, like the actual memory of the time he had been cut down and left for dead.

  Behind him Allday smiled and relaxed slightly. The familiar action, the apparent surprise Bolitho always seemed to show when he touched the scar, were always reassuring. He watched as Bolitho tied his neckcloth carelessly around his throat and then stepped forward with coat and sword.

  ‘Ready, Captain?’

  Bolitho paused with one hand in a sleeve and turned to study him, his grey eyes calm again.

  ‘As I will ever be.’ He smiled. ‘I hope God is merciful today.’

  Allday grinned and extinguished the lanterns. ‘Amen to that, I say.’

  Together they went out into the cool darkness.

  * * * * *

  ‘Deck there! Land ho!’ The masthead lookout’s voice sounded very loud in the clear air. ‘Fine on the starboard bow!’

  Bolitho paused in his pacing and peered through the black lines of rigging. Beyond the gently spiralling bowsprit and flapping jib he could see the first flush of pink dawn spreading down from the horizon. A little to starboard there was what appeared to be a sharp sliver of cloud, but he knew it was the crest of some far-off mountain, tipping itself in colour from the hidden sun.

  He tugged out his watch and held it close to his eyes. It was already getting lighter, and with luck Valorous would now be hove to while she unloaded her cargo of marines into the boats, casting them adrift to make their own way ashore. Euryalus’s Captain Giffard was in command of that landing party, and Bolitho could pity him. It was bad enough to lead some two hundred marines with their heavy boots and weapons across rough, unknown territory, but when the sun found them it would become torture. Marines were disciplined and drilled like soldiers, but there the similarity ended. They were used to their strange shipboard life. But because of it and its cramped lack of space and exercise they were no match for the hard slogging required in a forced march.

  Keverne said, ‘I can see Tanais, sir.’

  Bolitho nodded. The pink glow was etched along the seventy-four’s main yard like fairy fire in a Cornish wood, he thought. Her stern light already appeared fainter, and when he glanced up at the masthead pendant he saw the main topsail was shining with moisture and gaining colour with every slow minute.

  There was a scrape of feet and Keverne whispered, ‘The admiral, sir.’

  Broughton strode on to the quarterdeck and stared towards the distant mountain as Bolitho made his formal report.

  ‘Cleared for action, sir. Chain slings rigged to the yards and nets spread.’ Broughton could hardly not know of these things with all the noise they made. Screens torn down, guns released from their lashings, and the patter of many feet as the seamen prepared their ship and themselves to do battle. But it had to be said.

  Broughton grunted. ‘Are we in sight of the squadron yet?’

  ‘Tanais, sir. We will be able to signal the rest directly.’

  The admiral walked to the lee side and peered towards the land. It was not much more than a darker shadow, above which the crested mountain semed suspended in space.

  He said, ‘I’ll be pleased when we can put the squadron about. I hate being on a lee shore and unable to see where I am.’

  He fell silent again, and Bolitho heard the regular clump of shoes back and forth along the starboard gangway, like someone hitting a tree with a hammer.

  Broughton snapped, ‘Tell that officer to stay still, damn him!’

  Keverne relayed his sudden burst of irritation and Bolitho heard Meheux call, ‘I beg your pardon, Sir Lucius!’ But he sounded cheerful for all that. Bolitho had recalled him from the Navarra to resume charge of his beloved upper battery of twelve-pounders, and Meheux had hardly stopped smiling since his return.

  Nevertheless, it did reveal something of Broughton’s uneasiness.

  Bolitho said, ‘I had the prisoner taken below to the orlop, sir.’

  The admiral sniffed. ‘Damn Witrand! It would do him good to stay up here with us.’

  Bolitho smiled. ‘One thing seems certain. He knows more of this place than I first suspected. When Mr. Keverne went to escort him below he was dressed and ready. No surprise, sir, not what you would expect at all from a man innocent of military affairs.’

  Broughton said, ‘That was shrewd of Keverne.’ But it was only a passing interest, and Bolitho guessed his mind was still firmly fixed on what lay behind the shadows.

  More feet clattered on the deck and Broughton swung round as Calvert stepped awkwardly over a gun-tackle.

  ‘Mind your feet! You make more noise than a blind cripple!’

  Calvert mumbled something in the gloom, and Bolitho saw some of the nearby gun crews grinning knowingly at each other. It must be over the whole ship about Calvert’s conflict with his admiral.

  ‘Good morning, gentlemen.’ Draffen came from beneath the poop, dressed in a frilled white shirt and dark breeches. He had a pistol in his belt, and sounded very refreshed, as if he had just emerged from a dreamless sleep.

  Midshipman Tothill called, ‘Zeus in sight, sir!’

  Bolitho walked to the quarterdeck rail and stared along the length of his ship. The Tanais was growing steadily from the shadows, and beyond her, a little to larboard, he could just make out the leading seventy-four, her upper yards already shining in the reflected glow.

  The sun’s rim lifted over the horizon, the warm light reaching away on either bow, touching the lively wave crests, spreading still further, until Tothill exclaimed, ‘There’s the land, sir!’


  It was hardly a proper sighting report, but in the sudden excitement no one else seemed to notice. Which was just as well, Bolitho thought, in view of Broughton’s edginess.

  ‘Thank you, Mr. Tothill,’ he replied coldly. ‘That was very prompt.’

  The strengthening sunlight made the midshipman’s face glow like one enormous blush, but he had the sense to remain silent.

  Bolitho turned to watch the land gaining personality as the shadows were pushed aside. Long rolling hills, grey and purple for the moment, but already showing their barren slopes with the deeper patches of darkness where gullies and other steep clefts remained hidden to the watching eyes.

  ‘Valorous is in sight, sir.’ Lucey, the fifth lieutenant, who was also in charge of the quarterdeck nine-pounders, kept his voice low. ‘She has set her t’gallants.’

  Bolitho walked up the tilting deck to the weather side and stared across the hammock nettings. The rearmost seventy-four made a fine picture as she forged after her slower-moving consorts, topsails and topgallants shining like polished shells, while her hull remained in shadow as if unwilling to show itself. Soon now a lookout would sight the frigate standing well out to seaward, and then the little Restless, creeping closer inshore, and the last to be freed from the night’s darkness. The prize, Navarra, would remain within visual signalling distance but no nearer. It would do no harm for the defenders of Djafou to think Broughton had at least one other ship-of-war at his disposal. Bolitho had even advised the master’s mate sent across to relieve Meheux to make as many signals as he liked to give the impression he was in contact with more ships below the horizon.

  So much depended on the first attack. The enemy, especially Spaniards, might feel less willing to fight against a growing force of ships if the early assault went against them.

  Bolitho made himself walk slowly up and down the weather side, leaving the admiral standing motionless by the foot of the mainmast.

  The poop and nettings seemed strangely bare without the customary reassuring scarlet lines of marines. But for the rest, his ship appeared to be ready. He could see both ranks of guns on the upper deck now, their crews stripped to near nakedness, with coloured neckerchiefs tied around their ears as protection against the cannons’ roar. Above, through the spread nets he saw the swivel guns manned in the tops, while more seamen waited at braces and halliards momentarily unemployed and watching the quarterdeck.

  Partridge blew his nose violently into a green handkerchief, and then froze as Broughton shot him a savage glance. But the admiral said nothing, and the white-haired master thrust the offending handkerchief into his coat, grinning sheepishly at Tothill.

  Bolitho rested one palm on his sword. The ship was alive, a vital, intricate weapon of war. He recalled his last fight aboard the Navarra, the stark contrast between this ordered world of discipline and training and the other ship’s crude defences. The frightened Spanish seamen as they allowed their terror to change to bloody ferocity, hacking at the retreating boarders until there was none left alive. The half-naked women resting from their efforts at the pumps, shining in their sweat as he had passed. Meheux cursing as he had slipped in the Spanish captain’s blood, and Ashton’s youthful voice rising above the din as he had urged his gunners to fire and reload in his amateur Spanish.

  And little Pareja. Wanting to please him. Feeling really needed, perhaps for the first time in his life. He thought too of his widow, wondering what she was doing at this moment. Hating him for leaving her without a husband? Regretting all the things which had brought her to Spain in the first place? It was hard to tell. A strange woman, he thought. He had never met anyone quite like her before. Wearing the finery of a wealthy lady, yet with the bold and fiery arrogance of one used to a much harder life than Pareja had given her.

  Tothill’s voice shook him from his thoughts. ‘Signal from Zeus, sir. Repeated by Tanais.’ He was scribbling busily on his slate. ‘Enemy in sight, sir.’

  Broughton swore silently. ‘Hell’s teeth!’

  Tanais’s topsails and rigging had hidden Rattray’s signal from the flagship, so time had been lost in repeating it down the line. Bolitho frowned. It was another argument for having Euryalus leading, he thought. He could imagine Rattray passing his order to a midshipman like Tothill. He would be very aware of his position in the van and would want to get his signal hoisted as soon as possible. There was nothing in the signal book which would suffice for a word like Djafou. Wanting to make haste and avoid spelling it out letter by letter, he had made a more familiar signal instead. Captain Falcon would have devised something more imaginative, or said nothing at all. How easy it was to know a ship’s ways once you knew her captain.

  The land had changed colour as the sun climbed higher above its own image, the purples giving way to scorched green, the grey rocks and gullies becoming sharper defined, as if from an artist’s drawing in the Gazette.

  But the overall appearance had not changed. Treeless and without any sign of life, above which the air was already distorted in haze, or perhaps it was dust swirling around on the steady sea breeze.

  There was the western headland, and overlapping it, its nearest side still in deep shadow, the one shaped like a great beak. Exactly abeam was a round hill, the side of which had cracked and fallen into the sea. It was a good four miles distant, but Bolitho could see the sea breaking in white feathers across the crumbled rocks, driven along the cheerless shoreline by the wind, as if searching for an inlet.

  Zeus would be level with the nearest headland now, and able to see the fort in this visibility. Rattray might already be in a position to gauge for himself what he was expected to face within the next few hours.

  Broughton snapped, ‘Tell Zeus to make more sail. She can get on with landing her marines.’ He glared at Calvert. ‘You see to the signal and try to be of some use.’

  To Bolitho he added more calmly, ‘Once Rattray has got his boats away, make the signal to wear in succession. We will have seen the outer defences and be able to measure our approach.’

  Bolitho nodded. It made sense. To go about and return along this same course was safer than to make the attack now as ship by ship they crossed the bay’s entrance. If the first sight of the fort proved different from the plans and scribbled reports, they would still have time to claw away from the shore. Nevertheless, when Zeus turned to lead the line back again it was to be hoped Rattray would keep an eye firmly fixed on the closeness of the land and the behaviour of the wind. If the wind got up suddenly, or veered, they would all be hard put to it to work clear of the rocks, let alone find time to give battle.

  He watched the flags dashing up the yards and breaking to the wind, and moments later the answering activity above Zeus’s decks as more and still more canvas billowed out in response to Broughton’s signal.

  So far everyone was doing and acting exactly as Broughton had laid down. It might take Rattray an hour to get all his boats away, and by that time the remaining ships would be in position beyond the bay’s entrance.

  Bolitho glanced up as a voice called, ‘Thar’s the Coquette, sir! Two points abaft the weather beam!’

  Bolitho plucked at the front of his shirt. It was already damp with sweat, and he knew that in a short while it would be even hotter. He smiled in spite of his thoughts. Hotter… in more ways than one.

  Partridge, seeing the small smile, nudged the fifth lieutenant and whispered, ‘See that? Cool as a chambermaid’s kiss!’

  Lieutenant Lucey, who was usually cheerful and easygoing, had been dreading the daylight and what it might mean for him. Now as he saw the captain smiling to himself he felt a little better.

  All at once they were level with the first headland. After the long, slow approach it seemed to take everyone by surprise. As the edge of land peeled back Bolitho saw the great fort, blue-grey in the morning sunlight, and felt strangely relieved. It was exactly as he had pictured it in his mind. One massive circular building and a smaller round tower within. A bare flagpole was cent
red on the smaller tower, gleaming in the sunlight like a white hair. But there was no flag as yet, nor any sign of alarm. It looked so still that he was reminded of a great, lonely tomb.

  As the ship moved steadily across a sluggish offshore chop he saw deeper into the bay. One small vessel at anchor, probably brig, and a few fishing dhows. He wondered how far Giffard and his marines had managed to march, and whether they would be able to cross the causeway.

  He saw the Restless tacking carefully away from the headland, and was thankful to see that Poate, her young commander, had two leadsmen busy in the chains. The sea bottom shelved very steeply, but it was always possible someone had overlooked a rocky ledge or reef when the charts were last corrected.

  Because of its overlap, the second headland passed much closer, and as it crept out to hide the silent fortress from view Keverne exclaimed, ‘Look, sir. Someone’s awake!’

  Bolitho took a telescope and trained it towards the sloping side of the beak. Two horsemen, quite motionless, but for an occasional flick of a tail or the wind ruffling the long white burnous which each rider wore. Looking down on the ships as they tacked slowly into the growing sunlight far below them. Then, as if to a signal, they both wheeled their horses and disappeared below the ridge, not hurriedly, nor with any sign of excitement.

  Bolitho heard a voice say, ‘The word is goin’ out about us, lads!’

  He glanced at Broughton, but he was staring at the empty skyline, as if the horsemen were still watching him.

  And apart from the normal sounds of sea and wind everything was too quiet, the waiting made more obvious and unsettling. Giffard had even taken the marine band with him, and for a moment Bolitho toyed with the idea of getting the fiddler to strike up some familiar shanty for the seamen to sing. But Broughton seemed in no mood for any distraction and he decided against it.

  He glanced from Broughton’s stiff back to some of the nearby seamen at the nine-pounders. The latter were standing to peer over the nettings at the slow-moving wall of rock and stone. How strange it must seem to most of them. They might not even know where they were, or see the worth of their being maimed or killed for such a dismal place. And Broughton, he was probably just as doubtful of the reasons for bringing him here, yet could share his apprehension with no one.