Second to None

by Alexander Kent

  Perhaps Rhodes had forgotten, or thought it no one else’s business. Maybe Bethune’s records had not been examined. Galbraith thought it unlikely, and when he had seen the light in the captain’s eyes he knew it for certain.

  ‘I shall see the admiral . . .’ He must have seen the doubt in Galbraith’s face. To risk another confrontation, and all on the word of the purser’s clerk, seemed reckless if not downright dangerous. But there had been no such doubt in Bolitho’s voice. ‘Such intelligence is valuable beyond measure, Leigh! To any sea officer, time and distance are the true enemies. This man spoke out, and I intend that his words should be heard!’

  He had stared at the leaping spectres of spray breaking across the thick glass, and it had been then that Galbraith had seen the locket on the table beside the goblet. The beautiful face and high cheekbones, the naked shoulders. He had never laid eyes on her, but he had known that it was Catherine Somervell. That woman, who had scorned society and won the hearts of the fleet, and of the nation.

  Galbraith stood back from the dripping hammock nettings. He was soaked to the skin, but he had felt nothing. He suppressed a shiver, but it was not cold or fear. It was something far stronger.

  ‘After you have secured the cutter, Mr Partridge, pass my compliments to the purser and have a double tot issued to the boat’s crew.’ He saw the little clerk staring up at him. ‘And also for Ritzen.’

  And, as suddenly as he had departed, the captain was here on the streaming deck with his gasping, triumphant oarsmen.

  He shook his cocked hat and tossed it to his servant.

  ‘All officers and warrant ranks aft in ten minutes, if you please.’ The dark eyes were everywhere, even as he pushed the dripping hair from his face. ‘But I must speak first with you.’

  Galbraith waited, remembering the moment when Bazeley’s wife had offered her hand to be kissed. The notion had touched him then: how right they had looked together. He had wanted to laugh at his own stupidity. Now, he was not so sure.

  Then Adam spoke quietly, so softly that he could have been talking to himself. Or to the ship, Galbraith thought.

  ‘I pray to God for a fair wind tomorrow.’ He touched his lieutenant’s arm, and Galbraith knew the gesture was unconscious. ‘For then we must fight, and only He can help us.’

  Lieutenant Massie looked around the crowded cabin, his swarthy features expressionless.

  ‘All present, sir.’

  Adam said, ‘Sit where you can, if you can.’ It gave him more time to think, to assemble what he would say.

  The cabin was full; even the junior warrant officers were present, some of them staring around as if they expected to discover something different in this most sacred part of their ship.

  Adam could feel the hull moving heavily beneath him, but steadier now, the wind holding her over, all sounds muffled by distance.

  He could picture Galbraith moving about the quarterdeck overhead, and recalled his face when he had outlined the possibilities of action, as he had to Lord Rhodes.

  Now Galbraith was on watch, the only officer absent from the cabin.

  The two Royal Marine officers, a bright patch of colour, the midshipmen in their own whispering group, and young Bellairs standing with Lieutenant Wynter and Cristie, the taciturn sailing master. The surgeon was present also, dwarfing the scrawy figure of Tregillis the purser. Despite the lack of space the other warrant officers, the backbone of any fighting ship, managed to keep apart. Stranace the gunner stood with his friend the carpenter, ‘Old Blane’ as he was known, although he was not yet forty. Neither of them could work out a course or compass bearing on a chart, and like most professional sailors they were content to leave such matters to those trained for it. But lay them alongside an enemy ship and they would keep the guns firing, and repair the damage from every murderous broadside. And the master’s mates: they would keep the ship under command, knowing they were prime targets for any enemy marksman. The flag and the cause were incidental when it came to surviving the first deadly embrace.

  He knew without looking that his clerk, Usher, was at the table, ready to record this rare meeting, with a handkerchief balled in one fist to muffle the cough which was slowly killing him.

  The only missing face was that of George Avery. Even as Adam had outlined his convictions to Admiral Rhodes he had thought of Avery, as if he had been speaking for him.

  So many times they had talked together, about his service with Sir Richard, his friendship with Catherine. Galbraith had touched upon it too, only a few moments ago in this same cabin.

  I think he knew he was going to die, sir. I think he had given up the will to live.

  He glanced along the cabin’s side. The big eighteenpounders were held firmly behind their sealed ports, but dragging at the stout breeching ropes with the sway of the deck. As if they were restless, eager.

  But instead he saw Frobisher’s stern cabin, the great ship riding almost disdainfully across the broken water. Where his uncle had sat and dreamed; had believed, perhaps, that a hand was reaching out at last.

  The surprising part had been the admiral’s frowning silence while he had explained the reason for his visit.

  Avery again . . . How he had described their meeting with Mehmet Pasha, the Dey’s governor and commander-in-chief in Algiers. Face to face, with no ships to support them but for the smaller twenty-eight gun frigate Halcyon. She was out there now, riding out the same weather, with the same young captain who had served under James Tyacke as a midshipman, in this very sea at the Battle of the Nile.

  Avery had forgotten nothing, and had filled a notebook with facts of every kind, from the barbarous cruelties he had witnessed, not so far from where they had cut out La Fortune, a thousand years ago, or so it felt, even to the names of ships moored there, and the Spanish mercenary, Captain Martinez, who had changed sides too many times for his own good. This command would be his last, one way or the other. Adam seemed to hear Lovatt’s despairing voice while he lay dying, here, just beyond the screen of his sleeping quarters. Where he had held the boy Napier circled in his arm, to make himself believe he was the son who had turned away from him.

  He licked dry lips, aware of the silence, the intent, watching faces, barely able to accept that he had been talking to these men for several minutes. Even the shipboard noises seemed muted, so that the scrape of Usher’s pen seemed loud in the stillness.

  He said, ‘I believe we shall fight. The main attack will be carried out by the flagship and Prince Rupert, and at the right moment by the bomb vessel Atlas. Perhaps this is merely a gesture, one worth risking ships and lives. It is not my place to judge.’ He held the bitterness at bay, like an enemy. ‘Unrivalled’s place will be up to wind’rd. Ours is the fastest vessel, and apart from the two liners the best armed.’ He smiled, as he had done in the cutter to give his oarsmen heart for the return pull. ‘I do not need to add, the best ship!’

  Rhodes would have his way. The bombardment would be carried out without delay after yet another reported attack on helpless fishermen and the murder of their crews. It might make a fitting beginning to the admiral’s appointment.

  He thought of the Dutch frigate again. Expedience, greed, who could say? The great minds who planned such transactions never had to face the brutal consequences of close action. Maybe the Dutch government had fresh plans for expansion overseas. They already held territories in the West and East Indies, so why not Africa, where rulers like the Dey could obstruct even the strongest moves of empire?

  Such deals were left to men like Bazeley . . . his mind faltered for a second . . . and Sillitoe. He saw Lieutenant Wynter watching him fixedly. Or his father in the House of Commons and those like him.

  ‘The Dutch frigate Triton, or whatever she may now be called, is a powerful vessel . . .’

  He heard Rhodes again, his confidence and bluster returning like a strong squall.

  ‘They would not dare! I could blow that ship out of the water!’

  He continued,
‘I know not what to expect. I merely wanted to share it with you.’ He paused, and saw O’Beirne glance around as if he expected to see a newcomer in the cabin. ‘For we are of one company.’

  He had already seen the doubt on Massie’s dark countenance. He knew the chart, the notes in Cristie’s log, and now he knew Unrivalled’s holding station, well up to windward. Rhodes could not have made it plainer.

  ‘Be content to watch the flank for a change!’

  Even the flag captain had warned him openly before he had climbed down to the pitching cutter.

  ‘You’ve made an enemy there, Bolitho! You sail too close to the wind!’

  He would, of course, deny any such remark at a court martial.

  They were filing out of the cabin now, and Usher bowed his head in a fit of coughing.

  O’Beirne was the last to leave, as Adam had known he would be. They faced one another, like two men meeting unexpectedly in a lane or on some busy street.

  O’Beirne said, ‘I am glad I wear a sword only for the adornment, sir. I consider myself a fair man and a competent surgeon.’ He tried to smile. ‘But command? I can only watch at a distance, and be thankful!’

  The surgeon walked out into the daylight, and was surprised to see the planking steaming in the warm wind as if the very ship were burning. There was so much he had wanted to say, to share. And now it was too late. Before sailing from England he had met Frobishers’s previous surgeon, Paul Lefroy; they had known one another for years. He smiled sadly. Lefroy was completely bald now, his head like polished mahogany. A good doctor, and a firm friend. He had been with Sir Richard Bolitho when he had died. O’Beirne had pictured it in his friend’s words, just as he had seen some of it in his youthful captain’s face, and he glanced aft now as if he expected to see him.

  Lefroy had said, ‘When he died, I felt I had lost a part of myself.’

  He shook his head. For a ship’s surgeon, even after several glasses of rum, that was indeed something.

  But for some reason the levity did not help. The image remained.

  Napier, the captain’s servant, watched O’Beirne leave, and knew his captain would be alone, perhaps needing a drink, or simply to talk, as he did sometimes. Perhaps the captain did not understand what it meant to him. The boy who had wanted to go to sea, to become someone.

  And now he was.

  He touched his pocket and felt the broken watch, its guard punched in two by a musket ball, where the little mermaid had been engraved.

  The captain had seemed surprised when he had asked if he could keep it, instead of pitching it outboard.

  He turned as he heard the sound of a grindstone and the rasp of steel. The gunner was back, too, supervising the sharpening of cutlasses and the deadly boarding axes.

  He found that he could face it. Accept it.

  He touched the broken watch again and smiled gravely. He was no longer alone.

  Joseph Sullivan, the seaman who had taken part in the Battle of Trafalgar and who was Unrivalled’s most experienced lookout, paused in his climb to the crosstrees and glanced down at the ship. It took some men years to become used to the height from the deck, the quivering shrouds and treacherous rigging; some never did. Others were never afforded the chance. Falls were common, and even if the unfortunate lookout fell into the sea it was unlikely that he would recover. If the ship hove to in time.

  Sullivan was completely at ease working aloft, and always had been. He looked briefly into the fighting top he had just passed, where some Royal Marines were occupied with a swivel gun and checking their arms and powder. Marines were always busy, he thought.

  Sullivan took the weight on his bare soles, so hardened and calloused over the years that he scarcely felt the tarred ratlines, and linked an arm through the shrouds.

  The ship had been up and about since before first light, as he had known she would be. He could still taste the rum on his tongue, the pork in his belly. It was a hard life, but he was as content as any true sailor could be.

  He peered up at the black shrouds, the big main topsail filling and emptying while the wind tried to make up its mind. No need to hurry. It was too dark to see more than a few yards. He shifted the knife which he carried across his spine like most seamen, where it could not snare anything, but could be drawn in a second.

  He smiled. Like the Jack in the shantyman’s song when they had weighed anchor, he thought. Sullivan had been in the navy for as long as he could remember. Good ships and foul ones. Fair captains and tyrants. Like the shanty. The old knife was about the only possession he still owned from those first days at sea.

  He could smell smoke and grease and heard a splash alongside. The galley fire had been doused; the ship was cleared for action. He sighed. From what he had heard, Unrivalled would be well out of it when the guns started to roar. He thought of the captain’s face. He was feeling it. He grinned. A real goer, like his uncle to all accounts. But a man. Not afraid to stop and ask one of his men what he was doing, or how he felt. Rare, then.

  He began the final climb, pleased that he was not breathless like some half his age. He saw the masthead pendant streaming away to leeward towards the larboard bow. Lifting, then curling again, undecided. He grinned again. Like the bloody admiral.

  He reached his position in the crosstrees and hooked his leg around a stay. The wind was steady enough, from the north-east, but the bluster had gone out of it. That would mean that overnight the other ships would have drifted off their stations.

  A bombardment, they said. He rubbed his chin doubtfully. It was to be hoped that the admiral knew what he was about. A two-decker made a fine target. It only needed some heated shot to upset the best-laid plans.

  He shaded his eyes as the first sunlight played across the sails and braced yards; it was a view which never failed to stir him. People you knew, moving about the deck like ants, and other, isolated scarlet coats like those in the maintop. Marks of discipline, like the blue and white uniforms on the quarterdeck and down by the foremast at the first division of eighteen-pounders. His eyes crinkled as he recalled his captain climbing up to join him. No fuss, no swagger. He had just sat here with him. Not too many could say that.

  He could see the coloured bunting scattered over the deck by the flag lockers. Signals to be made and answered, once Frobisher was in sight. He could see some of the others now, the bigger Prince Rupert, sails apparently limp and useless, and a frigate just off her starboard quarter. That would be Montrose, although she was well off station.

  He felt the mast shiver, shrouds murmuring as the wind pressed into the topsails again. Unrivalled was standing well up to windward, while nearer the coast the whole squadron might become becalmed.

  He stared beyond the larboard bow again, but the coast was still little more than a shapeless blur. There could be a mist, too.

  He turned his head as a cloud of sea birds took off suddenly from the water and circled angrily over the ship. The spirits of dead Jacks, they said. Surely, he thought, they could find something better to come back as?

  He laughed and began to whistle softly to himself. Whistling was forbidden on board a man-of-war, because it could be mistaken for the pipe of a boatswain’s call. They said. It was more likely because some old admiral in the past had said as much.

  That was another part of it. The freedom. Up here, you were your own man. Experience taught you the shades and colours of the sea that governed your life. The depths and the shoals, the sandbars and the deeps. Like when young Captain Bolitho had taken her right through that narrow strait . . . Even Sullivan had felt uneasy about that.

  He peered down again and saw one of the midshipmen training his telescope, adjusting it for a new day. And he remembered the captain’s surprise, that time when he had proved his skill as a lookout.

  He glanced at his arm, the tattoos of ships and places he could scarcely remember. They all swore that they hated it, but what else was there? Perhaps when Unrivalled eventually paid off . . . He shook his head, dismiss
ing it. How many times had he said that?

  He looked up again and the whistle died on his lips. For only a moment longer he held on to the view, the wheeling gulls, the pale deck far below, the men who were his companions from choice or otherwise.

  He held one hand to his mouth, surprised that he had been caught out.

  ‘Deck thar! Sail on th’ starboard bow!’

  He was too old a hand to consider pride. He was, after all, a good lookout.

  19

  ‘Trust Me . . .’

  JOSHUA CRISTIE, THE master, watched his captain stride from the chart to the compass box, and said, ‘Wind’s still holdin’ steady from the nor’-east, sir.’

  Adam Bolitho stared at the great span of hardening canvas, the masthead pendant reaching out towards the bow like a lance.

  He said, ‘Make to Flag. Sail in sight to the west.’ He paused long enough to see Midshipman Cousens and his signals party bending double to fasten the flags into order for hoisting, and caught sight of Bellairs turning from the rail, his eyes anxious, as if he were concerned that someone else was carrying out what had been his duty before his examination for lieutenant.

  He forgot them as he raised a telescope and levelled it on the flagship. The other ships were badly scattered, and Frobisher’s yards seemed to be a mass of signals as Rhodes tried to muster his command.

  It was not long before Cousens shouted, ‘Acknowledged, sir!’ But it felt like an age. Then Cousens called again, ‘Disregard, Remain on station.’

  Adam turned away. ‘God damn him!’

  Galbraith joined him. ‘Shall I send Bellairs aloft, sir? Sullivan’s a good hand, but . . .’

  Adam looked at him. ‘There is a ship, right enough, and we both know which one she is!’

  He swung round again as a rocket exploded like a small star against the dusty shoreline. The bomb vessel was moving into position between the flagship and the old fortifications. Rhodes’ show of strength. Adam knew that anger was blunting his judgment, but he could not help it. If Algiers had any doubts before, they would be gone now.