A Tradition of Victory

by Alexander Kent

  Phalarope. After all this time, so many miles, so many ships and faces. Herrick may have seen the signals book by now. It would mean so much to him too. Bolitho took a sharp breath. And Allday, who had been brought aboard Phalarope as a pressed man like a felon.

  He realized that the midshipman was still watching him, his eyes filling his face.

  Bolitho touched his arm. “You have nothing to worry about, Mr Kilburne. It was just a shock, that is all. She was a fine ship; we made her something special.”

  Neale said, “With respect, sir, you made her that.”

  Bolitho descended the ladder again and then strode aft towards the marine sentry by the cabin door.

  He saw a figure squatting on one of the Styx’s twelve-pounders.

  It was gloomy between decks and still too early for wasting lanterns where they were not needed. Had it been pitch dark Bolitho would have known Allday’s sturdy figure. Like an oak.

  Always nearby when he was needed. Ready to use his cheek when his courage was to no avail.

  He made to stand but Bolitho said quietly, “Rest easy. You’ve heard then?”

  “Aye, sir.” Allday nodded heavily. “It’s not right. Not fair.”

  “Don’t be an old woman, Allday. You’ve been at sea long enough to know better. Ships come and go. One you served in last year might lie alongside you tomorrow. Another you may have seen in a dozen different ports, or fighting in a hundred fights, yet never set foot aboard, may well be your next appointment.”

  Allday persisted stubbornly. “S’not that, sir. She were different. They’ve no right to put her in the Bay, she’s too old, an’ I doubt if she ever got over the Saintes. God knows, I never did.”

  Bolitho watched him, suddenly uneasy. “There’s nothing I can do. She will be under my command, like the others.”

  Allday stood up and turned beside the cannon, his head bowed between the beams.

  “But she’s not like the others!”

  Bolitho bit back the sharp retort as quickly as it had formed.

  Why take it out on Allday? Like the midshipman on the quarterdeck who had unwittingly broken the news, he was not to blame.

  Bolitho said quietly, “No, Allday, she’s not. I won’t deny it.

  But it rests between us. You know how sailors love to create mys-tery when there is none. We’ll need all our wits about us in the next month or so without lower deck gossip. We cannot afford to look back.”

  Allday sighed. The sound seemed to rise right up from his shoes.

  “I expect you’re right, sir.” He tried to shake himself free of it. “Anyway, I must get you ready for the wardroom. It’ll be something for ’em to remember.” But his usual humour evaded him.

  Bolitho walked to the cabin door. “Well, let’s be about it then, shall we?”

  Allday followed him, deep in thought. Nineteen years ago it was. When Bolitho had not been much older than his nephew, Mr Pascoe. There had been plenty of danger and cut-and-thrust since then, and all the while they had stayed together. A pressed seaman and a youthful captain who had somehow turned a ship blackened by every sort of tyranny into one to win the hearts and pride of her company. Now she was coming back down the years, like a phantom ship. To help or to haunt, he wondered?

  He saw Bolitho standing by the stern windows watching the light dying across the frothing water beneath the frigate’s counter.

  He cares all right. Most likely more than I do.

  Under shortened canvas the frigate turned on to her new course and pointed her bowsprit towards the Bay, and a rendezvous.

  3. Return of a Veteran

  CAPTAIN John Neale of the frigate Styx broke off his morning discussion with his first lieutenant and waited for Bolitho to leave the companion-way. This was their seventh day out of Plymouth, and Neale was still surprised at his admiral’s unflagging energy.

  Bolitho had certainly taken a good keen look at the enemy shoreline, and the ships at his disposal. That had been the first shock, when they had made contact with the inshore patrol, the frigate Sparrowhawk, a day after sighting Belle Ile. Apart from a speedy brig, aptly named Rapid, there had been one other frigate in the sector, the Unrivalled. Neale grimaced. Had been. Her captain had been beating close inshore when he had made the fatal mistake of not leaving himself enough sea-room to claw into open waters. Two enemy ships had run down on him from windward, and only Unrivalled captain’s skill had enabled him to escape capture or destruction. As far as Bolitho’s small force was concerned, it might just as well have been either, for, pitted with shot holes and under jury-rig, the Unrivalled had crawled for home and the security of a dockyard.

  Neale glanced at the masthead pendant. The wind had shifted to the north again. It was lively and gusty. He hoped that the battered survivor reached port intact.

  Bolitho nodded as Neale touched his hat. No matter what time he chose to come on deck, even before daylight, Neale always seemed to be there ahead of him. If there was anything wrong with his ship, he wanted to see it for himself first and not be told by his admiral. He had learned well.

  Bolitho had been thinking about his thinly-stretched force while Allday had been pouring coffee for him. Until reinforcements arrived, he now had but two frigates on the station, with the brig for keeping contact with the bigger squadrons to north and south. It looked very manageable on a wall chart in Whitehall.

  Out here, with dawn touching the endless ranks of wave crests in a dirty yellow glow, it was a desert.

  But shortly they would see the pyramid of sails far abeam where Sparrowhawk cruised within sight of Belle Ile and any local shipping which might be hugging the coast en route for Nantes or northward to Lorient.

  How they must hate us, he thought. The dogged, storm-dashed ships which were always there at the break of every day.

  Waiting to dash in and seize a prize under the enemy’s nose, or

  scurry to rouse the main fleet if the French admirals dared to present a challenge.

  What he had seen of his small force he liked. He had boarded both the brig and the other frigate, getting drenched on each occasion as he had been forced to leap unceremoniously while his boat had poised on a passing crest.

  He had seen the grins, and had known that his small bravado had been appreciated.

  They had to know him, like one of their own. Not as an aloof flag-officer on the poop of some great three-decker, but as the man who would be amongst them when danger came.

  He remarked, “Wind’s shifted.”

  Neale watched his foretopmen dashing aloft yet again to reset the topgallant.

  “Aye, sir. The master states it’ll back still further before nightfall.”

  Bolitho smiled. The sailing-master would know. His breed always seemed to understand the wind before it knew its own mind.

  Seven days out of Plymouth. It was like a dirge in his thoughts.

  And with little to show for it. Even if his whole squadron arrived, what should he do or say?

  Only one chink had shown itself. Each of the captains, Duncan, a bluff, red-faced youngster of the Sparrowhawk, and, still younger, Lapish of the Rapid, had mentioned the ease with which the enemy seemed able to foretell their movements. In the past year raids had been mounted on nearby ports by heavier ships of the line, and on each occasion the French had been prepared, with their own vessels and shore batteries ready to make a full attack pointless.

  And yet the squadrons to north and south stopped and searched every so-called neutral and warned them away from any area where they might discover the true strength of the British

  patrols. Or the lack of it, more likely, he thought wryly.

  He began to pace the side of the quarterdeck, his hands behind him, as he toyed with this tiny fragment of intelligence.

  The French might have been using small boats at night. No, they would be too slow, and incapable of escaping if they were sighted.

  Fast horsemen along the coast, ready to ride as Browne had done, to carry their news to
the local commanders. Possible. But still unlikely. The poor roads and long distances between harbours would make for serious delays.

  In spite of his guard, Bolitho felt his mind slip back to Falmouth. Belinda would be there again. Visiting the empty house, where Ferguson, his one-armed steward, would try his best to explain and to console her. What would she think? How could she know the ways of the Navy?

  She was thirty-four, ten years his junior. She would not wait, should not be made to suffer as she had done with her late husband.

  Bolitho stopped and gripped the nettings tightly. Even now she might be with someone else. Younger perhaps, with his feet firmly set on the land.

  Browne joined him by the nettings and offered weakly, “Good morning, sir.”

  Browne had rarely been seen since leaving Plymouth, although his fight with the frigate’s lively movements and the smells which were constant reminders of his seasickness was spoken of with awe even by the older hands.

  He looked a little stronger, Bolitho thought. It was ironic, for whereas he himself was beset with problems both personal and tactical, he had never felt in better health. The ship, the constant comings and goings of faces which were already familiar, were ready reminders of his own days as a frigate captain.

  There was a kind of hardness to his body, and a swiftness of thought which could soon be lost in a ponderous ship of the line.

  “I must make contact with Rapid today, Browne. I intend to stand her closer inshore, unless the master is wrong about the change of wind.”

  Browne watched him thoughtfully. Having to think again was bringing the colour back to his face. So how did Bolitho manage it? he wondered. Boarding the other ships, discussing details of local trade and coastal craft with Neale, he never appeared to tire.

  He was driving himself like this to hold his other thoughts at bay. At least he had learned that much about Bolitho.

  “Deck there!”

  Browne looked aloft and winced as he saw the tiny figure perched on the crosstrees high above the deck.

  “Sail on th’ starboard quarter!”

  Neale came hurrying across the deck, and as Bolitho gave him a curt nod, shouted, “All hands, Mr Pickthorn! We shall wear ship at once and beat to wind’rd!”

  Before his first lieutenant had even time to snatch up his speaking trumpet, or the boatswain’s mates had run below with their calls trilling to rouse the hands, Neale was already calculat-ing and scheming, even though he could not yet see the newcomer.

  Bolitho watched the seamen and marines flooding up through the hatches and along both gangways, to be stemmed and mustered into their stations by petty officers and master’s mates.

  Neale said, “The light is better, sir. In a moment or so—”

  “Man the braces there! Stand by to wear ship!”

  “Put up the helm!”

  With yards and canvas banging in confusion and blocks shrieking like live things as the cordage raced through the sheaves, Styx leaned heavily towards the sea, spray climbing the gangways and pattering across the straining seamen at the braces in pellets.

  “Full an’ bye, sir! Sou’-west by west!”

  Neale moved a pace this way and that, watching as his command came under control again, her lee gunports almost awash.

  “Aloft with you, Mr Kilburne, and take a glass.” To the quarterdeck at large he said, “If she’s a Frenchie, we’ll dish her up before she stands inshore.”

  Browne murmured, “Such confidence.”

  Bolitho sensed, rather than felt, Allday at his side, and held up his arms so that the burly coxswain could clip the sword to his belt.

  Allday looked suddenly older, although he and Bolitho were of the same age. The lower deck was insensitive when it came to the smallest comfort.

  Even as an admiral’s personal coxswain, life was not that easy.

  Allday would be the first to deny it, just as he would be angry and hurt if Bolitho suggested he took himself to Falmouth to enjoy the comfort and security which were his right.

  Allday saw his gaze and gave his lazy grin. “I can still give some o’ these mothers’ boys a run for their money, sir!”

  Bolitho nodded slowly. When it came, it would be on a day like this. Like all the others when Allday had fetched the old sword and they had shared some stupid joke together.

  Perhaps it was because of Neale, or the fact he was made to be an onlooker.

  He lifted his eyes to the mizzen truck where his flag stood out in the wind like painted metal.

  Then he shook himself angrily. If Beauchamp had appointed another junior admiral for this work he would have been equally unsettled.

  Allday moved away, satisfied with what he had seen.

  Several telescopes rose like swivels, and Bolitho waited until Midshipman Kilburne’s voice floated thinly from the masthead.

  “Deck, sir! She’s British!”

  A small pause while he endeavoured to cling to his precari-ous perch and open his signal book with the other hand.

  “She’s Phalarope, thirty-two, Captain Emes, sir!”

  Allday muttered, “Holy God!”

  Bolitho folded his arms and waited for the bows to rise again, the horizon appearing to tilt as if to rid itself of the two converging pyramids of sails.

  Bolitho had known she would come today. Even as Styx’s people had run to halliards and braces, he had known.

  Neale watched him warily. “What orders, sir?”

  Bolitho turned to see the bright signal flags break from Styx’s yard. Numbers exchanged, two ships meeting on a pinpoint. To most of the hands it was a welcome diversion, as well as a sight of some additional fire power.

  “Heave to when convenient, if you please. Make to—” his tongue faltered over her name, “to Phalarope that I shall be coming aboard.”

  Neale nodded. “Aye, sir.”

  Bolitho took a telescope from the midshipman of the watch and walked up the deck to the weather side.

  He was conscious of each move and every heartbeat, like an actor about to make an entrance.

  He held his breath and waited for the sea to smooth itself.

  There she was. With her yards already swinging, her topgallants and main-course being manhandled into submission, she was heeling on to a fresh tack. Bolitho moved the glass just a fraction more. Before that bowsprit plunged down again in a welter of flying spindrift he saw that familiar figurehead, the gilded bird riding on a dolphin.

  The same and yet different. He was frowning as he moved the glass again, seeing the insect-like figures on the ratlines and gangways, the blues and whites of the officers aft by the wheel.

  Outdated, that was it. The weak sunlight touched the frigate’s poop, and Bolitho recalled the fineness of her gingerbread, carved by experts in the trade. That had been another war.

  Newer frigates like Styx had fewer embellishments, less dignity,

  honed down to the demands of chase and battle.

  Neale lowered his telescope and said huskily, “Hell’s teeth, sir, it’s like yesterday. Like watching myself.”

  Bolitho looked past him at Allday by the hammock nettings.

  He was opening and closing his large fists, staring at the fast-running frigate until his eyes watered. So that he looked as if he was weeping.

  He made himself raise the telescope once again. She was smart for her age, and was reacting to the sight of a rear-admiral’s flag just as Bolitho had once done when he had taken Phalarope to Antigua.

  Neale called, “Heave to, Mr Pickthorn! Have the gig swayed out.”

  Browne asked, “Will you require me, sir?”

  “If you want to come, please do.” Bolitho saw the uncertainty, the need to understand. He added, “If you can trust your stomach during the crossing.”

  Allday walked to the entry port and waited for the gig to be pulled round to the main-chains. Neale’s own coxswain nodded to Allday and allowed him to take his place at the tiller without comment.

  Bolitho noticed a
ll and none of these things. So it was right through Styx already, probably every vessel under his flag.

  He touched his hat to the officers and marines at the entry port, and to Neale said quietly, “I will renew the acquaintance-ship for all of us.”

  Who did he mean? Allday and Neale, Herrick back in Plymouth, or Ferguson, his steward, who had lost his arm at the Saintes. Or perhaps he was speaking for the others who would never come home.

  Then he was settled in the sternsheets, the oars already thrashing at the tossing water to take the gig clear of the side.

  Allday called, “Give way, all!”

  Bolitho glanced up at him. But Allday kept his eyes fixed on the ship. Perhaps they had both known this would happen, but now that it had, could no longer share it.

  Bolitho unclipped the boat cloak he wore, and threw it clear of the bright gold epaulettes, each with its new silver star.

  It was just another ship in a desperately depleted squadron, and he was their admiral.

  He glanced again at Allday’s rigid shoulders and knew it was a lie.

  After the creak of oars and the sting of spray it seemed suddenly subdued on the Phalarope’s deck. Bolitho replaced his hat and nodded briefly to the ship’s marine officer who had arranged his men in two scarlet ranks to receive him.

  “Captain Emes?” Bolitho held out his hand as the slightly built figure stepped forward. He had a swift impression of alert wariness, a youthful face, but with a mouth hardened by the rigours of command.

  Emes said, “I am honoured to receive you aboard, sir.” Again there was a sharpness to his voice, a man on guard, one who had been practising for this very moment. “Although I fear you must know Phalarope better than I do.” A shutter seemed to drop behind his level gaze, as if he had already said too much. He half turned, but although he was about to present his officers, his eyes were elsewhere, seeking flaws to the pattern, anything which might make a poor showing.

  Bolitho could well understand any captain being eager to make a good impression on his new flag-officer, the man who could fulfil or shatter his hopes for any kind of future. But he had gleaned enough about Emes to doubt if that was the full story.