he saw a tiny pin-prick of colour caught in the sunlight like a butterfly. The mast was still invisible, but the butterfly was a tricolour.
He said, “Clear for action, Captain Neale. And please tell your gunner to try a few shots on that yawl.”
As the marine drummers beat their sticks so rapidly that their hands were blurred, and the boatswain’s mates yelled, “Hands to quarters! Clear for action!” Bolitho could sense the wild excitement being unleashed about him like a tide-race.
The starboard bow-chaser crashed out violently and threw itself inboard on its tackles, and even as its crew darted around it to sponge out and reload, Bolitho saw the ball drop in direct line with the yawl’s sails, flinging up a column of water like a spouting whale.
The other gun belched smoke and flames, and a second waterspout brought a chorus of cheers from the topmen and those who were able to see it.
Neale said, “No chance of a hit unless we can close the range.”
The first lieutenant hurried aft and touched his hat. “Cleared for action, sir.”
Neale deliberately tugged his watch from his breeches and studied it, his round face impassive as he said, “Twelve minutes, Mr Pickthorn. Won’t do. I want it done in ten or less.”
Bolitho had to turn away. It could have been himself speaking when he had commanded Phalarope and Neale had been the junior midshipman.
The bow-chasers continued to fire after the yawl, and although the balls were dropping short by a cable, the Frenchman obviously did not know how lucky he was, for he began to tack violently from side to side as if to avoid the next fall of shot.
Neale smiled. “Interesting, sir. If he continues like that we may take him yet.”
Smoke drifted harmlessly from the grey wall on the headland,
and after what seemed like an eternity some eight or nine spouts of water shot from the sea well away from the frigate’s side.
Bolitho listened to the dying echo of the concealed battery.
Just a token, a warning.
“Bring her up now, Captain Neale.”
Neale nodded, his mind grappling with the dozen or so problems which were most immediate to him.
“We will alter course four points to larboard, Mr Pickthorn, and steer nor’-east by north.”
“Hands to the braces there!”
As the big double wheel was turned steadily to leeward, Styx responded easily to the pressure of sail and rudder, the island appearing to slide away to starboard.
Bolitho raised his glass once more. Across the starboard bow was the beginning of the channel, and far beyond it, barely visible through the haze, was a deeper tone, the coast of France.
No more shots came from the battery, and while the yawl continued to move past the island’s northern shoreline, Styx headed purposefully away, as if she intended to discontinue the chase.
Bolitho walked to the quarterdeck rail and looked along the upper deck. Beneath the gangway on either side he saw the gun crews crouching by each sealed port, the instruments of their trade within ready reach. Each gun-captain was a king, every breech a small demanding kingdom.
The decks had been well sanded, and high above the busy seamen and marines chain-slings had been fixed to each yard and nets spread above their heads to further protect them from falling wreckage.
Neale watched him. “Another fifteen minutes, sir.” He added hesitantly, “I’ve put two of my best leadsmen in the chains. The tide is already on the ebb, I fear.”
Bolitho nodded. Neale had thought of everything. He saw
some of the men at the nearest guns staring up at him. Trying perhaps to decide their own fates this day by what they saw in him.
Bolitho said, “Fetch my coat, Allday.”
He heard Neale give a small sigh and added, “Have no fear, there’ll be no sharpshooters today, I think.”
Allday held out his coat and slipped it over his shoulders. The effect was instant, as if there had been something lacking.
Several seamen gave a cheer, and the marines in the maintop who were manning the swivels waved their hats as if something special had just happened.
Neale said quietly, “That was good of you, sir. They like to see. To know.”
“And you? What about your feelings?”
Neale gave a great grin, as if, like the cheering, it had been held back for this small moment.
“Your flag flies in my ship, sir. It’s a proud day for all of us, but especially for me.” His gaze shifted to the two bright epaulettes on Bolitho’s shoulders. “There’s many who’d wish to be here with us today.” He did not have to mention their names.
Bolitho looked past him at the creaming water alongside.
“Then so be it.” He saw Browne hurrying to join him, all signs of seasickness gone. “When you are ready, Captain Neale.”
Neale cupped his hands. “Stand by to come about, Mr Pickthorn! We will steer south-east!”
With yards creaking round, and hull dipping to the pressure of increased sail, Styx turned her bows purposefully to starboard until she pointed towards the centre of the channel. Caught unaware, and showing her full length for the first time, the distant yawl appeared to be pinioned on the jib-boom and incapable of movement.
“South-east, sir! Steady as she goes!”
“Get the royals on her, Mr Pickthorn! Then load and run out!”
Bolitho stood close against the rail, watching the island moving in again to starboard, some drifting smoke against the sky which might be anything from burning gorse to a furnace heat-ing shot. Styx was moving very rapidly through the water, as with royals and topgallants at last responding to a following wind she headed into the channel.
A whistle shrilled and along either side the port lids were hauled open, and at another signal the Styx’s guns were run out, their black muzzles poking into the dying sunlight like teeth.
Bolitho shivered slightly in spite of his coat. If the French had had any doubts about their intentions, they would soon disappear now.
Without turning his head he knew Allday and Browne stood at his back, that Neale was nearby. What had Browne called the original squadron before Copenhagen? We Happy Few. As spray dashed over the tightly packed hammock nettings to sting his cheeks like ice, he knew exactly what he had meant.
He watched the frigate’s two other lieutenants pacing slowly back and forth behind the guns, swords drawn and across their shoulders like walking-sticks as their ship sailed into action. These were the sailors who were never seen by the people they defended through each day of war. The powers of Admiralty could plan and scheme, and dissect every item of intelligence about the enemy’s intentions and movements, but it was left to men and boys like these to do the job. The stuff of battle. Bolitho smiled quietly.
One of his old captains had described his own men like that in another war.
Around him, some of the men saw the smile and knew it was because of them.
Because it was their day.
5. S ingle-handed
“BY TH’ MARK SEVEN!” The leadsman’s voice seemed unnaturally loud to the intent figures on Styx’s quarterdeck.
Bolitho looked up quickly as the big mainsail and forecourse filled and hardened to the breeze. You could hardly call it a wind, but with her canvas drawing well Styx was making a favourable eight or nine knots through the water.
He watched the island as it grew larger above the starboard bow. The sun had moved across it in the last few minutes, or so it appeared, and the nearest rise of headland was already in shadow.
The bow-chasers continued to fire at regular intervals, while far ahead of the Styx’s beakhead the French yawl was wavering from side to side, her master apparently still convinced he was the prime target.
Neale lowered his telescope and said, “Dusk early tonight, sir.” He added bitterly, “It damn well would be!”
Bolitho said nothing but concentrated on the small island. As the ship stood deeper into the channel between it and the mainland,
he was conscious of the tension around him, and wondered what the French were doing across that narrowing strip of water.
There had been no more shots, and he felt the returning bite of anxiety, the feeling he might have miscalculated, that there was nothing important here after all.
Allday shifted his feet and muttered, “Must be asleep, the lot o’ ’em!”
Browne remarked, “I can see smoke. There, low down, man!”
Neale hurried across the deck, thrusting a midshipman aside like an empty sack.
“Where?” He trained his glass again. “God dammit, it’s not smoke, it’s dust! ”
Bolitho picked up a telescope and followed the bearing carefully. Dust it was, and the reason became clear as a team of horses charged from behind some low scrub, a limber and cannon bounc-ing behind them as they headed for the other end of the island.
Within minutes another limber and fieldpiece followed it along the track, the dying sunlight glinting briefly on the outriders’ uniforms and equipment.
Bolitho closed his glass and tried to control his excitement.
He had not been mistaken. The French had been so sure of their safe anchorage that they had relied on field artillery rather than a fixed shore battery. They probably intended to remove the guns altogether once the last of the new invasion craft had been delivered to their final destination.
No wonder Styx had not been fired on after the first warning shots. The fall of shot had been too precise, fired by soldiers used to the ways of a land battle. A naval gunner would have laid and fired each of his battery by hand. Just to be certain and to avoid wasting shot. The latter was always paramount in a sailor’s mind when he was aboard ship and a long way from ready supplies, so why should he change his ways ashore?
“Deck there!”
Neale wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and growled,
“Well, come on, man, spit it out!”
But the masthead lookout was too well trained to be bothered by the impatient group far beneath his dangling legs.
Then he called, “Ships at anchor round the point, sir!”
One of the leadsmen shouted from forward, “By th’ mark five!” But apart from Bundy, the master, nobody seemed to care.
Some peered beyond the bows, others stared up at the masthead, eager for more news.
“A dozen or more at anchor, sir!” Even the distance from deck to topmast could not hide the man’s disbelief as he added hoarsely,
“No, sir, far more’n that!”
Neale clapped his hands together. “Got ’em, by God!”
Bundy said quickly, “We’re enterin’ the shallows, sir.” He flinched under Neale’s stare. “Sorry, sir, but you had to know.”
“Deep four! ” The leadsman’s voice was like a sad chant.
The first lieutenant joined Bundy by his chart. “Tide’s still on the ebb.” He glanced meaningly at his captain and then at the upper yards.
Neale said, “Get the royals on her. We’ll run with the tide.”
He looked at Bolitho and added, “With your consent, sir?”
“I agree. We need haste above all.”
He forgot the cries of the seamen as they freed the sails from the upper yards, the bark of orders and squeal of halliards, for as the ship forged on a converging track towards the next headland he saw the first of the anchored vessels. No wonder the lookout was amazed. There were dozens of them, some moored in pairs, others, possibly gun brigs or bombs, anchored separately, a veri-table armada of small ships. It was not difficult to imagine them disgorging French dragoons and infantry on to the beaches of southern England.
“Deep four!” The leadsman hauled up his line so rapidly that his muscular arm appeared blurred in the red sunlight.
Neale shouted, “Stand by, starboard battery!” He watched as every gun-captain raised his hand along the side, while behind them their lieutenants continued to prowl up and down like strangers to each other.
The island was much deeper in shadow, and against it the crowded hulls of the newly-built vessels looked like one vast, ungainly raft.
Bolitho stared at the glowing red ball of sunlight. Not long now. If only Sparrowhawk, even Rapid, were here. As it was, it would soon be too shallow to manœuvre without running aground, and they could never sink or damage more than two or three.
He snapped, “Where’s the yawl?”
Neale called, “Fine on the starboard bow, sir. I think she intends to anchor amongst that lot, if she can.”
Bolitho made up his mind. “Tell your gun-captains to hit the yawl. A guinea for the first crew to cripple her!”
There were a few gasps of surprise at the choice of target, but after some quick adjustments with handspikes and tackles, the gun-captains shouted their readiness.
“As you bear!” Neale raised his curved hanger above his head.
“On the uproll!” Seconds became hours. “Fire!”
Down the frigate’s side each gun muzzle belched fire and smoke and hurled itself inboard on its tackles. The forward guns were being sponged out and reloaded even as the aftermost division added to the din.
The yawl, caught at the very moment she was trying to change tack towards the other vessels, seemed to collapse under the weight of iron as each double-shotted gun blasted across a range of less than two cables.
Around the stricken yawl the sea was patterned with splashes as falling shot, wreckage and splintered spars cascaded down on every side.
A tiny pin-prick of light winked from the battered hull and almost immediately blossomed into a great gout of fire. A powder cask touched by a spark, a dazed seaman caught off balance with a lantern between decks, it could have been anything.
Bundy exclaimed thickly, “God, she’s ablaze!”
Bolitho tried to contain the sick pity he felt for the men on that blazing vessel. One heavy ball would have been enough to sink her, a broadside had changed her into an inferno. A fireship.
He kept his voice level as he said, “That should make the others up-anchor!”
Something punched through the maincourse and left a hole big enough for a man to climb through. One of those horse artillery gunners had reached his site.
The first lieutenant yelled, “They’s cutting their cables!”
Caught by wind and tide, the wide cluster of moored craft was already opening up as each master endeavoured to fight his way clear, to make sail and to hell with his consorts. Anything but stay and be destroyed by fire or the enemy frigate which was rushing headlong towards them with only a few feet beneath her keel.
“As you bear! Continue firing!”
Neale hurried to the quarterdeck rail as the nearest vessels loomed out of the deepening shadows, his cheeks glowing in the reflected flames.
“Larboard battery, stand by! ”
The crews started to cheer as another vessel appeared on the opposite bow, some sails already set and her stem pointing towards France.
As the larboard battery joined in the fight, the escaping craft was deluged in falling waterspouts, while above her deck masts and canvas were flung about as if lashed by a great gale.
Neale said, “She’s done for.” He flinched as metal shrieked low above the hammock nettings and smashed down in the sea abeam.
Bolitho stared at the chaos which seemed in danger of colliding with and snaring the attacking frigate. Vessels which had cut their cables too soon were drifting down entangled with some of their consorts, and others were risking everything to escape into open water. They were as much in danger from their own artillery ashore as they were from Neale’s guns. For it was almost dark now, apart from the flashing tongues of cannon fire, the flames of burning vessels having been quenched by the sea.
“Cease firing, Captain Neale.”
Bolitho tried to free his mind of the elation the taste of battle had created around him. Not one ball had hit Styx, and not a man had even been injured. The kind of sea-fight every sailor dreamed about.
“Sir?” Ne
ale watched him eagerly.
“If you were the French commander here, what would you do? Recall the vessels and anchor them again while you set up a new battery to protect them, or send them packing to the north where they were intended?”
Neale grinned at two of his smoke-blackened seamen who were cheering and capering in a wild dance.
Then he became serious. “I’d not send them back to their original harbours. It would seem like incompetence, cowardice even, with such urgency demanded for their delivery.” He nodded slowly. “I’d send them on, sir, before we can summon heavier reinforcements.”
Bolitho smiled gravely. “I agree with you. So tell the master to lay a course to clear this channel and then beat back to the rendezvous. As soon as we sight Rapid I’ll send her to find the others. I’ll wager Rapid is still close at hand and wondering what the devil we have been doing. Apart from stealing her prize, that is!” He gripped Neale’s arm, unable to keep the excitement to himself. “We shall have the wind in our favour, think of it, man!
We know that no support is coming from Lorient or Brest for these craft, otherwise Sparrowhawk or Phalarope would have sighted it. We have just created panic, but panic will not last. We must act at once. Phalarope, with her armament of carronades, can reap a rich harvest amongst these flimsy vessels.”
He looked up sharply as the sails flapped noisily above the deck. They were drawing under the lee of the island, but once in deeper water they could soon fight their way back to their friends.
Neale said doubtfully, “We shall be close inshore, sir.” He grinned. “But you are right, we can do it.” He shouted, “Mr Pickthorn! Hands to the braces! Stand by to come about!”
Bolitho made to leave and then said, “I shall not forget your support, Captain Neale. You could have lost your keel back there.”
Neale watched him go and remarked, “After that, I could sail this ship on a heavy dew!”
Bundy looked at his mates and grimaced. “Not with me, ’e bloody won’t!”
Bolitho opened his eyes and groaned. His body felt as if it had been kicked in several different places, and he realized he had fallen asleep in Neale’s chair.
A Tradition of Victory Page 7