A Tradition of Victory

by Alexander Kent

  Before Bolitho could make a sharp retort, he added almost apologetically, “For my sake, m’sieu!”

  Leaving them with an escort he strode on ahead to a pair of high doors.

  Browne whispered, “He must be the French admiral’s flag-lieutenant, sir.” For a few seconds it seemed to amuse him.

  Bolitho looked towards a window and beyond. The country-side was lush and green in the morning sunlight. Between some houses he saw the glint of water, the masts of a moored vessel.

  The river.

  The lieutenant reappeared and beckoned to Bolitho. To Browne and Allday he said shortly, “Remain ’ere.” His casual attitude was gone. He was on duty again.

  Bolitho entered the big room and heard the door close quietly behind him. After the abused lower floor and staircase this room was sumptuous. Thick carpets, and a towering painting of a battle which seemed to involve many hundreds of horses, gave the room a kind of arrogant elegance.

  He walked towards an ornate table at the opposite end of the room. The distance seemed endless, and he was very aware of his dishevelled appearance when compared with the figure behind the desk.

  Contre-Amiral Remond was dark-skinned, even swarthy, but incredibly neat. His hair, as black as Bolitho’s, was brushed forward across a broad forehead, beneath which his eyes glittered in the filtered sunlight like stones.

  He stood up only briefly and waved Bolitho to a gilded chair.

  That too, like the carefully measured distance from the door, was placed just so.

  Bolitho sat down, again conscious of his own salt-stained clothes, the throbbing ache of his wounded thigh, all of which added to his feeling of defeat. The fact he guessed that was the intention of his captor did nothing to help.

  In spite of his guard he felt his eyes drawn to his sword which lay across the table as if for a court martial.

  The French admiral said curtly, “Is there anything you wish to tell me?”

  Bolitho met his unwinking stare. “The officers and men of the frigate Styx. I am responsible for them. Their captain is too ill to plead for them.”

  The French officer shrugged as if it was of no importance.

  “My officers will deal with the matter. It is you who interest me.”

  Bolitho fought for time. “You speak very good English.”

  “Naturally. I was a prisoner of your people for some months before I was released.” He seemed to grow irritated at revealing something personal and snapped, “We of course knew of your new command, of the misguided attempt to interfere with French ships. In fact, we know a great deal about you and your family.

  Of a noble tradition, would you say?” He hurried on without waiting. “Whereas I had to work my way up from nothing, without privilege.”

  “So did I!” It came out sharper than he had intended.

  Remond gave a slow smile. He had very small teeth, like a terrier’s. “No matter. For you the war is over. As your equal in rank it was my duty to meet you, nothing more.” He picked up the old sword and casually turned it over in his hands.

  Bolitho had the strange feeling that Remond was less sure of himself. He was testing him, trying to find out something. He dropped his eyes, praying that the swarthy-faced admiral would not see his sudden determination. The new semaphore system.

  Remond needed to know if he had discovered it.

  Perhaps the French had a Beauchamp all of their own who had created a plan to destroy the would-be destroyers?

  Remond remarked, “A fine old blade.” He replaced it carefully on the table, nearer to Bolitho. “You will be given suitable quarters, naturally, and allowed to keep your servant with you.

  And if you give your word of honour not to try and escape, you will also be afforded certain liberty as decided by your guards.”

  He looked at the sword. “And you will be permitted to keep your sword also. When peace is signed you will be sent home without a stain on your character.” He sat back and eyed Bolitho bleakly.

  “So?”

  Bolitho stood up slowly, his eyes on the man across the table.

  “Peace is only a rumour, Contre-Amiral Remond. War is still a reality. I am a King’s officer and find no comfort in waiting for others to fight for me.”

  His answer seemed to take Remond aback.

  “That is absurd! You reject captivity with all the rights of your rank? You have hopes for escape, perhaps? That too is ridiculous!”

  Bolitho shrugged. “I cannot give my word.”

  “If you intend to persist with this attitude, all hope of rescue or escape are gone. Once I leave here, the military will be in charge of you!”

  Bolitho said nothing. How could he stay in comparative comfort after losing a ship and so many lives? If he ever returned home it would be with honour, or not at all.

  Remond nodded. “Very well. Then your companions shall stay with you. If the injured captain dies because of his captivity, you will be to blame.”

  “Must the lieutenant stay too?” Strangely, Bolitho felt calmer with the threats, now that the promises had been pushed aside.

  “Did I forget to mention him?” The French admiral picked a piece of thread from his breeches. “The surgeon had to remove his arm during the night, I believe. But he died nevertheless.”

  Remond lowered his voice and continued, “Try to see reason.

  Many of the garrisons are manned by fools, peasants in uniform.

  They have no love for the British navy, the blockade, the attempt to starve them into submission. In Lorient now, you would be with your fellow officers and protected by the sailors of France.”

  Bolitho lifted his chin and replied coldly, “My answer is unchanged.”

  “Then you are a fool, Bolitho. Soon there will be peace. What use is a dead hero then, eh?”

  He shook a little bell on his desk and Bolitho sensed the doors open behind him.

  think we shall not meet again.” Then he strode from the room.

  The lieutenant joined Bolitho by the table and looked at the sword. He gave a deep sigh and said sadly, “I am sorry, m’sieu.”

  He beckoned to the escort and added, “It is arranged. You will be taken to another prison today. After that …”

  He spread his hands. “But I wish you luck, m’sieu.”

  Bolitho watched him hurry to the stairway. No doubt Remond had somebody superior to him waiting at Lorient. The chain of command.

  The soldiers fell in step with him, and moments later he was back in the cell, and alone.

  8. The CERES

  IT WAS a whole week before Bolitho was taken from his isolation and put into a shuttered carriage for the journey to his new prison.

  It had taken every ounce of his self-control and determination to endure the seven days, and he had thanked his hard upbringing in a King’s ship more than once as time seemed to stretch to an eternity.

  His guards must have been hand-picked for their coarseness and brutality, and their ill-fitting uniforms only added to their air of menace.

  Bolitho was made to strip naked while several of the guards searched him and removed every personal possession from his clothing. Not content with that, they’d removed his rear-admiral’s epaulettes and gilt buttons, presumably to be shared round as sou-venirs. And all the while they had subjected him to every humiliation and insult. But Bolitho knew men as well as he understood ships, and had no illusions about his guards. They were

  seeking an excuse to kill him, and showed their disappointment when he remained silent and apparently calm.

  Only once had his will almost cracked. One of the soldiers had dragged the locket from about his neck and had peered curiously at it for several moments. Bolitho had tried to appear unconcerned, even though he wanted to hurl himself at the man’s throat and throttle him before the others cut him down.

  The guard had prised open the locket with his bayonet, and had blinked with astonishment as a lock of hair had blown across the floor and then out of the open door.

>   But the locket was gold, and he had seemed satisfied. He would never know what it had meant to Bolitho, the lock of Cheney’s hair which she had given him before he had left her for the last time.

  Without a watch, or anyone to speak with, it was hard to mark the passing of time, even the pattern of events beyond the walls.

  As he was led from the cell into the courtyard and saw the waiting carriage, he was grateful. If the new prison was worse, or he was about to face a firing-party instead of captivity, he was glad of an end to waiting.

  Inside the darkened coach he found the others waiting for him. It was unexpected and moving for each one. As the carriage began to move and the mounted escort took station behind it, they clasped hands, barely able to speak as they examined each other’s faces in the chinks of sunlight through the shutters.

  Bolitho said, “Your being here is my fault. Had I given my word you would have been sent home, soon perhaps. Now,” he shrugged, “you are as much a prisoner as I am.”

  Allday seemed openly pleased, or was he relieved to find him still alive?

  “By God, I’m fair glad to be rid of those scum, sir!” He held up his two fists like clubs. “Another few days o’ these mounseers an’ I’d have swung for ’em!”

  Neale, propped between Browne and Allday, reached out and touched Bolitho’s hands. His head was heavily bandaged, and in the fleeting stabs of sunshine his face looked as pale as death.

  He whispered, “Together. Now we’ll show them.”

  Allday said gently, “He’s doing his best, sir.” He looked at Bolitho and gave a quick shake of the head. “Not changed a mite since he was a young gentleman, eh, sir?”

  Browne said, “I was interrogated by two of the French officers, sir. They asked a lot about you. I heard them discussing you later, and I suspect they are worried.”

  Bolitho nodded. “You did not let them know you speak and understand French?”

  He saw Browne smile. He had almost forgotten about his flag-lieutenant’s other assets. A small thing, but in their favour.

  Browne clung to a strap as the carriage gathered speed. “I heard some talk about more invasion craft being sent up to Lorient and Brest. Two types, I think. One is called a chaloupe de can-nonière, and the other is a smaller type, a péniche. They have been building them by the hundred, or so it sounds.”

  Bolitho found he was able to relate this sparse information to his own predicament without despair. Perhaps the testing he had endured, alone in the cell, had given him the hatred he needed to think clearly, to plan how best to hit back.

  He looked at Neale as he lolled against Allday’s protective arm. His shirt was open to the waist, and Bolitho could see the scratches on his skin where someone’s fingers had torn off the locket Neale always wore. It had contained a portrait of his mother, but they had seized it nonetheless. Poor, broken Neale. What was his mind grappling with now, he wondered, as the wheels clattered and bounced along the open road. Of his beloved Styx, of his home, or of his first lieutenant, the taciturn Mr Pickthorn, who had been an extension of his own command?

  But for me, he would he safe in hospital.

  Dozing, and reawakening as if fearful that their reunification might be just one more taunt and part of the nightmare, they sustained each other, and endured the heat of the shuttered coach without knowing where they were or where they were bound.

  Several times the coach halted, horses were watered or changed, some bread and wine were thrust into the carriage without more than a swift glance from one of the escorts, and they were off again.

  “If we are separated again we must try to keep contact somehow.” Bolitho heard a carriage clatter past in the opposite direction.

  A wide road then, not some winding lane. “I intend to escape, but we shall go together.” He felt them looking at him, could even sense their awakened hope. “If one of us falls or gets taken, the others must go on. Get the news to England somehow, tell them the truth of the French preparations and their new signals system.”

  Allday grunted. “Together, sir. That’s what you said. If I have to carry all of you, begging yer pardon, sir, we’ll stay together, an’

  England will have to wait a mite longer.”

  Browne chuckled, a welcome sound when they might all be shot dead before another day had passed.

  He said, “Keep your place, Allday. You’re an admiral’s servant, not his cox’n, remember?”

  Allday grinned. “I’ll never live it down.”

  Bolitho put his finger to his lips. “Quiet!”

  He tried to loosen one of the shutters but only managed to move it very slightly. Watched by the others, he knelt down on the floor, ignoring the pain in his wounded thigh, and pressed his face to the shutter.

  He said softly, “The sea. I can smell it.” He looked at them, as if he had just revealed some great miracle. To sailors it was just that. The sea.

  They would be taken out of the carriage and shut away once more in some stinking prison. But it would not be the same, no matter what privation or suffering they had to face. How many men must have seen the sea as an enemy, a final barrier to freedom. But any sailor nursed it in his heart like a prayer. Just get me to the sea, and somehow I’ll reach home.

  The carriage stopped, and a soldier opened the shutters to let in some air.

  Bolitho sat very still, but his eyes were everywhere. There was no sign of water, but beyond a series of low, rounded hills he knew it was there.

  On the other side of the road was a great stretch of bare, bar-ren looking land, across which, in rolling clouds of thick dust, troops of mounted horsemen wheeled and reformed, the spectacle like part of that huge picture in the commandant’s room.

  Browne said softly, “Like the escort, sir. French dragoons.”

  Bolitho heard the blare of a trumpet and saw the sun gleam across black-plumed helmets and breast-plates as the horses changed formation and cantered into another wall of dust. Open country. Very suitable for training cavalry, perhaps for invasion.

  Also, they represented a real threat to anyone trying to escape from captivity. As a boy, Bolitho had often watched the local dragoons parading and exercising at Truro, near his home in Falmouth. Had seen them too hunting some smugglers who had broken away from the revenue men, their sabres glittering as they had galloped in pursuit across the moor.

  The shutters were replaced and the coach jerked forward.

  Bolitho knew the act had been a warning, not an act of compassion. No words could have made it clearer. Those proud dragoons shouted it from the skies.

  It was dusk by the time they finally alighted from the carriage, stiff and tired after the journey. The young officer in charge

  of the escort handed some papers to a blue-coated official, and with a curt nod to the prisoners turned on his heel, obviously glad to be rid of his charges.

  Bolitho looked past the official, who was still examining the papers as if he was barely able to read, and looked at the squat building which was to be their new prison.

  A high stone wall, windowless, with a central tower which was just visible through the shadows of the gates.

  An old fort, a coastguard station, added to and altered over the years, it might have been anything.

  The man in the blue coat looked at him and pointed to the gates. Some soldiers who had been watching the new arrivals fell in line, and like men under sentence of death Bolitho and the others followed the official through the gates.

  Another delay, and then an elderly militia captain entered the room where they had been left standing against a wall and said,

  “I am Capitaine Michel Cloux, commandant here.”

  He had a narrow, foxy face, but his eyes were not hostile, and if anything he looked troubled with his command.

  “You will remain as prisoners of France, and will obey whatever instruction I give without question, you understand? Any attempt to escape will be punished by death. Any attempt to over-throw authority will be punished by de
ath. But behave yourselves and all will be well.” His small eyes rested on Allday. “Your servant will be shown what to do, where to go for your requirements.”

  Neale gave a groan and staggered against Browne for support.

  The commandant glanced at his papers, apparently unnerved.

  In a gentler tone he added, “I will request aid from the military surgeon for er, Capitaine Neale, yes?”

  “Thank you, I would be grateful.” Bolitho kept his voice low.

  Any sign that he was trying to assert his rank might destroy everything. Neale’s distress had made a small bridge. The commandant obviously had distinct instructions about the care and A

  isolation of the prisoners. But he was probably an old campaigner who had lost comrades of his own. Neale’s condition had made more sense to him than some coldly worded orders.

  The commandant eyed him warily, as if suspecting a trap.

  Then he said, “You will attend your quarters now. Then you will be fed.”

  He replaced his cocked hat with a shabby flourish.

  “Go with my men.”

  As they followed two of the guards up a winding stone stairway, supporting Neale in case he should slip and fall, Allday murmured, “They can’t steal anything from me here. I’ve naught left!”

  Bolitho touched his throat and thought of the locket, her face as he had last seen her. And he thought too of Belinda the day he and Allday had found her in the overturned coach on the road from Portsmouth. Allday was probably right. The locket had been a link with something lost. Hope was all he had now, and he was determined not to lose it.

  For Bolitho and his companions each day was much like the one which had preceded it. The food was poor and coarse, but so too was it for their prison guards, and the daily routine equally monotonous. They soon discovered they had the little prison to themselves, although when Bolitho and Browne were allowed to walk outside the gates with an armed escort, they saw a heavily pitted wall and some rough graves to show that previous occupants had met a violent end here before a firing-squad.

  The commandant visited them every day, and he had kept his word about sending for a military surgeon to attend Neale.