A Tradition of Victory

by Alexander Kent

  The crowded vessels looked at peace through the silent lens, but he could picture the pandemonium and panic there must be as Odin sailed purposefully towards them. It was impossible, but an enemy ship was right amongst them, or soon would be.

  Inch said, “Phalarope’s on station, sir.”

  Bolitho trained his glass towards the frigate and saw her exposed carronades, blunt-muzzled and ugly, run out in a long black line. He thought he could see Pascoe too, but was not certain.

  “Signal Phalarope. Take station astern of the Flag.”

  He ignored the bright flags darting up to the yards and turned his attention back to the enemy.

  He heard a trumpet, far-off and mournful, and moments later saw the guard-ship running out her guns, although as yet she had not made any attempt to up-anchor or set sail.

  In his excitement Inch took Bolitho’s arm and pointed towards the shore.

  “Look, sir! The tower! ”

  Bolitho trained his telescope and saw a tower above the headland like a sentinel. At the top a set of jerking semaphore arms told their story better than shouted words.

  But if Browne had destroyed the semaphore station on the church, there would be no one to see and relay the message to Remond’s squadron. And even if the same message was passed in the other direction, all the way to Lorient, it was too late to save this packed assembly.

  Odin’s jib-boom had passed the end of the anchored vessels now, which presented an unbroken barrier some half a mile away.

  Smoke swirled above the guard-ship, and the rolling cash of gunfire showed that the French were now wide awake.

  A few balls hurled spray into the air close abeam and brought cries of derision from Odin’s gun crews.

  Graham watched as Inch slowly raised his sword above his head.

  “On the uproll! Steady, my lads!”

  A stronger gust of wind sighed into Odin’s topsails so that she heeled over and showed her copper in the pale sunlight. It was all Inch needed. The sword slashed down.

  A midshipman who had been clinging to an open hatchway above the lower gun-deck yelled, “Fire!”

  But his shrill voice was lost in the devastating roar of the upper battery’s eighteen-pounders.

  Bolitho watched the waterspouts lifting amongst and beyond

  the anchored craft. The spray was still falling as the lower battery’s thirty-two-pounders added their weight of iron to the destruction. Bolitho saw fractured planking and whole areas of decking flung into the air, and when the smoke cleared he realized that several of the smaller craft were already heeling over. In the telescope’s lens he could see a few boats pulling clear, but in some cases the crews on the landward side of the anchorage had at last cut their cables and were trying to work clear.

  “Run out!”

  Again the trucks creaked and squealed up the slanting deck and the muzzles thrust through their ports.

  “Stand by! As you bear!”

  The sword came down again. “Fire!”

  Slower this time, as each gun captain waited and took more careful aim before jerking at his trigger line.

  The French guard-ship was loosening her topsails, but had fouled two of the drifting invasion craft. She fired nevertheless, and two balls hit Odin just above the waterline.

  Bolitho saw smoke around the guard-ship, and realized one of the other craft had caught fire. It might even have been caused by a blazing wad from one of the guard-ship’s own guns. He could see the running figures, tiny and futile in distance, as they hurled water from the beakhead and tried to free their ship from the flames. But the entanglement of rigging and the persistent strength of the offshore wind were too much for them, and Bolitho saw flames leaping from hull to hull and eventually setting light to the guard-ship’s jibsails.

  On their converging approach they were now within a cable of the nearest craft, and from the bows Odin’s leadsman yelled,

  “Deep six! ”

  Inch looked anxiously at Bolitho. “Far enough, sir?”

  Bolitho nodded. “Bring her about.”

  “Stand by to come about!”

  All available hands sprang to braces and halliards, some still gasping and rubbing their streaming eyes from the gun smoke.

  “Ready ho!”

  “Put the wheel down!”

  The spokes glittered in the sunshine as the helm was put hard over, and then M’Ewan shouted, “Helm’s a-lee, sir!”

  Bolitho watched the panorama of drifting and shattered vessels as they began to swing slowly across Odin’s bows until it appeared as if the jib-boom was right above them. The sails flapped and thundered, while petty officers added their own weight to the braces to haul the yards round and lay the ship on the opposite tack.

  Inch shouted, “Stand by on the larboard battery! On the uproll, Mr Graham!”

  “Steady as you go!”

  M’Ewan waited until the last sail was brought under control, hard-bellied in the wind.

  “Sou’-east by east, sir!”

  “Fire!”

  The larboard guns hurled themselves inboard for the first time, the smoke funnelling back through the ports as the whole broadside crashed and blasted amongst the invasion craft with terrible effect.

  Bolitho watched Phalarope’s shape lengthening, her sails in confusion as she followed the flagship’s example and tacked across the wind. She was even closer to the enemy, and Bolitho could imagine the terror those carronades would create.

  The guard-ship was no longer under control and from her mainmast to forecastle was ablaze, the flames leaping up the sails and changing them to ashes in seconds.

  Bolitho saw her shake and a topgallant mast fall like a lance

  into the smoke. She must have run aground, and several figures were floundering in the water, while others were swimming towards some rocks.

  “Cease firing!”

  A silence fell over the ship, and even the men who were still sponging out the guns from the last broadside stood up to the gangways to watch Phalarope’s slow and graceful approach.

  Allday said thickly, “Look at her. Moving closer. I could almost feel sorry for the mounseers.”

  Emes was taking no chances, either with his aim or with the effect on his ship’s timbers. From bow to stern the carronades fired one by one. Not the echoing crash of a long gun, but each shot was hard and flat, like a great hammer on an anvil.

  The carronades were hidden from view, but Bolitho saw the shots slamming home amongst the remaining invasion craft like a great gale of wind. Except that this wind was tightly packed grape contained in one huge ball which burst on contact.

  If one ball from a “smasher” exploded in the confines of a gun-deck, it could turn it into a slaughterhouse. The effect on the smaller, thinly-planked invasion craft would be horrific.

  Emes took his time, reefing all but his topsails to give his carronade crews an opportunity to reload and fire one last broadside.

  When the echoes faded, and the smoke eventually eddied clear, there were barely a dozen craft still afloat, and it seemed unlikely that they had escaped some casualties and damage.

  Bolitho shut the telescope and handed it to a midshipman.

  He saw Inch slapping his first lieutenant on the shoulder and beaming all over his long face.

  Poor Inch. He looked up as the masthead lookout yelled,

  “Deck there!”

  “Sail on the lee bow!”

  A dozen telescopes rose together, and something like a sigh transmitted itself along the upper deck.

  Allday stood at Bolitho’s shoulder and whispered, “He’s too bloody late, sir!” But there was no pleasure in his voice.

  Bolitho moved his glass very carefully across the glittering wave crests. Three ships of the line, bunched together by the distance, their pendants and ensigns making bright patches of colour against the sky. Another vessel, probably a frigate, was just showing herself around the headland.

  He heard the marines shuffling their boots and s
tanding up to the hammock nettings again as they realized their work had not even begun.

  Allday had understood from the beginning. Inch too in all probability, but he had been so engrossed in his ship’s behaviour that he had put it from his mind.

  He saw Midshipman Stirling shading his eyes to peer ahead towards the pale array of sails. He turned and saw Bolitho watching him, his eyes no longer confident but those of a confused boy.

  “Come here, Mr Stirling.” Bolitho pointed to the distant ships. “Remond’s flying squadron. We’ll have given him a rude awakening this morning.”

  Stirling asked, “Will we stand and fight, sir?”

  Bolitho looked down at him and smiled gravely. “You are a King’s officer, Mr Stirling, no less than Captain Inch or myself.

  What would you have me do?”

  Stirling tried to see how he would describe this to his mother.

  But nothing formed in his mind, and he was suddenly afraid.

  “Fight, sir!”

  “Attend the signals party, Mr Stirling.” To Allday he added softly, “If he can say that when he is terrified, there is hope for us all.”

  Allday eyed him curiously, “If you say so, sir.”

  “Deck there! Two more sail of the line roundin’ the point!”

  Bolitho clasped his hands behind him. Five to one. He looked at Inch’s despair.

  There was no point in fighting and dying for nothing. A brutal human sacrifice. They had done what many had thought impossible. Neale, Browne and all the others would not have died in vain.

  But to order Inch to strike his colours would be almost as hard as dying.

  “Deck there!”

  Bolitho stared up at the lookout in the mizzen crosstrees. He must have been so dazed by the sight of the oncoming squadron he had failed to watch his own sector.

  “Glass!”

  Bolitho almost snatched it from the midshipman’s hand, and ignoring the startled glances ran to the shrouds and climbed swiftly until he was well clear of the deck.

  “Three sail of the line on the lee quarter!”

  Bolitho watched the newcomers and felt a lump rise in his throat. Somehow or other, adverse winds or not, Herrick had managed it. He wiped his eye with his sleeve and steadied the glass for another look.

  Benbow in the lead. He would know her fat hull and thrusting figurehead anywhere. He saw Herrick’s broad-pendant writhing uncomfortably as ship by ship the remainder of the squadron tacked for what must be the hundredth time as they struggled to beat upwind and join their admiral.

  He lowered himself to the quarterdeck and saw the others watching him like strangers.

  Then Inch asked quietly, “Orders, sir?”

  Bolitho glanced at Stirling and his colourful litter of flags.

  “General signal, if you please, Mr Stirling. Form line of battle. ”

  Allday looked up as the flags broke stiffly to the wind. “I’ll lay odds mounseer never expected that! ”

  Bolitho smiled. They were still outnumbered, but he had known worse odds. So had Herrick.

  He looked at Stirling. “You see, I took your advice!”

  Allday shook his head. How did he do it? In an hour, maybe less, they would be fighting for their very breath.

  Bolitho glanced up at the masthead pendant and formed a picture of the battle in his mind. If the wind held they might fight ship to ship. That would offer Remond the advantage. Better to allow his captains to act individually after they had broken the enemy’s line.

  He looked along the deck, at the bare-backed gun crews and the boatswain’s party who were preparing to hoist out the boats and drop them astern. A tier of boats only added to the splinter wounds, and these were not low-hulled invasion craft they were preparing to fight.

  He saw some of the new hands murmuring to one another, their first taste of victory soured by the arrival of the powerful French squadron.

  “Captain Inch! Have your marine fifers play us into battle. It will help to ease their minds.”

  Inch followed his glance, and then bobbed and said,

  “Sometimes I forget, sir, the war has gone on for so long I think everyone must have fought in a real sea battle!”

  And so the little sixty-four with the rear-admiral’s flag at her mizzen sailed to meet the enemy in the bright sunlight, while her marine fifers and drummers marched and counter-marched on a space no bigger than a carpet.

  Many of the seamen who had been staring at the enemy ships turned inboard to watch and to tap their feet to the lively jig, The Post Captain.

  Astern of Odin and her attendant frigate, the bay was filled with drifting smoke and the scattered flotsam of a dream.

  17. B lade to blade

  BOLITHO was in Odin’s chartroom when Inch reported that the masthead had sighted the brig Rapid closing slowly from the south-west.

  Bolitho threw the dividers on the chart and walked out into the sunlight. Commander Lapish obviously hoped to add his small ship to the squadron, odds or no odds.

  He said, “Signal Rapid as soon as you can. Tell her to find Ganymede and harass the enemy’s rear. ” It might prevent the only French frigate at present in sight from outmanœuvring the heavier ships, at least until Duncan’s Sparrowhawk joined them from the northern sector.

  Inch watched the flags darting aloft and asked, “Shall we wait for the commodore to join us, sir?”

  Bolitho shook his head. The French squadron had formed into an untidy but formidable line, the second ship wearing the flag of a rear-admiral. Remond. It had to be.

  “I think not. Given more time I would not hesitate. But time will also aid the enemy to stand into the bay and take the wind-gage while the rest of our squadron is floundering into the face of it.”

  He raised his glass again and studied the leading ship. A two-decker, with her guns already run out, although she was still three miles distant. A powerful ship, probably of eighty guns. On the face of it she should be more than a match for the smaller Odin.

  But this was where the months and years of relentless blockade and patrols in all weathers added their weight to the odds.

  The French, on the other hand, spent more time bottled up in harbour than exercising at sea. It was most likely why Remond had placed another ship than his own to point the attack, to watch and prepare his squadron in good time.

  He said suddenly, “See how the French flagship stands a little to windward of the leader.”

  Inch nodded, his face totally blank. “Sir?”

  “If we attack without waiting for our other ships to join us, I think the French admiral intends to separate, then engage us on either beam.”

  Inch licked his lips. “While the last three in his line stand off and wait.”

  Stirling called, “Rapid ’s acknowledged, sir.”

  Allday climbed on to the poop ladder and peered astern. How far away Benbow now seemed. Quite rightly Herrick was clawing his way into the bay so that he could eventually come about and hold the wind in his favour. But it took time, a lot of it.

  There was a dull bang, and a ball skipped across the sea a good mile away. The leading French captain was exercising his bow-chasers, probably to break the tension of waiting as much as possible.

  It would not help him to have his admiral treading on his coat-tails, Allday thought, and watching every move he made.

  He turned and looked along Odin’s crowded deck. There would not be many left standing if she got trapped between two of the Frenchmen without support. Was that what Bolitho meant to do? To damage the enemy so much that the remainder would be left to fight Herrick on equal terms?

  He spoke aloud. “Gawd Almighty!”

  The marine colour-sergeant who was standing on the right of the nearest line of marksmen grinned at him.

  “Nervous, matey?”

  Allday grimaced. “Hell, not likely. I’m just looking for a place to take a nap!”

  He stiffened as he heard Inch say to the master, “Mr M’Ewan, the rear-admiral
intends to luff when we are within half a cable.

  We shall then wear and attack the second ship in the French line.”

  Allday saw the sailing-master’s head nodding jerkily as if it was only held to his shoulders by a cord.

  The colour-sergeant hissed, “Wot’s that then?”

  Allday folded his arms and allowed his mind to settle. Odin would luff, and by the time she had turned into the wind would be all but under the other ship’s bowsprit. Then she would wear and turn round to thrust between the leading vessels. If she was allowed. It was hazardous, and could render Odin a bloody shambles in a few minutes. But anything was better than being raked from either beam at the same time.

  He replied calmly, “It means, my scarlet friend, that you an’

  your lot are going to be very busy!”

  Bolitho watched the oncoming formation, looking for a sign, some quick hoist of flags which might betray Remond’s suspi-cion. He would be expecting something surely? One small sixty-four against five ships of the line.

  He recalled Remond’s swarthy features, his dark, intelligent eyes.

  He said, “Captain Inch, tell your lower battery to load with double-shot. The eighteen-pounders of the upper battery will load with langridge, if you please.” He held Inch’s gaze. “I want that leading ship dismasted when we luff.”

  Bolitho looked up at the masthead pendant. Wind still holding as strong as ever. He almost looked astern but stopped himself in time. The officers and men nearby would see it as uncertainty, their admiral looking for support. It was best to forget about Herrick. He was doing all he could.

  Graham, the first lieutenant, touched his hat to Inch.

  “Permission to fall out the drummers and fifers, sir?”

  Bolitho looked quickly at the minute figures in scarlet. He had been so wrapped in his thoughts he had barely heard a note.

  Gratefully, the panting fifers hurried below to a chorus of ironic cheers.

  Bolitho touched the unfamiliar hilt of his sword. They could still cheer.

  Another bang from the leader, and the ball ploughed up a furrow of spray some three cables abeam. The French captain must be on edge. He’s probably watching me now. Bolitho walked away from the mizzen bitts so that the sunshine would play on his bright epaulettes. At least he would know his enemy, he thought grimly.