Honour This Day

by Alexander Kent

  Fate—it must be that. He turned and looked deep into the great cabin. The low, white deckhead, the pale green leather of the chairs, the screen doors which led to the sleeping quarters or to the teeming world of the ship beyond, where a sentry guarded his privacy around the clock.

  Hyperion— it had to be an act of Fate.

  He could recall the last time he had seen her, after he had worked her into Plymouth. The staring crowds who had thronged the waterfront and Hoe to watch the victor returning home. So many killed, so many more crippled for life after their triumph over Lequiller’s squadron in Biscay, and the capture of his great hundred-gun flagship Tornade which Bolitho was later to command as another admiral’s flag captain.

  But it was this ship which he always remembered. Hyperion, seventy-four. He had walked beside the dock in Plymouth on that awful day when he had said his last farewell; or so he had believed. Battered and ripped open by shot, her rigging and sails flayed to pieces, her splintered decks darkly stained with the blood of those who had fought. They said she would never stand in the line of battle again. There had been many moments while they had struggled back to port in foul weather when he had thought she would sink like some of her adversaries. As he had stood looking at her in the dock he had almost wished that she had found peace on the seabed. With the war growing and spreading, Hyperion had been made into a stores hulk. Mastless, her once-busy gundecks packed with casks and crates, she had become just a part of the dockyard.

  She was the first ship of the line Bolitho had ever commanded. Then, as now, he remained a frigate-man at heart, and the idea of being captain of a two-decker had appalled him. But then, too, he had been desperate, although for different reasons. Plagued by the fever which had nearly killed him in the Great South Sea, he was employed ashore at the Nore, recruiting, as the French Revolution swept across the continent like a forest fire. He could recall joining this ship at Gibraltar as if it was yesterday. She had been old and tired and yet she had taken him to her, as if in some way they needed each other.

  Bolitho heard the trill of calls, the great splash as the anchor plummeted down into the waters he knew so well.

  His flag captain would come to see him very soon now for orders. Try as he might, Bolitho could not see Captain Edmund Haven as an inspiring leader or his personal adviser.

  A colourless, impersonal sort of man, and yet even as he considered Haven he knew he was being unfair. Bolitho had joined the ship just days before they had weighed for the passage to the Indies. And in the thirty which had followed, Bolitho had stayed almost completely isolated in his own quarters, so that even Allday, his coxswain, was showing signs of concern.

  It was probably something Haven had said on their first tour of the ship, the day before they had put to sea.

  Haven had obviously thought it odd, eccentric perhaps, that his admiral should wish to see anything beyond his cabin or the poop, let alone show interest in the gundecks and orlop.

  Bolitho’s glance rested on the sword rack beside the screen. His own old sword, and the fine presentation one. How could Haven have understood? It was not his fault. Bolitho had taken his apparent dissatisfaction with his command like a personal insult. He had snapped, “This ship may be old, Captain Haven, but she has out-sailed many far younger! The Chesapeake, the Saintes, Toulon and Biscay—her battle honours read like a history of the navy itself!” It was unfair, but Haven should have known better.

  Every yard of that tour had been a rebirth of memory. Only the faces and voices did not fit. But the ship was the same. New masts, and most of her armament replaced by heavier artillery than when she had faced the broadsides of Lequiller’s Tornade, gleaming paint and neatly tarred seams; nothing could disguise his Hyperion. He stared round the cabin, seeing it as before. And she was thirty-two years old. When she had been built at Deptford she had had the pick of Kentish oak. Those days of shipbuilding were gone forever, and now most forests had been stripped of their best timber to feed the needs of the fleet.

  It was ironic that the great Tornade had been a new ship, yet she had been paid off as a prison hulk some four years back. He felt his left eye again and cursed wretchedly as the mist seemed to drift across it. He thought of Haven and the others who served this old ship day and night. Did they know or guess that the man whose flag flew from the foremast truck was partially blind in his left eye? Bolitho clenched his fists as he relived that moment, falling to the deck, blinded by sand from the bucket an enemy ball had blasted apart.

  He waited for his composure to return. No, Haven did not seem to notice anything beyond his duties.

  Bolitho touched one of the chairs and pictured the length and breadth of his flagship. So much of him was in her. His brother had died on the upper deck, had fallen to save his only son Adam, although the boy had been unaware that he was still alive, at the time. And dear Inch who had risen to become Hyperion’s first lieutenant. He could see him now, with his anxious, horse-faced grin. Now he too was dead, with so many of their “happy few.”

  And Cheney had also walked these decks—he pushed the chair aside and crossed angrily to the open stern windows.

  “You called, Sir Richard?”

  It was Ozzard, his mole-like servant. It would be no ship at all without him.

  Bolitho turned. He must have spoken her name aloud. How many times; and how long would he suffer like this?

  He said, “I—I am sorry, Ozzard.” He did not go on.

  Ozzard folded his paw-like hands under his apron and looked at the glittering anchorage.

  “Old times, Sir Richard.”

  “Aye.” Bolitho sighed. “We had better be about it, eh?”

  Ozzard held up the heavy coat with its shining epaulettes. Beyond the screen door Bolitho heard the trill of more calls and the squeak of tackles as boats were swayed out for lowering alongside.

  Landfall. Once it had been such a magic word.

  Ozzard busied himself with the coat but did not bring either sword from the rack. He and Allday were great friends even though most people would see them as chalk and cheese. And Allday would not allow anyone but himself to clip on the sword. Like the old ship, Bolitho thought, Allday was of the best English oak, and when he was gone none would take his place.

  He imagined that Ozzard was dismayed that he had chosen the two-decker when he could have had the pick of any first-rate he wanted. At the Admiralty they had gently suggested that although Hyperion was ready for sea again, after a three-year overhaul and refit she might never recover from that last savage battle.

  Curiously it had been Nelson, the hero whom Bolitho had never met, who had settled the matter. Someone at the Admiralty must have written to the little admiral to tell him of Bolitho’s request. Nelson had sent his own views in a despatch to Their Lordships with typical brevity.

  Give Bolitho any ship he wants. He is a sailor, not a landsman.

  It would amuse Our Nel, Bolitho thought. Hyperion had been set aside as a hulk until her recommissioning just a few months ago, and she was thirty-two years old.

  Nelson had hoisted his own flag in Victory, a first-rate, but he had found her himself rotting as a prison hulk. He had known in his strange fashion that he had to have her as his flagship. As far as he could recall, Bolitho knew that Victory was eight years older than Hyperion.

  Somehow it seemed right that the two old ships should live again, having been discarded without much thought after all they had done.

  The outer screen door opened and Daniel Yovell, Bolitho’s secretary, stood watching him glumly.

  Bolitho relented yet again. It had been easy for none of them because of his moods, his uncertainties. Even Yovell, plump, round-shouldered and so painstaking with his work, had been careful to keep his distance for the past thirty days at sea.

  “The Captain will be here shortly, Sir Richard.”

  Bolitho slipped his arms into the coat and shrugged himself into the most comfortable position without making his spine prickle with sweat.
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  “Where is my flag lieutenant?” Bolitho smiled suddenly. Having an official aide had also been hard to accept at the beginning. Now, after two previous flag lieutenants, he found it simple to face.

  “Waiting for the barge. After that,” the fat shoulders rose cheerfully, “you will meet the local dignitaries.” He had taken Bolitho’s smile as a return to better things. Yovell’s simple Devonian mind required everything to remain safely the same.

  Bolitho allowed Ozzard to stand on tip-toe to adjust his neck-cloth. For years he had always hung upon the word of admiralty or the senior officer present wherever it happened to be. It was still difficult to believe that this time there was no superior brain to question or satisfy. He was the senior officer. Of course in the end the unwritten naval rule would prevail. If right, others would take the credit. If wrong, he might well carry the blame.

  Bolitho glanced at himself in the mirror and grimaced. His hair was still black, apart from some distasteful silver ones in the rebellious lock of hair covering the old scar. The lines at the corners of his mouth were deeper, and his reflection reminded him of the picture of his older brother, Hugh, which hung in Falmouth. Like so many of those Bolitho portraits in the great grey stone house. He controlled his sudden despair. Now, apart from his loyal steward Ferguson and the servants, it was empty.

  I am here. It is what I wanted. He glanced around the cabin again. Hyperion. We nearly died together.

  Yovell turned aside, his apple-red face wary. “The Captain, Sir Richard.”

  Haven entered, his hat beneath one arm.

  “The ship is secured, sir.”

  Bolitho nodded. He had told Haven not to address him by his title unless ceremony dictated otherwise. The division between them was already great enough.

  “I shall come up.” A shadow moved through the door and Bolitho noticed just the briefest touch of annoyance on Haven’s face. That was an improvement from total self-composure, he thought.

  Allday walked past the flag captain. “The barge is alongside, Sir Richard.” He moved to the sword rack and eyed the two weapons thoughtfully. “The proper one today?”

  Bolitho smiled. Allday had problems of his own, but he would keep them to himself until he was ready. Coxswain? A true friend was a better description. It certainly made Haven frown that one so lowly could come and go as he pleased.

  Allday stooped to clip the old Bolitho sword to the belt. The leather scabbard had been rebuilt several times, but the tarnished hilt remained the same, and the keen, outmoded blade was as sharp as ever.

  Bolitho patted the sword against his hip. “Another good friend.” Their eyes met. It was almost physical, Bolitho thought. All the influence his rank invited was nothing compared with their close bond.

  Haven was of medium build, almost stocky, with curling ginger hair. In his early thirties, he had the look of a sound lawyer or city merchant, and his expression today was quietly expectant, giving nothing away. Bolitho had visited his cabin on one occasion and had remarked on a small portrait, of a beautiful girl with streaming hair, surrounded by flowers.

  “My wife,” Haven had replied. His tone had suggested that he would say no more even to his admiral. A strange creature, Bolitho thought; but the ship was smartly run, although with so many new hands and an overload of landsmen, it had appeared as if the first lieutenant could take much of the credit for it.

  Bolitho strode through the door, past the rigid Royal Marine sentry and into the glaring sunlight. It was strange to see the wheel lashed in the midships position and abandoned. Every day at sea Bolitho had taken his solitary walks on the windward side of the quarterdeck or poop, had studied the small convoy and one attendant frigate, while his feet had taken him up and down the worn planks, skirting gun tackles and ringbolts without any conscious thought.

  Eyes watched him pass, quickly averted if he glanced towards them. It was something he accepted. He knew he would never grow to like it.

  Now the ship lay at rest; lines were being flaked down, petty officers moved watchfully between the bare-backed seamen to make sure the ship, no longer an ordinary man-of-war but an admiral’s flagship, was as smart as could be expected anywhere.

  Bolitho looked aloft at the black criss-cross of shrouds and rigging, the tightly furled sails, and shortened figures busily working high above the decks to make certain all was secure there too.

  Some of the lieutenants moved away as he walked to the quarterdeck to look down at the lines of eighteen-pounders which had replaced the original batteries of twelve-pounders.

  Faces floated through the busy figures. Like ghosts. Noises intruded above the shouted orders and the clatter of tackles. Decks torn by shot as if ripped by giant claws. Men falling and dying, reaching for aid when there was none. His nephew Adam, then fourteen years old, white-faced and yet wildly determined as the embattled ships had ground together for the last embrace from which there was no escape for either of them.

  Haven said, “The guardboat is alongside, sir.”

  Bolitho gestured past him. “You have not rigged winds’ls, Captain.”

  Why could he not bring himself to call Haven by his first name? What is happening to me?

  Haven shrugged. “They are unsightly from the shore, sir.”

  Bolitho looked at him. “They give some air to the people on the gundecks. Have them rigged.”

  He tried to contain his annoyance, at himself, and with Haven for not thinking of the furnace heat on an overcrowded gundeck. Hyperion was one hundred and eighty feet long on her gundeck, and carried a total company of some six hundred officers, seamen and marines. In this heat it would feel like twice that number.

  He saw Haven snapping his orders to his first lieutenant, the latter glancing towards him as if to see for himself the reason for the rigging of windsails.

  The first lieutenant was another odd bird, Bolitho had decided. He was over thirty, old for his rank, and had been commander of a brig. The appointment had not been continued when the vessel had been paid off, and he had been returned to his old rank. He was tall, and unlike his captain, a man of outward excitement and enthusiasm. Tall and darkly handsome, his gipsy good looks reminded Bolitho of a face in the past, but he could not recall whose. He had a ready grin, and was obviously popular with his subordinates, the sort of officer the midshipmen would love to emulate.

  Bolitho looked forward, below the finely curved beakhead where he could see the broad shoulders of the figurehead. It was what he had always remembered most when he had left the ship at Plymouth. Hyperion had been so broken and damaged it had been hard to see her as she had once been. The figurehead had told another story.

  Under the gilt paint it may have been scarred too, but the piercing blue eyes which stared straight ahead from beneath the crown of a rising sun were as arrogant as ever. One out-thrust, muscled arm pointed the same trident towards the next horizon. Even seen from aft, Bolitho gained strength from the old familiarity. Hyperion, one of the Titans, had overthrown the indignity of being denigrated to a hulk.

  Allday watched him narrowly. He had seen the gaze, and guessed what it meant. Bolitho was all aback. Allday was still not sure if he agreed with him or not. But he loved Bolitho like no other being and would die for him without question.

  He said, “Barge is ready, Sir Richard.” He wanted to add that it was not much of a crew. Yet.

  Bolitho walked slowly to the entry port and glanced down at the boat alongside. Jenour, his new flag lieutenant, was already aboard; so was Yovell, a case of documents clasped across his fat knees. One of the midshipmen stood like a ramrod in the stern-sheets. Bolitho checked himself from scanning the youthful features. It was all past. He knew nobody in this ship.

  He looked round suddenly and saw the fifers moistening their pipes on their lips, the Royal Marines gripping their pipeclayed musket slings, ready to usher him over the side.

  Haven and his first lieutenant, all the other anonymous faces, the blues and whites of the officers, the scarle
t of the marines, the tanned bodies of the watching seamen.

  He wanted to say to them, “I am your flag officer, but Hyperion is still my ship!”

  He heard Allday climb down to the barge and knew, no matter how he pretended otherwise, he would be watching, ready to reach out and catch him if his eye clouded over and he lost his step. Bolitho raised his hat, and instantly the fifes and drums snapped into a lively crescendo, and the Royal Marine guard presented arms as their major’s sword flashed in salute.

  Calls trilled and Bolitho lowered himself down the steep tumblehome and into the barge.

  His last glance at Haven surprised him. The captain’s eyes were cold, hostile. It was worth remembering.

  The guardboat sidled away and waited to lead the barge through the anchored shipping and harbour craft.

  Bolitho shaded his eyes and stared at the land.

  It was another challenge. But at that moment it felt like running away.

  2 A SAILOR’S TALE

  JOHN ALLDAY squinted his eyes beneath the tilted brim of his hat and watched the inshore current carry the guardboat momentarily off course. He eased his tiller carefully and the freshly painted green barge followed the other boat without even a break in the stroke. Allday’s reputation as the vice-admiral’s personal coxswain had preceded him.

  He stared along the barge crew, his eyes revealing nothing. The boat had been transferred from their last ship Argonaute, the Frog prize, but Bolitho had said that he would leave it to his coxswain to recruit a new crew from Hyperion. That was strange, he had thought. Any of the old crew would have volunteered to shift to Hyperion, for like as not they would have been sent back to sea anyway without much of a chance to visit their loved ones. He dropped his gaze to the figures who sat in the sternsheets. Yovell who had been promoted from clerk to secretary, with the new flag lieutenant beside him. The young officer seemed pleasant enough, but was not from a seagoing family. Most who seized the chance of the overworked appointment saw it as a sure way for their own promotion. Early days yet, Allday decided. In a ship where even the rats were strangers, it was better not to make hasty decisions.