Honour This Day

by Alexander Kent

  “Will you come up, Sir Piers? It’s a bloody shambles on deck.”

  “What about these wounded?”

  Dacie gripped the handrail and wiped his remaining eye. He wanted to run, run, keep on running. But all his life he had been trained to stand fast, to obey.

  “I’ll pass the word, Sir Piers.” Then he was gone.

  Blachford picked up his bag and hurried to the ladder. As he climbed the first steps he felt they were different. At an angle. He sensed the chill of fear for the first time.

  He thought of Minchin’s anger.

  Going down.

  Lieutenant Stephen Jenour retained his grip on Bolitho’s arm even after he had pulled him from the deck. He was almost incoherent in his relief and horror. “Thank God, oh thank God!”

  Bolitho said, “Take hold, Stephen.” His eyes moved across the quarterdeck and down to the awful spread of destruction. No wonder Jenour was close to a complete breakdown. He had probably imagined himself to be the only one left alive up here.

  It was as if the whole ship had been stripped and laid bare, so that no part of her wounds should be hidden. The mizzen-mast had gone completely, and the whole of the fore-topmast had been severed as if by some gigantic axe, and was pitching alongside with all the other wreckage. Spars, ropes, and men. The latter either floated in the weed of rigging, or floundered about like dying fish.

  Jenour gasped, “The first lieutenant, Sir Richard!” He tried to point, but his body was shaking so violently he almost fell.

  Bolitho forgot his own despair as he hurried down a splintered ladder to the main deck. Guns lay up-ended and abandoned, their crews strewn around them, or crawling blindly for the nearest hatch to hide. Parris was pinned beneath an overturned eighteen-pounder, his eyes staring at the sky until he saw Bolitho.

  Bolitho dropped beside him. To Jenour he said, “Send someone for the surgeon.” He held his coat. “And Stephen, remember to walk, will you? Those who have survived will need all their confidence in us.”

  Parris reached up to touch his arm. Through gritted teeth he gasped, “God, that was bad!” He tried to move his shoulders. “The San Mateo, what of her?”

  Bolitho shook his head. “She has gone. There was no point in continuing the fight after this.”

  Parris released a great sigh. “A victory.” Then he looked at Bolitho, his eyes pleading. “My face—is it all right, sir?”

  Bolitho nodded. “Not a mark on it.”

  Parris seemed satisfied. “But I can’t feel my legs.”

  Bolitho stared at the overturned gun. The barrel was still hot from being fired, yet Parris could feel nothing. He could see his hessian boots protruding from the other side of the truck. Both legs must have been crushed.

  “I’ll wait here until help comes.” He looked along the shattered deck. Only the foremast still stood as before, with his flag rippling from the truck above the shredded sails.

  He felt the deck quiver. The pumps had stopped, probably choked or smashed apart. He made himself face the truth. Hyperion was dying, even while he waited. He glanced across at the dead midshipman Mirrielees, whose body had been hurled down from the quarterdeck where he had been killed. He was sixteen. I was just his age when Hyperion’s keel tasted salt water for the first time.

  He heard voices and hurrying feet and saw seamen and marines returning from the Spanish two-decker alongside. It was strange, but Bolitho had not even glanced at their battered prize.

  He saw Valentine Keen, an arm wrapped around Tojohns’s shoulders, a bloody bandage tied about one leg, limping anxiously towards him.

  “I died a dozen times back there, Sir Richard. I—I thought you must have fallen in that broadside.” He saw Parris and said, “We should move him.”

  Bolitho took his arm. “You know, don’t you, Val?”

  Their eyes met. Keen replied, “Yes. She’s sinking. There’s little we can do.” He stared at the abandoned cannon, unable to watch Bolitho’s pain. “Even if we could cast these guns overboard. But time is against us.”

  Parris gave a groan and Bolitho asked, “Is the prize safe, Val?”

  “Aye. She’s Asturias of eighty guns. She took much punishment too from that battering, as did her neighbour. But she is useful for repeating signals.”

  Bolitho tried to clear his throbbing mind; his ears were still aching from that terrible broadside.

  “Signal Benbow to secure the prizes and then give chase with whatever forces we have still seaworthy. The Dons will doubtless be running for the nearest Spanish port.” He stared at the bloody decks. “Leaving their friends as well as their enemies to manage for themselves!”

  Keen tightened his hold on his coxswain. “Come, Tojohns! We must muster the hands!”

  Bolitho said to Jenour, “Go below and take charge of the boatswain’s party. Can you do that?”

  Jenour stared at Parris. “What about him, Sir Richard?”

  “I’ll wait for the surgeon.” Bolitho lowered his voice. “He will want to amputate both legs, I fear.”

  Parris said vaguely, “I am sorry about this, Sir Richard.” He gasped as a great pain went through him. “I—I could have helped. Should have come to you earlier when I learned about your troubles in London.”

  He was rambling. Bolitho leaned over him and grasped his hand. Or was he?

  Parris continued in the same matter-of-fact tone, “I should have known. I wanted a new command so much, just as I hated to lose the other. I suppose I didn’t want it quite enough.”

  Figures were clambering over from the other ship, voices of command emerged from chaos, and he saw Penhaligon, the master, with one of his mates coming from the wrecked poop, carrying the ship’s chronometer, the same one she had carried in all her years of service. He half-listened to Parris’s vague sentences but he was thinking of this ship he had known better than any other. Hyperion had carried three admirals, served fifteen captains, and countless thousands of sailors. There had been no campaign of note she had missed except for her time as a hulk.

  Parris said, “Somervell became very dear to me. I fought against it, but it was no use.”

  Bolitho stared at him, for a moment not understanding what he was saying.

  “You and Somervell—is that how it was?” It came at him like a blow, and he was stunned at his own blindness. Catherine’s dislike for Parris, not because he was a womaniser as Haven had believed, but because of his liaison with her husband. There was no love between us. He could almost hear her words, her voice. It must have been why Parris had lost his only command, the matter dropped by some authority which required the scandal to be buried.

  Parris gazed at him sadly. “How it was. I wanted to tell you— you of all people. After what you did for me and this ship, what you had to endure because of my folly.”

  Bolitho heard Blachford hurrying along the deck. He should have felt anger or revulsion, but he had been in the navy since he had been twelve years old; what he had not seen in that time he had soon learned about.

  He said quietly, “Well, you’ve told me now.” He touched his shoulder. “I shall speak with the surgeon.”

  The deck gave a shudder, and broken blocks and discarded weapons clattered from a gangway like so much rubbish.

  Blachford looked as white as a sheet, and Bolitho could guess what it had been like for him in the cockpit.

  “Can you do it here on deck?”

  Blachford nodded. “After this I can do anything.”

  Keen came limping down from the quarterdeck and called, “ Benbow has acknowledged, Sir Richard. Rear-Admiral Herrick wishes you well, and offers you all assistance!”

  Bolitho smiled sadly, “Tell him no, but thank him.” Dear Thomas was alive, unharmed. Thank God for that.

  Keen watched Blachford stooping to open his bag. His eyes said, it could have been either of us, or both. He said, “Six of the Dons have struck, Sir Richard, including Intrépido which was the last to haul down her colours to Tybalt. ”

  Th
ere was the crack of a line parting and Keen added, “She drags heavily on Asturias, Sir Richard.”

  “I know.” He stared round. “Where’s Allday?”

  A passing seaman called, “Gone below, Sir Richard!”

  Bolitho nodded. “I can guess why.”

  Blachford said, “I’m ready.”

  There was another loud crack but this time it was a pistol shot. Bolitho and the others stared at Parris as his arm fell to the deck, the pistol he always carried still smoking in his fingers.

  Blachford closed his bag, and said quietly, “Perhaps his was the best way, better than mine. For such a courageous young man, I think living as a cripple would have proved unbearable.”

  Bolitho removed his hat and walked to the quarterdeck ladder.

  “Leave him there. He will be in good company.”

  Afterwards he thought it sounded like an epitaph.

  Scarlet coats moved into the ship, and Major Adams, hatless but apparently unmarked, was bellowing orders.

  Bolitho said, “The wounded first, Major. Over to the Spaniard. After that—” He did not finish.

  Instead he turned to watch as Benbow, accompanied by Capricious, passed down the opposite side. There were no cheers this time, and Bolitho could envision how Hyperion must look. Was it imagination, or were the figurehead’s muscled shoulders already closer to the sea? He stared until his damaged eye throbbed.

  He could think of nothing else. Hyperion was settling down. They could not even anchor, for here the sea had no bottom, so her exact position could never be marked.

  Men moved briskly around him, but like the moment he had hoisted his flag aboard, the faces he saw were different ones.

  He touched the fan in his pocket. Sharing it with her.

  He saw Rimer, the wizened master’s mate who had accompanied him on the cutting-out of the treasure galleon. He was sitting against a bollard, his eyes fixed and unmoving, caught at the moment the shot had cut him down. Loggie the ship’s corporal, sprawled headlong across another marine he had been trying to haul to safety when a marksman had found him too.

  The first of the wounded were being swayed up through one of the hatchways. A few cried out as their wounds touched the coaming or the tackles, but most of them just stared like the dead Rimer; they had never expected to see daylight again.

  Allday reappeared by his side; he had brought Ozzard with him.

  He said, “He was still in the hold, Sir Richard.” He forced a grin. “Didn’t know the fight was over, bless ’im!” He did not say that he had found Ozzard sitting on the hold’s ladder, Bolitho’s fine presentation sword clutched against his chest, staring at the last lantern’s reflections on the black water which was creeping slowly towards him. He had not intended to leave.

  Bolitho touched the little man’s shoulder. “I am very glad to see you.”

  Ozzard said, “But all that furniture, the wine cabinet from her ladyship—” He sighed. “All gone.”

  Keen limped over and said, “I hate to trouble you, Sir Richard, but—”

  Bolitho faced him. “I know, Val. You continue your work. I shall attend the ship.” He saw the protest die on Keen’s lips as he added, “I know her somewhat better than you.”

  Keen stood back. “Aye, aye, Sir Richard.” He glanced at the tautening hawsers to the ship alongside. “There may not be long.”

  “I know. Single-up your lines.” Then almost to himself he added, “I have never lost a ship before.”

  He saw Minchin coming on deck with one of his assistants, their clothing dark with blood, each carrying a bag.

  Minchin approached Bolitho and said, “Permission to leave with the wounded, Sir Richard?”

  “Yes, and thank you.”

  Minchin forced a grin to his ruined face. “Even the rats have gone.”

  Bolitho said to Ozzard, “Leave with the others.”

  Ozzard clutched the bright sword. “No, Sir Richard, I’m staying—”

  Bolitho nodded. “Then remain here, on deck.”

  He looked at Allday. “Are you coming with me?”

  Allday watched him despairingly. Must you go down there? Aloud he said, “Have I ever left you?”

  They walked beneath the poop and down the first companion-way to the lower gun deck. The ports were still sealed, but most of those on the larboard side had been blasted open, their guns hurled from their breechings. There were few dead here. Mercifully Keen had cleared the deck to storm the Spaniard alongside. But there were some. Lolling figures, eyes slitted as if because of the smoky sunlight, watching as they passed. Half a man, chopped neatly in two by a single ball even as he had run with his sponge to the nearest gun. Blood everywhere; no wonder the sides were painted red, but it still showed itself. Lieutenant Priddie, second-in-command of the lower gun deck, lay face down, his back pierced with long splinters which had been blasted from the planking. He was still holding his sword.

  Down another ladder, to the orlop, where Bolitho had to duck beneath each low beam. There were still one or two lanterns alight here. The dead lay in neat rows covered by sail-cloth. Others remained around the bloodied table, where they had died while they waited. Above their heads a heavy object fell to the deck, and then after a few seconds began to rumble along the scarred planking, like something alive.

  Allday whispered, “In the name of Christ!”

  Bolitho looked at him. It must be a thirty-two-pounder ball which had broken free of its garland and was now rolling purposefully down towards the bows.

  They paused by the last hatchway and Allday dragged back the cover. It was one of the holds, where Ozzard always kept his vigil when the ship was in action.

  Bolitho dropped to his knees and peered down while Allday lowered a lantern beside him.

  He had expected to see water amongst the casks and crates, the chests and the furniture, but it was already awash from side to side. Barrels floated on the dark water, and lapped around a marine who had been clinging to a ladder when he had died. A sentry put to guard against terrified men running below in battle. He might have been killed by one of them, or like Ozzard had been trying to find refuge from the hell on deck.

  The deck quivered again, and he heard heavy fragments booming against the carpenter’s walk where more of his men had been trapped and drowned.

  The orlop, and the holds and magazines beneath it, places which had remained in total darkness for all of Hyperion’s thirty-three years. When they had returned the old ship to service after a hasty refit, it was more than likely the dockyard had missed something. Probably down there, where the first heavy broadside had smashed into the hull, there had still been some rot, unseen and undiscovered. Gnawing at the timbers and frames as far down as the keelson. San Mateo’s last bombardment had dealt the mortal blow.

  Bolitho watched Allday shut the hatch and made his way back to the ladder.

  So many memories would go with this ship. Adam as a midshipman; Cheney whom he had loved in this same hull. So many names and faces. Some would be out there now in the battered squadron where they waited to secure the prizes after their victory. Bolitho thought of them watching Hyperion, remembering her perhaps as she had once been, while the younger ones like Midshipman Springett . . . He cursed and held his hand to his eyes. No, he was gone too, with so many others he could not even remember.

  Allday murmured, “I think we’d better get a move on, sir.”

  The hull shook once more, and Bolitho thought he saw the gleam of water in the reflected light, creeping through the deck seams; soon it would cover the blood around Minchin’s table.

  They climbed to the next deck, then threw themselves to one side as a great thirty-two-pounder gun came to life and squealed down the deck, as if propelled by invisible hands. Load! Run out! Fire! Bolitho could almost hear the orders being screamed above the roar of battle.

  On the quarterdeck once more Bolitho found Keen and Jenour waiting for him.

  Keen said quietly, “The ship is cleared, Sir Ric
hard.” His eyes moved up to the flag, so clean in the afternoon sunlight.

  “Shall I have it hauled down?”

  Bolitho walked to the quarterdeck rail and grasped it as he had so many times as captain and now as her admiral.

  “No, if you please, Val. She fought under my flag. She will always wear it.”

  He looked at the Spanish Asturias. He could see much more of her damage, her side pitted by Hyperion’s own broadsides. She appeared much higher in the water now.

  Bolitho looked at the sprawled figures, Parris’s outflung arm with the pistol he had chosen as his final escape.

  They had succeeded in driving off and scattering the enemy. Looking at the drifting ships and abandoned corpses, it seemed like a hollow victory.

  Bolitho said, “You are my ship.”

  The others stood near him but he seemed quite alone as he spoke.

  “No more as a hulk. This time with honour!” He swung away from the rail. “I am ready.”

  It took another hour for Hyperion to disappear. She dipped slowly by the bows, and standing on the Spaniard’s poop Bolitho heard the sea rushing through the ports, sweeping away wreckage, eager for the kill.

  Even the Spanish prisoners who gathered along the bulwarks to watch were strangely silent.

  Hammocks floated free of the nettings, and a corpse by the wheel rolled over as if it had been only feigning death.

  Bolitho found that he was gripping his sword, pressing it against the fan in his pocket with all his strength.

  They were all going with her. He held his breath as the sea rolled relentlessly aft towards the quarterdeck until only the poop, and the opposite end of the ship, his flag above the sinking mast-head, marked her presence.

  He remembered the words of the dying sailor.

  Hyperion cleared the way, as she always had.

  He said aloud, “There’ll be none better than you, old lady!”

  When he looked again she had gone, and only bubbles and the scum of flotsam remained as she made her last voyage to the seabed.