Honour This Day

by Alexander Kent

  Keen glanced at the stricken survivors around him and was inclined to agree.

  EPILOGUE

  BOLITHO paused near the edge of the cliff and stared hard across Falmouth Bay. There was no snow on the ground, but the wind which swept the cliffs and hurled spume high above the rocks below was bitterly cold, and the low dark-bellied clouds hinted at sleet before dusk.

  Bolitho felt his hair whipping in the wind, drenched with salt and rain. He had been watching a small brig beating up from the Helford River, but had lost sight of her in the wintry spray which blew from the sea like smoke.

  It was hard to believe that tomorrow was the first day in another year, that even after returning here he was still gripped by a sense of disbelief and loss.

  When Hyperion had gone down he had tried to console himself that she had not made a vain sacrifice, nor had the men who had died that day in the Mediterranean sunshine.

  Had the Spanish squadron been able to join with the Combined Fleet at Cadiz, Nelson might well have been beaten into submission.

  Bolitho had transferred to the frigate Tybalt for passage to Gibraltar and had left Herrick in command of the squadron, although most of the ships would need dockyard care without delay.

  At the Rock he had been stunned by the news. The Combined Fleet had broken out without waiting for more support, but outnumbered or not, Nelson had won a resounding victory; in a single battle had smashed the enemy, had destroyed or captured two-thirds of their fleet, and by so doing had laid low any hope Napoleon still held of invading England.

  But the battle, fought in unruly seas off Cape Trafalgar, had cost Nelson his life. Grief transmitted itself through the whole fleet, and aboard Tybalt where none of the men had ever set eyes on him, they were shocked beyond belief, as if they had known him as a friend. The battle itself was completely overshadowed by Nelson’s death, and when Bolitho eventually reached Plymouth he discovered it was the same wherever he went.

  Bolitho watched the sea boil over the rocks, then tugged his cloak closer about his body.

  He thought of Nelson, the man he had so wanted to meet, to walk and talk with him as sailor to sailor. How close their lives had been. Like parallel lines on a chart. He recalled seeing Nelson just once during the ill-fated attack on Toulon. It was curious to recall that he had seen Nelson only at a distance aboard the flag-ship; he had waved to Bolitho, a rather shabby young captain who was to change their world. Stranger still, the flagship Nelson had been visiting for orders was that same Victory. He thought also of the few letters he had received from him, and all in the last months aboard Hyperion. Written in his odd, sloping hand, self-taught after losing his right arm, There you may discover how well they fight their wars with words and paper instead of ordnance and good steel. He had never spared words for pompous authority.

  And the words which had meant so much to Bolitho when he had asked for, and had been reluctantly given, Hyperion as his flagship. Give Bolitho any ship he wants. He is a sailor, not a lands-man. Bolitho was glad that Adam had met him, and been known by him.

  He glanced back along the winding cliff path towards Pendennis Castle. The battlements were partly hidden by mist, like low cloud; everything was grey and threatening. He could not remember how long he had been walking or why he had come. Nor did he remember when he had ever felt so alone.

  Upon returning to England he had paid a brief visit to the Admiralty with his report. No senior had been available to see him. They were all engaged in preparing for Nelson’s funeral, apparently. Bolitho had ignored the obvious snub, and had been glad to leave London for Falmouth. There were no letters for him from Catherine. It was like losing her again. But Keen would see her when he joined Zenoria in Hampshire.

  Then I shall write to her. It was surprising how nervous it made him feel. Unsure of himself, like the first time. How would she see him after their separation?

  He walked on into the wind, his boots squeaking in the sodden grass. Nelson would be buried at St Paul’s, with all the pomp and ceremony which could be arranged.

  It made him bitter to think that those who would be singing hymns of praise the loudest, would be the very same who had envied and disdained him the most.

  He thought of the house now hidden by the brow of the hill. He had been glad that Christmas had been over when he reached home. His moods of loneliness and loss would have cast a wet blanket over all festivities. He had seen no one, and he imagined Allday back at the house, yarning with Ferguson about the battle, adding bits here and there as he always did.

  Bolitho had thought often of the battle. At least there had been no mourning in Falmouth. Only three of Hyperion’s company had come from the port, and all had survived.

  There had been a letter from Adam waiting for him. The one shining light to mark his return.

  Adam was at Chatham. He had been appointed captain, in command of a new fifth-rate now completing in the Royal Dockyard there. He had got his wish. He had earned it.

  He stopped again, suddenly tired, and realising he had eaten nothing since breakfast. Now it was afternoon, and darkness would soon arrive to make this path a dangerous place to walk. He turned, his cloak swirling about him like a sail.

  How well his men had fought that day. The Gazette had summed it up in a few lines, overshadowed by a nation’s sense of mourning. On 15th October last, some hundred miles to the East of Cartagena ships of the Mediterranean squadron under the flag of Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Bolitho KB encountered a superior Spanish force of twelve sail of the line. After a fierce engagement the enemy withdrew, leaving six prizes in British hands. God Save The King. Hyperion was not mentioned, nor the men who now lay with her in peace. Bolitho quickened his pace and almost stumbled, not from any blindness, but because of the emotion which blurred his eyes.

  God damn them all, he thought. Those same hypocrites would praise the little admiral now that they no longer had to fear his honesty. But the true people would remember his name, and so would ensure that it lived forever. For Adam’s new navy, and the ones which would follow.

  A figure was approaching by way of the path which ran closest to the edge. He peered through the mist and rain and saw the person wore a blue cloak like his own.

  In an hour, maybe less, it would be dangerous here. A stranger perhaps?

  . . . She came towards him very slowly, her hair, as dark as his own, streaming untied in the bitter wind off the sea.

  Allday must have told her. He was the only one in the house who knew about this walk. This particular walk they had both taken after his fever, a thousand years ago.

  He hurried towards her, held her at arms’ length and watched her laughing and crying all in one. She was dressed in the old boat-cloak he kept at the house for touring the grounds in cold weather. A button missing, a rent near the hem. When it lifted to the wind he saw she was wearing a plain dark red gown beneath. So far a cry from the fine carriage and the life she had once shared.

  Then Bolitho clutched her against his body, feeling her wet hair on his face, the touch of her hands. They were like ice, but neither of them noticed.

  “I was going to write—” He could not go on.

  She studied him closely, then gently stroked his brow near his injured eye.

  “Val told me everything.” She pressed her face against his, while the wind flung their cloaks about them. “My dearest of men, how terrible it must have been. For you and your old ship.”

  Bolitho turned her and put his arm over her shoulders. As they mounted the path over the hill he saw the old grey house, light already gleaming in some of the windows.

  She said, “They say I am a sailor’s woman. How could I stay away?”

  Bolitho squeezed her shoulder, his heart too full to speak.

  Then he said, “Come, I’ll take you home.”

  He paused at the bottom to help her over the familiar old stile-gate where he had played as a child with his brother and sisters.

  She looked down at him from the stile, h
er hands on his shoulders. “I love thee, Richard.”

  He made the moment last, sensing that peace like a reward had come to them in the guise of fate.

  He said simply, “Now it’s your home, too.”

  The one-legged ex-sailor named Vanzell touched his hat as they passed; but they did not see him.

  Fate.