Command a King's Ship

by Alexander Kent

  Herrick said hoarsely, `That brigantine's master must be mad. No one but a crazy man would cross swords with a frigate!'

  Bolitho did not reply. He was straining his eye to watch the little drama framed in his lens. The brigantine had fired two shots, one of which, if not both, had scored a mark. Now she was tacking jauntily away, and it was evident, as the _Nervion began to spread more sail, that Capitan Triarte intended to give chase.

  He said, `Nervion'll be up to her within the hour. They're both changing tack now.'

  `Perhaps that fool imagined Nervion was a fat merchantman, eh?' Davy had arrived on deck. 'But no, it is not possible.'

  Herrick followed Bolitho down from the shrouds and watched him dubiously.

  `Shall we join in the chase, sir?'

  Mudge almost pushed him aside as he barked, `Chase be damned, I say!'

  They looked at him.

  `We must stop that mad Don, sir'!' He waved his big hand across the nettings. `Off Cape Blanco, sir, there's a powerful great reef, an' it runs near on a 'undred miles to seaward. Nervion's in risk now, but if 'er master brings 'er up another point he'll be across that damned reef afore 'e knows it!'

  Bolitho stared at him. `Get the royals on her, Mr. Herrick! Lively now!' He walked quickly to the helm. `We must make more speed.'

  Soames called, `The Don's come up another point by the look of her, sir!'

  Mudge was already squinting at the compass bowl. `Jesus! 'E's steerin' sou'sou'-east!' He looked at Bolitho imploringly. 'We'll never catch 'im in time!'

  Bolitho paced to the quarterdeck rail and back again. Weariness, the scorching heat, all was forgotten but that distant pyramid of white sails, with the smaller, will-o'-the-wisp brigantine dancing ahead. Mad? A confused pirate? It made no difference now.

  He snapped, `Clear away a bow chaser, Mr. Herrick. We will endeavour to distract the Nervion'

  Herrick was peering aloft, shading his eyes with his speaking trumpet as the topmen set the additional sails.

  `Aye, aye, sir!' He yelled, `Fetch Mr. Tapril!'

  But the gunner was already forward, supervising the crew of a long nine-pounder.

  Bolitho said sharply, `Nervion's pulled over still further, Mr. Mudge.' He could not hide the anguish in his voice.

  How could it be happening? The sea so huge, so empty. And yet, the reef was there. He had heard of it before from men who had passed this way. Many good ships had foundered on its hard spine.

  `Larboard gun ready, sir!'

  'Fire!'

  It crashed out, the brown smoke drifting downwind and

  dispersing long before the telltale waterspout lifted like a feather far astern of the other frigate.

  `Another. Keep firing.' He looked at Mudge. `Bring her up a point.'

  Mudge protested, `I'll not be responsible, sir.'

  `No. I will.'

  He strode forward to the rail again, his shirt flapping open across his chest, yet feeling no benefit from the wind. When he looked up he saw the sails drawing firmly, as would the

  Spaniard's. With such power to drive her, she would disembowel herself on the reef, unless Triarte acted, and at once.

  The deck shook as another ball whined and ricocheted across the blue water.

  Bolitho yelled, `Masthead! What are they doing?'

  The lookout replied, his rougher voice leaving no doubt in Bolitho's mind, 'Th' Dons is gainin', sir! They're runnin' out their guns right this moment!'

  Maybe the Spaniards had heard the bow chaser, even observed a fall of shot, but imagined the stupid British were still exercising gunnery. Or perhaps they believed Undine was so furious at missing the chase that Bolitho was firing at this impossible range merely to take the edge off his temper..

  He heard himself ask, `How long, Mr. Mudge?'

  Mudge replied thickly, `She should 'ave struck, sir. That damned brigantine must 'ave crossed the reef in safety. She'll draw little enough, I'm thinkin'.'

  Bolitho stared at him. `But if she got through, then perhaps ...'

  The master shook his head. `No chance, sir.'

  A great yell came from the watching seamen in the bows. When Bolitho swung round he stared with horror as the Spanish frigate lifted, drove forward again and then slewed round on the hidden reef. Over and around her all her masts and yards, the flailing sails and rigging splashed and cascaded in a chaos which was terrible to see. So great was the impact that she had presented her larboard side to the reef, and through the open gunports the water must now be surging in a triumphant flood, while men trapped in the tangled rigging and broken spars floundered in terror, or were being crushed by the cannon as they tore from their lashings.

  The brigantine had changed tack. She was not even pausing to watch the full extent of her work.

  Bolitho said harshly, `Shorten sail, Mr. Herrick. We will heave-to presently and get every boat in the water. We must do all we can to save them.'

  He saw some of the men by the bow chasers pointing and chattering as Nervion yawed still further on her side, spilling more broken timber and shattered planking into the swell above the reef.

  `And get those hands to work, Mr. Herrick!' He swung away. `I'll not have them watch others drown, as if it was a day's amusement!'

  He made himself cross the deck once more, and when he looked towards the reef he almost expected to see Nervion's proud silhouette standing before the wind. That this was a bad dream. A nightmare.

  But why? Why? The question seemed to mock him. To hammer at his brain. How could it have happened?

  `I'd not venture any closer, sir.' Mudge was watching him grimly. `If we gets a shift of wind we could still run foul of the reef.'

  Bolitho nodded heavily. `I agree.' He looked away. `And thank you.'

  Mudge said quietly, `It worn't your fault. You done all you could.'

  `Heave to, Mr. Herrick.' He could barely keep his voice level. `Have the boats swayed out.'

  Soarnes remarked, `A long pull, sir. Near on three miles.'

  Bolitho did not even hear him. He was seeing the little brigantine. It was no coincidence. No rash act of the moment.

  Mudge said, 'There'll not be many, sir.' He fumbled in his pockets. `There's sharks a'plenty in these waters.'

  As Undine came up into the wind, her remaining sails thundering and flapping noisily in protest, the boats were lowered with surprisingly little delay. It was as if something had reached out across the three miles of smiling water to touch each and every one of them. A plea for help, a cry of warning, it was difficult to define. But as the first boat shoved off from the side, and the seamen at the oars picked up the stroke, Bolitho saw that their faces were grim and suddenly determined. As he had not seen them before.

  Allday said, `I'll take the gig, if I may, Captain.'

  `Yes.' Their eyes met. `Do what you can.'

  `I will.'

  Then he was gone, yelling for his men.

  `Warn the surgeon to be prepared, Mr. Herrick.' He saw the quick exchange of glances and added coldly, `And if he is the worse for drink I will have him flogged.'

  All the boats were away now, while far beyond their busy oars he could see the remains of the other ship writhing on the invisible reef, the great foresail with its red and gold crucifix still floating around the wreckage like a beautiful shroud.

  Bolitho began to pace up and down below the nettings, his hands behind him, his body swaying to the untidy motion as the ship rolled in each undulating trough.

  He heard Raymond say, `Captain Triarte was wrong. He made a stupid error of judgement.'

  He paused and looked at him. `He has paid for it, Mr. Raymond!'

  Raymond saw the contempt in Bolitho's grey eyes and walked away. `I was only saying ...' But nobody looked at him.

  Herrick watched Bolitho pacing back and forth and wished he could say something to ease his despair. But better than most, he knew that at such moments Bolitho was the only one who could help himself.

  Hours later, as the boats pulled
wearily back towards their ship, Bolitho was still on deck, his shirt dark with sweat, his mind aching from his deliberations.

  Herrick reported, `No more than forty survivors, sir. Some are in a bad way, I fear.' He saw the question in Bolitho's eyes and nodded. `The surgeon's ready, sir. I saw to that.'

  Bolitho walked slowly to the nettings and craned over to watch the first boat, the gig, as it hooked on to the chains. One man, cradled against Allday's legs, and held firmly by two seamen, was shrieking like a tortured woman. A shark had taken a piece from his shoulder big enough to thrust a round-shot through. He turned away, sickened.

  `In God's name, Thomas, send more hands to help those poor devils.'

  Herrick said, `It is being done, sir.'

  Bolitho looked up at the flapping ensign at the gaff. `By heaven, if this is how we behave in peace, then I would we were at war.'

  He watched some of the oarsmen clambering aboard. Hands blistered, backs and faces raw from the sun, they said very little as they went below.

  Perhaps what they had seen at the reef had taught them more than drill, and would act as a warning to all of them. He began to pace again. And to me.

  Bolitho strode into the cabin and paused below the skylight. It was almost sunset, and the open stern windows shone in the dying glare like burnished copper. Within the cabin the shadows bobbed this way and that to the frigate's steady motion and the swinging deckhead lanterns, and he watched the little group by the windows with something like disbelief.

  Don Luis Puigserver sat awkwardly on the bench seat, one arm in a sling, his chest and ribs encased in bandages. When he had been dragged aboard with the other survivors a few hours earlier he had passed unrecognised until a gasping Spanish lieutenant, the only one of 1Tervion's officers to be rescued, had managed to explain the truth. Then, Bolitho had thought it was too late. The thickset Spaniard had been unconscious and covered with angry scars and bruises. The fact he had survived that long had been hard to accept when Bolitho had recalled the Nervion's final destruction. Of the forty or so to reach Undine's protection, ten had already died, and several of the remainder were in a bad state. Crushed under falling spars, half drowned by the inrush of water, the Nervion's original complement of two hundred and seventy men had been totally unprepared for the horror which had awaited them on the reef. While their vessel had foundered and smashed herself to pieces, the surging waters had suddenly erupted in a maelstrom of dashing shapes as the sharks had hurried to the attack. Terrified men had seen their companions torn to bloody remnants, when moments before they had been setting more sail and manning their guns to run down the impudent brigantine.

  When Undine's boats had arrived it had been nearly over. A few men had swum desperately back to the capsized frigate, only to be dragged down as she had slid from the reef for her last plunge. Others had clung to floating spars and upturned boats and had watched in terror as one by one their grey attackers had plucked them screaming into the churned, scarlet water.

  And now, Puigserver was sitting here in the cabin, his face almost composed as he sipped steadily from a goblet of wine. He was naked to the waist, and Bolitho could see some extent of the bruising on his body, evidence of his will to survive.

  He said quietly, `I am grateful that you are in better spirits, Ser7or.'

  The Spaniard made to grin, but winced at the effort. He waved the surgeon and one of his assistants aside and asked, 'My men? How many?'

  Bolitho looked past him towards the horizon. A thread of copper, fading even as he watched.

  `Thirty.' He shrugged. 'Many were badly mauled.'

  Puigserver took another swallow. `It was terrible to behold.' His dark eyes hardened. 'Capitan Triarte was so enraged by that other ship's attack that he went after her like a man possessed. He was too hot-blooded. Not like you.'

  Bolitho smiled gravely. Not likeyon. But suppose he had not had a sailing master like Mudge? One so experienced, so travelled as to feel the reef's danger like another of his stored memories. It was likely Undine might have shared the Spaniard's fate. It made him chill, despite the lifeless air in the cabin.

  Somewhere beyond the bulkhead a man screamed. A thin, long-drawn sound which stopped abruptly as if a door had been slammed on it.

  Whitmarsh wiped his hands on his apron and straightened his back, his head bowed beneath the beams.

  He said, `Don Puigserver will be comfortable for a while, sir. I would like to return to my other charges.' He was sweating very badly, and a muscle at one corner of his face twitched uncontrollably.

  Bolitho nodded. `Thank you. Please inform me of any help you might require.'

  The surgeon touched the Spaniard's bandages vaguely. `God's help perhaps.' He gave a wry smile. `Out here, we have little else.'

  As he left with his assistant Puigserver murmured, `A man with an inner torment, Capitan.' He grimaced. `But a gentle one for his trade.'

  Allday was folding up a towel and some unused dressings and said, `Mr. Raymond was asking to see you, Captain.' He frowned. `I told him you had given orders that the cabin was to be kept for the surgeon until his work was done with Don Puig-' he coughed, `... the Spanish gentleman.'

  `What did he want?'

  Bolitho was so weary he hardly cared. He had seen little of Raymond since the survivors had been brought aboard, and had heard he had been in the wardroom.

  Allday replied, `He was wishing to make a complaint, Captain. His wife took a displeasure at you asking her to help tend the injured.' He frowned again. `I told him you had more important work to do.' He picked up his things and walked to the door.

  Puigserver leaned back and closed his eyes. Without the others present he seemed willing to reveal the pain he was really enduring.

  He said, `Your All-day is a remarkable fellow, eh? With a few hundred of his kind I might think again about a campaign in the South Americas.'

  Bolitho sighed. `He worries too much.'

  Puigserver opened his eyes and smiled. `He seems to think you are worth worrying about, Capitan.'

  He leaned forward, his face suddenly intense. `But before Raymond and the others come amongst us, I must speak. I want your opinion about the wreck. I need it.'

  Bolitho walked to the bulkhead and touched the sword with his fingers.

  He said, `I have thought of little else, Senor. At first I believed the brigantine to be a pirate, her captain so confused or so in dread of his crew as to need a battle to keep them together. But I cannot believe it in my heart. Someone knew of our intentions.'

  The Spaniard watched him intently. `The French perhaps?'

  `Maybe. If their government is so concerned at our movements it must mean that when they sank the Fortunate they did indeed capture her despatches intact. It would have to be something really vital to play such a dangerous game.'

  Puigserver reached for the wine bottle. `A game which did work.'

  `Then you, too, are of the same mind, Senor?' He watched the man's outline, paler now against the darkened windows.

  He did not reply directly. `if, and I am only saying if, this someone intended such a course of action, he will have known we were two ships in company.' He paused and then said sharply, `A reaction, Capitan! Quickly!'

  Bolitho said, `It would make no difference. He would realise that this is a combined mission. One ship without the other makes further progress impossible, and ...

  Puigserver was banging his hip with the goblet, wine slopping over his leg like blood.

  He shouted excitedly, `And? Go on, Capitan! And what?'

  Bolitho looked away and replied firmly, `I must return either to England or to Teneriffe and await further orders.'

  When he looked again at the Spaniard he saw he was slumped back on the seat, his square features strained, his chest heaving as if from a fight.

  Puigserver said thickly, `When you came to Santa Cruz, I knew you were a man of thoughts and not merely of words.' He shook his head. `Let me finish. This man, these creatures, whoever they a
re, who would let my people die so horribly, want you to turn back!'

  Bolitho watched him, fascinated, awed by his strength. `Without you being here, Senor.' He looked away. `I would have had no option.'

  `Exactly, Capitan.'

  He peered at Bolitho over the rim of the goblet, his eyes shining in the lantern light like tawny stones.

  Bolitho added, `By the time I returned to England, and new plans were made and agreed upon, something might have happened in the East Indies or elsewhere which we could not control.'

  `Give me your hand, Capitan.' He groped forward, his breathing sharper. `In a moment I will sleep. It has been a wretched day, but far worse for many others.'

  Bolitho took his hand, suddenly moved by Puigserver's obvious sincerity.

  The latter asked slowly, `How many have you in this little ship?'

  Bolitho pictured the riffraff brought aboard at Spithead. The ragged men from the prison hulks, the smartly-dressed ones fleeing from some crime or other in London. The gun captain with only one hand. All of them.

  He said, `They have the makings, Senor. Two hundred, all told, including my marines.' He smiled, if only to break the tension. `And I will sign on those of your men who have survived, if I may?'

  Puigserver did not seem to hear. But his grip was like iron as he said, `Two hundred, eh?'

  He nodded grimly. `It will be sufficient.'

  Bolitho watched him. `We go on, Senor?'

  `You are ey Capitan now. What do you say?'

  Bolitho smiled. 'But you know already, Senor.'

  Puigserver gave a great sigh. `If you will send that fool Raymond in to me, and your clerk, I will put my seal on this new undertaking.' His voice hardened. `Today I saw and heard many men die in fear and horror. Whatever made that foul deed necessary, I intend to set the record right. And when I do, Capitan, I will make it a reckoning which our enemies will long remember.'

  There was a tap at the door and Midshipman Armitage stood outlined by the swinging lantern in the passageway.