Command a King's Ship

by Alexander Kent

  He heard Herrick shouting his orders, the creak of rigging as Undine dipped and rose again in a sudden swell. The water looked deep, but it was an illusion. He could see some narrow, stony beaches at the foot of the nearest cliff, and guessed that the safest anchorage was on the opposite side where the other vessel lay hidden. There was surf, too, steep and angry as it licked and spluttered around the one visible landing place.

  `Helm a'lee!'

  He moved his glass in time with the ship as she turned easily into the wind, watching for any sign of life, the merest movement to show their approach had been seen.

  `Let go anchor!’

  The sound of the anchor hitting the water seemed unusually loud, and he imagined he could hear it echoing back from those desolate cliffs.

  Herrick shouted, `Lively, lads! Secure those lines!' To Davy he added, `Lowering parties, man the tackles!'

  Bolitho said, `Have the leadsman watch his line now and see that the anchor is holding fast. If we begin to drag because of the rocky bottom we will veer more cable directly.'

  `Aye, sir.'

  Herrick hurried away, his face totally absorbed in his own duties.

  With the ship swaying and pulling lazily to her cable, it was even quieter, and Bolitho saw some of the birds quitting their precarious perches to fly'and circle above the mastheads.

  Herrick returned, breathing heavily. `We seem safe enough, sir. But I've told the anchor-watch to keep alert.' He squinted towards the shore. `It looks like a graveyard.'

  `We will need two boats.' Bolitho spoke his thoughts aloud. `Gig and cutter will suffice. They will have to run smartly through that surf. The beach is steep by the look of it. So put a good cox'n in the cutter.'

  He saw Allday signalling with his fist as the gig rose jerkily from its chocks, the guy-ropes tautening to swing it round and above the gangway.

  He added with a smile, `I think my boat is in safe hands.'

  Herrick looked at him anxiously. `Areyou going, sir?'

  `It is not for want of glory, Thomas.' He lowered his voice, watching the chosen hands as they mustered by the arms' chests. `But I need to know what we are against, if anything.'

  Herrick sounded unconvinced. `But if the other craft is one of the pirate's, sir, what then? Surely you'll want to sweep round and rake the devil as he slips his cable?'

  `No.' He shook his head firmly. `He will be safely anchored yonder. In shallower water than I'd dare enter close enough to rake him. Once clear he could lead us a merry maypole dance, and I fear we would never match his agility in these conditions.' His tone hardened. `Besides which, I want to take him!V

  'Boats lowered alongside, sir.' Davy came aft, a curved hanger dangling from his belt.

  Bolitho touched his own sword-hilt and saw Captain Bellairs watching the boats with visible irritation at being left behind.

  He called, `Captain Bellairs, I would be obliged if I could have three of your very best sharpshooters in each boat!'

  Bellairs brightened considerably and snapped at Sergeant Coaker, `Well, lively, Sar'nt! Although they should all be excellent marksmen, what?'

  Herrick grinned. `That was thoughtful, sir.'

  `Perhaps.' Bolitho shifted the glass again to watch some birds landing delicately along the clifftop. They would never do that if men were close by. `But if seamen are better at scaling cliffs, there is no beating a well-aimed ball at the right moment!'

  He nodded to Davy. `Man your boats.' To Herrick he added casually, `If things go wrong, you will find the admiral's orders in my cabin.'

  `You can rely on me, sir.' Herrick was looking troubled again. `But I'm certain that-'

  Bolitho touched his arm and smiled. `Yes. But just bear it in mind. If you have to, act upon them, asyou see fit.'

  He walked slowly towards the entry port, seeing the watching seamen and marines as he passed. Familiar now, he could put a name and a value on all of them.

  Midshipman Armitage was looking confused and embarrassed. `Sir! The sharpshooters will not remove their coats, sir!' He blushed as some of the oarsmen in the boats nudged each other and chuckled.

  Bellairs snapped, `Can't have my fellows tramping about like damn vagrants, what?' He saw Bolitho and added quickly, `I mean, can we, sir?'

  Bolitho slipped out of his blue coat and tossed it to Noddall who was hovering by the quarterdeck ladder.

  `It is all right.' He nodded to the unsmiling marines. `If II can shed a little authority, I am certain your men can.' He saw the sergeant gathering up the red coats and shakos, honour apparently restored. He added, `And it will be a rough climb, with who knows what at the end of it.'

  He paused above the swaying boats, trying to think of some thing he might have missed or forgotten.

  Herrick said quietly, `Good luck, sir.'

  Bolitho ran his glance along the crowded gangway and up to the men in the shrouds.

  `And you, Thomas. Have the people stand-to, watch and watch about. You know what to do.'

  He saw Armitage staggering between the oarsmen in the gig. It was almost cruel to take him. A liability. But he had to begin somewhere. It was a marvel he had ever got to sea at all with a mother like his. If Keen had been here, he would have taken him. He saw Penn peering wistfully from the gun deck. He would have gone with the boats like a shot. He smiled to himself. No wonder the seamen called him `The Tiger'.

  Then he climbed down into the gig. No ceremony this time. As the boats shoved away from the side he was conscious of sudden tension.

  `Take the lead, Allday.'

  He watched the rocky cliffs rising higher and higher with each pull of the oars, and could feel the strong undertow as the inshore swell frothed and mounted into seething lines of breakers. When he glanced astern he saw the cutter's stem lifting and plunging through the flashing spray, Davy's head and shoulders swaying above the oarsmen while he, too, peered at the land. What was he thinking about? Being killed in this Godforsaken place? Taking a step nearer that badly needed prize-money? Bolitho wiped the spray from his face and concentrated on the swift approach. There was more chance of being drowned than of anything in the immediate future.

  He glanced at Allday who was standing in a half crouch, one fist gripping the tiller-bar, as he peered from bow to bow, gauging the set of the angry surf, the diagonal lines of breakers as they hurried noisily into the shadows below the cliffs. No need to warn him. Any suggestion at all might have the opposite effect and bring disaster.

  Allday remarked, `Very steep beach, Captain.' His sturdy figure swayed with the hull. `Go in fast, put her bow round at the last moment t'wards the surf and beach her broadside-to.' He glanced down at him quickly. `Does that sound fair, Captain?'

  Bolitho smiled. `Very fair.' It would also give them time to scramble ashore and help the cutter as she followed them in.

  He felt a sudden chill and realised that the shadows had finally reached out to cover them, and he heard the slap of water, the creak of oars in rowlocks echoing back from the cliffs, as if there was a third and invisible boat nearby.

  They almost planed across the last of the surf, the oars desperately keeping with the stroke until Allday yelled, 'Now!' And as he slammed the tiller hard round he added, 'Back-water to larboard!'

  Floundering and tilting dangerously the gig came to the beach almost broadside, the keel grinding across loose pebbles and weed in a violent, protesting shudder.

  But men were already leaping into the spray, holding the gunwale, guiding the gig to safety with sheer brutestrength.

  `Clear the boat!'

  Allday steadied Bolitho's arm as with Armitage and the others he waded, reeled and finally walked on to firm beach.

  Bolitho ran to the foot of the cliffs, leaving Allday to supervise the business of getting the gig safely secured.

  He waved his arm towards the three marines. `Spread out! See if you can find a way to the top V

  This, they understood, and with barely a glance towards the onrushing cutter they loped up the fi
rst crumbling rock-slide, their muskets primed and held ready.

  Bolitho waited, staring up at the jagged clifftop, the pale blue sky above. No heads peering down. No sudden fusilade of musket balls.

  He breathed moreevenly and turned to watch the cutter as it edged round and plunged wildly before driving on to the beach and amongst the waiting seamen.

  Davy staggered towards him, gasping for breath, but loading his pistol with remarkably steady fingers.

  Bolitho said, `Muster the men, and send your three marines after the others.'

  He looked for Armitage, but he was nowhere to be seen. `In God's name!'

  Davy grinned as the midshipman came round a large boulder, buttoning his breeches.

  Bolitho said harshly, `If you must relieve yourself at such times, Mr. Armitage, I would be obliged if you would remain in sight!'

  Armitage hung his head. `S-sorry, sir.'

  Bolitho relented. `It would be safer for you, and I will try and hide any embarrassment you might cause me.'

  Allday crunched over the loose shingle, chuckling as he, too, loaded a brace of pistols with fresh, dry powder.

  `Bless me, Mr. Armitage, but I can understand how you feel P

  The youth stared at him unhappily. `You can?'

  `Why, once, I was hiding in a loft.' He winked at the cutter's coxswain. `From the bloody pressgang, believe it or not, and all I could think of was pumping my bilges !'

  Bolitho said to Davy, `That seems to have helped his mind a little.'

  He forgot Armitage's troubles and said, `We'll leave four hands with the boats.'

  He saw Undine swaying like a beautiful model, her sterq windows flashing in the sunlight, and imagined Herrick watch, ing their progress. He could send aid to the beached boats i f trouble arrived. He looked up at the cliffs again. Damp, clammy deceptively cool. That would change as soon as they reached the top and the waiting sun.

  Bolitho waited for Davy to rejoin him. `Best be moving off,'

  He examined his landing party carefully as Allday waved them towards the cliffs. Thirty in all. Apart from Davy anti Armitage, he had brought a master's mate named Carwithen knowing the man would have resented being left behind after Fowlar's previous involvements. A dark, unsmiling man, he was, like Bolitho, a Cornishman, and hailed from the fishing, village of Looe.

  He waited while they checked their weapons. His chain of command. Ship or shore, it made no difference to them.

  Carwithen said, `I hope they've a drop to drink when we get, t'other side.'

  Bolitho noticed that hardly anybody smiled at his remark, Carwithen was known as a hard man, given to physical vio, lence if challenged. Good at his work, according to the master, but little beyond it. How different from Fowlar, Bolithc; thought.

  `Lead your party to the left, Mr. Davy, but allow the marine; to set the pace.' He looked at Armitage. `You keep with me.'

  He saw a marine waving from a high ledge, indicating tht path up the first section of cliff.

  It was strange how sailors always hated the actual moment of leaving the sea behind. Like having a line attached to your belt, dragging you back. Bolitho eased the sword further around his hip and reached out for the nearest handhold, Smoothed away by timeless weather. Stained with dropping; from a million sea-birds. No wonder ships avoided the place.

  As he moved carefully up the fallen boulders he felt a small pressure against his thigh, the watch she had given him ir, Madras. He thought suddenly of that moment when she hay? offered him far more. And he had taken it without even smallest hesitation. How soft, how alive she had felt in hip arms.

  He grimaced as his fingers slipped in a pile of fresh droppings. And how quickly circumstances could change, he thought grimly.

  The passage across the small islet was to prove harder and more exhausting than anyone could have expected. From the moment they topped the first cliff and the sun engulfed them in its searing glare, they realised they must climb immediately into a treacherous gully before they could begin scaling the next part. And so it went on, until they were finally tramping across an almost circular depression which Bolitho guessed was the central part of the islet. It held the heat and shielded them from any sea-breeze, and their progress was further delayed by the clinging carpet of filth which covered the depression from side to side.

  Allday gasped, `Will we rest up once we get to the far side, Captain?' Like the others, his legs and arms were caked with muck, and his face masked in a fine film of dust. `I am as dry as a hangman's eye!'

  Bolitho refrained from looking at his watch again. He could tell from the sun's angle that it was late afternoon. It was taking too long.

  He peered across to the other side of the unsheltered depression, seeing Davy's straggling line of men, the marine sharpshooters walking like hunters through a cloud of pale dust, their muskets over their shoulders.

  He replied, `Yes. But we must go carefully with the water ration.'

  It was like being on top of the world, the curving sides of the depression hiding everything but the sun and open sky. One of the long, slanting shadows behind him faltered and then sprawled in the inches-deep bird droppings, and without turning he knew it was Armitage.

  He heard a seaman say hoarsely, `Give us yer 'and! Gawd, you do look a sight, beggin' yer pardon, sir!'

  Poor Armitage. Bolitho kept his gaze fixed on the pale breeches of the marine directly ahead of him, his body smoking in haze and dust. There were rocks beyond the marine, probably marking the end of the depression. They could take a rest. Find brief shelter while they regained their senses.

  He turned and sought out the seaman who had helped Armitage to his feet. `Can you raise the breath to carry a message to the scouts ahead, Lincoln?'

  The man bobbed his head. Small and wiry, his face was disfigured by a terrible scar from some past battle, or in a tavern brawl. A surgeon had made a bad job of it, and his mouth was drawn up at one side in a permanent, lopsided grin.

  `Aye, sir.' The man shaded his eyes.

  `Tell them to halt at those rocks.'

  He saw Lincoln hurry ahead of the column, his tattered trousers flapping and stirring up more choking dust.

  It took another hour to reach those rocks, and Bolitho had the impression he was taking two paces backwards for every one he advanced.

  Davy's party arrived amongst the tall rocks almost at the same time, and while the men threw themselves down into the small patches of shade, gasping and wheezing like sick animals, Bolitho called the lieutenant aside and said, `We will take a look.' He saw Davy nod wearily, his hair bleached so much that it was like corn in the sunlight.

  They found a marine on the far side of the rocks, his eyes slitted with professional interest as he stared at the gently sloping hillside which continued without a break towards the sea. And there, cradled inside the narrowest sweep of the islet, the `whale's tail', was the schooner.

  She was so close inshore that for an instant longer Bolitho imagined she had been driven aground in the storm. Then he saw the drifting smoke from a fire on the beach, heard the muffled tap of hammers, and guessed her crew were carrying out repairs. They might even have had the schooner careened to put right some damage to her bilge or keel, but at first glance she looked well enough now.

  Tiny figures moved about her deck, and there were several more on the beach and scattered amongst the rocks. The heaviest part of their work was apparently completed.

  Davy said, `They're looking in rock pools, sir. After shellfish or the like.'

  Bolitho asked, `How many, d'you reckon?'

  Davy frowned. `Two dozen, at a guess.'

  Bolitho fell silent. It was a long way down the hillside, and no cover at all. His own men would be seen long before they could get to grips. He bit his lip, wondering if the schooner intended to wait another day, or longer.

  Carwithen had joined them and said hoarsely, `They'm not ready to quit yet, sir.' He was whispering, as if the schooner's crew were a few feet away. `They've got the
ir boats hauled well up the beach.'

  Davy shrugged. `I expect they feel very safe.'

  Bolitho took a small glass and trained it carefully between the rocks. One false move, and the sunlight would throw a reflection from the telescope which would be seen for miles.

  A lookout. There must be at least one on the shore. A man so placed that he could watch over the tiny cove and see everything but the far side of the island where Undine now lay at anchor. He smiled grimly. It was hardly surprising they had found no sentries when they had landed when he thought of their exhausting trek from the beach.

  He stiffened, seeing a small movement on a ridge, almost in line with the motionless schooner. He adjusted the glass very slowly. A white, floppy hat, the darker blob of a face underneath.

  `There's a lookout on that ridge. The one with the rock pools directly below it.'

  Carwithen said, `Easy. From the sea, no, but I could take him from behind with no trouble at all.' He sounded brutally eager.

  The crash of a shot made them crouch lower, while from behind Bolitho heard the sudden clatter of weapons as his men dived for cover.

  Something white and flapping fell from the sky and lay quite still on the beach. The searching sailors from the schooner paid very little attention as one of their number walked over to it and picked it up.

  Carwithen, said, `One of 'em's shot a booby. They make fair eatin' if you've nothin' better.'

  The marine said, `Then 'e must be a bloody good shot, sir.' Bolitho looked at him. His own thought exactly. It would

  make a frontal assault virtually fatal for all of them.

  He said, 'I'll send a message back to the ship. We must wait until dark.' To the marine he added, `Take this glass, but keep it well shielded.' No need to add a warning or a threat. The marine had just proved he could think as well as shoot.

  They found the others relaxed again amidst the rocks, and Allday said, `Take a drink, Captain.' He held out a flask. `Tastes like bilge water.'

  Bolitho scribbled on his pad and handed it to one of the seamen. `Take it back to the beach and give it to the petty officer there.' He saw the despair on his face and added gently, `You need not return. You will have earned a rest by the time you reach Undine.'