Cross of St George

by Kent, Alexander

  The captain snapped to one of the attentive midshipmen, “Take a glass up yourself and see what that fool is babbling about!”

  The first lieutenant had joined him. “The lookout has no skill with flags, I’m afraid, sir.”

  “He’d better mend his ways, damn him, or I’ll see his backbone at the gratings! It’s probably nothing, anyway.”

  Somebody called a command and a few seamen ran smartly to the boat tier to execute it. The first lieutenant had grown accustomed to it. The silence, the instant obedience, everything carried out at the double. Try as he might, he could not accept it.

  The captain said, “As soon as we receive orders and rid ourselves of Killarney, I shall want sail and gun drill every day, until we can cut the time it takes them to do every little thing. I’ll not stand for slackness. Not from any man!”

  The first lieutenant watched his profile, but said nothing. Did it so change an officer who had already held a successful command? Might it change me?

  This afternoon there would be the ritual of punishment. Two more floggings at the gangway, both severe, but one of which could have been avoided or reduced to some lesser penalty. The staccato roll of drums, the crack of the lash on a man’s naked back. Again and again, until it looked as if his body had been torn open by some crazed beast …

  When he had voiced his opinion about extreme punishment, often at the instigation of some junior officer or midshipman, the captain had turned on him. “Popularity is a myth, a deceit! Obedience and discipline are all that count, to me and to my ship!”

  Perhaps when they returned to Halifax, things might improve.

  Almost without thinking, he said, “It seems likely that Sir Richard Bolitho will have hoisted his flag in Halifax again, sir.”

  “Perhaps.” The captain seemed to consider it, sift it for some hidden meaning. “A flag officer of reputation. But it has to be said that any admiral is only as strong as his captains—and how they perform.”

  The first lieutenant had never served with or under Sir Richard Bolitho, and yet, like the many he had spoken to, he felt as if he knew him personally.

  The captain was smiling. “We shall see, sir. We shall see.”

  The midshipman’s voice came shrilly from the masthead. “Signal from Alfriston, sir! Sail in sight to the nor’-west!” A small pause, as if the midshipman was frightened of the noise. “Brigantine, sir.”

  The captain rubbed his hands briskly, one of his rare displays of emotion. “Not one of ours, unless the despatches are wrong.”

  He swung round as the halliards and canvas came alive, the masthead pendant lifting as if suddenly awakened.

  The first lieutenant exclaimed, “The master was right, sir! The wind is coming back!”

  The captain nodded. “Recall the boats and have them hoisted. We are well upwind of friends and stranger alike. We’ll add another prize to our list, eh?” He shaded his eyes to watch the two boats casting off the tow lines and pulling back toward their ship. “Something for your sister’s dowry!”

  The first lieutenant was surprised at the swift change of mood. It would certainly break the monotony of this snail’s pace.

  He looked away as the captain added thoughtfully, “Bring forward the punishment by an hour. It will keep them occupied, and remind them of their duty.”

  Calls trilled and men ran to hoist the two dripping boats up and over the gangway while others dashed up the ratlines in readiness to make more sail, even as the slack canvas flapped and then boomed out harder to the wind. The lieutenant watched the sea’s face, the black shadows of Reaper’s masts and sails blurring like ruffled fur while the hull heeled slightly, and then more firmly to the demands of wind and rudder.

  The moment every frigate officer waits for. But the elation would not come.

  Captain James Tyacke tucked his hat beneath his arm and waited for the marine sentry to admit him. For an instant, he saw a shadow through the screen door, and was amused. The ever-vigilant Ozzard, keeping a watchful eye out for visitors to these quarters.

  He found Bolitho seated at the table, some charts with written notes on them held down by two books bound in green leather, with heavily-gilded spines. Tyacke recognized them as some of the collection Lady Catherine Somervell had sent aboard for the admiral. Even here, thousands of miles from England, she was never far away from this restless, sensitive man.

  “Ah, James!” He looked up and smiled warmly. “I was hoping that you would sup with me tonight, and leave your troubles to your lieutenants for a change.”

  Tyacke looked past him at the unbroken panorama of the ocean, blue and grey, disturbed here and there by long, glassy swells. In his mind’s eye he saw them all, Indomitable in the centre, with the two frigates Virtue and Attacker some eight miles off either beam. At dusk they would draw closer to one another, but in this formation they could scan an imposing range from horizon to horizon. Tyacke could also visualize each captain, just as he knew Bolitho would feel the strength of every ship under his flag. Keeping well up to windward like a loyal terrier, the brig Marvel completed this small but effective flotilla.

  Bolitho said, “I can see from your expression, James, that you had forgotten the significance of this day.”

  “For the moment, Sir Richard.” There was a brief silence. “Two years ago, I took command of this ship.” He added quietly, as if it were something private, “The Old Indom.”

  Bolitho waited for him to seat himself. It was like a signal: Ozzard was moving out of his pantry. The flag captain would be staying a while.

  Tyacke said, “We’ve done a lot in that time.”

  Bolitho looked at the leather-bound books, remembering her at Plymouth, in the coach when they had parted. “I sometimes wonder where it will end. Or even if we are achieving anything by waiting, always waiting, for the enemy to show his teeth.”

  “It will come. I feel it. When I was in Larne,” for a moment he hesitated as if it was still too painful a memory to discuss, “the slavers had the whole ocean to pick and choose from. Every cargo of poor devils waiting to be shipped to the Indies and the Americas could be collected … or dropped overboard, if they were sighted by us or another patrol. But every so often …” He leaned forward in his chair, his scarred face suddenly clear and terrible in the reflected sunlight, “I knew, like you knew about Unity. That sixth sense, instinct, call it what you will.”

  Bolitho could feel the strength of the man, his deep pride in what he could do. Not something to be taken for granted, not a form of conceit, but true and real, like the old sword on its rack. As he had known in September, when they had walked the deck together, splinters bursting from the planking as sharpshooters tried to mark them down, two men pacing up and down, making no attempt to conceal their ranks or their importance to those who depended upon them.

  Avery, too, had walked with them that day. If he had any friend in this ship other than Bolitho himself, that friend was Tyacke. He wondered if he had confided his present preoccupation to him, and then knew he had not. Two men so different, and yet not dissimilar, each deeply reserved, driven in on himself. No, Avery would not have discussed it with Tyacke, particularly if it concerned a woman.

  Unconsciously he had touched the volume of Shakespearean sonnets; she had chosen this edition with care because the print was clear, easy to read. So far away. Spring in the West Country. Wagtails on the beach where they had walked; swifts and jackdaws; the return of beauty and vitality to the countryside.

  Tyacke watched him, not without affection. Maybe it was better to be alone, with no one to draw your heart, or break it. To know no pain. Then he recalled Bolitho’s woman boarding this ship, climbing the side like a sailor to the cheers of the men. It was not true. Just to have somebody, to know that she was there … He pushed the thoughts aside: for him, they were impossible.

  “I’d best go up and see the afternoon gun drill, sir.” He stood, his head brushing the deck beams. He did not appear to notice, and Bolitho knew that aft
er Larne, Indomitable must seem like a palace.

  He said, “Until tonight, then.”

  But Tyacke was staring at the screen door, one hand raised as if he was listening to something. They both heard measured steps, then the tap of the sentry’s musket as he called, “First lieutenant, sir!”

  Lieutenant John Daubeny stepped into the cabin, his cheeks flushed from the salt air.

  Tyacke said, “I heard a call from the masthead. What is it?”

  Bolitho felt the sudden tension. He had not heard the call himself. Tyacke had become part of the ship: he was the ship. In spite of his personal misgivings when he had been asked to command the flagship, they had become one.

  Daubeny squinted his eyes, a habit of his when he was asked a direct or difficult question.

  “Signal from Attacker, sir. Sail sighted to the nor’-west. A brig, one of ours.” He faltered under Tyacke’s intense gaze. “They are certain of it.”

  Tyacke said curtly, “Keep me informed. Muster a good signals party, and tell Mr Carleton to be ready.”

  “I have attended to it, sir.”

  The door closed, and Bolitho said, “You have them well drilled, James. This newcomer—what d’ you make of her?”

  “We’re not expecting a courier, sir. Not here. Not yet.” He was pondering aloud. “At the Bermudas, now, that would be different. A convoy is assembling there, or should be.”

  Bolitho shared it, remembering how it felt. Wanting to be up there on deck, and yet aware that it might be regarded as a lack of confidence in his officers, or that they might take his presence for anxiety. He vividly recalled his own time in command, and today was no different. When the watches changed, or the hands were piped to shorten sail, his whole being protested that he should remain aloof, a man apart from the ship that served him.

  The sentry called, “First lieutenant, sir! ”

  Daubeny came back in, more flushed than ever. “She’s the Alfriston, sir, fourteen guns. Commander Borradaile …”

  Bolitho said quickly, “I don’t know him, do I?”

  Tyacke shook his head. “Alfriston joined the squadron while you were in England, sir.” Then, as an afterthought, “Borradaile’s a good hand. Came up the hard way.”

  Bolitho was on his feet. “Signal Attacker, repeat Alfriston, close on Flag.” He glanced out through the thick glass. “I want him here before nightfall. I can’t waste another day.”

  Daubeny’s face was quite untroubled now that he had shifted the responsibility to his superiors. He offered, “She should be with the Leeward escort, sir.” His confidence wilted under their combined attention. He added, almost humbly, “It was in orders, sir.”

  Tyacke said, “So it was, Mr Daubeny. Now tell Mr Carleton to make the signal.”

  Ozzard closed the door. “Concerning supper, Sir Richard—”

  “It might be delayed.” He looked at Tyacke. “But we will take a glass now, I think.”

  Tyacke sat again, his head still cocked to catch the muffled sounds from the world outside. The squeak of halliards, the voice of the signals midshipman penetratingly clear as he spelled out the signal to his men.

  He said, “You think it’s bad, sir.” It was not a question.

  Bolitho watched Ozzard approaching with his tray, his small figure angled against the movement of the deck without effort. The man without a past, or one so terrible that it clung to him like a graveyard spirit. So much a part of the little crew.

  “I believe it may be our next move, James, albeit a foul one.”

  They drank in silence.

  Jacob Borradaile, the Alfriston’s commander, was not in the least what Bolitho had been expecting. He had been on deck to observe the brig’s smart performance as she had tacked this way and that, her bulging sails salmon-pink in the failing light as she had wasted no time in taking position under Indomitable’s lee and sending a boat over the heavy swell.

  Tyacke had remarked of Borradaile, a good hand. Came up the hard way. From him, there could be no higher praise.

  As Tyacke escorted him aft into the cabin, Bolitho thought he had never seen such an untidy, awkward-looking figure. Although he must have been about the same age as Avery or Tyacke, he was like some gaunt caricature, with sprouting, badlycut hair and deep, hollow eyes; only the ill-fitting uniform revealed him to be a King’s officer. However, Bolitho, who had met every imaginable kind of man both junior and senior, was immediately impressed. He entered the cabin and took his outstretched hand without hesitation or any trace of awe. A firm grip, hard, like a true sailor’s.

  Bolitho said, “You have urgent news.” He saw the man’s quick assessment of him, as he might examine a new recruit. “But first, will you take a glass with me?”

  Borradaile sat in the chair Ozzard had carefully prepared in advance. “Thank ’ee, Sir Richard. Whatever you’re taking yourself will suit famously.”

  Bolitho nodded to Ozzard. Borradaile had a faint Kentish accent, like his old friend Thomas Herrick.

  He sat on the stern bench and studied his visitor. In his fist, the fine goblet looked like a thimble.

  He said, “In your own words. I will see that you are returned to your ship before too long.”

  Borradaile stared at a sealed gunport as if he expected to see the brig across the uneasy strip of water. Alfriston had been handled well, as if one man and not an entire trained company had been in charge. Tyacke would be thinking much the same, remembering his previous command.

  Borradaile said, “It was Reaper, Sir Richard. A day out from Bermuda and she broke away to chase a stranger, a small vessel— brigantine, most likely. Alfriston was becalmed, sea like a mill pond, an’ our one remaining charge, a company ship called Killarney, was no better than we. But Reaper had the wind under her skirts and gave chase.”

  Bolitho asked quietly, “Did that surprise you, so close to your destination?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Bolitho said, “Man to man. This is important. To me, maybe to all of us.”

  The hollow eyes settled on him. Bolitho could almost hear his mind working, weighing the rights and wrongs of something that might end in a court martial. Then he seemed almost visibly to make a decision.

  “Reaper’s captain was new to the ship, his first proper patrol away from the squadron.”

  “Did you know him?” Unfair maybe, but also perhaps vital.

  “Of him, sir.” He paused. “Reaper had a reputation. Maybe he was eager to give her back something he thought she’d lost.”

  The shipboard noises seemed to fade away as Borradaile related the hours that had decided Reaper’s fate.

  “There were two frigates, sir. French-built, if I’m any judge, but wearing Yankee colours. They must have sent the brigantine as bait, an’ once Reaper changed tack to go after it, they showed themselves.” He ticked off the points on his bony fingers. “Reaper had run too far down to lee’ard to be able to claw back to her station. They must have been laughin’, it was so damned easy for them.”

  Bolitho glanced at Tyacke; he was resting his chin on his hand, and his face was like stone.

  Borradaile added, “I could do nothin’, sir. We’d barely picked up the wind again. All I could do was watch.”

  Bolitho waited, afraid of breaking the picture in the man’s thoughts. It was not uncommon. A young captain eager for a prize, no matter how small, and eager too to prove something to his ship’s company. He knew of Reaper’s bitterness after the battle, when her brave captain, James Hamilton, had been killed in the first broadside. It was so easy to be distracted for the few seconds needed by a skilful and dangerous enemy. It nearly happened to me when I was so young …

  Borradaile gave a great sigh. “Reaper came about as soon as her captain knew what had happened. I watched it all with a big signals glass—I felt I had to. It was madness, I thought. Reaper stood no chance, a little sixth-rate against two big ’uns, forty guns apiece was my guess. But what could he do? What would any of us do, I asked myself
.”

  “Did they engage immediately?”

  Borradaile shook his head, his gaunt features suddenly saddened. “There were no shots fired. Not one. Reaper had run out some of her guns by then, but not all of ’em. It was then that the leading Yankee hoisted a white flag for parley and dropped a boat to go across to Reaper.”

  Bolitho saw it all. Three ships, the others merely spectators.

  “An hour, maybe more, maybe less, an’ the Reaper lowered her flag.” He spat it out angrily. “Without so much as a whimper!”

  “Surrendered?” Tyacke leaned forward into the light. “Not even a fight?”

  Alfriston’s commander seemed to truly see him for the first time, and there was compassion in the hollow eyes as they noted the full extent of his injury. “It was mutiny,” he said.

  The word hung in the damp air like something obscene, devastating.

  “The next thing I knew was, a boat was sent from Reaper with some of the ‘loyal men.’” He turned to Bolitho again. “And her captain.”

  Bolitho waited. It was bad, worse than he had believed possible.

  Borradaile spoke very slowly. “Just before Reaper left her station to give chase there were men being flogged at the gangway. I could hardly believe it.” There was disgust and revulsion in his voice, from this, a man who had come up the hardest way of all, through the ranks, to achieve his own command. A man who must have seen every kind of suffering at sea, and brutality, too, in that demanding life below decks.

  “Was he dead?”

  “Not then, he weren’t, sir. The Yankee officers who had gone over to parley had invited Reaper’s people to join them. I heard from some of the men who were allowed away in the boat that it was the old cry of ‘dollars for shillings’—the chance of a new life, better paid and well treated under the Stars and Stripes.”