Adam walked past the guns, hearing the faint squeak of breeching ropes as the hull tilted to wind and sea, the water slapping beneath the sealed ports. Tiny, shuttered lanterns gave light to the lounging figures of the waiting crews. The air was close and humid between decks, and he saw that most of the men had already stripped off their shirts, their bodies shining faintly in the feeble lights like statuary.
Feet shuffled, and faces came into the glow as men realized their captain was on one of his unheralded rounds. Some wondered why he bothered, when his word was the law which meant life or death to any one he chose. And why he was wearing his dress uniform when it would mark him out to any sniper if the time came, as it had done for others, among them his famous uncle, and Nelson himself.
A voice called, ”Think us’ll fight, zur?”
Adam stopped. ”Fellow Cornishman, eh?”
The man snowed his teeth in a broad grin. ”Helston, zur, not too long a walk from your part o’ God’s county, zur!”
Jago leaned forward to listen, to share it in some way. Like that time at Algiers, when he had watched his face after the fight, and had seen through and beyond the thing they called courage.
Adam looked past the line of black breeches, the powder and shot. Gone were the mess tables which were normally fixed between each pair of guns. Everyday things, the hooks where a man could sling his hammock: overcrowded, and yet each man an individual.
Now there was no war, and the enemy was unfamiliar. But to the ordinary Jack, it made no difference when the guns were run out.
Jago thought of the men put ashore, unwanted in peace. He had seen plenty of them on pier and jetty, watching the ships, and ‘swinging the lamp’ with each mug of ale.
Did they remember, he wondered, how they had cursed the navy and the masters who walked the quarterdeck in their fine uniforms?
Adam said quietly, ”I think we shall fight. The enemy flies no flag, nor does he uphold any cause except greed and tyranny over the helpless. So when the time comes, think well on that!”
The man from Helston called after them, ”Us Cornish lads’ll show ‘em, Cap’n!”
There was a burst of cheering, joined by seamen at the guns on the opposite side, few of whom could have heard what their captain had said.
A midshipman dodged around the guns until he had caught Adam’s eye.
”Beg pardon, sir, but Sir Graham sends his compliments, and would you join him aft?”
”Thank you, Mr. Manners. I’ll come directly.” A young, eager face. Uplifted, as if he had just been told something inspiring.
Jago walked with him to the main companion. Beyond the small lights, the ship was still in darkness. Waiting.
He realized that Bolitho had turned to face him, as if they were quite alone, the ship deserted.
”Is that all it takes, Luke? These men don’t even know what we are doing here, or why some will die, as surely they will!”
Jago stood his ground, knowing it was important, for both of them.
”You spoke fair, Cap’n. Somebody’s got to do it, an’ if it wasn’t us it would be some other poor Jack. That’s the way it goes, an’ nothing’ll ever change it!”
He stared down as Adam grasped his arm, and for an instant thought he had at last gone too far.
But Adam let his hand fall to his side, and said, ”So let’s be about it, eh?” As if another voice had spoken.
The ship was ready. Choice did not come into it.
Lieutenant Francis Troubridge winced as his shin scraped against a cask propped by a hatch coaming to catch the unwary. He had heard the first lieutenant giving orders for every available barrel or bucket to be filled with sea water in case of fire. Even the empty boat tier had been lined with canvas, and more water pumped into it as a precaution.
He had mentioned it to Fetch, the gunner. Had it been light enough to see his weathered face, he might have discovered amusement there. Or pity. Old Fetch, who had been at sea all his life, since the age of nine it was rumoured, had been present at several major battles, and had been a gun captain in the Bellerophon at Trafalgar, in the thick of it.
Fetch would be down there in the main magazine now, slopping about in his old felt slippers, so as not to make a spark or two, as he often said. One spark would be enough; the whole ship could be blasted apart.
”Them buggers might ‘ave furnaces goin’ when we gets there.” He had shaken his grey head. ”Bated shot can be very nasty, sir.”
Troubridge had already served in a ship of the line, the Superb, under the famous Captain Keats. He had never forgotten the first time they had cleared for action, the exhilaration, nerves tingling, as if he were being caught and carried on a tide race. Men running to their stations, commands barked from every side, the squeal of calls, but above all the urgent, insistent rattle of the drums beating to quarters.
Fetch and some of the others had experienced it many times, seen the faces of messmates and gun crews, seamen and marines, all welded into a single force, like a weapon. Troubridge had been only a midshipman in the Superb, but he had never forgotten the thrill and indescribable awe of that moment.
He reached the quarterdeck and strode aft to the poop.
This was so very different. Unreal. The ship thrusting into a sea without stars or horizon. Figures pushing past, voices hushed, breathing like old men, groping at cordage and cold metal, often urged on by hard hands and whispered threats.
”This way, sir.” Bowles, the cabin servant, loomed from nowhere and plucked at his sleeve.
Troubridge groped his way into the cabin and peered around. Two twelve pounders shared this space where the captain’s private quarters had been. The screens were gone; the place where they had talked together, shared a drink or spoken occasionally of home, was now just an extension of the hull. He thought of the portrait he had seen here, the living face he had seen when he and Bolitho had burst into that tawdry studio in London. The lovely body chained and helpless, awaiting her fate. He saw Bowles move toward him and guessed he had spoken her name aloud. Andromeda.
Would Bolitho be thinking of her at this very moment? Wondering, groping for hope, when all he had before him was duty and obedience?
Bowles said in a matter-of-fact tone, ”I’m going down to the sick bay shortly, sir. Make me self useful, maybe. Anythin’ I can fetch you afore I shove off?”
Troubridge shook his head. If he took a drink now, he might not be able to stop.
Aloud he said, ”It’s not like going into action at all, is it?”
Bowles seemed to relax. He had his measure. It always helped.
”I ‘eard Mr. Fraser tellin’ some one of a battle ‘e was in a while back, with the Dons it was that time, when it took all day to close with the enemy. Imagine, all day, the Spanish tops’ is crawling up an’ over the sea like they was enjoyin’ it!”
Another shape came out of the darkness. ”Sir Graham, John!” He heard a gulp, and, ”Sorry, sir, didn’t see you ‘ere!”
It helped to rally Troubridge more than the unseen speaker would ever know.
Bethune strode past, ducking beneath the deck head beams, his voice sharp, impatient.
”I’ve just sent for the captain.”
Bowles said, ”He’s on the lower gun deck, Sir Graham. I sent word .. .”
Bethune said something under his breath as the deck swayed over, through an invisible trough. Troubridge heard glass clink against the admiral’s buttons, and thought he could smell cognac.
He said, ”The wind’s holding, Sir Graham. At this rate we should make our landfall as estimated.”
Bethune snapped, ”When I want advice I shall ask for it, Flags! And when I want the captain I do not expect to have to go searching for him!”
Troubridge listened to spray pattering across the skylight. Perhaps the wind was getting up, or changing? That would throw all their careful plans into disarray.
He imagined the anchorage, as it was marked on the chart, as it was described by the sa
iling master and, of all people, George Crawford the surgeon, who had visited San Jose in his first ship. It was little enough, but sailors had survived on less.
Troubridge was calm again. It had given him time. This was a mood in which he had never seen Bethune before. A hardness which defied his normally easy nature.
Bethune was saying curtly, ”I’m not sure about Audacity, and Captain Munro. It is asking rather a lot of him. Young, impetuous .. .” He turned as voices came from the quarterdeck.
Troubridge remembered the room at the Admiralty, the paintings of ships in battle. A time when Bethune had been young, and probably impetuous himself.
Bethune said, ”Ah, Adam, just a word about a few points. In the chart room, I think.”
Composed and apparently relaxed, another change.
Troubridge touched the curved hanger at his side.
He was suddenly reminded of Bethune’s previous flag lieutenant. They had hardly spoken but for the formalities of handing over the appointment. Angry, resentful; looking back it was hard to determine. He had been too startled by his own unexpected advance up the ladder.
But the outgoing flag lieutenant had noticed the well-shaped and balanced hanger, which had been a gift from Troubridge’s father when he had been commissioned, it seemed a lifetime ago. Long forgotten and dismissed from his mind, his parting remark now rang clearly in Troubridge’s memory.
”You’ll not need that while you serve Sir Graham Bethune, my young friend! I doubt you’ll draw close enough to a real enemy!”
He hesitated, the muffled shipboard noises and occasional shadowy movements very stark and real. Something unknown and different was gnawing at him. He recognized it as fear.
The chart room seemed to be filled with people, under unshuttered lights almost blinding after the stuffy darkness. Eraser the sailing master and Harper, his senior mate, Vincent the signals midshipman, stiff-faced with concentration as he scribbled some notes, probably for the first lieutenant. Two boatswain’s mates and Tarrant, the third lieutenant, who appeared to be cleaning a telescope.
They all faded away as Bethune leaned both hands on the table and stared at the uppermost chart. Fraser watched impassively. Nobody, not even an admiral, could fault his tidy calculations and clearly printed notes.
”Show me.”
Eraser’s big brass dividers touched the chart and the neat, converging lines of their course. The points of the dividers stopped above the nearest line of latitude. ”San Jose, Sir Graham.” His eyes flickered briefly to Bethune’s profile, but gave nothing away. ”Two hours if the wind holds.”
Troubridge found that he was gripping the hanger and pressing it against his hip as if to steady himself. Two hours, the sailing master had said. The little frigate Audacity would begin her mock attack. He wanted to say something, to wipe his eyes in the stinging glare.
Two hours. On the chart the land still looked many miles distant.
Some one said, ”Captain’s coming, sir.”
Troubridge realized for the first time that Bethune’s personal servant was also present, in a corner by the chart rack, his eyes shaded by his hat, his mouth a tight line. A man who showed little emotion at any time. Efficient, discreet, probably closer to Bethune than any of them.
Shutters squeaked and then closed again. Troubridge saw the captain framed against the door and the after guard musket rack, now empty. He had known Bolitho for so short a time, only since Bethune had requested his appointment as his flag captain. Commanded would be nearer the truth.
There was never any doubt about it. He had heard one of the old clerks remark, ”It’s not what you know in Admiralty, it’s who you know!” Troubridge looked at Bolitho now. A face he would always remember. Dark eyes, sometimes withdrawn, sometimes hostile, but without the arrogance he had seen and found in many. He recalled Bethune’s comment about Audacity’s young captain: ‘impetuous’. Perhaps that, too, but not one to sacrifice the men he commanded, and led.
He started as Bethune remarked, ”When you are with us, Flags, I want to clarify a few final points.”
Some one chuckled, and Adam Bolitho smiled directly at him, and said, ”Waiting is often the worst part, and that is all but over.” He looked at the chart as if his mind was momentarily somewhere else. ”I recall reading an account of the opening engagement at Trafalgar. A young lieutenant wrote of it to his parents: here began the din of war.” They watched his hand as it touched the chart by Eraser’s dividers. ”So let us begin .. .”
Dugald Eraser thought afterwards it was something he would record in his log.
Even though most of Audacity’s seamen and marines had been standing to throughout the night, or snatching brief moments to doze at their stations, the crash of her bow-chaser came as a shock. Some ran to the shrouds or climbed the gangways above the tethered guns as if expecting to see something; others, the more experienced hands, glanced at their companions as if to confirm what they already knew.
It was not just another exercise or drill; the plan outlined by the captain through his officers was real. It was now.
A few gulls, early scavengers which had glided down to meet the ship, wheeled angrily away, their screams following the echo of the first shot. They had doubtless flown out from the land. They were that close.
A gun captain pressed his hands on the breech of his twelve-pounder and muttered, ”That’s right, tell the whole bloody world what we’re about!”
The air was warm, his shirt clinging to his skin, but the gun was like ice. He heard somebody laugh nearby and added, ”Not much longer, my old beauty!”
On the quarterdeck with one hand loosely touching the rail, Audacity’s captain watched the sky. The first hint of a new day; some one less experienced would scarcely have noticed it. In no time now they would see their heavy companion, and all caution would be tossed aside. The real game was about to begin.
He stared along the length of his ship, seeing the waiting gun crews, the sanded decks, the charges ready to be tamped home down each muzzle. Yet there was only darkness. He prided himself that he knew every scar and seam, the faces of the men who would lead, and others who would leap into a gap if those first men fell.
His first lieutenant was beside him; other figures were close by, messengers and boatswain’s mates ready to pipe and carry every command to the point of need. Of strength; and it would all come from aft, from their captain.
He could hear the sailing master murmuring to one of his men. He would be missing his senior mate, Mowbray, who had been wounded in the schooner’s capture. He was down in the sick bay and the surgeon had already told Munro of his attempts to quit his cot and go on deck where he belonged.
He looked up at the spiralling masthead and felt his lips go dry. He could see the maintop, the black web of shrouds and ratlines. His best lookouts were in their precarious perches, watching, waiting to be the first to sight the heavy barque.
He thought of the officer who was in charge of the Villa de Bilbao, Roger Pointer, who had been with Captain Adam Bolitho at the commodore’s meeting. He wiped his face. It seemed so long ago, and yet .. .
”Deck there!”
Faces peered up, and Munro heard the first lieutenant say, ”Peters is first again! A bet to be settled, I think!”
There were chuckles, too.
The lookout called, ”Larboard bow, sir!”
That was all, but again Munro felt a shaft of pride. There were not many ships, large or small, where quarterdeck and forecastle maintained so close a liaison.
He felt a hand touch his elbow and said quietly, ”I see it, Philip.”
Like a pale ghost, a curling patch of mist, then stronger as a gust of wind lifted the big ensign up and clear of the gaff, and close to it the metal of a block caught the first ray of daylight.
Dawn. Almost .. .
”Another gun, Philip. Some may still be asleep!”
The gun captain was ready. The bang was louder, and the echo drawn out, as if feeling the land.
It would carry on the wind, and men would be running to identify the ship being chased into their sanctuary.
Pointer and his men would be on their own once Audacity was forced to withdraw. Renegades, pirates, or slavers, it made little difference when the iron began to fly.
Munro tried to empty his mind of everything but the picture of the final approach, and how it would look to San Jose’s defenders. How it must look. Audacity was fast and agile. But she was no ship of the line like Athena. He thought of the rendezvous, and his own responsibility. The big prize was strangely transformed, with the huge insignia of a crucifix which Athena’s sail maker and crew had managed to make stitched to her great foresail. Even a good lookout saw only what he expected to see. It might help convince the eyes ashore that the ship being chased by a naval patrol was indeed one of their brotherhood.
But if not .. .
He half turned as a light exploded high in the air before drifting down like a falling star. A rocket or flare of some kind.
He wanted to clear his throat but stopped himself with effort. The light was gone just as suddenly. He saw the chart again in his mind, hidden behind that headland where the first invaders had thrown up their defenses.
”Sou’ west by west, sir!”
One of the helmsmen reached up for a spoke, and Munro realized for the first time that he could see him.
”Very well. Loose t’ gallants and have the guns loaded when you are ready, Philip.”
The first lieutenant looked at him, his face still in deep shadow.
”Double-shot ted sir?”
Munro saw the new midshipman, Napier, hurry past, another ensign draped over his shoulder.
He had already been in a major attack, at Algiers. Some were saying it would be the last fleet battle for all time.
Munro looked across the larboard bow and saw the prize. How could any ship so large have remained invisible until now?
Alexander Kent - Bolitho 26 Page 28