Alexander Kent - Bolitho 26

by Man of War [lit]

  Enemy .. . They were the enemy. Flags no longer counted for anything.

  Then he saw Audacity, or what remained of her. Almost on her beam, and surrounded by burned flotsam and a spreading carpet of ash. One boat was nearby, the oars moving very slowly as it pulled past and among the wreckage. A few figures were clinging to broken spars and a half-burned hatch cover, others drifted beyond all aid or hope. The end of a ship. Something against which he should be hardened.

  He was not.

  There was silence on Athena’s upper deck. Men stood by their guns and at the braces and halliards, and gazed at the burned-out ship. One of their own. There were no words for it.

  ”Boats, starboard bow, sir!”

  Adam wiped his face and stared beyond the bow. The small schooner had either hove to, or her steering had gone. She was beam on, some half mile beyond Audacity’s remains. The boats were almost hidden by Athena’s beak head and jib, but there was no room for doubt. He saw the glint of steel, and the tiny flash of a pistol or musket.

  Perhaps the trader named Jacob was trying to get away, detach himself from any blame or retaliation.

  He saw Stirling by the massive trunk of the mainmast, arms folded as he watched the guns, and the spread of pale canvas towering overhead. Two midshipmen waited with him, ready to pass a message or carry an order without losing a second. One of them could have been David.

  A sharp glance aft and he saw Bethune standing by some nettings, Troubridge beside him.

  Adam watched the land again, a small, rounded hill with an isolated clump of trees straying down one side, like scattered fugitives.

  He cupped one hand to his mouth. There was no point in reporting to Bethune what he must already know. He who will not risk. He shut his mind to it.

  ”Open the ports to starboard!” He made himself count the seconds as the port lids squeaked open from bow to stern along both gun decks.

  Where he had walked with Jago, and had spoken with these same men, and the one who came from Helston, from ”God’s county’. And they had cheered him.

  Only hours ago. This very day.

  The ports on the lee side would remain closed until it was time to bring the other broadside to bear.

  He looked up and into the bay. If they ever reached that far.

  Midshipman Manners shouted, ”Listen! Listen, sir!” His youthful face was filled with disbelief. He took off his hat and waved it with wild excitement. ”Huzza! Huzza!”

  Vincent snapped, ”Silence on deck there!” But even he seemed at a loss.

  Adam heard it. Faint at first, then carried on the offshore breeze it blended into a wave of cheering.

  Dugald Fraser said, ”Cheerin’ MS! And I thought I’d seen all there was to see!”

  Adam swallowed hard and saw some of the small figures in the water twisting round to watch Athena’s slow approach. Maybe the first time any of them had found time to look for her.

  He said, ”Run out, Mr. Stirling!”

  The decks quivered as every gun squeaked up to its open port, men throwing all their strength and weight on the tackles to haul their massive charges into the sunlight.

  Adam leaned on the quarterdeck rail, although he did not recall having moved. He did not need a glass. Here was the headland, the white buildings he had seen through the signals telescope, drifting smoke in blotches against the sky, insects no longer. A brief glance at the tilting compass card, seeing the helmsman’s fist opening and closing around a spoke, as if beating time to something.

  He heard a shot, perhaps two, and looked up as a ball punched a hole through the main topgallant sail.

  He saw Stirling’s arm shoot out, like a man controlling an excited horse. ”Steady, lads!” His eyes must have moved along every gun, while down in the semi-darkness of the lower gun deck they would all be listening, waiting for the signal from aft.

  Adam stared at the land again and felt the silence like something physical.

  ”On the uprolir There was no sense in calling a target. At this range they could not miss.

  He felt the deck tilt as the wind refilled the sails and pictured Athena’?, double line of teeth lifting to maximum elevation.

  ”Fire!”

  The effect was devastating as every gun along the ship’s starboard side roared out as one, each hurling itself inboard on its tackles, the crews yelling and gasping as smoke funnelled through the open ports. Dazed by the tremendous broadside, men were already sponging out and preparing to reload even before the combined thunder had died, and still the echo thrown from the land lingered above and around them. Adam held his hand across his mouth, his mind blurred by the power of the guns. It was as if Athena lay side by side with an enemy in some invisible line of battle, while below decks in the gloom and whirling smoke it must have felt as if the ship had run aground.

  He peered up at the sails and to the masthead pendant, still whipping out toward the larboard bow, when all else was partly hidden by smoke.

  He saw gun captains standing by their crews, one fist and then another raised and ready. It was as if everything else was moving, while Athena remained as before.

  The big barque which had been the first one to make sail lay across the larboard bow, on a converging tack, desperate now to clear the headland and reach open water.

  He held up his arm and saw Stirling acknowledge him. Men, their bodies shining with sweat, were running across to await the next command.

  ”Open the ports!”

  Stirling swung round as the forgotten leadsman shouted, ”By th’ mark five!” Just thirty feet under the keel. Adam found a second to wonder how the seaman could think and concentrate on the line snaking through his fingers while the ship, his world, reeled about him.

  ”Run out!” Easier for the depleted crews as the deck heeled in their favour to another flurry of wind.

  Adam took a telescope from a master’s mate and trained it abeam. One of the long buildings and a crude-looking pier had taken most of the broadside, and one entire wall had collapsed in the old fortifications, leaving a gap like missing teeth.

  He saw Fitzroy, the fourth lieutenant, walking unhurriedly along the eighteen pounders under his charge. He might have been alone in a country lane.

  ”As you bear! Lay for the foremast! On the up roll

  Just seconds. To some an eternity; then, ”Fire!”

  The water was hidden by smoke, the air cringing to the irregular crash of shot as each gun captain gauged the moment before jerking his firing lanyard.

  The barque had been badly hit, and her fore and main topmasts seemed to bow to each other as the double-shot ted broadside smashed through them.

  Some one yelled out, ”Not just slaves this time, you bastard!”

  As if he saw only a single enemy. Perhaps he was right.

  Adam gripped the rail as he felt the deck jerk under his feet.

  And then another, deep in the lower hull. Heated shot or not; they would soon know.

  He tried to keep his mind clear of everything but the shifting panorama across and beyond Athena’s beak head with Bethune’s flag casting a shadow above the taut jib.

  The pumps were going, and there was water in every kind of cask if the worst happened.

  A flurry of shots, from the barque or one of the drifting boats nearby. A seaman running to join the boatswain’s men at the braces seemed to falter, and look around as if something had caught his attention. Then he fell, his face shot away.

  Another figure ran toward him but stopped when a petty officer shouted to him.

  Clough, Athena’s carpenter, was hurrying forward with his own crew, his face intent, the true professional. Few ever considered that when a King’s ship left port, her carpenter had to be ready for anything from repairing, even building some kind of boat, to dealing with every seam and plank above or below deck.

  A hand seized his arm, and for an instant Adam believed he had been hit by some invisible marksman.

  But it was Bethune, staring through the
drifting smoke, his eyes reddened by strain and something more. Desperation.

  ”Yonder, Adam is that the schooner?”

  Adam heard some one cry out, and saw two marines dragging a limp figure clear of the starboard gangway.

  He saw the little schooner, some boats apparently trying to grapple alongside. Two other boats were moving toward her, the oars rising and falling like wings, the best Jago could get at such short notice. Adam licked his lips, recalling his curt order.

  Boat action. All Jago would need. And for what?

  ”Aye, sir. She’s out of command.” He stared at the land again, measuring it. Watching the changing colours in the bay, very aware of Fraser and his mates, and Stirling’s motionless figure by the guns.

  And all the others he could not see, who obeyed because they had no choice. Because there was none.

  ”I intend to come about directly, Sir Graham, and rake their defenses as we leave. Without those guns to support them they’ll crack, and Commander Pointer will get his chance. Until then .. .” He winced as a seaman fell from the mainyard and hit the deck, his face staring at the copper sky.

  ”Sir!” It was Kirkland, the lieutenant of Royal Marines; surprised, shocked, it was beyond either.

  Adam strode to the nettings and climbed on to them. He felt cordage cutting his knee where his breeches had been torn open. It was madness. There was more blood by a stanchion, where another man had been cut down. Yet all he could hold in his reeling mind was a picture of Bowles, and his horror when he had seen his captain donning his best uniform before beating to quarters.

  The smoke was thinner down on the low foreshore, and he could see some upended boats near the water close to a rough road or track. No fifes or drums, no commands to bark out the pace or the dressing, but the scarlet coats and white crossbelts of Athena’?” Royal Marines marched in perfect order, Captain Souter in the lead, hatless and with a bandage around his head, but with all the style of a barracks parade.

  There were flames at the top of the bay: a ship ablaze, or Pointer’s own signal of success.

  ”Stand by to come about!”

  He heard the leadsman’s cry. ”Deep four!” No doubt wondering if any one heard or cared with iron beating into the hull, and men dying.

  The sailing master had heard well enough.

  ”Christ, she’ll be sailing on wet grass in a minute!”

  Athena drew eighteen feet.

  Men were running to the braces, while somewhere high overhead axes were slashing away broken cordage and sails torn apart by haphazard shots from the land and from the barque, which had taken the full brunt of Athena’?” vengeful broadside. For revenge it was. Adam looked at Bethune’s face. There was no deception now. If anything, it was despair.

  He looked at the marching figures on the land, joined now by others, sailors from other ships of English Harbour, redcoats from the garrison. He had heard Bethune’s servant speak of them, an English county regiment. Not what they had been expecting when they had left home.

  He measured the distance again, and gauged the wind. It had to be now.

  He heard more shots hammering into the hull, men shouting, saw the tell-tale smoke seeping from one of the hatch gratings. The gun crews were poised with handspikes ready, slow matches in their tubs in case the flintlocks should fail at the moment of action.

  Small scenes stood out and gripped his attention, even though every fibre was screaming for him to begin what might be his last moments in this, the only world he truly understood. A midshipman writing busily on his slate, as if it was all that mattered. Bethune shaking his head as Troubridge tried to offer him the heavy coat again, perhaps because of a tall splinter which had been levered from the deck like a quill a few yards from where he was standing.

  Adam knew Stirling was watching him, judging the moment, and the remaining time for Athena, his ship, to come about.

  He walked swiftly to the rail and touched the sailing master’s arm, but did not take his eyes from the upper yards and the masthead pendant.

  ”Remember what you said to me when I came to Athenal That she was a fine sailer even close to the wind?”

  He saw Eraser stare at him, and then nod. ”Good as any frigate, sir!” Determination, and perhaps relief that his captain had not cracked under the strain.

  ”Stand by to come about!” He saw Bethune walk across the deck, his eyes on the nearest land, the ground and hillside still smoking from their first broadside.

  ”Aim for the battery.” He leaned on the rail. ”Put the helm down!”

  The spokes were spinning round; the helmsmen needed no urging.

  ”Helm a-lee, sir!”

  Some one had loosened the awning across the empty boat tier, and some of the released water was surging across the deck where seamen were already forming a bucket chain.

  ”Off tacks and sheets!”

  Still turning into the wind, a few boats pulling away as if they imagined they were the new target.

  Adam felt the deck tilting, the land sliding past, the rounded hill suddenly standing like a marker on the opposite bow. The yards were as tightly braced as they could bear, the canvas almost aback as the ship came slowly into the wind. Small things stood out. The hole punched in the topsail had spread across the full breadth of canvas; torn rigging trailed down toward the deck like dead creeper. Then the tip of the headland itself, some crumbling fortifications clearly etched now against the sky. And directly beyond it, like water piled in a great dam, was the open sea.

  ”Steady as you go!”

  He could see a tiny pyramid of sail, like pale shells in the strengthening sunlight as the frigate Hostile hurried to obey Athena’s last signal, to close on the flagship.

  He saw Bethune by the poop ladder, leaning across an unmanned swivel gun to stare at the small schooner. He wondered what Jago would think when he saw Athena sail past, heading once more for open water.

  ”East by north, sir!”

  He saw Fraser watching him from the compass box. He knew. It was as close to the wind as Athena would come. Perhaps even better than he had promised.

  Each gun captain was ready. Here a handspike moved to adjust the muzzle’s elevation, or a tackle squeaked to train a gun a fraction more, until the eye over the breech was satisfied.

  ”Ready, sir!” That was Stirling again. The ship had come about and was on the opposite tack. The drills and careful selection of seamen known for their skill and reliability, in all weathers and in the face of death itself, had been his main concern, a first lieutenant’s role, ship of the line or little sixth-rate like Audacity.

  Adam knew that Bethune had joined him. Perhaps already trying to gauge the final outcome, perhaps the blame when the repercussions began, as they surely would. Renegades or not, this was Cuba, Spanish territory. Face would have to be saved, until the next time.

  Bethune watched Adam raise his hand over his head.

  He said, ”After this, Adam. I have to know.” His eyes were steady, even calm. ”I must know!”

  Adam saw the nearest gun captain testing his trigger line. It was taut. To him, nothing else mattered. He was right. Leave questions to others.

  His arm sliced down. ”Fire!”

  It took even longer for the dust and smoke to settle. The hillside looked much as before the broadside, but merged now with the fallen walls and rooftops where the battery had been sited to command the approaches.

  ”Reload, sir?”

  Adam shaded his eyes to stare along the foreshore, where he could just discern the scarlet coats of the marines. They would wait to ensure there was no further resistance while the slavers were seized by Pointer’s prize crews, or scuttled where they lay.

  ”I think you should see this, sir.” It was Troubridge, pale and tight-lipped. But somehow more mature, confident.

  Adam trained the glass on the bearing Troubridge was indicating. Faces leaped into focus, vignettes of excitement, and pain. And pride. The sailor’s lot.

  He saw
the little schooner, boats still tied or drifting alongside. His fingers tightened on the warm metal. And a flag. A smaller version of the one which Athena had flown since leaving English Harbour.

  Jago had done it. As they had arranged. So he must be safe. He looked across the bay where they had seen the last of Audacity. If only .. .

  ”I propose to anchor directly, Sir Graham.” For a moment he thought he had not heard, but Bethune said, ”Do so. I shall see that your part in this affair does not pass unnoticed.”

  He knew Troubridge was watching, perhaps realizing for the first time that he knew his admiral better than he had thought.

  Bethune said quietly, ”I should like to go across, Adam.”

  He was not demanding. If anything, he was pleading.

  It was like being on the outside of something. Orders were being shouted or relayed by the piercing twitter of Spithead Nightingales. Men stood back from their guns, while others clung to halliards and braces, the ship under command while they peered around, seeking special friends, or staring at the damage.

  Bowles hurried past with a list of names, men who had been killed or were in the orlop being treated, or dying.

  No great action this time, but the price was always too high.

  Some were cheering, letting go, the blues and whites of officers and warrant ranks mixing with all the others. Some were looking aft, at the quarterdeck where their lives could be changed or ended without question or blame.

  Bethune said, ”I must go below. Let me know when .. .” He did not end it.

  He would find no peace or escape there. The admiral’s quarters would still be cleared for action, like his own and the whole ship. He thought of her portrait. Waiting.

  It was as if some one else had spoken. He said, ”I think you should stay a while, Sir Graham.” He glanced at the faces below the quarterdeck rail. ”They look to you. Trust, obedience, I’m never sure.”

  Troubridge joined him by the ladder, and watched as Bethune made his way to the main deck and walked along the line of guns. Hesitant at first, the sailors jostled around him, some reaching out as if to touch him, others laughing and calling his name.