Cross of St George

by Alexander Kent

  He moved the glass slightly, feeling the warm spray on his mouth and hair. Ritchie was there, listening intently with his master’s mates close by, Barlow, the new lieutenant of marines, his face as scarlet as his tunic in the misty sunlight. Beyond them the mass of sailors, some of whom he knew and trusted, and others whom he accepted would never change, the hard men who saw all authority as a deadly enemy. But fight? Yes, they would do that well enough.

  And there was the captain, his back towards him, his shoulders shining and wet as if he did not care, did not feel anything beyond his instinct, which had not failed him.

  Lovie asked, ‘What will the captain tell them, sir?’

  Urquhart did not look at him. ‘What I will tell you, Mr Lovie. We will stand by the tow, and break it when we are so ordered.’

  Lovie watched his profile. Urquhart was the only first lieutenant he had ever known, and secretly he hoped that he himself would be as good, if he ever got the chance.

  He said, ‘The fuse you laid, sir. You’ve known all this time.’

  Urquhart watched the image in the glass. Men cheering: but for the wind they would have heard the sound from here.

  ‘Guessed would be closer to the truth. I thought it was a last resort to prevent the prize being retaken.’ He lowered the glass and regarded him intently. ‘And then, suddenly I understood. Captain Bolitho knew, and had already decided what he must do.’

  Lovie frowned. ‘But there’s two of them, sir. Suppose. …’

  Urquhart smiled. ‘Aye, suppose – that one word, which never appears in dispatches.’ He recalled Adam Bolitho’s face when he had first come aboard and had read himself in: a sensitive, guarded face, which betrayed little of what it must have cost him to lose a ship, be a prisoner of war, and endure the ritual of a court-martial. When, very rarely, he allowed himself to relax, as he had yesterday when they had shared a meal, Urquhart had glimpsed the man behind the mask. In some ways, still a prisoner. Of something, or someone.

  Urquhart said, ‘You stand fast and watch the tow. Call me immediately if anything happens.’ He was about to add something humourous, but changed his mind abruptly and headed for the companion way. Knowledge came like a blow in the face, something he could not forget or ignore. Lovie was standing where he had left him, perhaps dreaming of the day when he, too, would wear a lieutenant’s rank.

  Urquhart clattered down the ladder and stood for a few minutes in the shadows to compose himself. It was not the first time this had happened, and he had heard others, more experienced, speak of it. But in his heart he knew that Midshipman Lovie would not be alive by the end of the day.

  A gunner’s mate was watching him, a slow match moving in his fist like a solitary evil eye.

  ‘All ready, Jago?’ It was something to say. The gunner’s mate was a true seaman, which was why he had picked him in the first place. Trevenen had had him flogged for some trivial offence and Urquhart had clashed with the captain about it. The rift had cost him dearly; he knew that now. Even Dawes had never mentioned the possibility of promotion to him. But his efforts had earned him Jago’s trust, and something far stronger, although he would carry the scars of that unjustified flogging to the grave.

  Jago grinned. ‘Just give the word, sir!’

  No question, no doubts. Perhaps it was better to be like that.

  He looked up the ladder, to a patch of pale blue sky. ‘The boats will be warped alongside. The rest is up to us.’

  He walked on through the ship, where many men had once worked and lived, hoped too. Men who spoke the same language, but whose common heritage had become like an unbroken reef between nations at war.

  Urquhart listened to the creak of the tiller, and the lonely clank of a single pump.

  It was almost done. The ship was already dead.

  Ritchie called, ‘Course is south south-east, sir. Steady as she goes.’

  Adam walked a few paces to the rail and back again. It seemed strangely still and quiet after the tapping drums had beaten Valkyrie’s seamen and marines to quarters. He had felt the sudden unnerving excitement, and after that, the cheering. It had been unexpected, and overwhelming. These men were still strangers for the most part, because he had kept them so, but their huzzas had been infectious, and he had seen Ritchie forgetting himself so far as to shake hands with George Minchin, the surgeon, who had made a rare appearance on deck to listen to the captain speaking. Minchin was a butcher of the old orlop tradition, but in spite of his brutal trade and his dependence on rum, he had saved more lives than he had lost, and had won the praise of the great surgeon, Sir Piers Blachford, when he had been aboard Hyperion.

  Lieutenant Dyer said, ‘The enemy are on the same bearing, sir.’

  Adam had seen them briefly, two frigates, the same ones or others unknown to him. Perhaps it did not matter. But he knew that it did.

  He glanced astern and pictured the two ships as he had last seen them. Their captains would have marked Valkyrie’s every change of course, no matter how small. They would expect them to cast off the tow: any captain would, unless he wanted to sacrifice his ship without a fight.

  Suppose they did not swallow the ruse? He might lose Urquhart and his prize crew, or be forced to leave them, if only to save his own command.

  Run? He beckoned to the signals midshipman. ‘Mr Warren! Get aloft with your glass and tell me what you see.’ He turned, and watched de Courcey walking stiffly to the lee side as if to study some marines, who were climbing to the maintop with more ammunition for the swivel there. He had removed his epaulette and the twist of gold lace that proclaimed him to be admiral’s flag lieutenant, perhaps in the hope of offering a less tempting target if the enemy drew close enough.

  Adam heard the midshipman yell, ‘The rear ship wears a broad-pendant, sir!’

  He breathed out slowly. A commodore then, like Nathan Beer. … He dismissed the thought. No, not at all like the impressive Beer. He must forget him. It was not merely foolish to show admiration for an enemy, it was also dangerous. If this was the man his uncle suspected, there could be no admiration. Out of personal hatred, he had already tried to avenge himself on Sir Richard Bolitho by any means he could invent, and Adam was almost convinced that it was the same mind which had planned to use him as bait to tempt his uncle into a rescue attempt. He often thought of that bare but strangely beautiful room, where he had been interrogated by the American captain, Brice. Perhaps Brice would recall that meeting when he received news of his son’s death.

  Hatred was the key, if it was in fact Rory Aherne, whose father had been hanged for treason in Ireland. An incident long forgotten in the confusion and pain of many years of war, but he had not forgotten: nor would he forgive. Perhaps it had given this unknown Aherne a purpose, and allowed him to achieve a measure of fame which might otherwise have escaped him. A renegade, a privateer, who had found a place in America’s young but aggressive navy. Some might sing his praises for a while, but renegades were never fully trusted. Like John Paul Jones, the Scot who had found glory and respect in battles against England. Nevertheless, he had never been offered another command, famous or not.

  He frowned. Like my father. …

  There was a dull bang, which echoed around the ship as if the sound were trapped in a cave. The solitary ball ripped abeam of the Success before splashing down in a cloud of spray.

  Somebody said, ‘Bow-chaser.’

  Dyer remarked, ‘First shot.’

  Adam took out his watch and opened the guard, remembering the dim shop, the ticking clocks, the silvery chorus of chimes. He did not glance at the mermaid, trying not to think of her or hear her voice. Not now. She would understand, and forgive him.

  He said, ‘Note it in the log, Mr Ritchie. The date and the time. I fear that only you will know the place!’

  Ritchie grinned, as Adam had known he would. Was it so easy to make men smile, even in the face of death?

  He closed the watch with a snap and returned it to his pocket.

  ‘L
eading ship is changing tack, sir. I think she intends to close with the prize!’

  The lieutenant sounded surprised. Baffled. Adam had tried to explain, when the lower deck had been cleared and the hands piped aft. All night long the two American frigates had beaten and clawed their way into the teeth of the wind. All night long: determined, confident that they would take and hold the wind-gage, so that Valkyrie could either stand and fight against the odds, or become the quarry in a stern-chase, to be pounded into submission at long range or finally driven aground.

  They had not cheered out of any sense of duty: they had seen and done too much already to need to prove themselves. Perhaps they had cheered simply because he had told them, and they knew, just this once, what they were doing, and why.

  He strode to the shrouds and climbed into the ratlines, his legs soaked with spray as he levelled his telescope at a point beyond Urquhart’s temporary command.

  There she was. A big frigate, thirty-eight guns at least, French-built like Success. Before the glass misted over, he saw hurrying figures massing along the enemy’s gangway. Success was under tow, her guns still secured and unmanned. The whole of Halifax had probably heard about it, and there were many other ears only too ready to listen.

  He returned to the deck. ‘Make the signal, Mr Warren. Cast off!’

  He could see the upper yards of the enemy frigate criss-crossing with those of Success, but knew that they were not yet close, let alone alongside. There were a few shots: marksmen in the tops testing the range, seeking a kill like hounds after a wounded stag.

  Success seemed to suddenly grow in size and length as the tow broke free and she yawed around, her few sails in wild disorder to the wind.

  Adam clenched his fists against his thighs. Come on. Come on. It was taking too long. They would be up to her in minutes, but still might sheer away if they suspected anything.

  Warren said hoarsely, ‘One boat pulling away, sir!’

  Adam nodded, his eyes stinging but unable to blink. Urquhart’s boat would be next, and soon. Or not at all.

  More shots, and he saw the gleam of sunlight on steel as the boarders prepared to hack their way aboard the drifting prize. He tried to shut it from his thoughts. He shouted, ‘Stand by to come about, Mr Ritchie! Mr Monteith, more hands on the weather braces there!’ He saw the gun captains crouched low and ready, while they waited for the next order.

  He felt rather than saw de Courcey by the quarterdeck rail, speaking rapidly to himself, as though he were praying. The enemy’s yards were being hauled round, to lessen the impact when the two hulls ground together.

  Adam saw the boat pulling away from both ships, fear giving them the strength and the purpose.

  Somebody said quietly, ‘The first lieutenant’s left it too late.’

  He snapped, ‘Hold your bloody noise, damn you!’ and barely recognized his own voice.

  Ritchie saw it first: all the years at sea in many different conditions, matching his eye against sun and star, wind and current. A man who, even without a sextant, could probably find his way back to Plymouth.

  ‘Smoke, sir!’ He glared round at his mates. ‘By Jesus, he done it!’

  The explosion was like a fiery wind, so great that despite the thousands of fathoms of sea beneath them, it felt as if they had run aground on solid rock.

  Then the flames, leaping from hatches and through fiery holes that opened in the decks like craters, the wind exploring and driving them until her sails became blackened rags and her rigging was spitting sparks. The fires spread rapidly to the American grappled alongside, where jubilant figures had been cheering and waving their weapons only seconds before.

  Adam raised his fist.

  ‘For you, George Starr, and you, John Bankart. Let them never forget!’

  ‘There’s the other boat now, sir!’ Dyer sounded shocked by what he was seeing, the very savagery of it.

  Ritchie called, ‘Standing by, sir!’

  Adam raised the telescope, and then said, ‘Belay that, Mr Ritchie.’

  He had seen the first lieutenant at the tiller, the remaining seamen lying back on their looms, no doubt staring at the exploding flames which had almost consumed them. Beside Urquhart lay the midshipman, Lovie, staring at the smoke and the sky, and seeing neither.

  To those around him Adam said, ‘We’ll pick them up first – we have the time we need. I’ll not lose John Urquhart now.’

  The two frigates were completely ablaze, and appeared to be leaning toward one another in a final embrace. Success’s bilge had been blown out in the first explosion, and, grappled to her attacker, she was taking the American with her to the bottom.

  A few men were splashing about in the water; others floated away, already dead or dying from their burns. From a corner of his eye Adam saw Urquhart’s small boat drifting clear of Valkyrie’s side. It was empty: only the midshipman’s coat with its white patches lay in the sternsheets to mark the price of courage.

  He hardened himself to it, and tried to exclude the sounds of ships breaking up, guns tearing adrift and thundering through the flames and choking smoke, where even now a few demented souls would be stumbling and falling, calling for help when there was none to respond.

  Midshipman Warren called, ‘The other ship’s standing away, sir!’ Adam looked at him and saw the tears on his cheeks. All this horror, but he was able to think only of his friend, Lovie.

  Ritchie cleared his throat. ‘Give chase, sir?’

  Adam looked at the upturned faces. ‘I think not, Mr Ritchie. Back the mizzen tops’l while we recover the other boat.’ He could not see the American ship with the commodore’s broad-pendant: it was lost in the smoke, or the painful obscurity of his own vision.

  ‘Two down, one to go. I think we can rest on a promise.’

  He saw Urquhart coming slowly toward him. Two members of a gun’s crew stood to touch his arm as he passed. He paused only to say something to Adam’s servant, Whitmarsh, who, despite orders, had been on deck throughout. He would be remembering, too. Perhaps this was also vengeance for him.

  Adam stretched out his hand. ‘I am relieved that you did not leave it too late.’

  Urquhart looked at him gravely. ‘Almost.’ His handshake was firm, thankful. ‘I’m afraid I lost Mr Lovie. I liked him. Very much.’

  Adam thought of one of his own midshipmen, who had died on that other day. It was pointless, destructive to have friends, to encourage others to form friendships which would only end in death.

  When he looked again, Success and the American were gone. There was only a great haze of smoke, like steam from a volcano, as if the ocean itself were burning in the deep, and wreckage, men and pieces of men.

  He walked to the opposite side and wondered why he had not known. To hate was not enough.

  * * *

  14

  Verdict

  * * *

  REAR-ADMIRAL THOMAS HERRICK stood squarely by the quarterdeck rail, his chin sunk in his neckcloth, and only his eyes moving while Indomitable, under reduced sail, glided slowly toward her anchorage.

  ‘So this is Halifax.’ His eyes followed the running figures of the extra hands who were answering the boatswain’s hoarse shout. Only then did he turn his head and glance at the captain on the opposite side of the deck. Tyacke was studying the landmarks, the nearest ships, anchored or otherwise, his hands behind him as if he were unconcerned.

  Herrick said, ‘A good ship’s company, Sir Richard. Better than most. Your Captain Tyacke would be hard to replace, I’m thinking.’

  Bolitho said, ‘Yes,’ sorry that they were soon to be parted, and also saddened on behalf of the man he had once known so well. He had offered Herrick the full use of the ship while she was in Halifax, and typically, Herrick had refused. He would take the accommodation he had been offered. It was as if it was painful for him simply to see and feel a ship working around him again.

  York, the sailing-master, called, ‘Ready when you are, sir!’

  Tyacke nodd
ed, without turning. ‘Wear ship, if you please!’

  ‘Man the lee braces there! Hands wear ship!’ The calls shrilled and more men scampered to add their weight to haul the yards around. ‘Tops’l sheets!’

  Two fishermen stood in their heavy dory to wave as they passed through Indomitable’s shadow.

  Bolitho saw one of the midshipmen waving back, then freeze as he found the captain’s eyes on him.

  ‘Tops’l clew lines! Roundly there – take that man’s name, Mr Craigie!’

  Bolitho had already noticed that Valkyrie was not at her usual anchorage, nor was the American ship Success. He was not surprised that the latter had been moved. The harbour, large though it was, seemed to be bursting with ships, men-of-war, merchantmen and transport vessels of every type and size.

  ‘Helm a’ lee!’

  Slowly, as though recalling her earlier life as a ship of the line, Indomitable turned into the light wind, the panorama of houses and rough hillside gliding past her jib-boom, as if the land and not the ship was moving.

  ‘Let go!’

  The great anchor dropped into the water, spray dashing as high as the beakhead and its crouching lion while the ship came obediently to rest.

  ‘I’ll have the gig take you ashore, Thomas. I can send my flag lieutenant with you until you are ready. …’

  The bright blue eyes studied him for a moment. ‘I can manage, thank you.’ Then he held out his remaining hand, his body visibly adjusting to the movement, as if still unaccustomed to the loss. ‘I can see why you have never quit the sea for some high office ashore or in the Admiralty. I would be the same, if they had allowed it.’ He spoke with the same curious lack of bitterness. ‘I’ll wager you’d find no Happy Few in that damned place!’