Cross of St George

by Alexander Kent

  Tyacke said urgently, ‘Is this wise, Sir Richard? Those Yankee sharp-shooters will be all about today!’

  Bolitho handed his plain sea-going hat to Ozzard, and after the slightest hesitation pulled the new one onto his spray-damp hair.

  ‘Go below, Ozzard. And thank you.’ He saw the little man bob gratefully, with no words to make his true feelings known. Then Bolitho said calmly, ‘It is probably madness, but that is the way of it. Sane endeavour is not for us today, James.’ He touched his eye and stared at the reflected glare. ‘But a victory it must be!’

  The rest was drowned out by the shrill of whistles and the squeak of blocks, as the great guns were cast off from their breechings and their crews prepared to load.

  He knew that some of the afterguard had seen him put on his new hat, the one he and Catherine had bought together in St James’s Street: he had forgotten to tell her of his promotion, and she had loved him for it. A few of the seamen raised a cheer, and he touched his hat to them. But Tyacke had seen the anguish on Allday’s rugged face, and knew what the gesture had cost him.

  Tyacke walked away, watching the familiar preparations without truly seeing them. Aloud he said, ‘And a victory you shall have, no matter what!’

  Bolitho walked to the taffrail where Allday was shading his eyes to peer astern.

  Like feathers on the shimmering horizon, two more ships of the squadron had appeared, their captains no doubt relieved that the dawn had brought them together again. The smaller of the two frigates would be Wildfire, of twenty-eight guns. Bolitho imagined her captain, a dark-featured man, bellowing orders to his topmen to make more sail, as much as she could carry. Morgan Price, as craggy and as Welsh as his name, had never needed a speaking trumpet, even in the middle of a gale.

  Allday said, ‘That’s more like it, Sir Richard.’

  Bolitho glanced at him. Allday had not been concerned about the other ships. Like some of the others on the quarterdeck, he had been watching the cluster of boats falling further and further astern, drifting to a canvas sea anchor, to be recovered after the action. It was a necessary precaution before fighting, to avoid the risk of additional wounds being caused by splinters. But to Allday, like all sailors, the boats represented a final chance of survival if the worst happened. Just as their presence on deck would tempt terrified men to forget both loyalty and discipline, and use them as an escape.

  Bolitho said, ‘Fetch me a glass, will you?’

  When Allday had gone to select a suitable telescope, he stared at the distant frigate. Then he covered his undamaged eye, and waited for the pale topsails to mist over or fade away altogether. They did not. The drops the surgeon had provided were doing some good, even if they had a sting like a nettle when first applied. Brightness, colour; even the sea’s face had displayed its individual crests and troughs.

  Allday was waiting with the telescope. ‘Set bravely, Sir Richard?’

  Bolitho said gently, ‘You worry too much.’

  Allday laughed, relieved, satisfied.

  ‘Over here, Mr Essex!’

  Bolitho waited for the midshipman to reach him, and said, ‘Now we shall see!’

  He rested the heavy glass on the youth’s shoulder and carefully trained it across the starboard bow. A fine clear morning had emerged from the cloud and chilling wind: winter would come early here. He felt the young midshipman’s shoulder shiver slightly. Cold; excitement; it was certainly not fear. Not yet. He was a lively, intelligent youth, and even he would be thinking of the day when he would be ready for examination and promotion. Another boy in an officer’s uniform.

  Three ships at least, the rest not yet in sight. Almost bows-on, their sails angled over as they tacked steeply across the wind. Far beyond them was a purple blur, like a fallen cloud. He pictured York’s chart, his round handwriting in the log. Grand Manan Island, the guardian at the entrance to the Bay. The American would be doubly aware of the dangers here: being on a lee shore, with shallows as an extra menace once the tide was on the turn.

  He stiffened and waited for the midshipman’s breathing to steady; or perhaps he was holding his breath, very aware of his special responsibility.

  A fourth ship, a shaft of new sunlight separating her from the others, bringing her starkly to life in the powerful lens.

  He knew Tyacke and York were watching him, weighing the odds.

  Bolitho said, ‘The fourth ship has the boats under tow. The flag lieutenant was not mistaken.’ He heard Avery laugh as Tyacke remarked, ‘That makes a fair change, sir!’

  Bolitho closed the glass with a snap and looked down at the midshipman. He had freckles, as Bethune had once had. He thought of Herrick’s assessment. The upstart.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Essex.’ He walked to the rail again. ‘Bring her up closer to the wind, James. I intend to attack the towing ship before she can slip the boats. Filled or empty, it makes no difference now. We can stop them landing, and within the hour it will be too late.’

  Tyacke beckoned to the first lieutenant. ‘Stand by to alter course.’ A questioning glance at the sailing-master. ‘What say you, Isaac?’

  York squinted his eyes to stare up at the driver and the mizzen topsail beyond it. ‘Nor’ east by east.’ He shook his head as the driver’s peak with the great White Ensign streaming from it almost abeam flapped noisily. ‘No, sir. Nor’ east is all she’ll hold, I’m thinking.’

  Bolitho listened, touched by the intimacy between these men. Tyacke’s command of small ships had left its mark, or maybe it had always been there.

  He shaded his eyes with his hand to observe the ship’s slow response, the long jib-boom moving like a pointer until the enemy ships appeared to slide slightly from bow to bow.

  ‘Steady she goes, sir! Course nor’ east!’

  Bolitho watched the sails buck and shiver, uncomfortable this close to the wind. It was the only way. Only Indomitable had the firepower to do it in one attack. Chivalrous was too small, the rest too far away. Their chances would come soon enough.

  Avery folded his arms close to his body, trying not to shiver. The air was still keen, making a lie of the strengthening sunlight that painted the broken wavelets a dirty gold.

  He saw Allday staring around, his eyes searching: a man who had seen it many times before. He was studying the open quarterdeck, the scarlet-coated marines with their officer, David Merrick. The gun crews and the helmsmen, four of the latter now, with a master’s mate close beside them. Tyacke standing apart from the rest, his hands beneath his coattails, and the admiral, who was explaining something to the midshipman, Essex. Something he would remember, if he lived.

  Avery swallowed hard, knowing what he had seen. Allday, probably more experienced than any other man aboard, was seeking out the weaknesses and the danger points. Past the tightly-packed hammock nettings and up to the maintop, where more scarlet coats showed above the barricade. Where an enemy’s fighting top might be if they were close enough. Thinking of the sharp-shooters, said to be backwoodsmen for the most part, who lived by their skills with a musket. Avery was chilled by the thought. Except that these marksmen would be armed with the new and more accurate rifles.

  Was that the source of Allday’s worry, then? Because of Bolitho’s gesture, the hat with the bright gold lace, and all that it meant, and could mean, at the moment of truth. It was said that Nelson had refused to remove his decorations before his last battle, and had ordered that they should be covered before he was carried below, his backbone shot through, his life already slipping away. Another brave, sad gesture. So that his men should not know their admiral had fallen, had left them before the fight had been decided.

  It was plain on Allday’s homely features, and when their eyes met across the spray-patterned deck, no words were needed by either man.

  ‘Deck there! The boats is bein’ warped alongside!’

  Bolitho clenched his fists, his face suddenly unable to conceal his anxiety.

  Avery knew, had guessed even from the moment Bolitho had m
entioned the primary importance of the boats. Despite the risks and the stark possibility of failure, he had been thinking of the alternative, that Indomitable would be forced to fire on boats packed with helpless men, unable to raise a finger to defend themselves. Was this part of the difference in this war? Or was it only one man’s humanity?

  Tyacke shouted, ‘Something’s wrong, sir!’

  York had a telescope. ‘The Yankee’s run aground, sir!’ He sounded astonished, as if he were over there, sharing the disaster.

  Bolitho watched the sunlight catch the reflected glare from falling sails and a complete section of the vessel’s mainmast. In the silence and intimacy of the strong lens, he almost imagined he could hear it. A big frigate, gun for gun a match for Indomitable, but helpless against the sea and this relentless destruction above and below. The boats were already filled or half-filled with blue uniforms, their weapons and equipment in total disarray as the truth became known to them.

  Bolitho said, ‘Prepare to engage to starboard, Captain Tyacke.’ He barely recognized his own voice. Flat, hard, and unemotional. Somebody else.

  Daubeny shouted, ‘Starboard battery! Run out!’

  The long twenty-four pounders rumbled up to and through their ports, their captains making hand signals only to avoid confusion. Like a drill, one of so many. A handspike here, or men straining on tackles to train a muzzle a few more inches.

  The other ship had slewed around slightly, wreckage trailing alongside as the tide continued to drop, to beach her like a wounded whale.

  The wheel went over again, while York turned to watch the land, the set of the current, feeling if not seeing the danger to this ship.

  ‘Course nor’ by east, sir!’

  Bolitho said, ‘One chance, Captain Tyacke. Two broadsides, three if you can manage it.’ Their eyes met. Time and distance.

  Midshipman Essex jerked round as if he had been hit, and then shouted, ‘Our ships are here, sir!’ He waved his hat as distant gunfire rolled across the sea like muffled thunder. Then he realized that he had just shouted at his admiral, and dropped his eyes and flushed.

  ‘On the uproll!’

  Bolitho looked along the starboard side, the gun captains with their taut trigger-lines, the emergency slow-matches streaming to the wind like incense in a temple.

  Daubeny by the mainmast, his sword across one shoulder, Philip Protheroe, the fourth lieutenant, up forward with the first division of guns. And here on the quarterdeck, the newest lieutenant, Blythe, staring at each crouching seaman as if he was expecting a mutiny. The stranded ship was drawing slowly abeam, the floundering boats suddenly stilled as the reluctant sunlight threw Indomitable’s sails across the water in patches of living shadow.

  Daubeny raised his sword. ‘As you bear!’

  Lieutenant Protheroe glanced aft and then yelled, ‘Fire!’

  Division by division, the guns roared out across the water, each twenty-four pounder hurling itself inboard to be seized and manhandled like a wild beast.

  Bolitho thought he saw the shockwave of the broadside rip across the water, carving a passage like some scythe from hell. Even as the first double-shotted charges and their extra packing of grape smashed into the boats and exploded into the helpless ship, Protheroe’s men were already sponging out their guns, probing for burning remnants with their worms before ramming home fresh charges and balls.

  The quarterdeck guns were the last to fire, and Blythe’s voice almost broke in a scream as he yelled. ‘A guinea for the first gun, I say! A guinea!’

  Bolitho watched it all with a strange numbness. Even his heart seemed to have stopped. Tyacke had trained them well; three rounds every two minutes. There would be time for the third broadside before they came about, to avoid running aground like the stricken American.

  Tyacke was also watching, remembering. Point! Ready! Fire! The drill, always the drill. Slaves to the guns which were now repaying his hard work.

  A whistle shrilled. ‘Ready, sir!’

  ‘Fire!’

  Boats and fragments of boats, uniformed soldiers thrashing in the water, their screams engulfed as their weapons and packs carried them down into bitter cold. Others who had been able to reach the ship’s side were dragging themselves back to a security they could recognize, only to be torn down by the next controlled broadside. The American was burned and scarred by the weight of iron, but mostly it was the blood that was remarkable. On the hull, and down the side, where even the water shone pink in the sunlight.

  In a brief lull, Bolitho heard Allday say, ‘If they’d been first, sir, they’d have given no quarter to us.’ He was speaking to Avery, but any reply was lost in the next roar of cannon fire.

  Outside this pitiless arena of death, another struggle was taking place. Ship to ship, or two to one, if the odds were overwhelming. No line of battle, only ship to ship. Man to man.

  York said hoarsely, ‘White flag, sir! They’re finished!’

  True or not, they would never know, for at that moment the third and last broadside smashed into the other ship, shattering forever the scattered remnants of a plan that might have been successful.

  As men staggered from Indomitable’s guns and ran to the braces and halliards in response to shouted commands to bring the ship about and into the wind, Bolitho took a final glance at the enemy. But even the white flag had vanished into the smoke.

  Daubeny sheathed his sword, his eyes red-rimmed and bright.

  ‘Chivalrous has signalled, sir. The enemy has broken off the action.’ He looked at his hand, as if to see if it were shaking. ‘They did what they came to do.’

  Tyacke tore his eyes from the flapping sails as his ship turned sedately across the wind, the masthead pendant rivalling Bolitho’s Cross of St George as they streamed across the opposite side.

  He said harshly, ‘And so, Mr Daubeny, did we!’

  Bolitho handed the telescope to Essex. ‘Thank you.’ Then to Tyacke, ‘General signal, if you please. Discontinue the action. Report losses and damage.’ He looked across at the tall signals midshipman. ‘And, Mr Carleton, mark this well and spell it out in full. Yours is the gift of courage.’

  Avery hurried across to assist the signals party, but once with them he paused, afraid to miss anything, his head still reeling from the roar of the guns and the immediate silence which had followed.

  Bolitho was saying to Tyacke, ‘Taciturn will take command and lead our ships to Halifax. I fear we have lost some good men today.’

  He heard Tyacke reply quietly, ‘We could have lost far more, Sir Richard.’ He tried to lighten his tone. ‘At least that damned renegade in his Retribution failed to appear.’

  Bolitho said nothing. He was staring across the quarter to the distant smoke, like a stain on a painting.

  Avery turned away. The gift of courage. Our Nel would have appreciated that. He took the slate and pencil from Carleton’s unsteady hands.

  ‘Let me.’

  Tyacke said, ‘May I change tack and recover the boats, Sir Richard?’

  ‘Not yet, James.’ His eyes were bleak. Cold, as that dawn sky had been. He gazed up at the signal for Close Action. ‘We are not yet done, I fear.’

  * * *

  17

  The Greatest Reward

  * * *

  CAPTAIN ADAM BOLITHO removed his boatcloak and handed it to an army orderly, who was careful to shake it before carrying it away. It had begun to rain with the abruptness of a squall at sea, and the drops were hard and cold, almost ice.

  Adam crossed to a window and wiped away the dampness with his hand. Halifax harbour was full of shipping, but he had scarcely glanced at the anchored vessels while he had been pulled ashore in the gig. He could not become accustomed to it, accept that he had to go to the land in order to see his admiral.

  Keen had sent word that he needed to speak with him as soon as possible, when, under normal circumstances, they could have met aft in Valkyrie’s great cabin.

  He thought of John Urquhart, now act
ing-captain of the ill-fated Reaper. Perhaps Keen’s summons had come at the right moment. Urquhart had been with him in the cabin, about to take his leave to assume command of Reaper, and their farewell and the significance of the moment had moved Adam more than he had believed possible. He knew that he had been seeing himself, although he had been much younger when he had been offered his first ship. But the feelings, gratitude, elation, nervousness, regret, were the same. Urquhart had said, ‘I’ll not forget what you have done for me, sir. I shall endeavour to make use of my experience to the best of my ability.’

  Adam had answered, ‘Remember one thing, John. You are the captain, and they will know it. When you go across to her presently to read yourself in, think of the ship, your ship, not what she has been or might have become, but what she can be for you. All your officers are new, but most of the warrant ranks are from the original company. They are bound to make comparisons, as is the way with old Jacks.’

  Urquhart had looked up at the deckhead, had heard the tramp of boots as the marines took up their positions to see him over the side. It had all been in his face. Wanting to go, to begin: needing to stay where all things were familiar.

  Adam had said quietly, ‘Don’t concern yourself now with Valkyrie, John. It will be up to Lieutenant Dyer to fill your shoes. It is his chance, too.’ He had gone to the table and opened a drawer. ‘Take these.’ He had seen the surprise and uncertainty on Urquhart’s face, and added abruptly, ‘A bit weathered and salt-stained, I fear, but until you find a tailor. …’

  Urquhart had held the epaulettes to the light, all else forgotten. Adam had said, ‘My first. I hope they bring you luck.’

  They had gone on deck. Handshakes, quick grins, a few cheers from some of the watching seamen. The twitter of calls, and it was done. Moments later they might hear the calls from Reaper across the harbour.

  Just before they had parted Urquhart had said, ‘I hope we meet again soon, sir.’