Keen said, “Not a Frenchie.”
Someone else suggested, “Dutch maybe.”
They were all wrong. Bolitho had seen ships very similar to this one and could be pretty certain which yard had laid down her keel.
He said, “Spanish. I’ve crossed swords with her like before.”
Nobody spoke and Bolitho hid a smile. Right or wrong, you never argued with an admiral, no matter how junior.
Keen nodded. “I agree with the flag-lieutenant, sir. She’s too large for a frigate. She’s well armed by the look of her, fifty guns at least, by my reckoning.”
“Signal her to shorten sail.”
Bolitho sensed the sudden indifference of the men near him. The game was over before it had begun.
Flags soared up the yards and broke into the wind. Above the other ship’s deck nothing appeared, not even an acknowledgement.
“She’s falling off a mite, sir.”
Bolitho trained his glass again. He thought he saw the sun glint on a telescope near one of her poop lanterns. Achates’ change of station during the night must have surprised them if nothing else.
Keen called, “Follow her round. Alter course to west by south.” He glanced at Bolitho’s impassive features.
Bolitho said, “Keep the signal hoisted.”
Both vessels were in line now, as if the other one was towing Achates on an invisible cable.
Keen strode this way and that as he tried to estimate the stranger’s next move. If he fell off to leeward Achates would hold the advantage. If she tried to claw upwind with so close a chase she would lose ground and precious time and Achates could drive alongside if so ordered.
The lieutenant of the after-guard lowered his glass.
“She does not acknowledge, sir. Even the Dons should know our signals by now!”
Quantock shouted, “Take those men’s names, Master-at-Arms!” He gestured angrily with his speaking-trumpet towards an eighteen-pounder’s crew who had left their positions to peer at the other ship. “God damn it, what are they thinking of!”
Keen was saying, “If the wind holds I’ll get the stuns’ls on her . . .”
Bolitho wiped his eye and raised the glass yet again. Achates was keeping pace with the other ship, even though the stranger had set her royals in an effort to draw away. But the wind might drop or go altogether. If they could not catch up before nightfall they might never know what she was doing.
It was very strange. He concentrated on the small, silent world within the telescope’s lens. She was well painted, as if freshly out of a dockyard like Achates. But the broad red band across her counter had no name upon it. She had either put to sea with great haste or wished her identity to remain a secret.
He heard Achates’ wheel begin to creak as the other ship’s rudder moved further to leeward.
He blinked and peered through the glass again. For an instant he thought the light or his eye was playing tricks. On either side of the ship’s rudder a gunport had opened, and even as he watched he saw the daylight play across a pair of long stern-chasers.
Quantock exploded, “Hell’s teeth, he’d never dare fire on a King’s ship!”
The air cringed from a double crash of cannon fire, and as the smoke rolled downwind in a thick cloud Bolitho felt iron smash hard into Achates’ bows like a giant’s fist.
Voices yelled to restore the sudden pandemonium, and faces peered aft to the quarterdeck as if each man was too astonished to move.
Bolitho snapped, “Load and run out, Captain Keen.”
It was sheer stupidity for the other captain to try and mark down a sixty-four. In a moment Keen would stand away and loose off a full broadside. Men would be killed, and for what purpose?
Along Achates’ side the port lids opened as one, and to the blast of a whistle the eighteen-pounders rolled squeaking down the tilting deck until they showed their muzzles to the sea and sky. On the deck below the main armament of twenty-four-pounders would be just a few feet above the water as it curled along the rounded hull. Achates was carrying such a pyramid of sails it was a wonder the sea was not already lapping through the lower ports.
“Bow-chasers!”
Keen had his hands clasped behind his back, and Bolitho could see the force of his grip betrayed by the pale knuckles. What did he see? An unexpected prize, or his own ruin?
Bolitho could hear Allday’s heavy breathing behind his shoulder and sensed Adam on his other side. Extensions of himself. Each needing the other in a different way.
The other ship fired again, and Bolitho tried not to flinch as a ball ripped through the main course and the wind tore it into a great flapping slash.
Achates’ gunner had been caught napping. The bow-chasers would probably not even bear on the enemy, Bolitho thought.
Every gun captain along the upper deck had his hand in the air.
Keen said tersely, “Be ready to come about, Mr Knocker! We’ll cross his stern and rake him. That’ll give him something to ponder on.”
He sounded angry. Hurt that this should happen.
“Lee braces there! Stand by on the quarterdeck!” Quantock’s magnified voice seemed to be everywhere.
At that moment the other ship fired again. Bolitho thought he saw the blur of falling shot before one heavy ball crashed through the forward gangway and the other hissed above the forecastle at extreme elevation.
A last desperate attempt to break off the chase, and it worked.
There was a single, terrible crack, and seconds later the whole of the fore-topgallant mast, the spars and wildly thrashing canvas plunged down to the deck. With torn canvas and rigging trailing after it like serpents, the broken mast thundered across the lee gangway and into the water with a tremendous splash.
Bolitho heard one of the midshipmen stifle a cry of terror as some seamen were plucked bodily over the side with the broken rigging, their voices lost in the din.
Like a great sea-anchor the trailing spars and cordage were already having effect as they pulled the ship’s head round, further and further, until all the sails, so carefully set for the chase, were in wild confusion.
Rooke, the boatswain, was already among the chaos with his men, axes flashing as they hacked the debris clear.
The gun crews were working feverishly with tackles and hand-spikes, but as the ship was dragged still further downwind their muzzles pointed blindly at the sea, their target already standing well away.
Bolitho tried to relax his limbs but his whole body felt like a taut lashing which was about to snap.
In the blink of an eye, Achates had been rendered helpless.
Had this been a fight in earnest, their attacker would already be tacking about to rake them from stem to stern.
High above the deck the topmen yelled to one another as they tried to shorten sail before the ship was completely dismasted.
Keen exclaimed despairingly, “I’ll never forget this. Never!” He looked at Bolitho as if for an answer. “They fired on us without cause.”
Bolitho saw order being restored, the motion becoming easier as Achates responded to the helm, her shorn topgallant mast poking above the confusion like a broken tusk.
He said, “They had a cause right enough, and I intend to discover what it was. When that happens we shall be ready.”
Keen saw some of his lieutenants hurrying aft for orders. The older hands would be comparing him with the previous captain. Whatever they thought, it was not a good beginning.
Bolitho said, “Stand down the people and get the ship under way.”
It was all he could do to keep his voice level. They had been hit, and men had been lost, unless the quarter-boat had found any survivors among the flotsam astern.
But for some instinct, a sense of warning, he might never have ordered Keen to close with the stranger.
It was pointless to pursue the chase, the other ship was already drawing away under every sail she could carry.
He felt sorry for Keen. After all his work to obey hi
s admiral’s wishes, his success at surprising the other captain, when the trap had been sprung the enemy had been ready, Keen had not.
Tuson, the ship’s surgeon, his white hair ruffling in the wind, was gesturing towards the piles of tangled rigging. Some other men must have been caught there too.
Keen listened to his lieutenants, his face pale and grim.
It was a lesson he would not forget, Bolitho thought. He saw Adam watching him anxiously. Thinking perhaps of his father. When he had flown false colours and fired on Bolitho’s ship.
Bolitho walked to the poop and ducked his head as he strode into the shadows between decks.
I too had forgotten the lesson. It could have been the last dawn after all.
4 A PLACE TO MEET
“NOR’-WEST by north, sir. Steady as she goes!” Even the helmsman sounded hushed as under topsails and jib Achates glided very slowly towards her anchorage.
It was noon, with the sun high overhead and burning the bare-shouldered seamen who waited at the braces or were spread out on the topsail yards for the last cable or so of their journey.
Bolitho stood apart from Keen and his officers as he watched the shoreline spread and strengthen through a shimmering haze.
They had passed abeam of Cape Cod at dawn, but with the wind dropping to a mere breath of a breeze it had taken them this long to close with the land.
Bolitho raised a glass to his eye and studied the foreshore, the mass of masts and furled sails, the living evidence of a port’s prosperity. Ships and flags of every nation, with lighters alongside and harbour craft plying back and forth to the jetties like water-beetles.
There were several men-of-war, he noticed. Two American frigates, and three Frenchmen, one a big third-rate with a rear-admiral’s flag flapping listlessly at the mizzen.
Bolitho shifted his glass to the spit of land which was reaching out slowly towards the larboard bow. There was a tell-tale line of grey fortifications with a flag high overhead.
He examined his feelings, aware of the sudden dryness in his throat. It was about nineteen years since he had sailed along and landed on these shores. Another war, and different ships. He wondered how it might have changed, how he would react.
He heard Keen say sharply, “Begin the salute, Mr Braxton!”
The crash of the first gun echoed and re-echoed across Massachusetts Bay like a thunder-clap while the smoke billowed over the quiet water as if unable to rise. Gulls and other sea-birds rose screaming from their perches and from the sea itself, as gun by gun the ship and the shore battery exchanged salutes.
Bolitho thought of the days which had followed their mauling by the unknown ship. The anger and humiliation had given way to a feverish determination to “put the score right,” as Allday had described it. There had been more damage to rigging than to the hull, and everyone from Keen to the ship’s boys had seemed unflagging in their efforts to complete the repairs before the ship anchored at Boston.
A new topgallant mast had been set up, fresh rigging and sails hauled aloft even in the teeth of a strong north-easterly wind. Paint, tar and sweat had achieved wonders.
The mood had been infectious, and Bolitho had even ordered the four wooden Quakers to be removed from his quarters and replaced by the eighteen-pounders. It might mean less room, but it marked a new determination that he would never lower his guard again.
He saw an American guard-boat riding above her own reflection, the oars motionless as she waited to guide the British man-of-war to the allotted place.
Bolitho shaded his eyes to watch the shore. White houses, several churches, the glitter of sunlight on carriages and windows along the waterfront. Perhaps there were many there who were watching the slow-moving ship and remembering the bitter times of revolution and war, brother against brother, hate against hate.
“Ready, sir!”
Keen replied, “Hands wear ship!”
Quantock responded like a pistol-spring. “Lee braces there! Wear ship!”
Bolitho glanced at the maintopsail. It had barely enough air to move its belly. Another minute or so and they would have lost the wind altogether.
“Tops’l sheets!” Quantock was leaning over the quarterdeck rail, his speaking-trumpet weaving from side to side as he watched his men high above. “Tops’l clew-lines!”
Keen said, “Helm a’lee.”
Achates turned gently into the dying breeze, the white ripple beneath her stem almost gone as the way went off her.
“Let go!”
Keen crossed to the opposite end of the deck before the great anchor had hit the sea-bed.
“Awnings and winds’ls, Mr Quantock. Lively now. There are a thousand glasses on us today.”
Bolitho bit his lip. Keen was on edge. He more than anyone aboard was still brooding over the short encounter with the mystery ship.
Two men had died that day. One drowned, the other crushed under an avalanche of broken rigging and canvas. But it went deeper than that with Keen. A sailor’s life was full of hazards. More men died of falls from rigging and yards, or were permanently injured in their fight against sea and wind, than under an enemy’s broadside.
Keen felt it badly. In spite of his experience and undoubted skill in battle, he felt himself to be lacking in judgement. Or perhaps it was because he was Bolitho’s flag-captain which made it seem so much worse.
Bolitho had been a flag-captain more than once himself and could guess what Keen must be enduring. Once he had been grateful when his admiral had left him alone to consider his mistakes and to put them to rights. He would certainly allow Keen the same opportunity.
Achates swung easily to her cable, while on deck and gang-ways the hands worked like demons to sway out the boats and spread awnings in an attempt to hold the glare at bay.
Bolitho saw Knocker, the master, dismiss the helmsmen and rub his long chin as he examined some calculations on the midshipman-of-the-watch’s slate by the compass.
He should feel pleased with himself, Bolitho thought. In spite of everything Achates had sailed from Hampshire to Massachusetts Bay in the record time of sixteen days. For a two-decker, repairing her wounds under way, that was no small achievement. He thought of voicing his congratulations to the unsmiling sailing-master but when he looked again he had vanished into the chartroom.
Bolitho walked to the nettings and watched the boats which were already pulling slowly around the new arrival. Tanned faces, bright gowns, curious stares. Boston had seen every kind of vessel drop anchor, but not many King’s ships since “the troubles.”
He heard a step on deck and saw his nephew with a great wad of papers under one arm.
“I see you are taking your duties seriously, Adam.”
The black-haired lieutenant smiled. “Aye, sir. I would never wish to rise higher than my present station if this is the reward!”
Bolitho matched his mood. They had still barely mentioned the one gesture which had drawn them even closer together. But it was there. Like a bond, something unbreakable.
In the evenings, as the ship had continued on her passage to Boston, Adam had made a point of visiting him in his quarters when Bolitho had known that the conviviality of the wardroom would have been far more in keeping for any young officer. But as day followed day Bolitho had thought of Belinda, had wondered how she was faring as her time approached. Adam had sensed his anxiety and had wanted to share it or, better still, dispel it altogether.
Bolitho knew that had he been in Keen’s position the work and demands of the ship would have kept him from his private worries, but alone for long periods of time, or with only Allday or his clerk to talk to, he had too much leisure to brood on his concern for Belinda.
Now, with the ship at anchor, her work done for the present, it was at last his turn to act, to repay the confidence Sheaffe had allowed him.
Lieutenant Mountsteven, who was the officer-of-the-watch, touched his hat and said, “Boat approaching, sir.”
Keen nodded and looked at Bolitho.
“Visitors, sir.”
Bolitho knew it was his polite way of asking him to leave.
“I’ll be in my cabin if you require me.”
Bolitho turned aft and heard the marines hurrying to the entry port, the bark of commands as Achates prepared to receive a greeting from the land.
Ozzard was tidying up the great cabin, although it always appeared perfect to Bolitho. He glanced at the tethered shape of one of the eighteen-pounders and was glad he had ordered its replacement. It would act as a reminder. The task he had been given was not going to be easy. He tried to stifle the bitterness. If it was a routine task, a more important officer would have been sent in his place. But if anything went wrong, they would, as always, require a scapegoat in the halls of admiralty.
He heard the calls trilling at the entry port and pictured the visitors being received with customary formality.
He walked to the open stern windows and saw a boat idling beneath Achates’ great shadow, the passengers pointing and peering at the ship’s gilded stern and counter.
It was unnerving to realize his brother had once sailed from here, had walked the streets among people like these. He had known nothing of Adam’s existence then. Now Adam was here in his place. He felt a twinge of uneasiness. Perhaps he had been wrong after all to bring him, career or not.
The door opened and Adam stood watching him, a heavily sealed envelope in his hand.
He said, “We are invited to a reception this evening, Uncle.” He held out the envelope. “I have just been told that the President of the United States has sent one of his own senior advisers to meet you.”
Bolitho smiled wryly. “In that case the whole world will know what we are about, Adam. If they were expecting us it was hardly surprising we suffered that encounter just eight days out from England.”
Adam nodded. “We seemed to have caused quite a stir.” His face broke into a grin. “Perhaps they want to pay their taxes to King George after all!”
Bolitho shook his head. “If you talk like that ashore, Adam, we are far more likely to start another war!”
Later, as he lay back in a chair and Allday shaved him with extra care, he tried to measure the extent of his responsibility.
Success to the Brave Page 5