Success to the Brave

by Alexander Kent

  Keen shook his head. “Will you trust him again?”

  “I hope to.”

  Bolitho looked at the glittering water, the small vessels pinned down on their reflections by the glare.

  “Rivers is a rogue. He became rich by offering favours to the scum of the Caribbean. Slavers, soldiers of fortune, pirates, all have paid him his dues. He has property in the South Americas, but needed his power as governor to take full advantage of the profits. I found some evidence in the fortress, but that is but the tip of an iceberg. I loathe him for his greed, but I need him if only to give some credibility to our being here.”

  Keen listened to the renewed thud of hammers and the squeak of tackles as more cordage was hoisted aloft. He had had his own doubts from the beginning about sending a small two-decker to perform the work of a squadron. What was the matter with England? Instead of showing pride for past victories she seemed to cringe for fear of upsetting old enemies.

  Keen would have hanged Rivers and anyone else who had shared in the deaths of his sailors and marines. The consequences could wait.

  Bolitho had risen to his feet and was shading his eyes to watch the distant fortress. When he spoke he sounded untrou-bled, although his words held the impact of iron shot.

  “You see, Val, I believe the United States are more concerned with improving their relations with the South Americas, the Spaniards and Portuguese. So Rivers’ appeal for their protection rather than French reoccupation must have received a warm reception. I also believe that Samuel Fane, and certainly Jonathan Chase, have no illusions about the French, should there be another war in Europe.”

  Keen stared at him, his tiredness forgotten. “You mean that the United States’ government connived with the Dons!”

  “Not directly. But when you put your hand in a fox’s hole you must expect to be bitten. The Spanish government could not afford to become openly involved so they employed a powerful privateer for the purpose. With Sparrowhawk destroyed and local shipping too frightened to move, there was only Achates to prevent the seizure of San Felipe. Chase must have known about Tyrrell’s past connections with me, just as he was well aware of his desperate need of a ship. The rest we can guess, but nobody had allowed for Tyrrell’s old loyalty.”

  Keen looked astounded. “If you say so, sir. It is precious flimsy evidence to support your reputation at any future enquiry.”

  “I agree. So we shall have to manufacture some.” Bolitho looked at him calmly. “I’ll see Tyrrell now. Please ask my flag-lieutenant to join me.”

  Later, as Tyrrell limped into the cabin and lanterns were being lit for an early dusk, Bolitho faced his old lieutenant with a sense of sadness as well as determination.

  Tyrrell took a proffered chair and laced his powerful fingers together.

  “Well, Jethro.”

  Tyrrell smiled. “Well, Dick.”

  Bolitho sat on the edge of the table and regarded him gravely.

  “As these are British waters for the present I am using my authority to commandeer your vessel and place her under our colours.”

  He saw a momentary start but nothing more. Tyrrell was too tough to be budged by one shock.

  “Also, I am placing her under the temporary command of my nephew, who in his capacity of flag-lieutenant will carry a despatch with him to Boston.”

  Tyrrell stirred and showed a first hint of uneasiness.

  He exclaimed harshly, “An’ me? You intend to string me on the main-yard, eh?”

  Bolitho pushed a letter across the table. “Here is my authority to purchase the Vivid once you have returned to San Felipe. You see I kept my word. She’ll be yours.”

  He was barely able to watch Tyrrell’s anguish, but continued, “I have spoken with Sir Humphrey Rivers. To spare his own shame, and possibly his life, he will give me all the information I need about that Spaniard. If he changes his mind he has a choice of charges. Treason or murder. He will hang for either.”

  Tyrrell stared at him then rubbed his chin. “Chase will never agree to part with the Vivid.”

  “I think he will.”

  Bolitho looked away. It was all Tyrrell could think of. A ship of his own. A last chance.

  Tyrrell stood up and looked around like a man already lost.

  “I’ll be on my way then.”

  “Yes.” Bolitho sat and leafed through some papers. “I doubt we shall meet again.”

  Tyrrell turned almost blindly and started for the door. But Bolitho got to his feet, unable to play it out to the end.

  “Jethro!” He walked round the table and held out his hand. “You saved my life once.”

  Tyrrell looked at him searchingly. “An’ you mine, more’n that.”

  “I just want to wish you good luck, and I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for.”

  Tyrrell returned the grasp and said gruffly, “There’s none like you, Dick, nor never will be.” There was emotion in his voice now. “I lived all those years again when I met your nephew. I knew then I couldn’t go through with it, though God knows this island is not worth the dyin’ for. But I know you, Dick, and I know your values. You’ll not change.”

  He gave a wide grin and for a brief moment he was the same man. The one in the little sloop-of-war in these very waters.

  Then he limped away, and Bolitho heard the midshipman-of-the-watch calling for a boat alongside.

  Bolitho leaned against the bulkhead and looked at his hands. They felt as if they were trembling.

  Allday emerged from the adjoining cabin as if he had been lurking there to protect him from attack.

  “That was hard, Allday.” He tried to hear the dragging thump of Tyrrell’s stump leg. “I fear it may be harder on young Adam.”

  Allday did not understand what he was talking about. The man called Tyrrell had been an old friend of Bolitho’s, so everyone said. But to Allday he had seemed like a threat, and for that reason he was glad to be rid of him.

  Bolitho said, “I feel different, knowing that I have a daughter.”

  Allday relaxed. The mood was past.

  “One thing’s for certain, sir. She’ll be a welcome change. Two Bolithos on the high seas are enough for anyone, an’ that’s no error.”

  For a brief moment he thought he had gone too far, but Bolitho looked at him and smiled.

  “Well, then, let’s broach a bottle and drink the young lady’s health, eh?”

  On the poop Adam heard Allday’s laugh through a skylight and gripped the netting with sudden excitement. Across the darkening water he could see the Vivid’s riding light, the faint glitter of a lantern from her tiny cabin.

  Soon, far sooner than he had dared to hope, he would see and hold Robina in his arms. He could feel her kiss as if it had just been placed on his mouth, smell her perfume as if it was here on deck.

  He was glad that Bolitho had seen fit to trust his old friend. It would be interesting to listen to his stories again once they had set sail from San Felipe.

  The first lieutenant was doing his evening rounds of the upper deck and saw Adam’s silhouette against the sky.

  Quantock clenched his fists. It was unfair. He should have been given charge of the Vivid, no matter how brief it was to be. Damn them all to hell. If Achates returned to England in her present state she would likely be paid off like most of the fleet. Quantock knew he would be thrown on the beach to join the ranks of unwanted lieutenants without any chance of employment.

  He swore at the evening sky. Damn peace! In war there was risk, but at the same time there was always a chance of promotion and honour.

  The Bolithos and those like them had always had it. He peered around the deserted deck. My turn will come.

  Achates swung quietly to her cable and, like the men who lay on the orlop within the surgeon’s call, nursed her own wounds of battle.

  In her crowded mess between the great guns below deck the seamen and marines sat by their glimmering lights and yarned with each other, or consumed their carefully hoarde
d rum. Some with tarred hands surprisingly gentle carved small and intricate models or scrimshaw work. One seaman who had the gift of being able to write sat beneath a lantern while one of his mess-mates stumbled through a letter for his wife in England. In the Royal Marines’ quarters, or the barracks as they were known, the men worked on their kit, or thought of that last battle, and the next which, although nobody mentioned it, they knew was inevitable.

  Down on the orlop where the air was thick as fog, James Tuson, the surgeon, wiped his hands and watched as one of the badly wounded had his face covered and was carried away by the loblolly boys. He had died just a minute or so ago. With both feet amputated it was better so, Tuson thought.

  He looked along his small, pain-wracked command. Why? What was it all for?

  These sailors did not fight for flag or King as so many lands-men fondly believed. The surgeon had been at sea for twenty years and knew this better than most. They fought for each other, the ship, and sometimes for their leader. He thought of Bolitho standing on deck, his stricken expression as these same men had cheered him for taking them into hell. Oh yes, they would fight for him.

  As he ducked beneath the massive deck beams he felt a hand touch his leg.

  Tuson stooped down. “What is it, Cummings?”

  A surgeon’s mate raised a lantern so that he could see the wounded man better. He had been hit in the chest by an iron splinter. It was a marvel he had survived.

  The man called Cummings whispered, “Thankee for takin’ care of me, sir.” Then he fainted.

  Tuson had seen too many men crippled and killed to feel much emotion, but this sailor’s simple gesture broke through his guard like a fist.

  When he was working he was too busy to care for the crash and rumble of guns on the decks above. The procession of wounded men always seemed as if it would never end. He rarely even looked up at his sweating assistants with their wild eyes and bloodied aprons. No wonder they call us butchers. A leg off here, an arm there, the naked bodies held on the table while he worked with blade and saw, his ears deaf to their screams.

  But afterwards, at moments like these, he felt differently. Ashamed for the little he could do for them. Ashamed too for their gratitude.

  The surgeon’s mate lowered the lantern and waited patiently.

  Tuson continued along the deck and tried to shut from his mind the tempting picture of a brandy bottle. If he gave in now, he would be finished. It was what had driven him to sea in the first place.

  Somewhere in the gloom a man cried out sharply.

  Tuson snapped, “Who was that?”

  “Larsen, sir, the big Swede.”

  Tuson nodded. He had taken off the man’s arm. It sounded as if it had grown worse, maybe even gangrene. In which case . . .

  He said briskly. “Have him brought to the table.”

  Tuson was calm again. In charge. He watched the figure being carried to the sick-bay. A Swede. But in a King’s ship nationality did not count.

  “Now then, Larsen . . .”

  Bolitho was with Keen on deck when the brigantine Vivid slipped her mooring and tacked slowly towards the harbour entrance.

  He raised a telescope and scanned the little vessel from bow to stern and saw Adam standing beside Tyrrell’s powerful figure near the tiller, his uniform making a smart contrast with the men around him.

  Whatever he found in Boston might hurt him, but would not break his heart. Bolitho knew he must not interfere, must face the risk of turning Adam against him when he would have offered anything to prevent it.

  Keen was reading his thoughts. “He may not even see the lass, sir.”

  Bolitho lowered the glass and allowed the brigantine to become a small model again.

  “He will. I know exactly how he feels. Exactly.”

  The headland slid out to shield Vivid from view. Only her topsail and driver showed above the land, and then as she changed tack again they too were gone.

  Keen respected Bolitho in everything, but he could not understand why he had bothered to pay good money to give Tyrrell the Vivid. He should have felt lucky to be spared the hangman’s halter. Then he looked at Bolitho’s profile and saw the sadness there. Whatever there had once been between him and Tyrrell would not be shared with anyone, he thought.

  Bolitho turned his back to the sea.

  “Now we must prepare the defences of this island, Val.” He pounded his fist into his other hand. “If only I had some more ships I’d stand out to sea and meet them gun to gun.”

  Keen said nothing. Bolitho was certain of an attack. The Peace of Amiens meant nothing out here, especially to the Spaniards. He looked at the glistening horizon and wondered. But for Tyrrell’s change of heart they might be out there now, and San Felipe under another flag. Rivers had played a dangerous game by setting one against the other, but it seemed to Keen that only Achates would pay for the consequences.

  Bolitho clapped him on the arm. “Why so grim, Val? Never turn your face away from what is inevitable.”

  He seemed in such high spirits Keen was shaken from his apprehension immediately.

  He said, “Where would you like to begin, sir?”

  It was infectious. Keen had watched it happen before so many times. When he himself had been nearly killed in battle, that too had been described as a time of peace.

  “We will obtain some horses and ride around the island. Check each vantage point against Mr Knocker’s chart and any local map we can discover.” Bolitho pointed at the haze around the old volcano. “The island is like a great juicy bone, Val. And now the hounds of war are taking up their positions around us.”

  He had seen the anxiety on Keen’s face, and if he was dismayed at the prospect of fighting an undeclared war over San Felipe, so too would be most of his ship’s company.

  Bolitho did not really need to ride round the island, he could picture its strength and its weakness as he had gauged it on the charts. But he needed Keen and the others to know he was determined to stand firm. To hold the island until he was certain in his mind of the right course to take.

  The wound in his thigh throbbed and itched in the humid air and he wanted to rub it.

  Why was he troubled by the prospect of a siege or an open attack? Was it because of Belinda, or was it the chance of action which drove him on?

  He thought suddenly of Sir Hayward Sheaffe’s quiet room at the Admiralty. It seemed like another world now, with the fortress and the spent volcano shimmering across the placid water. But Sheaffe’s words were quite clear, as if he had just uttered them. “Their lordships require a man of tact as well as action for this task.”

  Bolitho thought of Midshipman Evans’ expression when the nameless two-decker had burst into flames. Of the shocked surprise on the dead marine drummer’s face. He thought too of Duncan and others he had not even known.

  The man of tact would have to step down for a while.

  13 A HOLY DAY

  ADAM BOLITHO stood by a window in Jonathan Chase’s study and stared at the unending ranks of white horses across Massachusetts Bay. Just an hour ago he had been brought ashore in Vivid’s boat and had been met by Chase’s astonished agent. In fact, Vivid’s return to Boston under British colours had caused quite a stir along the waterfront.

  It was like part of a dream. Chase had made him welcome at his house, but had seemed restrained, cautious even, as Adam had given him the big sealed envelope from his uncle.

  He shivered, conscious of the New England weather, the restless change in the September Atlantic. He thought of San Felipe and felt strangely guilty. The worst part was that it did not seem real, any of it. He was here, and Chase had mentioned before he had left in some haste to read Bolitho’s letter that Robina and her mother were also in Boston and might be expected shortly.

  Adam turned and looked at the fine room with its paintings and nautical relics. The right place for a man like Chase, he thought, an ex-sailor, ex-enemy too, who now had his roots here.

  He thought of the
ten days’ passage from San Felipe to Boston. How different from that other occasion when he had yarned away the hours with Jethro Tyrrell. This time, despite the cramped conditions of the brigantine, he had barely spoken to Tyrrell, and then only on vague matters of navigation and weather.

  And why had his uncle made the offer to purchase Vivid for him, and why should Chase be prepared to sell? None of it made much sense, but then none of it seemed to matter now that he was back again here with the prospect of meeting Robina again.

  “I am sorry for keeping you waiting.”

  Chase was a powerfully built man and yet he had reentered the study as noiselessly as a cat.

  He seated himself in a chair and said, “I have read your uncle’s letter and have ordered that the other one which he enclosed be carried immediately to Sam Fane at the capital.” He regarded the lieutenant thoughtfully. “Strange he should send you.”

  Adam shrugged. He had not really considered it before.

  “I was available, sir. Captain Keen needs all his own officers aboard the flagship.”

  “Hmmm. Your uncle once told me he hates politics, but he seems to understand them well enough.” He did not explain but continued, “As you will have observed when you entered Boston Harbour, the French men-of-war have gone. News travels on the wind. The French admiral will have no wish to insist on receiving San Felipe from the British until the position is made clear.”

  “But the French and Spanish governments have been allies more often than not, sir.”

  Chase smiled for the first time. “The French would need Spain as an ally if there was another war. If there is to be any conflict over San Felipe the French intend it shall not be of their making. It would suit them very well if your ships withdraw under a cloud after they have repulsed any Spanish claims to the island. Then, and only then, the French admiral will see fit to assume control and install a governor.”

  Adam said, “I think it wrong to gamble with people’s lives in this fashion.”