The Inshore Squadron

by Alexander Kent

  Bolitho went on deck just before midday and felt the difference. The midshipmen, their faces suitably expressionless as the master and his mates watched over their efforts with sextants to check and estimate the ship's position. The men working high above the deck no longer held to each vibrating spar or shroud but moved more easily about their varied tasks. The first lieutenant, leading a little procession of experts, passed down the larboard gangway, pausing to look for anything which needed repairing, painting or splicing. He was followed by Drodge, the gunner, Big Tom Swale, the gap-toothed boatswain, Tregoye, the carpenter, and several of their mates.

  By the forward companion, Purvis Spreat, the Benbow's purser, was speaking confidentially with Manley, the fifth lieutenant. More food for the wardroom perhaps? Too much madeira being consumed? It might have been anything. Spreat looked a typical purser, Bolitho thought. Sharp-eyed, suspicious, just honest enough to stay out of trouble. He had to feed, clothe and supply every man aboard, with no excuses for bad weather or faulty navigation to sustain him.

  The marines were standing easy in two long scarlet lines, swaying from side to side in the ship's regular motion. Bolitho watched them, putting names to faces, trying to gauge the skills or the lack of them. Major Clinton, with Lieutenant Marston, his junior, walked slowly along the ranks, listening to whatever Sergeant Rombilow was telling them about each man and his duties in the ship.

  The marines were a strange breed, Bolitho thought. Jammed as tightly as the seamen in the Benbow's fat hull and yet completely apart, so different in their ways and customs. Bolitho had seen them in America during the Revolution, when as a youthful lieutenant he had taken the first step towards his own command. In the Mediterranean or the Caribbean, the Atlantic and the East Indies, they all had one thing in common. Reliability.

  Bolitho saw the afternoon watch gathering below the quarterdeck in readiness to take over the ship for the next four hours.

  Here and there a jaw was still champing on the first good, hot meal for days. A few eyes were studying the changing weather with professional interest or, in the case of the new men, obvious relief.

  But most of the men were darting glances at their rearadmiral as he paced restlessly along the weather side of the quarterdeck. They were quick to look away whenever Bolitho turned towards them. The usual mixture. Interest, curiosity, resentment. Bolitho knew from past experience that if he wanted more it was up to him to earn it.

  He heard Pascoe's voice as he strode aft and touched his hat to Speke, the second lieutenant, who was about to be relieved.

  'The watch is aft, sir.'

  Across on the other ships it would be the same. Routine and tradition. Like a well-tried play where everyone had changed roles on many occasions until he was word-perfect.

  The two lieutenants examined the compass, the log, the set of the sails, while the other players moved round them to their stations. The helmsmen and quartermaster, the midshipman of the watch. Bolitho frowned. What was his name? Penels, that was it. The youngest aboard. Just twelve, and a fellow Cornishman. He smiled. Hardly a man.

  'Relieve the wheel, if you please.'

  Eight bells chimed out from the forecastle and the forenoon watchkeepers hurried to their messes for their food and a good, strong tot.

  Bolitho crossed the quarterdeck and said, `You are looking well, Adam.'

  They moved away from the double-wheel and its three helmsmen and walked side by side to the weather nettings.

  'Thank you, sir.' Pascoe shot him a sideways glance. `Uncle. You, too.'

  When Bolitho eventually pulled out his watch he realized he had been speaking with his nephew for an hour. It had seemed like minutes, and yet they had conjured up a far different picture from the one around them. Not sea and sky, spray and taut canvas, but country lanes, low cottages and the grey bulk of Pendennis Castle.

  Pascoe was very tanned, as dark as a gipsy.

  Bolitho said, 'We shall all be shivering soon, my lad. But perhaps we may be able to set foot ashore. That was why I could never stand blockade duty in the Bay. The British people become moist-eyed when they speak of their "wooden walls", the weatherbeaten ships which keep the French fleet bottled up in port. They would speak less warmly if they knew what hell it can be.'

  Midshipman Penels called nervously, 'Signal from Styx, sir.' He purposefully looked at Pascoe. `Man overboard, sir.'

  Pascoe nodded and seized a telescope to train it on the distant frigate.

  Acknowledge. I will tell the captain presently."

  He watched the frigate's shape shortening as she came up into the wind, her sails aback and in confusion. It was to be hoped she could get her quarter boat away in time to recover the luckless man.

  Bolitho watched Pascoe's expression as he studied the frigate's swift manoeuvre. He thought, too, of her captain, John Neale. He had been Penels' age when the mutiny-had broken out aboard his Phalarope during the American Revolution. A small, plump youth, he could see him clearly. He could even smile about it now. How he and Herrick had rubbed the naked midshipman all over with rancid butter to force him through a vent hole to free him from the mutineers and rouse assistance. Neale had been small, but it had been a hard struggle all the same.

  Now Neale was a post-captain, and he knew exactly what Pascoe was thinking as he watched his ship-handling through the glass.

  Bolitho said quietly, `As soon as possible, Adam. I'll do what I can. You've earned it.'

  Pascoe stared at him, his eyes wide with astonishment. `You knew, Uncle?'

  Bolitho smiled. `I was a frigate captain once, Adam. It is something you never quite lose.' He looked up at his rearadmiral's flag streaming from the mizzen truck. 'Even when it is taken from you.'

  Pascoe exclaimed, `Thank you- very much. I I mean, I want to be with you. But you know that. I just feel I am marking time in a ship of the line.'

  Bolitho saw Ozzard hovering below the poop, his thin body screwed up against the damp wind. Time to eat.

  He chuckled. 'I think I said much the same, too!'

  As Bolitho ducked below the poop, Pascoe began to pace slowly up and down the weather side, his hands clasped behind him as he had seen Bolitho do so often.

  Pascoe would not have said anything about his hopes to either Bolitho or Herrick. He should have known he could not hide a secret from either of them.

  He quickened his pace, his thoughts exploring the future, which no longer seemed an idle dream.

  3

  The Letter

  It was another full day before Bolitho's lookouts sighted Admiral Damerum's squadron,. and then because of the lateness of the hour an extra night passed before they could make contact.

  Throughout the following morning, while Bolitho's ships changed tack to run down on the larger formation, Bolitho studied the admiral's squadron through a powerful telescope and wondered at the sense of keeping such a force employed in this fashion. The British fleets, in summer and winter alike, were expected to blockade the Dutch men-of-war along the coastline of Holland, the Spanish at Cadiz and, of course, the powerful French bases of Brest and Toulon. Apart from that, they were entrusted to patrol the vital trade routes from the East and West Indies, to protect them from the enemy, from privateers and even common pirates. It was an almost impossible task.

  And now, because Tsar Paul of Russia, who had little liking for Britain and a mounting admiration of Bonaparte, might be expected to break his neutrality, even more desperately needed squadrons were wasted here at the approaches to the Baltic.

  Herrick joined him and said, `The third ship, sir, that'll be Sir Samuel Damerum's.'

  Bolitho moved his glass slightly and trained it on the one which wore the Union Flag at her mainmast truck. He was very conscious of the difference between the slow-moving vessels and his own small squadron. Patched canvas, weather-beaten hulls, in some cases whole areas of paint stripped away by wind and sea, they made a marked contrast with his newly refitted twodeckers.

  Far beyond the hea
vier ships Bolitho could just make out the topgallants of a patrolling frigate, the admiral's 'eyes', and he guessed that their lookouts could also see the Danish coast.

  `Call away my barge, Thomas. We will be up to them within the hour. See that the stores for the admiral are sent across in another boat directly.'

  It was always a strange feeling when ships met each other. Those which had been at sea for a long period were always craving for news from home. The new arrivals had the additional anxiety of ignorance about what might be waiting for them.

  His flag lieutenant strode across the quarterdeck, his face pinched with the keen air.

  Bolitho said, `There is the admiral's flagship. The secondrate.'

  Browne nodded. 'The Tantalus, sir. Captain Walton.' He sounded as if he did not much care.

  'You will come across with me.' He smiled grimly. 'To ensure that I do not do something indiscreet.'

  Herrick said, 'It might all blow over, sir. And we'll be back at Spithead for orders before you know it.'

  Bolitho was in his cabin collecting his despatches from the strongbox when a clatter of blocks and the stiff crack of canvas told him that Beenbow, was coming about under shortened sail so that the barge could be lowered safely alongside.

  When he went on deck again the scene had changed once more. The admiral's ships, moving very slowly under fully braced topsails, were like an enemy fleet, with Benbow about to break through their line of battle. It was only too easy to picture, and although many of,Benbow's people had never heard a shot fired in anger, Bolitho, like Herrick and some of the others, had seen it many times.

  'Barge alongside, sir.' Herrick hurried towards him, -his face lined with the responsibility of controlling his ship and the rest of the squadron in Bolitho's absence.

  'I will be as quick as I can, Thomas.' He tugged his hat firmly across his head, seeing the marines at the entry port, the boatswain's mates moistening their silver calls on their lips in readiness to speed him on his way. 'The admiral will not wish me to be an enforced guest if the sea gets up again, eh?'

  A midshipman, unusually neat and tidy, was standing in the pitching barge, and beside him Allday was at the tiller, his rightful place. He must have impressed upon somebody that the rear-admiral would prefer his coxswain to a ship's lieutenant. If Allday got his way, the next time there would be no midshipman either, he thought. Browne, too, was in the boat, somehow managing to appear elegant.

  `Attention in the boat!'

  The calls shrilled, and Bolitho jumped the last few feet into the sternsheets as the barge rose sluggishly against Benbow's rounded flank.

  'Bear off forrard! Give way all!'

  Once clear of the two-decker's lee, the barge dipped and staggered through the waves like a dolphin. When Bolitho glanced at the midshipman he saw that his face was already ashen. His name was Graham, and he was seventeen, one of the senior 'young gentlemen'. His chances of promotion to lieutenant might be marred if he was sick in the barge carrying his admiral to meet another.

  'Sit down, Mr Graham.' He saw the youth staring at him, startled at being addressed by one so senior. 'It will be a lively pull yet.' r

  'Th-thank you, sir.' He sank down gratefully. 'I shall be all right, sir.'

  Across his shoulders Allday grinned broadly at the stroke oarsman. Only Bolitho would bother about a mere midshipman. The funny part was, that Allday knew the luckless Graham had been eating some pie he had brought from England. It had doubtless been going mouldy when he had. stepped aboard. After days at sea in a damp, cheerless midshipman's berth, it must be as near poison as made no difference.

  Bolitho's arrival aboard Damerum's flagship was no less noisy than his departure from his own.

  He got a hasty impression of glittering bayonets and red coats, of stiff-faced lieutenants, and then the admiral himself, thrusting forward to meet him.

  'Come aft, Bolitho. God's teeth, this chill is enough to pierce your marrow!'

  The Tantalus was a good deal larger than the Benbow, and Damerum's quarters more lavish than Bolitho had ever seen in a King's ship. Apart from the movement, and the muffled shipboard noises, it could have been part of a rich chamber. If the ship ever had to clear for action in a hurry, the fine drapes and expensive French furniture would suffer badly.

  Damerum gestured towards a chair while a servant took Bolitho's hat and boat-cloak.

  'Sit you down, sir, and let's have a good look at you, eh?'

  Bolitho sat. Sir Samuel Damerum, Knight of the Bath, Admiral of the Red, was, at a guess, in his early fifties. He had a brisk, lively way of moving and speaking, but his greying hair, and an obvious thickening about his middle which even an immaculately tailored waistcoat could not conceal, made him seem older.

  He said, `So you're Richard Bolitho.' His gaze fell briefly on the gold medal which Bolitho wore around his neck for this formal visit. 'The Nile medal, no less.' He shook his head. 'Some people have all the luck.' In the same quick manner he changed tack again. 'How's the squadron?' He did not wait but added, 'You took longer to reach me than I'd hoped, but can't be helped, what?'

  Bolitho said, 'I'm sorry about that, sir. Bad weather, raw landsmen. The usual.'

  Damerum rubbed his hands, and as if by sorcery a servant appeared.

  'Brandy, man. And not that muck we keep for captains!' He chuckled. 'God, what a war, Bolitho. On and on. No damn end to it.'

  Bolitho waited, not yet at ease with this erratic man. He spoke a lot, but so far had said nothing.

  Bolitho said, 'My flag captain is sending some stores across for you, sir.'

  'Stores?' The admiral's eyes were on the brandy and the two glasses which his servant had carried to a table. 'Oh, yes. Mr Fortnum, my grocer in London, does his best to keep me supplied, y'know. Not easy these days.'

  Bolitho did not know who Mr Fortnum was, but felt he should have done.

  The brandy was mellow and warming. Much of it and Bolitho knew he would be asleep if he was not careful. 'Well, Bolitho, you will know that you are to assume the duties of the inshore squadron. The Danish affair seems to have cooled down for the present, but my information is that the Tsar of Russia is eager to join with the French against us. You know about the pact he has been trying to make with Sweden?' Again he did not wait for an answer but hurried on. 'Well, he is still set on that idea. In addition, he has the backing of Prussia. Together they may force the Danes against us also. It is never easy to live in peace next to a raging lion!'

  Bolitho pictured his small squadron trying to stem the advance of the combined Baltic fleets. Beauchamp had said that his task would not be an easy one.

  'Will we enter the Baltic, sir?'

  Damerum signalled to his servant for the glasses to be refilled.

  'Yes and no. A great show of strength would be wrongly interpreted. Tsar Paul would use it to fan the flames. We'd be at war in a week, But a smaller force, yours, can go with peaceful intent. My ships are known to all the spies who flit past my frigates. It will soon be common knowledge that a new squadron is here. Smaller, and so a lessening of tension and suspicion all round.' He smiled, showing very even teeth. 'Besides which, Bolitho, if there was real trouble we are helpless until next year. March at the earliest. We could not get to grips with the Tsar's ships while they are in harbour, so we must wait for the winter ice to melt. Until then,' he fixed Bolitho with a calm stare, `you will keep an eye on things at close quarters.' He chuckled. `At very close quarters to begin with. You are instructed to enter Copenhagen and meet with a British official there.'

  Bolitho stared at him. 'Surely you, as senior officer, would be a better choice, sir?'

  'Your concern does you credit. But we have to tread warily. Too junior an officer and the Danes will feel slighted. Too senior and they will see this for something sinister, a threat perhaps.' He wagged a finger. 'No, a young rear-admiral would be about right. The Admiralty believes so, and I have confirmed my support.'

  'Well, thank you, sir.' He did not know what to
say. It was all happening so quickly. A squadron, a new station, and almost at once he was off again on something quite different. He had a feeling he was going to find Browne very useful after all.

  Damerum added suddenly, 'In any doubts at all, send a fast vessel to find me. Half of my ships are returning to England for overhaul, the remainder are to reinforce the Dutch blockade. It is all in the written instructions which even now my flag lieutenant is handing to yours. They are lucky men. They handle the destiny of a fleet, but take no part in the skill of responsibility for it, damn them!'

  Water dashed against the stern windows like pellets. It had begun to rain or worse.

  Bolitho stood up. 'I shall find my fresh instructions interesting reading, Sir Samuel.' He held out his hand. 'And thank you for the trust you have placed in me.'

  As he said it he realized the true meaning for the first time. It was like having a line severed. The instructions were for him to interpret as he saw fit. There was nobody nearby to run to for guidance or advice. Right or wrong, it was his decision.

  'I'll not see you over the side, if you don't mind, Bolitho. I've letters to write to catch the courier brig for England.' As they walked to the screen door, beyond which Browne was conversing with a very weary looking lieutenant, he said, 'So good luck in Copenhagen. It's a fair city, I'm told.'

  After a perilous descent down the flagship's side, Bolitho and Browne wedged themselves in the sternsheets and wrapped their boat-cloaks around their bodies.

  Through chattering teeth Browne asked, 'All well, sir? I should have been with you, but the admiral's aide was waiting to head me off. I did not even get offered a glass, sir!' He sounded quietly outraged.

  Bolitho said, 'We are going to Copenhagen, Mr Browne.' He saw the lieutenant's eye light up. 'Does that suit?' 'Indeed it does, sir!'

  It was good to be back aboard Benbow. New she might be, and as yet untried, but already she had 'a personality, a warmth which had been lacking aboard the ship he had just visited. Perhaps it was Herrick's influence at work. You never knew for certain with ships, Bolitho thought.