Midshipman Bolitho

by Alexander Kent

  “Our captain has ordered the barquentine to make more sail and investigate, sir.”

  The gun captain beside Bolitho was explaining to his crew. “I know these ‘ere waters, lads. Reefs an’ shoals everywhere. Our cap’n’ll ‘ave two good leadsmen in the chains b’now, takin’ regular sounding. Feelin’ our way inshore.”

  Bolitho did not hear them. He was thinking of the deserted barquentine, the dead man in her cabin. He wondered if Tregorren’s obvious ill-humour was because he had not been given command of the City ofAthens.

  The third lieutenant, Tregorren’s immediate superior, had been sent instead, and was assisted by Grenfell, the senior midshipman. If all went well, this little piece of extra responsibility would see the midshipman well on his way to promotion. Bolitho was glad for him, if envious of his freedom. Grenfell had done all he could to make him, and the awkward newcomers in his midst, welcome. It was not unusual for midshipmen in Grenfell’s place to act like little tyrants.

  Two ships at anchor, Knibb had said. Pirates or slavers? Both would get a shock when Gorgon made her entrance.

  Feet tramped dully overhead and Bolitho heard the squeak of blocks as once again the yards were trimmed, the sails reset while the ship altered course.

  He moved inboard and rested his hands on the great capstan which was used for hoisting heavy spars or boats to their allotted positions and listened to Tregorren’s harsh voice as he spoke to Wellesley and Midshipman Pearce.

  Beyond them the open ports were more sharply defined, and for a moment Bolitho thought that the light was playing tricks on him. The land was probing out to greet them, which was impossible, for he could see it on his own side. He recalled suddenly what the captain had said about an island. This must be it, with the ship steering into a great arrowhead of water between it and the mainland. The anchored ships must be right ahead and invisible to both gun decks.

  Tregorren was saying, “Look, there’s a fort of sorts on the island. Must be as old as bloody Moses.” He chuckled. “Wait till you cast your eyes on some of these black lasses. They’re beautiful, like-” He got no further.

  Bolitho had seen what looked like a dolphin skipping across the lively inshore current, and then he heard the far off boom of an explosion. The line of breaking crests vanished, and there was a chorus of shouts and curses as a great ball slammed down hard alongside the hull.

  The old gun captain shouted with disbelief, “The devils ‘ave fired on us, be God!”

  The whole ship came alive to confused orders and the blare of a marine’s trumpet. Tackles squeaked and gun trucks began to move overhead, and then came the cry, “All guns load and prepare to run out! Starboard battery will engage first!”

  Tregorren stared at the messenger’s breeches, very white on the companion ladder, apparently unable to believe what he had heard.

  Then with a grunt he bellowed, “All load! Standby on the starboard battery!”

  The seaman called Fairweather followed Bolitho to the opposite side as with sudden haste the bare-backed figures began to ram home their bulky cartridges and wads, while each gun captain selected a ball from the garlands, feeling it, testing its shape and even finish before allowing it to be rammed and wadded into his waiting gun.

  Hand by hand shot up, and every eye was on the burly lieutenant.

  “All loaded, sir!”

  “Run out!”

  They threw themselves on to the tackles and hauled the lumbering guns to the open ports, each truck squealing and protesting like a hog going to market. The guns remained in deep shadow along the starboard side, but the ancient fortress, as it showed itself to each breathless crew, was clear to see. Its rough walls were like gold in the frail light, its shape merging with the rocks which supported it.

  Above the ramparts Bolitho saw several dark smudges which he took for an instant to be hovering clouds of mosquitoes.

  He heard a seaman mutter between his teeth, “Them devils is heatin’ shot, sir! They got furnaces goin’ right the way along!”

  Tregorren snarled, “I’ll flog the next man to speak!” But he sounded anxious.

  As well he might, Bolitho thought. His father had told him often enough what heated shot could do to a tinder-dry hull with all its top-hamper of tarred rigging and canvas.

  A voice yelled, “Stand by to starboard! Maximum elevation and fire on the uproll!”

  A petty officer jabbed a seaman on the shoulder so that he jumped as if he had been shot.

  “Wind yer neckcloth round yer ears, man, less you want to be deaf all yer life!”

  He winked at Bolitho. The warning had probably been for his benefit, but even midshipmen were allowed some respect.

  “Stand by!”

  The ship tilted to wind and rudder, and by each gun its captain was crouching inboard, his eye along every black muzzle towards the sky and the fortress.

  “Fire!”

  5

  CHANGE OF FORTUNE

  WITH THE ORDER to open fire being yelled from deck to deck, each gun captain thrust his slow-match to the vent and jumped aside. A split second, and yet to Bolitho, who stood between a pair of thirty-two-pounders, it seemed like an age. A long-drawn-out moment when everything was crystal-clear and unmoving, as in a painting. The bare-backed seamen crouching at tackles or holding handspikes. Individual gun captains, grim-faced and concentrating only on their own ports and aim. And through each square port the sunlight on the fortress, the sky very pale without even a puff of cloud.

  And then everything changed. The lower gun deck exploded to the thunder of cannon fire, the hull and timbers bucking as if caught beneath an avalanche. Gun by gun crashed inboard on its tackles, its crew running to sponge out, to ram home a charge and another gleaming ball.

  Taken by the wind, the dense clouds of smoke drifted away from the hull, shutting out the fortress, masking the sky in brown fog.

  Tregorren was yelling, “Stop your vents! Sponge out! Load!”

  But his voice seemed to be coming through a curtain, the first broadside having rendered eardrums and minds almost senseless.

  But the effect of firing the starboard battery was plain to see. The first nervousness was gone, instead there was a sort of wildness as gun crews peered at each other, grinned and gestured like children. It was not just another drill, it was real, and they were firing in earnest.

  “Run out!”

  Once more the trucks squeaked on the deck, the crews hurling themselves on their tackles to be first through the open ports.

  Bolitho heard Wellesley say excitedly, “They’ll pipe another tune now, by heaven!”

  Tregorren rasped, “Whoever they may be, dammit!”

  In the pause, as each crew peered along the angled muzzles, Bolitho heard the clatter of movement from the deck above. Gorgon must make a brave sight if there was anyone to care, he thought. Under shortened sail, no doubt, her guns bared to the early sunlight, she must be heading close inshore. He did not even know who had fired on the ship, or why, and he was surprised to discover that it did not seem to matter. In these brief minutes the men around him, the ship around all of them, had become one.

  “Stand by! As you bear!” The suspense was breath-stopping. “Fire!”

  Again the hull shook like a mad thing, the planking jarring under the feet as the guns crashed inboard, their smoke belching like a curtain beyond the ports.

  Eden was cheering, despite several angry glances from Tregorren, and some of the seamen were actually laughing.

  Dancer called, “I hope they can see what we are about on the quarterdeck! We could be shooting at the sky!”

  He winced as something jarred against the hull, followed immediately by a chorus of shouts from overhead.

  Bolitho nodded towards him. It was a direct hit. They, whoever they were, had struck back.

  Somewhere a pump began to clatter, and he guessed that a heated ball must have penetrated the timbers and water was needed to quench it before the wood took light.

 
A seaman near him gestured towards the deckhead. “Give they lazy dogs summat to do, eh?”

  But nobody laughed, and Bolitho saw Wellesley rubbing his chin in quick nervous movements as if he was unable to believe that someone should dare to fire at a King’s ship.

  “All loaded, sir!”

  A messenger appeared on the companion ladder, his voice shrill. “We are going about, sir! Prepare to engage with the larboard side!” He vanished.

  Fairweather peered at Bolitho, his teeth white in the eddying smoke. “We’m hitting ‘em proper, eh, sir? Giving t’other guns a chance!”

  The gun captain darted a quick glance at the breechings and snapped. “They’ve got us beat. We’re runnin’ away, you soft fool!”

  Bolitho saw the amazement on Fairweather’s face and felt the gun captain’s blunt words moving to the other men nearby.

  Tregorren strode past, his head dipping between the massive beams.

  “Stand to your guns! Prepare to run out!” He paused and glared at Bolitho. “What th’ hell are you staring at?”

  “We’re coming about, sir.” He kept his voice steady, aware that there was more gunfire from the far distance. Whoever commanded the fortress had plenty of artillery.

  “What a masterly appraisal, Mr Bolitho!” Tregorren gripped a deckhead beam as Gorgon began to tilt steeply, the sea lifting towards the open ports as she swung heavily into the wind. “Was the din of battle too much for you?”

  “No, sir.” He met his hostility and added, “I think we may have been too close inshore. That fortress has our exact range.”

  Men, who seconds earlier had been hurrying to the opposite side, paused to watch. The towering bulk of the lieutenant and the slim midshipman, angled to the deck, their arms at their sides like antagonists meeting for a duel.

  Wellesley said nervously, “The captain knows best.”

  Tregorren stared at him. “Do you have to explain to a midshipman?” He looked from one to the other. “Now stand to your guns!”

  But the order to fire the larboard was not given. Instead there was a long and uncertain silence, broken only by the occasional movement of seamen on the upper deck, the twitter of calls as the hands went to braces and halliards for altering course.

  The gun captain near Bolitho said darkly, “Told you. Cap’n’s standin’ out to sea. Just as well, if you asks me.”

  During the long and tiring gun drills Bolitho had never found time to consider how cut-off this deck could become. Now, as seamen and their officers stood or lounged beside the ports, he felt a growing sense of apprehension and uncertainty. He could tell from the slant of the sun that the ship was heading away from the land, but apart from that there was nothing to break the frustrating sense of being quite apart from the world above.

  “Secure guns!” The messenger’s white breeches caught the filtered sunlight on the ladder. “All officers lay aft, if you please, sir!”

  Bolitho said to Dancer, “I think the captain has been worried all along, Martyn.”

  Dancer looked at him grimly. “But surely he would not run from a damned pirate?”

  “Better than be left swimming without a ship, eh?” Bolitho tried to cheer him up. “I know which I’d rather have.”

  But if the lower gun deck was remote and as before, the quarterdeck was not. Bolitho stood blinking in the harsh glare, seeing the two great holes in the main topsail, a streak of scarlet on the planking to mark where a man had fallen, or died. He stared over the rail and saw the land shimmering in a blinding haze. Already the island and its fortress had merged with the mainland and the anchored ships quite lost from sight around the same point which they had so confidently rounded a few hours earlier. Of the barquentine there was no sign at all.

  Dancer asked anxiously, “Where is the City of Athens, do you think?”

  Little Eden said, “She’s s-standing off t-to keep an eye on the d-devils.”

  Dancer nodded. “Bit of luck getting hold of her.”

  They fell silent as Verling dismissed the hands from the quarterdeck nine-pounders and beckoned the other officers to close around him. He appeared as irritable as ever, Bolitho thought, his beaky nose checking who was present and who was yet to arrive.

  Captain Conway crossed from the weather side and stood by the quarterdeck rail looking down at the eighteen-pounders below him, their crews checking their equipment and refilling the shot garlands.

  There was a rank smell of powder in the air, of heated metal and charred wood.

  Verling said, “All present, sir.”

  The captain turned and regarded them thoughtfully, his back against the rail, his palms resting on the polished wood.

  “We are standing offshore and will anchor further along the coast. As you know, we were fired on, and fired on with a confidence I dislike.” He spoke calmly and unhurriedly, with less emotion than when he had awarded a flogging. “The enemy is well prepared, and our bombardment, such as it was, made no impression. But I had to be certain. To gain some knowledge of what we are against.”

  Bolitho could tell from the expressions of some of those nearby, who had been on the upper deck throughout the brief engagement, that there was something more to come.

  Captain Conway continued in the same tone, “Some months ago it was reported that one of our brigs, a new vessel which was employed in these waters, was overdue and therefore presumed lost. There had been some foul weather, and several merchantmen were also wrecked.” He glanced up at the masthead pendant, his eyes shining in the glare. “When we rounded the point this morning the City ofAthens was well in the lead. The lookouts reported sighting two vessels at anchor. There may have been more under the island’s protection.” His voice hardened for the first time. “But one of them was the missing brig, His Majesty’s Ship Sandpiper of fourteen guns. Because of her, the City ofAthens must have imagined that all was well, that Sandpiper’s captain had already done our work for us.”

  Dancer gave a gasp as he added, “The brig was the bait which we, but for our prize, would have taken. We would have laid under the guns of the fortress, and without the speed and agility to beat clear, would have been destroyed. As it was, the barquentine was hit several times. I doubt if any of her people survived.”

  There was absolute silence. Bolitho was remembering the din on the lower gun deck, the importance and excitement they had all felt. He recalled the unsmiling face of Midshipman Grenfell, a face which had hidden a warmer and kinder nature than many imagined. And it had all happened without a word being passed from the quarterdeck. It would have changed nothing, could have done nothing to help. And yet …

  The captain added slowly, “When we took the City of Athens, Mr Tregorren suggested that the pirates made off upon sighting another vessel. It now seems very possible that the other sail was ours, and the reasons for the pirate’s haste was that he did not want to be seen for what he is! A captured British man-o’-war. Imagine, gentleman, what havoc he may have been wreaking in our country’s name?” He spat out the words like poison. “No master of any peaceful vessel would challenge a ship so obviously British and in the King’s service! That is not piracy, it is cold-blooded murder!”

  Mr Verling nodded. “It would be simple, sir. Whoever commands these scum has a sharp mind to attend him!”

  The captain did not seem to hear. “Some of our prize crew may have survived.” He glanced down at the dried blood by his feet. “We may never know. However, our next task is to seize the brig and discover all we can of what is happening.”

  Bolitho looked at the others. Seize the brig. Just like that.

  “A cutting-out operation must be done tonight. No moon, and the weather favours us at present. The marines will provide a distraction. But I want that vessel retaken, the shame she has been made to endure and promote wiped out!”

  He turned as the surgeon appeared on the ladder. “Well?”

  “The lookout died, sir.” Laidlaw’s hooded eyes were expressionless. “Broke his back.”

/>   “I see.” The captain turned to the silent officers. “The lookout was the one who first sighted Sandpiper. The balls which passed close above us from the battery ashore must have thrown him to the deck.”

  Bolitho watched the surgeon for some sign, knowing he was remembering that same lookout was the man who had been flogged.

  The captain licked his lips. It was very hot on the quarterdeck, with the worst of the day yet to come.

  He said, “Mr Verling will give you your instructions. There will be two boats for the cutting-out. More would lessen our chances.” He walked away adding, “Carry on.”

  Verling watched him go. “Two lieutenants and three midshipmen will take charge of the attack.” He eyed Tregorren coldly. “You will command. Take only trained hands. This is no work for ploughmen.”

  Eden whispered, “What does it m-mean, Dick?” He looked very small beside the others.

  The sulky midshipman named Pearce said, “We board the brig in the darkness and cut ‘em down before they return the compliment!” He added harshly, “Poor John Grenfell. We grew up together in the same town.”

  Verling said, “Return to your duties. The hands can fall out from quarters and secure. Keep ‘em busy, I want no bleating and sobbing for what has happened.”

  Theybegan to breakup, each man wrapped in his own thoughts on the suddenness of death.

  Tregorren said, “Thirty men will be needed-”

  He hesitated as Midshipman Pearce called, “I’d like to volunteer, sir.”

  Tregorren regarded him calmly. “Mr Grenfell was a friend of yours. I had forgotten. A pity that.”

  Bolitho watched him, sickened. Despite all that had happened, even the sudden likelihood of his own injury or death, Tregorren still found delight in taunting the grim-faced Pearce.

  The lieutenant said abruptly, “Request denied.” His eyes settled on Eden. “You will be one of the lucky midshipmen.” He smiled as Eden paled. “A real chance to prove yourself.”