Man of War

by Alexander Kent

  His hands felt as though they were shaking, and the clamour in his mind seemed loud enough to fill the cabin.

  When he spoke, his voice was very calm. “I shall be losing Unrivalled. I am being relieved of command.”

  So quietly said, while that same voice within screamed, It can’t be true! Not this ship! Not yet!

  Galbraith took a pace toward him, the strong features laid bare with disbelief and then anger, feeling the hurt like his own.

  “It must be wrong, sir. Some fool of a clerk at the Admiralty!” He spread his hands. “After everything you’ve done? Even the officer of the guard was full of it, all about Lord Exmouth’s praise for Unrivalled in the Gazette!”

  Adam reached for his coat but Napier was already holding it, troubled, but still unable to understand what it would mean. Somehow it helped to steady him.

  “Stay with me, David. There are things I must do.” He recalled suddenly what Napier had said when Rear-Admiral Thomas Herrick had asked him if he took care of his captain. We take care of each other. So simply said, yet in this impossible, reeling daze it was something to cling to. Little enough.

  He said, “Tell the others, Leigh. I’ll speak to them later, perhaps in here.” His dark eyes flashed, revealing real pain for the first time. “While I still can.”

  Galbraith said, “The gig will be alongside, sir.”

  They paused, and abruptly shook hands. No words, and beyond thoughts. The Royal Marine stamped his boots together as they passed him and walked to the companion ladder; in an hour it would be all over the ship. But all the sentry saw was his captain and the first lieutenant, with the youth in the proud blue coat walking a pace or two behind them.

  Galbraith took a deep breath as the companion opened to the clear, bright sky, feeling his shirt drag against the wound where a musket ball had scored his shoulders that day amid the burning madness of Algiers. Another inch, maybe less, and he would not be alive now.

  He saw the captain turn to nod to somebody on the quarter-deck; he even smiled.

  Another command, maybe. Something bigger, grander, as a reward for his actions under Lord Exmouth. In these times, it seemed unlikely.

  Unrivalled was his ship. They had become one. We all did.

  He recalled the officer of the guard’s cheerful words, less than an hour ago.

  Welcome home, by the way!

  When he looked again, Bolitho was standing alone by the entry port; Napier had already gone down into the gig which was waiting alongside, oars tossed and steady like white bones.

  Luke Jago, the captain’s coxswain, would be there, vigilant, as Galbraith had seen even in the midst of a sea fight. He probably knew or guessed, the navy’s way, the family as the old Jacks said.

  The marines presented arms, and the calls trilled in salute. When Galbraith replaced his hat the entry port was empty.

  Welcome home.

  The admiral’s flag-lieutenant was tense, even embarrassed.

  “Sir Robert requests that you wait a few moments, Captain Bolitho.” His hand rested on the adjoining door. “An unexpected visitor . . . you understand, sir.”

  Adam walked into the other room, light and spacious, as he remembered it from previous visits. When he had been given Unrivalled, fresh from the builder’s yard, the first to carry her name on the Navy List. And later, meeting Vice-Admiral Valentine Keen, when Keen had held this command. And last year, in July, when he had joined Lord Exmouth’s fleet for the inevitable attack on Algiers. In those eight months so much had happened, while here in Plymouth there was yet another admiral, Sir Robert Burch, probably in his last appointment.

  The lieutenant was saying, “We all watched you arrive, sir. It is some time since I have witnessed such crowds. Some must have been awake before dawn.”

  Adam laid his hat on a chair and walked to a window. It was not the flag-lieutenant’s fault; it rarely was. He had been one himself. He bit his lip. Under his uncle. Another world, it seemed now. And his uncle . . .

  Sir Richard Bolitho had died nearly two years ago, killed on the deck of his flagship Frobisher, cut down by a single shot. The memory still burned as if it were yesterday.

  The other man watched his face closely, trying to miss nothing. The young frigate captain whose name had appeared in the Gazette so many times, fighting hand to hand against any foe which had offered itself, before the war had ended and the sworn enemies had moved into an uneasy alliance. How long might it last? And for what reason? Perhaps the battle of Algiers would come to be remembered as the last great battle under sail. Lord Exmouth had been a frigate captain, probably the most famous and successful to emerge from that everlasting war. He must have put all doubts aside to break the unwritten rule he had always followed: Never force an action where ships are pitted against sited shore batteries, and in his case a thousand enemy guns.

  But the gamble and the skill had prevailed, and the battle had raged for most of the day. Ships had exploded and burned, men had fought to the death. He thought of the smartly handled frigate he had watched only this morning, shining in the early sunlight, and of Lord Exmouth’s words.

  I want you in the van. The same ship. He glanced again at the slim figure by the window, the black hair, the fine, sensitive features. The same captain.

  Adam could feel the scrutiny. He was used to it. The frigate captain: dashing, uncaring, not tied to the fleet’s apron strings. He knew well enough what they thought. Imagined.

  He opened the window slightly and looked down at a squad of Royal Marines paraded in the square below. New recruits from the local barracks, very stiff and aware of their scarlet uniforms. A sergeant, rocking back slightly on his heels, was saying, “You obey orders without question, see? When the time comes you will be sent to a ship of the line, or a frigate maybe, like the one that came in this morning.” He had turned slightly to display the three bright chevrons on his sleeve. “But remember this, it’s not the colonel, or even the adjutant, who will decide.” He lifted his elbow a fraction. “It will be me, see?”

  Adam closed the window, the cold air still on his lips.

  He thought of Corporal Bloxham, who was now a sergeant, a crack shot even with his “Bess,” as he had affectionately called his musket that day. When he had fired one shot and had saved his captain’s life, and that of the boy who had lain helpless, his leg pinioned by the splinter. Another face he had come to know so well.

  The flag-lieutenant said quickly, “I think the visitor is leaving, sir.” They faced each other, and he added, “It has been an honour to meet you, sir.”

  Adam heard voices, doors slamming, someone half-running, perhaps to summon a carriage for the departing visitor.

  He picked up his hat. “I would that it were under better circumstances.” He thrust out his hand. “But thank you. Yours is no easy role. I know from experience.”

  A bell tinkled somewhere, and the flag-lieutenant seemed to make up his mind.

  “Unrivalled will be docked, sir. But the reports have made it very clear that it will not be a quick overhaul like the last one.”

  Adam almost smiled. “The last two.” He touched his arm as they walked to the door; it reminded him of the court martial after Anemone had been sunk. Prisoner and escort.

  “Then I am not being replaced?”

  The lieutenant swallowed hard. He had already gone too far.

  He answered, “My late father had a saying, sir, when things seemed against him. ‘Look to a new horizon.’” He flushed as Adam turned to face him. He would never forget that expression.

  He called, “Captain Adam Bolitho, Sir Robert!”

  Adam gripped the old sword and pressed it against his thigh. The reminder. He was not alone.

  Luke Jago, the captain’s coxswain, walked to the edge of the jetty and kicked a pebble into the water. He was restless, unsure of his feelings and unable to think clearly, which was almost unknown for him.

  He was the captain’s right-hand man, trusted by him, a position he had co
me to value more than he would ever have believed. It was sometimes hard to recall how it had been before that day, the handshake which had changed everything. The anger and bitterness were part of another life. He had been unjustly flogged at the order of a very different captain; even though an officer had spoken up for him and proved his innocence, it had been too late to prevent the punishment. There had been apologies, but the stripes of the “cat” would remain on his back until the day he died. It was Jago’s nature to mistrust officers, and the younger they were the harder it became to overcome it. Green young midshipmen who might listen to his advice, tricks learned after his years at sea in one kind of ship or another, could suddenly turn and snap like spoiled puppies when they found their feet.

  He shaded his eyes and stared across at the anchored frigate. His ship, his home for just over two years. He should be used to it. There had been other days like this one.

  He had listened to it all the way from Gibraltar. Hard men and young hopefuls alike, going home, getting the prize-money and slave bounty they knew was their due. In the navy it was always dangerous to hope too much, or take things for granted. When they had left Plymouth eight months back, he had seen all the laid-up ships, the hulks, once the pride of a great fleet. When Unrivalled had anchored yesterday they had still been here.

  He heard the boy, Napier, moving restlessly on the pile of baggage they had brought ashore less than an hour ago. His portly, round-shouldered companion was Daniel Yovell, who had volunteered to join the ship as captain’s clerk when he had heard that the previous one had died. Or so Yovell had claimed. Jago knew differently now. Yovell had been clerk to Sir Richard Bolitho, then secretary aboard his flagship. And his friend, an unlikely one to find in a man-of-war. Stooped, gentle, and devout, he had been given his own cottage next to the old Bolitho house in Falmouth where he had helped in estate matters, things Jago could not begin to guess at. But something had drawn Yovell back to the sea, and he had brought with him volunteers when Captain Adam had been short of trained hands. Men from Sir Richard’s last ship, and some who had served him earlier during the wars. Jago kicked another pebble into the water. All those bloody enemies who were now supposed to be treated as allies.

  And the boy, Napier, what must he be thinking, he wondered. Like many before him, he had been signed into the navy by his mother. She had remarried, and was now in America with her new husband, if that was what he was; Jago knew of plenty such cases. With the offspring safely signed on, the interest faded. Napier was devoted to the captain, and Bolitho never seemed too busy to explain things to him. Whatever the fools on the mess-deck believed, there was nobody in a King’s ship who was as lonely as her captain.

  Napier said suddenly, “Boat’s casting off!” He sounded tense, anxious. He was always a serious sort of youth. Jago, who went where he chose as the captain’s coxswain, had seen life in the great cabin, beyond the screen doors and the scarlet-coated “bullock.” It had made him feel a part of it.

  He heard the distant splash of oars and the familiar creak of looms and found that he was clenching his fists. His mouth was very dry.

  What about me? Yovell would go to his cottage. The boy was staying with the captain. He stared at the anchored frigate again. And Unrivalled was going into the yard, as he had known she would. All those engagements, when she had shuddered and lurched to the enemy’s iron as it had smashed into the hull, often below the waterline.

  And that last time at Algiers, when so many had fallen, while the air quivered to cannon fire and splintering timbers—had the fools forgotten that too? Or that on this last passage home, the pumps had been going throughout every watch?

  Unrivalled would be paid off. After that . . . It would be decided by those who’d never heard a full broadside, or risked everything just to hold a mate’s hand when his life was being torn from him.

  He would collect his pay and his bounty and take some time for himself. Some company maybe. A woman if she came his way. Captain Bolitho might not get another ship. He would not need a coxswain.

  He was sharply reminded of the captain’s face when he had returned from seeing the port admiral. He frowned. That had been yesterday. Jago had had the gig at this same jetty, the boat’s crew in their smartest rig, as always. A ship is always judged by her boats, someone had once said. He was right, whoever he was. A captain’s crew had to be the best of all. It wasn’t even Unrivalled’s proper gig; that had been too badly smashed by canister and musket fire to warrant repair. Like some of her original crew.

  It suddenly hit him. Captain Bolitho had walked down those same stone stairs. Millions of sea officers must have come and gone that way, to promotion, a new ship, to accept orders or face a court martial. It was easy to imagine. But yesterday the captain had called him aside on this jetty, to tell him that he was being relieved of his command, and was awaiting fresh orders. Not the first lieutenant, or any of the other officers. He told me first.

  He said abruptly, “How’s the leg, David?”

  The boy looked at him, surprised by the use of his name. Like the captain.

  “It’s getting better.” He walked carefully to the edge of the jetty, his eyes on the gig, the same one which had brought them and their kit ashore.

  Yovell was on his feet too, watching Jago, remembering their first meeting last year, when Jago had suggested that he was too old for a seagoing job of any kind. They had become friends since then, although neither would ever understand the other. Except today.

  Yovell had been there as Captain Adam Bolitho had gone through the final tasks before departure. Papers to be signed and witnessed by Lieutenant Galbraith before he assumed temporary command, probably the only command he would ever hold, although Yovell knew from the dictated letters that the captain had never stopped requesting it on Galbraith’s behalf.

  He had seen the other side of things when some post had been brought aboard from a courier brig, letters they might have missed several times in the Mediterranean. But not letters he had been expecting, hoping for. Like the small scrap of paper he kept in his personal log book, from the girl he had met on that last visit to Plymouth.

  He had never spoken her name. But Yovell had seen her just once, when he had been at the old Bolitho house in Falmouth, and a courier had come with orders for Unrivalled and her captain. In a little pony-drawn trap, side by side before she had driven away alone. He had seen him kiss his own wrist, where some tears had splashed down. Like lovers, he had thought. Perhaps another dream?

  He put his hand on Napier’s shoulder and said, “The hardest part.”

  Who was he speaking to?

  He saw the gig turning slowly toward the jetty steps. At another time it might have been manned entirely by captains of the fleet or squadron. But today, only the abandoned hulks were the spectators.

  Jago’s lip curled. “What a crew!” He almost spat on the cobbles. “Officers!”

  The lieutenants Galbraith, Varlo, and young Bellairs, who had been a midshipman when Unrivalled had first commissioned. Luxmore, the captain of marines, Partridge the boatswain, even Old Blane the carpenter. Midshipmen too, with Deighton at the tiller by the captain’s shoulder.

  The bowman, another midshipman, shipped his oar and scrambled into the bows with his boathook, but almost pitched headlong.

  “Toss your oars!”

  In the sudden silence there was cheering, unbroken but faint in the cold offshore breeze.

  Yovell felt the boy’s shoulder shiver under his hand. He was an imaginative youth; perhaps he was thinking the same. That the cheers might have come from those listless, empty ships.

  Captain Adam Bolitho stood up carefully and waited for the gig to come fast against the stairs.

  He heard and saw none of it. It was like a confused dream, and yet each phase stood out as a separate picture. Handshakes, faces thrusting through a mist to speak, to call something, a fist reaching out as he had found his way to the entry port. Even the shrill of calls had sounded different, as if
he were an onlooker, somewhere else.

  If he had given in . . . He gripped his sword more tightly. He had seen it happen to others, and it had happened to him.

  He glanced through the tossed oars and saw the ship. His ship.

  The cheering did not stop. All those faces. But this was not the moment. Turn away. Do not look back. How it was. Had to be in the navy, if you wanted to survive. And now emotion was the greatest enemy.

  He stepped onto the jetty. Nobody spoke. The boat cast off.

  Never look back. But he did, then he raised his hat, not soon enough to shield his eyes from the hard glare. They were smarting anyway. Do not look back. He should have known.

  Jago was here. “You decided then, Luke?”

  Jago watched him impassively, then thrust out his hand. “Like before, eh, Cap’n?”

  Adam nodded to the others. The carriage would be here from Falmouth; the admiral had made the arrangements, barely able to conceal his relief that their brief meeting was over.

  He looked again, but the gig was hidden by the jetty wall. Tonight Galbraith would sit in the great cabin and drink alone.

  In the same breath, he knew he would not.

  He looked at Napier and was moved by his obvious distress.

  He gripped his shoulder. “Get some hands to carry our gear, eh?”

  He saw Yovell half lift one hand, as he usually did when he wanted to remind him of something.

  He shook Napier’s shoulder and said, “I had not forgotten.”

  Had he really expected that the lovely girl called Lowenna would somehow be here to see the ship come to anchor, as she had watched them leave? After all the months, and the news of the battles, had he still believed in miracles?