Man of War

by Alexander Kent

  He hesitated, then walked slowly to the high-backed chair which had received the particular attention of the boatswain’s mate in charge, a mahogany bergère upholstered in brass-nailed dark green leather. A chair you could doze, even sleep in, and be readily on call. Where you could plan and think, somehow separated from the ship and her routine. There were a few scratches and a dark stain on one arm rest, but it was the same chair, the one she had wanted him to have after Sir Richard had been killed in Frobisher.

  He gripped it and moved it very slightly. He had sat here many times himself. Feeling it. Sharing it with his own command, Unrivalled.

  “May I suggest something, sir?”

  Adam turned sharply; he had forgotten that he was not alone.

  John Bowles had been Captain Ritchie’s servant for three years, and the previous captain’s for a shorter period, until he had been killed in a sharp engagement with a French blockade-runner.

  At first meeting Bowles seemed an unlikely candidate to fill the role of cabin servant. He was tall, slightly stooping because of the lack of headroom, with greying hair trained into an old-style queue, and long sideburns. His was a grave, rather melancholy face, dominated by a large, hooked nose, so that his surprisingly bright eyes seemed almost incidental.

  Not a young man, and listed as forty years old on the ship’s books, he was light-footed and unobtrusive, unusual for one so tall.

  Adam said, “Yes?” thinking again of Napier and his clicking shoes, his earnest and often deadly serious eagerness. We take care of each other.

  Bowles moved around the chair, careful not to touch it, or so it appeared. He stopped suddenly and lifted up a small flap in the deck covering.

  “Just ’ere, sir.” He indicated a brass ring-bolt. “The chair can be shackled, nice an’ safe, if the sea gets up.” He looked directly at Adam for the first time. “Athena can be a lively lady in ’alf a gale if she feels like it.” He almost smiled.

  He had a London accent, and Stirling, the first lieutenant, had told Adam that he had been working in a riverside tavern when he had become involved in some kind of brawl at the very moment that a press-gang had been passing. The rest was a familiar story in those times; the lieutenant in command of the press-gang had been thankful just to lay hands on a few more men, sailors or not.

  It was strange that Bowles had apparently made no attempt to quit the navy when the war with France and her allies had at last come to an end. Adam found that he was touching the chair. When my uncle was cut down.

  “That sounds a sensible plan.” He gestured to the other pieces of baggage but before he could speak Bowles said, “I can ’ave it all stowed by the dog-watches. I am instructed that you are dining with the wardroom, so I’ll make sure that everything is right, sir.”

  Once Adam would have preferred a younger man, but it seemed unimportant now. Bowles belonged to the ship. A part of her. And I am his third captain.

  Bowles said suddenly, “That is a fine old sword, sir. I ’ave some special oil that might suit.” He was thinking aloud. “Though I doubt we’ll be doing much cut-an’-thrust on this commission.” He bared his uneven teeth in a grin. “Us bein’ a flagship an’ all!”

  Adam heard the sentry tap his musket on the grating outside the screen door.

  “Midshipman-o’-the-Watch, sir!”

  Bowles was across the cabin before Adam had seen him move, but he turned just briefly, like a conspirator, and said, “Mr Vincent, sir.”

  Adam faced the door. He had met Vincent, Athena’s senior “young gentleman,” but he doubted if he would have remembered his name after only four days. Almost due for examination for lieutenant. The first major step from warrant rank to quarterdeck. A King’s officer.

  The midshipman stepped smartly into the cabin, his hat beneath his arm. He was almost eighteen, but looked older, and very self-confident. He was in charge of Athena’s signals, and Adam had seen him shouting at one of his men only a few feet away, as if he were stone deaf or a complete fool. Stirling had been nearby but had said nothing. Adam thought of the much-hated midshipman in Unrivalled, Sandell, who had gone missing over the side one night.

  “Yes, Mr Vincent, what is it?”

  “There is a man who wishes to see you, sir.” He had narrow nostrils which were flared now with obvious anger. “Insists, sir!”

  Adam looked past him and saw Jago waiting by an open gun-port, a bag swinging back and forth in his hand.

  “My coxswain, Mr Vincent. He has access to me whenever so required.”

  Vincent was not the sort to make stupid mistakes. Jago’s expected time of arrival had been in the order book almost since Adam had read himself in to the ship’s company.

  He said, “But only officers were allowed free access, sir.”

  Adam smiled, disliking him, and hoped it was convincing. “That was then, Mr Vincent. You may return to your duties.”

  The door was shut again and they stood facing one another, awkward despite what they had shared. Separated, perhaps, by the ship, a stranger to them both.

  Adam gripped his hand. “It is very good to see you, Luke.” He felt the smile breaking through and realized just how acute the loneliness had been. In the night watches, lying in his cot, staring into the darkness, listening to the occasional tread of a watchkeeper, the angle and bearing of each sound still unfamiliar. Or the movement of rigging, the slap of water alongside, two decks down now.

  Jago grinned. “You too, Cap’n. I see the chair got aboard safely?”

  “Have a tot and tell me about everything. I want to hear it.” He sat down on the stern bench, his legs apart, his hands clasped, the young captain again.

  Jago held up his fist. “Two fingers of grog, an’ one of water, if it’s clean!”

  Adam smiled. “You will soon get used to my cox’n, Bowles.”

  Bowles nodded doubtfully. “And a cognac for you, sir.”

  The door to the pantry clicked shut.

  Jago glanced at the chair again, at the broad, curving deck beams and the glistening paintwork; felt the slow movement of the hull.

  “No fifth-rate, sir. Bigger than we’re used to.” He half-listened to the squeal of calls, and the clatter of tackle as more stores were hoisted inboard to be stowed away.

  Then he said lightly, “She’ll suit, sir. ’Til something better is offered!”

  Adam felt his muscles relax, and accepted, perhaps for the first time, how deeply the change had affected him.

  “And what about young David? Did it go off all right? I wish I could have been there.”

  Jago thought about it, recalling the final handshake, the sudden anxiety, the ship rising above the boat he had unofficially borrowed for the occasion. He still found it hard to believe that he had even cared. That he still did. It went against almost everything he knew.

  The challenge yelled down from the ship’s side, and his own firm and immediate response.

  “Mr Midshipman Napier, sir! Coming aboard to join!”

  Just another “young gentleman.”

  But he said, “I was proud of him, an’ that’s a fact.”

  He took the glass from Bowles as he stooped over them and added, “An’ he got his frigate, which is more than some can say!”

  Bowles returned to his pantry as the cabin rang with laughter.

  Things might be very different, he thought as he polished glasses. They needed to be.

  Jago wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Almost forgot, sir.” He groped into his jacket. “Lady, er, Roxby, give me a letter for you.”

  Adam put down his glass, his bowels like ice.

  Jago was saying, “I’ve ’eard you will be goin’ up to London again . . . ?”

  Adam flattened the paper on the bench and read it slowly. Someone had printed an address in large capitals. Almost a child’s writing.

  He heard himself answer, “Yes. Two days’ time. The Admiralty. Final instructions, I believe.” His brain refused to concentrate. E
ven Nancy’s scribbled words made no sense.

  It is all I was given. I am still not sure I should have told you.

  Adam was on his feet without realizing it, one hand on the back of the chair.

  “I am still a stranger to London. I marvel that people there can find their way from one street to another.” He was making a fool of himself. “The place they call Southwark? All I know of it is an inn called the George—I took the coach from there to the George here in Portsmouth. That’s all I can remember.”

  Bowles walked from the little pantry, his head lowered as if he had been listening to something elsewhere in the poop. “I knows Southwark, sir.” He pronounced it “Sutherk.” “I knows it, sir.” He moved one of the empty glasses, his mind far away. He was thinking of the tavern where he had once worked and had a room of his own. Of the din and upheavals when sailors came ashore from the ships moored on the great river, looking for drink and willing company. And the crimes committed in those parts, the ragged corpses which dangled from the gibbets at Wapping and Greenwich as grim reminders. “It is changing with the times, I believe, sir. Not always for the best.” Even the hated press-gangs had trod warily where he had lived by the Thames. “Some parts, sir . . .” He raised his eyes, gauging the captain’s mood. “It’s not safe to walk alone or unarmed.”

  Adam nodded slowly, moved by his cautious sincerity.

  “Thank you, Bowles. That was well said.”

  He walked to the stern windows and looked down into a lighter which was being warped beneath the counter. Faces peered up at him. There was a woman, her legs uncovered, displaying a basket of bright scarves, grinning broadly. They could have been invisible.

  Nancy was afraid of offering him hope. But suppose her information held the truth? That for some reason Lowenna needed him?

  Tonight he was being entertained by his officers, in his own ship, as was the time-honoured custom. Two days from now he would be in London, with Bethune. More secrets, although Jago had heard about the trip within an hour of stepping aboard.

  He turned his back on the glittering water and overlapping masts and said, “Can you read this, Bowles?” He held out the letter.

  “Sir?” His eyes merely blinked, but it sounded like of course.

  Adam cursed his own impatience. “I meant no disrespect.” The big nose trained round again. “None taken, sir.” He almost smiled. “In my old trade, the merchants I dealt with would rob you blind if you couldn’t read and unravel their accounts!”

  He held the letter to the reflected sunshine. “I knows that street, sir. Some wealthy folk lived there, but they fell on hard times. I’m told that things is very different now. There was some talk that a new dock was to be built close by.” He handed back the letter and added apologetically, “Unless you needs to go, sir . . .” He did not finish.

  Adam moved restlessly across the cabin. Suppose he had not been going to London at Bethune’s request? Nobody could say when Athena would be ready for her passage to the West Indies, or even if the orders had been changed by some higher authority.

  There would be no other opportunity. No chance to discover the value of this small, crudely printed note.

  He had a command, a ship, when so many others had nothing. Not Unrivalled, but a ship . . .

  He knew what Nancy feared most, about him and for him. To her, those brief meetings with Lowenna might not be enough. They would still be strangers, and his visit could do more harm than good. He touched his coat, as if to feel the yellow rose he had seen in the portrait at Falmouth. Bethune or not, he knew he would have gone.

  Unless you needs to go . . .

  Jago interrupted his thoughts. “I will be with you, Cap’n.” Suddenly alert, tense, like all those other times. But there was something else, almost a warning.

  Adam looked at him, knowing he should refuse. It was something personal, not a reason to involve him in something unlawful, dangerous.

  Jago, the man who hated officers and all those who abused authority, who’d been wrongfully flogged, and, although declared innocent, would carry the scars of the cat until his dying day.

  The same man had made certain that David Napier had been delivered safely to his new ship with the warrant of midshipman, a breed he had been known to dismiss with contempt on many occasions. And lastly, the man who had waved aside the chance of being paid off, the opportunity of living as he chose, and traded it for this.

  He said, “Can’t be no worse than Algiers, sir!”

  Adam smiled. “I take too much for granted, Luke. Thank you.”

  Bowles said, “The first lieutenant will be here shortly, sir.”

  Adam nodded. He had told Stirling that he wanted to go through the muster books and the watch bills, also the red punishment book, often the best gauge of any ship, and especially her officers.

  Stirling would probably prepare him for the wardroom invitation to dinner, the individuals behind the uniforms he would be meeting.

  He thought of the other note which was folded so carefully in his pocket. Almost falling apart now, but all that he had of hers. What might the formidable Stirling say if he knew his captain’s secret fears?

  He smiled a little. No wonder Nancy was troubled about him.

  “First Lieutenant, sir!”

  Bolitho turned to face the screen door. The flag-captain.

  Lieutenant Francis Troubridge smiled regretfully, and said, “You will not be kept longer than necessary, sir. I am afraid this room is in a state of chaos.”

  Adam Bolitho tossed his hat on a vacant chair and looked around the big room he remembered so well from his previous visit. It looked as if it had been hit by a whirlwind. All the paintings, including Bethune’s frigate engaging the two Spaniards, were arranged in a rank along one wall, numbered for removal to his house, or perhaps destined for another room in the Admiralty. Boxes and ledgers in other piles; even Bethune’s handsome wine cooler was covered with a grubby sheet.

  Troubridge was watching him, one hand still resting on the door handle.

  “The higher we climb, the more precarious the perch, sir.”

  Bethune was leaving, going to an important post in the West Indies. And already another was taking his place, like a door closing behind him.

  Troubridge was in his element here, Adam thought. At ease with the senior officers they had met, always ready to remind Bethune of any small detail someone else had overlooked.

  A civilian member of the Board of Admiralty, a personal friend of the First Lord as Troubridge had recalled, had explained some of the complications which had followed the various Acts of Parliament and treaties to control and then abolish the slave trade, once and for all. There had been an Anglo-Portuguese treaty which still allowed Portugal to continue loading slaves in her own ports, and another which made Portugal ban the trade north of the Equator, but allowed her the freedom to continue trading below it. And the same with Spain, which, to Adam, made a mockery of the original resolutions. Spain and Portugal were still able to trade freely south of the Equator, where even a simple sailorman could appreciate was the richest harvest both in the Indies and the Americas.

  In Britain the slave trade was a felony. Elsewhere it was still able to make a fortune for those daring and ruthless enough to risk seizure and punishment.

  Bethune’s command was to be a fluid one. To co-operate with the ships of other nations, but to ensure that regular patrols continued on and around the most likely shipping routes so that any vessel carrying slaves, or fitted and equipped with the means of restraining them, could be arrested, and the owners or masters brought to trial.

  Troubridge was followed by two clerks who were making copious notes about everything. They would find life aboard a King’s ship very different when they joined Athena at Portsmouth.

  Adam had also seen a file marked Rear-Admiral Thomas Herrick. His uncle’s old friend. He recalled his visit to Unrivalled in Freetown, that melting pot of the anti-slavery patrols, where some terrible scenes had ensued
when overloaded slavers had been escorted into harbour, their human cargoes more dead than alive after being crammed into conditions which were like vignettes of hell.

  Maps, charts, signals, information; it would be easy to lose his way in minutiae. Adam kept his mental distance, or tried to. A captain’s viewpoint had to take priority: time and distance, the most favourable routes, the anchorages and safest channels, and the reliability or otherwise of charts where an unmarked reef could rip out a ship’s timbers like a knife through butter. Fresh water, stores, medical supplies, and a routine which kept men fit and ready to fight if the need arose.

  It was difficult to see those aspects clearly in the Admiralty’s map room, impressive though it was.

  If Bethune had any doubts he did not show them; he was easy-mannered, almost casual at times. Maybe that came with flag rank, too.

  Another door opened and two workmen entered, an oil painting held carefully between them. Bethune and another officer, a rear-admiral, followed them.

  Adam had already been introduced to the rear-admiral, Philip Lancaster, whose exploits during the second American war had brought him to Their Lordships’ notice.

  Bethune said, “I hope you’ll be comfortable here, Philip.” He was looking at the picture of his frigate, and it was then that Adam saw the first hint of uncertainty, perhaps dismay. He was leaving this secure world for the unknown. A ship instead of power, strategy, and ambition. Lancaster pointed to the opposite wall, by accident or choice, Adam wondered. It was where the frigate had hung, guns blazing, colours streaming above the smoke of battle.

  “There, I think.”

  It was a full-length portrait of the man who had just spoken. It was a good likeness, a quietly determined face, with an anonymous sea as a background.

  Bethune licked his lips, and smiled. “You must get it brought up to date, eh, Philip?”

  In the portrait, Lancaster wore the uniform of a post captain.

  It was something to say, to break the silence.

  “I intended to, Sir Graham. It was all arranged.” He stopped, frowning, as a servant came to stand just inside the doors, and announced, “The First Sea Lord is ready to receive you now, sir.”