“So there you are, man!” Bethune’s face shone with sweat as he began to unfasten his heavy coat. He stared at Tolan’s telescope. “What?”
Tolan looked past him at the nearest strip of land. There were tiny figures running along a beach, like spectators at some terrible contest.
He answered flatly, “It’s the schooner, Sir Graham. Jacob’s boat.”
His eyes were cold as he watched the words strike home.
“Are you certain? It could be any vessel in this damned place!”
“I took your message, Sir Graham.” He raised the telescope again. Poised and steady, as if he had done it all his life.
Jago stood near him, his face grim. “The errand you was on?”
Tolan nodded. “I’ll lay odds she’s aboard that schooner right now!”
No name was mentioned. Adam stared at the admiral. There was no need. Not the ordered routine of English Harbour, or London. It was here, a place where few of his men had ever visited. Where a ship was dying, and her people with her.
Somebody had brought the crippled Audacity under command. Her remaining canvas was coming about, filling to a wind across her quarter. But there was smoke, pale like steam as Audacity’s men fought to douse the smouldering fire from one of the shots.
Bethune exclaimed, “Make a signal to Hostile . . .” His voice all but trailed away. “It’s no use, is it?”
Adam watched the smoke. Bethune had ordered Hostile to stand away to the north, ready to run down on any slaver who managed to escape Pointer’s eventual attack on the moorings.
Catherine might or might not be aboard the little schooner. Jacob was apparently well known for his dealings with the navy and felons alike. But somehow he knew she was here at San José, because of Bethune, and the man who had always protected her. Sillitoe.
Adam forced himself to use the big signals telescope again, to take time with each thought and reaction, and all the while his body seemed to shake with anger, and with hatred.
Audacity had been hit yet again, and was drifting with the wind, smoke rising above her main course like a cloud.
He said, “I intend to engage the shore battery, Sir Graham. Commander Pointer will soon be in position.” He did not look at Jago as he added, “Remember Algiers. Boat action!”
He heard the snap of commands, Jago calling out names abruptly. Like that last time when Lord Exmouth’s fleet had broken all the rules by choosing to fight against sited and entrenched guns. When every ship was a target.
He waited, knowing his last reserve would snap if Bethune overruled him. But Bethune was standing by the compass box, for another moment unaware of the helmsmen, and the gun crews on either side of the quarterdeck. Boatswain’s mates, midshipmen, and the remaining section of Royal Marines. He could have been completely alone.
When he spoke, his voice was barely audible. “Signal Hostile to close on Flag.” Then he did look directly at his flag-captain. “Lay a course to weather the headland. We will engage.”
Adam heard the order run through the waiting seamen and marines with the speed of light. He saw Bethune peel off his coat and toss it to his servant. Most of all, he remembered Bethune’s eyes, his expression. Like a stranger. An enemy.
The heavy coat lay on the deck where it had fallen. Tolan had hurried after Jago, while men snatched up weapons from the open arms chests.
Jago asked harshly, “You a volunteer?”
Tolan nodded, and said something he did not hear. But Jago looked past him and up to the rail by the poop ladder.
Adam saw him and lifted one hand in salute. Something only they had come to understand.
There was a dull explosion, the searing hiss of spark and flame in the bay. A ship had blown up. Twenty-eight years old, like her captain. Finished.
We will engage.
The leadsman called out from the chains, “No bottom, sir!”
Adam loosened his collar and touched the silk stocking she had given him, which he had wound around his neck.
Stirling shouted, “Ready, sir!” His eyes were on Athena’s captain, not the vice-admiral.
Adam tightened his grip and heard her voice.
Walk with me. The rest had been a dream.
“Steady she goes, sir! West sou’ west!” The senior helmsman peered up as the canvas cracked when the wind fell away, and the land moved out to shield them.
Adam had climbed on to the nettings again, his eye smarting in the reflected glare. The water in the bay was like burnished metal, as if the seabed were on fire. There was smoke, too, from Audacity’s burning hull or from the hidden guns ashore. He was conscious only of the ship’s slow, unwavering advance; the people hurrying about her decks or working high aloft on the yards and rigging seemed merely incidental, as if Athena was her own mistress.
There was more activity amongst the moored ships. Patches of sail had appeared, but many of the slavers’ seamen were probably ashore. Unless they had been expecting some form of action . . .
He tore his eyes away to watch Jago and two boats’ crews running aft to haul their craft alongside.
He jumped down to the deck again and called, “Bring her up a point!”
He strode to the rail and stared along the full length of the ship. Every gun loaded, its crew grouped around it, some peering at the nearest land as it glided past above the starboard gangway. All the tackles were fully manned, with extra hands from the opposite side for the first, perhaps vital show of force. If Pointer was unable to get his men into position the slavers might still escape, and their attack would be futile. Far worse, it might cost the life of every man who fell into the enemy’s hands.
Enemy . . . They were the enemy. Flags no longer counted for anything.
Then he saw Audacity, or what remained of her. Almost on her beam, and surrounded by burned flotsam and a spreading carpet of ash. One boat was nearby, the oars moving very slowly as it pulled past and among the wreckage. A few figures were clinging to broken spars and a half-burned hatch cover, others drifted beyond all aid or hope. The end of a ship. Something against which he should be hardened.
He was not.
There was silence on Athena’s upper-deck. Men stood by their guns and at the braces and halliards, and gazed at the burned-out ship. One of their own. There were no words for it.
“Boats, starboard bow, sir!”
Adam wiped his face and stared beyond the bow. The small schooner had either hove-to, or her steering had gone. She was beam on, some half mile beyond Audacity’s remains. The boats were almost hidden by Athena’s beakhead and jib, but there was no room for doubt. He saw the glint of steel, and the tiny flash of a pistol or musket.
Perhaps the trader named Jacob was trying to get away, detach himself from any blame or retaliation.
He saw Stirling by the massive trunk of the mainmast, arms folded as he watched the guns, and the spread of pale canvas towering overhead. Two midshipmen waited with him, ready to pass a message or carry an order without losing a second. One of them could have been David.
A sharp glance aft and he saw Bethune standing by some nettings, Troubridge beside him.
Adam watched the land again, a small, rounded hill with an isolated clump of trees straying down one side, like scattered fugitives.
He cupped one hand to his mouth. There was no point in reporting to Bethune what he must already know. He who will not risk. He shut his mind to it.
“Open the ports to starboard!” He made himself count the seconds as the port lids squeaked open from bow to stern along both gun-decks.
Where he had walked with Jago, and had spoken with these same men, and the one who came from Helston, from “God’s county.” And they had cheered him.
Only hours ago. This very day.
The ports on the lee side would remain closed until it was time to bring the other broadside to bear.
He looked up and into the bay. If they ever reached that far.
Midshipman Manners shouted, “Listen! Listen, sir!”
His youthful face was filled with disbelief. He took off his hat and waved it with wild excitement. “Huzza! Huzza!”
Vincent snapped, “Silence on deck there!” But even he seemed at a loss.
Adam heard it. Faint at first, then carried on the offshore breeze it blended into a wave of cheering.
Dugald Fraser said, “Cheerin’ us! And I thought I’d seen all there was to see!”
Adam swallowed hard and saw some of the small figures in the water twisting round to watch Athena’s slow approach. Maybe the first time any of them had found time to look for her.
He said, “Run out, Mr Stirling!”
The decks quivered as every gun squeaked up to its open port, men throwing all their strength and weight on the tackles to haul their massive charges into the sunlight.
Adam leaned on the quarterdeck rail, although he did not recall having moved. He did not need a glass. Here was the headland, the white buildings he had seen through the signals telescope, drifting smoke in blotches against the sky, insects no longer. A brief glance at the tilting compass card, seeing the helmsman’s fist opening and closing around a spoke, as if beating time to something.
He heard a shot, perhaps two, and looked up as a ball punched a hole through the main topgallant sail.
He saw Stirling’s arm shoot out, like a man controlling an excited horse. “Steady, lads!” His eyes must have moved along every gun, while down in the semi-darkness of the lower gun-deck they would all be listening, waiting for the signal from aft.
Adam stared at the land again and felt the silence like something physical.
“On the uproll!” There was no sense in calling a target. At this range they could not miss.
He felt the deck tilt as the wind refilled the sails and pictured Athena’s double line of teeth lifting to maximum elevation.
“Fire!”
The effect was devastating as every gun along the ship’s starboard side roared out as one, each hurling itself inboard on its tackles, the crews yelling and gasping as smoke funnelled through the open ports. Dazed by the tremendous broadside, men were already sponging out and preparing to reload even before the combined thunder had died, and still the echo thrown from the land lingered above and around them. Adam held his hand across his mouth, his mind blurred by the power of the guns. It was as if Athena lay side by side with an enemy in some invisible line of battle, while below decks in the gloom and whirling smoke it must have felt as if the ship had run aground.
He peered up at the sails and to the masthead pendant, still whipping out toward the larboard bow, when all else was partly hidden by smoke.
He saw gun captains standing by their crews, one fist and then another raised and ready. It was as if everything else was moving, while Athena remained as before.
The big barque which had been the first one to make sail lay across the larboard bow, on a converging tack, desperate now to clear the headland and reach open water.
He held up his arm and saw Stirling acknowledge him. Men, their bodies shining with sweat, were running across to await the next command.
“Open the ports!”
Stirling swung round as the forgotten leadsman shouted, “By th’ mark five!” Just thirty feet under the keel. Adam found a second to wonder how the seaman could think and concentrate on the line snaking through his fingers while the ship, his world, reeled about him.
“Run out!” Easier for the depleted crews as the deck heeled in their favour to another flurry of wind.
Adam took a telescope from a master’s mate and trained it abeam. One of the long buildings and a crude-looking pier had taken most of the broadside, and one entire wall had collapsed in the old fortifications, leaving a gap like missing teeth.
He saw Fitzroy, the fourth lieutenant, walking unhurriedly along the eighteen-pounders under his charge. He might have been alone in a country lane.
“As you bear! Lay for the foremast! On the uproll!”
Just seconds. To some an eternity; then, “Fire!”
The water was hidden by smoke, the air cringing to the irregular crash of shot as each gun captain gauged the moment before jerking his firing lanyard.
The barque had been badly hit, and her fore- and maintop-masts seemed to bow to each other as the double-shotted broadside smashed through them.
Someone yelled out, “Not just slaves this time, you bastard!”
As if he saw only a single enemy. Perhaps he was right.
Adam gripped the rail as he felt the deck jerk under his feet. And then another, deep in the lower hull. Heated shot or not; they would soon know.
He tried to keep his mind clear of everything but the shifting panorama across and beyond Athena’s beakhead, with Bethune’s flag casting a shadow above the taut jib.
The pumps were going, and there was water in every kind of cask if the worst happened.
A flurry of shots, from the barque or one of the drifting boats nearby. A seaman running to join the boatswain’s men at the braces seemed to falter, and look around as if something had caught his attention. Then he fell, his face shot away.
Another figure ran toward him but stopped when a petty officer shouted to him.
Clough, Athena’s carpenter, was hurrying forward with his own crew, his face intent, the true professional. Few ever considered that when a King’s ship left port, her carpenter had to be ready for anything from repairing, even building some kind of boat, to dealing with every seam and plank above or below deck.
A hand seized his arm, and for an instant Adam believed he had been hit by some invisible marksman.
But it was Bethune, staring through the drifting smoke, his eyes reddened by strain and something more. Desperation.
“Yonder, Adam—is that the schooner?”
Adam heard someone cry out, and saw two marines dragging a limp figure clear of the starboard gangway.
He saw the little schooner, some boats apparently trying to grapple alongside. Two other boats were moving toward her, the oars rising and falling like wings, the best Jago could get at such short notice. Adam licked his lips, recalling his curt order.
Boat action. All Jago would need. And for what?
“Aye, sir. She’s out of command.” He stared at the land again, measuring it. Watching the changing colours in the bay, very aware of Fraser and his mates, and Stirling’s motionless figure by the guns.
And all the others he could not see, who obeyed because they had no choice. Because there was none.
“I intend to come about directly, Sir Graham, and rake their defenses as we leave. Without those guns to support them they will crack, and Commander Pointer will get his chance. Until then . . .” He winced as a seaman fell from the mainyard and hit the deck, his face staring at the copper sky.
“Sir!” It was Kirkland, the lieutenant of Royal Marines; surprised, shocked, it was beyond either.
Adam strode to the nettings and climbed on to them. He felt cordage cutting his knee where his breeches had been torn open. It was madness. There was more blood by a stanchion, where another man had been cut down. Yet all he could hold in his reeling mind was a picture of Bowles, and his horror when he had seen his captain donning his best uniform before beating to quarters.
The smoke was thinner down on the low foreshore, and he could see some upended boats near the water close to a rough road or track. No fifes or drums, no commands to bark out the pace or the dressing, but the scarlet coats and white crossbelts of Athena’s Royal Marines marched in perfect order, Captain Souter in the lead, hatless and with a bandage around his head, but with all the style of a barracks parade.
There were flames at the top of the bay: a ship ablaze, or Pointer’s own signal of success.
“Stand by to come about!”
He heard the leadsman’s cry. “Deep four!” No doubt wondering if any one heard or cared with iron beating into the hull, and men dying.
The sailing-master had heard well enough.
“Christ, she’ll be sailing on wet grass
in a minute!”
Athena drew eighteen feet.
Men were running to the braces, while somewhere high overhead axes were slashing away broken cordage and sails torn apart by haphazard shots from the land and from the barque, which had taken the full brunt of Athena’s vengeful broadside. For revenge it was. Adam looked at Bethune’s face. There was no deception now. If anything, it was despair.
He looked at the marching figures on the land, joined now by others, sailors from other ships of English Harbour, redcoats from the garrison. He had heard Bethune’s servant speak of them, an English county regiment. Not what they had been expecting when they had left home.
He measured the distance again, and gauged the wind. It had to be now.
He heard more shots hammering into the hull, men shouting, saw the tell-tale smoke seep from one of the hatch gratings. The gun crews were poised with handspikes ready, slow matches in their tubs in case the flintlocks should fail at the moment of action.
Small scenes stood out and gripped his attention, even though every fibre was screaming for him to begin what might be his last moments in this, the only world he truly understood. A midshipman writing busily on his slate, as if it was all that mattered. Bethune shaking his head as Troubridge tried to offer him the heavy coat again, perhaps because of a tall splinter which had been levered from the deck like a quill a few yards from where he was standing.
Adam knew Stirling was watching him, judging the moment, and the remaining time for Athena, his ship, to come about.
He walked swiftly to the rail and touched the sailing-master’s arm, but did not take his eyes from the upper-yards and the mast-head pendant.
“Remember what you said to me when I came to Athena? That she was a fine sailer even close to the wind?”
He saw Fraser stare at him, and then nod. “Good as any frigate, sir!” Determination, and perhaps relief that his captain had not cracked under the strain.
“Stand by to come about!” He saw Bethune walk across the deck, his eyes on the nearest land, the ground and hillside still smoking from their first broadside.
“Aim for the battery.” He leaned on the rail. “Put the helm down!”
Man of War Page 30