Sloop of War

by Alexander Kent

  Colquhoun said, “Your captain speaks well of you.” He rustled his papers. “Quite well.”

  Bolitho tried not to swallow and display the dryness in his throat. Captain Pears of the Trojan had sent a report with him aboard the prize. Had he been aware of Bolitho’s later luck with the privateer his report might have been even better. It was strange, he thought. In the three years aboard Pears’s ship he had never really understood the man. Sometimes he had imagined his captain disliked him, and at best only tolerated his efforts. Yet now, on this desk, under the eyes of a new superior, Pears’s words were showing him in a different light.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Hmph.” Colquhoun stood up and walked towards the table and then changed his mind. Instead he moved to the window and stared absently at the anchorage. “I am commanded to give you your new appointment. It will be up to you to prove your worth, an ability to carry out orders rather than to make play with them for your own advantage.”

  Bolitho waited. It was impossible to follow this man.

  Colquhoun added, “Since the military disaster at Saratoga last year we have seen all the signs of the French increasing their aid to the Americans. Originally they sent supplies and military advisers. Then privateers and soldiers-of-fortune, mercenaries.” He spat out the words. “Now they are more open in their efforts to use the Americans to further their own ends and regain territory lost to us in the Seven Years War.”

  Bolitho gripped the hilt of his new sword and tried to remain outwardly calm. Somewhere outside this room was a ship awaiting her new captain. Old or new, large or insignificant as a fighting unit, she was to be all his own. And he had to remain quite still, listening to Captain Colquhoun’s observations on the war. Bolitho had been involved in the war since its beginning, and he had already learned from a fellow officer in the Octavia that Colquhoun had arrived from England just six months ago.

  Colquhoun was saying in the same dry tone, “But while we command the sea-lanes and supply routes neither the French nor the damned Pope can stop us regaining overall control of the mainland.” He turned slightly, the sun glinting across the gold lace of his coat. “Don’t you agree?”

  Bolitho shifted in his chair. “Up to a point, sir. But . . .”

  Colquhoun snapped, “But is not a word which appeals to me. Either you agree or you disagree.”

  “I think more should be done to seek out the privateers and destroy them in their bases, sir.” He paused, anticipating some caustic remark. Then he continued, “We have too few ships to spare for convoy work. Any attack on merchantmen, pressed home by two or more vessels at once, can play the devil with a solitary escort.”

  “Really. You surprise me.”

  Bolitho bit his lip. He had allowed himself to be drawn. Perhaps Colquhoun had been hoping that one of his friends or protégés would be given the new appointment, and saw Bolitho as an intruder. Whatever it was, there seemed to be no doubting his hostility.

  “I have, of course, heard of your family, Bolitho. Seafaring stock. None of ’em ever afraid to risk his neck. And out here at this moment we need the best fighting officers we can get.”

  He turned abruptly to the window. “Come over here.”

  Bolitho crossed to his side and followed his glance towards the ships at anchor.

  “Look impressive, don’t they?” Colquhoun gave what might have been a sigh. “But once at sea, scattered to the winds, they are just a handful. With the Frogs at our backs and threatening England once more we are stretched beyond any safety limit.” He gestured across the harbour. A frigate was being careened, heeled right over on her beam, her bilges covered with busy figures, their naked backs shining in the glare like polished mahogany. Colquhoun said, quietly, “Bacchante, thirty-six.” He tightened his jaw. “My ship. First time I’ve been able to get her underwater repairs done since I assumed command.” Bolitho darted a quick glance at him. He had always dreamed of commanding a frigate since his first and only experience in the little twenty-eight-gun Destiny. Freedom to move and hit hard at anything but a ship-of-the-line, with all the dash and agility that any young captain could ask for. But Colquhoun did not seem to fit the role. Slightly built, with the pale, petulant good looks of a true aristocrat. His clothes were beautifully made, and the sword at his hip must be worth two hundred guineas. Colquhoun raised his arm. “Look yonder. Beyond my ship you will see the rest of our flotilla. With these and nothing more I am expected to patrol and seek out the enemy, run errands for the fleet, dab away the tears of rich merchantmen whenever they sight an unfamiliar sail. It would need a force five times as large, and even then I would hope for more.”

  He turned to watch Bolitho’s expression as he stared across the shimmering water.

  Bolitho said slowly, “Three sloops-of-war.” He saw a tiny armed schooner anchored beyond the others. Was she to be his? He swallowed hard. “And a schooner.”

  “Correct.” Colquhoun moved to his table and picked up a heavy decanter. As he held it against the sunlight he said, “You are being given the Sparrow, Bolitho. Eighteen guns and only two years old.” He eyed him flatly. “Next to my frigate, she is the best under my command.”

  Bolitho could only stare at him.

  “I do not know what to say, sir.”

  The other man grimaced. “Then say nought.” He poured two glasses of brandy.

  “I have no doubt of your ability as a sea-officer, Bolitho. Your past record is proof of that. To obey and carry out orders without question is one thing, however. To lead others, to hold their skills and lives in your hands without ever losing grip, is something else entirely.” He offered him a glass. “To your first command, Bolitho. I wish you more of the luck which has guided your feet to this year of ’ 78, for I promise you will need it!”

  The brandy was like fire, but Bolitho’s head was still reeling and he hardly noticed it. A new sloop. The best under Colquhoun’s command. In a moment he would awake aboard Octavia to find today just beginning.

  Colquhoun said calmly, “Your predecessor in Sparrow died recently.”

  “I am sorry to hear it, sir.”

  “Hmm.” Colquhoun studied him thoughtfully. “Fever. His first lieutenant is too junior even for temporary command.” He shrugged. “Your timely arrival, the blessing of our devoted admiral, and, of course, Bolitho, your obvious qualities for the appointment, made you an immediate choice, eh?” He was not smiling.

  Bolitho looked away. It would be safer to assume from the beginning that Colquhoun had no sense of humour.

  He said, “I will do my best, sir.”

  “Be sure of that.” Colquhoun took out his watch and flicked it open. “Sparrow is at full complement. For seamen, that is. I will have to send your prize-crew to other vessels in greater need. Unless you have any particular fellow you wish to keep?”

  “Yes, sir. Just one. I appreciate that.”

  Colquhoun sighed. “You are a curious mixture. A Cornishman, I believe?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Ah well . . .” He did not continue. Instead he said, “I have made arrangements for a boat to collect you in a half-hour. Your documents will be ready by then.”

  Bolitho waited, half expecting some fresh advice.

  Colquhoun seemed to read his thoughts and said quietly, “From time to time you will receive written instructions. But you will only be told what to do. How you achieve success and carry them out will be your burden alone.” He turned back to the window, his eyes on the careened frigate. “I have held four different commands. The first was, of course, the most exciting. But also, as I recall, the loneliest. No more could I ask for help from my companions in the wardroom. Nor could I seek freedom outside my hours of duty. In earlier days I always imagined a captain to be a kind of god, put on earth to command and to leave all worry of execution to mere subordinates. Now, I know different, as you will.”

  Bolitho picked up his hat. “I shall try and remember that, sir.”

  Colquhoun did not
face him. “You will not. You will think you know better than everyone else, which is as it should be. But somewhere along the way, in the teeth of a gale, or facing an enemy broadside, or becalmed perhaps with the ship’s people near mad with thirst, you will know the true meaning of command. When you need help and advice most, and there is none. When all others are looking aft at you, and you have the power of life and death in your fingers. Then you will know, believe me.”

  He added shortly, “You may wait in the room by the entrance.”

  The interview was ended.

  Bolitho crossed to the door, his eyes on the silhouette against the bright window. It was such an important moment that he wanted to hold on to every part of it. Even the furniture and the well-stocked decanters.

  Then he closed the door behind him and returned to the waiting room. When he looked at his watch he saw he had been just twenty minutes in the building.

  At the window he stood staring at the small ships on the far side of the anchorage, trying to distinguish one from the other, wondering what she would be like. What his company would think of him.

  Eventually the door opened and an elderly lieutenant peered into the room.

  “Sparrow, sir?”

  Bolitho saw the sealed envelope in the man’s hands and took a deep breath.

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  The lieutenant bobbed his head and smiled. “Your orders, sir. The boat has been sighted approaching the jetty. I will arrange for your gear to be collected from Trojan when she reaches here.” He shrugged. “I am not so sure it will ever catch up with you, however.”

  Bolitho grinned, unable to maintain his outward calm.

  “Have it sold for me, eh? Put it towards helping some of those wounded seamen awaiting passage to England.”

  As he strode towards the sunlight the lieutenant took out a pair of steel-rimmed glasses and peered after him. Then he shook his head very slowly. A remarkable young man, he thought. It was to be hoped he would remain so.

  After the shadowy cool of the building Bolitho found the sun’s glare harsher than before. As he strode down the coast road, his mind half dwelling on the interview with Colquhoun, he was already wondering what his new command would offer. With, but not of the fleet, there should at least be room to move, freedom from the daily flow of signals and requirements which had been his lot in the powerful Trojan.

  He paused at a curve in the road and shaded his eyes to watch the boat which was already drawing near to the jetty. He shivered in spite of the heat and started to walk more quickly towards the sea. To anybody else it was just one more boat going about its ship’s affairs, but to him it represented far more. A first contact. Some of his men. His men.

  He saw the familiar shape of Stockdale standing beside some of his newly bought belongings and felt a sudden touch of warmth. Even if Colquhoun had said that not one single man of Bolitho’s prize-crew could be spared for his first command he felt sure Stockdale would have arrived aboard in his own way. Thickset and muscular, in his broad white trousers and blue jacket, he reminded him of some indestructible oak. He, too, was watching the approaching boat, his eyes slitted against the light with critical interest.

  Bolitho had been junior lieutenant in the frigate Destiny when their paths had first crossed. Sent ashore on the thankless task of drumming up recruits for the ship, and with little hope of much success, he had arrived at a small inn with his party of seamen to set up headquarters, and, more to the point, to find some peace and a moment to refresh himself for the next attempt to obtain volunteers. Tramping from village to village, inn to inn, the system rarely changed. It usually resulted in a collection of those who were either too young for the harsh demands of a frigate or old sailors who had failed to find fortune or success ashore and merely wanted to return and end their days in surroundings they had originally sworn to forsake forever.

  Stockdale had been none of these. He had been a prize-fighter, and stripped to the waist had been standing like a patient ox outside the inn while his sharp-faced barker had called upon all and sundry to risk a battering and win a guinea.

  Tired and thirsty, Bolitho had entered the inn, momentarily leaving his small party to their own devices. Exactly what had happened next was not quite clear, but on hearing a string of curses, mingled with the loud laughter of the sailors, he had hurried outside to find one of his men pocketing the guinea and the enraged barker beating Stockdale round the head and shoulders with a length of chain. Whether the victorious seaman, a powerful gunner’s mate well used to enforcing authority with brute force, had tripped Stockdale or gained a lucky blow was never discovered. Certainly, Bolitho had never seen Stockdale beaten in any fight, fair or otherwise, since that day. As he had shouted at his men to fall in line again he had realised that Stockdale had been standing as before, taking the unjust punishment, when with one stroke he could have killed the barker who was tormenting him.

  Sickened by the spectacle, and angry with himself at the same time, he had asked Stockdale to volunteer for the King’s service. The man’s dumb gratitude had been almost as embarrassing as the grins on the sailors’ faces, but he had found some comfort in the barker’s stunned disbelief as without a word Stockdale had picked up his shirt and followed the party away from the inn.

  If he had imagined that was the end of the matter he was soon to discover otherwise. Stockdale took to a life at sea in a manner born. As strong as two men, he was gentle and patient, and whenever Bolitho was in danger he always seemed to be there. When a cutlass had hacked Bolitho to the ground and his boat’s crew had retreated in panic, it had been Stockdale who had rallied them, had fought off the attackers and carried his unconscious lieutenant to safety. When Bolitho had left the frigate for the Trojan Stockdale had somehow contrived to transfer also. Never far away, he had been his servant as well as a gun captain, and when aboard the prize ship he had merely to glare at the captured crew to obtain instant respect. He spoke very little, and then only with a husky whisper. His vocal cords had been maimed over the years of fighting for others in booths and fair grounds up and down the country.

  But when Bolitho’s promotion had been delivered he had said simply, “You’ll be needing a good cox’n, sir.” He had given his lazy, lopsided grin. “Whatever sort of a ship they gives you.”

  And so it was settled. Not that there would have been any doubt in Bolitho’s mind either.

  He turned as Bolitho strode down the jetty and touched his hat.

  “All ready.” He ran his eyes over Bolitho’s new uniform and nodded with obvious approval. “No more’n you deserve, sir.”

  Bolitho smiled. “We shall have to see about that.”

  With oars tossed, and a seaman already scrambling ashore with a line, the cutter eased gently against the piles. Stockdale stooped and steadied the gunwale with his fist, his eyes on the motionless oarsmen as he said hoarsely, “A fine day for it, sir.”

  A slim midshipman leapt from the boat and removed his hat with a flourish. About eighteen, he was a pleasant looking youth, and as tanned as a native.

  “I’m Heyward, sir.” He shifted under Bolitho’s impassive gaze. “I—I’ve been sent to collect you, sir.”

  Bolitho nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Heyward. You can tell me about the ship as we go.”

  He waited for the midshipman and Stockdale to follow his sea-chest and bags into the boat and then stepped after them.

  “Shove off forrard! Out oars!” Heyward seemed very conscious of Bolitho’s nearness. “Give way all!”

  Like pale bones the oars rose and fell in regular precision. Bolitho glanced swiftly at the two lines of oarsmen. Neatly dressed in check shirts and white trousers, they looked fit and healthy enough. A ship could always be judged by her boats, some people contended. Bolitho knew otherwise. Some captains kept their boats as outward showpieces, while within their own ships the people lived little better than animals. Their expressions gave nothing away. The usual, homely faces of British sailors, set in careful mas
ks to avoid his scrutiny. Each man was probably wondering about the new captain. To any seaman his captain was not much junior to God. He could lead, and use his skills on their behalf in battle. He might just as easily turn their lives into a daily hell with no one to whom they could protest or plead their cause.

  The midshipman said haltingly, “We have been at anchor for three days, sir.”

  “Before that?”

  “Patrol duty off Guadeloupe. We did sight a French brig but lost her, sir.”

  “How long have you been in Sparrow?”

  “Two years, sir. Since she commissioned on the Thames at Greenwich.”

  Stockdale craned round. “There she is, sir. Fine on the lar-board bow.”

  Bolitho sat upright in the sternsheets, knowing that as soon as his eyes left the boat every man would be staring at him. He could barely contain his excitement as he peered towards the anchored sloop which was now fully in view beyond a heavy transport. She was riding almost motionless above the twin of her own reflection, her ensign making a scarlet patch of colour against the haze-shrouded hills beyond.

  Bolitho had seen sloops in plenty during his service. Like frigates, they were everywhere and always in demand. Maids of all work, the eyes of the fleet, they were familiar in most naval harbours. But right at this moment in time he also knew that the Sparrow was going to be different for all those others. From her gently spiralling mastheads to the single line of open gun ports she was a thing of beauty. A thoroughbred, a miniature frigate, a vessel which seemed eager to be free of the land. She was all and none of these things.

  He heard himself say, “Steer round her bows.”

  As the tiller went over he was conscious of the silence, broken only by the sluice of water around the cutter’s stern and the rhythmic creak of oars. As if he was sharing this moment with nobody. Like a raked black finger the sloop’s long jib-boom swept out and over his head, and for a few more moments he stared up at the figurehead below the bowsprit. A man-sized sparrow, beak wide in fury and wings spread as if to fight, its curved claws firmly gripping a gilded cluster of oak leaves and acorns. Bolitho watched until the boat had moved around and under the starboard cathead. He had never thought a mere sparrow could be depicted as being so warlike.