Sloop of War

by Alexander Kent

  The privateer had edged closer, running down towards the quarter so that she would eventually overhaul Royal Anne along her larboard side. Her captain was a superb seaman. With all but his topsails clewed up he was handling the heavy vessel with both confidence and skill, and would certainly hold the wind-gage no matter what Bolitho tried to do.

  A gun flashed out its long tongue, and Bolitho felt the ball smack into the lower hull, jerking the planks at his feet with savage violence.

  He saw bunched figures on the other ship’s poop, the wink of sunlight on raised telescopes, and guessed they were examining their victim. It looked much as it had when he had come aboard. Damaged bulwarks and broken rigging. One hatch had been purposefully left open, and several of his men were running about in apparent confusion while Heyward directed their performance from beneath the forecastle.

  “Now!” Bolitho waved his hand, and from the main deck one then another of the six-pounders hurled its challenge across the narrowing strip of water.

  From aft a swivel banged sharply, the canister probably falling harmlessly long before it reached the enemy’s side.

  The response was immediate. Gun by gun, the Bonaventure’s broadside sent ball after ball crashing into the hull. Bolitho was thankful he had sent most of his men below, otherwise they would have been cut down by the fierceness of the onslaught. Timber and planks flew in all directions, and he saw a seaman hurled like a bloody rag to the opposite side, his limbs kicking as he died.

  Stockdale looked at Bolitho and saw him nod. With a grunt he dashed along the deck waving a cutlass, while Bolitho drew his pistol and yelled after him. When Stockdale ran on towards the halliards he fired, praying that his hand was steady as the shot whined clear above the coxswain’s head. Stockdale reached his goal, and with one slash severed the halliards, bringing the big Company flag tumbling down like some bright shroud across the weather rail.

  In a lull of noise and gunfire Bolitho heard a voice across the water, magnified and unreal in a speaking trumpet.

  “Heave to or I’ll sink you!”

  From forward he heard Heyward urging his men to obey the call, the sudden groan of timber as the ship lurched drunkenly into the wind, her remaining sails flapping and banging in disorder.

  Tyrrell said, “He’s going to grapple!”

  There were men on the Bonaventure’s yards, and as the big hull surged carefully and then more insistently against the side Bolitho saw grapnels flying from a dozen points at once. The men on the yards were busily making fast their lines to Royal Anne’s shrouds and spars, so that as both ships lifted and swayed together Bolitho knew the moment to act had arrived.

  “Now! Boarders away!”

  With a wild chorus of yells the hidden seamen surged up from both hatches and on to the bulwarks, their cutlasses and boarding pikes marking down several enemy hands before they realised what was happening. Moments, seconds earlier, they had seen Royal Anne as one more helpless prize, a ship which had struck to them, her flag hacked down by one of her own crew. Then, as if from nowhere, the bulk of Bolitho’s seamen came surging up and over the side, their steel bright in the sun, their voices hoarse and wild with the madness of combat.

  Bolitho ran to the rail and jerked the lanyard of another swivel, seeing the packed canister scything through a bunch of men on Bonaventure’s gangway and blasting them aside in its murderous hail.

  Then he was running with the second party and pulling himself on to the shrouds, slashing with his sword at a man’s arm on the chains below. Screams and curses, the bang of pistols and rasp of steel, he was dazed by the noise. A man plummeted past him to be held like a tortured animal between the two grinding hulls, his blood running pink in the leaping feathers of foam.

  He was on the enemy’s deck, his arm jarring as he struck down a man’s guard and drove the hilt against his jaw, throwing him back into the struggling figures beyond. Another charged forward with a levelled bayonet, slipped on a smear of blood and took Stockdale’s blade across his neck. It sounded like an axe biting into a log.

  He yelled wildly, “Cut the rigging, lads! Cripple the bastard!”

  He felt a ball fan hotly past his face, and ducked as another smacked into a seaman’s chest right beside him, his cry lost in the other din of battle.

  Now he was on a ladder, shoes sliding in blood, his fingers feeling up a rail, conscious of the torn wood where one of the swivels had made its mark. Two officers were parrying aside pikes and swords as they tried to rally their men from the opposite side. Bolitho saw one of them drive his sword into a boatswain’s mate, saw the eyes roll with agony as he pitched to the deck below, then he was up and facing the privateer’s officer, their swords clashing as they struck and explored their strength and weakness.

  “Damn you!” The man ducked and thrust up at Bolitho’s throat. “Strike while you are still alive, you mad bugger!”

  Bolitho caught the blade across his basket hilt and levered the man clear, feeling the warmth of his body, the fierceness of his breathing.

  He yelled back, “Strike be damned!”

  A pistol exploded and the officer dropped his arm, staring blankly at the blood which pumped through his shirt in a bright red stain.

  Tyrrell strode past and fired a second pistol into the man’s chest. When he turned Bolitho saw that Tyrrell’s face was like stone.

  He shouted, “I knew that bastard, Cap’n! A bloody slaver afore th’ war!”

  Then with a gasp he dropped on one knee, blood running from his thigh. Bolitho dragged him aside, cutting down a screaming seaman and thrusting the blade through his chest in two swift movements.

  “Easy!”

  He stared desperately above the nearest men. Much of the enemy’s rigging had been slashed, but the attack had made little impression after all. And his men were failing back around him, the lust to fight and win dwindling to match their numbers.

  On every hand, or so it appeared, muskets and pistols were firing down into the retreating English seamen, and he saw Heyward standing astride a wounded man and screaming like a madman as he fought off two attackers at once.

  As if from a great distance he saw the American captain watching from his poop, a tall, handsome man who was standing quite motionless, either so confident in his men’s efforts or so appalled by his attackers’ sacrifice that he was unable to tear his eyes away.

  Bolitho hacked a cutlass aside and sobbed aloud as his blade broke within inches of the hilt. He hurled the remains at the man’s head and saw him fall kicking, impaled on a pike. In a half daze he recalled the glib trader at English Harbour who had sold him the sword. He would not get his money now, damn his eyes.

  To Stockdale he croaked, “You know what to do!” He had to push him away, and even as he ran from the fighting he was still peering back, his eyes filled with anxiety.

  Then there was the distorted voice again, and when he looked up he saw the American captain using his trumpet.

  “Strike now! You have done more than enough! Strike or die!”

  Bolitho swung round, his heart bursting, his mind sick as he saw a young seaman fall to the deck, his face opened by a cutlass from ear to chin.

  Tyrrell was struggling on his injured knee and pointing wildly, “Look! Stockdale’s done it!”

  From the main batch on the Indiaman’s deck came a growing plume of dark smoke, spreading and thickening until it seemed to spurt up through the seams like steam under pressure.

  Bolitho yelled, “Fall back, lads! Back!”

  Then they were limping and staggering across the bulwarks, dragging their wounded, carrying others too crippled to move. There were not many of them, wounded or otherwise.

  Bolitho wiped his streaming eyes, hearing Tyrrell gasp with agony as he half carried, half dragged him to the opposite bulwark. Behind him he could hear frenzied shouts, the sudden click of steel as the Bonaventure’s men tried to cut away the lashings which they themselves had so skillfully used to hold both ships together. But it
was too late. It had been from the instant Stockdale had begun the last and most dangerous act. A short fuse, and then the fire had burst amongst the cargo of rum and the massive barrels of spirits, spreading through the hull at a terrible rate.

  Flames licked out of open ports and ran along the Bonaventure’s tarred rigging like angry tongues, sails vanished into ashes, and then with a bellow one great sheet of flame leapt between the two hulls, joining them finally in a single pyre.

  Bolitho peered down at the one remaining boat tethered to the ship’s quarter, riding where it had been since taking his orders across to Graves.

  “Abandon ship, lads!”

  Some clambered down, while others fell headlong, splashing and yelling until they were helped inboard by their companions. Blazing canvas, ashes and gusts of sparks rained across their heads, but as a seaman severed the bow rope and they groped half blinded for the oars Bolitho heard another great explosion, as if from the sea itself.

  The Indiaman began to settle down immediately, her masts and spars interlocking with her attacker’s to throw flames and sparks hundreds of feet into the air.

  He watched his small handful of fit men pulling at the oars, feeling the heat searing his back as he steered the boat away from the blazing ships. Exploding powder and toppling masts, a ship’s hold splitting wide open in an inferno of noise and shooting flames, and later the engulfing sounds of inrushing water. He heard it all, even pictured the general’s gold bullion, which someone might discover one day on the sea bottom.

  But it was all beyond him now. They had done the impossible. Miranda was avenged.

  He looked sadly at his men, at their faces which now meant so much to him. At young Heyward, filthy and exhausted, a wounded seaman propped across his lap. Tyrrell, a bloody bandage around his thigh, eyes closed with pain, but holding back his head as if to seek the first yellow bars of warmth from the sun. And Stockdale, who was everywhere. Bandaging and baling, lending weight to an oar, or helping to heave a dead man over the gunwale. He was tireless. Indestructible.

  He held out his hand and studied it. It was quite steady, even though every nerve and muscle seemed to be quivering. He glanced at his empty scabbard and gave a rueful smile. No matter. Nothing mattered now.

  How long they pulled at the oars, the time it took for the two blazing hulks finally to sink, Bolitho did not remember. The sun beat down on their aching, exhausted limbs, the stroke became slower and more hesitant. Once, when Bolitho peered astern he saw the sea’s face covered by a great spread of drifting remains from the ships and the men who had fought across them. But the privateer had managed to launch at least one boat, and before it was blotted out in haze he saw it was crammed with survivors. Perhaps they, too, would know the same despair as Miranda’s men.

  Then a shadow flitted across his face and he stared round, caught off guard as Sparrow’s topsails flashed gaily across the sun’s path.

  The men in the boat watched silently, unable to speak even to each other. Unable yet to realise they had survived.

  Bolitho stood by the tiller, his eyes stinging as he watched her careful approach, the lines of heads along her decks and gangways. She had come for him. Despite the danger, the unlikelihood of his plan succeeding, she had returned to make sure.

  Across the water a voice hailed, “Boat ahoy?”

  It sounded like Buckle, anxious maybe to know who had survived.

  Stockdale looked at him, his battered face questioning. When Bolitho said nothing he stood up and cupped his big bands.

  “Sparrow! Stand by for th’ captain!”

  Bolitho sank down, the last reserve draining from him. He was back.

  PART TWO

  1781

  10 SEA CHANGE

  CAPTAIN Richard Bolitho stared at the partly written letter he had been composing to his father, and then with a sigh carried his chair to the opposite end of the table. It was stifling hot, and as the Sparrow idled sluggishly on a flat calm she swung her stern very slightly allowing the hard sunlight to reach him and require him to move still further away from the windows.

  Becalmed. How used he had grown to this situation. He rubbed his eyes and held his pen above the paper again. It was difficult to know what to write, especially as he never knew when this or any letter might find its way aboard a home-bound vessel. It was harder still to feel involved with that other world in England which he had left in Trojan nearly six years back. And yet . . . the pen hovered uncertainly, his own world, so close and so vital in colour and smell in the bright sunlight, and that word becalmed would still be too painful, too harsh a reminder for his father of the Navy which he had been forced to leave.

  But Bolitho wanted to tell him so desperately, put his thoughts and memories into perspective, to share his own life and thereby fill the one remaining gap in it.

  Overhead, blocks clattered and feet thudded on the quarter-deck. Someone laughed, and he heard a faint splash as one of the hands cast a fishing line outboard to try his luck.

  His eyes moved from the letter to his open log which lay across the chart nearby. The log had changed as much as himself. Worn around the edges, matured perhaps. He stared at the date on the open page. April 10 th, 1781 . Three years, almost to the day, since he had first stepped aboard this ship in English Harbour to assume command. Without moving it was possible to glance back through the bulky log book, and even though he did not even touch a page he could recall so many of the things which had happened, faces and events, the demands made upon him and his varying successes in dealing with them.

  Often, during moments of quiet in the cabin, he had tried to fathom out some set thread in his life beyond the narrower explanations of luck or circumstance. So far it had defied him. And now as he sat in the familiar cabin where so much had happened he could accept that fate had had much to do with his being here. If, when he had left the Trojan he had failed to take a prize en route for Antigua, or upon arrival there had been no opportunity for immediate promotion, he might still be a lieutenant in the old ship-of-the-line. And on that very first convoy, if Colquhoun had sent him back to English Harbour instead of going himself, would he have ever succeeded in proving to be more than average in either skill or luck?

  Perhaps Colquhoun’s fateful decision on that far-off day had been the chance, the offering which had set his feet on the final path.

  Bolitho had returned to Antigua not merely as just one more officer rejoining his rightful squadron, but, to his astonishment, as some sort of hero. In his absence the stories of his rescuing the soldiers from Delaware Bay, his running a frigate aground, had been well spread. Then, with the news of Bonaventure’s end and his arrival with the rescued passengers, it seemed that every man wanted to see him and shake his hand.

  The Bonaventure had been even more deadly than Bolitho had realised at the time, and her successes formidable. Her loss to the enemy might mean little, but to the British it was a tremendous lift to their battered pride and morale.

  The admiral had received him in Antigua with controlled pleasure, and had made no bones about his hopes for the future. Colquhoun, on the other hand, had been the one man to offer Bolitho neither encouragement nor praise for his achievements in so short a time.

  Whenever Bolitho recalled their first meeting, Colquhoun’s warnings about the lot of any sea captain, he was reminded of the thinness of margin between fame and oblivion. Had Colquhoun stayed with that first convoy it was unlikely he would have shared Miranda’s fate, for he was too shrewd and cautious to take anything for granted. Had he been lucky enough to meet and destroy Bonaventure he would have gained the one thing he cared about, just as Commander Maulby had suggested, the unshakable power of flag rank, or at very least the coveted broad-pendant of commodore. Instead he had stayed where he was, frigate captain, and, with the war changing so rapidly, now likely to lose even his control of the small flotilla. Maulby no longer called him little admiral. Today it seemed too cruel, too unjust even for him.

  Eight bell
s chimed out from the forecastle, and without effort he pictured the hands preparing for the midday meal, the welcome ration of rum. Above his head Tyrrell and the master would be taking their noon sights, comparing their findings before bringing them down to the chart.

  The year after Bolitho’s destruction of the big privateer he had received his next surprise. The admiral had sent for him and had calmly announced that their lordships of Admiralty, like himself, believed in offering Sparrow’s commander a chance of exploiting his experience and skill. Promotion to full captain. Even now, after eighteen months of it, he found it hard to accept and believe.

  Within the flotilla the unexpected rise up the ladder had caused a great stir. Genuine pleasure from some, open resentment from others. Maulby had taken the news better than Bolitho had dared to hope, for he had come to like the Fawn’s laconic commander too much to have their friendship broken. Maulby was senior to him, but had merely remarked, “I’d like to see the rank go to no other man, so let’s drink to it!”

  Aboard Sparrow the news had had no division at all. They all seemed to share the same pride, the same sense of achievement, which could not have come at a better time for them. For the war had changed greatly even in the past year. No longer was it a matter of patrol or convoy for the army. The great powers had taken their stand, and Spain and Holland had joined France against England in their support of the American Revolution. The French had mustered a well-matched and powerful fleet in the West Indies under the Compte de Grasse, the most effective and talented admiral available. Admiral Rodney commanded the British squadrons, but with the pressures mounting daily he was hard put to spread his resources where they were most needed.

  And the Americans were not content to leave affairs to their seasoned allies. They continued to use privateers whenever possible, and a year after Bonaventure’s destruction yet another challenger emerged to shake British morale to its foundation. The privateer and ex-slaver Paul Jones, in his Bonhomme Richard, defeated the frigate Seraphis off the coast of England itself. The fact that the privateer, like the Seraphis, was reduced to a battered wreck in the hotly contested battle made no difference. British captains were expected to take on odds and win, and the defeat so close to home did more than many Americans believed possible to take the war and its reasons into English homes as well as their own.