Second to None (44 page)

It took physical effort to take and raise the spare telescope. The next few hours would be vital. He heard the flags squeaking aloft and in his mind saw them breaking out at the yard and, across that mile or so of lively water, another signals midshipman like Cousens reading the signal, as someone else wrote it down on a slate.

Cousens' brow was furrowed in concentration. ‘From Flag, sir.
Acknowledged.
' He sounded rather subdued. ‘Flag's calling up
Halcyon,
sir.'

Adam snapped, ‘No use!
Halcyon
's too far downwind – it will take her a whole watch to close with them!'

Cousens confirmed it. ‘
Chase
, sir.'

Galbraith was beside him again. ‘They might run for it when they see
Halcyon,
sir.'

‘I think not. The man in command will lose his head if he fails this time. And he will know it!'

He looked back at the signals party.

‘Anything, Mr Cousens?'

Sullivan's voice broke the spell, ‘
Deck thar!
Frigate's opened fire, sir!'

He heard the distant thuds, bow-chasers, he thought, testing the range, hoping for a crippling shot.

Cousens shouted, ‘Signal
Chase
is still flying, sir!'

Adam walked to the compass, the helmsmen gazing past him as if he was invisible, the big double-wheel moving slightly this way or that, each sail filled and fighting the rudder.

He said, ‘Then acknowledge it, Mr Cousens.' And swung away, as if he might see in the boy's eyes the folly of his own decision. ‘Get the hands aloft, Mr Galbraith! T'gallants and royals!' He grinned, the strain and doubt recoiling like beaten enemies. ‘The stuns'ls too, when we may!' He strode over to Cristie and his mates. ‘How so?'

‘West-by-north, sir.' The master gave a wintry smile, as if the madness was infectious. ‘It'll give 'er room to run down on the bugger!'

‘Stand by, on the quarterdeck! Man the braces there!'

Another squall moaned through the stays and shrouds, and the canvas cracked as if it would tear itself from the yards as the helm went over.

‘Flag is repeating our number, sir!' Cousens' words were almost drowned by the distant reverberating crash of mortars. The bombardment had begun.

Galbraith shook his head. ‘Hoist another ensign, Mr Cousens,' and attempted to smile, to share what the captain was doing. ‘That will be duty enough for you today!'

He watched the seamen running from one task to the next, not one tripping over a gun tackle or snatching up the wrong line or halliard. All the training and the hard knocks had paid off. It was insanity, and he could feel it driving away his reserve and his concern at the captain's deliberate misinterpretation of the admiral's signal. He had even found time to note it and sign the log, so that no one else could be officially blamed.

Galbraith saw Napier handing his captain a clean shirt, laughing at something he said as he pulled it over his unruly
hair. The sunlight was stronger now, enough to shine briefly on the locket the captain was wearing, the one he had seen in the cabin with the letters.

He felt a sudden chill as the boy handed Captain Bolitho his coat, not the one he had been wearing when he had first appeared on deck, if he had ever left it, but the gold-laced dress uniform coat with the bright epaulettes. A ready target for any marksman. Madness again, but Galbraith could imagine him wearing no other this day.

‘West-by-north, sir! Steady she goes!'

Adam looked along his ship, hearing the intermittent crash of gunfire.
Halcyon
was under fire already, long-range shots, like the ones laid on
Aranmore
.

He thought of Avery, his comments concerning the infamous Captain Martinez, and touched the locket beneath the clean shirt, and said aloud, ‘You were right, George, and nobody saw it. The face in the crowd.'

He turned to see the other ensign breaking to the wind, seeming to trail on the dark horizon as the ship heeled over, knowing that his mind must be empty now of everything which might weaken his resolve. But a memory of his uncle came, as he had seen him all those other times.

‘So let's be about it, then!'

Luke Jago stood by the mainmast's great trunk and looked along the frigate's maindeck. So many times; different ships and in all weathers, but always the same pattern. The whole larboard battery of eighteen-pounders had been run in, hauled up the tilting deck by their sweating crews, held in position by their taut tackles and ready for loading. Each crew was standing by with the tools of their trade, rammers and sponges, handspikes and charges, while every gun captain had already selected a perfect ball from his shot garland for the first, perhaps vital broadside. Around and at the foot of every mast the boarding pikes had been freed from their lashings, ready to snatch up and spit anyone brave or stupid enough to attempt to board them. The weapons chests were empty, and each man had armed himself with cutlass or axe with no more uncertainty than a farm-hand selecting a pitchfork.

He could sense the new midshipman watching him, breathing hard in his efforts to keep up with the captain's coxswain. Jago had wondered why the captain had given him the task of nursing Commodore Deighton's son. One day he would be an officer like Massie or so many others he had known, quick to forget past favours, and the secret skills which only true seamen knew and could pass on.

He felt the deck jerk to the double crash of the bomb's two mortars. Even at this distance, the ships were barely visible through the haze and dust, and yet the mortars' recoil seemed to rebound from the very seabed.

He had heard some of the men joking about the captain's reading of the flagship's signal. They would be putting bets on it too, if he had made a serious mistake. He loosened the cutlass in his belt, swearing quietly. Captain Bolitho would be a marked man anyway, as far as the admiral was concerned.

He said to the midshipman, ‘You'll be needed to pass messages between the forrard guns, under Mr Massie,' he jerked his thumb in the direction of the quarterdeck, ‘an' the cap'n. And if
he
falls, to th' next in command aft.'

He saw the boy blink, but he showed no fear. And he listened. He glanced at Midshipman Sandell by the empty boat-tier, even now snapping at some luckless seaman. He'd be no bloody loss to anyone.

He said, ‘An' remember, Mr Deighton, always
walk,
never run. That only makes the lads jumpy.' He grinned at Deighton's seriousness. ‘Stops you bein' a target too!'

Then, seeing his expression, he touched the midshipman's arm. ‘Forget I said that. It just came out.'

He stared at his own scarred hand on the boy's sleeve.
Let him think what he damn well likes. He'll not care a straw for a common seaman.
But it would not hold.

He said, ‘Now we'll carry on aft.'

Deighton said, ‘It seems so empty without the boats on deck.'

‘Never you mind them. We'll pick 'em up afore sunset.'

Deighton said softly, ‘Do you believe that, really?'

Jago nodded to Campbell, who was leaning on a handspike near his gun. Like most of the crews he had stripped to the waist, his scarred back a living testimony to his strength.
Jago sighed. Or stupidity. It was not long since he had done the same, his defiance of the authority which had wrongly punished him, leaving him scarred until the day he dropped.

The boy was murmuring, ‘I've never been in a real sea fight before.'

Jago knew that Deighton had transferred from the old
Vanoc
, a frigate said to be so infested with rot that she was as ripe as a pear, with only her copper holding her together.

He looked up at the towering masts and their bulging pyramids of canvas. From down here, the topgallant masts appeared to be bending like whips to the mounting pressure.

It was there again. Pride. Something he had all but taken an oath against. But she was flying through the water, spray bursting through the beakhead and drenching the figurehead's naked shoulders, a veritable sea nymph. He saw
Halcyon
, so much closer now, heeling over at a steep angle from
Unrivalled
's bow. A well-handled ship, he conceded. But no match for the big Dutchman.

And the lookouts had reported that the merchantman
Aranmore
was somewhere ahead. Victim or prize, it depended on which side you took.

Jago thought of the girl he had helped to carry below. He stared at the poop, the officers' figures leaning over to the sloping deck as if they were nailed to it to hold them in position. And now she was out there with her bullyboy of a husband and God alone knew how many other important passengers. Jago had seen the captain's face that night, and again when he had gone ashore to see her, even if he had not intended to meet her or it had been a complete accident. Jago thought otherwise. He shaded his eyes and saw the captain standing with one hand on the quarterdeck rail. By that same ladder.

And why not? As smart as paint, she was. He smiled crookedly. And she knew it, what's more.

The sound of cannon fire across the sea's face, and for an instant Jago imagined that the wind had changed direction.

Sullivan's voice cut through the boom of canvas and the groan of straining cordage. ‘Deck thar!
Halcyon
's under fire!'

Jago ran to the side and stood on a gun truck to get a better view.
Halcyon
was as before, cutting through the water, her ensigns very white against the hazy sky, their scarlet crosses
like blood. Then there was a sudden groan, and her foretopmast and spars began to topple; the sea and wind muffled the sound, and yet he seemed to hear it clearly, the slithering tangle of masts and rigging, snapping cordage and torn canvas, and then the complete mass plunging over the lee bow, flinging up spectres of spray. There would be men there, too, some killed in the fall, others dragged over the side by broken shrouds and stays, dying even as he watched, while others ran to hack the debris away. There was never time for pity.

Within minutes the fallen foretopmast was dragging
Halcyon
around like a giant sea anchor, and her guns were pointing impotently at open water.

‘Stand by to wear ship!'
That was the first lieutenant, voice distorted by his speaking trumpet. ‘
Pipe the hands to the braces!
'

Jago waited, feeling the ship's response to wind and rudder. The afterguard tramping past those same officers, hauling at the mizzen braces while
Unrivalled
altered course to windward, as close as she'd come, some of the sails already whipping and cracking in protest until more hands brought them under control.

Midshipman Deighton called, ‘What are we doing?'

Jago watched the tapering bowsprit and jib boom, the enemy frigate clearly visible for the first time, as if sliding downwind to larboard. Captain Bolitho was going to try and overreach the enemy, to claw into the wind and then run down on them, much as he had heard the dour sailing master describe.

But all he said was, ‘We're going to fight. So be ready!' Then, together, they climbed the ladder to the quarterdeck.

Adam Bolitho looked only briefly at the scene on the quarterdeck. The marines, their boots skidding on the wet planking while they secured the braces again before snatching up their muskets and running back to their stations. Four men on the wheel now, one of Cristie's mates adding his weight to the fight against wind and rudder.

He glanced up at the masthead pendant, almost hidden by the wildly cracking canvas. The wind was still steady, from the north-east, but from aft he could believe it was almost directly
abeam. The ship lay hard over, and his eyes stung as a shaft of sunlight found them for the first time.

And the enemy was still firing at
Halcyon.
There was no smoke to betray the shots, the wind was too strong, but he could see the other frigate's sails pockmarked with holes, and great, raw gashes along her engaged side; the enemy was trying to rid himself of one foe before dealing with the real threat from
Unrivalled.
He fought back the anger. Rhodes was so intent on humiliating him that he had been blind to the true danger. Dutch-built frigates were heavier, and could take a lot of punishment.
Halcyon
could not even close the range and hit back. He saw her main-topmast reel drunkenly now in a tangle of black cordage, like something trapped in a net, before crashing down across her gangway.

He took a telescope from its rack and trained it on the other frigate. Magnified in the powerful glass, he could see terrible damage, could feel her pain, and knew he was thinking of his beloved
Anemone
in her last fight against odds. When he had been badly wounded, and unable to prevent her colours being struck to the American.

He heard Cristie yell, ‘As close as she'll come, sir! Nor'-west-by-west!'

He realised that Midshipman Deighton was beside him at the rail, and said, ‘Take a good look, Mr Deighton. That is a ship to be proud of.' He lowered the glass, but not before he had seen the tiny threads of scarlet running down
Halycyon
's tumblehome from the forward scuppers, as if the ship and not her people was bleeding to death. But an ensign was still flying, and from what he had heard of her captain another would be in readiness to bend on if it was shot away.

What sort of men were they about to fight?

He had heard one of the master's mates ask Cristie the same question.

He had answered harshly, ‘The scum of a dozen waterfronts, gallows-bait the lot of 'em! But they'll fight right enough. Pirates, deserters, mutineers, they've no choice left any more!'

More shots found their mark in
Halcyon.
Her steering had been carried away, or perhaps there were only dead men at her wheel now. She was drifting, but occasionally a single gun would fire at her attacker, despite the range.