The Lion of Midnight (20 page)

North frowned. ‘Sir Matthew – you seek my opinion upon
the
hoisting
of a flag
?’

‘You are a diplomatist, Mister North,’ I said reprovingly. ‘Is there a higher matter of honour than the hoisting of our country’s flag?’

The young man looked at me with a peculiar expression that might even have been tinged with respect. ‘No, Sir Matthew,’ he said slowly, ‘there is not. You have served as an ambassador of the King of Great Britain at the risk of your own life, and I will gladly vouch to His
Majesty
that you have earned the right to bear his flag.’

‘Very well, then.’ I turned to the company upon the quarterdeck. ‘Mister Lanherne! Break out the Union at the main!’

Suitably, the hoisting of the colour was undertaken by
MacFerran
, one of the few Scots in the ship’s company and one of my closest followers since my fateful commission in the
Jupiter
. As the strange
confection
of red, blue and white, so unlike any other flag conceived by man, unfurled from the masthead, a proud cheer broke out among the Cressys upon the deck. With that, I ordered our trumpets to sound and our decks cleared for battle.

As the
Cressy
echoed to the sound of partitions being taken down, gun port lids swinging open and guns being run out, Kellett approached me with an unexpected report. I thought hard before I responded to it, but we had ample time, perhaps an hour still, before we engaged, and Lydford North was at the larboard rail, seemingly absorbed by Musk’s bloodthirsty description of exactly what horrors he could expect to experience in a sea-battle. All of that being so, some strange compulsion made me accede to the request that Kellett had brought me.

I went below, elbowing my way past Cressys intent on nothing but readying their ship for battle. I returned nods and makeshift salutes galore, as well as acknowledging growls of ‘God be with you, Sir
Matthew
’. As I did so, I wondered how many of these men would live to see another dawn. They were a good crew, a veteran crew, many of whom had been with me since my time in the
Jupiter
. Yet some were surely
destined
to die in the next few hours, in a battle against a land with which England was not at war; a battle seemingly brought on at the behest of one fanatical Frenchman, obsessed with vengeance against me. Indeed, I thought, perhaps I was one of those so destined. If that was to be the case I ought to be penning a last letter to my Cornelia, not embarking on this peculiar pilgrimage to the very depths of the ship’s hull.

The orlop stank of the bilges and the waste of countless seamen who
had failed to reach the heads in the bow. It was the lowest of the decks in both senses of the term, and even bending nearly double still put me in constant danger of colliding with each and every beam. It was also the darkest place on the ship, below the waterline, lit only dimly by one lantern. Even so, the light was sufficient for me to see the unkempt form of John Bale, sitting upon a rough seaman’s mattress lying on the deck. Both his hands and his ankles were manacled, this at North’s insistence; and fresh gashes and bruises upon the regicide’s face bore witness to the fact that there were not the only painful indignities Arlington’s creature had heaped upon Bale. Despite the enormity of what he had done, I, who myself had been chained so recently, could not help but feel some sympathy for the man’s plight.

He looked up as I approached. ‘You face battle, Sir Matthew. The boy who fetched your Mister North took great delight in telling me. Two ships, one of them far greater than this?’

There was little point in dissembling. ‘They are not insuperable odds,’ I said.

‘But nonetheless, they are against us?’

‘Us’: I bridled at the presumption of the man in placing himself upon the same side as myself and all the other loyal Cressys. But then I
understood
– or thought I understood – Bale’s concern.

‘This will be the safest place on the ship,’ I said sharply, ‘and if we succumb to the odds, well, then – you will not be the only man to die this day, John Bale. Drowning down here will be a quicker and cleaner death than that which awaits many of us above. A quicker and cleaner death than you deserve, despite the service you rendered me by telling my men where Montnoir was holding me.’

‘That may be,’ he said levelly. ‘Do I not then deserve an opportunity to atone for the manifest sin I committed, Sir Matthew?’

‘Atonement for you can come only from God.’

‘If that is so, and I truly believe you have the right of it, then why not put the matter in the hands of God?’ His eyes fixed intently upon mine.
‘I fought, Sir Matthew. I rode with Cromwell at Preston and at
Worcester
. I can wield a sword with the best, and I can aim a musket. You will need every man you can get in the fight to come. So let God judge me. Either I perish in battle, and His will be done, or I live to face the king’s judge and executioner. In either case, justice is served upon John Bale. But if it is to be the former, at least my son will know his father died redeemed, fighting for the country he loved.’

The impudence and enormity of his demand took my breath away. ‘You would have me release you, and give you a weapon?’

‘Just so, Sir Matthew.’

Every Cavalier instinct in my body raged against it. I could almost see my mother’s face, red with fury and forbidding. I could visualise the terrible wrath of my king. Yet there was another voice, too: a still, small voice, that spoke to me in very different words.

The distant sound of the
Cressy
’s trumpets, so shrill their notes
carried
all the way down from the poop to this fastness, brought me back to the moment.

‘I shall think upon it,’ I said, and turned upon my heel.

I returned to the quarterdeck to see that the
Oldenborg
and her consort had separated. The smaller frigate, now identified as the
Dutchloaned
Faisant
, was sailing large to the south-east upon the wind. Her intent was obvious: she would cut well astern of us, then turn north again close-hauled to fall upon the mast-fleet. Rohde, or Montnoir, or whoever truly commanded the Danish squadron, knew their business. It would be an easy matter for us to fall away down the wind and
prevent
the frigate reaching the fleet; but that would leave the mast-ships exposed to the full force of the
Oldenborg
, which could set a course for the headmost vessels and be upon them in precious little time. Whereas if we held our course to block the approach of the greater ship, the lesser would have free rein to wreak what havoc she could. That being so, there was only one thing I could do; or at any rate, only one thing I could do with honour.

‘Mister Farrell, Mister Jeary!’ I cried. The two officers approached and touched their hats in salute. Inevitably, Phineas Musk shuffled nearer so as to be within earshot. ‘Do not the great Classical authors tell us that for a general to divide his force is the most unutterable folly?’

‘Perhaps they do, Sir Matthew,’ said Kit, thoughtfully: I, who had taught him how to read only a few years since, knew full well that he had never encountered a Classical author in his life.

‘Indeed they do, Lieutenant. Thus it appears to me that the only way of preventing one or other of the Danes falling upon our charges is for us to batter the other so mercilessly that his second has no choice but to come to his aid. Divide and conquer, gentlemen. Our enemy has obliged us by dividing, and now we shall conquer.’

‘Which ship, Sir Matthew?’ asked Jeary, although he knew the answer as well as I did.

‘I do not imagine Captain Rohde would go to the assistance of a mere hired Dutchman,’ I said. ‘The Lord Montnoir certainly would not.’ I nodded toward the proud bulk of the
Oldenborg
. ‘There is our foe, gentlemen. She flies the flag of France, and have not Englishmen in war always found humbling those colours an irresistible prospect? Mister Jeary, a course directly for her, if you please.’

The
Cressy
wore ship and came round onto the same tack as the
Oldenborg
, steering north-east toward the headmost of the mast-ships. The distance between us closed rapidly. The starboard rail of the enemy ship was lined with men chanting ferociously:
Danmark! Danmark!
These were descendants of the Vikings, I reminded myself, and they would not be awed by the sight of English colours. I levelled at my telescope upon her quarterdeck, and there was Captain Rohde, his own eyepiece fixed upon me. Beside him stood the unmistakeable slender figure of the Seigneur de Montnoir.

Phineas Musk appeared from below with my breastplate, pistols and
sword. By rights, the task of attiring the captain of the
Cressy
for battle should have fallen to one of my young attendants, but I could readily imagine how easily Musk would have brushed them aside. ‘God knows what inspired me to volunteer for this voyage,’ he said as he fastened my baldric and scabbard. ‘Little pay. Weather cold enough to freeze a man’s piece off. I could have stayed before an open fire in London town.’

‘Come now, Musk, surely you would not have wished to miss our great victory over the Danes and, let us pray, the end of our mortal foe, Lord Montnoir?’

‘Victory, defeat – they both look damnably similar after a while. Not my words, your grandfather’s, and he’d seen more of war than the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. As for the end of that infernal Frog, I’d rather have read about it.’

I smiled; and that, of course, was Musk’s purpose. He was no
coward
, but he had a way of knowing how to cheer Sir Matthew Quinton: for otherwise I might have been prone to think too much upon the prospects for the coming battle and of the terrible condition that would befall Cornelia, Lady Quinton, if her husband fell.

Lydford North and Reverend Eade, the
Cressy
’s chaplain, came onto the quarterdeck to join the growing throng that also included Kit
Farrell
, Seth Jeary and two of his mates. North looked uncomfortable in a breastplate acquired from the armourer’s store, and his eyes met mine only fleetingly before he withdrew to the rail to study the
Oldenborg
. Lord Arlington’s protégé was evidently brave enough when pointing his pistol at a regicide, but like so many of our young cavalier blades, he had never experienced a proper battle before. Would Lydford North prove to be nought but a craven and a coward? I did not know, and no doubt neither did he.

The chaplain recited the prayers before battle, but I do not know how many of those manning the guns in the waist heard him. I doubt whether all of us on the quarterdeck did. Eade was a mumbler at the best of times, and now he was very nearly struck dumb with fear. Once
again I wished that Francis Gale was with us instead, for even those aboard the enemy ship would have heard his thunderous delivery of the prayerbook litany; and having delivered it, Francis would then wield a cutlass as ferociously as any man in the crew –

The
Oldenborg
opened fire, her upper deck guns belching flame and smoke. The two ships were still perhaps five hundred yards apart.

‘Impatient, to fire at such a range,’ said Seth Jeary calmly. Most of the Dane’s shot fell short; a ball or two hit the hull, high up, but with most of the force expended, they had little effect against stout English oak.

‘Like the Dutch,’ I said. ‘Firing on the uproll, for our rigging, making best use of his lighter shot – I reckon he has nothing above twenty-four pounders.’ Kit nodded. ‘And with his advantage over us in the size of his complement, I do not doubt that he will also seek to emulate the Dutch by boarding us if he can. That being so, Mister Farrell, you know your duty.’

Kit saluted and went below.

I moved to the quarterdeck rail and called down to the
Cressy
’s master gunner, who was in the waist of the ship checking the condition of our larboard eight-pounders and their crews. ‘Mister Blackburn! All is ready, as we discussed?’

‘Awaiting your command, Sir Matthew!’

‘Very good. Today we avenge the good men the Danes killed at
Bergen
, Mister Blackburn, so pray ensure that every gun aims true!’

The gunner saluted and returned to his duty. As he did so, the
Oldenborg
fired again. Her gun crews were finding their range and their aim now. Most of her shots struck home: two holes were rent in the mainsail, another in the fore, and three or four shrouds snapped. I calculated the range between us. Three hundred yards – a good English fighting distance. I drew my sword. Gunner Blackburn’s eyes were upon me. I waited for the downroll and slashed my blade downward.

Blackburn bellowed through his voice trumpet, the gun captains repeated the command, and in an instant the larboard broadside of
the
Cressy
roared out, the bass roar of the great demi-cannon
intermingled
with the tenors of the culverins, eight-pounders and sakers. I was accustomed to the apocalyptic cacophony and the great shuddering of a ship’s hull that accompanied it, but Eade and North were not. Both men looked about them in sheer terror and belatedly covered their ears.

As the smoke rolled away, I studied the
Oldenborg
intently. Several hits in her hull, some of which had penetrated: one had shattered the planking directly alongside a gunport, and as I watched, a man with the side of his chest torn away fell through the hole into the water below, where his gushing blood stained the sea.

The Dane returned fire, his shot again whistling through our rigging. And once more the
Cressy
responded. It was clear already that the
interval
between our broadsides was shorter than our adversary’s; most of my men had fought the previous summer and had been well drilled by John Blackburn. But now the tactic I had concocted with my master
gunner
came into full play. While the heavy guns on our two lower decks continued to fire on the downroll, double-shotted with round shot to batter the Dane’s hull, the lighter weapons upon the upper deck fired on the uproll also, laden with case-shot, bar-shot and bags of bullets. Great holes appeared in the
Oldenborg
’s canvas; a large splinter sheared off her mizzen yard, and two men upon the yard fell dead to the deck.

If we continued to fight an artillery duel side-by-side, the
Oldenborg
’s greater size and overall weight of broadside would count for nought. The
Cressy
, her veteran gun crews and above all the heavy thirty-two pound balls of the demi-cannon smashing into the Dane’s hull low down would win, and win quickly. Which meant if Captain Jan-Ulrik Rohde was as good an officer as I took him to be, there were two things he could do to tilt the odds back in his favour: close with us for
boarding
, relying on his larger crew to overwhelm the Cressys, and recall the
Faisant
from her attack on the mast fleet. And as he proceeded to do them, I offered up thanks to Almighty God – even though if he brought them off, they might prove our undoing.

The Dane had the weather gage, and now her great bows turned toward our own. Rohde’s men were massing forward, upon his
forecastle
. And at the foremast head, a plain blue flag broke out. I was not privy to the intricacies of the Danish signal book, but there was no doubting what it was: a recall command.