A Tradition of Victory (17 page)

John? Come on, my lad, speak to me.” He squeezed his hand very gently but there was no response.
Not you too. God in heaven, not
you.

The commandant’s voice seemed to come from far away. “I have orders to transfer you to Lorient. There, Captain Neale will be in safer hands.”

Bolitho looked at him, his mind grappling with his words, what they meant. It was for nothing. Neale was going to die, and they were being sent to Lorient where there would be no chance to escape and wreck one of the towers.

He protested, “M’sieu, Captain Neale cannot survive another coach journey!”

The commandant turned his back and stared towards the sea.

“I am
ordered
to send you to Lorient. The surgeon knows of the risks, but assures me that only by remaining with you does the young capitaine hold on to life at all.” His tone softened as it had at their very first meeting. “But you will travel by sea. It is little enough, m’sieu amiral, but my influence is equally small.”

Bolitho nodded slowly. “
Thank
you. I shall not forget. None of us shall.”

The commandant squared his narrow shoulders, embarrassed perhaps at their sudden contact.

“You will be put aboard ship tonight. After that …” He shrugged. “It is out of my hands.”

He left the room, and Bolitho bent over Neale again. “Did you hear that, John? We’re taking you somewhere where you’ll get proper care. And we shall all keep together, eh?”

Neale’s eyes moved towards him, as if even that effort was too much.

“No … use. They’ve … done … for … me … this …

time.”

Bolitho felt Neale trying to grip his hand. To see him try to smile almost broke his heart.

Neale whispered, “Mr Bundy will want to speak about his charts again.” He was rambling, his gaze blurred with pain.

“Later …”

Bolitho released his hand and stood up. “Let him rest.” To Browne he added, “Make sure we leave nothing behind.” He was speaking to give himself time. They had nothing to leave behind, as Allday had already pointed out.

Allday said quietly, “I’ll take care of Captain Neale, sir.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Bolitho crossed to the window and pressed his forehead against the sun-warmed bars. Somewhere to his left was the church tower, although he could not see it. It would take days to get the attacking ships into position, but mere minutes to send a signal by semaphore to summon reinforcements to destroy them.

Nobody knew. Perhaps nobody would ever know. And Neale with so many of his men would have died for nothing.

He pressed his face still harder until the rough iron steadied him. Neale was
not
dead, and the enemy had
not
won.

Browne watched him anxiously, wanting to help, and knowing there was nothing he could do.

Allday sat down and peered at Neale. His eyes were closed and his breathing seemed easier.

Allday thought of the French ship which would take them to Lorient, wherever in hell
that
was. He despised the “mounseers”

as he called them, but any ship was better than a carriage and a lot of damn soldiers.

Anyway, he did know that Lorient was to the north, and
that
was nearer to England.

The little commandant waited by the doorway and looked at Bolitho curiously.

“It is time, m’sieu.”

Bolitho glanced round the room, their prison for such a short A

time. Neale, strapped unconscious to a stretcher, and with Allday close by his side, had been carried out earlier that afternoon.

Without him and his desperate efforts to cling to life, the room already seemed dead.

Browne said, “Listen to the wind.”

That too was like an evil omen. Within an hour of Neale being carried away the wind had started to rise. The weather’s moods were always very noticeable in the prison’s central tower, but now as they stood by the door it sounded wild and menacing. It sighed around the prison and moaned through the small windows like a living force, eager to find and destroy them.

Bolitho said, “I hope Neale is safely aboard.”

The commandant led the way down the curving stairway, his boots fitting into the worn stones without conscious effort.

Over his shoulder he remarked, “It must be tonight. The ship will not wait.”

Bolitho listened to the rising gale. Especially now, he thought.

Outside the prison gates the contrast to that morning when he and Browne had walked to the hillside was even more impressive. Low scudding clouds, with occasional shafts of silver light from the moon to make the picture stark and savage. Lanterns bobbed around him, and at a shouted command they moved towards the rear of the prison. Ahead of them the commandant strode unerringly with neither moonlight nor lantern to guide him. They were taking almost the same path they had discovered that morning, although in the darkness and buffeted by the wind it might have been anywhere.

He could feel the guards watching him, and recalled the commandant’s last warning. “You will leave my care like officers not thieves. Therefore I will not put the irons on your hands and feet.

But if you try to escape …”

The closeness of the guards and long bayonets required no further explanation.

Browne said, “We’re descending now.”

The path curved to the right and dipped steeply. As it did so the hiss and moan of the wind faded slightly, cut off by a wall of cliff.

Bolitho stumbled and heard a metallic click behind him. They were that watchful. Ready to shoot him down if he ran for it.

Then he heard the sea, rebellious against the beach, and with only an occasional necklace of foam to betray its direction. He found he was counting the seconds and minutes, as if it was vital to know the exact place where he would leave the land and head for another destination.

Another group of lanterns swayed up the beach and boots squeaked on wet sand.

Bolitho heard a boat’s keel grating in the shallows and wondered where the ship lay at anchor. The shelter afforded by the headland told him that the wind had not only risen but had also shifted considerably. From the east? It seemed likely. You never really knew in Biscay.

The commandant’s face floated out of the darkness in a beam of lantern light.

“Farewell, m’sieu. I am told your Capitaine Neale is safely on board the
Ceres.
” He stood back and touched his hat. “Good luck.”

The light vanished and with it the commandant.

A new voice shouted harshly, “
Dans la chaloupe, vite!”

Led, pushed and dragged, they found themselves in the sternsheets of a longboat, and even as they were squeezed between two invisible seamen the hull was pushed into deep water, the oars already thrashing wildly to regain control.

Once clear of the land it was like riding on the back of a por-poise. Up and plunge, the oarsmen working in desperate rhythm, urged on occasionally by the coxswain at the tiller.

It was a rough night, and would get worse. Bolitho thought of Neale and hoped he would find peace in more familiar A

surroundings, French or not. He could sense the difference around him. The smell of tar and brandy, the sweat of the oarsmen as they fought against their constant enemy.

Ceres.
He had heard her name before somewhere. A frigate, one of those used to pierce the British blockade and carry despatches between the various fleets. If the French continued to extend their semaphore system, the frigate’s life would be an easier one.

Browne touched his arm, and he saw the French ship loom out of the darkness, the sea boiling around her stem and anchor cable as if she had just risen from the depths.

After three attempts the boat hooked on to the chains, and Bolitho, followed by Browne, jumped for his life as the boat fell away into another surging trough.

Even so, they arrived on the frigate’s deck soaked to the skin, their coats, stripped of buttons and insignia, hanging around them like rags from a scarecrow.

Bolitho sensed the urgency and the need to get under way; equally he was impressed that the vessel’s captain, pre-warned of his passenger’s rank, took time from his duties to meet him at the entry port.

Then it was done, and Bolitho found himself being led down ladders and beneath low-beamed deckheads to the world he knew so well.

The motion between decks was violent, and he could feel the ship jerking at her cable, eager to get away from the surrounding rocks and seek open water.

As they descended another ladder to the orlop deck, Bolitho heard the clink of a capstan, orders carried away by the wind as the seamen prepared to make sail.

Stooping figures passed through the shadows, and Bolitho saw dark stains on the deck which could only be blood. Not all that recent, but too deep to be scrubbed away. Like any other

orlop, he thought grimly. Where the surgeons managed as best they could while the guns thundered overhead and their screaming victims were pinioned to a table for the saw or knife.

He saw Neale in a cot by one of the great frames, and Allday rising to meet him as if their reunion was all that mattered in the world.

Allday said quickly, “She’s the
Ceres,
thirty-two, sir.” He led the way to some old sea chests which he had covered with canvas and fashioned into seating for them. He added, “She was in a fight with one of our patrols a while back. The cook told me.”

He grinned. “He’s Irish. Anyways, sir, she’s on passage to Lorient.”

He cocked his head as the wind roared against the side. “Shorthanded they are too. Hope they runs aground, damn them!”

“How’s Captain Neale?”

Allday became serious again. “Sometimes he thinks he’s back in
Styx.
Keeps giving orders. Other times he’s quiet, no trouble.”

More far-off cries and then the deck tilted violently. Bolitho sat on a chest, his back pressed against the timbers, as the anchor broke from the ground and the
Ceres
began her fight to beat clear.

He noticed that Allday had piled some old canvas in a corner, but enough to hide the manacles and leg irons which in turn were attached to chains and ring-bolts. One more reminder that they were prisoners and would be treated harshly if there was any sort of trouble.

Allday looked at the deckhead, his eyes and ears working like a cat in the dark.

“They’re aweigh, sir. Close-hauled by now, I reckon.” As an afterthought he said, “They have plenty to drink, sir. But no real ale.” He wrinkled his nose with disgust. “Still, what can you expect?”

Bolitho looked at Neale and then at Browne. Both were asleep, each trapped in his own thoughts and so momentarily secure.

Around them the ship groaned and plunged, every timber A

straining, while the wind endeavoured to break the hold of helm and seamanship. Again and again Bolitho heard the sea thunder against the side, and could imagine it leaping over the gangways and sweeping unwary and tired men in its path like leaves.

He thought of Belinda, of the house beneath Pendennis Castle, of Adam, and his friend Thomas Herrick. He was still trying to determine their faces when he too fell into an exhausted sleep.

When next he opened his eyes he was instantly aware that things had changed. As his mind grappled with his surroundings, he realized he must have been asleep for hours, for he could see creeping fingers of grey light playing down one of the companion ladders.

Allday was sitting bolt upright on his canvas, and Browne too was rubbing his eyes and yawning, as if he thought he was still dreaming.

Bolitho leaned forward and felt the ship moving unsteadily beneath his feet. What had awakened him?

He said, “Go to that ladder, Oliver. Tell me if you can hear anything.”

Allday asked uneasily, “Can’t be there already, can we?”

“No. Offshore gale, and in these waters, it will double the passage.”

He saw Browne cling to the ladder as a voice echoed from the deck above.

“En haut les gabiers! En haut pour ferler les huniers!”

Browne hurried over, his body steeply angled to the deck like a man on a hillside.

“They’re reefing topsails, sir.”

Bolitho heard the stumbling feet overhead as the watch off duty ran to obey the last order. It made no sense. Shorthanded, Allday had said, so why wear out men further by reefing now? If only he could see what was happening.

A lantern cast a yellow glow down the ladder, and Bolitho saw a lieutenant and two armed petty officers hurrying towards him.

The lieutenant was young and looked worried. The two old hands wasted no time in snapping the manacles over Bolitho’s wrists and ankles, and then did the same to Browne. As they moved towards Allday, the lieutenant shook his head and gestured towards Neale. Allday, it seemed, was being kept free to continue looking after the injured captain.

Bolitho looked at the iron manacles and said, “I do not understand.”

The ship leaned further to one side, whilst overhead voices yelled back and forth and blocks squealed like pigs at a slaughter. The captain was trying to change tack, but from the violent motion, Bolitho doubted if he had succeeded. Without topsails he … Bolitho sat bolt upright until restrained by the chain.

The French captain had wanted to remain unseen, and had taken in his upper sails to help conceal his ship against the tossing backcloth of waves.

Like an echo to his own thoughts he heard a voice shout,

“Tout le monde à son poste! Branle-bas de combat!”

Browne stared, wide-eyed. “They’re clearing for action, sir!”

Bolitho listened to the increasing jumble of sounds as the frigate’s company began to remove screens and hammocks, and the rumble of gun trucks being manœuvred in readiness for the order to load.

They looked at one another as if unable to believe what was happening.

Then Allday said fervently, “It’s one of ours, sir! By God, it must be!”

Shadowy figures bustled past, heads bowed beneath the beams.

Lanterns were lit and hung in a spiralling circle, and more chests were dragged to the centre of the deck and quickly secured with A

lashings. Light gleamed briefly on long aprons and across the glittering array of instruments as the surgeon’s mates laid out the tools of their trade.