A Tradition of Victory (37 page)

Graham, the first lieutenant, jumped out and down, his sword shining dully in the smoke. From somewhere a boarding pike stabbed outboard like a cruel tongue, and without even a cry Graham fell between the two hulls. Bolitho glanced down at him only briefly, saw his eyes staring up before the two great hulls A

were thrust together yet again and he was ground between them.

Then he was slipping and stumbling from handhold to handhold, until he found himself on the enemy’s forecastle. He was almost knocked aside as more of
Odin
’s boarders charged past him, yelling like fiends as they hacked aside all opposition until they had reached the starboard gangway.

Startled faces peered up from the guns which were still firing into
Odin,
even though the muzzles were almost overlapping above the slit of trapped water as
La Sultane
swung heavily alongside.

A French midshipman darted from the shrouds and was hit between the shoulder-blades by a boarding axe as he ran.

Gun by gun the enemy’s broadside fell silent as men took up their pikes and cutlasses to defend their ship against this unexpected attack.

Bolitho found himself being carried along the narrow gangway, his sword-arm trapped at his side by the yelling, cheering seamen and marines.

Shots banged and whimpered from every angle and men were falling and dying, unable to find safety as they were forced along in the crush.

A lieutenant stood astride the gangway and saw Bolitho as he broke free from the men around him. Some of the boarders had dropped to the gun-deck below, and small tight groups of men hacked and slashed at each other, gasping for breath, while they sought to kill their enemies.

Bolitho held his sword level with his belt and watched the lieutenant’s uncertainty.

The blades circled and hissed together, and Bolitho saw the other man’s first surprise give way to concentrated determination.

But Bolitho held fast to a stanchion and wedged his hilt hard against his adversary’s. The lieutenant lost his balance, and for an instant their faces almost touched. There was fear now, but Bolitho saw his enemy only as a hindrance for what he must do.

A twist and a thrust to push the man off balance. The blade was unfamiliar but straight, and Bolitho felt it grate on bone before it slid beneath the lieutenant’s armpit.

He jerked it free and ran on towards the quarterdeck. Vaguely through the smoke he saw
Odin
’s misty outline, festooned with tattered canvas and severed rigging. Upended guns and motionless figures which told the story of every sea-fight.

Bolitho’s sudden anger seemed to carry him faster towards the battling figures which surged back and forth across the quarterdeck while the air rang with steel and the occasional crack of a pistol.

A seaman swung at a French quartermaster and cut his arm, and yelling with fear the man ran the wrong way and was quickly impaled on a marine’s bayonet.

Two of Inch’s seamen, one badly wounded, were hurling fire buckets from the quarterdeck on to the heads of the Frenchmen below. Filled with sand, each bucket was like a rock.

A figure lunged through the smoke, but his blade glanced off Bolitho’s left epaulette. But for it, the blade might have sliced into his shoulder like a wire through cheese.

Bolitho staggered aside as the French officer tried to recover his guard.

“Not now,
mounseer!
”

Allday’s big cutlass made a blur across Bolitho’s vision and sounded as if it was hitting solid wood.

Where was Remond?
Bolitho peered round, his sword-arm aching as he tried to gauge the progress of the battle. There were more marines aboard now, and he saw Allday’s new friend, the colour-sergeant, striding between a line of his men, his handpike taking a terrible toll as they stabbed and hacked their way aft.

By the larboard poop ladder, protected by some of his lieutenants, stood Remond. He saw Bolitho at the same moment, and for what seemed like minutes they stared at each other.

Remond shouted, “Strike! Without your flag, your ships will soon be gone!”

His voice brought a baying response from the British sailors and marines who had managed to fight their way the full length of the ship.

But Bolitho held out his sword and snapped, “I am waiting, Contre-Amiral!”

He could feel his heart thumping wildly, knowing that he was exposing his back to any marksman who might still have the will to take aim.

Remond threw his hat aside and answered, “I am ready enough, m’sieu!”

Allday said fiercely, “Jesus, sir, he’s got the
sword!
”

“I know.”

Bolitho stepped away from his men, sensing their wildness giving way to something like savage curiosity.

Just to see the old sword in Remond’s hand was all the spur he required.

They met on a small, shot-scarred place below the poop, hemmed in by seamen and marines who for just a few moments were spectators.

The blades touched and veered away again. Bolitho trod carefully, feeling the stab of pain in his thigh which might betray him to the enemy.

The sword blades darted closer, and Bolitho felt the power of the man, the strength of his broad, muscular body.

Despite the danger and the closeness of death, Bolitho was very aware of Allday nearby. Held back because of his need to face Remond alone, but not for long, any more than this fight would end a battle. Even now
La Sultane
’s lower gun-deck would have realized what was happening, and officers would be muster-ing their hands to repel the boarders.

Clang, clang, the swords shivered together, and Bolitho

recalled with sudden clarity his father using that same old blade to teach him how to defend himself.

He could feel Remond’s nearness, even smell him as they pressed together and locked hilts before fighting clear again.

He heard someone sobbing uncontrollably and knew it was Stirling. He must have climbed after the boarders in spite of his orders and the risk of being hacked down.

They think I am going to be killed.

Like the sight of the old sword in his enemy’s grasp, the thought made a chill of fury run through him. As their blades clashed and parried, and each man circled round to find an advantage, Bolitho could feel the strength going from his arm.

In one corner of his eye something moved very slowly, and for an instant he imagined that another of the French ships was going to take
Odin
from the other beam as first intended.

His breath seemed to stop. She was no ship of the line. She could only be
Phalarope.
As
Odin
had lain against her powerful adversary, and Herrick’s ships had closed with their French coun-terparts,
Phalarope
had fought her way through the line to support him.

He gasped as Remond drove the knuckle-bow into his shoulder and punched him away. Perhaps for that second’s hesitation Remond had seen Bolitho’s surprise as defeat.

Bolitho fell back against the hammock nettings, his sword clattering across the deck. He saw Remond’s dark eyes, merciless and unwinking, he seemed to be staring straight along the edge of the blade to its very point which was aimed at his heart.

The deafening roar of carronades was terrifying and broke the spellbound watchers into confusion.
Phalarope
had crossed the French flagship’s stern and was firing through the windows and along the lower gun-deck from transom to bows.

The ship felt as if it were falling apart, and Bolitho saw splinters and fragments of grape bursting up through the deck itself A

or ricocheting over the sea like disturbed hornets. One such fragment hit Remond before he could make that final thrust.

He realized that Allday was helping to get him to his feet, that Remond had fallen on his side, a hole the size of a fist punched through his stomach. Behind him a British seaman came out of his daze, and seeing the dying admiral, lifted his cutlass to end it.

Allday saw Bolitho’s face and said to the man, “Easy, mate! Enough’s enough.” Almost gently he prised the old sword from Remond’s fingers and added, “It don’t serve
two
masters, mounseer.” But Remond’s stare had become fixed and without understanding.

Bolitho gripped the sword in both hands and turned it over very slowly. Around him his men were cheering and hugging each other, while Allday stood grim-faced and watchful until the last Frenchman had thrown down his weapons.

Bolitho looked at Stirling who was staring at him and shivering uncontrollably.

“We won, Mr Stirling.”

The boy nodded, his eyes too misty to record this great moment for his mother.

A young lieutenant, whose face was vaguely familiar, pushed through the cheering seamen and marines.

He saw Bolitho and touched his hat.

“Thank God you are safe, sir!”

Bolitho studied him gravely. “Thank
you,
but is that what you came to say?”

The lieutenant stared around at the dead and wounded, the scars and bloody patterns of battle.

“I have to tell you, sir, that the enemy have struck to us. All but one, which is running for the Loire with
Nicator
in full pursuit.”

Bolitho looked away. A complete victory. More than even Beauchamp could have expected.

He swung towards the lieutenant. He must think me mad.

“What ship?”

“
Phalarope,
sir. I am Fearn, acting-first lieutenant.”

Bolitho stared at him. “Acting-first lieutenant?” He saw the man recoil but could only think of his nephew. “Is Lieutenant Pascoe … ?” He could not say the word.

The lieutenant breathed out noisily, glad he was not in the wrong after all.

“Oh
no,
sir! Lieutenant Adam Pascoe is in temporary command!” He looked down at the deck as if the realization he had survived was only just reaching him. “I fear Captain Emes fell as we broke through the French line.”

Bolitho gripped his hand. “Return to your ship and give my thanks to the people.”

He followed the lieutenant along the gangway until he saw a boat hooked alongside.

Phalarope
was lying hove to close by, her sails punctured, but every carronade still run out and ready to fire.

He remembered what he had said to Herrick after the Saintes, when he had spoken of others’ ships.

Bolitho had replied then, “Not like this one. Not like the
Phalarope.
”

There would be no need to tell Adam that. For like Emes before him, he would have discovered it for himself.

He saw Allday rolling up the captured French flag which had outlived its admiral.

Bolitho took it and handed it to the lieutenant.

“My compliments to your commanding officer, Mr Fearn.

Give him this.” He looked at his old sword and added quietly,

“We can all honour this day.”

RICHARD BOLITHO studied his reflection in a wall mirror with the same scrutiny he would offer a junior officer who had applied for promotion.

He said over his shoulder, “It was good of you to stay with me, Thomas.” He turned and looked fondly at Herrick who was sitting on the edge of a chair, a half-empty goblet clutched in one hand. “Although in your present state of nerves I fear we will be of little use to one another!”

It was still difficult to believe he was home in Falmouth. After all that had happened, the squadron’s slow return to Plymouth, the work involved in caring for the battle-scarred ships, the goodbyes, and the memories of those who would never set foot in England again.

How quiet the house was, so still he could hear the birds beyond the windows which were closed against the first October chill, so very quiet, like a ship before a fight or after a storm.

Herrick shifted uncomfortably in his chair and looked down at his new uniform.

“Acting-commodore,
they
said!” He sounded incredulous. “But I’d lose even that when peace was signed!”

Bolitho smiled at Herrick’s discomfort. Whatever the Admiralty’s official attitude was to be about the French invasion fleet’s destruction, their lordships had shown honest sense where Herrick was concerned.

Bolitho said quietly, “It has the right ring to it. Thomas Herrick, Rear-Admiral of the Red. I’m truly proud of you, and for you.”

Herrick stuck out his jaw, “And what about you?
Nothing
for what you achieved?” He held up his hand. “You can’t shut me up

any more! We’re equal now, you said so yourself, so I’ll say my piece and there’s an end to it!”

“Yes, Thomas.”

Herrick nodded, satisfied. “Right then. It’s all over the West Country, everyone knows that peace is everything but signed, that fighting has ceased, and all because the French are the ones eager for an armistice! And
why,
do I ask?”

“Tell me, Thomas.”

Bolitho looked at himself in the mirror again. He felt worried and unsettled now that the moment had arrived. Within the hour he would be married to Belinda. What he had wanted more than anything, what he had clung to even in the worst moments in France and at sea.

But suppose she had inwardly changed her mind. She would still marry him, he had no doubt about that, but it would be on his terms and not hers. Herrick’s anger at the Admiralty’s attitude on his future seemed unimportant.

Herrick said, “It is because of what you did, make no mistake on that! Without those damned invasion vessels the French can only make a noise. They could no more invade England than, than …” He groped for some suitable insult. He ended by saying, “I think it’s petty and unfair. I’m promoted, when God’s teeth I’d rather remain a captain, while you stay where you are!”

Bolitho looked at him gravely. “Was it hard for you at Plymouth?”

Herrick nodded. “Aye. Saying farewell to
Benbow.
It
was
hard.

I wanted to explain so much to the new captain, tell him what the ship could do …” He shrugged heavily. “But there it is. We paid our formal respects, and I came here to Falmouth.”

“Like that other time, eh, Thomas?”

“Aye.”

Herrick stood up and placed the goblet firmly on the table.