Bolitho 19 - Beyond the Reef

Selected Historical Fiction Published by McBooks Press

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Chapter 1 - BAND OF BROTHERS

Chapter 2 - STRANGERS

Chapter 3 - ACCUSED

Chapter 4 - REVENGE

Chapter 5 - THE HAND OF A LADY

Chapter 6 - THE GOLDEN PLOVER

Chapter 7 - CONSCIENCE

Chapter 8 - BREAKERS

Chapter 9 - ABANDON

Chapter 10 - POOR JACK

Chapter 11 - A DAY TO REMEMBER

Chapter 12 - WELCOME …

Chapter 13 - … AND FAREWELL

Chapter 14 - BAD BLOOD

Chapter 15 - FROM THE DEAD

Chapter 16 - POWER OF COMMAND

Chapter 17 - SHIPS PASSING

Chapter 18 - GHOSTS

Chapter 19 - WE HAPPY FEW

Is that a sail on the horizon?

Douglas Reeman Modern Naval Library

Selected Historical Fiction Published by McBooks Press

BY ALEXANDER KENT

The Complete

Midshipman Bolitho

Stand Into Danger

In Gallant Company

Sloop of War

To Glory We Steer

Command a King’s Ship

Passage to Mutiny

With All Despatch

Form Line of Battle!

Enemy in Sight!

The Flag Captain

Signal-Close Action!

The Inshore Squadron

A Tradition of Victory

Success to the Brave

Colours Aloft!

Honour This Day

The Only Victor

Beyond the Reef

The Darkening Sea

For My Country’s Freedom

Cross of St George

Sword of Honour

Second to None

Relentless Pursuit

Man of War

Heart of Oak

BY PHILIP MCCUTCHAN

Halfhyde at the Bight

of Benin

Halfhyde’s Island

Halfhyde and the

Guns of Arrest

Halfhyde to the Narrows

Halfhyde for the Queen

Halfhyde Ordered South

Halfhyde on Zanatu

BY R.F. DELDERFIELD

Too Few for Drums

Seven Men of Gascony

BY JAMES L. NELSON

The Only Life That

Mattered

BY DEWEY LAMBDIN

The French Admiral

The Gun Ketch

Jester’s Fortune

What Lies Buried

BY JULIAN STOCKWIN

Mutiny

Quarterdeck

Tenacious

Command

BY JAN NEEDLE

A Fine Boy for Killing

The Wicked Trade

The Spithead Nymph

BY DUDLEY POPE

Ramage

Ramage & The Drumbeat

Ramage & The Freebooters

Governor Ramage R.N.

Ramage’s Prize

Ramage & The Guillotine

Ramage’s Diamond

Ramage’s Mutiny

Ramage & The Rebels

The Ramage Touch

Ramage’s Signal

Ramage & The Renegades

Ramage’s Devil

Ramage’s Trial

Ramage’s Challenge

Ramage at Trafalgar

Ramage & The Saracens

Ramage & The Dido

BY FREDERICK MARRYAT

Frank MildmayOR

The Naval Officer

Mr Midshipman Easy

Newton ForsterOR

The Merchant Service

SnarleyyowOR

The Dog Fiend

The Privateersman

BY V.A. STUART

Victors and Lords

The Sepoy Mutiny

Massacre at Cawnpore

The Cannons of Lucknow

The Heroic Garrison

The Valiant Sailors

The Brave Captains

Hazard’s Command

Hazard of Huntress

Hazard in Circassia

Victory at Sebastopol

Guns to the Far East

Escape from Hell

BY JAMES DUFFY

Sand of the Arena

BY JOHN BIGGINS

A Sailor of Austria

The Emperor’s Coloured Coat

The Two-Headed Eagle

BY ALEXANDER FULLERTON

Storm Force to Narvik

Last Lift from Crete

All the Drowning Seas

A Share of Honour

The Torch Bearers

The Gatecrashers

BY C.N. PARKINSON

The Guernseyman

Devil to Pay

The Fireship

Touch and Go

So Near So Far

Dead Reckoning

The Life and Times of

Horatio Hornblower

BY NICHOLAS NICASTRO

The Eighteenth Captain

Between Two Fires

BY DOUGLAS REEMAN

Badge of Glory

First to Land

The Horizon

Dust on the Sea

Knife Edge

Twelve Seconds to Live

Battlecruiser

The White Guns

A Prayer for the Ship

For Valour

BY DAVID DONACHIE

The Devil’s Own Luck

The Dying Trade

A Hanging Matter

An Element of Chance

The Scent of Betrayal

A Game of Bones

On a Making Tide

Tested by Fate

Breaking the Line

BY BROOS CAMPBELL

No Quarter

The War of Knives

Published by McBooks Press 2000

Copyright (c) 1992 by Highseas Authors Ltd.

First published in the United Kingdom by William Heinemann Ltd. 1992

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or any

portion thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

without the written permission of the publisher. Requests for such

permissions should be addressed to McBooks Press, ID Booth Building,

520 North Meadow St., Ithaca, NY 14850.

Cover painting by Geoffrey Huband.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kent, Alexander.

Beyond the reef / by Alexander Kent.

p. cm.—(Richard Bolitho novels ; 19)

ISBN 0-935526-82-X (alk. paper)

eISBN : 97-8-093-55268-2

1. Bolitho, Richard (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Great Britain—History, Naval—19th century—Fiction. 3. Napoleonic Wars, 1800-1815—Fiction I. Title PR6061.E63 B49 2000 823’.914—dc21 00-058621

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Printed in the United States of America

For Kim, my Tahiti girl—

with love

1

BAND OF BROTHERS

THE NORMALLY sheltered waters of Portsmouth Harbour seemed to cringe under the intensity of a biting north-easterly which had been blowing for some twelve hours. The whole anchorage was transformed into an endless mass of cruising whitecaps with lively catspaws to mark its progress around the many black-and-buff hulls of moored men-of-war, making them tug violently at their cables.

It was late March, a time when winter was still reluctant to release its grip and eager to display its latent power.

One of the largest ships, recently warped from the dockyard where she had suffered the indignities of repairs to the lower hull, was the second-rate Black Prince of 94 guns, her fresh paintwork and blacked-down rigging shining like glass from blown spray and a brief rainsquall which even now had reached as far out as the Isle of Wight, a dull blur in the poor light.

Black Prince was one of the most powerful of her kind, and to anyone but a true sailor she would appear a symbol of sea-power, the country’s sure shield. The more experienced eye would recognise her empty yards, the canvas not yet sent up to give her life as well as strength. She was surrounded by lighters and dockyard longboats, while small armies of riggers and ropemakers moved busily about her decks, and the clatter of hammers and the squeak of tackles were evidence of the work being carried out in the deep holds and on the gun-decks.

Alone by the packed hammock-nettings Black Prince’s captain stood at the quarterdeck rail and watched the comings and goings of seamen and dockyard workers, who in turn were supervised by the ship’s warrant officers, the true backbone of any warship.

Captain Valentine Keen tugged his hat still tighter across his fair hair but was otherwise oblivious, even indifferent, to the biting wind and the fact that his flapping blue coat with its tarnished sea-going epaulettes was soaked through to his skin.

Without looking, he knew that the men on watch near the deserted double-wheel were very aware of his presence. A quartermaster, a boatswain’s mate and a small midshipman who occasionally raised a telescope to peer at the signal tower or the admiral’s flagship nearby, a sodden flag curling and cracking from her main truck.

Many of the men who had served the guns around him when they had fought and all but destroyed the big French three-decker off the coast of Denmark had been taken from his command while the ship had undergone repairs from that short, savage embrace. Some for promotion to other vessels, others because, as the port admiral had put it, “My captains need men now, Captain Keen. You will have to wait.”

Keen allowed his mind to stray back over the battle, the terrible sight in the dawn when they had gone to assist Rear-Admiral Herrick’s Benbow in his defence of a twenty-ship convoy destined for the invasion of Copenhagen. Shattered, burning hulks, screaming cavalry horses trapped below in the transports, and Benbow completely dismasted, her only other escort capsized, a total loss.

Mercifully Benbow had been towed to the Nore for docking. It would be too painful to see her here every waking day. A constant reminder, especially for Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Bolitho, whose flag would soon break out again from this ship’s foremast. Herrick had been Bolitho’s oldest friend, but Keen had been more angered than saddened by Herrick’s behaviour both before and after Benbow’s last fight. It might well be her last too, he thought grimly. With the many ships they had seized from Copenhagen to bolster their own depleted fleets and squadrons, any dockyard might think twice before committing itself to such a programme of repairs and restoration.

Keen thought of Bolitho, a man he cared for more than any other. He had served him as midshipman and lieutenant, and with him in the same squadron until eventually he had become his flag captain. Keen imagined him now with his lovely Catherine, as he had done so often since their return to England. He had tried to close his mind to it, not to make comparisons. But he had wanted a love like theirs for himself, the same challenging passion which had captured the hearts of ordinary people everywhere, and had roused the fury of London society because of their open relationship. A scandal, they proclaimed. Keen sighed. He would give his soul to be in the same position.

He walked to the small table beneath the overhang of the dripping poop and opened the log at the place marked with a piece of polished whalebone. He stared at the date on the damp page for several seconds. How could he forget? March 25TH 1808, two months exactly since he had put the ring on the hand of his bride in the tiny village church at Zennor, which had given her her name.

Like the battle which had preceded his wedding by four months, it seemed like yesterday.

He still did not know. Did she love him, or was her marriage an act of gratitude? He had rescued her from a convict ship, and from transportation for a crime she had not committed. Or did his uncertainty stem from the fact that he was almost twice her age, when he believed she could have chosen anyone? If he did not contain it, Keen knew it would drive him mad. He was almost afraid to touch her, and when she had given herself to him it had been an act without passion, without desire. She had merely submitted, and later during that first night he had found her by the embers of the fire downstairs, sobbing silently as if her heart had already broken.