For My Country's Freedom (21 page)

Vicary looked up and stared with disbelief as the American's upper yards and punctured sails rose above the fog of gunfire like a cliff. Hudson retched and turned away as Vicary fell, his fingers clutching what a charge of canister had found and destroyed. There was no face left. Even in this murderous hell Hudson heard his mother's voice. Such an English face. Now, in a split second, he had become nothing.

“Sir! The Cap'n's hit!”
It was Starr, Adam's loyal coxswain.

“Fetch the surgeon!”

Hudson knelt beside him and gripped his hand. “Easy, sir! He'll soon be here!”

Adam shook his head, his teeth bared against the pain. “No— I must stay!
We must fight the ship!
”

Hudson shouted to the sailing-master, “Let her fall off two points!” His brain cringed to the constant crash of shots hitting the hull. But all he could think of was the captain. He saw Starr pulling open the coat with the bright epaulettes, and swallowed as he saw the blood pumping out of Adam's side, covering him, encircling him like something foul and evil.

Another great splintering crash, and the roar of trailing rigging, as the whole of the foremast went over the side taking sails, broken planking and screaming men with it into the sea.

Cunningham bent down and applied a dressing, which within seconds was as bloody as his butcher's apron. He looked at Hudson, his eyes wild and afraid. “I can do nothing! They're dying like flies down below!” He ducked as more balls ripped overhead or exploded into lethal splinters against one of the guns.

Adam lay quite still, feeling his
Anemone
being torn apart by the unwavering bombardment. His mind kept fading away, and he had to use all his remaining strength to bring it back. There was little pain, just a numbing deadness.

“Fight the ship, Dick!” The effort was too much. “Oh, dear God, what must I do?”

Hudson stood up, his limbs very loose, unable to believe he was unmarked amongst so much suffering and death.

He raised his hanger and hesitated. Then with one slash he severed the ensign's halliards, and in the sudden silence that followed he saw the flag running out to the full extent of the line until it floated above the water like a dying bird.

Then there was cheering, deafening, it seemed, from
Anemone
's bloodied and splintered decks.

Hudson stared at the blade in his hand.
So much for glory.
Nobody would use it to taunt them in defeat. Blindly he flung it over the disengaged side, then knelt down again beside his captain.

Adam said vaguely, “We held them off, Dick. The convoy should be safe now in the dark.” He gripped Hudson's hand with surprising strength. “It was . . . our duty.”

Hudson felt the tears stinging his eyes. The sunshine was as bright as before. There was more movement as the great frigate came alongside, and armed seamen swarmed across the deck as
Anemone
's company threw down their weapons. Hudson watched as the men he had come to know so well accepted defeat. Some were downcast and hostile; others greeted the Americans with something like gratitude.

An American lieutenant called, “Here he is!”

Hudson saw the massive figure climbing up past the abandoned wheel. Even the sailing-master had fallen. Always a quiet man, he had died just as privately.

Nathan Beer looked around at the carnage on the quarterdeck.

“You in charge?”

Hudson nodded, remembering Adam Bolitho's description of this man. “Yes, sir.”

“Is your captain still alive?” He stood staring down at Adam's pale features for several seconds. “Take him across, Mr Rooke! Get our surgeon to see him right away.”

To Hudson he said, “You are now a prisoner of war. There is nothing to be ashamed of. You had no chance.”

He watched as Adam was carried away on a grating. “But you fought like tigers, as I would have expected.” He paused. “Like father, like son.”

The deck gave a lurch and someone called, “Better clear the ship, sir! That was an explosion!”

The boarding party were hastily rounding up their prisoners and dragging some of the wounded to the ship alongside.

Starr, the captain's coxswain, walked past. He touched his hat to Commodore Beer, and for only a second, looked at Hudson.

“They'll not take his ship away from him now, sir.”

The deck was tilting over. Starr must have prepared
Anemone
for this all on his own. Now she would never fight under an enemy flag.

And I shall never fight under mine.

As darkness covered the misty horizon, and the
Unity
still lay hove-to carrying out makeshift repairs,
Anemone
drifted clear and began to settle down stern first, the lovely figurehead holding on to her last sunset. How he had wanted it. He thought of Nathan Beer's quiet comment, and did not understand.

Like father, like son.

He looked at his hands as they began to shake uncontrollably.

He was alive. And he was ashamed.

Every moment roused a fresh thrust of agony, pain which defied even the need to breathe, to think. Sound welled and faded, and despite his inner torment Adam Bolitho knew he was in constant danger of losing consciousness, even as his reeling mind told him he would not live if he did.

He was on board the ship which had defeated him, but it was not like that at all. Voices cried and sobbed, it seemed on every side, although somehow he knew the awful din came from elsewhere as if through a great door, muffled and full of anguish like the abyss of hell itself.

The air was still sharp with smoke and dust, and strange lurching figures pushed past, some so near that they brushed against his outflung arm. Once again he tried to move and the pain held him in an iron fist. He heard another voice cry out and knew it was his own.

At the same time he knew he was naked, yet could recall nothing of it, only Hudson holding him in his arms while the battle thundered all about the ship. There was a vague recollection that his coxswain Starr had not been with him.

He screwed up his eyes and tried to clear a part of his mind. The foremast going over the side, taking rigging and spars with it, dragging the ship round like some great sea anchor and laying open her side to those murderous broadsides.

The ship. What of
Anemone?

His hearing was returning, or had it ever left him? Distant, patient sounds. Men working with hammers; blocks and their tackles squeaking in that other place where the sea was still blue, the air free of smoke and the smell of charred rigging.

He raised his right hand but was almost too weak to hold it above his nakedness. Even his skin felt clammy. Already that of a corpse. Someone beyond that final door screamed.
“Not my arm!”
Then another scream, which was suddenly cut short. For him the door to hell had closed behind him.

There was a bandage, wet and heavy with blood. A hand reached out and grasped his wrist. Adam was helpless to protest.

“Keep still!” The voice was strained and sharp.

Adam tried to lie flat on his back, to hold the spreading fire in his side at bay.

“He's coming now.” Another said, “What the hell!”

The dry, stifling air moved slightly and another figure came to the table. The ship's surgeon. When he spoke Adam detected an accent. French.

The man said, “I do not know your thoughts, Commodore. He is the enemy. He has taken the lives of many of your company. What does it matter?”

As if from far away, Adam recognised the strong voice. Beer, he thought. Nathan Beer. “What are his chances, Philippe? I'm in no mood for lectures, not today!”

The surgeon gave a sigh. “It is an iron splinter the size of your thumb. If I try to extract it, he may well die. If I do not, it is a certainty.”

“I want you to save him, Philippe.” There was no response, and he added with sudden bitterness, “Remember, I saved you from the Terror. Did
I
say, ‘What does it matter?'” Almost brutally he continued, “Your parents and your sister, how was it again? Their heads were struck off and paraded on pikes to be jeered at and spat upon. That mob was French, was it not?”

Somebody held a sponge soaked in water against Adam's lips. It was no longer cold or even cool, and it tasted sour. But as he moved his lips against it he thought it was like wine.

The commodore again. “Was this all he carried?”

The surgeon replied wearily, “That and his sword.”

Beer sounded surprised. “A woman's glove. I wonder . . .”

Adam gasped and tried to turn his head.

“M-mine . . .” His head fell back. It was a nightmare. He was dead. Nothing was real but that.

Then he felt Beer's breath against his shoulder. “Can you hear me, Captain Bolitho?” He gripped Adam's right hand. “You fought bravely, nobody could deny it. I thought I would beat you into a quick submission, save lives, and with luck seize your ship. But I misjudged you.”

Adam heard his own voice again, faint and hoarse.

“Convoy?” “You saved it.” He tried to lighten it. “
That
time.” But his voice remained immeasurably sad.

Adam spoke only her name.
“Anemone . . .”

“She's gone. Nothing could be done to save her.” Somebody was whispering urgently from the other world, and Beer grunted as he got to his feet. “I am needed.” He rested his big hand on Adam's shoulder. “But I will return.” Adam did not see the quick glance at the French surgeon. “Is there anyone . . . ?”

He tried to shake his head. “Zenoria . . . her glove . . . now she is dead.”

He felt neat rum pouring into his mouth, choking him, making his mind reel still further. Through the waves of agony he heard the rasp of metal, then felt the hard hands encircle his wrists and ankles like manacles.

The surgeon watched the leather strap being placed between Adam's teeth, then he held up his hand, and it was removed.

“Were you trying to speak, m'sieur?”

Adam could not focus his eyes, but he heard himself say distinctly, “I am sorry about your family. A terrible thing . . .” His voice trailed away, and one of the surgeon's assistants said sharply, “It is
time.
”

But the surgeon was still staring at the enemy captain's pale features, almost relaxed now as he fell into a faint.

He placed the palm of his hand on Adam's body and waited for one of his men to remove the blood-sodden dressing.

Almost to himself he said, “Thank you. Perhaps there is still hope left for some of us.”

Then, with a nod to the others around the stained table, he forced the probe into the wound, his mind so inured to the agonies he had witnessed in ships and on the field of battle that, even as he worked, he was able to consider the young officer who writhed under his hands, who had moved the formidable Commodore Beer to plead for his life. On the very doorstep of hell, he had still found the humanity to express sympathy for another's suffering.

When he eventually went on deck it was pitch dark, the heavens covered with tiny stars which were reflected only faintly in the dark waters, and as far as the invisible horizon.

Work on repairs and re-rigging had ceased and seamen sprawled about the deck, too exhausted to continue. In the darkness it appeared as if corpses still lay where they had dropped, while the air was still tinged with smoke and the smells of death.

The surgeon, Philippe Avice, was well aware that sailors could perform miracles, and without even going into harbour
Unity
's men would soon have their ship ready to sail and fight again. Only an experienced eye would be able to see the extent of the English frigate's ferocity.

And the dead? Drifting, falling like leaves into the ocean's deeper darkness, while the wounded waited, enduring their pain and fear, to see what another dawn might offer them.

He found Commodore Beer sitting at his table in the great cabin. Even here, the enemy's iron had left its mark. There was no safe place above the waterline in a ship-of-war. But Beer's favourite portrait of his wife and daughters was back in its place, and a clean shirt lay ready for the morning.

Beer looked up, his eyes hard in the lantern-light.

“Well?”

The surgeon shrugged. “He is alive. More, I cannot say.” He took a glass of cognac from Beer's big hand. He sipped it and pursed his lips. “Very good.”

Beer smiled, his eyes vanishing into the crow's-feet of many years at sea.

“The cognac, Philippe? Or the fact that you have saved the life of an enemy?”

Avice shrugged again. “It is just that I was reminded of something. Even in war, one should never forget it.”

Beer said, after a pause, “His uncle would have been proud of him.”