For My Country's Freedom (32 page)

Always the pain.

Tyacke looked for another midshipman. “Acknowledge the signal, Mr Arlington.” He turned to Bolitho and waited for the inevitable. Bolitho glanced across the motionless figures, and those who peered up at the lookout's lofty perch as if they expected it to prove a mistake.

He saw Allday looking at him. Remembering, or trying to forget? He smiled, and saw Allday raise one big hand like a private salute.

“When you are ready, Captain Tyacke.”

Tyacke turned on his heel, his mutilated face stark in the first pale rays of silver light.

“Beat to quarters and clear for action, if you please, Mr Scar-lett!”

Avery was here too, with the new senior midshipman Carleton, the replacement for Blythe who had taken the first vital step on his ladder of promotion.

Avery said, “Make to
Reaper,
repeated
Woodpecker. Close on Flag.
”

He glanced at Bolitho and saw him smile briefly to the captain. Like a last handshake. He thought of his sister in her shabby clothes, the way she had embraced him on that final day.

The drummers and fifers scrambled into line, dragging their pipeclayed belts into place, their sticks crossed beneath their noses as they watched their sergeant.

“Now!”

The drums rolled and rattled, drowning even the scamper of bare feet as the men ran to obey, to clear the ship from bow to stern, opening her up into two great batteries.

Bolitho watched without expression. Even right aft beneath this deck, there would be nothing to impede the seamen and marines once action was joined. All gone: Catherine's gifts, the green-bound Shakespeare sonnets, the wine-cooler which she had had engraved with the Bolitho crest and family motto,
For My Country's Freedom.

He could recall his father tracing that same motto with his fingers on the great fireplace in Falmouth . . . It would be cold in Cornwall now, the wind off the sea, the anger of breakers beneath the cliffs. Where Zenoria had thrown herself away and had broken Adam's heart . . . Everything carried below. A few portraits perhaps, wardroom chairs, a metal box with individual money-pouches, a family watch, a lock of somebody's hair.

“Cleared for action, sir!” Scarlett sounded breathless, although he had not moved from this place.

And Tyacke's laconic comment. “Nine minutes, Mr Scarlett! They do you proudly, sir!”

Bolitho touched his eye. Praise indeed from Tyacke. Or was it Scarlett's troubles that concerned him more?

“Deck there! Sail in sight to the nor'-west!” Then Midshipman Blisset's reedy voice. “'Tis
Zest,
sir!”

Tyacke smiled. “I had forgotten all about that shrimp!
Acknowledge,
but tell
Zest
to remain on station.”

Avery saw Bolitho nod to him and he touched the signals midshipman on the arm. He jumped as if he had been hit by a musket-ball.

“Hoist battle ensigns, Mr Carleton!”
How do I feel?
He lifted and dropped the hanger in its scabbard at his hip and saw some of the quarterdeck gun crews staring at him.
I feel nothing.
Only the need to belong. He glanced at Bolitho, his profile so calm as he watched the horizon for the first sign of the enemy.
To serve this man like no other.

“Deck there! Second sail to the sou'-west! 'Nother man-o'-war, sir!”

Avery expected he might see surprise, even dismay in the profile turned towards him. If there was anything he might recognise, it was relief. He repeated his thoughts in his mind.
Like no other.

Bolitho stood watching the sea, and his men while they waited for their next orders.

The little
Woodpecker
would give them early warning before scuttling to safety from those great guns. Two ships then, as he had expected. The other one must be
Baltimore.

“Royal Marines, take station!”

Up the shrouds on either side to their positions in the fighting-tops, Marines known to be good shots above the rest; at least three of them, Tyacke had discovered, were once poachers. The rest tramped across the quarterdeck and took up their stations behind the tightly-packed hammock nettings, grim-faced, bayonets fixed, the debonair Captain Cedric du Cann watching them with cold, professional interest, his face almost the colour of his tunic.

Solitary scarlet figures stood at the hatchways, ready to prevent men from running below if their nerve broke or they were driven mad by the sights and sounds around them.

Tyacke called, “You may cast off the boats, Mr Hockenhull!”

Always a bad moment even for the most experienced seamen, who would know well the additional danger from flying splinters if a longboat were smashed by cannon fire. But as they were lowered and allowed to drift away, many saw them as a last chance of survival if the battle turned against them. Loosely moored together, they would drift with the sea to await recovery by the victors, whoever they might be.

“Rig the nets!”

More men ran to obey, and Allday saw his son hauling on blocks and tackles with his new companions to spread the protective net above the big double-wheel and its four helmsmen.

Just a glance, and he was gone. For a brief second Allday tried to recall Bankart's mother, and was shocked to discover he could remember nothing about her. As if she had never been.

“From
Reaper,
sir.
Enemy in sight to the sou'-west!
”

“Acknowledge and repeat signal to
Zest.
”

Bolitho said suddenly, “Do your fifers know
Portsmouth Lass,
sergeant?”

The Royal Marine puffed out his cheeks. “Yessir.” It sounded like
of course.

“Then so be it!”

Isaac York recorded in his log that on this September morning in
1812,
while the
Indomitable
held her same course under reduced canvas, the ship's small drummers and fifers marched and counter-marched up and down the crowded gun deck, the familiar tune
Portsmouth Lass
lively enough to set a man's foot tapping, or purse his lips in a silent whistle.

Allday looked at his admiral and smiled gravely.

Bolitho never forgot. Nor would he.

Bolitho took a telescope from the rack and walked aft towards the taffrail, his body angling to the deck without conscious effort.

He raised the glass with care, imagining his small force as the morning gull might see it. Sailing in line abreast with
Indomitable
in the centre, the wind lively but steady across the starboard quarter. By and large, as Isaac York would describe it. He steadied the glass once again on the western horizon, still partly in misty shadow compared with the silver knife-edge of the eastern sky.

He tightened his grip on the cool metal, controlling his emotion. The quarterdeck gun crews were still awaiting orders after clearing for action; some would be watching him, and wondering what this day might cost.

There she was, Beer's
Unity,
with almost every sail set and filled so that she appeared to be leaning forward into the surging spray beneath her beak-head. The huge broad-pendant straight out like painted metal, a picture of naval strength at its best.

Over his shoulder he said, “Tell Captain Tyacke. Fifteen minutes.” He glanced up to the masthead pendant and felt his injured eye sting in protest.

Avery was ready, the signal already bent on. As they had discussed it for such an eventuality, except that Adam had commanded
Anemone
then. He would be feeling her loss today, with men whose strength he did not know, in a frigate which was very like the one which had been so dear to him. And yet, he would be thinking, so different.

He turned and walked down to the quarterdeck rail and ran his eyes the full length of the ship.

The gun crews were stripped to the waist despite the wind's bitter edge, their muscled bodies very brown from their service in the Caribbean. Beer could not risk losing them. But he would not expect them to run either.

He tugged out his watch and saw Midshipman Essex observing him with studied concentration.

There must be no mistakes at this stage: Beer had the wind-gage, and that was bad enough.

He felt Allday moving closer, heard his uneven breathing, the old pain probably aroused and reminding him of that other time, and all the rest.
Unity
and
Baltimore
between them probably carried as many guns as a first-rate ship of the line. Together or separately, they would be hard to surprise or vanquish.

He said, “Mr Avery, general signal.
Alter course, steer north-west by north!
”

As the bright signal flags soared aloft to break out to the wind, he could see Adam's intent face in his mind, and Hamilton of the
Reaper,
and the plump Eames of
Woodpecker
who had defied orders to hunt for survivors.

The topmen were already spread out along the yards, with every spare hand at braces and halliards. The moment of decision had come which could destroy every one of them.

“All acknowledged, sir!” Avery licked his lips to moisten them.

Bolitho looked at Tyacke.
“Execute!”

As the flags darted down again to drop amongst the signal party in colourful disorder, Tyacke shouted, “Lay her on the larboard tack, Mr York. Steer nor'-west by north, as close as you can!”

With the spokes gleaming in the strange light the big wheel was hauled over, the helmsmen squinting at the masthead pendant and the shaking driver while
Indomitable
continued to swing. He snatched a telescope from a gasping midshipman and rested it on the boy's shoulder as reefs were cast off, and the spreading canvas thundered out from every spar until even the great mainsail yard appeared to be bending like a bow.

From line-abreast to line-ahead, with the little brig lost somewhere beyond
Reaper.

Tyacke yelled, “Cast off your breechings! Prepare to load! Full elevation, Mr Scarlett!”

Then, surprisingly, Tyacke removed his hat and slapped it against the nearest breech.

“Come on, my lads! Watch this lady
fly!
”

With almost every sail she could carry filled and hard to the wind, the ship did seem to be bounding over the crests, not away from the enemy this time but on a close-hauled converging tack.

“All guns load!”

Bolitho gripped a stay and watched the half-naked bodies of the gun crews moving in tight separate teams, the scampering powder-monkeys with their bulky cartridges, each gun captain stooping to check the training tackles, his heavy gun moving slightly with the breeching rope cast off.

“Open the ports!”

The gunports on either side were hauled open, as if raised by a single hand. Drills, drills and more drills. Now they were ready, Lieutenant Daubeny by the foremast, his sword across his shoulder while he watched the enemy. Not merely sails any more, but towering and full of menace as they bore down towards the lar-board bow.

Heavy artillery roared from elsewhere, and there was something like a sigh as the little
Woodpecker
drifted out of command, her foremast, yards and flapping canvas trailing over the side even as more long-range balls from
Unity
slammed into her hull.

Tyacke drew his sword. “On the uproll, lads! Lay for the fore-mast!”

Bolitho gripped his hands together and watched the glittering sword in Tyacke's fist. The
Baltimore
was steering directly for the gap between
Indomitable
and Adam's
Zest
in the van.

The deck tilted slightly, the topsails flapping in protest while the ship came as close as she dared into the wind.

“Fire!”

It was like watching an invisible avalanche as it roared across
Baltimore
's tall side, splintering gangways and timbers alike, upending guns and clawing every sail so that some ripped open, tearing into long ribbons as the wind completed the destruction.

“Signal
Zest,
Mr Avery!
Attack and harry the enemy's rear.
”

Tyacke glanced round. “He'll need no second order, sir!”

“Stop your vents! Sponge out! Load!”

Along the deck each grubby gun captain held up his fist.

“Ready, sir!”

“Run out!”

A few flashes burst through the thickening smoke, and Bolitho felt the enemy's iron smash into the lower hull.