Cross of St George (10 page)
Read Cross of St George Online
Authors: Alexander Kent
He steeled himself. It did not matter. They would put to sea in two days' time. It was probably what they all needed.
What I need.
The flag lieutenant crossed the deck and waited to be acknowledged.
“The admiral's compliments, sir, and would you have his barge lowered.”
Adam waited. When de Courcey said nothing more, he asked, “Why?”
De Courcey smiled. “Rear-Admiral Keen is going ashore. Mr Massie wishes to discuss some matters. There will be a social reception also, I believe.”
“I see.
I
wish to discuss an additional patrol with the admiral.” He was angry, more with himself for rising to de Courcey's bait. “It is what we are here for, remember?”
“If I may suggest, sir ⦔
Adam looked past him at the town. “You are the admiral's aide, Mr de Courcey. Not mine.”
“The admiral would like you to accompany him, sir.”
Adam saw the officer of the watch studying the land with his telescope, and doubtless listening to the terse exchange as well.
“Mr Finlay, pipe away the admiral's barge, if you please.” He heard the shrill calls, the immediate stampede of bare feet and the bark of orders: so much a part of him, and yet he felt entirely detached from it. It was not de Courcey's fault. Adam had been a flag lieutenant himself: it had never been an easy role, even when you served a man you loved.
He turned, with some vague intention of clearing the air between them, but the fair-haired lieutenant had vanished.
Later, when he made his way aft to report that the barge was alongside, Adam found Keen dressed and ready to leave the ship.
He studied Adam thoughtfully, and said, “I have not forgotten about the extra patrol, you know. We should have more news when the schooner
Reynard
returns. She was sent up to the Bay of Fundy, although I think it an unlikely place for the enemy to loiter.”
“De Courcey told you, did he, sir?”
Keen smiled. “His duty, Adam.” He became serious again. “Be patient with him. He will prove his worth.” He paused. “Given the chance.”
There were thumps from the adjoining cabin, and two seamen padded past carrying what was obviously an empty chest to be stowed away.
Keen said, “I am settling in, you see. Not a ship of the line, but she will suffice for the present ⦠It was suggested that I should take quarters ashore, but I think not. Speed is everything.”
Adam waited. Who had suggested it? He saw his youthful servant John Whitmarsh helping a couple of the messmen to unpack another chest.
Why cannot I be like him? Lose myself in what I do best?
There was a small, velvet-covered book on the table. He felt a sudden chill, as though awakening from a cruel dream.
Keen saw his eyes, and said, “Poetry. My late ⦠It was packed in error. My sister is unused to the requirements of war.”
My late
⦠Keen had been unable even to speak Zenoria's name. He had seen the book that day when he had visited her in Hampshire on some pretext. When she had rejected him.
Keen said, “Are you interested?”
He was surprised at his own calmness, the complete emptiness he felt. Like watching someone else in a mirror.
“It is my intention that young Whitmarsh should learn to read. It might help, sir.”
He picked up the book, hardly daring to look at it.
Keen shrugged. “Well, then. Some use after all.” Then, “You will accompany me, Adam?”
He could even smile. “Yes, sir.” He felt the soft velvet in his fingers, like skin. Like her. “I shall fetch my sword directly.”
In his cabin, he pressed his back to the door and very slowly raised the book to his lips, amazed that his hands were so steady.
How could it be? He closed his eyes as if in prayer, and opened them again, knowing that it was the same book.
He held it with great care, all the ship noises and movements suddenly stilled, as though he were in another world.
The rose petals, pressed tightly in these pages for so long, were almost transparent, like lace or some delicate web. The wild roses he had cut for her that day in June, when they had ridden together on his birthday. When she had kissed him.
He closed the book and held it to his face for several seconds. There was no escape after all. He put the book into his chest and locked it: it was an unbelievable relief to discover that he had never wanted to escape from her memory. He straightened his back, and reached for his sword.
From Zenoria.
B
LOOD
S
TANDING LIKE
a perfect model above her own reflection, His Britannic Majesty's Ship
Reaper
would have held the eye of any casual onlooker, no less than a professional seaman. A 26-gun frigate, very typical of the breed which had entered the revolutionary war with France some twenty years earlier,
Reaper
retained the sleek lines and grace of those ships which, then as now, were always in short supply. To command such a ship was every young officer's dream: to be free of the fleet's apron strings and the whim of every admiral, his real chance to prove his ability, if necessary against impossible odds.
By today's standards
Reaper
would appear small, not much bigger than a sloop-of-war, and certainly no match for the newer American frigates which had already proved their superiority in armament and endurance.
On this dazzling April day
Reaper
lay almost becalmed, her sails hanging with scarcely any movement, her masthead pendant lifeless. Ahead of her, on either bow, two of her longboats, their oars rising and falling like tired wings, attempted to hold her under command, to retain steerage-way until the wind returned.
She was almost at the end of her passage, twelve hundred miles from Kingston, Jamaica, which had already taken her nearly two weeks. At dusk the previous day they had crossed the thirtieth parallel, and tomorrow at first light, if the wind found them again, they would sight the colourful humps of the Bermudas.
Theirs was escort duty, the curse of every fast-moving man-of-war, necessary but tedious, retrimming sails and trying to keep station on their ponderous charges: a test of any captain's forbearance. There was only one large merchantman to deliver to the Bermudas; the rest had been safely escorted to other ports in the Leeward Islands. The heavily-laden vessel, named
Killarney,
would eventually join a strongly defended convoy whose destination was England. Many a seaman had glanced at her motionless sails and felt envy and homesickness like a fever, merely by thinking about it.
Reaper
's only consort was a small, sturdy brig,
Alfriston.
Like so many of her hard-worked class, she had started life in the merchant service, until the demands of war had changed her role and her purpose. With the aid of a telescope she could just be seen, well astern of the merchantman, completely becalmed and stern-on, like a helpless moth landed on the water.
But once rid of their slow-moving charge
Reaper
would be free, so why was she different from other frigates which had risen above all the setbacks and disasters of war to become legends?
Perhaps it was her silence. Despite the fact that she carried some one hundred and fifty officers, seamen and marines within her graceful hull, she seemed without life. Only the flap of empty canvas against her spars and shrouds, and the occasional creak of the rudder broke the unnatural stillness. Her decks were clean and, like her hull, freshly painted and well-maintained. Like the other ships which had fought on that September day in 1812, there was barely a mark to reveal the damage she had suffered. Her real damage went far deeper, like guilt. Like shame.
Aft by the quarterdeck rail
Reaper
's captain stood with his arms folded, a stance he often took when he was thinking deeply. He was twenty-seven years old and already a post-captain, with a fair skin which seemed to defy the heat of the Caribbean or the sudden fury of the Atlantic. A serious face: he could have been described as handsome but for the thinness of his mouth. He was a man whom many would call fortunate, and well placed for the next phase of advancement. This had been
Reaper
's first operational cruise after completing her repairs in Halifax, and it was his first time in command of her. A necessary step, but he knew full well why he had been appointed.
Reaper
's previous captain, who had been old for his rank, a man of great experience who had left the more ordered world of the Honourable East India Company to return to service in the fleet, had fallen victim to the ruthlessness of war.
Reaper
had been raked at long range by the American's massive guns, in what was believed to have been a single broadside, although few who were there could clearly remember what had happened.
Reaper
had been almost totally dismasted, her decks buried under fallen spars and rigging, her company torn apart. Most of her officers, including her gallant captain, had died instantly; where there had been order, there had been only chaos and terror. Amongst the upended guns and splintered decks somebody, whose identity was still unclear, had hauled down the colours. Nearby, the battle had continued until the American frigate
Baltimore
had drifted out of command, with many of her people either killed or wounded. Commodore Beer's flagship
Unity
had been boarded and taken by Bolitho's seamen and marines. A very close thing, but in a sea-fight there is only one victor.
Reaper
could probably have done nothing more; she had already been passed by and left a drifting wreck. But to those who had fought and survived that day, she was remembered only as the ship which had surrendered while the fight had still raged around her. Their Lordships knew the value of even a small frigate at this decisive stage of the war, and a ship was only as strong as the man who commanded her. Haste, expediency, the need to forget, each had played a part, but even on this bright spring morning, with the sun burning down between the loosely flapping sails, the feeling was still here. Less than half of
Reaper
's people were from her original company. Many had died in the battle; others had been too badly wounded to be of any further use. Even so, to the rest of the tightly-knit squadron,
Reaper
was like an outcast, and her shame was borne by all of them.
The captain came out of his thoughts and saw the first lieutenant making his way aft, pausing here and there to speak with the working parties. They had grown up in the same town, and had entered the navy as midshipmen at almost the same time. The first lieutenant was an experienced and intelligent officer, despite his youth. If he had one failing, it was his readiness to talk with the hands, even the new, untrained landmen, as if they were on equal terms, or as equal as anyone could be in a King's ship. That would have to change.
Reaper
needed to be brought to her proper state of readiness and respect, no matter what it cost. His mouth twitched. There was another link. He had asked for, and obtained, the hand of the first lieutenant's sister in marriage. His next command would be decided ⦠He broke off as the cry came from aloft. “Signal from
Alfriston,
sir!”
The captain snapped to one of the attentive midshipmen, “Take a glass up yourself and see what that fool is babbling about!”
The first lieutenant had joined him. “The lookout has no skill with flags, I'm afraid, sir.”
“He'd better mend his ways, damn him, or I'll see his backbone at the gratings! It's probably nothing, anyway.”
Somebody called a command and a few seamen ran smartly to the boat tier to execute it. The first lieutenant had grown accustomed to it. The silence, the instant obedience, everything carried out at the double. Try as he might, he could not accept it.
The captain said, “As soon as we receive orders and rid ourselves of
Killarney,
I shall want sail and gun drill every day, until we can cut the time it takes them to do every little thing. I'll not stand for slackness. Not from any man!”
The first lieutenant watched his profile, but said nothing. Did it so change an officer who had already held a successful command?
Might it change me?
This afternoon there would be the ritual of punishment. Two more floggings at the gangway, both severe, but one of which could have been avoided or reduced to some lesser penalty. The staccato roll of drums, the crack of the lash on a man's naked back. Again and again, until it looked as if his body had been torn open by some crazed beast â¦
When he had voiced his opinion about extreme punishment, often at the instigation of some junior officer or midshipman, the captain had turned on him. “Popularity is a myth, a deceit! Obedience and discipline are all that count, to me and to my ship!”
Perhaps when they returned to Halifax, things might improve.
Almost without thinking, he said, “It seems likely that Sir Richard Bolitho will have hoisted his flag in Halifax again, sir.”
“Perhaps.” The captain seemed to consider it, sift it for some hidden meaning. “A flag officer of reputation. But it has to be said that any admiral is only as strong as his captainsâand how they perform.”
The first lieutenant had never served with or under Sir Richard Bolitho, and yet, like the many he had spoken to, he felt as if he knew him personally.
The captain was smiling. “We shall see, sir. We shall see.”
The midshipman's voice came shrilly from the masthead. “Signal from
Alfriston,
sir!
Sail in sight to the nor'-west!
” A small pause, as if the midshipman was frightened of the noise. “Brigantine, sir.”
The captain rubbed his hands briskly, one of his rare displays of emotion. “Not one of ours, unless the despatches are wrong.”
He swung round as the halliards and canvas came alive, the masthead pendant lifting as if suddenly awakened.
The first lieutenant exclaimed, “The master was right, sir! The wind is coming back!”
The captain nodded. “Recall the boats and have them hoisted. We are well upwind of friends and stranger alike. We'll add another prize to our list, eh?” He shaded his eyes to watch the two boats casting off the tow lines and pulling back toward their ship. “Something for your sister's dowry!”
The first lieutenant was surprised at the swift change of mood. It would certainly break the monotony of this snail's pace.
He looked away as the captain added thoughtfully, “Bring forward the punishment by an hour. It will keep them occupied, and remind them of their duty.”
Calls trilled and men ran to hoist the two dripping boats up and over the gangway while others dashed up the ratlines in readiness to make more sail, even as the slack canvas flapped and then boomed out harder to the wind. The lieutenant watched the sea's face, the black shadows of
Reaper
's masts and sails blurring like ruffled fur while the hull heeled slightly, and then more firmly to the demands of wind and rudder.
The moment every frigate officer waits for. But the elation would not come.
Captain James Tyacke tucked his hat beneath his arm and waited for the marine sentry to admit him. For an instant, he saw a shadow through the screen door, and was amused. The ever-vigilant Ozzard, keeping a watchful eye out for visitors to these quarters.
He found Bolitho seated at the table, some charts with written notes on them held down by two books bound in green leather, with heavily-gilded spines. Tyacke recognized them as some of the collection Lady Catherine Somervell had sent aboard for the admiral. Even here, thousands of miles from England, she was never far away from this restless, sensitive man.
“Ah, James!” He looked up and smiled warmly. “I was hoping that you would sup with me tonight, and leave your troubles to your lieutenants for a change.”
Tyacke looked past him at the unbroken panorama of the ocean, blue and grey, disturbed here and there by long, glassy swells. In his mind's eye he saw them all,
Indomitable
in the centre, with the two frigates
Virtue
and
Attacker
some eight miles off either beam. At dusk they would draw closer to one another, but in this formation they could scan an imposing range from horizon to horizon. Tyacke could also visualize each captain, just as he knew Bolitho would feel the strength of every ship under his flag. Keeping well up to windward like a loyal terrier, the brig
Marvel
completed this small but effective flotilla.
Bolitho said, “I can see from your expression, James, that you had forgotten the significance of this day.”
“For the moment, Sir Richard.” There was a brief silence. “Two years ago, I took command of this ship.” He added quietly, as if it were something private, “The Old Indom.”
Bolitho waited for him to seat himself. It was like a signal: Ozzard was moving out of his pantry. The flag captain would be staying a while.
Tyacke said, “We've done a lot in that time.”
Bolitho looked at the leather-bound books, remembering her at Plymouth, in the coach when they had parted. “I sometimes wonder where it will end. Or even if we are achieving anything by waiting, always waiting, for the enemy to show his teeth.”
“It will come. I feel it. When I was in
Larne,
” for a moment he hesitated as if it was still too painful a memory to discuss, “the slavers had the whole ocean to pick and choose from. Every cargo of poor devils waiting to be shipped to the Indies and the Americas could be collected ⦠or dropped overboard, if they were sighted by us or another patrol. But every so often ⦔ He leaned forward in his chair, his scarred face suddenly clear and terrible in the reflected sunlight, “I
knew,
like you knew about
Unity
. That sixth sense, instinct, call it what you will.”
Bolitho could feel the strength of the man, his deep pride in what he could do. Not something to be taken for granted, not a form of conceit, but true and real, like the old sword on its rack. As he had known in September, when they had walked the deck together, splinters bursting from the planking as sharpshooters tried to mark them down, two men pacing up and down, making no attempt to conceal their ranks or their importance to those who depended upon them.
Avery, too, had walked with them that day. If he had any friend in this ship other than Bolitho himself, that friend was Tyacke. He wondered if he had confided his present preoccupation to him, and then knew he had not. Two men so different, and yet not dissimilar, each deeply reserved, driven in on himself. No, Avery would not have discussed it with Tyacke, particularly if it concerned a woman.
