For King or Commonwealth (12 page)

‘No, I was not bewitched,' he said slowly. ‘I do not expect you to understand.'

‘I was a boy,' Nathaniel breathed in a low, emotional voice.

‘What else did your mother say?'

‘That you came from nothing and would become nothing and that I should forget you as she intended doing.'

‘And has she?'

‘She does not speak of you.'

‘And yet you bear my name.'

‘As does she. Besides, whatever my father is, I am no bastard.'

‘And what
do
you think your father is?' Nathaniel hesitated. ‘You knew me, knew of me and of this ship.'

‘The whole of the Pool of London knows of you and your ship. That I do is not because I am your son but that I am a ship-master.'

‘And yet you called me father.'

‘To put a stop to your cannon. My men are but plain seamen and innocent; you, on the other hand, are drenched in blood.'

‘As are those who decapitated a King.'

‘A tyrant!'

‘But a King, nonetheless.'

‘That is a matter of no importance now. The people of England have dispensed with a King and find that the world still turns.'

‘You have a ready tongue,' Faulkner said, refilling his glass. ‘I'll say that for you, boy.'

‘I am not your boy. It is my misfortune to be your son.'

‘You have suffered from it?'

‘What do you think?'

Faulkner shrugged. ‘Ours is not the only family to be set at odds by civil strife.'

‘But we were sundered by something more pernicious; we were set at odds by vice.'

Warmed by the wine, Faulkner was recovering from his shocked state. ‘Be careful how you employ that ready wit of yours. What your mother poisoned you with was not necessarily the truth. Have you never been in love such that the mere thought of a particular woman turned your guts to water?'

Nathaniel drew himself up. ‘Such a feeling I would ascribe to lust; as for love – I am married.'

‘And have children?'

‘Aye, a small son.' He hesitated, then asked, ‘And have I bastard half-brothers and half-sisters?'

‘No, you may tell your mother that God punished us thereby.'

‘Shall I see my mother again?'

‘If she lives.'

‘She does, and is well.'

‘Then I shall parole thee.'

‘And my ship?'

Faulkner stared hard at his prisoner. ‘That I cannot let go. She is mine since you surrendered her. That was a consequence of your action, or lack of it, as commander.'

The remark stung. ‘I was tricked,' he responded indignantly.

‘You were fooled.' Faulkner paused, seeing Nathaniel's discomfort. ‘But 'tis not a thing to take too much to heart; 'tis but the fortune of war, a mere turn of the cards. But then, I don't expect you play cards if Judith raised you a Puritan – which I take to be the case from your refusal of wine.'

‘I am proud of the fact and England is the better for it.'

‘Perhaps.'

‘What I find most extraordinary is that you think that any advantage can accrue to your cause, which is irrecoverably lost, by persisting in this war at sea. You cannot win it, father, you must see that.' Nathaniel stopped abruptly, sensing he had assumed an intimacy that was at once importunate and unfounded.

Faulkner smiled. ‘You are a fine young man, Nathaniel, and, while you may be ashamed to have me as your father, I am not so to have you my son.' He saw the other swallow hard and sniffed away his own sentiment. ‘I am bound upon a course you cannot yet understand; perhaps one day you may. I should like to think so, whatever your mother says. I do not deny that I treated her badly any more than I can exculpate myself from any charge of neglect you level at me, though I left her means enough. Upon occasions we are caught up in stronger winds than we can resist.' He broke off for a moment then added, ‘No matter now. You must be hungry. Will you take meat with me?'

The invitation was met with an indecisive silence before Nathaniel said, ‘I must see to my men.'

‘There is no need for that. You are my prisoner, alas. Now sit, and I shall summon meat and drink; will you take small beer for I do not commend the water?'

‘And as your prisoner . . .?'

‘You will give your parole not to do anything foolish. Do you agree?' The younger man nodded. ‘And with what were you laden? Come, your manifest?'

‘Very little. We are on a state charter as a storeship to the naval squadron in the West Country and were returning to Portsmouth.'

‘I see. And what . . .' Faulkner got no further for the cabin door opened and White's head poked round it, his expression one of extreme agitation as he shot a look at the stranger in Faulkner's cabin. ‘Yes, Mr White?' White hesitated and required a brusque prompt from Faulkner. ‘Come, sir, what is it?'

‘A man-of-war, sir. A large one, coming up from the westward hand-over-fist.'

‘That will be the
Resolution
,' Nathaniel remarked coolly, ‘of sixty-four guns.'

White whistled.

‘Moulton's flagship?' Faulkner enquired and the younger man nodded. ‘Captain Richard Blyth commands.'

‘I'll be up, directly,' Faulkner said to White. He then turned to his son. ‘You may sit here quietly, or come on deck if you desire it.'

‘I shall stay here, Father; I have no wish to see your final humiliation.'

On deck Faulkner discovered that White was cramming on sail and had hailed Lazenby to follow suit in the
Judith
, but one glance to windward showed Faulkner that they were unlikely to outrun the powerful man-of-war as she bore down directly for them.

‘She cannot have been ten miles astern of the prize,' White remarked.

‘We'll make a chase of it,' Faulkner said, wondering whether he should jettison his precious – and expensive – cannon to lighten the
Phoenix
and give her half a chance.

White must have divined something of his indecision as he remarked, ‘I doubt the prize will escape, even if we do.'

‘No, God damn it.'

‘And the wind's freshening from the westward all the time.'

‘I know.' Faulkner looked aloft. White was too good a seaman not to have set every sail to maximum advantage. ‘Set up extra backstays; that at least will allow us to carry a press for longer.'

‘Aye, aye.' White went off to do as he was bid and Faulkner raised his glass and studied his pursuer. He felt uncharacteristically empty of energy, like a half-filled pig's bladder with which apprentices played at football. The presence of Nathaniel below brought home the ambiguities of his life and all sense of resolution seemed to have deserted him. He felt the warmth of the sun on the deck through the worn soles of his shoes; the sunlight sparkled on the sea creating a brilliant contrast with the darker clouds massing to the westwards. The roiling of the wake as the
Phoenix
forged ahead, rising and falling in her headlong rush, but there, her bright work and gilding twinkling in the sunshine, her sails taught and drawing, her whole array made splendid against that looming bank of cloud, came his nemesis – of that he was suddenly certain.

Already the
Judith
, a slower vessel than the
Phoenix
, was falling astern and there he would have to leave her, allowing Lazenby and his men to fall into enemy hands. The very thought seemed to dull him, as though he should not abandon his men, that to do so would be an evil he could not bear.

‘Mr White!'

‘Sir?'

‘Send the men to their quarters. I'm damned if I'll abandon Lazenby. I mean to fight.'

‘To fight? Very well.'

As soon as the men were at their battle stations, Faulkner put up his helm and shortened sail.

‘Rise tacks and sheets! Clew up to'gallants!'

The
Phoenix
slowed and then, upon Faulkner's orders, turned to slew across the
Judith
's stern whereupon Faulkner hailed Lazenby. ‘God's speed! Make for Helvoetsluys! I'll try and buy you an hour or two, until nightfall if God wills it!'

‘God save the King!' Lazenby called back, his voice faint, but his waving hat evidence of his spirit and relief.

‘What do you intend to do, sir?' White asked, then added, ‘The men may not—'

‘I know the temper of the men.'

‘She's a ship of force, sir. Sixty-four heavy cannon; more than our match.'

‘If we last till night falls, I'll run under cover of darkness. Tell the men that.'

‘That's long odds, Sir Christopher.'

‘Be so kind as to do as I say.'

White went forward without a word. Faulkner watched him going from gun to gun and then addressing the topmen standing by to work the ship. He noted a few of them took the information calmly; others showed so obvious a reluctance, staring aft with hostile glares, that Faulkner turned away, raised his glass and made to study the Commonwealth man-of-war.

She was little more than two miles distant now, stretching out to range up on her quarry's larboard beam. He could see a little knot of men clustered above her gilded figurehead as she dipped into the blue seas, a white bone in her teeth. Moulton's flag flew at her fore-masthead and Faulkner realized that there were many aboard the
Resolution
who would recognize the
Phoenix
, notwithstanding the fact that he had had her name removed from her transom. It would be a sweet revenge for them, he thought bitterly.

As he watched she veered to larboard and a puff of smoke appeared; a second later a column of water rose up on the
Phoenix
's starboard quarter, fifty yards away. What the devil was he to do? Clewing up the courses was clear evidence that he intended to fight. He spun round and gave the helmsman an order. ‘Stand to!' he called to the men at the guns. ‘Man the larboard battery, knock out your quoins, load bar or chain-shot and aim high, reload and fire as you will as soon as your guns bear!'

There was a scurrying on the deck where men ran with no obvious sign of reluctance, Faulkner was pleased to see as he waited. The men from the starboard guns crossed the deck to double the guns' crews on the side with which he proposed to engage. When he judged them ready and White gave him a grim but confirmatory nod, he turned to the helmsman.

‘Now, quartermaster, carry her head round to larboard!'

The
Phoenix
swung almost, or so it seemed, under the bows of the
Resolution
. She lay over to the wind as the braces swung the yards and at the top of her leeward lurch White, sensing his moment, bawled the order to fire. Out of the smoke that blew back across the deck Faulkner saw the black and spinning projectiles as they climbed into the sky and lost them a split-second before several rents opened in the
Resolution
's sails.

‘Keep your helm over.' Faulkner spoke in a steady tone as the
Phoenix
sailed an arc around the big man-of-war as she came onwards, ever shortening the radius. The guns, or some of them, fired again and Faulkner saw splinters rise from the
Resolution
's upper-works. A brace parted and one yard swung so that the sails which were served above and below it began to flog, but there was no tumbling of topmasts, and then they were past with only the whistle of matchlock balls about their ears to say that the enemy had responded. Now they would cross the
Resolution
's stern into which a few of the
Phoenix
's guns fired raking shots. It was well enough done, but to work it had to be decisive and affect the manoeuvring ability of the bigger ship, thus reducing the odds against them. In this it had fallen short.

One thing they had achieved was a measure of surprise, for apart from half-a-dozen marksmen, they had provoked no heavy gunfire.

‘They weren't ready for us,' White observed, coming aft. ‘Shall you haul your wind? It occurs to me that we might make off to the south and use the recovery of the prize to lure her off.'

It was a clever notion and White was prompting him to let fall the courses, harden up the tacks and braces and stand away before the
Resolution
could come round in pursuit. For a moment it looked as though Moulton had every intention of carrying on to recover the
Judith
as White had thought, but Faulkner feared otherwise, and was proved right. The
Resolution
's helm went over and they could see her yards coming round. A moment later the flicker of fire along her side was shrouded in smoke before the balls slammed into the
Phoenix
's hull.

‘Aim high. We cannot do otherwise,' he snapped and White ran forward. Several gun captains were traversing their gun carriages with handspikes but more shots hit home and the noise of the first discharge rolled over the water towards them. Then there was a loud crack aloft and someone yelled, ‘Main topmast is shot through!' Slack ropes looped down, canvas, spars and splinters tumbled on to their heads and men were screaming.

‘Aim high, lads.'

Then White was back at his side. Faulkner saw that he was bleeding from a wound in the scalp, a laceration from which blood poured down the side of his face. ‘The men won't answer, sir. You must strike!'

And before he could make a reply, Faulkner felt a sensation of fire pass through his right thigh. He dropped on to one knee, vaguely aware of the quartermaster being blown from the wheel and his mate's shattered body lying over the abandoned helm. Somewhere forward more spars, blocks, ropes and sailcloth fell to the deck and the pitiful cries of the wounded and dying assailed his ears. Above the wreckage and the accumulating smoke he could see the loom of the
Resolution
, her sides twinkling with points of fire that marked her gun muzzles and punched the hot breath of passing iron balls over his head. Strange noises of impact, the darting whirr of splinters and the confusion of utter defeat rose up all about him. White had disappeared until Faulkner, trying to move, slithered in what remained of him and thought not of White but of Nathaniel below, in a cabin that must by now resemble a shambles.