In Gallant Company

Contents

About the Book

About the Author

Chronology

Also by Alexander Kent

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

1. Show of Strength

2. A Wild Plan

3. The
Faithful

4. Rendezvous

5. The Quality of Courage

6. A Lieutenant's Lot

7. Hopes and Fears

8. Fort Exeter

9. Probyn's Choice

10. Night Action

11. Rear-guard

12. Rivals

13. No More Pretence

14. A Very High Price

15. Another Chance

16. Orders

17. None So Gallant

Copyright

The revolution in America has erupted into a full-scale war. Richard Bolitho is a young lieutenant aboard the
Trojan
, an eighty-gun ship of the line.

The navy's main task is to prevent military supplies from reaching Washington's armies and to destroy the fast-growing fleet of French and American privateers. At a time of shortages and sudden death even a lieutenant can find himself faced with major tasks and decisions. As the
Trojan
goes about her affairs the threat to Bolitho and his companions makes itself felt from New York to the Caribbean.

Alexander Kent is the author of twenty-eight acclaimed books featuring Richard Bolitho. Under his own name, Douglas Reeman, and in the course of a career spanning forty-five years, he has written over thirty novels and two non-fiction books.

The stirring story of the life and times of Richard Bolitho is told in Alexander Kent's bestselling novels.

Midshipman Bolitho

Stand Into Danger

To Glory We Steer

Passage to Mutiny

Command a King's Ship

Sloop of War

Enemy in Sight

With All Despatch

Flag Captain

Form Line of Battle

Success to the Brave

Tradition of Victory

Inshore Squadron

Signal Close Action

Colours Aloft

Only Victor

Honour This Day

Cross of St George

Relentless Pursuit

Sword of Honour

Second to None

Man of War

Heart of Oak

For Winifred with love

Our foe was no skulk in his ship I tell you, . . . His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be.

 

WALT WHITMAN

THE STIFF OFFSHORE
wind, which had backed slightly to the north-west during the day, swept across New York's naval anchorage, bringing no release from the chilling cold and the threat of more snow.

Tugging heavily at her anchor cables, His Britannic Majesty's Ship
Trojan
of eighty guns might appear to a landsman's unpractised eye as indifferent to both wind and water. But to the men who continued with their work about her decks, or high above them on the slippery yards and rigging, her swaying motion made her anything but that.

It was March 1777, but to Lieutenant Richard Bolitho, officer of the afternoon watch, it felt like midwinter. It will be dark early, he thought, and the ship's boats would have to be checked, their moorings doubly secured before night closed in completely.

He shivered, not so much because of the cold, but because he knew there would be little relief from it once he was allowed to go below. For despite her massive size and armament, the
Trojan
, a two-decked ship of the line, whose complement of six hundred and fifty officers, seamen and marines lived out their lives within her fat hull, had no more than the galley fires and body-warmth to sustain them, no matter what the elements might do.

Bolitho raised his telescope and trained it towards the fading waterfront. As the lens passed over other anchored ships of the line, frigates and the general clutter of small supporting craft he found time to wonder at the change. It had been just last summer when
Trojan
, in company with a great fleet of one hundred and thirty ships, had anchored here, off Staten Island. After the shock of the actual revolution within the American
colonies, the occupation of New York and Philadelphia with such a show of force had seemed to those involved as a start on the way back, a compromise.

It had been such a simple and leisurely affair at the time. After placing his troops under canvas along the green shoreline of Staten Island, General Howe, with a token force of infantry, had gone ashore to take possession. All the preparations by the Continentals and local militia had come to nothing, and even the Staten Island force of four hundred men, who had been commanded by General Washington to defend the redoubts at all costs, had grounded their muskets and obligingly sworn allegiance to the Crown.

Bolitho lowered the glass as it blurred in drifting snow. It was hard to recall the green island and crowds of onlookers, the Loyalists cheering, the rest watching in grim silence. Now all the colours were in shades of grey. The land, the tossing water, even the ships seemed to have lost their brightness in the persistent and lingering winter.

He took a few paces this way and that across
Trojan
's spacious quarterdeck, his shoes slipping on the planking, his damp clothing tugging at him in the wind. He had been in the ship for two years. It was beginning to feel a lifetime. Like many others throughout the fleet, he had felt mixed feelings at the news of the revolution. Surprise and shock. Sympathy and then anger. And above all the sense of helplessness.

The revolution, which had begun as a mixture of individual ideals, had soon developed into something real and challenging. The war was like nothing they had known before. Big ships of the line like
Trojan
moved ponderously from one inflamed incident to another, and were well able to cope with anything which was careless enough to stray under their massive broadsides. But the real war was one of communications and supply, of small, fast vessels, sloops, brigs and schooners. And throughout the long winter months, while the overworked ships of the inshore squadrons had patrolled and probed some fifteen hundred miles of coastline, the growing strength of the Continentals had been further aided by Britain's old enemy, France. Not openly as yet, but it would not be long before the many French privateers which hunted from the Canadian border to the Caribbean
showed their true colours. After that, Spain too would be a quick if unwilling ally. Her trade routes from the Spanish Main were perhaps the longest of all, and with little love for England anyway, she would likely take the easiest course.

All this and more Bolitho had heard and discussed over and over again until he was sick of it. Whatever the news, good or bad, the
Trojan
's role seemed to be getting smaller. Like a rock she remained here in harbour for weeks on end, her company resentful, the officers hoping for a chance to leave her and find their fortunes in swifter, more independent ships.

Bolitho thought of his last ship, the twenty-eight-gun frigate
Destiny
. Even as her junior lieutenant, and barely used to the sea-change from midshipman's berth to wardroom, he had found excitement and satisfaction beyond belief.

He stamped his feet on the wet planks, seeing the watchkeepers at the opposite side jerk round with alarm. Now he was fourth lieutenant of this great, anchored mammoth, and looked like remaining so.

Trojan
would be better off in the Channel Fleet, he thought. Manoeuvres and showing the flag to the watchful French, and whenever possible slipping ashore to Plymouth or Portsmouth to meet old friends.

Bolitho turned as familiar footsteps crossed the deck from the poop. It was Cairns, the first lieutenant, who like most of the others had been aboard since the ship had recommissioned in 1775 after being laid up in Bristol where she had originally been built.

Cairns was tall, lean and very self-contained. If he too was pining over the next step in his career, a command of his own perhaps, he never showed it. He rarely smiled, but nevertheless was a man of great charm. Bolitho both liked and respected him, and often wondered what he thought of the captain.

Cairns paused, biting his lower lip, as he peered up at the towering criss-cross of shrouds and running rigging. Thinly coated with clinging snow, the yards looked like the branches of gaunt pines.