Second to None (16 page)

Men were pausing to draw breath, to peer around for messmates or for a special friend, as they might after action. Two of the younger midshipmen were actually grinning at one another and shaking hands with a kind of jubilant triumph.

Adam saw all and none of it. He was staring up, at the first lookout to risk the perilous climb aloft.

‘Deck there! Sail on th' weather bow!'

He turned to Cristie and said quietly, ‘And
there,
my friend, lies the enemy.'

LIEUTENANT GALBRAITH PIVOTED
round on his heels and stared up to the quarterdeck rail, eyes slitted against the first hard sunshine.

‘Ship cleared for action, sir!'

Adam did not take out his watch; he had no need to. From the moment the small marine drummer boys had begun the staccato rattle of beating to quarters, he had watched the ship come alive again, the savage wind almost forgotten. Only fragments of canvas and snapped cordage, flapping ‘Irish pennants', as the old hands called them, gave any hint of the storm which had passed as quickly as it had found them.

Seven o'clock in the morning: six bells had just chimed from the forecastle. It was all routine, normal, and yet so different.

Adam had stood by the rail, feeling the ship preparing for whatever challenge she might meet within the next few hours. Screens torn down, hutchlike cabins folded away and stowed in the holds with furniture and all unnecessary personal belongings. A bad moment, when some might pause to reflect that their owners might not need them after this day was past.

It had taken ten minutes to clear the ship from bow to stem. Even his cabin, the largest he had ever occupied and a place which still lacked personality, was open, so that gun crews and powder monkeys could move unhindered if the shot began to fly.

The galley fire had been doused at the beginning of the storm, and there had been no time to relight it. Men fought
better on a full belly, especially when they had already been contesting wind and sea for most of the night.

He stared along the maindeck, at the gun crews standing by their charges, the long eighteen-pounders which made up the bulk of
Unrivalled
's artillery. Most of them were stripped to the waist, new hands and landsmen following the example of the seasoned men who had seen and done it all before. Any clothing was precious to a working sailor, and costly to replace out of his meagre pay. Fabric also attracted gangrene, and hampered treatment should a man be wounded.

Adam thought he could smell the rum even from the quarterdeck. The purser had been quietly outraged by the extra issue he had ordered, a double tot for every man, as if the cost would be extracted from his own pocket.

But it had bridged the gap, and would do no harm at all.

Six seamen to each gun, including its captain, but hauling the heavy cannon up a tilting deck if the ship was to leeward of an enemy would require many more. An experienced crew should be able to fire a shot every ninety seconds, at the outset of battle in any case, although Adam had known some gun captains prepared and ready to fire three shots every two minutes. It had been so in
Hyperion,
an exceptional ship; a legend, like her captain.

He smiled, but did not see Galbraith's quick answering grin.

The ship was moving steadily and, apparently, unhurriedly, with courses and staysails clewed up or furled. It seemed to open up the sea on either beam, and Adam had seen several of the unemployed seamen clambering up to seek out the enemy. To watch and prepare themselves as best they could. He considered it.
The enemy.
There were two of them, one large, a cut-down man-of-war by her appearance, the other smaller, a brig.

It was still so peaceful. So full of quiet menace.

Who were they? What had prompted their mission to Algiers?

He saw Lieutenant Massie by the foremast, ready to direct the opening shots, his own little group of midshipmen, messengers and petty officers waiting to pass his orders, and to close their eyes and ears to all else around them.

He turned away from the rail and saw the Royal Marines stationed across the deck, scarlet ranks moving evenly to the ship's motion. Cristie, and Lieutenant Wynter, Midshipman Bellairs and his signals party, the helmsmen and master's mates. A centre. The ship's brain. He glanced at the tightly packed hammock nettings, slight protection for such a prize target.

He raised his eyes and saw more marines in the fighting tops. He had always thought of it when facing an action at sea. The marksmen, one of whom he knew had been a poacher before enlisting, not out of patriotism but rather to avoid prison or deportation. They were all first-class shots.

He looked at the horizon again, the tiny patches of sails against the hard blue line. He would think even more of it now, since Avery had described those final moments, so quietly, so intimately. He bit his lip, controlling it. All these men, good and bad, would be looking to him.
Aft, the most honour.
He touched the old sword at his hip, remembering the note she had left with it.
For me.
He had seen Jago's searching glance when he had come on deck. The old sword, the bright epaulettes. What had he thought? Arrogance, or vanity?

Jago was climbing the quarterdeck ladder now, his dark eyes barely moving, but missing nothing. A man he might never know, but one he did not want to lose.

Jago joined him by the rail and stood with his arms folded, as if to show his contempt for some of those watching. Like Lieutenant Massie, or the sulky midshipman named Sandell.
Sandell
, as he insisted on being called.

Jago said, ‘The first ship, sir. Old Creagh thinks he knows her.'

So casually spoken.
Testing me?

The face formed in his mind. Creagh was one of the boatswain's mates, and would have been carrying out a flogging if
Unrivalled
had turned back instead of forcing her passage into the teeth of the storm. A lot of people might be thinking that, and cursing their captain for his stubborn refusal to give way.

‘One of Mr Partridge's mates.' He did not see Jago's quiet smile, although he sensed it.

‘He swears she's the
Tetrarch.
Served in her some years back.'

Adam nodded. Like a family. Like the men who served them, there were bad ships too.

Tetrarch
was a fourth-rate, one of a rare breed now virtually erased from the Navy List. Classed as ships of the line, they had been rendered obsolete by the mounting savagery and improved gunnery of this everlasting war. The fourth-rate was neither one thing nor the other, not fast enough to serve as a frigate, and, mounting less than sixty guns, no match for the battering she must withstand in the line of battle. Ship to ship. Gun to gun.

Tetrarch
had been caught off Ushant some three years ago. Attacked and captured by two French frigates, she had not been heard of since.

Now she was back. And she was here.

Jago said, ‘Cut down, she is.' He rubbed his chin, a rasping sound like an armourer's iron. ‘But still, she could give a fair account of herself. And with that other little bugger in company.'

Adam tried to put himself in the enemy's position, assessing the distant vessels as if he were looking down on them. Like impersonal markers on an admiral's chart. The brig would be sacrificed first. She had to be, if the bigger ship was indeed loaded with supplies and powder for others still sheltering in Algiers, enjoying what Bethune had called the Dey's one-sided neutrality. After losing
La Fortune
to such a calculated trick, they would be doubly eager to even the score.

On a converging tack, both close-hauled, but the enemy would have the wind's advantage. And there was not enough time to replace the fore topgallant sail.

Galbraith had joined him, his face full of questions.

Adam asked, ‘How long, d' you think?'

Galbraith looked up at the masthead pendant, flapping and drooping. How could the wind change so completely?

He answered, ‘An hour. No more.' He hesitated. ‘She has the wind-gage, sir.'

‘It's the little terrier which concerns me. We shortened sail in time last night. But our lady will be hard put to lift her skirts in a hurry!' He studied the set of each sail, the yards braced round. The wind would decide it. ‘I want to hit them before they can do too much damage.'

The men at the quarterdeck nine-pounders glanced at one another.
Too much damage.
Not just timber and cordage, but flesh and blood.

Adam walked to the compass box and back again. ‘Our best shots must be all about today, Mr Galbraith.' He smiled suddenly. ‘A guinea for the man who marks down the captain. Theirs, not ours!'

Some of those same men actually laughed aloud. Captain Bouverie would not approve of such slack behaviour aboard
Matchless
.

He turned aside. ‘Be watchful of powder. The decks will soon be bone dry. One spark . . .' He did not need to continue.

He took a glass and held it to his eye; it was already warm against his skin.

Three ships, drawing together as if by invisible warps. Soon to be close, real, deadly.

I must not fail. Must not.

But his voice sounded flat and without emotion, betraying nothing of his thoughts.

‘Load in ten minutes, Mr Galbraith. But do not run out. Let the people take their time. Gunnery is god today!'

If I fall.
He had his hand on his pocket and could feel the locket there, carefully wrapped.
Who would care?

He thought suddenly of the old house, empty now, except for the portraits. Waiting.

They would care.

It was time.

Galbraith glanced quickly at his captain and then leaned over the quarterdeck rail.

The final scrutiny. There was always the chance of a flaw in the rigid pattern of battle.

Decks sanded, particularly around each gun, to prevent men from slipping in the madness of action on blown spray or blood. Nets had been spread above the deck to protect the gun crews and sail-handling parties from falling debris, and impede any enemy reckless enough to try and board them.

The gunner and his mates had already gone to the magazine to prepare and issue charges to the powder monkeys, most of
whom were mere boys. With no experience to plague them, they were less concerned than some of the older hands, who would look for reassurance at familiar faces around them, every man very aware of the two pyramids of sail, so much nearer now, although seemingly motionless on the glistening water.

Galbraith shouted, ‘
All guns load
!'

Each eighteen-pounder was an island, its crew oblivious to the rest. Just as during the constant drills when they had roundly cursed every officer from the captain downwards, they were testing the training tackles, casting off the heavy breeching ropes, freeing the guns for loading. That too was a routine, a ritual, the bulky charge taken by the assistant loader from the breathless powder monkey, to be eased into the waiting muzzle and tamped home by the loader. No mistakes. Two sharp knocks to bed it in, and a wad tamped in to secure it.

Experienced gun captains had already selected their shots from the garlands, holding each ball, weighing it, feeling it, making sure it was a perfect shape, for the opening roar of battle.

It had all been done deliberately and without haste, and Galbraith knew why the captain had ordered them to take their time, for this first attempt at least. Now there was a stillness, each crew grouped around its gun, every captain staring art at the blue and white figures of discipline and authority. As familiar as the guns which were their reason for being, in the company of which they greeted every dawn, and which were constant reminders of a ship's hard comradeship.

And yet despite the toughness of such men, Galbraith knew the other side of the coin. Like the seaman who had been lost overboard, without even a cry. Later there would be a sale of his few possessions, before the mast, as they called it, and messmates and others who had barely known him would dip into their purses and pay exorbitant prices so that money could be sent to a wife or mother somewhere in that other world.

He turned and looked at his captain, speaking quietly with the master, gesturing occasionally as if to emphasise something. He gazed at the oncoming vessels. The moment of embrace. There would be more possessions to bargain for if today turned sour on them.

He blinked as a shaft of sunlight glanced down between the braced yards. The smaller vessel had tacked, widening the distance from her consort. The terrier, the captain had called her. Ready to dart in and snap at
Unrivalled
's vulnerable stern and quarter. One shot could do it: a vital spar, or worse, damage to the rudder and steering gear would end the fight before
Unrivalled
had bared her teeth. He looked at the captain again.
He would know.
His first command had been a brig. He had been twenty-three, someone had said. He would know . . .

The enemy had the advantage of the wind, and yet Captain Adam Bolitho showed no sign of anxiety.

‘We will load both broadsides and engage first at full range, gun by gun. Tell the second lieutenant to sight each one himself. We will then luff, and if the wind is kind to us we can rake the enemy with the other full broadside.'

Galbraith dragged his mind back to the present. Extra hands at the foremast ready to set the big forecourse, until now brailed up like the others. With the fore topgallant sail missing, they would need every cupful of wind when they came about. And even then . . .

Adam called, ‘
Open the ports
!'

He imagined the port lids lifting along either beam, could see the water creaming past the lee side.
Unrivalled
was leaning over, and she would lean still further when they set the forecourse. He had guessed what Galbraith was thinking. If the wind deserted them now, the enemy ships could divide and outmanoeuvre him. He touched his pocket again. If not, the long eighteen-pounders on the weather side, at full elevation, would outrange the others. He smiled. So easily said . . .