The Only Victor (5 page)

Jenour watched the eyes, lighter grey now as he turned towards the open sea. Like the ocean itself, he thought.

He said, “But you do not believe that the general will agree?”

Bolitho clapped him on the arm like a boyish conspirator. “We will act independently.” His face was suddenly introspective. “As this is a day for remembering Nelson, let us use his own words. The boldest measures are usually the safest!”

That night Bolitho sat by the stern windows of the cabin—which had once been used by no less than a governor-general, who had fled on board to escape the plague which had broken out amongst the islands he controlled—and watched the ships' riding lights with no inclination to sleep.

The air was heavy and humid, and as a guardboat pulled slowly amongst the anchored squadron, he thought instead of Cornwall, of the bitter wind on the night when she had come to him. Just over a month ago, no more; and now he was here in the shadow of Africa, and they were separated again at the whim of others.

Did they need his skills so much that they could overlook his contempt for them? Or, like Nelson, would they prefer a dead hero to a living reminder of their own failings?

The deck quivered as the anchor cable took the sudden strain of a faster current. Allday had not been very optimistic about shifting to the old sixty-four. The company had been aboard too long, pressed from passing merchantmen in the Caribbean, survivors from other vessels, even pardoned prisoners from the courts of Jamaica.

Like Warren, the ship was worn out, and suddenly thrust into a role she no longer recognised. Bolitho had seen the old swivel-gun mountings on either gangway. Not facing a possible enemy but pointing inboard, from the time when she had carried convicts and prisoners-of-war from a campaign already forgotten.

He thought he heard Ozzard pattering about in his newly-occupied pantry. So he could not sleep either. Still remembering
Hyperion
's last moments—or was he nursing his secret, which Bolitho had sensed before that final battle?

Bolitho yawned and gently massaged his eye. It was strange, but he could not clearly remember why Ozzard had not been on deck when they had been forced to clear the ship of the survivors and the wounded.

He thought too of his flag captain and firm friend, Valentine Keen, his face full of pain, not at his own injury but for his vice-admiral's despair.

If only you were here now, Val.

But his words went unspoken, for he had fallen asleep at last.

3 THE
A
LBACORA

A
N ONLOOKER
, had there been one, might have compared the little topsail schooner
Miranda
with a giant moth. But apart from a few screaming and wheeling gulls, there was none to see her as she came about in a great welter of bursting spray, her twin booms swinging over to refill the sails on the opposite tack.

She leaned so far to leeward that the sea was spurting through her washports, rising even above her bulwark to surge along the streaming planking, or breaking over the four-pounder guns like waves on rocks.

It was wild and exhilarating, the air filled with the din of sea and banging canvas, with only the occasional shouted command, for nothing superfluous was needed here. Each man knew his work, aware of the ever-present dangers: he could be flung senseless against some immovable object to suffer a cracked skull or broken limbs, or be pitched overboard by a treacherous wave as it burst over the bows and swept along like a mill-race.
Miranda
was small and very lively, and certainly no place for the unwary or the inexperienced.

Aft by the compass box her commander, Lieutenant James Tyacke, swayed and leaned with his ship, one hand in his pocket, the other gripping a slippery backstay. Like his men he was soaked to the skin, his eyes raw from spray and spindrift as he watched the tilting compass card, the flapping mainsail and pendant while his command plunged again, her bowsprit pointing due south.

They had taken all night and part of the day to claw out of Saldanha Bay, away from the impressive formations of anchored men-of-war, supply ships, bombs, army transports and all the rest. Lieutenant Tyacke had used the time to beat as far out as possible to gain the sea-room he needed before heading back to Commodore Warren's small squadron. There was another reason, which probably only his second-in-command had guessed. He wanted to put as much ocean as possible between
Miranda
and the squadron before someone signalled him to repair aboard the flagship yet again.

He had done what he had been ordered, delivered the despatches to the army and the commodore. He had been glad to leave.

Tyacke was thirty years old and had commanded the speedy
Miranda
for the last three of them. After her grace and intimacy, the flagship had seemed like a city, with the navy seemingly outnumbered by the red and scarlet of the military and the marines.

It was not that he did not know what a big ship was like. He tightened his jaw, determined to hold the memory and the bitterness at bay. Eight years ago he had been serving as a lieutenant aboard the
Majestic,
a two-decker with Nelson's fleet in the Mediterranean. He had been on the lower gundeck when Nelson had finally run the French to earth at Aboukir Bay, the Battle of the Nile as it was now called.

It was too terrible to remember clearly, or to arrange the events in their proper order. With the passing of time they eluded him, or overlapped like insane acts in a nightmare.

At the height of it his ship,
Majestic,
had come up against the French
Tonnant
of eighty guns, which had seemed to tower over them like a flaming cliff.

The noise was still there to remember, if he let himself, the awful sights of men, and pieces of men, being flung about the bloody litter and gruel of the gundeck, a place which had become a hell all of its own. The wild eyes of the gun crews, white through their filthy skins, the cannon firing and recoiling, no longer as a controlled broadside but in divisions, then in ones and twos, while the ship shook and quaked around and above them. Unbeknown to the demented souls who sponged out, loaded and fired because it was all that they knew, their captain, Westcott, had already fallen dead, along with so many of his men. Their world was the lower gundeck. Nothing else mattered, could matter. Guns were upended and smashed by the enemy's fire; men ran screaming to be driven back by equally terrified lieutenants and warrant officers.

Run out! Point! Fire!

He heard it still. It would never leave him. Others had told him he was lucky. Not because of the victory—only ignorant landsmen spoke of such things. But because he had survived when so many had fallen, the lucky to die, the others to cry out their lives under the surgeon's saw, or to be pathetic cripples whom nobody wanted to see or remember.

He watched the compass card steady and felt the keel slicing through the steep rollers as if they were nothing.

He touched his face with his hand, feeling its roughness, seeing it in his mind as he was forced to do each day when he shaved himself.

Again he could remember nothing. A gun had exploded, or a flaming wad had come inboard from one of
Tonnant
's lower battery and sparked off a full charge nearby. It could have been either. Nobody had been left to tell him.

But the whole of the right side of his face had been scored away, left like charred meat, half a face which people turned their heads not to see. How his eye had survived was the real miracle.

He thought of his visit to the flagship. He had not seen the general or even the commodore, just a bored-looking colonel who had been carrying a glass of hock or something cool in one elegant hand. They had not even asked Tyacke to be seated, let alone to take a glass with them.

As he had gone down the great ship's side to his own long-boat, that same aide had come dashing after him.

“I say, Lieutenant! Why did you not tell me the news? About Nelson and the victory?”

Tyacke had looked up the ship's curving black and buff hull and had not tried to conceal his contempt.

“ 'Cause nobody asked me,
sir!
” God damn their eyes.

Benjamin Simcox, master's mate and acting-master of the schooner
Miranda,
lurched along the treacherous planking to join him. He was the same age as his captain, a seaman through and through who originally, like the schooner, had been in the merchant service. In such a small vessel—she was a bare sixty-five feet long with a company of thirty—you got to know a man very well. Love or hate and not much in between. With Bob Jay, another master's mate, they ran the schooner to perform at her best. It was a matter of pride.

Usually one of them was on watch, and when Simcox had spent a few watches below with the tall lieutenant he had got to know him well. Now, after three years, they were true friends, their separate ranks only intruding in rare moments of formality. Like Tyacke's visit to the flagship for instance.

Tyacke had looked at him, momentarily forgetting his hideous scars, and had said, “First time I've buckled on a sword for over a year, Ben!” It was good to hear him joke about it. It was rare too.

Did he ever think about the girl in Portsmouth, Simcox wondered? One night in harbour he had been awakened in his tiny cabin by Tyacke's pitiful, dreaming entreaties to the girl who had promised to wait for him, to marry him. Rather than wake the whole ship, Simcox had shaken his shoulder, but had not explained. Tyacke had understood, and had fetched a bottle of brandy which they had taken off a runner. When dawn had broken the bottle had been empty.

Tyacke had not blamed the girl he had known for most of his life. Nobody would want to see his face every morning. But he had been deeply hurt; wounded no less severely than others at the Nile.

Simcox shouted above the din, “Runnin' well!” He jerked a thumb at a slight figure who was clinging to the companion hatch, a lifeline tied around his waist, his breeches and stockings soiled with vomit. “He's not so good, though!”

Mister Midshipman Roger Segrave had been in
Miranda
since they had taken on stores at Gibraltar. At the request of his captain he had been transferred from a big three-decker to complete his time as midshipman in a vessel where he might learn something more about practical seamanship and self-reliance. It had been said that the midshipman's uncle, an admiral at Plymouth, had arranged the transfer, not merely for the youth's sake but also for the family name. It would not look good to fail the lieutenant's examination, especially in time of war when chances of promotion lay on every hand.

Tyacke had made it clear he disliked the idea. Segrave's presence had upset their tight routine, an intrusion, like an unwanted visitor.

Simcox was one of the old school; the rope's end or a clip round the ear were, in his book, worth far more than lengthy discussions on tradition and discipline.

But he was not a hard man, and tried to explain to the midshipman what he might expect. Lieutenant Tyacke was the only commissioned officer aboard. He could not be expected to live in total isolation in a ninety-two-ton schooner; they were a team. But he knew that Segrave did not really understand. In the teeming world of a ship of the line everything was divided and sub-divided by rank, status and experience. At the top there was the captain, usually so remote he seemed like a god. The rest, though crammed together out of necessity, were totally separated.

Segrave rolled over and leaned back against the hatchway with a deep groan. He was sixteen years old with fair, almost girlish good looks. He had perfect manners, was careful, even shy when dealing with the hands—not like some little monsters Simcox had heard about. And he tried hard at everything but, even Simcox had to agree, with very little success. He was staring up at the sky, seemingly oblivious to the spray which ripped over the deck like pellets, or the filthy state of his clothing.

Lieutenant Tyacke looked at him coldly. “Free yourself and go below,
Mr
Segrave, and fetch some rum from the clerk. I can't afford to let anyone useful stand-down until I change tack again.”

As the youth clambered wretchedly down the ladder, Simcox grinned.

“Bit hard on the lad, James.”

Tyacke shrugged. “You think so?” He almost spat. “In a year or two he'll be sending men to the gratings for a striped shirt, just for looking at him!”

The master's mate yelled, “Wind's veered a piece!”

“Bring her up a point. I think this is going to blow over. I want to get the tops'l spread if it does, and run with the wind under our coat-tails.”

There was a sound of breaking pottery and someone vomiting from the deck below.

Tyacke murmured, “I swear I shall kill that one.”

Simcox asked, “What d'you reckon to Vice-Admiral Bolitho, James?”

The lieutenant gripped the stay again and bent from the waist as the sea boiled over the weather bulwark in a solid flood. Amongst the streaming water and foam he saw his men, like half-naked urchins, nodding and grinning to each other. Making certain that no one had gone over.

He replied, “A good man to all accounts. When I was at the—” He looked away, remembering the cheers despite the hell when Bolitho's ship was reported engaging. He changed tack. “I've known plenty who've served with him—there used to be an old fellow who lived in Dover. I used to speak with him when I was a lad, down by the harbour.” He smiled suddenly. “Not far from where they built this schooner, as a matter of fact . . . He was serving under Richard Bolitho's father when he lost his arm.”

Simcox watched his strong profile. If you did not see the other side of his face, he was handsome enough to catch any girl's fancy, he thought.

He said, “You should tell him that, if you meet.”

Tyacke wiped the spray from his face and throat. “He's a vice-admiral now.”

Simcox smiled but was uneasy. “God, you make him sound like the enemy, James!”

“Do I? Well, there's a thing!” He touched his dripping sleeve. “Now rouse these layabouts and stand by to change tack. We will steer south by east.”

Within the hour the squall had fallen away, and with all sails filling well, their dark shadows riding across the waves alongside like huge fins,
Miranda
responded with her usual disdain.

She had started life as a Dover mail packet, but had been taken by the navy before she had completed more than a few passages. Now at seventeen years, she was one of the many such vessels working under a naval ensign. She was not only a lively sailer; she was a delight to handle because of her simple sail-plan and deep keel. A large mainsail aft, with a forestaysail and jib and the one topsail on her foremast, she could out-manœuvre almost anything. The deep keel, even when she was closehauled, prevented her from losing leeway like a cutter or something heavier. Armed with only four
4
-pounders and some swivels, she was meant for carrying despatches, rather than taking part in any real skirmish.

Smugglers and privateers were one thing; but half a broadside from some enemy frigate would change her from a lean thoroughbred to a total wreck.

Between decks there was the strong smell of rum and tobacco, and the greasy aroma of the noon meal. As the watch below scrambled down to their messdeck, Tyacke and Simcox sat wedged on either side of the cabin table. Both men were tall, so that any movement in the cabin had to be performed bent double.

The midshipman, repentant and anxious, sat at the other end of the table. Simcox could pity him, for even under reefed canvas the motion was violent, the sea surging astern from the sharply raked counter, the prospect of food another threat for any delicate stomach.