Alexander Kent - Bolitho 17

by Honour This Day [lit]

  And Chaney had also walked these decks - he pushed the chair aside and crossed angrily to the open stern windows.

  ”You called, Sir Richard?”

  It was Ozzard, his mole-like servant. It would be no ship at all without him.

  Bolitho turned. He must have spoken her name aloud. How many times; and how long would he suffer like this?

  He said, ”I eh, I am sorry, Ozzard.” He did not go on.

  Ozzard folded his paw-like hands under his apron and-looked at the glittering anchorage.

  ”Old times, Sir Richard.”

  ”Aye.” Bolitho sighed. ”We had better be about it, eh?” Ozzard held up the heavy coat with its shining epaulettes.

  Beyond the screen door Bolitho heard the trill of more calls and the squeak of tackles as boats were swayed out for lowering alongside.

  Landfall. Once it had been such a magic word.

  Ozzaed busied himself with the coat but did not bring either sword from the rack. He and Allday were great friends even though most people would see them as chalk and cheese. And Allday would not allow anyone but himself to clip on the sword.

  Like the old ship, Bolitho thought, Allday was of the best English oak, and when he was gone none would take his place.

  He imagined that Ozzard was dismayed that he had chosen the two-decker when he could have had the pick of any first-rate he wanted. At the Admiralty they had gently suggested that although Hyperion was ready for sea again, after a three-year overhaul and refit she might never recover from that last savage battle.

  Curiously it had been Nelson, the hero whom Bolitho had never met, who had settled the matter. Someone at the Admiralty must have written to the little admiral to tell him of Bolitho’s request. Nelson had sent his own views in a despatch to Their Lordships with typical brevity.

  Give Bolitho any ship he wants. He is a sailor, not a landsman.

  It would amuse Our Nel, Bolitho thought. Hyperion had been set aside as a hulk until her recommissioning just a few months ago, and she was thirty-two years old.

  Nelson had hoisted his own flag in Victory, a first-rate, but he had found her himself rotting as a prison hulk. He had known in his strange fashion that he had to have her as his flagship. As far as he could recall, Bolitho knew that Victory was eight years older than Hyperion.

  Somehow it seemed right that the two old ships should live again, having been discarded without much thought after all they had done.

  The outer screen door opened and Daniel Yovell, Bolitho’s secretary, stood watching him glumly.

  Bolitho relented yet again. It had been easy for none of them because of his moods, his uncertainties. Even Yovell, plump, round-shouldered and so painstaking with his work, had been careful to keep his distance for the past thirty days at sea.

  ”The Captain will be here shortly, Sir Richard.”

  Bolitho slipped his arms into the coat and shrugged himself into the most comfortable position without making his spine prickle with sweat.

  ”Where is my flag lieutenant?”Bolitho smiled suddenly. Having an official aide had also been hard to accept at the beginning.

  Now, after two previous flag lieutenants, he found it simple to face.

  ”Waiting for the barge. After that,” the fat shoulders rose cheerfully, ”you will meet the local dignitaries.” He had taken Bolitho’s smile as a return to better things. Yovell’s simple Devonian mind required everything to remain safely the same.

  Bolitho allowed Ozzard to stand on tip-toe to adjust his neckcloth. For years he had always hung upon the word of admiralty or the senior officer present wherever it happened to be. It was still difficult to believe that this time there was no superior brain to question or satisfy. He was the senior officer. Of course in the end the unwritten naval rule would prevail. If right, others would take the credit. If wrong, he might well carry the blame.

  Bolitho glanced at himself in the mirror and grimaced. His hair was still black, apart from some distasteful silver ones in the rebellious lock of hair covering the old scar. The lines at the corners of his mouth were deeper, and his reflection reminded him of the picture of his older brother, Hugh, which hung in Falmouth. Like so many of those Bolitho portraits in the great grey stone house. He controlled his sudden despair. Now, apart from his loyal steward Ferguson and the servants, it was empty.

  I am here. It is what I wanted. He glanced around the cabin again. Hyperion. We nearly died together.

  Yovell turned aside, his apple-red face wary. ”The Captain, Sir Richard.”

  Haven entered, his hat beneath one arm.

  ”The ship is secured, sir.”

  Bolitho nodded. He had told Haven not to address him by his title unless ceremony dictated otherwise. The division between them was already great enough.

  ”I shall come up.” A shadow moved through the door and Bolitho noticed just the briefest touch of annoyance on Haven’s face. That was an improvement from total self-composure, he thought.

  Allday walked past the flag captain.

  ”The barge is alongside, Sir Richard.”

  He moved to the sword rack and eyed the two weapons thoughtfully. ”The proper one today?”

  Bolitho smiled. Allday had problems of his own, but he would keep them to himself until he was ready. Coxswain? A true friend was a better description. It certainly made Haven frown that one so lowly could come and go as he pleased.

  Allday stooped to dip the old Bolitho sword to the belt The leather scabbard had been rebuilt several times, but the tarnished hilt remained the same, and the keen, outmoded blade was as sharp as ever.

  Bolitho patted the sword against his hip. ”Another good friend.” Their eyes met. It was almost physical, Bolitho thought.

  All the influence his rank invited was nothing compared with their dose bond.

  Haven was of medium build, almost stocky, with curling ginger hair. In his early thirties, he had the look of a sound lawyer or city merchant, and his expression today was quietly expectant, giving nothing away. Bolitho had visited his cabin on one occasion and had remarked on a small portrait, of a beautiful girl with streaming hair, surrounded by flowers.

  ”My wife,” Haven had replied. His tone had suggested that he would say no more even to his admiral. A strange creature, Bolitho thought; but the ship was smartly run, although with so many new hands and an overload of landsmen, it had appeared as if the first lieutenant could take much of the credit for it.

  Bolitho strode through the door, past the rigid Royal Marine sentry and into the glaring sunlight. It was strange to see the wheel lashed in the midships position and abandoned. Every day at sea Bolitho had taken his solitary walks on the windward side of the quarterdeck or poop, had studied the small convoy and one attendant frigate, while his feet had taken him up and down the worn planks, skirting gun tackles and ringbolts without any conscious thought.

  Eyes watched him pass, quickly averted if he glanced towards them. It was something he accepted. He knew he would never grow to like it.

  Now the ship lay at rest; lines were being flaked down, petty officers moved watchfully between the bare-backed seamen to make sure the ship, no longer an ordinary man-of-war but an admiral’s flagship, was as smart as could be expected anywhere.

  Bolitho looked aloft at the black crisscross of shrouds and rigging, the tightly furled sails, and shortened figures busily working high above the decks to make certain all was secure there too.

  Some of the lieutenants moved away as he walked to the quarterdeck to look down at the lines of eighteen-pounders which had replaced the original batteries of twelve-pounders.

  Faces floated through the busy figures. Like ghosts. Noises intruded above the shouted orders and the clatter of tackles.

  Decks torn by shot as if ripped by giant claws. Men falling and dying, reaching for aid when there was none. His nephew Adam, then fourteen years old, white-faced and yet wildly determined as the embattled ships had ground together for the last embrace from which there was no e
scape for either of them.

  Haven said, ”The guardboat is alongside, sir.” Bolitho gestured past him. ”You have not rigged winds’ls, Captain.”

  Why could he not bring himself to call Haven by his first name?

  What is happening to me?

  Haven shrugged. ”They are unsightly from the shore, sir.”

  Bolitho looked at him. ”They give some air to the people on the gundecks. Have them rigged.”

  He tried to contain his annoyance, at himself, and with Haven for not thinking of the furnace heat on an overcrowded gundeck.

  Hyperion was one hundred and eighty feet long on her gundeck, and carried a total company of some six hundred officers, seamen and marines. In this heat it would feel like twice that number.

  He saw Haven snapping his orders to his first lieutenant, the latter glancing towards him as if to see for himself the reason for the rigging of windsails.

  The first lieutenant was another odd bird, Bolitho had decided. He was over thirty, old for his rank, and had been commander of a brig.

  The appointment had not been continued when the vessel had been paid off, and he had been returned to his old rank. He was tall, and unlike his captain, a man of outward excitement and enthusiasm.

  Tall and darkly handsome, his gipsy good looks reminded Bolitho of a face in the past, but he could not recall whose. He had a ready grin, and was obviously popular with his subordinates, the sort of officer the midshipmen would love to emulate.

  Bolitho looked forward, below the finely curved beakhead where he could see the broad shoulders of the figurehead. It was what he had always remembered most when he had left the ship at Plymouth. Hyperion had been so broken and damaged it had been hard to see her as she had once been. the figurehead had told another story.

  Under the gilt paint it may have been scarred too, but the piercing blue eyes which stared straight ahead from beneath the crown of a rising sun were as arroprit as ever. One outthrust, muscled arm pointed the same trident towards the next horizon.

  Even seen from aft, Bolitho pined strength from the old familiarity. Hyperion, one of the Titans, had overthrown the indignity of being denigrated to a hulk.

  Allday watched him narrowly. He had seen the gaze, and guessed what it meant. Bolitho was all aback. Allday was still not sure if he agreed with him or not. But he loved Bolitho like no other being and would die for him without question.

  He said, ”Barge is ready, Sir Richard.”

  He wanted to add that it was not much of a crew. Yet.

  Bolitho walked slowly to the entry port and glanced down at the boat alongside. Jenour, his new flag lieutenant, was already aboard; so was Yovell, a case of documents clasped across his fat knees. One of the midshipmen stood like a ramrod in the sternsheets. Bolitho checked himself-from scanning the youthful features. It was all past. He knew nobody in this ship.

  He looked round suddenly and saw the fifers moistening their pipes on their lips, the Royal Marines gripping their pipeclayed musket slings, ready to usher him over the side.

  Haven and his first lieutenant, all the other anonymous faces, the blues and whites of the officers the scarlet of the marines, the tanned bodies of the watching seamen.

  He wanted to say to them, ”I am your flag officer, but Hyperion is still my ship!”

  He heard Allday climb down to the barge and knew, no matter how he pretended otherwise, he would be watching, ready to reach out and catch him if his eye clouded over and he lost his step. Bolitho raised his hat, and instantly the fifes and drums snapped into a lively crescendo, and the Royal Marine guard presented arms as their major’s sword flashed in salute.

  Calls trilled and Bolitho lowered himself down the steep tumble-home and into the barge.

  His last glance at Haven surprised him. The captain’s eyes were cold, hostile. It was worth remembering.

  The guardboat sidled away and waited to lead the barge through the anchored shipping and harbour craft.

  Bolitho shaded his eyes and stared at the land. .

  It was another challenge. But at that moment it felt like running away.

  Chapter Two

  A Sailor’s Tale

  John Allday squinted his eyes beneath the tilted brim of his hat and watched the inshore current carry the guardboat momentarily off course. He eased his tiller carefully and the freshly painted green barge followed the other boat without even a break in the stroke. Allday’s reputation as the vice-admiral’s personal coxswain had preceded him.

  He stared along the barge crew, his eyes revealing nothing. The boat had been transferred from their last ship Argonaute, the Frog prize, but Bolitho had said that he would leave it to his coxswain to recruit a new crew from Hyperion. That was strange, he had thought. Any of the old crew would have volunteered to shift to Hyperion, for like as not they would have been sent back to sea anyway without much of a chance to visit their loved ones. He dropped his gaze to the figures who sat in the sternsheets. Yovell who had been promoted from clerk to secretary, with the new flag lieutenant beside him. The young officer seemed pleasant enough, but was not from a seagoing family.

  Most who seized the chance of the overworked appointment saw it as a sure way for their own promotion. Early days yet, Allday decided. In a ship where even the rats were strangers, it was better not to make hasty decisions.

  His eyes settled on Bolitho’s squared shoulders and he tried to control the apprehension which had been his companion since their return to Falmouth. It ought to have been a proud homecoming despite the pain and the ravages of battle. Even the damage to Bolitho’s left eye had seemed less terrible when set against what they had faced and overcome together. It had been about a year ago. Aboard the little cutter Supreme. Allday could recall each day, the painful recovery, the very power of the man he served and loved as he had fought to win his extra battle, to hide his despair and hold the confidence of the men he led.

  Bolitho never failed to surprise him although they had stayed together for over twenty years. It did not seem possible that there were any surprises left.

  They had walked from the harbour at Falmouth and paused at the church which had become so much a part of the Bolitho family. Generations of them were remembered there, births and marriages, victories at sea and violent death also.

  Allday had stayed near the big doors of the silent church on that summer’s day and had listened with sadness and astonishment as Bolitho spoke her name. Chaney. just her name; and yet it had told him so much. Allday still believed that when they reached the old grey stone house below Pendennis Castle it would all return to normal. The lovely Lady Belinda who in looks at least was so like the dead Chaney, would somehow make it right, would comfort Bolitho when she realised the extent of his hurt. Maybe heal the agony in his mind Which he never mentioned, but which Allday recognised. Suppose the other eye was somehow wounded in battle? The fear of so many sailors and soldiers. Helpless. Unwanted. Ferguson, the estate’s steward who had lost an arm at the Saintes what seemed like a million years back, his rosy-checked wife Grace the housekeeper, and all the other servants had been waiting to greet them. Laughter, cheers, and a lot of tears too. But Belinda and the child Elizabeth had not been there. Ferguson said that she had sent a letter to explain her absence. God knew it was common enough for a returning sailor to find his family ignorant of his whereabouts, but it could not have come at a worse moment or hit Bolitho so hard.

  Even his young nephew Adam, who now held his own command of the brig Firefly, was not able to console him. He had been ordered back to take on supplies and fresh water.

  Hyperion was real enough, though. Allday glared at the stroke oarsman as his blade feathered badly and threw spray over the gunwale. Bloody bargemen. They’d learn a thing or two if he had to teach every hand separately.

  The old Hyperion was no stranger, but the people were. Was that what Bolitho wanted? Or what he needed? Afiday still did not know.

  If Keen had been flag captain - Allday’s mouth softened. Or
poor Inch even, things would seem less strange.

  Captain Haven was a cold fish; even his own coxswain, a nuggety Welshman named Evans, had confided over a wet that his lord and master was without humour, and could not be reached.

  Allday glanced again at Bolitho’s shoulders. How unlike their own relationship. One ship after the other, different seas, but usually the same enemy. And always Bolitho had treated him as a friend, one of the family as he had once put it. It had been casually said, yet Allday had treasured the remark like a pot of gold.

  It was funny if you thought about it. Some of his old messmates might even have jibed him had they not been too respectful of his fists. For Allday, like the one-armed Ferguson, had been pressed into, the King’s service and put aboard Bolitho’s ship, the frigate Phalarope - hardly an ingredient for friendship. Allday had stayed with Bolitho ever since the Saintes when his old coxswain had been cut down.

  Allday had been a sailor all his life, apart from a short period ashore when he had been a shepherd, of all things. He knew little of his birth and upbringing or even the exact whereabouts of his home. Now, as he grew older, it occasionally troubled him.

  He studied Bolitho’s hair, the queue tied at the nape of his neck which hung beneath his best gold-laced hat. It was jet-black, and in his appearance he remained youthful; he had sometimes been mistaken for young Adam’s brother. Allday, as far as he knew, was the same age, forty-seven, but whereas he had filled out, and his thick brown hair had become streaked with grey, Bolitho never appeared to alter.

  At peace he could be withdrawn and grave. But Allday knew most of his sides. A tiger in battle; a man moved almost to tears and despair when he had seen the havoc and agony after a sea-fight.

  The guardboat was turning again to pass beneath the tapering jib-boom of a handsome schooner. Allday eased over the tiller and held his breath as fire probed the wound in his chest. That too rarely left his mind. The Spanish blade which had come from nowhere. Bolitho standing to protect him, then throwing down his sword to surrender and so spare his life.