The Flag Captain

by Alexander Kent

  ‘Stand by on the gundecks!’

  He saw the midshipmen scamper to the hatchways and imagined Weigall and Sawie down there in their world of semi-darkness, the great muzzles glinting perhaps in the open ports.

  Meheux was facing aft, his eyes fixed on the quarterdeck, and Bolitho noticed that he had his sword sloped across his shoulder as if on parade.

  With sudden alarm he clapped his hand to his hip and said, ‘My sword!’

  Allday ran forward. ‘But, Captain, you can’t use it yet!’

  ‘Get it!’ Bolitho touched his side and marvelled at the stupid value he had given to wearing the sword. And yet it was important to him, although he could not put words to it.

  He waited as Allday slipped the belt around his waist and said, ‘Left-handed or not, I may need it today.’

  The coxswain took up his position by the nettings and watched him fixedly. While he had his cutlass the captain would not need his arm, he would lay an oath on that.

  A new sound made several faces turn upwards. Screaming and sobbing, like some crazed spirit, it passed overhead and faded into the drifting smoke.

  Bolitho said shortly, ‘Chain shot.’

  The French usually tried to dismast or cripple an enemy if at all possible, whereas the British gunnery was normally directed at the hulls, to do as much damage and create sufficient carnage to encourage surrender.

  The smoke glowed red and orange, and he heard cries from the forecastle as more chain shot scythed past the carronades to cut away shrouds and rigging like grass.

  A strong down-eddy of wind thrust the smoke to one side, and while gunfire continued up and down the enemy line Bolitho saw the nearest Spanish seventy-four less than half a cable from the larboard bow. Just before the smoke billowed down again she stood there on the glittering water, clear and bright, her gold scrollwork and elegant counter throwing back reflections, while on her tall poop there were already flashes of musket fire.

  To starboard the second Spanish ship was wallowing slightly out of line, her jib and fore topsail in torment as her captain tried to avoid the oncoming three-decker.

  When he looked at Broughton he found him as before. Standing motionless with his hands hanging at his sides as if too stricken to move.

  ‘Sir! Walk about!’ He pointed at the nearest ship. ‘There are sharpshooters there this morning!’

  As if to verify his warning several splinters rose like feathers from the planking, and a man beside a gun screamed in agony as a ball smashed into his breast. He was dragged away gasping and protesting, knowing in spite of his pain what awaited him on the orlop.

  Broughton came out of his trance and began to pace up and down. He did not even flinch as a corpse bounced down from the main yard and rolled across the nets before pitching overboard. He seemed beyond fear or feeling. A man already dead.

  More crashes and thuds against the hull, and then as the smoke cleared once again Bolitho saw the Spanish ship’s stern swinging level with the foremast. They were passing through the line, and the realisation almost unnerved him. He gripped the rail and tried to make himself heard above the din.

  ‘Both batteries, Mr. Meheux! Pass the word!’ Fumbling and cursing, he tried to draw his sword with his left hand. It was hopeless.

  A voice said, ‘Here, let me, sir.’ It was Pascoe.

  Bolitho took the worn hilt in his hand and smiled at him. ‘Thank you, Adam.’ Was he thinking the same in that small fragment of time? That this old sword would be his too one day?

  He held it above his head, seeing the hazed sunlight touch the keen blade before the smoke rolled inboard again.

  ‘As you bear!’ He counted the seconds. ‘Fire!’

  The ship gave a terrible lurch as deck by deck, gun by gun, the deadly broadsides flashed and bellowed from either beam. He heard the groan of falling spars, the sudden screams in the smoke, and knew that the nearest ship had been badly mauled. And it had not even begun. The lower batteries of thirty-two-pounders were roaring above all else, their recoil shaking the hull to its very keel as their double-shotted bombardment raked the two ships with merciless accuracy. The one to starboard had lost both her fore and main topmasts, and charred canvas dropped alongside like so much rubbish. The nearest two-decker was idling downwind, her steering gone and her stern gaping to the sunlight like a great black cave. What the broadside had done within her gundecks was past speculation.

  A blurred shape was edging around the other Spaniard, and Bolitho guessed it must be the French second-in-command. Euryalus’s lower battery had already reloaded and raked the Frenchman’s bows almost before she had drawn clear of her consort. He saw her guns belching fire and smoke, and knew she was shooting with little attention to accuracy.

  ‘Stand by to tack, Mr. Partridge!’

  They were through. Already the disabled seventy-four was lost in smoke and there seemed an immense gap before another ship, the third in the line, could be seen.

  Yards creaking and voices yelling above the thunder and crash of gunfire, Euryalus turned slowly to follow the enemy line. The difference was startling. With the wind’s advantage on their side it was possible to watch the enemy unhindered by gunsmoke, and he breathed with relief as the deck cleared and he saw that masts and yards were still whole. The sails were pitted with holes, and there were several men lying dead and wounded. Some had been hit by marksmen in the enemy’s tops, but most had been clawed down by flying wood splinters.

  Somewhere astern there was a sickening crash, and when he leaned over the nettings he stared with disbelief as Impulsive swung drunkenly in a welter of broken spars, her passage through the enemy’s line only half completed. Her foremast had gone completely, and only her mizzen topsail appeared to be intact. There were great gaps in her tumblehome, and even as he watched he saw her main topmast fall crashing into the smoke to drag alongside and pull her still further under the guns of a French two-decker. Chain shot had all but dismasted her, and he could already see another French ship tacking across her stern to rake her, as Euryalus had just done to the Spaniard.

  He made himself turn back to his own ship, but his ears refused to block out the sounds of that terrible broadside. He saw Pascoe staring through the smoke, his eyes wide with horror.

  He shouted, ‘Cast the boats adrift!’ The boy turned towards him, his reply lost in a sudden burst of firing from ahead. Then he ran aft, beckoning to some seamen to follow him.

  Bolitho watched coldly as the wind pushed his ship steadily towards the next Frenchman’s quarter. He was staring at her stern, knowing that her captain would either stay and fight or try to turn downwind. In which case he was doomed, as Impulsive had been. He had to grind his teeth together to stop himself from speaking Herrick’s name aloud. Casting the boats adrift had been more to ease the boy’s pain than with any hope of saving more than a handful of survivors.

  Almost savagely he shouted, ‘Stand by on the fo’c’sle, Mr. Meheux! Carronade this one!

  ‘Fire!’

  The first guns roared out from the larboard battery, and then the air shivered to the deeper bang of a carronade. Timber and pieces of bulwark flew from the enemy’s poop, and the mizzen, complete with tricolour, toppled into the rolling bank of smoke.

  Broughton was shouting at him. ‘Look! God damn it!’ He was all but jumping with excitement as like a great finger a jib boom and then a glaring figurehead thrust ahead of the nearest ship.

  ‘Zeus has broken the line!’ Keverne waved his hat in the air. ‘God, look at her!’

  Zeus came through firing from either beam, her sails in rags and most of her side pitted and blackened with holes. Thin tendrils of scarlet ran from her scuppers, as if the ship herself was bleeding, and Bolitho knew that Rattray had fought hard and at a great price to follow the flagship’s example.

  As far as he could tell the action had become general. Guns hammered from ahead and astern, and there were ships locked in combat on every hand. Gone was the prim French line, as were Broughton�
�s divisions. Gone too was the French admiral’s control, separated as he was downwind, blinded by smoke in a sea gone mad with battle.

  Broughton shouted, ‘General signal! Form line ahead and astern of admiral!’

  Tothill nodded violently and ran to his men. There was not much chance of anyone complying, but it would show the others that Broughton was still in command.

  And there was Tanais, her mizzen gone, her forecastle a splintered shambles, but most of her guns firing as she raked the enemy and pushed after Zeus, her ensign ripped by musket fire as she passed.

  More gunfire echoed through the smoke, and Bolitho knew it must be Fumeaux fighting for his life in a press of disabled but nevertheless deadly ships.

  ‘Ship on the starboard quarter, sir!’

  Bolitho hurried across the deck and saw a French two-decker, unmarked, her sails showing not a single hole, thrusting towards him, her speed gaining as she set her forecourse and topgallants, so that she leaned heavily under the pressure.

  While everyone else had been engaged, her captain had taken his ship out of the line to try to regain an advantage. As she turned slightly, shortening her silhouette until almost bows on, Bolitho saw the Impulsive. Dismasted, she was so settled in the water that her lower gunports were already awash. A few tiny figures moved vaguely on her listing decks and others were jumping overboard, probably too stricken by the slaughter to know what they were doing.

  Keverne asked harshly, ‘Do you think many of them will survive?’

  ‘Not many.’ Bolitho looked at him steadily. ‘She was a good ship.’

  Keverne watched him as he walked back to the rail. To Pascoe he said, ‘He is taking it badly. In spite of his bluff, I know him well by now.’

  Pascoe glanced astern at the sinking ship beneath her great pall of drifting smoke. ‘His best friend.’ He looked away, his eyes blind. ‘Mine, too.’

  ‘Deck there!’ Maybe the masthead lookout had been calling before. Amidst all the noise his voice would have been unnoticed. Keverne looked up as the man yelled hoarsely, ‘Ship, sir! On the larboard bow!’

  Bolitho gripped his sword in his left hand until his fingers ached. Through the shrouds and stays, just a fraction to larboard of the massive foremast, he saw her. Wreathed in the endless curtain of gunsmoke she loomed like a giant, her braced yards almost fore and aft as she edged very slowly across Euryalus’s course.

  Bolitho felt the hatred and unreasoning fury running through him like fire. Le Glorieux, the French admiral’s flagship, was coming to greet him, to repay him for the shameful destruction done to his ships and his overwhelming confidence.

  He seized the sword even tighter, blinded by his hatred and sense of loss. She, above all, would be Herrick’s memorial.

  ‘Stand by to engage!’ He pointed his sword at Meheux. ‘Pass the word! Double-shotted and grape for good measure!’ He saw Broughton staring at him and rasped, ‘Your contemporary lies yonder, sir.’ He could feel his eyes stinging and knew Broughton was speaking to him. But he could see nothing but Herrick’s face staring up through the smoke as his ship died under him.

  Broughton swung round and then strode along the starboard gangway, his epaulettes glinting in the dim sunlight.

  His feet seemed to be carrying him in spite of his wishes, and as he walked above the smoke-grimed gun crews he paused to nod to them or to wish them good luck. Some watched him pass, dull-eyed and too dazed to care. Others gave him a grin and a wave. A gun-captain spat on his heated twelve-pounder and croaked, ‘Us’ll give ’ee a victory, Sir Lucius, don’ you fret on it!’

  Broughton stopped and seized the nettings for support. Aft, above the chattering seamen and the marines who were already levelling their muskets through the smoke, he saw Bolitho. The man who had somehow given these men a faith so strong they could not weaken even if they wanted to. And in their own way they were sharing it with him.

  Bolitho was quite motionless by the rail, the sling white against his coat and the sword hanging in his hand by his side. He saw too the captain’s coxswain at his back, and Pascoe watching him with something like despair.

  It was then that he made up his mind. Bolitho had given them, and him, all this, yet now that he was crushed by grief none of them could help.

  Almost angrily he strode aft and snapped, ‘By God, we’ll teach that fellow a lesson, eh, lads?’ He felt his tight skin cracking into a grin. ‘How about it, Mr. Keverne? Another three-decker for the fleet!’

  Keveme swallowed hard. ‘As you wish, sir.’

  Bolitho lifted his head and looked at him. ‘Thank you, Sir Lucius.’ He sighed and rested his sword on the top of the rail. ‘Thank you.’

  When he looked again at the French flagship she seemed much clearer. And his mind had become empty of everything but the need to destroy her.

  Broughton was on the opposite side of the quarterdeck and peering at the French two-decker.

  ‘She’s wearing!’ He gestured to Bolitho. ‘Look!’

  Bolitho saw the enemy ship swinging heavily away to expose her full broadside to Euryalus’s starboard quarter. Either her captain had failed in a first intention to cross their stern, or had changed his mind about drawing too near.

  Then the Frenchman fired. Being the first time she had taken part in the desperate battle the broadside was well timed and aimed, and as the thick smoke billowed along her hull Bolitho felt the deck lurch sickeningly, the air suddenly alive with splinters and that terrible screaming sound they had heard earlier.

  The deck gave one more tremendous lurch, and as his hearing returned he heard Giffard yelling, ‘The mizzen! The bastards have got it!’

  Before he could follow Giffard’s agonised stare he saw the slicing shadow sweep across the poop, as with rigging and shrouds and screaming men falling on every hand the mizzen, complete with topsail and yards, thundered amongst them.

  Trailing lines and braces tore through the crouching gun crews and startled marines like deadly snakes, as with a further savage crash the mast toppled drunkenly over the side. Another blaze of gun flashes made the smoke writhe above the deck, and he felt the chain shot whirling overhead and crashing into the hull with a scream of metal.

  Blackened figures pushed past him, and he saw Tebbutt, the boatswain, waving an axe, urging his men to hack away the great weight of wreckage alongside. Mast and spars, mangled corpses and a few trapped seamen from the top who were still trying to struggle free before they were carried astern, all were acting like a sea anchor, dragging the ship round in a nightmare of smoke and deafening explosions.

  Where there had been a line of marines seconds earlier was a grotesque heap of ripped and pulped bodies, broken muskets and a fast-spreading pattern of blood. Giffard was already yelling orders, and other marines were stepping blindly amongst the carnage to fire their muskets into the choking smoke.

  In the middle of it all Bolitho saw Broughton dragging a sobbing midshipman to the shelter of the mainmast trunk, his hat gone, but his voice as sharp as ever as he yelled, ‘Reload and run out, damn you! Hit ’em, lads! Hit ’em!’

  Bolitho climbed over a great pile of fallen blocks and cordage, almost blinded by smoke, and shouted, ‘Mr. Partridge! More men on the wheel! She’s broaching to!’

  But the master did not hear. One section of chain shot had cut his his rotund body almost in half, so that Bolitho had to fight back the vomit as he saw the horror below the poop.

  Part of the double wheel had been carried away, but cursing and gasping more seamen slithered and stumbled towards it, throwing themselves on the spokes.

  With a long shudder the mizzen slipped clear of its lashings and plunged into the sea. Bolitho felt the ship responding almost immediately, but as he pushed past some more hurrying figures he saw the French flagship and knew it was too late. With his ears and brain cringing against the thunder of the thirty-two-pounders he tried to think of some last-minute alternative. But the pull of the heavy mizzen, the momentary loss of control by the rudder, had throw
n Euryalus off course, so that now her bowsprit was pointing directly at the enemy’s forecastle. Collision was unavoidable, and even had there been greater distance between them, the sails were too pitted, too torn to give anything but small steerage way.

  He saw Keverne and yelled, ‘Up forrard! Repel boarders!’

  More crashes rocked the hull, and he watched the French two-decker passing slowly down the starboard side, her guns firing, her masts and sails unharmed.

  He pulled himself to the rail and sought out Meheux in the confusion of smoke and yelling gun crews. He saw the shining bodies of half-naked seamen, powder blackened and almost inhuman as they hurled themselves on the tackles and sent the gun trucks rumbling and squealing back to the ports. Up and down the line captains jerked their lanyards and the muzzles spat out tongues of flame, while the smoke came funnelling inboard to blind and torment the desperate crews.

  But Meheux needed no telling. He was crouching beside one of the guns, shouting at its captain, his eyes very bright in his grimy face. More balls screamed above the deck, and a seaman who had been running with a message fell in a flounder of arms and legs, his head lopped off by the ball.

  Then Meheux raised his sword, and the gun crews stooped and crouched behind their ports like athletes awaiting a signal.

  ‘On the uproll!’ Meheux glared along his line of men. ‘Fire!’

  Every one fired at once, and Bolitho saw the Frenchman’s foremast and main topmast vanish into the smoke together. The lower batteries were firing again, and hampered by her trailing spars the French two-decker took the broadsides again and again. When the smoke drifted above the Euryalus there was no more firing from the enemy.

  Bolitho almost fell as the bowsprit and jib boom ploughed into the French flagship’s shrouds and with a further grinding convulsion both hulls came together.

  The smoke was bright with darting flashes of muskets and swivels, and Bolitho watched Lieutenant Cox of the marines leading his men across the forecastle to close with the enemy.

  Below decks the larboard guns recommenced firing, as swinging like parts of a mammoth hinge the two ships angled towards each other. Right forward the gun muzzles were almost touching, and Bolitho felt the enemy’s shots crashing through the hull, upending guns and turning the lower batteries into places of slaughter and stark horror.