Beyond the Reef

by Kent, Alexander

  BEYOND THE REEF

  Selected Historical Fiction Published by McBooks Press

  BY ALEXANDER KENT

  The Complete Midshipman Bolitho

  Stand Into Danger

  In Gallant Company

  Sloop of War

  To Glory We Steer

  Command a King’s Ship

  Passage to Mutiny

  With All Despatch

  Form Line of Battle!

  Enemy in Sight!

  The Flag Captain

  Signal–Close Action!

  The Inshore Squadron

  A Tradition of Victory

  Success to the Brave

  Colours Aloft!

  Honour This Day

  The Only Victor

  Beyond the Reef

  The Darkening Sea

  For My Country’s Freedom

  Cross of St George

  Sword of Honour

  Second to None

  Relentless Pursuit

  Man of War

  Heart of Oak

  BY PHILIP MCCUTCHAN

  Halfhyde at the Bight of Benin

  Halfhyde’s Island

  Halfhyde and the Guns of Arrest

  Halfhyde to the Narrows

  Halfhyde for the Queen

  Halfhyde Ordered South

  Halfhyde on Zanatu

  BY R.F. DELDERFIELD

  Too Few for Drums

  Seven Men of Gascony

  BY JAMES L. NELSON

  The Only Life That Mattered

  BY DEWEY LAMBDIN

  The French Admiral

  The Gun Ketch

  Jester’s Fortune

  What Lies Buried

  BY JULIAN STOCKWIN

  Mutiny

  Quarterdeck

  Tenacious

  Command

  BY JAN NEEDLE

  A Fine Boy for Killing

  The Wicked Trade

  The Spithead Nymph

  BY DUDLEY POPE

  Ramage

  Ramage & The Drumbeat

  Ramage & The Freebooters

  Governor Ramage R.N.

  Ramage’s Prize

  Ramage & The Guillotine

  Ramage’s Diamond

  Ramage’s Mutiny

  Ramage & The Rebels

  The Ramage Touch

  Ramage’s Signal

  Ramage & The Renegades

  Ramage’s Devil

  Ramage’s Trial

  Ramage’s Challenge

  Ramage at Trafalgar

  Ramage & The Saracens

  Ramage & The Dido

  BY FREDERICK MARRYAT

  Frank Mildmay OR

  The Naval Officer

  Mr Midshipman Easy

  Newton Forster OR

  The Merchant Service

  Snarleyyow OR

  The Dog Fiend

  The Privateersman

  BY V.A. STUART

  Victors and Lords

  The Sepoy Mutiny

  Massacre at Cawnpore

  The Cannons of Lucknow

  The Heroic Garrison

  The Valiant Sailors

  The Brave Captains

  Hazard’s Command

  Hazard of Huntress

  Hazard in Circassia

  Victory at Sebastopol

  Guns to the Far East

  Escape from Hell

  BY JAMES DUFFY

  Sand of the Arena

  BY JOHN BIGGINS

  A Sailor of Austria

  The Emperor’s Coloured Coat

  The Two-Headed Eagle

  BY ALEXANDER FULLERTON

  Storm Force to Narvik

  Last Lift from Crete

  All the Drowning Seas

  A Share of Honour

  The Torch Bearers

  The Gatecrashers

  BY C.N. PARKINSON

  The Guernseyman

  Devil to Pay

  The Fireship

  Touch and Go

  So Near So Far

  Dead Reckoning

  The Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower

  BY NICHOLAS NICASTRO

  The Eighteenth Captain

  Between Two Fires

  BY DOUGLAS REEMAN

  Badge of Glory

  First to Land

  The Horizon

  Dust on the Sea

  Knife Edge

  Twelve Seconds to Live

  Battlecruiser

  The White Guns

  A Prayer for the Ship

  For Valour

  BY DAVID DONACHIE

  The Devil’s Own Luck

  The Dying Trade

  A Hanging Matter

  An Element of Chance

  The Scent of Betrayal

  A Game of Bones

  On a Making Tide

  Tested by Fate

  Breaking the Line

  BY BROOS CAMPBELL

  No Quarter

  The War of Knives

  ALEXANDER KENT

  BEYOND THE REEF

  the Bolitho novels: 19

  McBooks Press, Inc.

  www.mcbooks.com

  ITHACA, NY

  Published by McBooks Press 2000

  Copyright © 1992 by Highseas Authors Ltd.

  First published in the United Kingdom by William Heinemann Ltd. 1992

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or any

  portion thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

  without the written permission of the publisher. Requests for such

  permissions should be addressed to McBooks Press, ID Booth Building,

  520 North Meadow St., Ithaca, NY 14850.

  Cover painting by Geoffrey Huband.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Kent, Alexander.

  Beyond the reef / by Alexander Kent.

  p. cm. — (Richard Bolitho novels; 19)

  ISBN 0-935526-82-X (alk. paper)

  1. Bolitho, Richard (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Great Britain—History, Naval— 19th century—Fiction. 3. Napoleonic Wars, 1800-1815—Fiction I. Title

  PR6061.E63 B49 2000

  823’.914—dc21

  00-058621

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  Printed in the United States of America

  For Kim, my Tahiti girl—

  with love

  1 BAND OF BROTHERS

  THE NORMALLY sheltered waters of Portsmouth Harbour seemed to cringe under the intensity of a biting north-easterly which had been blowing for some twelve hours. The whole anchorage was transformed into an endless mass of cruising whitecaps with lively catspaws to mark its progress around the many black-and-buff hulls of moored men-of-war, making them tug violently at their cables.

  It was late March, a time when winter was still reluctant to release its grip and eager to display its latent power.

  One of the largest ships, recently warped from the dockyard where she had suffered the indignities of repairs to the lower hull, was the second-rate Black Prince of 94 guns, her fresh paintwork and blacked-down rigging shining like glass from blown spray and a brief rainsquall which even now had reached as far out as the Isle of Wight, a dull blur in the poor light.

  Black Prince was one of the most powerful of her kind, and to anyone but a true sailor she would appear a symbol of sea-power, the country’s sure shield. The more experienced eye would recognise her empty yards, the canvas not yet sent up to give her life as well as strength. She was surrounded by lighters and dockyard longboats, while small
armies of riggers and ropemakers moved busily about her decks, and the clatter of hammers and the squeak of tackles were evidence of the work being carried out in the deep holds and on the gun-decks.

  Alone by the packed hammock-nettings Black Prince’s captain stood at the quarterdeck rail and watched the comings and goings of seamen and dockyard workers, who in turn were supervised by the ship’s warrant officers, the true backbone of any warship.

  Captain Valentine Keen tugged his hat still tighter across his fair hair but was otherwise oblivious, even indifferent, to the biting wind and the fact that his flapping blue coat with its tarnished sea-going epaulettes was soaked through to his skin.

  Without looking, he knew that the men on watch near the deserted double-wheel were very aware of his presence. A quartermaster, a boatswain’s mate and a small midshipman who occasionally raised a telescope to peer at the signal tower or the admiral’s flagship nearby, a sodden flag curling and cracking from her main truck.

  Many of the men who had served the guns around him when they had fought and all but destroyed the big French three-decker off the coast of Denmark had been taken from his command while the ship had undergone repairs from that short, savage embrace. Some for promotion to other vessels, others because, as the port admiral had put it, “My captains need men now, Captain Keen. You will have to wait.”

  Keen allowed his mind to stray back over the battle, the terrible sight in the dawn when they had gone to assist Rear-Admiral Herrick’s Benbow in his defence of a twenty-ship convoy destined for the invasion of Copenhagen. Shattered, burning hulks, screaming cavalry horses trapped below in the transports, and Benbow completely dismasted, her only other escort capsized, a total loss.

  Mercifully Benbow had been towed to the Nore for docking. It would be too painful to see her here every waking day. A constant reminder, especially for Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Bolitho, whose flag would soon break out again from this ship’s foremast. Herrick had been Bolitho’s oldest friend, but Keen had been more angered than saddened by Herrick’s behaviour both before and after Benbow’s last fight. It might well be her last too, he thought grimly. With the many ships they had seized from Copenhagen to bolster their own depleted fleets and squadrons, any dockyard might think twice before committing itself to such a programme of repairs and restoration.

  Keen thought of Bolitho, a man he cared for more than any other. He had served him as midshipman and lieutenant, and with him in the same squadron until eventually he had become his flag captain. Keen imagined him now with his lovely Catherine, as he had done so often since their return to England. He had tried to close his mind to it, not to make comparisons. But he had wanted a love like theirs for himself, the same challenging passion which had captured the hearts of ordinary people everywhere, and had roused the fury of London society because of their open relationship. A scandal, they proclaimed. Keen sighed. He would give his soul to be in the same position.

  He walked to the small table beneath the overhang of the dripping poop and opened the log at the place marked with a piece of polished whalebone. He stared at the date on the damp page for several seconds. How could he forget? March 25 th 1808, two months exactly since he had put the ring on the hand of his bride in the tiny village church at Zennor, which had given her her name.

  Like the battle which had preceded his wedding by four months, it seemed like yesterday.

  He still did not know. Did she love him, or was her marriage an act of gratitude? He had rescued her from a convict ship, and from transportation for a crime she had not committed. Or did his uncertainty stem from the fact that he was almost twice her age, when he believed she could have chosen anyone? If he did not contain it, Keen knew it would drive him mad. He was almost afraid to touch her, and when she had given herself to him it had been an act without passion, without desire. She had merely submitted, and later during that first night he had found her by the embers of the fire downstairs, sobbing silently as if her heart had already broken.

  Time and time again Keen had reminded himself of Catherine’s advice when he had visited her in London. He had confessed his doubts about Zenoria’s true feelings for him.

  Catherine had said quietly, “Remember what happened to her. A young girl—taken and used, with no hope, and nothing to live for.”

  Keen bit his lip, recalling the day he had first seen her, seized up, almost naked, her back laid open from shoulder to hip while the other prisoners had watched like wild beasts, as if it had been some kind of savage sport. So perhaps it was, after all, gratitude; and he should be satisfied, as many men would be merely to have her.

  But he was not.

  He saw the first lieutenant, James Sedgemore, striding aft towards him. He at least seemed more than pleased with his lot. Keen had promoted him to senior lieutenant after the tough Tynesider Cazalet had been cut in half on this same quarterdeck on that terrible morning. The enemy ship had been the San Mateo, a powerful Spaniard sailing under French colours, and she had crushed the convoy and its escorts like a tiger despatching rabbits. Keen had never seen Bolitho so determined to destroy any ship as he had been to put down San Mateo. She had sunk his old Hyperion. He had needed no other reason.

  Keen often found himself wondering if Bolitho would have held to his threat to keep pouring broadsides into San Mateo, which had already been crippled in the first embrace at close quarters. Until they strike their colours. Thank God someone still sane enough to think and act in that hell of iron and screaming splinters had brought the flags tumbling down. But would he have continued, without mercy, otherwise?

  I may never know.

  Lieutenant Sedgemore touched his hat, his face red in the stinging air. “I shall be able to get the sails ready for bending-on tomorrow, sir.”

  Keen glanced at the Royal Marine sentries by the hatchways and up on the forecastle. With the land so close there were always the reckless few who would try to run. It would be hard enough to get more hands, especially in a naval port, without allowing men the opportunity to desert.

  Keen had much sympathy for his men. They had been kept aboard or sent directly to other ships to fill the gaps, without any chance to see their loved ones or their homes.

  Keen had spent more time than was necessary on board, simply to show his depleted company that he was sharing it with them. Even as it crossed his mind, he knew that too was a lie. He had stayed because of his fear that he might make Zenoria openly reject him, unable even to pretend.

  “Something wrong, sir?”

  “No.” It came out too sharply. “Vice-Admiral Bolitho will be coming aboard at noon.” He looked across the nettings at the shining walls of the dockyard and harbour battery and on to the huddled buildings of Portsmouth Point, beyond which the Channel and the open sea were waiting. Bolitho might be over there already; at the old George Inn, perhaps? Unlikely. Catherine would be with him. He would not risk a snub or anything else which might distress her.

  Sedgemore kept his young features impassive. He had never really liked his predecessor, Cazalet. A fine seaman, admittedly, but a man who was so coarse in his speech and behaviour that he had been hard to work with. He watched the bustling figures at the tackles, swaying up more bales and boxes from one of the lighters alongside.

  Well, he was the first lieutenant now, in one of the navy’s newest and most powerful three-deckers. And with an admiral like Sir Richard Bolitho and a good captain like Keen, there would be no stopping them once they were at sea again. Promotion, prize-money, fame; there was no end to it, in his mind anyway.

  It was the navy’s way, Sedgemore thought. If a dead man’s shoes were offered, you never waited for a second chance.

  Keen said distinctly, “Tell my cox’n to prepare the barge, and have the crew piped at six bells. Inspect them yourself, although I doubt if Tojohns will leave anything to chance.”

  He glanced at the open log again where the midshipman-of-the-watch was writing something, his tongue poking from one corner of his mouth with g
reat concentration. Another picture crossed his mind. His coxswain, Tojohns, on his wedding day only two months ago, supervising the garlanded carriage which had been towed by the midshipmen and petty officers of this ship, his ship, with himself and his young bride inside.

  He turned aft and stalked away beneath the poop to seek the one place he could be alone.

  Sedgemore watched him go and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  A post-captain—what Sedgemore himself would be one day if everything went well for him, and he managed to avoid Cazalet’s fate.

  To be captain of a ship like Black Prince . . . He looked up and around him. There was no higher reward for any man. He would want for nothing.

  He saw the midshipman staring at him and rasped, “Mr M’Innes, I’ll trouble you not to waste your time, sir!”

  It was uncalled for; but it made him feel more like a first lieutenant.

  Lieutenant Stephen Jenour caught his breath as he turned the corner above the shining dockyard stairs which led directly down to the landing stage. After two months ashore either working for Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Bolitho or visiting his parents in Southampton, he felt at odds with the sea and the bitter wind.

  He thrust open a small door and saw a blazing fire shining a welcome across the room.

  A uniformed servant asked coldly, “Your name, sir?”

  “Jenour.” He added sharply, “Flag lieutenant to Sir Richard Bolitho.”

  The man bowed himself away, muttering something about a warming drink, and Jenour was childishly pleased at his ability to command instant respect.

  “Welcome, Stephen.” Bolitho was sitting in a high-backed chair, the fire reflecting from his gold lace and epaulettes. “We have a while yet.”

  Jenour sat down and smiled at him. So many things had changed his young life since joining Bolitho. His parents had laughed at him for vowing that one day he would serve this incredible man who had been, until Nelson’s death at Trafalgar less than three years ago, the second youngest vice-admiral on the Navy List. Now he was the youngest.

  He never tired of recalling each separate incident, even that stark moment when Black Prince had been about to leave Copenhagen in search of Herrick, and Bolitho had turned on him in pleading desperation and confirmed his worst fears. “I am losing my sight, Stephen. Can you keep a secret so precious to me?” And later when Bolitho had said, “ They must not know. You are a dear friend, Stephen. Now there are other friends out there who need us.”