Second to None

by Alexander Kent

  ‘We’ll do it. I’ll send you some good hands within the hour.’ Bouverie was thinking fast, like a flood-gate bursting open. ‘Will you take the Rosario’s master with you, in case . . .?’

  Adam picked up his hat and saw blood on his sleeve. Jago’s cutlass.

  ‘I shall take him. Later, I shall see him hang.’ He looked at Avery. ‘By the authority vested in me!’

  Adam Bolitho lowered his telescope and moved into the shadow of the brigantine’s foresail. There would be hundreds of eyes watching from the shore. One mistake would be enough to betray them.

  Bang.

  He saw a waterspout burst from the sea. Close. But was it near enough to deceive their audience?

  He had seen Matchless leaning over as she had changed tack for her final approach, and he had seen the citadel, all and more than Avery had described. It looked as if it had been there for centuries, since time began. Avery had told him about a secret, cave-like entrance to which they had been taken in a large galley. You could lose an army trying to storm such a place. Or a fleet.

  He glanced at the Rosario’s master. Once aboard and in command of his own vessel again, he seemed to have grown in stature, as if all the pathetic pleading and whimpering for his life had been forgotten. Slumped by the bulwark, Jago sat with both legs outthrust, his eyes never leaving the man’s face.

  Nothing was certain. The master had intended to hoist some sort of recognition signal as they had tacked closer to the protective headland. Adam had said, ‘No. They will know Rosario. They will not expect a signal when she is being chased by an enemy!’

  Somebody had even laughed.

  He turned to look at the swivel guns, all loaded and primed. And the hatch covers. He could imagine the extra seamen and marines crammed in the holds, listening to the occasional bang of Matchless’s bow-chaser, sweating it out. Captain Bosanquet was down there with them, apparently more concerned with the state of his uniform in the filthy hold than the prospect of being dead within the next hour.

  He stepped into the shadow again and held his breath, and carefully raised his glass and trained it on the citadel, and the main wall which Avery had remembered so clearly. A movement. He watched, hardly daring to blink. Guns, an entire line of them, thrusting their muzzles through the embrasures, the menace undiminished by distance. He could almost hear their iron trucks squeaking over the worn stone.

  He felt the hull shiver. Whatever else he was, Rosario’s master knew these waters well. They were in the shallows now, heading for the anchorage. Avery was right. He felt almost light-headed. Right. The great guns would not depress enough to endanger the brigantine. Like the batteries he had seen at Halifax, carefully sited on the mainland and on a small island in the harbour, so that no enemy ship could slip past them undetected.

  But here there was no island.

  He saw the first gun fire and recoil, smoke writhing above the old walls like a ragged spectre. Then, one by one, the others followed. The sound seemed to be all around them, like an unending echo. Probably bronzed guns. They were just as deadly to a wooden hull.

  He thought of Unrivalled outside, somewhere around the headland and still out of sight. Galbraith and Cristie, and all the others who despite his own attempts to remain detached were no longer strangers to him.

  Could he never accept it? Like the moment when Galbraith had picked men for the Rosario’s raiding party. It had been difficult for him; almost everybody, even the green hands, had volunteered. Madness, then. What would Galbraith be thinking now? Feeling pride at having been left in command? Or seeing a chance of permanent promotion if things went badly wrong?

  A seaman called, ‘One o’ them galleys headin’ this way, sir! Starboard bow!’

  Matchless was firing again, a broadside this time; it was impossible to tell where the shots were falling. There were more local vessels in evidence. Lateen sails and elderly schooners, with dhows etched against the water like bats.

  He felt his mouth go dry as splashes burst around Matchless’s bows. Close. Too damned close. He bit his lip and scrambled to the opposite side.

  When he lifted his head again, it was all he could do to stop himself from shouting aloud.

  Directly across the larboard bow, and framed against the citadel’s high walls, was the frigate. He tried to take it in, to hold it in his mind, like all those other times. The range and the bearing, the point of embrace. To see the frigate lying at her anchor, brailed-up sails filling and emptying in the offshore wind the only suggestion of movement, was unnerving. Unreal.

  He cleared his throat. ‘Ready about! Warn all hands, Mr Wynter!’

  He groped for the short, curved fighting sword and loosened it. He could hear Jago’s voice in his thoughts. ‘Take the old one, sir. The sword!’

  And his own reply. Like somebody else. ‘When I’ve earned it!’

  The Rosario’s ragged seamen were hauling on halliards and braces, their bare feet gripping the deck like claws, without feeling.

  It only needed one of them to shout, to signal. He found his fingers clenched on the hilt of the hanger. They must not be taken. There would be no quarter. No pity.

  He moved around the mast and watched the helmsman putting down the wheel, one of Unrivalled’s topmen at his side, a dirk in his fist.

  ‘Matchless ‘as gone about, sir!’ The man breathed out noisily. ‘They’re best off out o’ this little lot!’

  Adam stared at the frigate. Old but well maintained, her name, La Fortune, in faded gilt lettering across her counter. Thirty guns at a guess. A giant to the local craft on which she preyed in the name of France. There were faces along her gangway and poop, but no muzzles were run out. Adam felt his body trembling. Why should they be? Those great guns had seen off the impudent intruder. He could hear some of them cheering, laughing. Not too many of them, however; the rest were probably ashore, evidence of their security here.

  Rosario’s master jumped away from the helmsman and cupped his hands, staring wild-eyed as the frigate’s masts towered over them. The dirk drove into his side and he fell without even a murmur.

  Even at the end he must have realised that nothing Adam could do would match the horror his new masters would have unleashed on those who betrayed them.

  It was already too late. With the helm hard over and the distance falling away, Rosario’s bowsprit mounted the frigate’s quarter like a tusk and splintered into fragments, cordage and flapping canvas shielding Wynter’s boarding party as they swarmed up and over the side.

  Adam drew his hanger and waved it.

  ‘At ’em, lads!’ Hatches were bursting open and men ran, half blinded by the sunlight, carried forward by their companions, reason already forgotten.

  Adam grasped a dangling line and dragged himself over the frigate’s rail, slipping and almost falling between the two hulls.

  An unknown voice rasped, ‘Don’t leave us now, sir!’ And laughed, a terrible sound. Matched only by the scarlet-coated marines, somehow holding formation, bayonets like ice in the sun’s glare, Captain Bosanquet shouting, ‘Together, Marines! Together!’

  Adam noticed that his face was the colour of his fine tunic.

  A horn or trumpet had added its mournful call to the din of shouting, the clash of steel, the screams of men being hacked down.

  The boarding party needed no urging. Beyond the smoke and the scattering sailing craft was open water. The sea. All they had. All that mattered.

  Adam stopped in his tracks as a young lieutenant blocked his way. He was probably the only officer left aboard.

  ‘Surrender!’ It had never left him. Not at moments like this. ‘Surrender, damn your eyes!’

  The lieutenant lowered his sword but drew a pistol from inside his coat. He was actually grinning, grinning while he took aim, already beyond reach.

  Jago lunged forward but halted beside Adam as the French officer coughed and staggered against the gangway. There was a boarding axe embedded in his back.

  Adam stared up at
the masthead pendant. The wind was still with them.

  ‘Hands aloft! Loose tops’ Is!’

  How could they hope to do it? To cut out a ship from a protected harbour?

  ‘Cut the cable!’ He wiped his mouth and tasted blood on his hand, but could recall no contest. Men were surrendering, others were being thrown over the side, dead or alive it did not matter.

  La Fortune was free of the ground, her hull already moving as the first topsails and a jib steadied her against the thrust of wind, the demands of her rudder.

  Guns were firing, but La Fortune moved on, untouched by the battery which could not be brought to bear.

  He saw the Rosario drifting away, an oared galley already attempting to grapple her.

  Wynter was shouting, ‘She’s answering, sir!’ Not so blank and self-contained now, but wild-eyed, dangerous. His father the member of Parliament would scarcely have recognised him.

  Jago said, ‘Lost three men, sir. Another’ll go afore long.’

  He winced as iron hammered against the hull, grape or canister from Rosario’s swivels, and licked his parched lips. A Froggie ship. There would be wine on board. He turned to mention it to the captain.

  Adam was watching a Royal Marine hoist a White Ensign to the frigate’s gaff. Without surprise that they had done it. That they had survived.

  But he said, ‘For you, Uncle! For you!’

  6

  None Braver

  ADAM BOLITHO CLOSED his small log book and leaned his elbows on the cabin table. For a moment he watched the dying light, the shadows moving evenly across the checkered deck as Unrivalled tilted to a steady wind across the quarter. A fine sunset, the thick glass and the cabin skylight the colour of bronze.

  He massaged his eyes and tried to thrust aside the lingering disappointment, and accept what he had perceived as unfairness. Not to himself, but to the ship.

  They had done what many would have considered foolhardy, and, having cut out a valuable prize from under the noses of the Dey’s defenders, they had joined the other ships outside the port in an atmosphere of triumph and excitement.

  Now Unrivalled sailed alone. At any other time Adam would have welcomed this, the independence beloved of frigate captains.

  But he had sensed the resentment when Captain Bouverie had decided to return to Malta with the captured La Fortune, and, as senior officer, to reap the praise and the lion’s share of any reward which might be forthcoming. From what Adam had managed to glean from the French frigate’s log, it seemed that her captain had been employed along the North African coast, snatching up or destroying local shipping with little or no opposition. The circumstances of war must have changed his role to that of a mercenary, under French colours now that Napoleon was back in Europe, but living off whichever ally found his services most useful when there was no other choice.

  Adam had known nothing but war all his life, and even while he had been at sea he had been well aware of the constant threat of invasion. He thought of La Fortune’s captain and others like him. How would I feel, if England was overrun by a ruthless enemy? Would I continue to fight? And for what?

  He felt the rudder shudder beneath the counter. The glass was steady, but Cristie insisted that the wind which had given them Rosario and their one chance to cut out the frigate was the forerunner of stronger gusts. It was not unknown in the Mediterranean, even in June.

  Two of the cutting-out party who had died of their wounds had been from Unrivalled, and they had been buried immediately. But it was another source of grievance, and then open protest, now that the prize had disappeared with Matchless. There had been an outbreak of violence in one of the messes, and a petty officer had been threatened when he had intervened. So there would be two men for punishment tomorrow.

  Adam disliked the grim ritual of flogging. It too often broke a man who might have made something of himself had he been properly guided. He recalled Galbraith’s words to the midshipman. Inspired. The hard man would only become harder and more unruly. But until there was an alternative . . .

  He frowned as the cabin servant entered and walked down the tilting deck towards him. One of the ship’s boys, his name was Napier, and he had been trained originally to serve the officers in the wardroom. He took his duties very seriously and wore an habitual expression of set determination.

  Galbraith had made the choice himself, no doubt wondering why a post-captain did not have a servant of his own.

  Click . . . click . . . click. Napier wore ill-fitting shoes for this new employment, probably bought from one of the traders who hung around the King’s ships, and the sound grated on Adam’s nerves.

  ‘Napier!’ He saw the youth stiffen, and changed his mind. ‘No matter. Fetch me some of that wine.’ He curbed his impatience, knowing he himself was at fault. What is the matter with me? The boy he was going to sponsor for midshipman, the boy he had been trying to fashion in his own image, if he was honest enough to admit it, was dead.

  Napier hurried away, pleased to be doing something. Click . . . click . . . click. He thought of the state of the French frigate’s stores. La Fortune had been down to her last resources when she had been seized, her powder and shot, salted meat, and even the cheese the Frenchmen took as a part of life almost finished.

  He recalled Jago’s remarks about wine, and smiled. There had indeed been plenty of that, under lock and key until Bosanquet of the Royal Marines had shattered it with a well-aimed pistol shot.

  Napier brought the bottle and a glass and placed them with great care beside the log book.

  Adam could feel the eyes on him as he poured a glass. The Captain. Who lived in this fine cabin and was oblivious to the cramped conditions and brutal humour of the messdecks. Who wanted for nothing.

  The wine was cool, and he imagined Catherine selecting it for him. Who else would care about such things? He would eke it out. Like the memory: hold on to it.

  The glass almost broke in his fingers as he exclaimed, ‘Hell’s teeth, boy!’ He saw Napier cringe, and said urgently, ‘No! Not you!’ Like calming a frightened animal; he was ashamed that it was always so easy. For the Captain.

  He said evenly, ‘Tell the sentry to fetch the first lieutenant, will you?’

  Napier twisted his hands together, staring at the glass.

  ‘Did I do somethin’ wrong, sir?’

  Adam shook his head.

  ‘A bad lookout is the one who sees only what he expects to see, or what others have told him to expect.’ He raised his voice. ‘Sentry!’ When the marine thrust his head around the screen door he said, ‘My compliments to the first lieutenant, and would you ask him to come aft.’ He looked back at the boy. ‘Today, I am that bad lookout!’

  Napier said slowly, ‘I see, sir.’

  Adam smiled. ‘I think not, but fetch another bottle, will you?’

  It was probably only a flaw in his memory. Something to cover his anger at Bouverie’s arrogant but justified action over the prize.

  And what of La Fortune? Were there still people who did not know or believe that ships had souls? She was not a new vessel, and must have seen action often enough against the flag which the marine had hoisted at her peak. Now she would probably be sold, most likely to the Dutch government. Another old enemy. Several prizes had already been disposed of in that manner, and yet, as the vice-admiral himself had pointed out, the fleet was as short of frigates as ever.

  Galbraith entered the cabin, his eyes taking in the wine, and the anxious servant.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Be seated. Some wine?’

  He saw the first lieutenant relax slightly.

  ‘The Frenchman we took – she was short of everything, especially powder and shot.’

  Galbraith took time to pick up and examine the glass. ‘We were saying as much earlier, sir.’

  So they had been discussing it in the wardroom, and most of all, he had no doubt, the prize money which might eventually be shared out.

  ‘And yet there was a letter, wh
ich Lieutenant Avery translated.’ Remembering his bitterness. ‘To La Fortune’s captain. Supposedly from a lady.’ He noted the immediate interest, and then the doubt. ‘I can see you think as I did.’ He grinned ruefully. ‘Eventually!’

  Galbraith said, ‘It seems strange that anyone would be able to send a letter to a ship whose whereabouts were largely unknown.’

  Adam nodded, his skin ice-cold in spite of the cabin’s warmth.

  ‘To promise the delivery of the one thing they did not need. Wine!’

  Galbraith stared past him. ‘Daniel . . . I mean, Mr Wynter made a note of the dates in Rosario’s log, sir.’

  ‘Did he indeed? We may have cause to thank him for his dedication.’

  He was on his feet, his shadow angled across the white-painted timbers, as if the hull was leaning hard over.

  ‘My orders are to remain on this station and to await instructions. That I must do. But we shall be seen to be here. There are those who might believe that Matchless has gone to obtain assistance, and that time is now more precious than ever.’

  Galbraith watched him, seeing the changing emotions, could almost feel him thinking aloud.

  He ventured, ‘They are expecting supplies, above all powder and shot. If there are other ships sheltering in Algiers . . .’

  Adam paused and touched his shoulder. ‘And they still have La Fortune’s captain to help matters along, remember?’

  ‘And we are alone, sir.’

  Adam nodded slowly, seeing the chart in his mind. ‘The Corsican tyrant once said, “Wherever wood can swim, there I am sure to find this flag of England.”’ The mood left him as quickly. ‘The truest words he ever spoke.’ He realised for the first time that the servant, Napier, had been in the cabin the whole time, and was already refilling the glasses. With the wine from St James’s Street in London. He said, ‘We have no choice.’

  He walked to the stem windows, but there was only a fine line to separate sky from sea. Almost dark. My birthday.

  He thought of her, whom he had loved and had lost, and when he looked at the old sword hanging from its rack, reflecting the lantern light, he thought of another who had helped him and was rarely out of his thoughts. Neither had been his to lose in the first place.