Second to None

by Alexander Kent

  Adam smiled, touched by the concern. Genuine, like the man.

  ‘The enemy will know Unrivalled has a captain, Leigh. I want our people to know it, too!’

  He raised the glass again. The frigate astern of her consort had hoisted a signal of some kind. Two flags, nothing more. A private signal, perhaps? It could also be a ruse, to make him believe it was the senior ship. He recalled Francis Inch, his first lieutenant in Hyperion, telling the midshipmen that in ship-to-ship actions beyond the control of the ponderous line of battle a good captain often survived by trickery as much as agility.

  He considered it. Two frigates, neither as powerful as Unrivalled, but, used aggressively and with determination, they were formidable.

  He said, almost to himself, ‘They will try to divide our strength. Tell Mr Massie to point each gun himself, no matter which side we engage first. The opening shots will decide.’ He paused, and repeated, ‘Must decide.’

  He walked from one side of the deck to the other, hearing Galbraith calling to Massie. If Unrivalled altered course away from those ships, they would gain the advantage from the wind. He imagined the two frigates, like counters on an admiral’s chart. From line ahead to line abeam, they would have no choice, nor would they want one.

  He heard the spray pattering over the lee side, and thought, no, Captain Lovatt, not running away.

  When Galbraith returned he found his captain by the compass, his shirt and coat opened to the hot wind. There was no sign of the strain he had glimpsed earlier. He found himself thinking of the woman again, the one Avery so pointedly had not discussed. What had happened, he wondered. What would she feel if she could see him now on this bright, deadly forenoon?

  Adam said, ‘Pass the word to load. Single-shotted to starboard, double-shotted to larboard, but do not run out. At the turn of the glass, we shall alter course and steer south-west.’ He almost smiled. ‘What the enemy intended, I believe. A lively chase with the wind under their coattails without too much risk to themselves, and if all else fails they will hope to run us ashore on the African coast. What say you?’

  Galbraith stared up at the rippling masthead pendant. ‘It would make sense, sir.’ He sounded doubtful, surprised.

  Adam said, ‘We will luff at the right moment and rake the nearest one. Tell Massie, each ball must make its mark.’

  ‘I did tell him, sir.’

  But Adam was not listening; he was seeing it. ‘We must get to grips, it’s our only way out. So get all spare hands off the upper deck. We are short-handed, remember? And they will know it!’

  Galbraith saw him turn away and gesture urgently to the cabin servant, Napier.

  ‘You! Over here!’

  Napier hurried across, past grim-faced seamen and marines, a cutlass thrust through his belt, his shoes clicking on the sun-dried planking and bringing some unexpected grins from the crew of a nine-pounder. One called, ‘Look, boyos! We’ve nowt to fear now! We’re all in good hands!’

  Adam said gently, ‘Your place is below. You know what to do.’

  Napier faced him anxiously, with something like desperation.

  ‘My place is here, sir, with you.’

  There was no laughter now, and Cristie looked away, perhaps remembering somebody.

  Adam said, ‘Do as I ask. I shall know where you are. I mean it.’

  Jago heard it, too, feeling the handshake again, the strange sense of sharing what he could not contain or understand.

  Galbraith watched the boy return to the companion way, head high, the cutlass almost dragging along the deck.

  Adam raised the glass once more, and remembered that Midshipman Bellairs was still at the masthead.

  ‘Carry on, Mr Galbraith. Bring her about. Let’s see her fly today!’ His hand was raised and Galbraith waited, remembering every phase, and each mood, like pictures in a child’s most treasured book.

  And saw his captain suddenly give a broad grin, teeth very white against his tanned skin.

  ‘And be of good heart, my friend. We shall win this day!’

  Cristie’s voice was harsh, his Tyneside accent even more pronounced as he shouted, ‘Steady as she goes, sir! Sou’-west-by-south!’

  Another bang echoed across the choppy water, the second gun to be fired. Adam clenched his knuckles against his thighs, counting seconds and then feeling the ball smash into Unrivalled’s lower hull. He did not need the glass; he had seen the smoke from the nearest pursuer before it was shredded in the wind. The second shot, and both had come from the frigate on Unrivalled’s starboard quarter. Not because the other, on almost exactly the opposite quarter, could not bear but, he suspected, because the ship which had fired was the senior, and probably mounted heavier bow-chasers.

  The ship which had made that brief signal. No trick, then; she was the main danger. Unrivalled’s stern was vulnerable to any shot, no matter how badly aimed. The rudder, the steering tackles . . . He shut his mind to it.

  ‘Stand by to come about, Mr Galbraith!’ He strode to the rail again, and shaded his eyes. Two shots; it was enough. He dared not risk it any further. Disabled, Unrivalled would be destroyed piecemeal.

  As he turned he saw the staring eyes of those at the gun tackles along the starboard side, muzzles pointing at the empty sea. The breechings were cast off, the guns were loaded, and men with sponges, worms and rammers were already poised for the next order, their bodies shining with sweat, as if they had been drenched by a tropical rain.

  ‘Stand by on the quarterdeck!’

  Massie would be ready with his gun captains. All those drills . . . it was now or not at all.

  ‘Put the helm down!’

  Feet skidded on wet gratings as the three helmsmen hauled over the spokes. With her topsails filled to the wind Unrivalled began to respond immediately, her head swinging even as more men freed the headsail sheets, spilling out the wind, to allow the bows to thrust unimpeded into and across the eye. Sails flapped and banged in confusion, and as the deck tilted hard over the nearest enemy ship appeared to be charging towards the concealed broadside.

  It must have taken the other captain completely by surprise. From a steady, unhampered chase to this: Unrivalled pivoting round, revealing her full broadside, and none of his own guns yet able to bear.

  ‘Open the ports! Run out!’

  All order had gone. Men yelled and cursed with each heave on the tackles until every port was filled, and there was no longer an empty sea for a target.

  Massie strode past the empty boat-tier. ‘Fire!’ A slap on a man’s tense shoulder. ‘As you bear, fire!’

  As each trigger line was jerked an eighteen-pounder thundered inboard to be seized and sponged out, charge and ball tamped home.

  Adam shouted, ‘Hold her now! Steer north-west!’

  There were more yells, and he imagined that he heard the splintering crack of a falling spar, although it was unlikely above the din of canvas and straining rigging, and the last echoes of a full broadside.

  The other frigate was falling downwind, her bowsprit and jib boom shot away, the tangle of severed cordage and wildly flapping sails dragging her round.

  Adam cupped his hands. ‘On the uproll! Fire!’

  It was a ragged broadside, some of the guns had not yet run out, but he saw the iron smash home, and bulwarks and planking, broken rigging and men being flung like flotsam in a high wind.

  It might have been us.

  Galbraith was shouting, ‘The other one’s coming for us, sir!’

  The second frigate seemed so near, towering above the larboard quarter, stark in the hard sunlight. He could even see the patches on her forecourse, and the pointing sword of a once-proud figurehead.

  He winced as more iron smashed into the hull, feeling the deck lurch beneath his feet, and hearing the heavy crash of a ball ripping into the poop. The enemy’s jib boom was already overreaching the larboard quarter.

  He dashed the smoke from his eyes and saw a man fall on the opposite side, his scream lost in the report
of a solitary gun.

  He waved to Cristie. ‘Now!’

  The wheel was moving again, but one of the helmsmen was sprawled in blood. Unrivalled turned only a point, so that it appeared as if the other ship must ride up and over her poop. The jib boom was above the nettings now, men were firing, and through the swirling smoke Adam saw vague figures swarming out on the other frigate’s beakhead and bowsprit, cutlasses glinting dully in the haze of gunfire.

  Going to board us. It was like another voice.

  ‘Clear lower deck, Mr Galbraith!’ Suppose it failed? He thrust the thought away and dragged out his sword, conscious of Avery beside him, and Jago striding just ahead, a short-bladed weapon in his fist.

  Adam raised the sword. ‘To me, Unrivalled!’

  She was a well-armed ship. He could remember the admiration, the envy. Apart from her two batteries of eighteen-pounders, she also mounted eight thirty-two pound carronades, two of which were almost directly below his feet.

  It happened within seconds, and yet each moment remained separate, stamped forever in his memory.

  Midshipman Homey slipping and falling to his knees, then being hit in the skull by a heavy ball even as he struggled to his feet. Flesh, blood and fragments of bone splashed across Adam’s breeches. The carronades roared out together, crashing inboard on their slides and hurling their massive balls, packed with grape and jagged metal, directly into the enemy forecastle.

  Avery turned and stared at him, shook his sword, shouted something. But the stare did not waver, and he fell face down, and the packed mass of boarders surged across his body and on to the other ship’s deck.

  It was useless to hesitate. There were too many who depended . . . But for only a second Adam halted, looking for the man who had been his uncle’s friend.

  Jago was dragging at his arm.

  ‘Come on, sir! We’ve got the bastards on the run!’

  A dream, a nightmare; scenes of desperate brutality, all mercy forgotten. Men falling and dying. Others dropping between the two hulls, the only escape. A face loomed out of the yelling, hacking mob: it was Campbell, the hard man, waving a flag and screaming, ‘The flag! They’ve struck!’

  Now there were different faces, and he realised that, like Avery, he had fallen and was lying on the deck. He felt for the sword, and saw Midshipman Bellairs holding it; it must have been knocked out of his hand.

  And then the pain reached him, a searing agony, which punched the breath from his lungs. He groped for his thigh, his groin; it was everywhere. A hand was gripping his wrist and he saw it was O’Beirne, and understood that he was on Unrivalled’s gun deck; he must have lost consciousness, and he felt something akin to panic.

  He said, ‘The orlop! You belong with the wounded, not here, man!’

  O’Beirne nodded grimly, his face sliding out of focus like melting wax. Then it was Jago’s turn. He had torn down the front of Adam’s breeches and was holding something in the hazy sunlight. No blood. No gaping wound. It was the watch, which he always carried in the pocket above his groin. A shot had smashed it almost in two pieces.

  He was losing control again. The shop in Halifax. The chiming chorus of clocks. The little mermaid . . .

  Jago was saying, ‘Christ, you were lucky, sir!’ He wanted to lessen it, in his usual way. But the levity would not come. Then he said,‘Just hold on.’

  Men were cheering, hugging one another, the marines were rounding up prisoners . . . so much to do, the prizes to be secured, the wounded to be tended. He gasped as someone tried to lift him. And Avery. Avery . . . I shall have to tell Catherine. A letter. And the locket.

  Somehow he was on his feet, staring up at the flag as if to reassure himself. But all he could think of was the little mermaid. Perhaps it was her way; the last farewell.

  Then he fainted.

  12

  Aftermath

  LIKE AN UNHURRIED but purposeful beetle, Unrivalled’s gig pulled steadily around and among the many vessels which lay at anchor in Gibraltar’s shadow.

  It was a time of pride, and of triumph, climaxing when they had entered the bay with one prize in tow and the other in the hands of a prize crew. To the men of the fleet, hardened by so many years of setbacks and pain, it had been something to share, to celebrate. Ships had manned their yards to cheer, boats from the shore had formed an unofficial procession until the anchors had splashed down, and order and discipline was resumed.

  And the war was over. Finally over. That was the hardest thing to confront. Napoleon, once believed invincible, had surrendered, and had placed himself under the authority of Captain Frederick Maitland of the old Bellerophon in Basque Roads, to be conveyed to Plymouth.

  The officer of the guard who had boarded Unrivalled within minutes of her dropping anchor had exclaimed, ‘When you fought and took the two frigates, we were at peace!’

  Adam had heard himself answer shortly, ‘It made no difference.’

  He thought of the men who had fallen in that brief, savage action. Of the letters he had written. To the parents of Midshipman Thomas Homey, who had been killed even as the second frigate had surged into their quarter. Fourteen years old. A life not even begun.

  And to Catherine, a long and difficult letter. Seeing Avery’s shocked and unwavering gaze, like an unanswered question.

  Midshipman Bellairs was sitting behind him, beside Jago at the tiller.

  ‘Flagship, sir!’

  Adam nodded. He had taken a calculated risk, and had won. It was pointless to consider the alternatives. Unrivalled might have been caught in stays, taken aback as she tried to swing through the wind. The two frigates would have used the confusion to cross her stern and rake her, each broadside ripping through the hull. A slaughterhouse.

  He stared at the big two-decker which lay directly across their approach, His Britannic Majesty’s Ship Prince Rupert of eighty guns, a rear-admiral’s flag rising and drooping at her mizzen truck.

  He made to touch his thigh and saw the stroke oar’s eyes on him, and controlled the impulse. He had examined his body in the looking-glass in his cabin, and found a great, livid bruise, showing the force of the impact. A stray shot perhaps, fired at random as his men had hacked their way on board the enemy. Even now, four days after the engagement, the pain was almost constant, and caught him unaware, like a reminder.

  The surgeon, rarely at a loss for words, had been strangely taciturn. Perhaps when he had fallen unconscious again he had said something, revealed the despair which had tormented him for so long.

  O’Beirne had said only, ‘You are in luck, Captain. Another inch, and I fear the ladies would have been in dire distress!’

  He looked up now and saw the flagship towering above them, the gig’s bowman already standing with his boathook, and prepared himself for the physical effort of boarding. Seeing his eyes on the ship’s massive tumblehome, the ‘stairs’ up to the gilded entry port, Jago said quietly, ‘Steady she goes, sir!’

  Adam glanced at him, remembering his face when he had torn open his breeches to deal with the wound. Poor Homey’s blood and brains had made it look worse than it was.

  He seized the handrope, gritting his teeth as he took the first step.

  An unknown voice sang out, ‘Cap’n comin’ aboard! Stand by . . . pipe!’

  Adam climbed, step by step, each movement bringing a shaft of pain to his thigh.

  The calls shrilled, and as his head rose above the sill he saw the scarlet-coated guard, the seemingly vast area of the flagship’s impeccable deck.

  The guard presented arms, and a duplicate of Captain Bosanquet brought down his blade with a flourish.

  The flag captain strode to greet him. Adam held his breath. Pym, that was his name. The pain was receding, playing with him.

  ‘Welcome aboard, Captain Bolitho! Your recent exploits had us all drained with envy!’ He looked at him more closely. ‘You were wounded, I hear?’

  Adam smiled. It seemed so long since he had done that. ‘Damaged, sir, nothing lasting
!’

  They walked together into the poop’s shadow, so huge after Unrivalled. He allowed his mind to stray. Or Anemone . . .

  The flag captain paused. ‘Rear-Admiral Marlow is still studying your report. I have had your despatches transferred to a courier – she will leave this afternoon. If there is anything else I can do to assist you while you are here, you have only to ask.’ He hesitated. ‘Rear-Admiral Marlow is newly appointed. He still likes to deal with things at first hand.’

  It was as good as any warning. Captain to flag rank; he had seen it before. Trust nobody.

  Rear-Admiral Elliot Marlow stood with his back to the high stern windows, hands beneath his coattails, as if he had been in the same position for some time. A sharp, intelligent face, younger than Adam had expected.

  ‘Good to meet you at last, Bolitho. Take a chair. Some wine, I think.’ He did not move or offer his hand.

  Adam sat. He knew he was strained and tired, and unreasonable, but even the chair seemed carefully placed. Staged, so that Marlow’s outline remained in silhouette against the reflected sunlight.

  Two servants were moving soundlessly around the other side of the cabin, each careful not to look at the visitor.

  Marlow said, ‘Read your report. You were lucky to get the better of two enemies at once, eh? Even if, the perfectionists may insist, you were at war with neither.’ He smiled. ‘But then, I doubt that the Dey of Algiers will wish to associate himself with people who have failed him.’ He glanced at his flag captain, and added, ‘As to your request respecting the son of that damned renegade, I suppose I can have no objection. It is hardly important . . .’

  Pym interrupted smoothly, ‘And Captain Bolitho has offered to pay all the costs for the boy’s passage, sir.’

  ‘Quite so.’ He gestured at the nearest servant. ‘A glass, eh?’

  Adam was glad of a chance to regain his bearings.

  He said, ‘With regard to the prizes, sir.’

  Marlow subjected his glass to a pitiless scrutiny. ‘The prizes, yes. Of course, their role may also have changed in view of the French position. I have heard it said that frigate captains sometimes see prize money as the price of glory. A view I find difficult to comprehend.’