A Tradition of Victory

by Alexander Kent

  He turned to watch a cluster of screaming gulls below the quarterdeck rail. They were unimpressed and quite used to a daily fight for survival.

  Inch said, “The French admiral’s reset his t’gan’s’ls, sir.”

  Bolitho watched the weather bow of the enemy flagship show itself around the leader’s quarter. He had guessed Remond’s intention. Now it all depended on the men around him.

  “Captain Inch, this needs to be carefully done.” He touched his arm and smiled. “Though I need not tell you how to handle her, eh?”

  Inch beamed with obvious pleasure. “Thank you kindly, sir!”

  He turned away, the captain again. “Mr Graham! Pipe the hands to the braces!” His arm shot out and pointed at a lieutenant on the gun-deck. “Mr Synge! Have both batteries been reloaded as ordered?”

  The lieutenant squinted up at the quarterdeck rail and replied nervously, “Aye, sir! I—I forgot to report it.”

  Inch glared at the luckless lieutenant. “I am glad to hear it, Mr Synge, for an instant I imagined you thought I was a mind-reader!”

  Several of the gun crews chuckled and lapsed into silence as the flushed-faced lieutenant turned towards them.

  Bolitho watched the French ships and found he could do it without emotion. He was committed. Right or wrong, there was no chance to break off the action, even if he wanted to.

  “Ready ho!”

  The men at the braces and halliards crouched and flexed their muscles as if they were about to enter a contest.

  M’Ewan watched the shake of the topsails, the angle of the masthead pendant. Nearby his helmsmen gripped the spokes and waited like crude statuary.

  “Helm a-lee!”

  “Let go and haul!”

  The ship seemed to stagger at the rough handling, then after what felt like an eternity she began to swing readily into the wind.

  Graham’s voice was everywhere at once. “Haul over the boom!

  Let go the t’gallant bowlines!”

  At each port the gun captains watched the empty sea and ignored the commotion of thrashing canvas, the squeal of running rigging and the slap of bare feet on the planking.

  Bolitho concentrated on the leading Frenchman, feeling a cold satisfaction as she continued on the same tack, although her officers must have wondered what Inch was doing. They might have expected his nerve to break, for him to tack to leeward with the wind from aft. Then the leading enemy ships would have raked Odin’s stern before grappling and smashing down her resistance at point-blank range.

  But now Odin was answering, and heading into the wind with her sails billowing in disorder as her yards were hauled round. To any landsmen she would appear to be all aback and unable to proceed, but as she continued to flounder into the wind she slowly and surely presented her starboard side to the oncoming ship’s bows.

  Graham yelled through his trumpet, “As you bear!”

  Inch’s sword hissed down, and deck by deck Odin’s guns crashed out, the upper battery with its screaming langridge matched by the lower one’s double-charged guns.

  Bolitho held his breath as the forward guns found their targets. The French ship seemed to quiver, as if, like the guard-ship, she had run aground. The bombardment continued, with the lieutenants striding behind each gun as its trigger line was jerked taut.

  On the deck below the picture would be the same but more terrible as the naked bodies toiled around the guns as each one thundered back on its tackles to be instantly sponged out and reloaded.

  The langridge or chain-shot was easier to determine, and Bolitho saw all the enemy’s headsails and rigging hacked aside in a tangle, while most of the fore-topmast plunged over the side in a great welter of spray. As it crashed down the weight took immediate effect like an immense sea-anchor, so that even as he watched Bolitho could see the enemy’s beakhead begin to swing awkwardly into the wind.

  “As you bear, lads! Fire! ”

  The double-shotted charges smashed into the disabled ship to upend guns and rip through the lower deck with murderous impact. Overhead, rigging was scythed away, and as more and more sail area was exposed it too was punched through with holes and long streaming remnants.

  Inch shouted, “Stand by on the fo’c’s’le!”

  The starboard carronade belched fire and smoke, but the aim was too high and the great ball exploded on the enemy’s gangway. It hit nothing vital, but the outward effect was horrific. Some twenty men had been working to cut free the dragging weight of spars and cordage, and when the ball exploded near them it painted the ship’s tumblehome scarlet from deck to waterline.

  It was as if the ship herself was mortally wounded and bleeding to death.

  “Stand by to alter course to starboard!”

  “Brace up your head yards!”

  A few shots pattered against the hull and brought an instant retort from Odin’s marines who were yelling and cheering as they fired through the thickening smoke.

  Bolitho felt the wind on his cheek and heard the sails filling untidily as Odin turned her stern towards the wind. She was no frigate, but Inch handled her like one.

  A strong down-gust carried the smoke away, and he saw the French flagship riding on the starboard cathead as if she were caught there. In fact she was a good cable clear, but close enough to see her tricolour and command flag, the frantic activity as her captain changed tack to avoid colliding with the stricken leader.

  Bolitho took a glass and steadied it while he waited for the guns to fire another broadside into the helpless Frenchman. He felt the planks buck beneath his shoes, saw the wildness in the eyes of the nearest crew as they hurled themselves on the tackles to restrain the smoking eighteen-pounder.

  When he looked again he saw the flagship’s tall stern and gilded quarter-gallery, and on her counter her name, La Sultane, as if he could reach out and touch it.

  He moved the glass upwards slightly and saw some of her officers, one gesticulating up at the yards, another mopping his face as if he had been in a tropical downpour.

  Just for a brief moment before the guns crashed out again he saw the rear-admiral’s cocked hat, then as he walked briskly to the poop, the man’s face.

  Bolitho lowered the glass and allowed the small pictures to fall away with it. No mistake. Contre-Amiral Jean Remond, he would never forget him.

  Allday saw the expression on Bolitho’s face and understood.

  Many senior officers would have taken the Frenchman’s offer of a safe, comfortable house with servants and the best of everything, with nothing to do but wait for an exchange. It showed Remond did not, nor would he ever, understand a man like Bolitho A

  who had waited only for the chance to hit back.

  It was all part of the madness, of course, Allday decided philo-sophically, yet despite that he felt less afraid of what might happen.

  Unaware of Allday’s scrutiny, Bolitho kept his eyes on the disabled French ship. She was badly mauled by the constant battering, and thin red lines ran from her scuppers and down her smashed side to show how her people had died for their over-confidence.

  But there was still time for Remond to stand off and fight his way back to the Loire Estuary and the safety of the coastal batteries. He might think that Odin’s impudence was backed up by a knowledge that more support was on the way.

  Bolitho looked towards Phalarope. Herrick would be remembering that other time when she had been made to take her place in the line of battle, to fight and face the broadsides of the giants.

  That had been at the Saintes, and she had been paying for that cruel damage ever since.

  Inch said, “They’re re-forming, sir.”

  Bolitho nodded as he saw the flags break out above La Sultane.

  Four to one. It was nothing to feel pleased about.

  Inch exclaimed, “Converging tack, but we’ll still hold the wind-gage!”

  Bolitho watched narrowly as the French flagship’s side shone in the smoky sunlight. Eighty guns, larger even than Benbow. He saw al
l her artillery run out and poking blindly towards the shore, her yards alive with seamen as they prepared to close with their enemy.

  Bolitho asked softly, “Where is our squadron, Mr Stirling?”

  The boy leapt into the shrouds, then hurried back and said,

  “They are fast overhauling us, sir!” He too had lost his fear, and his eyes were dancing with feverish excitement.

  “Stay by me, Mr Stirling.” He glanced meaningly at Allday.

  The midshipman had lost his fear at the wrong moment. It could have been his only protection.

  “Let her fall off a point, Captain Inch.”

  “Steer sou’-east!”

  He heard the rasp of steel as Allday drew the cutlass from his belt, saw the way the men on the starboard side were standing to their guns again.

  At least we shall give Remond something to remember after this day.

  Bolitho drew his sword and tossed the scabbard to the foot of the mizzen-mast.

  One thing was certain, Odin’s challenge would slow the French down, and Herrick would be amongst them like a lion.

  Bolitho smiled gravely. A Kentish lion.

  Inch and the first lieutenant saw him smile then looked at each other for what might be the last time.

  “Marines! Face your front!” Odin’s marine captain walked stiffly behind his men, his eyes everywhere but on the enemy.

  Allday brushed against the midshipman and felt him flinch.

  And no wonder.

  Allday watched the towering criss-cross of shrouds and rigging, braced yards and canvas as it rose higher and higher above Odin’s starboard bow until there was no sky left. He tugged at his neckerchief to loosen it. No air either.

  Stirling pulled out his midshipman’s dirk and then thrust it back again.

  Against that awesome panorama of sails and flags it was like taking a belaying pin to fight an army.

  He heard Allday say between his teeth, “Keep with me.” The cutlass hovered in the air. “It’ll be hot work, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  “Alter course two points to wind’rd!”

  Odin steered slowly away from the enemy, so that La Sultane seemed to loom even larger than before.

  “As you bear!”

  Inch peered across the narrowing arrowhead of water between A

  his ship and the big two-decker. Just for a moment they had moved away to present their guns.

  “Fire!”

  Even as the ship jerked to the irregular crash of cannon fire Inch yelled, “Bring her back on course, Mr M’Ewan!”

  Bolitho saw the seamen on the forecastle crouching down as the French flagship’s tapering jib-boom, with some dangling rigging trailing from their brief encounter, probed past and above them.

  Musket balls whined through the air, and several slapped into the packed hammocks or clanged against the guns.

  Inch said fiercely, “Here we go!” He straightened his hat and yelled, “At ’em, my Odins!”

  Then the whole world seemed to explode in one great shuddering upheaval.

  It was impossible to determine the number of times Odin had fired her broadside into the enemy or to measure the damage wrought by the French guns in return. The world was lost in choking smoke, lit from within by terrible orange tongues as the gun crews fired and reloaded like men driven from their reason.

  Bolitho thought he heard the sharper notes of smaller cannon in the far distance whenever there was a brief pause in the bombardment, and guessed that Ganymede and Rapid were wag-ing their own war against Remond’s frigate.

  The smoke was dense and rose so high between the two ships that all else was hidden. The other French ships, Herrick and the squadron could have been alongside or a mile away, shut from the tumult by the roar of gunfire.

  Overhead the nets bounced to falling rigging and blocks, and then together, as if holding hands, three marines were hurled from the maintop by a blast of canister, their screams lost in the din.

  A ball smashed through the quarterdeck rail and ploughed across to the opposite side. Bolitho saw the deck, and even the foot of the driver boom, splashed in blood as the ball cut amongst some marines like a giant’s cleaver.

  Inch was yelling, “Bring her up a point, Mr M’Ewan!”

  But the master lay dead with two of his men, the planking around them dappled scarlet where they had fallen.

  A master’s mate, his face as white as death, took charge of the wheel, and slowly the ship responded.

  More marines were climbing the ratlines to the fighting-tops, and soon their muskets were joining in the battle as they tried to mark down the enemy’s officers.

  Bolitho gritted his teeth as two seamen were flung from their gun below the quarterdeck, one headless, the other shrieking in terror as he tried to drag wood splinters from his face and neck.

  “Fire!”

  Small pictures of courage and suffering stood out through gaps in the swirling smoke. Powder-monkeys, mere boys, running with backs bent under the weight of their charges while they hurried from gun to gun. A seaman working with a handspike to move his eighteen-pounder while his captain yelled instructions at him over the smoke-hazed breech. A midshipman, younger than Stirling, knuckling his eyes to hold back the tears in front of his division as his friend, another midshipman, was dragged away, his body shot through by canister.

  “And again, lads! Fire! ”

  Allday crowded against Bolitho as musket fire hissed and whined past. Men were falling and dying, others were screaming their hatred into the smoke as they fired, reloaded and fired again.

  “Look up, sir!”

  Bolitho raised his eyes and saw something coming through the smoke high overhead, like some strange battering-ram.

  La Sultane may have intended to sail past on the opposite tack A

  and smash Odin into surrender by sheer weight of artillery. Maybe her captain had changed his mind or, like M’Ewan who lay dead with his men, had been shot down before he could execute a manœuvre.

  But the oncoming tusk was La Sultane’s jib-boom, and as more trapped smoke lifted and surged beneath the hulls, Bolitho saw the hazy outline of the Frenchman’s figurehead, like some terrible phantom with staring eyes and a bright crimson mouth.

  The jib-boom crashed through Odin’s mizzen shrouds, and there was a loud, lingering clatter as the other ship’s dolphin-striker tore adrift and trailing rigging flew in the wind like creeper.

  “Repel boarders!”

  Bolitho felt the hull jerk and knew it had been badly hit by the last broadside. He could not see through the burning smoke but heard warning shouts and then cries as the foremast thundered down. The sound seemed to deaden even the guns, and Bolitho almost fell as the ship rocked to the great weight of mast and rigging.

  The master’s mate yelled, “She don’t answer th’ helm, sir!”

  Bright stabbing flashes spat through the smoke from overhead, and Bolitho saw scrambling figures climbing along the enemy’s bowsprit and spritsail yard as they tried to reach Odin’s deck.

  But they were delayed by the spread nets, and, as a wild-eyed marine corporal threw himself to one of the poop swivels and jerked its lanyard, the determined group of boarders were flung aside like butchers’ rags.

  Inch strode through the smoke, his hat gone, one arm hanging at his side.

  He said through clenched teeth, “Must free ourselves, sir!”

  Bolitho saw the first lieutenant waving his sword and urging more men aft to fight off the next wave of boarders. How the gun crews could keep firing with half of their number already

  smashed into silence was a miracle. On the deck below it would be far worse.

  Bolitho stared round at the scene of destruction and carnage.

  The two ships were killing each other, all thought of victory lost in the madness and hatred of battle.

  He saw Allday watching him, Stirling close at his side, his face pinched against the sights and sounds around him.

  He saw the smoke quiver as new
cannon fire rumbled across the water like a volcano. Herrick was here and at grips with the rest of the French squadron.

  It was then that it hit Bolitho like a fist or a sharp cry in his ear. It was no longer a matter of pride or the need to destroy Odin’s flag.

  “Remond wants me.” He realized he had spoken aloud, saw the understanding on Inch’s face, the sudden tightening of Allday’s jaw.

  They would never fight free of La Sultane in time. Either Odin would be totally swamped by her heavier artillery or both ships would be fought to a senseless slaughter.

  Bolitho tried to contain the sudden madness, but could do nothing.

  He leapt on to the starboard gangway and shouted above the crash and thunder of firing, “Boarders away, lads! To me, Odins!”

  He blinked as muskets flashed from unseen marksmen. It is what Neale would have said.

  Seamen cut away the boarding nets, and as others snatched up axes and cutlasses Bolitho’s wildness seemed to inflame the upper deck like a terrible weapon.

  Graham, the first lieutenant, jumped out and down, his sword shining dully in the smoke. From somewhere a boarding pike stabbed outboard like a cruel tongue, and without even a cry Graham fell between the two hulls. Bolitho glanced down at him only briefly, saw his eyes staring up before the two great hulls A

  were thrust together yet again and he was ground between them.

  Then he was slipping and stumbling from handhold to handhold, until he found himself on the enemy’s forecastle. He was almost knocked aside as more of Odin’s boarders charged past him, yelling like fiends as they hacked aside all opposition until they had reached the starboard gangway.

  Startled faces peered up from the guns which were still firing into Odin, even though the muzzles were almost overlapping above the slit of trapped water as La Sultane swung heavily alongside.

  A French midshipman darted from the shrouds and was hit between the shoulder-blades by a boarding axe as he ran.