Relentless Pursuit

by Alexander Kent

  “Deck there! The next vessel’s a prize—she’s flyin’ the same flag!”

  Adam bit his lip. “In which case, the Americans have beaten us to it. This time.”

  Galbraith said, “They’re still closing with us, sir.”

  Adam turned away and walked down to the leeward side. Perhaps Rear-Admiral Herrick had made a report to their lordships about Osiris, the mystery slaver. It would further involve Sillitoe. He frowned. And therefore Catherine. He pictured Herrick again, aboard this ship. Intense, stubborn, but sincere. Finding it impossible to break a code he had almost been born to uphold. Sir Richard’s oldest friend.

  He climbed into the shrouds again, hearing two bells chime from the forecastle as he settled himself in a suitable position. An hour had passed. It felt like mere minutes since he had come on deck.

  He tried again. It was clearer this time, the other frigate much closer, two miles at the most. He shifted the glass with great care, gritting his teeth against the raw pain in his arm and thigh with each steep plunge. The Stars and Stripes were very bright and clear now. And men too, lining the gangway and clinging to the rigging to stare at this ship. He moved the glass again. To gloat, probably. Then he found the barque, graceful for her size, closer but angled away from the frigate’s quarter. And he saw the flag. It was flying above another which had been crudely tied into a knot, the mark of submission. The prize.

  He saw some of the sailors waving from the other frigate, well aware that telescopes were watching them.

  Cristie said, “Proud as peacocks now, ain’t they?”

  Bellairs said, “The wind’s easing, sir.” It was a question rather than a report.

  Adam nodded, impatient to end it. “Call all hands. Shake out those reefs, and we shall take her closer to the wind.” He glanced at Cristie. “Show them how it’s done, eh?”

  High on his perch in the crosstrees, Midshipman Cousens heard the faint squeal of calls, and guessed what was happening far beneath his dangling legs. Clinging to a stay, the lookout watched him patiently, eager to be alone again. Cousens trained his glass. It felt like a bar of ballast in his wet hands.

  He studied the frigate and then wiped his eye, thinking he had missed something. Somehow the picture had changed, which was impossible.

  The waving, cheering sailors, soundless and tiny in the lens, were gone, and . . . he could scarcely believe it . . . the Stars and Stripes had vanished also.

  Even as he watched, the line of ports opened, as one or so it seemed, and he stared with disbelief at the guns which shone in the hard light like black teeth.

  He groped for the lookout and punched his arm.

  “Alarm! Alarm!”

  All else was blotted out by the growling roar of a broadside, and one last scream as he fell.

  15 THE OLDEST TRICK

  “BEAT TO QUARTERS and clear for action!”

  For an instant longer there was chaos as the men pouring on deck to obey the last order broke into groups, the constant drills taking charge, even as a few stared with disbelief at the other ships.

  Adam cupped his hands. “Alter course two points! Steer nor’-west by north!”

  Men were running past to take station at the braces while gun crews ducked around them, looking for familiar faces, driven to a faster pace by the staccato rattle from the drums of two marines by the mainmast truck.

  Adam gripped the rail with both hands, watching the other frigates, the open gun ports, the sudden menace of their black muzzles.

  It was too late. Already too late. I should have known, guessed.

  “Steady she goes! Nor’-west by north, sir!”

  All else was drowned by the rolling thunder of a broadside. Perhaps the other captain had sensed that Unrivalled had been about to spread more sail, and maybe thought it was his only chance.

  It was like a wild wind, shots screaming through the rigging and punching holes in topsails and jibs. And the tell-tale quiver of iron smashing into the hull.

  He looked again. One 18 -pounder had been flung inboard from its port and a man was pinned under it, his arms reaching out, as if he were drowning. His lower limbs did not move. Nor would they.

  Two other seamen lay by the foremast, one cut almost in half by a ball, the other trying to drag himself away. To hide.

  Galbraith shouted, “If he’d waited, he’d have dismasted us!”

  Adam saw the shattered telescope, broken across one of the guns, and Cousens’s body, dislodged from the main-yard as the hands hauled at the braces to fall like a rag doll to the deck.

  He felt the grief changing to fury, white-hot, and beyond reason. They died because of me. Not because of the stupid, over-cautious orders, but because of me.

  The guns were running out again along the other frigate’s side, and he tried to clear his mind. Not quick, but fast enough. There were trained men working those guns: renegades, rebels, whatever he chose to call them was irrelevant. Still on a converging tack, the second vessel still wearing. The frigate mounted 38 guns, so perhaps the barque carried armament of her own. Her master had also expected Unrivalled to change tack, come fully aback perhaps, and leave her stern exposed for just long enough.

  “Ready, sir!”

  He ignored the faces around him and sought out Varlo at the first division of guns. He was standing motionless, his hanger drawn and across one shoulder as if this were a formal inspection, and one of his boots had left a bloody footprint, from the man pinned under the eighteen-pounder.

  “As you bear! Fire!”

  The broadside was well timed, crashing aft along the side, the orange tongues spurting through the dense pall of smoke funnelling inboard through the ports and over the gangway.

  The other frigate had the wind-gage but, held over by the same wind, her muzzles high-angled, Unrivalled had the range.

  Adam knew the enemy had fired again; cordage, severed blocks and charred strips of canvas fell and scattered across the gun crews who, working like demons with handspikes and rammers, were already responding to the hoarse shouts of command. Unrivalled was alone, and ordered to be so until her mission was completed. If anything vital carried away now, the other vessels would lie off and take their time, until there was no one left alive to prevent a boarding. A slaughter.

  He seized Midshipman Deighton’s arm and pushed him against the rail, and trained a telescope across his shoulder. The youth was staring at him; he could even feel his breath, his body shaken to another ragged salvo. But his eyes were steady, trying to tell him that he was not afraid.

  Adam acknowledged him without speaking and concentrated his gaze on the other frigate. There was a black flag at her peak now, and he recalled with insane clarity the words of the dying renegade captain in that same cabin beneath his feet. In war, we’re all mercenaries.

  He saw the shot-holes in the sails, raw timbers protruding from a bulwark, a few empty gun ports. He lowered the glass. But it was not enough. Not enough.

  He flinched as he felt hands fumbling around his waist, the sudden drag of a sword against his hip. It was Jago, face half shaved, caught by the sudden call to arms.

  More shots slammed into the lower hull, each one a body blow. Jago reached out and gripped his arm, unsmiling, and said harshly, “No matter, sir. I’ll finish shavin’ when we’re done with this scum!”

  Adam stared at him, and realised, perhaps for the first time, how close he had been to breaking, failing the ship, and the men like Jago who never questioned why they were here, or who would die next.

  “We’ll hold this course!” He saw Galbraith cup his hand over his ear to listen as the roar of cannonfire drowned out all else. The gun captains, blinded by smoke, were barely able to see their enemy, and yet with practised fingers they gripped their trigger-lines even as each carriage lurched up against the side. Fire! Sponge out! Load! Run out! Fire! If the pattern was broken, they were finished.

  A boatswain’s mate dropped to the deck without a sound. Unmarked, his face shocked, as if he coul
dn’t accept the haste of death.

  The range was down to less than a mile, with both ships firing, the churning fog of gunsmoke hiding everything but the upper yards and punctured sails of the adversaries.

  Galbraith yelled, “He’s badly mauled, sir! One shot to our two, if that!” He was actually grinning, and waving his hat to the quarterdeck gun crews. Adam walked to the centre of the deck, his legs suddenly able to carry him again.

  “Then he’ll try to board us, Leigh!” He found he had the sword in his hand. Not his own: Jago must have snatched it from somewhere. There must be no more mistakes. Could not. “All guns double-shotted and with grape. Warn the smashers up forrard to be ready.” Over his shoulder he called, “Bring her up a point, Mr Cristie—we don’t want to keep him waiting!”

  He watched the topmasts of the other ship rising through the smoke, saw small, bright flashes from the tops or yards where marksmen had taken up their most effective positions. Distant, without apparent danger, until you felt the heavy balls thudding into the deck, or gouging up splinters as if raised by some invisible chisel. And that other sound. Lead smashing into flesh and bone, a man’s pitiful cries as he was dragged away to the orlop, and the surgeon. A ball ploughed into the boat tier, and severed the bow of the big cutter like an axe. More men fell as the splinters cut amongst them like arrows.

  Adam thought suddenly of Napier. That last time. When he swung round he saw the youth on one knee, tying a bandage around a marine’s forearm, his fingers red with blood, and with the same serious expression he wore even when preparing a meal for his captain.

  “Keep down, David!” Their eyes met, and he thought he heard him reply. It sounded, insanely, like “. . . a pony ride!”

  “Ready, sir!” Every gun captain who was able was peering aft, fist raised. Galbraith had drawn his hanger, and the marines at the packed hammock nettings had already fixed bayonets.

  The carronades, too, would be ready. If they failed now . . .

  He shouted, “Stand fast, and take them as they come, lads!” He saw faces, eyes staring. Wild, fearful, desperate. And they were his men.

  He waved the unfamiliar sword. “Remember, lads! Second to None!”

  With a shuddering lurch, the enemy’s jib-boom and bowsprit drove over the forecastle like a giant tusk. He could hear the crack of muskets, and voices merged above the din of grinding hulls and snapping cordage like a hymn of hate. A severed halliard snaked through the crouching seamen and marines, and had somehow become entangled with Midshipman Cousens’s body, so that it swayed upright again, as if to answer the call he had followed without question for most of his young life.

  The sword sliced down. “Fire!”

  Towards the bows, the gun muzzles must have been overlapping those of the enemy now looming high alongside. At point-blank range, double-shotted and with added grape for good measure, the explosion sounded like a ship being blasted apart. Where seamen had been standing and shaking their weapons, waiting for the moment of impact, there was now a smoking strip of water. Men and pieces of men, the dead and the dying ground together as the hulls were brought to another embrace by the wind.

  But a few had taken the risk and had somehow gained a foothold, some by the smoking carronades which had transformed the enemy’s foredeck into a bloody shambles.

  “Forward, Marines!”

  That was Captain Luxmore. Adam could not see him beyond the smoke, but imagined he would be immaculately turned out, as always.

  He could hear a new sound, like a horn, rather than a trumpet or bugle. Galbraith was shouting at him. “They’re casting off, sir!” His voice was harsh with disbelief. “On the run!”

  Adam swung round. “Grapple her!” Galbraith was staring at him, as if he could not understand. “Grapple her!”

  But it was too late; the hulls were lurching apart, like two prizefighters who had given and taken too much.

  Adam gazed up at the sky, clear again now above the smoke, in that other, impossible world.

  Where was the barque? Why could Galbraith not understand?

  He felt the solitary explosion, and was only partly aware of the deck splintering behind him. Half the double wheel had been shot away; one of the helmsmen still clung to the spokes, but his legs and entrails painted a grisly pattern on the planking.

  And above it all he heard the lookout’s cry. Far, far away, beyond all this pain.

  “Deck there! Sail on th’ larboard quarter!”

  He felt Jago holding his shoulders, and realised that he had dropped on his knees. And then came the pain. He heard himself cry out; it was like a branding iron. He tried to grope at his side, but someone was preventing it. For some reason he thought of John Allday. When they had last met. Had spoken, and had held hands . . . as it must have been . . .

  Galbraith was here now, eyes anxious, moving to others around them as if to seek assurance, or grim acceptance.

  He heard himself speaking, anguished, incoherent.

  “They-broke-off-the-action-because-of-this-newcomer.”

  He almost bit through his lip as the agony lanced him. “Otherwise . . .” He could not go on; there was no need.

  The smoke was clearing; he heard the guns run out yet again. Someone was calling pitifully, another was insisting, “I’m ’ere, Ted! ’Ang on now!”

  He turned his head and saw Napier bending down to wipe his forehead with a cloth.

  Cristie’s voice. “Surgeon’s comin’!”

  He tried to rise, but felt the blood running across his side and down his thigh.

  “Mr Galbraith.” He waited for his face to move into focus. “Get the ship to Plymouth. Those despatches must reach Lord Exmouth.”

  Galbraith said, “God damn the despatches.”

  “How many did we lose?” He gripped his sleeve. “Tell me.”

  “Eight at a count, sir.”

  “Too many.” He shook his head. “The oldest trick, and I did not see it . . .” A shadow shut out the misty glare. Small, strong hands for so burly a figure. The Irish voice, calm, taking no nonsense, even from the captain.

  “Ah, be still, sir.” A pause, and some sharp pain, insistent. Pitiless. “A close thing. I’ll deal with it now.” The shadow moved away, and he heard O’Beirne murmur, “Marine Fisher was killed. Dropped his musket as he fell, and it fired on impact. It found the wrong target!”

  He felt hands lifting him, others reaching out as if to reassure him, or themselves.

  Galbraith waited until the little procession had disappeared below, then he looked at the scars and the pitted sails, the drying blood, and the deck where men had died. And more would follow them before they saw Plymouth Hoe again.

  He shaded his eyes to look at the other ships, but they had become unreal in the mist and the drifting smoke. Already he could hear hammers and saws, men calling to one another as they worked high above the embattled deck.

  How was it that the captain had seemed to know what was happening, at the moment of truth, and later, when the other frigate had tried to free herself from their deadly embrace? And what if the barque’s captain had realised that Unrivalled’s steering had been disabled by that single shot?

  He took a mug of something from one of the wardroom mess-men, and almost choked on it. It was neat rum.

  And when he had seen the captain stagger and then fall to his knees, he had heard himself speaking aloud. Anyone but him. Please, God, not him!

  It was like a voice. Because you could not have done it. Nor will you.

  He stared at the flag locker, overturned in that brief but savage encounter.

  “Attend to it, Mr Cousens!”

  Then he turned away, sickened, remembering, and murmured, “Forgive me.”

  There was nobody to hear him.

  Daniel Yovell critically regarded the nib of a new pen before testing it against his thumbnail. Beyond the white-painted screen he could hear the constant sounds and movements of men working to repair damage, reeving new cordage, or replacing sails
which had been shot through in the engagement.

  It seemed that the work had never stopped, and it was sometimes difficult to believe that the brief action had been more than four days ago.

  It was as if the labour was a need, the only way sailors could put their anger and sadness behind them. Yovell had watched men die, and had been there when they had made their last journey, down into permanent darkness.

  He looked across the littered table at the sheaf of notes the captain had used to compile his report. In spite of the wound he seemed unable to rest, or make any allowances for his pain and loss of blood.

  Even O’Beirne seemed baffled by the will and determination which was driving him.

  He was with the captain now, in the sleeping quarters. They made a good pair, Yovell thought, neither willing to give in to the other.

  He saw Napier by the stern windows, watching some gulls swooping across Unrivalled’s lively wake, their strident screams lost in this cabin. It was like a haven, separate from the rest of the ship, yet closely linked by the comings and goings of officers and messengers from the working parties, no matter how lowly. The captain had to be informed.

  Yovell thought of his own part in it. Assisting the surgeon, seeing men he had come to know suffer and sometimes die, stretched out on that bloodied table. He had held the hand of one seaman and had recited a prayer for him, inserting his own words when he had forgotten some of it, and all the while the dying sailor had been very still, watching him. Finally O’Beirne had pulled the man’s hand away and signalled for his assistants.

  “Gone, I’m afraid.” Almost callous. How else could he do his work?

  He thought, too, of the burials, the uncanny silence falling over the ship as if even the dead were listening.

  Anonymous canvas bundles, weighted with round shot. But as each name was read out the face would come to mind, with maybe a word or a deed remembered.

  Captain Bolitho had insisted on doing that as well, the familiar, much-thumbed prayer book in one hand, this boy, Napier, holding his hat, and Jago standing at his elbow, ready to support him if the pain became too much.